E. M. Cope, Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle

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‘And if you want to set off anything (if praise is your object), you must take your metaphor from the superior (better, more honourable or valuable) things that fall under the same genus; if blame, from the inferior. As an instance of my meaning; since contraries are (the extremes of the species) under the same genus, to say that one that prays, begs, and one that begs, prays, is to do this; because both of them are kinds of petition’. These are the two extremes of the genus petition, or solicitation; praying the highest form, begging the lowest; ‘as also (besides others, καί) Iphicrates (called) Callias (whom he wished to depreciate) μητραγύρτης instead of δᾳδοῦχος [‘a mendicant priest’, instead of ‘bearer of the mystic torch’]. The other (Callias) replied, that he (his opponent) never could have been initiated (or he would have been incapable of such a mistake), else he would not have called him μητραγύρτης but δᾳδοῦχος—for it is true (adds Aristotle, by way of explanation) that they are both attached to the service of a goddess (both come under the common genus ‘servants of a goddess’), but the one is a term of honour, the other of dishonour’. It is much like calling the Precentor of a Cathedral a ballad-singer.

τὰ ἐναντία ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ γένεῖ] This is the definition of ‘contrary’, ἐναντίον: τὰ πλεῖστον ἀλλήλων διεστηκότα τῶν ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ γένει ἐναντία ὁρίζονται, Categ. c. 6, 6 a 17.

Καλλίας is the third of that name, the son of the third Hipponicus, of that noble and wealthy Athenian family, of which the heads received these names alternately during several generations, Arist. Ran. 283, Ἱππόνικος Καλλίου κἀξ Ἱππονίκου Καλλίας. The title of δᾳδοῦχος, hereditary in his family, is especially assigned to him by Xenophon, Hellen. VI 3. 3, Καλλίας ὁ δᾳδοῦχος. His pride in this distinction would of course have rendered him much more susceptible to the slight conveyed by Iphicrates' ignorant, or malicious, mistake. The substitution of the one word for the other, though evidently interpreted by Callias (from his reply) as a mistake made in ignorance of the distinction between the two—perhaps wilfully, to save his dignity—is much more likely to have been intentional and malicious. Callias was a vain foolish man— see Xenoph. l. c. § 3, ult. and Callias' speech §§ 4, 5, 6,—and Iphicrates, the self-made man, who had risen to distinction by his own merits, ἐξ οἵων εἰς οἷα, would doubtless have enjoyed a joke at the expense of the pompous and empty ‘descendant of Triptolemus’ (Xen. l. c.) and hereditary δᾳδοῦχος of the Great Mysteries. Xenophon mentions him as one of the ambassadors to the congress at Sparta in 371 B. C., in virtue of his here ditary προξενία of that state. There is a good account of this Callias by Mr Elder in Smith's Biogr. Dict. He is the entertainer of the Sophists in the Protagoras, and the host of Xenophon's ‘Banquet’. On Callias and his family, its wealth and splendour, see Böckh, Publ. Econ. of Athens, Bk. IV c. 3, pp. 42, 3 (Lewis' Transl.), and Heindorf's learned note on Protag. 311.

The δᾳδουχία was, as we have seen, an office of great distinction. The δᾳδοῦχος led the procession of the μύσται froin Athens to Eleusis on the fifth day of the great Eleusinia, the torch-day, ἡ τῶν λαμπάδων ἡμέρα. See Dict. Antiq. Art. ‘Eleusinia,’ p. 373 b. Rich, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Ant. s. v. p. 232.

μητραγύρτης, on the contrary, implies everything that is vile and contemptible: it is the designation of a class of profligate beggars, chiefly women, who attached themselves to the worship of some particular deity—usually Cybele, the Magna Mater, from which μητραγύρτης is taken—at whose festivals they attended to ply their profession, that of ἀγείρειν, collecting alms, stipem cogere, and then practised every kind of imposture and indulged in every variety of licentiousness. They seem also to have gone their rounds through the great houses in cities, Plat. Rep. II 364 B—C, fortune-telling, and with charms and spells (as to draw down the gods from heaven) and other nostrums for sale. They carried about with them an image of the goddess in whose name they asked alms. Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 629, compares them to mendicant friars or Béguines, and designates them viles Metragyrtas. Menander wrote two or three plays upon them, the Θεοφορουμένη and Μητραγύρτης (or Μηναγύρτης, so Meineke, Fr. Comic. Gr., Menander, IV 163, on which see Lobeck, ibid. 645, note), and the Ἱέρεια, which, from the lines εἰ γὰρ ἕλκει τὸν Θεὸν τοῖς κυμβάλοις ἄνθρωπος εἰς ὃ βούλεται, Lobeck supposes (apparently with little reason) to have been directed against the Μητραγύρται. Meineke, ib. Menand. IV 140. Compare on their character, Antiphanes, Fragm. Μισοπονήρου, Meineke, Ib. III 86, αὗται δ᾽ ὑπερβάλλουσι μετά γε νὴ Δία τοὺς μητραγυρτοῦντάς γε: πολὺ γὰρ αὖ γένος μιαρώτατον τοῦτ̓ ἐστίν, κ.τ.λ. On incantations and the like, see Ruhnken ad ἐπαγωγαί, p. 114. To this extremity Dionysius the younger, once tyrant of Syracuse, was finally reduced, αὐτὸς δὲ Διονύσιος τέλος μητραγυρτῶν καὶ τυμπανοφορούμενος οἰκτρῶς τὸν βίον κατέστρεψε: Clearchus ap. Athen. 541 C (Victorius). The μητραγύρται, male and female, did not confine themselves to a single goddess, though Cybele was their favourite, but also attached themselves to the service of Isis; and apparently to that of Demeter and Cora (from the present passage); of Opis and Arge, Hdt. IV 35; and in general, of those whose worship was of an orgiastic character, see by all means Ruhnken ad Tim. p. 10, s. v. ἀγείρειν. Here there are two goddesses implied, Demeter in δᾳδοῦχος, and Cybele in μητραγύρτης. There is a short article in Dict. Antiq. on the subject under ἀγύρτης.

ἀγείρειν is used to signify collecting alms, or begging, several times by Herodotus; twice, for instance, in IV 35. By Homer, ἀγείρεσθαι and ἀγυρ- τάζειν, Od. τ [XIX] 284. Plato, Rep. II 364 B, 381 D. Dem. π. τ. ἐν χεῤῥον. 96. 17, ἀφ᾽ ὧν ἀγείρει καὶ προσαιτεῖ καὶ δανείζεται. Hence ἀγύρτης, ἀγυρτρία, ‘a vagabond’, one that goes about collecting for a deity. Aesch. Agam. 1244, Cassandra of herself, καλουμένη δὲ φοιτάς, ὡς ἀγυρτρία, Blomfield's Gloss. ad loc. Soph. Oed. R. 387, μάγον τοιόνδε...δόλιον ἀγύρτην. Lysippus, Comic. ap. Meineke, Lys. II p. 746, Fragm. Cratin. Δραπετ. 11, Ib. II 51 Eubul. κυβευταί, Fr. 2, V 5, σφάλλων, ἀγύρτης οἶστρος. Rhes. 503, of Ulysses, ἀγύρτης πτωχικὴν ἔχων στολήν. Ib. 715, βίον δ᾽ ἐπαιτῶν εἷρπ̓ ἀγύρτης τις λάτρις.

The next is a case of the same kind; of two possible designations of actors one takes the lowest and most contemptuous, the other the opposite and highest and most complimentary. Διονυσοκόλακες represents them as parasites or flatterers, not worthy to be companions or friends of the god; the lowest and most degraded form of service, of Dionysus the patron deity of the stage and its belongings (Aristophanes passim) τεχνίται as ‘artists’, or ‘artistes’—as the lower kind of professional performers, singers, dancers, posture-makers, are fond of calling themselves nowadays by way of dignifying their profession: the term is actually applied to them by Dem. de F. L. § 212, of Philip who collected at a festival πάντας τοὺς τεχνίτας; on which Ulpian (quoted by Shilleto ad loc.) τοὺς ὑποκριτὰς οὕτω καλεῖ κωμικούς τε καὶ τραγικούς. Shilleto adds, ut aiunt in Graecis artificibus, Cic. pro Murena 13 (29). [Ar. Problems 30. 10, 956 b 11, διὰ τί οἱ Διονυσιακοὶ τεχνῖται ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ πονηροί εἰσιν; referred to by Aulus Gellius, XX 4. Comp. Alciphron, III 48, (Λικύμνιον τὸν τραγῳδὸν) ὃν ἐγὼ τῆς ἀχαρίστου φωνῆς ἕνεκα αὐτοκόρυδον καλεῖσθαι πρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ τοῦ χοροῦ τῶν Διονυσοκολάκων ἔκρινα (Otto Lüders, die Dionysischen Künstler, 1873, pp. 58—63).]

The common genus or notion which unites Διονυσοκόλακες and τεχνῖται as ‘contraries’ is that of service to a deity: the τεχνῖται as well as the κόλακες being assumed as actors, to be devoted to his especial service. The distinction is that between true art, and low buffoonery. This, as far as I can see, is the whole meaning of the passage.

Victorius however, and Schweighäuser on Athen. VI 249 F, drag in here, wholly as I can conceive beside the point, another sense of Διονυσοκόλακες in which it was applied to the flatterers of Dionysius of Syracuse—of whose filthy and disgusting practices Theophrastus (quoted in Wyttenbach on Plut. p. 53, F) gives some revolting examples—in a double sense, of Dionysus and Dionysius: see their notes for the explanation of this. (It is supposed by them and Mr Shilleto u. s. to be a joke; if so, it is of a very frigid description.) Wyttenbach says (note ad Plut. l. c.) “Actores scenici honesto nomine dicebantur οἱ περὶ Διόνυσον τεχνῖται, per contemptum Διονυσοκόλακες”: which is no doubt all that is meant here, though he refers to Victorius' note, who makes a great deal more out of it. This special sense of τεχνῖται is fully confirmed by another passage of Athen. V 198 B describing a magnificent procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus (cc. 25—30), μεθ᾽ οὓς ἐπορεύετο Φιλίσκος ὁ ποιητής, ἱερεὺς ὢν Διονύσου, καὶ πάντες οἱ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον τεχνῖται. It occurs also in Diog. Laert. X 4. 8, Epicurus called τοὺς περὶ Πλάτωνα (Plato's followers) Διονυσοκόλακας, καὶ αὐτὸν Πλάτωνα χρυσοῦν (which is translated ‘Dionysii assentatores’ in Cobet's corrected version, though Dionysius can surely have nothing to do with the matter, any more than here). Here also the word is a term of reproach; and seems by this time to have become proverbial for gross and low flattery: “tanquam assentatores eos, non sodales, insimulans.” Victorius. Victorius understands the term, as here used, to express the lowest order of attendants on the stage (parasites of Bacchus), such as the scene-shifters, candle-snuffers, and such like menials of a modern theatre, but another passage of Athen. XI 538 F,—καὶ ἔκτοτε οἱ πρότερον καλούμενοι Διονυσοκόλακες Ἀλεξανδροκόλακες ἐκλήθησαν, διὰ τὰς τῶν δώρων ὑπερβολάς: ἐφ᾽ οἷς καὶ ἥσθη ὁ Ἀλέξανδρος. This occurs in a list of the entertainments which were exhibited in a great marriage-feast given by Alexander after the capture of Darius, taken from a work of Chares, ‘the histories of Alexander’. Now whether ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἥσθη refers to Alexander's delight at their gifts (neut.) or at themselves (masc.), that is, their acting, in either case their employment could not have been of the mean and degrading character attributed to it by Victorius—in the one case they were too rich, in the other, if they amused him, they must have been actors, or at all events above the degree of menials, though their acting may have been mere grimace and buffoonery.

‘And one (to vex and lower them) calls them’ (whether this means any ‘one’ in particular, we do not know) ‘parasites of Dionysus (low buffoons), whereas they themselves style themselves artists: and each of these is a metaphor (artist as applied to them is a metaphor, I suppose, because the proper object of art is production—τέχνη μέτα λόγου ποιητική, ταὐτὸν ἂν εἴη τέχνη καὶ ἕξις μετὰ λόγου ἀληθοῦς ποιητική: and ποίησις being distinguished from πρᾶξις, ἀνάγκη τὴν τέχνην ποιήσεως ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πράξεως εἶναι. Eth. Nic. VI 4, 1140 a 7 seq.—and these men produce nothing; their profession is practical, ends in πρᾶξις, or action), ‘the one for the purpose of (lit. belonging to) blackening (soiling, defaming), the other the contrary’.

ῥυπαίνειν (ῥύπος, dirt), Eth. N. I 9, 1099 b 3, ἐνίων δὲ τητώμενοι ῥυπαίνουσι τὸ μακάριον, ‘their bliss is tarnished, sullied, defiled, defaced’. Pherecrates, ap. Meineke, Fr. Comic. Gr. II 352, Pherecr. Fr. Inc. 48, ap. Photium, Suidam, Thomam Magistrum. “Schol. ad Ar. Nub. 97, εἰς δουλείαν ἐῤῥυπαίνετο ὁ φιλόσοφος. Simile est ἐπισμῇν.” Meineke, Id. ad fragm. Cratini, Cleobul. 9, ap. Schol. ad Arist. Thermoph. 389, τί γὰρ ἡμᾶς οὐκ ἐπισμῇ τῶν κακῶν; Dion. de Isocr. Iudicium, c. 18, καὶ οὔτ᾽ Ἀριστοτέλει πείθομαι ῥυπαίνειν τὸν ἄνδρα βουλομένῳ.

‘And pirates nowadays call themselves purveyors’. So Pistol, in Merry Wives of Windsor, I 3. 49, “Convey the wise it call: Steal, foh! a fico for the phrase!”

νῦν] referring to the early times spoken of by Thucyd., I 5, when the Greeks ἐτράποντο πρὸς ληστείαν...οὐκ ἔχοντός πω αἰσχύνην τούτου τοῦ ἔργου, φέροντος δέ τι καὶ δόξης μᾶλλον, κ.τ.λ. On what follows, see Homer, Od. III 73, and elsewhere.

On the actual πορισταί at Athens, see Schneider's note on Arist. Pol. I 11, ult., Comm. p. 65.

‘And therefore (by the same rule) wrong may be called error, and error wrong’ (both of them kinds of injury or offence; that is here the supposition in ἁμαρτάνειν; but the one is a crime because it is done with a bad προαίρεσις or moral purpose, the other a venial offence; ἄνευ δὲ κακίας ἁμάρτημα κ.τ.λ. Eth. N. V 10, 1135 b 18 seq.) ‘and stealing either taking or robbing (on a grand scale)’.

‘A phrase like that of Euripides’ Telephus, “He lords it over the oar (sways it, like a sceptre, the emblem of royalty), and having on his departure for Mysia,” is unbecoming (inappropriate), because ruling, swaying, lording, is too big, pompous, for the value (measure, merits) (of the object described); and so, the disguise (concealment) is not effected (the art or effort becomes apparent, supra, § 5).

κώπης ἀνάσσων κἀποβὰς εἰς Μυσίαν] The rest of the sentence is supplied by the Schol. ἐτραυματίσθη πολεμίῳ βραχίονι. The first line should be read [not, as in the MSS, κώπας ἀνάσσειν, καὶ ἀποβὰς εἰς Μυσίαν, but] as it is by Dindorf, Poet. Sc., Fragm. Eur. Tel. 20, and Wagner, Fragm. Tel. 10 (Fr. Trag. Gr. II 359), κώπης ἀνάσσων κἀποβὰς εἰς Μυσίαν. ἀνάσσειν takes the genit. and dative, not the accus. κώπης ἄναξ and ἀνάσσειν et similia are found elsewhere in Eurip. Helen. 1048, Cyclops [86], and Aesch. Pers. 378. In Aeschylus the pompous phrase is much more characteristic. The cautious and sober Sophocles never employs it.