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Erōs and the eye in the Love-Letters of Philostratus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Andrew Walker
Andrew Walker
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University of Virginia
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Extract

The close association in the literature of antiquity of seeing with sexual desire inspired the tragic poet Agathon to pun on the similarity between the Greek verb ‘to see’ (ὁρᾶν) and the verb ‘to desire’ (ἐρᾶν), as suggested by a fragment preserved by Zenobius: ἐκ τοῦ γὰρ ἐσορᾶν ἐγένετ' ἀνθρώποις ἐρᾶν. As is the case with many fragments, it is difficult to identify the degree of irony (or seriousness) with which Agathon intended this isolated line, but the passage is repeated (without attribution) in a number of other ancient sources, and it perhaps lays some claim to a measure of ‘folk wisdom’: for human beings the source of erotic desire lies in an act of seeing. In his brief and pithy love-letter ‘To Nicetes’ (Epistle 52), which Nauck observes may well draw on the pun of Agathon, the third-century sophist Philostratus would similarly appeal to the association of ὀρᾶν with ἐρᾶν to refute, in an ironic way, two time-honoured maxims about erōs: that love is a ‘disease’; and that lovers are ‘blind’: οὐ τὀ ἐρᾶν νόσος ἀλλὰ τὸ μὴ ἐρᾶν· εἰ γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὁρᾶν τὸ ἐρᾶν, τυφλοὶ οἱ μὴ ἐρῶντες.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 38 , 1993 , pp. 132 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

Notes

1. Fr. 29 Nauck = Snell 39 F 29. I print the emendation suggested by Tucker and cited in Snell's apparatus. For the association of erōs and the eye elsewhere in classical literature, see Rohde, E., Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer ed. 3 (1914) 149 n. 2Google Scholar.

2. For additional sources, see the note of Nauck, TGF 2 ad loc. Zenobius himself remarks (Ath. 2.54) that the fragment is attributed by some to Agathon, and by others to Sthenelus (Snell 32 F 1).

3. These letters are traditionally attributed to Flavius Philostratus, who is sometimes referred to as ‘Philostratus II’, or ‘Philostratus the Elder’; cf. Münscher, K., ‘Die Philostrate’, Philologus Suppl. 10 (1907) 467–557, esp. 524–36Google Scholar; Solmsen, F., ‘Some works of Philostratus the elder’, TAPA 71 (1940) 556Google Scholar; and Anderson, G., Philostratus (1986) 274–5Google Scholar.

4. Cf. Ogle, M. B., ‘The lover's blindness’, AJP 41 (1920) 240–52Google Scholar; Henderson, A. A. R., Ovid: Remedia amoris (1979) 82Google Scholar; and Brown, R. D., Lucretius on love and sex (1987) 277 and 280–3Google Scholar.

5. In what follows, I employ the Loeb text and translations of Benner, A. R. and Fobes, F. H., The letters of Alciphron, Aelian and Philostratus (1949)Google Scholar, which differs markedly from the ‘standard’ Teubner text of Kayser, C. L., Flavii Philostrati opera II (1871)Google Scholar. What follows contributes nothing to such vexed questions as the authenticity of the letters, their proper order, and the relative authority of the collection's many manuscripts and manuscript traditions, concerning which see: Münscher (above, n. 3); Benner and Fobes 387–108; and Anderson (above, n. 3) 281 n. 140. I have not seen the new edition (cf. L'Année philologique 60 (1989)Google Scholar No. 3826) of Hansmann, P., Des älteren Philostratos erotische Briefe, nebst den Hetärenbriefen des Alkiphron (1989)Google Scholar which, unfortunately, is unavailable to me.

6. Throughout this paper, I use the terms ‘the lover’ and ‘Philostratus’ (almost interchangeably) to refer to the ‘poetic persona’ of the particular letter I am discussing, without any real interest in establishing the actual identity of this person or the ‘reality’ of the situation to which any particular letter refers.

7. One thinks, for example, of the imagery of wounding and assault in Lucretius' diatribe against love, and of the Hellenistic sources of Lucretius' imagery, on which see: Kenney, E. J., ‘Doctus Lucretius’, Mnemosyne 23 (1970) 381–5Google Scholar. For correspondences between Alexandrian love elegy and the love-letters of Philostratus and Aristaenetus, see Heineman, M., Epistulae amatoriae quomodo cohaereant cum elegiis Alexandrinis (1910)Google Scholar.

8. For the eye as the pathway () that provides beauty and erōs access to the heart (), see Achilles Tatius 1.4.4 and its ‘imitation’ by Grammaticus, Musaeus, Hero and Leander 92–7Google Scholar, with the exhaustive commentary of Kost, K., Musaios: Hero und Leander (1971)Google Scholar ad loc.

9. In Ovid's Remedia amoris, this kind of visual apprehension of the beloved is described as one of the dangers of solitude: tristis eris, si solus eris, dominaeque relictae ∣ ante oculos facies stabit, ut ipsa, tuos (583–4).

10. For the lover as a ‘hunter’, see Dover, K. J., Greek homosexuality (1978) 87–8Google Scholar. The conceit of hunter–lover, with his snares, nets and birdlime, emerges frequently in erotic epigrams and was of particular interest to Ovid; see, e.g., Ars amatoria 1.45 (scit bene uenator, ceruis ubi relia tendat).

11. Philostratus delights in cultivating the irony that means both ‘host’ and ‘guest’; cf. Epistles 8 and 28. For the glances of the lover as ‘smeared with birdlime’, see AP 12.92.1–2 (Meleager 116) and AP 5.100 (Anonymous).

12. This letter is probably the most ‘misogynist’ one in the collection. On Charybdis as an image of rapacity, commonly applied to hetairai, see Nisbet, R. G. M. and Hubbard, M., A commentary on Horace: Odes, Book 1 (1970) ad 1.27.19Google Scholar. For the notion of the beloved as a labyrinth, capable of entrapping the eye ‘as if by birdlime’, see AP 12.93.1–2 (Rhianus 3).

13. On the topic of those that fall in love at the mere report of beauty, see Athenaeus 13.575a.

14. For and its various synonyms in classical rhetoric see Russell, D. A., ‘Longinus’: On the sublime (1964) 121Google Scholar; and Zanker, G., ‘Enargeia in the ancient criticism of poetry’, RM 124 (1981) 296–311Google Scholar. For description in the Second Sophistic, see now Bartsch, S., Decoding the ancient novel (1988) 3–39Google Scholar.

15. For the ‘visual element’ in Plato's appropriation of erotic imagery to describe the philosopher's pursuit of truth, see Dover (above, n. 10) 11–12 and 158–65; for the varieties of erōs in Plato, see Gould, T., Platonic love (1963)Google Scholar. For the influence of the Phaedrus on the Second Sophistic, see now Trapp, M. T., ‘Plato's Phaedrus in second-century Greek literature’, in Russell, D. A., ed., Antonine literature (1990) 141–73Google Scholar, esp. 170-3.

16. Translation is that of Morgan, J. R., who remarks that ‘the whole scene is rich in echoes of Plato’, in Reardon, B. P., ed., Collected ancient Greek novels (1989) 414Google Scholar.

17. Philostratus' use of Phaedrus 247b–c and Republic 10.616c in this letter is noted by Benner and Fobes (above, n. 5) 519.

18. In Epistle 29, the eyes dictate to the soul the traditional tasks of the exclusus amator, to ‘write, weep, and beg’ ().

19. Plato, Republic 4.439e–40a; the anecdote provides evidence for a ‘spirited’ part of the soul distinct from the reason and the appetite. Kleitophon also fights a losing battle with his eyes when he first catches sight of Leukippe; cf. Achilles Tatius 1.4.5. Hellenistic poets frequently rebuke their own eyes for their wilfulness and susceptibility to the beauty of boys; cf., e.g., AP 12.91 (Polystratus 1) and 12.92 (Meleager 116).

20. For the expression, Benner and Fobes (above, n. 5) note a parallel in Lucian, Tyrannicida 4. On , see also Plato, Republic 9.587c2, where the tyrant succumbs to the ‘body-guard pleasures’ (); for used of the eye in an erotic context, see AP 12.106.1–2 (Meleager 104).

21. The phrase gives the of Epistle 29 greater specificity; for , see also in Epistle 29; for the association of with sexual curiosity and a kind of prurient visual pleasure, see especially AP 12.175.4 (Strato).

22. The judgement of Paris is also a topic in Epistle 62.

23. For a similar idea, see AP 5.15 (Rufinus). This seems to be a development on the topos of comparing a woman's beauty to that of a statue, on which see Nisbet and Hubbard (above, n. 12) ad 1.19.6; McKeown, J. C., Ovid: Amores (1989) ad 1.7.51Google Scholar; and esp. Hunter, R. L., ‘History and historicity in the romance of Chariton’, ANRW II 34.2 (forthcoming)Google Scholar. It is curious that Praxiteles, famous for his sculpture of Knidian Aphrodite (and mentioned first in the epigram of Rufinus cited above), is omitted from Philostratus' list of sculptors here; perhaps it is a boy, and not a woman, who has disrobed? On ‘disrobing’ at the judgement of Paris, see Lucian, Deorum dialogi 20.9–13; and the mischievous contests described by Rufinus, AP 5.35 and 5.36.

24. Cf. Hunter (above, n. 23), to whose discussion of Chariton my understanding of Philostratus, Epistle 34 owes much; and Zeitlin, F., ‘The poetics of erōs: nature, art, and imitation in Longus' Daphnis and Chloe’, in Halperin, D., Winkler, J., and Zeitlin, F., eds., Before sexuality: the construction of erotic experience in the ancient Greek world (1990) 417–64Google Scholar. My thanks to Richard Hunter for making available to me a copy of his paper in advance of its publication.

25. See Kenney, E. J., Apuleius: Cupid and Psyche (1990) ad 5.33.5–7Google Scholar.

26. See McKeown (above, n. 23) on the ‘erotic ’, usually motivated by a ‘respect for decency’, ad Ovid, Amores 1.5.25–26, a poem with which Epistle 34 possesses some affinities.

27. In this regard, I find instructive the note of Halperin, D., ‘Platonic Erōs and what men call Love’, AncPhil 5 (1985) 192, n. 36Google Scholar. For the eyes of the other as the source of erotic desire, see esp. Pindar, fr. 123.2–4 (quoted in part below, n. 42), and the texts assembled by Pearson, A. C., ‘Phrixus and Demodice: a note on Pindar, Pyth. 4. 162 ff.’ CR 23 (1909) 255–7Google Scholar; and Donaldson-Evans, L., Love's fatal glance (1980) 9–25Google Scholar. Hunter, R. L., Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica book III (1989)Google Scholar notes that Apollonius achieves in effect a ’reversal of the common idea that one is caught by the beloved's eyes’ at 3.1018.

28. For beauty as a fire that enkindles even those who stand and ‘watch’ from a distance, see Xenophon, Cyropaedia 5.1.16: . Plutarch appeals to this passage from Xenophon in a fragment from his work On love (Sandbach 138), in an effort to refute the claim that the danger of beauty lies simply in touching and holding it, but not in the great delight of ‘looking’.

29. On erōs and the evil eye, see, e.g., Kalasiris' appeal to the role of vision in the erotic experience to explain the dynamics of the evil eye in Heliodorus' Aethiopica (3.7.5); the language of the passage is similar to that found in Plutarch, , Quaestiones conuiuiales 680f–681cGoogle Scholar, where the evil eye is also considered from the perspective of erōs. The degree to which Heliodorus is indebted to Plutarch or to an independent source has long been the subject of dispute; see now: Dickie, M. W., ‘Heliodorus and Plutarch on the evil eye’, CP 86 (1991) 17–29Google Scholar.

30. The fragment has also inspired numerous translations; mine draws on the notes of Radt ad loc. and esp. the comments of Pearson, A. C., The fragments of Sophocles II (1917) 129Google Scholar.

31. For beauty (and desire) as a kind of physical emanation that is ‘poured out’ from the body or eyes, see the Homeric Hymn to Demeter 276 and the note of Richardson, N. J., The Homeric hymn to Demeter (1974) ad 253Google Scholar; Hesiod, Theogony 910 with the note of West, M. L., Hesiod: Theogony (1966) ad locGoogle Scholar; and Brown (above, n. 4) ad Lucretius 4.1054. The concept seems to be closely related to the notion of the ‘liquefying effect’ of love, on which see: Onians, R. B., The origins of European thought (1951) 202–3Google Scholar; and below, n. 42. Imagery of beauty that ‘pours’ or ‘flows’ is also present elsewhere in the letters of Philostratus; cf. esp. Epistle 10 ().

32. On the lover receiving (and being nourished by) the visual stream of the beloved, see esp. Phaedrus 255c1–3 () and 251b1–2 (; on the ‘counter-love’ experienced by the beloved, see 255dl. On Empedocles as the source of this imagery in the Phaedrus, see Rowe, C. J., Plato: Phaedrus (1986) ad 251bGoogle Scholar. The most detailed effort to account for the genesis of erōs by appealing to a theory of emanations that are visually perceived is, of course, Lucretius' account of erotic desire as a mechanical response to visual simulacra, a ‘conspiracy’, as one scholar puts it, ‘of sight and semen’; cf. Brown (above, n. 4) 63.

33. Jonson's ‘Celia Poem’ is number 9 in the collection of lyric poems entitled Forrest; for an overview of the classical sources for the various versions of the poem, including Philostratus in the Greek editions and in Latin translations, see Brown, A. D., ‘Drink to me, Celia’, Modern Language Review 54 (1959) 554–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In what follows, I read Epistles 32 and 33 ‘in sequence’, as suggested by their order in the edition of Benner and Fobes (above, n. 5), although their order is different (and reversed) in the MSS of ‘Family 2’; cf. Benner and Fobes 480 n. 4. A ‘reverse order’ of these letters is also adopted in the translations and arrangement of Philostratus' Epistulae provided by Kytzler, B., Erotische Briefe der griechischen Antike (1967)Google Scholar, i.e. Benner and Fobes 32 = Kytzler 40; Benner and Fobes 33 = Kytzler 39.

34. For a discussion of the various ways in which wine-drinking is associated with erōs in Greek verse, with particular reference to the Hellenistic epigram, see Giangrande, G., ‘Sympotic literature and epigram’, in L'Épigramme grecque (1967) 93–173, esp. 127–35Google Scholar; for the association of ‘Eros und Dionysos’ in the Greek novel, see Maehler, H., ‘Symptome der Liebe im Roman and in der griechischen Anthologie’, Groningen colloquia on the novel III (1990) 9–11Google Scholar.

35. Giangrande (above, n. 34) 101 remarks that this motif was in general ‘shunned by the Alexandrians’; for its fate in Roman poetry, with particular reference to Propertius 3.17, see Miller, J. F., ‘Propertius' hymn to Bacchus and contemporary poetry’, AJP 112 (1991) 77–86Google Scholar.

36. For erōs as an appetite, see Halperin (above, n. 27) 165–66.

37. Meleager 84 ( = AP 12.133); I provide the text of Page, D. L., Epigrammata Graeca (1975)Google Scholar. For commentary and discussion, see Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L., Hellenistic epigrams II (1965) ad 4444Google Scholar; Tarán, S., The art of variation in the Hellenistic epigram (1979) 37–40Google Scholar; and Garrison, D. H., Mild frenzy (1978) 82–3Google Scholar. Meleager 84 is also quoted in full by Benner and Fobes (above, n. 5) 455 with reference to Philostratus, Epistle 19, where the conceit of the beloved as a ‘fountain’ also appears, but is left undeveloped. For ‘thirsting’ in Philostratus, see also Epistle 26.

38. On the analogy between drinking and kissing, see the note of Gow, A. S. F., Theocritus II (1965) ad 7.70Google Scholar.

39. On the motif of Ganymede in selected Hellenistic epigrams, see Tarán (above, n. 37) 7–51.

40. In this regard, Philostratus' letter may have inspired Paulus Silentiarius' similar synthesis of the themes of drinking and seeing in AP 5.226.1–2, although Philostratus is not listed as a possible source by Viansino, G., Paolo Silenziario: Epigrammi (1963) ad 42Google Scholar.

41. A similar analogy between eyes and wine-cups is suggested by Philostratus in Epistle 60.

42. Cf. esp. Pindar, fr. *123 (Snell–Maehler), where the poet ‘melts’ (123.11: ) at the sight of young boys, and locates the greatest source of heat and erotic desire in the ‘flashing rays’ that he finds in the eyes of his lover Theoxenus (123.3: ). For love as ‘a liquid or its effect as liquefying’ see Hunter (above, n. 27) ad 3.286–90; Davies, M., ‘Alcman 59A P.’, Hermes 111 (1983) 496–97Google Scholar; and esp. Onians (above, n. 31) 202–3, on the notion of the ‘swimming eyes of sexual passion’.

43. Meleager 36 ( = AP 5.171) 3–4, trans. Garrison (above, n. 37) 82.

44. Frequently the man who sees, but cannot touch, the object of his desire is compared to Tantalus, whose torture consists of unsatisfied thirst, seeing the water without being able to drink. See AP 12.175 (Strato); [Lucian], Amores 53; and Achilles Tatius 2.35.5.

45. For commentary on Plato's notion of ‘counter-love’, see Hackforth, R., Plato's Phaedrus (1952) 108–9Google Scholar, and, more recently, Halperin, D. M., ‘Plato and erotic reciprocity’, CA 5 (1986) 60–80Google Scholar.

46. See Achilles Tatius 1.9.4: [the eyes] . The translation is that of J. Winkler in Reardon (above, n. 16). Like Heliodorus 3.5.5 (on which, see above, n. 16), the larger passage is ‘rich in echoes of Plato’, although Achilles Tatius' formulation is characteristically ‘mischievous’; see Halperin (above, n. 45) 63, n. 5; and, in greater detail, the commentary of Vilborg, E., Achilles Tatius: Leucippe and Clitophon (1962) ad locGoogle Scholar.

47. In the Phaedrus, Plato also appeals to the Ganymede myth in the course of his description of the visual stream that flows to the erastēs from the erōmenos; at 255cl–3, Plato claims that Zeus named this stream ‘desire’ (; cf. 251c6–8) on account of his love for Ganymede: . The relevance of the allusion to Ganymede is explained by Lebeck, A., ‘The central myth of Plato's Phaedrus’, GRBS 13 (1972) 279Google Scholar: ‘Ganymede is the cupbearer of Zeus, thus his pouring of the wine suggests an image and name for the flood of desire which flows from him to the god.’

48. As one referee noted in response to an earlier draft of this paper: ‘It is actually difficult to fall in love with someone without seeing them [sic].’

49. Inspiration for this kind of uariatio may have come from the rhetorical schools; cf. Ogle (above, n. 4) 247–8.

50. Anderson, for example, only devotes four pages to the Epistulae amatoriae in his 300-page study of Philostratus (cf. above, n. 3); although he speaks of the letters as ‘slight and conventional’, he does concede that the collection contains some ‘surprise Philostratean touches’ (275).

51. I would like to express my gratitude to Richard Hunter and to the anonymous referees for PCPS for reading an earlier and very different draft of this paper, and for their comments, encouragement, and criticisms.