Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:31:15.442Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Alcibiades at Sparta: Aristophanes Birds*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael Vickers
Michael Vickers
Affiliation:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Although there is a long tradition, going back at least to the tenth century, that would see Aristophanes' Birds (performed in the spring of 414 B.C.) as somehow related to the exile in Lacedaemon of Alcibiades, and to the fortification of the Attic township of Decelea by his Spartan hosts (Arg. Av. 1 Coulon), current scholarship surrounding Birds is firmly in the hands of those who are antipathetic to seeing the creation of Cloudcuckooland in terms of a political allegory. ‘The majority of scholars today…flatly reject a political reading’; Birds has ‘no strong and obvious connection with a topical question of public interest’; ‘attempts to find in Birds any extensive allegorical comment…are unconvincing’. Not only is it widely believed that ‘Birds… is strangely free of political concerns’. but also that ‘the theme of the Birds is absurdity itself…it is about meaninglessness’ (ibid. 179). This is a tradition that descends from A. W. von Schlegel, for whom Birds was ‘merely a “Lustspiel”, full of imagination and the marvellous, with amusing touches at everything, but with no particular object’. This approach was reinforced by the fact that by the second half of the nineteenth century, the allegorists had apparently spun out of control. By 1879, there were no fewer than 79 accounts of the Tendenz of the Birds —some political, some ‘escapist fantasy’–on offer. The most influential allegorical interpretation of Birds was J. W. Suvern's study of 1826, but which is now generally dismissed, and only mentioned to be held up as a warning to those who might be tempted to take the allegorical route. This paper takes a different point of departure, namely Pierre Brumoy's Le thétre des grecs (Paris, 1730), an allegorical treatment that is full of good sense, and which was too hastily dismissed by Suvern, and ignored by others.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , December 1995 , pp. 339 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Konstan, D., ‘A city in the air: Aristophanes’ Birds', Arethusa 23 (1990), 187Google Scholar.

2 Sommerstein, A., The Comedies of Aristophanes 6. Birds. (Warminster, 1987), 1Google Scholar.

3 Dunbar, N., Aristophanes Birds (Oxford, 1995), 3Google Scholar.

4 Whitman, C. H., Aristophanes and the Comic Hero (Cambridge, MA, 1964), 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Green, W. C., cited by Blaydes, F. H. M., Aristophanis Aves (Halle, 1882), xGoogle Scholar.

6 Süss, W., Aristophanes und die Nachwelt (Leipzig, 1911), 137Google Scholar, citing Behaghel, W., Geschichte der Auffassung der Aristophanischen Vögel (Heidelberg, 1878–1879)Google Scholar.

7 Süvern, J. W., Über Aristophanes Vögel (Berlin, 1827)Google Scholar; English translation, Süvern (1835).

8 Dobrov, G., ‘Aristophanes' Birds and the metaphor of deferral’, Arethusa 23 (1990), 214Google Scholar.

9 Farrell, J., ‘Allusions, delusions, and confusions, a reply,’ Electronic Antiquity 1 (6) (1993)Google Scholar.

10 E.g. one might cite (without holding a particular brief for any of them): Zuntz, G., The Political Plays of Euripides (Manchester, 1963)Google Scholar; papers in Euben, P. J. (ed.), Greek Tragedy and Political Theory (Berkeley, 1986)Google Scholar; Meier, C., Die politische Kunst der griechischen Tragödie (Munich, 1988)Google Scholar (trans. The Political Art ofGreek Tragedy [Baltimore, 1993])Google Scholar; Borowska, M., Le thérepolitique dEuripide: problemes choisis (Warsaw, 1989)Google Scholar; Bierl, A. F. H., Dionyos unddie griechische Tragodie: politische und ‘metatheatralische’ Aspekte im Text (Tübingen, 1991)Google Scholar; Serra, G., Edipo e la peste: politico e tragedia nelT ‘Edipo re’ (Venice, 1994)Google Scholar; Neumann, U., Gegenwart und mythische Vergangenheit bei Euripides (Stuttgart, 1995)Google Scholar.

11 Schol. Birds 1297; cf. Halliwell, S., ‘Comic satire and freedom of speech in classical Athens’, JHS 111 (1991), 55–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Develin, R., Athenian Officials 684–321 b.c. (Cambridge, 1989), 142–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Tzetz. XIAi 97–8 (Koster). This information comes in the context of Eupolis' Baptae, performed shortly before the Sicilian expedition: Storey, I. C., ‘Dating and redating Eupolis’, Phoenix 44 (1990), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘The dates of Aristophanes' Clouds II and Eupolis' Baptae: a reply to E. C. Kopft”, AJP 114 (1993), 71–84.

14 The debate, which verges at times on the theological, is well summarized by Halliwell (n. 11), 54–66; add Dunbar (n. 3), 239.

15 Droysen, J., ‘Des Aristophanes Vogel und die Hermokopiden’, RhM 3 (1835), 161–208Google Scholar.

16 Sommerstein, A. H., ‘The decree of Syrakosios’, CQ 36 (1986). 101–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with references to earlier literature.

17 Tract. Coisl. 31–2 (Koster). On the possible derivation of the Tractatus from Aristotle's lost Poetics, see Janko, R., Aristotle on Comedy: towards a reconstruction of Poetics П (London, 1984)Google Scholar. Cf. Plut, . Per. 16.1Google Scholar: in describing the way in which comic writers lampooned Pericles, Plutarch calls their technique paremphasis.

18 ‘We [today] are simply not attuned to writing which proceeds by indirect suggestion rather than by direct statement.… When we ‘emphasize’ something, we proclaim it to our readers, leaving no doubt that we want its presence known. The ancient writer does the exact opposite’: Ahl, F., ‘The art of safe criticism in Greece and Rome’, AJP 105 (1984), 179Google Scholar.

19 Quint. Inst. Or. 9.2.64 (trans. Ahl [1984], 176).

20 Ar, . Lys. 1140Google Scholar; Xen, . Lac. 11.3Google Scholar.

21 Lys. 6.51; cf. Lewis, D. M., ‘After the profanation of the Mysteries’, in Ancient History and its Institutions: Studies presented to Victor Ehrenberg on his 75th birthday (Oxford, 1966), 177:Google Scholar Not only was Alcibiades condemned to death for the profanation of the Mysteries, ‘but his property was confiscated, his name was put on a stele, and all priests and priestesses were instructed to curse him. All…except one…duly did so, turning to the west and waving red sheets.’

22 Xen, . Lac. 15.6Google Scholar. And was the Eurotas valley the haunt of flamingoes in the fifth century? It was certainly marshy: Plut, . Lye. 16.14Google Scholar.

23 Cf. ξοκιστος, (‘expelled from home’).

24 Cf. HSCh. S.V. εξκεστος· ταιρηκς, ἅθεν κα τοĐς πρωκτοĐς μονμως εξηκστος ἔλεγον.

25 Cf. Ar, . Ach. 716Google Scholar, where Alcibiades is described by implication as εὐρπρωκτος.

26 The technique involved is akin to that of the Slanderer in Thphr, . Char. 28.2Google Scholar. Aristotle happily calls such names τνχντα νματα: Poet. 1451b. See further, Vickers, M., Pericles on Stage: Political Comedy in Aristophanes' Early Plays (Austin, Tex., in press)Google Scholar.

27 On the date see Ostwald, M., From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law: Law, Society and Politics in Fifth-Century Athens (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986), 182, n, 23Google Scholar.

28 Croix, G. M. A. de Ste., The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1972), 361Google Scholar; Heath, M., Political Comedy in Aristophanes. Hypomnemata 87 (Gottingen, 1987), 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Halliwell (n. 11), 60–61; cf. Hertzberg, G. F., Alkibiades. Der Staatsman und Feldherr (Halle, 1853), 15Google Scholar.

29 Fo r the relatively few specific references, see Moorton, R. F., ‘Aristophanes o n Alcibiades’, GRBS 29 (1988), 345–59Google Scholar.

30 Young, G. M., cited in Marcus, S., The Other Victorians (London, 1966), 111Google Scholar. Cf. B. Strauss, ‘Oikos/polis: towards a theory of athenian paternal ideology 450–399 b.c., in Classica et Mediaevalia 40 (1990), 122: ‘The truth of [the anecdotes about Alcibiades’ youthful adventures] hardly matters; much more important is that Alcibiades elicited them.’

31 Spacks, P. M., Gossip (New York, 1985), 4Google Scholar; cf. Hunter, V., (1990), ‘Gossip and the politics of reputation in classical athens’, Phoenix 44 (1990), 299–325CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Hunter (n. 32), 322.

33 Ober, J., Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton, 1989), 148Google Scholar.

34 Süvern (1835), 2.

35 Süvern (1835), 2.

36 Süvern (1835), 4—5. On Clouds see now: Vickers, M., ‘Alcibiades in Cloudedoverland’, in Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies in Honor of Martin Oswald, Farrell, J. and Rosen, R. (edd.), (Ann Arbor, 1993), 603–18Google Scholar.

37 On Alcibiades in the Gorgias, see Apelt, O., Platonische Aufsatze (Leipzig and Berlin, 1912)Google Scholar, overlooked by Dodds, E. R., Plato Gorgias (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar; Vickers, M., ‘Alcibiades and Critias in the Gorgias: Plato's “fine satire”’, DHA 20/2 (1994), 85–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Süvern (1835), 6.

39 E.g. Dunbar (n. 3), 4. Even H. Newiger's review of political approaches to Birds does not discuss earlier work: ‘Gedanken zu Aristophanes' Vögeln’, ‘Aρετς μνμη φιρωμα’ “εἰς μνμην” το κωνσταντνοɛ’ I. βοɛρβρη (Athens, 1983), 47–57Google Scholar.

40 ‘M. Paulmier a trouvé avant moi cette explication de la comedie allegorique: mais il n'en dit qu'un mot…’ Brumoy (1780), 12.152Google Scholar.

41 Le Paulmier (1668), 750.

42 Brumoy (1780), 12.138–219.

43 Plut, . Ale. 23.1–2Google Scholar; Nepos, Ale. 4Google Scholar; Brumoy (1780), 12.143–51.

44 Thuc. 6.91.6. On the relative neglect of Thucydides in eighteenth-century France, see Mat-Hasquin, M., Voltaire et l'antiquite grecque (Oxford, 1981), 225Google Scholar. Levesque, P. -Ch., Histoire de Thucydide, fils d'Olorus, traduite dugrec (Paris, 1795)Google Scholar was the first influential French translation. Contrast Le Paulmier (1668), who cites Thucydides where appropriate.

45 Süvern (1835), 6.

46 Brumoy (1780), 12.159 and 201.

47 Ibid., 160, citing Nepo s Ale. 4. Better, perhaps to cite Lepreum in the context of Alcibiades' involvement in the anti-Spartan alliance of 421–420B.C.: Thuc. 5.31, 34, 47.

48 Brumoy (1780), 12.160; add. Thuc. 6.91.6–7.

49 Brumoy (1780), 12.155.

50 Brumoy (1780), 12.157.

51 They arrive at the same conclusion as my earlier paper, ‘Alcibiades on stage: Aristophanes’ Birds', Historia 36 (1989), 267–99Google Scholar, but using rather different evidence.

52 Rogers, B. B., The Birds of Aristophanes (London, 1906), viii–xGoogle Scholar.

53 Cf. the pun on ταιρν and ταρων at Ath. 13.571e.

54 Cf. Ostwald (n. 27), 537–50; Aurenche, O., Les groupes d'Alcibiade, de Le'ogoras et de Teucros: remarques sur la vie politique athenienne en 415 avant J.C (Paris, 1974)Google Scholar.

55 Ath. 1.3e; Plut, . Ale. 11.1–3Google Scholar; Thuc. 6.16.2; Isocr. 16.34.

56 Ath. 1.3e; Plut, . Ale. 11.1–3Google Scholar; Isocr. 16.34 (‘third’).

57 Richter, G. M. A., The Portraits of the Greeks (London, 1965), 133–40Google Scholar, figs. 717–79.

58 E.g. Ar, . Ach. 410–70Google Scholar; Nub. 921; Ran. 842.

59 Diod. 13.3; Plut, . Ale. 12.3Google Scholar; Isocr. 16.

60 Pritchett, W. K., ‘Attic stelai, Part II’, Hesperia 25 (1956), 167–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Five new fragments of the Attic stelai’, Hesperia 30 (1961), 23–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Lewis (n. 21), 177–91.

61 Ar, . Ve. 44–5Google Scholar; Archipp, . PCG 48Google Scholarap. Plut, . Ale. 1.8Google Scholar; see LSJ s.vv. τραɛλζω and τραɛλς.

62 E.g. Ar, . Ach. 716Google Scholar; cf. Crit. 4.1.

63 Brumoy (1780), 12.160.

64 Plut, . Lye. 9.2Google Scholar; cf. Laum, B., Das Eisengelt der Spartaner (Braunsberg, 1925)Google Scholar.

65 Cf. Dem. 54.34; Plut, . Cleom. 16Google Scholar; Plut, . Lye. 30.2Google Scholar. The Graces were greatly revered at Sparta (cf. ἄχαρις, 156): Wide, S., Lakonische Kulte (Leipzig, 1893), 210–14Google Scholar; Plutarch wittily describes the χρις of Laconian speech at Mor. 511a.

66 Plut, . Agis 19.6, 20.1, 20.5Google Scholar. There are many references in the same scene to ‘the νμοι (“laws” or [equally] “melodies”) of the Birds’ (1345, 1346,1347,1349,1353): it has been rightly said that ‘Sparta more than any other city in Greece was ruled by law’ (Proietti, G., Xenophon's Sparta: an Introduction [Leiden, 1987]), 110Google Scholar; cf. PL, . Hp.Ma. £283e)Google Scholar. Indeed, the nomoi of the semi-legendary Lycurgus were considered to be immutable (Plut. Lye. £13); Alcibiades by contrast was notable for his paranomia, his utter disrespect for any legal constraints at all ([Andoc.] 4.30; cf. Antisth. 34 Caizzi ap. Ath. 5.220c). The other meaning of nomoi –‘melodies’ has possible Spartan (and avian) resonances. Alcman, the quintessential Spartan poet (Bowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry [Oxford, 1961], 16ff.)Google Scholar who, incidentally, ‘learned to sing from the partridges’ (Alcm. 39 Page), made the claim that he knew ‘the melodies of all the birds’ (Alcm. 40 Page).

67 Cf. Westlake, H. D., Studies in Thucydides and Greek History (Bristol, 1989), 10Google Scholar; Hornblower, S., A Commentary on Thucydides 1 (Oxford, 1991), 211Google Scholar. On Thucydides' careful choice of language, see e.g. Tompkins, D. P., ‘Stylistic characterization in Thucydides: Nicias and Alcibiades’, YCS 22 (1972), 181–214Google Scholar; Badian, E., From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentecontaetia (Baltimore, 1993)Google Scholar; Francis, E. D., ‘Brachylogia laconica: Spartan speeches in Thucydides’, BICS 38 (1991–1993), 198–212Google Scholar.

68 A reference to the ξενηλασα (‘expulsion of foreigners’) which the Spartan authorities carried out from time to time: Xen, . Lac. 14.4Google Scholar.

69 PI, . Hp.Ma. 283bGoogle Scholar; cf. 281a. That sophists were expelled from Sparta is clear from Chamaeleon ap. Ath. 13.611a.

70 Henderson, J., The Maculate Muse; Obscene Language in Attic Comedy (New Haven, 1975), 83Google Scholar.

71 Woodruff, P., Plato, Hippias Major (Oxford, 1982), 108Google Scholar. The dramatic date is ‘after 427 and… during the peace of Nicias’: Taylor, A. E., Plato, the Man and his Work (London, 1926), 29Google Scholar.

72 Woodruff (n. 71), 100–101.

73 Plut, . Mor. 239bGoogle Scholar; cf. the Spartan system of voting βοῇ (‘by shouting’): Thuc. 87.2.

74 Tr. Sommerstein (n. 2), 25.

75 Michell, H., Sparta (Cambridge, 1952), 123Google Scholar.

76 Andrewes, A., ‘The government of classical Sparta’, in Ancient History and its Institutions: Studies presented to Victor Ehrenberg on his 75th birthday (Oxford, 1966), 13Google Scholar; cf. Cartledge, P., Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (Baltimore, 1987), 128Google Scholar: ‘the competence of the Ephors in foreign affairs was comprehensive’.

77 Plut, . Lye. 19.2Google Scholar. For discussions of Spartan speeches in Attic Greek, see Francis (n. 67); Tompkins, D. P., ‘Archidamus and the question of characterization in Thucydides’, in Farrell and Rosen (n. 36), 99–111Google Scholar.

78 Xen, . Ages. 8.7Google Scholar.

79 Plut, . Lye. 30.2Google Scholar; other reasons for seeing the Epops as a Spartan dignitary are discussed in Vickers (n. 26), Chapter 10.

80 Hooker, J. T., The Ancient Spartans (London, 1980), 172Google Scholar; Clauss, M., Sparta: Eine Einführung in seine Geschichte und Zivilisation (Munich, 1983), 144, 150Google Scholar.

81 [Ken, .] Lac. 2.11Google Scholar. τορὐνης andτορὐνην at 78 an d 79 probably play on the same idea.

82 Francis (n. 67).

83 Ar, . Lys. 171Google Scholar; Henderson, J., Aristophanes Lysistrata (Oxford, 1987), xlviiiCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 LSJ s.v. II; cf. ibid. III: ‘at Sparta a political title, president…’

85 Often confused with φιδτιον (derived fron φεδοɛαι [‘be sparing’], see LSJ s.v.): φιδτιον may have been applied jokingly, Michell (n. 75), 282. μτροφα (cf. 'τρφην, 322) may play on the Spartan institution of τρφιμοι, about which little is known for certain. Ξνοι τρφιμοι (‘Spartan-raised foreigners’) were to be prominent in the fourth century; see Cartledge (n. 76), 61,253. The Birds’ accusation that the Epops has broken ὅρκοɛς (‘oaths’) (331–2) may relate to the immutability of the laws at Sparta (Xen. 15.7; Plut, . Mor. 230f.)Google Scholar and to Spartan kings and ephors having to swear ὅρκοɛς once a month (Plut, . Lye. 12)Google Scholar.

86 Tompkins (n. 67), 212–13.

87 Proietti (n. 66), 91.

88 For others, see Birds 489–91,1553–64, with Ruck, C. A. P., ‘Mushroom s and philosophers’, in Wasson, R. G., Kramisch, S., Ott, J., and Ruck, C. A. P., Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion (New Haven, 1986), 151–78Google Scholar.

89 Ambrosino, D., ‘Aristoph. Nub. 46s. (II matrimonio di Strepsiade e la democrazia ateniese)’, Museum Criticum 21–22 (1986–1987), 103, n. 28Google Scholar.

90 Hdt. 9.7, 11; Idomenaeus FGrH 338 F 6 ap. Plut, . Arist. 10.8–9Google Scholar.

91 Andrewes, A., The Greek Tyrants (London, 1956), 66Google Scholar; on the undoubtedly tyrannical nature of Cloudcuckooland, see Bowie, A. M., Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual and Comedy (Cambridge, 1993), 170–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92 For differing views: Westlake, H. D., ‘Alcibiades, Agis, and Spartan policy’, (1938), 34Google Scholar (against); Hatzfeld, J., Alcibiade: étude sur l'histoire d'Athenes à la fin du Ve siécle, 2nd edn (Paris, 1951), 217—18Google Scholar; Schaeffer, A., ‘AlkibiadesundLysanderinlonien,’ Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 4 (1949/1950), 295, n. 4Google Scholar; Cartledge (n. 76), 113 (for).

93 Duris, FGrH 76Google Scholar F 69 ap. Plut, Ages. 3.2Google Scholar; cf. Ale. 23.4; Ath. 12.535b.

94 βοɛτμοɛ (‘sedge’) may refer to the marshy lake next to the royal palace at Sparta: Xen, . Lac. 15.6Google Scholar, and p. 341, above.

95 Poll. 4.102; cf. Ar. Lys. 82. The exercise was also employed by women who wished to procure an abortion (Hp, . Nat. Puer. 13.2)Google Scholar, and there may thus be an emphatic allusion to Timaea's being with child, ostensibly by Alcibiades, at the time Birds was performed.

96 παζειν may in addition reflect an Athenian view of the Spartan way of life: cf. Plut, . Arist. 10.8 (cf. 10.9)Google Scholar, where Spartans spend a festival in ‘playing and idleness’ (παζειν κα ῥαθɛμεῖν).

97 Cartledge (n. 76), 113; cf. idem, ‘Spartan wives: liberation or licence?’ CQ n.s. 31 (1981), 84–105.

98 Euelpides or the Epops; more likely the latter.

99 See pp. 348, 349 above on διακονα.

100 Westlake, H. D., Individuals in Thucydides (Cambridge, 1968), 163Google Scholar.

101 Jeanmaire, H., ‘La kryptie lacedemonienne’, REG 26 (1913), 121–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vidal-Naquet, P., Le chasseur noir: formes de pensee et formes de societe dans le monde grec, 2nd edn. (Paris, 1983), 161–4; Cartledge (n. 76), 31–2Google Scholar.

102 Cf. Ath. 11.4836: κώθων λακονικν ποτριον.

103 Xen, . Lac. 8.2Google Scholar; and cf. βδιζε at 837.

104 Plut, . Ale. 16.1Google Scholar; Ath. 12.534e. The possibility that Alcibiades' shield may only have existed on the stage (Russell, D.A, ‘Plutarch, “Alcibiades” 1–16,’ PCPhS 12 [1966], 45Google Scholar; Littmann, R.J., ‘The loves of Alcibiades,’ TAP A 101 [1970], 267–8)Google Scholar is no drawback, since such an image would have expressed the essential public image of the man.

105 Thuc. 6.53.3–6.59; Vickers, M., ‘Thucydides 6.53.3–59: not a “digression”’, DHA 21 (1995), 193–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

106 Blanckenhagen, P. H. von, ‘Stage an d actors in Plato's Symposium’, GRBS 33 (1992), 62Google Scholar.

107 On eros in Birds in general, see Arrowsmith, W., ‘Aristophanes Birds: the fantasy politics of Eros’, Arion 1 (1973), 119–67Google Scholar; Dobrov (n. 8), 210.

108 8 Cf. ξαμφοτερζοντα τν 'Aλκιβιδην: Plut, . Ale. 25.7Google Scholar.

109 Via Salaminian Ajax; cf. Plut, . Ale. 1.1Google Scholar.

110 Vickers (n. 26) (where the considerable merits of Katz, B. R., ‘The Birds of Aristophanes and polities’, Athenaeum n.s. 54 [1976], 353–81Google Scholar are also taken into account).