A further allusion in the Eumenides to the Panathenaia

Benjamin H. Weaver

doi:10.1093/cq/46.2.559

A further allusion in the Eumenides to the Panathenaia

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

Benjamin H. Weaver

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Benjamin H. Weaver: Affiliation:
Yale University

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Allusions to the Panathenaia 1 in the final scene of the Eumenides have been pointed out by a number of scholars.2 Headlam identified the red robes of the Eumenides (, E. 1028) with the cloaks worn by the Metics in the Panathenaic procession.3 In Athena's pronouncement at 1030–1

Type: Shorter Notes
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , December 1996 , pp. 559 - 561

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cq/46.2.559 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1996

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References

¹ Some recent studies of the Panathenaia: Pritchett W. K., ‘The of the Panathenaia’, in E. [Mylonas] ii. (Athens, 1987), pp. 179–88;Robertson, N., ‘The Origin of the Panathenaia’ RhM 128 (1985), 231–95;Google ScholarNorman, N. J., ‘The Panathenaic Ship’, ArchN 12 (1983), 41–6;Google ScholarLewis, D. W., ‘Athena's Robe’, SCI 5 (1979–1980), 28–9;Google ScholarParke, H. W., Festivals of the Athenians (London, 1977), pp.33–50;Google ScholarMikalson, J. D., ‘Erechtheus and the Panathenaia’, AJP 97 (1976), 141–53;idem, The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year (Princeton, 1975)Google Scholar

² For a list of principal contributors to this line of inquiry, see Bowie, A. W., ’Religion and Politics in Aeschylus’ Oresteia', CQ 43 (1993), 10–31, at p. 27.Google Scholar

³ Headlam, W. G., ‘The Last Scene of the Eumenides’, JHS 26 (1906), 268–77.CrossRef Google Scholar See also Thomson, G. and Headlam, W. G., The Oresteia of Aeschylus (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 232, 315–19.Google Scholar

⁴ Hsch., s.v. 878 (IV, p. 40 Schmidt).

⁵ [Andoc] Alcib. 42 (Headlam, op. cit. [n. 3], p. 274).

⁶ Mommsen, A., Heortologie: antiquarische Untersuchungen über die städtischen Feste der Athener (Leipzig, 1864), p.171.Google Scholar

⁷ Headlam, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 274–275.

⁸ See Pritchett, op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 179–188, for a review of the attempts to place the within the sequence of events at the Panathenaia, as well as an argument for the view that the followed the procession.

⁹ Headlam, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 275; Mommsen, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 171;IG ii ² 334.30.

¹⁰ Bowie, op. cit. (n. 2), pp. 27–30.

¹¹ Mommsen, op. cit. (n. 6), pp. 18, 171.

¹² The Areopagus council tried homicide cases only on ‘accursed days’ (). The Panathenaia, because it was a festival celebrating renewal and restoration, would not have been held on a day that was . Greek cultic practice took care to draw boundaries between the two institutions which are coincident in the myth of foundation dramatized in the Oresteia. See Mikalson D., op. cit. (n. 1), p. 23; idem, “”, AJP 96 (1975), 19–27.

¹³ The main events of the Panathenaia, including the major procession from the Kerameikos, probably took place on the twenty-eighth day of the month of Hecatombion (Poll. 8.117; see Mommsen, op. cit. (n. 6), pp. 18, 171;Deubner, L., Attische Feste, ed.Doer, B., 2nd ed. [Berlin, 1966], pp.24–5). On the scheduling of the homicide trials, see Mommsen, op. cit. (n. 6), pp. 18, 171.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Mikalson, op. cit. (n. 1), pp. 106–7, 188.Rinck, W. F., Die Religion der Hellenen (Zurich, 1855), pp.233–4, had observed correctly that festivals were generally not held during the twentyseventh, twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth days of the month, but recognized that the Panathenaia would constitute an exception to this general rule. Concluding that Proclus or his sources had made a mistake in his statement that the main events of the Panathenaia occurred on the 28th of the month ( In Ti. 1.26), Rinck suggested emending to , a remedy which is surely too drastic and has not been accepted.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Mikalson, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 188.

¹⁶ The dramatized procession and the historical procession seem to show certain other parallel associations with the Areopagus. The historical procession, like its dramatized counterpart, may have originated on or near the Areopagus. Mommsen, op. cit. (n. 6), pp. 18, 171, argued that the all night festival generally thought to precede immediately the main procession of the Panathenaia, the [though see Pritchett, op. cit. (n. 1), 179–88], took place on the Areopagus. Pausanias (1.29.1) mentions that the cart which bore the in the historical procession was stored near the Areopagus for tourists to see.

¹⁷ See note 12 above.

¹⁸ Sommer, A. H., Aeschylus: Eumenides (Cambridge, 1989), p.11, points out that Aeschylus is probably innovating here in linking Furies with .Google Scholar