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A Career in the Navy (Arist. Knights 541–4)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Dwora Gilula
Dwora Gilula
Affiliation:
Hebrew University, Jerusalem
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Extract

Aristophanes' description of the stages of promotion in the Athenian navy recently received renewed attention, when Mastromarco and Halliwell enlisted it in their battle against the traditional opinion that Aristophanes' early career fell into two stages, a secret one of writing plays but not producing them, and a public one in which he undertook both activities. Mastromarco argues for a tripartite career, and Halliwell, who is against a too strict correlation, for a gradual development, a sort of a complex apprenticeship, which eventually he divides also into three stages similar to those discerned by Mastromarco. In summing up their position, MacDowell paraphrases the above passage according to its prevalent interpretation: ‘The nautical metaphor (541–4), with its progression from oarsman to prow-officer to helmsman, indicates that Aristophanes did not take over his task all at once, but by stages. But what were the stages?’

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , May 1989 , pp. 259 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

1 Mastromarco, G., ‘L'esordio “segreto”di Aristofane’, Quademi di Sloria 10 (1979), 153–96Google Scholar; Halliwell, S., ‘Aristophanes' Apprenticeship’, CQ 30 (1980), 33–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 MacDowell, D. M., ‘Aristophanes and Kallistratos’, CQ 32 (1982), 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Neil also adds a fourth stage, that of the κελε,σθ⋯ς, who gives time to the rowers and is one step above the oarsman, and quotes Pollux 1.95, who gives four stages ‘presumably in order of rank’, κυβερν⋯τϷς, πρῳρ⋯της, ναυτ⋯της. Halliwell (note 1, above), refers to it when he says that Knights 541–4 contains ‘Three, or maybe even four stages of a nautical career’ (p. 39), and sends the reader to Neil's comment ad loc. for details (p. 39 n. 28). Halliwell himself does not offer an interpretation of the passage independently of Neil's.

4 Cartault, A., La Triere Athenienne (Paris, 1881), pp. 226–7Google Scholar.

5 Dobree, P. P., Richardi Porsoni notae in Aristophanem (Cantabrigiae, 1820)Google Scholar.

6 Segre, M., ‘Dedica votiva dell'equipaggio di una nave rodia’, Clara Rhodos 8 (1936), 225–44Google Scholar.

7 Casson, L., Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1972). p. 302Google Scholar and note 9; for pedaliouchos cf. 306 n. 28; see also Jordan, B., The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period (Univ. of Cal. Publications: Classical Studies 18, 1975), p. 143Google Scholar, and Morrison, J. S., ‘Hyperesia in Naval Contexts’, JHS 104 (1984), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 21. Morrison interprets Plut. Mor. 812b–c as referring to the pedaliouchos, the man to whose charge the helmsman commits the tiller; but cf. Morrison, J. S. and Williams, R. T., Greek Oared Ships (Cambridge, 1968), p. 266Google Scholar (quoted by Sommerstein ad Knights 543), where the passage of Aristophanes is still explained with no reference to the pedaliouchos (it is not repeated in Morrison, J. S. and Coates, J. F., The Athenian Trireme (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar, cf. chapter 7 on ‘The Men’, pp. 107–18, esp. 114).

8 Cf., e.g., Schrader, H., ‘Kleon und Aristophanes Babylonier’, Philologus 36 (1877), 405–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where he maintains that Aristophanes started as a choreutes in the chorus of his own plays and subsequently had risen to be a chorus-leader before becoming finally a didaskalos; cf. also Mastromarco's attempt to achieve a satisfying strict correlation (n. 1, above) 172–3, and the literature he quotes, p. 190 nn. 37, 39. Mastromarco has restated his views, with references to Halliwell's and MacDowell's articles, in Commedie di Aristofane (Torino, 1983), 45–52Google Scholar.

9 MacDowell (n. 2, above), 22; it is, however, no longer possible to maintain that there is a close correspondence between the holder of the tiller in our passage and the holder of the reins in the chariot metaphor of Wasps 1022 (p. 23). The holder of the tiller is not the man who is in charge of the vehicle; see also Kent, R. G., ‘The Date of Aristophanes' Birth’, CR 19 (1905), 154Google Scholar.