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Dynasty and Family in the Athenian City State: A View From Attic Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Judith Maitland
Judith Maitland
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia
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Extract

Greek tragedy shows a serious preoccupation with family concerns. Some of these concerns seem beyond the scope of ordinary family experience, particularly in the matter of the behaviour of women. The apparent discrepancy between historical evidence and the literary presentation of women has long been noted and variously explained. I want to suggest that this discrepancy reflects a way of distinguishing between the objectives and behaviour of the great aristocratic clans and of those families which were neither so wealthy nor so politically influential. A dichotomy is thus presented between dynastic interests and the interests of the ordinary family as a well-regulated part of the Athenian city state.

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Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , May 1992 , pp. 26 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1992

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References

1 See, for example, Zeitlin, Froma I., ‘The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Myth-making in the Oresteia’, in John, Peradotto and Sullivan, J. P. (eds), Women in the Ancient World (Albany, 1984), 159–94Google Scholar; Bachofen, J. J., Myth, Religion and Mother Right (Princeton, 1967), esp. pp. 157–72Google Scholar; Simon, Pembroke, ‘Women in Charge: the Function of Alternatives in Early Greek Tradition and the Ancient Idea of Matriarchy’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 30 (1967), 1–35Google Scholar; Simon, Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: the Oresteia (Cambridge, 1984)Google Scholar; Philip, Slater, The Glory of Hera (Boston, 1968)Google Scholar; George, Thomson, Aeschylus and Athens (London, 1973)Google Scholar, especially chapters XV–XVIII; Charles, Segal, Interpreting Greek Tragedy (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986)Google Scholar, especially chapters 1, 11; Synnøve des, Bouvrie, Women in Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar; Gould, J., ‘Law, Custom, and Myth: Aspects of the Social Position of Women in Classical Athens’, JHS 100 (1980), 38–59, p. 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who warns that ‘demonstrably false assertions are characteristic of this particular field of inquiry’.

With reference to the topic of this paper, see Humphreys, S. C., Anthropology and the Greeks (London, 1978), pp. 202–3Google Scholar; it is to be noted that Humphreys finds the ‘exceptionally important part’ played by kinship and family in Attic drama ‘unexpected in view of the dominance of public life in Athens’.

2 In general, the term refers to the degree of power exercised, and may be opposed to the idea of democracy, as in Aeschines, Ctes. 114.9, or likened to tyranny (Demosthenes, Phil. 4.4.7). Demosthenes also (Epit. 25.3) speaks of δυναστεα in connection with a few men, as Thucydides does in the passage cited here.

3 The accounts of early Athenian political history in Herodotus 5, and chs. 66–9 in particular, show the importance of dynastic concerns during the period before and after the foundations of democracy were laid.

4 S. C. Humphreys, op. cit. (n. 1), notes (p. 196) that it is generally agreed that genos organisation was largely confined to the nobility. A striking objection to the principles embodied by the genos is uttered by the Danaides in Aesch. Supp. 335:‘I have no wish to become a body slave (δµως) to this Egyptian tribe.’

5 See Humphreys, S. C., The Family, Women and Death (London and Boston, 1983), p. 67Google Scholar. Also McDowell, D. M., ‘The Oikos in Athenian Law’, CQ 39 (1989), 10–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, defending the notion that the term must refer to the whole of the property, and making the point that Athenian law did not recognise the rights of families but of persons.

6 Lin, Foxhall, ‘Household, Gender and Property in Classical Athens’, CQ 39 (1989), 22–44Google Scholar, in discussing this question notes (p. 31) that the head of the household mediated between public and private life, and pays particular attention to ambiguities of language and position, pp. 30–1.

7 Simon, Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar, suggests that the kind of power that is questioned in tragedy is that generated by the civic ideology; my contention is that tragedy is a product of that civic ideology.

8 A useful recent summary and bibliography of this work is provided by Gillian, Clark, Women in the Ancient World, Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics, no. 21 (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar. For an excellent analysis of recent work, see Humphreys 1983, ch. 3.

9 See Dover's, K. J. remarks, subtitled Resistance, ‘Classical Greek Attitudes to Sexual Behaviour’, Peradotto and Sullivan, op. cit., 143–58, pp. 148–9.Google Scholar

10 One can only guess at the difficulties in the situation of the daughter of Polyeuctus in Demosthenes 41, to be discussed below. Less complex but equally difficult is the situation of the daughter of Diogeiton in Lysias 32. Married to her uncle, she was subsequently compelled to press for her children's rights from one who was at once her father and her brother-in-law, and her children's uncle and grandfather. She appears to have done so with great vigour and effect. For a discussion of Cleobule's situation in Demosthenes 27–9 see Virginia, Hunter, ‘Women's Authority in Classical Athens’, EMC I Classical Views 8.1 (1989), 39–48.Google Scholar

11 On this material see especially Walter, Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley, 1979)Google Scholar; Kirk, G. S., Myth: its Meaning and Function in Ancient and Other Cultures (Cambridge, 1970)Google Scholar; Charles Segal, op. cit. (n. 1), ch. 2; Brian, Vickers, Towards Greek Tragedy (London, 1973)Google Scholar, part 2. Burkert, pp. 6–7, discusses ‘those sentimental stories about the mothers of important heroes’. Following Propp, Burkert lists five stages in ‘the girl's tragedy’. They are interesting in that they catalogue the risks and rewards of female dynastic enterprise – not, I think, the natural course of events from puberty to childbirth, as Burkert suggests, p. 16. Kirk notes the great dynasties (p. 180), and the ‘thematic simplicity, almost shallowness of Greek myth’, p. 187. The list pp. 187–9 could be greatly simplified by seeing 3, 5–7, 9–16, 20, 23–4 as aspects and problems of dynastic behaviour. I think there is more to displacement of elders (p. 199) than ‘the cruelty and suppressed ruthlessness of human nature and its frustrated resentment of old age itself’.

12 Note the emphasis in Cho. 135–7, 301 etc. on Orestes' claims to his inheritance.

13 Aeschylus: Agamemnon, ed. Denniston, J. D. and Denys, Page (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 66.Google Scholar

14 This is in accordance with the routine dynastic claims in Homer, tracing the origins of a family to a deity.

15 For a discussion of the similarity between the stories of Orestes and Alcmaon, see Delcourt, C., Oreste et Alcmaon (Paris, 1959)Google Scholar. Christiane, Sourvinou-Inwood, Theseus as Son and Stepson – a Tentative Illustration of the Greek Mythological Mentality (BICS supplement 40 (1979))Google Scholar, who offers mythological and iconographical evidence to show that in a series of vase paintings of c. 460–440 b.c. Theseus is attempting to kill not Aithra but Medea. Whether or not one accepts the main argument, there is much interesting material here, particularly on the subject of the theme of matricide. The question of feminine enterprise found its way into Roman historiography; for its appearance in the saga of the Etruscan domination of Rome see Ogilvie, R. M., A Commentary on Livy, Books 1–5 (Oxford, 1965), pp. 184ffGoogle Scholar. Livy, like Herodotus, associates female enterprise with the undesirable aspects of tyrannical behaviour, and adds the stories of the good wife competition and of Lucretia (1.57–8) in appropriate contrast. Like Herodotus, Livy also associates this kind of behaviour with foreigners. Although this method has much in common with that of Greek tragedy, it may well be due not so much to conscious imitation as to similar clashes of interests and values occurring in the early days of the Roman state. Iain, McDougall, ‘Livy and Etruscan Women’, The Ancient History Bulletin 4.2 (1990), 24–30Google Scholar, suggests that ‘Livy's narrative is more suggestive of certain phenomena in his own contemporary society…' (p. 25).

16 I have followed Murray's numbering, O.C.T. 1955.

17 Liana, Lupas and Zoe, Petrie, Commentaire aux ‘Sept contre Thèbes’ d'Eschyle (Bucharest and Paris, 1981)Google Scholar, include in their observations on this most contentious topic the observation (p. 282) ‘Le jugement… n'est pas, en fin de compte, une démonstration philologique rigoureuse, il est plutôt un verdict d'ordre esthétique.’

18 The way in which Aeschylus treats Zeus in this play has caused various scholars to doubt that he is in fact the author. Certainly the attitude to dynastic matters here displayed is consistent with his practice; it may be that he saw an opportunity to condemn the traditional view of Zeus as an old fashioned dynast. For the issue of authenticity, see Griffith, M., The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, 1977).Google Scholar

19 Neuburg, M., ‘How Like a Woman: Antigone's “Inconsistency”’, CQ 40 (1990), 54–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, contrasts the claims of marriage- and blood-ties but fails to explain the conflict between them, only describing this conflict as a theme. It is not so much that Creon has ‘rendered…problematic…the universe of social roles and ties around which the play revolves’ (p. 75, n. 58), but that this universe is already problematic, being in flux.

20 Foxhall, , CQ 39 (1989), 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, suggests that ‘it is inappropriate to consider property solely as a function of individual ownership’. This case would certainly bear her out, but for a different point of view see McDowell, D. M., CQ 39 (1989), 10–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 It would be mischievous, and not in accordance with the dramatist's purpose, to suggest that Creon might be well advised to marry Ismene as the surviving epikleros.

22 See Denniston's discussion of πνης νρ γενναῖος, Euripides, Electra, ed. with commentary (Oxford, 1939), p. 80.Google Scholar

23 Pearson, , Euripides: Phoenissae (Cambridge, 1909), p. 102Google Scholar, notes ‘the traditional fear of an endogamous tribe’, and Elizabeth, Craik, Euripides: Phoenician Women (London, 1988)Google Scholar, observes that ‘attitudes of Classical Athens are anachronistically imported’. Euripides, however, is not making a slip.

24 See Foxhall, , CQ 39 (1989), 40–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Humiliation, or simply the fear of it, is sufficient motive for drastic action on many occasions. The Iliad tells the story of Achilles' response to public humiliation, and this is the motive Sophocles gives for Ajax' suicide. These are only two of the many examples to be found throughout Greek classical literature. For a discussion of the incoherencies of 1021–80 see Reeve, M. D., ‘Euripides, Medea 1021–1080’, CQ 22 (1972), 51–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While condemning 1073–4 he sees no need to reject 1059–71; this seems to be correct, though admittedly he offers a drastic solution to the problem of κεῖ (1058).

26 Most of the humour in Lysistrata and Thesmophoriazusae derives from the suggestion that women are not too interested, but simply interested, in sex; and this, of course, is what is wrong with Medea in Euripides' play.

27 Cicero takes advantage of such fears when assassinating the character of Sassia in Pro Cluentio 12–16, 26–9, 185ff.

28 Barrett, W. S., Euripides: Hippolytus (Oxford, 1964), p. 3Google Scholar, notes that the Theseis may have originated during Pisistratean times, and that Theseus does not appear on vases till the last quarter of the sixth century b.c.

29 Heleen, Sancisi-Weerdenburg, ‘Exit Atossa: Images of Women in Greek Historiography on Persia’, in Averil, Cameron and Amélie, Kuhrt (eds), Images of Women in Antiquity (London, 1983)Google Scholar, notes that the idea of Persian women thus transmitted was a useful means of pointing up undesirable aspects of Persian culture. In particular, Sancisi-Weerdenburg observes that although Herodotus' account of Atossa's career seems correct she is not mentioned in Persian documents, nor do any women appear on the reliefs at Persepolis. Edith, Hall, Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar, in introducing her argument notes that ‘the polarisation of barbarian and Hellene became a popular rhetorical topos in tragedy’ (p. 11) and effectively pursues the notion that tragedy was a means by which this prejudice could be reinforced in the community. I would add that this prejudice was extended to those whose class and resources enabled them to form alliances with other great clans, including the Persian ruling dynasties.

30 I have discussed a selection of examples which merited examination in some detail. A few points may be made concerning some of the remaining plays, and some general remarks made about each playwright. Aeschylus' Suppliants depicts the daughters of Danaus choosing to obey their father rather than transfer their loyalties to another clan. The Persians revels in the collapse of the scarcely concealed hopes of the matriarch Atossa. Sophocles is inclined to show the stresses brought to bear by the community on the individual; Philoctetes is certainly no exception. Euripides for his part, and Aeschylus to a lesser extent, incorporate a tendency to resolve disputes by divine arbitration resulting in one or more imposed marriages, as in Orestes and Electra. Territories are allocated, and women are comforted in their afflictions by hope in their progeny, as for example in Andromache and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound.

31 Certain individuals receive attention in their own right; but even Theseus, who generally receives favourable portrayal, cannot escape the tragedy that befalls the great. Odysseus is an exception to this trend: yet the remark of Dio Chrysostom, in his 52nd discourse, that the character of Odysseus in the Sophocles play is so much more gentle and frank than Euripides depicts him, seems to indicate that the character of the self-reliant entrepreneur received less favourable portrayal during the era of the city state.

32 For a discussion with full notes of this problem see Garvie, A. F., Aeschylus' Supplices – Play and Trilogy (Cambridge, 1969)Google Scholar, ch. IV. The notion that theatre may function as propaganda is persuasively supported by Sourvinou-Inwood, op. cit.

33 Geddes, A. G. ‘Who's Who in Homer’, CQ 34 (1984), 36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Burkert, for instance, op. cit. (n. 11), p. 18, remarks: ‘tale structures, as sequences of motifemes, are founded on basic biological or cultural programs of action… the pre-established structure of myth is a convenient tool for dealing with new facts, with the unknown.’ My comment is that historical change of programme made its own impact. Vernant, J.-P. and Vidal-Naquet, P., Mythe et Tragédie en Grèce Ancienne (Sussex, 1981)Google Scholar, discern, on a psychological and sociological basis, a historical change of mentality, and find that tragedy expresses the triumph of the collective values imposed by the city state. Segal, op. cit. (n. 1), pays particular attention to the implications of the change from the oral to the literate mode of narration.

35 Scholarly opinion varies concerning the ‘Pisistratean Recension’; Whitman, , Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge, Mass. 1958), p. 74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, rejects the remarks of Cicero, De Orat. 34.137 as written ‘nearly half a millenium after the event’, but concedes, pp. 74–5, that Athenian requirements may have imposed a certain form and order on the Homeric corpus. Rufus, Bellamy, ‘Bellerophon's Tablet’, CJ 84 (1989), 289–307Google Scholar, uses the principle of ‘long by position’ to suggest that hexameters cannot be composed without familiarity with an alphabet. While I am not altogether convinced by the argument, it does have the merit of bringing the composition of the epics nearer in time to their compilation.

36 For a discussion of this and other topics related to the emergence of the hoplite state, see Forrest, W. G., The Emergence of Greek Democracy (London, 1966)Google Scholar, and the comments of G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, , The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London, 1981), pp. 281–2.Google Scholar

37 Davies, J. K., Athenian Propertied Families 600–300 BC (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar, makes it clear in his introduction that dynastic practice, influence and aspirations did not simply become a thing of the past in 580 b.c. In his observations throughout the work he shows the difficulties encountered in substantiating genealogical claims, e.g. in the case of Solon and Critias pp. 322–6, and in the process of explanation cites Ferguson's remark, Hellenistic Athens (London, 1911), p. 17Google Scholar, that one such claim at least was ‘politically programmatic’.

38 A sign of this process is the law against undue female influence, which Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 35, notes was repealed by the Thirty during their programme to restore oligarchy. Another occasion for female prominence is that of mourning; in a most interesting paper delivered in 1990 at the conference ‘Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis’, Nottingham University, Helene Foley found a link between female lamentation and clan vendetta, noting that female lamentation may even be actively discouraged, as by the pedagogue in Sophocles' Electra. Foxhall, , CQ 39 (1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, questions whether households were necessarily male-dominated simply because women could not own property, noting (p. 23) that if gender is the most vigorous expression of polarity, ‘the household embodies the unification of the male/ female opposition’. It may be that seclusion of women by the upper classes was a tacit means of avoiding reproach for oligarchic tendencies: in writing of another time Barbara, Levick, Claudius (London, 1990), p. 46Google Scholar, notes ‘the prominence of women in the principates of Gaius and Claudius shows how much progress had been made towards making the supreme position virtually the hereditary possession of a single family’.

39 Gould, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 57.

40 I am indebted to Dr Neil O'Sullivan and Dr David Konstan, who read this paper in draft and offered many helpful comments and suggestions, and also to the anonymous reader for Classical Quarterly.