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SOLDIERS AND SAILORS IN ARISTOPHANES' BABYLONIANS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2013

Jennifer S. Starkey
Jennifer S. Starkey*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado, Boulder
*
jennifer.s.starkey@colorado.edu
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Extract

Only two articles in the past century have attempted reconstructions of this play: Gilbert Norwood in 1930 conjectured a basis in tragic burlesque, specifically a parody of Aeschylus’ Edoni, due largely to the presence of Dionysus and a chorus of Babylonians. An entirely different plot was proposed in 1983 by David Welsh, who took as his starting point Herodotus’ account of the fall of Babylon; he thought that the chorus, envisioned as a group of refugees from the Persian empire, reflected the recent arrival in Athens of the grandson of the Persian primarily credited with the capture of Babylon. Though commentators on Aristophanic comedy and politics often affect to be on firm footing about this play, the total dissimilarity of these two reconstructions actually highlights our ignorance.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 501 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013 

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References

1 Norwood, G., ‘The Babylonians of Aristophanes’, CPh 25.1 (1930), 1–10Google Scholar. His central aim is to dispel the misconception that the chorus directly represents the allied city states. Instead, he takes ‘Babylonian’ as a catch-all for ‘barbarian’ and hence bacchant; Storey, I.C., ‘But comedy has satyrs too’, in Harrison, G.W.M. (ed.), Satyr Drama, (Swansea, 2005)Google Scholar, 202 seems to follow his lead while further extrapolating that the chorus consists of ‘satyrs costumed in stereotypically Eastern fashion’ (based, as far as I can tell, solely on frr. 68 and 75).

2 Welsh, D., ‘The chorus of Aristophanes' Babylonians’, GRBS 24.2 (1983), 137–50Google Scholar. He imagines the chorus to be represented as actual Babylonians on the grounds that the characters in the play are more puzzled at the sight of them (fr. 71, with Hesychius’ comments) than they would be at any Greek people (see especially pp. 137–9). Numerous other books and articles (e.g. commentaries on Acharnians) do of course give a general assessment of the play without attempting original reconstructions.

3 For thought experiments on what can and cannot be gained from reconstructing lost plays, see Dover, K., ‘Foreword: Frogments’, in Harvey, D. and Wilkins, J. (edd.), The Rivals of Aristophanes: Studies in Athenian Old Comedy (London, 2000), xvii–xxGoogle Scholar; Mastronarde, D.J., ‘The lost Phoenissae: an experiment in reconstruction from fragments’, in Cousland, J.R.C. and Hume, J.R. (edd.), The Play of Texts and Fragments: Essays in Honour of Martin Cropp (Leiden, 2009), 63–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Further bibliography in Kassel, R. and Austin, C. (edd.), Poetae Comici Graeci (PCG) (Berlin, 1983–)Google Scholar.

5 Cf. Storey, I.C., Eupolis: Poet of Old Comedy (Oxford, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 256 on Eupolis’ Taxiarchs.

6 For example, they may have been sent to Athens as part of a diplomatic agreement with Persia, or they may have been hired out collectively to the navy by their Greek master (and better minds than mine could certainly develop additional theories). As to the first option: Thuc. 2.7 refers ambiguously to embassies sent out to Persia and other neutral states by Athens and Sparta seeking aid in the first year of the war (cf. also Thuc. 1.82): Γεγενημένου δὲ τοῦ ἐν Πλαταιαῖς ἔργου καὶ λελυμένων λαμπρῶς τῶν σπονδῶν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι παρεσκευάζοντο ὡς πολεμήσοντες, παρεσκευάζοντο δὲ καὶ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι, πρεσβείας τε μέλλοντες πέμπειν παρὰ βασιλέα καὶ ἄλλοσε πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους, εἴ ποθέν τινα ὠϕελίαν ἤλπιζον ἑκάτεροι προσλήψεσθαι, πόλεις τε ξυμμαχίδας ποιούμενοι ὅσαι ἦσαν ἐκτὸς τῆς ἑαυτῶν δυνάμεως. I say ‘ambiguously’ because some have doubted whether πρεσβείας κτλ. apply to the Athenians as well as the Peloponnesians, but ἑκάτεροι suggests that they do (an interpretation adopted by Hornblower, S., A Commentary on Thucydides [Oxford, 1991–2008]Google Scholar and Gomme, A.W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides [Oxford, 1956]Google Scholar, following Wade-Gery). The other question is whether both sides moved from intention to action, though if they did not, it is strange that Thucydides does not explain why. Though not dealing explicitly with the navy, Ach. 134–72 and 61–125 evince the dramatic plausibility as early as 425 of Athenian acceptance of foreign troops (here, Thracian mercenaries) and of Persian gold. The Athenians employ Thracian mercenaries at Thuc. 7.27; the Spartans eventually succeed in forming an alliance with the Persians (Thuc. 8.17–18, 36–7, 57–8), who also assist them with money, cavalry (8.25) and ships (8.58).

As to the second option: most slaves made their way into the navy in this fashion – though an Athenian with twenty-four Babylonians for hire would surely be remarkable (perhaps suitably ludicrous for Aristophanic humour?). For slaves in the navy, see e.g. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.11; Hunt, P., Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians (Cambridge, 1998), 83–101Google Scholar; id., ‘The slaves and the generals of Arginusae’, AJPh 122.3 (2001), 359–80Google Scholar, at 367. It may be relevant to mention that the Chians and other states also used slaves to row: Thuc. 8.15.2; Hunt (2001), 370. See also Morrison, J.S., Coates, J.F. and Rankov, N.B., The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship (Cambridge, 2000 2), 117–18Google Scholar).

7 Herodotus describes the city itself, its initial conquest by Cyrus, and some of the natives’ customs at 1.178–200; the revolt and subsequent recapture of Babylon by Darius are treated at 3.150–60. Little of what Herodotus says in these main discussions is directly pertinent to this study, and elsewhere he sometimes omits the Babylonians in surprising passages (e.g. the description of Xerxes’ forces at 7.61–99).

8 See e.g. the discussion of Ach. 61–4 in Miller, M., Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century bc: A Study in Cultural Receptivity (Cambridge, 1997), 189–92Google Scholar; Hall, E., Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy (Oxford, 1989), 56–100Google Scholar; updated in ead., ‘Recasting the barbarian’, in ead., The Theatrical Cast of Athens: Interactions between Ancient Greek Drama and Society (Oxford, 2006)Google Scholar.

9 See Hall (n. 8, 1989), 97–8 for the Athenian attitude toward the Persian government. Missiou, A., ‘Δοῦλος τοῦ βασιλέως: the politics of translation’, CQ 43.2 (1993), 377–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar discusses the respective Greek and Persian views of the term ‘slave’, arguing that δοῦλος τοῦ βασιλέως is a translation of a Persian phrase signifying close followers and confidants of the king, though she acknowledges that Athenian political views corresponded conveniently to this use of δοῦλος. Lewis, D., ‘Near Eastern slaves in Classical Attica and the slave trade with Persian territories’, CQ 61.1 (2011), 91–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 99–102 describes the prevalence of barbarian slaves in Greek comedy, though his study focusses on slaves from Asia Minor and the Levant. But if Aristophanes portrayed his Babylonians as the metaphorical ‘slaves’ of the Persian government, then the scarcity of actual Babylonian slaves in Athens may not be relevant to his conception; indeed, Welsh (n. 2), 142 cites this scarcity as his reason for understanding the Babylonians as figurative slaves. Miller (n. 8), 97 provides evidence that large numbers of Persians settled in Babylon; she also discusses briefly (117–21) Babylon's prominence within the Persian empire as one of four major capitals. All of this may have been known to the Athenians if Herodotus’ work had been recently published or if he had given public readings of it; cf. Welsh (n. 2), 148–50 and see the bibliography in Asheri, D. et al. (edd.), A Commentary on Herodotus, Books I–IV (Oxford, 2007), 51 n. 125Google Scholar. If so, then the Athenians would have had additional reason to link Aristophanes’ chorus to Persia, as well as taking it on its own terms.

10 Consider frr. 77 and 79 (which could also bear on Dionysus; see below and n. 12).

11 Miller (n. 8), 1. She later comments (28) on the apparent rash of comedies in the 420s that ‘attest to the general interest in and desire to laugh at the East’. For foreigners in Greek drama, see also Hall (n. 8) and Long, T., Barbarians in Greek Comedy (Carbondale, 1986)Google Scholar.

12 By the time of the writer of Σ Peace 741e, the cowardly Dionysus had become something of a stock character (ἐπεπόλαζε γὰρ τότε ταῦτα· Ἡρακλῆς πεινῶν, Διόνυσος δειλὸς καὶ μοιχὸς घεύς).

13 For this scene, see Eup. fr. 268. Eupolis’ Dionysus also experiences other aspects of military life that may well recur in Babylonians; see Storey (n. 5), 253–60 and Wilson, A.M., ‘A Eupolidean precedent for the rowing scene in Aristophanes' Frogs?’, CQ 24.2 (1974), 250–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who characterizes these two figures thus (252): ‘Phormio was renowned as a naval commander and would presumably school Dionysus above all in the sailor's skills; Dionysus was utterly ill-suited to the military life and would presumably perform most inadequately as a sailor’. Aristophanes’ Διόνυσος ναυαγός is another possible parallel for this theme, though we can say little more about it; and Aristomenes’ Διόνυσος ἀσκητής fits well with my broader point about Dionysus, since the god's performance as an athlete would surely be as poor as his performance as a sailor. See also PCG under Ar. Διόνυσος ναυαγός for a convenient list of comedies relating Dionysus to the sea, and cf. Hermippus fr. 63.

14 The date of Taxiarchs is uncertain. If Phormio appeared as a living character, it should have been produced before his death, which is generally assumed to have been in 428, based on his permanent disappearance from the historical record between Thuc. 2.103 and 3.7. Bowie, E.L., ‘Who is Dicaeopolis?’, JHS 108 (1988), 183–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 185 sets Taxiarchs in 429/8; his concern is to establish an anti-war persona for Eupolis in the context of Acharnians. Storey (n. 5), 246–8, on the other hand, prefers 415, immediately prior to the Sicilian expedition. Wilson (n. 13) suggests that Taxiarchs may be a precursor to Frogs, which would only require a date before 405. While it is entirely possible that both poets are merely using a familiar theme without any necessary connection between plays, it is not an unattractive hypothesis that Babylonians and Frogs were both founded on a production of Taxiarchs in 428, immediately after Phormio's victories in the Gulf of Corinth. It may also be worth recalling the ancient perception of collaboration (and plagiarism) among comic poets, on which see Halliwell, S., ‘Authorial collaboration in the Athenian comic theatre’, GRBS 30.4 (1989), 515–28Google Scholar; Storey, I.C., ‘Notus est omnibus Eupolis’, in Sommerstein, A.H. et al. (edd.), Tragedy, Comedy, and the Polis (Bari, 1993), 373–96Google Scholar; and Biles, Z.P., ‘Aristophanes' victory dance: old poets in the parabasis of Knights’, ZPE 136 (2001), 195–200Google Scholar, the last of whom stresses the apparent prevalence of this phenomenon among the younger generation of comic poets.

15 Greek text taken from Garvie, A.F. (ed.), Aeschylus: Persae (Oxford, 2009)Google Scholar; the translation is mine.

16 σύρδην is strange. It perhaps refers to a line of ships (cf. Lyc. 217, cited by Broadhead, H.D. [ed.], Aeschylus: Persae [Cambridge, 1960]Google Scholar, ad loc.), or the line made by the crews as they disembark and enter Susa.

17 The greatest difficulty in taking it this way is πάμμικτον, which indicates different types of people within the group; Garvie (n. 15) believes that it denotes an ethnic blend. It is not inconceivable, however, that it could refer to the mixture of roles played by the same people – not your run-of-the-mill archers or sailors, but an amalgamation of the two. Broadhead (n. 16), ad loc. also understands it ethnically, though he conceives of the ναῶν ἐπόχους and archers as separate groups: in his view, the terseness of Aeschylus’ treatment of the eastern Persian Empire (only these three lines), together with his unfamiliarity with that region, suggests ‘that the poet's aim was to give a very general impression of the multifarious components of the vast army … and that Babylon, which was at least a well-known name, was regarded as sufficiently representing the east’; he also acknowledges the possibility that Babylon was imagined as the gathering point for the eastern regiments of the army.

18 Cf. Garvie (n. 15), ad loc. It became standard during the Peloponnesian War for one ship to carry four archers and ten marines, though during the Persian Wars the number of marines serving on each ship could vary widely (anywhere from ten to forty). Morrison et al. (n. 6), 50 state without argument that the extra forty Sacae serving on shipboard at Hdt. 7.184 are archers.

19 This passage may seem problematic for my thesis in so far as it suggests a certain level of competence for these Babylonian archers. But a comic playwright may easily reverse or stereotype otherwise serious material. The ideas represented by the words πολύχρυσος and τοξουλκῶι λήματι πιστούς in these lines are often negatively stereotyped in Athenian political thought. In Aeschylus’ tragedy, gold denotes Persia's wealth (cf. Hdt.1.192 for the wealth of Babylon in comparison to other Persian territories and see Hall [n. 8, 1989], 80–1) but, as a matter of stereotype, excessive wealth came to be equated with corruption and indolence. Archery is treated as inherently cowardly at Soph. Aj. 1120–5, and the same attitude is suggested by Pers. 239–40, where Hall, E. (ed.), Aeschylus: Persians (Warminster, 2007 2)Google Scholar comments, ‘In classical times the Athenians despised archery, regarding it as a cowardly mode of fighting from a distance, suitable only for Scythians and Cretans’, and cites also Eur. HF 157–64; see also her remarks in ead. (n. 8, 1989), 85–6. If these ideas can be treated so variously in non-tragic (and even tragic!) contexts, the same is likely to be true of Babylonian sailors and marines, who may be treated seriously here by Aeschylus but caricatured in Aristophanes. See also Garvie (n. 15) on line 26 for the historicity of Persian archers.

20 Hall (n. 19), ad loc.

21 The fragments are given as in PCG; all translations of Aristophanes are adapted from J. Henderson's Loeb editions. Norwood (n. 1), 6 also finds significance in the proportion of fragments relating to the sea; he seems to think they all derive from the same scene, the landing of a vessel. But this appears less likely when we consider the metrical variety among the fragments and the fact that at least one of them (82) comprises third-person narration and another (85) a second-person command.

22 Fr. 87 (ἐς τὸν λίμενα) might also be relevant, though we are told that it comes from a proverb describing Athenian rowers’ eagerness to reach land once they have been spotted from there. I have therefore omitted it from my list, but it does seem a nice coincidence that it should fit so well with a more broadly attested maritime theme; though proverbial, it may well have been applied literally to just the sort of situation that it describes.

23 For a summation of Phormio's comic characterization, with relevant bibliography, see Storey (n. 5), 250–2.

24 Storey (n. 5), in arguing for Dionysus rather than Phormio as the butt of Eupolis’ jokes in Taxiarchs, describes a situation similar to the one that may have occurred in Babylonians (258): ‘the humour of the scene is at the expense of the pupil, while the teacher assumes the role of the “straight man” … In these scenes, as in the majority of the intruder scenes, one character is intruding upon another's own and familiar ground and through being in unfamiliar territory creates humour by manifesting his ignorance and discomfiture. The other figure, being on his home turf, assumes the less humourous role.’ For further ancient parallels of this type of comic scene, see Biles, Z.P., ‘Intertextual biography in the rivalry of Cratinus and Aristophanes’, AJPh 123.2 (2002), 169–204Google Scholar, at 187, with n. 60; he describes the type in very similar terms: ‘one character is instructed by another, while the humor derives from the student's inability to achieve minimal standards and the teacher's resulting frustration’.

25 Charles, J.F., ‘The marines of Athens’, CJ 44.3 (1948), 181–8Google Scholar provides a good overview of Greek ἐπιβάται and extensive citation of the primary sources, though not all of his views have found general acceptance (e.g. he includes the archers on a trireme under the heading of ‘marine’). Athenian marines seem to have been basically seagoing hoplites, and in addition to boarding enemy ships (an uncommon tactic during the Peloponnesian War) and preventing the enemy from boarding theirs, they could be deployed in beachhead operations (184–6), which makes it likely that they trained on land at least some of the time.

26 Choruses address themselves, or their individual members, in the singular with some frequency (e.g. Ach. 204, Birds 1720), and it is common for half-choruses to address each other in the singular (e.g. Ach. 557–72, Soph. Aj. 875).

27 This seems to be a technical term for the chorus's dancing formation (cf. Poll. 4.108–9), but that by no means makes it incompatible with a training scene, in which certain types of choreography could have been very appropriate indeed (such as the activity described in fr. 72). Though marines on board a ship would not have fought in tight formation, they sometimes fought (and therefore probably trained) on land; see n. 25 above.

28 Welsh (n. 2), 142–3 conjectures that mention of the Persian king in the parabasis of Acharnians may indicate a like mention or even appearance in Babylonians.

29 The substance of fr. 71. These would be standard punishments for actual slaves; according to Morrison et al. (n. 6), 117–18 the greatest danger posed by slave-rowers was not incompetence but desertion. In his reconstruction, Norwood (n. 1), 9 acknowledges the possibility that the chorus may be tattooed at some point during the play rather than being that way from the beginning. If we do assume the ancient equivalent of a court martial (as in fr. 237, for example, which also holds interest for the connection it makes with foreigners), then this could provide a context for Dionysus’ trial (frr. 68, 75), though the evidence cannot be pushed too hard.

30 Attributed to Babylonians by Bergk, T., ‘Aristophanis fragmenta’, in Meineke, A. (ed.), Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1841)Google Scholar, followed by Kock, T., Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1880)Google Scholar.

31 The term used here is γέρρα, as at 9.61, where the shields are again used by archers; cf. 9.99. The only occurrence of ἰτέη in Herodotus is at 1.194 where it is used of the shield-shaped boats which the Armenians use in trading with Babylon.

32 Ach. 378–82 (with scholion on 378), 502–8, 628–64. The scholion adds the detail that Aristophanes attacked both elected and allotted officials, which to my mind suggests criticism of the government as a whole and its policy; the most prominent elected and allotted officials were, respectively, the generals and councilmen, who would have had a hand both in formulating Athenian foreign policy and in judging Aristophanes’ trial. For a complete treatment of the lawsuits supposedly brought against Aristophanes, see Sommerstein, A.H., ‘Harassing the satirist: the alleged attempts to prosecute Aristophanes’, in Sluiter, I. and Rosen, R.M. (edd.), Free Speech in Classical Antiquity (Leiden, 2004)Google Scholar; cf. MacDowell, D.M., Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays (Oxford, 1995), 30–4 and 42–4Google Scholar.

33 MacDowell, D.M., The Law in Classical Athens (Ithaca, NY, 1978), 184Google Scholar. On the procedure of εἰσαγγελία, see also Hansen, M.H., Eisangelia: The Sovereignty of the People's Court in Athens in the Fourth Century b.c. and the Impeachment of Generals and Politicians (Odense, 1975)Google Scholar and Rhodes, P.J., The Athenian Boule (Oxford, 1972), esp. 162–71Google Scholar. The term and its cognates were often applied broadly to other types of suit but, strictly speaking, refer only to serious suits brought before the council or assembly.

34 Sommerstein (n. 32), 148 on Σ Ach. 378: ‘the scholia say that in this play Aristophanes “satirized the magistrates, both those chosen by lot and those chosen by vote, and Cleon”. Their ultimate authority for this statement will have been the text of Babylonians itself; the surviving fragments of that play (less than 150 words in all) provide no direct evidence in support of it, but there is satire both on Cleon and on elective officials (e.g. generals, ambassadors) in all Aristophanes’ surviving plays of the 420s, and sometimes also on sortitive officials, whether individually or collectively, so it would hardly be surprising if Babylonians contained passages directed at all three targets. It is most likely, however, that so far as “magistrates” are concerned, the reference is to a single passage in which a single sweeping accusation was made against the magistrates (or some magistrates) of both types at once; this best accounts for the somewhat unusual phraseology employed.’ If Sommerstein is correct, this scholiastic statement may well refer to a feature of the play other than the naval and military themes I have been discussing (perhaps something in the parabasis), and its implied connection with Cleon's lawsuit is surely mere conjecture; the writer is confused about the type of lawsuit (Sommerstein [n. 32], 147) and probably drew this conclusion based on what is said in Acharnians and his general knowledge of the relationship between Cleon and Aristophanes. Thus, there is a strong possibility that this scholion is simply irrelevant to my suggestion regarding the impact of Babylonians.

But for those who reject these arguments, a way out is available: if Aristophanes means to dramatize the extreme results of what he sees as a questionable naval policy (e.g. the decision to seek aid from Persia; see n. 6), then his criticism might be expected to focus on those responsible for making that policy. These policy-makers would include, among other possibilities, the generals and the council. Both may contribute to the formulation of policy, the generals by speaking in the assembly, the council by creating an agenda for the assembly and making recommendations; further, Rhodes (n. 33), 114–22 notes that the council saw to the administration and outfitting of the navy and that ‘naval matters were among those issues of public importance which could be made the subject of an εἰσαγγελία to the boule’. Further, some have thought that Cleon brought his εἰσαγγελία against Aristophanes while serving on the council (as we know he did some time before 424: Eq. 773–6); it is equally possible that Aristophanes attacked Cleon in Babylonians because of his actions as a member of that body.

35 See Hanson, V.D., A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War (New York, 2005), 266Google Scholar, emphasizing the Athenian empire's dependence on the navy, and also 88: ‘the Athenians were paranoid about revolts among the subjects of the empire, in part due to losses from the plague and the impression that the city was too beleaguered to enforce its overseas rule’. Ober, J., Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule (Princeton, 1998), 95Google Scholar comments that a Spartan expedition to Ionia in 428 (Thuc. 3.29–33), two years before Babylonians, ‘threw a bad fright into the Athenians’, who ‘were used to thinking of the Aegean as their private lake’. Also relevant is Xen. Hell. 2.2.20: when Athens was finally defeated in 404, her navy was reduced to only twelve ships.

36 My thanks are due to the editor and anonymous referee for many helpful comments; I am also grateful for the incisive criticism of John Gibert and Peter Hunt, neither of whom should be assumed to agree with my conclusions.