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The wisdom of Thales and the problem of the word IEPOΣ1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael Clarke
Michael Clarke
Affiliation:
Christ's College, Cambridge
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Extract

Those who write about early Greek literature often assume that each item in the ancient vocabulary answers to a single concept in the world-view of its users. It seems reasonable to hope that the body of ideas represented by a particular Greek word will frame one's discussion better than any question that could be asked in English: so that a cautious scholar might prefer to discuss the phenomenon called αἰδώς, for example, than to plunge into a study of Greek ideas of ‘honour and shame' irrespective of whether those anthropologists’ labels mark off a single body of ancient ideas. But the question is not merely one of common sense: in recent years, for example, a strategy of extrapolating deep ideas from single words has been deliberately developed by such scholars as Gregory Nagy, who constantly moves back and forth between the semantic patterns of individual words and corresponding thematic patterns found in myths. Here is a recent example from his analysis of Pindar's conception of the unity between athletic victory and mythical heroism:

In Pindaric usage ἂεθλος applies equally to the contests of athletes and to the life-and-death ordeals of heroes. We have already seen from the myth of the chariot race of Pelops that the ordeals of heroes on the level of myth correspond aetiologically to the contests of athletes on the level of ritual, in that the myths can motivate the rituals. Now we see that a word like ἂεθλος can collapse the very distinction between the myth and the ritual.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , December 1995 , pp. 296 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

2 I refer here to Cairns', D. L. study, Aidōs: the psychology and ethics of honour and shame in ancient Greek literature (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar. Cairns organizes his study according to the attested meaning(s) of αἰδώς and its cognates, while also setting it against the general background of the anthropologists' controversy over ‘shame-cultures’ and ‘guilt-cultures’ (see esp. 14–47). Although this approach is supple and reasonable in practice, it can still be objected that Cairns treats αἰδώς as ‘the concept under investigation’ (p. 1, with my italics) without defending his belief that word and concept are one and the same.

3 Nagy, G., Pindar's Homer (Baltimore, 1990), 137Google Scholar.

4 See Nagy, G., The Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore, 1979), 2–3, 78–9Google Scholar; Nagy, G., ‘Homeric questions’ (TAPhA 122 [1992], 17–60), 27Google Scholar.

5 I have not found a useful treatment of this theme from a philosophical perspective: the tradition headed by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf has addressed itself more to the relationship between thought-proceses and grammatical structures than to that between world-picture and vocabulary. Among the Hellenists a distinct but kindred question crops up in critiques of Bruno Snell's theory (Die Entdeckung des Geistes [4th ed., Göttingen, 1975]Google Scholar, ch. 1) that Homer does not see either the body or the ‘psychic self’ as a unity because he does not call either by a single all-encompassing name. The riposte is that the absence of a word to represent a concept does not imply lack of awareness of the concept itself. See most recently Gaskin, R., ‘Do Homeric heroes make real decisions?’ CQ 40 (1990), 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The strongest tradition in antiquity was that Thales left nothing in writing except a ‘nautical Star-Guide’ (see no. 29 D–K, also Diogenes Laertius 1.29, with Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M., The Presocratic philosophers [2nd ed., Cambridge, 1983], 87–8)Google Scholar. Since Diogenes Laertius'reference to the magnet story mentions Hippias as well as Aristotle, it is possible that his book was Aristotle's source (suggested by KRS, 95).

7 See esp. the elaborate sequence of thought worked out by Barnes, J., The Presocratic philosophers (2nd ed., London, 1982), 5–6Google Scholar.

8 I take this line despite the fact that KRS (95) judge that ‘εἲπερ need not, and probably does not, express doubt’, while Barnes (loc. cit.) takes it as ‘since’ while admitting uncertainty. The grammatical problem is interesting. My computer survey shows that Aristotle uses εἲπερ most often in connecting the steps of an argument, where it approximates to ‘if it be granted that…’. Naturally this will be indistinguishable from ‘since…’ whenever the argument is one that Aristotle himself is espousing. He uses εἲπερ much less often when facts, disputed or otherwise, are being discussed: here there are a number of instances where it suggests scepticism. In subject-matter and form the closest parallel to our passage is one where Aristotle refers to a bizarre theory about the anatomy of lower animals which was said to have been held by Democritus: the clause begins with the words εἲπερ ὠιθη (P.A. 665a32), apparently indicating doubt—‘if he really thought’ such an odd thing (compare also G.A. 722b8–10, E.N. 1181a6). Note also that Denniston, J. (The Greek particles [Oxford, 1954], 488Google Scholarn. 1), collects a number of examples of εἲπερ from other authors (including Plato, , Protagoras 319aGoogle Scholar, Laws 902a) in which the tone is ‘clearly sceptical’. All this suggests that in our passage Aristotle may be indicating that he doubts the reliability of the version which he is setting down, or that he suspects that either he or his immediate source has misunderstood it.

9 I do not know whether it is significant that Aetius refers to the two stories as one (1.7.11 = Thales A23 D–K); cf. KRS p. 97 n. 1, who are content that Aetius is simply combining the two passages of the De Anima.

10 There is no telling whether the demonstration should be read as a proof or as a more or less poetic analogy.

11 On god in Presocratic philosophy as an ρχ distinct from phenomena see the succinct treatment of Gerson, L. P., God in Greek philosophy (London, 1990), 14–20Google Scholar.

12 Cherniss, H., Aristotle's criticism of the Presocratics (Baltimore, 1935), 296Google Scholar n. 26.

13 Aristotle, P.A. 645a17 = Heraclitus A19 D–K. Presumably the point is that the goddess Hestia is present in the form of the hearth itself.

14 For example, Barnes is at pains to prove that ‘Thales' argument is not a naive aberration or a puerile sophism’ (op. cit., 8), as if that possibility were a problem. Jaeger, W., The theology of the early Greek philosophers (Oxford, 1947), 20–22Google Scholar, accepts that the demonstration with the magnet was connected with the assertion that all things are full of gods, but plays the reductionist card when he says that ‘although [Thales] speaks of gods, he is obviously using the word in a sense rather different from that in which the majority of men would use it’ (my italics). Lloyd, G., Polarity and analogy (Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar is closer to the mark: ‘If many prephilosophical texts imply the belief that certain things (including many that we should class as inanimate) are alive, Thales may well have been the first Greek thinker to state this idea in a general form’ (234, his italics).

15 The form ἱρς is interchanged with ἱερ͹ς metri gratia.

16 A full treatment of the Linear B attestations would be out of place here. The most helpful studies have been Gallavotti, C., ‘Il valore di ἱερ͹ς in Omero ed in miceneo’, AC 32 (1963) 409–28Google Scholar; Gérard-Rousseau, M., Les mentions réligieuses dans les tablettes mycéniennes (Rome, 1968), 108–14Google Scholar; Garcia-Ramon, J. L., ‘Griechisch ἱερ͹ς und seine Varianten, vedisch isira–*’, in Beekes, R. et al. (eds.), Rekonstruktion und relative Chronologie (= Akten der 8. Fachtagung der IG Gesellschaft, 1987, published Innsbruck, 1992), 188–91Google Scholar.

17 Sometimes, perhaps, to ἱερν as ‘sacred place’ or ‘sanctuary’: suggested by Gerard-Rousseau, , op. cit. 112–13Google Scholar.

18 See Benveniste, E., Indo-European language and society (London, 1973Google Scholar; tr. from French ed. of 1969), 456–61. On the folly of explaining ἱερς γνς and kindred words by imposing handy modern equivalents, see also Rudhardt, J., Notions fondamentales de la pensée religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans la Grèce classique (Geneva, 1968), 21–2Google Scholar.

19 von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U., Die Glaube der Hellenen (Berlin, 1931), 21–2Google Scholar; Wülfing-von Martitz, P., ‘Iερς bei Homer und in der alteren griechischen Literatur’, pt. 1 (Glotta 38 [1960], 272–307), 298–300Google Scholar.

20 The most famous such cult was that of the fish-goddess Atargatis, for whom sacred fish were reared in pools at Hierapolis and later Edessa (see Drijvers, H. J. W., Cults and beliefs at Edessa [Leiden, 1980], 76–121)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The cult has continued into modern times in a Muslim guise (see Lloyd, S., Foundations in the dust [2nd ed., London, 1980], 50–51Google Scholar, with Xenophon, Anabasis 1.4.9).

21 See Janko, ad loc. (in vol. 4 of The Iliad: a commentary [Cambridge, 1992])Google Scholar, reporting a number of ancient conjectures, some of which refer to fish which an angler could not catch (such as the dolphin). The most intriguing example is from Aristotle (H.A. 9.620b34) who records that divers call the νθας a ‘holy fish’ because its presence is a sign that there are no dangerous predators nearby. I cannot see how a reference to this fish would fit the Homeric context, because what Aristotle describes is a deep-sea fish which a diver might see from a boat but Homer's angler would be unlikely to catch from his promontory. Cf. also Thompson, D'A. W., A glossary of Greek fishes (London, 1947)Google Scholar, s.v. νθας.

22 M. Parry, ‘The traditional epithet in Homer’, reprinted in A. Parry (ed.), The making of Homeric verse (Oxford, 1971). Parry's central point, that ‘no noun-epithet formula…can contain an epithet whose meaning can be particularised’ (130), should not be confused with the more destructive claim that an individual formula can be vague or woolly in its own verbal meaning.

23 See Austin, N., Archery at the dark of the moon (Berkeley, 1975), 1–80Google Scholar; Sacks, R., The traditional phrase in Homer (Leiden, 1987)Google Scholar; Tsagarakis, O., Form and content in Homer (= Hermes Einzelschriften no. 46, Wiesbaden, 1982)Google Scholar.

24 Janko, (op. cit., p. 12)Google Scholar suggests ἱερν μνος might be a Mycenaean equivalent of ‘Royal Highness’. See also Hoekstra, A., Epic verse before Homer (Amsterdam, 1979), 88–9Google Scholar, suggesting that it is a Mycenaean royal title preserved as a fossil in the epic language.

25 The importance of the sceptre as symbol of Agamemnon's overlordship is stressed (perhaps exaggerated) by Nilsson, M. P., Homer and Mycenae (London, 1933), 215–26Google Scholar. Hooker, J. T., ‘Iερς in early Greek (= Beitrage zur Sprachwissenschaft, Vortrage und kleinere Schriften’ no. 22, Innsbruck, 1980), 11–13Google Scholar, argues incisively that ἱερ ἴς and ἱερν μνος do not refer to a doctrine of the divine origin of kingship.

26 ἴς in the singular is the strength of motion in general and that of the active body in particular. It is most clearly identified with the muscles of motion in particular when it is said to be located ‘in the bent limbs’, ν γναμπτοȋσι μλεσσιν (Il. 11.669, Od. 11.393–4, 21.283), when Odysseus' strength in wrestling is κρατερ…ἴς 'Oδυσος (Il. 23.270), and when one throwing a stone ‘pushes his ἴς behind it’, πρεισε δ ἶν' πλεθρεν (Il. 7.269, Od. 9.538). A word with accusative ἶνα and plural ἶνες definitely denotes a muscle or tendon (see Il. 17.522, 23.191, Od. 11.219, and cf. ἰνον, of the neck-muscle, Il. 5.73, 14.495), and in early Greek practice it seems almost certain that ἶνες acts as the plural of ἴς. However, the declension ἴς: ἰνς is mysterious, paralleled only by Zεȗς: Zηνς and ῥς: ῥινς, so that the etymologists are unwilling to accept for certain that ἴς stands for the concrete muscles themselves as well as the sort of strength that resides in them (‘possible, non plus’, Chantraine s.v.).

27 μνος has no equivalent in English, and its complex character can only be illustrated by examples. Although it is often the force of motion in an abstract sense it is also directly identified with breath whooped into the lungs, Il. 3.8, 22.312, Od. 22.203, etc.; blood mixing with breath in the breast, Il. 1.103–4; semen, Od. 2.271–2, Archilochus 196a.52W; tears or nasal mucus, Od. 24.318–19. See most recently Padel, R., In and out of the mind: Greek images of the tragic self (Princeton, 1992), esp. 23–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 At Il. 13.624–5 Menelaus rails against the Trojans that the wrath of Zeus Xeinios will destroy their city; this is the most direct reference to the theme in the Iliad, and it falls short of a suggestion that the Achaean army is consecrated to the divine purpose.

29 This is the line taken by Wülfing-von Martitz (op. cit, n. 19 above). I will not respond to his arguments in detail, since he avoids the whole issue of interpretation by depending on (i) an extremely vague definition of religious activity and sacredness, and (ii) the assumption that Homer is capable of using words in the wrong contexts for metrical reasons or for no reason at all. Cf. also Locher, J. P., Untersuchungen zu ἱερς, hauptsächlich bei Homer (diss. Bern, 1963)Google Scholar.

30 There have been many versions of this theory, beginning with Kretschmer, P., ‘Pelasger un d Etrusker’, Glotta 11 (1921) 276–82Google Scholar, who proposed that a word cognate with Vedic isira– and meaning ‘fast, vigorous’ was confused with a word of quite separate origin which meant ‘sacred’. There is no good Greek evidence for the latter, but Kretschmer was able to support his theory by citing similar-looking Italic and Germanic words which might have had cognates in Greek. Etruscan aesar, ‘sacred’, could also be adduced to support the theory that ἱερς in this sense was a borrowing from languages to the west. On Kretschmer see Pagliaro, A., ‘Iερς in Omero e la nozione di “sacro” in Grecia’, in his Saggi di critica semantica (Florence, 1953), 95–101Google Scholar; Hooker, , op. cit. (above, n. 25), 8–9Google Scholar, with further references on p. 28, nn. 2–6. More recently Garcia-Ramon, op. cit. (above, n. 16), puts forward an extremely complex ancestry to explain the variety of attested uses of ἱερς, proposing that several distinct IE forms have coalesced into a single Greek word. It is hard to get to grips with his argument, since he begins by assuming that in practice ἱερς has two meanings, roughly ‘holy’ and ‘fast’, and that the attestations of the latter are no more tha n ‘Relikte der ursprünglichen Bedeutung’ (203). If (as I argue) that division into two meanings is unwarranted, Garcia-Ramon's hypothesis becomes unnecessary for explaining the data.

31 In The Iliad: a commentary (Cambridge, 1985–1993)Google Scholar, see Kirk at 4.378, Janko at 16.407–8, Edwards at 17.464–5; in A commentary on Homer's Odyssey (Oxford, 1987–1992)Google Scholar see Heubeck at 2.409.

32 Silk, M., ‘LSJ and the problem of poetic archaism: from meanings to iconyms’, CQ 33 (1983) 303–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 It is sound philology that the forging of etymological theories must remain the servant of the study of meaning: as Benveniste has written, ‘En présence de morphèmes identiques pourvus de sens différents, on doit se démander s'il existe un emploi ou ces deux sens recouvrent lew unité’ (‘Problèmes semantiques de la réconstruction’, in his Problèmes de linguistique générale [Paris, 1966])Google Scholar. The principle applies as urgently in investigating a single language as in reconstructing the common parent of several.

34 See above, nn. 25, 30. The numerous other philological studies of ἱερς, as cited in footnotes above and below, do not significantly advance the study of its meaning beyond the arguments of Pagliaro and Hooker.

35 The clearest exposition known to me is still that by Duchesne-Guillemin, J., ‘Gr. ἱερς—skr. isirah’, in Mélanges E. Boisacq, vol. 1 (= Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire, Brussels, no. 5 [1937])Google Scholar.

36 On ἱερι ν κκλωι as a description of the judges' circle of seats in a city agora (Il. 18.504) Hooker confesses himself dissatisfied with his own conjecture that ‘the entire emphasis is thrown on the massivity of the circle’ (27).

37 Russo, at Od. 18.60Google Scholar, following Gallavotti, op. cit. Garcia-Ramon, , op. cit. 85–6Google Scholar, declares in the same way that the investigation of the word's meaning has led to no satisfactory result.

38 Similar in spirit is the image worked up by Patroclus when he compares the fall of one of his victims to the plunge of a diver into the sea (Il. 16.745–50).

39 See Chantraine, LfgrE s.v. The proposed connexion with (F)ἴεμαι does not work well because in its many Homeric attestations ἴρηξ/ἱραξ never shows a digamma; the only evidence that can be adduced for the digamma is a gloss in Hesychius, βερακες ἱραες, which on its own is indecisive.

40 Cf. Gallavotti, , op. cit. 411Google Scholar. Ramat, P., ‘Gr. ἱερς,, Scr. isirah e la loro famiglia lessicale’, Die Sprache 8 (1962), 4–28Google Scholar, argues that various other Greek words of less obviously similar form are cognate, but he does not consider ἱραξ.

41 Although the emendation of εἴαρος (all ancient sources) to ἱαρς (first by Hecker in 1852; approved by Bergk (‘fortasse recte’) and printed by Page) is now universally accepted, it must be justifed anew if we are to use it in support of a new interpretation of the word. Briefly, the arguments against εἴαρος are (i) that it is odd or even impossible in Alcman's dialect; (ii) that the words ἱερς ὃρνις are attested in several later poems which may well be borrowing directly from Alcman (for sources see Page's apparatus); (iii) that ancient lore about the halcyons connects them with the time of the winter solstice, when they built their nests, rather than with the spring of the year. The last point seems to me the decisive one: for corroboration see Aristophanes, , Birds 250–51, 1594Google Scholar, alluding to Alcman's passage and referring to ‘halcyon days’, with Aristotle, , H.A. 542b6–15Google Scholar; and see the incisive discussion by Pontani, F. M., ‘Note Alcmenee’ (Maia 3 [1950], 33–53), 46–9Google Scholar.

42 For the story that the kerylos is the male equivalent of a halcyon see the passage of Antigonus Carystius printed with Page's edition of the Alcman fragment; for the real-life halcyon as the kingfisher see Aristotle, , H.A. 593b12ff.Google Scholar, and further references collected by Thompson, D'A. W., A glossary of Greek birds (2nd ed., London, 1936)Google Scholar, s.v.; and on legends explaining the halcyons as transformed mortals see Irving, P. M. C. Forbes, Metamorphosis in Greek myths (Oxford, 1990), 239–41Google Scholar, with further references.

43 Presumably these passages reflect different stages in the passage of power from the central authority of the Mycenaean high-king (wanax) to petty kings (βασιλες) or a legislative council of elders (γροντες). See Drews, R., Basileus: the evidence for kingship in Geometric Greece (Yale, 1983), 98–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Similarly, when Hesiod sets forth the same doctrine at length he correlates the virtue of the people as a whole with the fruitfulness of the land (W.D. 225–37) but goes on to develop the principle into an admonition towards the petty kings, βασιλες, in particular (238–69).

45 See Loomis, R. Sherman, ‘The origin of the Grail legends’, in Loomis, R. Sherman (ed.), Arthurian literature in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar, and cf. West's, M. L. note at W.D. 225–47Google Scholar. For similar typological correlates from the Near East see Stella, L. I., Il poema di Ulisse (Florence, 1955), 19–22Google Scholar.

46 Compare the passage in which Sarpedon says that his and Glaucus' Lycian subjects will be glad when they see their rulers fighting with vigour and courage, because they will realise that their privileges are matched by their ἴς σθλ (Il. 12.320–21).

47 This suggestion implies that the adjective is being used simultaneously in subjective and objective senses, but the connection between the two ideas seems so intimate that this double connotation need not present a problem.

48 See e.g. Il. 4.482–7, 5.560, 13.178–81, 17.53–60, 18.55–9, 18.55–9, 18.437–40, and cf. Od. 14.175.

49 Even when applied t o vegetation ἂνθος does not mean simply ‘flower’, since the word is used not only of flowers proper (Od. 7.126, etc.) but also of grass (Od. 9.449), fruit (Il. 9.542), and leaves (Od. 14.353). It applies also to such things as a tongue of fire (πυρς ἂνθος, in a varia lectio at Il. 9.212), the gleam of gold ἂνθος…καθαρν, Theognis 452), the surging foam of a wave (Alcman 26.3 Page) and the scent of a herb (Od. 10.304), but the best clue to its meaning is in the context of sprouting or flourishing hair. In the Odyssey boys killed in early youth are described as having died before they attained a beard, πρν σΦωϊν ὐπ κροτΦοισιν ἰολυς/νθσαι πυκσαι τε γνυς εὐανθϊ λχνηι (Od. 11.319–20), and Alcman similarly has χαȋτα…πανθεȋ of a girl's hair (1.53 Page; cf. Anacreon, 414 Page). It seems certain that νθερεών, ‘beard’ or ‘chin’, is also related. In addition Borthwick, E. K., ‘The “flower of the Argives” and a neglected meaning of ἂνθος’, JHS 96 (1976) 1–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has shown abundantly that ἂνθος is the vox propria for the nap or down on cloth. This begs to be compared with verbs compounded from –ηνοθε, ‘springs up’, whose form makes it a convincing cognate with ἂνθος (see Chantraine, LfgrE s.v.). The early poets use ννοθε, ννοθε and κατεννοθε of the sprouting of hair on the head (Il. 2.219, H Dem 279) or wool, λχνη, from a cloak (Il. 10.134) as well as the rising of a smell into the air (Od. 17.270; cf. Od. 8.365, more doubtful). This shows that semantically as well as formally these verbs correspond closely to ἂνθος and if the core of the noun's meaning is ‘that which springs up’, then ἤβης ἂνθος (Il. 13.484, H Herm 375, H Dem 108, etc.) will be the springing-up of youthful vitality or the tangible bloom or hair on the skin, rather than ‘the flower of youth’ in some vague or figurative sense. For full discussion and further references, some more doubtful, see Borthwick's article, with Aitchison, J. M., ‘Homeric ἂνθος’, Glotta 41 (1963) 271–8Google Scholar; and for ἂνθος as the scent or bouquet of wine see also Renehan, R., ‘Greek lexicographical notes: second series’ (Glotta 47 [1969] 220–34), 222Google Scholar, with further examples.

50 LSJ misleadingly put ‘threshing-floor’ at the beginning of their definition, but LfgrE s.v. explains that it is only in post-epic Greek that the word ceases to be normal for gardens, fields and the like. For the wide range of early uses see e.g. Il. 5.90, 9.540, 18.57, 18.561, 21.77; Od. 1.193, 6.293, 7.122, 24.221; and for ‘threshing-space’ in particular see Il. 13.588–92, 20.496. On the narrowing of the word's semantic range in later Greek practice see scholiasts at Il. 5.90, 5.499.

51 Note especially the Attic Haloa, a fertility festival held in Demeter's honour at Eleusis. Because the festival was held in mid-winter, Greek antiquarians were puzzled by the apparent association of the festival with threshing-floors (the most recent study is Brumfield, A. C., The Attic festivals of Demeter (New York, 1984), 104–31Google Scholar; see also Cole, S. Guettel, ‘Demeter in city and countryside’, in Alcock, S. E. and Osborne, R. (edd.), Placing the gods: sanctuaries and sacred space in ancient Greece [Oxford, 1994], 202Google Scholarwith n. 12).

52 Note also Hesiod, , W.D. 597–9, 805–7Google Scholar, where what is winnowed and threshed is called Δημτερος ἱερν κτν.

53 For the miraculous quality of the action of winnowing, and the flashing brightness of what is tossed up into the air, compare the other Homeric simile on the subject (Il. 13.588–90).

54 See Il. 11.726–7, where the two senses of ἱερς come into play in successive lines: sacrifices, ἱερ, are offered on the banks of the ἱερς ῥος of a river.

55 Compare the cave on Ithac a which is ἱρν νυμΦων (Od. 13.104)—sacred to the nymphs, or flourishing with their preternatural life?

56 Compare the adjective διιπετς, of rivers (Il. 16.174, 17.263, etc.; Od. 4.477, 7.284, etc.).

57 I have learnt much from Hooker's analysis of these difficult phrases (op. cit., 25–6).

58 Stesichorus (185.4 Page) and Euripides (fr. 114 Nauck) both speak of Nὺξ ἱερ, and since Night is herself a goddess they seem not to be using the adjective in the familiar religious sense. However, it may be too much to say that they are continuing to use it in the sense of ‘swift’, since it is unlikely that this sense survives even vestigially into the classical language; it is much more likely that both poets are looking to the word's Homeric associations rather than its precise semantic value.

59 Cf. Parmenides 1.11–13 D–K.

60 Scully, S., Homer and the sacred city (Ithaca, 1990), esp. 16–40Google Scholar, has been very useful in preparing this argument, although he begins from the premiss that the word ἱερς itself must refer literally to the consecration of the city to a particular deity. His argument comes close to mine when he establishes that ‘sacredness’ is essential to the city's identity and is bound up with its separation from the lifeless countryside surrounding it (see below).

61 Wülfing-von Martitz, , op. cit. 278–88Google Scholar, lists all the cities that Homer calls ἱερς and manages to find evidence that every one of them contained an early temple, sanctuary or the like. This explanation is highly reductionist, since clearly the dwelling-place of any Greek community will have contained cult-sites.

62 Similarly Od. 13.388, H Dem 150–25.

63 See also Pindar, , Ol. 8.32–3Google Scholar, Anacreon 391 Page.

64 κρδεμνον is clearly from κρα + δω (see Chantraine s.v.), and the range of its possible applications is so wide that it can be used of the seal that encircles the head of a wine-jar (Od. 3.392) as well as the magical garment that Ino gives to Odysseus to stretch across his breast (Od. 5.346, etc.). There is dispute over whether the κρδεμνον as a woman's garment is closer to a shawl, a veil or a ribbon (see Richardson, N. J. D. at H Dem 151–2Google Scholar, Hoekstra, at Od. 13.388Google Scholar). It hangs down over the wearer's cheeks as well as binding the head (see e.g. Od. 1.334), so that presumably it resembles a combination of all three of those modern garments.

65 Elsewhere in Homer the symbolic value of the κρδεμνον seems to be alluded to when Penelope uses it to hide her face from the suitors (Od. 1.334 = 16.416 = 18.210 = 21.65). Nagler, M. N., Spontaneity and tradition: a study in the oral art of Homer (Berkeley, 1974), 44–60Google Scholar, argues acutely that the kredemnon is a symbol of chastity—by which he means that of faithful womanhood rather than sexual abstinence as such. On the importance of the kredemnon as a symbol of marriage see most recently Cairns, D. L., ‘Off with her αἰδώς’ CQ xlvi (1996)Google Scholar.

66 Burkert, W., Greek religion (English ed., Oxford, 1978), 140Google Scholar, suggests that Achilles' image of ‘loosing the headdress’ of Troy refers to the violation of the virgin Athene who guards the city. This seems to me quite wrong: if we must take the image as alluding to the violation of a female distinct from the city itself, then a closer parallel is provided by Nestor's rallying-call that the Achaeans should fight until each of them takes one of the Trojan wives to his bed (Il. 2.354–5).

67 See Scully, , op. cit. 35–6Google Scholar.

68 Lamentations 1.1.

69 Scully, , op. cit. 25Google Scholar. The theme of the separation of communal life from the surrounding world is developed further in his Ch. 7, ‘Oikos and Polis’.

70 See above, n. 60.

71 See Il. 7. 452–3, 21.436–60. Scully points out (52–3) that the tower on the battlements of Troy is called θεȋος πργος (Il. 21.526; cf. 8.519) in the immediate context of a conversation between its builders, Apollo and Poseidon, concerning the preservation of their handiwork (see Il. 21.435–60, 516–17).

72 The story is at least as old as the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (see fr. 182 M–W).

73 I take ϋτρχαλοε as ‘well-rounded’, rather than as ‘smoothed down with a roller’, the latter being West's interpretation ad loc. Because all that is clear from the word itself is that it contains the root τροχ-, referring to a circuit or a wheel, either interpretation can be defended. In favour of mine (which is supported, incidentally, by LSJ s.v.) it can be said (a) that there is no other reference in early Greek to the ‘smoothing down’ of a threshing-floor or anything like one; and (b) that among the other instances of εὐτρχαλος, which admittedly are of much later date, there is no example in a sense similar to West's, while there are several approximating to ‘circular’ or ‘rounded’ (note esp.κὺκλος ϋτρχαλος, Rhodius, Apollonius, Argonautica 3.135)Google Scholar.

74 Compare Scully, , op. cit. 17–18Google Scholar, who identifies the κκλος of the passage as the agora set apart from the rest of the city.

75 See the brilliantly imaginative essay of Onians, R. B., The origins of European thought about the body, the mind, the soul, the world, time, and fate (Cambridge, 1951), 426–66Google Scholar. More cautiously, Ambrose, Z. P., ‘Homeric τλος’, Glotta 43 (1965) 38–62Google Scholar, examines the meaning of τλος as spatial or temporal fulfilment, while Holwedra, D., ‘EΛOΣ’, Mnemosyne 16 (1963) 337–63Google Scholar, has some very useful insights into the circularity of τλος (see esp. 359–63).

76 Note the passage where Apollo seeks to protect a Trojan, by ‘warding off the heavy hands of death’ from him, ὃπως θαντοιο βαρεας χεȋας λλκοι (Il. 21.548Google Scholar; Allen's reading, κρας for χεȋρας, has weaker ancient authority). Compare Patroclus', ghost's image of the κρ of death which ‘gaped around him’, μΦχανε, when he died (Il. 23.79)Google Scholar.

77 Compare ν τ;λεσσι (Il. 11.730; similarly 10.470), of warriors drawn up in serried ranks. Hainsworth in his note at Il.. 10.56–8 suggests ‘duty’, ‘service’ as gloss for τλος there; but this fits the context only if we take it as a vague metonymy.

78 Compare Rudhardt's, J. evocation of the religious meaning of ἱερς: ‘Chargé à des degrés divers, naturellement ou par une opération ad hoc, d'une puissance apparenté aux forces créatrices ou à l'activité divine: pour cette raison, utile ou favorable à l'efficacité des rites’ (op. cit. [above, n. 18], 29)Google Scholar.

79 Some examples. τελησσας κατμβας: Il. 1.315, 2.306, 8.548 (the last a dubious line); Od. 4.352, 4.582, 13.350, 17.50, 17.59, and four times in H Apoll; ἱερν κατμβην, Il. 1.431, 1.443, 23.146, Od. 20.276; ἱερς κατμβας, Od. 3.144, 4.478, 11.132 = 23.279.

80 From Pylos. Ae 303: pu-ro i-je-re-ja do-e-ra e-ne-ka ku-ru-so-jo i-je-ro-jo. See Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J., Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge, 1956), 166Google Scholar; Palmer, L. R., The interpretation of Mycenaean Greek texts (Oxford, 1963), 127Google Scholar.

81 The first version of de Polignac's, theory (La naissance de la cité grecque [Paris, 1984], esp. 27–31)Google Scholar has drawn considerable criticism on the grounds that the ‘indeterminacy of sacred space’ in the early period cannot be firmly established either on textual or archaeological evidence: for example, his model and its underlying assumptions have been trenchantly attacked by Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane (‘Early sanctuaries, the eighth century and ritual space’, in Greek sanctuaries: new approaches, Marinatos, N. et al. (edd.), [London, 1993])Google Scholar, while C. Morgan, ‘The evolution of a sacral ‘landscape’: Isthmia, Perachora, and the early Corinthian state’, in Placing the gods (see above, n. 51) has taken the example of sanctuaries at Corinth to show in detail that the archaeological evidence suggests a pattern of strong continuity in the history of cultic practice. On the question of continuity see also Schachter, A., ‘Policy, cult and the placing of Greek sanctuaries’, in Le sanctuaire grec: Entretiens Hardt 1992 (Vandoeuvres-Geneva, 1994)Google Scholar. De Polignac has now supplemented his exposition with a more cautious essay (‘Mediation, competition and sovereignty: the evolution of ritual sanctuaries in Geometric Greece’, also in Placing the gods), in which he redefines his theory as being concerned not with ‘the birth of the city or state’ but rather with ‘transition towards a more finished, “adult” stage of society and institutions’. From the point of view of the historian of ideas a question-mark continues to hang over the theory.

82 On this general theme see J. Wright's stimulating (but inevitably speculative) essay (‘The spatial configuration of belief: the archaeology of Mycenaean religion’, also in Placing the gods) on the interpretation of sacred and secular space in Mycenaean sites. Wright observes that some Mycenaean settlements are arranged in concentric circles while others are axially arranged, and suggests that they reflect the increasing centralization of authority, being ‘spatial symbols of a society on the verge of transformation from an undifferentiated to a highly differentiated order’ (48). This leads to a broader discussion of ‘centredness’ in Mycenaean social and religious organization.

83 See Bergquist, B., The Archaic Greek Temenos: a study of structure and function (Lund, 1967)Google Scholar, drawing an interesting contrast between the Greek sanctuary defined in terms of space (‘volume’ is her term) and the emphasis on monumental bulk characteristic of religious architecture in Egypt and the Near East (see esp. 126–36).