Commemorating War and War Dead: Ancient and Modern 9783515121750, 3515121757

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTIVE SECTION
(Maurizio Giangiulio)
Do Societies Remember? The Notion of ‘Collective Memory’:
Paradigms and Problems (from Maurice Halbwachs on)
(Elena Franchi)
Memories of Winners and Losers. Historical Remarks on why Societies
Remember and Commemorate Wars
(Giorgia Proietti)
Can an Ancient Truth Become an Old Lie? A Few Methodological Remarks
Concerning Current Comparative Research on War and its Aftermath
SECTION I: WAR MEMORIALS: OBJECTS IN PERFORMANCE
(Lilah Grace Canevaro)
Commemoration through Objects? Homer on the Limitations of
Material Memory
(Birgit Bergmann)
Beyond Victory and Defeat. Commemorating Battles prior to
the Persian Wars
(Holger Baitinger)
Commemoration of War in Archaic and Classical Greece.
Battlefields, Tombs and Sanctuaries
(James Roy)
Memorials of War in Pausanias
(Nina Fehrlen-Weiss)
The Thirty Years’ War in German Commemorative Culture from
the Beginning of the Holy Roman Empire to the Present –
An Overview
(Simone A. Bellezza)
Nation Building through Commemoration: Stalinism, WWII,
and Holocaust Memorials in Post-Soviet Ukraine
SECTION II: WAR DEAD: FROM CITIZENS TO SYMBOLS
(Mirko Canevaro)
Courage in War and the Courage of the War Dead – Ancient and
Modern Reflections
(Blanka Misic)
Cognitive Aspects of Funerary Commemoration of Soldiers and Veterans
in Roman Poetovio
(Johannes Birgfeld)
Commemorating War and War Dead in 18th Century Germany
(Marco Mondini (with the collaboration of Cecilia Cozzi))
Brothers and Heroes. Literary Sources on Death in the First World War
(the Italian Case)
SECTION III: NARRATIVES OF WAR:HISTORIOGRAPHY, PUBLIC DISCOURSE,AND CULTURAL MEMORY
(Roel Konijnendijk)
Commemoration through Fear: The Spartan Reputation as
a Weapon of War
(Elena Franchi)
The Memory of the Sacred Wars and Some Origin Stories
(Mark Thorne)
Caesar and the Challenge of Commemorating the Battle of Pharsalia
(Giuseppe Albertoni)
Heroes in aula Dei: Commemorating Wars and the Fallen in the Time
of Charlemagne
(Alessandro Salvador)
Nationalism, the Politics of Memory and Revisionism:
German World War I Veterans and their Transnational Relations
CONCLUSIVE SECTION
(Mirko Canevaro)
Conclusive Remarks
ABSTRACTS AND KEYWORDS
CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX

Citation preview

Commemorating War and War Dead Ancient and Modern History Franz Steiner Verlag

Edited by Maurizio Giangiulio Elena Franchi Giorgia Proietti

Maurizio Giangiulio / Elena Franchi / Giorgia Proietti (Ed.) Commemorating War and War Dead

Commemorating War and War Dead Ancient and Modern Edited by Maurizio Giangiulio Elena Franchi Giorgia Proietti

Franz Steiner Verlag

The research leading to these results has received funding from the Department of Humanities of the University of Trento.

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über abrufbar. Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. © Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2019 Satz: DTP + Text Eva Burri, Stuttgart Druck: Memminger MedienCentrum, Memmingen Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier. Printed in Germany. ISBN 978-3-515-12175-0 (Print) ISBN 978-3-515-12178-1 (E-Book)

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface .............................................................................................................

9

Foreword .........................................................................................................

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INTRODUCTIVE SECTION Maurizio Giangiulio Do Societies Remember? The Notion of ‘Collective Memory’: Paradigms and Problems (from Maurice Halbwachs on) ................................

17

Elena Franchi Memories of Winners and Losers. Historical Remarks on why Societies Remember and Commemorate Wars ...............................................................

35

Giorgia Proietti Can an Ancient Truth Become an Old Lie? A Few Methodological Remarks Concerning Current Comparative Research on War and its Aftermath. ..........

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SECTION I WAR MEMORIALS: OBJECTS IN PERFORMANCE Lilah Grace Canevaro Commemoration through Objects? Homer on the Limitations of Material Memory ............................................................................................

95

Birgit Bergmann Beyond Victory and Defeat. Commemorating Battles prior to the Persian Wars .............................................................................................. 111 Holger Baitinger Commemoration of War in Archaic and Classical Greece. Battlefields, Tombs and Sanctuaries................................................................ 131 James Roy Memorials of War in Pausanias ....................................................................... 147

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Nina Fehrlen-Weiss The Thirty Years’ War in German Commemorative Culture from the Beginning of the Holy Roman Empire to the Present – An Overview ................................................................................................... 157 Simone A. Bellezza Nation Building through Commemoration: Stalinism, WWII, and Holocaust Memorials in Post-Soviet Ukraine .......................................... 171 SECTION II WAR DEAD: FROM CITIZENS TO SYMBOLS Mirko Canevaro Courage in War and the Courage of the War Dead – Ancient and Modern Reflections ......................................................................................... 187 Blanka Misic Cognitive Aspects of Funerary Commemoration of Soldiers and Veterans in Roman Poetovio .......................................................................................... 207 Johannes Birgfeld Commemorating War and War Dead in 18th Century Germany ...................... 219 Marco Mondini (with the collaboration of Cecilia Cozzi) Brothers and Heroes. Literary Sources on Death in the First World War (the Italian Case) ............................................................................................. 239 SECTION III NARRATIVES OF WAR: HISTORIOGRAPHY, PUBLIC DISCOURSE, AND CULTURAL MEMORY Roel Konijnendijk Commemoration through Fear: The Spartan Reputation as a Weapon of War ............................................................................................. 257 Elena Franchi The Memory of the Sacred Wars and Some Origin Stories ............................. 271 Mark Thorne Caesar and the Challenge of Commemorating the Battle of Pharsalia ............ 287 Giuseppe Albertoni Heroes in aula Dei: Commemorating Wars and the Fallen in the Time of Charlemagne ............................................................................................... 301

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Alessandro Salvador Nationalism, the Politics of Memory and Revisionism: German World War I Veterans and their Transnational Relations ................... 319 CONCLUSIVE SECTION Mirko Canevaro Conclusive Remarks........................................................................................ 337 Abstracts and Keywords.................................................................................. 345 Contributors .................................................................................................... 355 Index................................................................................................................ 359

PREFACE The centenary of the First World War has made both the general public and the political and state institutions of European countries more aware of the notable extension and diversification of the international historiography on this epochal event. This growth has taken many forms, of which we will list some of the most significant, without any pretensions to being exhaustive. Firstly, the concentration on political, diplomatic and military events that prevailed in historical research until a few decades ago has lost momentum (though without disappearing completely), and new areas of investigation have opened up in the fields of economic, social and cultural, history – the latter understood both in its strictest sense (the war in relation to intellectuals and artists), and, above all, in the sense of a greatly increased focus on mental phenomena: the images and reflections that the experience of war sparked in the minds of those who took part in it. Then there are the topics that have rarely, or never, been dealt with in historiography, expressions of the recently acquired importance of civilians in international historiographical reflection: women and children, militarised workers, the refugees shunted by governments and armies back and forth across the continent, with dramatic consequences – which culminated in the forced expulsion of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire, defined by many (though not all) as “genocide”. Almost as much attention has been paid to civilians in recent historiography as to combatants, so much so, in fact, that some critics have felt bound to observe the importance of remembering that this was a conflict which – in contrast to the Second World War, or, even more acutely, the asymmetric wars after 1945 – involved the armies far more intensely and dramatically than the civilian population. The war’s geographical scope, too, has been expanded – excessively – in the most recent research. There is still a strong perception that this was a national war, or rather a series of national wars, concentrated in Europe: Germany against France, Germany against Russia, Italy against Austria-Hungary (and vice versa). However, long-forgotten fronts, from the Balkans to the Eastern Front, are now receiving attention, as are places far from the centre of the conflict: the British and French colonies, which sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers and officers to war, but also areas of the world apparently untouched by the conflict: Latin America or China, where the repercussions of war were also felt, albeit indirectly. Nor has the widening of the historiographical discussion on 1914–1918 neglected the issue of time: we have come to realise that the war did not end in November 1918, or – as we often find written in historical compendiums – with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919; nor did it necessarily begin in 1914, in the Balkans, for instance, the chronology of the war has been backdated, establishing a clear, continuous, link with previous Balkan wars. Russia, too, experienced a ‘world’ war which was followed almost immediately by a civil war between ‘reds’ and ‘whites’, and by the Russian-Polish war, in which

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Preface

national conflicts and social and political tensions were interwoven and difficult to discern, and the use of weapons was all too common. Numerous studies, moreover, have controversially suggested a connection between the policies of the Imperial government and the German military authorities in the East, for example, and the actions carried out by National-Socialist Germany more than twenty years later, often in the same areas. Emphasis has been placed on the continuity (or at least on the similarity) of not only the necessary forced labour recruitment policies, but also of perceptions and prejudices, particularly anti-Slavic sentiment and anti-Semitism. Turning now to the sources: some time ago, international historiography broadened its focus, and began to consider sources that were previously neglected, or even deemed inadequate for the study of political and military affairs. This broadening went hand in hand with the shifts outlined above, contributing significantly to an increased awareness of the complexity of the war itself, a complexity clearly demonstrated in the first-hand accounts of those who took part in, or witnessed, the conflict, which have – subsequent to the pioneering studies of E. Leed and P. Fussell – proven to be valuable literary sources. Italian historiography has been particularly active in bringing sources of ‘popular writing’ into prominence: diaries, memoires, the correspondence of the less well-educated, primarily soldiers, but also civilians. The Trentino region has been a cradle of this pioneering research, for two reasons in particular. Firstly, a considerable number of popular sources have recently been unearthed here – probably as a result of the region’s pre-war education system: Trentino had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where literacy levels were much higher than in the nearby Italian speaking regions of the Kingdom of Italy. Secondly, Trentino is home to a nucleus of scholars, and a number of institutions (the history museums of Trento and Rovereto, in particular), who are attentive and sensitive to these new aspects of historical research. Private recollections are surrounded by public memories – ceremonies, speeches, publications, the naming of streets and squares –, all elements engaged, as George L. Mosse has masterfully demonstrated, in the nationalisation of the masses in nation states from the late nineteenth century onwards, a process which first peaked during the Great War. The public memory is largely centred upon the victims of the war, who are heroified and enlisted to provide lessons in civic-mindedness, or timeless virtues, for posterity. These memories, of course, are often subsequently disputed, as political frameworks change, and political and ideological affiliations shift: the fallen all too often became victims, or instruments, of exploitation and conflict. Commemorating War and War Dead. Ancient and Modern is of particular interest since it starts from the perspective of the classical scholar, thus, one might say, further expanding that extension of time to which I alluded above. This perspective, apparently so far removed from the twentieth century (in terms of state apparatus and methods of warfare, to take just two obvious examples), is actually productive and less alienating than might be imagined. This is why, with the conviction that apparently entrenched barriers between disciplines can thus be broken down, the project presented by my colleague Maurizio Giangiulio and his collaborators Elena Franchi and Giorgia Proietti has been fully incorporated into the framework of the

Preface

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University 2015/2016 strategic project, “Wars and Post-Wars. States and Societies, Cultures and Structures. Reflections from a Centenary” which I am coordinating, under the auspices of the Department of Humanities of Trento University. I feel sure that the many and varied ideas outlined in this book will fully demonstrate that this method was wisely chosen. Trento, December 2017

Gustavo Corni

FOREWORD In his long, path opening ‘traité de sociologie’ on polemology (1951) Gaston Bouthol devoted almost 100 pages to the causes and periodicity of war, 200 pages to its technical, economic, and demographic aspects, and 250 to what he calls “doctrines et opinions sur les guerres” and “les éléments psychologiques des guerres”. These last are examined in detail in the chapter X, which focuses on the behaviour of soldiers – their individual psychological reactions, collective mindsets, and rituals. Since Bouthoul’s seminal work, war studies have been increasingly heavily influenced by sociology, psychology and psychanalysis, memory studies, and even literature theory; while also weathering the storms of the cultural turn and, more generally, postmodernism: all new challenges that raised new questions, or offered new answers to old ones. How is war memorialized and commemorated? How do individuals react to war trauma? How do they tell and retell wars? How are individual reactions and narratives emplotted in collective thoughts, narratives and memories? How do societies remember wars, and how do these memories, in turn, affect political structures? How are public commemorations organized? What kinds of ritual are devoted to the commemoration of the war dead? These are some of the questions still wrestled with in contemporary war studies. This volume certainly does not purport to provide any exhaustive or conclusive answers to these questions; instead, it tries to return to their roots, and to stimulate a reconsideration of the meaning and applicability of some issues and questions in the light of current research. By presenting case studies both ancient and modern, from the ancient Greeks and Romans through medieval and modern times to contemporary history, we hope to stimulate reflection on how and why individuals and societies remember and commemorate war. The title – Commemorating war and war dead. Ancient and modern – signals the three macro-issues with which the book deals. These are introduced in detail in three separate introductory chapters: individual and collective remembering; remembering and commemorating war; and examining war from a comparative standpoint. Maurizio Giangiulio’s introduction offers an in-depth analysis of how Halbwachs’ thought was received in the academic world, and of its pivotal role in the fields of the sociology of memory, anthropology and historiography. Elena Franchi investigates the issue of why societies remember and commemorate wars from an historical and anthropological point of view, and analyses some of the challenges that insufficient evidence often poses for historians, especially Classicists. Giorgia Proietti investigates several case studies on both war and post-war experience (which have already been approached from comparative standpoints with varying degrees of rigor), in order to demonstrate the importance of coherent historical contextualization, and the importance of avoiding superficial comparisons between ancient and modern phenomena. Following this general approach, the papers collected here show, through the heterogeneity of their perspectives, how many aspects of the topic remain to be

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Foreword

explored; their content ranges across the variety of recent studies; from a methodological standpoint, they avoid lazy comparisons between ancient and modern and provide rigorously contextualized analysis of their respective subjects. Comparisons are not always explicated in each essay – as Mirko Canevaro shows clearly in his Conclusions, the reader is left to trace his or her own connections between the essays collected in each section, and between the different sections themselves. With no intention of providing a comprehensive treatment of such an extensive – and sadly endless, as long as there are wars in the world – topic, it is hoped that the material in this volume will enable new connections and comparisons to be made between the ancient world and ours. We would like to thank the Department of Humanities of the University of Trento for having financed this volume as well as the research project on which it is based. We are especially grateful to Professor Gustavo Corni, coordinator of the interdisciplinary project “Wars and Post-Wars. States and Societies, Cultures and Structures. Reflections from a Centenary” (University of Trento, 2015/2016), for having enthusiastically followed and supported our project from its very beginning. We are also indebted to the young collaborators of our department’s Ancient History Lab (Laboratorio di Storia Antica), including Marco Ferrario, Claudia Giacomoni, and Maddalena Scarperi, for their valuable contributions to the revision of this book. Trento, January 2018

Maurizio Giangiulio Elena Franchi Giorgia Proietti

INTRODUCTIVE SECTION

DO SOCIETIES REMEMBER? The Notion of ‘Collective Memory’: Paradigms and Problems (from Maurice Halbwachs on)* Maurizio Giangiulio We seem to be facing a paradox: on the one hand, the expression ‘collective memory’ is heard everywhere: from the field of historiography to the public use of history, and in political, scholastic and journalistic discourse. One might legitimately wonder whether it has become what Uwe Pörksen has defined as a ‘plastic word’ – contrived, available for multiple use and mass consumption.1 On the other hand, the notion of ‘collective memory’ is still criticized, in ways which seem to ignore decades of theoretical reflection, as well as historiographical and anthropological practice. In an essay in the first issue of the journal History and Memory, Amos Funkenstein maintained that “consciousness and memory can only be realized by an individual who acts, is aware, and remembers. […] Remembering is a mental act, and therefore it is absolutely and completely personal”.2 Some years later, in the same journal, others criticized “the belief in memory as an actual living entity”: they stressed that the expression ‘collective memory’ is legitimate only from a metaphorical standpoint and concluded that “collective memory is but a myth”.3 They further asserted that the constructive character of memory, if accepted, would erase history as a science, i. e. as a methodologically consistent effort to reconstruct the real development of past events.4 Weinrich distanced himself from the notion of collective memory, which he found “a relatively unspecific and moreover anachronistic expression”,5 while others saw it as an unfortunate extension of metaphors pertaining to the individual to the social dimension.6 These criticisms all imply that Maurice Halbwachs was responsible for introducing a concept of ‘collective memory’ based on the attribution of a typically personal function, that of memory, to an alleged collective subject. Many scholars who have studied social memory – and its role in both our shaping * 1 2 3 4 5 6

This is a translated and updated version of a paper which first appeared as “Le società ricordano? Paradigmi e problemi della ‘memoria collettiva (a partire da Maurice Halbwachs)”, in M. Giangiulio, Memorie coloniali, Roma 2010, 29–43. On the concept of the ‘plastic word’ see Pörsken 1988. Funkenstein 1989, 6. Gedi/Elam 1996, esp. 34–35 for the first two quotations in the text and 47 for the third. Gedi/Elam 1996, 40. Weinrich 2004, 115. See Cancik/Mohr 1990, 311.

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and understanding of the past – in depth have highlighted the fact that Halbwachs gave undue emphasis to the collective nature of the social conscience, by drawing too sharp a distinction between it and the consciousnesses of the individuals who make up any community.7 On closer inspection, these observations resemble some of the criticisms that the young Durkheimian Halbwachs faced in the 1920s, when he proposed examining memory as a sociological – rather than psychological or positivistic organismic – phenomenon.8 Marc Bloch’s – generally acute and unbiased – 1925 review of Halbwachs’ Cadres Sociaux exemplifies this attitude; Bloch criticized Halbwachs’ use of a “vocabulaire durkheimien, caractérisé par l’emploi, avec l’épithète ‘collective’, de termes empruntés à la psychologie individuelle”. It should be noted, however, that the illustrious historian did not have “aucune objection sérieuse à parler de ‘mémoire collective’, comme de ‘représentations’ ou de ‘conscience’ collectives”; his criticism of Halbwachs was that he did not explore the mechanisms through which the collective memory is preserved and transmitted in both interpersonal and intergenerational communication.9 A few years later, the famous experimental psychologist F. C. Bartlett – who discovered important elements in the social determination of the individual’s mnemonic processes – seemed to believe that Halbwachs over-emphasized the capacity of a social group to preserve memory and recover the past through mechanisms proper to individual memory.10 To ignore Maurice Halbwachs’ conception of memory is to discuss the question of social – or collective – memory only approximately.11 The recent renewal of interest in his work does not, I believe, pre-empt this examination of his theory, although this new interest has, indeed, already begun to alter perceptions of the French thinker and sociologist, whose decisive importance to the constitution of new paradigms of the sociology of memory, as well as historiography, has never been fully acknowledged.12 This essay considers Halbwachs’ three major works on the topic at hand: the Cadres sociaux de la mémoire (1925), the Topographie légendaire des Evang7 8

9 10 11

12

See Fentress/Wickham 1992, xi. On the relationship between Halbwachs and Durkheim see Verret 1972; Craig 1983; Mucchielli 1999a; Marcel 2001. On the protagonists and tendencies of the study of memory between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, see Leone 1996; Jedlowski 2001; 2002, and the broad outline drawn by Niethammer 2000, 323–35, as well as the lively, perceptive pages by Jan Assmann in Echterhoff/Saar 2002, 7–10. See also, most recently, Hirsch 2016. See Bloch 1925, 78. See Bartlett 1932, 296. The best biography is by V. Karady, in his collection of Halbwachs’ texts (Halbwachs 1972, 7–22); Becker 2003 (with Pierre Nora’s foreword on pp. 9–16) is of particular relevance today; although it is not a strictly biographical reconstruction, the author had access to unpublished letters and archives. The most significant essays on Halbwachs’ reflection on memory are: Heinz 1969; Douglas 1980; Namer 1987; Cardini 1988; Jedlowski 1989; Namer 1991; Coser 1992; Hutton 1993, 6–8, 73–90; Llobra 1995; cavicchia scalamonti 1997; Montlibert 1997; Sabourin 1997; Lavabre 1998; Mucchielli 1999b; Marcel/Mucchielli 1999; Namer 2000; Niethammer 2000, 314–66; Nisio 2000; Echterhooff/Saar 2002; Jedlowski 2002, 43–64;

Do Societies Remember?

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iles en Terre Sainte (1941) and La mémorie collective, which was published posthumously in 1950.13 The starting point of Halbwachs’ reflection in the Cadres is a radical criticism of H. Bergson’s concept of memory as the foundation of subjectivity, and, in particular, of the “vraie mémoire”, or “pure mémoire”, which, according to Halbwachs, operated together with the “mémoire-habitude”. The latter makes use of past experience to generate action, but does not evoke a corresponding image; while the former corresponds to the so-called “mémoire-souvenir”,14 vivifying the past through images which are active in the subconscious, by recovering the “pure mémoires” stored in the depths of the heart and theretofore inactive, separated as they were from the sensations, and detached from the present. His analysis of the implications of dreaming in terms of memory (distancing himself from Freud), and his consideration of the relationship between memory and language, especially with regard to aphasia, led Halbwachs to deny that memory was an intrinsically individual psychic faculty, operating beyond, and independently of, social relationships. Instead, he believed, everything seemed to point towards the intrinsic social contextualization of individual memory. It is important to stress, however, that Halbwachs neither denies the existence of the individual memory, nor replaces it with the collective memory: his intention is to show that individual memory can only be considered within the context of the social realm, which determines its actions and affects its contents. The social character of individual memory emerges from different angles. Individual memory cannot be detached from the memory of others, since the definition and verification of a memory often implies an awareness of others’ memories: our memories are vivified, completed and guaranteed only in relation to those of others. Memory, therefore, is neither exclusively nor intrinsically individual. What is more, no memory can ever be entirely inner. If someone forgot about the society to which he belongs, he would lose his ability to distinguish himself from his own past, and would have the illusion that he was reliving it, as in a dream. This, however, is not

13

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Déloye/Haroche 2004; Péquignot 2007; Jaisson/Baudelot 2007; Brian 2008; Middleton/Brown 2011; Dessingué 2015; Gensburger 2016; Nikulin 2017. See Halbwachs 1925 and 1941, respectively. Halbwachs’ writings on collective memory (in Becker 2003 it is noted that, according to his wife, Halbwachs would have liked to entitle it Mémorie individuelle et mémoire collective) were recovered in a set of four handwritten folders among his papers, and were first published in the Année Sociologique (3e s. 1940–1948 [1949], ed. by G. Gurtwich) and, later, in a volume titled La mémoire collective (Halbwachs 1950), which was affectionately edited by Halbwachs’ sister, J. Alexander. The second edition, edited by J. Duvignaud (Paris 1968), adds to the former (Annexe, 168–201) the essay La mémoire collective chez les musiciens which had originally appeared in Revue philosophique 127, marsavril 1929, 136–65); the Italian translation, edited by P. Jedlowski (Milano 1987 [1996]), is based on this second edition. The new critical edition by G. Namer (Halbwachs 1997) has become a key text; it supplements Halbwachs’ notes and, on more than one occasion, modifies the previous editions. It also includes a broad study by Namer himself on pp. 237–95. Halbwachs’ best bibliography, including the hundreds of reviews he wrote, was compiled by V. Karady in Halbwachs 1972, 411–44, supplemented by Craig 1979. See Bergson 1896.

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the case – the individual remembers the past as such, as something which is precisely and concretely shaped; this is possible because he distinguishes the past from the present, recognising himself as being in the present and aware of his connections to others. Two conclusions can be inferred from this: first, contrary to Bergson’s theory, the act of remembering is intimately linked with the present and sensations;15 second, and more importantly, individual memory is a social act because remembering necessarily implies a relationship with a cultural context which corroborates one’s memory, and means that one’s thinking is necessarily shaped by an essential connection with the system of ideas belonging to a particular social context. Generated by an intellectual and cognitive act, memory is thus social: memory and cognition overlap. Remembering means reconstructing the past on the basis of a society’s intelligence, and not retreating into one’s inner reality, dissociated from all social connections. Remembering starts from the present, from a shared system of ideas, using the language and reference points of a particular society.16 In other words, it is actually the cognitive, expressive and cultural paradigms of society that allow individual memory to function, in conjunction with the entire set of material and moral aspects of life within the society to which one belongs, or has belonged.17 The study of aphasia confirms the social characterization and origin of individual memory, since the interruption of the social communication ensured by language is the very reason for an individual’s difficulty in remembering, which is itself connected to the loss of speaking ability. The key to Halbwachs’ thought is here revealed in his complex argument for the existence of an intermediary element between the individual memory and society: the ‘cadres sociaux de la mémoire’ (or social frameworks of memory). These frameworks are neither retrospectively constituted through the combination of everyone’s memories, nor empty receptacles into which the memories of the individuals settle. Rather, they are the tools which collective memory uses to reconstruct the past, starting from the present and shaping an image which fits the dominant ideas of the time.18 These social frames, in fact, are not simply external points of reference for the individual memory, as Charles Blondel was inclined to think:19 they stimulate the formation and contextualization of memories, and are therefore involved in their very production. A society’s representation of time and space, for instance, offers a context, a frame in which everyone’s memories are connected, organised, and acquire meaning. Social frames also offer the societal standpoint from which an individual elaborates his memories: as the standpoint changes, so do the memories. The frames of memory are, indeed, constantly interacting with individual memories, and constantly reshaping them. In the second part of the Cadres (chapters 5–7), Halbwachs reflects on the notion of collective memory as the memory of a social group. He demonstrates, 15 16 17 18 19

Halbwachs 1925, 275. IbId. 25. IbId. 38. IbId. xviii. In his review of the Cadres (Blondel 1926).

Do Societies Remember?

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through an analysis of the collective memories and traditions of families, religious groups and social classes, first, that collective memory exists to the extent that individuals, when remembering, adopt the point of view of the members of the group to which they feel they belong; second, that the memory of the group in turn fulfils and reveals itself in individual memory. Within this inextricably bound nexus, collective memory, which is always the memory of a group, can be defined as the set of notions and images which supports the group’s self-awareness and identity (not explicitly defined thus, but clearly meant as such). Consider, for instance, the traditional family: […] chaque famille a son esprit propre, ses souvenirs qu’elle est seule à commémorer, et ses secrets qu’elle ne révèle qu’à ses membres. Mais ces souvenirs, de même, d’ailleurs, que les traditions religieuses des familles antiques, ne consistent pas seulement [my italics] en une série d’images individuelles du passé. Ce sont, en même temps, des modèles, des exemples, et comme des enseignements. En eux s’exprime l’attitude générale du groupe; ils ne reproduisent pas seulement son histoire, mais ils définissent sa nature, ses qualités et ses faiblesses.

Let us now consider the concept of collective memory which Halbwachs outlines in the concluding pages of the Cadres, condensing it into a pithy formula: collective memory is social thought, and social thought is essentially memory.20 It is important to note that, in Halbwachs’ conception, social thought is a society’s set of ideas and beliefs, which results from knowledge of the present, to which it corresponds, and gives voice. Nor is this set an abstract entity, it takes shape within individuals and groups who exist in time, and leave their traces in the memories of others. From this point of view, every social idea is also a society’s memory: every historical character and fact exists within a society’s system of ideas, and turns into an element – a notion, or a symbol – imbued with meaning, thus entering the society’s memory. In this very sense, then, social thought is memory. Is Halbwachs here making that step of which he has often been accused: transferring an individual psychological faculty – memory – to society, and thus hypostatizing a collective memory? I would say not, just as he did not earlier, in the case of the memory of groups. According to Halbwachs, in fact, social thought has a tangible existence, since it is embodied in persons and groups, so that collective memory never appears as an ‘extra-individual’ activity of a collective subject. It might appear, particularly given Halbwachs’ somewhat generic use of language and his refusal to adopt abstract definitions, that this is the direction of his thought; the Cadres, however, never take this approach. Turning to his later works, let us consider whether the accusation of hypostasis finds any validity here. The topics under discussion and the documentary evidence under examination in the Topographie légendaire appear very different to those in the Cadres. Nonetheless, the latter’s declared goal to investigate an example of collective memory which allows its general working mechanisms (“les lois”) to be identified, is probably Halbwachs’ answer to Marc Bloch’s invitation,21 that he explain how collective memory origi20 21

Halbwachs 1925, 295–96. Namer 1987, 66 and 116, insists on the value of Halbwachs’ research as an implicit answer to Bloch’s invitation.

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nates and perpetuates, without either anthropomorphising society, or using a finalistic-functionalist concept of collective memory as a mere datum corresponding to a society’s structural needs. The book’s main contribution to the research on this theme is the theory that localization in space is essential to the mechanisms of collective memory, just as it is, although in different ways, to the mnemotechnics of every epoch and society. While in the arts of memory imaginary spaces support the mnemonic operation, in the case of collective memory, that function is fulfilled by natural spaces, whether real or perceived as such. The Topographie studies the complex, shifting processes through which the religious traditions have constructed sacred landscapes, focussing on the localizations of the Christian memory’s most significant places, with particular reference to Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Mount of Olives, the cenacle, Pilates’ praetorium, and the Via Crucis. The collective memory of Jesus’ life – sustained by the religious tradition, pilgrimage, the Crusades, and travellers’ accounts – has imagined and constantly reshaped the landscape of the Holy Land. And the latter, in turn, has always been the ground for the changing forms which, over time, have characterized the Christian collective memory and commemorative practices, assuming great symbolic value and also contributing to the development of the historical tradition. The sacral landscape of the Holy Land thus appears as the privileged form from which a particular type of collective memory originates, corresponding to Jesus’ time on earth: the privileged locus of the assembly and symbolic enhancement of the Christian collective memory. It is worth noting that, for Halbwachs, the Topographie is the study of an emblematic case which can be transferred to other phenomena: he sees the mechanisms of memory related to space as also operating in relation to time, events, and people. Concentration en un même lieu, morcellement dans l’espace, dualités en des régions opposées, ce sont là autant des moyens familiers dont se servent les groupes d’hommes, non seulement les Eglises mais d’autres communautés, familles, nations, etc., en vue de fixer, d’organiser leurs souvenirs des lieux mais aussi de temps, des événements, des personnes.22

La mémoire collective – published posthumously, and the fruit of what seems to have been a period of mental affliction – draws together the themes of the Cadres and the Topographie. The book contains some significant changes of perspective, with regard to the spatiality of collective memory, for example. While Halbwachs’ discourse in the Topographie focused on the spatial frames of memory and the interaction between the mechanisms of religious memory and the process of construction of a legendary – although perceived and described as real – landscape, in the chapter on space in La mémoire collective, Halbwachs concentrates on those groups affected by a tradition of presence in a space, with the latter, in turn, becoming an actual spatial frame for the memory of the group itself. When a group is embedded in a particular space,23 it both shapes that space in its own image, and adapts itself to it: the image of the external environment, and of the group’s relationship to it, thus comes to play 22 23

Halbwachs 1941, 147. Halbwachs 1950, 136–37.

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a significant role in the idea of self that the group develops. Even when a group has no physical connection with a specific place – and its group identity originates in non-spatial factors (based on kinship, or religious, or juridical ties) – it will position itself within a spatial frame, possibly inherited from the traditions in which it locates its memories. This is the preservation, or – perhaps we should say – the memory, of the group’s relationship with the juridical, religious, and economic spaces that constitute the fixed frame in which it always finds its identity. Let us now examine the collective memory more generally, and another shift in the perspective of memory studies. At the beginning of the second chapter, Halbwachs restates and further explores the very core of his concept.24 Here, claiming legitimacy for the phrase ‘group memory’, Halbwachs points out that memories organize themselves in two different ways, either around a specific individual, or unfolding in a social context of which they form several partial images: that is, a group memory, but not a psychological function of a collective unit. Group memories, however, are linked to specific groups, and do not, by definition, go beyond group boundaries.25 Collective memories are therefore numerous – potentially infinite, in fact –, just as their social basis is indefinitely, and multifariously, divisible.26 The complications increase when we consider that groups can actually cease to exist – although a pool of their ideas, concerns, and ideas of meaning tend to persist, because what ultimately constitutes the group is the current of ideas and thought that was at its heart. However, the individual memory can still arrange and retrieve its recollections within the frame of the memory of a formerly existent group, provided that it is able to reconnect with this current of collective thought. And this, indeed, is unavoidable, since currents of collective thought both encounter and intersect in individual memories and consciousnesses,27 while every recollection is one of myriad ‘points of view’ on the collective memory. It is important to note that, in taking this path, Halbwachs seems to gradually distance himself from the concept of social frame as the crucial mechanism for reconstructing the past through memory. The latter, now, appears more like the process of connecting with a current of social thought, even when the group in which that current originated no longer exists. Here we find another shift in perspective, however, and we cannot know how Halbwachs would have dealt with it, if he had further developed his theory. If the collective memory is located in a current of social thought – of ideas –, and thus in a meaning, or set of meanings, then it can be transmitted through a wide range of means: literature, the arts, conversation, and, indeed, monuments and commemoration rituals. Memory, then, may become culture, meaning, even symbol – much more than the mere construction of the past. When, later on, we refer to the modern uses of the paradigm of cultural memory in anthropology, culture theory, and historiography, we should recognize Halbwachs as the first thinker to take this path. 24 25 26 27

IbId. 35. IbId. 70. IbId. 76–77. IbId. 126–28.

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We return now to the key question to which the critiques of Halbwachs’ theory refer – whether explicitly or not –, and from which this essay took inspiration. In the light of what has been said so far, it seems quite clear that Halbwachs did not simply ‘psychologize the social’, or attach psychological functions proper to the individual to collective groups without changing their character or modus operandi. Surprisingly, even Paul Ricoeur – in a lecture given in 1996 – is sensitive to these critiques.28 Ricoeur, of course, recognizes that the process of memory is not solipsistic, that it requires interaction with others, that individual memories often draw upon the recollections and stories of others, and, finally, that our memories are embedded in collective stories.29 Nevertheless, he takes for granted that Halbwachs – in the end – assumed the existence of a collective subject of memory and supposed the group memory to exert the same functions of observation, organization and retrieval or evocation ascribed to the individual memory. Although short, the above analysis of the texts provides enough evidence to show that this reading does not do Halbwachs justice. It bears noting, moreover, that the alternative theory put forward by Ricoeur, with regard to an explicit reference to Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity – i. e. a common domain of individual memories and a phenomenology of the simultaneous, mutual and interconnected constitution of the individual, and the collective, memory –, is closer to one of Halbwachs’ core ideas than Ricoeur admits: that is, the idea of the individual memory as – simultaneously – both a meeting point for collective currents of thoughts and a particular perspective of the collective memory. Ricoeur, in fact, seems subsequently to soften his position on Halbwachs’ ideas, in his magnum opus La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (2000), undoubtedly the most incisive philosophical discussion on the French sociologist’s ideas about memory.30 Here Ricoeur notices how decisively Halbwachs distanced himself from “the sensualist thesis that the origin of a memory lies in a sensible intuition preserved as such and recalled as identical”,31 but complains that Halbwachs runs the risk of moving almost inadvertently from the thesis that “no one ever remembers alone” to “we are not an authentic subject of the attribution of memories”.32 Furthermore, Ricoeur emphasizes the fact that the act of recollection is personal, although indelibly marked by the social. That Halbwachs finally arrived at the idea that the consciousness has the power to place itself within the viewpoint of the group, and that each individual memory provides a perspective on the collective memory, seems to Ricoeur (and I concur) not only to overstep the bounds of the theory of the social frameworks of memory, but also to be a contradictory return to the idea that the act of recollection is intrinsically personal. This critique – an ‘in28 29

30 31 32

On Ricoeur’s thought with regard to memory and forgetting, see Dessingué 2011; 2017. See “Die vergangene Zeit lesen: Gedächtnis und Vergessen” in Ricoeur 2004a, 47–119, esp. 51–59. (The text contains a series of PhD lectures held in November 1996 at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid. It was originally published in German: Göttingen, Wallstein: Essener Kulturwissenschaftliche Vorträge, 2004). Ricoeur 2003. IbId. 172. IbId. 173.

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side job’, one might say – seems to strike at the heart of Halbwachs’ theory. Its real significance, however, is this: thanks to it, we now need to acknowledge that the real limitation of Halbwachs’ theory is not its hypostatizing of the collective memory, but its excessive attachment to a psychologizing concept of memory. Having made this case, Ricoeur proceeds to consider a different perspective, from which the two opposing approaches to memory – as individual, or collective, function – are not denied, but transcended, as Ricoeur claims a trajectory of memory attribution from the self, to ‘the closest’ others, and then to the others at “an intermediate level of reference between the poles of individual memory and collective memory, where concrete exchanges operate between the living memory of individual persons and the public memory of the communities to which we belong”.33 Ricoeur’s analysis of the philosophical implications of Halbwachs’ theory is probably, to date, unrivalled. And yet, since the 1980s, within the sociology of memory, the theory of culture, anthropology and historiography and literature theory34 meaningful and highly influential paradigms of the collective memory which explicitly draw upon Halbwachs’ pivotal ideas have been adopted; interestingly, some paradigms, which were developed independently of Halbwachs, actually end up reaffirming and further developing his ideas. Scholars in the fields of the sociology of memory and culture theory usually assume both the reconstructive and the socially marked character of memory. In the chapter on ‘remembering’ in his seminal book, James Fentress reaffirms that “memory is not a passive receptacle, but instead a process of active restructuring, in which elements may be retained, reordered, or suppressed”; and Eviatar Zerubavel stresses that memory is not just a simple reproduction of the past, since it “is patterned in a highly structured manner that both shapes and distorts what we actually come to mentally retain from the past”.35 This belief is, of course, in line with common current constructivist positions.36 Nevertheless, it seems important to stress that to share the basic concepts of constructivism does not necessarily imply also to share its radical denial of the knowability of the past which – its fundamentally Foucaultian roots notwithstanding – is as popular as it is highly relativistic, if not nihilistic. In fact, constructivism in itself by no means implies the denial of analytical and cognitive aspiration: here, too, the sociology of memory owes a significant debt to Halbwachs. Furthermore, with regard to the social mark of memory, it should be noted that today the whole sociology of memory “foregrounds what we come to remember as social beings”,37 that is being part of a “social context within which we access the 33 34

35 36 37

2004b, 131, but the whole analysis, on pp. 120–32, is essential. Here I will limit myself to drawing attention to the seminal essay by Astrid Erll (2005) which provides more than the title suggests: a critical discussion of the theories of Warburg, Halbwachs, Nora and Assmann (ch. 2), a theoretical analysis of the collective memory (ch. 5) and, most importantly, an argument for the relevance of literature as a medium of cultural memory. Zerubavel 2003, 11. Zerubavel is one of the leading exponents of the sociology of knowledge and memory: see, at least, 1997 and 2004. Berger/Luckmann 1966 is a crucial reference in this regard. Zerubavel 2003, 2, italics by Zerubavel.

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past”.38 The focus is therefore on memory as proper to social beings; on social contexts within which everyone has access to the past and understands it; on the ways in which acquiring any social identity involves acquiring a group’s memory and thereby identifying with its collective past, and, finally, on the process by which we learn to remember in a socially appropriate manner. In fact, “being social presupposes the ability to experience things that happened to the group to which we belong long before we even joined them as if they were part of our own personal past”.39 And this because the fusion of an individual’s history with the collective history of the group to which they belong is part of the process of acquiring any social identity. This is the perspective from which Halbwachs’ theory of the social frameworks of memory has been revisited and updated. Zerubavel points out that experiments have shown that in certain contexts many individuals tend to make the same ‘free’ mnemonic associations, and he suggests that some apparently personal memories can, in fact, be interpreted as personalized manifestations of a single common collective memory, not so much in terms of memory content shared within a group understood as a mnemonic community, as in the way that the structures of memory are configured. Indeed, as Zerubavel put it “remembering involves more than just recall of facts, as various mental filters that are quite independent of those facts nevertheless affect the way we process them in our mind (…) such filters are highly impersonal, as they are rarely ever grounded in individuals’ own experience”,40 belonging instead to their mnemonic communities and traditions. Jan Assmann’s powerful theory of memory, which draws upon the sociology of memory, culture theory and historiography, was elaborated in his Das kulturelle Gedächtnis (1992), and went on to gain widespread acclaim after its English translation in 2011. Assmann’s theory, which borrows much from Halbwachs, is based on the social construction of the past and the reconstructive character of memory, on the identitary function of the culture of memory, and on a typology of forms of collective memory supported by historical case studies from Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Israelite culture. The discourse around the Greek world, incidentally, is problematic, but that is a discussion for another occasion. Assmann assumes that a society’s culture of memory enables it to construct – in different ways, which should all be considered singly – a self-image, and to perpetuate its identity through the generations. Memory is a reconstructive process: not merely the archiving of facts stored in the memory, but the definition of the past according to specific frameworks of cultural reference: from this perspective the only remembered past is the meaningful one. Thus conceived, the past is therefore a social construct resulting from a society’s need for meaning, and from its frames of reference. Within this general outline, Assmann develops a comprehensive model of the function of memory which distinguishes and contrasts two basic modes of memory: the cultural, and the communicative. Cultural memory takes shape in the founding 38 39 40

IbId. 3, italics by Zerubavel. See Zerubavel 1997 and Irwin/Zarecka 1994. See Zerubavel 2003, 4.

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memory of the collective identity, related to a society’s origins in the remote – or even mythical – past, transmitted in an extremely formal, ceremonial communication context, through or with the help of set objectifications (myths, collective rituals, spatial frameworks, monuments, concrete symbols), and by specialized tradition bearers. Communicative memory comprises memories related to the recent past (going back 3–4 generations); it arises from interaction within the group and is spontaneous and informal. It is transmitted through lived stories and experiences; its carriers are not specialized tradition bearers, for it is the group’s heritage, and takes shape as a sort of a memory community. Here it is worth mentioning – at the risk of beginning a discussion that could prove an engrossing distraction – the vast efforts, both in the field and in subsequent analysis, made over decades by anthropologists studying African oral traditions. These efforts have not only produced theories of great importance for collective memory, but have also recently inspired classicists, in particular in relation to the study of the Archaic Greek world. Focussing on the functioning of memory within collective oral traditions, Jack Goody and Jan Vansina have shown how oral traditions have a structural tendency to cohere with the society in which they develop. In other words, memory unfolding in historical narratives assumes forms and content that conform to the social uses and cultural values of the context within which that narrative occurs; it is placed within spatial and temporal structures determined by the form of the social organization wherein it arises. As a consequence, the mnemonic content of a tradition and the historical consciousness that it expresses correspond to the needs and concerns of the times in which they took shape, and, above all, in which they were adapted and transmitted:41 they are thus subject to a continuous process of adaptation, or, to use Goody’s preferred term, “dynamic homeostasis”.42 At this point research on oral traditions quite clearly converges with the sociology of memory and Halbwachs’ theory, notwithstanding the differences in their scientific languages and paradigms; this is probably because the British functionalism upon which Goody and Vansina build owes a profound debt to Durkheim’s sociology, even while distancing itself from it. Nevertheless, Vansina’s research on African oral traditions marked a watershed at the time, and has subsequently become widely influential,43 not just in anthropology, as recent studies on historical memory in Archaic Greece testify.44 It is important to note, at this point, that Vansina has always distanced himself from an overly rigid concept of homeostasis, stressing that one should talk about a ‘tendency toward homeostasis’ rather than ‘radical homeostasis’, and that oral tradition often preserves archaisms and more generally reflects both past and present; 41 42 43 44

Vansina 1985, 114–20. Goody/Watt 1968, 31–34. See e. g. Finnegan 1970; Henige 1974; 1982; Tonkin 1991; Finnegan 1992. Seminal studies are: Murray 1980, 38–41; 1987 (and, slightly changed, Murray 2001a); 2001b. See also Gould 1989 (ch. 2 “Enquiry and Social Memory”, 19–41); Von Ungern-Sternberg/Reinau 1988; Thomas 1989; Luraghi 2001b; Giangiulio 2001; Luraghi 2005.

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he thus opens up the critical space in which homeostatic distortion can be identified, and elements which have been eliminated or telescoped through time can be reconstructed.45 This question has been hotly debated in recent years, within both Africanist and Oceanic anthropology,46 focussing mainly on the reconstructive character of oral traditions. In response to Vansina’s tendency to reify oral traditions and, indeed, almost to treat them as ‘texts’ analysable through source criticism, scholars have stressed that the mnemonic processes that underpin oral traditions are engaged in, and derive from, a wide range of social activities.47 The concept of the ‘invention of culture’ was introduced, first within anthropology,48 and then historiography,49 in order to highlight the importance of the cultural creativity and the construction of meanings that occur within any given society. The next step was to temper the rationalistic and somewhat derogatory accentuation of the term ‘invention of tradition’, by replacing it with the concept of the ‘construction of tradition’, understood as the selective – and inevitably driven by present needs – representation of the past, i. e. its ‘imagining’, or symbolic structuring.50 From this perspective, research on oral traditions has brought several new questions and angles to the study of the social memory, a phenomenon in constant flux, as it responds to the continuously changing needs of the present, and to the complex interplay of various social groups within a given area, and of these groups and Western observers, and/ or powers. The confidence that Vansina had always had in the possibility of reconstructing the original, precolonial layers of local tradition – on the basis, it must be noted, of excellent fieldwork and analysis – could thus no longer be comfortably sustained. In recompense, however, a vast field opened up for scholars of the history and anthropology of memory, in which the very changes that the social memory undergoes can be investigated, and become important indices of historical and social change. Critics of the postmodern and culturalist influence reject the ‘presentism’ they consider to taint this approach. However – if freed from the shackles of late positivist rigidity – it is by no means incompatible with analytical and cognitive aspirations, or unsuited to the historical understanding of the societies under analysis. At this point – as we draw to a conclusion – it is important to note the significant convergence of – from one direction – the anthropological approach to the social memory as conveyed by oral traditions, and – from another – the historiographical perspectives that focus on the history of memory in the modern and contemporary West. The challenge, now, is to overcome the crisis that the divide between social memory and scientific historiography has prompted. Interestingly, Halbwachs himself was one of the first to raise this issue, albeit still from within a 45 46 47 48 49 50

Vansina 1985, 120–23 (criticism of Goody) and, within an updated debate on the nature of African oral traditions, Vansina 1990. A careful overview is provided by the seminal Bellagamba/Paini 1999 (see esp. the penetrating foreword by F. Remotti, ix–xiv). Cohen 1989. Wagner 1975. See, of course, Hobsbawm/Ranger 1983 and Anderson 1983. Linnekin 1983; 1992.

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positivist historical framework. Neither of the two opposing answers to this question offered by current research is satisfying: one appears simply to relegate historiography to the dimension of collective memory, the other to that of rhetoric. The fostering of a cultural and social history of memory is undoubtedly a more fruitful course. Not only oral traditions, but also iconography, monuments, landscape, social and geographical spaces, traditions, historiography itself, and, as in the present collection of essays, commemoration rituals – all deserve analysis from this perspective. The investigation of these and other existing ways of condensing, transmitting and reconstructing the collective memory sheds light on the processes, forms and dynamics of memory – both of, and within, societies.51 This would indeed be a way to place memory at the centre of history, as Pierre Nora wrote in the concluding remarks of the foreword to his prodigious historiographical project Lieux de mémoire.52 It would be a way to investigate the memory of societies from an historical perspective, following in the footsteps of Halbwachs, building upon his ideas but then going beyond. After all, the capacity of forming the foundations for new research that will challenge them is the hallmark of really influential ideas. Note: This bibliography lists all titles mentioned in the footnotes as well as other works consulted. Anderson 1983: B. Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, London 1983. Assmann 1992: J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, München 1992 (Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination, Cambridge/New York 2011). Assmann 1999: A. Assmann, Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, München 1999. Bartlett 1932: F. C. Bartlett, Remembering: A Study in Experimental Psychology, Cambridge 1932. Becker 2003: A. Becker, Maurice Halbwachs. Un intellectuel en guerres mondiales 1914–1945, Paris 2003 (with a foreword by Pierre Nora [9–16]). Bellagamba/Paini 1999: A. Bellagamba / A. Paini (a cura di), Costruire il passato. Il dibattito sulle tradizioni in Africa e Oceania, Torino 1999. Berger/Luckmann 1966: P. L. Berger / T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality. A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Golden City NY 1966. Bergson 1896: H. Bergson, Matière et mémoire, Paris 1896. Berliner 2005: D. Berliner, “The Abuses of Memory: Reflections on the Memory Boom in Anthropology”, Anthropological Quarterly 78, 1 (2005), 197–211. Berneker/Michaelian 2017: S. Berneker / K. Michaelian (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory, London/New York 2017. 51

52

Due to space requirements it is impossible here to cover all the media of memory. For an overview and further issues and references see Cancik/Mohr 1990; Olick/Robbins 1998; Welzer 2001; Gehrke 2004; Erll 2005; Erll/Nünning 2008; Gudehus/Eichenberg/Welzer 2010; Olick/Vinitzki-Seroussi/Levy 2011; Price 2012; Franchi/Proietti 2012; 2014; 2017; Lavabre 2016; Berneker/Michaelian 2017; Franchi 2018. Nora 1984; 1986; 1992, I, xlii.

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Bloch 1925: M. Bloch, “Mémoire collective, tradition et coutume. À propos d’un livre recent (review of M. Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, Paris 1925)”, Revue de synthèse 50 (1925), 73–83. Blondel 1926: C. Blondel, “Compte rendu de M. Halbwachs Les cadres sociaux de la memoire”, Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 101 (1926), 290–98. Brian 2008: E. Brian, “Portée du lexique halbwachsien de la mémoire”, in Halbwachs 2008, 113–45. Cancik/Mohr 1990: H. Cancik / H. Mohr, “Erinnerung/Gedächtnis”, in H. Cancik / B. Gladigow / M. Laubsche (Hrsg.), Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe, II, Stuttgart 1990, 299–323. Cardini 1988: F. Cardini, Un sociologo al Santo Sepolcro, in M. Halbwachs, Memorie di Terrasanta, Venezia 1988. Cavicchia Scalamonti 1997: A. Cavicchia Scalamonti, “Introduzione. Maurice Halbwachs e la sociologia della memoria”, in M. Halbwachs, I quadri sociali della memoria, Napoli/Los Angeles 1997, i–xxviii. Cohen 1989: D. W. Cohen, “The Undefining of Oral Tradition”, Ethnohistory 36, 1 (1989), 9–18. Connerton 1989: P. Connerton, How Societies Remember, Cambridge 1989. Coser 1992: L. A. Coser, “Introduction: Maurice Halbwachs, 1877–1945”, in M. Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, Chicago 1992. Craig 1979: J. E. Craig, “Maurice Halbwachs à Strasbourg”, Revue française de sociologie 20 (1979), 273–92. Craig 1983: J. E. Craig, “Sociology and Related Disciplines between the Wars: Maurice Halbwachs and the Imperialism of the Durkheimians”, in P. Besnard (ed.), The Sociological Domain: The Durkheimians and the Founding of French Sociology, Cambridge 1983, 263–89. Déloye-Haroche 2004: Y. Déloye / C. Haroche (éd. par), Maurice Halbwachs. Espaces, mémoires et psychologie collective, Paris 2004. Dessingué 2011: A. Dessingué, “Towards a Phenomenology of Memory and Forgetting”, Études Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies, 2, 1 (2011), 167–78. Dessingué 2015: A. Dessingué, “From Collectivity to Collectiveness: Reflections (with Halbwachs and Bakhtin) on the Concept of Collective Memory”, in S. Kattago (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Memory Studies, Farnham 2015, 89–102. Dessingué 2017: A. Dessingué, “Paul Ricoeur”, in Berneker/Michaelian 2017, 563–71. Douglas 1980: M. Douglas, “Introduction: Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945)”, in M. Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, New York 1980, 1–21. Echterhoff/Saar 2002: G. Echterhoff / M. Saar (Hrsg.), Kontexte und Kulturen des Erinnerns. Maurice Halbwachs und das Paradigma des kollektiven Gedächtnisses. Mit einem Geleitwort von Jan Assmann, Konstanz 2002. Erll 2005: A. Erll, Kollektives Gedächtnis und Erinnerungskulturen. Eine Einführung, Stuttgart-Weimar 2005. Erll/Nünning 2008: A. Erll / A. Nünning (eds.), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, Berlin/New York 2008. Fentress/Wickham 1992: J. Fentress / C. Wickham, Social Memory, Oxford/Cambridge MA 1992. Finnegan 1970: R. Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa, Oxford 1970. Finnegan 1992: R. Finnegan, Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts: A Guide to Research Practices, London/New York 1992. Franchi 2018: E. Franchi, “Media and Technology: Mediatic Frameworks of Memories in Ancient Times”, in B. Dignas (ed.), A Cultural History of Memory in Antiquity (800BC-AD 500), London 2018, forthcoming. Franchi/Proietti 2012: E. Franchi / G. Proietti (a cura di), Forme della memoria e dinamiche identitarie nell’antichità greco-romana, Trento 2012. Franchi/Proietti 2014: E. Franchi / G. Proietti, “Ricordare la guerra. Paradigmi antichi e moderni, tra polemologia e memory studies”, in E. Franchi / G. Proietti (a cura di), Guerra e memoria nel mondo antico, Trento 2014, 17–125.

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Franchi/Proietti 2017: E. Franchi / G. Proietti (a cura di), Conflict in Communities. Forward-looking Memories in Classical Athens, Trento 2017. Funkenstein 1989: A. Funkenstein, “Collective Memory and Historical Consciousness”, History & Memory 1, 1 (1989), 5–26. Gedi/Elam 1996: N. Gedi / Y. Elam, “Collective Memory – What is it?”, History & Memory 8, 1 (1996), 30–50. Gehrke 2004: H.-J. Gehrke, “Was heißt und zu welchem Ende studiert man intentionale Geschichte? Marathon und Troja als fundierende Mythen”, in G. Melville / K.-S. Rehberg (Hrsg.), Gründungsmythen, Genealogien, Memorialzeichen. Beiträge zur institutionellen Konstruktion von Kontinuität, Köln 2004, 21–36. Gensburger 2016: S. Gensburger, “Halbwachs’ Studies in Collective Memory: A Founding Text for Contemporary ‘Memory Studies’?”, Journal of Classical Sociology 16, 4 (2016), 396– 413. Giangiulio 2001: M. Giangiulio, “Constructing the Past: Colonial Traditions and the Writing of History. The Case of Cyrene”, in Luraghi 2001a, 116–37. Giangiulio 2005: M. Giangiulio (a cura di), Erodoto e il ‘modello erodoteo’. Formazione e trasmissione delle tradizioni storiche in Grecia, Trento 2005. Goody/Watt 1968: J. Goody / I. Watt, “The Consequences of Literacy”, in J. Goody (ed.), Literacy in Traditional Societies, Cambridge 1968, 27–68. Gould 1989: J. Gould, Herodotus, London 1989. Gudehus/Eichenberg/Welzer 2010: C. Gudehus / A. Eichenberg / H. Welzer (Hrsg.), Gedächtnis und Erinnerung. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch, Stuttgart 2010. Halbwachs 1925: M. Halbwachs, Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, Paris 1925 (19522, 19753 [with a foreword by F. Châtelet], 1994 [with an afterword by G. Namer]). Halbwachs 1941: M. Halbwachs, La topographie légendaire des Evangiles en Terre Sainte. Etude de mémoire collective, Paris 1941, 19712 (nouvelle édition augmentée d’une mise à jour bibliographique, préface de Fernand Dumont). Halbwachs 1950: M. Halbwachs, La mémoire collective, Paris 1950, 19682. Halbwachs 1972: M. Halbwachs, Classes sociales et morphologie, éd. par V. Karady, Paris 1972. Halbwachs 1997: M. Halbwachs, La mémoire collective. Édition critique établie par Gérard Namer, preface de Marie Jaisson, Paris 1997. Halbwachs 2008: M. Halbwachs, La topographie légendaire des Evangiles en Terre Sainte. Etude de mémoire collective (édition préparée par Marie Jaisson avec les contributions de Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Jean-Pierre Cléro, Sarah Gensburger et Éric Brian), Paris 2008. Heinz 1969: R. Heinz, “Maurice Halbwachs’ Gedächtnisbegriff”, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 23 (1969), 73–85. Henige 1974: D. P. Henige, The Chronology of Oral Tradition. Quest for a Chimera, Oxford 1974. Henige 1982: D. P. Henige, Oral Historiography, London 1982. Hirsch 2016: Th. Hirsch, “A Posthumous Life. Maurice Halbwachs and French Sociology (1945– 2015)”, Revue française de sociologie 57, 1 (2016), 71–96. Hobsbawm/Ranger 1983: E. Hobsbawm / T. O. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge 1983. Hutton 1993: H. Hutton, History as an Art of Memory, Hanover/London 1993. Irwin-Zarecka 1994: I. Irwin-Zarecka, Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory, New Brunswick NJ 1994. Jaisson/Baudelot 2007: M. Jaisson / C. Baudelot, Maurice Halbwachs, sociologue retrouvé, Paris 2007. Jedlowski 1989: P. Jedlowski, “La memoria come costruzione sociale. Sulla sociologia della memoria di Maurice Halbwachs”, in F. Crespi (a cura di), Sociologia e cultura: nuovi paradigmi teorici e metodi di ricerca nello studio dei processi culturali, Milano 1989, 107–30. Jedlowski 1996: P. Jedlowski, “Introduzione”, in M. Halbwachs, La memoria collettiva, Milano 1996, 7–30.

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Jedlowski 2001: P. Jedlowski, “Temi e problemi della sociologia della memoria nel XX secolo”, Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia 42, 3 (2001), 373–92. Jedlowski 2002: P. Jedlowski, Memoria, esperienza e modernità: memorie e società nel XX secolo, Milano 2002. Laurens/Roussiau 2002: S. Laurens / N. Roussiau (éd. par), La mémoire sociale. Identités et représentations sociales, Rennes 2002. Lavabre 1998: M.-C. Lavabre, “Maurice Halbwachs et la sociologie de la mémoire”, Raison présente 3 (1998), 47–56. Lavabre 2016: M.-C. Lavabre, La “mémoire collective” entre sociologie de la mémoire et sociologie des souvenirs?, 2016 (https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01337854). Leone 1996: G. Leone, “Il futuro alle spalle. La memoria sociale e collettiva nei lavori di Bartlett, Vygotskij e Halbwachs”, Rassegna di Psicologia 13, 3 (1996), 91–130. Linnekin 1983: J. Linnekin, “Defining Tradition: Variations on the Hawaiian Identity”, American Ethnologist 10, 2 (1983), 241–52. Linnekin 1992: J. Linnekin, “On the Theory and Politics of Cultural Construction in the Pacific”, Oceania, 62, 4 (1992), 249–63. Llobra 1995: J. R. Llobra, “Halbwachs, Nora and ‘History’ Versus ‘Collective Memory’: A Research Note”, Durkheimian Studies/Études Durkheimiennes 1 (1995), 35–44. Luraghi 2001a: N. Luraghi (ed.), The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus, Oxford/New York 2001, 1–15. Luraghi 2001b: N. Luraghi, “Introduction”, in Luraghi 2001a, 1–15. luraghi 2005: N. Luraghi, “Le storie prima delle Storie. Prospettive di ricerca”, in Giangiulio 2005, 61–90. Marcel 2001: J.-C. Marcel, Le durkheimisme dans l’entre-deux-guerres, Paris 2001. Middleton/Brown 2011: D. Middleton / S. D. Brown, Memory and Space in the Work of Maurice Halbwachs, in P. Meusburger / M. Heffernan / E. Wunder (eds.), Cultural Memories: The Geographical Point of View, Dordrecht 2011, 29–49. Montesperelli 2003: P. Montesperelli, Sociologia della memoria, Roma-Bari 2003. Montlibert 1997: C. de Montlibert (ed.), Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945), Strasbourg 1997. Mucchielli 1999a: L. Mucchielli, “Pour une psychologie collective: l’héritage durkheimien d’Halbwachs et sa rivalité avec Blondel durant l’entre-deux-guerres”, Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines 1 (1999), 103–41. Mucchielli 1999b: L. Mucchielli, “Un fondement du lien social: la mémoire collective chez Maurice Halbwachs”, Technologies, idéologies, pratiques. Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances 4 (1999), 63–88. Murray 1980: O. Murray, Early Greece, Glasgow 1980. Murray 1987: O. Murray, “Herodotus and Oral History”, in H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg / A. Kuhrt (eds.), Achaemenid History, II. The Greek Sources, Leiden 1987, 93–115. Murray 2001a: O. Murray, “Herodotus and Oral History”, in Luraghi 2001a, 16–44. Murray 2001b: O. Murray, “Herodotus and Oral History Reconsidered”, in Luraghi 2001a, 314–25. Namer 1987: G. Namer, Memoire et société, Paris 1987. Namer 1991: G. Namer, “Memoria sociale e memoria collettiva. Una rilettura di Halbwachs”, in P. Jedlowski / M. Rampazi (a cura di), Il senso del passato: saggi per una sociologia della memoria, Milano 1991, 91–105. Namer 1999: G. Namer, “La mémoire culturelle chez Maurice Halbwachs”, L’Année sociologique 49, 1 (1999), 223–35. Namer 2000: G. Namer, Halbwachs et la mémoire sociale, Paris 2000. Niethammer 2000: L. Niethhammer, Kollektive Identität. Heimliche Quellen einer unheimlichen Konjunktur, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2000. Nikulin 2017: D. Nikulin, “Maurice Halbwachs”, in Berneker/Michaelian 2017, 528–36. Nisio 2000: F. S. Nisio, “Comunità dello sguardo: la sociologia ethica di Maurice Halbwachs [Mille sguardi, IV]”, Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia 41, 3 (2000), 323–62.

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Nora 1884–1992: P. Nora (sous la direction de), Les lieux de mémoire, I–III, Paris 1984–1992. Olick/Robbins 1998: J. K. Olick / J. Robbins, “Social Memory Studies: From Collective Memory to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices”, Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998), 105– 40. Olick/Vinitzki-Seroussi/Levy 2011: J. K. Olick / V. Vinitzki-Seroussi / D. Levy (eds.), The Collective Memory Reader, New York/Oxford 2011. Péquignot 2007: B. Péquignot (ed.), Maurice Halbwachs: le temps, la mémoire et l’émotion, Paris 2007. Pörksen 1988: U. Pörksen, Plastikwörter, Stuttgart 1988. Price 2012: S. Price, “Memory and Ancient Greece”, in B. Dignas / R. R. R. Smith (eds.), Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World, New York/Oxford 2012, 15–36. Ranger 1993: T. O. Ranger, “The Invention of Tradition Revisited: The Case of Colonial Africa”, in T. O. Ranger / O. Vaughan (eds.), Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth Century Africa, Basingstoke 1993. Richards 1960: A. I. Richards, “Social Mechanism for the Transfer of Political Rights in Some African Tribes”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 90 (1960), 175–90. Ricoeur 2003: P. Ricoeur, La memoria, la storia, l’oblio, Milano 2003. Ricoeur 2004a: P. Ricoeur, Das Rätsel der Vergangenheit. Erinnern – Vergessen – Verzeihen, Göttingen 2004. Ricoeur 2004b: P. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, Chicago 2004. Sabourin 1997: P. Sabourin, “Perspective sur la mémoire sociale de Maurice Halbwachs”, Sociologie et sociétés 29, 2 (1997), 139–61. Thomas 1989: R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens, Cambridge 1989. Tonkin 1991: E. Tonkin, Narrating our Pasts: The Social Construction of Oral History, Cambridge 1991. Vansina 1961: J. Vansina, De la tradition orale. Essai de méthode historique, Tervuren 1961. Vansina 1985: J. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, London 1985. Vansina 1990: J. Vansina, Paths in the Rainforest: Towards a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa, Madison/London 1990. Verret 1972: M. Verret, “Halbwachs ou le deuxiéme age du durkheimisme”, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie 53 (1972), 311–36. Von Ungern-Sternberg/Reinau 1988: J. Von Ungern-Sternberg / H. Reinau (Hrsg.), Vergangenheit in mündlicher Überlieferung, Stuttgart 1988. Wagner 1975: R. Wagner, The Invention of Culture, Chicago 1975. Weinrich 2004: H. Weinrich, Lethe: The Art and Critique of Forgetting, Ithaca/London 2004 (Lethe. Kunst und Kritik des Vergessens, München 1997). Welzer 2001: H. Welzer (Hrsg.), Das soziale Gedächtnis. Geschichte, Erinnerung, Tradierung, Hamburg 2001. Zerubavel 1997: E. Zerubavel, Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology, Cambridge MA 1997. Zerubavel 2003: E. Zerubavel, Time Maps. Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past, Chicago/London 2003. Zerubavel 2004: E. Zerubavel, “The Social Marking of the Past: Toward a Socio-Semiotics of Memory”, in R. Friedland / J. Mohr (eds.), Matters of Culture: Cultural Sociology in Practice, Cambridge 2004, 184–92.

MEMORIES OF WINNERS AND LOSERS Historical Remarks on why Societies Remember and Commemorate Wars Elena Franchi Durant les grandes guerres, on a l’impression que le monde est retourné à une sorte de chaos, que tout va finir par être bouleversé et que les survivants vont se trouver dans un monde entièrement nouveau et déconcertant. (G. Bouthoul, Les guerres. Éléments de polemologie, Paris 1951, 403)

Prologue. A ritual drama: The dance of the conquest1 At a certain point the nights of Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor, start to be tormented by terrifying visions. He dreams twice of his father, the sun, veiled in black smoke whilst the sky and the mountains are a flaming red like the plumage of the pilku, a typical Peruvian bird. Even more worrying, an unprecedented occurrence is evoked to him by an animated wak’a (a sacred object): iron-clad warriors will destroy Atahualpa’s empire. A chorus and an Inca seer, Huaylla Huisa, explain these premonitions: they announce the Spanish conquest. The black signifies the destruction of the Inca religion and empire, and in the end all will vanish in smoke. Huaylla Huisa, in turn, has a similarly worrisome dream: bearded, hostile men are coming across the sea in great iron-ships. Atahualpa promises to fight the conquistadors to the death. Two preliminary meetings between the leader of the conquerors Francisco Pizarro, his assistant Almagro and the Inca soothsayer take place, both unsuccessful because of linguistic misunderstandings which turn out to be also cultural; a further meeting between Almagro and an Inca noble occurs, with a similar outcome. Finally, communication between the Indians and Spanish is accomplished thanks to a translator: the Spanish make clear that they have come for gold and silver and Pizarro threatens to kill Atahualpa. At first, Atahualpa responds by threatening in turn, but then he surrenders, offering Pizarro gold and silver in exchange for his life. It is, however, a false surrender: in parallel, he entrusts his son Inkaj Churin with planning the reconquest of his Empire and curses Pizarro and all the Spanish forever. He also refuses baptism by the Dominican friar Vincente de Valverde; but it is exactly as he pushes away the Bible Valverde has thrust in his face, that Atahualpa is murdered by 1

I would like to express my gratitude to Simone Attilio Bellezza, Johannes Birgfeld and Magda Martini for their useful comments. Every remaining error is the author’s.

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Pizarro. The Indian chorus begins lamenting the death of their ruler and their empire. Pizarro returns to Spain where Charles IV condemns Atahualpa’s murder. The Spanish leader dies and most of the local versions of the play conclude with the Indian chorus grieving the death of their king and his empire. However, the version told and represented at Oruro ends with the chorus praying for the resurrection of Atahualpa; another version, the one performed at La Paz, stages the resurrection and final triumph of the Inca Emperor. *** Why do societies remember, and even commemorate, wars? The question in the title of this paper seems pointless, the possible answers implicit, because obvious.2 However, on second thoughts, this question is a basic issue underlying all the other 2

The literature on the memory of wars is very extensive; here, only a few, illustrative examples are given: on the memory of war in the ancient Near East, see Harmansah 2013; in ancient Greek and Roman History, see Hölscher 2003; Jung 2006; Stein-Hölkeskamp/Hölkeskamp 2006 (the papers collected in section 2); Luraghi 2008; Stein-Hölkeskamp/Hölkeskamp 2010 (the papers by Meier and Zahrnt); Chaniotis 2012; Franchi/Proietti 2014b (with further literature); Baroni 2015; Migliario 2015; Franchi 2016; Franchi/Proietti 2017a; in the Middle Ages: Geary 1994; 2012; Van Houts 1999 (on the memorial tradition of the Middle Ages through both narrative sources [chronicles, saints’ lives and miracles] and material culture [objects such as jewellery, memorial stones and sacred vessels]; Goebel 2007 (on the relevance of the memory of Medieval wars to the imagery of the Great War); Allen Smith 2011 (who shows how monastic identity was negotiated through war memories, and how the concept of spiritual warfare informed virtually every aspect of life in the cloister); Rogers/Devries/France 2013 (= vol. 11 of The Journal of Medieval Military History); Cassidy-Welch/Lester 2017; in Modern History: Campbell/Labbe/Shuttleworth 2004; Fahs/Waugh 2004 (on the memory of the American Civil War in American Culture); Hagemann 2015 (on the memory of Prussia’s Wars against Napoleon); van der Steen 2015 (on the memory of the Revolt in the Netherlands of 1566); Forrest/Hagemann/Rowe 2016; Harlan 2016; in the 20th century: on the Great War: Fussell 1975; Evans/Lunn 1997; Sherman 1999 (on the ways in which the French remembered their veterans and war dead after the armistice and on how commemoration of WWI helped to shape postwar French society and politics); Johnson 2003 (on Irish experience of the Great War); Saunders 2004; Watson 2004; Goebel 2007; Williams 2009; Trout 2010; Vance 1997 (on Canada’s collective memory of the First World War); Todman 2014; Kurschinski/Marti/Robinet 2015; Plain 2016 (on the martial myths shaping Scottish identity from the aftermath of Bannockburn to the close of the nineteenth century); on World War II: Corni 2007a: 2007b; 2012; 2013; Karner/ Mertens 2017; in Post-war America: Bodnar 1992; in Post-war Europe: Müller 2002; Lebow/Kansteiner/Fogu 2006 (a comparative case study of how memories of World War II have been constructed and revised in seven European nations: France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, and the USSR); Prince 2009; Noakes/Pattinson 2013; Niven/ Roeger/Scholz 2015; Fedor/Kangaspuro/Lassila 2017 (on East European memory politics and the post-communist instrumentalization and re-mythologization of World War II memories); Niven 2017; on the memory of the Holocaust: Bloxham 2001; Niven 2001; CorniHirschfeld 2002; Huener 2003; Lentin 2004; Todorov 2003; Weissmark 2004; Wolf 2004; Zsolt 2004; Corni 2007c; Rothberg 2009; on the Spanish Civil war: Aguilar Fernández 2002; Morcillo 2013; on French memories of the Algerian War (1954–1962): McCormack 2007; on the memories of the experience of Apartheid: Coombes 2003.

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questions raised within this book, and is anything but banal: if we take a step back, we cannot not be surprised that both individuals and societies always and everywhere remember wars:3 why do we insist on remembering, even commemorating, instead of forgetting, such highly traumatic events? In fact, our insistence on remembering wars goes against one of the basic tendencies outlined by polemology, according to which forgetting the suffering of war is structural and periodical.4 The question becomes even more puzzling if we think that not only winners, but also losers, remember war and not just in commemoration rituals for the dead, where the relevance of commemoration seems self-evident, since it ensures that the fallen are remembered and mourned (although, in fact, much more is actually going on), but in almost every figure of memory.5 The remembrance of war cannot be taken for granted; indeed, we should start marveling at it again. The ritual drama described in the prologue provides fascinating (albeit impressionistic) insights into this question. It is the so-called “Dance of the Conquest”, made famous and analyzed by Nathan Wachtel in his La vision des vaincus (Paris 1971). The story dramatizes the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire (1532–1576) and is told by the conquered.6 It touches upon several topics that trouble researchers committed to investigating why societies remember wars: clashes with hostile 3 4 5

6

Even if, sometimes, with a critical approach or in a tormented way: see, for instance, Inoguchi/Jackson 1998; Niven 2017. See Bouthoul 1951, 513 ff., who speaks of “rythme de l’oubli”. Being on the losing side is a defining experience: victories tend not to require explanation, but the defeated have to wrestle with their humiliation. See, for example, how the Athenian’s troubling memories of the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War were constructed in the public speeches of the early 4th century BC (Wolpert 2002; Low 2010), and in casualty-lists and epigrams (Arrington 2014); or how the deeds of the fallen Romans in the Teutoburg Forest were memorialized by Tacitus (Ann. 1.61, cf. Seidman 2014, 97: “Tacitus is commemorating the deeds of Germanicus’ troops in his written history as they themselves are described commemorating the deeds of Varus’ ill-fated legions”; see also Pagán 2002, and, more generally, on Ancient Roman responses to defeat: Clark 2014; in Ancient Mediterranean societies: Clark/Turner 2017); or the Battle of Kosovo of 1389, which, in in the liturgical hymns written for the office of St Lazar, symbolizes the martyrdom of the Serbian nation in defense of not just their honor but also of Christendom against the Turks (non-believers) (Glibetic 2011). The South after the American Civil War, France after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, and Germany after World War I are further case-studies showing that defeated nations often try to make defeat feel like victory and thus affirm their moral superiority over the victor and build their new identity (Schivelbusch 2003, passim, esp. 42–43, 115, 196, 371). On the culture of defeat and subsequent calls for national rejuvenation, see also Ginio 2016 (who deals with the First Balkan War). From a more general point of view, Wolfgang Schivelbusch reminds us that many seminal myths of Western civilization are rich in images of pride before a fall, of heroic defeat and final vindication (Schivelbusch points to the fact that the legendary founder of Rome was the Trojan refugee Aeneas; and that the paladin of the Greek victors, Odysseus, had to wander the world in peril, before finding his way home.) Since the 16th century different versions of the “Dance of the Conquest” have circulated in communities throughout the central and southern highlands of Peru and into Bolivia; the most complete account was put in writing in 1871 at Chayanta (northern Bolivia) and was published by Jesús Lara in 1957. This version is summarized here. See Wachtel 1967, 556–60; 1971, 84–91.

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civilizations; resistance; trauma; the subsequent emergence of a new ‘national identity’; the final rebirth. 1. THE MEMORY OF WARS AND THE INDIVIDUAL POST-WAR TRAUMA In line with one of the basic concepts of polemology, according to which “les éléments psychologiques tiennent une place très considerable dans les guerres”7, recent war studies maintain that the memory and commemoration of war are significant primarily for individual psychological reasons.8 Indeed, funerary and commemoration rituals are a human response to the death and suffering of individuals that war engenders on a vast scale, and these and the other emotions of individuals experienced in war play a significant role in the formation, transmission, and recall of war memories, since emotionally arousing and unpleasant events become more firmly encoded in memory.9 The most visible emotional impact of war – in the immediate post-war period – is the trauma suffered by the individual soldiers, addressed in detail by Giorgia Proietti in her introductory chapter to this volume. The following analysis considers post-war trauma only in so far as it gives rise to remembrances practices.10 Post-war trauma is a widespread phenomenon which science started to investigate in the aftermath of the total conflicts of the 20th century. Exposure to combat and war atrocities may cause a particular kind of post-war trauma: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a recognized disease, sometimes known as shell shock or combat stress.11 Interest in PTSD and post-war trauma more generally,12 has spread 7 8 9 10 11

12

Bouthouol 1951, 325. Ashplant/Dawson/Roper 2000, 7; Misic in this book, all of them with further literature. See Misic in this book, who provides an overview based on recent research on cognition and emotion. Since Winter and Sivan’s (1999, ch. 1) suggestion that the term ‘memory’ be substituted by ‘remembrance’ in order to avoid its trivialization has not yet been generally accepted, the terms are used synonymously in this paper. Combatants experience many situations leading to PTSD: recent studies have shown that the majority of soldiers deployed in war zones (ranging from 24 % to 2 % across different studies and wars) return from service with shell shock (Magruder/Yeager 2009.) The symptoms are assumed to follow a homogeneous pattern across individuals (Bernsten et al. 2012): recurrent, intrusive reminders of the traumatic event, including distressing thoughts, nightmares, and flashbacks where the soldier feels as if the event is happening again; extreme emotional and physical reactions to reminders of the trauma such as panic attacks, uncontrollable shaking, and heart palpitations; extreme avoidance of things that remind him of the traumatic event; withdrawing from friends and family and losing interest in everyday activities; irritability, anger, reckless behavior, difficulty sleeping, trouble concentrating, and hypervigilance. Post-war trauma is cross-cultural and both ancient and modern veterans have similar psychological reactions to war (Shay 1994; 2002; Tritle 2000; 2009), but it is far from certain that ancient soldiers experienced post-war trauma comparable to modern PTSD (Meineck 2016; Proietti 2016; forthcoming, and in her introductory chapter to this volume).

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beyond the medical world, the condition is now well established in the public imagination, and the subject of interdisciplinary investigation. Accepting the polemological axiom according to which war changes collective mindsets,13 memory studies focusing on the memory and commemoration of wars have investigated the ways in which post-war trauma is usually taken up as part of a wider group memory (in a sort of bottom-up process: from the individual to the wider group).14 A recent study on Vietnamese memories of the Vietnam war highlighted how the memory of traumatic war experiences undergone by a parent could be transmitted to their descendants through repetitive retelling15 which gives rise to a ‘vicarious memory’.16 This is not the only way in which individual trauma is moved into a more collective dimension. Indeed, experts on trauma and political memory point to the fact that commemorations of traumatic events construct an intimate bond between the individual and the community:17 a shared ritual emotional experience, such as a funerary rite, forges strong bonds between individual participants and creates a tightly-knit social group, an emotional community.18 It is not coincidental that the current trend in the memorialization of conflict reveals a pluralization of memorial practices, and the identities of the fallen soldiers: as Natalyia Danilova put it, “this pluralization recognizes individual contributions to the well-being of the nation, and in this regard it is sympathetic to veterans, survivors, bereaved families and all those who suffered wars”.19 A first, tentative answer to our initial question can therefore be that remembering and commemorating wars is a therapeutic activity which helps individuals to cope with trauma; and that anchoring this trauma in a collective memory is an effective way to do this, since the negotiation of a trauma happens through a normalizing narrative that imposes order on disorder.20 The trauma is neutralized through emplotment, woven into a broader narrative shared by other individuals who have been through similar experiences: a process occurs which Paul Ricoeur divided into

13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20

Bouthoul 1951, 324–25 and passim the ‘septième partie: Élements psychologiques des guerres’. Goodall/Lee 2015, 279. Top-down processes, from group to individual, are addressed in the next paragraphs. Thanh Nguyen 2013, 2. i. e. a memory which individuals hold with great emotional commitment even if it is a memory of an event they have not experienced directly: Hynes 1999, 207. A widespread phenomenon which also works in reverse, consider Eviatar Zerubavel’s statement that seemingly personal recollections are merely the personalized manifestation of a single common collective memory (in a top-down process, from the collective to the individual): Zerubavel 2003, 4; Giangiulio in this book. Edkins 2003, 4. See also Winter 1995, 98. Low/Oliver 2012, 2. On the concept of emotional community: Rosenwein 2002. Danilova 2015, 83. Her focus is on (the comparison of) commemoration practices in the UK and Russia. Edwards 2015, 6. On the autobiographical narration of war experience as both a genre and a means to cope with the trauma see, most recently, Bettalli/Labanca 2016.

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three different mimesis-stages.21 Reconfigurations in the last stages provide the individual with a set of more or less shared meanings that help him to decode, and thus put into perspective, his traumatic experience. 2. MEMORY STUDIES, WAR STUDIES AND THE MEMORY OF WARS (FROM HALBWACHS TO ANDERSON AND BEYOND) Another approach to commemoration practices studies memories of war as expressions not so much of individual trauma (albeit anchored in collective memories) but of a collective drama.22 As such, memories and commemoration rituals of war were associated with a sense of belonging to the nation they were believed to construct (through the fostering of nationalism); they are among “all those devices through which a nation recalls, marks, embodies, discusses or argues about its past, and to all those devices which are intended to create or sustain a sense of belonging or ‘we feeling’ in the individuals who belong to it”.23 Very simply, the first approach foregrounds the individual and his memories, the second approach the group and its memories. This dualism, by the way, mirrors Bergson and Halbwachs’ divergent conceptions of the relationship between individual memories and the social environment, as analyzed by Maurizio Giangiulio in his introductory chapter to this volume. This second approach emerged as war studies and memory studies began their cross-pollination. As outlined above, this happened especially with regard to theories of nationalism and triggered, in turn, an analysis of the role of war memories and memorializations in the development of a sense of group belonging in a wider sense, not only at the national level. Before analyzing the role played by battle memories in creating a sense of belonging to a variety of groups, it is worth trying to briefly trace the history of this approach. This line of research is clearly based on Halbwachs’ pioneering theories on collective memory dynamics, his Les Cadres sociaux de la mémoire (Paris 1925) was both the starting point and the point of no return for all research on the memory of war. As Maurizio Giangiulio’s opening chapter shows, the complexity and influence of Halbwachs’ work raises as yet unanswered issues in the field of memory studies.24 Since Halbwachs’ theories were developed and applied in relation to the 21

22 23 24

Briefly, Ricoeur distinguished three different levels of mimesis: mimesis I, being a prefiguration of a narrative of human action consisting of different elements, e. g. agents, means, goals, and so on; mimesis II, involving the reconfiguration of this experience through an emplotment which makes it intelligible; and mimesis III, a reconfiguration mediating the world of the text and the world of the reader: Ricoeur 1983–1986, vol. I 105–69; 2000, 15, 186 ff. with n.3, with comment of Giangiulio 2010c, 38 with n. 33. A critical discussion of further literature on War Studies (Proietti) and Memory Studies (Franchi) is provided by Franchi/Proietti 2014b. Turner 2006, 206. On Halbwachs’ theories see Giangiulio in this volume and Giangiulio 2010a; 2010b; for an overview on the memory studies that develop from Halbwachs’ theories see Proietti 2012; Franchi 2014b; Franchi/Proietti 2017a.

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study of nation-building, their roots lie within the general field of war studies. On the other hand, in Theories of Nationalism (1971) Anthony Smith argued that nationalism requires that the members of a nation feel an intense bond of solidarity to the nation itself and to its other members, and that it therefore builds on the kinship, religious, and belief systems of pre-existing groups, whose histories are refashioned into a sense of common identity and shared history which in turn reinforces a sense of common national belonging. This sense of common belonging, however, requires constant nurturing. Twelve years later, Eric Hobsbawm, Terence Ranger and Benedict Anderson published their studies on the legitimization of the nation state through present-oriented memories. Hobsbawm and Ranger’s The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge 1983) showed how the traditions that build nationalism and “appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented”.25 In the same year, Benedict Anderson (Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London/New York 1983) analyzed how nations function as “imagined communities” sustained by the sharing of common images, symbols and ceremonies.26 Anderson devoted great attention to anonymous war memorials, which are “saturated with ghostly national imaginings” since “no more arresting emblems of the modern culture of nationalism exist than cenotaphs and tombs of unknown soldiers”.27 Ultimately, the encounter with the enemy gives rise to a sort of “oppositional identity” which fosters a sense of belonging to a group as strong as that rooted in the sense of “aggregative identity”.28 The first seminal book on the nationalistic nature of war commemoration soon followed: in 1990 George Mosse published his Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford), based on research which developed his previous studies on the political symbolism of the Third Reich (The Nationalisation of the Masses. Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich, New York 1975). It has to be acknowledged that in 1975 Paul Fussell had already described in a nationalistic perspective the responses of English young adults to their experiences of combat in World War I.29 25

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Hobsbawm/Ranger 1983, 1. The complex interaction of present and past is explored through different case-studies: the creation of Welsh and Scottish ‘national culture’; the elaboration of British royal rituals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the origins of imperial rituals in British India and Africa. See also Brubaker 2004 (providing new insights into how groups are constructed). One has to note, however, that in recent times the nationalist narratives and categories that traditionally dominated the historiography have been challenged with reference to eastern Europe, where forms of national indifference are giving rise to “imagined noncommunities” (Zahra 2010). Anderson 1983, 9. On the concepts of “oppositional identity”, defined by the opposition of a group to another group, and “aggregative identity”, defined by a shared history, a shared mythology, a common language and common cults, see Hall 1997, esp. 47–48; Konstan 2001; Malkin 2001, 1–19. Fussell showed how the experience of the “Great War” was underpinned by a permanent shift in the aesthetic perceptions of individuals, who experienced the transition from the tropes of Romanticism that had guided them as young soldiers before the war, to the harsher themes that came to dominate during the war and after, in their adulthood. By the way, beauty and youth-

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However, Mosse explored more deeply what he calls “The Myth of the War Experience” which emerged in Western Societies after the First World War: the sacralization, and thus legitimization, of the war experience, “meant to displace the reality of war”.30 According to Mosse, war memorials and commemoration ceremonies are central to the Myth of War Experience and have three characteristics: death on the battlefield is seen as a sort of initiation into adulthood; fallen soldiers are transformed into national saints,31 and a cult of the war dead recalls the Passion and resurrection of Christ; this cult creates a new solidarity within societies. As we will see below, the characteristics outlined by Mosse, together with other factors, identify the key issues with regard to the memory and commemoration of war, and provide important answers to the question addressed in this paper. In order to account for both the individual and different kinds of group, however, it is necessary to extend the scope of Mosse’s analysis beyond the nation, as we will do in the next sections. 3. MEMORIALIZING WAR EXPERIENCE AS THE INITIATION OF THE ADOLESCENTS OF A GROUP In accordance with one of the basic tenets of polemology, that “l’esprit de sacrifice existe principalmente ches les jeunes gens”,32 ‘the triumph of youth’ is a key element of the war experience myth in Mosse’s theory: death on the battlefield is represented as a transition from the boyhood of a soldier to the manhood of a fallen soldier.33 After the First World War, war narratives and iconographies depicting war as “an education in manliness” – even “a test of manhood and male camaraderie” – were often encountered.34 Indeed, war as a transition ritual has long been studied, highlighting the function of “ritual war” as an “initiation war” for the adolescents in a community. According to Gilbert H. Herdt, initiation rituals in Papua New Guinea were modelled in accordance with a myth of the “Good warrior”: to be a warrior and war leader was the supreme measure of a man’s status and prestige in his tribe, and adolescents therefore had to hone their skills by ambushing and/or engaging the adolescents of neighboring tribes in battle.35 Herdt’s analysis is rooted in the nu-

30 31 32 33 34 35

fulness of the armored male body in combat were further investigated in recent times, too, esp. as important factors in understandings of the past and cultural production: see, for instance, Susan Harlan’s analysis of literary depictions of the construction and destruction of the armored body in Early Modern Europe, especially in Renaissance England (Harlan 2016). Mosse 1990, 7. Instead, survivors sought consolation in the imagery connected with the crusades of the Middle Ages: the soldiers were depicted as knights of a Last Crusade (medievalism as a mode of war commemoration: Goebel 2007). Bouthouol 1951, 381–82. On this aspect, see also Mondini 2014, 180–85 and Id. in this book (par. 2). Mosse 1990, 72–73; 104. Herdt 1987, 113 ff.

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merous studies of initiation wars produced during the nineteenth century.36 Initiation wars were also addressed by Classicists: in a controversial book published in 1961, Angelo Brelich interpreted ancient Greek border wars – with their regular recurrence and various rituals – as former initiation battles, claiming that the battles themselves had functioned as initation rituals.37 Whether or not one agrees with Brelich’s interpretation,38 the fact remains that groups and societies tend to perceive a link between the experience of war and the transition from boyhood to adulthood: the imaginary war is a turning point in the life of the young soldiers, who die as children and are reborn as men. In other words, war gives rise to a rebirth, a new birth. This is an issue we will return to later on. 4. “NOW WE ARE MADE SACRED”: MEMORIALIZING WAR EXPERIENCE AS THE SACRIFICE, INITIATION AND REBIRTH OF THE WHOLE GROUP The above reflections lead us to further investigate a link found between most war narratives: between war/trauma on the one side and (re)birth/origin on the other. The rebirth pattern acquires a sacral meaning and is used to represent the emergence of an entire group – not only of its adolescents. Furthermore, the sequential pattern, ‘war trauma-(self-)sacrifice-rebirth/resurrection/origin-access to the sacred’, seems to be widespread, and found across cultures. Why is this so? During and after the First World War, the fate of the fallen was compared to a very special kind of rebirth: the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. George Mosse explains this link between death in battle and Christian symbolism as follows: Yet Christian symbols, even more than classical ones, dominated the cult [of the Fallen soldiers], for they gave hope that death could be transcended. The experience of mass death led to a strengthening of the basic themes of a familiar and congenial Christianity. The exclamation “Now we are made sacred”, which was written by a volunteer in the First World War, implied an analogy of sacrifice in war to the Passion and 36 37

38

By way of example: Elkin 1938, 172; Evans/Pritchard 1940, ch. 7; Volpini 1976, 166 ff. Brelich 1961, 84. In early times (most probably in Bronze Age Greece, if not earlier), neighboring tribes would have shared initiatic rituals often involving initiatic bloody combats as proofs of courage and efficiency. Tribes would have pitted their adolescents against each other in border battles, the prize being a territory of little economic importance. Every age class had to go through these initiation battles, and they therefore occurred at regular intervals. With time, however, past defeats bred resentment which, combined with other social, cultural and religious changes, must have turned these combats into conflicts involving whole communities, underpinned by political motives and the desire for territorial gain. For these two opposite views see Franchi 2009; 2016, chapters 2 and 6 with previous literature vs. Bershadsky 2012 with previous literature. Brelich’s – in my view improbable – hypothesis assumes that initiation rituals were transmitted without interruption from Bronze Age Greece through the Dark Ages until Archaism; I believe it to be more likely that a mental paradigm influenced the representation of these wars as initiation rituals and that this paradigm, not the initiation rituals themselves, is very ancient and perhaps dates back to Bronze Age Greece – if not earlier.

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Elena Franchi resurrection of Christ. Christianity as popular piety, that is, a faith outside the confines of organized religion, provided the most solid ground from which war experience could be confronted and transcended, more relevant than the so-called theology preached at home and at the front. (…) Christianity triumphed in this extreme situation – a popular piety which saw hope in suffering according to the Christian tradition. The Wars of Liberation [against Napoleon] had been likened to a new Easter, and now, in 1914, Walter Flex compared the war to the Last Supper. Christ reveals himself in war, and therefore war itself is a strategy through which Christ illuminates the world. The sacrificial death of the best of our people, Flex continues, is only a repetition of the Passion of Christ. The Passion leads to resurrection (…)39

The stages of Christ’s Passion are thus made relevant to the modern collective war experience, one is reminded of Bouthoul’s words on the ‘éducation pour la mort’.40 Generally speaking, the representation of war experience as (self-) sacrifice and its connection with both life after death and/or the divine and the sacred are cross-cultural; two of the papers in this book examine this theme: Marco Mondini’s analysis of First World War soldiers’ autobiographical writings shows how recurrent the issue of self-sacrifice is in war narratives, and – more specifically connected to Christianity – Giuseppe Albertoni’s paper clearly shows how, in the time of Charlemagne, the actions of the King of the Franks and the will of God had become indistinguishable to the point that wars never led to any particular forms of celebration, since to celebrate would have meant to allow the possibility of something other than victory (fallen soldiers were celebrated as Christian heroes). Mosse’s case-study makes the connection between self-sacrifice and death, on the one hand, and (a belief/hope in) a very special kind of rebirth, that is ‘resurrection’, on the other, even clearer. The connection between the idea of rebirth and the sacred is not new. In 1958, Mircea Eliade highlighted the profoundly religious meaning of the death-rebirth sequence, recognizing it in a widespread pattern of initiation: indeed, initiation rituals mark a “birth” or “rebirth” on a higher – or sacred – plane, and the death of the initiates to a former state of non-sacred existence. This sequential pattern ‘trauma-(self-)sacrifice-rebirth/resurrection/origin-access to the sacred’ can very usefully represent the (‘sacred’) origin of an entire group (and not only of its adolescents). Starting in 1981, René Girard progressively developed a mimetic generative theory which puts the figure of a scapegoat at the heart of societies’ origin stories.41 By comparing persecution texts with myths, most notably with the myth of Oedipus, Girard discovered strikingly similar themes and structures and looked for a non-structuralist explanation for them. According to his theory, the first prehistoric communities choose a victim, a scapegoat, against whom to unite. That victim, upon whom the sins of all are heaped, is sacrificed, and thus order is restored: a ‘new order’, a ‘new beginning’ which is understood to have been established by the very scapegoat who caused the previous disorder and thus became, in the imaginary, a ‘civilizer’. Without necessarily fully endorsing René Girard’s scapegoat theory, we can acknowledge that socie39 40 41

Mosse 1990, 74–75. Walter Flex is the author of Der Wanderer zwischen beiden Welten (1917), one of the most important books published in Germany about the war experience. “Il faut convaincre ces jouvenceaux qu’ils sont le sel de la terre, l’èlite de la race des seigneurs, ou les véritables chevaliers, sans tache, saints parmi les saints” (Bouthoul 1951, 392). Girard 1984; 1987; 1992; 1993.

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ties tend to remember their origin as a trauma which resulted in the sacrifice of a victim, a sacrifice which then somehow becomes that of the whole society. Again, Bouthoul’s words on the causal relationship between ‘guerres-chaos-vertu creatrice’ spring to mind.42 The ‘trauma/sacrifice-idea’ becomes a sort of logique supplémentaire to explain the earliest origins of a group, a community, a city, a society, a nation, a civilization. Moreover, this holds true for both victories and defeats – for conquerors and the vanquished, since “les vaincus songent réorganiser leur pays, reconstituer leurs forces, réparer leurs pertes et leurs destructions. Souvent le vaincu trouve une sorte de satisfaction en considérant que la guerre l’à délivré de ses erreurs”43. Similar mechanisms may explain why war experience represents the hard core of nation building: the very origins of a nation are perceived and narrated as the outcome of a traumatic event, a war, which gave rise to an emergence or birth. Note that this also explains why even the vanquished sometimes insist on remembering and commemorating wars: the trauma undergone by the losers is reshaped, and celebrated as a new beginning, or is linked to the rescue of a community, becoming, in either instance, a factor of collective identity.44 It is therefore not surprising that the same pattern of death and rebirth often occurs in representations of ethnogenesis (the emergence of an ethnic group). This leads us to ethnopoiesis, the construction of ethnogenesis on a discursive level,45 a good example of which is provided by the narrative of the ethnogenesis of the Phocians, a people living in Central Greece in Ancient Times. The 2nd century AD author Pausanias (10.1.3 ff.) allows us a glimpse of such a narrativation,46 summarized in the following: In the years leading up to the Persian wars the Thessalians and their allies with all their military power had undertaken an incursion into the Phocians’ territory. In a first battle, the Thessalian cavalry were defeated through a ruse: the Phocians buried some jars which the Thessalian cavalry stumbled over. Then, however, things started to go badly for the Phocians: 300 selected Phocians were killed by the Thessalian cavalry. Scared, the Phocians decided that, if they were defeated, they would collect their wives and children and their most valuable goods at one site, put wood around them, place thirty guards there, and in the event that an announcement of defeat arrived, everybody would be killed and burnt as a sacrifice and they would then kill themselves or fight against the Thessalian cavalry to the very end. The Phocians, however, won. Afterwards, the Phocians enacted another ruse: 500 selected and chalk-marked Phocians in white armour overwhelmed the Thessalians under a full moon. The Thessalians mistook the white soldiers for something unearthly.

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“Durant les grandes guerres, on a l’impression que le monde est retourné à une sorte de chaos, que tout va finir par être bouleversé et que les survivants vont se trouver dans un monde entièrement nouveau et déconcertant. D’où la satisfaction mêlée de déception des survivants lorsqu’ils constatent les limites de cette vertu créatrice” (Bouthoul 1951, 403). Bouthoul 1951, 402. See Chaniotis 2012, 45–47. See Döblin 1997, 26; Hahn 2003, 211; Sønnesyn 2013, 201 ff.; Franchi 2016, 25–30, 322 ff. A similar story was told by Herodotus, although he conveys a sense of (threat of) death and migration and not of initiation: see Franchi 2017.

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This chalk-marking is a typical initiation ritual:47 during the liminal stage candidates were marked with chalk and thus resembled non-human beings, part animal, part god, part ghost. Whether or not the Phocians actually marked themselves with chalk is not the issue here; of more significance is the initiatic flavour of the story in Pausanias (and perhaps in his source[s]): death is haunting, the Phocians were willing to burn themselves and their descendants – in other words, to destroy their own people –, but victory follows, they then mark themselves with chalk, and so definitively defeat their enemy, re-emerging as people (similar dynamics are at play in the memories of the Thirty Years’ War: see Fehrlen-Weiss in this book, esp. p. 160). In this tale, the emergence of the Phocian people is represented by the drawing of initiatic symbols as a rebirth following a (prevented) death. The Phocians are resurrected after the trauma of a war, or, as Mosse puts it, their resurrection is made possible through their experience of war and the threat of death. Since Pausanias’s source is a Phocian tale, we can assume that the Phocians used the remembrance of this war to represent their emergence as an ethnic group (an ethnos, in the language of Classical scholars), and commemorating it through tales and festivals became important for their sense of belonging. Several of the papers in this book show how this process worked for different groups. Birgit Bergmann and Holger Baitinger highlight how war commemoration rituals, victory dedications and, more specifically, dedications of arms and armour, played a decisive role in the ancient Greek shaping of a collective polis and its outward representations. In the specific case of classical Athens, notions of honour and shame in war were understood as fundamental to values of parrhesia, lawfulness and democratic courage, which, in turn, are central to the identity of the polis, as Mirko Canevaro’s analysis shows. With regard to ethnic groups, I give evidence, in my chapter, of the war-related discourse at the root of the origin stories of people living in ancient Central Greece (Phlegyans, Dryopes, Kragallidai). Poleis and ethnic groups are not the only political communities involved. Moving on to ancient Roman history, Blanka Misic investigates how the funerary monuments of soldiers and veterans during the first two centuries A. D. at Poetovio (Pannonia superior) helped to create a new imperial provincial culture. Other papers in this volume give further evidence of the importance of the memory of war and war commemoration in the 47

Jeanmaire 1939, 354–56 with sources; Brelich 1969, 473 with sources and literature; Franchi 2017 with previous literature; see also Orde-Browne 1915, 68. Chalk-marked initiation candidates in ancient Greece: Harpocration s. v. ἀπομάττων commenting on D. 18.259. As I have argued elsewhere (Franchi 2017), the chalk-marked Phocian soldiers are represented as initiation candidates in Pausanias’ narrative (which in turn mirrors a fourth-century Phocian narrative), whereas in Herodotus the marking with chalk of the Phocians is linked with (the threat of) death and migration narratives. In seeking an historical explanation for folktale motives recurring in the sabba-tales circulating in Medieval and Modern Europe, Carlo Ginzburg collected a large body of evidence that in several similar cases armies of phantoms (as the Phocian chalk-marked soldiers appear to be) originally represent death, or, more precisely, the worldly journey towards death, and that their connection with initiation rituals is a later development of the motif, which took place because initiation candidates are usually thought to make a journey through the world to their deaths (Ginzburg 1989, 223 ff.).

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fostering of a sense of belonging among different social groups. Lilah Grace Canevaro examines the women in Homer as tradition bearers of war memories. Then James Roy considers local elites in Greek communities under the Roman Empire; he shows how memorials and memories of war were at the core of their identity issues, and that they continuously reshaped these memories by attaching their own versions of history to visible monuments. The extent to which the middle and lower classes engaged in strategies and practices of commemorating war and war dead in 18th century Germany is addressed by Johannes Birgfeld. These strategies and practices also operate within political groups. Mark Thorne’s paper investigates how the fact that the memory of a civil war (the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC) was relevant to a specific political group (Caesar’s), but not to their opponents, and was therefore not common, meant that this memory was expressed differently by each group. Similar dynamics are at play in a completely different setting, where, at the end of World War I, nationalist veterans, members of the Stahlhelm Bund der Frontsoldaten, became political subjects and fostered a politics of memory that rejected the post-war settlements and their subsequent narratives, as Salvador’s analysis reveals. Memories of war and political groups are also the focus of Bellezza’s essay, with its analysis of how post-Soviet Ukrainian politics of memory in the 1990s were shaped since the state itself was not able to elaborate a clear, shared historical memory.48 Bellezza’s case-study also exemplifies the role of the politics of war memory in building a nation, a cross-cultural phenomemon worthy of further investigation. 5. WAR EXPERIENCE, COMMEMORATION OF WARS AND NATION-BUILDING As might be expected, the pattern we can call the ‘(re)birth of a group’ – which, as we have seen above, can be a “(re)birth of a people” – can also effectively represent the ‘(re)birth of a nation’. Thus, as mentioned above, remembering and commemorating war can be key to nation-building;49 and the creation of several national narratives relies on a precisely articulated ‘politics of memory’ of one or more wars.50 Politics of memory are usually “top-down”, enabling dominant elites to 48

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A further case-study is provided by the revolt which erupted in the Netherlands in 1566: in Memory Wars in the Low Countries, 1566–1700 (2006) Jasper van der Steen shows how public memories of the Revolt in the Habsburg Netherlands in the South and the Dutch Republic in the North competed in domestic political struggles, on both sides of the border and throughout the seventeenth century. Gillis 1996 (see esp. John Gillis’s overview of the development of public memory in relation to the history of the nation-state); Wertsch 2002, esp. 67; Meusberger 2011, 22, 57; Vance 1997 (on the implications of war memory for Canadian nationalism); Gorman 2018. The role played by war and war memories in fostering the sense of belonging to Italy by the inhabitants of today-Trentino (Northern Italy), who entered the First World War as people of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, is analyzed in Bellezza 2016. ‘Politics of memory’ is here a threshold concept, usually conceived of as “official memories propagated by states and their institutions […], media and national celebration days, and the

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propagate an official memory,51 whereas ‘memory cultures’ are predominantly fueled bottom-up, largely uncontrolled, sometimes even contradictory to politics of memory: they are alternative narratives (and therefore potentially counter-memories), which can be individual or collective (shared by groups such as minorities, victims, women, migrants and minorities).52 Memory cultures are constantly interacting with politics of memory, their divergent strands often jockeying for power:53 top-down memories aim at an all-encompassing unity within a population and are therefore highly symbolic; symbols are deployed to stabilize narratives and identities and to check for bottom-up contradictory narratives “before they are transported from a society’s communicative memory into its cultural memory”:54 clear – not multilayered or ambiguous –, secure narratives, are much more effective in building a national narrative.55 However, their effectiveness depends on their being shared and shareable, and this brings different memory cultures into play again. Paul Ricoeur’s reflections on Descartes’ ‘oubli méthodique’ on the one hand, and on the question of institutional requests for forgiveness, such as the Pope’s for the Crusades, on the other, led Ricoeur to more general conclusions on the necessity of both an enlightened forgetting and an ethical memory,56 which has a ‘dimension communitaire’ (and thus is more widely shared), as he explained in the first, seminal pages of his monumental La Mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli.57 An ‘ethical memory’ is oriented towards justice and the other, and tries to become a ‘collected memory’ –

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equipment of the public space with historical monuments, streets and place denomination. Potential actors are political leaders, teachers, priests and preachers, journalists and municipalities” (Kaser 2013, 10). Low/Oliver 2012, 3; Gutmeyr 2013, 25. See also Prince 2009 and Arnold 2011 on memory cultures in Post-war Germany (Prince argues that the wartime sufferings of average Germans were at the heart of German historical consciousness and thus shaped Germany’s role in world affairs). Radstone 2005, 137. Cf. also Beaumont 2015 (on the relationship between the state and substate actors in memory making). Low/Oliver 2012, 4; Gutmeyr 2013, 19, 29. According to Aleida and Jan’s Assmann famous definition, “communicative memory” is limited to 3–4 generations, i. e. until the last surviving carrier of a transgenerational memory, and with them a specific memory, dies; while cultural memory is an institutional form of collective memory, strongly connected to specific carriers who act as specialists controlling the knowledge connected to memory (Assmann 1992, 48– 66). Hutton 2000, 537. Ricoeur 2000, 82: “De la même façon, ne peut-on parler d’‘oubli éclairé’, selon l’esprit des Lumières? Oubli éclairé qui, au sens propre du mot, servirait de garde-fou contre une culture forcenée de la mémoire mémorisante ? Il faudra y revenir le moment venu, lorsque l’on tentera de donner à l’ars memoriae le symétrique que serait l’ars oblivionis selon le voeu de H. Weinrich dans Lethe. En attendant, ces suggestions convergent vers le plaidoyer pour un usage mesuré de la remémoration – à l’enseigne d’une juste mémoire –, idée à laquelle donnera corps, dans un moment, notre réflexion sur les abus d’une mémoire manipulée par l’idéologie”. Ricoeur 2000, 621, n. 24: “ce qui est ici en question, c’est une forme de responsabilité morale qui implique 1’existence d’une ‘mémoire morale’ de dimension communautaire, autrement dit la reconnaissance d’une dimension morale de la mémoire collective, dimension morale qui serait la source d’une ‘identité historique’ pour une communauté humaine”.

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a sort of middle ground between a top-down politics of memory and bottom-up memory cultures.58 It is thus reasonable to conclude that if the politics of a war memory rely on a broadly inclusive national narrative, the number of people to whom the memory of this war is meaningful is larger. In her chapter, Blanka Misic considers this theory: she describes how remembrances of war in the Roman colonia of Poetovio adopted a platform of public and mass communication common to the different cultural and social groups of the colonia, thus becoming inclusive. Finally, a war memory can also be one of the cornerstones in nation-building within an international framework, where different national memories of the same war are in competition. Scholars analyzing the politics of memory of the Russo-Ottoman War have shown how symbolic commemorations and monuments “contribute to the sustainability of divergent national memories”59. The Russo-Ottoman War (1877–1878) resulted in the establishment of a new political order in the Balkan and Caucasian regions, especially affecting the nations directly involved in the war, the Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Georgians, Bulgarians, Macedonians and Russians. At this time these nations developed contradictory official memories: the Peace Treaty of San Stefano (between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, signed on 3rd March 1878), for example, which gave most of Macedonia to Bulgaria, was celebrated as a national holiday in Bulgaria, where the Russo-Ottoman War is called the “Liberation War”; but was perceived as a tragic event in Greece for the same reason. Similarly, in the Ottoman Empire, the San Stefano Treaty, and the subsequent Treaty of Berlin (13th July), which revised it, providing for a much smaller state, were represented as dramatic, separatist events that were going to lead to the destruction of the Empire: “interpreted in contradicting ways, the ROW [Russo-Ottoman War] served national ideologists as the basis for strengthening national identities”.60 58

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Young 1993, xi; see also the papers collected in Müller 2002. In a certain sense the non-linear nature of memory politics in democracies highlighted by Rachel Sieder is a consequence of an ethical approach to the politics of building memories which embraces previously excluded memories, thus creating a new, more inclusive, politics of memory: Sieder 2001, 23. On the ramifications memories of war have for the democratization of Central and Eastern Europe (and the consolidation of the European Union), see Lebow/Kansteiner/Fogu 2006; Pakier/ Stråth 2013; see also Aguilar Fernández 2002, who explores how the historical memory of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) influenced the transition to democracy in Spain after Franco’s death in 1975. Kaser 2013, 8. Cf. also Beaumont 2015, who examines how commemoration of the centenary of the First World War has been influenced by different national/countries’ historical experiences and political cultures. Kaser 2013, 1. Afterwards, these contradicting memories were also used in the ideological propaganda on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. Bulgarian Russophilism, strongly rooted in the Bulgarian national memorialization of the ROW, was further shaped when, in 1946, Bulgaria – allied with Germany in both World Wars – became a one-party socialist state: this change was seen as a “second liberation” (1944) and had an impact on the memory of the first liberation (1878), which was “ideologically reinterpreted” (Pashova et al. 2013, 39 ff., esp. 42; the quote is by Kaser 2013, 14), since Russia had helped Bulgaria twice, liberating it from both the Turkish and the Fascist yoke. Thus, the shaping of the memories of

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6. COMMEMORATING WAR TO PRESERVE A COUNTRY’S MILITARY CULTURE (AT HOME) AND REPUTATION (ABROAD/EXTERNALLY) In his The Professional Soldier. A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe 1960) Morris Janowitz highlighted how war commemoration ceremonies contribute to the preservation of certain military cultural values, such as cohesion and combat readiness, within the armed forces. Studying the Israel Defense Force (IDF) regulations on the procedures to be followed in the event of a soldier’s death during peacetime, Nissan Rubin (1985) came to similar conclusions. These regulations covered burial ceremonies, the erection of a gravestone, official rites of mourning and memorialization for individual soldiers, an annual day of remembrance to commemorate all military dead, special remembrance days for each corps, and monuments – all efforts by the military to institute egalitarian systems of burial and mourning in order to strengthen cohesion. Other research, focusing on holiday celebrations and ceremonies at the United States Air Force Academy – an important site of military socialization – has shown that “the mechanisms of ritual and ceremony, enacted in the context of military holidays, can generate the cohesion and elevate the morale of both participants and observers”.61 Since the military is also a repository of mythical constructions of the past, public ceremonies advance a sense of belonging within the armed forces which ensures professionalism and military effectiveness within a nation.62 A country’s military effectiveness may also be increased by the preservation of its military reputation abroad, in enemy eyes; this reputation is sustained through the memory of past military exploits. In his chapter, Roel Konijnendijk investigates the famous Spartan ideal of never retreating or surrendering, which, in conjunction with their reputation for military skill, made Sparta’s enemies wary of direct confrontation: the Spartans, moreover, did their best to intensify the terror they inspired through intimidating dress and drills. As their armies shrank decreased and their power waned, Sparta increasingly relied on the power of its reputation, built on memories of past victories, to preserve its high status among the Greeks. 7. COMMEMORATING WAR TO PLOT THE FUTURE Usually studies on the memory of wars operate on the assumption that all memories are present-oriented. However, recent studies in memory politics draw a distinction between (mainly) backward looking (or retrospective) memories and (mainly) for-

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the ROW is a twofold demonstration of the vitality of commemoration as a vehicle for statedriven nationalism: it provided a “rebirth” pattern and played an important role in Bulgaria’s nation building on two separate occasions, in 1878 and in 1944. Machalek et al. 2006, 390. Danilova 2015, 13, citing Schiff 2009.

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ward looking (or prospective) memories.63 The former, while ostensibly commemorating the past, are actually also intended to plot the future. Indeed, our perception of past events is largely shaped by the future of those same events: this future is a ‘future past’,64 in the sense that it is already in the past for us. The vantage point from which we view and memorialize these past events influences the selection and arrangement of the material used and, since we already know the consequences of a particular event, we are likely to remember it in order to make comparisons with a present situation, and to imagine how that situation might develop in the future with reference to the future past. Taking a step further, we can commemorate a past event in order to compare it to a present one, and to plot the latter’s future. In other words, a past war can be commemorated to describe and plot the future consequences of a present war. War memorials are clearly forward-looking memories: a good example is provided by Alan Gutteridge and Zena Kamash, who in two different studies point to the prospective memories shaped by the Arch of Constantine, which was erected by the Roman Senate to commemorate Constantine I’s victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312. The arch is heavily decorated with parts of older monuments, and older reliefs of the dead emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, predecessors of Constantine, were reused. It seems quite clear that this reuse met the requirements of an ideological, rather than a financial, agenda: their heads were recarved with the features of Constantine. The inner passageway contains segments of a once lengthier frieze depicting Trajan in scenes of heroic combat; above the reliefs, two inscriptions dedicate the monuments to the liberator of the city (LIBERATORI VRBIS) and to the founder of tranquility (FVNDATORI QUIETIS), epithets also used to address Constantine in the main inscription of the monument.65 Thus, the link between Trajan’s military exploits and Constantine’s epithets established by the reliefs proves to be mainly retrospective, but also present-oriented. Furthermore, when put into context, these war memories turn out to be forward-looking: indeed, the meaning of the Constantinian scenes of liberalitas 63 64 65

I. e. past-oriented memories and future-oriented memories: see Levy/Sznaider 2001, 123 ff.; Koselleck 2004; Holtorf/Williams 2006; Hajek/Lohmeier/Pentzold 2016, X ff.; 85 ff.; 221; Franchi/Proietti 2017b; Franchi 2018. On the concept of ‘future past’ see Koselleck 2004; and in ancient history: Grethlein 2013, 1–2; 2014; 2016. Further literature in Franchi/Proietti 2017b. CIL 6.1139 = ILS 694, appearing on both sides of the Arch (cf. Gutteridge 2010; Hughes 2014; Kamash 2016, 685 ff.): IMP CAES FL CONSTANTINO MAXIMO P F AUGUSTO SPQR

To the emperor Flavius Constantine the Great pious and fortunate, the Senate and People of Rome QUOD INSTINCTU DIVINITATIS MENTIS because by divine inspiration and his own MAGNITUDINE CUM EXERCITU SUO greatness of spirit with his army TAM DE TYRANNO QUAM DE OMNI EIUS on both the tyrant and all his FACTIONE UNO TEMPORE IUSTIS faction at once in rightful REM PUBLICAM ULTUS EST ARMIS battle he avenged the State ARCUM TRIUMPHIS INSIGNEM DICAVIT dedicated this arch as a mark of triumph

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(Constantine distributing money to the people, on the north side) and adlocutio (the emperor speaking to the troops, on the south side) is clearly proleptic and reflects “a promise and a control over the times that were yet to come”.66 In a completely different context, but again remembering the past with an eye to the future, after the World Wars governments exploited and reused templates of their commemorations of the ‘age of nationalism’ as vehicles for nationalism in the attempt to overcome later fragmentations of national identity, i. e. to plot future political frameworks. The media coverage and the political representation of the Gulf Wars clearly demonstrate this process. Evoking associations with the Second World War, reporters compared Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler:67 on 12 April 2003 the Daily Mirror ran a three-page feature with the headline “Saddam Hussein, dictator, 1937– 200? – A Life of Evil”.68 These parallels constructed a sense of historical continuity by incorporating the Gulf War into the established cultural war imagery against which conflicts since the Second World War have been understood. It was the ‘free world’ against Nazism, a conflict between good and evil: the Second World War, a past conflict, worked as a paradigm for the Gulf War, a present conflict. Indeed, G. H. Bush, as early as 1990, described Saddam Hussein as “the Hitler of the nineties” in his speeches: on October 23, he spoke in the Armory at the Holiday Inn-The Center of New Hampshire during a Republican Campaign Rally in Manchester, New Hampshire. In his remarks, he compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler when saying that Bob Smith and Bill Zelliff, would make a difference when they were elected, and that people could make that difference by voting in the right way.69 Thwarting Saddam’s imperialist ambitions, the President believed, would forestall another “Munich,” preventing the outbreak of a more serious crisis later on. The Munich analogy lent credibility to the idea of Saddam as a serious global threat in the future. Through his reference to the aftermath of the Hitler era, i. e. the future past of Nazism, and thus using the Second World War as a forward-looking memory, Bush instilled fear of the future. Conversely, he can be said to have recalled Nazism and the Second World War in order to plot future political scenarios.70

66 67 68 69 70

Gutteridge 2010, 165–66. Morrison 1992, 83; Winter 1993, 107 and ff.; Philo/McLaughlin 1995, 146–47. See the analysis of Hoskins 2004, 122. Bush 1990, passim. Further case studies in Franchi/Proietti 2017a; 2017b. On forward-looking memories of the Great War: Winter 2006 (on the images, languages, and practices which appeared during and after the Great War and “shaped the ways in which future conflicts were imagined and remembered” [2 and passim]). Prospective memories are analyzed by Roel Konijnendijk in this volume. His analysis of the Spartan war reputation shows how their practice in commemorating past exploits generated expectations of further victories. Remembering the Spartan’s past military effectiveness, their enemies feared the Spartan warriors and lost faith in their own prowess. The Spartans, in turn, fostered memories of their past victories in order to terrorize their enemies and thereby lay the foundations for future victories: presenting a pair of similar narratives from Thucydides and Xenophon, Konijnendijk shows how the Spartans began to capitalise on the psychological effect of their presence towards the end of the fifth century BC, introducing uniform dress and equipment and marching into battle with deliberate calm, tactics designed to weaponise the memory of their past victories.

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APPENDIX Studying ancient social and mediatic frameworks of memory: balancing challenges and pitfalls This book presents comparative insights into the topics of memory and the commemoration of war from ancient to modern times, in accordance with a deliberate, carefully considered choice by the editors. One of the main aims is to reveal some common trends in the memorialization and commemoration of wars across time and space, as will emerge from Mirko Canevaro’s conclusions. A second, equally ambitious (and equally legitimate) aim is to road test the heuristic potential of certain methodological tools and to consider their transdisciplinary use on a case-bycase basis, as the next introductory chapter by Giorgia Proietti will show. Since methodological tools developed to study modern societies are more likely to be applied to ancient societies than vice versa, the aim of this chapter’s concluding section is to bring into focus some peculiarities of ancient social and mediatic frameworks of memory, thereby shedding light on the potential pitfalls and consequent need for caution. I focus on the risks posed by the peculiarities of the ancient evidence, while Proietti’s introductory chapter highlights the risks linked to any failure to take sociological and historical contexts into account. As this approach is still in the early stages of development, it is not possible to cover all the issues systematically; the intention is rather to offer some starting points for further discussion. 1. WHO REMEMBERS IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME? SHORT-LIVED SOCIAL AND CULTURAL FRAMEWORKS OF ANCIENT MEMORIES One of the first problems faced by classical scholars studying memory and the commemoration of ancient wars is a key issue in memory studies generally: who remembers? This issue has always been problematic with regard to ancient Greece and Rome. In a broad study of ancient societies, and Egypt in particular, Jan Assmann answered this question in two different ways, depending on the kind of memory involved. In ‘communicative memory’ – related to the recent past (3 or 4 generations) – participation within the group varies considerably: some people know more than others, and there are no specialists, no experts in this informal tradition. On the other hand, participation in cultural memory, i. e. the long-term memory of societies, which can span up to 3,000 years, is always highly differentiated and involves special carriers, even in illiterate and/or egalitarian societies.71 In his article on memory and oral tradition in ancient Greece, Maurizio Giangiulio examines how Assmann’s 71

Assmann 2010, 39: “Cultural memory always has its special carriers. They include shamans, bards, griots, priests, teachers, artists, scribes, scholars, mandarins, and others. The extraordinary (as opposed to everyday) nature of these cultural memories is reflected by the fact that

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theories were received by scholars of ancient Greece and considers their applicability to the field, concluding that the model has an as yet not fully explored heuristic potential; and that his analysis of specialist carriers of cultural memory, however, cannot be applied to ancient Greece. There are two reasons for this, both of which reflect a turn in the Classics. Firstly, Oswyn Murray’s pioneering research on oral traditions in ancient Greece highlighted the variety of social, geographic and cultural environments and groups that shaped oral traditions in ancient Greece, including families (usually aristocratic), from different communities; the communities that grew up around the oracular shrine of Delphi; traditions rooted in Ionia.72 As Giangiulio reveals, a number of scholars are now focusing on the role played by local knowledge in traditions centered on Delphi and on the influence folktale and fairy tale motifs have on oral traditions more generally.73 The second turn involves the issue of ‘aristocracies’ in antiquity, and concerns both Greek and Roman history. A recent article by Maurizio Giangiulio investigates the new perspectives revealed by this research and highlights that not only was the ancient Greek aristocracy not “hereditary”, or even “closed”, its alleged (and allegedly very deep-rooted) family trees are fictitious, as Felix Bourriot (1976) and Denis Roussel (1976) demonstrated in the 1970s. Even more significantly, however, the groups previously referred to as to be aristocratic are much more “open” and fluid, than had long been thought – anything but stable and long-lasting – so much so, indeed, that even to refer to them as ‘aristocracies’ is problematic.74 It thus goes without saying that to detect which environments and groups have shaped a specific memory requires caution and sophistication; this applies equally with regard to memories of war. It has long been commonly assumed that noble Roman families were more “stable” than the Greek ‘aristocracies’; they were even known as the “lords of memory”. This memory was initially considered private, and was only later presented as the memory of the populus Romanus as a whole, after the struggles to ascendancy of the early Republic.75 More recent perspectives have drawn attention to the fluidity of Roman ‘aristocracies’, with the exception of the period between 450 and 367.76 None of the above research, however, suggests that ‘aristocratic groups’ had total control of the collective memory (the tabula pontificum was much more binding); and the oral memories of other social groups cannot be dismissed a priori, although it is difficult to investigate them.77 By the way, one wonders if similar difficulties arise for the High Middle Ages nobility, described, since Marc

72 73 74 75 76 77

these specialist carriers are separated from everyday life and duties. In illiterate societies, the form of their specialization will depend on what is required of the memories”. Murray 19932, 25 ff. See also Murray 2001a; 2001b. Giangiulio 2010a, 17–18 (=2005, 22). Giangiulio 2016 (discussing the whole bibliography). Cf. Cic. Mur.166; Liv.27.8.9–10. See Timpe 2011. Raaflaub 2005; Bradley 2015. The concept of ‘national memory’ should also be rejected: Flower 1995; Baroni 2015; Migliario 2015 (vs. Wiseman 1994). Gabba 2000, 61; Rüpke 2000, 47; Walter 2004, 84 ff. (with further bibliography and sources), 254; Baroni 2015; Migliario 2015. The ‘collective’ memory is primarily conveyed by monuments and triumphs (see Favro 2014; Migliario 2015).

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Bloch, as a ‘de facto class’.78 The issue of ‘who remembers’ has undoubtedly become more and more difficult and requires an approach that takes the social and mediatic frameworks of memory into account. 2. ANCIENT MEDIATIC FRAMEWORKS OF MEMORY AND THE CHALLENGE POSED BY OUR LACK OF EVIDENCE One of the biggest challenges for scholars of ancient history is the lack of evidence. Both material evidence and written sources are insufficient or almost entirely lost, particularly for the Archaic period; over the centuries scholars have therefore developed a range of sciences, sophisticated approaches and methodologies with which to reconstruct ancient history. Philology, papyrology, epigraphy, archaeology, numismatic are vital disciplines and all historical approaches (antiquarian, positivistic, etc.) are – to a greater or lesser extent – fine-tuned in accordance with the cultural turn of the moment (linguistic, constructivist, mediatic, spatial, etc.). In the area of memory studies, this means that both the media of memory and the memory-making power of those media require careful assessment; Astrid Erll spoke of “mediatic” – as well as social and cultural – frameworks of memory:79 not all practices of remembering are media-related at the same level,80 or have the same effectiveness and persistence.81 I have investigated this issue elsewhere,82 and will limit myself here to outlining two “mediatic issues” closely related to the problematic issue of source inquiry in the Classics: intermediality and remediation. 2.1 (The advantages of) Intermediality According to memory studies on mediatic frameworks, intermediality occurs when different media interact to convey collaborating pieces of memory and thus build a specific image of the past.83 As such, intermediality would therefore seem a promising direction for scholars hampered by insufficient evidence. The case studies analysed below provide a good example of one kind of intermediality: intertextual78 79 80 81

82 83

Bloch 1940, 1–98, esp. 2, 5, 7–10, 35; on medieval élites see esp. Aurell 1996; Werner 1998, esp. 130–37. I am grateful to Giuseppe Albertoni for his valuable advice. Erll/Rigney 2009, 1: “‘media’ of all sorts (…) also provide frameworks for shaping both experience and memory”; see also Erll 2011. Võsu/Kõresaar/Kuutma 2008; Couldry 2012; Kaun/Stiernstedt 2016. Connerton 1989, esp. 102 ff. on ‘commemorative ceremonies’ vs. ‘inscribed memory’. On the relevance of the mediatic frameworks in war memories, see, e. g., Evans/Lunn 1997 (on memories of war that have emerged and endured in the twentieth century); Van Houts 1999 (in Medieval History); Saunders 2004; Williams 2009 (both on the memory of the First World War); Saunders/Cornish 2009; Ramsay 2015 (on the memory of the Second World War). Franchi 2018. See also Proietti in her introduction to this volume (on differences between multimedia in ancient and modern times).

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ity.84 Intertextuality posits that no “text” starts with its own beginning, rather, by way of reference, it joins an ongoing conversation, thereby entering into a continuous communicative process: intertextuality is hypoleptic.85 This is precisely why the approach may help historians to capture the context of specific acts of commemoration. Take the example of the coin legends in the Imperial age. Under Augustus, coins bearing martial images linked to specific triumphs became a medium for the commemoration of Rome’s military victories and a direct correspondence between coin types and the legends explaining their images developed.86 Victoria Győri has noted that the recovery of the Roman standards lost to the Parthians in 53, 40 and 36 BC was commemorated by Augustus through the issuance of coins in Pergamum. The coins portrayed a bare-headed Augustus with the legend IMP IX TR PO V on the obverse, and a domed tetrastyle temple with 5 steps enclosing one standard and the legend MARS VLTO on the reverse. Now, Cassius Dio (54.8.3) records that the standards captured from the Romans and returned by the Parthians in 20 BC were placed in the temple of Mars Ultor on the Capitol: we can thus infer that this is the particular temple referred to on the reverse of the coin.87 From a methodological point of view, the intertextual play of different media (coins, their legends, monuments and historiographic texts) undoubtedly helps historians to reconstruct the context of the coins: scholars can identify the wars commemorated by the coins through analysis of legends, material evidence and historiographic texts. Nor does the interaction end there. Mark Thorne’s study of the commemoration of the Battle of Pharsalus gives a further example of the contribution of intermediality to scholars’ right understanding of ancient evidence on the memory of wars. Thorne’s analysis starts from a passage by Appian depicting Caesar’s erection of a temple to Venus, “just as he had vowed to do when he was about to begin the battle of Pharsalus” (BC 2.102). Admittedly, Appian refers to Venus Victrix. Thorne argues that Appian is wrong and that, in fact, the temple to which he is referring is that of Venus Genetrix, which, according to Pliny and Cassius Dio, dominated the Forum Iulium (Plin. 35.156; cf. D. C. 47.18.4), i. e. the Forum of Caesar (completed by 46 BC):88 Appian simply confused the name of the promised temple with the Caesarian watchword “Venus 84 85 86 87

88

Erll 2011, 184. Assmann 1992, 281 ff. On the gap 27–19 and the resumption of the right of coinage in 19, see Crawford 1985, 256–57. GyŐri 2014, 242–44. On the questions raised by this temple – was it a temporary structure, or did it not even ever leave the drawing board – see Weinstock 1971, 128–32; Rich 1998, 82 n. 41 and 42 with previous bibliography, and, more recently, Spannagel 1999, 41–72 and 79–85. This Augustan phenomenon became the template for later Roman military coinage: some dupondii of Gaius minted in Rome in AD 37–41 depict Germanicus in a quadriga on the obverse and Germanicus raising his right hand in adlocutio and holding an Aquila in his left on the reverse; the reverse bears the inscription: SIGNIS RECEPT DEVICTIS GERM SC. The Aquila clearly refers to the recovery in AD 15–16 of one of the aquilae lost during the Varian disaster of AD 9 in Germany (RIC 12: Gaius 57). See Thorne in this volume.

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Victrix”.89 Again, we see that historians can reconstruct the framework of Appian’s statement about the commemoration of Pharsalus by combining the evidence provided by different media (historiographic sources and monuments). Conversely, however, intermediality can also mislead historians, both ancient and contemporary. The Pantheon in Rome, though not entirely related to the memory of war, provides a good example of this. Hadrian’s reconstruction of Marcus Agrippa’s original monument differed greatly from its predecessor,90 but Hadrian kept Agrippa’s original dedicatory inscription. Now, while Hadrian’s contemporaries were undoubtedly aware that the Pantheon had been rebuilt, and may well have approved of his leaving the name of the original founder, which seems to have been a contemporary practice.91 Nevertheless, this retention of the original dedicatory inscription gave rise to an ‘intertextual misunderstanding’: Cassius Dio (53.27), writing some decades after Hadrian’s reconstruction, mistakenly believed that Agrippa had built the structure visible in their day.92 Any analysis of Cassius Dio’s texts in relation to the monument thus requires extreme caution. 2.2 The challenge of remediation In recent times, a constructivist view of the mediality of reality has changed the approach of scholars to mediatic frameworks of memory.93 Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney (2009) have highlighted the role played by remediation, the “formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms”.94 Remediation acquires a very particular meaning in relation to ancient societies: our access to (the medium of) oral traditions is provided by a further medium, a written source – historiography, poetry, or oratory – thus triggering an inevitable process of remediation and hypermediacy.95 This is a first-level remediation process; sometimes a second-level pro-

89

90 91 92 93 94 95

Indeed in 2.68 he says that Caesar “offered sacrifice at midnight and invoked Mars and his own ancestress, Venus (τὴν ἑαυτοῦ πρόγονον Ἀφροδίτην) (for it was believed that from Æneas and his son, Ilus, was descended the Julian race, with a slight change of name), and he vowed that he would build a temple in Rome as a thank-offering to her as the Bringer of Victory (αὐτῇ νικηφόρῳ) if everything went well”. See Westall 1996, 99–110; Thorne in this book; contra Bernstein 2007, 231–32 and Orlin 2007, 69. See more generally Weinstock 1971, 80–87; Amici 1991; Beard/North/Price 1998, 123. MacDonald 1976; Wilson Jones 2000; and the papers collected in Grasshoff/Heinzelmannn/Wäfler 2009. Ramage/Ramage 1991, 175 ff.; Orlin 2016, 121. Another case study analyzed by Simon Price in the light of the social memory is the Forum of Augustus: Beard/North/Price 1998, 199– 201. This also attests to “the power of inscriptions in shaping the accounts of the past”, Orlin 2016, 121. Krämer 1998b; Seel 1998. Bolter/Grusin 1999, 273. Erll 2009, 3; 2011, 165–67. In particular on historiography as an example of remediation see Giangiulio 2010a, 27.

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cess is also involved, if our access to the written source (referring to the oral tradition) is through a later (written) source, the intermedium.96 Similar remediation processes occur in both ancient Greece and ancient Rome, as oral stories were important media of memory in both societies. There is a rich tradition of scholarship on ancient Greece.97 A typical example of the remediation process is the topos of the “female defeating the male”, an image used both in written and oral/semioral (con)texts. I have shown elsewhere how this image undergoes a multiple remediation process, and how the extant sources allow us glimpses of at least a part of this process: • in the Iliad (19.95 ff.) Agamemnon describes Zeus as victim of a female, Hera, who betrayed him by delaying the birth of Heracles (the son of her husband Zeus and Alcmene) so that Euristeus (the son of Zeus and Hera) would be born first and thus be “lord of all those that dwell round about” (Il. 19.104). Hera is depicted as the female who deceives with δολοφροσύνη the greatest among men and gods (τόν περ ἄριστον ἀνδρῶν ἠδὲ θεῶν): ἀλλ᾽ ἄρα καὶ τὸν Ἥρη θῆλυς ἐοῦσα δολοφροσύνῃς ἀπάτησεν • the so-called Argive part of the epicene oracle (which, in its Milesian part, concerns the fall of Miletus) predicts, among other disasters, that a female will defeat a male (Hdt. 6.77.2): ἡ θήλεια τὸν ἄρσενα νικήσασα. Herodotus explains that this oracle was given to the Argives, who feared defeat before the Battle of Sepeia against Sparta (beginning of the 5th cent. BC) • the same topos recurs in tragedies: in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon Clytemnestra is described as θῆλυς ἄρσενος φονεὺς (1231); in Euripides’ Hecuba Agammenon wonders if women master men: καὶ πῶς γυναιξὶν ἀρσένων ἔσται κράτος (883); in Sophocles’ Trachiniae Heracles complains about a woman (γυνὴ δέ, θῆλυς φῦσα κοὐκ ἀνδρὸς φύσιν: 1062) having vanquished him • in a later account of the Battle of Sepeia (Socrates of Argos, 3rd BC) a (female) poet, Telesilla, leading the Argive women, rejects the attack on Argos by the Spartan kings (males), who had just defeated Argos in the nearby Sepeia. Modern scholars have connected Telesilla’s action with the woman defeating the man in the epicene oracle referred to by Herodotus.

The female defeating (sometimes by deceiving) the man might well be a topos working in oral or semioral narratives which was remediated on several occasions to depict situations of (fear of) deceit and the resulting reversal. This topos was remediated in the epos (Hera deceiving Zeus), in a local tale referred to and reworked by Herodotus and later by Socrates of Argos (the female defeating the male in the oracle/Telesilla), and in tragedies (e. g., Clytemnestra killing Agamemnon). Furthermore, remediation is multilayered in most of the abovementioned processes: Herodotus (first level medium: historiographic text) remediates an oral story referring to an oracle (second level medium) which in turn remediates a topos working as a device in several narratives. Even more interestingly, every remediation process results in the recontextualization of the topos through a new emplotment, thereby adapting it to both the story and the medium (epic poetry; historiography; tragedy, etc.): none of this should be forgotten when evaluating how a historical memory (of an event, a ritual, a context) is transmitted. Attentiveness to the recon96 97

For a more detailed discussion and previous bibliography see Franchi 2018. Thomas 1992; Gould 2001, who reasserts the preeminence of oral narratives over commemorative ceremonies; Luraghi 2001; recent discussion and previous literature in Mackay 2008, Giangiulio 2010a and Scodel 2014.

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textualization that results from remediation is investigated in several of the papers in this book – such as Lilah Grace Canevaro’s analysis of how material memory (objects conveying memories of wars) is remediated in Homeric poetry. In our case-study, the female defeating the man is reworked in one way in the Iliad, in a very different way in the tragedies, and yet another way in the epicene oracle.98 As the next section explains, the issue is far more complex than that. 2.3 Remediation and the challenges of the gender studies perspective Let us now reflect further on instances of the female defeating the male, in the case of the story of Telesilla. Within gender studies, not only the remediation processes involved but also the role of women in these stories is considered. The recent gender studies trend crosses a wide range of disciplines,99 including the Classics.100 In a way, they represent a healthy development; as Lin Foxhall puts it in her well-balanced analysis, “we have come a long way since then, with the realization that the inclusive concept of gender is one of the key principles upon which all societies are organized in some way and to some extent”.101 However, the fact that the role of women in the development of Classical civilization remained largely unquestioned for so long means that there is now the risk of a backlash. Gender is not a factor in every medium or remediation process, as Lilah Grace Canevaro demonstrates in her paper on the role of women’s objects in 98 I have tried to show elsewhere (2014a) that as far as the oracle is concerned, the use of this topos is an effect of the close relationship between the oracle and the text – a tale of the Battle of Sepeia – in which it is embedded: when Cleomenes, king of Sparta, returned after the battle and his fellow citizens accused him of having been bribed by the Argives not to destroy the city after Sparta’s victory, the king explained that “he had supposed the god’s oracle to be fulfilled by his taking of the temple of Argos; therefore he had thought it best not to make any attempt on the city before he had learned from the sacrifices whether the god would deliver it to him or withstand him; when he was taking omens in Hera’s temple a flame of fire had shone forth from the breast of the image, and so he learned the truth of the matter, that he would not take Argos. If the flame had come out of the head of the image, he would have taken the city from head to foot utterly; but its coming from the breast signified that he had done as much as the god willed to happen.” (Hdt. 6.82). The breast of the statue plays a significant role in this episode – and in the oracle, the female is addressed as θήλεια, whose root word is θῆλυς, “breast”. 99 On gendered war memories, see e. g. Noakes 1998; Van Houts 1999 (in Medieval History: on the collaboration between men and women in the memorial tradition of the Middle Ages); the papers collected in Korte/Schneider 2002 (on the significance of war memories for various aspects of gender-identity-formation in Britain, from the Middle Ages through to the 20th century); Campbell/Labbe/Shuttleworth 2004 (focusing on the “long” nineteenth century, from the French Revolution to the beginnings of Modernism); Watson 2004; Wingfield/ Bucur 2006; the papers collected in part 3 and 4 of Morcillo 2013 (on the role of women in the Spanish civil war); Kadar/Perreault 2015. 100 A very useful overview is provided by Foxhall 2013, chapter 1. On gender studies and the role of women in war see Chaniotis 2012, 42, and the bibliographical overview provided by Proietti in this book. 101 Foxhall 2013, 1.

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the transmission of war memories. Space does not permit a comprehensive discussion here, but at least one of the potential risks can be further investigated, namely, that the effects of remediation processes on the evaluation of the role of women in specific historical events be underestimated. Indeed, some gender perspectives on our story of Telesilla can lead into several traps. One of these would be to take the role of Telesilla in the Battle of Sepeia at face value by arguing that Herodotus, our oldest source on the battle, while not mention Telesilla, does indirectly refer to her in the image of the woman defeating the man in the oracle. However, present evidence does not allow us to either assert or deny Telesilla’s role in the Battle of Sepeia, although Herodotus’ silence on this means that the burden of proof lies with whoever asserts her presence at the battle. Another, less obvious, risk is that the oracle’s image of the woman defeating the man leads us to infer a key role for women after the battle. Again, such a role can neither be denied, nor proven. However, one is left with the suspicion that the role attributed to Telesilla in later accounts of the battle is a development of the image of the woman defeating the man in the oracle – in other words, that it depends on a remediation process. In any case, to presume that the oracle developed in this way is to accept the image as a widespread topos. This does not mean, of course, that all historical values of the image are void; but great caution is required, and remediation processes that may have shaped the memory of the events and situation being conveyed must be taken into account. The link with the episode of the flame that shone forth from the breast of the statue of Hera seems to point more to the role played by Hera in Argos than to that of the Argive women.102 A gender perspective on this story could help to investigate the way in which the feminine might function as symbol of reversal and threat in Greek – and Argive – imagery. So, ἡ θήλεια τὸν ἄρσενα νικήσασα and Telesilla’s involvement in the Battle of Sepeia need to be reframed and interpreted as clues to the way in which war was encoded, remembered and remediated in ancient Argos and beyond. The question of why societies remembered and commemorated war in ancient times is thus revealed as both a major challenge and, from the opposite perspective, a very fascinating one. Aguilar Fernández 2002: P. Aguilar Fernández, Memory and Amnesia. The Role of the Spanish Civil War in the Transition to Democracy, New York/Oxford 2002. Allen Smith 2013: K. Allen Smith, War and the Making of Medieval Monastic Culture, Woodbridge UK 2011. Amici 1991: C. M. Amici, Il Foro di Cesare, Firenze 1991. Anderson 1983: B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London 1983. Arnold 2011: J. Arnold, The Allied Air War and Urban Memory: The Legacy of Strategic Bombing in Germany, Cambridge 2011. Ashplant/Dawson/Roper 2000: T. G. Ashplant / G. Dawson / M. Roper. (eds.), The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration, London 2000.

102 See above, n. 98.

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Seidman 2014: J. Seidman, “Remembering the Teutoburg Forest: Monumenta in Annals 1.61”, Ramus 43 (2014), 94–114. Shay 1994: J. Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, New York 1994. Shay 2002: J. Shay, Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming, New York 2002. Sherman 1999: D. J. Sherman, The Construction of Memory in Interwar France, Chicago 1999. Sieder 2001: R. Sieder, “War, Peace and Memory Politics in Central America”, in A. Barahona De Brito / C. Gonzalez Enriquez / P. Aguilar (eds.), The Politics of Memory: Transitional Justice in Democratizing Societies, Oxford 2001, 161–89. Sønnesyn 2013: S. Sønnesyn, “The Rise of the Normans as Ethnopoiesis,” in S. Burkhardt / Th. Foerster (Hrsg.), Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage: Exchange of Cultures in the Norman Peripheries of Medieval Europe, Farnham 2013, 203–218. Spannagel 1999: M. Spannagel, Exemplaria principis: Untersuchungen zur Entstehung und Ausstattung des Augustusorums, Heidelberg 1999. Stamper 2005: J. W. Stamper, The Architecture of Roman Temples: The Republic to the Middle Empire, Cambridge 2005. Stein-Hölkeskamp/Hölkeskamp 2006: E. Stein-Hölkeskamp / K.-J. Hölkeskamp (Hrsg.), Erinnerungsorte der Antike: die römische Welt, München 2006. Stein-Hölkeskamp/Hölkeskamp 2010: E. Stein-Hölkeskamp / K.-J. Hölkeskamp (Hrsg.), Erinnerungsorte der Antike: die griechische Welt, München 2010. Stone 2013: D. Stone, The Holocaust, Fascism and Memory: Essays in the History of Ideas, Basingstoke 2013. Than Nguyen 2013: V. Than Nguyen, “Just Memory: War and the Ethics of Remembrance”, American Literary History 25, 1 (1st January 2013), 144–63. Thomas 1992: R. Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece, Cambridge 1992. Timpe 2011: D. Timpe, “Memoria and Historiography in Rome”, in Marincola 2011, 150–74. Todman 2014: D. Todman, The Great War: Myth and Memory, London/New York 2014. Todorov 2003: T. Todorov, Hope and Memory: Reflections on the Twentieth Century, London 2003. Tritle 2000: L. Tritle, From Melos to Mylai. War and Survival, London 2000. Tritle 2009: L. Tritle, “Gorgias, the Encomium of Helen, and the Trauma of War”, Clio’s Psyche, 16, 2 (2009), 195–99. Trout 2010: S. Trout, On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919–1941, Tuscaloosa 2010. Turner 2006: C. Turner, “The Nation and Commemoration”, in G. Delanty / K. Kumar (eds.), The Handbook of Nations and Nationalism, London 2006, 205–13. Vance 1997: J. F. Vance, Death so Noble: Memory, Meaning and the First World War, Vancouver 1997. Van der Steen 2015: J. Van der Steen, Memory Wars in the Low Countries, 1566–1700, Leiden 2015. Van Houts 1999: E. Van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900–1200, Toronto 1999. Volpini 1976: D. Volpini, “L’iniziazione Tharaka: tradizione e mutamento culturale”, SMSR 2 (1976), 275–344. Wachtel 1967: N. Wachtel, “La vision des vaincus: la conquête espagnole dans le folklore indigène”, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 22, 3 (1967), 554–85. Wachtel 1971: N. Wachtel, La vision des vaincus. Les Indiens du Pérou devant la conquête espagnole, Paris 1971. Walter 2004: U. Walter, Memoria und res publica. Zur Geschichtskultur im republikanischen Rom, Frankfurt am M. 2004. Watson 2004: J. S. Watson, Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory and the First World War in Britain, Cambridge 2004 Weinstock 1971: S. Weinstock, Divus Iulius, Oxford 1971.

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Weissmark 2004: M. S. Weissmark, Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II, Oxford 2004. Werner 1998: K. F. Werner, Naissance de la noblesse. L’essor des élites politiques en Europe, Paris 1998. Wertsch 2002: J. Wertsch, Voices of Collective Remembering, Cambridge 2002. Westall 1996: R. Westall, “The Forum Iulium as Representation of Imperator Caesar”, MDAI(R) 103 (1996), 83–118. Williams 2009: D. Williams, Media, Memory, and the 1st World War, Montreal/Ithaca NY 2009. Wilson Jones 2000: M. Wilson Jones, Principles of Roman Architecture, New Haven 2000. Wingfield/Bucur 2006: N. M. Wingfield / M. Bucur (eds.), Gender and War in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe, Bloomington 2006. Winter 1993: D. G. Winter, “Personality and Leadership in the Gulf War”, in S. A. Rensho (ed.), The Political Psychology of the Gulf War, Pittsburgh 1993, 107–17. Winter 1995: J. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History, Cambridge 1995. Winter/Sivan 1999: J. Winter / E. Sivan, War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge 1999. Wiseman 1994: T. P. Wiseman, “Roman Legend and Oral Tradition”, in P. Wiseman, Historiography and Imagination, Liverpool 1994, 23–36. Wolf 2004: J. B. Wolf, Harnessing the Holocaust: The Politics of Memory in France, Stanford, CA 2004. Young 1993: J. E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, New Haven 1993. Zahra 2010: T. Zahra, “Imagined Noncommunities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis”, Slavic Review 69, 1 (2010), 93–119.

CAN AN ANCIENT TRUTH BECOME AN OLD LIE? A Few Methodological Remarks Concerning Current Comparative Research on War and its Aftermath Giorgia Proietti My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. (W. Owen, The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, ll. 25–28)

One of the most remarkable truths of the ancient world, the ‘beautiful death’ for one’s fatherland,1 became an old lie for modern soldiers in the trenches. When I first read Wilfred Owen’s poem recalling Horace’s famous sentence, I found the juxtaposition of the author’s definition, stemming from his own dramatic experience on the Western front, with one of the cornerstones of ancient political and military history somewhat oxymoronic: Owen is not clinically saying that, unlike him, the ancient held death on the battlefield to have a positive value – he flatly states that they were lying.2 There is a subtle difference in perspective here, which I will take as a starting point for a few methodological remarks concerning current comparative research on war and post-war experience. PRELIMINARY METHODOLOGICAL REMARKS Comparative studies which analyse aspects of ancient history with reference to comparanda from the modern world are becoming more and more frequent in historical research. The comparative study of war experience has always been a popular research topic for historians; dominated for many years by political and ideological approaches – which are still influential3 – more recently, the experience of war 1 2 3

There is an extensive literature on the ‘beautiful death’: Vernant 1991 [1982] and Loraux 2018 [1972] are essential reading. On Wilfred Owen, the man and his poetry, see most recently Hipp 2005; Cuthbertson 2013. E. g. McCann/Strauss 2001; Hansen 2001; 2005; Lezenberg 2007; Moon/Collins 2007; Harrison 2008; Hodkinson 2012; Daverio Rocchi 2013; Pritchard 2015; Thomas 2015; Lacey 2016; Potter 2016. On the modern side of the comparative equation, recent American wars, especially Iraq, have catalyzed an unusually wide interest in their ancient alleged counterparts, and the political discourse around them. On the ancient side, Thucydides’ analysis of the Peloponnesian War represents a favourite starting point for modern discussion on the rela-

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and its aftermath, including individual and collective emotions, psychological reactions, imagery and representations, and forms of commemoration, have become key topics of comparative research.4 A series of significant studies related to the experience of war and its aftermath in the ancient, especially Greek, world,5 have so far approached these topics from a comparative perspective: commemoration of the war dead in public discourse and monumentality; the role of the poetic, architectural, narrative and visual arts in the representation of war; war trauma and the neuro-psychological consequences of war for both veterans and civilians; the mutilation of the enemy; the cultural meaning of violence; the relationship between the war and the home front; the role of women in wartime; war crimes such as rape, mass enslavement, and genocide.6 While the comparative approach has undoubtedly enriched our understanding of war-related phenomena, both in antiquity and today, the prevailing perspective has privileged analogies between present and past, and almost systematically overlooked the differences: almost always resulting in superficial comparisons – with little regard for specificities – and precipitate claims for the universality of a given phenomenon. Even when differences are acknowledged, most current studies stop halfway along the trajectory from ancient to modern, in the sense that they recognize the analogies and differences between modern and ancient phenomena, but fail to re-assess the latter in the light of the former, confining themselves to considerations of the influence of the ancient on the modern (according, in fact, to the traditional perspective of Classical reception studies, although recently widened to include a broader historical, rather than strictly literary, perspective).7 Through the discussion of a few notable examples, I will therefore argue for a comparative approach in which the phenomena under analysis are appropriately contextualized – in cultural, social and anthropological terms – before the comparative journey back and forth between the ancient to the modern begins.8

4 5 6 7 8

tionship between politics and war. On the risks of basing contemporary political rhetoric and historical analysis on Thucydides’ account, see Ilari forthcoming, with wide bibliography. Despite the prominence of Thucydides’ narrative of the Peloponnesian war in modern research, Catenacci 1998 on the Persian Wars and the Gulf war, and Harrison 2009 on Herodotus and the American empire, should be mentioned. E. g. Tatum 2003; Cosmopoulos 2007; Rubel 2009; Low/Oliver/Rhodes 2012; Bakogianni/Hope 2014; Bradford 2015; Ambhül 2016; Caston/Weineck 2016; Bonandini/Fabbro/Pontani 2017; Camerotto/Fucecchi/Ieranò 2017. A disproportion which is at least partially a consequence of the fact that memory studies in general have so far focused much more on Greek than on Roman antiquity: see Franchi/Proietti 2014b. This is just a selection of some of the current macro-themes within the field, which must not, however, be understood as discrete themes, since they are full of mutual dependencies and interactions. See in this sense the remarks made by Low/Oliver 2012, especially when they comment on the scope of their edited book (Low/Oliver/Rhodes 2012) in terms of the “lasting influence [of the distant past] on commemorative practice in modern times” (p. 6). This kind of contextualization must go together with an awareness of the peculiarities of the ancient evidence: see Franchi in her introductory chapter to this volume.

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1) The commemoration of war dead in public oratory The phenomenon of the commemoration of war dead in public discourse (in Classical Athens in particular) has recently been approached from a comparative standpoint. Some scholars have compared the Athenian logoi epitaphioi for the war dead to the speeches of modern and contemporary Western politicians after wars or isolated acts of violence and terror: the most famous speech devoted to the war dead in antiquity, that of Pericles following the first year of the Peloponnesian war (Th. 2.36), has been compared to the Gettysburg address, both in its original delivery by President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the occasion of the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) in 1863, and when the then Governor of New York, George Pataki, quoted it at the ceremony for the first anniversary of the Twin Towers attack.9 The two cases are only apparently based on the same logic, that of justifying the sacrifice of human lives for patriotic ideals. On closer inspection, in fact, the commemoration of the fallen in public discourse is only seemingly analogous in Classical Greece and modern societies. A first difference lies in the fact that the relationship between us and our fallen soldiers is completely different to that between the Athenian community of citizen soldiers and the fallen, in terms not of emotional bonds, but of civic roles, with the Athenian war dead coinciding with, rather than being a small group within, the civilian community, as they are in contemporary Western societies. A second difference (a consequence of the first) is the fact that while modern public speeches for the war dead are made by politicians trying to justify the human cost of war ‘from above’ and ‘from outside’, such speeches in 5th century Athens were given by one member of the civic community to his fellows, and he was engaged not in political propaganda but in a shared effort to explain and come to terms with the loss of human life in war.10 The logos epitaphios, a public speech for the war dead held every year after their burial, was a powerful means to compensate the sufferings of the civic community, represented simultaneously by the person giving the speech and his audience.11 A different pattern of vertical vs horizontal (or, at least, oblique) communication between policy makers and civic communities is therefore revealed 9

10 11

Goodman 1965; Wills 1992; Tritle 2000, ch. 8; Stow 2007; Pepe 2009. The prominence of the Greek world in comparative studies on the commemoration of war dead through both public discourse and war memorials results from the Roman tendency to avoid both collective commemoration of the war dead, and the theme of human losses in war more generally. See Hope 2003, and more closely Cooley 2012; Clark 2014, 23–29. Two notable exceptions are Cicero’s proposal to erect a public tomb with an epitaph for those who died during the Civil War (see Sordi 1990b) and the Roman monument at Adamklissi (see Amiotti 1990); see Cooley 2012, for both. For an interesting comparative analysis of the Greek and Roman conceptions of self-sacrifice in war, which partly explains the different treatment of the war dead in their public discourse, see Barzanò 1990. For a distinction between ‘politics of memory’ (transmission from top to bottom) and ‘memory culture’ (vice versa), see Franchi in her introductory chapter to this volume. Cf. Loraux 1986; Proietti 2015; 2017, with previous references.

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in the public discourse on war and war dead: comparisons between Pericles, or other classical Greek figures, and modern Western politicians is undoubtedly useful, provided that the differences as well as the analogies are highlighted.12 2) War memorials “War memorials are the most numerous and widespread of all public monuments”.13 World War I heralded a boom in the erection of war memorials which peaked again – though not so dramatically – after World War II. The memorials of the two World Wars, together with those commemorating the other – not less dramatic – wars of the 20th century, stimulated a general interest in the war memorials of previous eras, monuments from which they themselves had often taken (at least) formal inspiration.14 The academic focus on the commonality of architectural models and artistic features has recently extended to include reflection on the historical and socio-anthropological contexts of war memorials, and their dynamics in collective commemoration and mourning, from the tension between the individual and the collective mourning of war dead – which appears in both Classical Athens and, for instance, the experience of the Commonwealth War Grave Commission – to the custom of listing names, which began in Classical Athens and has since become a common feature in modern war memorials.15 Within this wider comparative approach, I believe, insufficient emphasis has been given to the fact that neither formal analogies (such as that with the public 12

13 14 15

Analogous considerations might be advanced concerning the modern use, and misuse, of the Spartan conception of the state and its connection with war, and especially the exploitation of the Thermopylae episode from a nationalistic perspective, from Göring’s speech to the soldiers in Stalingrad in 1943 to Clinton’s speech in commemoration of the victims of United Airlines Flight 93 in 2011: see Rebenich 2002; Boedtger 2009; Roche 2013a; 2013b; Langerwerf 2016. For a rigorous and in-depth reflection on the characterization of war dead in Classical Athens and its compelling relevance to modern public discourse on war, see Canevaro in this volume. Also based on an incisive contextualization of ancient and modern contexts, concerning their respective familiarity with violence and death, is the comparison made by Palaima 2007 between Athenian annual public funerals for the war dead and the media accounts of the death of 2nd Lt. Therrel Childers, the first US casualty in Iraq. Stow 2017, who offers a problematizing and nuanced reflection on public mourning in today’s America, also proposes indepth comparisons with the ancient Greek world. Borg 1991, 1. Here I use ‘war memorials’ in the broadest sense, including both tombs, cenotaphs and monuments commemorating war (and not specifically war dead). See most recently, Ben-Amos 2012; Goebel 2012; Simard 2015; Macaulay-Lewis 2015; 2016; Midford 2018. Tritle 2000, ch. 9; Tatum 2003, ch. 1; Graham 2012. The latter provides an in-depth comparative study. For the interaction between the private and the public in the commemoration of the war dead, see also Low 2012, on Classical Athens; Chaniotis 2012 on Hellenistic Greece; Tritle 2012 on the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. Names were very rarely listed in the Roman world, due to a completely different pattern in the commemoration of war and war dead: see supra, n. 9. On the explosion of the practice of naming in the memorialization of the Great War, see Laqueur 1994.

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commission), nor aesthetic resemblances between monuments, correspond automatically to continuities of meaning or function for a particular community. The names inscribed on the wall at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, one of the best-known contemporary war memorials, for example, serve a completely different function from those on its ancient architectonical model, the Athenian casualty lists.16 On the American monument, the inclusion of each person’s full name is intended to encourage us to remember them individually, and their relatives are warmly invited by the US government to share pictures and personal memories on The Wall web page,17 so that their individual portraits can be drawn in as much detail as possible. The Athenian casualty lists, however, only included the personal name of the fallen, not the patronymic, instead of which the name of each man’s tribe (the fundamental unit of the polis) was also listed. In Athens, the citizen soldier, not the individual human being, was being commemorated. Collective coping with war casualties also adheres to this distinction: while the therapeutic power of the Vietnam Memorial (also sometimes known as ‘the healing wall’)18 comes from its wholehearted remembrance of each individual, the commemorative strategy behind the Athenian lists is the depersonalization of the fallen, who are remembered first as polis members, and only subsequently as members of their oikos (family).19 The role of the public sphere in relation to private grief also changes: while the Classical polis replaced the families of the fallen in commemorations of the war dead20 – whose public, rather than private, role was thus being commemorated – modern states (at least apparently) act on behalf of the families of the fallen, and give significance to each individual loss.21 Framed by analogous monumental facies, the two lists of names thus serve completely different functions, since the so16 17 18 19

20

21

Contra Tritle 2000, ch. 9; 2012, who confronts them in terms of continuity of both form and function. http://thewall-usa.com / (last accessed on Oct. 19th, 2017). Shay 2002, 88–89. This difference between ancient and modern practices of listing war dead is also outlined by Arrington 2011, according to whom the lists of individual names created “a collective identity of military men” (190; see also 187). On the different meanings of the pattern of listing names in ancient and modern memorials see also Low 2010, 343–44. The general characterization of modern war memorials as sites of private mourning (Winter 1995) should not be taken to imply, however, that there was no room for private engagement with public war memorials in Classical Athens: women could participate in the public burial of the war dead (see Th. 2.34.4) and, in the two days before the burial, relatives were allowed to make private offerings to their dead (Th. 2.34.2, with Hannah 2010 for an examination of the warrior loutrophoroi as evidence of the family mourning rituals described by Thucydides). On the problematic relationship between the state and the family concerning the burial of the war dead, which is famously exemplified by Sophocle’s Antigone, see most recently Ferrario Brown 2006, 82–95; Low 2012, 34–35; Arrington 2015, esp. ch. 6; Marchiandi/Mari 2016. Individual listing is as important for buried soldiers as it is for the unrecovered: thousands of names of the missing are inscribed on modern cenotaphs such as the Memorial of the Somme (over 73,000), at Thiepval, France: see Winter 1995, 105–8; Tatum 2003, 10–16; Stamp 2006. On the importance of names on Great War memorials and their function as “shadows of the dead, standing in one-to-one correspondence with the fallen”, see Laqueur 1994 (quote from p. 164).

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cieties to which they belong have different conceptions of both the relationship between individual and state, and between the living and the dead. Being part of a political community connected the living and the dead in ancient times, being human connects them in today’s social practices of remembrance. The comparison between ancient and modern war memorials is further complicated by the need to consider the huge variety of contemporary war memorials. This variety is striking in comparison to the Classical models, and is closely connected with the general difference between ancient and modern memorials which Alan Borg has already identified: the emphasis on individual suffering – rather than on the collective at war, or the battle itself – which characterizes modern memorials inevitably highlights, and, to an extent, gives official sanction to, a variety of feelings unknown within the more standardized and uniform ancient model.22 It also provokes a variety of psychological reactions.23 Take, for example, the Holocaust memorials all over the world – which, sadly, are probably known to everyone. These monuments differ sharply, not only in their architectural facies, but also in the symbolic strategies they use and the kinds of emotion they aim to arouse, from pity and consolation to horror and repulsion, or alienation and estrangement.24 An awareness of the variety of forms and meanings and the heterogeneity of feelings associated with modern memorials has led historians of antiquity to question the alleged homogeneity of ancient war memorials, and also to read them anew through 22

23 24

Borg 1991, 1: “A characteristic of ancient war memorials is that they commemorate war itself, and specifically victory, rather than recording the loss and suffering of individuals. Modern memorials on the other hand are much more concerned with the sacrifices of war, with the loss of young life in the defence of freedom”. See Borg 1991 and Winter 1995, ch. 4 on the variety of modern war memorials. On the various psychological impacts of war memorials, some of which “‘work’ at the personal level of healing and reconciliation whilst others evoke distaste and condemnation”, see Rowlands 1998 (quote from p. 54). Both the row of parallel concrete blocks at the Holocaust memorial at Treblinka, reminescent of a railway line, and the rows of shoes on the bank of the Danube in Budapest, prompt visitors to identify, and thus empathize, with – at Treblinka – the Jews who were deported to the Polish concentration camp between 1942 and 1943, and – in Budapest – the thousands shot and killed on the river bank by an Arrow Cross brigade in Dec 1944 and Jan 1945. In contrast, the sculptural group (representing three skeletons, twisted and intertwined as if they were alive) in the Parisian cemetery Père Lachaise which commemorates the victims of Buchenwald induces horror in its viewers, and a consequent need for detachment. Differently again, the labyrinth of thousands of stele in the Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the walk among shattered stones at Belzec, in Poland, stir a sense of alienation and estrangement, leading visitors to a place which seems without historical context. Other Holocaust memorials, which include symbolic representations of certain characteristics of the Jewish people, are not only intended to provoke an emotional response from, but also the intellectual engagement of, visitors: the Judenplatz Memorial in Vienna, with its inverted shelves of books, in clear reference to the Jews as the ‘People of the Book’, or the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, where 6 glass towers play with the multiple symbolism of the number 6 in both Judaism and the Holocaust itself. Lastly, some memorials embody generic metaphors of grief, such as the weeping willow in Budapest, or the stone flower at Jasenovac, in Croatia, and aim to provide collective, non-specific consolation.

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the lens of emotions, wondering whether or not their commission, and even their reception, might have been less standardized than is usually assumed.25 Modern performative rituals associated with war memorials have also inspired comparative studies of their possible ancient counterparts, and vice versa. A notable example is Andrej Petrovic’s study on ‘casualty lists in performance’, in which he draws comparisons between the Athenian casualty lists and a marble plaque (which he had spotted in a modern Serbian church), and between the ritual practices associated with each.26 The plaque is inscribed with the names of the men from the local parish who had fallen during the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and the Great War (1914– 1918), and a verse couplet. The Serbian memorial and the Athenian lists are not completely analogous; the former was dedicated by the relatives of the fallen, for instance, while the latter were erected by the Athenian state. Nevertheless, as Petrovic learnt from a local priest, once a year, during a public commemoration of the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the list of the fallen is read out by the diakonos, in a fascinating parallel with the probable ‘performance’ of the Athenian casualty lists, which other hints from the ancient evidence suggest were also probably read out during the annual ceremony for the burial of the war dead. Comparison with a modern phenomenon thus helps to envisage a plausible context for an ancient one. Here, the efficacy of moving back and forth between ancient and modern is demonstrated, and shown to provide insights into both periods: the Athenian casualty lists provided the inspiration for modern monuments that include lists of names, and the usages around modern lists of names helps us to understand their possible performative functions in ancient times.27 3) ‘Multi-media’ and ‘multi-sensory’ representations of war The role of the poetic, architectural, narrative and visual arts in the remembrance of war and war dead from a comparative standpoint has been the subject of several recent conferences, publications, and ongoing research projects.28 Recent studies 25 26 27

28

New nuances in the meanings of the Athenian casualty lists have been identified by Low 2010; Arrington 2011; 2015, ch. 3. For a focus on emotion as crucial to the relationship in the ancient world between monuments and inscriptions and their viewers, see Chaniotis 2012. Petrovic 2016. An example of mutual suggestion between ancient and modern war memorials possibly worthy of further study is the influence of the modern experience of war cemeteries on our conception of ancient sites such as the Athenian ‘Demosion sema’, which was probably much more divided, both topographically and functionally, than the European World War cemeteries, or the American national cemeteries at Gettysburg and Arlington; indeed, the very conception of it as a ‘national cemetery’, and its definition as a ‘Demosion sema’, may very possibly derive from its alleged modern counterparts: see Patterson 2006. This category, more than the others, partially overlaps with the other section of the paper; however I have dedicated a separate section to it because its internal variety (public discourse, war memorials, literature, art all public representations of the experience of war are included) is mirrored in multi-thematic publications and research projects. See e. g. Bridges-Hall-Rhodes 2007 (on the Persian Wars, although not in-depth); Formisano/Böhme 2011; Bakogi-

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have proved how many aspects of both ancient and modern war – unknown to scholarship until just a few decades ago – we can capture through the adoption of a ‘cross-media’ approach.29 Homer’s Iliad has long been recognized as the ancient war narrative par excellence, and the heroes of Troy as archetypes of modern heroes. Whether or not we recognise the analogies and differences between Homeric epic and modern experiences and representations of war, or believe in the universality of war-related phenomena, the Homeric poems undoubtedly provide us with a map of themes and topics which induce us to think, measure, and draw comparisons. Homer’s poems are cited in almost every recent study on ancient wars, whatever their perspective, and are used in attempts to reconstruct these wars as total experiences (involving all five senses), and their means of representation (epic, lyrical, philosophical, historiographical literature; visual art, theatre, and modern media such as cinema and videogames).30 In the study of literary representations of war, the comparative historical approach is sometimes paired, or intermixed, with the – still significant – independent field of classical reception studies (in their narrowest sense).31 The comparative analysis of the multifarious, literary and pseudo-literary, narratives on war (from military exhortations to soldiers’ writings from the front, from military education to anti-militaristic polemic in the theatre, from popular proverbs and songs to public epitaphs and war memorials) has in fact brought to light several fils rouges in the experience, memory and narration of war in both ancient and modern times, that often transcend the strictly literary perspective of reception studies.32 Recent conceptualization of ancient war as both a ‘multi-media’ and ‘multi-sensory’ event lie at the heart of this broader historical comparative interest in

29

30 31 32

anni/Hope 2015; Bradford 2015; Ambühl 2016a; Caston/Weineck 2016; Bonandini/ Fabbro/Pontani 2017; Camerotto/Fucecchi/Ieranò 2017. Comparative studies of postwar trauma merit specific analysis (the topic is only partly addressed, in, for example, Ambühl 2016a; Caston/Weineck 2016): see extensively below, point 4. An ongoing project of interest is ‘Visualising War. Interplay between Battle Narratives in Ancient and Modern Cultures’, at the University of St. Andrews (PI: A. Koenig and N. Wiater). The pattern of ‘intermediality’, understood as the interaction between different media in conveying collaborative pieces of memory and creating a corresponding image of the past, has recently been theorized in the field of ancient history: see Franchi in her introductory chapter to this volume, with literature. E. g. Shay 1995; 2002; 2007; Tatum 1996; 2003; Tritle 1997; 2000, esp. ch. 2, 3, 5; Palaima 2000; 2014; 2016; Norris 2007; Midford 2010; 2011; 2013; McLoughlin 2011; Dué/ Ebbott 2012; Vandiver 2013; Bradford 2015, 5–25. See also Mondini in this volume. E. g. Vandiver 2013 for the British case; Sandrini 2016 for the Italian case. McLoughlin 2011 offers a comparative overview of the literary representations of war from ancient Greece to current wars. I believe this to be linked to a general paradigm shift involving our sensitivity to, and relationship with, the Classical world: the narrow traditional definition of classical reception studies as limited to the quotation of, or allusion to, classical works is currently losing ground in favour of a wider concept which defines any modern study that engages with ancient historical and cultural contexts as classical reception (see Butler 2016). Palaima/Tritle 2013, which provides a brief summary of the literary and historical impact of classical war on the modern world, is a good example of this broader approach to ancient war literature.

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war and post-war phenomena. As Anastasia Bakogianni, editor of War as Spectacle. Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Display of Armed Conflict and Annemarie Ambühl, who edited War of the Senses – The Senses in War. Interactions and Tensions between Representation of War in Classical and Modern Culture, both explain in their detailed introductions to the above volumes, although, in reading the ancient literature, visual clues are the most easily picked up, the wars themselves were, of course, total – i. e. complete sensory – experiences, which led to a variety of expressions and representations.33 The terms, ‘multi-sensory’ and ‘multi-media’ must be understood as two, mutually interactive, sides of the same coin.34 The first foregrounds the ancient experience of war from an emic perspective, i. e. in its participants’ own experience. Although the huge sensory stimuli typical of modern warfare such as (most strikingly) bombing were not a feature of ancient warfare, the experience did, of course, involve all five senses – sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. ‘Multi-media’, on the other hand, refers to the representation of the experience of war from an etic perspective, through a variety of artistic means: representations of war, however, be they literary narratives, sculptural reliefs, or theatre performances, often reproduce multi-sensory experiences of war, and, indeed, sometimes enable spectators to engage with them using all five senses. There is a fundamental difference between ancient and modern times:35 unlike today, at least in the Western world, war in the ancient Classical world did not take place far from home. The war front usually overlapped with the home front, and everyone would probably have been – to varying extents – involved in it. This involvement left its mark on representations of war, and, indeed, shaped the very conceptualization of the phenomenon as a central aspect of collective life that deserved to be publicly represented, if not spectacularized.36 In contrast, theatres of war, and violence and physical suffering more generally, are far from most of our daily lives;37 our engagement with representations of war, however intense, will therefore usually lack the degree of interaction (or even embodiment) which characterized the ancient relationship with them. A methodological consequence of this, of which only some recent comparative studies seem to be aware, is that we cannot confound sense and sensation: when we look at two seemingly similar representations of war we cannot presume that the representation of, for example, a violent scene, in ancient and contemporary times, was inspired by analogous feelings, or, indeed, aroused them. In other words, the different spatial relationships 33 34 35 36 37

Bakogianni 2015; Ambühl 2016b. Bakogianni 2015, 5 comments on “today’s ocular-centric world”, in which we privilege vision above the other senses. I borrow the adjectives ‘multi-sensory’ and ‘multi-media’ from Bakogianni 2015, 5 (who took the latter from Bergmann 1999, 16). See also Bakogianni 2015, 5–6. Bakogianni/Hope 2015. On the overlap of the civilian/combat sphere in antiquity and today see Palaima 2007. On the detachment of violence from people’s daily lives see Freud’s Thoughts for the Times on War and Dead (1915, collected in Strachey 1957), with apposite comments in Palaima 2007, 21–22. For an approach to violence as a cultural construct, specifically related to a society’s common code of values, see most recently Zimmermann 2009; Andò/Cusumano 2010.

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between people and war (or violence in general), as well as the different associated paradigms around perceptions and sensitivity, raise the question of whether the sight of a dead comrade, the smell of a corpse, the yells of an army, or the noise of clashing weapons, really aroused the same feelings in antiquity as they do today.38 Any comparative analysis of the sensory and psychological experience of war must therefore be framed by the appropriate cultural, social and anthropological contextualization, as the notion of war trauma discussed below especially demonstrates. 4) War trauma Academic interest in the sensory history of ancient war has been accompanied, if not slightly anticipated, by an interest in its emotional history. The amount of both literary and non-literary writing produced by soldiers and veterans in the two World Wars has given modern historians a new type of historical source which, despite the important methodological issues at stake, has allowed the reconstruction of the subjective experience of war. The ‘face of battle’, and private matters and feelings, can for the first time be acknowledged as the other, previously hidden, side of the histoire-bataille.39 These new horizons in the study of modern wars inevitably also stimulated original reflections on war, and its representations and commemoration, in antiquity. Although they do not have anything comparable to the 20th century diaries from the front or letters from the camp at their disposal,40 ancient historians 38

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It is worth mentioning here the specific literature concerning the conception, treatment and representation of the enemy in the ancient world and today. Achilles’ disfigurement of Hector’s corpse at the end of the Iliad (22.395–411) has long been treated as the archetype for recent outrages against an enemy, from the Vietnam War to the macabre executions perpetrated by ISIS (e. g. Tritle 1997; De Luna 2006, 51–54). As Kucewicz 2016 has demonstrated, however, both the infliction of outrage on an enemy, and its spectacularization, were completely differently conceived of, and directed in archaic Greece and today, in accordance with the particular sets of collective social and ethical values that frame them. See also the essays collected in Allély 2014. Keegan 1976. An attempt to reconstruct the subjective experience of war in the light of memorialist and narrative war literature was made, in different ways, by Fussell 1975 and Leed 1979. Scholarly interest in non-literary writings, diaries and letters, is more recent; however, in Italy at least, and especially in border regions such as Trentino Alto Adige, it has already become remarkably established, as the recent publication of an English translation of a collection of soldiers’ writing from Trentino – edited, and with a commentary, by Quinto Antonelli, Director of the Archive of Popular Writing in Trento – reveals (Antonelli 2016). Public archives, both physical and digital, of non-literary war writings are becoming increasingly popular, both in Europe and the USA. More details and notable critical remarks concerning the face-of-battle approach can be found in Wheeler 2007, xiii–xxvii. Caesar’s Commentari (to which the Greek world provides nothing comparable) are an exception. Late antiquity also offers materials for comparison: see Zerbini 2014. Concerning the Greek world, however, texts such as Archilocus’ or Tyrtaeus’ elegies provide, in addition to formal models which are imitated or alluded to in modern literature and studied in terms of classical reception, valuable insights into the first hand sensory and emotional experience of

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have shown a growing interest in reconstructing ancient battle experience from the point of view of the soldiers and commanders involved.41 One particularly interesting aspect of soldiers’ direct experience of war and post-war is the (modern) notion of trauma, a useful tool for the analysis of post-war psychological and social dynamics from new perspectives, and one which can shed new light on the consequences of war for veterans and civilians. War trauma, or post-war trauma, entered the field of clinical psychology in the aftermath of World War I, the first mass trauma of the Western world. In the aftermath of the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, and – most recently – Iraq and Afghanistan, the issue has become both socially and politically controversial.42 Psychological reactions to war and trauma, and the coping mechanisms developed,43 have recently entered the field of contemporary history, in two main areas: on the one hand, trauma studies investigate, from psychological and sociological perspectives, the social and cultural traumas inflicted on communities by wars and catastrophes, and the coping strategies employed by affected communities; on the other hand, historiography has begun to take into account both individual and collective psychological and emotional attitudes and reactions in reconstructing, telling and representing military history.44 The interdisciplinary connection between war psychopathology and ancient history, via contemporary history, occurred at the intersection of diverse scientific approaches and personal backgrounds, linked by some degree of direct familiarity with veterans’ war trauma. The American psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, renowned for having introduced Homer into his therapy for veterans’ combat trauma, played a pivotal role in this development45 as did, somewhat later, two Classicists, Lawrence A. Tritle and Thomas G. Palaima.46 Their line of research, which assumes the universality of war trauma, has since been followed by some scholars, and, while others have debated it, has clearly demonstrated how valuable the concept of trauma

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war in archaic Greece. On autobiographical war narratives from antiquity to today see Bettalli/Labanca 2016. Sabin 2000 attempts to reconstruct the face of Roman battle, as does Kagan 2007, from the point of view of the commander; the work of Crawley 2012 on the Greek world is especially noteworthy – uniquely, he puts the hoplite experience into cultural, social and psychological context. For a definition of war neurosis as clinical pathology of the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) type, and the history of military psychiatry more generally, see Crock/Crock 2000; Shepard 2001, and, for a wider historical perspective, Hunt 2010. On the concepts of ‘social trauma’ and ‘cultural trauma’ (of which, of course, war is only one example) see Alexander et al. 2004; 2012. On ‘coping mechanisms’ in general, see Carver/ Scheier/Weintraub 1989; and, more specifically, on coping with war trauma, Martz 2010. See Franchi in her introductory chapter to this volume. Shay 1995; 2002; 2007. Shay defines the Athenian theatre as “a theater of combat veterans, by combat veterans, and for combat veterans” (Shay 1995, 15). Shay 2007, 73–74 prefers speaking of the “psychological injury” suffered by veterans instead of PTSD. Palaima 2000; 2007; 2016: Tritle 2000; 2003; 2004; 2007a; 2007b; 2009; 2012; 2014. On the real urgency of the issue of war trauma in American campuses, where there are far more young students in uniform than in Europe, see Lauriola 2013; 2014a; 2014b; Weineck 2016.

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can be in connecting ancient and modern phenomena, and increasing our understanding of both.47 Sharing the above assumption, some studies have tried to detect symptoms of modern, clinical war trauma in the behaviour of mythical and historical Greek characters: from Achilles to Odysseus, from Ajax to Philoctetes, to Epizelus and Aristodemus, Clearchus and Alexander the Great, they have all been shown to have exhibited symptoms such as anger, inclinations to violence, a desire for isolation, feelings of guilt, lack of faith in people, and suicidal thoughts.48 The work of Peter Meineck, a Classicist who is also the founder and director of the Aquila Theatre in New York, is especially significant in that, similarly to Shay, Meineck stimulates thought and reflection through his active engagement in theatre as therapy for veterans.49 This approach, however, runs into serious methodological problems. The undoubted efficacy of theatre in treating veterans’ psychological injuries today cannot be assumed to prove the existence of the same dynamics in antiquity, much less the existence of war trauma itself as a socially acknowledged phenomenon.50 Leaving aside the obvious difference in the availability of documentary evidence – ancient historians have no access to letters by, or medical records concerning, the hoplites who fought at Marathon, or the oarsmen of the Saronic Gulf! –, there is a first-order methodological difficulty related, once again, to the need for historical and anthropological contextualization. In other words, even when we witness similar behaviours (and presume them to be symptoms), we cannot assume that in ancient Greece the social and cultural conditions would have been such that veterans would necessarily – or even could – develop psychological injuries analogous to the PTSD that affects veterans today.51 Tritle maintains that the streets in Classical Athens were 47

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Especially notable are volumes such as Cosmopoulos 2007; Meineck/Konstan 2014; Caston/Weineck 2016, which draw together the different academic positions on aspects of war, including trauma. Konstan 2014 discusses the topic’s key points. Analysis of war trauma in the Greek world is more developed than that of the Roman experience (on which see, however, Chrissantos 2007; Melchior 2011; Stewart 2011); nor does it appear in recent Companions to ancient warfare such as Sabin/van Wees/Whitby 2007 and Campbell/Tritle 2013. King 2001; Tritle 2003; 2004; 2007a, 181–83; 2007b; 2009; Retief 2005; Ustinova/ Cardena 2014; Gabriel 2015. According to Abduhl-Amid/Hughes 2014, the modern symptomatology of war trauma (including “flashbacks, sleep disturbance and low mood”) can be found in the ancient evidence from Mesopotamia under the Assyrians (1300–609 BC). Meineck/Konstan 2014 is the outcome of a project named Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives. Poetry, Drama, Dialogue, which was inspired by Bryan Doerries’ seminal project Philoctetes Project/Theater of War (now Outside the Wire: see Meineck 2009, and Doerries 2015). In both cases, dramatized readings of extracts from ancient Greek plays are used as therapy for traumatized veterans (and their families), who recognize the characters’ feeling as (apparently) analogous to their own, which they are thus prompted to share, thereby opening themselves to the possibility of receiving consolation and help towards healing. An overview of similar cultural and social projects, with comments based upon the author’s personal involvement, is provided by Lauriola 2013. At the time of writing, Meineck’s Aquila Theatre was running another project for, and with, American veterans, Our Warrior Chorus. As Meineck himself tends to do: see Meineck 2012; 2016. Examples include: Epizelus’ blinding at the end of Herodotus’ account of Marathon (6.117), which King 2001 interprets as an archetypical example of ‘hysterical blindness’, was probably

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full of “soldiers who returned home bearing physical and mental wounds of war” and who “because of what they had done and seen had difficulty living in peace”, but that they could rely on a set of consolatory social practices such as music, dance, and ritual which favored their return to normal, civilized life.52 While this may be true, a fundamental difference in the soldiers’ experiences must be recognized: in ancient Greece war did not represent an interruption of their normal, civilized life, but an integral part of it. As we saw above, in the Classical Greek world the home front and the war front overlapped, in that violence was part of everyday life for most citizens. Consequently, “the direct experience of the realities of war by these citizen soldiers and their communities was important in preventing a rift between soldiers in the field and citizens back home”.53 At war’s end, soldiers did not return home from an exotic experience, to face both the practical difficulties of resuming their ordinary lives, and carrying an inner burden of sensations and feelings struggling to find a place in the everyday. The – institutional and emotional – non-existence of the category of the ‘disabled veteran’ in ancient Greece, which has already been noted, would seem to corroborate this interpretation.54 Nonetheless, the trauma of war cannot be said to have been unknown to the ancient world. The modern paradigm of trauma is, in fact, a very valuable tool with which to investigate war in the ancient world, since it helps us to look at it with fresh eyes. In particular, it allows us to reexamine, and delve behind, the (apparently) mostly celebratory descriptions of war found in the ancient sources and modern studies of them. We can pose new questions to the ancient evidence, and approach the less obvious aspects of the experience of war, which, though more ‘normal’ than today, was nevertheless a dramatic event which had to be coped with. Numerous recent studies, embracing a concept of war trauma that transcends the medical, have looked for evidence that the experience of war was dramatic, if not actually traumatic, for both the fighting and non-fighting populations in the communities involved. Some studies have concentrated on the general impact of war on the whole civic community,55 while others have focused on specific groups, such as

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nuanced by heroism in ancient Greece; similarly, the description of Clearchus as philopolemos in Xenophon (An. 2.6.6) was clearly meant to portray him as a brave general, rather than someone with a pathological addiction to war (as claimed by Tritle 2000, 55–78; 2004). Against the universality of war trauma, see Stewart 2011, for both the Greek and the Roman world, and Crawley 2012; 2014, who is especially effective in showing the absence of the relevant social, cultural, environmental, tactical or technological conditions for the development of war trauma among the Athenian hoplites. A critical approach is also in Greaves 2013. Tritle 2000, ch. 10, with quotes from pp. 185 and 188 respectively. Palaima 2007, 19. Edwards 2012. This kind of analysis is also much more advanced for the Greeks than the Romans. On the latter, the work of Mark A. Thorne is particularly noteworthy, he analyses the civil war in Rome through the lens of trauma (Thorne 2016, and in this volume). A comprehensive problematizing of war in ancient Greece is found in Payen 2012. Raaflaub 2014; 2016; Bearzot 2015a; Proietti 2017; Proietti forthcoming deal with the dramatic impact of war on civilian communities, especially in Classical Athens. Garland 2016 offers an innovative reading of the Persian wars and the material and psychological consequence of both the evacuation of Attica

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women, or war orphans, wounded soldiers, or prisoners.56 Persistent war crimes such as genocide, mass enslavement, and sexual violence have been framed from a comparative perspective, thus allowing us a more in-depth understanding of them.57 Notably, studies on the dramatic impact of war on the home front (which again mostly focus on Classical Athens), seem to confirm that war trauma did exist in antiquity, although it probably did not affect veterans – whether individually or as a group – struggling to recover their civic roles and social relationships, as is the case today. In fact, war trauma would have affected the whole civic community, which comprised both veterans and people who had somehow experienced war, and therefore had to cope with sufferings that touched everybody, such as high death tolls, or the destruction of their city. Similarly to the war trauma of today’s veterans, however, this ancient manifestation of collective trauma (let’s call it ‘public war trauma’) was commonly metabolized through drama, a means of ‘cultural catharsis’;58 in attending performances centered on the sufferings of war, the Athenian community could recognize their own experiences in the plot of the play, thereby achieving a therapeutic detachment, according to the sequence phobos/eleos (terror/piety) described by Aristotle.59 There also appears to be a significant difference between ancient and modern theatre as a form of cultural therapy: empathy with

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and its subsequent destruction in 480/79 for the Athenian population. Cecchet/Degelmann/ Patzelt forthcoming is the first book ever to have been devoted to the impact of war on the home front in antiquity. Specifically focused on women are Payen 2004; 2012, 138–55; cap. VII; Gaca 2008; 2011; 2014; Fabre-Serris/Keith 2012; Wintjes 2012; Pache 2014; Rabinowitz 2014; Chrystal 2017, while Heineman 2011 deals with sexual violence in wartime from antiquity to the current day. On war orphans, see most recently Bearzot 2015b; on wounded soldiers Raaflaub 2014, 26–28; Samama 2017; on war prisoners (whose treatment often overlaps with that of women, who frequently form the majority of captives) Payen 2012, 127–31; Raaflaub 2014, 28; on refugees Raaflaub 2014, 29–30. Thorne 2016; Van Wees 2016; Meineck 2017 engage with major war crimes such as genocide and mass enslavement, the latter introducing the concept of ‘collateral damage’ in his analysis of an ancient context. For a comparison of the massacres in Melos and My Lai see also Tritle 2000, 119–23, although this account smooths over some important differences in context and meaning between the two episodes. I have borrowed the expression from Meineck 2012. I hope I have effectively shown elsewhere (Proietti forthcoming, on Phrynichus’ Sack of Miletus and Aeschylus’ Persians) how theatre might have worked, or not worked, as a means of overcoming civilian war trauma in Athens after the Persian wars. In Proietti 2017 I discuss political ‘pre-play ceremonials’ (such as the public display of tributes, and the procession of war orphans) as both devices aimed at linking a play to the political and military reality of its spectators, and as a coping mechanism for the sufferings of war. The bibliography concerning the cathartic function of ancient theatre, and on Aristotle’s theory of tragic catharsis (Poet. 1149b, 20–24), is extensive. Berzins McCoy 2013 is worthy of note, esp. ch. 7 (“Tragedy, Katharsis, and Community in Aristotle’s Poetics”), where she provides an interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of catharsis as a form of ‘rebalancing’, not only of an individual soul, but also of the community at large; she does not expand on the theme of war trauma, but I think the possible relationship between the vulnerability of the civic community as a consequence of war, and the function of tragedy as both a means of catharsis and subsequent rebalancing for the whole community, deserves specific investigation.

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Achilles’ or Ajax’s feelings, instead of being a stage on the way to subsequent detachment (as it was in antiquity), seems to be inherently consolatory for today’s veterans – a sort of antidote for their sense of loneliness, and a stimulus for the sharing of stories and difficulties. Once again, comparative reflection seems to move continuously back and forth between ancient and modern phenomena, ultimately enhancing our understanding of both. CONCLUSIONS These briefly examined case studies illustrate some of the themes I consider to best show the status quaestionis of the comparative approach to the experience and memory of war and its aftermath, including their implications for social relationships, collective psychology, and collective self-representation and identity. This essay has, I hope, demonstrated two important aspects – one encouraging, the other more problematic – of the current comparative approach. On the positive side, this perspective gaining prominence within the field. A number of important studies have proven its potential to shed new light on ancient evidence, to pose new questions, and reach a deeper understanding of the answers (or, indeed, lack of answers). On the other hand, the – sometimes perfunctory – research that results from the tendency to resist a unified approach, based on coherent anthropological contextualization, which would aim first to ‘defamiliarize’ the familiar, and then to identify similarities and continuities, shows how much needs to be done to build a consistent comparative methodology. All historical contexts, whether ancient or modern, have their own meanings, values, and truths. It is vital not to mix ancient truths and modern contexts: to do so is to create (unhistorical) lies. Abdul-Hamid/Hacker Hughes 2014: W. K. Abdul-Hamid / J. Hacker Hughes, “Nothing New under the Sun: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders in the Ancient World”, Early Science and Medicine 19 (2014), 1–9. Alexander et al. 2004: J. C. Alexander / R. Eyerman / B. Giesen / N. J. Smelser / P. Sztompka, Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, Berkeley 2004. Alexander 2012: J. C. Alexander, Trauma. A Social Theory, Cambridge 2012. Allély 2014: A. Allély (éd.), Corps au supplice et violence de guerre dans l’Antiquité, Bordeaux 2014. Ambühl 2016a: A. Ambühl (ed.), Krieg der Sinne – Die Sinne im Krieg. Kriegsdarstellungen im Spannungsfeld zwischen antiker und moderner Kultur / War of the Senses – The Senses in War. Interactions and Tensions between Representations of War in Classical and Modern Culture = Thersites 4 (2016). Ambühl 2016b: A. Ambühl, “Preface”, in Ambühl 2016a, i–xiv. Amiotti 1990: G. Amiotti, “Il ‘monumento ai caduti’ di Adamklissi”, in Sordi 1990a, 207–13. Andò/Cusumano 2010: V. Andò / N. Cusumano (a cura di), Come bestie? Forme e paradossi della violenza tra mondo antico e disagio contemporaneo, Caltanissetta/Roma 2010. Antonelli 2016: Q. Antonelli, Intimate History of the Great War. Letters, Diaries, and Memoirs from Soldiers on the Front, New York 2016 [Roma 2014]. Arrington 2015: N. T. Arrington, Ashes, Images, and Memories. The Presence of the War Dead in Fifth-Century Athens, Oxford 2015.

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Crocq/Crocq 2000: M.-A. Crocq / L. Crocq, “From Shell Shock and War Neurosis to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A History of Psychotraumatology”, Dialogues in Clinical Neurosciences 2, 1 (2000), 47–55. Crowley 2012: J. Crowley, The Psychology of the Athenian Hoplite. The Culture of Combat in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2012. Crowley 2014: J. Crowley, “Beyond the Universal Soldier: Combat Trauma in Classical Antiquity”, in Meineck/Konstan 2014, 105–30. Cuthbertson 2013: G. Cuthbertson, Wilfred Owen, New Haven 2014. Daverio Rocchi 2013: G. Daverio Rocchi (a cura di), Dalla concordia dei Greci al bellum iustum dei moderni, Milano 2013. De Luna 2006: G. De Luna, Il corpo del nemico ucciso. Violenza e morte nella guerra contemporanea, Torino 2006. Doerries 2015: B. Doerries, Theatre of War. What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today, New York 2015. Dué/Ebbott 2012: C. Dué / M. Ebbott, “Mothers-in-Arms: Soldiers’ Emotional Bonds and the Homeric Similes”, War, Literature & the Arts 24 (2012), available at http://wlajournal.com/wlaarchive/24_1-2/Due Ebbott.pdf (last accessed 21st November 2017). Edwards 2012: M. Edwards, “Philoctetes in Historical Context”, in D. A. Gerber (ed.), Disabled Veterans in History. Enlarged and Revised Edition, Ann Arbor 2012 [2000], 55–69. Fabre-Serris/Keith 2012: J. Fabre-Serris / A. Keith (eds.), Women and War in Antiquity, Baltimore 2012. Ferrario 2006: S. B. Ferrario, “Replaying Antigone: Changing Patterns of Public and Private Commemoration at Athens”, in C. Patterson (ed.), Antigone’s Answer. Essays on Death and Burial, Family and State in Classical Athens, Lubbock Tex. 2006, 79–117. Formisano/Böhme 2011: M. Formisano / H. Böhme (eds.), War in Words: Transformations of War from Antiquity to Clausewitz, Berlin-New York 2011. Franchi/Proietti 2014a: E. Franchi / G. Proietti (a cura di), Guerra e memoria nel mondo antico, Trento 2014. Franchi/Proietti 2014b: E. Franchi / G. Proietti, “Ricordare la guerra. Paradigmi antichi e moderni, tra polemologia e memory studies”, in Franchi/Proietti 2014a, 17–125. Fussell 1975: Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, Oxford 1975. Gabriel 2015: R. A. Gabriel, The Madness of Alexander the Great and the Myth of the Military Genius, Barnsley 2015. Gaca 2008: K.-L. Gaca, “Reinterpreting the Homeric Smile of Iliad 16.7–11: The Girl and her Mother in Ancient Greek Warfare”, AJPh 129, 2 (2008), 145–71. Gaca 2011: K.-L. Gaca, “Girls, Women, and the Significance of Sexual Violence in Ancient Warfare”, in E. Heineman (ed.), Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones. From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Right, Philadelphia 2011, 73–88. Gaca 2014: K.-L. Gaca, “Martial Rape, Pulsating Fear, and the Sexual Maltreatment of Girls (paides), Virgins (parthenoi), and Women (gynaikes) in Antiquity”, AJPh 135 (2014), 303–57. Garland 2016: R. Garland, Athens Burning. The Persian Invasion of Greece and the Evacuation of Attica, Baltimore 2016. Garulli 2017: V. Garulli, “Ricordare la guerra. Cimiteri di guerra ed epitafi per i caduti nella Grecia antica”, in Bonandini/Fabbro/Pontani 2017, 145–55. Gnoli/Vernant 1982: G. Gnoli / J.-P. Vernant (éds.), La mort, les morts dans les sociétés anciennes, Cambridge/Paris 1982. Goebel 2012: S. Goebel, “Cultural Memory and the Great War: Medievalism and Classicism in British and German War Memorials”, in Low/Oliver/Rhodes 2012, 135–58. Goodman 1965: F. J. Goodman, “Pericles at Gettysburg”, The Midwest Quarterly 6 (Spring 1965) 311–36.

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Greaves 2013: A. M. Greaves, “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Ancient Greece: A Methodological Review”, in S. O’Brien / D. Boatright (eds.), Warfare and Society in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean, Oxford 2013, 89–100. Hannah 2010: P. Hannah, “The Warrior Loutrophoroi of Fifth-Century Athens”, in Pritchard 2010, 266–303. Hanson 2001: V. D. Hanson, “Democratic Warfare. Ancient and Modern”, in McCann/Strauss 2001, 3–33. Hanson 2005: V. D. Hanson, A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and the Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War, New York 2005. Harrison 2008: T. Harrison, “Ancient and Modern Imperialism”, G&R 55, 1 (2008), 1–22. Harrison 2009: T. Harrison, “Herodotus on the American Empire”, CW 102, 4 (2009), 383–93. Heineman 2011: E. D. Heineman (ed.), Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights, Philadelphia 2011. Hipp 2005: D. Hipp, The Poetry of Shell Shock: Wartime Trauma and Healing in Wilfred Owen, Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon, Jefferson NC/London 2005. Hodkinson 2012: S. Hodkinson, “Sparta and the Soviet Union in U. S. Cold War Foreign Policy and Intelligence Analysis”, in S. Hodkinson / I. Macgregor Morris (eds.), Sparta in Modern Thought, Swansea 2012, 343–92. Hunt 2010: N. Hunt, Memory, War and Trauma, Cambridge 2010. Ilari 2017: V. Ilari, “La guerra del Peloponneso nella retorica politica americana”, Civiltà romana 4 (2017), in press. Kagan 2007: K. Kagan, The Eye of Command, Ann Arbor 2007. Keegan 1976: J. Keegan, The Face of Battle, New York 1976. King 2001: E. King, “Recovering Hysteria from History: Herodotus and the First Case of ‘Shellshock’”, in P. Halligan / C. Bass / J. C. Marshall (eds.), Contemporary Approaches to the Science of Hysteria: Clinical and Theoretical Perspectives, Oxford 2001, 36–48. Konstan 2014: D. Konstan, “Combat Trauma: The Missing Diagnosis in Ancient Greece?”, in Meineck/Konstan 2014, 1–13. Kucewicz 2016: C. Kucewicz, “Mutilation of the Dead and the Homeric Gods”, CQ 66, 2 (2016), 425–36. Lacey 2016: J. G. Lacey, Great Strategic Rivalries from the Classical World to the Cold War, Oxford 2016. Langerverf 2016: L. Langerwerf, “‘And they Did it as Citizens’: President Clinton on Thermopylae and United Airlines Flight 93”, in Ambühl 2016a, 243–73. Lauriola 2013: R. Lauriola, “Tragedie greche e guerre moderne. Per un diverso riuso del teatro greco negli Stati Uniti … e non solo”, Maia 65 (2013), 373–89. Lauriola 2014a: R. Lauriola, “From Reception of Classics to Outreach: Classical Reception and American Response to War. A Case Study. Part I”, Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture 36, 1 (2014), 37–49. Lauriola 2014b: R. Lauriola, “From Reception of Classics to Outreach: Classical Reception and American Response to War. A Case Study. Part II”, Acta Scientiarum. Language and Culture 36, 3 (2014), 303–33. Leed 1979: Eric J. Leed, No Man’s Land. Combat and Identity in World War I, Cambridge 1979. Leezenberg 2007: M. Leezenberg, “From the Peloponnesian War to the Iraq War: A Post-Liberal Reading of Greek Tragedy”, in L. Hardwick / C. Gillespie (eds.), Classics in Post-Colonial Worlds, Oxford 2007, 265–85. Loman 2004: P. Loman, “No Woman No War: Women’s Participation in Ancient Greek Warfare”, G&R 51, 1 (2004), 34–54. Loraux 1986: N. Loraux, The Invention of Athens, Cambridge 1986 [Paris 1981]. Loraux 2018: N. Loraux, “The ‘Beautiful Death’ from Homer to Democratic Athens”, transl. by D. M. Pritchard, Arethusa 51.1 (2018), 73–89 [originally appeared as “Mourir devant Troie, tomber pour Athènes: de la gloire du héros à l’idée de la cité” in Gnoli/Vernant 1982, 27–43].

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Low 2010: P. Low, “Commemoration of the War Dead in Classical Athens: Remembering Defeat and Victory”, in Pritchard 2010, 341–58. Low 2012: P. Low, “Monuments to the War Dead in Classical Athens”, in Low/Oliver/Rhodes 2012, 13–39. Low/Oliver 2012: P. Low / G. Oliver, “Comparing Cultures of Commemoration in Ancient and Modern Societies”, in Low/Oliver/Rhodes 2012, 1–12. Low/Oliver/Rhodes 2012: P. Low / G. Oliver / P. Rhodes (eds.), Cultures of Commemoration: War Memorials, Ancient and Modern, Oxford 2012. Macaulay-Lewis 2015: E. Macaulay-Lewis, “Triumphal Washington: New York City’s First ‘Roman’ Arch”, in Bakogianni/Hope 2015, 209–39. Macaulay-Lewis 2016: E. Macaulay-Lewis, “The Architecture of Memory and Commemoration: The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch, Brooklyn, New York and the Reception of Classical Architecture in New York City”, Classical Receptions Journal 8, 4 (2016), 447–78. Marchiandi/Mari 2016: D. Marchiandi / M. Mari, “I funerali per i caduti in guerra. La difficile armonia di pubblico e privato nell’Atene del V secolo a. C.”, MediterrAnt 19, 1 (2016), 177–201. Martz 2010: E. Martz, Trauma Rehabilitation after War and Conflict. Community and Individual Perspectives, New York 2010. McCann/Strauss 2001: D. McCann / B. S. Strauss (eds.), War and Democracy. A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War, Armonk 2001. McLoughlin 2011: K. McLoughlin, Authoring War. The Literary Representation of War from the Iliad to Iraq, Cambridge 2011. Meineck 2009: P. Meineck, “These Are Men Whose Minds the Dead Have Ravished. Theater of War/Philoctetes Project”, Arion 17 (2009), 173–91. Meineck 2012: P. Meineck, “Combat Trauma and the Tragic Stage: ‘Restoration’ by Cultural Catharsis”, Intertexts 16.1 (2012), 7–24. Meineck 2016: P. Meineck, “Combat Trauma and the Tragic Stage: Ancient Culture and Modern Catharsis?”, in Caston/Weineck 2016, 184–207. Meineck 2017: P. Meineck, “Thebes as High-collateral-damage Target: Moral Accountability for Killing in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes”, in I. Torrance (ed.), Aeschylus and War: Comparative Perspectives on Seven against Thebes, Abingdon/Oxon 2017, 49–69. Meineck/Konstan 2014: P. Meineck / D. Konstan (eds.), Combat Trauma and the Ancient Greeks, New York 2014. Melchior 2011: A. A. Melchior, “Caesar in Vietnam: Did Roman Soldiers Suffer from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder?”, GRBS 58.2 (2011), 209–23. Midford 2010: S. Midford, “From Achilles to Anzac: Heroism in the Dardanelles from Antiquity to the Great War”, Australasian Society for Classical Studies 31, Conference Proceedings, available on http://msc.uwa.edu.au/classics/ascs31/Midford.pdf (last accessed 03 Nov. 2017) Midford 2011: S. Midford, “Constructing the ‘Australian Iliad’: Ancient Heroes and Anzac Diggers in the Dardanelles”, Melbourne Historical Journal 39, 2 (2011), 59–79. Midford 2013: S. Midford, “Anzacs and the Heroes of Troy: Exploring the Universality of War in Sidney Nolan’s ‘Gallipoli Series’”, in I. Güran Yumsak / M. Mehdi Ilhan (eds.), Gallipoli: History, Legend and Memory [Gelibolou: Tarih, Esfane ve Ani], Istanbul 2013, 303–12. Midford 2018: S. Midford, “An Athenian Temple in The Antipodes: Glory, Freedom, Democracy and Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance”, History Australia 15.3, Special Issue on Australia, Classicism and the Great War (2018), forthcoming. Moon/Collins 2007: C. A. Collins / G. F. Moon, “Moving the State to War: Appeals by Nicias, Alcibiades, Bush and the U. S. Congress”, in Cosmopoulos 2007, 35–61. Norris 2007: R. Norris, “Mourning Rights: Beowulf, the Iliad, and the War in Iraq”, Journal of Narrative Theory 37, 2 (2007), 276–95. Oliver 2012: G. Oliver, “Naming the Dead, Writing the Individual: Classical Traditions and Commemorative Practices in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”, in Low/Oliver/Rhodes 2012, 113–34.

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Pache 2014: C. Pache, “Women after War: Weaving Nostos in Homeric Epic and in the Twenty-First Century”, in Meineck/Konstan 2014, 67–85. Palaima 2000: T. G. Palaima, “Courage and Prowess Afoot in Homer and the Vietnam of Tim O’Brien”, Classical and Modern Literature 20, 3 (2000), 1–22. Palaima 2007: T. G. Palaima, “Civilian Knowledge of War in Ancient Athens and Modern America”, in Cosmopoulos 2007, 9–34. Palaima 2014: T. G. Palaima, “When War is Performed, What Do Soldiers and Veterans Want to Hear and See and Why”, in Meineck/Konstan 2014, 261–85. Palaima 2016: T. G. Palaima, “War Stories Told, Untold and Retold from Troy to Tinian to Fort Campbell”, Arion 23, 3 (2016), 1–33. Palaima/Tritle 2013: T. G. Palaima / L. A. Tritle, “Epilogue. The Legacy of War in the Classical World”, in Campbell/Tritle 2013, 726–42. Patterson 2006: C. Patterson, “Citizen Cemeteries in Athens?”, CQ 56 (2006), 48–56. Payen 2004: P. Payen, “Femmes, armées civiques et fonction combattante en Grèce ancienne (VIIe–IVe siècle avant J.-C.)”, Clio 20 (2004), 15–41. Payen 2012: P. Payen, Les revers de la guerre en Grèce ancienne: histoire et historiographie, Paris 2012. Pepe 2009: C. Pepe, “Discorsi per i caduti (l’epitaphios di Pericle e l’orazione funebre di Rudolph Giuliani)”, in G. Abbamonte / L. Miletti / L. Spina (a cura di), Discorsi pronunciati, discorsi ascoltati: contesti di eloquenza tra Grecia, Roma ed Europa, Napoli 2009, 147–60. Petrovic 2016: A. Petrovic, “Casualty Lists in Performance. Name Catalogues and Greek Verse-Inscriptions”, in E. Sistakou / A. Rengakos (eds.), Dialect, Diction, and Style in Greek Literary and Inscribed Epigram, Berlin/New York 2016, 359–88. Potter 2016: D. Potter, “‘War Guilt’, ‘National Character’, ‘Inevitable Forces’, and the Problematic Historiography of ‘Unnecessary Wars’”, in Caston/Weineck 2016, 75–95. Pritchard 2010: D. M. Pritchard (ed.), War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2010. Pritchard 2015: D. M. Pritchard, “Democracy and War in Ancient Athens and Today”, G&R 62, 2 (2015), 140–54. Proietti 2015: G. Proietti, “Beyond the Invention of Athens: The 5th Century Athenian Tatenkatalog as Example of ‘Intentional History’”, Klio 97, 2 (2015), 516–38. Proietti 2017: G. Proietti, “Fare i conti con la guerra. Forme del discorso civico ad Atene nel V secolo (con uno sguardo all’età contemporanea)”, in E. Franchi / G. Proietti (a cura di), Conflict in Communties. Forward-looking Memories in Classical Athens, Trento 2017, 69–108. Proietti forthcoming: G. Proietti, “Coping with War Trauma in Ancient Greece. The Persian Wars on the Athenian Stage”, in Cecchet/Degelmann/Patzelt forthcoming. Raaflaub 2014: K. A. Raaflaub, “War and the City: The Brutality of War and its Impact on the Community”, in Meineck/Konstan 2014, 15–46. Raaflaub 2016: K. A. Raaflaub, “Lysistrata and War’s Impact on the Home Front”, in Caston/ Weineck 2016, 38–74. Rabinowitz 2014: N. S. Rabinowitz, “Women and War in Tragedy”, in Meineck/Konstan 2014, 185–206. Rebenich 2002: S. Rebenich, “From Thermopylae to Stalingrad: The Myth of Leonidas in German Historiography”, in A. Powell / S. Hodkinson (eds.), Sparta: Beyond the Mirage, London 2002, 323–49. Retief 2005: F. P. Retief, “The Army of Alexander the Great and Combat Stress Syndrome (326 BC)”, Acta Theologica 7 (2005), 29–43. Roche 2013a: H. Roche, Sparta’s German Children. The Idea of Ancient Sparta in the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, 1818–1920 and in National Socialist Elite Schools (the Napola’s), 1933– 1945, Swansea 2013. Roche 2013b: H. Roche, “In ‘Sparta fühlte ich mich wie in einer deutschen Stadt’ (Goebbels). The Leaders of the Third Reich and the Spartan Nationalist Paradigm”, in F. J. Rash / G. Horan / D.

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SECTION I WAR MEMORIALS: OBJECTS IN PERFORMANCE

COMMEMORATION THROUGH OBJECTS? Homer on the Limitations of Material Memory Lilah Grace Canevaro* INTRODUCTION Homeric women use objects to negotiate their agency, to express themselves and, as not conventionally spotlighted protagonists, to contribute to the action. Objects used by women in Homer can be symbolically significant and powerfully characterising. They can be tools of recognition and identification. They can pause narrative and be used agonistically. They can send messages and be vessels for memory. However, they are not infallible. This chapter considers the limitations of both women as objects and women and objects, in terms of the commemoration of the Trojan War and its heroes. It looks at how Homer reflects on the limitations of objects;1 how the memories encased in objects are presented as transient; the gendered aspect of this transience; and how objects as commemorators of war are consistently presented as inferior to the medium of poetry. More generally, this chapter propagates what Vital Materialist Jane Bennett has called “attentiveness to things”.2 It constitutes a case study in a methodology: that of reading Homeric epic not primarily through narrative or character, but through the objects which punctuate the poems.3 Ian Hodder has written of objects being ‘entangled’ with the human world, and James Whitley has discussed “Homer’s entangled objects”.4 This chapter contributes to the discussion by showing that the entanglement of things is presented by Homer as precarious, and the link between object and cultural referent not inextricable. Drawing on Jan Vansina’s concept of the ‘floating gap’ in oral traditional memory, this chapter uses its reading of objects to show that Homer is doing something striking: he displays an awareness of this floating gap by pointing out the cracks in memory, revealing that there is in fact a remote past that is lost to his heroes. * 1 2 3 4

My thanks go to Elena Franchi and Giorgia Proietti for the organisation of and invitation to the conference Commemorating War and War Dead. Ancient and Modern, and to the other speakers and delegates for feedback on the beginnings of this chapter. In this chapter I use ‘Homer’ as a convenient descriptor for both narrator and author of the Iliad and Odyssey. I make no assumptions about the historicity of such a figure. Bennett 2010, xiv. Vital Materialism is one of the so-called New Materialisms; for others, and on this emerging field more generally, see e. g. Brown 2004; Latour 2005; Coole/Frost 2010; Malafouris 2013. This is part of a larger project, funded first by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and then by the Leverhulme Trust, on Women and Objects in Greek Epic. Hodder 2012; Whitley 2013.

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MONUMENTAL MEMORY Andromache’s life without her husband is predicted by Hector when he imagines that those seeing her will say: Ἕκτορος ἥδε γυνή, ὃς ἀριστεύεσκε μάχεσθαι Τρώων ἱπποδάμων, ὅτε Ἴλιον ἀμφεμάχοντο. This is the wife of Hektor, he who was ever the best fighter of the Trojans, breakers of horses, when they fought about Ilion.

Iliad 6.460–15

This epigrammatic prediction acts as “a machine for producing kleos”, to use Svenbro’s words, commemorating Hector and his achievements in the Trojan War.6 Though Andromache starts off as the grammatical subject of the epigram, she is quickly replaced by her husband as the focus, becoming the channel for Hector’s kleos. Similarly, an epigram found in Thucydides and attributed by Aristotle to Simonides uses a woman, Archedike, as a catalyst for reflection on her men: ἀνδρὸς ἀριστεύσαντος ἐν Ἑλλάδι τῶν ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ Ἱππίου Ἀρχεδίκην ἥδε κέκευθε κόνις, ἣ πατρός τε καὶ ἀνδρὸς ἀδελφῶν τ᾽ οὖσα τυράννων παίδων τ᾽ οὐκ ἤρθη νοῦν ἐς ἀτασθαλίην. This earth covers Archedike daughter of Hippias, a man who stood out among the Greeks of his day. Though she had a tyrant father, husband, brothers, and sons, she was not moved in her mind to pride.

Thucydides 6.59.3

The difference between Archedike’s epigram and that of Andromache, however, is that whereas the former is inscribed on a tomb in Lampsacus, a physical entity which exists independently of the female commemorator, Andromache commemorates her husband by her very existence. She takes the place of a sema,7 and becomes a static symbol, a living monument to the war dead, with the deictic linking woman with tomb, ἥδε γυνή with ἥδε κόνις. However, the mechanism is fundamentally flawed. Unlike a tomb inscription, which might exist for thousands of years, Andromache’s memorial can last only for as long as she lives. This limitation is 5 6

7

The Iliad text used is the Teubner edition of M. L. West (vol. 1 1998, vol. 2 2000), and the Odyssey text is that of H. van Thiel (1991). All translations are my own. Svenbro 1993, 164. The lines are called an epigram by [Plutarch] On Homer II ch.215; see also ΣbT ad Il. 6.460b Erbse, and Elmer 2005. On tracing the first allusions to epigram back to Homer see e. g. Baumbach/Petrovic/Petrovic 2010, 7. For detailed discussion of epigrams in Homer (and Homeric language in epigrams), focusing on the two epigrams imagined by Hector, see Petrovic 2016. Clay 2916 uses Hector’s sepulchral epigram in Iliad 7 (on which see below) to reflect on epic’s awareness of writing. Scodel 1992, 59 “Like a monument, she provokes a response in those who see her”; Graziosi/ Haubold 2010 ad Il. 6.460–61: “Andromache functions as a σῆμα, a living memorial of Hector’s past achievements in war”. The importance of semata is noted by Grethlein 2008, 29 who describes them as “spatially sanctified acts of memory”.

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twofold: the ‘reading’ of the woman is limited by her mortality, as she has to be around to be read; just as her own capacity to remember lasts but a lifetime. One’s capacity to remember does not extend beyond death – unless, of course, one is Achilles: εἰ δὲ θανόντων περ καταλήθοντ᾽ εἰν Ἀΐδαο, αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ κεῖθι φίλου μεμνήσομ᾽ ἑταίρου. Even though those in Hades forget the dead, I will remember my dear companion even there.

Iliad 22.389–90

The longevity of Achilles’ memory of Patroclus is highlighted in its departure from the normal model. Usually, memory is a capacity that perishes with death,8 and indeed when Odysseus travels to the Underworld the shades of the dead must drink blood before they can communicate and recall (Od. 11.147–49). We can remember our loved ones for as long as we are alive, but no more – likewise, embodied memorials last only for as long as the body survives. There is a contrast, and more specifically a gendered one, between women as commemorators, limited by their mortality, and Homeric tombs proper, constructed by men to commemorate war dead, which have the capacity to outlast their builders. In Iliad 7 Hector’s memory would be better served by a burial which someday someone will see, and remember him:9 ‘ἀνδρὸς μὲν τόδε σῆμα πάλαι κατατεθνηῶτος, ὅν ποτ’ ἀριστεύοντα κατέκτανε φαίδιμος Ἕκτωρ.’ ὥς ποτέ τις ἐρέει, τὸ δ’ ἐμὸν κλέος οὔ ποτ’ ὀλεῖται. “This is the tomb of a man who died long ago, whom, though he was once the best, shining Hector killed.” So someone will say, and my fame will never perish.

Iliad 7.89–91

But in spite of Hector’s imaginings, these tombs too encase a memory that is temporally limited. Many reach back only one generation,10 even the tomb of Ilos παλαίος mentioned four times harks back only three generations,11 and some tombs have been forgotten by men altogether.12 In fact, the tomb that will commemorate Hector is not his own but that of another man:13 as in Andromache’s epigram, his memory overshadows another’s, and this hints at the power of orality (the story of 8 9

10 11 12 13

See Od. 10.494–5 for Teiresias as uniquely possessed of noos after death. Clay 2016, 190 notes that “The temporality of the σῆμα Hector imagines … differs from that envisaged in the other τις-speeches …; while all involve a future moment, Hector makes use of what Young 1983 has called ‘inscriptional’ ποτέ characteristic of inscribed epitaphs that look forward to coming generations in the distant future”. See Grethlein 2008, 29 for examples, including the tomb of Aisyetes mentioned at Il. 2.792– 3. Il. 10.414–16, 11.166–68, 397–72, 24.249–51. On the symbolic function of this tomb see Griffin 1980, 22–23. Il. 2.811–14, 23.326–33. Clay 2016, 195 calls this “the first example of damnatio memoriae”.

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the tomb) over materiality (the tomb itself). It turns out that the physical entity does not continue to exist independently – at least not in its original incarnation. MATERIAL MEMORY Jonas Grethlein in his 2008 article “Memory and material goods in the Iliad and the Odyssey” has explored what he calls “the biography of things”. I would add to his analysis a gendered element.14 Biographed objects follow a similar temporal hierarchy to memorials, with an initial gendered division (the male having more longevity than the female) and a further temporal limitation even on the male. Male objects operate on a continuum. They evoke a past biography, containing memories of all those who have given, used, or been given this object before. By taking on an ‘entangled’ object, a man inserts himself into the life story of that object – Agamemnon and his sceptre (Il. 2.100–109), for example, or Odysseus and his bow (Od. 21.11–41). As Crielaard puts it, “For an individual to own such an object implies that he or she is incorporated into the item’s biography; to give it away means that the memory of the owner is preserved for posterity.”15 Crielaard uses the ambivalent “he or she”. However, this model applies overwhelmingly to ‘him’, rather than ‘her’. Female objects do not usually have an explicit commemorative continuum. Rather, Homeric women take a non-biographed object, often one they have created themselves, and imbue it with symbolic and commemorative resonance. Female objects capture a moment and preserve it for posterity, whilst male objects evoke a past moment, usually for their own ends in the present (and, subsequently, into the future). Yet with all this scholarly interest in the commemorative potential of objects, and male objects in particular, it is worth noting that the grand biographies of Homeric male objects do not, in fact, stand up to scrutiny. Homeric men, as well as certain unusual women such as Helen and Penelope,16 reflect on the commemorative function of objects when they express the wish that they be remembered through gifts they give, prizes they win, and so on. But this is thrown into relief by the lack of any real example of an object, and the memory it carries, being transmitted down many generations.17 This may be a symptom of the heroic age: being so close to the gods, to the moment at which the Olympian pantheon was settled and the generating of gods became the generating of demi-gods, there are not that many previous generations to refer to.18 It may also be a function of an oral society: it has 14 15 16 17

18

My summary here is necessarily cursory, with the details to be published in full elsewhere. Crielaard 2003, 56. See especially Helen at Od. 15.125–9. At Od. 14.325–6 the treasures in Pheidon’s palace are estimated to be worth enough to feed ten generations – this is an example of a long-term projection of objects, but there is no explicit mention of their biography or memorialising function. Rather, it seems to be a hyperbolic description of wealth. Though Grethlein 2009 productively explores the idea of the heroic past’s ‘plu-past’ embedded in objects.

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been argued that accurate family memory in an oral society spanned only around 3 generations,19 and so Agamemnon’s sceptre or Odysseus’ bow each passing down two mortal generations may have seemed almost like forever.20 But perhaps Homer is hinting at the limitations of objects. Heroes may insert themselves into a continuum of commemoration – but the mechanism has not had much of a test run. The characters’ wishes for remembrance through objects are just that: wishes. Nestor ambivalently describes a sema at Iliad 23.331–2 as “either the tomb of a mortal who died long ago, or set as a turning post by men of a previous generation” (ἤ τεο σῆμα βροτοῖο πάλαι κατατεθνηῶτος | ἢ τό γε νύσσα τέτυκτο ἐπὶ προτέρων ἀνθρώπων). This undermines the excuse of short human history. Homer points out that there has already been time to forget (even for the ancient Nestor), and so objects, like mortals, are flagged up as flawed commemorators. Vansina identified two moments of memory which people in an oral tradition think they know: the recent past (for example family history of a few generations), and the remote past (such as origin stories and legendary connections with Homeric heroes).21 He posited a ‘floating gap’ in between, which we see but the oral society does not. His argument has been followed by for example Jan Assmann and Rosalind Thomas.22 However, Homer shows an awareness of this floating gap. By drawing attention to the memory ‘losses’, by describing material markers that no longer make their mark, Homer reveals that there is a remote past forgotten to his heroes.23 In Odyssey 11, Elpenor asks his companions to set up an oar in his memory: σῆμά τέ μοι χεῦαι πολιῆς ἐπὶ θινὶ θαλάσσης, ἀνδρὸς δυστήνοιο, καὶ ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι. ταῦτά τέ μοι τελέσαι πῆξαί τ᾽ ἐπὶ τύμβῳ ἐρετμόν, τῷ καὶ ζωὸς ἔρεσσον ἐὼν μετ᾽ ἐμοῖς ἑτάροισιν. Heap a mound on me by the shore of the grey sea, of a wretched man, for those in the future to know. Do these things for me and stick on the tomb the oar with which I rowed with my comrades while I was alive.

19 20

21 22 23

Odyssey 11.75–8

Thomas 1989, 124. Il. 2.100–9 Thyestes and Atreus are brothers, so although there are a lot of names in this passage there are not quite so many different generations. Agamemnon’s sceptre does seem to be something a little bit special, as it is described as “imperishable forever” (ἄφθιτον αἰεί, Il. 2.46, 186) and is the only mortal object to be described in this way (the formula is used again at Il.13.22 of Poseidon’s house, and at 14.238 of the throne Hera promises to Sleep). Vansina 1985, 23–24. Assmann 2011, 36 calls the former ‘communicative’ memory, the latter ‘cultural’ memory. See e. g. Thomas 2001, discussing whether Herodotus is aware of and makes attempts to bridge the floating gap. Attempts have been made to apply Vansina’s ideas to the Iliad, for example by Assmann 1992, critiqued by Kullmann 1999. However, these attempts have focused on historical memory, equating the floating gap with the dark ages between the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces and the time of Homer. I would argue that the model can be more fruitfully applied to heroic memory within the narrative of the Iliad itself.

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As Alex Purves has noted, though Elpenor wants the grave mound and oar to preserve his memory, it is more likely to function as an anonymous symbol.24 Similarly, Odysseus’ prophesied planting of the sema of the oar described in Odyssey 11 and 23 marks a crossing of a boundary for Odysseus, but it too will remain anonymous.25 Purves suggests: “The fact that Elpenor’s oar will be anonymous is perhaps – following his less than heroic death – also to be read as a parody of epic convention”.26 But perhaps this is less parody, and more paranoia. If one’s story is not sufficiently heroic one might not make it into epic: and objects alone cannot suffice to preserve memory. Female objects are more flawed than most. Weaving is throughout the Homeric poems linked with limitation – with interruption, restriction, the fragility of the female domestic idiom. In Iliad 3, Iris calls Helen away while she is weaving, interrupting the act and stalling the finished product. At Iliad 22.448 Andromache drops her shuttle, marking the end of her weaving and her domestic stability upon her husband’s death – and for many years Penelope must not finish her weaving, because its completion would mark the end of her marriage. Furthermore, the transience of the woven product is highlighted. The adjectives used to describe textiles point to their fragility: objects woven by women are λεπτός, fine,27 just like dust (Il. 23.506 ἐν λεπτῆι κονίηι). The adjective in its other uses refers to weakness: at Il. 10.226 two heads are better than one, the one μῆτις alone being λεπτή, just like the mind of the young at Il. 23.590. At Il. 20.275–6 Achilles’ spear breaks through the shield of Aineias where the bronze is λεπτότατος and the ox-hide is λεπτοτάτη. Woven objects are admired for their beauty and grace, being χαρίεις (Il. 5.905, 6.90, 271, 22.511, Od. 5.231, 10.223, 544), and their fragrance, being θυώδης (Od. 5.264, 21.52) – not for their strength or durability. Being καθαρός, clean (καθαρὰ χροῒ εἵμαθ’ ἑλοῦσα at Od. 4.750, 759, 6.61, 17.48, 58) and νεόπλυτος, newly-washed (Od. 6.64), women’s woven objects are like a clean slate on which memories can be inscribed, but they are presented as, if we might use such adjectives of inanimate objects, naive and innocent. The only garments described as ἄμβροτος, literally ‘immortal’, are the ἄμβροτα εἵματα given to Sarpedon by the god Apollo (Il. 16.670, 680), to Odysseus by the nymph Calypso (Od. 7.260, 265), and to Achilles by the sea nymphs (Od. 24.59); the veil given to Odysseus by the goddess Ino (Od. 5.347); and the web woven by the goddess Circe (Od. 10.222). Only clothing bestowed by divinities can itself be divine. DIVINE DURABILITY But to complicate things further, not even the immortals feel secure in the durability of their objects. This anxiety is evident in the dispute over the Achaian teichopoiia. In Iliad 7, Nestor suggests that the Achaians build a grave mound with high towers, 24 25 26 27

Purves 2010, 83. On the sema of Odysseus’ oar see e. g. Nagy 1983, 44–45. IbId. n. 57. Il. 9.661, 18.595, 22.511, Od. 2.95, 5.231, 7.97, 10.233, 544, 17.97, 19.140, 24.130.

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gates, and a ditch. A hundred lines later, the Achaians follow his suggestion – without the input of the gods. The construction causes consternation on Olympus. To Zeus’ surprise, Poseidon is worried: τοῦ δ’ ἤτοι κλέος ἔσται, ὅσον τ’ ἐπικίδναται ἠώς, τοῦ δ’ ἐπιλήσονται, τὸ ἐγὼ καὶ Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων ἥρωι Λαομέδοντι πολίσσαμεν ἀθλήσαντε. Now the fame of this wall will last as long as the dawn is spread, but they will forget that wall which I and Phoebus Apollo built with our hard work for the city of the hero Laomedon.

Iliad 7.451–3

Zeus advises Poseidon to break down the wall, and in a prolepsis in Iliad 12 we are told that, after the war, he and Apollo do so. One question that has plagued critics is: why should Poseidon feel so threatened by the Achaian wall, and so lacking in confidence in his own Trojan one? This involves a bit of creative interpretation, and many different explanations have been offered. Ford gives a meta-poetic reading, mapping the wall onto a written Iliad and suggesting that the orally transmitted poem is critically reflecting on writing as a new technique.28 In this interpretation, epic is projecting anxiety about its own fragility onto objects. Grethlein argues “that there is a juxtaposition here of epic poetry and the ‘archaeology of the past’ as two different media of memory”.29 In this interpretation, material memory and epic memory highlight each other in their discrepancy. Porter uses the episode as an indicator of fiction and an authorial awareness of fictionality, suggesting that Homer gets rid of the wall poetically in order to explain why there are no traces of it physically.30 This latter explanation has persisted since the scholia, which argue that Homer destroyed the wall so as not to be vulnerable to inquiry into an object that never actually existed. As Porter writes, the wall “is a metapoetic object that exhibits the full force of Homer’s creative powers, which is to say, of a poet who can make and unmake objects at will”.31 One thing these interpretations have in common is that they pinpoint the Achaian wall as a locus of reflection on objects and commemoration. The episode has something irresistibly self-aware about it, in its convoluted equations: the wall is built by mortals but destroyed by immortals; its destruction coincides with the end of the Trojan War; it is built in one day but its destruction takes nine; its kleos and that of Poseidon’s wall are mutually exclusive. As Grethlein notes: “Poseidon’s words reveal that walls were seen as bearers of kleos. Moreover, they show that walls compete with each other for recognition. Memory, it seems, is reserved only for the most impressive constructions. The new wall threatens to outshine the old wall which evokes the services of Poseidon and Apollo for Laomedon and thus preserves the memory of events that happened two generations ago”.32 Again, the 28 29 30 31 32

Ford 1992, 150. Grethlein 2008, 35. Porter 2011. IbId. 33. Grethlein 2008, 33.

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temporal limits of material memory are tested, and again we find that the memory lasts for only a few generations before coming under threat. The memorial may have been one set up by the gods, but the medium is still one of questionable durability.33 What is striking is the unmaking of a made object within the narrative. Johannes Haubold notes that the destruction of the wall has much in common with Mesopotamian narratives of the flood, and indeed in response to Poseidon’s anxiety Zeus offers help in this very form (Il. 7.454–63): “As was the case in Mesopotamia, water is the most extreme option when it comes to obliterating what went before”.34 It marks “total destruction, a clean break”, and perhaps this is why it takes so long to bring the wall down. Importantly, the wall is not just destroyed but hidden, Il. 12.31 κάλυψε: as in Hesiod’s Myth of the Races in the Works and Days, this verb divides not just stages in a narrative but epochs (Op. 121 the Golden Race, 140 the Silver Race, 156 the Bronze Race). This is emphasised by the description of the heroes as ἡμιθέων γένος ἀνδρῶν (Il.12.23): as Scodel notes, this is the only instance in either the Iliad or the Odyssey in which they are called ἡμίθεοι – but the word does occur in Hesiod’s description of the Race of Heroes at Works and Days 160, and the use of γένος serves to encapsulate the heroic era.35 The very word ἡμίθεοι is divisive, as it marks out the heroes from the gods (they are only part god) and from ordinary mortals (they have something of the gods). Porter notes that “The difference between the wall and these other objects of Homer’s fiction [Helen’s tapestry etc.] is that the wall is made and then brutally unmade before our eyes. That is, unlike these other objects which signify poetic creation, the Achaean wall is both made and then obliterated. Through it, Homer shows himself to be a maker, not only of things, but of their destruction.”36 I would point out, however, that this is not the only object in Homer that is unmade. We might think of Penelope unweaving in order to keep the memory of her husband alive. Or Andromache’s vow to burn her husband’s clothing after his death: ἀτάρ τοι εἵματ’ ἐνὶ μεγάροισι κέονται λεπτά τε καὶ χαρίεντα, τετυγμένα χερσὶ γυναικῶν. ἀλλ’ ἤτοι τά γε πάντα καταφλέξω πυρὶ κηλέῳ, οὐδὲν σοί γ’ ὄφελος, ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἐγκείσεαι αὐτοῖς, ἀλλὰ πρὸς Τρώων καὶ Τρωϊάδων κλέος εἶναι. In your halls lie clothes, fine and graceful, made by the hands of women. But all these I will burn up in a blazing fire, no help to you, since you will never be wrapped in them, but in your honour, before the Trojan men and women.

33 34 35 36

Iliad 22.510–14

As Scully 1990, 125 notes of the Trojan fortifications: “So the city is at the end what everyone knew at the beginning, only an ‘illusion of immortality’ and not the real thing”. Haubold 2013, 67–68. Scodel 1982, 34. Porter 2011, 18.

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Andromache reflects on the transience of objects, recognising that the garments will not last forever and that encasing Hector’s memory in them will not bring him that all-important κλέος ἄφθιτον. Some of the female characters, therefore, approach Homer’s mastery of creation and destruction, suggesting that the onus of reflection is not on the powers of the poet, but on (as Grethlein puts it) media of memory. The wall is to be built on a funeral pyre (Il. 7.336–8): object and person are intertwined, and as commemorators will be more or less co-extensive. The equation Garcia makes between the two walls, Achaian and Trojan, and the two heroes, Achilles and Hector, reinforces this point.37 However, as Ruth Scodel notes, “the narrative itself extends beyond the limits of the poem’s action in a manner usually confined to prophecies or passages where a character imagines the future”.38 Object and person are trumped by poetry, with epic commemoration reaching even beyond its own narrative confines. ἤματα πάντα In his book Homeric Durability, Lorenzo Garcia conducts studies of particular temporal words or phrases to support his argument. One phrase he does not explore, however, is ἤματα πάντα – so I have done the job, and the results can be used to highlight the discrepancy between material and epic memory. An accusative of time how long, ἤματα πάντα is usually translated as ‘for all one’s days’, i. e. for a lifetime, or ‘for all days’, i. e. forever. I would argue that in its basic meaning it refers to a lifetime: Nausicaa with a ‘til death us do part’ sentiment wants a husband for all her days (Od. 6.281), Odysseus will give thanks to Nausicaa for all his days (Od. 8.468), the suitors invade the palace and vie for Penelope all their days (Od. 2.55, 205, 17.534, 21.156). When Achilles’ father hopes ἤματα πάντα for his son to return (Il. 24.491), the pathos lies in an old man’s proximity to the end of his lifetime. The formula is often used in connection with life and death (at Il. 19.226 too many men to mourn die ἤματα πάντα), and in particular with mortality and immortality. Homer plays with a juxtaposition of the two in connection with this phrase, for example in Odysseus’ stay with Calypso: εἴ γε μὲν εἰδείης σῇσι φρεσίν, ὅσσα τοι αἶσα κήδε᾽ ἀναπλῆσαι, πρὶν πατρίδα γαῖαν ἱκέσθαι, ἐνθάδε κ᾽ αὖθι μένων σὺν ἐμοὶ τόδε δῶμα φυλάσσοις ἀθάνατός τ᾽ εἴης, ἱμειρόμενός περ ἰδέσθαι σὴν ἄλοχον, τῆς τ᾽ αἰὲν ἐέλδεαι ἤματα πάντα. οὐ μέν θην κείνης γε χερείων εὔχομαι εἶναι, οὐ δέμας οὐδὲ φυήν, ἐπεὶ οὔ πως οὐδὲ ἔοικε θνητὰς ἀθανάτῃσι δέμας καὶ εἶδος ἐρίζειν.’ τὴν δ᾽ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς· ‘πότνα θεά, μή μοι τόδε χώεο. οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς πάντα μάλ᾽, οὕνεκα σεῖο περίφρων Πηνελόπεια 37 38

Garcia 2013, 95. Scodel 1982, 33–44.

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Lilah Grace Canevaro εἶδος ἀκιδνοτέρη μέγεθός τ᾽ εἰσάντα ἰδέσθαι· ἣ μὲν γὰρ βροτός ἐστι, σὺ δ᾽ ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀγήρως. ἀλλὰ καὶ ὣς ἐθέλω καὶ ἐέλδομαι ἤματα πάντα οἴκαδέ τ᾽ ἐλθέμεναι καὶ νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἰδέσθαι. “If only you knew in your thoughts how many cares fill up your fate before you reach your fatherland, staying right here with me you would guard this house and be immortal, although you desire to see your wife, whom you long for always for all your days. Surely, I profess that I am no worse than she, neither in form nor stature, since it is in no way fitting for mortals to compete with immortals in form and appearance.” Much-cunning Odysseus said to her in reply: “Lady goddess, do not be angry at me for this. I know this all very well myself, because prudent Penelope is weaker than you in appearance and size to see face to face, for she is mortal, but you are immortal and unageing. But even so, I wish and desire for all my days to go home and see my day of homecoming.”

Odyssey 5.206–20

When Odysseus is with Calypso, he longs ἤματα πάντα to go home and see Penelope who is specifically said to be mortal whereas Calypso is immortal (218– 20).39 Calypso comments on Odysseus pining ἤματα πάντα, arguing that mortals should not vie with immortals (209–13). She has promised to make Odysseus immortal and ageless “for all days” (Od. 5.136, 7.257, 23.336 ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀγήραον ἤματα πάντα). Hector too wishes to be immortal and ageless ἤματα πάντα (Il. 8.539),40 and the golden dogs made by Hephaistos that guard Alcinous’ palace at Od. 7.94 are described in the same way. In this formula, ἀγήραος ἤματα πάντα acts as a gloss on ἀθάνατος, and ἀθάνατος in turn exerts a contextualising force on ἤματα πάντα, extending it beyond a mortal lifetime. The formula ‘ageless for all days’ as a gloss on ἀθάνατος is played with in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: ὣς δ’ αὖ Τιθωνὸν χρυσόθρονος ἥρπασεν Ἠὼς ὑμετέρης γενεῆς ἐπιείκελον ἀθανάτοισι. βῆ δ’ ἴμεν αἰτήσουσα κελαινεφέα Κρονίωνα ἀθάνατόν τ’ εἶναι καὶ ζώειν ἤματα πάντα: τῇ δὲ Ζεὺς ἐπένευσε καὶ ἐκρήηνεν ἐέλδωρ. νηπίη, οὐδ’ ἐνόησε μετὰ φρεσὶ πότνια Ἠὼς ἥβην αἰτῆσαι, ξῦσαί τ’ ἄπο γῆρας ὀλοιόν. So, too, did golden-throned Eos abduct Tithonos, of your race, who resembled the immortals. She went to ask the black-clouded son of Kronos that he should be immortal and live for all days. Zeus nodded assent to her and fulfilled her wish.

39 40

Linked by their homophrosyne, Penelope too longs to see Odysseus ἤματα πάντα (Od. 23.6). Similarly at Il. 13.826 he wishes to be a son of Zeus and Hera and honoured like Apollo and Artemis – the language used is different, but the wish for divinity and immortality the same.

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But the fool, revered Eos did not think in her mind of asking for youth for him, and exemption from baneful old age. Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5.218–24

Eos foolishly forgets to add the ἀγήραον to her request for Tithonos ζώειν ἤματα πάντα, and the formula no longer functions properly. When the gods do something ἤματα πάντα (such as taking pleasure in Olympus at Od. 6.46, or being grateful at Il. 14.235, or loving at Il. 14.269, 276), the meaning of the phrase necessarily extends to ‘forever’. In Hades, the shade of Achilles seems almost to taunt that of Agamemnon with the phrase, when he says: Ἀτρείδη, περὶ μέν σε φάμεν Διὶ τερπικεραύνῳ ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων φίλον ἔμμεναι ἤματα πάντα, οὕνεκα πολλοῖσίν τε καὶ ἰφθίμοισιν ἄνασσες δήμῳ ἐνὶ Τρώων, ὅθι πάσχομεν ἄλγε᾽ Ἀχαιοί. ἦ τ᾽ ἄρα καὶ σοὶ πρωὶ παραστήσεσθαι ἔμελλε μοῖρ᾽ ὀλοή, τὴν οὔ τις ἀλεύεται, ὅς κε γένηται. Son of Atreus, we supposed that you were dear to Zeus who delights in thunder beyond hero men for all your days, because you were ruling many and mighty men among the people of the Trojans when we Achaians were suffering griefs. Yet terrible fate was about to stand beside you too, too early; fate which no one born can avoid.

Odyssey 24.24–9

Achilles points out that in spite of such a privileged position, fate overcomes Agamemnon too. Divine support lasted only for a lifetime: and a short one, at that (πρωί). To reduce or extend the reach of the phrase, a temporal adverb or other specification can be added – and the force is pointed. For example, in Odyssey 10 Odysseus and companions are at the home of Circe. She invites them to stay, and there is a moment of tension: will Odysseus continue on his homeward journey, or will he be ‘distracted’ by this nymph just as he was by Calypso for a whole seven years? ἔνθα μὲν ἤματα πάντα τελεσφόρον εἰς ἐνιαυτὸν ἥμεθα δαινύμενοι κρέα τ᾽ ἄσπετα καὶ μέθυ ἡδύ· There every day until the year came to an end we sat feasting on indescribable meats and sweet wine.

Odyssey 10.467–8

Homer tells us that they stayed there feasting ἤματα πάντα – for all their days? No, but rather every day for a year. They don’t exactly beat a hasty retreat, but nor do they stay indefinitely. ἤματα πάντα has been limited. At the other end of the scale, we might consider this passage: ῥεῖα δ’ ἀρίγνωτος γόνος ἀνέρος, ᾧ τε Κρονίων ὄλβον ἐπικλώσῃ γαμέοντί τε γεινομένῳ τε, ὡς νῦν Νέστορι δῶκε διαμπερὲς ἤματα πάντα αὐτὸν μὲν λιπαρῶς γηρασκέμεν ἐν μεγάροισιν, υἱέας αὖ πινυτούς τε καὶ ἔγχεσιν εἶναι ἀρίστους.

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Lilah Grace Canevaro Easily recognised is the race of the man to which the son of Kronos allots fortune, both at his wedding and his birth, as now he has granted to Nestor always for all his days that he himself grow old comfortably in his halls, and that his sons be prudent and the best with spears.

Odyssey 4.207–11

Again ἤματα πάντα is associated with life and mortality. But διαμπερές emphasises its unusual longevity here. Firstly, Nestor’s old age is proverbial: he is the ultimate Homeric elder, and seems to have lived many lifetimes. Secondly, the mention of γόνος and υἱέας extends the passage over multiple generations. Not only line 210 but also line 211 follows from δῶκε διαμπερὲς ἤματα πάντα: fortune is allotted for the sons’ lifetimes too. A comparison between two particular uses of this temporal formula can bring us back to the central argument of this chapter, highlighting the hierarchy between memory through objects and memory through song. On the one hand, Menelaus gives a gift to Telemachus with these words: δώσω καλὸν ἄλεισον, ἵνα σπένδῃσθα θεοῖσιν ἀθανάτοις ἐμέθεν μεμνημένος ἤματα πάντα. I shall give you a beautiful cup, so that you might pour libations to the immortal gods, remembering me all your days.

Odyssey 4.591–241

The cup will carry with it the memory of Menelaus and his friendship: a memory which will be enacted every time Telemachus pours a libation. However, within the passage it is limited to Telemachus and his use of the object. We might imagine that the object, as an important one linked with guest-friendship, might be passed along a continuum – but this is not stated. Rather the contrast set up in line 592 between ἀθανάτοις and ἤματα πάντα emphasises the immortal/mortal dichotomy, and memories encased in objects fall on the side of the latter. Nestor’s son reflects on this when he tells Telemachus to wait for Menelaus’ gifts, because: τοῦ γάρ τε ξεῖνος μιμνήσκεται ἤματα πάντα ἀνδρὸς ξεινοδόκου, ὅς κεν φιλότητα παράσχῃ. A guest remembers all his days that man who gave him hospitality and furnished him with friendship.

Odyssey 15.54–5

Gifts channel memory of hospitality: but only for the duration of the guest’s lifetime. 41

Similarly of Alcinous’ gift to Odysseus: καί οἱ ἐγὼ τόδ’ ἄλεισον ἐμὸν περικαλλὲς ὀπάσσω, χρύσεον, ὄφρ’ ἐμέθεν μεμνημένος ἤματα πάντα σπένδῃ ἐνὶ μεγάρῳ Διί τ’ ἄλλοισίν τε θεοῖσιν. And I shall give him a beautiful cup of mine, made of gold, so that remembering me all his days he might pour libations in his hall to Zeus and the other gods. Odyssey 8.430–2

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On the other hand, when Sarpedon is about to die at the hands of Patroclus, he urges Glaukos to have the troops recover his body, otherwise: σοὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ ἔπειτα κατηφείη καὶ ὄνειδος ἔσσομαι ἤματα πάντα διαμπερές … I then will be a humiliation and reproach for you for all days forever …

Iliad 16.498–9

As in the Nestor passage, διαμπερές is used to extend the temporal scope. ἤματα πάντα extends beyond Sarpedon’s lifetime, as he will only last a few more lines. It also extends beyond Glaukos’ lifetime, as it will be something said about him by others. The neglect would be remembered in rumour, in words rather than objects, and these are not transient: they last not only ἤματα πάντα but διαμπερές. So the Homeric formula for ‘a long time’ is, at a basic level, related to a human lifespan. This sheds some light on my earlier point about the shallow lineage of biographical objects: though three generations may not sound that impressive, this is three lots of a time unit that is meant to be expansive. Yet the linking of time with mortality ultimately emphasises the ephemerality of physical casings for memory, be they persons or things. Mortals are flawed commemorators, as they can keep memory alive only for one lifetime. According to Homer, objects cannot do much more. In contrast with later Greek attitudes towards funerary monuments – with Classical war memorials and tombs that are thought to (and indeed profess to) last forever – Homeric tombs will eventually be forgotten. Commemorative objects may not reach across more than a few generations; and fragile female objects certainly won’t stand the test of time. Objects, in particular those made by women, are temporally limited. Findlen writes: “The durability of seemingly fragile objects, with many afterlives that have taken them halfway round the world, never ceases to amaze”.42 This is indeed the appeal of archaeology, of museums, of material culture in general: the physical artefacts that reach us from far off times and places. Yet such afterlives are part of occasional success stories, rather than the norm of material transmission – for every pot or papyrus we recover, how many others have been lost to us? Homer, for one, is not convinced by objects’ chances. What takes us from ἤματα πάντα to διαμπερές is another medium altogether: poetry. What we really need to commemorate war and war dead is the medium that professes to preserve the κλέα ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε: the medium of epic. CONCLUSION At the core of Garcia’s book Homeric Durability is the belief that Homeric poetry is transient. He argues that epic works in the realm of the ‘not yet’, with κλέος ἄφθιτον, for example, not meaning “imperishable glory” but merely “glory that has not yet perished”. He argues that the Iliad is caught between temporal modes: “it 42

Findlen 2013, 4.

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remembers the life of its hero who has already died, but preserves that memory as not yet forgotten”.43 However, to prove this point about poetry he uses examples of mortals and materials, creating a circular argument. I hope this chapter has served to separate out these three media of memory, to show a hierarchy between them and where gender fits in. They are linked, but in ways that also need to be separated out. Most importantly, Homeric epic reflects on a distinction between oral memory linked to material triggers such as tombs, gifts – or widows; and the oral memory of the bard. The hierarchies I have traced in this chapter do not stop with orality, then, but persist even in terms of modes of storytelling. Garcia makes a convincing case for Homer hinting at the transience of his poetry. But I would argue that he hints more strongly at, or is more convinced of, the transience of every other mechanism of memory. I close with my own strangely circular argument: an object that seems to throw into relief the limitations of the epic tradition. At the end of his journey, Odysseus is to set up an oar in the place where people do not recognise it. As Purves has argued, “the disturbing implication of Tiresias’s prophecy … is that – although Odysseus’s kleos may well ‘reach to the heavens’ (9.20) – there are places beyond epic’s range which his fame does not touch.”44 But perhaps we might read this as a further reflection on material commemoration. This object is no longer resonant – just like the tomb used for a turning post, or the burial that Hector appropriates, it loses its memory and is translated into something else entirely. Yet the bard does not need such material triggers for his memory of event or character. Ultimately, therefore, what prevails in the hierarchy of commemoration is not just any kind of oral memory, but specifically epic poetry. Assmann 2011: J. Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination, Cambridge 2011 [Munich 1992]. Baumbach/Petrovic/Petrovic 2010: M. Baumbach / A. Petrovic / I. Petrovic (eds.), Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram, Cambridge 2010. Bennett 2010: J. Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Durham, NC 2010. Brown 2004: B. Brown (ed.), Things, Chicago/London 2004. Clay 2016: J. S. Clay, “Homer’s Epigraph: Iliad 7.87–91”, Philologus 160, 2 (2016), 185–96. Coole/Frost 2010: D. Coole / S. Frost (eds.), New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics, Durham NC 2010. Crielaard 2003: J. P. Crielaard, “The Cultural Biography of Material Goods in Homer’s Epics”, Gaia 7 (2003), 49–62. Elmer 2005: D. F. Elmer, “Helen Epigrammatopoios”, CA 24, 1 (2005), 1–39. Findlen 2013: P. Findlen, “Early Modern Things: Objects in Motion, 1500–1800”, in P. Findlen (ed.), Early Modern Things: Objects and their Histories, 1500–1800, Oxon/New York 2013, 3–27. Ford 1992: A. Ford, Homer: The Poetry of the Past, Ithaca 1992. Garcia 2013: L. F. Jr. Garcia, Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad, Cambridge MA 2013. Graziosi/Haubold 2010: B. Graziosi / J. H. Haubold, Iliad 6: A Commentary, Cambridge 2010.

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Garcia 2013, 2. Purves 2010, 72.

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Grethlein 2008: J. Grethlein, “Memory and Material Goods in the Iliad and the Odyssey”, JHS 128 (2008), 27–51. Grethlein 2009: J. Grethlein, “From ‘Imperishable Glory’ to History: The Iliad and the Trojan War”, in D. Konstan / K. A. Raaflaub (eds.), Epic and History, Oxford 2009, 122–44. Griffin 1980: J. Griffin, Homer on Life and Death, Oxford 1980. Haubold 2013: J. H. Haubold, Greece and Mesopotamia: Dialogues in Literature, Cambridge 2013. Hodder 2012: I. Hodder, Entangled An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things, Oxford 2012. Kullmann 1999: W. Kullmann, “Homer and Historical Memory”, in E. A. Mackay (ed.), Signs of Orality: The Oral Tradition and its Influence in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Leiden 1999. Latour 2005: B. Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, Oxford 2005. Malafouris 2013: L. Malafouris, How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement, Cambridge MA 2013. Nagy 1983: G. Nagy, “Sēma and noēsis: Some Illustrations”, Arethusa 16,1 (1983), 35–55. Petrovic 2016: A. Petrovic, “Archaic Funerary Epigram and Hector’s Imagined epitymbia”, in A. Efstathiou / I. Karamanou (eds.), Homeric Receptions across Generic and Cultural Contexts, Berlin 2016, 45–58. Porter 2011: J. I. Porter, “Making and Unmaking: The Achaean Wall and the Limits of Fictionality in Homeric Criticism”, TAPhA 141, 1 (2011), 1–36. Purves 2010: A. Purves, Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative, Cambridge-New York 2010. Scodel 1982: R. Scodel, “The Achaean Wall and the Myth of Destruction”, HSCPh 86 (1982), 33–50. Scodel 1992: R. Scodel, “Inscriptions, Absence and Memory: Epic and Early Epitaph”, SIFC 10 (1992), 57–76. Scully 1990: S. Scully, Homer and the Sacred City, Ithaca/London 1990. Svenbro 1993: J. Svenbro, Phrasikleia, Ithaca 1993. Thomas 1989: R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens, Cambridge 1989. Thomas 2001: R. Thomas, “Herodotus’ Histories and the Floating Gap”, in N. Luraghi (ed.), The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus, Oxford 2001, 198–210. Vansina 1985: J. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, Madison 1985. Young 1983: D. C. Young, “Pindar Pythians 2 and 3: ‘Inscriptional’ ποτέ and the ‘Poetic Epistle’”, HSPh 87 (1983), 31–48. Whitley 2013: J. Whitley, “Homer’s Entangled Objects: Narrative, Agency and Personhood in and out of Iron Age Texts”, CArchJ 23, 3 (2013), 395–416.

BEYOND VICTORY AND DEFEAT Commemorating Battles prior to the Persian Wars1 Birgit Bergmann The aftermath of battle – and especially the question what is done about the dead, the living and the gods – presents a fascinating field of study. On the one hand, it shows how much store a community sets by its members, how it encourages them to risk their lives in its defence and what kind of relationship it cultivates with the divine sphere. On the other hand, it also shows what significance is accorded to a specific battle, how it is represented at home and abroad and how long it is remembered. In short: it shows the importance of war and its commemoration for the self-representation and self-affirmation of a community as well as for its outward representation. The question of what is done after a battle is therefore an important one that should be asked about present-day conflicts as well as about earlier ones like the World Wars or – in the case of this paper – pre-classical Greece. Unfortunately, we are rather ill-informed about what happened after a battle in the time before the beginning of the Persian Wars in 500 BC since the information provided by the literary sources is neither as abundant nor as reliable as for the time thereafter. Yet, in combination with archaeological and epigraphical sources, a picture does emerge which this paper will briefly present. First and foremost, the different activities of a commemorative nature that could follow a military conflict will be discussed for an overview of the variety of forms which the commemoration of battles could take in pre-classical times. Next this paper will address the question of whether there are any observable changes in practice over time and, if this is the case, how these could be explained. So let us begin with the variety. In the following discussion, the different activities are grouped by categories which are presented in ‘chronological order’, beginning with those that took place immediately after a battle and followed by those that took place a little later (or rather: that could take place a little later). Interestingly

1

The present paper is a summary report on part of my habilitation treatise Jenseits von Sieg und Niederlage; since this work is still in progress it has to be stressed that this paper is necessarily preliminary in nature. For a detailed discussion of the various episodes and monuments mentioned, especially concerning their historicity, their date and their reconstruction, as well as for an extensive quotation of the relevant literature cf. the forthcoming monograph. I am grateful to Maurizio Giangiulio, Elena Franchi and Giorgia Proietti for having been invited to the conference in Trento and for the opportunity to publish this paper. I further thank Christian Kunze, Hanna Philipp and Dirk Steuernagel for their suggestions and comments and Joanna Kemp for correcting my English. All remaining errors and mistakes are my own.

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enough, the commemoration of battles by Greek poleis2 in pre-classical times did not start out on a small scale to reach its full extent only in classical times. On the contrary, apparently the whole spectrum existed more or less right from the beginning (with some shifts and variations within the different categories, of course, to which we shall now turn). The first category are the tropaia. The custom to erect a trophy at the most decisive point on the battlefield, i. e. an ephemeral construction consisting of a wooden support (a tree-trunk or a wooden stake) to which spoils of the enemy were affixed, is well documented in the literary and pictorial sources for classical Greece.3 As yet there is no incontrovertible evidence that battlefield trophies did exist already in pre-classical times4 and it is therefore hardly surprising that they are quite frequently supposed to have come into existence only during the Persian Wars or in the time immediately afterwards.5 Most recently Matthew Trundle even argued that the erection of tropaia was originally a Persian custom which the Greeks adopted during the Persian Wars.6 However, there is no evidence for tropaia originally being Persian either.7 Besides, it is hardly surprising that no battlefield trophies are at2 3

4

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For simplicity’s sake the term ‘polis’ is used throughout this paper to describe Greek collective bodies (i. e. poleis, tribes, amphictyonies etc.). This procedure is legitimate since in most cases they are poleis anyway. On trophies in general: Woelcke 1911; Pritchett 1974, 246–75; Stroszeck 2004; Rabe 2008; Bettalli 2009; Baitinger 2011, 139–42; Trundle 2013, 124–26; Lissarrague 2014; Proietti 2015, 148–53. Throughout this paper the word ‘trophy’ is used exclusively as synonym for the Greek battlefield τρόπαιον as described above. There are no references to tropaia in the Iliad as Pritchett 1974, 249 had thought, cf. already Woelcke 1911, 14–15 as well as Krentz 2002, 32; Rabe 2008, 12; Frielinghaus 2011, 158 with n. 768 and Trundle 2013, 126–27 (cf. also Bettalli 2009, 369 with n. 56) and the only two ‘historical’ tropaia mentioned in the literary tradition for pre-classical times, the one the Spartans are said to have erected after the conquest of Amyclae (Paus. 3.2.6) and the one of Othryades, the only Spartan to survive the Battle of Champions (V. Max. 3.2 ext. 4; Theseus FGrH III B no. 453 F 2 [= Stob. 3.7.68]; Chrysermus of Corinth FGrH III A no. 287 F 2 a [= Plu. Moralia 306A-B]; Lucianus Cont. 24; Sud. O 86 s. v. Ὀθρυάδας; APl. 7.430 [Dioscorides]; Sch. in Stat. Theb. 4.48) are not historical: Woelcke 1911, 10–13; Stroszeck 2004, 309–10; BNJ 2007 s. v. Theseus no. 453 commentary to F 2 (B. W. Millis); Rabe 2008, 12–13; Bettalli 2009, 364–65; BNJ 2011 s. v. Chrysermus of Corinth no. 287 commentary to F 2 a-b (P. Ceccarelli); Frielinghaus 2011, 158 with n. 767. Krentz 2002, 32; Stroszeck 2004, 309; van Wees 2004, 136–38, 183, 240; Bettalli 2009, 364–65, 370–71; Trundle 2013; Proietti 2015, 148–53, 164–65. So apparently also Lissarrague 2014, 57. Trundle 2013. Woelcke 1911, 20. In support of his theory Trundle 2013, 123, 130 cites only two instances: the trophy the Persians purportedly had planned to set up after Marathon (bringing a block of marble already with them: Paus. 1.33.2) and the one they seemingly did erect – according to Isoc. 5.148 – after Thermopylae. None of these instances prove a Persian origin of the custom, though, since there is no evidence for earlier Persian trophies (or later ones, for that matter) and about this time – or shortly afterwards – tropaia are attested in Greece, too: Woelcke 1911, 7, 10–13; Krentz 2002, 32; Stroszeck 2004, 309; Rabe 2008, 12–14, 101–9; Bettalli 2009, 364–66; Proietti 2015, 149–57, 164–65. Besides, the story about Marathon is a legend, cf. Jung 2006, 191–202, and the trophy of Thermopylae most probably a misunderstanding: if it

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tested for pre-classical Greece, considering the nature and state of the literary tradition and the fact that the evidence for the erection of battlefield trophies is supplied nearly exclusively by literary sources, even in classical times.8 Furthermore, there is one point strongly in favour of their existence, which is often overlooked: at least some of the weapons that were dedicated at the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia in archaic times seem to have been displayed in the form of trophies. This is suggested by three points: first, there are some helmets with holes punched from the outside to the inside whose respective position can most easily be explained if these helmets had been put on top of wooden stakes and nailed fast. Second, during the excavation of the Olympic Stadion, post holes were discovered in the southern embankment of Stadion I whose random placement exclude any architectural interpretation. And, last but not least, a number of shields were found embedded on this southern embankment and considering their numbers, their size and their weight, the conclusion that at least some of them had been displayed somewhere nearby is not unconvincing.9 Now it is certainly possible that in archaic times it was customary to display weapons dedicated at a sanctuary in the form of trophies, whereas battlefield tropaia were unheard of, and that in classical times this situation reversed itself, tropaia were now being erected on the battlefield while dedications of weapons in the form of trophies seem to have vanished from the sanctuaries.10 Yet in my opinion – and in the opinion of others before me – this is decidedly less likely than the hypothesis that battlefield trophies did exist already in archaic times.11

8

9

10 11

did indeed still exist at the time of Isocrates and was cherished by the Greeks it is somewhat surprising that it is never mentioned anywhere else. Considering the fact that there is no evidence for Persian tropaia in archaic or classical times, I would therefore rather suppose that Isokrates uses τὸ τρόπαιον […] σταθέν in a metonymical way for ‘Persian victory’ and that θεωροῦσι refers to the Greeks visiting the site of this victory, i. e. the battlefield (to view the Greek memorials). For the metonymical use of the phrase τρόπαιον στῆσαι cf. Woelcke 1911, 7–10; Rabe 2008, 38–43; Proietti 2015, 154. Among the scant surviving pre-classical texts and fragments, not too many are concerned with contemporary military matters and hardly any of them mention historical battles. Since our information about pre-classical warfare rests therefore nearly exclusively on texts that were written at a time when pre-classical battlefield trophies – if they did exist – had long since disintegrated, the fact that they are never mentioned is not a very forceful argumentum e silentio. In the archaeological record only one possible battlefield trophy has survived, a wooden stake decorated with a roughly hewn head and armed with a helmet and a cuirass: Munich, Antikensammlungen inv. 15032 (Rabe 2008, 35–36, 191 cat. 85 pl. 3, 1–2). It can be dated to the 4th cent. BC and was most probably set up in southern Italy. But then it might just as well have been a dedication. Kunze/Schleif n. d. (1937–1938), 10–12, 22, 67–68 figs. 7–8, 13 pl. 7 below; Kunze/ Schleif n. d. (1938–1939), 10–11 fig. 2; Kunze 1956, 11 pl. 1; Kunze 1967, 95; Philipp 2004, 150–51; Rabe 2008, 28–30; Baitinger 2011, 87, 129–31 fig. 57; Frielinghaus 2011, 130–34, 156–64, 574–75 figs. 16, 17 b, 18 pls. 116, 5; 117, 1–3; 118, 1–2. Proietti 2015, 161–62, 164. About the end of the dedication of weapons at sanctuaries in the form of trophies: Philipp 2004, 156–57; Rabe 2008, 32–33; Baitinger 2011, 87, 140, 164–67; Frielinghaus 2011, 158, 164, 230–32. Rabe 2008, 11–37 esp. 37; Baitinger 2011, 139–40. Against Proietti 2015, 161–62, 164 it has to be stressed that battlefield tropaia and the display of weapons at a sanctuary in the form

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The next category are the graves. After a battle, the dead naturally had to be buried. With the emergence of the polis in early Greece, war, with its potential for victory, booty and land or defeat, loss and even annihilation, became one of the most vital common tasks. It is therefore hardly surprising that the burial of war dead became a common task, too, and that we have evidence for state graves of men fallen in battle right from the beginning: in the necropolis of Paros two graves were discovered near to each other with in one case about 40 and in the other about 130 amphorai that contained the remains of cremation burials of young men. Those graves must have been built by the Parian community for the burial of their war dead, a conclusion that is confirmed by the fact that the only two amphorai among the 170 that are decorated with figural scenes both show scenes of war. Thanks to the amphorai the graves can be dated to the last quarter of the 8th century BC.12 And there is evidence for ritual activities connected with them, too: during the excavations the residues of sacrifices were discovered that must have been conducted over a considerable period;13 and around 700 BC a stele decorated with a seated female figure, most probably a divinity, was erected immediately north of the grave containing the 130 burials.14 The combination of a state burial and regular sacrifices is also attested by the literary tradition for the Oresthasians who died during the reconquest of Phigalaea sometime after 659 BC.15 It impressively demonstrates the

12

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of trophies are not at all the same thing even if they did most probably share their general physical appearance. The first (and only the first) are the ‘real’ trophies that are called τρόπαια by the pre-Hellenistic literary sources whereas the second are dedications to the gods at sanctuaries just as all the other dedications of different appearance, too. According to Trundle 2013, 137–38 the “fully fledged polis” emerged “in the wake of the Persian Wars”. And as he afterwards states that “it is true that there are examples in the later Archaic Age of emerging state battlefield actions and of victories won by the nation” and that “the trophy […] was really only possible when a state could dedicate some of the stripped armor itself” he apparently believes that trophies were an impossibility prior to the Persian Wars since in general there were no ‘state battlefield actions’ at this time. This singular view about the emergence of the polis in early Greece is untenable in the face of the evidence, though: Already in the last quarter of the 8th century BC the Parians buried their war dead in state graves (see below). And when the Ἄττικοι could dedicate the weapons Alcaeus had lost in a battle for the control of Sigaeum about 600 BC to Athena in her temple at Sigaeum, as the poet himself attests (Alc. fr. 32; cf. also Hdt. 5.95.1–2), one cannot doubt that they could also have erected a trophy. About the graves: Zaphiropoulou 1991, 130–35, 143, 152 figs. 9–15; 1999; 2000; Zaphiropoulou/Agelarakis 2005; Zaphiropoulou 2006, 271, 276. About the two amphorai decorated with figural scenes (Paroikia/Paros, Arch. Mus. inv. B 3523. B 3524): Zahiropoulou 1999, 15–16 figs. 4, 16–19, 24–25; 2000, 287–93 figs. 5–12; Zaphiropoulou/Agelarakis 2005, 32–33; Zaphiropoulou 2006. Zaphiropoulou 1991, 134–35, 152; 1999, 14; 2000, 286. Zaphiropoulou 1991, 143–44 fig. 31; 1999, 13–14 fig. 1; 2000, 286. About this stele cf. also Neumann 1979, 5, 6, 18–19 pl. 2. Paus. 8.41.1. Grave and sacrifice historical: Jost 1985, 85, 88, 538–39; Pritchett 1995, 267– 68; Schörner 2007, 70–71, 261 cat. B 2/not historical: Hartmann 2010, 309. About the conquest and reconquest of Phigalaea: Paus. 8.39.3–5. There is no need to doubt that the gist of this story is true, cf. Jost 1985, 539 (who erroneously links it with the Second Messenian War, though).

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high status the community accorded those who had given their lives in its cause. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the two battles in which the young men of Paros lost their lives. Since the graves are situated in the main necropolis and since it is unlikely that both battles took place in the immediate vicinity, the fallen in this case had apparently been transported back home for burial, a custom that is especially well known for classical Athens.16 Other state graves are mentioned in the literary sources.17 Mostly they were erected for all the war dead of a community18 yet some also honoured individuals (or in one case a small group of individuals) who had especially distinguished themselves in the respective battle.19 Whereas graves of the first category (i. e. for all the war dead) generally stood on or near the battlefield,20 those of the second (i. e. those honouring individuals) could also be erected at home and even right on the agora which undoubtedly heightened the honour.21 Besides the graves there is also evidence for the erection of state-cenotaphs in two cases, where a first battle ended in defeat but a second, later one in victory. For 16 17

18 19 20 21

About public burial in Athens: Stupperich 1977; Clairmont 1983; Pritchett 1985, 102–24, 139–40, 145–51, 153–58; Rausch 1999, 221–48; Arrington 2015; Walter-Karydi 2015, 164–97. Paus. 2.24.7 (Argive war dead buried by the Argives near the battlefield after Hysiae 669/668 BC; historical: Pritchett 1980, 67–74; Tausend 1989, 139; Tausend 2006, 137/not historical: Kelly 1970, 31–42 esp. 36; Franchi 2012, 49); Paus. 8.41.1 (Oresthasians buried by the Phigalaeans on their agora after the reconquest of Phigalaea sometime after 659 BC; on the historicity of this grave cf. above n. 15); Plu. Moralia 761A-B (the Thessalian Cleomachus buried by the Chalcidians on their agora after a battle sometime during the Lelantine War [at the very latest end of 7th/beginning of 6th century BC]; historical: Bakhuizen 1976; 1985, 24–25; Walker 2004, 170/not historical: Fehling 1979, 201); Hdt. 1.30.3–5 (the Athenian Tellus buried by the Athenians on the battlefield after a battle near Eleusis about 600 BC [?]; historical: Clairmont 1983, 8, 11; Pritchett 1985, 161 no. 6; Asheri/Lloyd/Corcella 2007, 100); Paus. 2.38.5–6 (Argive and Spartan war dead buried by the Argives and Spartans respectively on the battlefield after the Battle of Champions 547 BC; historical: Pritchett 1985, 160 no. 5; Low 2006, 93–94, 99/not historical: Robertson 1992, 181, 184–87, 195–97, 204–205); APl. 16.26 (Athenian [?] war dead buried by the Athenians [?] on or near the battlefield after the battle at the Euripus 506 BC; historical: Clairmont 1983, 88–89 cat. 2; Pritchett 1985, 122, 164 no. 9; 247, 249; Arrington 2015, 42; Walter-Karydi 2015, 167–69 [cf. also Berti 2010a, 7–11: probably historical but grave of the Chalcidian war dead]/sceptical: Friedländer/Hoffleit 1948, 5 n. 6); Plu. Moralia 217F (Selinuntian [and Spartan (?)] war dead buried by the Selinuntians [?] at an unknown location in Selinous after the overthrow of tyranny about 500 BC [?]; historical: Clairmont 1983, 222 cat. 5; Pritchett 1985, 161–63 no. 7; Pordomingo Pardo 2008, 39–40 no. 2.2/sceptical about the date: Berve 1967, 597). Argives/Hysiae: Paus. 2.24.7; Argives and Spartans/Battle of Champions: Paus. 2.38.5–6; Athenians (?)/Euripus: APl. 16.26; Selinuntians (and Spartans [?])/Selinous: Plu. Moralia 217F. Oresthasians/Phigalaea: Paus. 8.41.1; Cleomachus/Lelantine War: Plu. Moralia 761A-B; Tellus/Eleusis: Hdt. 1.30.3–5. Argives/Hysiae: Paus. 2.24.7; Argives and Spartans/Battle of Champions: Paus. 2.38.5–6; Athenians (?)/Euripos: APl. 16.26 (?). Oresthasians/Phigalaea: Paus. 8.41.1; Cleomachus/Lelantine War: Plu. Moralia 761A-B. However, cf. also Tellus/Eleusis (Hdt. 1.30.3–5) who was buried on the battlefield instead.

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instance, Archias died in the failed attempt to expel Polycrates from Samos in 525 BC and received a state burial by the Samians, as one of his descendants told Herodotus.22 Since such a burial can only have taken place after the death of Polykrates three years later,23 it is highly questionable if the mortal remains of Archias were still available for burial at this time and it is therefore more likely that the Samians erected a cenotaph. The great majority of the attested graves of war dead in the literary and archaeological record for pre-classical times are state graves (or state cenotaphs).24 Only for Amphidamas, who fell during the Lelantine War, and also for Hys(s)ematas, who died in battle sometime during the last quarter of the 6th century BC, private burials are attested; in the case of Amphidamas this was also accompanied by funeral games in which Hesiodus competed and won.25 The stele of Arniadas, who had died in a battle ‘near the ships’ at the banks of the river Arachthus in Epeirus sometime around 600 BC, which was most likely set up by his relatives in the necropolis of Corcyra, crowned not a grave but a cenotaph.26 Of course, it might be true that the body of Arniadas simply could not be recovered and brought home for burial; but he also might have been buried together with his comrades in a state grave and in addition received a cenotaph from his relatives, as in the case of Dexileus about 200 years later in 394 BC.27 And the same could apply to the other pri22

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25

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Hdt. 3.55.1–2: Asheri-Lloyd-Corcella 2007, 450. The second instance is Anchimol(i)os, the commander of the first Spartan attempt to overthrow the Peisitratids at Athens who was killed in the plain of Phaleron in 511 BC (Hdt. 5.63.3–4) and who could only have been buried in state after the successful second Spartan attempt in the following year: Pritchett 1985, 163–64 no. 8; Rausch 1999, 228 n. 1021. Asheri-Lloyd-Corcella 2007, 450. For the death of Polycrates and its date: Hdt. 3.125; Asheri-Lloyd-Corcella 2007, 507, 509. In addition to the ones already mentioned cf. also the monument of Tokes which the Parians erected on the battlefield after a battle near Ennea Hodoi in Thrace in the last quarter of the 6th or in the first decade of the 5th century BC. Only the uppermost block of the base with the inscription and the plinth of an equestrian statue survives: Amphipolis, Arch. Mus. inv. Λ 32 (Lazaridis 1976; Isaac 1986, 5 no. 3; 6–8, 19; Tiverios 2008, 68–69, 71). Since the block was found built into the northern fortification wall of Amphipolis it remains unclear, though, whether it belonged to a grave or a cenotaph. Cf. also the monument for two Thebans who died in an unknown battle at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 5th century BC that was most probably erected by the Theban community. Only the upper part of the stele with the inscription survives: Thebes, Arch. Mus. inv. 33459 (Papazarkadas 2014). As with the monument of Tokes it remains unclear, though, if it belonged to a grave or a cenotaph since it was discovered reused in a later grave. Amphidamas: Hes. Op. 654–59; Plu. Moralia 153E–154A; 674F–675A; Sch. in Hes. Op. 654– 62 (historical: Parker 1997, 28–29, 37, 88–92, 117–18; Walker 2004, 109, 162, 165–66; Kôiv 2011/not historical: Fehling 1979, 202; Bershadsky 2013, 60–93). Hys(s)ematas: Argos, Arch. Mus. inv. E 210 (Daly 1939; McGowan 1995, 628 fig. 11; 631–32) Corcyra, Arch. Mus. inv. 2: Orioli 1846; IG IX 1, 868; Lumpp 1963; Antonelli 2000b, 85– 87, 102, 105, 107, 112. Cenotaph of Dexileus: Athens, Ceramicus (Precinct of Dexileus) and Ceramicus Mus. inv. P 1130 (Clairmont 1983, 19, 219–21 cat. 68A; Stroszeck 2014, 187–91 no. 38 figs. 38.1–7). State grave of 394 BC: Athens, Nat. Mus. inv. 754. 2744 (Clairmont 1983, 209–14 cat. 68a–b pls. 2–3a; Stroszeck 2014, 188 fig. 38.9).

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vate grave monuments attested in pre-classical times for men fallen in battle since in all these cases it cannot be ascertained if they really belonged to graves or to cenotaphs.28 Therefore the common view that war dead in pre-classical times were regularly transported back home and buried individually by their respective families29 is not supported by the evidence; considering its scarcity, however, the possibility that this was indeed a widespread custom certainly cannot be ruled out. To sum up: already in pre-classical times the community apparently considered itself as particularly responsible for the burial of its war dead since among the attested graves and cenotaphs for men fallen in battle those erected by poleis are by far in the majority. They stood either right on (or at least near) the battlefield or at home. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the reasons why in some cases the dead were buried where they had fallen whereas in others they were brought back home; and the scarcity of evidence does not allow us to draw any inferences about ‘general customs’. One thing, however, is certain: by burying the war dead collectively, the poleis accorded them a special status which was accentuated in some cases by the location of the graves right on the agora and in others by the fact that they received regular sacrifices. This emphasis on the collective identity of the citizen soldiers and demonstration of care and honour for those who had given their lives for the community was certainly meant to motivate others to risk their lives for the common good, too; which doubtless also explains, why the erection of state graves is the only activity undertaken after a battle that was not restricted exclusively to the victorious side.30 Besides erecting tropaia and burying the dead, the Greeks also honoured the living. Unfortunately, we are notoriously ill informed in this respect, even for classical times; for the time before the beginning of the Persian Wars in 500 BC only one instance is recorded: after the destruction of Sybaris in 511/510 BC the seer Callias of Elis received land from the Crotoniates in acknowledgment of his services to the Crotonian army.31 28

29 30

31

Cf. the monuments for Tet(t)ichus (second quarter of the 6th cent. BC [?]: Athens, Epigraphical Mus. inv. 10650 [Jeffery 1990, 72, 77 no. 19 pl. 3; IG I3 1194bis; Kissas 2000, 44–45 cat. A 11 fig. 13; Ferrandini Troisi/Cagnazzi 2010; Arrington 2015, 27–30]), Aristogeitus (middle of the 6th cent. BC [?]: Palermo, Mus. Arch. Regionale inv. N. I. 8757 [Rocco 1970; Jeffery 1990, 461–62 no. L pl. 77, 7 (A. W. Johnston)]), Croesus (540/530 BC [?]: Athens, Nat. Mus. inv. 3851 [Mastrokostas 1974, 220–25 figs. 2–9; IG I3 1240; Kissas 2000, 54–55 cat. A 20 figs. 28–30; Arrington 2015, 27–30]) and Phanes (around 500 BC [?]: lost, discovered at Thisbe [IG VII 2247; Bossi 1992, 67–68]). Of these only the monument of Croesus was discovered in situ next to a road at the foot of a burial mound. Since this mound had been ravaged by grave robbers and has never been archaeologically explored, none of the inhumations and cremations it is known to have contained can be attributed to the monument of Croesus, though: Mastrokostas 1974, 224–25. Stupperich 1977, 64, 69–70, 214; Clairmont 1983, 8, 11, 19; Rausch 1999, 227–29; Arrington 2015, 26–32; Walter-Karydi 2015, 106–108, 170. Argives/Battle of Champions: Paus. 2.38.5–6. The state cenotaphs (?) of Archias (Hdt. 3.55.1– 2) and Anchimol(i)us (Hdt. 5.63.3–4) were erected for the defeated, too, but only after the defeated side had been victorious in a following engagement, cf. the text above with fn. 22; they therefore cannot count as ‘graves or cenotaphs erected by the defeated’. Hdt. 5.45.2. Cf. Giangiulio 1989, 126 ff.

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Nothing is known about material rewards for valour, the so-called aristeia mentioned first by Herodotus in connection with the Persian Wars.32 They are neither referred to by Tyrtaeus nor by Callinus of Ephesus who both stress the social prestige to be gained by fighting valiantly instead.33 From this Dietmar Kienast concluded that aristeia did not exist in archaic times.34 Yet as we have seen, men who had distinguished themselves in battle and had died fighting could be honoured by a state grave or a state cenotaph. That men who had fought just as valiantly but survived to tell the tale should not have received any reward is therefore, in my opinion, highly unlikely. That nothing of the kind is mentioned in archaic literature, i. e. poetry, is hardly surprising. For one thing, only tiny fragments of this literature have survived so that any argumentum e silentio is a priori problematic; and for another, it is decidedly more fitting for poetry to extol the ideal of fighting for honour’s sake alone even if material rewards did exist at the time. The Greeks of the archaic period might have hoped for honour as sufficient motivation for fighting valiantly, but they would certainly have trusted in material rewards as did those in Homer before Troy35 and later those of classical times during the Persian Wars and after.36 Besides honouring the dead and the living, the Greeks naturally also honoured the gods since they were a central part of ancient Greek life and thus also of war. Nothing was done in war without making sure of the gods’ approval first, who therefore had a vital share in victory;37 and the victors always saw to it that they got their due. This could take a wide variety of forms: ritual acts, festivals, cults, cult statues, cult places (as altars, temples and sanctuaries) and dedications. Let us begin with the ritual acts, festivals, cults, cult statues and cult places. The largest documented complex in this respect is connected to the First Sacred War at the beginning of the 6th century BC.38 Following the conquest and destruction of Crisa in 591/590 BC the Amphictyons dedicated the land of the Crisaeans to Apollo,39 celebrated the first Pythian Games as ἀγὼν χρηματίτης (i. e. prize-games),40 enlarged the temenos of the Delphic sanctuary, marked it with the very first peribo32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40

About aristeia in general: Pritchett 1974, 276–90; Kienast 2007. Callin. fr. 1; Tyrt. frr. 10, 12. Cf. also Kienast 2007, 109. Kienast 2007, 109, 119. Pritchett 1974, 276–77. The word ἀριστεία does not appear in Homer, though. Pritchett 1974, 276–90; Kienast 2007, 109–22. About the Greek gods and war: Pritchett 1971, 93–100, 109–26; Pritchett 1979. The historicity of this war (and therefore of everything that is connected with it) has been questioned by Robertson 1978 (followed by Londey 2015) and also – with a slightly different argumentation – by Franchi 2016c, 199–230, 333–40. However, the results of recent excavations at Delphi as presented by Luce 2008 have strengthened the more widely held view, that the gist of the story about a ‘First Sacred War’ is true: Càssola 1980, 413–39; Lehmann 1980, 242–46; Sánchez 2001, 58–60, 67–80; Luce 2008, 104–11. Aeschin. In Ctesiphontem 107–109; Hp. Ep. 27.4; Str. 9.3.4; Polyaen. 3.5; Paus. 10.37.6; Sud. Σ 777 s. v. Σόλων; Càssola 1980, 420–21; Lehmann 1980, 245–46; Sánchez 2001, 75, 78; Luce 2008, 106, 108–10. Marm. Par. fr. A 37 l. 52–53; Sch. in Pi. P. hypothesis B. D; Jacoby 1904, 102–105, 165–66; Càssola 1980, 422; Sánchez 2001, 75–77, 78; Luce 2008, 105–106, 107.

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los-wall41 and – last but not least – rebuilt the temple of Apollo in stone.42 Finally, the end of the First Sacred War was commemorated with the institution of the Pythian Games proper as penteteric crown games, ἀγὼν στεφανίτης.43 Similar measures are attested for other battles, too. Festivals were established after the conquest of Salamis around 600 BC (in honour of Enyalios [?])44 and after the Battle of the Phocian Desperation between Phocians and Thessalians at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 5th century BC (the Elaphebolia in honour of Artemis).45 Altars for the Dioscouroi were erected by the Epizephyrian Locrians after their victory against Croton in the battle at the river Sagra in the middle of the 6th century BC.46 Whole sanctuaries were instituted after the aforementioned conquest of Salamis around 600 BC (dedicated to Enyalios)47 as well as after the battle at the Euripus between Athens and Chalcis in 506 BC (dedicated to Athena).48 And after the Battle of Champions in 547 BC thyreatic crowns and songs were included into the Spartan festival of the Gymnopaediae in honour of the victory and those who had fallen in Thyrea.49 All of the aforementioned activities were exclusively carried out by the victors, which is hardly surprising considering the fact that only they had reason to thank the gods for their assistance. The same is true for the dedications where it is even less surprising that they were only offered by the victorious side since they usually consisted in a share of the booty.50 This could basically be dedicated in two ways: either direct, or ‘raw’, in the form of spoils or indirect, or ‘converted’, in the form of monuments that were financed from the sale of the booty.51 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49

50 51

Sánchez 2001, 78–79; Luce 2008, 95–98, 100, 103–104, 106, 107–108, 110, 113. Hp. Ep. 27.4; Sánchez 2001, 78–79; Luce 2008, 100–103, 108, 110–11. Sch. in Pi. P. hypothesis B. Cf. also Hp. Ep. 27.4; Marm. Par. fr. A 37–38 l. 53–54; Str. 9.3.10; Sch. in Pi. P. hypothesis D; Jacoby 1904, 102–105, 165–66.; Càssola 1980, 422; Sánchez 2001, 75–77, 78; Luce 2008, 101, 105–106, 107. Plu. Sol. 9.6. Historical: Deubner 1969, 218–19; Pritchett 1979, 207 no. 11/sceptical: Lambert 1997, 99). Plu. Moralia 244D; 660D; 1099E-F. Battle (and related commemorative measures) historical: Stadter 1965, 34–41; Pritchett 1996, 94–95 with n. 1; 100–109, 126, 130–35, 141, 146; Ioakimidou 1997, 34–36 no. 2; 39–47, 135–43 no. 2; Krumeich 1997, 191–93/not historical: Ellinger 1993 esp. 13–17, 20–21, 35–36, 39–40, 233–46, 267–73, 280–82, 287–98; Franchi 2015; 2016b, 60–64, 69–71; 2016c, 239–72, 284–85, 286–93, 304, 340–44. Str. 6.1.10. Historical: Giangiulio 1983, 497/not historical: Baudy 2001, 53–55. Plu. Sol. 9.7. Historical: Linforth 1919, 256. Cf. also above n. 44. Ael. VH 6.1. Historical: Parker 1997, 164–65. Sosib. FGrH III B no. 595 F 5 (= Ath. 15.678B-C); Phryn. PS s. v. γυμνοπαιδιά; Tim. Lex. Γ 108 s. v. γυμνοπαιδίαι; Phot. Lexicon Γ 230–31 s. v. γυμνοπαιδία; Sud. Γ 486 s. v. Γυμνοπαιδεία; EM 243.3–4 s. v. Γυμνοπαιδία. Cf. Nobili 2011, 42–48; BNJ 2015 s. v. Sosibius no. 595 commentary to F 5 (A. Bayliss); Franchi 2016a, 2–25 esp. 13–14, 24–25 (who only accepts the connection between the Battle of Champions and the paeans composed by Dionysodotus, though). Pritchett 1971, 93–100. About booty in general: Pritchett 1971, 85–100; 1991, 68–541. For the distinction between ‘raw’ and ‘converted’ offerings: Snodgrass 1989–1990 (2006), esp. 263–64.

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The most common ‘raw’ offerings celebrating military victories undoubtedly are arms and armour.52 The earliest dedication of this type attested by the literary sources are the weapons of Alcaeus, which the poet had lost on his flight from a battle for the possession of Sigaeum around 600 BC, and which the Athenians afterwards dedicated at the local temple of Athena.53 Archaeologically weapon dedications in Greek sanctuaries are attested as early as the second half of the 8th century BC.54 Yet only from the second half of the 6th century BC onwards can they be securely identified as offerings celebrating military victories thanks to inscriptions that name the reason for the dedication,55 even though it is to be supposed that at least some – if not most – of the uninscribed weapons in large and important sanctuaries like Isthmia, Delphi and Olympia belonged to polis dedications following a military victory, too.56 Among the ‘converted’ offerings the variety is much greater. For one thing, they could take the form of single statues, which generally represented the god of the respective sanctuary as in the case of the statue of Apollo dedicated by the Massaliots at Delphi after the naval engagement at Alalia around 540 BC57 or the one of Zeus offered by the Cleitorians at Olympia following their victory over ‘many poleis’ that might have taken place sometime around 500 BC.58 For another, the ‘converted offerings’ could also take the form of statue groups. Their theme could be motivated primarily by the place of dedication, as the group of Apollo, Athena and Artemis that was set up by the Phocians at Delphi, probably after the Battle of the Amphorae at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 5th century BC.59 Yet it could also be motivated by the identity of the victors as the group the Phocians set up at Delphi after another conflict of the same period, the aforementioned Battle of the Phocian Desperation, which included not only Apollo but also Phocian heroes as well as the commanders in charge of the Phocian army and the seer Tellias of Elis.60 Or, last but not least, it could apparently also be motivated by the identity of the defeated, as in the case of the famous quadriga dedicated by the Athenians on the Athenian acropolis after their victory over the Boeotians and Chalcidians in 506 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

About weapon dedications in general: Pritchett 1979, 240–95; Jackson 1991; Rabe 2008, 28–34; Baitinger 2011; Frielinghaus 2011, 93–232 esp. 210–32. Alc. fr. 32; Hdt. 5.95.1–2; Str. 13.1.38; Plu. Moralia 858B. Cf. Podlecki 1984, 78–79; Antonelli 2000a, 22, 27. Rabe 2008, 32; Baitinger 2011, 123–29, 169; Frielinghaus 2011, 88–92, 212–18, 226–29; Whitley 2011, 170. Pritchett 1979, 290–91; Rabe 2008, 28; Baitinger 2011, 129, 150; Frielinghaus 2011, 124, 126, 222; Whitley 2011, 170. Cf. also below n. 71. Jackson 1991, 230; Rabe 2008, 28; Baitinger 2011, 129, 146, 150, 154–55, 169. For private dedications: Pritchett 1979, 248–76; Jackson 1991, 230; Baitinger 2011, 145–47, 152–55, 169; Frielinghaus 2011, 124–25, 220–22. Paus. 10.18.7; Gras 1987, 166, 171. Paus. 5.23.7; Richter 1939, 200–201; Zizza 2006, 229–32 no. 21; Baitinger 2011, 162. The date is not certain, though. Paus. 10.13.4; Ioakimidou 1997, 43, 46. Paus. 10.1.10; 10.13.6. For the question of the historicity of the battle and the related commemorative measures cf. above n. 45.

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BC,61 a puzzling choice of motive, which Frank Jünger has explained by the fact that the members of the Chalcidian social élite were called ἱπποβόται, horse-breeders, and that the highest denomination of Chalcidian coins since the middle of the 6th century BC had been decorated by a quadriga; and that horses could have been part of the booty, too.62 That this interpretation might indeed lead into the right direction is suggested by the dedicatory inscription which declares that the παῖδε[ς Ἀθεναίον […] ἔθνεα Βοιοτõν καὶ Χαλκιδέον δαμάσαντες], that the sons of the Athenians had tamed the tribes of the Boeotians and Chalcidians.63 As Andrej Petrovic has pointed out, the verb δαμάζω is commonly used in the sense of ‘to tame, to break in’, especially of horses, so that the subtle irony of the inscription lies in the fact that the Athenians appear as tamers of Chalcidians and Boeotians, famous horse breeders and horsemen.64 The treasury of Megara, erected at Olympia after a victory over Corinth at the end of the 6th century BC, finally represents the upper end of the scale of what was dedicated out of booty in pre-classical times.65 Since we have no knowledge of Corinth having been conquered by Megara (or by any other polis) at the time in question, the booty must have originated from a ‘normal’ battle between neighbours and it is therefore at least questionable if the whole of it – let alone a tenth – would really have been sufficient to finance a treasury.66 So in this case (and in the case of some of the more elaborate statue groups, too) the polis might have presented its victory as more important (or at least more lucrative) than it actually was. This desire for representation through victory dedications fits well into the historical context of the second half of the 6th century BC where a shift in the nature of war dedications, or rather polis dedications in general, can be observed: though 61 62 63 64 65 66

IG I3 501A; Hdt. 5.77.4; D. S. 10.24.3; Paus. 1.28.2; Jünger 2006, 223–49 figs. 34–39; Petrovic 2007, 209–22; Monaco 2009, 294–300 figs. 6, 8–10; Berti 2010b; 2012. Jünger 2006, 232–34. The attribution of these coins to Chalcis is not certain, though, and has recently been questioned by van Alfen 2009, 142–49. IG I3 501A. Cf. also Hdt. 5.77.4. Petrovic 2007, 216. Paus. 6.19.12–14; Borrmann 1892; Dörpfeld 1892; Treu 1897; Herrmann 1980, 139–40 no. 97. Even more so if Jackson 2000 is right in supposing that the famous weapon dedication of the Argives at Olympia originated from the same battle, because this would have meant a division of the total booty between Argos and Megara (and therefore less for each). That this booty might, indeed, have been substantial is suggested by the fact that five helmets, one shin guard and at least seven shields can still be attributed to the Argive dedication due to inscriptions: Jackson 2000, esp. 302–5; it is thus the largest known weapon dedication of ancient Greece that has survived in the archaeological record: Baitinger 2011, 80. Unfortunately we do not know, however, whether it really was the dedication that was exceptionally large or merely the number of its inscribed specimens: Baitinger 2011, 138. And also, we do not know how much it cost to build a treasury. Yet such a building complete with pedimental sculptures undoubtedly was more expensive than any of the other dedications commemorating military victories documented for pre-classical times that are discussed in this paper. Since it is unlikely that the battle between Megara, Argos (?) and Corinth yielded significantly more booty than any other battle of this period, the suspicion is therefore justified that the declaration of the treasury as having been financed from booty is an overstatement.

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dedicatory inscriptions per se are documented as early as the 7th century BC,67 now for the first time inscriptions appear that name a polis as dedicator.68 Of course, this could primarily be due to the fact that previously inscriptions of this kind had been written in an impermanent way in paint or in ink or onto perishable materials, e. g. wooden tablets,69 and that from the second half of the 6th century BC onwards these inscriptions were now engraved on imperishable materials as the objects themselves or their bases. In this case there would have been no fundamental change in practice but only in the permanence of such inscriptions. Yet this explanation is not convincing since dedicatory inscriptions that name a private individual as dedicator are proven to have been engraved on the objects themselves or their bases in a permanent form right from the beginning70 even though there might have existed painted inscriptions or inscriptions on wooden tablets for those dedications, too. That at first Greek poleis should have written their dedicatory inscriptions exclusively in an impermanent way is therefore less likely than the alternative, that the poleis really only began to inscribe their dedications from the middle of the 6th century BC onwards. This adds a completely new quality to these kinds of dedications. Whereas previously the knowledge of which polis dedicated what had been restricted to the act itself and the parties concerned, now any visitor to the sanctuary could glean this information from the inscription as long as the dedication existed. 67 68

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Lazzarini 1976, no. 1–2, 58–60, 68, 119, 157, 275a, 404, 446, 455, 537, 565, 571, 589, 651, 720, 755, 780, 785, 795, 810, 820. About archaic votive inscriptions in general: Lazzarini 1976. Lazzarini 1976, no. 885–86, 908, 911bis, 915, 917, 957–58, 968, 978, 985, 997. There are two probable exceptions to the rule, though: a bronze cauldron dedicated by the Spartans at Olympia of which two fragments of the rim have survived (Olympia, Mus. inv. 718. 849) dated by Lazzarini 1976, no. 890 “prima metà del VI sec. a. C.” and by Jeffery 1990, 199 no. 10 “c. 600–550?” (but cf. also Siewert 1991, 81 who dates it only “6. Jh. v. Chr.”) and a bronze phiale dedicated by the Thebans that was apparently found at Tanagra (Athens, Nat. Mus. inv. 11555) dated by Lazzarini 1976, no. 920 “inizio del VI sec. a. C.” and by Jeffery 1990, 94 no. 7 “c. 610–550?”. Lazzarini 1976, no. 903, 911, 916, 919 remain uncertain since they are dated only generally to the 6th century BC. The fact that before the middle of the 6th century BC there are no inscriptions that name a polis as dedicator cannot be explained away by the supposition that previously the poleis simply had no opportunity to dedicate spoils of war (or anything else) due to the many tyrants ruling in Greece. For one thing, there are hardly any inscribed dedications of tyrants either, cf. Lazzarini 1976 who lists only one instance that might have been dedicated before the middle of the 6th century BC, the famous gold phiale of the Cypselids from Olympia (Boston, Mus. of Fine Arts inv. 21.1843: Lazzarini 1976, no. 992; Jeffery 1990, 127–28, 131 no. 13; Siewert/ Taeuber 2013, 217–18 no. 201. The dating of the phiale is difficult, though: Jeffery 1990, 127–28, 131 no. 13 [“c. 625–550?”]; and it is also uncertain if the ἐξ Ἑρακλείας of the inscription does indeed denote the origin of the booty as is commonly supposed or rather the origin of the dedicants [in which case the reason for the dedication would be unknown]: Siewert/Taeuber 2013, 218). For another, there is sufficient evidence for collective activities commemorating military victories before the middle of the 6th century BC (cf. the text above) to prove that the poleis could – and most probably did – dedicate the spoils of war (and other things certainly, too). It is indeed the ‘epigraphic habit’ that is different (or rather absent). That such tablets did exist is suggested by the fact that some specimens made of bronze have survived: Frielinghaus 2011, 124–25, 126. Lazzarini 1976, no. 1–2, 58–60, 68, 119, 157, 275a, 404, 651, 720, 755, 785, 795, 820.

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So besides being addressed to the gods from the middle of the 6th century BC onwards, the polis dedications were increasingly addressed to the living, too. That in this respect the war dedications were all-important for the poleis is shown by the fact that in pre-classical times inscriptions naming the reason for a dedication and a polis as dedicator are restricted exclusively to this type of votive,71 which played a decisive role in the outward-representation of a polis and therefore also in inter polis rivalry as well as in its self-representation. The first is demonstrated by the fact that the great majority of war dedications were set up in the panhellenic sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia which secured them the widest possible audience,72 and the second by the example of the Boeotian quadriga on the Athenian acropolis: this had been dedicated by the Athenians after their victory in the double-battle at the Euripus in 506 BC, was destroyed by the Persians and later – as in the case of the Tyrannicides on the Athenian Agora – replaced.73 After this overview of the variety the commemoration of battles could take before the beginning of the Persian Wars in 500 BC, let us at the end of this paper now turn to the second and last aspect: the question of a development of this variety in time. Looking at the evidence the issue seems clear enough (fig. 1): in the beginning, there were only the graves, which is unsurprising since after a battle there was always the necessity to bury the dead. About a century later, ritual acts, festivals, cults, cult statues and cult places acceded to the graves as well as the first dedications, which, however, did not appear in force before the second half of the 6th century BC. Yet a closer look at the evidence reveals that this supposed development is only due to the different source types. The graves are first because those first graves are attested archaeologically74 and archaeology can go back to a time where (reliable) literary sources cannot. The ritual activities, which are mostly transmitted by literary sources, begin at about the time we can hope for historical information having survived in ancient literature. And the dedications are not attested in numbers before the second half of the 6th century BC because their connection to military conflicts rests primarily on inscriptions that name the reason for the dedication – and they only appear at this time. So, certainly, there may have been a development in the variety of measures by which battles were commemorated in pre-classical times, but due to the nature of our evidence we have no way to verify this. That to our knowledge no polis inscribed its name on a dedication before the middle of the 6th century BC finally has one last consequence. Among the war dedications the ‘raw’ ones, the spoils, are usually considered to be the older and more primitive form whereas the ‘converted’ ones, the monuments, are supposed to have 71 72 73 74

Lazzarini 1976, no. 957–58, 968, 978, 997. The inscriptions Lazzarini 1976, no. 885–86, 890–91, 902–903, 908, 911–11bis, 915–17, 919–20, 985 also name a polis as dedicator but do not state the reason for the dedication. Out of the 24 polis-dedications attested for pre-classical times whose connection to a military victory is certain due to an inscription or literary testimonia only six were set up at local sanctuaries, whereas five were sent to Delphi and 13 to Olympia. IG I3 501B; Jünger 2006, 227–28, 241–49 figs. 36–37; Petrovic 2007, 209–22; Monaco 2009, 296–99 figs. 9–10; Berti 2010b, 8–15, 19–40. I. e. the state graves of Paros, cf. above.

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come later and to be a more refined and sophisticated version.75 Yet this rests entirely on the fact that at least some of the excavated arms and armour can be assumed to have been polis dedications after a military victory, even if they are uninscribed, because of the obvious connection of arms and especially armour to war and their sheer numbers. Since weapons are attested in Greek sanctuaries as early as the middle of the 8th century BC, the tradition to dedicate the spoils of war is therefore quite rightly supposed to having been a very old one.76 ‘Converted offerings’, on the other hand, like statues, statue groups or treasuries can only be identified as war-dedications through inscriptions stating the reason for the dedication which – as has now repeatedly been mentioned – do not appear before the second half of the 6th century BC. Yet if no polis previously cared about having its name mentioned in connection with its victory dedications, who is to say that among all the tripods, bronze cauldrons, kouroi, treasuries etc. there might not be quite a few ‘converted’ war-monuments? If we only had the inscriptions as evidence for the dedication of weapons as spoils of war we would think this custom only began in the second half of the 6th century BC, too. As the evidence collected in this paper shows, war and its commemoration played a vital role for the early Greek poleis. Their men fought together, died together, won or lost together. And they did not do so alone. Even in defeat the poleis guaranteed honourable burial for those who had lost their lives. And in victory not

Fig. 1: Distribution of activities commemorating military victories in the course of time (where the dating is uncertain, activities are marked at their earliest possible date).

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Rabe 2008, 32–33; Baitinger 2011, 140, 147–48, 166, 170; Whitley 2011, 173–74, 178. Cf. also Jackson 1991, 228, 247. Rabe 2008, 28, 32; Baitinger 2011, 123–29; Frielinghaus 2011, 212–18, 226–29; Whitley 2011, 170. Cf. also Jackson 1991, 241.

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only the dead and those who had especially distinguished themselves were honoured, but the whole polis participated in honouring the gods with the institution of sanctuaries, cults and festivals and with communal dedications. War and especially victory thus became a collective experience that was apparently central in shaping a collective polis identity as is demonstrated by the fact that the very first inscriptions that name a Greek polis as dedicator and state the reason for the dedication are found on victory dedications. Antonelli 2000a: L. Antonelli, “I Pisistratidi al Sigeo. Istanze pan-ioniche nell’Atene tirannica”, Anemos 1 (2000), 9–58. Antonelli 2000b: L. Antonelli, Κερκυραικά. Ricerche su Corcira alto-arcaica tra Ionio e Adriatico, Roma 2000. Arrington 2015: N. T. Arrington, Ashes, Images and Memories. The Presence of the War Dead in Fifth-Century Athens, Oxford 2015. Asheri/Lloyd/Corcella 2007: D. Asheri / A. Lloyd / A. Corcella, A Commentary on Herodotus. Books I–IV, Oxford 2007. Baitinger 2011: H. Baitinger, Waffenweihungen in griechischen Heiligtümern, Mainz 2011. Bakhuizen 1976: S. C. Bakhuizen, “Ὁ μέγας κίων, the Monument for Kleomachos at Chalcis in Euboea”, in J. S. Boersma / W. A. van Es / C. E. s’Jacob-Visser / W. C. Mank / W. J. Th. Peters / A. M. Witteveen (eds.), Festoen. Opgedragen aan A. N. Zadoks-Josephus Jitta bij haar zeventigste verjaardag, Groningen 1976, 43–48. Bakhuizen 1985: S. C. Bakhuizen, Studies in the Topography of Chalcis on Euboea, Leiden 1985. Baudy 2001: G. Baudy, “Blindheit und Wahnsinn. Das Kultbild im poetologischen Diskurs der Antike: Stesichoros und die homerische Helena”, in G. von Graevenitz / St. Rieger / F. Thürlemann (Hrsg.), Die Unvermeidlichkeit der Bilder, Tübingen 2001, 31–57. Bershadsky 2013: N. Bershadsky, Pushing the Boundaries of Myth: Transformations of Ancient Border Wars in Archaic and Classical Greece, Diss. University of Chicago 2013. Berti 2010a: S. Berti, “The Athenian Victory over the Boeotians and the Chalcidians (506 B. C.) in the Light of the Epigraphical Findings”, AHB 24 (2010), 3–23. Berti 2010b: S. Berti, “La dedica degli Ateniesi per la vittoria su Beoti e Calcidesi del 506 a. C. (IG I3 501) e la data del suo ripristino”, Aevum 84 (2010), 7–40. Berti 2012: S. Berti, La dedica degli Ateniesi per la vittoria su Beoti e Calcidesi del 506 a. C. (IG I3 501) e la sua collocazione topografica, Milano 2012. Berve 1967: H. Berve, Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen 2, München 1967. Bettalli 2009: M. Bettalli, “I trofei sui campi di battaglia nel mondo greco”, MEFRA 121 (2009), 363–71. BNJ: I. Worthington (ed.), Brill’s New Jacoby, Brill Online (http://reference works.brillonline.com/ browse/brill-s-new-jacoby [last accessed 12. 02. 2016]). Borrmann 1892: R. Borrmann, “Architektonische Terracotten”, in F. Adler / R. Borrmann / W. Dörpfeld / F. Graeber / P. Graef, Die Baudenkmäler von Olympia, Olympia. Die Ergebnisse der vom Deutschen Reich veranstalteten Ausgrabungen II, Berlin 1892, 195 pls. 119, 4–5. Bossi 1992: F. Bossi, “Epigraphica”, Eikasmos 3 (1992), 67–68. Càssola 1980: F. Càssola, “Note sulla guerra crisea”, in φιλίας χάριν. Miscellanea di studi classici in onore di Eugenio Manni 2, Roma 1980, 413–39. Clairmont 1983: Ch. W. Clairmont, Patrios Nomos. Public Burial in Athens during the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B. C. The Archaeological, Epigraphic-Literary and Historical Evidence, Oxford 1983. Daly 1939: L. E. Daly, “An Inscribed Doric Capital from the Argive Heraion”, Hesperia 8 (1939), 165–69. Deubner 1969: L. Deubner, Attische Feste, Darmstadt 19693.

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Dörpfeld 1892: W. Dörpfeld, “Das Schatzhaus von Megara”, in F. Adler / R. Borrmann / W. Dörpfeld / F. Graeber / P. Graef, Die Baudenkmäler von Olympia, Olympia. Die Ergebnisse der vom Deutschen Reich veranstalteten Ausgrabungen II, Berlin 1892, 50–53 pls. 36–38. Ellinger 1993: P. Ellinger, La légende nationale phocidienne. Artémis, les situations extrêmes et les récits de guerre d’anéantissement, Paris 1993. Fehling 1979: D. Fehling, “Zwei Lehrstücke über Pseudo-Nachrichten”, RhM 122 (1979), 193– 210. Ferrandini Troisi/Cagnazzi 2010: F. Ferrandini Troisi / S. Cagnazzi, “Il giovane Tettichos e le cicale d’oro degli Ateniesi”, Epigraphica 72 (2010), 9–19. Franchi 2012: E. Franchi, “La battaglia di Isie e l’identità argiva: un caso di invenzione della tradizione?”, in E. Franchi / G. Proietti (a cura di), Forme della memoria e dinamiche identitarie nell’antichità greco-romana, Trento 2012, 43–66. Franchi 2015: E. Franchi, “The Phocian Desperation and the ‘Third’ Sacred War”, Hormos n. s. 7 (2015), 49–71. Franchi 2016a: E. Franchi, “Grenzkonflike und Gedenkrituale im antiken Sparta”, Frankfurter elektronische Rundschau zur Altertumskunde 29 (2016), 1–42. Franchi 2016b: E. Franchi, “Tra Iampoli e Abai. Dediche votive e riti di commemorazione nelle guerre tessalo-focidesi”, GeogrAnt 25 (2016), 57–78. Franchi 2016c: E. Franchi, Die Konflikte zwischen Thessalern und Phokern. Krieg und Identität in der griechischen Erinnerungskultur des 4. Jahrhunderts, München 2016. Friedländer/Hoffleit 1948: P. Friedländer / H. B. Hoffleit, Epigrammata. Greek Inscriptions in Verse from the Beginnings to the Persian Wars, Berkeley 1948. Frielinghaus 2011: H. Frielinghaus, Die Helme von Olympia. Ein Beitrag zu Waffenweihungen in griechischen Heiligtümern, Olympische Forschungen XIII, Berlin 2011. Giangiulio 1983: M. Giangiulio, “Locri, Sparta, Crotone e le tradizioni leggendarie intorno alla battaglia della Sagra”, MEFRA 95 (1983), 473–521. Giangiulio 1989: M. Giangiulio, Ricerche su Crotone arcaica, Pisa 1989. Gras 1987: M. Gras, “Marseille, la bataille d’Alalia et Delphes”, DHA 13 (1987), 161–81. Hartmann 2010: A. Hartmann, Zwischen Relikt und Reliquie. Objektbezogene Erinnerungspraktiken in antiken Gesellschaften, Berlin 2010. Herrmann 1980: H.-V. Herrmann, “Großplastik”, in A. Mallwitz / H.-V. Herrmann (Hrsg.), Die Funde aus Olympia, Ergebnisse hundertjähriger Ausgrabungstätigkeit, Athen 1980, 133–40. Ioakimidou 1997: Ch. Ioakimidou, Die Statuenreihen griechischer Poleis und Bünde aus spätarchaischer und klassischer Zeit, München 1997. Isaac 1986: B. Isaac, The Greek Settlements in Thrace until the Macedonian Conquest, Leiden 1986. Jackson 1991: A. H. Jackson, “Hoplites and the Gods: The Dedication of Captured Arms and Armour”, in V. D. Hanson (ed.), Hoplites. The Classical Greek Battle Experience, London 1991, 228–49. Jackson 2000: A. H. Jackson, “Argos’ Victory over Corinth. ΑΡΓΕΙΟΙ ΑΝΕΘΕΝ ΤΟΙ ΔϜΙ ΤΟΝ ϘΟΡΙΝΘΟΘΕΝ”, ZPE 132 (2000), 295–311. Jacoby 1904: F. Jacoby, Das Marmor Parium, Berlin 1904. Jeffery 1990: L. H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece. A Study of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and its Development from the Eighth to the Fifth Centuries B. C., Oxford 19902 [1962]. Jost 1985: M. Jost, Sanctuaires et cultes d’Arcadie, Paris 1985. Jünger 2006: F. Jünger, Gespann und Herrschaft. Form und Intention großformatiger Gespanndenkmäler im griechischen Kulturraum von der archaischen bis in die hellenistische Zeit, Hamburg 2006. Jung 2006: M. Jung, Marathon und Plataiai. Zwei Perserschlachten als ‘lieux de mémoire’ im antiken Griechenland, Göttingen 2006.

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Kelly 1970: Th. Kelly, “Did the Argives Defeat the Spartans at Hysiae in 669 B. C.?”, AJPh 91 (1970), 31–42. Kienast 2007: D. Kienast, “Aristeia. Kampfpreise im großen Perserkrieg und danach”, in B. Bleckmann (Hrsg.), Herodot und die Epoche der Perserkriege. Realitäten und Fiktionen. Kolloquium zum 80. Geburtstag von Dietmar Kienast, Köln 2007, 107–33. Kissas 2000: K. Kissas, Die attischen Statuen- und Stelenbasen archaischer Zeit, Bonn 2000. Kôiv 2011: M. Kõiv, “A Note on the Dating of Hesiod”, CQ 61 (2011), 355–77. Krentz 2002: P. Krentz, “Fighting by the Rules. The Invention of the Hoplite Agôn”, Hesperia 71 (2002), 23–39. Krumeich 1997: R. Krumeich, Bildnisse griechischer Herrscher und Staatsmänner im 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr., München 1997. Kunze 1956: E. Kunze, V. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Olympia. Winter 1941/1942 und Herbst 1952, Berlin 1956. Kunze 1967: E. Kunze, VIII. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Olympia. Herbst 1958 bis Sommer 1962, Berlin 1967. Kunze/Schleif n. d. (1937–1938): E. Kunze / H. Schleif, II. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Olympia. Winter 1937–1938, n. p. n. d. Kunze/Schleif n. d. (1938–1939): E. Kunze / H. Schleif, III. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Olympia. Winter 1938–1939, n. p. n. d. Lambert 1997: S. D. Lambert, “The Attic Genos Salaminioi and the Island of Salamis”, ZPE 119 (1997), 85–106. Lazaridis 1976: D. Lazaridis, “Ἐπίγραμμα Παρίων ἀπὸ τὴν Ἀμφίπολιν”, AEph (1976), 164–81 pls. 57–63. Lazzarini 1976: M. L. Lazzarini, “Le formule delle dediche votive nella Grecia arcaica”, Atti dell’Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche. Memorie s. 8, 19 (1976), 47–354. Lehmann 1980: G. A. Lehmann, “Der ‘Erste Heilige Krieg’ – Eine Fiktion?”, Historia 29 (1980), 242–46. Linforth 1919: I. M. Linforth, Solon the Athenian, Berkeley 1919. Lissarrague 2014: F. Lissarrague, “The Early Greek Trophy: The Iconographic Tradition of Time and Space”, in A. Moreno / R. Thomas (eds.), Patterns of the Past. Epitēdeumata in the Greek Tradition, Oxford 2014, 57–65. Londey 2015: P. Londey, “Making up Delphic History: The First Sacred War Revisited”, Chiron 45 (2015), 221–38. Low 2006: P. Low, “Commemorating the Spartan War-Dead”, in St. Hodkinson / A. Powell (eds.), Sparta & War, Swansea 2006, 85–109. Luce 2008: J.-M. Luce, L’aire du pilier des Rhodiens (fouille 1990–1992). À la frontière du profane et du sacré, Fouilles de Delphes II 13, Paris 2008. Lumpp 1963: H.-M. Lumpp, “Die Arniadas-Inschrift aus Korkyra. Homerisches im Epigramm – Epigrammatisches im Homer”, Forschungen und Fortschritte 37 (1963), 212–15. Mastrokostas 1974: E. Mastrokostas, “Eἰς ἀναζήτησιν ἐλλειπóντων μελῶν ἐπιτυμβίων ἀρχαϊκῶν γλυπτῶν παρὰ τὴν Ἀνάβυσσoν. Tὸ κλιμακωτὸν βάθρoν τoῦ Κoύρου Κροίσου”, Αρχαιολογικά Ανάλεκτα εξ Αθηνών 7 (1974), 215–28. Mc Gowan 1995: E. P. McGowan, “Tomb Marker and Turning Post: Funerary Columns in the Archaic Period”, AJA 99 (1995), 615–32. Monaco 2009: M. C. Monaco, “Sull’Acropoli, all’ombra della Promachos”, ASAA 87 (2009), 275– 311. Neumann 1979: G. Neumann, Probleme des griechischen Weihreliefs, Tübingen 1979. Nobili 2011: C. Nobili, “Threnodic Elegy in Sparta”, GRBS 51 (2011), 26–48. Orioli 1846: F. Orioli, “Scoperta Archeologica”, Eφημερίς Επίσημος του Ηνωμένου Κράτους των Ιονίων Νήσων/Gazzetta ufficiale degli Stati Uniti delle Isole Ionie 68 (Corfù, 18th of April 1846), 11 f.

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Papazarkadas 2014: N. Papazarkadas, “Two New Epigrams from Thebes”, in N. Papazarkadas (ed.), The Epigraphy and History of Boeotia. New Finds, New Prospects, Leiden 2014, 223–33. Parker 1997: V. Parker, Untersuchungen zum Lelantischen Krieg und verwandten Problemen der frühgriechischen Geschichte, Stuttgart 1997. Petrovic 2007: A. Petrovic, Kommentar zu den simonideischen Versinschriften, Leiden 2007. Philipp 2004: H. Philipp, Archaische Silhouettenbleche und Schildzeichen in Olympia, Olympische Forschungen 30, Berlin 2004. Podlecki 1984: A. J. Podlecki, The Early Greek Poets and their Times, Vancouver 1984. Pordomingo Pardo 2008: F. Pordomingo Pardo, “La reutilización de citas de epigramas: una manifestación del diálog intratextual en el corpus plutarqueo” in A. G. Nikolaidis (ed.), The Unity of Plutarch’s Work. ‘Moralia’ Themes in the ‘Lives’, Features of the ‘Lives’ in the ‘Moralia’, Berlin 2008, 33–51. Pritchett 1971: W. K. Pritchett, Ancient Greek Military Practices, Berkeley 1971 (= The Greek State at War I). Pritchett 1974: W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War II, Berkeley 1974. Pritchett 1979: W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War III. Religion, Berkeley 1979. Pritchett 1980: W. K. Pritchett, Studies in Ancient Greek Topography III. Roads, Berkeley 1980. Pritchett 1985: W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War IV, Berkeley 1985. Pritchett 1991: W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War V, Berkeley 1991. Pritchett 1995: W. K. Pritchett, Thucydides’ Pentekontaetia and Other Essays, Amsterdam 1995. Pritchett 1996: W. K. Pritchett, Greek Archives, Cults, and Topography, Amsterdam 1996. Proietti 2015: G. Proietti, “I Greci e la memoria della vittoria: alcune considerazioni sui trofei delle Guerre Persiane”, Hormos n. s. 7 (2015), 148–75. Rabe 2008: B. Rabe, Tropaia. τροπή und σκῦλα – Entstehung, Funktion und Bedeutung des griechischen Tropaions, Rahden, Westfalen 2008. Rausch 1999: M. Rausch, Isonomia in Athen. Veränderungen des öffentlichen Lebens vom Sturz der Tyrannis bis zur zweiten Perserabwehr, Frankfurt am M. 1999. Richter 1939: G. M. A. Richter, “Greek Bronzes Recently Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art”, AJA 43 (1939), 189–201. Robertson 1978: N. Robertson, “The Myth of the First Sacred War”, CQ n. s. 28 (1978), 38–73. Robertson 1992: N. Robertson, Festivals and Legends: The Formation of Greek Cities in the Light of Public Ritual, Toronto 1992. Rocco 1970: B. Rocco, “Morto sotto le mura di Mozia”, Sicilia archeologica 9 (1970), 27–33. SÁnchez 2001: P. Sánchez, L’Amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes. Recherches sur son rôle historique, des origines au IIe siècle de notre ère, Stuttgart 2001. Schörner 2007: H. Schörner, Sepulturae graecae intra urbem. Untersuchungen zum Phänomen der intraurbanen Bestattungen bei den Griechen, Möhnesee 2007. Siewert 1991: P. Siewert, “Staatliche Weihungen von Kesseln und anderen Bronzegeräten in Olympia”, MDAI(A) 106 (1991), 81–84. Siewert/Taeuber 2013: P. Siewert / H. Taeuber (Hrsg.), Neue Inschriften von Olympia. Die ab 1896 veröffentlichten Texte, Wien 2013. Snodgrass 1989–1990 (2006): A. Snodgrass, “The Economics of Dedication at Greek Sanctuaries”, in A. Snodgrass, Archaeology and the Emergence of Greece. Collected Papers on Early Greece and Related Topics (1965–2002), Edinburgh 2006 (= Scienze dell’antichità 3/4 [1989– 1990], 287–94 with different pagination). Stadter 1965: P. A. Stadter, Plutarch’s Historical Methods. An Analysis of the Mulierum Virtutes, Cambridge MA 1965. Stroszeck 2004: J. Stroszeck, “Greek Trophy Monuments”, in S. des Bouvrie (ed.), Myth and Symbol II. Symbolic Phenomena in Ancient Greek Culture. Papers from the Second and Third International Symposia on Symbolism at the Norwegian Institute at Athens, September 21–24, 2000 and September 19–22, 2002, Bergen 2004, 303–31.

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Stroszeck 2014: J. Stroszeck, Der Kerameikos in Athen. Geschichte, Bauten und Denkmäler im archäologischen Park, Athen 2014. Stupperich 1977: R. Stupperich, Staatsbegräbnis und Privatgrabmal im Klassischen Athen, Diss. Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster 1977. Tausend 1989: K. Tausend, “Zur Historizität der Schlacht von Hysiai”, RSA 19 (1989), 137–46. Tausend 2006: K. Tausend, Verkehrswege der Argolis. Rekonstruktion und historische Bedeutung, Stuttgart 2006. Tiverios 2008: M. Tiverios, “Greek Colonisation of the Northern Aegean”, in G. R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Greek Colonisation. An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas 2, Leiden 2008. Treu 1897: G. Treu, Die Bildwerke von Olympia in Stein und Thon, Olympia. Die Ergebnisse der vom Deutschen Reich veranstalteten Ausgrabungen III, Berlin 1897. Trundle 2013: M. Trundle, “Commemorating Victory in Classical Greece: Why Greek Tropaia?”, in A. Spalinger / J. Armstrong (eds.), Rituals of Triumph in the Mediterranean World, Leiden 2013, 123–53. van Alfen 2009: P. G. van Alfen, “Asyut (IGCH 1644) Additions: Cyrenaica and ‘Chalcis’”, SNR 88 (2009), 141–56. van Wees 2004: H. van Wees, Greek Warfare. Myths and Realities, London 2004. Walker 2004: K. G. Walker, Archaic Eretria. A Political and Social History from the Earliest Times to 490 BC, London 2004. Walter-Karydi 2015: E. Walter-Karydi, Die Athener und ihre Gräber (1000–300 v. Chr.), Berlin 2015. Whitley 2011: A. J. M. Whitley, “Hybris and Nike: Agency, Victory and Commemoration in Panhellenic Sanctuaries”, in S. D. Lambert (ed.), Sociable Man: Essays on Ancient Greek Social Behaviour in Honour of Nick Fisher, Swansea 2011, 161–91. Woelcke 1911: K. Woelcke, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Tropaions, Bonn 1911 (offprint of BJ 120 [1911], 127–235 with different pagination). Zaphiropoulou 1991: P. Zaphiropoulou, “Une nécropole à Paros”, in J. de La Genière (éd.), Nécropoles et sociétés antiques (Grèce, Italie, Languedoc). Actes du Colloque International du Centre de Recherches Archéologiques de l’Université de Lille III, Lille, 2–3 Décembre 1991, Naples 1991, 127–52. Zaphiropoulou 1999: P. Zaphiropoulou, “I due ‘polyandria’ dell’antica necropoli di Paros”, AION(archeol) n. s. 6 (1999), 13–24. Zaphiropoulou 2000: P. Zaphiropoulou, “Τὸ ἀρχαῖο νεκροταφεῖο τῆς Πάρου στὴ γεωμετρικὴ καὶ ἀρχαϊκὴ ἐποχὴ”, AEph 139 (2000), 283–93. Zaphiropoulou 2006: P. Zaphiropoulou, “Geometric Battle Scenes on Vases from Paros”, in E. Rystedt / B. Wells (eds.), Pictorial Pursuits. Figurative Painting on Mycenaean and Geometric Pottery. Papers from two Seminars at the Swedish Institute at Athens in 1999 and 2001, Stockholm 2006, 271–77. Zaphiropoulou/Agelarakis 2005: P. Zaphiropoulou / A. Agelarakis, “Warriors of Paros. Soldiers’ Burials Offer Clues to the Rise of Classical Greek City States”, Archaeology 58, 1 (2005), 30–35. Zizza 2006: C. Zizza, Le iscrizioni nella Periegesi di Pausania. Commento ai testi epigrafici, Pisa 2006.

COMMEMORATION OF WAR IN ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL GREECE Battlefields, Tombs and Sanctuaries* Holger Baitinger Commemorating war and the horror of war is more than ever important at present time as the theme is omnipresent in our daily newspapers and television news. We have to commemorate former wars to avoid catastrophes like World War I which started 100 years ago and destroyed countries, towns, families and lives all over Europe and the whole world. War is not at all a modern phenomenon but was virtually part of everyday life already in Greek and Roman antiquity where long periods of peace remained rather rare. Before the days of the emperor Augustus, the gates of the temple of Janus in Rome had been closed only twice in Roman history while in wartime they were opened.1 Therefore, it is not surprising to find a broad variety of possibilities to commemorate war and war dead in Greek antiquity varying from burials on the battlefield to the installation of new cults and sanctuaries, e. g. for the goddess Athena Areia in Plataea financed by booty of war from the Persians.2 All these phenomena can be described only briefly and sketchily in this paper. In Archaic Greece, the military organisation reflected simultaneously the structure of the society. Only wealthy citizens were able to afford the expensive military equipment of a hoplite, the heavy-armed infantryman who dominated the Greek battlefields in this period.3 From the 7th century B. C. onwards at the latest, the Greeks fought in a close battle formation, the phalanx. The soldiers stood close together in several rows and their arms were quite uniform.4 They consisted primarily of a bronze helmet,5 a cuirass made of bronze, linen or leather,6 a circular shield (hoplon) with a band for the left forearm near the centre (porpax) and a lat-

* 1 2 3 4 5 6

I dedicate this article to the memory of my great-uncle Karl Baitinger. Wounded near Regniéville in Lorraine, he died on the 26th of June 1916 in a German field hospital in Rembercourt-sur-Mad, only seven weeks after his 20th birthday. Aug. Res gestae 13. Plu. Arist. 20.3; Paus. 9.4.1–2; Gauer 1968, 31–32; 98–100; see recently Yates 2013. E. g. Hanson 1991; van Wees 2004; Schwartz 2009; Kagan/Viggiano 2013; Bardunias/ Ray 2016 (non vidi). For an overview, see Snodgrass 1964. Frielinghaus 2011. Hoffmann/Raubitschek 1972; Jarva 1995, esp. 17–51. R. Graells i Fabregat (Mainz) is currently preparing the publication of the cuirasses from Olympia.

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eral handgrip (antilabe),7 bronze greaves to protect the lower legs8 and a long thrusting spear with an iron head,9 the main offensive weapon of the hoplite. In this way of fighting, the soldiers were strongly dependent on each other. The hoplite was part of a sworn community and felt not alone with his fear in the thick of the fight. He had to function like a cog in the machine, because the failure of one single soldier could provoke a catastrophe for the whole army. This evoked an esprit de corps in the army of a city-state and led to common dedications of captured weapons in Greek sanctuaries.10 Hence, large quantities of arms and armour have been discovered in Greek sanctuaries between Sicily in the West and Cyprus in the East,11 but only very few in tombs of the Archaic and Classical period – at least in Greece itself. Likewise, Battlefield Archaeology, which has been flourishing in Central Europe for several years now,12 is still in its infancy in Greece though the reconstruction of ancient battles and the used tactics has been and is still very popular. There remains a great potential for further prospection and research on ancient battlefields in Greece where many fights have taken place in Greek and Roman times. Already in the late 1930s, the famous archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos conducted excavations on the battlefield of Thermopylae where the Greeks had fought against the Persian army in 480 B. C.13 Marinatos discovered numerous bronze arrowheads of a type widely spread in the Persian Empire, obviously the last remaining traces of this battle.14 Sometimes mass burials with human remains of fallen soldiers – called polyandria in Greek – commemorated war on the battlefields.15 Near the village of Marathon in Attica, the Athenians defeated a Persian army in 490 B. C. and they buried their 192 fallen soldiers in a huge mound on the battlefield. According to Thucydides and Pausanias, the soldiers had their graves on the field of battle for their valor.16 Valerios Staïs excavated this burial mound at the end of the 19th century.17 In the 2nd century A. D., Pausanias has still seen upon the tumulus the slabs that named the dead according to their tribes.18 Another famous example for a mass burial is located in Chaeronaea in Boeotia where the Macedonian army of Philip II defeated a coalition of Greek city-states in 338 B. C.19 In this battle all 300 members of the Theban crack unit, the Sacred 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Kunze 1950; Bol 1989. Kunze 1991; Jarva 1995, esp. 84–100. Baitinger 2001, 33–53. Baitinger 2011, esp. 127–29. Gabaldón Martínez 2005; Baitinger 2011; Frielinghaus 2011. E. g. Meller 2009; Brock/Homann 2011; Homann 2013; Meller/Schefzik 2015. Marinatos 1939; Kanellopoulos 2014. Walter 1940, 194–201, fig. 47. For this type of arrowheads see Baitinger 1999a, esp. 128– 30, figs. 2–3; Baitinger 2001, 22–23, pl. 10 (type II B 4). For Greek war dead see Pritchett 1985, 94–260. Th. 2.34.5; Paus. 1.29.4. Staïs 1893; Pritchett 1985, 126–27 no. 2. Paus. 1.32.3. See Spyropoulos 2009; Steinhauer 2010; Proietti 2013. Pritchett 1985, 136–38 no. 9; most recently Ma 2008 (with further references).

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Band, fell and were buried in a nearby polyandrion. A huge stone lion surmounted this tomb.20 He was modelled on the lion of another Boeotian polyandrion at the road from Thespiae to Leuctra and usually connected with the battle of Delion in 424 B. C.21 Inside the enclosure at Chaeronaea dominated by the lion sculpture, the excavators of the 19th century discovered 254 skeletons laid in seven rows22. A tumulus nearby this monument is assumed as the polyandrion of the Macedonians fallen in the same battle in 338 B. C. This burial mound was excavated by Georgios Sotiriades at the beginning of the 20th century.23 Other mass burials in Greece are attested only by literary sources, e. g. by Herodotus for the battlefield of Thermopylae.24 Of course, such tombs are well-known not only from Greek antiquity, but also from wars in other periods until our days. Several years ago, a mass burial of the Thirty Years’ War was discovered northwest of Berlin in Wittstock (Brandenburg, Germany) where Swedish troops had defeated an Imperial army in 1636.25 At first glance, it looks not different at all from mass burials in antiquity or in World War I. Sometimes the victorious army erected a victory monument on the battlefield – called tropaion in Greek –, an ostentatious sign and a demonstration of supremacy and self-confidence.26 Usually such monuments stood at the point where the enemy had turned to flee. Originally, they consisted of wood and suspended weapons captured from the enemy but since the 5th century B. C. – after the Greco-Persian Wars – some of them were built in stone and therefore long-living, ‘permanent secondary trophies’27 or – in the terminology of Britta Rabe – ‘monumental tropaia’.28 For example, the Thebans erected such a victory monument near Leuctra in Boeotia after they had defeated the Spartan phalanx in 371 B. C. In the first century B. C., Cicero mentions this monument29, which has been identified with stone blocks found in the plain of Leuctra and meanwhile reconstructed in situ near the modern village.30 Mass burials of fallen soldiers have been discovered not only on battlefields but also within regular cemeteries, especially when the battle had taken place not far away from the necropolis. These were at least partially state burials as described by 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Paus. 9.40.10. Th. 4.90–96; Schilardi 1979 (non vidi); Pritchett 1985, 132–33 no. 6. Ma 2008. Sotiriades 1903; Pritchett 1985, 138 no. 10. Hdt. 7.227. Grothe/Jungklaus 2009; Eickhoff/Grothe/Jungklaus 2011. E. g. Pritchett 1974, 246–75; Stroszeck 2004; Rabe 2008; Trundle 2013; Lissarrague 2014; Proietti 2015. Stroszeck 2004, 303–305; 320–28. Rabe 2008, 101–48. Recently, the appearance of battlefield tropaia on the whole has been dated as late as the 5th century B. C. See e. g. Krentz 2002; Trundle 2013; Proietti 2015 (with further references). Cic. Inv. 2.23.69–70. Orlandos 1958; Daux 1959, 675–77, figs. 6–10; Orlandos 1961; Stroszeck 2004, esp. 321–22; most recently Brogan 2014 (non vidi).

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Pausanias in Athens.31 In the western necropolis of Himera, a Greek colony on the north coast of Sicily, Stefano Vassallo has recently excavated several such tombs.32 Some of them are connected chronologically with the battle of Himera in 480 B. C. when the Greek city-states of Sicily defeated a huge Carthaginian army. All the dead were young men and sometimes the weapons still stuck in the buried corpses. In one case, an iron spearhead stuck in the chest of a skeleton within the ribcage – without any doubt, this spear thrust had been lethal.33 The mass burials were part of the western necropolis of Himera located just outside the city walls of the ‘città bassa’ and close to the battlefield. Most probably, the dead soldiers buried here were Greeks but not Carthaginians. In other cases, it remains doubtful if the dead were victims of war or if they had died in another catastrophe like an epidemic, e. g. in the necropolis of Olynthus in Northern Greece.34 Another famous example of a polyandrion within a regular cemetery is the ‘Tomb of the Lacedaemonians’ in the Ceramicus in Athens.35 This burial is mentioned by the Greek historian Xenophon and contained only skeletons of men. It is dating to end of the Peloponnesian war, precisely to the year 403 B. C. Xenophon wrote: “In this attack Chaeron and Thibrachus, both of them polemarchs, were slain, and Lacrates, the Olympic victor, and other Lacedaemonians who lie buried before the gates of Athens in the Ceramicus”.36 A fragment of the epitaph emerged in 1930 close to the tomb,37 and it does indeed mention the two officers Chaeron and Thibrachus. An iron spear-butt was discovered in the chest of one soldier and two bronze arrowheads were found at the leg of another skeleton.38 Of course, an archaeologist is glad about such a context since we can date the weapons precisely. They form an important fixed point for the absolute chronology of Greek arms. However, most of the arms and armour from Greek antiquity have been discovered in sanctuaries, especially in important cult places in the Peloponnesus and in Central Greece.39 Most of them can be dated between the second half of the 8th and the second half of the 5th centuries B. C., while older and younger arms remain quite scarce. Several weapons bear inscriptions telling us about their history.40 Frequently they mention only the defeated and the victor who captured the weapons while other inscriptions can be connected actually with famous battles known from literary sources. Most of these inscriptions can be dated to the second half of the 6th 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Paus. 1.29.3–16. Vassallo 2010a; 2010b; 2014. Vassallo 2010a, 30, figs. 18–19. Robinson 1942, 70–72, 74–77 (graves 348, 350 and 364); Pritchett 1985, 131–32 no. 5. van Hook 1932; Tod 1932–1933; Willemsen 1977; Pritchett 1985, 133–34 no. 7; Stroszeck 2006; most recently Stroszeck 2014, 254–59. X. Hell. 2.4.33 (translation by C. L. Brownson). Peek 1941, 40–41 no. 30, pl. 14, 1. Baitinger 1999b. E. g. Gabaldón Martínez 2005; Frielinghaus 2011; Baitinger 2011 (with further references). For Olympia see Baitinger 2001, 239–46, appendix 1; Frielinghaus 2011, 546–53, appendix II.

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and to the first half of the 5th century B. C. They prove the predominance of public dedications as opposed to private ones. Sometimes they are described as the tenth part of the booty, usually the share of the gods. Though the lion’s share of the booty was utilised for the interests of the victorious city-state, a considerable part was dedicated to the gods, particularly in Panhellenic shrines like Olympia, Delphi or Isthmia, but also in the most important sanctuaries of a city-state, e. g. in the sanctuary of Athena on the acropolis of Athens. Such important cult places were attractive for the complete Greek world and therefore perfect for the demonstration of victory and power of a city-state. Most of the weapons in Greek sanctuaries were captured from Greeks by Greeks while arms and armour of foreign origin remain quite scarce.41 The inscription on a bronze cone helmet found in a well below the Early Classical stadium embankments of Olympia mentions the Athenians as dedicators and the Medes – that means the Persians – as the defeated.42 Where the battle took place remains uncertain though there are strong arguments for a connection of the helmet with the battle of Marathon in 490 B. C. Here the Athenians fought alone while in the battles of Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea a coalition of Greek city-states was victorious. Other elements of Persian military equipment from Olympia probably belonged to the same dedication. A few years ago, I was able to identify the fitting of a Persian bow-quiver, a so-called gorytos.43 Only very few such artefacts have been discovered in the Middle East but they are represented also on the reliefs in Persepolis, the capital of the Persian Empire in Iran.44 These reliefs are dating to the early 5th century B. C., to the time of the Greco-Persian Wars. It was touching to identify this small object, the one and only trace of the life of a Persian soldier 2500 years ago. The dedication of his bow-quiver in Olympia most probably means that he has killed in the fight. Two other bronze helmets from Olympia belong to the Negau type mainly distributed in the Alps, Slovenia and Central Italy.45 According to its inscription, Hiero I – the tyrant of Syracuse – dedicated this helmet after his victory against the Etruscans in the naval battle of Cumae in 474 B. C. As the battle is mentioned in literary sources, the dating and meaning of the helmet is certain: it was owned by an Etruscan soldier who fought unsuccessfully against the Greek fleet at Cumae. Particularly the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia in the western Peloponnesus has provided many weapons.46 Spoils of war were on display in temples, treasuries or under the open sky, for example in the Altis – the sacred precinct in the heart of the sanctuary – and in the stadium. How the weapons were arranged exactly, is still 41 42 43 44 45 46

Baitinger 2016. Kunze 1961; Baitinger 1999a, 126–27 n. 8, fig. 1 (with further references); Frielinghaus 2011, 69–70, 448 cat. K 1. Baitinger 1999a, esp. 131–32, figs. 8–9. Baitinger 1999a, 131–32, figs. 6–7. Egg 1986, 198–99 no. 185–86, pls. 108, 109a; Naso 2000, 202–3, fig. 7; Born 2009, 102, fig. 61a-b; Frielinghaus 2011, 70–71, 448 cat. L 1-L 2; Baitinger 2016. Baitinger 2001, esp. 80–92; Philipp 2004, 135–57; Baitinger 2011, 76–87; Frielinghaus 2011.

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controversially discussed. On the top of the Archaic stadium south embankment dating to the second half of the 6th century B. C., the excavators observed several post holes.47 Probably they derive from wooden victory monuments, the so-called tropaia. The exact construction of such tropaia is still unknown, but they were obviously made of wood, and dedicated arms suspended from these constructions. When the late Archaic stadium II was constructed about 500 B. C., the shields from dismantled victory monuments were deposited on the surface of the old stadium southern embankment. As they are heavy and cumbrous, they were moved only a small distance from the tropaia. Only one anthropomorphic tropaion made of wood with a helmet of the Pilos type and a cuirass has survived from antiquity. It was discovered in Southern Italy and is now stored in the State Collections of Antiquities in Munich.48 Besides, illustrations of tropaia on vases or reliefs are attested from the 5th century B. C. onwards.49 Usually, they show the arms of a single hoplite, a so-called panoply, but indeed the number of the respective arms in sanctuaries is very dissimilar. In Olympia, more than 900 helmets50 and more than 1000 spearheads have been discovered,51 but only about 30 cuirasses52 and swords.53 Therefore, the assumption of a uniform row of anthropomorphic tropaia with panoplies seems to be unlikely. Instead, we have to assume quite a varied picture of victory monuments with different shapes. Victory monuments consisting of captured military equipment have a very long and strong tradition until the 20th century. In the year 1919, the Frenchmen erected a real tropaion consisting of German cannons at the Champs-Élysées in Paris, surmounted by a golden Gallic rooster, a globe with the date 1918 and by the flags of the victorious nations.54 Exactly like the tropaia in Archaic Greek sanctuaries, this victory monument of World War I was only temporary and short-lived. Some traditions seem to be very consistent through times! Since about 500 B. C., the booty won in a battle could also be sold and used to erect a building (temples, treasuries), statues, tripods or other long-living monuments.55 According to Pausanias, the Athenian treasury in the Panhellenic sanctuary of Delphi was financed by spoils of war captured from the Persians in the battle of Marathon in 490 B. C.56 The treasury of the Megarians in Olympia was constructed about 510 B. C. and was – according to Pausanias – financed by booty of

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Kunze/Schleif 1937–1938, 11–12, pl. 7; 22; Kunze/Schleif 1938–1939, 7 fig. 2; p. 10–11. Kaeser 1987; Gebhard/Rehm/Schulze 2013, 132, fig. 223 cat. 64. Rabe 2008, passim. Frielinghaus 2011. Baitinger 2001, 33–53. As already noted (n. 6), R. Graells I Fabregat (Mainz) is currently preparing the publication of the cuirasses from Olympia. Baitinger 2001, 75–79. Schultz 2009, 79, fig. E. g. Baitinger 2001, 80–92. Paus. 10.11.5; see e. g. Gauer 1980; Büsing 1992; Neer 2004 (with previous bibliography).

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war from the Corinthians.57 Hence, the ephemeral tropaia with spoils seem to be replaced more and more by long-living and representative monuments. Another example for this development is the marble statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, which stood on a triangular pillar in front of the temple of Zeus in Olympia.58 According to the inscription on the pillar, the Messenians and Naupactians erected this statue from spoils of war. Three bronze shields of slightly different size suspended from the pillar, so probably they were not only votive shields but rather actual arms captured in a battle.59 Therefore, this monument forms a mixture between a statue financed by booty of war and spoils captured in the same war. After their victory in the battle of Plataea against the Persians in 479 B. C., the Greeks erected the serpent column now stored in the Hippodrome at Istanbul.60 Initially, a golden tripod crowned the bronze column with its three serpent heads in the sanctuary of Delphi. In Late Antiquity, the monument was moved to Constantinople where it is still preserved, at least partially. Again, we observe a long-living votive gift dedicated after a most memorable Greek victory. After the victorious battles in the Greco-Persian wars, the Greeks erected several such trophies in Greek sanctuaries.61 Another evolution started in the course of the 5th century, too: The political role of captured weapons and booty of war became obviously more and more important while the religious element became less so. About 450 B. C., the Athenians erected the Stoa Poikile in the agora of Athens, the ‘painted hall’.62 On its internal walls, paintings showed famous mythological and historical Athenian battles. In the 2nd century A. D., Pausanias mentions bronze shields hanging in the Stoa Poikile.63 The Athenians had captured these shields in the famous battle of Sphacteria in 425 B. C. from the Spartans, one of the most glorious victories in their history. Indeed, the American excavators discovered one of these bronze shields in 1936.64 According to the inscription, the Athenians had captured the shield from the Spartans at “Pylos” which means Sphacteria. Unlike in older inscriptions on arms from Greek sanctuaries, no deity is named here. The captured weapons were no longer on display in an outlying sanctuary but in the agora, the heart and political centre of the Greek city-state. Very close to the Stoa Poikile, the American archaeologists excavated the stoa of Zeus Eleutherios, a monumental hall with two projections at the corners. According to Pausanias, the shields of two soldiers were on display in this stoa since the 3rd 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Paus. 6.19.13. Paus. 5.26.1; Treu 1894, 182–94, pls. 46–48; Dittenberger/Purgold 1896, 377–84 no. 259; Herrmann 1972; Hölscher 1974; Schiering 2001. Herrmann 1972, 243. Gauer 1968, 75–96; Laroche 1989; Bommelaer/Laroche 1991, 165–67 no. 408; Madden 1992; Stichel 1997; most recently Stephenson 2016 (non vidi). Gauer 1968. Paus. 1.15.4; D. Chr. 2.36; Camp 1989, 73–80; 2010. Paus. 1.15.4. Shear 1937a; Shear 1937b, 347–48, figs. 10–12; Thompson/Wycherley 1972, 92–93, fig. 26; Camp 1989, 78–79, figs. 45–46.

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century B. C.65 These young men named Leocritus and Cydias had fought bravely and exemplary for the freedom of the Athenian city-state. With such a monument, we are very close to our well-known war memorials erected in large numbers after both World Wars – not only in Italy, but also in many other countries. Greek antiquity formed also part of commemorating World War I. The Mémorial Interallié at Liège in Belgium inaugurated in 1937 contains several monuments dedicated by the allied nations.66 The ‘monument grec’ consists of a heap of helmets in a Classical Greek style, still regarded as a symbol for the heroism and the braveness of soldiers fighting in World War I. Therefore, this monument forms a bridge between Greek antiquity, the times of World War I and our modern days. Baitinger 1999a: H. Baitinger, ‟Waffen und Bewaffnung aus der Perserbeute in Olympia”, AA (1999), 125–39. Baitinger 1999b: H. Baitinger, ‟Die Waffen aus dem Lakedaimoniergrab im Kerameikos”, MDAI(A) 114 (1999), 117–26. Baitinger 2001: H. Baitinger, Die Angriffswaffen aus Olympia, Berlin/New York 2001. Baitinger 2011: H. Baitinger, Waffenweihungen in griechischen Heiligtümern, Mainz 2011. Baitinger 2016: H. Baitinger, ‟Fremde Waffen in griechischen Heiligtümern”, in A. Naso / M. Egg / R. Rollinger (Hrsg.), Waffen für die Götter. Waffenweihungen in Archäologie und Geschichte, Mainz 2016, 67–85. Bardunias/Ray 2016: P. M. Bardunias / F. E. Ray Jr., Hoplites at War. A Comprehensive Analysis of Heavy Infantry Combat in the Greek World, 750–100 BCE, Jefferson NC 2016. Barlet/Hamal/Mainil 2014: J. Barlet / O. Hamal / S. Mainil, Le Mémorial interallié de Cointe à Liège, Namur 2014. Bol 1989: P. C. Bol, Argivische Schilde, Berlin/New York 1989. Bommelaer/Laroche 1991: J.-F. Bommelaer / D. Laroche, Guide de Delphes – Le site, Athènes/ Paris 1991. Born 2009: H. Born, Die Helme des Hephaistos. Handwerk und Technik griechischer Bronzen in Olympia, München 2009. Brock/Homann 2011: Th. Brock / A. Homann, Schlachtfeldarchäologie. Auf den Spuren des Krieges, Stuttgart 2011. Brogan 2014: C. Brogan, The Leuktra Tropaion. A Case Study in Ancient Greek Victory Monuments, PhD Indiana 2014. Büsing 1992: H. Büsing, Das Athener Schatzhaus in Delphi. Neue Untersuchungen zur Architektur und Bemalung, Marburger Winckelmann-Programm 1992. Camp 1989: J. McK. Camp, Die Agora von Athen. Ausgrabungen im Herzen des klassischen Athen, Mainz 1989. Camp 2010: J. McK. Camp II, The Athenian Agora. Site Guide, Princeton NJ 2010. Daux 1959: G. Daux, ‟Chronique des fouilles et découvertes archéologiques en Grèce en 1958”, BCH 83 (1959), 567–793. Dittenberger/Purgold 1896: W. Dittenberger / K. Purgold, Die Inschriften von Olympia, Berlin 1896. Egg 1986: M. Egg, Italische Helme. Studien zu den ältereisenzeitlichen Helmen Italiens und der Alpen, Mainz 1986.

65 66

Paus. 1.26.2; 10.21.5; Camp 1989, 119–20. Barlet/Hamal/Mainil 2014. I owe this information Birgit Bergmann (Regensburg).

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Eickhoff/Grothe/Jungklaus 2011: S. Eickhoff / A. Grothe / B. Jungklaus, ‟Ihre letzte Schlacht. Interdisziplinäre Forschungen am Massengrab und Schlachtfeld von Wittstock, Lkr. Ostprignitz-Ruppin”, in Archäologie in Berlin und Brandenburg 2009, Stuttgart 2011, 147–50. Frielinghaus 2011: H. Frielinghaus, Die Helme von Olympia. Ein Beitrag zu Waffenweihungen in griechischen Heiligtümern, Berlin/New York 2011. Gabaldón Martínez 2005: M. del Mar Gabaldón Martínez, Rituales de armas y de victoria. Lugares de culto y armamento en el mundo griego, Oxford 2005. Gauer 1968: W. Gauer, Weihgeschenke aus den Perserkriegen, Tübingen 1968. Gauer 1980: W. Gauer, ‟Das Athenerschatzhaus und die marathonischen Akrothinia in Delphi”, in F. Krinzinger / B. Otto / E. Walde-Psenner (Hrsg.), Forschungen und Funde. Festschrift Bernhard Neutsch, Innsbruck 1980, 127–36. Gebhard/Rehm/Schulze 2013: R. Gebhard / E. Rehm / H. Schulze (Hrsg.), Alexander der Große – Herrscher der Welt, Darmstadt-Mainz 2013. Grothe/Jungklaus 2009: A. Grothe / B. Jungklaus, ‟In Reih’ und Glied. Archäologische und anthropologische Aspekte der Söldnerbestattungen von 1636 am Rande des Wittstocker Schlachtfeldes”, in H. Meller (Hrsg.), Schlachtfeldarchäologie = Battlefield Archaeology, 1. Mitteldeutscher Archäologentag vom 09. bis 11. Oktober 2008 in Halle (Saale), Halle 2009, 163–71. Hanson 1991: V. D. Hanson (ed.), Hoplites. The Classical Greek Battle Experience, London-New York 1991. Herrmann 1972: K. Herrmann, ‟Der Pfeiler der Paionios-Nike in Olympia”, JDAI 87 (1972), 232– 57. Hölscher 1974: T. Hölscher, ‟Die Nike der Messenier und Naupaktier in Olympia. Kunst und Geschichte im späten 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr.”, JDAI 89 (1974), 70–111. Hoffmann/Raubitschek 1972: H. Hoffmann / A. E. Raubitschek, Early Cretan Armorers, Mainz 1972. Homann 2013: A. Homann, ‟Battlefield Archaeology of Central Europe – With a Focus on Early Modern Battlefields”, in N. Mehler (ed.), Historical Archaeology in Central Europe, Rockville 2013, 203–30. Jarva 1995: E. Jarva, Archaiologia on Archaic Greek Body Armour, Rovaniemi 1995. Kaeser 1987: B. Kaeser, ‟Tropaion mit westgriechischer Rüstung”, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 38 (1987), 233–34. Kagan/Viggiano 2013: D. Kagan / G. F. Viggiano (eds.), Men of Bronze. Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece, Princeton NJ 2013. Kanellopoulos 2014: Ch. Kanellopoulos, ‟Ο Σπυρίδων Μαρινάτος στο Μεσαίο Στενό των Θερμοπυλών”, in E. Mantzurani / N. Marinatos (eds.), Σπυρίδων Μαρινάτος, 1901–1974. Η ζωή και η εποχή του – Spyridon Marinatos 1901–1974. His Life and Times, Athina 2014, 95–108. Krentz 2002: P. Krentz, ‟Fighting by the Rules. The Invention of the Hoplite Agôn”, Hesperia 71 (2002), 23–39. Kunze 1950: E. Kunze, Archaische Schildbänder. Ein Beitrag zur frühgriechischen Bildgeschichte und Sagenüberlieferung, Berlin 1950. Kunze 1961: E. Kunze, ‟Ein Bronzehelm aus der Perserbeute”, in 7. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Olympia, Berlin 1961, 129–37. Kunze 1991: E. Kunze, Beinschienen, Berlin-New York 1991. Kunze/Schleif 1937–1938: E. Kunze / H. Schleif, ‟Das Stadion”, in 2. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Olympia, o. O. 1937–1938, 5–27. Kunze/Schleif 1938–1939: E. Kunze / H. Schleif, ‟Das Stadion”, in 3. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Olympia, o. O. 1938–1939, 5–29. Laroche 1989: D. Laroche, ‟Nouvelles observations sur l’offrande de Platées”, BCH 113 (1989), 183–91. Lissarrague 2014: F. Lissarrague, ‟The Early Greek Trophy: The Iconographic Tradition of Time and Space”, in A. Moreno / R. Thomas (eds.), Patterns of the Past. Epitēdeumata in the Greek Tradition, Oxford 2014, 57–65.

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Ma 2008: J. Ma, ‟Chaironeia 338: Topographies of Commemoration”, JHS 128 (2008), 72–91. Madden 1992: Th. F. Madden, ‟The Serpent Column of Delphi in Constantinople: Placement, Purposes, and Mutilations”, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 16 (1992), 111–45. Marinatos 1939: S. Marinatos, ‟Forschungen in Thermopylai”, in Bericht über den 6. Internationalen Kongress für Archäologie in Berlin, 21.–26. August 1939, Berlin 1940, 333–41. Meller 2009: H. Meller (Hrsg.), Schlachtfeldarchäologie = Battlefield Archaeology. 1. Mitteldeutscher Archäologentag vom 09. bis 11. Oktober 2008 in Halle (Saale), Halle 2009. Meller/Schefzik 2015: H. Meller / M. Schefzik (Hrsg.), Krieg – eine archäologische Spurensuche, Darmstadt 2015. Naso 2000: A. Naso, ‟Etruscan and Italian Artefacts from the Aegean”, in D. Ridgway / F. R. Serra Ridgway / M. Pearce / E. Herring / R. D. Whitehouse / J. B. Wilkins (eds.), Ancient Italy in its Mediterranean Setting, Studies in Honour of Ellen Macnamara, London 2000, 193–207. Neer 2004: P. Neer, ‟The Athenian Treasury at Delphi and the Material of Politics”, ClAnt 23 (2004), 63–94. Orlandos 1958: A. K. Orlandos, ‟ΛΕΥΚΤΡΑ. ΤΡΟΠΑΙΟΝ”, Ergon (1958), 48–52. Orlandos 1961: A. K. Orlandos, ‟ΛΕΥΚΤΡΑ”, Ergon (1961), 229–31. Peek 1941: W. Peek, Inschriften, Ostraka, Fluchtafeln, Berlin 1941. Philipp 2004: H. Philipp, Archaische Silhouettenbleche und Schildzeichen in Olympia, Berlin/New York 2004. Pritchett 1974: W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War II, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1974. Pritchett 1985: W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War IV, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1985. Proietti 2013: G. Proietti, ‟The Marathon Epitaph from Eua-Loukou: Some Notes about its Text and Historical Context”, ZPE 185 (2013), 24–30. Proietti 2015: G. Proietti, ‟I Greci e la memoria della vittoria: alcune considerazioni sui trofei delle Guerre Persiane”, Hormos n. s. 7 (2015), 148–75. Rabe 2008: B. Rabe, Tropaia. τρoπή und σκυλα – Entstehung, Funktion und Bedeutung des griechischen Tropaions, Rahden, Westfalen 2008. Robinson 1942: D. M. Robinson, Necrolynthia. A Study in Greek Burial Customs and Anthropology, Baltimore 1942. Schiering 2001: W. Schiering, ‟Zur Nike des Paionios”, in St. Böhm / K.-V. von Eickstedt (Hrsg.), ΙΘΑΚΗ. Festschrift für Jörg Schäfer zum 75. Geburtstag am 25. April 2001, Würzburg 2001, 165–69. Schilardi 1979: D. U. Schilardi, The Thespian Polyandrion (424 B. C.). The Excavations and Finds from a Thespian State Burial, Ann Arbor 1979. Schultz 2009: R. Schultz (Hrsg.), La guerra a colori – The War in Color – Der Krieg in Farbe, Berlin 2009. Schwartz 2009: A. Schwartz, Reinstating the Hoplite. Arms, Armour and Phalanx Fighting in Archaic and Classical Greece, Stuttgart 2009. Shear 1937a: T. L. Shear, ‟A Spartan Shield from Pylos”, Archaiologike Ephemeris (1937), 140– 43. Shear 1937b: T. L. Shear, ‟The Campaign of 1936”, Hesperia 6 (1937), 333–81. Snodgrass 1964: A. M. Snodgrass, Early Greek Armour and Weapons from the End of the Bronze Age to 600 B. C., Edinburgh 1964. Sotiriades 1903: G. Sotiriades, ‟Das Schlachtfeld von Chäronea und der Grabhügel der Makedonen”, MDAI(A) 28 (1903), 301–30. Spyropoulos 2009: G. Spyropoulos, Οι Στήλες των πεσόντων στη μάχη του Μαραθώνα: Από την έπαυλη του Ηρώδη Αττικού στην Εύα Κυνουρίας, Athina 2009. Staïs 1893: V. Staïs, ‟O εν Μαραθώνι τύμβος”, MDAI(A) 18 (1893), 46–63. Steinhauer 2010: G. Steinhauer, ‟Οι στήλες των Μαραθωνομάχων από την έπαυλη του Ηρώδη Αττικού στη Λουκού Κυνουρίας”, in K. Buraselis / K. Meidani (eds.), Μάραθων. Η μάχη και ο αρχαίος δήμος – Marathon. The Battle and the Ancient Deme, Athina 2010, 99–108. Stephenson 2016: P. Stephenson, The Serpent Column. A Cultural Biography, Oxford 2016.

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Stichel 1997: R. H. W. Stichel, ‟Die ‘Schlangensäule’ im Hippodrom von Istanbul. Zum spät- und nachantiken Schicksal des Delphischen Votivs der Schlacht von Plataiai”, MDAI(I) 47 (1997), 315–48. Stroszeck 2004: J. Stroszeck, ‟Greek Trophy Monuments”, in S. des Bouvrie (ed.), Myth and Symbol II. Symbolic Phenomena in Ancient Greek Culture. Papers from the 2nd and 3rd International Symposia on Symbolism at the Norwegian Institute at Athens, September 21–24, 2000 and September 19–22, 2002, Bergen 2004, 303–31. Stroszeck 2006: J. Stroszeck, ‟Lakonisch-rotfigurige Keramik aus den Lakedaimoniergräbern am Kerameikos von Athen (403 v. Chr.)”, AA 2 (2006), 101–20. Stroszeck 2014: J. Stroszeck, Der Kerameikos in Athen. Geschichte, Bauten und Denkmäler im archäologischen Park, Möhnesee 2014. Thompson-Wycherley 1972: H. A. Thompson / R. E. Wycherley, The Agora of Athens. The History, Shape and Uses of an Ancient City Center, Princeton 1972. Tod 1932–1933: M. N. Tod, ‟Greek Inscriptions IV. A Spartan Grave on Attic Soil”, G&R 2 (1932– 1933), 108–11. Treu 1894: G. Treu, Die Bildwerke von Olympia in Stein und Thon, Berlin 1894. Trundle 2013: M. Trundle, ‟Commemorating Victory in Classical Greece: Why Greek tropaia?”, in A. Spalinger / J. Armstrong (eds.), Rituals of Triumph in the Mediterranean World, Leiden/ Boston 2013, 123–38. van Hook 1932: L. van Hook, ‟On the Lacedaemonians Buried in the Kerameikos”, AJA 36 (1932), 290–92. van Wees 2004: H. van Wees, Greek Warfare. Myths and Realities, London 2004. Vassallo 2010a: S. Vassallo, ‟Le battaglie di Himera alla luce degli scavi nella necropoli occidentale e alle fortificazioni. I luoghi, i protagonisti”, Sicilia Antiqua 7 (2010), 17–38. Vassallo 2010b: S. Vassallo, ‟Himera alla luce delle recenti indagini nella città bassa e nelle necropoli”, Mare Internum 2 (2010), 45–56. Vassallo 2014: S. Vassallo, ‟Un’offerta di schinieri di un mercenario iberico nella battaglia di Himera del 480 a. C.”, Sicilia Antiqua 11 (2014), 533–40. Walter 1940: O. Walter, ‟Archäologische Funde in Griechenland von Frühjahr 1939 bis Frühjahr 1940”, AA (1940), 121–308. Willemsen 1977: F. Willemsen, ‟Zu den Lakedaimoniergräbern im Kerameikos”, MDAI(A) 92 (1977), 117–57. Yates 2013: D. Yates, ‟The Persian War as Civil War in Plataea’s Temple of Athena Areia”, Klio 95 (2013), 369–90.

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Fig. 1: The Lion monument at Chaeronea in Boeotia (photo: author)

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Fig. 2: The tropaion of the Thebans in the plain of Leuctra (photo: author)

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Fig. 3: The ‘Tomb of the Lacedaemonians’ in the Ceramicus in Athens (photo: author)

Fig. 4: The Athenian treasury in the Panhellenic sanctuary of Delphi (photo: author)

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Fig. 5: The serpent column in Istanbul, formerly in the sanctuary of Delphi (photo: K. Albert)

MEMORIALS OF WAR IN PAUSANIAS James Roy For the study of memorials of war Pausanias offers two advantages. Firstly, he gives extensive coverage of the areas that he chose to write about (Attika, parts of central Greece, the Megarid, and the Peloponnese), and records not only major centres with many monuments like Athens, Delphi, and Olympia, but also many small communities. Secondly, he was writing centuries after almost all the wars commemorated. While he refers to the incursion of the Costobocs in his own day, even the Roman campaigns in Greece had taken place generations before and other wars were earlier still.1 Local communities had therefore had time to reshape their memories. Pausanias did not simply catalogue everything that there was to be seen. Particularly since the 1980s much has been written about his works, and it has become clear that the Periegesis is much more complex than had often been supposed. It is shaped by a number of decisions by Pausanias on what to include, and what to exclude, and on how to present the material chosen for inclusion. Some of Pausanias’ decisions are obvious, like the choice of the geographical area to cover. Even within that area, however, different regions are treated very differently. Arkadia, for instance, is covered in considerable detail, while in Eleia, although exceptionally two books are accorded to the region, Pausanias says a great deal about Olympia, much less about the town of Elis, and very little about anywhere else. As a result in a region like Eleia there may have been more commemorations of war than he mentions. In addition Pausanias selected his material carefully, and may well have omitted sites that recalled war if he thought them insignificant. Clearly his work cannot be treated as a complete catalogue of memorials of war within the territory that he covered. Nonetheless he mentions so very many objects and places recalling wars that there is much material for analysis. For Pausanias war was a major element of the Greek past. He introduces both regions and individual communities with a brief survey of their history; at least, that is the practice that he developed in the course of writing his work, since his first book, on Attika, has no such introduction.2 These surveys give a very large place to war. Thus for Arkadia he first gives a largely mythical account of the Arkadian kings (8.1–5), and then goes on to a historical survey (8.6.1–3)3 which though brief mentions the Trojan War, the wars between Spartans and Messenians, the battle against the Persians at Plataiai, the Peloponnesian War, the campaign in Asia 1 2 3

On how far military culture survived in Greek cities under the Roman Empire see Brélaz 2014. Hutton 2005, 295–303. IbId. 62–63.

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Minor with Agesilaos, the battle of Leuktra, alliance with Thebes after Leuktra, abstention from the battles against Philip at Chaironeia and against Antipater in Thessaly, abstention from the fighting against the Gauls, and finally enthusiastic membership of the Achaian League. Within Arkadia he gives similar surveys for Mantinea, Megalopolis, and Tegea. For Tegea (8.45.1–3),4 for instance, he first notes events in which the Tegeans took part together with the other Arkadians, such as the Trojan War, the Persian Wars, and the battle at Dipaia against the Spartans, and then mentions other great deeds by Tegeans: Echemos defeated Hyllos in single combat when the Herakleidai returned to the Peloponnese, and the Tegeans were the first Arkadians to fight off an attack by the Spartans, most of whom they took prisoner. Clearly for Pausanias war was an extremely important part of the remembered Greek past at every level from the pan-Hellenic down to the very local. Many memorials of war were concentrated in the great sanctuaries at Delphoi and Olympia, and there was also a wealth of material in Athens.5 The rich material in these centres continues to attract much attention, and the recent book of Arrington, to choose one example, succeeds remarkably in showing how the commemoration of the war dead was affected by different sensibilities within the citizen body.6 However, it is one of Pausanias’ merits to have recorded how war was remembered in many other places across central and southern Greece, often much smaller and less famous places, and in this paper attention will be mainly directed to these other places. Some material was simply no longer available to Pausanias. The most obvious example is the classic type of tropaion set up on or near a battlefield, and consisting of captured enemy weapons hanging on a framework of wood. A wooden framework would collapse eventually, and the tropaion would disappear, unless it was replaced by something more permanent.7 However, even if ephemeral tropaia and much else had simply disappeared by the time that Pausanias travelled in Greece, there remained a wealth of evidence from which he could select. War could be recalled in many ways, such as buildings,8 or even simply by a place-name. At the very opening of his book (1.1.1) he mentions a small uninhabited island near Cape Sounion in Attika: it was called the Island of Patroklos because a fortification was built on it by the Ptolemaic naval commander Patroklos, sent by Ptolemy II with triremes to help Athens fight Antigonos Gonatas. Clearly Pausanias was able to discover information about memorials and traditions. There are only three occasions when he mentions a monument but offers no 4 5 6 7

8

Pretzler 2007, 96–97. On Olympia and Delphi see e. g. Jacquemin 1999; 2001; 2003; Baitinger 2001; Scott 2010; 2014. On Athens see Low 2010; 2012; Arrington 2014; Monaco 2015. Arrington 2015. The transition from short-lived tropaia built from wood to more durable monuments was a complex process, especially for victories of Greeks over Greeks, as Bettalli has shown (2009, 369–70). Lissarague 2014 also emphasises the ephemeral nature of early tropaia. On tropaia generally see Stroszeck 2004; Rabe 2008. On the importance of the Persian Wars in the evolution of tropaia see Proietti 2015. See Baitinger 2011, 147–50.

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information. At Argos he writes: “Passing over a statue of Kreugas, a boxer, and a tropaion set up over the Korinthians, there is a seated statue of Zeus Meilichios (…)” (2.20.1). Kreugas the boxer is mentioned at greater length at 8.40.3–5: he was killed in a boxing match at the Nemean Games but nonetheless declared victor because his opponent had cheated. The tropaion over the Korinthians, however, is never mentioned again, and the occasion that gave rise to it remains unknown. Then at Thespiai Pausanias writes that, not far from the agora, there are a bronze Nike and a rather small temple of the Muses (9.27.5); he gives no explanation whatsoever of why the Nike was set up.9 In these two cases Pausanias may have had information that he chose not to include in his text. At Orchomenos in Arkadia (8.13.3), however, there was no information about heaps of stones below the city piled up at intervals, Pausanias says, over men who fell in war. He writes, “With what Peloponnesians, Arkadians or others, they fought is not identified by inscriptions on the tombs nor do the Orchomenians have any tradition”. Pausanias may of course have simply suppressed other memorials for which he could find no explanation, but he clearly did succeed in learning about an enormous range of material. He was certainly well-read, a cultivated pepaideumenos,10 with a particular fondness for Herodotus,11 and no doubt consulted books when necessary. For instance, the Athenian Kydias was killed fighting the Gauls and his relatives dedicated his shield to Zeus Eleutherios at Athens; Sulla took away all the shields from the stoa of Zeus Eleutherios but Pausanias is able to quote verbatim the four lines of verse that accompanied the dedication (10.21.5–6), and may well have found the text in a book. He also says explicitly that he has himself seen certain objects, like Marpessa’s shield in Tegea (8.47.2, 48.4–5). Yet, in addition to such personal researches, he took much of his information from local people: his text constantly uses phrases like “they say”, clearly referring to locals. He did not feel obliged to believe all that he heard: in a famous passage (6.3.8) he wrote: “I must tell all that is told by the Greeks, but I need not believe them all”, echoing a similar statement by his favourite Herodotus (7.152). Pausanias was well aware that there could be competing accounts: he reports three different versions (Mantinean, Spartan, and Athenian-Theban) of who fatally wounded Epaminondas in the battle at Mantinea in 362 (8.11.5–6). It is now clear that Pausanias did not simply travel only once through the regions that he describes, but visited and revisited places.12 He would thus have ample opportunity to hear local views, and he was particularly likely to talk to the local élite: as Pretzler puts it: “the wealthiest and best-educated local families, the same people who were actively involved in maintaining local monuments and traditions”.13 A preference for the élite might of course slant the information received. Whatever the problems that he encountered, Pausanias nonetheless records very many local beliefs about past wars, and local objects that in some way recalled war. 9 10 11 12 13

On the temple see Moggi/Osanna 2010, 374. Pretzler 2007, 25–27. Hutton 2005 190–213. Hutton 2005, 26–27; Pretzler 2007, 42. Preztler 2007, 36.

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He clearly made choices about what he would record. This can be seen in his account of a recent incident, from Elateia in Phokis (10.34.5). When the Costobocs, a people from near Dacia, invaded Greece in 170 or 171 A. D.,14 they attacked Elateia. A local man Mnasiboulos raised a force to oppose them, and killed many, but died in the fighting. In the town of Elateia a bronze statue of Mnasiboulos stood in the Street of the Runner, presumably renamed after him since, as Pausanias says, Mnasiboulos had won prizes as a runner including the stadion and the diaulon with shield at the 235th Olympiad (i. e. 161 A. D.). An inscription (IG IX 1.146) honouring Mnasiboulos son of Mnasiboulos, evidently his son, has been found at Elateia. It is fragmentary, but the surviving text, unusually, says much more about the father than about the honorand. The father had been twice periodonikes, winning victories at all four major athletic festivals, and is described as “aristos Hellēnōn” (“Best of the Greeks”), a title given to men who combined athletic achievements with general distinction, as van Nijf has shown.15 It cannot have been difficult to find information at Elateia about the elder Mnasiboulos’ glorious athletic career, but Pausanias apparently chose to edit severely what he would include in his text, not mentioning that Mnasiboulos was twice periodonikes.16 Another case concerns Megalopolis. The Megalopolitans, under the tyrant Aristodemos, defeated the Spartans c. 265 B. C. (8.30.7), and commemorated the victory by building the stoa Myropolis from the booty. Aristodemos also dedicated on a hill in the south-eastern area of the city of Megalopolis a temple of Artemis Agrotera (8.32.4), a goddess otherwise unknown in Megalopolis: Pausanias says no more about the building of this temple or its purpose. In a recent article, however, Annalisa Paradiso stresses three points:17 that Aristodemos won a victory over the Spartans; that Artemis Agrotera was the deity to whom a Spartan army sacrificed when the enemy was in sight; and that the temple stood on high ground in the part of the city approached by the road from Sparta (coming up the Eurotas valley and into the Megalopolitan basin). It is therefore likely that the temple was intended as a very visible memorial of Megalopolitan victory and Spartan failure, visible especially to anyone approaching Megalopolis along the road from Sparta. Where local memory was supported by local cult, we can be more confident that belief in a particular memory of the past was strong in the local community, but unfortunately Pausanias seldom mentions such cult.18 In some cases the cult was for a mythical figure, or figures. At Pheneos, for instance, Iphikles was worshipped as a hero (8.14.9); he was wounded in the first battle fought by Herakles against Augeas and the Eleians, and taken to Pheneos, where he died and was buried, and the Pheneates still sacrificed to him as a hero. At Sparta and Plataiai there was cult for historical figures. In front of the theatre at Sparta the kings Pausanias and Leo14 15 16 17 18

On the Costobocs see Robertson Brown 2011, 80–82. Van Nijf 2005. Christesen 2007, 225 n. 108 suggests that Pausanias took his information about Mnasiboulos from a recent Olympiad chronicle, but that seems an unnecessary assumption. Paradiso 2016. On the importance of ritual in memory of war see Franchi/Proietti 2014b, 68–69.

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nidas were buried, and each year speeches were made in memory of them and a competition was held in which only Spartans could participate (3.14.1).19 Near the entrance to Plataiai were the graves of those who died fighting the Medes in 479 B. C., and not far away an altar of Zeus Eleutherios. Games were still held there every four years (9.2.5–6). Pausanias does not discuss when these games, the Eleutheria, were instituted, but in fact they are not attested before the third century, and may have been founded only after Philip II of Macedon re-established the Plataians in Plataiai, after the Thebans had twice destroyed the city.20 The Eleutheria became a major symbol of freedom to Greeks generally, but Pausanias does not mention the point, perhaps taking it for granted.21 Occasionally Pausanias makes a mistake. One example concerns the Roman commander Lucius Mummius, who made lavish dedications at Olympia to celebrate his victory over the Achaians (5.10.5, 24.4, 24.8). Pausanias wrote that he knew of no Roman, whether private citizen or senator, who had made a dedication in a Greek sanctuary before Mummius (5.24.4): this is simply wrong, and Pausanias was overlooking, for instance, the well-known dedication at Delphi in 167 B. C. by L. Aemilius Paulus.22 Since Aemilius Paulus’ monument was very tall, and situated just in front of the temple of Apollo, Pausanias cannot have failed to see it when he visited Delphi, but must somehow have forgotten it when he wrote about Mummius. Also a stoa at Sikyon that Pausanias saw and described as built by Kleisthenes, tyrant of Sikyon in the earlier sixth century, must have been later, since the city was destroyed by Demetrios Poliorketes. Various suggestions have been made to explain Pausanias’ statement, e. g. that Kleisthenes’ stoa had been rebuilt,23 but Pausanias’ statement, as it stands, cannot be correct. Pausanias also makes other mistakes, but they are rare. Much more often, when elements in his account of a monument or a tradition are problematic, the problems are due to the way local accounts have developed. Precisely because Pausanias reports such a wealth of material from a very large number of communities there are cases where we have little or no other evidence to elucidate how the version offered by Pausanias may have developed, even if we can be sure that the account given by Pausanias must include invention. That is clearly the case with the memories from the mythical past that appear in his account alongside later memorials, and are frequently attached to a physical object. Thus at Megara Pausanias records (1.42.5), on one of the two Akropoleis, the tomb of the mythical Megareus who at the time of a Cretan invasion came as an ally from Onchestos (1.42.1). Pausanias knew that accounts of Megareus were contested, and also cites a Boiotian version (1.39.5), but the important point here is that 19 20 21 22 23

On the festival see Cartledge/Spawforth 2002, 192–93. Hansen 2004, 449–51. See Moggi/Osanna 2010, 224–26, who note that Pausanias’ description of the tombs does not match that of Herodotus. Habicht 1985, 99–100. Paus. 2.9.6. See Musti/Torelli 1986, 248; Baitinger 2011, 149.

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in the second century A. D. the Megarians could show, as a physical object, the tomb of a military figure from their mythical past. Similarly Pausanias found at Pheneos (8.15.5) a sanctuary of Pythian Apollo created by Herakles after capturing Elis; at Skotitas in Lakonia (3.10.6), a statue of Herakles and a tropaion said to have been set up by Herakles after killing Hippokoön and his sons; and at Thebes (9.17.2), in front of the temple of Artemis Eukleia, a stone lion said to have been dedicated by Herakles after defeating the Orchomenians and their king Erginos. At Tegea the major role played by Marpessa and other Tegean women in defeating a Spartan attack was remembered (8.47.2, 48.4–5). The event belongs to the barely historical period of the early Spartan king Charillos, who led the unsuccessful Spartan army, but Pausanias saw the shield of Marpessa in the temple of Athena Alea. More examples could be cited, but it is clear that, through a process that cannot now be traced, military events from myth were attached to physical memorials so that they were commemorated in the same way as later events and became part of the local memory of war.24 Pausanias says nothing to suggest that he viewed these memorials of mythical warfare any differently from other military memorials. At Megara Pausanias records (1.40.5) the bronze ram of a galley captured, the Megarians said, in a naval engagement with the Athenians off Salamis. The Athenians recognised that they had at one time withdrawn from Salamis, and then later, with encouragement from Solon, had succeeded in recapturing the island. Recently, however, Mark has argued that rams were adopted on Greek warships at the earliest in the sixth century, and possibly in the fifth.25 If Mark is right, the Megarians must have associated a later ram with their memory of an early naval victory. Another case, at Phigalia (8.39.3–5, 45.1) is problematic. After defeating the Phigalians in battle, the Spartans besieged the town. When the wall was in danger, the Phigalians fled, or perhaps were allowed to leave by the Spartans. This happened when Miltiades was archon at Athens, in the second year of the 30th Olympiad (i. e. 659 B. C.), when the Spartan Chionis won for the third time. The Delphic oracle told the Phigalians that if they tried by themselves to return to their city they would fail, but, if they took with them 100 men of Oresthasion, who would die in the fighting, they would succeed. One hundred Oresthasian volunteers died fighting and the Phigalians recovered their city. In the agora of Phigalia there was the polyandrion of the dead Oresthasians, who received an annual sacrifice as heroes. It is clear that, whether or not this story has any basis in historical fact, it has been significantly altered over time. The elaborate dating formula, by Athenian archon and Olympiad, must have been produced much later than 659, and in addition there is no trace whatsoever of a city-wall at Phigalia from the archaic period.26 It is now 24 25 26

Baitinger 2011, 124–25 discusses the possibility that in some cases Late Helladic objects may have been preserved and venerated, and notes the isolated find of a late Mycenaean sword at Olympia. He also notes, however, that supposed heroic relics may have been of much later date. Mark 2008. I am grateful to Birgit Bergmann for drawing my attention to Mark’s publication. Nielsen 2004, 527–28 (no. 292) suggests that the city-walls would date, at the earliest, from the fifth century B. C. Frederiksen 2011, 1–2, in his study of archaic city-walls, mentions classical walls at Phigalia, but nowhere suggests archaic walls. For a recent, brief, archaeological report on Phigalia see Arapoyianni 2012, 418–19, dating the walls from the fourth century.

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impossible to trace how this story developed, but clearly Pausanias’ account takes no account of such development.27 Nonetheless the hero-cult shows that the memory of the event was still well preserved in Pausanias’ day, and there is no reason to doubt that there was a polyandrion in the agora, whatever its date may have been. Pausanias’ report of a third-century Mantinean victory over Sparta is a notorious problem. The Mantineans, says Pausanias, with the help of an Achaian army led by Aratos, defeated the Spartan king Agis son of Eudamidas when he invaded their territory (8.8.11). After mentioning a stone trophy commemorating the victory near the temple of Poseidon at Mantinea (8.10.5), Pausanias then (8.10.5–8) gives an account of the battle: on the Mantinean side there fought the Mantineans, other Arkadian cities including Megalopolis, and the Sikyonians and the Achaians commanded by Aratos (a very implausible alliance for the period). King Agis was killed in the battle. It has long been recognised that there are major historical difficulties here, since Plutarch (Agis 18.2–20.5) describes at length how Agis was seized and executed in a political coup at Sparta, and Pausanias’ report that Agis died on the battlefield at Mantinea seems to be simply wrong. Also, Pausanias says that the Mantinean commander was Podares, a grandson of the Podares killed in the battle of 362 for whom a heroön was erected in the agora at Mantinea. Three generations before Pausanias, the inscription on the heroön was changed to refer to another Podares, born at a time when he could have had Roman citizenship. Careful analysis by Pretzler has shown that Mantinean history had been reshaped to suit the interests of the citizens in the Roman period, and especially of a leading family that claimed descent from the heroes, both called Podares, of the battle of 362 and the supposed battle against Agis in the third century.28 The elements making up this reshaped history were memorialised in a series of monuments in and around the city of Mantinea: a stele commemorating Grylos, son of Xenophon, who was killed in 362 (8.9.5); a painting of the battle of 362 (8.9.8); the heroön of Podares, commander in 362 (8.9.9); a trophy supposedly commemorating the victory over Agis, set up beside the sanctuary of Poseidon Hippios, who was supposed to have helped the Mantineans in the battle (8.10.5 and 8); and the tomb of Epaminondas, also killed in the battle of 362 (8.11.7–8). In three other cases, all involving major cities, the developments behind what Pausanias tells us have also been successfully explored. At 1.33.2–3 Pausanias tells how, when the Persians landed at Marathon, they had brought with them a block of Parian marble from which to create a trophy. The goddess Nemesis punished them for their presumption, and from the marble a statue of Nemesis was made by Pheidias for the sanctuary of Nemesis at Rhamnous. Matthias Haake has shown how a tradition probably invented by the Athenians in the 330s allowed Rhamnous to become a lieu de mémoire recalling victory over barbarians, so that it was a suitable place to honour Antigonos Gonatas, victor over the Gauls. The honours ended when 27 28

Robertson 1992, 232–53 proposed a highly speculative version, supposing Oresthasian aid to Phigalia in the 360s: his suggestions have been rightly, if severely, criticised by Pritchett 1995, 262–68. See Moggi/Osanna 2003, 477–78, with references to earlier work. Pretzler 2005.

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Athens was freed from Macedon in 230/229, but Rhamnous continued to be seen as a notable memorial of victory over the Persians.29 Pausanias twice (1.28.2 and 9.4.1) says that a colossal bronze statue of the goddess Athena was set up by the Athenians on the Akropolis as a tithe from their victory over the Persians at Marathon. He saw it standing between the Propylaia and the Erechtheion. It was known as the Bronze Athena to distinguish it from the gold and ivory statue of Athena inside the Parthenon: both were by the sculptor Pheidias. Olga Palagia has examined the evidence, which is mainly archaeological but includes a statement by Demosthenes (19.272) that the Bronze Athena was set up by the Athenians as a victory-monument of the war against the barbarians, the money being given by the Greeks.30 Palagia takes Demosthenes to mean that the money came from the members of the Delian League, and, on archaeological grounds, argues that the statue will have been set up at more or less the same time as the Athena Parthenos as part of the Periklean building programme on the Akropolis. Subsequently it became associated with Marathon. At 2.24.7 Pausanias gives the only ancient evidence for a victory of the Argives over the Spartans at Hysiai, in a battle dated with suspicious precision to the archonship of Peisistratos at Athens, i. e. 669/8 B. C. Elena Franchi has shown that, given the serious difficulties that arise if an attempt is made to use the passage as evidence for a historical event, it is better to analyse it as an example of invention of tradition, and evidence of the importance that archaic history had for the Greek élite under the Roman Empire.31 These three publications, by Haake, Palagia, and Franchi, are models of how to read what lies under Pausanias’ accounts of the memory of war. To conclude, Pausanias shows that memories of war were in his day an extremely important, indeed virtually a universal, element of the past by which Greek communities defined themselves. These memories included supposed memories of mythical warfare, as well as later wars, with no apparent distinction between the two, but since the middle of the second century BCE there had been few wars to remember. Memories, even of the heroic period, were often attached to physical objects that served as a focus of remembrance. In many cases we cannot tell how the memories evolved, but, when there is sufficient evidence to allow analysis of what Pausanias reports, it becomes apparent that memories had been reshaped over time, even recent time, and continued to serve their social purpose regardless of their historical accuracy. Arapoyianni 2012: X. Arapoyianni, “Από τον Αλφειό έως τη Νέδα, Ιστορικοί χρόνοι”, in A. G. Vlachopoulos (ed.), Αρχαιολογία ΠΕΛΟΠΟΝΝΗΣΟΣ, Athens 2012, 413–19. Arrington 2015: N. T. Arrington, Ashes, Images, and Memories. The Presence of the War Dead in Fifth-Century Athens, Oxford 2015. Baitinger 2001: H. Baitinger, Die Angriffswaffen aus Olympia, Berlin-New York 2001. 29 30 31

Haake 2011. Palagia 2013. Franchi 2012.

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Baitinger 2011: H. Baitinger, Waffenweihungen in griechischen Heiligtümern, Mainz 2011. Bettalli 2009: M. Bettalli, “I trofei sui campi di battaglia nel mondo greco”, MEFRA 121 (2009), 363–71. Brélaz 2014: C. Brélaz, “Cultura militare e identità collettive nelle città greche sotto l’Impero romano”, in Franchi/Proietti 2014a, 259–86. Cartledge/Spawforth 2002: P. Cartledge / A. Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities, London/New York 20022. Christesen 2007: P. Christesen, Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History, Cambridge et al. 2007. Franchi 2012: E. Franchi, “La battaglia di Isie e l’identità argiva: un caso di invenzione della tradizione”, in E. Franchi / G. Proietti (a cura di), Forme della memoria e dinamiche identitarie nell’antichità greco-romana, Trento 2012, 43–66. Franchi/Proietti 2014a: E. Franchi / G. Proietti (a cura di), Guerra e memoria nel mondo antico, Trento 2014. Franchi/Proietti 2014b: E. Franchi / G. Proietti, “Guerra e memoria. Paradigmi antichi e moderni, tra polemologia e memory studies”, in Franchi/Proietti 2014a, 17–125. Frederiksen 2011: R. Frederiksen, Greek City Walls of the Archaic Period, 900–480 B. C., Oxford 2011. Haake 2011: M. Haake, “Antigonos II. Gonatas und die Nemesistempel in Rhamnous. Zur Semantik göttlicher Ehren für einen hellenistischen König an einem athenischen ‘lieu de mémoire’” in M. Haake / M. Jung (Hrsg.), Griechische Heiligtümer als Erinnerungsorte von der Archaik bis in den Hellenismus, Stuttgart 2011, 109–27. Habicht 1985: C. Habicht, Pausanias’ Guide to Ancient Greece, Berkeley et al. 1985. Hansen 2004: M. H. Hansen, “Boiotia”, in Hansen/Nielsen 2004, 431–61. Hansen/Nielsen 2004: M. H. Hansen / T. H. Nielsen (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis, Oxford 2004. Hutton 2005: W. Hutton, Describing Greece: Landscape and Literature in the Periegesis of Pausanias, Cambridge 2005. Jacquemin 1999: A. Jacquemin, Offrandes monumentales à Delphes, Athens 1999. Jacquemin 2001: A. Jacquemin, “Delphes au Ve siècle ou un panhellénisme difficile à concrétiser”, Pallas 57 (2001), 93–110. Jacquemin 2003: A. Jacquemin, “Delfi e Olimpia: due luoghi della grecità classica”, GeogrAnt 12 (2003 [2005]), 67–79. Lissarague 2014: F. Lissarrague, “The Early Greek Trophy: The Iconographic Tradition of Time and Space”, in A. Moreno / R. Thomas (eds.), Patterns of the Past: Epitēdeumata in the Greek Tradition, Oxford 2014, 57–65. Low 2010: P. Low, “Commemoration of the War Dead in Classical Athens: Remembering Defeat and Victory”, in D. M. Pritchard (ed.), War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2010, 341–58. Low 2012: P. Low, “The Monuments to the War Dead in Classical Athens: Form, Contexts, Meanings”, in P. Low / G. Oliver / P. J. Rhodes (eds.), Cultures of Commemoration: War Memorials. Ancient and Modern, London 2012, 13–19. Mark 2008: S. Mark, “The Earliest Naval Ram”, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 37 (2008), 253–72. Moggi/Osanna 2003: M. Moggi / M. Osanna (a cura di), Pausania. Guida della Grecia, Libro VIII: L’Arcadia, Milano 2003. Moggi/Osanna 2010: M. Moggi / M. Osanna (a cura di), Pausania. Guida della Grecia, Libro IX: La Beozia, Milano 2010. Monaco 2015: M. C. Monaco, “Atene e la memoria delle guerre. Appunti per una topografia dei luoghi”, in Franchi/Proietti 2014a, 153–75. Musti/Torelli 1986: D. Musti / M. Torelli (a cura di), Pausania. Guida della Grecia, Libro II: La Corinzia e l’Argolide, Milano 1986.

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Nielsen 2004: T. H. Nielsen, “Arkadia”, in Hansen-Nielsen 2004, 505–39. Palagia 2013: O. Palagia, “Not from the Spoils of Marathon: Pheidias’ Bronze Athena on the Acropolis”, in K. Buraselis / E. Koukaliotis (eds.), Marathon the Day After. Symposium Proceedings, Delphi 2–4 July 2010, Delphi 2013, 117–37. Paradiso 2016: A. Paradiso, “Aristodemus ‘the Good’ and the Temple of Artemis Agrotera at Megalopolis”, CQ 66, 1 (2016), 128–33. Pretzler 2005: M. Pretzler, “Pausanias at Mantinea: Invention and Manipulation of Local History”, Cambridge Classical Journal 51 (2005), 21–34. Pretzler 2007: M. Pretzler, Pausanias: Travel Writing in Ancient Greece, London 2007. Pritchett 1995: W. K. Pritchett, Thucydides’ Pentekontaetia and Other Essays, Amsterdam 1995. Proietti 2015: G. Proietti, “I Greci e la memoria della vittoria: alcune considerazioni sui trofei delle Guerre Persiane”, Hormos n. s. 7 (2015), 148–75. Rabe 2008: B. Rabe, Tropaia: trope und skyla. Entstehung, Funktion und Bedeutung des griechischen Tropaions, Rahden, Westfalen 2008. Robertson 1992: N. Robertson, Festivals and Legends: The Formation of Greek Cities in the Light of Public Ritual, Toronto 1992. Robertson Brown 2011: A. Robertson Brown, “Banditry or Catastrophe? History, Archaeology, and Barbarian Raids on Greece”, in R. W. Mathisen / D. Shanzer (eds.), Romans Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World: Cultural Interaction and the Creation of Identity in Late Antiquity, Farnham 2011, 79–96. Scott 2010: M. Scott, Delphi and Olympia: The Spatial Politics of Panhellenism in the Archaic and Classical Periods, Cambridge 2010. Scott 2014: M. Scott, Delphi: A History of the Center of the Ancient World, Princeton NJ 2014. Stroszeck 2004: J. Stroszeck, “Greek Trophy Monuments”, in S. des Bouvrie (ed.), Myth and Symbol II: Symbolic Phenomena in Ancient Greek Culture, Bergen 2004, 303–41. Van Nijf 2005: O. Van Nijf, “Aristos Hellenôn: succès sportif et identité grecque dans la Grèce romaine”, Métis 3 (2005), 271–94.

THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR IN GERMAN COMMEMORATIVE CULTURE FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE TO THE PRESENT – AN OVERVIEW Nina Fehrlen-Weiss The Thirty Years’ War has always been a very powerful object of commemoration.1 Not least due to its devastating consequences for many regions and cities within the Holy Roman Empire it has been imprinted on people’s memory. In a historical culture that was dominantly informed by the Protestant and lesser German mindset of the 19th century, and which favored the shaping power of great personalities on the course of history, it was Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus who was stressed as an icon and savior. Part of this popularization of the Swedish king was due to the works of Friedrich Schiller, Leopold von Ranke, Gustav Freytag and Ricarda Huch. Alongside Gustavus Adolphus, as a denominational counterpart, it was Johann T’Serclaes von Tilly, general field marshal of the Catholic League’s army during the first half of the Thirty Years’ War, who has been celebrated – and loathed. If Magdeburg can be seen as focal point of hatred directed at Tilly, it is in Bavaria, especially in his place of burial, Altötting, where he is worshipped to the same extent as he is hated in other places. Beyond that a great controversy exists about the imperial generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein. But commemoration is not solely tied to personalities or ‘heroes’ but also to great battles and not least to the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the war. In Germany today, there is a varied and lively commemorative culture regarding the Thirty Years’ War which has its origin partly in a long tradition and partly in still young initiatives. Near the end of the Holy Roman Empire, Friedrich Schiller discovered the Thirty Years’ War as a field of interest, which to him constituted a conflict of power and a war of liberation. The historiographical work Geschichte des Dreissigjährigen Krieges2 was published in the Calender für Damen in three successive years, from 1791 to 1793, as a serial narration by the then professor for world history in Jena.3 His detailed research yielded his interest not only for the progression of the conflict but also its great personalities. He was especially fascinated by the ambiguous imperial generalissimo Wallenstein. His trilogy Wallenstein4, which premiered 1 2 3 4

The Thirty Years’ War was composed of a series of wars: 1618–1625 the Bohemian Revolt, 1625–1629 the Danish Intervention, 1630–1635 the Swedish Intervention, 1635–1648 the French Intervention. Schiller 1976. Fehrlen 2011. Schiller 1949.

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in 1799, was a great success on stage and remains to this day part of the curriculum in German schools as well as the repertoire in numerous theatres.5 In both works Schiller’s interpretation of the Thirty Years’ War remained caught up in the tradition of the Holy Roman Empire. The Peace of Westphalia represented the constitutional reality the author lived in. According to Schiller, the arrangements of the peace treaty enabled a flourishing, diverse culture in Germany and offered legal security to its citizens. Consequently he saw the Peace of Westphalia in a favorable light. The Coalition Wars and the accompanying end of the Holy Roman Empire changed the interpretation of the Peace of Westphalia fundamentally. Teleologically it was now understood as the point of origin for the decline of the Holy Roman Empire. The settlements of the Peace of Westphalia had cemented the scattered regionalism and avoided the development toward a German national state.6 It had heralded a time of external control for Germany that gave France the chance to become involved in the Empire’s affairs for its own benefit. The national interpretation, in the context of German dualism, was combined with the denominational reading of the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia. In the 19th century due to the anniversary of Reformation in 1817, which was widely celebrated by Protestants, and in combination with the political conditions, the confessional division seems to have solidified in the recollection of the Thirty Years’ War, and was mirrored in the worship of each denominational camp’s hero. While Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus was celebrated by the Protestants as savior of the Lutheran Creed,7 the Catholics saw Johann T’Serclaes of Tilly as a warrior for the one true religion.8 This hero worship was reflected in many historical monuments. The enthusiasm for monuments in the 19th century,9 which was carried primarily by the German upcoming Bildungsbürgertum, the intellectual bourgeoisie, also led to an expansion of the Thirty Years’ War commemorative landscape. In the same context the Gustav-Adolf memorial in Lützen was built between 1833 and 1837. It has since been a venue for a commemorative act honoring the death of Gustavus Adolphus on the local battlefield and has been steadily expanded.10 The ‘Gustav-Adolf-Kapelle’, a chapel built in 1906/1907, constitutes the most significant addition (fig. 1). The triptych above the altar depicts a scene from the battlefield of Lützen in the middle, a picture of Martin Luther on the right and one of Gustavus Adolphus on the left.11 The depictions of the Swedish king and Luther are reminiscent of the presentation of Catholic saints. In a similar manner Tilly was venerated in Altötting. A collegiate church in the Catholic site of pilgrimage in Upper Bavaria is the last resting-place of the Bavarian 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Mannigel 2003. Duchhardt 1997. Oredsson 1994; Fitschen 2007; Schuberth 2013, 154; Hölderlin 1995, 519 ff. Balde 1729; Klopp 1861; Mehler 1898, 164; Wald 2008. Mittig 1972; Tacke 1995; Klaus 2008; Spohr 2011; Bansbach 2014. Mai/Schneider 1981; Schuberth 2007; Reichel/Schuberth 2007; Reichel 2009. Mai/Schneider 1981, 28 ff.

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Fig. 1: Gustav-Adolf-Kapelle (photo: author)

field marshal. His heart was entombed in the local pilgrimage chapel that Tilly had visited several times as a simple pilgrim himself. In the 19th century, many visitors of Altötting took advantage of their pilgrimage to the local sanctuary for a tour of the crypt, the ‘Tilly-Gruft’.12 Since many of them had asked to see the field marshal’s remains, the coffin had been opened more and more frequently. But as numerous pilgrims had been taking pieces of the shroud as a relic-like souvenir, a window was installed at the head of the coffin to comply with the pilgrims’ requests as well as to protect the remains. Thus, on the part of Catholics, too, a saint-like worship of a Thirty Years’ War’s officer had developed, without him ever having been canonized. To this day, the visitors can get a glimpse through the coffin’s window at Tilly’s skull.13 Berthold Brecht shared his astonishment in face of this fact in 1924/1925 in the following poem: Es ist doch merkwürdig, wie doch auch die Größten vergehen Und nichts bleibt außer Staub. Wie das Gras. Und es ist selten etwas so schrecklich und unaufgeklärt wie das In Altötting zum Beispiel ist der katholische Feldherr Tilly im Sarge zu sehen Gegen nur zwei M[ark] Eintritt für Erwachsene, präpariert unter Glas Es steht darauf: Tilly nicht berühren! Und der Kastellan sagte mir selber und im Angesicht der Bahre Und er hatte auch keinen Grund, mich irrezuführen Und es stimmte auch sicherlich: 12 13

Vornehm 2011; Mitterwieser 1932. Vornehm 2011, 189 ff.

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Nina Fehrlen-Weiss Vor einigen Jahren hatte der Herr General noch Haare So etwas gibt einem immer wieder einfach einen Stich.14 It is strange how even the greatest fade And nothing remains but dust. Just like grass. And it is rarely anything as terrible and unsolved as in Altötting for example the Catholic filed marshal Tilly can be viewed in his coffin for only two Marks entrance fee for adults, prepared under glass. It says: Tilly, don’t touch! And the castellan himself told me and facing the coffin And he had no reason to mislead me And it surely is true Several years ago, the field marshal still had hair Things like these always manage to sting.

Next to this denominational hero worship, a manifold historical festival culture was established in the second half of the 19th century in the south of Germany. Having profited only to a minor degree from the beginning industrialization due to their marginal location, the Franconian communities Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Altdorf bei Nürnberg and Dinkelsbühl launched historical festivals commemorating the Thirty Years’ War.15 The stage events are similar: the city, besieged by foreign armies, is close to destruction, but can save itself last minute and manages to regain its former magnitude and autonomy.16 Nor did the interpretation of the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia change after the turn of the century. The Peace of Westphalia was exploited by the national socialist leadership for their war propaganda.17 The alleged foreign control of the Holy Roman Empire by France was stressed even more and the Peace of Westphalia was spotlighted as the first humiliation, followed by the Treaty of Versailles as the second. Thus, after defeating France Hitler wanted the peace treaty, dictated by Germany, to be signed in Münster, as symbol for a dishonor overcome.18 Additionally the regime had been planning an opulent celebration for the tercentenary of the Peace of Westphalia in 1948 as symbol for a dishonor overcome. With the outcome of World War II, though, these plans became obsolete. On the one hand, the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century pushed aside the Thirty Years’ War in German memory. Until then it had been the biggest and most devastating war on German soil. But now the experience of the two world wars’ destructive extent replaced the memory of this 17th century conflict. On the other hand, the upcoming tercentenary of the Peace of Westphalia was seen by German politicians in Münster in Nordrheinwestfalen and Osnabrück in Niedersachsen as a chance to present themselves in a new light and as cosmopolitan cities: the commem14 15 16 17 18

Brecht 1993, 296. I would like to thank my friend and colleague Christina Eckhardt who translated the text in English. Becher 1971; Moritz 1991; Recknagel 1994, 17 ff.; Arnold 1994; Kamp 1996; Lang 2001. Hörber/Graschberger 1981; Dittmar 1912; Stark 1896. Duchhardt 1997, 75 ff. Duchhardt 1997, 79.

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orational speech was to be no cause for loud celebration but should be a serious reflection on the values of the European community and the foundation for world peace and living in freedom and justice.19 A united Europe was the focus of the commemorative speeches of municipal and federal politicians, who thereby wanted to document their striving for a peaceful cooperation within Europe and the world. As a means to educate the next generation in the context of this new interpretation of the Peace of Westphalia, a children’s peace festival was launched in 1948 in Osnabrück, which to this day is organized every year, and in preparation for which the city’s fourth graders are being taught the Peace of Westphalia and its continuing significance: the ‘Steckenpferdreiten’ (hobby horse race), where the fourth graders ride on hobbyhorses as ‘Friedensreiter’ (horsemen of peace) through Osnabrück to claim a ‘Friedensbretzel’ (Pretzel of Peace), from the mayor, which symbolizes the ride of the mounted messengers, who in 1648 spread the news of the peace treaty.20 In German historiography, too, the Thirty Years’ War continued to being processed. Besides general surveys such as Der Teutsche Krieg 1618–1648 by Günter Barudio,21 published in 1982, war commanders’ biographies still played an important role. In 1969 historian Helmut Diwald published his work Wallenstein: Eine Biographie.22 It was followed shortly after, in 1971, by the biography Wallenstein. Sein Leben erzählt von Golo Mann.23 The book’s huge success led to a film adaptation in 1978, which was broadcast in four parts on the TV channel ‘Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen’. Furthermore, German historians continued to focus on Gustavus Adolphus and Tilly.24 They added analyses of certain aspects of the war such as the influence of the conflict on particular areas of the Holy Roman Empire.25 But not only the course of the war and the lives of its commanders were of interest for historical research: since the end of the 20th century the literary engagement with the Thirty Years’ War as well as historiography itself have been brought into focus by German historians.26 And the commemorative culture surrounding the Thirty Years’ War is also one of the newer research areas within the historical sciences. While scientific historiography in the Federal Republic of Germany has since put its former assessment of the dimension of the Thirty Years’ War into perspective, in popular science this 17th century conflict is still being treated as the German original catastrophe. Quite often comparisons are drawn in laymen’s descriptions of the Thirty Years’ War between this war and the period from 1914 to 1945, which is then labeled the Second Thirty Years’ War. Similarly, the interest of German literature in this period of German history did not diminish after World War II. Günther Grass processed the Thirty Year’s War in 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Stadt Münster 1948. Website city of Osnabrück: http://friedenskultur.osnabrueck.de/index.php?id=57 (03.01.2017). Barudio 1982. Diwald 1969. Mann 1971. For example Barudio 1982; Findeisen 1996; Junkelmann 2011. Asche 2006; Von Hippel 2009. For example Oredsson 1994; Mannigel 2003; Wald 2008.

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one of his novels: Das Treffen in Telgte (1979)27 revolves around a fictional meeting between German literati in the year 1647 in Telgte, the location of a postal station, where the messengers who commuted between the negotiations in Münster and Osnabrück changed horses. In the novel the writers discuss their texts about war and peace and the impact of the long-lasting conflict on the German language. Grass’s novel can be seen as an allusion to the post World War II society ‘Gruppe 47’,28 whose meetings Günther Grass himself attended. Also, more recently, a detective story and a love story, which are set in the times of The Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia, have been published.29 Moreover, in 2006 the musical Gustav Adolf. Das Musical has premiered in Riedstadt close to Mainz.30 It tells of the crossing of the Rhine by the Swedish king in 1631 and the subsequent victory over the Spanish troops, which led to the capture of Mainz. Moreover, after World War II children’s literature and literature for young people have dealt with the Thirty Years’ War. In 1989 Barbara Bartos-Höppner published a picture book called Das Friedensfest, which depicts the end of the Thirty Years’ War and the celebration of the Peace of Westphalia in Osnabrück.31 The children’s peace festival, which has been created in Osnabrück after World War II, is explained by Lioba Meyer in the children’s book Reiten für den Frieden. Der Westfälische Friede 1648 für kleine Neunmalkluge, which was published in 2014.32 The book for young people Verrat! Feinde und Freunde um Wallenstein,33 published in 1993, as well as Wolfsjahre,34 published in 1997, depict life of a child in Wallenstein’s army. Furthermore, on the occasion of the 350-year-anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia a nonfiction book was published which depicts the living conditions of civil as well as military society during the Thirty Years’ War, and which ends in the celebration of the Peace of Westphalia.35 In 2012 the novella Bet’ Kindlein bet’, morgen kommt der Schwed was added to this line of publications.36 It tells the story of life in an imperial city under siege from the perspective of a child. The commemoration of the Thirty Years’ War, which was decidedly influenced by the denominations, has become more differentiated in the second half of the 20th century. In 1950 the diocese Würzburg initiated the beatification of the priest Liborius Wagner, who had been killed by Swedish troops in 1631.37 After an in-depth examination of the submitted documents by the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation of 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Grass 1979. The Gruppe 47 was a meeting of German writers between 1947 and 1967, which was initiated by Hans Werner Richter (1908–1993). At their meetings, the writers reviewed the texts read and thus helped young writing talents. Kehrer 1997; Busch 2005. Granacher 2006. Bartos/Höppner 1989. Meyer 2014. Ott 1993. Bentele 1997. Francke 1998. Ziegler 2012. N. N. 1930, 197 ff.

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Fig. 2: Feldmarschall-Tilly-Denkmal (photo: author)

Rites, Pope Paul VI canonized Liborius Wagner in 1974. From there on the forms of veneration of Wagner turned out to be manifold: besides pilgrimages to Wagner’s place of work and death, an annual memorial day on December 9th, and the veneration of relics, a chapel was furnished for Wagner in the Cathedral in Würzburg. For Catholic field marshal Tilly, too, another monument was installed in Altötting: in 2005 an equestrian statue of the officer was erected in front of the chapel (fig. 2). Similarities can be found when it comes to the historical festivities in commemoration of the Thirty Years’ War. In 1980 the imperial city of Memmingen hosted the ‘Wallenstein-Sommer’ for the first time.38 Today this historical festival is the largest of its kind, and includes in its schedule amongst other things a historical folk play,39 battle reenactments, field exercises, as well as a historical military camp. During the ‘Wallenstein-Sommer’ some 5000 performers in historical costumes live for one week, day and night, in a military camp under the same conditions as during the Thirty Years’ War. Historical festivals, which had already been in exist38 39

Website Wallenstein-Sommer: www.wallenstein-mm.de / (03.01.2017). Pfeifer 2004.

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ence at the end of 19th century, were quickly reestablished after World War II in the cities of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Dinkelsbühl and Altdorf bei Nürnberg.40 Being highly popular, they have become increasingly large events. Attracting tourism is a common objective of these four historical festivals. But in addition to this economic factor, there is the strengthening of the citizen’s identification with their city through the memory of their local past. But this representation of commemoration after 1945 is only valid for the commemorative culture within the Federal Republic of Germany. The German Democratic Republic did not practice any commemoration regarding the Thirty Years’ War, since it did not suit state ideology. The German republic of workers and peasants did not consider the Thirty Years’ War memorable, since it was concerned not only with religious and denominational motives but moreover with power politics of the leading nobility. Nevertheless, there were a few exceptions and the leadership of the German Democratic Republic felt impelled on several occasions to partake in the commemoration – not least in order to offer their own interpretation of the war to the public. An example would be the ‘Gustav-Adolf- Gedenkstätte’, a historical site in Lützen, which had been owned by a Swedish foundation since Lützen’s financial crisis in wake of the Depression in the 1920s. It was used by the leadership to build a relationship with neutral Sweden through culture promotion – the only way possible, due to political blocking tactics of Western Germany.41 The German Democratic Republic tried to demonstrate a historical connection to Sweden by financially supporting the memorial, on the one hand, and by sending teachers with their local studies classes on visits to Lützen, on the other. Moreover, the state visit of Olof Palme in 1984 as a reminder of the Baltic rim countries’ joint past was staged in an exceptional way. The German Democratic Republic made the Swedish Prime minister’s plane land at the Peenemünde military airport, close to the location where Gustavus Adolphus set foot on German soil in 1630.42 On top of these activities no more politics of memory concerning the Thirty Years’ War were practiced, though. Thus, for decades foreign affairs should stay the prime motive behind any commemorative efforts concerning the Thirty Years’ War. In 1998 the 350-year-anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia revived the commemoration of the Thirty Years’ War.43 Being no longer limited to a German event but a European one this anniversary was now celebrated as never before. In the sphere of German politics a comparison was drawn between 1648 and the end of the 20th century. After the end of the Cold War, Europe allegedly faced, just like in the mid-17th century, a reorganization of international relations.44 Accordingly the importance given to the anniversary on a European level became apparent in the two 40 41 42 43 44

Website Meistertrunk Rothenburg ob der Tauber: www.meistertrunk.de (03.01.2017); Website Wallenstein-Festspiele Altdorf bei Nürnberg: www.wallenstein-festspiele.de (03.01.2017); Website Kinderzeche Dinkelsbühl: www.kinderzeche.de (03.01.2017). Schuberth 2007, 265 ff. Önnerfors 2004, 56 ff. Website Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe: www.muenster.de/friede/indexalt.html (03.01.2017). Tüns 1994.

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central events of the day: firstly, an act of state including altogether 20 crowned and uncrowned heads of state of the countries involved in the Peace of Westphalia in the city hall of Münster, which marked the beginning of the festivities. And as a 2nd central highlight the 26. Europaratsaustellung 1648 – Krieg und Frieden in Europa, expositions that were held in Münster and Osnabrück. In his speech in Münster on October 24th, then Federal President Roman Herzog, who amongst other European heads of state acted as a patron, stated that the Peace of Westphalia was still relevant in this day and age. According to him the negotiations held in the two ‘Friedensstädten’ (cities of peace) Münster and Osnabrück from 1643 to 1648 had been not only the genesis of modern diplomacy but also a first example for cooperation among almost all European States. The Peace of Westphalia had been the beginning of a new era for Europe. It had provided the world with basic principles for the conceptions of law and state that are still valid today.45 This new interest in the Thirty Years’ War, which arose around the 350 year anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia, produced new forms of commemoration: for example the ‘Museum des Dreißigjährigen Krieges’ in Wittstock an der Dosse46 – the only of its kind in Europe. The museum, which is funded by the European Union, was installed in a former bishop’s city in Brandenburg, in front of whose gates one of the great battles of the Thirty Years’ War was fought in 1636. Here, in spite of being outnumbered, the Swedish Army was able to capture a victory against the imperial army and seize a huge amount of goods. For this reason Wittstock is now part of a German-Swedish cultural and historical theme route, the so-called ‘Schwedenstraße’,47 which documents the shared past of both nations and was inaugurated in 2000 by the Swedish embassy in Berlin. After the millennium change a new era of commemorative culture surrounding the Thirty Years’ War began. In 2007 the coincidental discovery of a mass grave of soldiers from the year 1636 directed the attention of archeologists toward the battlefields of the Thirty Years’ War. In 2009, as a consequence, systematic archeological surveys discovered another mass grave of the same time on the battlefield of Lützen, where the Swedish king had lost his life. The findings from both discoveries can now be seen in a traveling exhibition.48 In the long term, the surveys’ results of both mass graves are to be shown in museums, which for this purpose are planned to be erected on the battlefields themselves, and shall function as a boost for tourism in the structurally weak cities and regions.49 Thus a new group joins the casualties of war next to General Tilly and Gustavus Adolphus as well as Libo-

45 46 47 48 49

Herzog 1998. Kreis Ostprignitz-Ruppin 1998; Website of the Museum des Dreißigjährigen Kriegs: www. mdk-wittstock.de / (03.01.2017). Website Schwedenstraße: www.schwedenstrasse.de/flash / (03.01.2017). Eickhoff/Grothe/Jungklaus 2012; Meller/Schefzik 2015; ‟1636 – ihre letzte Schlacht”: www.1636.de (03.01.2017); ‟Krieg eine archäologische Spurensuche”: www.lda-lsa.de/de/ landesmuseum_fuer_vorgeschichte/sonderausstellungen/krieg / (03.01.2017). N. N. 2013.

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rius Wagner, a new group which makes up the largest part of lives lost in the war – the simple mercenary soldier.50 The Thirty Years’ War then, to this day plays an important role in German politics of memory and its memorial landscape. But especially during the 20th century the approaches to its commemoration by German politicians have changed repeatedly: until the end of World War II an emphasis on the distance to other European powers involved in the Thirty Years’ War could be observed. However, since 1945, the peace negotiations in Münster and Osnabrück, interpreted as the origin of the European Union, have been in the center of a shared commemoration by European politicians. Beyond politics, too, there is a rich commemorative culture surrounding the Thirty Years War, which is mostly upheld by laymen. On the one hand, centuries-old traditions are continuously being maintained and could not be banished from the consciousness of commemorative agents, not even by the great military and political caesuras of the 20th century. On the other hand, new forms of commemoration have developed in the second half of the 20th century as well as at the beginning of the 21st century. The motives of those remembering, as opposed to the motives of politicians, have not changed at all or only slightly: their efforts revolve around love for the home country, meaning the cultivation of commemoration of local and regional historical events, as well as the denominational affiliation. This involves since the 19th century the desire to attract tourism. Furthermore, especially in the year of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, a particular importance is attached to the Thirty Years’ War: the Peace of Westphalia, for the first time, established a lasting coexistence of both denominations on German soil. Thus the first half of the 17th century represents an important chapter in German history that continues to have an effect, either through since then increasingly elaborative European diplomacy, or the coexistence and cooperation of the two great Christian denominations, but also through the federal structure of the German state. ARCHIVAL SOURCES Stadt Münster 1948: 300 Jahre Westfälischer Friede: Münster Gedenktag 24. Oktober 1948. Amtliches Programm, Stadtarchiv Münster Stadt-Dok Nr. 64. Tüns 1994: M. Tüns, Grußwort anläßlich der Unterzeichnung des Gesellschaftervertrages der Veranstaltungsgesellschaft ‟350 Jahre Westfälischer Friede” mbH, Stadtarchiv Münster OBM, Nr. 583–1, Rede der Oberbürgermeisterin Marion Tüns vom 27. Juni 1994. Stark 1896: L. Stark, Die Kinderzeche in Dinkelsbühl. Volksfest mit Festspiel, München 1896, Stadtarchiv Dinkelsbühl Kinderzechtext Sammlung Urkundenraum Metallbox.

50

For example Peters 2012.

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LITERATURE N. N. 1930: Dokumente zur Lebens- und Leidensgeschichte des Dieners Gottes Liborius Wagner, Pfarrers von Altenmünster, samt den Artikeln für dessen Seligsprechungsprozess, Würzburg 1930. N. N. 2013: Tausende Besucher, Memminger Zeitung (10. Dezember 2013). Arnold 1994: G. Arnold, Wegen der Kinder Schulzech: Die Dinkelsbühler Zechen in der Reichsstadtzeit, Dinkelsbühl 1994. Asche 2006: M. Asche, Neusiedler im verheerten Land: Kriegsfolgenbewältigung, Migrationssteuerung und Konfessionspolitik im Zeichen des Landeswiederaufbaus. Die Mark Brandenburg nach den Kriegen des 17. Jahrhunderts, Münster 2006. Balde 1729: J. Balde, Opera poetica omnia, München 1729. Bansbach 2014: M. Bansbach, Nationale und aristokratische Symbolik und Denkmalpolitik im 19. Jahrhundert: Ein deutsch-italienischer Vergleich, Frankfurt am M. 2014. Bartos-Höppner 1989: B. Bartos-Höppner, Das Friedensfest, München/Wien 1989. Barudio 1982: G. Barudio, Gustav Adolf – der Große. Eine politische Biographie, Frankfurt am M. 1982. Becher 1971: H.-R. Becher, Historische Volksschauspiele in Franken, Kulmbach 1971. Bentele 1997: G. Bentele, Wolfsjahre, Stuttgart-Wien 1997. Brecht 1993: B. Brecht, Gedichte. Gedichte und Gedichtfragmente 1913–1927, Berlin-Weimar/ Frankfurt am M. 1993. Busch 2005: A. Busch, ‟Ich komm von Münster her …” Eine Geschichte um Liebe und Verbrechen aus der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges, Münster 2005. Dittmar 1912: F. Dittmar, Wallenstein in Altdorf. Historisches Volksschauspiel in einem Hauptteil und einem Nachspiel, Altdorf bei Nürnberg 1912. Diwald 1969: H. Diwald, Wallenstein: Eine Biographie, München 1969. Duchhardt 1997: H. Duchhardt, Das Feiern des Friedens: Der Westfälische Friede im kollektiven Gedächtnis der Friedensstadt Münster, Münster 1997. Eickhoff/Grothe/Jungklaus 2012: S. Eickhoff / A. Grothe / B. Jungklaus (Hrsg.), 1636 – ihre letzte Schlacht. Leben im Dreißigjährigen Krieg, Stuttgart 2012. Fehrlen 2011: N. Fehrlen, Epoche des höchsten Nationenelends und zugleich glänzendster menschlicher Kraft – der Dreißigjährige Krieg bei Schiller: Chance oder Untergang für das Reich?, Tübingen 2011. Findeisen 1996: J.-P. Findeisen, Gustav II. Adolf von Schweden – der Eroberer aus dem Norden, Graz 1996. Fitschen 2007: K. Fitschen, ‟Der problematische Patron – Gustav-Adolf-Erinnerung im deutschen Protestantismus des 19. Jahrhunderts”, in M. Reichel / I. Schuberth (Hrsg.), Gustav Adolf König von Schweden: Die Kraft der Erinnerung 1632–2007, Dößel 2007, 137–44. Francke 1998: A. Francke (Hrsg.), ‟Vivat pax” – Es lebe der Friede! Eine Geschichte des Dreißigjährigen Krieges und des Westfälischen Friedens für junge Leser, Münster 1998. Granacher 2006: R. Granacher, Gustav Adolf. Das Musical, Riedstadt 2006. Grass 1979: G. Grass, Das Treffen in Telgte, eine Erzählung, Darmstadt 1979. Herzog 1998: R. Herzog, ‟Rede anlässlich des 350-jährigen Jubiläums des Westfälischen Friedens am 24. Oktober 1998”, in Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Hrsg.), Im Glanz des Friedens – Kunst und Könige in Westfalen. Rund um die 26. Europaratsausstellung 1648 Krieg und Frieden in Europa, Münster 1998, 21–26. Hölderlin 1995: F. Hölderlin, Sämtliche Werke, Frankfurter Ausgabe, Frankfurt am M. 1995. Hörber/Graschberger 1981: A. Hörber / T. Graschberger, Der Meistertrunk oder Tilly in Rothenburg. Historisches Festspiel von Adam Hörber. Uraufführung 1881, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1981. Junkelmann 2011: M. Junkelmann, Tilly. Der katholische Feldherr, Regensburg 2011. Kamp 1996: M. Kamp, Die Entdeckung Rothenburgs ob der Tauber im 19. Jahrhundert – Wunschbild und Wirklichkeit, Schillingsfürst 1996.

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Kehrer 1997: J. Kehrer, Tod im Friedenssaal. Eine Kriminalgeschichte aus der Zeit des Westfälischen Friedens, Münster 1997. Klaus 2008: A.-L. Klaus, Inszenierte Nation: das Nationaldenkmal im 19. Jahrhundert: Die Walhalla und das Hermannsdenkmal, Marburg 2008. Klopp 1861: O. Klopp, Tilly im Dreißigjährigen Kriege, Stuttgart 1861. Kreis Ostprignitz-Ruppin 1998: D. Kreis Ostprignitz-Ruppin (Hrsg.), Museum des Dreißigjährigen Krieges Wittstock/Dosse, Wittstock an der Dosse 1998. Lang 2001: W. Lang, Historische Feste in Bayern: Entstehung und Entwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Neuried 2001. Lentz 2011: L. Lentz, ‟Olof Palme in Stralsund. Vor 27 Jahren”, StraleSunth 1 (2011), 56–57. Mai/Schneider 1981: H. Mai / K. Schneider, Gustav-Adolf-Gedenkstätten in und bei Lützen: Die Stadtkirche St. Viti und die Gustav-Adolf-Gedenkstätte zu Lützen. Die Gustav-Adolf-Gedächtniskirche zu Meuchen bei Lützen, Das christliche Denkmal 115, Berlin 1981. Mann 1971: G. Mann, Wallenstein. Sein Leben erzählt von Golo Mann, Frankfurt am M. 1971. Mannigel 2003: H. Mannigel, Wallenstein in Weimar, Wien und Berlin: Das Urteil über Albrecht von Wallenstein in der deutschen Historiographie von Friedrich von Schiller bis Leopold von Ranke, Husum 2003. Mehler 1898: J. B. Mehler, Unsere Liebe Frau von Altötting – das National-Heiligtum Bayerns, Altötting 1898. Meller/Schefzik 2015: H. Meller / M. Schefzik (Hrsg.), Krieg – eine archäologische Spurensuche. Begleitband zur Sonderausstellung im Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle (Saale) 6. November 2015 bis 22. Mai 2016, Darmstadt 2015. Meyer 2014: L. Meyer, Reiten für den Frieden. Der Westfälische Friede 1648 für kleine Neunmalkluge, Bramsche 2014. Mitterwieser 1932: A. Mitterwieser, ‟Tillys Ableben und Begräbnisstätten”, Das Bayerland 43 (1932), 182–84. Mittig 1972: H.-E. Mittig, Denkmäler im 19. Jahrhundert: Deutung und Kritik, München 1972. Moritz 1991: G. Moritz, Rothenburg ob der Tauber im 19. Jahrhundert: Studien zur poltischen, wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und kulturellen Entwicklung einer ehemaligen Reichsstadt am Rande des Königreichs Bayern, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1991. Önnerfors 2004: A. Önnerfors, Schweden und Pommern, Stockholm 2004. Oredsson 1994: S. Oredsson, Geschichtsschreibung und Kult: Gustav Adolf, Schweden und der Dreißigjährige Krieg, Berlin 1994. Ott 1993: I. Ott, Verrat! Feinde und Freunde um Wallenstein, Stuttgart 1993. Peters 2012: J. Peters, Peter Hagendorf – Tagebuch eines Söldners aus dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg, Göttingen 2012. Pfeifer 2004: H. Pfeifer, Gesammelte Theaterstücke. Historisches, Thalhofen 2004. Recknagel 1994: H. Recknagel, ‟100 Jahre Wallenstein-Festspiele”, in Wallenstein-Festspielverein e. V. (Hsrg.), Wallenstein Festspiele Altdorf bei Nürnberg 1994. Programmheft, Altdorf bei Nürnberg 1994, 17–29. Reichel/Schuberth 2007: M. Reichel / I. Schuberth (Hrsg.), Gustav Adolf König von Schweden: Die Kraft der Erinnerung 1632–2007, Dößel 2007. Reichel 2009: M. Reichel, Gustav-Adolf-Gedenkstätte in Lützen und Weißenfels, Lützen 2009. Schiller 1949: F. Schiller, Wallenstein, Weimar 1949. Schiller 1976: F. Schiller, Geschichte des Dreissigjährigen Kriegs, Weimar 1976. Schuberth 2007: I. Schuberth, Lützen – på spaning efter ett minne, Stockholm 2007. Schuberth 2013: I. Schuberth, ‟Lützen als internationaler und regionaler Erinnerungsort”, in M. Řezník / K. Rosenbaum / J. Stübner (Hrsg.), Regionale Erinnerungsorte: Böhmische Länder und Mitteldeutschland im europäischen Kontext, Leipzig/Berlin 2013, 151–67. Soder von Güldenstubbe 2008: E. Soder von Güldenstubbe, ‟Zur Seligsprechung von Liborius Wagner. Anmerkungen eines katholischen Kirchenhistorikers”, Zeitschrift für Bayerische Kirchengeschichte 77 (2008), 197–221.

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Spohr 2011: S. Spohr, Das deutsche Denkmal und der Nationalgedanke im 19. Jahrhundert, Weimar 2011. Tacke 1995: C. Tacke, Denkmal im sozialen Raum: nationale Symbole in Deutschland und Frankreich im 19. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 1995. Von Hippel 2009: W. Von Hippel, Das Herzogtum Württemberg zur Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges im Spiegel von Steuer- und Kriegsschadensberichten 1629–1655: Materialien zur historischen Statistik Südwestdeutschlands, Stuttgart 2009. Vornehm 2011: P. Vornehm, ‟Die Tilly-Gruft – nicht immer ein Ort der Einsamkeit der letzten Ruhe. – Was dem toten Tilly im Laufe der Jahrhunderte so alles widerfuhr”, Oettinger Land. Altötting 31 (2011), 180–211. Wald 2008: M. C. Wald, Die Gesichter der Streitenden. Erzählung, Drama und Diskurs des Dreißigjährigen Krieges 1830 bis 1993, Göttingen 2008. Ziegler 2012: P. Ziegler, Betʼ Kindlein betʼ, morgen kommt der Schwed, Norderstedt 2012.

NATION BUILDING THROUGH COMMEMORATION: STALINISM, WWII, AND HOLOCAUST MEMORIALS IN POST-SOVIET UKRAINE Simone A. Bellezza A WAR OF MONUMENTS IN PROGRESS1 Although increasingly ignored by the Western media, Ukraine is still being lacerated by a bloody war in its Eastern regions, where the Moscow-backed puppet regimes of the so-called “Popular Republics” are opposing the regular troops of the Ukrainian army. The causes of this conflict are numerous and have much less to do with tension between Ukrainian and Russian speakers than with economic interests and the competition between Russia and the EU to increase their respective spheres of influence.2 The newly independent Ukraine, post 1991, has adopted stances on the international stage that have been greatly influenced by the way in which its politicians and intellectuals have interpreted the Soviet inheritance.3 Over the last fifteen years, the Ukrainian political debate has been increasingly dominated by controversies about the significance of past events for present national self-consciousness; historians have often been very happy to play important roles in many of these debates.4 The symbolism of the current conflict clearly demonstrates the relevance of the interpretation of the pasts of both the Soviet Union and its opponents to the present: pro-Russian forces wear the St. George’s strip, the most emblematic object of the anti-Nazi campaign, thus explicitly presenting themselves as the successors of the troops who defeated Hitler during World War Two. The Ukrainian government, which was unwilling to allow the memory of the war against Nazi Germany to be monopolized by Putin’s supporters, was forced to fabricate a new object, a new pin to celebrate the war of liberation during WWII: the director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory decided to reemploy the British red remembrance poppy. Although the poppy is actually a symbol of the First World War, in 2015 an intensive advertising campaign invited Ukrainians to wear the

1 2 3 4

The expression is used here with the meaning of the classic case of the Estonian war of monuments, see Brüggeman/Kasekamp 2008. Since the outbreak of the Euromaidan, the numbers of publications in Ukrainian studies have increased dramatically and cannot all be listed here; some basic readings can be found in Wilson 2014, Dragneva/Wolczuk 2015, and Yekelchyk 2015. On the significance of the Soviet inheritance to the subsequent development of Eastern Europe, see Beissinger/Kotkin 2014. On historians as “public intellectuals” see Sklokin 2014.

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poppy for the Second World War celebrations, in the hope of freeing Ukrainian public memory from the Kremlin’s influence. This is the outcome of at least fifteen years of ‘battles of memory’ in Ukrainian public opinion and political debate, which have characterized the protagonists in Twentieth century Ukrainian history as either ‘heroes’ or ‘villains’, as David Marples has admirably demonstrated.5 This conflict over the representations of the past has also involved monuments and the construction of public space: demolishing monuments to Lenin and other Soviet personalities became a common practice in the protests of 2013–2014 (it was even given a name, “Leninopad”, the “Fall of Lenins”). Later, in April 2015, the Ukrainian parliament, once again urged on by the Director of the Institute of National Memory, the controversial Volodymyr Viatrovych, approved a set of laws called De-Communization Laws. These new norms included orders to destroy all monuments to Communist leaders, and all other symbols of the Communist regime located in public spaces.6 Although slow, the process of erasing the Soviet inheritance from the Ukrainian landscape and public spaces – demolishing statues and renaming streets and cities – has been persistent. Historians and political scientists agree that post-Soviet Ukraine had no clear politics of memory until 2004: under the first two presidents, Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, the political debate was mainly focused on economic issues, due to the crisis following the introduction of the free market economy. This situation changed radically during the 2004 presidential election campaign: perhaps in reaction to Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to represent his opponent as a neo-Nazi, the head of the Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko, was the first President to implement a clear – if contested – politics of memory.7 Yushchenko established the Ukrainian Institute for National Memory and worked to create a new national identity built on the historical myth of the Holodomor, the man-made famine of 1932– 33. Since 2004 monument building has been one of the main battlefields of the Ukrainian political debate, but few attempts have been made to analyze this turning point from a long term perspective, linking the post-Soviet period to the Soviet legacy. In this essay I examine the four most important memorials in Ukraine: the Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, the Memorial of the Holocaust in Babi Yar, the Memorial of the Victims of Stalinist repressions in Bykivnia, and the Memorial of the Holodomor, in an attempt to better understand these dynamics. These are the four most important sites of memory in Ukraine, and each event is commemorated as a fundamental stage in the formation of the Ukrainian national identity, though the meaning of each commemoration has changed through 5 6 7

Marples 2007. On the Leninopad, see Prymachenko 2014, Kozyrska 2016, and Liubarets 2016; for an insightful, and wider, discussion of the meaning of the Laws, see Himka 2015. On this turning point, see Hrytsak 2011; the concept of “politics of memory” was first sketched by Halbwachs in 1950; after the reflections of Nora 1989, it became a very popular concept in both historical and sociological research; for an introduction to the particular context of post-Soviet Eastern Europe see Bernhard/Kubik 2014.

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time.8 The memorials are all located in Kyiv, were built from 1976 to 2008 and, with the exception of the Memorial of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, are now under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Institute for National Memory. The task of this essay will be to analyze these memorials by focusing on their visual representation of events: what occurrences are represented in the memorials? What is their meaning for Ukrainian identity? What tropes and rhetorical artifacts are used to illustrate Ukrainian history in these monuments? What has changed since the end of the Soviet period? Are Soviet monuments still meaningful for post-Soviet Ukraine and, if they are, how were they re-interpreted to fit into the new politics of memory? BREZHNEV’S LEGACY: THE ARTIFICIAL HEROISM OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR The construction of the National Museum of the Great Patriotic War (as World War Two was called in Soviet propaganda, echoing the Patriotic War against Napoleon) was completed in 1981; since this monumental park is one of the best examples of Brezhnev’s politics of memory, we will turn first to it, although it was built after the memorial at Babi Yar. It can be seen as a canon of Soviet monument building, and it will also deepen our understanding of the – unusual – Babi Yar memorial to the victims of Nazi persecution. The National Museum stands on the central hills of Kyiv, just beside the Monastery of the Caves, one of Orthodox Christianity’s holiest sites, and – prior to the construction of the Museum – the most eye-catching building in Kyiv. The Museum-Memorial was a key component of Brezhnev’s wider project to transform the Soviet victory in the Second World War into an integral part of the country’s identity: the construction of both the park, and a gigantic statue representing the Motherland, in the most significant area of the Ukrainian capital, was specifically intended to compare the importance of the war to one of the pivotal events of European history, the Christianization of the Slavs.9 However, the statue of the Motherland, which houses the museum in its pedestal, was at the center of a heated debate even during its construction: the engineers in charge of the project (designed by the sculptor Yevhen Vuchetych – who also designed Treptower Park) wrote to the Party complaining about its many ‘ideological’ mistakes: Adding to the existing buildings the above-mentioned figure is an enormous mistake and a manifestation of bad taste […] setting in place such a gigantic monument not only spoils the existing monuments, the nearby Monastery and the district of Vydubychi, but also entails a historical lie. Because the enemy, against which Kyiv’s huge Motherland raises its symbolic shield and sword, never came to the Ukrainian capital from East and Northeast, where the figure is going to look according to the plan. Neither the Kipchaks, nor the Pechenegs, nor the Mon-

8 9

For reasons of space, I have had to exclude the construction of monuments dedicated to Ukrainian partisans from my analysis, although these are equally revealing; on this topic see Yurchuk 2014. On the Soviet management of the myth of WWII see the classic Tumarkin 1994.

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In spite of these ideological uncertainties, the monument was erected according to plan and, although the statue’s ugliness was recognized, the Soviet leadership considered the memorial complex to have successfully achieved its objectives in terms of public perception and the effectiveness of its message.11 The reason for this success was, perhaps, the very fact that the complex is a typical example of Soviet rhetoric. It consists of a park with a paved path leading to the statue/museum. On the way, the path splits in two: to the right lies an outdoor museum of military equipment, to the left a tunnel containing some sculptural groups and the inscription: “Their great deeds will live forever, their names are immortal”. Although some statues depict the victims of the Nazi occupation, most of the sculptural groups represent the struggle for Soviet victory, including one dedicated to the classic theme of the workers’ contribution to the war. The last group of statues – in the middle of a small artificial lake – is the visual climax leading towards the triumph of the statue of the Motherland: a gigantic figure of a rather masculine woman carrying a sword. The meaning of the whole complex is clearly to celebrate a victory, and there is no – or only very little – room for the indulgence of mourning.12 The entire focus is on the men who accomplished a great deed: their struggle against, and defeat of, the fascist enemy. In accordance with the myth of the Great Patriotic War the complex celebrated the efforts of an apparently united nation. There is no mention of the Jews, or even of the enemy: the Germans. This rhetoric of victory is ubiquitous in Soviet monuments, resonating even in those that commemorate the victims of war, such as the Memorial built in 1976 at Babi Yar, a ravine where the Nazis killed at least 33,000 Jews in September 1941. The history of the construction of this memorial to the bloodiest massacre of Jews in Ukraine is long and complicated. During the war, Stalin decided to exploit the Soviet Jewish community, mainly as a tool of his international propaganda: in 1941 he founded the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, with the task of gathering and disseminating information about Jewish persecution under the Nazis. Immediately after the war, the new international situation and the creation of a pro-American Israel caused Stalin to revise his policy radically: the Soviet Union returned to its tradi10 11

12

Letter (undated) by the engineer D. Malakov to the Commission for the construction of the monument, Central State Archive of Supreme Bodies of Power and Government of Ukraine (hence TsDAVOV), fond 4760, opys 1, sprava 242, arkk. 54. Positive feedback was reported at the 1982 plenum of the Ukrainian Association for the Preservation of historical and cultural monuments of the city of Kyiv, from both the supervisor of the political education of soldiers in Ukraine, V. T. Dememnt’ev, and from the Associations of other cities, like L’viv: see the proceedings of the Plenum in TsDAVOV, fond 4760, opys 1, sprava 350, arkk. 56 and 80. Although this statue is a clear representation of the classic Soviet motherland, it is crucial to remember that it also embodied Ukraine as a part of Soviet Union; in the official iconography, moreover, Ukraine was usually represented as a woman, while Russia was a man.

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tional anti-Semitism and the regime’s fear of foreign influence meant that the Jewish community’s international contacts, which had flourished during the war, were condemned as “cosmopolitanism.” The official Soviet version of World War Two therefore did not permit any particular recognition of the Jews’ unique experience: all victims of the Nazi regime were defined as “peaceful Soviet citizens”, thus denying the memory (indeed the very occurrence) of the Holocaust.13 The censorship of the Holocaust was only relaxed during the Thaw, when – to cite the best known episode – the poem Babi Yar (1961) by Yevgeny Yevtushenko was published, and later included in Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony of the same name.14 Although many intellectuals requested a memorial at the site of the massacre, the Soviet authorities chose instead to turn it into a sand quarry. The first real attempt to commemorate the victims of Babi Yar at the actual site of the tragedy was a non-official public meeting organized jointly by the Soviet writer Viktor Nekrasov and representatives of Kyiv’s Jewish community: on 29 September 1966 a group of people gathered by the ravine and listened to a handful of speakers, including Nekrasov himself and the standard-bearer of Ukrainian cultural dissent, Ivan Dziuba. Dziuba made a powerful speech, directly addressing the question of the relationship between the Ukrainian and the Jewish people; the Babi Yar massacre, in his eyes, was a crime not just against the Jewish people, but against all of humanity: Babi Yar is the tragedy of the whole of mankind, but it took place on Ukrainian soil. And therefore a Ukrainian has no more right to forget about it than a Jew. Babi Yar is our mutual tragedy, a tragedy first of all of the Jewish and the Ukrainian people. This tragedy was brought to our people by Fascism. At the same time we must remember that Fascism did not start with Babi Yar and does not end with it. Fascism begins with disrespect of the individual and ends with the destruction of the individual, with the destruction of peoples – but not necessarily with the same type of destruction as in Babi Yar.15

Dziuba believed that Jews and Ukrainians were brother peoples because they shared a history of tragedy, whether perpetrated by the Nazis or the Soviets. Both the gathering itself and Dziuba’s speech were clearly anti-Soviet, and also supportive of the Soviet Jews, who were still discriminated against and denied their right to remember. It is worth noting here that, in characterizing Babi Yar as a “mutual tragedy,” Dziuba anticipated the decision to make the Babi Yar memorial a ‘choral’ monument, as we will see later. The gathering at Babi Yar, though ignored by the official press, was a success for the dissident intellectuals who participated in it, and the following year the meeting took place again with an even greater audience. As an independent political subject was now presenting the public with an alternative version of history, the Soviet authorities were forced to intervene to prevent any further politicization of the commemoration: instead of forbidding the gathering, the Communist Party cunningly decided to organize, and thus ‘institutionalize’, it. On 29 September 1968 the Soviet authorities erected a stage at the site and ensured 13 14 15

See Redlich 1995 and Rubenstein/Naumov 2001. On Yevtushenko’s case and on other similar episodes, like Anatoly Kuznetsov’s novel Babi Yar, see Gitelman 1990, 25–27. Dziuba 1969, 56.

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a large police presence; the speeches, given by people whom the Party had selected, repeated the official version of the massacre, with no mention of the Jews. Both dissidents and the Jewish community were thus silenced without recourse to violence.16 The final institutionalization of Babi Yar as a Soviet tragedy came in 1976, when an official monument was erected for the first time. Its construction was part of Brezhnev’s wider re-conceptualization of World War Two. The memorial indulged a triumphant rhetoric: although at the top of the monument a mother is crying over her child’s corpse, the figures in the foreground look proudly victorious. A supposed memorial to the victims of a tragic massacre had been transformed into a celebration of courage and self-confidence, commemorating the proud, fearless sacrifice of Soviet civilians in the war: the inscription made no mention of the Jews.17 These two memorials (and many others could be mentioned) give us a stark picture of the kind of historical memory the Soviet wanted to create and preserve: in Soviet art there was no room for grief, only great heroic deeds could be celebrated; these were presented as intermediate stages in the creation of the Communist future. FROM PERPETRATORS TO VICTIMS: POST-SOVIET SELECTIVE MEMORY This rhetoric of victory was completely rejected by post-Soviet Ukrainian society, which, with the fall of the Soviet Union, was confronted by a devastating economic crisis. After the debacle of Socialist ideology, Ukrainian politicians were looking for a new unifying principle: they found it in nationalist rhetoric. Perhaps unconsciously, these politicians were replicating the process occurring in post-Socialist Poland, which after 1989 presented itself as the victim of opposing totalitarianisms: this simplified version of history neatly avoided the question of Polish collaboration with either (Nazi or Communist) regime, thus absolving the Poles of any guilt.18 Since the post-Soviet Ukrainian state was presenting itself as a victim of Russian/Soviet imperialism, the first monuments erected after 1991 were dedicated to the victims of the Stalinist purges: historians had had no time to carry out research in the newly declassified Soviet archives and so the oppressed of 1937–38 emerged as the most obvious victims of Soviet violence. The monuments built in the 1990s were usually simple crosses with a dedicatory plaque, probably because this relatively inexpensive form was within the budget of the impoverished post-Soviet administration. One location, however, emerged as particularly significant: the village of Bykivnia, on the outskirts of Kyiv, was the site of an unmarked mass grave, 16 17 18

Memorandum of the meeting of 29 September 1968 to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Central State Archive of Public Organizations of Ukraine (hence TsDAHOU), fond 1, opys 1, sprava 180, arkk. 17–20. For details about the construction of the monument Gitelman 1994. On this model of memorialization and its crisis in the Polish case see Petrusewicz 2002.

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where the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) had allegedly killed around 200,000 people.19 This mass grave had a longer tradition of commemoration than did other sites. The dissidents of the Thaw at the beginning of the 1960s were the first to gather here, and to request that a memorial be constructed; their requests were completely rejected, and their gatherings forbidden.20 Then, during Perestroika, the local population of the village erected an unofficial monument; later, in 1994, a large memorial to the victims of Stalinism was inaugurated. Archeological surveys revealed that the grave contained many corpses of Polish officers who had been killed in the winter of 1939 (during the infamous Katyn massacre), and so the memorial was divided into two national sections, Ukrainian and Polish. The memorial is intended as a place of mourning, individual graves are interspersed with memorial walls and obelisks, which function as common gravestones for the Ukrainian and Polish opponents of Soviet power. The Polish section even includes an altar at which to celebrate memorial masses. Following the example of Bykivnia, memorials were constructed at the sites of other Soviet mass graves: the best known is Kharkiv, in Eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish victims are commemorated together, and the graves are marked by different religious symbols.21 Interestingly, in these first attempts at national memorials, Ukrainians decided to include other nationalities in the commemoration of the tragic events of Ukrainian history, as if sharing their grief with those whose tragedies were more widely known could corroborate the Ukrainian construction of memory. The memorial erected in 1993 for the sixtieth anniversary of the famine of 1933 was also surrounded by a lack of confidence: this tragedy had long been kept secret by the Soviet regime, and during the Cold War only a handful of historians and activists in the Ukrainian diaspora was aware of the dimension of the tragedy. After 1991researchers were finally able to ascertain the modalities and scale of this famine – ordered by Stalin – which caused the death of at least 3.5 million peasants in one year.22 In the early 1990s, however, the Soviet famines of the 1930s were still very little known in either the post-Soviet countries or the West: the decision to build a memorial to the victims therefore risked not being properly understood. The monument, by the artist Vasyl’ Pereval’s’kyi and the architect Mykola Kyslyi, was in the form of a cross with a mourning mother and a crucified child in it; it is now very famous and serves almost as a trademark, or logo, for initiatives related to the Holodomor. Soon after the monument was built, a few explicative panels, in both Ukrainian and English, were put up on the external wall of the monastery behind it: unlike the monuments to the victims of Stalin’s purges, the events of the Holodomor needed to be narrated and explained to the public. As research on the famine developed, some historians denied that it had targeted specifically the Ukrainian nation, sparking debate at both the scholarly and the political level, and also affect19 20 21 22

Kuzio 2000, 98–99. Taniuk 1996, 162–63. On the Kharkiv massacre Zavorotnov 2003. A good collection of studies on this subject is Klid/Motyl 2012.

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ing Ukrainian-Russian relations.23 The memory of Stalin’s crimes was accepted by the Ukrainian public, by scholars, and by the political consensus; the memorialization of the 1932–1933 famine, however, seemed much more problematic, this may well have been one of the reasons why no other monuments were dedicated to the Holodomor. In the first decade of its independence, post-Soviet Ukraine paid relatively little attention to the construction of a common historical memory: the political debate was focused on economic issues. Even the various commemorations of the victims of Stalinist repression were ad hoc initiatives; there was no overall framework or wider project for the formation of a unified national historical identity, other than Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko’s decision in 2001 to decree the memorial in Bykivnia a “State Memorial and Historical Preserve.” This institutionalization occurred less than a month before Pope John-Paul II’s visit to the site, and was therefore interpreted more as a gesture of political respect towards the Pope and his fellow countrymen, than as the first act of a defined political project. A few years later, the 2004 presidential campaign would reveal that the building of a national memorial could have direct consequences on the political struggle. THE HISTORICAL MISSION OF THE PRESIDENT Under Leonid Kuchma’s presidencies (1994–2004), corruption increasingly pervaded the country, with a small circle of oligarchs getting richer and richer at the expense of the whole nation. The oligarchs controlled the newspapers and almost all of the TV channels, and journalists who refused to bow to orders from above risked their lives: in 2000 the scandal of the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze hit President Kuchma. A tape was discovered of Kuchma ordering the journalist’s beheading. Viktor Yushchenko, former director of the Central Bank and briefly prime minister, emerged as the leader of the opposition; his campaign focused on fighting corruption and liberalizing the economy. After Yushchenko’s victory in the parliamentary elections of 2002, it was clear that the proposed reforms would dismantle the economic power and political system of the oligarchs led by Kuchma. Viktor Yanukovych, the current prime minister, with a crooked past,24 was Kuchma’s presidential nominee for the 2004 elections. Yanukovych came from Eastern Ukraine, where the Russian language and government through cronyism were both more widespread than in the west of the country; in collaboration with a small group of spin-doctors from Moscow, Yanukovych decided that the only way to counter the mounting campaign against corruption was a counter-campaign on the issues of the historical and linguistic differences between Eastern and Western Ukraine. Yanukovych began to paint the opposition as a group of neo-Fascists, proponents of extreme nationalism and receiving orders 23 24

On the historiographical debate, see Marples 2009; on the political denial on Russian part and its consequences for the relationship between Russia and Ukraine Khapaeva 2016. The best overview of Ukraine’s post-Soviet history is Kasianov 2008.

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from the President of the United States, George Bush; Yushchenko was dubbed “Bushist”, from “Bush” and “Fascist”. The peak of Yanukovych’s electoral campaign was Vladimir Putin’s presence at the celebrations for the anniversary of the victory of World War II, in Kyiv in May 2004: Yanukovych’s aim was to paint Yushchenko as a follower of Stepan Bandera – the Ukrainian nationalist who had sided with Hitler – and to convince the Russian-speaking part of the country that the victory of the opposition would lead to the creation of an ethnic state.25 The discovery of fraud in the second round of the presidential election in December 2004, the Orange Revolution and Yushchenko’s victory in the third round of the election seemed to have signaled Yanukovych’s defeat. He had, however, succeeded in splitting the country along a new linguistic and historical border. Contrary to the expectations of the Orange Revolution, and despite steady economic growth, the five years of Yushchenko’s presidency were largely a failure, due to the politicians’ inability to reform a country torn by the rivalry between the presidential administration and the four different governments. According to the historian Georgyi Kasianov, Yushchenko’s failure to implement his reforms convinced him that a new politics of memory was required, in order to build the popular consensus necessary to give him the authority to tame the oligarchs.26 While President, Yushchenko promoted – both at home and abroad – a campaign for the rediscovery and commemoration of the Holodomor. The famine orchestrated by Stalin in Ukraine through the requisitioning of agricultural produce was presented as a tool to weaken the Ukrainian peasant resistance to the colonization of Moscow: the official state interpretation of the events emphasized the fact that Russia, also subjected to forced collectivization in those years, suffered relatively few deaths, while between 3.5 and 5 million people died in Ukraine. Yushchenko promoted the memory of the Holodomor as a genocide of Ukrainians, and succeeded in having it recognized as such in various foreign countries (and by the European Parliament, in 2008); he also organized a new national rhetoric around the famine. The cornerstone of Yushchenko’s politics of memory was the construction of Holodomor memorials throughout the country: these memorials were to be the sites of the liturgy of a new national memory.27 In 2006 Yushchenko instituted the fourth Saturday of November as the day of remembrance of the Holodomor. In 2007 the commemoration took place over three days, in Kyiv’s central square, the Maidan Nezalezhnosti; in 2008 a new memorial was inaugurated in the capital. The new commemorative park was built on the hills overlooking the Dnipro, close to the Monastery of the Caves and the Museum of the Second World War. Once again Kyiv’s skyline was very obviously altered, once again the choice of site 25 26 27

On the language used in the presidential campaign see Polkovsky 2005; on myth-building Yatsunska 2005. Kasianov 2010. The importance given to the Holodomor as the central tragedy of Ukrainian history reflects the cultural heritage of the Ukrainian diaspora in America, where the first Holodomor memorial was built in 1950–1965 in South Bound Brook, New Jersey, in the form of the St. Andrew Memorial Church. Interestingly, Yushchenko’s wife, Kateryna Chumachenko, was a member of the Ukrainian diaspora in the USA. On the South Bound Brook Memorial, see Sysyn 2016.

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had a symbolic value, this time adding a third element to the existent monuments linked to two key events in the founding of national identity. At the entrance to the park, the statues of two praying angels kneeling on the dates 1932–1933 introduce visitors to an atmosphere of mourning. Just inside the entrance, the statue of a little girl stands in the middle of a circular lawn. The little girl is holding a few ears of wheat, clearly a reference to the infamous Soviet five ears law.28 The choice of a statue of a child is no coincidence: in the last ten years children have increasingly been used in iconography. Childhood has been culturally constituted as essentially vulnerable, children symbolize sentiment, our common hope for a better future: the use of children in monuments, and the representation of contrast between children’s expectations and the reality of their lives, thus has a strong impact. Nowadays children are seen as essentially helpless, politically powerless, the representation of their vulnerability implicitly refers to the actions of adults, who are supposed to take care of and protect them. The popularity of this imagery has led the historian of women and childhood Karel Dubinsky to propose a description of “How Babies Rule the World” in iconography.29 The helplessness of this little girl is underlined by the lack of an adult presence: in Soviet iconography adults were always represented as protectors of childhood, most famously, of course, Gelia Marzikova, the Mongolian girl held by Stalin, whose father was air brushed out of the picture because he was accused of spying for Japan. Stalin used to present himself as batiushka (daddy), and he posed as the father of all war orphans.30 Another typical depiction of the relationship between adults and children is the Soviet World War Two memorial in Treptower Park, in Berlin, where we find a Soviet soldier with a little girl in his arms. The vulnerability of helpless children has also been exploited to commemorate the Holocaust, as in the monument to the child victims of the Holocaust in Ramat Hashalon, in Tel Aviv, for example. The helpless child is a typical mode of expression for Holodomor memorials in Ukraine: in Vinnytsia, a statue of a starving child clutching some ears of wheat, erected in 2008, commemorates the Holodomor; in Kharkiv, again in 2008, a memorial was built; here, although adults are present, the children are used to portray the worst consequences of the famine. The symbolism of the little girl becomes all the more stark when compared to the statue of the Motherland, in which strong, self-confident women represent Soviet patriotism. This image is controverted by the rhetoric of hunger, by the little girl who embodies another version of life under Soviet rule. Beyond the statue of the girl, on the edge of the hill, stands a tower in the shape of what is clearly a funerary candle. As mentioned above, Yushchenko made the Holodomor Remembrance Day a national day of mourning: during the ceremony, the President, and the general public, visit the memorial and light candles to honor the victims. It is then possible to go down a stairway inside the base of the candle, and visit the Museum of the Holodomor. Going underground is an obvious meta28 29 30

According to this law, any peasant found in possession of more than five ears of wheat after the harvest could be sentenced to death. Dubinsky 2012. On the visual culture of Stalinism see Piretto 2010.

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phor for the descensio ad inferos (descent into the underworld). The interior of the museum is a single, dark, circular room, with pictures and videos about the Holodomor projected onto the walls. Most importantly, however, National Book of Memory, published in 2008, is conserved here: its volumes contain the names of all the identified victims of the Holodomor and are similar to a Jewish canon of memory. As James Young, the renowned historian of Holocaust memorials, has demonstrated, the first form of Holocaust memory in Jewish culture was the drafting of memorial books, Yizkor Bikher in Hebrew, containing the names of the victims.31 Finally, coming out of the museum, on the slope of the hill, the names of the villages affected by the famine are engraved on the walls of a series of terraces, recalling many other such monuments, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, for instance. The Holodomor memorial in Kyiv represents a much more evolved and complex conception of the memorial as a site of national mourning than the memorial in Bykivnia. Our analyses reveal that the quantity and intricacy of the rhetorical artifices deployed at this site testify to a clear political will to exploit the famine as a ‘Ukrainian holocaust’: this tendency has been noted in many other Central-Eastern European countries, which have exploited powerful shared tragedies in their building of national identity.32 TOO MANY HOLOCAUSTS? Although otherwise disastrous, Yushchenko’s presidency seems to have succeeded in institutionalizing the Holodomor as the Ukrainian national holocaust. Even his successor, Yanukovych, who exploited the question of the country’s alleged divisions for his own political goals, was unable to stifle the Holodomor commemorations, which remained on the official calendar and, after the Euromaidan revolution, again became the central focus of celebration of Ukrainian identity. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Jewish Holocaust memorial in Babi Yar went through a singular process of modifications. In 1991 the Jewish community was finally able to commemorate the massacre properly: they built a monument in the form of a menorah. The commemorative park, however, then saw the addition of: a monument to the Ukrainian Nationalist Partisans (1992), to two Orthodox priest killed by the Nazis (2000), to the children killed by Nazis (2001), another to the Jews (2001), to the Ukrainians who died in Nazi labor camps (2005), to the victims of the 1961 flood (2006), to the Ukrainian nationalist partisan Tania Markus (2009), and, lastly, to the Romani persecuted during World War Two (2016, although a previous – unofficial – monument to Romani victims had been built around 2008). This proliferation of monuments has transformed Babi Yar into a site of choral mourning for many different elements, and periods, of Ukrainian history. This has meant that, despite the formal preeminence given to the Jewish victims, 31 32

Young 1993, 7–8. Finkel 2010.

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the memory of the events of September 1941 as a part of the Nazi persecution of European Jewry still struggles to find a proper place in both the individual and the collective Ukrainian historical memory.33 After the Euromaidan revolution, the revitalized Ukrainian Institute of National Memory officially changed the name of the “National Museum of the Great Patriotic War” to the “National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War” as part of the policy to ‘de-communize’ Ukrainian public space and toponyms. Meanwhile, a Museum of the Dignity Revolution (as the Euromaidan is officially known) has been instituted and money is being raised to transform the central Independence Square into a memorial to the Maidan. As Brezhnev and Yushchenko have demonstrated, the transformation of public spaces into sites of memory intended to create a sense of identification with greater political subjects can be quite successful, and contemporary politicians see no reason why they should not continue to use memorials to influence people’s feelings and behaviors. Beissinger/Kotkin 2014: M. Beissinger / S. Kotkin (eds.), Historical Legacies of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, Cambridge 2014. Bernhard/Kubik 2014: M. Bernhard / J. Kubik, A Theory of the Politics of Memory, in M. Bernhard / J. Kubik (eds.), Twenty Years after Communism: The Politics of Memory and Commemoration, Oxford 2014, 7–31. Brüggeman/Kasekamp 2008: K. Brüggeman / A. Kasekamp, “The Politics of History and the ‘War of Monuments’ in Estonia”, Nationalities Papers 36 (2008), 425–48. Burakovskiy 2011: A. Burakovskiy, “Holocaust Remembrance in Ukraine: Memorialization of the Jewish Tragedy at Babi Yar”, Nationalisties Papers 39 (2011), 371–89. Dragneva/Wolczuk 2015: R. Dragneva / K. Wolczuk, Ukraine between the EU and Russia: The Integration Challenge, Basingstoke-New York 2015. Dubinsky 2012: K. Dubinsky, “Children, Ideology, and Iconography: How Babies Rule the World”, The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 5 (2012), 5–13. Dziuba 1969: I. Dziuba, “Babyn Yar Continues”, in S. Stetsko (ed.), Revolutionary Voices: Ukrainian Political Prisoners Condemn Russian Colonialism, Munich 1969. Finkel 2010: E. Finkel, “In Search of Lost Genocide: Historical Policy and International Politics in Post-1989 Eastern Europe”, Global Society 24 (2010), 51–70. Gitelman 1990: Z. Gitelman, “History, Memory and Politics: The Holocaust in the Soviet Union”, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 5 (1990), 23–37. Gitelman 1994: Z. Gitelman, “The Soviet Politics of the Holocaust”, in J. B. Young (ed.), The Art of Memory. Holocaust Memorials in History, New York 1994, 139–47. Halbwachs 1950: M. Halbwachs, La mémoire collective, Paris 1950. Himka 2015: J.-P. Himka, “Legislating Historical Truth: Ukraine’s Laws of 9 April 2015”, blog of the journal Ab Imperio, 21 April 2015. Hrytsak 2011: Ya. Hrytsak, “Istoriia i pam’iat’: amnesiia, ambivalentnist’, aktyvizatsiia”, in A. Kappeler (ed.), Ukraïna: protsesy natsiotvorennia, Kyïv 2011, 365–80. Kasianov 2008: H. Kasianov, Ukraïna 1991–2007. Narysy novitnoï istoriï, Kyiv 2008. Kasianov 2010: G. Kasianov, “The Holodomor and the Building of a Nation”, Russian Politics and Law 48 (2010), 25–47. Khapaeva 2016: D. Khapaeva, “Triumphant Memory of the Perpetrators: Putin’s Politics of Re-Stalinization”, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 49 (2016), 61–73. 33

See Burakovskiy 2011.

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Klid/Motyl 2012: B. Klid / A. Motyl (eds.), The Holodomor Reader: A Sourcebook on the Famine of 1932–33 in Ukraine, Toronto 2012. Kozyrska 2016: A. Kozyrska, “Decommunisation of the Public Space in Post-Euromaidan Ukraine”, Polish Political Science Yearbook 45 (2016), 130–44. Kuzio 2000: T. Kuzio, Ukraine:Perestroika to Independence, London 2000. Liubarets 2016: A. Liubarets, “The Politics of Memory in Ukraine in 2014: Removal of the Soviet Cultural Legacy and Euromaidan Commemorations”, Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal 3 (2016), 197–214. Marples 2007: D. R. Marples, Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine, Budapest/New York 2007. Marples 2009: D. R. Marples, “Ethnic Issues in the Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine”, Europe – Asia Studies 61 (2009), 505–18. Nora 1989: P. Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire”, Representations 26 (1989), 7–25. Petrusewicz 2002: M. Petrusewicz, “Fine della Polonia innocente. Analisi di un dibattito”, Passato e Presente 56 (2002), 153–66. Piretto 2010: G. P. Piretto, Gli occhi di Stalin. La cultura visuale sovietica nell’era staliniana, Milano 2010. Polkovsky 2005: V. Polkovsky, “The Language of the Presidential Campaign in Ukraine”, Canadian Slavonic Papers 47 (2005), 317–31. Prymachenko 2014: Ya. Prymachenko, “Antykolonial’nyi dyskurs OUN/UPA v suchasnomu ukraïns’komu konteksti borot’by za yevropeis’ku identychnist’”, Ukraïns’kyi Istorychnyi Zbirnyk 17 (2014), 328–38. Redlich 1995: S. Redlich, War, Holocaust and Stalinism: A Documented Study of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR, Luxemburg 1995. Rubenstein/Naumov 2001: J. Rubenstein / V. P. Naumov (eds.), Stalin’s Secret Pogrom: The PostWar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, New Haven 2001. Sklokin 2014: V. Sklokin, “Turning Public: Historians and Public Intellectual Activity in Post-Soviet Ukraine”, Krytyka 17 (2014), 30–37. Sysyn 2016: F. Sysysn, The Ukrainian Orthodox Church: Memory and Memorialization of the Holodomor, paper delivered at the Seminar in Ukrainian Studies of Columbia University, 26 April 2016, http://holodomor.ca/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/boundbrook.pdf (last view 28 February 2017). Taniuk 1996: L. Taniuk, “Vbytyi talant”, in O. Zarets’kyi-M. Marychevs’kyi (eds.), Alla Hors’ka. Chervona tin’ kalyny, Kyïv 1996, 160–71. Tumarkin 1994: N. Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead. The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia, New York 1994. Wilson 2014: A. Wilson, Ukraine Crisis. What It Means for the West, New Haven-London 2014. Yatsunska 2005: O. Yatsunska, “Image Myth in the 2004 Ukrainian Presidential Election Campaign”, Canadian Slavonic Papers 47 (2005), 333–60. Yekelchyk 2015: S. Yekelchyk, The Conflict in Ukraine. What Everyone Needs to Know, Oxford 2015. Young 1993: J. E. Young, The Texture of Memory. Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, New Haven-London 1993. Yurchuk 2014: Y. Yurchuk, Reordering of Meaningful Worlds: Memory of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Post-Soviet Ukraine, Stockholm 2014. Zavorotnov 2003: S. M. Zavorotnov, Char’kovskaja “Katyn’”, Char’kov 2003.

SECTION II WAR DEAD: FROM CITIZENS TO SYMBOLS

COURAGE IN WAR AND THE COURAGE OF THE WAR DEAD – ANCIENT AND MODERN REFLECTIONS* Mirko Canevaro The coverage of this volume shows how certain key themes are recurrent in the commemoration of war and the war dead across time and space, but also how wide the range of discursive variation on these themes is – war commemoration is used to build identity, cohesion, but also to buttress particular positions on the political issues of the moment.1 The UK, for instance, has been now through almost three years of commemorations of the First World War. In these commemorations, one can discern the survival of a heroic narrative, which is coloured by later events and entangled with the political issues of the day – thus the narrative of the heroic resistance of a unified Britain against the forces of evil has strong Unionist undertones, which speak to the issue of Scottish independence.2 A key element of such narratives is the insistence on the theme of ‘courage’, constructed, negotiated and cast in different lights depending on various discursive needs.3 My contention is that disentangling the theme of courage, because of its centrality in war commemoration, is a key tool for understanding the fault lines of the relevant discourses, and the ideological and political dynamics behind them. My case study is ancient Greece – the discourse of courage in Athenian war commemoration in particular – but in order to isolate the most problematic aspects of our current conceptualisation of courage, coloured by our normative concerns, I want to start far away in time and place, namely from Clint Eastwood’s film American Sniper (2014), based on the autobiography of Chris Kyle, the deadliest marksman in U. S. military history, with 255 kills from four tours in the Iraq War.4 In his *

1 2

3 4

I would like to thank Elena Franchi, Giorgia Proietti and Maurizio Giangiulio for the invitation to Trento and for their work on the volume, David Konstan for a preliminary conversation, for key bibliographical suggestions, and for reading through an advanced draft, and David Lewis and Lilah Grace Canevaro for their invaluable feedback. I would like to acknowledge the support provided by the Leverhulme Trust, through a Philip Leverhulme Prize, for the preparation of this chapter. See intr. and passim. E. g. Arnold-de-Simine 2015, and the comments of Simon Jenkins in the Guardian (04/08/2014: http://gu.com/p/4vfd6/sbl) on the scale of the commemorations. For commemorations of WWI throughout the twentieth century, in the context of the so-called ‘memory boom’, see Winter 2006. On the modern politics of war commemoration see e. g. Ashplant/ Dawson/Roper 2000. For an illuminating cross-temporal and cross-cultural reflection on the cultural construction of courage, see Miller 2000. Kyle 2012.

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autobiography, Kyle makes statements of this sort: “Savage, despicable, evil … That’s what we were fighting in Iraq … People ask me all the time, “How many people have you killed?” … The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives”. The film caused quite a stir, with American pundit and comedian Bill Maher denying Kyle the status of hero and labelling him a “psychopath patriot” – what kind of man, he wondered, boasts of killing safely from a distance 255 human beings? And does that take real courage?5 An American blogger, William Grigg, commenting on the book, and as a representative of a common perspective, entitled a post “The Pseudo-Courage of Chris Kyle”, questioning Kyle’s courage on the grounds, first, that it doesn’t take much courage to kill people, often women and children, with a sniper rifle safely from a distance. Second, “Kyle not only failed to display genuine courage in Iraq, but was incapable of recognizing it when it was exhibited by desperate patriots seeking to evict the armed foreigners who had invaded and occupied their country”. On the other side of the fence, a commentator (summarizing usual arguments on that side), maintained that “we (at a safe and almost anonymous distance) are here cussing and insulting him and other military who sacrifice their lives … for our country, rights, and liberty”.6 This whole debate is a re-edition of that occurred in the U. S. after 9/11. We all remember George W. Bush’s words on the day of the attack: “Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. And freedom will be defended”. This and similar statements were the occasion for Susan Sontag’s famous – for some infamous – column of the 24th of September in The New Yorker.7 Sontag controversially claimed that it is intellectually dishonest to label the terrorists as ‘cowards’ – they faced death to complete their mission, for what they believed to be a worthy objective. In fact, she argued, pilots who drop bombs on powerless enemies from the safety of altitudes might more reasonably be considered ‘cowardly’, and are certainly as, or more, ‘faceless’. Sontag’s wider point was not new: against Aristotle, many moral philosophers maintain that ‘courage’ is in fact “a morally neutral virtue”, which can be applied to whatever ends, regardless of whether these ends are positive or negative. Therefore, this line of argument goes, ‘courage’ is not a moral virtue at all – because “vicious scoundrels, murderers, terrorists may be brave” – but rather a faculty, an enabling capacity that does not depend on objective facts and positive moral normative contents, as a virtue should. According to this line of thought, ‘courage’ and ‘cowardice’ are meaningless concepts – ideological

5 6 7

See the report on the Huffington Post (24/01/2015: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/24/ bill-maher-american-sniper_n_6537880.html), with the video. The blog post was published on 05/02/2016: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/ pseudo-courage-of-chris-kyle.html. “Tuesday, and After”, The New Yorker (24/09/2001: http://www.newyorker.com/maga zine/2001/09/24/tuesday-and-after-talk-of-the-town). For other discussions of the Sontag case by Greek historians, see Rosen/Sluiter 2003, 1–2; Balot 2004, 74–79.

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weapons to wield against the enemy, applicable to more or less any act, serving wider rhetorical concerns.8 The answer of much Western, or at least English-speaking, political science has been to counter that there exist radically different kinds of courage, and that a model of ‘deliberative’ courage can be delineated that does not depend on primitive notions of violence, honour and shame, but on calm and rational deliberation about worthy ends and the correct actions to achieve them. This is a positive form of courage, but can be achieved and maintained only in Western, liberal-democratic societies in which the individual has room and instruments to deliberate rationally about ends and means.9 I shall come back to this position, because it is the position of Ryan Balot’s recent book Courage in Democratic Athens, where he attributes this distinctive form of courage to Athenian democracy. For the time being, it suffices to note that what this strategy does, fundamentally, is give intellectual respectability to Kyle’s basic assumption that the enemy, the Iraqis, the others, are incapable of true courage because they lack the institutional environment necessary to foster rational deliberation. They cannot be courageous because they are ‘savages’. Moreover, one cannot help but notice that such theories are rather self-serving: it is hardly a surprise that academics, spending their lives at their desks thinking about this or that subject, should conclude that courage is only possible for, and available to, those, like them, whose central activity is rational deliberation.10 Upon closer inspection, it is easy to see that what we are discussing are not radically different kinds of courage. Take Bush’s famous remark: “Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward”. Why is the enemy a coward? Because we are talking about terrorists, aiming to destroy freedom and democracy, of course, but also because they are ‘faceless’. Sontag’s counterclaim, to which we may well imagine Al-Qaeda and Daesh militants would subscribe, is that these people sacrificed life and limb for what they believed in, while American pilots drop bombs from up high, facelessly, without running risks. Both counterclaims seem to rely on a shared understanding of ‘courage’ – acting towards what one believes to be a noble end openly and in defiance of risks for one’s safety. Likewise, in the quarrel about Chris Kyle, the irreconcilable differences run along the lines of the same shared understanding: Kyle’s defenders argue that he did what he did “for our country, rights, and liberty” and to save “American lives” – noble ends indeed. His detractors question his ends – his very understanding of what constitutes a no8 9

10

See e. g. Von Wright 1963; Wallace 1978; Cunningham 1985; Walton 1986; Kateb 2004; Pears 2004. The quotes are from Sontag’s article (see previous note). See e. g. Yearley 1990, 127; cf. Wallace 1978; Casey 1990; Walton 1986; Bauhn 2003. This is the line of thought that underpins Balot’s (2004a; 2004b; 2014) discussion of Athenian democratic courage (see below). Avramenko 2011 criticises the “modern, Western obsession with autonomy and rationality” and surveys different kinds of courage, from a radically historicist perspective (his interpretation of Periclean courage sees it as “courage that aims at democratic leisure”, p. 91), advocating finally a non belligerent kind of courage founded on communities of care, which he considers more appropriate for our age – the implication is still that a modern democratic society requires a distinctive kind of courage. For incisive criticism of this line of thought see Miller 2000, 10 (cf. pp. 155–67).

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ble end – and maintain that whatever may demand one to kill singlehandedly 255 people does not qualify as a noble end. They moreover question the amount of risk he actually run – he was a sniper, firing safely from afar, ‘faceless’ to his victims. Again, the counterargument runs along the same lines: “we (at a safe and almost anonymous distance)” have no right to criticize. Like Laches in the homonymous Platonic dialogue (180A7–B4, 188C6–D2, 188E5–189A1), this commentator feels that only those who have proven themselves to be courageous can talk about courage. These views, which theorists would describe as radically different, seem in fact to be based on a common basic understanding of courage, which appears to be shared by people with different and even antithetical conceptions, and despite different assessments of particular acts. Psychological research in this area is not extensive, but a recent study in the Journal of Positive Psychology on “Implicit theories of courage” confirms the contention that some fundamental features compose an ‘implicit theory of courage’ common to most people and conceptions, and that people show an uncanny ability to assess acts according to these criteria: 1) intentionality/deliberation, 2) noble good, 3) known substantial risk, 4) fear.11 The disagreements are not really about what courage actually is (or about whether it is a good thing), but about whether a particular goal is a noble good, whether the deliberation that led to the choice of that goal and of the means to achieve it was satisfactory, whether the risk incurred was substantial, and whether the agent was aware of the risk (s)he was taking. It also appears that (rational) deliberation is not a specific feature of a distinctive form of courage, typical of democracies, but rather a fundamental feature of a shared conceptualization of the complex psychological process that we call ‘courage’. Similar dynamics are at play in the ancient Greek material, as early as the Homeric poems. Courage in all its semantic manifestations – ἀρετή, ἀλκή, incitations to be an ἀνήρ in Homer, later ἀνδρεία and εὐψυχία – has for the most part a martial setting, and normally involves αἰδώς or αἰσχύνη, ‘shame’ before oneself, one’s peers, family, and ancestors.12 Famously, Hector addresses Andromache with the words:13 […] yet I would feel deep shame before the Trojans, and the Trojan women with trailing garments, if like a coward I were to shrink aside from the fighting; and the spirit will not let me, since I have learned to be valiant and to fight always among the foremost ranks of the Trojans, winning for my own self great glory, and for my father. (Hom. Il. 6.441–446; trans. Lattimore)

Cowardice is staying away from battle, and the opposite, the ‘noble’ and courageous behaviour, is to fight in the first line with one’s peers. The emotional motor 11 12 13

Rate et al. 2007. For other recent investigations of courage in psychology, see e. g. Lopez/ O’Byrne/Peterson 2003; Peterson/Seligman 2004; Peterson 2006; Snyder/Lopez 2007; Pury/Lopez 2010. For the terminology of courage, see Bassi 2003; Balot 2004a, 407–408; Pritchard 2013, 183 n. 113. Cf. Hom. Il. 22.300–305. See Graziosi/Haubold 2010, 44–47, 205–207 for the encounter between Hector and Andromache. These lines have been read as a statement of what scholars term ‘the heroic code’. For good recent discussions see van Wees 1992, 69–72; Cairns 1993, 48–146; 2011, 29–38; Scodel 2008, 1–32.

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of such courageous behaviour is αἰδώς, which underpins the community’s expectations on Hector, as well as Hector’s own expectations, to live up to the standards of behaviour for such a man as he is, with such an ancestry and such an education.14 Hector expresses this more fully when he blames Paris for shirking his duty:15 But Hektor saw him, and in words of shame he rebuked him: ‘Strange man! It is not fair to keep in your heart this coldness. The people are dying around the city and around the steep wall they fight hard; and it is for you that this war with its clamour flared up about our city. You yourself would fight with another whom you saw anywhere hanging back from the hateful encounter. Up then, to keep our town from burning at once in the hot fire.’ (Hom. Il. 6.325–31; trans. Lattimore)

Paris should be ashamed of his behaviour, which is cowardly because it involves staying away from the battle and the first line. And shame should move him to do what is right – fight together with those that are dying defending Troy – because Paris knows his duty, that the goal of saving Troy is worthwhile, and normally he himself applies these same standards when judging others. These examples clarify what the meaning is when a Homeric hero like Nestor shouts to the Achaeans: “Dear friends, be men; let shame be in your hearts and discipline in the sight of other men, and each one of you remember his children and his wife, his property and his parents, whether a man’s father and mother live or have died” (15.661, trans. Lattimore; cf. 5.529–32, 6.111–5). He is asking them to feel αἰδώς and be moved by it to abide by a ‘courageous’ code of conduct that is socially enforced (“in the sight of other men”) but also fully internalized and required of them given their families, property, position and status.16 αἰδώς is not simply external sanction – it involves deliberation about one’s duties, goals and means in the light of the internalized code of conduct, which can, if necessary, be rationally justified: fighting in the first line is right because the city, obviously, must not burn, and therefore must be defended.17 The ‘courage’ we find in Homer has to do with facing danger by fighting side by side with one’s peers, but already includes strong elements of deliberation (Hector is after all discussing with Andromache what is the best course of action, and Paris with Hector – αἰδώς itself involves deliberation on what is shameful and honourable) as well as a requirement that the end towards which one acts courageously be a worthy one. There is no reason to deny a deliberative component to Homeric courage, and this model is shared, with the same features, by most archaic and Classical accounts. Alcaeus, for example, states: “Let us not shame through our cowardice [καὶ μὴ καταισχύνωμεν [ἀνανδρίᾳ]] our noble fathers lying under the earth” (fr. 6.13–4), 14

15 16 17

Graziosi/Haubold 2010, 205 stress that “these are all conventional motivations for fighting”, but that Hector’s presentation is characteristic of his sense of duty and responsibility towards the community (cf. Redfield 1994, 119 who describes him as the “hero of αἰδώς”). He is the quintessential honourable man, who feels αἰδώς and has fully internalised its demands (Cairns 1993, 79–83). See for this exchange, and Hector’s neikos, Cairns 1993, 76–77; Graziosi/Haubold 2010, 41–44, 169–71. Cairns 1993, 69–70. IbId. 139–46; 2011, 30–31.

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and Callinus blames the young men of his polis with the words: “How long will you lie there? When will you take a spirit [θυμός] of courage, young men? Have you no shame [οὐδ᾿ αἰδεῖσθ᾿] before your neighbours to hold back so? You think you are at peace, but war holds the entire country” (fr. 1.1–4). For the young men, to do their duty is the right and rational thing – “war grips the whole land”! – and their cowardice is due to bad thinking, which should be corrected by ‘shame’.18 This rational, cognitive and deliberative dimension of courage is therefore underpinned, already in Homer and in archaic poetry, by the explicitly recognised cognitive and deliberative dimension of shame. No simple opposition can be drawn between courage allegedly founded on fear of external sanction, emerging therefore out of concern with honour and shame (interpreted as primitive values typical of ‘Mediterranean’ societies),19 and democratic courage that is independent of honour and shame, built on different values and emotional drives, be it rational deliberation, as in contemporary self-congratulatory accounts20 or particular ‘cares’, founded on specific “communities of care”, as in Avramenko’s account.21 In fact, pioneering studies on shame (and emotions in general) show that the Homeric representation of shame is not idiosyncratic – emotions (and shame specifically) have in all times and places a strong cognitive and evaluative component, they involve judgements, convictions and their instinctive negotiation.22 And the few Homeric passages discussed are sufficient to show that in the Homeric poems shame, as a motivation for courage, is not antithetical to rational deliberation, but is understood as introducing a strong deliberative component to courageous behaviour. Balot is aware of this, and therefore avoids drawing naïve distinctions between Homeric, Archaic and Spartan courage (based on shame and honour) and Athenian, democratic courage, concerned exclusively with rational deliberation.23 Using the funeral speeches as his primary evidence, he admits that “at first glance, at least, the shame evoked by [the Athenian] epitaphic speeches is similar to the shame utilized by many non-democratic states in order to inspire courage”. He knows that he cannot isolate a distinctive kind of democratic courage on the basis on the absence of shame. But he reintroduces the usual distinction, as it were, by the backdoor, by postulating different forms of shame, underpinning different forms of courage. He identifies in the Athenian authors a distinctive view of shame as “an intellectually complex emo18 19 20

21 22 23

Cairns 1993, 160–61. Cairns 2011, 23 outlines this outdated and flawed conception of honour allegedly typical of Mediterrenean ‘honour societies’. Notable examples of this understanding are Peristiany 1965; Bourdieu 1965; Gilmore 1987; Walcot 1970; Miller 1990, 29–34; Bowman 2006. See above n. 9. Cf. for such approaches applied to Athens vis-à-vis Sparta e. g. Forsdyke 2001, 348 and Millender 2002. Saïd 1980–1981, 109 also stresses the continuity between the courage of epic poetry and the courage of Marathon and Thermopylae, which are not ‘intellectual’ forms. Contra Miller 2000, 178–84. According to Avramenko 2011, 23–98 Athenian courage was focused on the pursuit of pleasure, and rejected the traditional focus on honour. See Cairns 1993, 5–14; 2008; 2013; Konstan 2006, 7–40; Nussbaum 2001, 64, 22; Cairns/ Fulkerson 2015, 1–22. Balot 2014, 245–49 and passim.

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tion shot through with self-chosen commitments and aspirations” and opposed to a “simpler, less self-aware emotion that embodied the traditional views of one’s culture and one’s authority figures, taken over more or less without any criticism or self-consciousness”.24 This simpler emotion is typical of Homer, of the Archaic poets and particularly of Sparta – he calls it the “Standard Model of Greek Courage”, founded on shame in a distinctly primitive, un-reflective form, as opposed to the more sophisticated, rational and deliberative forms of shame that motivate Athenian “democratic” courage.25 The “Standard Model of Greek Courage”, founded on this form of un-reflective shame, relies exclusively on fear of external sanctions, on obedience to the law or to one’s social superiors, on fear of punishment. Rational deliberation is unnecessary and discouraged – people obey orders, laws, respond to the fear of social sanction, but do not deliberate on ends and means, or on what courage actually involves.26 Like many political scientists isolating distinctive rational, not primarily martial, forms of democratic courage, Balot, despite his recognition of the importance of shame even in Athenian ‘democratic courage’, ultimately presents a caricature of how courage works and is conceptualised in other societies, characterized as ‘honour’ or ‘shame cultures’, in accordance with a discredited but tenacious model of ‘Mediterranean’ honour and masculinity.27 His analysis relies however almost exclusively on Athenian self-representations and representations of Sparta, and in order to prove that collective reflection on role models and the determinants of shame and courage was less marked in societies like Homeric Greece and Sparta, he contents himself with observing that “there was no Spartan funeral oration, no Spartan tradition of cherishing free speech, no Spartan comic or tragic theater, no Spartan discursive democracy, and so on”.28 There is in fact no reason to believe that courage in Sparta (or Homeric Greece) was not the object of sustained reflection and collective negotiation of role models and standards of conduct. First, the Homeric poems, as much scholarship on the ‘heroic code’ has shown, show sophisticated reflection on heroic standards, communal standards and obligations, shame and courage – as we have seen, Homeric heroes deliberate about courage and courageous action all the time, and the example of the ancestors, the expectations of the community as well as one’s own, and shame, are factors in these deliberations.29 Second, the evidence contradicts the contention that Spartan courage and αἰδώς were distinctive in resulting from fear and not from active engagement with the standards of behaviour required: on the one hand, the Thucydidean Pericles of the Funeral Speech also insists that the Athenians respect their laws and magistrates out of fear (Th. 2.37.3); on the other, some Spartan sayings in Plutarch’s Moralia (217A; 231E-F) show that far from conflating αἰδώς and φόβος, the Spartans entertained a distinction between the two 24 25 26 27 28 29

IbId. 244. IbId. 199–211, 245–49. See also Forsdyke 2001; Millender 2002. See above n. 20 on this model. Balot 2014, 245–46. See the references above n. 13.

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and, when life was at stake (and courage required), prided themselves in being inspired by αἰδώς, and not by φόβος – they even accused others of being moved by φόβος.30 Third, there is evidence that in city-states long considered traditional, even primitive, and significantly similar to Sparta, such as the Cretan cities, communal reflection on standards of courage was institutionalized: a fragment of Dosiadas’ Cretica (FGrHist 458 F 2.6–7) informs us that in the Lyctian common messes, after the meal, first it was their custom (εἰώθασι) to discuss public matters, and then “they recall exploits in war and praise the men who showed themselves valiant, to encourage younger men to be brave” (trans. Bertelli). Collective reflection on role models and standards of courageous behaviour was a fundamental part of the education of the young, and a key occupation for the men. Passages such as Plu. Lyc. 12.4 show that the common messes performed a similar role in Sparta. Likewise, episodes such as the award of a prize to the most courageous fighter in the aftermath of the Battle of Plataea (Hdt. 7.231–232) are also evidence of public and institutionalised reflection on models of courageous behaviour, and the existence of cults of παθήματα, including αἰδώς, investigated by Richer,31 witnesses the ritualised engagement with and reflection on these determinants of civic behaviour. The institutional spaces in which such public deliberation took place were different from those typical of Athens – the household, the Trojan court, the public messes rather than the Council, the Assembly or the theatre – but courage, αἰδώς, the appropriate role models and standards of behaviour, were as continually debated in Homeric Greece, in Crete, in Sparta, as they were in Athens. And what are epic and saga, the huge number of stories recounting and investigating subtle variations on standard courageous feats, if not “aspirational manuals”, to use Miller’s words – reflections on courage that, through education and cultural memory, contributed to and guided both the individual’s and the community’s deliberation on courageous behaviour?32 If we look out for contradictory programmatic statements about what courage involves, marking contradictory models of courage, what we find is instead uncanny similarity. Thucydides is a good place to look, because his speeches capture ideological stances, fault lines and contradictions at their most sophisticated.33 This is not the place for a systematic examination of the treatment of courage in Thucydides, but a few examples will allow us to draw some provisional conclusions. It is interesting to compare what Archidamus, king of Sparta, says about 30

31 32 33

See Richer 1999, 97–99 for a discussion of these passages. Richer also suggests that, in the episode with Leotychides and Demaratus at Hdt. 6.67, the question of Leotychides’ messenger to Demaratus implied Demaratus’ fear of being ridiculed, but Demaratus’ reply is instead characterised by αἰδώς (as shown by κατακαλυψάμενος ἤιε, the act of covering his head out of αἰδώς, see Cairns 1996; 2002). Richer 1998, 217–33; 1999. Miller 2000, 128–29. The literature on these speeches is immense. See the summaries in Jebb 1973 and Pelling 2009. On whether the speeches are faithful representations of what was said, see e. g. Yunis 1996; Rengakos 1996, who argue, sensibly, that they are not neutral transcripts – they are Thucydides’ creation, and respond to Thucydides’ authorial intention. In defence of their historicity see e. g. Kagan 1975; Garrity 1998; Bosworth 2000.

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courage in Book 1 with what Pericles says in his Funeral Speech. Archidamus states: Our discipline (τὸ εὔκοσμον) makes us both brave in war and sensible in policy (εὔβουλοι): brave, because moderation (σωφροσύνη) is the greater part of shame (αἰδὼς), and shame (αἰσχύνη) the greater part of courage (εὐψυχία); sensible, because our tough training leaves us too naïve (ἀμαθέστερον) to question the laws and too controlled to disobey them. […] It is always our principle to make practical plans on the assumption of an intelligent enemy, and not to let our hopes reside in the likelihood of his mistakes, but in the security of our own precautions. (Th. 1.84; trans. Hammond)

Archidamus emphasises that moderation (σωφροσύνη) and courage (εὐψυχία) are the main reasons for the Spartans’ martial prowess, and these are prompted by αἰδὼς and αἰσχύνη, as respect for others and for the values and rules of conduct that underpin the community, and the shame felt if one fails to behave accordingly.34 That all this has a strong deliberative component is stressed by the complementary focus on εὐβουλία, which is prompted by education and the Spartans’ respect for the laws. Commentators have noticed that the Thucydidean speeches answer one another, pick up themes and arguments across different episodes, and develop complex ideological polemics.35 This is what the references to obeying the laws and ἀμαθία are doing here: they are implicit criticisms of Athenian democracy, in which, according to oligarchic critics such as the Old Oligarch ([Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1–8, cf. [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 41; Arist. Pol. 1292A1–7, 1298B13–15), the people in the Assembly have more authority than the laws, and excessive ‘cleverness’ and refinement make the citizens question the laws, doubt their duties and responsibilities, make them unruly, soft and cowardly. This conceptualisation of Spartan military courage implicitly denies Athens’ claim to courage. Thucydides provides the Athenian answer to this stance in the context of war commemoration, with which the Athenians defined communal standards of courage. Pericles’ Funeral Speech answers this criticism with counter criticisms that deny the Spartans’ claim to courage.36 But the underlying criteria and idea of courage are the same. First of all, even Th. 2.37, the paragraph usually singled out by historians (and politicians) as a celebration of the democratic political institutions of deliberation, starts with a reference to the laws and ends with the claim that the Athenians respect their laws out of fear – precisely like the Spartans.37 It even states that the Athenians absolutely respect, in particular, those unwritten laws that bring universal shame in 34 35 36

37

See Hussey 1985, 123–29 on this speech. See e. g. Rengakos 1996 for the connections between speeches. See Harris 2006, 29–39 for the polarity in this speech between Athenians and Spartans. On the genre of the funeral speech see Proietti in this volume, Loraux 1986 and, as a selection of recent discussions, Ziolkowski 1981; Thomas 1989, 196–237; Parker 1996, 131–41; Mills 1997, 58–78; Herrman 2009, 3–26; Low 2010; Shear 2013. On Pericles’ speech see at least Hornblower 1987, 45–65; Harris 2006, 29–39; Bosworth 2000. Longo 2000 provides a commentary with extensive bibliography at pp. 101–111. Cf. Avramenko 2011, 87–98 and Balot 2014, 25–46. For Pericles the orator see Azoulay 2014, 40–51. See Canfora 2006, 7–35 and Hansen 2008 for a diatribe on this passage, and Harris 2006, 29–39 for a sensible exegesis. Canfora 2011, 4–15 reads Pericles’ statement as a demystifying

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the community to those that violate them. Good behaviour is due to formal and informal social sanction. Thucydides’ Pericles does not delineate here alternative values and ideas – he endorses the values and ideas that the Spartans (and all Greeks) hold dear. His is a reaction to the accusations that such values and ideas do not apply to Athens because of its democracy. At Th. 2.39 Pericles moves to discussing war, and vindicates Athenian courage (εὐψυχία, the term used by Archidamus). We differ too from our enemies in our approach to military matters. The difference is this. We maintain an open city, and never expel foreigners or prevent anyone from finding out or observing what they will – we do not hide things when sight of them might benefit an enemy: our reliance is not so much on preparation and concealment as on our own innate spirit for courageous action. In education also they follow an arduous regime, training for manliness right from childhood, whereas we have a relaxed lifestyle but are still just as ready as they to go out and face our equivalent dangers. […] If then we choose to approach dangers in an easy frame of mind, not with constant practice in hardship, and to meet them with the courage which is born of character rather than compulsion, the result is that we do not have to suffer in advance the pain which we shall face later, and when we do face it we show ourselves just as courageous as those who have spent a lifetime of labour. (Th. 2.39; trans. Hammond)

The argument is constructed as an implicit answer to the kind of criticism that adversaries levy against Athens. Spartans may claim that, by allowing the city to be entirely open to external influence, the Athenians allow their ἦθος to be corrupted and undermine the civic cohesion that underpins courage. That makes the Athenians soft and cowardly. Pericles counters that the Athenians do not need strategies and tricks to keep themselves courageous. They just are, and can rely on it – unlike the Spartans, who are implicitly accused of being cowardly, and needing ruses to force themselves to be courageous. Spartan courage is described as inferior because it is not ‘native’, but forced.38 The Spartans argue that the Athenians do not adequately train for war, and are therefore soft and cowardly. Pericles counters that the Spartans need to be trained and coerced into courageous action, whereas the Athenians do not need to – they just are, and their courage is all the more impressive for this. Are these different conceptualisations of courage?39 Not really. The Spartans paint a picture of the Athenian ἦθος that disqualifies the Athenians from courage – they are unprepared, cowardly, unwilling to run risks for the polis, whereas the Spartans are courageous because they are trained, civically minded and practice εὐβουλία. Pericles counters that the Athenians do behave courageously and run risks for the good of the city, and do it willingly and deliberately, not as a result of training and coercion – training and coercion are for him a replacement for the deliberate will to act courageously. The same conceptualisation of courage (not differ-

38 39

account of democracy, and so does Giangiulio 2015, 58–61. Harris 2006, 29–39 stresses the polemical and ‘oppositional’ nature of the account. On this aspect see Hornblower 2010, 250–74. I should state that my analysis here of the (lack of) difference between Spartan and Athenian (and indeed more widely Greek) values of courage and shame is in line with non ‘exceptionalist’ views of Sparta fostered particularly by Stephen Hodkinson and the Nottingham’s Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies. For the important debate about Spartan exceptionalism see in particular the exchange between Hodkinson and Hansen in Hodkinson 2009 (pp. 385–498).

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ent conceptualisations) underpins differing assessments, but the discourse is possible because ultimately the Athenians and the Spartans agree on what courage is – it has to do with will and deliberation (εὐβουλία) to run risks for a greater good, that of the city. The passage most often used to argue for a distinctive rational view of courage typical of democratic Athens, taken once again from Pericles Funeral Speech, and therefore from the context of war commemoration, should be read, instead, once again polemically: We are all involved in either the proper formulation or at least the proper review of policy, thinking that what cripples action (τοῖς ἔργοις) is not talk (τοὺς λόγους), but rather the failure to talk through the policy (λόγῳ) before proceeding to the required action (ἔργῳ). This is another difference between us and others, which gives us our exceptional combination of daring (τολμᾶν) and deliberation (ἐκλογίζεσθαι) about the objective – whereas with others their courage relies on ignorance (ἀμαθία), and for them to deliberate (λογισμὸς) is to hesitate. True strength of spirit would rightly be attributed to those who have the sharpest perception of both terrors and pleasures and through that knowledge do not shrink from danger. (Th. 2.40.2–3; trans. Hammond)

A common criticism of Athenian democracy was that the Athenians discuss too much, at the expense of action – democratic deliberation makes them cowardly and indecisive, as Demosthenes loves to tell them (e. g. D. 4.36–7). Pericles counters that this is not the case, and the repetition of the logos/ergon antithesis in the passage is exploited to signal and neutralize this problem: the Athenians talk, yes, but then they act. They have the εὐβουλία necessary for true courage. Otherwise you have men that are bold because they do not understand the risks, and cowardly when they do. This is implicit criticism of the Spartans: they don’t deliberate enough, are courageous only out of ignorance, and when they do deliberate they become cowardly. But this criticism is not in the name of an alternative idea of courage. It stings precisely because the Spartans also believe that εὐβουλία is essential to courage. Pericles finally summarizes what this courage that the war dead have so remarkably embodied really looks like: “And when you realize [Athens’] greatness, reflect that it was men who made her great, by their daring (τολμῶντες), by their recognition of what they had to do (γιγνώσκοντες τὰ δέοντα), and by their shame (αἰσχυνόμενοι)” (Th. 2.43.1). There is no real difference between this definition of courage and that provided by Archidamus: courage has to do with having the daring to run risks, and with deliberating and understanding what is right and what is expected (τὰ δέοντα), moved by shame as a socially enforced as well as internalized check on one’s behaviour, out of respect for the values of the community. If we move to other texts, also from the context of war commemoration, but ones that affirm what the Athenians believe courage to be outside of a direct ideological polemic with Sparta, the statements are even more striking. Demosthenes, in his Funeral Speech after the Athenian defeat at Chaeronea, makes the virtue and courage of the war dead depend on their upbringing, on their belonging to a community of relatives, friends and fellow-citizens.40 40

On Demosthenes’ Funeral Speech see Worthington 2006, 21–25 and MacDowell 2009, 372–77.

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Mirko Canevaro From the beginning, these men excelled in all aspects of their upbringing; at each stage of life, they had the appropriate training, and they pleased all those whom they should have – parents, friends, relatives. […] And when they arrived at manhood, they made their character known. […] For the beginning of all virtue is wisdom – indeed it is – and the end is courage: with the one a person understands what should be done; with the other he carries it out. These men excelled by far in both. For if any danger threatened all the Greeks in common, these men were first to recognize it, and so often they exhorted everyone to save the situation, which is an illustration of purpose and right thinking. […] Coming forward and eagerly offering everything – bodies, money, and allies – they marched to the test of the battle, in which they spared nothing, not even their lives. (D. 60.16–18; trans. Worthington)

Recognition of danger is necessary to make courageous action willing and deliberate. The war dead had the training and upbringing that granted them this euboulia,41 and their courageous disposition was anticipated by their ability to conform to social standards and identify the correct course of action – to conform to the Athenian ethos. In war, they showed that they were willing to risk everything – even their lives – for the polis. This ability to identify what is right and honourable (what is best for the city) – the essential ‘noble end’ towards which courageous action must tend – is due to a code of conduct that is both internalized and enforced by social sanction, that is by shame: “All these men feared such criticisms, quite rightly, and to avoid the shame of future reprimands, they stalwartly faced the danger coming from our enemies, and chose a noble death rather than a disgraceful life” (D. 60.26; trans. Worthington). Likewise, Brasidas at Th. 5.9 urges the Spartan allies to remember “that in order to have success in war a soldier needs determination, shame, and obedience to his commanders”. All this ultimately converged towards courageous action: marching to the test of battle, standing side-by-side with one’s fellow citizens, not abandoning one’s place (e. g. A. Pers. 1025; Ar. Pax 1177–8; E. El. 388–90). It involved overcoming fear (Lys. 14.15), and deliberately accepting the possibility of being wounded (E. HF 159–164) or killed (Ph. 999–1002; Lys. 2.14–15; Th. 2.42.4).42 This understanding of courage was enshrined in the laws of the city: the Athenian law on δειλία gave a representative but not exhaustive list of ‘cowardly’ actions, and the most prominent entries in the list were λιποτάξιον – leaving one’s place in the line – and ἀστρατεία – not showing up for duty. Other entries, variations on the theme, were ἀναυμαχίου (desertion from the fleet) and throwing away one’s shield.43 Not to leave one’s place in battle in any circumstance is the fundamental understanding of Spartan courage too – that is what the famous epigram of the Thermopylae implies: “Go tell the Spartans, stranger, / that here, obedient to their laws, we lie” (Hdt. 7.228.2). This standard was so important that Aristodemus, despite Herodotus’ assessment of his performance at Plataea as the most impressive, was not deemed by the Spartans to have acquitted himself as well as others because he left his position 41 42 43

Courage (and αἰδώς) are connected with upbringing already by Hector (Hom. Il. 6.441–6), see above. See e. g. Pritchard 2013, 183. See Harris 2013, 217–22 and Hamel 1998, who shows correctly that ἀστρατεία and λιποτάξιον are different offences, but fails to see that they are subcategories of δειλία.

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and rushed forward like a madman (Hdt. 9.71.2–3). If a Spartan failed to live up to this standard, his status became that of a ‘trembler’, dishonoured, with no rights and standing, shunned by his fellow citizens, forbidden from marrying women of Spartiate status, liable to be hit by anyone, and forced to go about unkempt, dressed in rags, with the beard half shaven (Plu. Ages. 30.3).44 Significantly, the Athenian penalty for cowardice was, likewise, ἀτιμία – dishonour and disenfranchisement (D. 15.32; [D.] 59.27; D. 21.103; Aeschin. 3.176). When Socrates asks Laches, in the homonymous dialogue, what courage is, Laches first answers that courage is sticking to your post in battle (190e). Socrates does not disagree – he just suggests that this is perhaps too narrow (191a–192b).45 But Aristotle (EN III 7.1115b11– 1117b22) also concludes that true courage is possible only in hoplitic warfare – sticking to one’s post in defence of the city.46 This general understanding of courage, common to all Greeks, finds an exceptional formulation in the Athenian Ephebic Oath,47 which young Athenian men pronounced when they entered the ephebic service, and which stresses the centrality of hoplitic courage, and of the cohesion on which hoplitic warfare depends: I shall not bring shame upon the sacred weapons nor shall I desert the man beside me, wherever I stand in the line. I shall fight in defence of things sacred and profane and I shall not hand the fatherland on lessened, but greater and better both as far as I am able and with all. And I shall be obedient to whoever exercise power reasonably on any occasion and to the laws currently in force and any reasonably put into force in future. If anyone destroys these I shall not give them allegiance both as far as is in my own power and in union with all, and I shall honour the ancestral religion. (RO 88; trans. Rhodes and Osborne)

I started this chapter by pointing out that the fans and the critics of Chris Kyle do not really disagree on what courage is, or on whether it is a good thing. Their understanding of this psychological process is more or less identical: choosing deliberately to perform actions towards a noble end in defiance of overwhelming risks for life and limb. This shared understanding is the basis for contrasting assessments of Kyle’s actions, which diverge according to one’s beliefs on whether theirs was really a ‘noble end’, whether they ran sufficient risk, and whether they were aware of the risk. But they do not disagree on what courage is, or on whether it is a virtue (pace Sontag and many moral philosophers). They disagree on whether one’s actions qualify. This shared understanding is also the reason for which the debate can happen at all. Otherwise the parties would be speaking at cross-purposes. 44 45 46 47

See Ducat 2006. See e. g. Schmid 1992, 100–105, and, in general, on courage in the Laches Hobbs 2000, 76– 112. For overviews of scholarship on this dialogue see Woodruff 1987, 111–13 and Balot 2014, 130–31. See especially Deslauriers 2003 and Rabbås 2015, 637–38. The oath is preserved in a fourth century inscription from Acharnae (RO 88), and in slightly modernised versions in Poll. 8.105–6A and Stob. 43.48. See Siewert 1972, 1977; Rhodes/Osborne 2003, 440–49; Sommerstein/Bayliss 2013, 13–22. For a recent treatment of hoplite warfare and its focus on cohesion see Echeverria 2012, with a discussion of previous scholarship and a review of the debate. See also for general discussions van Wees 2004 and Kagan/Viggiano 2013, and Crowley 2012 for an innovative discussion of the psychology of the hoplite.

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The same happened in ancient Greece: fierce debates about courage, in war commemoration and public discourse, across geographical, ethnic and political boundaries, were not really debates on what courage is. Most Greeks agreed that courage is a virtue and a psychological process whose chief features can be safely identified through the prototypical image of the hoplite sticking to his post in defence of the polis.48 That is the baseline on which disagreements, ideological battles, and debates across political and constitutional divides were built. The question was, fundamentally: what regime is best at fostering this courage that everyone finds so desirable? There was no distinctive democratic conceptualisation of courage – it was precisely because the baseline was shared that this debate was so fierce and compelling.49 My last question is: why is this debate still so compelling to us? On the one hand, it seems clear that, across cultures and millennia, we are still talking, recognizably, of the same psychological process, conceptualised in a comparable manner:50 choosing consciously and deliberately to do what one (and one’s community) believes to be the right thing in the face of danger for life and limb. But, “as ever, it is only once one has established the extent to which the concepts of another culture resemble those of one’s own that one can begin to pursue the question of how they differ”.51 And the difference seems to be in a more explicit conceptualisation of the role of honour, shame, externally enforced and internalized standards of conduct, functioning as both the emotional triggers and the deliberative grounds for courage. We like to believe that such features are typical of more primitive ‘shame societies’, and have little place in a democratic society, founded on individual freedom and free speech.52 Demosthenes, talking about the war dead of Chaeronea, disagreed: Many factors undoubtedly contributed to their character, not least of which was our constitution, which inspired them. […] democracies have many noble and just qualities, to which sensible people must be loyal, and in particular freedom of speech, which cannot be prevented from showing the truth because it is based on speaking the truth. Those who do something wrong 48

49

50 51 52

See Rosen/Sluiter 2003, 5–8, 13–20 for a discussion of Greek prototypical courage. Recent developments in the theory of concept-formation and categorization show that conceptual categories have an internal structure, and that particular instances of the category have special status as ‘best examples’ or prototypes, see e. g. Lakoff 1987, especially pp. 39–68; Kleiber 1990, building on Rosch 1978. Contra Bassi 2003, 46, 56, who believes that courage was a contested concept marked by conceptual uncertainty. Roisman 2003 stresses rightly that courage was a negotiable concept, and Balot 2004a, 407 n. 3 that courage was a “non-arbitrary, as well as a negotiable, abstraction”. I agree that there was plenty of rhetorical negotiation about courage, but I am unconvinced that this negotiation was about what courage is, but rather about who concretely qualifies as courageous. This fundamental similarity emerges starkly from the investigation carried out in Miller 2000. This is also the conclusion of the investigation of Rate et al. 2007. Contra Avramenko 2011, 20, who paints a radically historicist picture of courage. I take this formulation from Cairns 2013, 97. See e. g. Pitt-Rivers 1965; Skinner 1978, 101; Kinner 1978, 101; Berger 1984; and the philosophical positions criticised in Rabbås 2015. Miller 2000, 178–84 shows how difficult it is to find examples of courage independent from shame.

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cannot possibly win over everyone; and a single man voicing the appropriate reprimand does not cause the offender pain. And those who themselves would never speak a slanderous word are pleased to hear it spoken by another. All these men feared such criticisms, quite rightly, and to avoid the shame of future reprimands, they stalwartly faced the danger coming from our enemies, and chose a noble death rather than a disgraceful life. (D. 60.25–26; trans. Worthington)

In his account – once in again in the context of war commemoration, which puts the relevant ideological dynamics into sharp focus – freedom of speech (parrhesia) does indeed, as scholars have claimed, distinguish Athens from cities like Sparta.53 But it distinguishes it inasmuch as it makes the mechanism of honour/shame more comprehensive and effective, not because it replaces them: social sanction is readier and surer, and therefore fear of shame and the feeling of honour have more purchase on the individual, who therefore behaves more courageously.54 The motivational forces that underpin courageous behaviour are not conceptualised as different from those at work in Sparta and in primitive “shame societies” – shame and honour are fundamental components of courage (as its emotional and deliberative groundings), and are explicitly recognised as such. Demosthenes’s argument is instead that Athens’s constitutional system is the most effective at enabling these mechanisms to do their job – fostering courageous behaviour. Paradoxically, in Demosthenes’ account, Athens’ democratic constitutional system is superior because it makes the mechanisms of shame and honour more central to its workings, enlisting them more effectively for the good of the city.55 Appiah 2010: K. A. Appiah, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, New York 2010. Appiah: 2013: K. A. Appiah, “The Democratic Spirit”, Daedalus 142 (2013), 209–21. Arnold-de-Simine 2015: S. Arnold-de-Simine, “Between Memory and Silence, between Trauma and Nostalgia, between Family and Nation: Remembering the First World War”, in A. Dessingué / J. M. Winter (eds.), Beyond Memory: Silence and the Aesthetics of Remembrance, Abindgon 2015, 143–62. Ashplant/Dawson/Roper 2000: T. G. Ashplant / G. Dawson / M. Roper, The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration, London 2000. Avramenko 2011: R. Avramenko, Courage: The Politics of Life and Limb, Notre Dame IN 2011. Azoulay 2014: V. Azoulay, Pericles of Athens, Princeton 2014. Balot 2004a: R. Balot, “Courage in the Democratic Polis”, CQ 54 (2004), 406–23. Balot 2004b: R. Balot, “The Dark Side of Democratic Courage”, Social Research 71 (2004), 73–106. Balot 2014: R. Balot, Courage in the Democratic Polis: Ideology and Critique in Classical Athens, Oxford 2014. Bassi 2003: K. Bassi, “The Semantics of Manliness in Ancient Greece”, in Rosen/Sluiter 2003, 25–58. Bauhn 2003: P. Bauhn, The Value of Courage, Lund 2003. 53 54 55

See the essays in Rosen/Sluiter 2003, with previous bibliography. In this sense, I am unconvinced by the claim in Balot 2014, 15 that “the orators’ discussions of free speech as supportive of […] courage further the case for the distinctiveness of democratic courage”. The value of honour and shame for the success also of our modern democratic societies is recognised e. g. by Krause 2002; Appiah 2010; 2013; Sessions 2010; Tarnopolsky 2010, 9; Oprisko 2012; Olsthoorn 2015.

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Berger 1984: P. Berger, “On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honour”, in M. J. Sandel (ed.), Liberalism and its Critics, Oxford 1984, 149–58. Bosworth 2000: A. B. Bosworth, “The Historical Context of Thucydides’ Funeral Oration”, JHS 120 (2000), 1–16. Bourdieu 1965: P. Bourdieu, “The Sentiment of Honour in Kabyle Society”, in J. G. Peristiany (ed.), Honour and Shame: Values of Mediterranean Society, Chicago 1965, 191–241. Bowman 2006: J. Bowman, Honor: A History, New York 2006. Cairns 1993: D. L. Cairns, Aidōs: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature, Oxford 1993. Cairns 1996: D. L. Cairns, ‘Veiling, Aidôs, and a Red-figure Amphora by Phintias’, JHS 116 (1996), 152–57. Cairns 2002: D. L. Cairns, ‘The Meaning of the Veil in Ancient Greek Culture’, in L. LlewellynJones (ed.), Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World, Swansea 2002, 73–93. Cairns 2008: D. L. Cairns, “Look Both Ways: Studying Emotion in Ancient Greek”, Critical Quarterly 50 (2008), 43–62. Cairns 2011: D. L. Cairns, “Honour and Shame: Modern Controversies and Ancient Values”, Critical Quarterly 53 (2011), 23–41. Cairns 2013: D. L. Cairns, “A Short History of Shudders”, in A. Chaniotis / P. Ducrey (eds.), Unveiling Emotions II: Emotions in Greece and Rome: Texts, Images, and Material Culture, Stuttgart 2013, 85–107. Cairns/Fulkerson 2015: D. L. Cairns / L. Fulkerson (eds.), Emotions between Greece and Rome, London 2015. Canfora 2006: L. Canfora, Democracy in Europe: A History, Oxford 2006. Canfora 2011: L. Canfora, Il mondo di Atene, Roma/Bari 2011. Casey 1990: J. Casey, Pagan Virtue: An Essay in Ethics, Oxford 1990. Crowley 2012: J. Crowley, The Psychology of the Athenian Hoplite: The Culture of Combat in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2012. Cunningham 1985: S. B. Cunningham, “The Courageous Villain: A Needless Paradox”, The Modern Schoolman 62 (1985), 97–110. Deslauriers 2003: M. Deslauriers, “Aristotle on andreia, Divine and Sub-Human Virtues”, R. M. Rosen / I. Sluiter, Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity, Leiden 2003, 187–211. Ducat 2006: J. Ducat, “The Spartan ‘Tremblers’”, in S. Hodkinson / A. Powell (eds.), Sparta and War, Swansea 2006, 1–55. Echeverria 2012: F. Echeverría, “Hoplite and Phalanx in Archaic and Classical Greece: A Reassessment”, CPh 107 (2012), 291–318. Fosdyke 2001: S. Forsdyke, “Athenian Democratic Ideology and Herodotus’ Histories”, AJPh 122 (2001), 323–58. Garrity 1998: T. F. Garrity, “Thucydides 1.22.1: Content and Form in the Speeches”, AJPh 119 (1998), 361–84. Giangiulio 2015: M. Giangiulio, Democrazie greche. Atene, Sicilia, Magna Grecia, Roma 2015. Gilmore 1987: D. D. Gilmore (ed.), Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean, Washington DC 1987. Graziosi/Haubold 2010: B. Graziosi / J. Haubold, Homer: Iliad Book VI, Cambridge 2010. Hamel 1998: D. Hamel, Athenian Generals: Military Authority in the Classical Period, Leiden 1998. Hansen 2008: M. H. Hansen, “Thucydides’ Description of Democracy (2.37.1) and the EU-Convention of 2003”, GRBS 48 (2008), 15–26. Harris 2006: E. M. Harris, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens, Oxford 2006. Harris 2013: E. M. Harris, The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens, Oxford 2013. Herrman 2009: J. Herrman, Hyperides: Funeral Oration, Oxford 2009.

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Hobbs 2000: A. Hobbs, Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal Good, Cambridge 2000. Hodkinson 2009: S. Hodkinson (ed.), Sparta: Comparative Approaches, Swansea 2009. Hornblower 1987: S. Hornblower, Thucydides, Baltimore MD 1987. Hornblower 2010: S. Hornblower, Thucydidean Themes, Oxford 2010. Hussey 1985: E. Hussey, “Thucydidean History and Democritean Theory”, in P. A. Cartledge / F. D. Harvey (eds.), Crux: Essays in Greek History Presented to G. E. M. De Ste. Croix on His 75th Birthday, Exeter 1985, 118–38. Jebb 1973: R. C. Jebb, “The Speeches of Thucydides”, in H. F. Harding (ed.), The Speeches of Thucydides: With a General Introduction and an Introduction for the Main Speeches and the Military Harangues, Lawrence KS 1973, 223–309. Kagan 1975: D. Kagan, “The Speeches in Thucydides and the Mytilene Debate”, YClS 24 (1975), 71–94. Kagan/Viggiano 2013: D. Kagan / G. F. Viggiano (eds.), Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece, Princeton 2013. Kateb 2004: G. Kateb, “Courage as a Virtue”, Social Research 71 (2004), 39–72. Kleiber 1990: G. Kleiber, La sémantique du prototype, Paris 1990. Konstan 2006: D. Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature, Toronto 2006. Krause 2002: S. R. Krause, Liberalism with Honor, Cambridge MA 2002. Kyle 2012: C. Kyle, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U. S. Military History, New York 2012. Lakoff 1987: G. Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago 1987. Longo 2000: O. Longo, Epitafio di Pericle per i caduti del primo anno di guerra (II, 34–47), Venezia 2000. Lopez/O’Byrne/Peterson 2003: S. J. Lopez / K. K. O’Byrne / S. Peterson, “Profiling Courage”, in S. J. Lopez / C. R. Snyder (eds.), Positive Psychological Assessment: A Handbook of Models and Measures, Washington DC 2003, 185–97. Loraux 1986: N. Loraux, The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City, Cambridge MA 1986. Low 2010: P. Low, “Commemoration of the War Dead in Classical Athens: Remembering Defeat and Victory”, in D. M. Pritchard (ed.), War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2010, 341–58. MacDowell 2009: D. M. MacDowell, Demosthenes the Orator, Oxford 2009. Millender 2002: E. G. Millender, “Nomos Despotēs: Spartan Obedience and Athenian Lawfulness in Fifth-Century Thought”, in V. Gorman / E. Robinson (eds.), Oikistes: Studies in Constitutions, Colonies, and Military Power in the Ancient World Offered in Honor of A. J. Graham, Leiden 2002, 33–59. Miller 1990: W. I. Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland, Chicago 1990. Miller 2000: W. I. Miller, The Mystery of Courage, Cambridge MA 2000. Mills 1997: S. Mills, Theseus, Tragedy and the Athenian Empire, Oxford 1997. Nussbaum 2001: M. C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, Cambridge 2001. Olsthoorn 2015: P. Olsthoorn, Honor in Political and Moral Philosophy, Albany NY 2015. Oprisko 2014: R. L. Oprisko, Honor: A Phenomenology, London 2014. Parker 1996: R. Parker, Athenian Religion: A History, Oxford 1996. Pears 2004: D. Pears, “The Anatomy of Courage”, Social Research 71 (2004), 1–13. Pelling 2009: C. B. Pelling, “Thucydides’ Speeches”, in J. S. Rusten (ed.), Thucydides. Oxford 2009, 176–90.

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Peristiany 1965: J. G. Peristiany (ed.), Honour and Shame: the Values of Mediterranean Society, Chicago 1965. Peterson/Seligman 2004: C. Peterson / M. E. P. Seligman, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. New York 2004. Peterson 2006: C. Peterson, A Primer in Positive Psychology, New York 2006. Pitt-Rivers 1974: J. Pitt-Rivers, “Honour and Social Status”, in J. G. Peristiany (ed.), Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, Chicago 1965, 19–78. Pritchard 2013: D. M. Pritchard, Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2013. Pury/Lopez 2010: C. L. S. Pury / S. J. Lopez (eds.), The Psychology of Courage: Modern Research on an Ancient Virtue, Washington DC 2010. Rabbås 2015: Ø. Rabbås, “Virtue, Respect, and Morality in Aristotle”, The Journal of Value Inquiry 49 (2015), 619–43. Rate et al. 2007: C. R. Rate / J. A. Clarke / D. R. Lindsay / R. J. Sternberg, “Implicit Theories of Courage”, The Journal of Positive Psychology 2 (2007), 80–98. Redfield 1994: J. M. Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector, Durham, NC 1994. Rengakos 1996: A. Rengakos, “Fernbeziehungen zwischen den thukydideischen Reden”, Hermes 124 (1996), 396–417. Rhodes/Osborne 2003: P. J. Rhodes / R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions: 404–323 BC, Oxford 2003. Richer 1998: N. Richer, Les Éphores. Études sur l’histoire et sur l’image de Sparte, VIIIe–IIIe siècle avant Jésus-Christ, Paris 1998 Richer 1999: N. Richer, “Aidōs at Sparta”, in S. Hodkinson / A. Powell (eds.), Sparta: New Perspectives, Swansea 1999, 91–116. Roisman 2003: J. Roisman, “The Rhetoric of Courage in the Athenian Orators”, in Rosen/Sluiter 2003, 127–43. Rosch 1978: E. Rosch, “Principles of Categorization”, in E. Rosch / B. B. Lloyd (eds.), Cognition and Categorization, Hillsdale 1978, 27–48. Rosen/Sluiter 2003: R. M. Rosen / I. Sluiter (eds.), Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity, Leiden 2003. Saïd 1980–1981: S. Saïd, “Guerre, intelligence et courage dans les Histoires d’Hérodote”, AncSoc 11–12 (1980–1981), 83–117. Schmid 1992: W. T. Schmid, On Manly Courage: A Study of Plato’s Laches, Carbondale/Edwardsville 1992. Scodel 2008: R. Scodel, Epic Facework: Self-Presentation and Social Interaction in Homer, Swansea 2008. Sessions 2010: W. L. Sessions, Honor For Us: A Philosophical Analysis, Interpretation and Defense, New York 2010. Shear 2011: J. L. Shear, Polis and Revolution: Responding to Oligarchy in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2011. Siewert 1972: P. Siewert, Der Eid von Plataiai, Munich 1972. Siewert 1977: P. Siewert, “The Ephebic Oath in Fifth-Century Athens”, JHS 97 (1977), 102–111 Skinner 1978: Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, I, Cambridge 1978. Snyder/Lopez 2007: C. R. Snyder / S. J. Lopez, Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths, Thousand Oaks CA 2007. Sommerstein/Bayliss 2013: A. H. Sommerstein / A. J. Bayliss, Oath and State in Ancient Greece, Berlin 2013. Tarnopolsky 2010: C. H. Tarnopolsky, Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato’s Gorgias and the Politics of Shame, Princeton 2010. Thomas 1989: R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens, Cambridge 1989.

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COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF FUNERARY COMMEMORATION OF SOLDIERS AND VETERANS IN ROMAN POETOVIO* Blanka Misic The Roman world was a world shaped by religion and ritual. Religion formed a core part of the lives and the cognitive framework of ancient Romans, so it is not hard to believe that religious ritual actions would have been extended to the act of remembering and commemorating the dead.1 Much like religious rituals, rituals surrounding the commemoration of the deceased were performed in a specific order, in both public and private settings, were repeated at regular intervals, and were highly social events which formed close-knit bonds between participants.2 Moreover, the grave of the deceased was considered as a sacred place, a locus religiosus.3 Since commemoration rituals were cognitively perceived as akin to religious rituals, one must ask whether funerary commemorative ritual practices, and with them, the memory of the deceased, were transferred and ‘kept alive’ in the same way as religious ritual practices. By examining funerary inscriptions of soldiers from the Pannonian colony of Poetovio (modern-day Ptuj, Slovenia),4 within the framework of Harvey Whitehouse’s cognitive theory of modes of religiosity, the present paper argues that funerary commemoration rituals were transferred among individuals and social groups in the same manner as religious rituals. Currently, within the field of cognitive science of religion, Whitehouse’s theory of modes of religiosity stands as one of the predominant theories for explaining how religious concepts and rituals are transferred among individuals and social groups. Whitehouse proposes two possible distinct routes of religious transmission: doctrinal and imagistic.5 The doctrinal mode is primarily encountered in literate societies, where religious concepts and rituals are transmitted through official religious texts. Due to frequent repetition, rituals can be transmitted to wide audiences, where they are entrenched in the participants’ semantic memory. Thus, although they are not personally acquainted with each other, participants come to form an * 1 2 3 4 5

The author would like to thank the reviewers, the editors, Professor Boris Rankov, and Dr. Stephen Adams for their valuable comments and suggestions. All mistakes remain the author’s. Parker Pearson 2000, 194–95 and McCorkle Jr. 2013, 374 both believe that funerary rites are one of the earliest forms of ritual practice. Graham 2011, 100–101 argues for similarities between funerary/commemoration rituals and religious rituals based on the nature of their practices, such as purification, for example. Carroll 2006, 4; Graham 2006, 63. Due to space constraints this paper will deal specifically with the examination of inscribed funerary monuments. For a broader discussion of funerary rituals in southern Pannonia see: Dizdar et al. 2003; ŠoštariĆ et al. 2006, among others. Whitehouse 2002, 293–94, 309; 2004, 216; 2009, 5.

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‘imagined community’,6 since they subscribe to the same beliefs and values. According to the doctrinal mode, a clear centralised hierarchy therefore develops within this ‘imagined community’ as the rituals and beliefs become more widespread and inclusive. On the other hand, the imagistic mode of ritual transmission can be found in predominantly illiterate societies, where rituals are transmitted in oral and visual form. Concepts become embedded in the participants’ episodic memory through infrequent but highly visually and emotionally stimulating rituals. Each participant therefore experiences and understands this imagistic ritual experience individually. According to the imagistic mode, therefore, strong bonds between participants are forged through this shared ritual emotional experience, thus creating a tightly-knit social group.7 By applying Whitehouse’s theory to the examination of funerary commemoration of soldiers in Poetovio, it is the aim of this paper to offer not only a novel interdisciplinary theoretical approach to examining commemorative practices in the Roman world, but also to shed greater light on how the early military inhabitants of Poetovio are preserved in the city’s collective memory, and how they helped to shape the city’s Roman origins. It is predicted that this examination of evidence through Whitehouse’s modes of religiosity approach will not only show that funerary commemoration rituals could be transmitted among individuals and social groups in the same manner as religious rituals, but that ritual transmission is achieved by incorporating select elements of both the imagistic and the doctrinal modes. With respect to the present study it will be shown that the key imagistic aspects of transmission are sensory and emotional arousal as well as the resulting close-knit group formation, while the key doctrinal aspect is repetition of ritual. The imagistic and doctrinal nature of funerary commemoration ritual and its transmission can be displayed most prominently through the intense emotional imprint which funerary rituals left on the participants, the close-knit social ties which were formed among participants, as well as the repeated and public nature of funerary ritual. It is undoubtable that a traumatic event, such as the death of a loved one, would have created an intense emotional imprint on the deceased’s social circle. In such a highly emotional state, the participants in the funerary rituals would have been imprinted with the proceedings of the event.8 Rituals surrounding the funeral and the commemoration of the deceased were thus imprinted in the episodic memory of the participants, conforming to the imagistic mode of ritual transfer. Recent research on cognition and emotion stresses the fact that such emotionally-arousing and unpleasant events become encoded in memory more permanently and can later be recalled more readily. Emotions thus played a vital role in the formation, consolidation, transmission, and recall of memories of commemorative rituals as well as 6 7 8

Whitehouse 2009, 5. Whitehouse 2002, 304; 2009, 5–6; 2013, 77; Martin 2004, 10; Czachesz 2010, 328. Czachesz believes that “self-relatedness” (active participation in a ritual and/or personal knowledge of participants (including the deceased) enhances the memories of the event. Czachesz 2010, 334. See also Low/Oliver 2012, 1.

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of the memory of the deceased.9 Additionally, shared traumatic emotional ordeals, such as the death of a loved one, as well as shared participation in ritual proceedings, such as funerary or commemoration rites for a loved one, would have reinforced the bonds within the immediate social circle of the deceased. According to Legare and Wen rituals “function as a mechanism for increasing social group cohesion” while “amplifying social group affiliation”.10 Ritual participation thus not only strengthened group bonds, but the process of observing multiple other participants engaging in similar synchronistic behaviour helped to “facilitate high fidelity cultural transmission”.11 Funerary commemoration practices would thus have been transmitted within the networks of the immediate social circle, reinforcing the close-knit ties of the imagistic mode. That funerary and commemoration rituals were transmitted in both an imagistic and a doctrinal manner can also be ascertained from the nature of the rituals themselves. Once the deceased was entombed, it was customary for the surviving relatives to visit the deceased’s tomb on regular occasions and perform further rituals so as to honour the deceased, commemorate their life, and transmit their memoria to future generations who may not have been directly acquainted with the deceased.12 One of the ways in which a tight-knit social bond was fostered and the memory of the deceased was perpetuated was through the ritual act of banqueting. It was standard practice for the deceased’s close-knit social circle to gather at the grave and place regular offerings of food and drink, participating in ritual feasting in the memory of the deceased. A banquet would be organised first at the funeral of the deceased (silicernium), and then repeated on the ninth day following the funeral (cena novemdialis), and again on the deceased’s birthday (dies natalis), and again on the occasion of festivals celebrating the dead, in February (Parentalia) and May and June (Rosalia).13 It would seem natural that on these occasions participants in the banqueting commemoration ritual would also share stories and anecdotes about the deceased, transferring the memory of the deceased’s deeds and accomplishments to future generations verbally.14 These shared ritual acts of dining, as well as shared stories and memories, served to strengthen the emotional bond not only to the deceased, but also between the participants of these rituals as well, creating a tightly-knit social group. Thus, the members of the group themselves, as well as the visual, gestural, and auditory acts that they performed during rituals would act as

9

10 11 12 13 14

Murray et al. 2013, 157, 159, 164–65; Czachesz 2010, 331–32, 335; Tint 2010, 246: “Research has indicated that highly charged emotional experiences tend to be recalled more frequently than ones without emotional intensity. Under circumstances of extreme intensity, memories will be formed around the high emotionality of an event”. Legare/Wen 2014, 9–10. IbId. Carroll 2006, 48. Graham 2006, 67 states that: “Through repeated ritual activities the dead could be recalled, celebrated and at least temporarily saved from oblivion”. Carroll 2006, 4, 42; Davies 1997, 50; Graham 2006, 64, 67–68; 2011, 92. Carroll 2006, 30.

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mnemonic devices,15 helping to transfer funerary ritual practices in an imagistic manner between individuals. The repeated nature of the rituals at regular intervals, several times a year, would further cement funerary ritual practices in the semantic memory of the individuals, conforming to the doctrinal mode. Other funerary and commemoration rituals which featured elements of both the imagistic and the doctrinal modes are the ‘calling out’ and the circumambulation rituals. The ‘calling out’ ritual consisted of repeatedly saluting the deceased with ‘vale’ or ‘salve’ while calling out their name three times. This ritual took place shortly after death, and was repeated at subsequent funeral feasts.16 Not only was the process of verbally summoning the deceased imagistic, but the repeated nature of its performance also rendered it doctrinal in character. This is even more evident in the circumambulation ritual – upon visiting the tomb of the deceased, the visitors would repeatedly encircle the tomb. This ritual motion of walking around the tomb would have acted not only as a purifying, protecting, and delineating ritual,17 but also as a way to ‘re-introduce’ the visitor to the deceased, thus evoking the memory of the deceased through the observation of the deceased’s tomb and/or commemorative monument from all angles. The comforting repetitive ritual of encircling may also have acted as a therapeutic process, where through ‘re-acquaintance’ with the deceased and the invocation of the deceased’s memory, the visitor would have had a chance to come to terms with their emotional and psychological loss.18 Such commemorative rituals may have been particularly beneficial for Roman soldiers who commemorated their dead comrades. In a warrior culture where soldiers were discouraged from appearing as emotional, commemoration rituals would have acted as a socially-acceptable emotional release, both for individual soldiers as well as for military groups. The memory of the deceased was thus not only kept alive and transferred through ritual acts, but the repeat nature of rituals ensured that the link between the living and the dead was maintained, and that in essence, the deceased, although gone in body, kept being part of the social circle in spirit.19 The repeat nature of these rituals also ensured their own survival – knowledge of these ritual practices would be embedded doctrinally in the semantic memory through repetition, but would also be transferred imagistically, as the act of participating in a commemorative ritual of a dearly departed would have left an intense emotional imprint. Knowledge of commemorative ritual practices and the memory of the de-

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Ead. 35, 42. Graham 2011, 106 writes that “each time a funerary feast was consumed, certain prayers muttered or other funerary rites performed, the living would recall the experiences and emotions of this earlier event and thus collectively continued to memorialise their ancestors”. Carroll 2011, 67; Graham 2011, 92. Davies 1997, 57. IbId. 56; Slochower 2011, 676. CIL XII 5102 = ILS 8154; CIL VI 26554; and Carroll 2006, 4, 50, 55. The practice of erecting permanent funerary monuments, as well as the importance placed on rituals commemorating the dead are all signs that individuals in the Roman world were very concerned with keeping their memory alive after death. Carroll 2006, 18; Graham 2006, 65–67; Barnier et al. 2008, 35; Slochower 2011, 676.

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ceased thus can be seen as socially embedded and socially distributed20 – although each individual may remember and/or commemorate the deceased in their own manner, the social circle of the deceased was connected through their shared memory of the deceased, and by sharing and transferring their own individual memories, they commemorated the deceased in a collective way and constructed a collective memory narrative.21 The patterns of ritual commemorative practice were thus fluid, as they were constructed through the interaction of individual minds, social networks, and material culture, and were also shaped and re-shaped by individuals who participated in these commemorative ceremonies.22 The fact that funerary and commemorative rituals were constructed through the interaction of individual minds, social networks, and material culture, and the fact that they displayed both imagistic and doctrinal elements of ritual transfer can also be seen from funerary monuments of soldiers and veterans in the Pannonian colony of Poetovio. The territory of Poetovio came under Roman control in the Augustan period, but received the status of colonia under the emperor Trajan.23 During its formative years, in the first and early second centuries A. D., Poetovio quickly became an important military and administrative centre. Poetovio was initially garrisoned by legio VIII Augusta,24 which was relieved by legio XIII Gemina25 around A. D. 45. In its turn, legio XIII Gemina was replaced by legio I Adiutrix26 towards the end of the first century A. D.27 Military occupation of Poetovio ceased under the reign of Trajan, when the settlement gained its colonial status. Since military veterans were among the first Roman settlers of Poetovio, we have thus a fair amount of funerary monuments which can offer us an insight into how funerary and commemoration rituals may have been transferred, and how the early military inhabitants of Poetovio helped to shape the city’s Roman origins. One way in which Poetovian soldiers and veterans ensured their own remembrance is through their professional association with the army. The tight-knit relationship between fellow soldiers is exhibited at Poetovio through both funerary and votive inscriptions.28 Since soldiers on active duty were not allowed to marry and

20 21 22

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Stewart 2004, 561; Barnier et al. 2008, 35. Stewart 2004, 574; Barnier et al. 2008, 37; Tint 2010, 242; Slochower 2011, 678; Hewer/ Roberts 2012, 174. Panagiotidou 2014, 18; Schwartz 1982, 375; Olick 1999, 334. Tint 2010, 241 says that “neither individual nor group memory can exist independently from the social domains in which people live; the process of remembering is contextual and occurs within the collective dimension of lived experiences”. See also Hewer/Roberts 2012, 180; Slochower 2011, 678; Tint 2010, 242; Low/Oliver 2012, 8; Olick 1999, 346. Mráv 2010–2013, 49. AE 1978, 646; AIJ 260; AIJ 371; AIJ 381; among others. AE 1977, 629; AIJ 368; AIJ 377; AIJ 380; among others. AIJ 365; AIJ 374; AIJ 375; CIL III 10880; among others. Šašel-Kos 2014, 141–43. Carroll stresses the importance of funerary inscriptions as part of the commemoration ritual, as they “aided in defining a person’s identity and in embedding that person in a well-defined social and cultural context” (Carroll 2011, 65).

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form official families at this early period,29 they usually named their fellow soldiers as heirs and executors of their funerary rites.30 Thus, fellow soldiers acted as substitute family members (fratres) (AIJ 260; AIJ 380; CIL III 10880; and possibly AIJ 382 and AIJ 370) in this new land, far away from home; and their shared cultural, religious, and professional ties would have promoted the formation of a tightly-knit community.31 Thus, for example, we see at Poetovio joint religious dedications among groups of soldiers, and/or dedications on each other’s behalf (AIJ 314; AIJ 315; AIJ 316; CIL III 14063) likewise pointing towards close-knit ties in life as in death. Soldiers would have not only attended their fellow soldiers’ and veterans’ funerals, but would have been also active participants in the funerary rituals of their comrades.32 These close-knit ties extended into the afterlife, as evidence points as well to the fact that soldiers serving on the frontiers would have been buried together in cemeteries outside their forts.33 Therefore, it is likely that soldiers and veterans were emotionally imprinted, in an imagistic manner, with the funerary rituals of their comrades even more intensely than civilians, due to their shared professional close-knit bond, their shared circumstances as ‘foreigners’34 in Poetovio, as well as the shared dangerous conditions of their jobs. It is possible that each soldier attending or participating in the funerary rituals of their dead comrade may have cognitively identified with the deceased, knowing that they likely faced the same dangers and the same end.35 Moreover, due to the dangerous nature of their jobs, it is likely that soldiers would have attended several military funerary rituals during their lifetime, which through repetition, would have cemented ritual 29 30

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35

It is only under the emperor Septimius Severus that Roman soldiers are granted the official right to marry. See Carroll 2015, 502. Saller/Shaw 1984, 133–34; Carroll 2006, 132. It is well known that Roman soldiers paid into a funeral fund, much in the same way that other professional or religious collegia ensured the proper burial and funerary rituals of those who had no family or who were far from home: Saller/Shaw 1984, 127; Hope 2003, 86; Carroll 2006, 45, 47–48; 2009, 825. It must also be noted that some soldiers buried at Poetovio do not state an heir, and thus it could be assumed that their funerary rites were paid for by their own funds and/or funds from the military funerary fund (AE 1977, 629; AIJ 377; AIJ 382; AIJ 372); while others were commemorated by their freedmen (AIJ 374; AIJ 379; AIJ 371). Hope 2003, 86; Misic 2015, 37–38. Evidence points to the fact that the first military settlers of Poetovio originated predominantly from northern Italian cities, and to a lesser extent, from Noricum. Šašel-Kos 2014, 147; AIJ 379 (Parma); CIL III 4057 (Dertona); CIL III 10877 (Industria); AIJ 371 and AIJ 381 (Cremona); AE 1977, 629 (Celeia); among others. Davies 1997, 56; Carroll 2006, 45. Hope 2003, 84; Carroll 2006, 160; 2009, 823, 825. The ‘outsider’ status of soldiers in provinces like Pannonia is highlighted often on their tombstones by their identification of their city of origin and/or voting district. In this way, they distinguished themselves from the majority of the local, non-citizen population. See Carroll 2013, 566. No other commemorative monument at Poetovio exhibits the assertion of military identity, close-knit professional ties, and at the same time the advertisement of one’s ‘foreigner’ status among the local population, better than the earliest (approx. A. D. 9–45) military stela, decorated with life-size representation of a centurion’s equipment, belonging to Marcus Petronius Classicus Marrucinus (AIJ 260). Hope 2003, 94.

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proceedings into their memory, thus also conforming to the doctrinal mode.36 This would have been especially true for soldiers stationed on the Empire’s frontier settlements, such as Poetovio during its formative years of the early first century A. D., when the Pannonian Revolt (A. D. 6–9) and the subsequent ‘pacification’ of the local population took place. It is thus not only through the tight-knit social circle and the shared emotional identification with the deceased that ritual funerary practices would have been transferred among soldiers in an imagistic manner, but also through the doctrinal frequent repetition of ritual. The strong emotional attachment to the deceased, and to the deceased’s immediate social circle, is commemorated most prominently on funerary inscriptions which highlight the loss, love, and strong emotional bond to the deceased by the use of superlative adjectives.37 In Poetovio we find these occurring most frequently on the gravestones of veteran soldiers. Once they became veterans, soldiers were rewarded either with money or land, usually in a new Roman territory (AIJ 373; AE 1986, 562 [missio agraria]; AIJ 374; AIJ 375 [missio nummaria]). We thus find several veteran settlers on the territory of Poetovio, men from the legions who had been stationed there (legio VIII Augusta, legio XIII Gemina, and legio I Adiutrix), as well as veterans from abroad.38 These men married and formed families with local women, creating a new provincial society and helping to urbanise and shape the civic identity of Poetovio in the later first century and early-mid second century A. D. As literate men39 bearing Roman citizenship they took on leading administrative and government roles in their communities, such as becoming decurions (AE 1993, 1285; AE 1986, 568;40 CIL III 411141). Inscriptions of veterans settled there would have thus commemorated a new sense of civic identity, as these men came to identify themselves as new citizens of Poetovio.42 As soldiers received permission to marry and/or moved from active service to veteran status, they reintegrated civil36 37

38 39 40 41 42

Graham 2011, 105 states that “the experience would have recalled all of the other times, and individuals, for whom they had performed the same rituals, thus continuing the remembrance process for each of these people”. While it must be acknowledged that there is still debate over the significance of the use of superlative adjectives on funerary and commemorative monuments (whether they should be understood as a standard practice of the epigraphic habit due to their formulaic nature, or whether they should be interpreted as an expression of deeper emotional bonds), the present author believes that Graham successfully argues for the emotional significance behind the use of superlative adjectives. See Graham 2006, 68–69. AE 1986, 562 (veteran of XIIII Gemina); AIJ 378 (soldier of XIIII Gemina); CIL III 4056 (veteran of IIII Flavia); among others. While there is still debate about the levels of literacy in the Roman world, it is generally accepted that soldiers and magistrates were at least partially, if not completely, literate. Carroll 2007–2008, 46. This inscription is a votive dedication by Titus Cassius Verinus, a decurion of Poetovio, who was a praefectus fabrum (officer in charge of military engineers). He sets up the dedication with his wife on behalf of his son, thus advertising his family ties (see below). Another votive dedication attesting a different praefectus fabrum (Caius Tiberinius Faventinus) who becomes a decurion of Poetovio. Hope 2003, 82; Tint 2010, 245.

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ian society and thus their close-knit bonds began to shift from just military to military and familial (AIJ 379;43 AIJ 378 [filio karissimo]; AIJ 455 [mater pientissima]; CIL III 10881 [pientissimo fratri]; AE 1986, 568).44 These new familial ties are further exemplified through shared tombs within the deceased’s close-knit social circle.45 Very few soldiers who died while still in active service at Poetovio share a funerary monument with another soldier (AIJ 382); more frequent are shared family tombs within the immediate family of soldiers and veterans (AE 1986, 570; CIL III 10881; AIJ 446; AIJ 455), thus signifying again the shift from military to familial bonds. Funerary monuments, due to their public and permanent character, thus served as mnemonic devices,46 transferring funerary ritual and commemoration practices, both in an imagistic manner, among the close-knit military circle of soldiers, and also in a doctrinal manner, as once the soldiers became veterans, integrated civilian life, and were buried alongside their families in civilian cemeteries, Roman funerary rituals would be spread within the wider Poetovian civilian population, thus becoming inclusive.47 It must be noted that this transfer of funerary and commemorative rituals through a mix of imagistic and doctrinal elements was not one-sided, but was negotiated among the various cultural and social groups, native (Pannonian-Illyrian and Celtic)48 and immigrant (Italian, Greek, Oriental)49 alike, who inhabited the territory of Poetovio in the first and second centuries A. D., creating a new imperial provincial culture.50 One example of this negotiation of funerary and commemoration ritual is to be found in the adoption and use of the epigraphic habit. Prior to the Roman occupation the native population of Pannonia had no tradition of inscribed stone commemoration. However, with the arrival of the Roman military occupation funerary and commemorative practices, such as the setting up of permanent stone monuments and the use of the epigraphic habit, were introduced.51 The epigraphic habit, in particular, became an efficient way for both groups and individuals to negotiate and express their identities within this new provincial context. Thus, the ritual of setting up and inscribing stone monuments was quickly adopted as a common platform of public and mass communication among the differing cultural and social groups of Poetovio. So, for example, the stelae of three soldiers from the mid-second century A. D., one a veteran of the legio I Adiutrix from Tacapae (Ro43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

This is one of the earliest (Claudian) gravestones of a veteran, Aulus Postumius Seneca, commemorated by his two freed slaves, Postumia Iucunda and Primigenius, who are likely his wife and son. “It is in commemorative epitaphs of the immediate family that the closest emotional bonds are expressed”: Carroll 2006, 32. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 31; Carroll 2011, 67; Graham 2011, 91. Stewart 2004, 566; Carroll 2015, 502. Šašel-Kos 2014, 141. IbId. 147. Carroll 2013, 560–61. Dizdar et al. 2003 and ŠoštariĆ et al. 2006 also point to cultural integration found in burial customs and grave goods in southern Pannonia. Carroll 2013, 561.

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man Tripolitania)52 the second a soldier of unknown (Italic?) origin from the legio XIII Gemina53 and the third a veteran beneficiarius consularis of the legio II Adiutrix from Dertona,54 are closely related in shape, decoration, and design to a later (mid-second/mid-third century A. D.) gravestone commemorating a family of civilians.55 Thus, we see that Roman soldiers and veterans played a pivotal role in the early development of Roman Poetovio, becoming not only the first Roman colonists but also pioneers of Roman culture, introducing, negotiating, and spreading cultural elements, such as the Roman ritual of funerary commemoration, with all its accompanying rites and elements of material culture, including the transmission of the epigraphic habit.56 Relief sculpture on funerary monuments, such as family portraits, also conformed to the imagistic mode in that it appealed to the emotive side of the viewer. By being strategically placed where there was an ‘audience’ for their viewing, facing roads, they beckoned to the passer-by to stop and look at them, and even read them aloud,57 thus ensuring that the memory of the deceased would be preserved not only in the memory of their descendants, but also in the memory of the whole community.58 The viewer was thus drawn into observing the details of the image of the deceased, running their fingers on the stone to touch the sculpture, reading the inscription, pronouncing the name of the deceased, and lastly making them wonder who the deceased may have been and what kind of life they may have led.59 These monuments were thus designed to be interactive, and viewed at different times of the day, under different light, relief sculpture may even have appeared to ‘come alive’, especially under flickering lamplight during rituals, creating an emotional imprint on the viewer and helping to transfer funerary ritual practice in an imagistic manner.60 Moreover, by being displayed publicly, funerary monuments and funerary commemoration rituals became collective – the ritual habitus of setting up a funerary monument, with an inscription, and performing commemorative funerary rituals, such as banqueting with the deceased, are spread by being performed/exhibited 52 53 54 55 56

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AIJ 375. AIJ 376. AIJ 373. AIJ 402. Mráv 2010–2013, 86–87. This is true in general of most places in the Roman Empire where there is a significant military presence. Carroll 2006, 17; 2015, 502. Carroll 2006, 58: “funerary inscriptions, were both social symbols and active ingredients in promoting cultural and ideological change”. Davies 1997, 49; Carroll 2006, 54, 105–106; 2007–2008, 38–39, 54; 2011, 66–67; 2013, 560. Carroll 2006, 1–3, 16, 48, 53, 55; 2007–2008, 37; Hewer/Roberts 2012, 175. Carroll 2011, 69 notes that relief sculpture “acted as a focus of affection and emotion, reminded the beholder of the character and personality of that person, and was an active prompt in conjuring up memories”. Carroll 2007–2008, 38 notes that “the reading of monumental texts depended on the visual, vocal and oral senses” and that “the survival of the memory of the deceased in epigraphy required active participation by the viewer in voiced communication”. See also Davies 1997, 50–51.

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in a public setting, in a repeated manner,61 transferring the commemoration practices and the memory of the deceased, not only to the deceased’s close circle, but also to the wider community which comes into contact with the funerary monument, and thus conforming to the doctrinal mode. In this way, funerary and commemorative monuments are an important form of permanent language of remembrance, which not only communicate and help preserve the identity, the wishes, and the memory of the deceased;62 but also work to transmit funerary practices to the collective community.63 Thus, with every generation who died and every generation who visited the tombs, the collective memory, and with it the collective identity of Poetovio and its inhabitants was reshaped and reinterpreted.64 As this paper has argued, funerary and commemorative ritual practices, and with them the memory of the deceased, were transmitted in Poetovio, and also more generally throughout the Roman Empire, by employing elements of both the imagistic and the doctrinal modes. Funerary ritual practices were transmitted in an imagistic manner via tight-knit social groups in a highly-emotional environment which embedded funerary ritual practices in the episodic memory of the participants. Additionally, in a profession with a high mortality rate, such as serving in the army, the frequent repetition of funerary rituals would have also cemented them in the semantic memory of the participants; and as we have seen with the case of the Poetovian veterans who re-integrated civilian society, Roman funerary ritual practices would also have spread within a wider population due to their public nature. It is thus in this interplay between individual minds, social networks, and material culture that funerary ritual practices were negotiated, constructed, preserved, and transferred. ANCIENT SOURCES AE: L’Année Épigraphique, Paris 1889– AIJ: V. Hoffiler / B. Saria, Antike Inschriften aus Jugoslavien, Zagreb 1938. CIL: Th. Mommsen, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Berlin 1873. ILS: H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, II.1, Berlin 1902. 61

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Repetition is a particularly effective doctrinal form of transmission in a funerary context. Firstly, since funerary and commemorative monuments were grouped together in cemeteries next to similar monuments they visually indoctrinated the visitor as to the appropriate shape of the monument, the epigraphic habit, the use of iconography etc … See Carroll 2007–2008, 45. Secondly, individuals were exposed to the repetition of ritual actions, such as banqueting or circumambulation, not only in the context of their own dearly departed, but also through observation of other people’s performance of these rituals due to the public nature of cemeteries. Carroll 2006, 19; 2007–2008, 40. Graham states that such monuments “communicated with the living through the inscribed text and the design of the monument, and provided a focus for ongoing family remembrance activities”. Graham 2006, 65–66. Connerton 1989, 72–73 believes that funerary and commemorative monuments “traps and holds information” on the deceased, transferring the memory of the deceased through ‘inscribing’. See also Graham 2011, 92. Carroll 2006, 18, 32. Schwartz 1982, 375; Carroll 2006, 18; Hewer/Roberts 2012, 175, 177.

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Misic 2015: B. Misic, “Cognitive Theory and Religious Integration: The Case of the Poetovian Mithraea”, in T. Brindle / M. Allen / E. Durham / A. Smith (eds.), TRAC 2014. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, Oxford 2015, 31–40. Mráv 2010–2013: Zs. Mráv, “The Roman Army Along the Amber Road Between Poetovio and Carnuntum in the 1st Century A. D. – Archaeological Evidence”, Communicationes Archaelogicae Hungariae 2010–2013, 49–100. Murray et al. 2013: B. D. Murray / A. C. Holland / E. A. Kensinger, “Episodic Memory and Emotion”, in M. D. Robinson / E. R. Watkins / E. Harmon-Jones (eds.), Handbook of Cognition and Emotion, New York 2013, 156–75. Olick 1999: J. K. Olick, “Collective Memory: The Two Cultures”, Sociological Theory 17 (1999), 333–48. Panagiotidou 2014: O. Panagiotidou, “The Asklepios Cult: Where Brains, Minds and Bodies Interact with the World, Creating New Realities”, Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1 (2014), 14–23. Parker Pearson 2000: M. Parker Pearson, The Archaeology of Death and Burial, College Station TX 2000. Saller/Shaw 1984: R. P. Saller / B. D. Shaw, “Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves”, Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984), 124–56. Schwartz 1982: B. Schwartz, “The Social Context of Commemoration: A Study in Collective Memory”, Social Forces 61 (1982), 374–402. Slochower 2011: J. Slochower, “Out of the Analytic Shadow: On the Dynamics of Commemorative Ritual”, Psychoanalytic Dialogues 21 (2011), 676–90. Stewart 2004: M. Stewart, “Remembering without Commemoration: The Mnemonics and Politics of Holocaust Memories among European Roma”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10 (2004), 561–82. Šašel-Kos 2014: M. Šašel-Kos, “Poetovio Before the Marcomannic Wars: From Legionary Camp to Colonia Ulpia”, in I. Piso / R. Varga (eds.), Trajan und Seine Städte, Cluj-Napoca 2014, 139–65. ŠoštariĆ et al. 2006: R. Šoštarić / M. Dizdar / D. Kušan / V. Hršak / S. Mareković, “Comparative Analysis of Plant Finds from Early Roman Gravesin Ilok (Cuccium) and Šćitarjevo (Andautonia), Croatia – A Contribution to Understanding Burial Rites in Southern Pannonia”, Collegium Anthropologicum 30 (2006), 315–22. Tint 2010: B. Tint, “History, Memory and Intractable Conflict”, Conflict Resolution Quarterly 27 (2010), 239–56. Whitehouse 2002: H. Whitehouse, “Modes of Religiosity: Towards a Cognitive Explanation of the Socio-Political Dynamics of Religion”, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 14 (2002), 293–315. Whitehouse 2004: H. Whitehouse, “Theorizing Religions Past”, in Whitehouse/Martin 2004, 216–32. Whitehouse 2009: H. Whitehouse, “Graeco-Roman Religions and the Cognitive Science of Religion”, in L. H. Martin / P. Pachis (eds.), Imagistic Traditions in the Graeco-Roman World: A Cognitive Modelling of History of Religious Research. Acts of the Panel Held During the XIX Congress of the International Association of History of Religions (IAHR), Tokyo, Japan, March 2005, Thessaloniki 2009, 1–13. Whitehouse 2013: H. Whitehouse, “Immortality, Creation and Regulation: Updating Durkheim’s Theory of the Sacred”, in D. Xygalatas / W. W. McCorkle Jr. (eds.), Mental Culture: Classical Social Theory and the Cognitive Science of Religion, Durham 2013, 66–79. Whitehouse/Martin 2004: H. Whitehouse / L. H. Martin (eds.), Theorizing Religions Past: Archaeology, History and Cognition, Walnut Creek 2004.

COMMEMORATING WAR AND WAR DEAD IN 18TH CENTURY GERMANY Johannes Birgfeld 1. Dealing with 18th century Germany can be a complex endeavour. Not governed centrally by one absolute ruler and his court, from a capital city which might also function as its cultural centre, the Holy Roman Empire was the infamous patchwork of miniature, middle sized, and extended shires, duchies, grand duchies, and kingdoms (of which Prussia and Austria were the most powerful). Since Germany was also deeply divided religiously, one is confronted with a large, in many respects very heterogeneous entity at the centre of Europe about which general statements can only be made with the concurrent acknowledgment of their inescapable shortcomings. Subject to these limitations, the German 18th century has quite rightly been described as the age of reason, enlightenment, and absolutism. It was, however, also an age of warfare – not much different from the prevenient 17th century. Between 1700 and 1800 German soldiers and sovereigns participated in more than a dozen military conflicts on German or foreign soil: in the Great Northern War (1700– 1721), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), the Austro-Turkish Wars (1714–1718), the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720), the War of the Polish Succession (1733–1738), the Austro-Turkish War (1737–1739), the First (1740– 1742) and Second (1744–1745) Silesian War, the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), the Third Silesian respectively the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), the American War of Independence (1775–1783), the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–1779), the Prussian intervention in the Austrian Netherlands (1787), the Austro-Turkish War (1787–1791), and in the Wars of the First (1792–1797) and Second Coalition (1798–1802) against revolutionary France. For almost 60 years of the 18th century German troops were involved in military conflicts at home or elsewhere in Europe. If one adds the American War of Independence to this total, only for one third of those hundred years Germans were not involved in armed conflicts. The warfare of the time has often been characterized as that of a ‘tamed Bellona’. Based on standing armies, and with only minor advances in weaponry during the period, military engagement was dominated by the concept of line formation (Lineartaktik), the strategy of exhaustion (Ermattungsstrategie), siege warfare (Festungskrieg), petty warfare (Kleiner Krieg), and manoeuvre strategy (Manöverstrategie). As the precision of the rifle, the main combat weapon for most troops, could not be improved mechanically, grouping the soldiers in tight lines and shooting in the quickest possible succession at the enemy’s front line vis-à-vis was considered to be the best way of increasing one’s chances of victory on the battlefield. The training involved in preparing troops for such tactics, however, was intensive, making them

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valuable and expensive ‘goods’ to be ‘risked’ in combat only when no other option seemed available. Strategies to avoid large scale battles – i. e. of exhaustion, petty warfare, or strenuous manoeuvres with limited bloodshed – therefore dominated many campaigns. These tactics tended not to provide many opportunities for individual heroism, especially not for regular soldiers: with thousands of infantrymen standing in lines firing at lines of thousands of enemy infantrymen shooting back whilst both lines slowly, step by step, advanced on one another until one side withdrew or both engaged in close combat, while artillery and cavalry attempted decisive interventions, usually only officers or commanders could hope to contribute in a way likely to result in being remembered individually as a war hero.1 But despite all the ‘taming’ of Bellona, war in the 18th century – as war always does – left devastation in its wake: farm land in chaos, cities and villages ransacked or destroyed by bombs and fire, women raped, houses ruined, businesses ruined, and diseases spreading. It led to starvation and food shortages; large scale battles left thousands wounded, crippled, or dead. 2. In the German armies, for most of the 18th century officers’ ranks were reserved for the nobility – those in engineering and artillery being the most regular exceptions, as work there required more advanced academic (especially mathematical and physical) knowledge.2 Most war casualties, however, did not occur among officers, but at the front line where the infantrymen were shooting and marching into the enemy’s constant rifle and artillery fire. The infantry were recruited mainly from the lower class; since society had to be able to function even in wartime, Frederick II of Prussia exempted “Söhne von Kaufleuten oder Gewerbetreibenden oder einzige Söhne von Bauern”3 from the military service. This meant that the group with the highest number of dead to mourn was also the group within Germany’s stratified society most lacking in the intellectual and financial means to stage elaborate and enduring acts of commemoration of their war dead: the private expression of grief often had to suffice. Most of them could neither read nor write. Nor could they commission a tomb, a bust, a medallion, or a threnody published in pamphlet form. Although one would expect farming families – for instance – who had lost a son on a faraway battlefield to find some way of commemorating their dead, hardly any evidence of commemorative forms specific to the lower ranks of society seems to have survived. 3. The groups which could most easily initiate and perform acts of commemoration of war and the war dead during the 18th century were the royal courts and the nobility: they both had the necessary financial and material means to do so, and were in a position to regulate public spaces. Moreover, they were the instigators of the wars, and therefore had the most interest in shaping and manipulating perceptions of the state’s war efforts. From their point of view, however, commemoration was primarily a problem of communication: even in an absolutist regime, wars could only be waged if the general public complied, that is: if its members allowed their sons to 1 2 3

Cf. for this paragraph Birgfeld 2012, 65–103. Cf. Ortenburg 1986, 116; Hohrath 1990, 32–37. Friedrich 1987, 113.

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leave home for military service, if they worked hard and paid taxes, if they stayed calm when thousands died during a campaign. In order to achieve such public compliance, the 18th century developed a wide variety of public relations tactics in relation to military events. Since, however, most rulers tended not to see military defeat as deserving much public attention, let alone commemoration, these standard procedures are best described in connection with military success rather than defeat. Having beaten an enemy, the victorious army, if there was time, gathered the next day for a Te Deum Laudamus to express gratitude for God’s help – as described in this anonymous report of the Austrian victory at Petrovaradin, on 5 August 1716: Den 7. [August 1716] haben Ihro Durchl. der Printz Eugenus mit 180 so wohl Türckische Canons worunter die meisten 24. Pfündige gewesen, ein Danckfest gehalten und Victorie schiessen lassen, und dabey die eroberte Tropheen ausstecken lassen.4

Quite rightly, the 18th century courts had identified the soldiers themselves as the first key audience for acts of commemoration. This meant that the troops in the field were regularly ordered to celebrate not only their own victories but also those of other regiments, and even those of allied forces. Johann Heinrich Ludewig Grotehenn (1734– 1786), for example, who was a sergeant of the Brunswick troops during the Seven Years’ War,5 documents a number of such victory celebrations in letters to his father. On 18 September 1758 he writes from the encampment near Dülmen: Am 1ten Septemb[e]r. Schoßen wir Victoria, über einen Sieg so der könig von Preussen, über die Russen erfochten;6

on 22 September 1759 from a camp near Gießen: Am 16ten dito wurde bey uns danckfest gehalten und freuden feuer gemacht, wegen eroberunge der Insel Niaar, welche die Engländer in America von den frantzosen erhalten;7

and on 20 December 1760 from near Peckelsheim, referring to the Prussian victory in the Battle of Torgau on 3 November 1760: Am 19ten Nov[ember] wurde dankfesst bey uns gehalten und Victoria geschoßen, über einen Sieg so der könig von Preussen in Schlesien erfochten.8

If the military situation permitted, that is, if the troops were not obliged to pursue the fleeing enemy or to relieve or support fellow forces elsewhere, the soldiers would also be invited to participate in victory celebrations held in an actual church (rather than in the field), as Johann Caspar Anton Hammerschmid experienced when in 1716 he and his comrades returned from Petrovaradin to Vienna, where they not only witnessed the official thanksgiving service but also escorted their battlefield trophies to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, where they then remained on display for many years: 4 5 6 7 8

N. N. 1716, f 4v. See, on Grotehenn himself, Füssel/Petersen 2012, 5. Grotehenn 2012, 61; this refers to the Battle of Zorndorf (25.08.1758). IbId. 76. IbId. 97.

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Johannes Birgfeld Gott hat die Christenheit absonderlich erhalten; Die eroberte 156 Fahnen, 5 Roß-Schweiff, und 3 paar Paucken seynd hiehero nach Wienn gebracht worden; welche sodann in St. StephansDohmb-Kirchen aufgemacht und das Te Deum laudamus, unter Abfeüerung der Stucken, Solenniter gehalten worden Gleich nach dieser herrlichen Victori, gienge die kayserl. Armee wieder über die Donaw.9

On the occasion of a victory, the soldiers might even receive valuable gifts from their sovereign: Den 9. Schoßen wir bey Willo Victoria, das der Franzose den 1. August bey Minden geschlagen, wo uns der König [= Frederick II.] 2 g[ute]. gr[oschen]. verehrtte.10

4. After the soldiers in the field, the second ‘target’ group for the commemorations of war was the political and academic elite. Most courts were keen to legitimize their wars in pamphlets and manifestos directed as much at the local and international nobility as at the (academic) middle classes. Often anonymous, they bore titles like: Des Königl. Polnischen Cron-Groß-Feld-Herrns Sieniaswky assigirtes Manifest An die Gesamten Woywodschafften in Polen Wegen des befahrenden Schwedisch- und Türckischen Einbruchs Aus dem Lateinischen übersetzt. Im Monat Febr. 1711.

or Anmerkungen eines wahren Deutschen über das Königl. Preußische Manifest wider den ChurSächsischen Hof. Anno 1745.

The publication of such manifestos was a constant feature of the German courts’ public relations efforts during the 18th century – and even intensified over the years, frequently turning into propaganda wars.11 Furthermore, addressing the political and academic elites always included the speedy publication of reports (Relationen) of military actions. These were often rather tedious, due to their great attention to detail, but they nevertheless became key ‘definers’ of the historic events to the public, as it often had to turn to them as its primary source of information. Alongside letters from civilians and soldiers, these Relationen were also the main source of information for the newspapers throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Needless to say, since the latter were read by the political and intellectual elites, they were controlled by censors and/or subjected to the manipulation and propaganda of agents paid by sovereigns like Frederick II, who had a keen interest in their public image. Besides from being laboriously detailed and partisan, the Relationen provided an opportunity to commemorate those who had died in military action – although only the highest ranks were mentioned by name. So, the Eigentliche Beschreibung der Belagerung und endlich erfolgten übergab Keylerswehrdt […] den 17. Jun. 1702 informs us that: 9 10 11

Hammerschmid 1915, 66. Dominicus 1972, 58. Cf. e. g.: Frevert 2012, 78–79.

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Bey dieser rühmlichen Action / sind allein von dem Königl. Preußischen Regimentern todt geblieben und bleßiret: 1. Obrister todt / 3. blessiret. 1. Capitain todt / 8. bleßirt. 4. Leutenants todt / und 18. auch 1. Major bleßirt. 2. Fändrich todt / 12. und 1. Adjudant bleßirt. 12. UnterOfficier todt / und 57. Bleßirt. 108. Gemeine todt / und 680 bleßiret.12

Equivalent lists of the wounded and dead among the Dutch and Anspach troops followed. In the Ausführliche Beschreibung wie Die Königlichen Preußischen Hülffs-Völcker Sr. Röm. Kayserlichen Majestät, den 16. September Die Königliche Stadt Prag in Böhmen erobert, however, there is no casualty list. Instead, one individual who had lost its life is focused upon: Den 13. wurden einige Batterien fertig, und zugleich die Trancheen eröffnet, worbey Sr. Durchl. Marggraf Carls Herr Bruder Printz Wilhelms Königl. Hoheit, als General-Major und Commendant der Königlichen Garde, das Unglück hatte, des Nachts, wie er in der Aproschen commandirte, durch einen Canonen-Schuß getödet zu werden, welcher von den gantzen Königlichen Hause sehr bedauert wird.13

First published in 1752 in French, Frederick’s II didactic poem L’Art de la guerre describes a telling scene depicting the (ideal) homecoming of a patriotic soldier, here quoted from the first German translation of 1760: Welch ein Vergnügen den Gatten in Sicherheit wieder zu sehen Und ihn die Thränen abtroknen zu lassen, die um ihn geflossen! Seine Thaten erzählen zu hören; Den Arm zu entwafnen, Welcher mit Ruhm vor die heiligen Rechte des Königs gefochten; Die der Gefahr unempfindliche Brust sanfter fühlend zu machen; Jene schrökliche Lippen izt zärtlich zu küssen, von welchen Auf dem mördrischen Schlachtfeld, in wilden Accenten, Befehle, Welche den Feinden den plötzlichen Untergang brachten, gedonnert! – Sehet izt senket der Held auf den Busen der treuen Geliebten Sein umlorbeertes Haupt. Die Früchte der zärtlichen Liebe Gaukeln um ihn herum. Erfreut über seine Zurückkunft Hatten sie seiner Erzählung gehorcht, seine Thaten gesegnet. – Mit Entzüken küßt ihme das eine die siegreiche Hände. Brennend wünscht es sich schon auf die dornigte Laufbahn, auf welcher Weise Krieger zum Tempel ruhmvoller Unsterblichkeit wandern. – Hier umfaßt ihn das andre mit zarten Armen die Knie. – […] Spielend halten sie dort in ihren schwächlichen Händen Sein gefürchtetes Schwert, das Schwert, das ins Blut eingetaucht war: […] Bald, bald werden sie in die Fußstapfen des Vaters eintreten.14

Frederick addressed his poem to princes, and went on to offer a second vision of military fame: Junge Krieger! beeifert euch solchen erhabenen Mustern Nachzufolgen. Alsdann wird die Fama, die Flügel verbreitend, Namen und Thaten von euch in ihre Erzählungen mischend, In den entferntesten Gegenden euren Ruhm ausposaunen.

12 13 14

N. N. 1702, f. 3v. N. N. 1744, f. 2r. Friedrich 1760, 70–71.

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Johannes Birgfeld Auf dis Getön’ wird die Tugend vom hohen Olympe sanft lächelnd Auf euch, als Helden die würdig gewesen die Zeiten Asträens Durchzuleben, als Menschlichkeit fühlende Helden, herabseh’n. Und euch zu der Unsterblichkeit prächtigem Heiligthum leiten. Diesen Tempel erbau’ten die Hände der Unschuld. Hier findet Jede Tugend der Sterblichen ihre gewisse Belohnung. – Hier sind die Seelen der Weisen, die mit geschiktem Bemühen Neue nuzbare Künste dem Vaterlande geschenket. Hier sind gute Regenten; Beschüzer vernünft’ger Geseze: Alle Gerechtigkeit liebende Krieger und wenig Erobrer.15

Here Frederick seems to concur with the general practice of commemorating war dead in his time: kings, princes, and generals who die in battle may claim eternal fame and remembrance, since none other than Fama will open her wings to spread the news of their actions, granting them immortality. For the common soldier, on the other hand, fate has reserved a very different, less public, and more ephemeral, distinction: he has to be content with the recognition of his sacrifices through his wife’s and children’s admiration, the latter manifested in a son’s decision to follow his father’s example and risk his life for king and fatherland. 5. So, when turning to the general public as the third, largest, and most important audience for public commemorations of war, German courts only mourned individuals who had fallen in action if they were of high rank. Here again, over the years, a number of fairly standard procedures developed. The quickest and cheapest way to reach the biggest possible subset of the public was for the sovereign to give his country’s clergy direct orders to celebrate state-wide thanksgiving services on a fixed date. These services not only served to inform the whole population of a particular military success. They also reinforced the official legitimation of the monarchies as institutions by the grace of God, since they were officially held to express the sovereign’s gratitude for God’s support for the monarch’s military exploits. Furthermore, most prominently in Prussia, the courts not only ordered the churches to hold these thanksgiving services, but often even codified a passage from the Bible to be used as the basis for the sermon, thus defining the general outlines of the ministers’ interpretation of the military event commemorated by the Mass. In fact, some courts actually prescribed a thanksgiving prayer to be read out – and shared – by everyone attending the services. The Berlinische Nachrichten von Staats- und Gelehrten Sachen, for example, reported on 12 October 1756: Vorgestern ward in allen hiesigen Kirchen wegen des von der Königl. Armee, unter höchsteigener Anführung Sr. Majestät, des Königs, am 1sten October bey Lowoschütz erfochtenen vortrefflichen Sieges, durch welchen der HErr so grosse Dinge an uns gethan hat, ein öffentliches Danck- und Freudenfest gehalten, und über die Worte Psalm 20. Vers 616 etc. gepredigt. Nach der Predigt las man folgendes auf dieses Danckfest besonders eingerichtetes Gebet ab: 15 16

IbId. 94–95. In the Common English Bible, the verse reads: “Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed one; God answers his anointed one from his heavenly sanctuary, answering with mighty acts of salvation achieved by his strong hand” (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/? search=Psalm +20%3A6-8&version=CEB).

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Allmächtiger, ewiger GOtt! Du höchster Beherrscher der ganzen Welt, dessen Gewalt ewig ist, und dessen Reich für und für währet; du allein bist GOtt, der Wunder thut, und von dir allein kömmt alle Hülfe, die auf Erden geschiehet: […] Unversöhnliche und stolze Wiedersacher wollten uns verschlingen in ihrem Grimm, wie reissende Löwen, und es gar ausmachen mit deinem Volck. Da zog dein Knecht, unser König, aus mit Seinem Heer, für uns zu streiten, und du zogest mit Ihm. Wütend fuhren die Feinde daher, und hatten ihre Schwerdter gewetzt zum Verderben, durstig nach des Königs Blut, und unserm und unserer Kinder Untergange. Du aber, Herr Zebaoth, warest unser Schutz und unsre Hülfe. Du rüstetest am Tage des Streits deinen Gesalbten mit Muth und Stärcke, und decktest Ihn mit deiner bewahrenden Allmacht; gleich einem undurchdringlichen Schilde. Ob sich gleich ein grösseres Heer wieder Ihn aufmachte, und mehr, als einmahl, alle Kräfte sammelte, die Wuth und Rache giebt; so konnten sie dennoch nicht stehen wieder den Gesalbten deiner Huld.17

The prayer was followed, the report adds, by a Te Deum Laudamus accompanied by “Trompeten- und Paucken-Schall”.18 Then cannons were fired at the parade ground and later a new composition by the Director of music of St. Peters was performed for the first time in public. Again, these prayers, sermons and canon rolls were rarely commemorating individual victims of war; their primary intent was to communicate the military power and grandeur of a sovereign, his government, and – ultimately – his people. Abusing the churches in this way was a common practice.19 Promoting the publication of the sermons given at thanksgiving services, encouraging (if not ordering) papers like the Berlinische Nachrichten von Staats- und Gelehrten Sachen to report such services (and even to include transcriptions of the prescribed prayer), should be seen as attempts to extend the commemorative and manipulative effects of these rituals over time, thus granting them some persistence. Long term commemoration, however, was mainly achieved through very traditional means, such as the displaying of confiscated cannons, weapons, and banners for years and decades in armouries, arsenals, at the court, or, as mentioned in Hammerschmidt’s report (q. v.), in churches. Temporary monuments (usually made of wood) like honorary portals (Ehrenpforten) or a castrum doloris (like the famous one erected in 1736 in Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral honouring the late Prince Eugene of Savoy) were recorded in (often commissioned) prints.20 And, of course, permanent monuments were built at public sites. These included free-standing memorials to individuals, like Andreas Schlüter’s equestrian statue of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, placed in 1700 on the Long Bridge in Berlin; the equestrian statue of Christian Ernst, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, part of the famous Bayreuth Margrave Fountain (1699–1705); or the 1736 equestrian statue of the Elector of Saxony, August II the Strong, in Dresden.21 17 18 19 20 21

N. N. 1756, 509–10. N. N. 1756, 510. Cf. for more details among others Birgfeld 2015. It is often not clear whether engravers and printers produced broadsheets or books on public events voluntarily and at their own financial risk or by the invitation of a court interested in perpetuating its costly efforts to impress the public. Cf. briefly Scharf 1984, 152–53.

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The representation of military might through monumental buildings was equally impressive: the enormous new Berlin armoury (Zeughaus), for instance, built between 1685 and 1730, which housed both heavy military equipment and trophies of war. Although for many years the public was not allowed into the armoury, its exterior was impressive enough, as a report by Friedrich Nicolai in 1786 documents: Das Zeughaus, ist eins der schönsten Gebäude in Europa. Es bestehet aus einem großen von allen Seiten freyen Vierecke, von dem jede Seite ohngefähr 280 Fuß lang ist. […] […] de Bodt […] [setzte] anstatt der Attika, ein Brustgeländer auf das zweyte Stockwerk, und darauf viele Trophäen […]. Um das ganze Zeughaus sind eiserne Ketten, die von vielen aufrechtstehenden, halb in die Erde gegrabenen Kanonen getragen werden. […] Das Hauptportal, dem Pallaste des Prinzen von Preußen gegenüber, hat am obern Geschosse vier freistehende dorische Säulen, die einen Giebel tragen, worauf in halberhobner Arbeit der auf Siegeszeichen ruhende und mit gefesselten Sklaven umgebne Kriegsgott vorgestellt ist. Zwischen den beiden mittlern Säulen, über der großen Thüre, siehet man das in Erz gegossne Brustbild K. Friedrichs I.22

It should be no surprise that the new garrison churches dedicated in Berlin (1722) and Potsdam (1732) were decorated with trophies, banners, medallions, and even weaponry.23 The decades after the Seven Years’ War, however, saw the construction of even more impressive architectural monuments to war: between 1770 and 1771, by order of Frederick II of Prussia, the architects Carl von Gontard and Georg Christian Unger built a first Brandenburg Gate (still existing) in Potsdam, to represent Frederick’s victories between 1756 and 1763. Just four years later, in 1775, the newly built Gloriette in the Schönbrunn Palace Gardens not only added to the beauty of the Schönbrunn park in Vienna. Built by Ferdinand von Hohenberg, it was primarily intended to commemorate Frederick II’s first defeat during the Seven Years’ War in the Battle of Colin on 18 June 1757, which forced him to abandon an intended march on Vienna, as well as the subsequent Austrian victories between 1756 and 1763. In 1777 the huge and very theatrical tomb of Marshal Saxe (1696–1750) was unveiled in the Lutheran church of Saint-Thomas, Strasbourg. Since Count Maurice of Saxony’s Protestant faith meant that he could not be buried in Paris, in 1753 Louis XIV decided that he should be entombed and honoured with a monument in the heart of Strasbourg.24 It is yet another example of the systematic corrosion and subjugation of the church’s function as a space for (private) prayer and faith in the interests of state propaganda.

22 23

24

Nicolai 1980, 163–64. For a detailed analysis of the Zeughaus, see Dautel 2001. Cf. also Rebmann 1968, 87. “An der Fassade [of the The Potsdam Garrison Church] prangten über den Risaliten Kartuschen in den Giebelfeldern. Turm und Turmportal zierten Kartuschen mit königlicher Krone und Initialen, Trophäen, Flammenvasen und Fahnen. Auf der Turmspitze zeigte die Wetterfahne Adler und Sonne, die symbolische Bildform für das Motto ‚Non soli cedit‘, und die Initialen Friedrich Wilhelms I. sowie als Gewichtsausgleich eine Kanonenkugel” (Kündiger 2004a, 79). For a detailed analysis and description see: Hausdorf 2012, 33–110.

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While all these equestrian statues, triumphal arches, armouries, and tombs had been dedicated to the achievements of princes – or, rarely, to those of an indispensable field marshal – in 1793, in Frankfurt (Main), something significant changed. Revolutionary French troops had approached the city on 23 October 1792 and, after brief negotiations, forced it to open its gates. Some 3,000 troops entered Frankfurt and demanded substantial contributions (Kontributionen) from its citizens. But, although a city delegation set off to Paris for negotiations, on 2 December Prussian and Hessian soldiers, who had been fighting (unsuccessfully) with the anti-revolutionary allied forces near the northern village of Valmy in Champagne-Ardenne, returned to Frankfurt. They attacked the Friedberg Gate and, with assistance from inside the city, succeeded in expelling the occupying French forces. To honour the ‘liberators’ who had died in the struggle, Frederick William II of Prussia commissioned25 an – unusual – monument, novel from two perspectives: firstly, its form – a lithic cube decorated with metal plates on its sides while covered on top with a shield, weapons, and an oversized lion’s head that gazes exhaustedly at the arms beneath it. And secondly, because never before during the 18th century had a war monument commemorated the individual dead. Here, on the sides of the monument, one finds the names of one colonel, six officers, six sergeants, one drummer and 41 common soldiers. 6. It may now seem surprising that Jürgen Habermas’ early claim that for most of the 18th century the German public sphere could best be characterized as a “repräsentative Öffentlichkeit” has persisted for as long as it has within 18th century German studies.26 For, as Ute Frevert has said, with great precision: Herrschaftskommunikation funktioniert nicht als Beschallung passiver Empfänger. Zum einen bleiben die Untertanen nicht untätig: Sie können Botschaften abfangen und umleiten, verstärken oder abschwächen; sie können zuhören und sich angesprochen fühlen oder Ohren und Augen verschließen. Zum anderen sind auch sie Sender: Sie haben Erwartungen, auf die die andere Seite eingehen mag oder nicht; sie konfrontieren sie mit eigenen Botschaften und machen Kommunikationsangebote, und sie reagieren auf das, was sie verstanden oder missverstanden zu haben meinen.27

It is indeed fascinating to observe the middle classes’ many and complex reactions to war and war dead during the 18th century. These ranged from expensive and elaborate public displays of support on occasions of military success to open rejection of state awards for contributions to war. Attempts were also made to correct or complement official commemorations. Sometimes the middle classes even managed to take the initiative, to shape, at least in part, the official ways of remembering those who had died in battle.

25 26 27

Scharf 1984, 141. For a brief account of the complex interests that motivated this particular soldiers’ memorial cf. Lurz 1985, 61–62. The most irritating thing about Habermas’ position is his claim that the “repräsentative Öffentlichkeit” was “keine Sphäre der politischen Kommunikation” (Habermas 1999, 62). Frevert 2012, 77–78.

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When in 1712 e. g. Charles VI, newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, visited Nuremberg the local city council built a temporary honorary portal, as documented in a contemporary print:28

Although not built to honour a particular military victory, its imagery unambiguously presents the Emperor, who had just spent years fighting various campaigns during the War of the Spanish Succession, as a man of military might. There is a pair of trophies of war mounted on each of the balustrades below the central figure of the Emperor (to right and left – here is the pair on the left):

28

The print is titled: HONORIS PORTA CAROLO VI. R.I.S.A. NORIBERGAM INGREDIENTI 15 IAN. MDCCXII. ERECTA A S.P.Q.N. C. T. Volcamer inven. H. Bölmann fecit. [60 cm × 52 cm] Nuremberg 1712. Private property of the author.

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Furthermore, Charles VI is represented in a symbolic suit of armour with the bâton de commandement in his right hand. The public, or so the portal communicated, Furthermore,were Charles VI is without represented in the a symbolic suit ofwere armour the to understand doubt that Emperor’s powers based with on great military might. Likewise, in 1712, soon after the emperor’s coronation in late 1711, the Hamburg Opera publicly declared the city’s “Allerunterthänigste Devotion”29 to Charles VI by staging a “Singe-Spiel” with the telling title: Die wiederhergestellte Ruh, Oder Die gecrönte Tapferkeit, Des Heraclius, Auf das Ungarische Crönungs-Fest Caroli VI. Erwehlten Römischen Käysers.30 The libretto by Johann Ulrich König did grave injustice to Rákóczi’s War of Independence (1703–1711), which had just ended after a series of Hungarian military defeats by the Habsburgs. Years later, however, Johann Ulrich König – by then poet laureate at the Dresden court of Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony – would, in an incomplete epic entitled August im Lager (1731), which commemorated a 1730 Prussian Saxon military manoeuvre, describe the magnificence and pomp of the spruce, disciplined Saxon army lines as only just equalling the idyllic pastoral beauty of middle class life in a small village near Hamburg.31 While König’s critique of the courts’ high esteem of the military had been hidden in a text which appeared to be a celebration of military power, in Moritz August von Thümmel’s 1764 mock-heroic poem Wilhelmine oder der vermählte Pedant readers were confronted with an outright rejection of the princes’ attempts to publicly celebrate soldiers’ contributions to military success by handing out medals: Die neue Sonne rollte den jungen Tag des Jahres herauf. […] Aber friedliebend und sanft wirkt Sie, die mächtige Sonne, auf die Felsenherzen der Großen und in die morschen Gebeine der Helden, die itzt, voller Neigung zur Ruhe sich beschwerlich von ihren Lagern erheben, um ihre Wunden verbinden und die Merkmale ihrer Tapferkeit vernähen zu lassen. Stolz auf ihr Elend behängen sie den krüpplichen Körper mit den bunten Zeichen des gnädigen Spottes der Fürsten, mit dem theuern Spielwerke von Kreuzen und Bändern; und die Empfindung ihres Heldenlebens wüthet in jeglicher Nerve. Betäubt von den murrenden Wünschen der Thorheit und 29 30 31

König 1716, 153. IbId. 145. Cf. in detail: Birgfeld 2012, 351–410.

bâton de

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Johannes Birgfeld von den lauten Seufzern des Unglücks, stund die Sonne in wehmüthiger Schönheit am Himmel, fürchtete sich, länger herab zu schauen, und versteckte sich oft hinter ein trübes Gewölke.32

But the middle classes ventured further: writers used texts responding to the wars of their day to individually commemorate friends who had died in battle – regardless of their rank. The patriotic Austrian poet Michael Denis, for example, in 1760 and 1761 published two volumes Poetische Bilder der meisten kriegerischen Vorgänge in Europa seit dem Jahr 1756, which chronicled – in poems – Austrian victories and Prussian defeats during the Seven Years’ War. These included necrologies of the Austrian field marshal Maximilian Ulysses, Reichsgraf von Browne (1705–1757), and the French privateer François Thurot (1727–1760), but also of Denis’s brother Joseph, who had died in a winter camp after surviving the battle of Leuthen.33 This last is titled Auf den Tod J. U. D. k. k. Lieutenants von der Infanterie den 13. Jenner 1758 and opens with the following lines: Mein Bruder! wie? du stirbst? Ich soll dich nimmer sehn? […] Du stirbst so weit von mir, an Böhmens fernen Gränzen! Man sieht nicht mehr an dir die blanken Waffen glänzen! Du legst den Heldenputz auf ewig ab! Du gehst! ach harter Tod! du gehst so jung ins Grab. Dein munter Angesicht entfärbet sich. Dein Auge bricht, das Muth und Feuer kochte, Das, was ihm nur gefiel, bei jedermann vermochte. Dein wohlgemachter Leib, der keiner Größe wich, Die Zierde deines Haupts die lang- und weißen Haare, Kurz alles, was an dir vergänglich, eilt zur Bahre34

In 1761, the Breslau based writer Andreas Belach published his travel epic Nachtgedanken bey einer gefährlichen Reise in Kriegszeiten,35 containing not only dire descriptions of battlefields strewn with the rotting corpses of soldiers, illustrating the brutality of war, but also literary memorials to friends who had lost their lives on such fields: O Straß’ und Gegend voller Weh! Hier wars, wo Lockstädt fiel, da stürzte Blankensee, Und dort ist Callenberg gesunken, Und so manch Andrer noch, deß Freundschaft ich genoß, Und gern erwiederte. Der Erde seichte Schooß Verbarg sie dem Gesicht, das milde Thränen näßen, Die endlich Zeit und Abseyn stillt; Uns schwindet nach und nach ihr Nahme, wie ihr Bild: Wie bald, wie bald sind sie vergeßen!36

32 33 34 35 36

Thümmel 1968, 12. For more details on Thümmel, see Birgfeld 2012, 811–46. Hofmann/Wellenhof 1881, 2. Denis 1760, 51; the entire poem fills pp. 51–53. Belach 1761. IbId. 23–24.

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Lockstädt, Blankensee, and Callenberg were officers,37 not infantrymen. None of them, however, was of any great military importance, and – remarkably – while Lockstädt served in the Prussian army, Blankensee was employed on the Austrian side. They had fought as enemies, but Belach commemorated them as lost friends. Thirty-three years later, Daniel Jenisch, Protestant minister and sturdy defender of Frederick II and the Enlightenment during the reign of Frederick William II and Johann Christoph von Wöllner,38 wrote his long heroic epic Borussias about the Seven Years’ War, its battlefields, and its heroes. Although the poem was undoubtedly mainly intended to publicise Frederick II’s politics, Jenisch gave both detailed accounts of major battles and equally extensive eulogies on individuals who had died in combat. His ten-page description of the battle of Zorndorf,39 for instance, is followed by twenty pages in which fourteen lost lives are recalled and lamented.40 Although we do not know if the names and biographies Jenisch presents are real, his intent is unmistakable: Jenisch’s Borussias is nothing short of a literary memorial to all those thousands and thousands whose death in action, whose annihilation, was nowhere publicly mourned or recognized: Theurer Wilhelm! dich nimmt der Tod, und du lässest Louisen Nun allein in der Welt. Am Abend der schmerzlichen Trennung Warf sie, (du lächeltest sanft des frömmelnd-zärtlichen Mädchens,) Zwey Vergismeinnnicht in den Bach, da wo er am klärsten Floss, und die plätschernde Welle riss eines dahin; an dem Ufer Blieb das andre. Sie sah’s, und begann unendlichen Jammer. Denn nun weiss sie es schrecklich-gewis (die Mädchen im Dorfe Haben es oft schon erprüft,) dass du nimmer, nimmer zurückkehrst. Aber als du des folgenden Tag’s mit geschnürtem Bündel Ihr nun zum letztenmal den weichen Nacken umschlangest, Ach! da schien es, als riss sich mit allen Fasern das Herz ihr Aus dem Busen, da war’s, als wenn der Tod mit dem Leben Mächtig kämpfte. Du gingst; – und ihr saht euch nur jenseits des Grabes.41

While official accounts of battle victims only named high ranking officers, reducing all the other extinguished lives to mere numbers, Jenisch’s text stands out in its constant re-attaching of names, lives, faces, hopes, grieving wives, and children to the numbers. One could say that he recaptured the dead from the indifference of official military statistics, turning his poem into a substitute tomb for those sacrificed by princes in utter disregard to these men’s lives. Even more impressive is Jenisch’s decision to extend his commemoration to the enemy as well – including the often demonized and barbarised Russian troops.42 Remarkable as Jenisch’s epic

37 38 39 40 41 42

Cf. footnotes to e in: Belach 1761, 24. Most indicative of the cultural and intellectual backlash both stood for are the famous religious edict and the new censorship law which were issued in 1788. Jenisch 1794, 239–48. IbId. 248–68. IbId. 254–55. Cf. for details: Jenisch 1794, 265–66.

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seems, it clearly belongs to the category of “Denkmaale von Papier erbaut”, to quote Martin Kazmaier referring to a phrase by Herder.43 Nevertheless, things were not particularly clear-cut, and the middle classes were by no means reduced to merely building monuments on paper. When the War of the Bavarian Succession broke out in 1778, Friedrich Gedike, born in 1754 and later one of the leading agents of the Frederician Enlightenment, immediately started to make literary contributions to the new war. Subtitled “Berlin, den 10. April 1778”, he first published a patriotic Ode beim Ausbruch des Krieges, which appeared in leaflet form, and glorified Frederick II’s military action as an intervention which the King had been compelled to make in order to save Europe from Habsburg aggression.44 It was followed by a Kriegslied beym Geburtstage des Königs. Den 24sten Januar 177945, that was equally patriotic and equally determined that the Austrians were to blame for the war. This time, however, Gedike’s poetry was printed not on paper, but on fabric – as a vivat ribbon (Vivatband): Ich habe eben ein kleines Gedicht für Sie abgeschrieben, welches auf die Feyer des Geburtstages des Königes verfertiget und mit einem sauberen und wohlgerathenen Holzschnitte gezieret, auf Bändern von allerley Farbe abgedruckt hier zu haben ist. Die Zeichnung zu dem Holzschnitte ist von dem berühmten Meil. Sie stellt das Bild des Königes vor. Es ist mit Lorbeern umschlungen, und Fama, von einem Genius begleitet, auf Wolken schwebend, hält es empor. […] das Gedicht selbst […] von dem Herrn Prorektor Gedike, dessen Ode beym Ausbruche des Krieges ich Ihnen auch geschickt habe.46

Vivat ribbons were: seidene Bänder von allerlei Farben, während des ganzen Krieges bei jedem frohen Ereignisse mit Gedichten sauber bedruckt und mit Bildnissen des Königs, der Königinn, oder anderer hohen Personen […]. Solche Bänder, zu Geschenken an Damen und Herren bestimmt, wurden bei frohen Zusammenkünften zur Feier der Begebenheiten ausgetheilt, und im Knopfloche von den Männern, als beliebiger Schmuck von den Frauen getragen.47

Gedike thus further transcended the realm of traditional literature by enabling his patriotic poetry to be attached to his fellow citizens’ bodies, tucked into their buttonholes: to function, in fact, as a political ornament as much for the public as for the private space. Five months later, following the news of the Treaty of Teschen, Gedike composed yet another poem, this time his Ode bei der Friedensfeier in der Loge zu den drei Weltkugeln den 24. Junius 1779 vorgelesen, now directed specifically to a freemasonic audience. It is as patriotic as its precursors, allowing no doubts as to the legitimacy of this Prussian campaign, as this sketch of a proud young bride-to-be sending her groom into battle reveals: Streite, rief sie dem Jünglinge nach, Streit’ und kehre mit männlichen Narben des Ruhms in die Arme Deiner“ – Sie schwieg, und trocknete sich 43 44 45 46 47

Kazmaier 1975, 390. Cf. Gedike 1779a, 91–94. Gedike 1779b. Dilthey/Müchler 1779, 376–77. Preuss 1833, 39.

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Siegende Zähren vom Aug’. […] Und er – kehrte zurück. […]48

The example of Gedike demonstrates that the middle classes could, and did, engage in the process of shaping the commemoration of war; moreover, they did so by consciously addressing different audiences, and utilizing different media to their respective ends. Gedike’s case is a microcosm of a complex process, unfolding most strikingly within the patriotic circles of writers, artists, academics, and administrators in Prussia. During the 18th century, monument culture in Germany underwent a number of significant changes, best described as a combination of moralisation, democratization, and bourgeoisification: most prominently Johann Christoph Gottsched in the 1730s, Johann Georg Sulzer and Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld in the 1770s suggested, that monarchs and courts should reconsider the then current exclusivity of the public individual monument to members of the nobility, and that the distinction of ‘immortalization’ in the form of a public monument should be entirely conditional on an individual’s morally outstanding and patriotic services to his or her fatherland, and be awarded in strict disregard of that person’s rank.49 The first privately commissioned monuments – for poets like Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1774) and Caroline Neuber (1776) – were not, however, unveiled until the late 1770s; and only in the 1780s did citizens begin to come together regularly to commission, finance, design, and erect public memorials in honour of commendable fellow citizens. In this area of monument culture, too, the commemoration of war and war dead has played a remarkable role. When the Prussian Grand Chancellor Samuel Freiherr von Cocceji died in 1755, Frederick II commissioned Francois Gaspard Adam to sculpt a bust of Cocceji for public display. In January 1759 Frederick commissioned two free standing statues, again for public display, of his general Hans Karl von Winterfeldt and Field Marshal Kurt Christoph von Schwerin, both of whom had died in 1757 during the Seven Years’ War.50 Again in 1759, Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Gleim began his quest to erect a monument to his dear friend, Prussian poet and officer Ewald von Kleist, who was mortally wounded in the battle of Kunersdorf on August 12 1759 and died a few days later. In 1760, Johann Wilhelm Meil published his own sketch of a monument for Kleist.51 The Kleist memorial – which 48 49 50

51

Gedike 1808, 264. Cf. especially Gottsched’s Lob und Gedächtnißrede auf den Vater der deutschen Dichtkunst, Martin Opitzen (1739), Sulzer’s Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste (1771–1774) and Hirschfeld’s Theorie der Gartenkunst (1779–1785). Over the years Frederick ordered two additional statues of Generals Seydlitz and Keith, while Frederick Wilhelm II added a fifth, to commemorate General von Ziethen. They were all displayed in Wilhelmsplatz in Berlin and they all honoured uncrowned men for their merits, as Peter Bloch has stressed (Bloch 1994, col. 36). For the Wilhelmsplatz project see also: Lambacher 1990. Johann Wilhelm Meil designed a monument for Kleist and published it as the frontispiece to the edition of Kleist’s collected works edited by Lessing and Ramler in 1760. See for Gleim’s and Meil’s efforts: Patitz 1994, 8–9.

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seems to have been the earliest memorial to a poet in Germany, based on the date of the first plans for it – was not, in the end, unveiled until 1779.52 In 1761 Thomas Abbt, who was well connected within Prussia’s patriotic circles and must surely have been aware of both Frederick’s and Gleim’s plans, published his famous pamphlet Vom Tode für das Vaterland, in which he asks that sacrifices made for the fatherland be properly recognised: Wenn in der Schweitz auf einen zum Behuf ihrer Freiheit erfochtenen Sieg noch jährlich eine Lobrede gehalten wird, und nachher die Namen derer dreihundert braven Schweizer, die dabei das Leben eingebüßt haben, hergelesen werden: was kann der ehrgeizigste wohl mehr fordern, als daß sein Name in der Republik unter den Namen ihrer Wohltäter unvergessen sei? […] Wir können zwar unsere Kinder noch nicht zu den Galerien der Helden führen, und sie daselbst Tränen vergießen sehen […] Vielleicht ist dieser Vorteil ruhigern Zeiten vorbehalten; vielleicht wird uns alsdenn eine Reihe von Bildsäulen großer Männer entgegen glänzen, bei deren Anblick römische Tränen aus Preußischen Augen fließen können.53

And finally, during 1761 and 1762, Christian Bernhard Rode – a friend of Abbt, Lessing, Mendelssohn, Nicolai, Ramler, and Sulzer, among others – painted four large scale oil portraits of Schwerin, Winterfeldt, James Francis Edward Keith (a Prussian field marshal who died during the Seven Years’ War at the Battle of Hochkirk 14 October 1758) and Ewald von Kleist.54 Rode thus combined Frederick’s ambition to honour high ranking soldiers publicly in recognition of their merits with Gottsched’s, Gleim’s, and Abbt’s intention to extend public commemoration beyond military success to achievements measured on a scale of middle class values – like Ewald von Kleist, for example, who was mourned primarily as a dear friend and poet. Rode’s significance, however, lies not in his painting of the four portraits, but in the fact that he managed to arrange for their public display in the Berlin garrison church immediately after their completion in 1762. Although Fredrick II had commissioned memorials to Cocceji, Schwerin, and Winterfeldt before Rode began his work, Rode finished his project long before Frederick could his. And, by sneaking the portrait of Kleist – the patriotic poet and soldier whom Frederick had ignored throughout the former’s life – into the Berlin garrison church, Rode did something rather subversive: as a member of the middle class he managed to shape the way in which war and war dead were commemorated – before the state itself was able to do so. Rode, one might say, infiltrated the patriotic communication organized by the courts: his paintings hung in the new garrison church, confronting Fredrick’s soldiers with a concept of heroism and fame clearly grounded in middle class values. 7. The commemoration of war and war dead had many faces in 18th century Germany.55 Although the courts had the greatest interest in, and funds for, staging and shaping the ways in which military events and, to a lesser extent, (‘heroic’) victims 52 53 54 55

The Gellert monument was begun in 1769 (cf. Selbmann 1988, 22), the one for Caroline Neuber was built in 1776. Abbt 1996, 637–38. On Rode’s project, in detail, see: Kündiger 2004b, 136–42. Cf. for more details i. a. Frevert 2012; Birgfeld 2016.

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of war, were commemorated, the middle classes also successfully managed to take part in, sometimes even subvert, and quite often develop their own forms of public commemoration of war and war dead. However, those who suffered most on the battlefields, the lowest classes and ranks, hardly ever had the means to record their ‘sacrifice’ and commemorate it for posterity. Acts of commemoration assumed very different forms, ranging from celebrations on the battlefield, holding a Te deum laudamus, celebratory canon fire, and public displays of military trophies to honorary portals, equestrian statues, triumphal arches, armouries, tombs, paintings, vivat ribbons, medals, poems, epics, prose texts, and pamphlets. Germany’s complex political structure, however, combined with the fact that most (literary) texts dealing with the war experiences of the time are still terra incognita, mean that more research is needed before a precise and detailed understanding of the commemoration of wars and war dead in 18th century Germany can be reached. Abbt 1996: T. Abbt, “Vom Tode für das Vaterland”, in J. Kunisch (Hrsg.), Aufklärung und Kriegserfahrung. Klassische Zeitzeugen zum Siebenjährigen Krieg, Frankfurt am M. 1996, 589–650. Belach 1761: A. Belach, Nachtgedanken bey einer gefährlichen Reise in Kriegszeiten. Vom Verfaßer des Christen im Kriege, Breslau 1761. Birgfeld 2012: J. Birgfeld, Krieg und Aufklärung. Studien zum Kriegsdiskurs in der deutschsprachigen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols., Hannover 2012. Birgfeld 2015: J. Birgfeld, “Kirche und Krieg im 18. Jahrhundert. Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Kriegspredigt, Kriegsgebet, Staat und Literatur”, in S. Stockhorst (Hrsg.), Krieg und Frieden im 18. Jahrhundert. Internationale wissenschaftliche Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts, Hannover 2015, 525–43. Birgfeld 2016: J. Birgfeld, “Erregte Netzwerke – Briefe, Medaillons und das bürgerliche (und) militärische Gedenken”, in T. Nicklas / F. Genton (éds.), Soldats et civils au XVIIIe siècle: echanges epistolaires et culturels, Reims 2016, 147–70. Bloch 1994: P. Bloch, “Umriß einer Geschichte der Berliner Bildhauerei vom Tode Friedrichs des Großen bis zur Abdankung Wilhelms II”, in P. Bloch / W. Grzimek (Hrsg.), Das klassische Berlin, Berlin/Frankfurt am M./Wien 1978, cc. 21–346. Dautel 2001: I. Dautel, Andreas Schlüter und das Zeughaus in Berlin, Petersberg 2001. Denis 1760: M. Denis, Poetische Bilder der meisten kriegerischen Vorgänge in Europa, seit dem Jahr 1756, Theil 1. 2. Auflage, Wien 1760. Dilthey/Müchler 1779: I. Daniel Dilthey / J. G. Müchler, Briefe des Sir Georg R – an seinen Freund Sir Carl B – über die Bayerischen Angelegenheiten. Nebst Sieben und zwanzig Fortsetzungen, welche die merkwürdigsten Vorfälle dieses Krieges, nebst dahin gehörigen Raisonnements, Anecdoten, vorzüglichen Geschichten u. s. w. enthalten, Berlin 1779. Dominicus 1972: J. J. Dominicus, Tagebuch des Musketiers Dominicius, hrsg. v. D. Kerler. Neudruck der Ausgabe 1891, Osnabrück 1972. Frevert 2012: U. Frevert, Gefühlspolitik. Friedrich II. als Herr über die Herzen?, Göttingen 2012. Friedrich 1760: F. von Preußen, Die Kriegskunst. Ein Gedicht aus dem Französischen Sr. Maj. des Königs in Preussen, Berlin 1760. Friedrich 1987: F. von Preußen, Das Politische Testament von 1752, transl. by F. v. Oppeln-Bronikowski, afterword by E. Most, Stuttgart 1987. Füssel/Petersen 2012: M. Füssel / S. Petersen, “Johann Heinrich Ludewig Grotehenn. Innensichten eines Soldatenlebens im 18. Jahrhundert”, in J. H. L. Grotehenn (Hrsg.), Briefe aus dem Siebenjährigen Krieg, Lebensbeschreibung und Tagebuch, in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamt, Potsdam, hrsg. u. kommentiert v. M. Füssel u. S. Petersen u. Mitarbeit von G. Scholz, Potsdam 2012, 3–11.

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Gedike 1779a: F. Gedike, “Ode beim Ausbruch des Krieges”, in I. D. Dilthey / J. G. Müchler (Hrsg.), Briefe des Sir Georg R – an seinen Freund Sir Carl B – über die Bayerischen Angelegenheiten. Nebst Sieben und zwanzig Fortsetzungen, welche die merkwürdigsten Vorfälle dieses Krieges, nebst dahin gehörigen Raisonnements, Anecdoten, vorzüglichen Geschichten u. s. w. enthalten, Berlin 1779, 91–94. Gedike 1779b: F. Gedike, “Kriegslied beym Geburtstage des Königs. Den 24sten Januar 1779”, in I. D. Dilthey / J. G. Müchler (Hrsg.), Briefe des Sir Georg R – an seinen Freund Sir Carl B – über die Bayerischen Angelegenheiten. Nebst Sieben und zwanzig Fortsetzungen, welche die merkwürdigsten Vorfälle dieses Krieges, nebst dahin gehörigen Raisonnements, Anecdoten, vorzüglichen Geschichten u. s. w. enthalten, Berlin 1779, 380. Gedike 1808: F. Gedike, “Ode bei der Friedensfeier in der Loge zu den drei Weltkugeln den 24. Junius 1779 vorgelesen”, in F. Horn (Hrsg.), Friedrich Gedike, eine Biographie. Nebst einer Auswahl aus Gedike’s hinterlassenen, größtentheils noch ungedruckten Papieren, Berlin 1808, 263–66. Grotehenn 2012: J. H. L. Grotehenn, “Briefe aus dem Siebenjährigen Krieg, Lebensbeschreibung und Tagebuch”, in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamt, Potsdam, hrsg. u. kommentiert v. Marian Füssel u. Sven Petersen u. Mitarbeit von Gerald Scholz, Potsdam 2012. Habermas 1999: J. Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchung zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, mit Vorwort zur Neuauflage 1990, Frankfurt am M. 1999. Hammerschmid 1915: J. C. A. Hammerschmid, Memoiren eines Vergessenen (1691–1716). hrsg. v. Vinzenz Oskar Ludwig, Wien/Leipzig 1915. Hausdorf 2012: E. Hausdorf, Monumente der Aufklärung. Die Grab- und Denkmäler von Jean-Baptiste Pigalle (1714–1785) zwischen Konvention und Erneuerung, Berlin 2012. Hofmann/Wellenhof 1881: P. v. Hofmann / Wellenhof, Michael Denis. Ein Beitrag zur Deutsch-Österreichischen Literaturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Innsbruck 1881. Jenisch 1794: D. Jenisch, Borussias in zwölf Gesängen. Erster Band. I.–VI. Gesang, Berlin 1794. Kazmaier 1975: M. Kazmaier, “Denkmaale von Papier erbauet”, in R. Lenz (Hrsg.), Leichenpredigten als Quelle historischer Wissenschaften, Köln/Wien 1975, 390–407. König 1716: J. U. König, “Die wiederhergestellte Ruh, Oder Die gecrönte Tapferkeit, Des Heraclius, Auf das Ungarische Crönungs-Fest Caroli VI. Erwehlten Römischen Käysers, etc. In hoher Gegenwart Des Durchlauchtigsten Fürsten und Herrn, Herrn Anthon Ulrichs, Hertzogen zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg. Zu allerunterthänigster Freuden-Bezeugung, in einem SingeSpiel auf dem Hamburgischen Schauplatz vorgestellet, im Junio 1712”, in Id., Theatralische, geistliche, vermischte und Galante Gedichte, Allen Kennern und Liebhabern der edlen Poësie, zur Belustigung, als Licht gestellet von König, Hamburg/Leipzig 1716, 145–218. König 1731: J. U. König, August im Lager, Helden-Gedicht. Erster Gesang, benannt: Die Einholung. Sr. Königlichen Majestät in Preussen allerunterthänigst gewiedmet, Dresden 1731. Kündiger 2004a: B. Kündiger, “Die neue Kirche”, in B. Kündiger / D. Weigert (Hrsg.), Der Adler weicht der Sonne nicht. 300 Jahre Berliner Garnisonskirche, Berlin 2004, 73–83. Kündiger 2004b: B. Kündiger, “Bildwelten und Klangbilder”, in B. Kündiger / D. Weigert (Hrsg.), Der Adler weicht der Sonne nicht. 300 Jahre Berliner Garnisonskirche, Berlin 2004, 134–71. Lambacher 1990: L. Lambacher, Die Standbilder preussischer Feldherren im Bodemuseum. Ein Berliner Denkmalensemble des 18. Jahrhunderts und sein Schicksal, Berlin 1990. Lurz 1985: M. Lurz, Kriegerdenkmäler in Deutschland.1: Befreiungskriege, Heidelberg 1985. N. N. 1702: N. N., Eigentliche Beschreibung der Belagerung und endlich erfolgten übergab Kaylerswehrdt, wie solche nach hartem Gefecht und ausgestandenen Sturm von denen Frantzosen, den 17. Juni 1702. an den König in Preussen und die Holländer übergeben worden, [n. p.] 1702. N. N. 1716: N. N., Ausführliche Relation oder Diarium Von Jhrer Römisch-Kayserlichen, Und Catholisch-Königlichen Majestät, Unter Commando Dero Hoff-Kriegs-Raths-Präsidenten, General-Lieutenant, und General-Gubernatorn der Kays. Oesterreichischen Niederlanden, Herrn Eugenii Frantz Printzen von Savoyen und Piemont, In Dero Königreich Hungarn befind-

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licher Haupt-Armee; Darin der am 5. August-Monats von der Kayserlichen über die Türckische, bis 200000. Mann starcke Armee mit ungemeiner Tapfferkeit befochten unerhörte Sieg, und das völlig eroberte Lager, alle Zelten, wie auch Haupt-Quartier des Groß-Veziers, die gantze Artillerie, so in 172. Stucken bestanden, dann 156. bekommene Fahnen, 5. Roßschweiff, 3. Paar Paucken, alle Bagage, und viel anders beschrieben zusehen, nachdem zu Wien in der Kayserlichen Hoff-Buchdruckerey gedruckten Exemplar, Berlin 1716. N. N. 1744: N. N., Ausführliche Beschreibung wie Die Königlichen Preußischen Hülffs-Völcker Sr. Röm. Kayserlichen Majestät, den 16. September Die Königliche Stadt Prag in Böhmen erobert, Und was sonsten dabey vorgegangen, ausführlicher Bericht erstattet wird, Aus glaubwürdigen Nachrichten genommen und hiermit jedermänniglich mitgetheilet, [n. p.] 1744. N. N. 1756: N. N., “Berlin, vom 12 October”, Berlinische Nachrichten von Staats- und Gelehrten Sachen Dienstag, den 12. October, 123 (1756), 509–10. Nicolai 1980: F. Nicolai, Beschreibung der Königlichen Residenzstädte Berlin und Potsdam aller daselbst befindlicher Merkwürdigkeiten, und der umliegenden Gegend, Reprint der Ausgabe Berlin 1786, Berlin 1980. Ortenburg 1986: G. Ortenburg: Waffe und Waffengebrauch im Zeitalter der Kabinettskriege (1650–1792), Koblenz 1986. Patitz 1994: I. Patitz, Ewald von Kleists letzte Tage und sein Grabdenkmal in Frankfurt an der Oder, Frankfurt a. O. 1994. Preuss 1833: J. D. E. Preuß, Friedrich der Große. Eine Lebensgeschichte. 2. Mit einem Urkundenbuche, Berlin 1833. Scharf 1984: H. Scharf, Kleine Kunstgeschichte des deutschen Denkmals, Darmstadt 1984. Selbmann 1988: R. Selbmann, Dichterdenkmäler in Deutschland. Literaturgeschichte in Erz und Stein, Stuttgart 1988. Thümmel 1968: M. A. von Thümmel, Wilhelmine. Abdruck der ersten Ausgabe (1764), mit einer Einleitung und kritischem Apparat hrsg. v. R. Rosenbaum, photomechanischer Nachdruck der Ausgabe Stuttgart 1894, Nendeln/Liechtenstein 1968.

BROTHERS AND HEROES Literary Sources on Death in the First World War (the Italian Case) Marco Mondini (with the collaboration of Cecilia Cozzi)1 1. WRITING ABOUT WAR – WRITING AT WAR: EUROPEAN WRITERS AS FIGHTERS “Dieu est absent des champs de bataille” Blaise Cendrars writes in La main coupée, a memoir of his experience as a combatant on the Western Front between 1914 and 1915.2 One of the most famous sources in the literature on the First World War, La main coupée is often regarded as clear evidence of how the conflict’s extreme violence and bloodshed demystified the meaning of war in Europe. According to some commentators, Cendrars’ hyper-realistic description of the desolate battlefield provides vivid proof of how the useless mass deaths which occurred between 1914– 1918 made any glorifying or comforting tale about sacrifice in war untellable.3 According to another interpretation, Cendrars’ blasphemous, raw and often macabre writing became an epitaph for the Great War narrators who were willing to destroy the heroic tradition of the war tale in Western culture.4 Leonard Smith defined this paradigm as the “metanarrative of tragedy”: a narrative tradition which, especially within Britain and its colonies from the 1930s on, turned the 1914–1918 war into a senseless, hero-less, tragedy, populated only by innocent victims and (occasionally) violent brutes.5 An entire generation of Europeans, innocent and enthusiastic, was to emerge from universities and classrooms, still convinced that the battlefield was where real men were trained, and individuals could demonstrate their greatest virtues (honor, courage, loyalty, contempt for danger), only to face traumatic disenchantment. These young men witnessed degrading and random death, in trenches full of soldiers carrying modern weapons. Their disillusion would have ended the centuries-long perception of war as the best place for the develop1

2 3 4 5

This chapter is based on the preliminary results of a research project on classical references (to Homer’s Iliad, in particular) in the Italian literature of the Great War. The project was developed at the Italian German Historical Institute between 2015/2016 by Cecilia Cozzi (former contract instructor at Carleton University, Ottawa, currently Phd Student at Cincinnati University), under my supervision; Marco Mondini wrote sections 1, 2 and 4, and Cecilia Cozzi section 3; the essay was conceived and revised by both authors. Cendrars 1946, 184. Rousseau 2003, 231–32. Scurati 2003, VII. Smith 2000.

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ment of male identity and its related qualities: “words like honor took an inevitable tinge of irony”.6 Nonetheless, written testimonies from 1914–1918 show no fractures in the “myth of experiencing war”, as defined by George Mosse. Most of the Great War authors – whose writings convey to us the meaning of war – believed that, for all its bloody horror, war still had a holy, sacred aura.7 In most cases, they did not represent themselves or their comrades as victims, but claimed their roles as active heroes within the great tragedy of conflict. This phenomenon derived partly from the coactive power of tradition. The persistence of traditional war iconography and the fascination aroused by texts read at school (which shaped the cultural horizons of the young 1914–1918 combatants, and hence their imagining and narrating of war), were still dominant and were to remain so until the rupture caused by the Second World War.8 The “Christian hero” undoubtedly still remained, fighting – and prepared to die – for his community, not merely out of some heroic desire for immortality. After the Great War, as Bernhard Giesen points out, we witness neither the repression of war memories, nor victimization, as attempts to deal with the trauma of committing and suffering violent deeds (as was to happen after 1945).9 The image of the conflict conveyed by the war writers, of course, depended on their national context. Central to the British collective memory seems to have been the critique (and sometimes the refusal) of the traditional models of honor and glory that guided the volunteers massacred on the battlefield of the Somme.10 The most evident common feature of this widespread and often blasphemous literature was its ironic detachment from traditional discourse on war as a source of values and virility. After 1918, English veterans gradually erased the word “glory” from their vocabulary (or only used it ironically).11 In general, however, the European literature of the time did not echo the British tone. The testimony of French and German authors seems to present a more complex case. Widespread disillusion with traditional, institutional rhetorical assumptions about the beauty of sacrifice in battle did not negate a desire to paint descriptions of life [and death] in the trenches in colors that were not relentlessly dark, even among the most realistic and bitter writings about the Western Front. Blaise Cendrars, Roland Dorgeles (Les Croix de Bois, 1919) and Henry Barbusse (Le feu, 1916), did not reveal only the combatants’ hard living conditions, their leaders’ inability, and the grotesque feeling of uselessness shared by most soldiers: their writing still provides touching images of the importance of comradeship, the authenticity of friendship, and the discovery of their own virtues, as they faced the relentless, omnipresent shadow of death. Their commitment and the need to make personal sacrifices for their community (often identified with each small group of brothers in 6 7 8 9 10 11

Braudy 2005, 381. Mosse 1990; Beaupré 2014. Mondini 2013. Giesen 2004. Fussel 1975; Stevenson 2013. Winter 2013.

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arms rather than a national homeland) are also often clearly evident.12 As Leonard Smith has noted, many of the texts generally regarded as pacifist should probably be reread as, instead, the accounts of sophisticated writers describing the war as an apocalypse overwhelming their lives. A liminal experience which took them into a different world (or, sometimes, into a different season of their lives) and which many wanted to describe without hypocrisy or embellishment, but also without any sense of a need to deny their own choice to fight.13 Among the central themes analyzed in the work of the European war writers, death – including that of the poet himself – on the battlefield, and its significance, were fundamental.14 A synecdoche for a specific patriotic sacrifice, the writer who died in battle (or later, from wounds suffered at the front), could be glorified as a new national hero, and a voice of the will to fight for the sacred cause of the homeland (Charles Peguy, for instance, who died at the beginning of the Battle of the Marne in 1914 and was welcomed into the Pantheon of French heroes). In sharp contrast, however, death could also symbolize the senselessness and tragedy of war, as in the case of Wilfred Owen, who died in November 1918 but remains one of the most convincing and best known of the English “war poets”, having written poems describing the horrors of war.15 Indeed, British literature was dominated by an ironic break with the ancient heroic model of the battlefield as the locus for the forging of both universal and specifically masculine values.16 The influence of classical tradition (the Iliad in particular) on sophisticated writers and also, to some extent, on their fellow students at less prestigious British schools was extremely strong at the beginning of the conflict: certain narrative patterns common to the diaries and letters of the first English volunteers clearly demonstrate how Homer had colored their heroic illusions.17 This increasingly widespread adherence to an unrealistic, yet fascinating, model which was cultivated by the public schools and the text books read by young Edwardian gentlemen, made the antiheroic narration of the lost generation’s survivors even more controversial. In France and Germany, however, with the exception of some famous experiments such as Im Westen nichts Neues by Remarque (a more polysemous and complex text than is usually believed), the nobility of sacrifice and the aura of heroism around combatants and the dead were consistently celebrated in memoirs (and, more rarely, poetry).18 The exaltation of war as a creator of the “new man” was strictly limited to the writings of veterans, but there is little doubt that most Frontkämpfer’ memoirs published in the twenties and thirties conveyed the idea that a good German (and, thus, a real man) was also a good (brave, loyal) soldier, who did his duty until the end.19 Another classical paradigm, the good farmer – or citizen – soldier, who possesses all the best 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Trevisan 2001; Beaupré 2006; Smith 2009. Smith 2016. Beaupré 2008. Owen 1994. Winter 2006. Vandiver 2013. Remarque 1929; Müller 1986; Goldberg 1993; Natter 1999; Campa 2010. Hüppauf 1996.

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qualities of the traditional Roman miles or civis, was one of the favorite literary models of the writers who served in the German army. This predilection, which can be traced back to the influence of Classical studies on the Imperial German education system, and to the continued prestige of iconic national figures who had fought during the Napoleonic wars, meant that terms such as ‘hero’ and ‘heroism’, referring to the brave soldiers who had sacrificed themselves in battle, retained their credibility in the pages of diaries, memorials and novels written in the years after the war.20 Pacifist memoirs, which mocked the traditional patriotic ideals and the equation of masculine identity with warrior heroism, were also published, but they represented a minority tradition and, even before Nazism, were considered almost illegal.21 2. SIMILARITIES AND UNIQUENESS: ITALIAN WAR WRITERS AND THE GREAT WAR The Italian combatant-authors of the Great War show clear similarities with the disparate band of their fellow European writers, while also presenting some unique features. The first trait common to all European war literature – which makes it possible to talk about the conflict as a transnational cultural experience – is the centrality of a small group of fellow soldiers to all the descriptions of life and death in the trenches.22 On every front, a soldier’s trench-mates (or team, or platoon) become his whole world: a microcosm in which his only emotional relationships are with other men, who are also his main psychological support.23 Describing this bond with his daily trench companions, Gino Cornali, one of the many educated young people enrolled as infantry officers, talked about “fratelli che bastava guardarci negli occhi per leggerci fino in fondo e stringerci la mano per confessarci come davanti al Signore”.24 The soldiers were all aware of how precarious these bonds were, how likely they were to end in death: such brotherhood was indestructible in life but, as Monelli wrote, composed of “morituri per definizione”.25 The men who wrote about their experiences of war were the members of the “fire generation” who had survived, not because they deserved to, but merely by chance. In return for this luck, it was up to them to reveal the war as it truly had been, a terrible mix of suffering, sacrifice and pain, which nevertheless also contained affection, passion and brotherhood.26 Storytelling thus became a duty to their lost brothers: the veterans were “les exécuteurs testamentaires de ceux qui sont morts”.27 Those who wrote claimed that they did so not for themselves, nor to glorify their country, but as an 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Hagemann et al. 2004. Schneider 2014. Mondini 2014. Cole 2003; Das 2005; Roper 2009. Cornali 1934, 282. Monelli 1971, 132. Cornali 1934, 297. Valois 1924, 295.

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obligation to their companions. In their writings, the dead would live forever, and the emotions aroused by brotherhood in arms would survive the years to come, so that the reality of the war, and the memory of the people who had fought it, would not be swamped by the gushing patriotism and illegitimate rhetoric of the false heroes who had hidden in the rear. Since it was closely connected to the spiritual will of a whole generation, the wartime testimony of Italian writing was concerned with conveying a story centered on a heroic collectivity. Unlike the Classical prototype of Achilles, the Homeric triumphant hero who willingly accepts war and death in order to achieve eternal glory, the sacrifice of the modest Italian brother in arms was principally for his small community of fellow soldiers. They too, however, were to be remembered as great heroes within the context of this understated epic. Their place in the collective memory would be guaranteed by the survivors who purposefully kept their memories alive, as Paul Connerton has noted.28 “E quando le nuove generazioni, i figli dei figli studieranno i nomi e le date delle battaglie gloriose, noi sentiremo con orgoglio d’essere stati parte di gesta che vinceranno i silenzi dei secoli”, claimed Vittorio Amoretti in the preface to the history of the Monte Clapier battalion.29 The veterans’ greatest fear was that the memory of their own war would be lost. What the survivors wanted, and most memorialists created, was an epic of the small community at war, a “tale of deeds” which would immortalize their youth (an emotional heritage they would treasure for the rest of their lives) while also keeping the memory of “[i] nostri morti”, “compagni della stagione più vera” alive.30 Vittorio Locchi, the author of what is probably the most popular Italian poem on the Great War, La sagra di Santa Gorizia, claimed that its genesis lays in his desire to remember “I fratelli di campo / quelli che vissero / quelli che morirono”.31 Locchi’s long work partly owes its popularity to its hyper-realistic description of the infantry’s terrible living conditions, and the almost total absence of any nationalistic or aesthetic emphasis, but primarily to the heartfelt celebration of the war’s main characters, the young “ragazzi imberbi e gioviali”, who died in the name of a common sense of duty and of the fraternal love which had bound them together before their deaths.32 Storytelling was an obligation since the tragic adventure of the war could only be told by those who had undergone it.33

28 29 30 31 32 33

Connerton 1989. Amoretti 2013. IbId. 19. Locchi 2008, 16–17. Mondini 2014, 180–85. Smith 2008.

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3. THE UGLY VETERAN AND ACHILLES TURNED UPSIDE DOWN: NEW HEROIC PROTOTYPES IN ITALIAN WAR LITERATURE In Italy, as in other countries, many veterans of the war could not bear the idea that those who had not fought might steal the memory and the meaning of the conflict. “A chi non ha sofferto, a chi ha adorato la patria restando a casa o rimanendo indietro, io non riconosco il diritto di scagliare né la prima né l’ultima pietra” said Carlo Salsa, in an invective against those, whether parlor reporters or officers who served behind the lines, who falsely claimed the right to bear witness to the sufferings of war.34 There is something strongly evocative in Salsa’s (and others) criticism of the armchair bards of easy heroism. Carlo Salsa consciously used the image of “Achille in coturni” – an incongruous pairing of the notorious epic model of strength and bravery in Homer and a typical item worn by classical Athenian tragic actors on stage – to mock the institutional rhetoric (typical of fascism) which portrayed all fighters as the successors of great epic warriors. To the real survivors of war, every attempt to describe battle faithfully made by noncombatants was destined to become grotesque parody. The face of the authentic hero of 1915–1918 is very different to the majestic one we see in the official iconography. Italian war memoirs do not simply suggest the transformation of an entire social group into heroes, they stress the qualities of individuals or, more precisely, of small groups of front line soldiers (just as the 19th century revolutionary tradition had hypostasized the rebels of 1789 or the 4 July 1776 patriots). They reverse the warrior aesthetic as identified in Western culture by Joseph Campbell with his concept of the hero of a thousand faces.35 The face adopted by WW1 veterans is unlikely and ethically bizarre. It is true that sometimes, especially among those professional writers who came to the war with a solid education, brief echoes can be heard of Classical themes, and their heroes are, perforce, exceptional, handsome, and courageous. This is how Mario Mariani describes a veteran of the Alpini (the mountain troops), Corporal Paoletta, famous for his fierce bravery, his almost mystical sense of duty, and his noteworthy athleticism: a harsh man with scornful lips and steely cold eyes.36 In the most popular war memoirs, however, the authentic main character is the modest warrior, who is physically unremarkable if not ugly, of simple character, unambitious, solid and generous, unaccustomed to success. The hero who emerges from such narratives is not defined by these authors as Achilles reborn, but as a good farmer or mountaineer who is obliged to perform his duty, not someone driven by a thirst for immortality and fame, as was Achilles: the hero’s Italian counterpart is guided by a more Odyssean longing for home. Consider an example from Monelli’s gallery of Alpini (the true defenders of Italy), and his description of a “pugno grigio di uomini perduti”.37 It would be difficult to find a more obvious reversal of the traditional Western image of the 34 35 36 37

Salsa 1982, 15. Campbell 2012 [1949]. Mariani 1918, 23. Monelli 1971, 56

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Homeric hero, who is replaced by the humble yet valiant conscript soldiers, resolved to fight without immortal glory as their ultimate reward. In this upside-down literary scenario, Thersites would not have been mocked by Odysseus (as in the Iliad book II) for his ugliness and disrespect, but would have been included amongst the new heroes, alongside the beggars and martyrs whom Carlo Salsa portrays in his desire to capture all the actors in the war – not merely the leaders and sergeants, but the hundreds of simple, anonymous infantrymen. Actually, the veteran of the trenches was not just the tale’s protagonist, but the natural focus for memorial, since it was his memory which was being transmitted. Salsa’s words and imagery are far away from the pompous official celebrations and patriotic oleographs which would have seemed irrelevant and even vulgar to those who had lived through the war. In Le scarpe al sole (which in many ways exemplifies the unbridgeable distance between the truth of war and the sugary image created later), Paolo Monelli effectively defines not only the ideal focus of his work but also his audience of choice, the humble, modest veteran.38 Those who wrote testimonials were convinced that people who had never fought could never completely understand the reality of the front line and the ambivalent nature of military life – the death and suffering, the horror and repulsion, but also the bonds of loyalty, dedication, bravery, even joy: “la guerra non è fatta soltanto di morti. La guerra è come la natura … la guerra è brutta è bella”.39 This was the ambiguity, thought to be incomprehensible to most people, which was revealed in La prova del fuoco by Carlo Pastorino. The author felt morally obliged to dedicate his memoirs to the brothers-in-arms with whom he had shared suffering, death and imprisonment, but also an unbreakable fraternal bond, which they still “ricordano insieme”, even as they “camminano per diverse vie” in their everyday post-war lives.40 Mario Mariani dedicated Sott’la Naja to his “camerati della guerra” while the war still raged. Had he not done so, the true fighters would have remained unknown, unlike the “eroi di maniera” mannequins celebrated by journalists and occasional rhetoric. The author claimed to have written purely out of duty, in order to pay homage to his brothers-in-arms.41 The irreverent, ironic writing of Giuseppe Personeni, a notary who served as an infantry officer and whose war memoirs were popular immediately after the conflict, is also dedicated to “my brothers-in-arms”: “sarò abbastanza ripagato se potrò conoscere che essi in queste rimembranze rivedono i brutti e belli momenti della nostra comune Odissea”.42 Personeni indicated that his comrades were his real audience because only they were capable of fully understanding him: “I miei compagni soltanto possono capire ed amare questo libro, perché l’hanno creato loro col sangue ed io fedelmente l’ho trascritto”.43 The inability of combatants to truly express their experience of war to “others” (those on the home front, shirkers, pacifists, women) is, in fact, one 38 39 40 41 42 43

IbId. 5–6. Bartolini 1934, 24. Pastorino 2010, 10. Mariani 1925, 5. Personeni 1966, 9. Campana 1918, 152.

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of the most characteristic themes of twentieth century war narrative, both in Italy and elsewhere. Veterans’ belief that they were incapable of expressing their own life experience (an “aphasia” which traumatically affected their return to civilian life) found a parallel in the copious military rhetoric embraced by Italian newspapers and civilian media during the First World War. Typically, this “official” record adapted the reality of war to the taste of a civilian audience. Skirmishes became epoch-making battles, slight advances strategic breakthroughs, bloodbaths turned into glorious sacrifices; even serious defeats or setbacks were described using reassuring formulas: “tactical withdrawals”, “significant losses” – a repertoire which later wars would draw on.44 The acknowledged master of such narrative was Luigi Barzini, probably Italy’s most famous war correspondent, whose dispatches from the front were stylistically brilliant and indulgently purple. Fearless soldiers, athletic young officers sportingly leading the attack, the enemy constantly in flight – all were cast against a picturesque landscape which Barzini often made the real protagonist of his reportage: snowy peaks jutting skywards were the ideal setting for what was (aesthetically) the only war worth recounting: that between tiny bands of Alpini and Kaiserjäger engaged in epic struggles among the glaciers, or fighter pilots, latter-day knights, daring the skies – all of them remote from the ugly slaughter in the mud of the trenches.45 Sui monti, nel cielo e nel mare (In the mountains and skies and on the sea) was, significantly, the title of a popular ‘snap-book’ in which Barzini gathered his best dazzling despatches; no trace here of the dreary saga of trench warfare, instead we are regaled with “azure skies stretching far away”, “craggy peaks merging into the shimmering depths of space”, and heroic aviators dying serenely after duels with the enemy – all of which gave the public the illusion of a nice clean war.46 The contrast between such Barzini-isms (barzinate as all media hype came to be known) and the grinding anonymity of real combat could hardly have been more glaring. The main issue was not the edifying images with which the front line was served up to the general public, but one of, above all, language. The latter reveals a polarizing inequality between those who lived the war, but did not write or speak of it, and those who assumed the right to tell a life experience they had never lived, and, in doing so, aroused the anger of the true witnesses. 4. DEATH STORYTELLING Therefore, the war tale wie es ist gewesen was regarded by most combatant-writers as an initiatory secret, the preserve of veterans; its appropriation by those who had not seen or suffered was a constant point of conflict in the construction of a collective and authentic memory for the “fire generation”.47 The war as it had been lived and fought by veterans simply could not be represented: an experience comprehen44 45 46 47

Bergamini 2009, 54–70. Mondini 2014, 211–25. Barzini 1916, 188, 203 and 220. Cabanes 2007; Erll 2009; winter 2010.

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sible only to those who had shared it.48 The memory of a highly decorated veteran, who returned home to find that his beloved girlfriend did not want to talk about his deeds on the front, is a poignant case in point: “la parte migliore di sé gli sembrava il dovere compiuto davanti alla morte. Un giorno la fidanzata lo interruppe: – Ma tu non sai parlare altro che della guerra!”.49 Within this difficult silence regarding the deeds of war (difficult because of its subject’s incommunicability to most people), the portrayal of death was surely the moment which most acutely defined the distance between those who had witnessed the war with their own eyes and those who had not, between those who had fought and everyone else. “Perché ho ucciso?” Michele Campana wonders to himself in his memoirs, one of the most unusual meditations on the relationship between war and death ever written by an Italian.50 Campana’s text stands out because, although in all novels, memoirs and war diaries death is felt as an overwhelming presence by the reader, the Italian war writers tend to shy away from their personal experiences of purposeful killing. In fact, the 1914–1918 European war narratives usually avoided the topic of their author’s killing of the enemy, and thus of this act’s place as the climax of their own condition as a soldier.51 But the self-censorship of most European combatant-writers during the First World War was never total: the violence involved in killing, especially in hand-to-hand combat during an assault, was sometimes described, both as a cause of trauma and regret, and as a proof of bravery (as with Blaise Cendrars or Ernst Jünger).52 In contrast, in the Italian war literature, accounts of death were rare and oblique, and Campana was one of very few authors to ponder the nature of his own relationship with killing, that most obvious of war acts.53 Justifying one’s decision to kill an enemy as an act of adherence to a superior discipline is rare in Italian war storytelling. Novelists and poets were more likely to describe death as a horrible, harassing presence which they were obliged to suffer, or a natural phenomenon which overwhelmed them and which they could do no more than passively resist.54 No man’s land is often portrayed as a frightening gathering of unburied corpses. Human remains are everywhere: just beyond the parapets; in hospitals; along the abandoned lines, where a limb emerging from the ground could become a feature of the landscape and a landmark as well.55 The obscene cohabitation with corpses in trenches, the disgusting stench of decay and the everyday deprivation of all dignity tended to dominate the accounts of the combatant-writers, leading them to underplay death (whether their own, that of their companions, or the enemy’s). After recognizing a companion on a battlefield sprinkled with the remains of unburied enemy soldiers, Personeni is surprised that he is not disgusted by the bodies: “prima della Guerra non sarei mai stato vicino ad un 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

Rossaro 1999, 2. Stanghellini 1924, 239. Campana 1918. Hardier/Jagielsky 2008, 140–76; Audoin/Rouzeau 2008, 22–29. Beaupré 2005. Campana1918, 67. Personeni 1966, 51. Salsa 1982, 66.

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cadavere a pagarmi un occhio, allora sentivo un gusto sadico a contemplare la morte così”.56 Death was no longer a source of dismay, but had become a familiar presence, a part of daily life, accepted with resignation and fatalism: “si temeva la morte, ma si scherzava spesso con essa.”57 Familiarity with death is an element of the process that historians call the ‘brutalization’ of combatants, which leads to a feeling of indifference: “corpi … volti … membra … si guardavano come si guardano cose”.58 In the end, the mere possibility of death is no longer frightening, the terror is of a pointless death. Dying for no reason is one of the most famous and persistent topoi of war tales, where the distance between the memoirs of reserve officers and practitioners of war is [probably?] most clearly observed (the former being focused on tactical adjustments and operational outcomes, devoid of emotional involvement in the losses suffered). “Morire non conta. Ma quello che demoralizza è di veder morire inutilmente, senza scopo” Carlo Salsa says, exasperated by the ever-increasing losses during bombing raids and the completely useless frontal attacks on the Austrian positions on the the stations of Carso.59 This is the dissociation between the ideal concept of a beautiful death in combat – a choice to sacrifice oneself on the battlefield against an enemy for the sake of victory (the definition of a “heroic death” in the Classical tradition) – and the debilitating horror of random – anonymous, mechanical, purposeless – death: “volevo morire guardando in faccia il nemico … morire così, come un insetto schiacciato sotto le ruote di un carro, non mi piaceva, no”.60 Random death, alien to action, divorced from the momentum of an assault, is disheartening: death at a distance, caused by the chance ricochet of shrapnel or a stray bullet in the night. Such a meaningless event is a waste of life which cannot be accepted: the depressing assessment that “qui si muore senza combattere” is a truth which leaves no room for the heroic Classical canon.61 In few other literary contexts is the repudiation of the traditional ethos of war so neat. The dovere (duty) to fight honorably is radically different from the Homeric idea that it is the bravest or the best who wins: the randomness of death, a consequence of mass industrialized war, is echoed through the rejection, sometimes ironic, sometimes simply bitter, of the Classical image learnt at school desks which colored the 1914–15 generation’s perception of war (and official propaganda for much longer).62 On the other hand, the unstoppable account of the dead is such that everyone feels alive at least temporarily: “ridiamo e cantiamo, ma nel fondo delle anime nostre … ci sentiamo un po’ condannati”.63 For this reason, even the death of a friend who had shared the grinding daily routine in the trenches could become a tired, aseptic record.64 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Personeni 1966, 55. Tonelli 1921, 79. Prada 1935, 180. Salsa 1982, 63. Vernant 2001; Personeni 1966, 53. Quaglia 1934, 80; monelli 1971, 84, 119. Mondini 2014. Mariani 1925, 185. Dominioni 1993, 302.

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While descriptions of cohabitation with death are numerous, the meting out of death to others is more rarely dealt with: honest accounts of the writers’ own violent acts are very hard to find in the self-representation of the First World War author-combatants. Indeed, no published account of the killing of an enemy in battle exists. Marinetti’s defiant description represents one of the very few scenes in which a narrator finds himself in close combat (and, since Marinetti was about to end the campaign safely in his armored car, the occasion is random). Almost always, however, scrums, melees or clashes between patrols are represented elliptically.65 The attack is often described as a succession of runs and swings and interspersed with the deaths of companions; the author usually barely makes it to the enemy position: such accounts predominate in the memoirs of the leaders of small units, who were unable to control events on the battlefield.66 Mario Quaglia describes two such assaults in his memoirs; in each of them, he is able to get close enough to the enemy to face him. “Avanti! – Le pallottole sibilano a sciami, a ondate, sorvolano le nostre teste, falciano l’erba, rodono la terra come talpe … io mi ritraggo inorridito sotto l’imperversare di quei fuochi incrociati”. Death arrives anonymously, enemy weapons take possession of the whole environment, and the main character cannot retaliate: dramatically aware of this, he defines the battlefield as a slaughterhouse for animals.67 The feeling of impotence caused by the fact that death seemingly can only be suffered, not dealt, is a constant refrain. In one of the most famous sequences in Italian war literature, Emilio Lussu describes one of the many useless attacks made by his regiment on the Trentino front: “I soldati colpiti cadevano pesantemente come se fossero stati precipitate dagli alberi”.68 The next scene, in which the Austrian soldiers stop shooting and beg the Italian soldiers to pull back in order not to be slaughtered uselessly, seems improbable. However, Lussu undoubtedly recreates the feelings shared during one of these frontal assaults very effectively, with the air full of enemy bullets and no possibility of getting close enough to their source to be able to kill instead of just being killed. Death is always delivered from a distance: this is the typical “cecchinaggio” sequence, one of the few violent acts the perpetration of which was regularly – and variously – described in memoirs. “Forse io ho ucciso un uomo” Ettore Trombetti writes, having introduced the scene of his ambush of an Austrian who had imprudently left his shelter.69 This is a strange feeling for the author, who confesses that he has always loved the officers’ privilege not to have to kill. After all, the fact that officers, especially in the early stages of the conflict, often went unarmed, and that they conformed to the unwritten rule that a gentleman should not display violence on his own (and certainly not with a mere firearm) was just one of many bizarre vestiges of a pre-modern concept of leadership.70 The killing in cold blood of an65 66 67 68 69 70

Marinetti 2004, 206. Tonelli 1921, 53. Quaglia 1934, 158. Lussu 1987, 106. Trombetti 1965, 36. Personeni 1966, 95.

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other thus seems to break civil custom, to be the definitive introduction to a culture of war which has deeply eroded the mindset of peace, but is also an act about which one’s feelings can be shared with one’s fellow officers. For some authors, this point of no return coincides with an awareness of their own status as “something else”, a warrior through and through, a person whose remorse is less than would be that of someone who had not experienced war.71 This complete identification of self and warrior clearly divided the community of the trenches – who understood the need to fight, even when this meant transgressing the abstract aesthetic rules drawn up by well-mannered civilians – from “l’altro mondo”, who, having never lived the reality of the front line, could have no comprehension of it. This powerful perception of self as fighter led to a radical demonization of the enemy (“quelli là”) otherwise almost unheard of in Italian war narrative. In shooting another human being one reduces them to the status of prey. The moral meaning of ordinary lives is lost, either in the exceptionality of war, or in the enemy’s perfidy; the awareness that the war of position has negated all the glorious deeds associated with the battlefield, initiating in their stead scattered scuffles full of small gestures, as necessary as they are petty: “in mancanza di meglio cominciai allora a prendere gusto anche a questa caccia, e tutti i giorni facevo qualche fucilata”.72 Michele Campana is one of the strongest advocates of the sense of legitimacy, almost the joy, attained in “hunting” enemies: “il cecchinaggio offre una specie di voluttà”, and his memoirs are full of scenes of Austrian soldiers being killed (or frightened) during the long winter on Pasubio mountain.73 “Uccidere un uomo in montagna è come uccidere una lepre”, says Arturo Rossato in his war diary, although this position is by no means shared by all (and expressed with such clarity by no one else).74 Paradoxically, it is easier to find examples of narrators pushed to the opposite extreme, indulging their own – or a fictional character’s – total inability to kill another. The inept character, who had dominated decadent novels, now also appears at war – probably best represented by Borghese’s Rubè. Filippo, the main character, who is tormented by a conviction of his own cowardice, gets himself transferred to the Alpini artillery so that he can experience real fighting, but is wounded during his first action because he is unable to shoot first.75 Finally, the enemy is usually relegated to the sidelines of Italian war tales, an almost invisible, intangible presence. This does not mean that the writers did not regularly inveigh against their adversaries, whether Austrian or German – Monelli often uses the dialectal epithets of his soldiers to talk about “much” [= German people living in Val dei Mocheni, pejorative] and “porsei” [pigs] – and sometimes (Jahier, Gasparotto or Stuparich, for instance) by turning on the “barbarian” oppressors of the Risorgimental tradition. In general, however, the Italian war literature does not demonstrate that persistent obsession with an absolute enemy, a barbarian destroyer of civilizations, which so 71 72 73 74 75

Monelli 1971, 103. Prada 1935, 131. Campana 1993, 143–44. Rossato 1919, 54. Borgese 1994, 117.

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effectively inspired the spirit of crusade on the Western front, and often translated into typical propagandistic rhetoric such as the animalization or demonization of the opponent.76 Mostly evoked rather than described, sometimes almost entirely physically absent from the text (in Comisso or Puccini, for example, the reader never really sees him), the enemy is often an impersonal, ephemeral entity, who kills from a distance (the omnipresent Austrian snipers, who are almost never detected are a constant worry), and rarely comes into contact with the narrative voice.77 Those (few) times when he is fleshed out as a well-defined character can also arouse compassion (or ridicule): il “brutto ragazzo”, un Kaiserjäger “dai capelli di stoppia” whom Rossato stares at and who is killed one winter’s day prompts first satisfaction, and then compassion, as the author imagines the dead man’s mother crying over him. In a more famous scene, the sight of a group of Austrian soldiers drinking coffee dangerously shakes Lussu’s resolve, causing a momentary loss of his warrior logic.78 An enemy’s corpse is an object of pity, not hatred nor mockery. In Monelli, the corpse of a young Austrian officer, decaying in front of his trench, becomes the author’s alter-ego in a hallucinatory conversation on the meaning of death, the fragility of all human bonds, and the dubiousness of honor and glory as reasons to go into battle. The attacking enemy is killed out of duty and self-defense, and no false regret upsets officer Monelli and his soldiers, but this does not mean that the Alpini feel inclined to include the Austrian in the community of fighters, which is, in fact, much closer to their own fellow citizens behind the lines: “Per chi sei morto? Rimani per un po’ di tempo elemento numerico nello specchio del furiere: ma tu uomo non sei ed è come se non fossi stato mai”.79 It goes without saying that this does not derive from any intrinsic decency on the part of the Italian soldiers, or from less tension with the culture overall. Just as in the trenches on the Western Front, an obsessive sense of the presence of war permeates the entire space occupied by the fighters and fills the moralist’s pages. The ubiquity of trauma (whose importance had already been hypothesized by Freud), which disrupts the customary Western treatment of dead bodies and contributes to the brutalization of the soldiers’ morals, should not be neglected.80 These narrators, however, linger only briefly on their own willingness to kill and even less on their capacity to act as warriors, attacking and destroying the enemy. They prefer to focus introspectively on their small groups of companions, their trench communities, which establish both the limits of their experience of war and the boundary of their relationship with death. Their experience can be understood only by those who shared the truth of the front and of fighting, the fragility of the line that divides them from the death. Those who belong to the warrior community are the true targets of the story, only

76 77 78 79 80

Audoin/Rouzeau/Becker 2000. Salsa 1982, 67; Campana 1993, 46. Rossato 1935, 54. Monelli 1971, 85. Freud 1991, 29.

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they can understand the writers’ story; the nation of those who have never known fire, trench, danger or such camaraderie must be excluded from this narrative.81 Amoretti 2013: V. Amoretti, “Prefazione”, in Don V. Maini, Il sacrificio del battaglione Monte Clapier [Battaglione Monte Clapier. Memorie storiche], Valdagno 2013 [1922]. Arendt 1970: H. Arendt, “Introduction”, in J. Glenn Gray (ed.), The Warriors. Reflections on Men in Battle, Lincoln/London 1970 [1959]. Audoin/Rouzeau/Becker 2000: S. Audoin / Rouzeau / A. Becker, 14–18 Retrouver la Guerre, Paris 2000. Audoin/Rouzeau 2008: S. Audoin / Rouzeau, Combattre. Une anthropologie historique de la guerre moderne, Paris 2008. Barzini 1916: L. Barzini, Sui monti, nel cielo e nel mare, Milano 1916. Bartolini 1934: L. Bartolini, Il ritorno sul Carso, Milano 1934 [1930]. Beaupré 2005: N. Beaupré, “Écrire pour dire, écrire pour tuer, écrire pour taire? La littérature de guerre face aux massacres et aux violences extrêmes du front”, in E. Kenz David (dir.), Le massacre en histoire, Paris 2005, 303–17. Beaupré 2006: N. Beaupré, Écrire en guerre, écrire la guerre. France, Allemagne 1914–1920, Paris 2006. Borgese 1994: G. A. Borgese, Rubè, Milano 1994 [1928]. Braudy 2005: L. Braudy, From Chivalry to Terrorism, New York 2004. Campbell 2012: J. Campbell, L’eroe dai mille volti, Torino 2012 [1949]. Campana 1918: M. Campana, Perché ho ucciso?, Firenze 1918. Campana 1993: M. Campana, Un anno sul Pasubio, Valdagno 1993 [1918]. Cannadine 1989: D. Cannadine, “War and Death, Grief and Mourning in Modern Britain”, in J. Whaley (ed.), Mirrors of Mortality. Studies in the Social History of Death, London 1989, 187– 242. Cendrars 1946: B. Cendrars, La main coupée, Paris 1946. Cornali 2003: G. Cornali, Un fante lassù, Roma 2003 [1934]. Cole 2003: S. Cole, Modernism, Male Friendship and the First World War, Cambridge 2003. Connerton 1989: P. Connerton, How Societies Remember, Cambridge 1989. Dominioni 1993: P. Caccia Dominioni, 1915–1919. Diario di guerra, Milano 1993 [1965]. Erll 2009: A. Erll, “Wars We Have Seen: Literature ad Medium of Collective Memory in the Age of Extremes”, in E. Lamberti / V. Fortunati (eds.), Memories and Representations of War. The Case of World War I and World War II, Amsterdam 2009, 27–45. Fussell 1975: P. Fussel, The Great War and Modern Memory, Oxford 1975. Giesen 2004: B. Giesen, Triumph and Trauma, London 2004. Hagemann et al. 2004: K. Hagemann-S. Dudink-A. Clark (eds.), Masculinities in Politics and War, Manchester 2004. Hardier/Jagielsky 2008: T. Hardier / J. F. Jagielsky, Combattre et mourir pendant la Grande Guerre (1914–1925), Paris 2008. Locchi 2008: V. Locchi, La Sagra di Santa Gorizia, Trieste 2008 [1917]. Lussu 1987: E. Lussu, Un anno sull’Altipiano, Torino 1987. Marinetti 2004: F. T. Marinetti, L’alcova d’acciaio, Firenze 2004. Mariani 1918: M. Mariani, Sott’ la Naja. Vita e guerra di alpini, Milano 1918. Mondini 2013: M. Mondini, “Narrated Wars. Literary and Iconographic Stereotypes in Historical Accounts of Armed Conflict”, in Mondini/Rospocher 2013, 11–31. Mondini 2014: M. Mondini, La Guerra italiana. Partire, raccontare, tornare 1914–1918, Bologna 2014. 81

Cannadine 1989.

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Mondini/Rospocher 2013: M. Mondini / M. Rospocher (eds.), Narrating War. Early Modern and Contemporary Perspectives, Berlin/Bologna 2013. Monelli 1971: P. Monelli, Le scarpe al sole. Cronache di gaie e tristi avventure di alpini, di muli e di vino, Mondadori, Milano 1971 [1921]. Mosse 1990: G. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers. Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars, Oxford 1990. Owen 1994: W. Owen, The War Poems, London 1994. Pastorino 2010: C. Pastorino, La prova del fuoco. Cose vere, Trento 2010 [1926]. Personeni 1966: G. Personeni, La guerra vista da un idiota, Bergamo 1966 [1922]. Prada 1935: G. Prada, Il nastrino di guerra, Como 1935. Quaglia 1934: M. Quaglia, La guerra del fante, Milano 1934. Remarque 1929: E. M. Remarque, Im Westen nichts Neues, Berlin 1929. Rossaro 1999: E. Rossaro, Con gli alpini in guerra sulle Dolomiti [La mia guerra gioconda], Milano 1999 [1938]. Rossato 1919: A. Rossato, L’elmo di Scipio, Milano 1919. Rousseau 2003: F. Rousseau, La guerre censurée, Paris 2003 [1999]. Salsa 1982: C. Salsa, Trincee. Confidenze di un fante, Milano 1982 [1924]. Scusati 2003: A. Scurati, Guerra. Narrazioni e culture nella tradizione occidentale, Roma 2003. Smith 2000: L. Smith, “Narrative and Identity at the Front: Theory and the Poor Bloody Infantry”, in J. Winter / G. Parker / M. Habeck (eds.), The Great War and the Twentieth Century, New Haven/London 2000, 132–65. Smith 2008: L. Smith, Ce que finir veut dire”, in P. Schoentjes (éd.), La Grande Guerre. Un siècle de fiction romanesque, Genève 2008, 251–63. Smith 2016: L. Smith, Apocalypse, Testimony, and Tragedy: French Soldiers in the Great War, in M. Mondini (a cura di), La Guerra come apocalisse, Bologna 2016, 176–98. Stanghellini 1924: A. Stanghellini, Introduzione alla vita mediocre, Milano 1924. Tonelli 1921: L. Tonelli, L’anima e il tempo. Stazioni spirituali di un combattente, Bologna 1921 [1919]. Trevisan 2001: C. Trevisan, Les fables du deuil. La Grande Guerre: morte et écriture, Paris 2001. Trombetti 1965: E. Trombetti, Ricordi di una guerra, Bologna 1965. Valois 1924: G. Valois, D’un siècle l’autre. Chronique d’une génération, Paris 1924 [1921]. Vernant 2001: J.-P. Vernant, La mort héroïque chez les Grecs, Paris 2001. Winter 2006: J. Winter, Remembering War. The Great War between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century, New Haven/London 2006. Winter 2010: J. Winter, “Thinking about Silence”, in E. Ben-Ze’ev / R. Ginio / J. Winter (eds.), Shadows of War. A Social History of Silence, Cambridge 2010, 3–32. Winter 2013: J. Winter, “Beyond Glory? Writing War”, in Mondini/Rospocher 2013, 133–53.

SECTION III NARRATIVES OF WAR: HISTORIOGRAPHY, PUBLIC DISCOURSE, AND CULTURAL MEMORY

COMMEMORATION THROUGH FEAR: THE SPARTAN REPUTATION AS A WEAPON OF WAR Roel Konijnendijk The Athenians and Plataeans at Marathon “put up a remarkable fight”, Herodotus tells us, “for they were the first (…) to endure the sight of Median clothing and of the men wearing it. Until then, even to hear the name ‘Mede’ was a cause of terror among the Greeks.”1 This passage does more than just glorify the Athenian achievement. It also demonstrates the power of reputation in war. The Persians – conquerors of most of the known world and recent victors of every major engagement of the Ionian Revolt – had built up such a name for themselves that the expected reaction of the mainland Greeks to the sight of their battle lines was panic and flight.2 In his careful analysis of the passage, Tuplin rightly remarked that fear of a name is not a common trope in Greek literary sources. It does, however, occasionally recur. According to Plutarch, when the Athenian general Iphicrates was sent to fight in Egypt in service to the Persian king, he expressed concern over the fact that the foreigners did not know him; he would not be able to rely on the effect that his name normally had on his opponents.3 While not as formal as a ritual or as tangible as a monument, this effect is, in its own way, a kind of commemoration of war. Recollections of the past deeds of an individual or a group, reinforced by other commemorative and propagandistic practices, are a source of lasting perceptions both within and between communities. Past experience generates expectations for future events. A military reputation is born out of the preserved memory of past wars. It is not the reputation of the Persians or of Iphicrates that I am concerned with here, but that of the most famous military force of Classical Greece: the hoplites of Sparta. As I hope to show, their fame was an important component of Spartan power, and the Spartans consciously fought to maintain it. I will not discuss here the various monuments, festivals, customs and stories through which the Spartans kept the memory of their past achievements alive. Val1

2 3

Hdt. 6.112.3. All my thanks are due to Giorgia Proietti for inviting me to speak at the Commemoration of War conference at Trento, inviting me to contribute to this volume, and for her kindness and generosity throughout. If not otherwise stated, the translations of the Greek authors are taken and adapted from the Loeb editions. Lazenby 1993, 32–33, 43–44; Konijnendijk 2012, 7–8; Tuplin 2013, 224. Tuplin 2013, 225; Plu. Moralia 187A. The effect of Iphicrates’ name is attested in practice at Corcyra in 373 BC, where a Spartan expeditionary force withdrew in haste, fearing his imminent arrival (X. HG 6.2.24–26).

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uable studies have recently been written on the commemoration and celebration of the Spartan war-dead,4 on their infamous treatment of ‘tremblers’,5 and on the afterlife of the fabled defeat at Thermopylae, around which the Spartans built their projected self-image of unfailing courage and obedience.6 Rather, I will focus on the effect that the Spartan reputation had on the enemies they encountered in battle. I will outline the ways the Spartans tried to use that effect to their advantage, and present a pair of similar narratives from Thucydides and Xenophon to argue that the Spartans were keen to retain it as a weapon of war. While these Classical historians may have shaped episodes from Spartan history for their own narrative purposes, the picture they sketch of the Spartan military reputation is consistent, and other sources do not contradict them. Through their works, we get a strong sense of how much it meant to the Spartans to have a terrifying name. While this chapter was in press, Ellen Millender published its basic argument, albeit briefly and in the context of a wider discussion of Sparta and war.7 I am grateful to the editors of this volume for the opportunity to acknowledge her work. Although my chapter can no longer make any claim to originality, I hope that the greater detail offered here may still be of some value in the ongoing debate on the nature of Greek warfare and Sparta’s role in it. THE SPARTAN REPUTATION The first point is the most obvious: the Spartans were scary. Ancient authors unanimously agree on this. By the time of the Peloponnesian War, the Lacedaemonian hoplite had acquired such a legendary reputation for martial skill and contempt for death that he was regarded as practically invincible in open battle.8 This reputation made the Spartans a daunting opponent for any Greek to face. According to Thucydides, the Athenian force dispatched to Sphacteria, which was supposed to take on the Spartan detachment stranded there, landed on the island “enslaved by the thought of going against Lacedaemonians (τῇ γνώμῃ δεδουλωμένοι ὡς ἐπὶ Λακεδαιμονίους)”. After they had skirmished for some time without taking casualties, the landing force suddenly found the Spartans “much less frightening (μᾶλλον μηκέτι δεινοὺς), since the result did not justify the expectations they had suffered”.9 In a fragment of Eupolis, Cleon (probably at Amphipolis in 422 BC) is said to have been “terror-stricken at the sight of the gleaming lambdas (ἐξεπλάγῃ γὰρ ἱδὼν στίλβοντα τὰ Λαβδα)” – the blazon on the bronze-clad shields 4 5 6 7 8

9

Low 2006; Franchi 2009; 2016; 2018. Ducat 2006. Clough 2004; Brown 2013; Christien/Le Tallec 2013; Trundle 2017. Millender 2016, 189–90. This reputation is most clearly visible in Herodotus, who announces their willingness to fight to the death for their laws (7.102.2, 7.104.4–5, 7.228.2) and credits them with combat abilities far superior to those of the Persians both at Thermopylae (7.211.3, 7.234.1–2) and Plataea (9.62.3). Th. 4.34.1.

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of his Lacaedaemonian enemies.10 In Lysias’ speech for Mantitheus, the defendant describes his actions during the campaign against Sparta in 394 BC: “everyone was afraid – and rightly so (φοβουμένων ἁπάντων εἰκότως)”, but Mantitheus still volunteered to fight as a hoplite in the front ranks. He is made to stress that this was “not because I did not think it was terrifying to fight Lacedaemonians (οὐχ ὡς οὐ δεινὸν ἡγούμενος εἶναι Λακεδαιμονίοις μάχεσθαι)”, but to demonstrate to his fellow citizens that he was willing to go above and beyond the call of duty.11 Xenophon reports that the mercenary peltasts commanded by Iphicrates during the Corinthian War frightened Sparta’s Arcadian allies so much that the Arcadians no longer dared to march out from their city walls – “but the peltasts, in turn, feared the Lacedaemonians so much (τοὺς μέντοι Λακεδαιμονίους οὕτως αὖ οἱ πελτασταὶ ἐδεδίεσαν) that they did not approach within a javelin’s throw of the hoplites”.12 In short, the Spartans “struck down their opponents with their reputation (τῇ δόξῃ καταπληττόμενοι τοὺς ἀντιταττομένους) – opponents who, on their part, thought themselves no match for Spartiates, man for man.”13 Admittedly, the trope of fear-inducing Spartans serves an obvious purpose in the context of each of these passages. The remarks of Thucydides and Xenophon give flavour to their ensuing description of a humiliating Spartan defeat (at Sphacteria in 425 BC and Lechaeum in 390 BC, respectively). Eupolis is presumably mocking Cleon, while Lysias highlights the intimidating nature of Athens’ Spartan enemy only to make Mantitheus look selfless and brave. Plutarch, meanwhile, is trying to sell his interpretation of the battle of Tegyra as “a prelude to Leuctra” by stressing how surprising this first Theban victory was. Still, there must be a kernel of truth in their descriptions. As Rawson put it long ago, the Greeks may have mocked Lacedaemonian speech, dress, hair, and lifestyle, “but no one mocked the Lacedaemonian soldier.”14 Plutarch points out that the Spartan reputation was primarily due to the fact that they had never been beaten by an equal or inferior force in pitched battle before Tegyra.15 The Spartans were known to subject themselves to a rigorous training regime, and Thucydides, Xenophon and Aristotle all noted that this set them apart from the Athenians and others.16 Their military expertise was widely recognised, and even having a lone Spartan in command was thought to make a very substantial difference to the discipline and capabilities of an army.17 Combined with the legend of Thermopylae, these

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Eup. fr. 394 (Kassel/Austin) = fr. 359 (Kock) (transl. by J. K. Anderson 1970). Lys. 16.15–17. X. HG 4.4.16. Plu. Pel. 17.6. Rawson 1969, 26; for a neat example of this attitude, see the story of Gylippus’ arrival in Plu. Nic. 9.3–7. Plu. Pel. 17.5. Th. 2.39.1, 5.69.2; X. Mem. 3.5.15; Arist. Pol. 1338B.24–39. Spartan exercises were not directly military in nature (Hodkinson 2006, 134–40); Greek authors praised them for their general effect on the Spartans’ fitness, discipline and endurance. Th. 6.91.4; X. An. 3.2.37, 6.6.12; Plu. Nic. 19.4.

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realities would have made any Greek reluctant to stand against the Spartans in battle. This reluctance would have been deepened by the unnerving sight of the advancing Spartan phalanx.18 Unlike the hoplites of other Greek city-states, the Spartans were drilled to march at an even pace;19 where others charged and screamed to overcome their fear of imminent hand-to-hand combat, the Spartans moved forward confidently, slowing their advance to maintain their formation. As leaders of their phalanx’s many sub-units, the Spartiates themselves led the way. Thucydides describes the daunting spectacle at Mantinea in 418 BC; Xenophon stresses how imposing any army will look when it marches in good order.20 Plutarch tries to give us a sense of what it must have been like for an ordinary Greek to face a Spartan battle line: ὥστε σεμνὴν ἅμα καὶ καταπληκτικὴν τὴν ὄψιν εἶναι, ῥυθμῷ τε πρὸς τὸν αὐλὸν ἐμβαινόντων καὶ μήτε διάσπασμα ποιούντων ἐν τῇ φάλαγγι μήτε ταῖς ψυχαῖς θορυβουμένων, ἀλλὰ πρᾴως καὶ ἱλαρῶς ὑπὸ τοῦ μέλους ἀγομένων ἐπὶ τὸν κίνδυνον. It was a sight equally magnificent and terrifying when they marched in step to the rhythm of the flute, without any gap in their phalanx, and with no confusion in their souls, but calmly and cheerfully moving with the sounds of their song into the fight.21

Adding to the otherworldliness of this display was the fact that by this time the men in the Spartan phalanx all wore identical gear. It is not certain when their famous red tunics and bronze-clad shields were first introduced, but the earliest surviving references to these items date to the late fifth century BC, suggesting that uniform equipment may have been a new feature of the forces fielded by the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War.22 Its effect was imposing: the shield and tunic made Lacaedomians hoplites appear like a single mass, “all bronze, all scarlet (ἅπαντα μὲν χαλκόν, ἅπαντα δὲ φοινικᾶ)”, moving forward as one.23 They were the only Classi18 19

20 21 22

23

Kromayer/Veith 1903, 332; Krentz 1985, 60; Hanson 1989, 100, 149; Tuplin 2013, 223. Cartledge 1977, 16–17; Goldsworthy 1997, 8–10; Van Wees 2004, 89–90; Rawlings 2007, 90. It is not clear whether Spartan commanders taught neodamodeis (enfranchised helots) and allied troops to march together as well. The impetuous charge of the mercenaries and allies at Coronea in 394 BC (X. HG 4.3.17) suggests that only the Spartans themselves – and the perioikoi who fleshed out their phalanx – were drilled to advance slowly. Th. 5.66.3–4, 5.70; X. Oec. 8.6; see also Cyr. 3.3.57–63, where Xenophon provides a vivid account of a well-trained infantry formation going into battle. Plu. Lyc. 22.3. Kennell 2010, 154. Neither Thucydides nor Herodotus makes any mention of the Spartan uniform. The fragment of Eupolis mentioned earlier is in fact the only source to mention the emblem on the shield. The tunic is first attested in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (line 1140), dated to 411 BC; for other references to this garment, see Cartledge 1977, 15 n. 38. Many things we associate with Sparta seem to have appeared no earlier than the fifth century BC; see generally Thommen 1996. X. Ages. 2.7; Cyr. 6.4.1, Xenophon uses a similar phrase to describe Cyrus’ idealised army. The statement is probably an exaggeration in the case of Agesilaus’ battle line, since his composite force at least partly paid for its own equipment (Ages. 1.26). However, the originally Spartan-led mercenaries of the Ten Thousand, the remnants of which now fought with Agesilaus, were already kitted out in red and bronze, probably at Cyrus the Younger’s expense (Roy 1967,

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cal Greeks to standardise their battle dress, even if the use of uniform shield blazons seems to have spread to a few other city-states during this period.24 If we are right to assume that the fragment of Eupolis cited above refers to the army of Brasidas at the battle of Amphipolis, it would demonstrate that the Spartans supplied their uniform equipment even to the enfranchised helots who made up the Lacedaemonian share of their expeditionary forces. To their opponents, who came to battle with whatever clothes and equipment they happened to own, even a battle line that was only led by a full Spartan citizen could therefore be an intimidating sight. In fact, our sources claim that every aspect of the appearance of Spartan warriors was adopted specifically to increase the terror they inspired among their enemies. Plutarch tells us that the “manly” colour of their tunic was chosen because it “caused more fear among the inexperienced (πλείονα τοῖς ἀπείροις φόβον παρέχει)”.25 According to Xenophon, who was born too late to see the Spartans without their uniform, it was Lycurgus himself who had ordained the use of their specific type of tunic and shield. He also believed Lycurgus was the one who first encouraged the Spartans to wear their hair long, “thinking it would make them appear taller, nobler and more terrifying (νομίζων οὕτω καὶ μείζους ἂν καὶ ἐλευθεριωτέρους καὶ γοργοτέρους φαίνεσθαι)”.26 The Spartans carefully cultivated their fearsome look. Herodotus, Xenophon and Plutarch all describe how they took special care of their equipment and their personal appearance before battle, shining their shields and combing their hair – simultaneously making sure that they looked as fierce and frightening as possible, and showing off their lack of concern for the dangers they were about to face.27 It is not difficult to imagine, then, that the Spartans made a uniquely terrifying opponent. In a world of untrained militias, they stood out for their drill, discipline and apparent self-control. Spartiates and non-citizen Lacedaemonians merged into a formation that appeared to the unaccustomed eye like an unbreakable wall of blood-red cloth and flashing metal. Their steady marching suggested a level of con-

24

25 26

27

310 ff. although this is doubted in Trundle 2004, 128–29). Xenophon duly emphasises the fear these men inspired among the Cilicians (An. 1.2.16–18) and among the troops they faced in battle at Cunaxa (An. 1.8.18–19, 1.10.11). The three thousand neodamodeis in his army would likely have received uniform Spartan gear (see below). Finally, Agesilaus was joined at Coronea by a mora and a half of the Lacedaemonian militia, who would certainly have worn the Spartan outfit. Anderson 1970, 18–20; Van Wees 2004, 54. The only exception is the Theban army at the second battle of Mantinea in 362 BC; the Theban commander Epaminondas ordered his cavalry to paint their helmets white, and his Arcadian allies voluntarily painted the Theban club of Heracles on their shields (X. HG 7.5.20). Plu. Mor. 238F. X. Lac. 11.3; see also Plu. Mor. 189D-E, 228F. Other explanations are known: Herodotus (1.82.8) claims they started wearing their hair long in celebration after the conquest of Thyrea from Argos in the mid-sixth century BC, while Aristotle (Rhet. 1.9.26–27 [1367A.28–33]) argues that it was simply a luxury made possible by the Spartiates’ leisured lifestyle. All versions, however, support the conclusion of Franchi 2009, that the Spartans’ long hair was meant to express their superiority in status and strength. Hdt. 7.208.2–3, 7.209.3; X. Lac. 13.8; Plu. Lyc. 22.1.

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fidence and indifference to the horrors of battle that no other Greek militia could muster. Even if their training was not actually that extensive and their drill not that sophisticated,28 the reputation they gained through their past achievements would have seemed well-deserved to any contemporary Greek who saw them advancing into battle. FEAR AS A WEAPON The psychological bombardment that rolled ahead of the Spartan phalanx was remarkably effective. Classical Greek pitched battles hinged on the morale of the troops; since Greek militias had no training and their commanders had limited tactical control, everything depended on the willingness of individual hoplites to stay and fight. An outbreak of panic in the ranks could be instantly decisive. Modern authors have often pointed out that pitched battles could end before they had really begun, because one side broke and ran away before the lines even met.29 What these authors do not seem to have noticed, however, is that the examples we have of such premature flight almost exclusively feature troops who were about to engage a Spartan-led, Spartan-equipped force, or the Spartan part of an approaching phalanx. When the retreating Athenians were suddenly attacked by Brasidas’ army at Amphipolis, their left wing “immediately broke and fled (εὐθὺς ἀπορραγὲν ἔφευγεν)”.30 At Coronea in 394 BC, Sparta’s Argive enemies “did not await the attack of the men with Agesilaus, but fled (οὐκ ἐδέξαντο τοὺς περὶ Ἀγησίλαον, ἀλλ᾽ ἔφυγον)”; the same seems to have happened when the Spartans advanced on the Corinthians at the Long Walls of Corinth in 392 BC, where Xenophon reports only that the Spartans on the right wing were immediately free to come to the aid of their allies in the centre of their battle line.31 The Argives and Arcadians fared no better when they tried to fight the Spartans at the so-called Tearless Battle of 368 BC (discussed below). Thucydides gives us perhaps our most striking example when he describes the effect of the Spartan advance on the Argives at Mantinea in 418 BC: ἔτρεψαν οὐδὲ ἐς χεῖρας τοὺς πολλοὺς ὑπομείναντας, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἐπῇσαν οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι εὐθὺς ἐνδόντας καὶ ἔστιν οὓς καὶ καταπατηθέντας τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν. They fled, most of them not even waiting to come to grips, but collapsing right when the Lakedaimonians came on, and some were even trampled in their efforts not to be overtaken in the chase.32

It seems to be a rule of Greek battle that a critical breakdown of morale just before the clash of the phalanxes only afflicted those who faced troops who were, or were 28 29 30 31 32

Hodkinson 2006, 134. Kromayer/Veith 1903, 330, 332; Hanson 1989, 102–3; Lazenby 1991, 91; Sabin 2000, 13; Christ 2006, 100; Rawlings 2007, 94; Echeverría 2011, 61. Th. 5.10.8. X. HG 4.3.17, 4.4.11. Th. 5.72.4.

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fielded and commanded by, Spartans. The single known exception is an episode from Sparta’s campaign against the Persians in Asia Minor in 397 BC. When the Spartan commander Derkylidas encountered the forces of the satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus united and ready for battle, the Peloponnesians in his army formed up to engage, but among his Ionian allies “there were those who left their arms in the grain and ran away”.33 In this case, perhaps the name ‘Mede’ still held some of its old terror – even if the satraps’ infantry were mainly Greek mercenaries and Carians. Either way, it is telling that the only opponent that could scare some of a Spartan-led army in the same way that the Spartans scared other Greeks was a force from outside mainland Greece. In all other cases of premature rout in Classical Greek history, the presence that frightens is Spartan.34 There is no mention of instant collapse in any battle in which they were not involved. The consequence of this unique advantage was that the Spartans won their battles practically without fighting. The cumulative effect of their reputation for and their outward appearance of military superiority sufficed to break those deployed against them. Once their immediate opponents had fled, the Lacedaemonians were free to manoeuvre. This was the key to their success in all major pitched battles between the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War and the disaster at Leuctra in 371 BC. In each engagement, their main contingent was left unharmed by the initial encounter, which, combined with their superior tactical cohesion, allowed them to force a quick decision. Victory followed as soon as their intact formation was brought to bear on their remaining enemies.35 In this way, their reputation for superior martial skill became self-fulfilling.36 The widespread fear of Spartan invincibility turned into one of the pillars on which that invincibility rested. By the fourth century BC, terror had become an invaluable part of the Spartan arsenal. When Agesilaus confronted the Thebans in hand-to-hand combat at Coronea, even his good friend Xenophon struggled to justify the fact that he “did not win victory by causing a panic rout (οὐ φόβῳ τρεψάμενος νίκης ἔτυχεν)” but decided to

33

34 35

36

X. HG 3.2.17. The passage may be doubted on the grounds that it plays into the trope of cowardly Ionians. However, it seems more likely that Xenophon was looking ahead to his own theme that the subject allies of Sparta generally did not feel much affinity with their hegemon’s cause and rarely fought well on Sparta’s behalf. At Haliartus in 395 BC the Spartans doubted their allies’ willingness to make a stand (3.5.23); at Nemea in 394 BC, they mostly fled after a short fight (4.2.20); after Lechaeum in 390 BC, they rejoiced in the Spartan defeat (4.5.18), and at Leuctra in 371 BC the Spartans were supposedly unsure which side their allies were actually on (6.4.15; see also Paus. 9.13.9). The situation appears very different in the Hellenistic period (Eckstein 2005, 485); evidence for Spartan frights and panics is collected in Epps 1933, 26–28. Hutchinson 2006, ix. Thucydides (5.73.4) famously reports that the Spartans normally did not pursue their fleeing enemies for a great distance, like other Greeks. Pausanias (4.8.11) explains that they did this to retain their cohesion, so that they could use their full strength against any enemies that were still in the fight. Plutarch (Lyc. 22.5) argues instead that they did this partly for moral reasons, but also because, like every other aspect of Spartan battlefield behaviour, it encouraged their enemies to run (see also Polyaen. Strat. 1.16.3). Plu. Pel. 17.6; Lazenby 1991, 104–5.

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show off his valour instead.37 The safer path was to rely on fear. In a context of shrinking citizen numbers, with increasing dissent among subject allies that easily outnumbered the Lacedaemonian levy, and with some of the most prominent Spartiates always deployed in the front ranks of the phalanx, it is easy to see why the Spartans were keen to amplify the effect that allowed them to gain victory without the risk and the cost of close combat.38 Part of this amplification was achieved by the above mentioned decisions regarding the appearance of the battle line. Another part, however, was making sure that Spartans would never be seen to fall short of their hard-won reputation. PROTECTING THE NAME When the Lacedaemonian detachment trapped on Sphacteria sent a message to the main force across the bay, asking what they should do now that the Athenians had them against the ropes and they no longer had any hope of victory, the Spartans replied that they should “do nothing dishonourable”.39 The detachment promptly surrendered. According to Thucydides, παρὰ γνώμην τε δὴ μάλιστα τῶν κατὰ τὸν πόλεμον τοῦτο τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἐγένετο: τοὺς γὰρ Λακεδαιμονίους οὔτε λιμῷ οὔτ᾽ ἀνάγκῃ οὐδεμιᾷ ἠξίουν τὰ ὅπλα παραδοῦναι, ἀλλὰ ἔχοντας καὶ μαχομένους ὡς ἐδύναντο ἀποθνῄσκειν. Nothing that happened in the war surprised the Greeks as much as this. It was thought that neither force nor famine could make the Lakedaimonians give up their arms, but that they would keep them, and fight as best as they could, and die.40

Thus begins a distinct underlying narrative on the Spartan reputation in Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War.41 The detachment on the island had clearly failed to live up to the legend of Thermopylae.42 Thucydides may have been wrong to generalise about the emotional response of “the Greeks”, but he would not have been the only one to notice the discrepancy between the way the Spartans presented themselves and the way they had behaved in reality. Their surrender was made all the more significant by the fact that the battle over Pylos and Sphacteria was the first open engagement of the Peloponnesian War in which a noteworthy number of Lacedaemonian hoplites were actually involved. The outcome could not have been more disappointing for those who had hoped that the Spartan army would swiftly 37 38 39 40 41 42

X. Ages. 6.2; note his criticism at Ages. 2.12 (= HG 4.3.19). For Sparta’s struggle to maintain its hegemony in the early fourth century BC, see Cawkwell 1983; Cartledge 1987; Hamilton 1991; Hodkinson 1993. Th. 4.38.3 – “a marvellously unhelpful reply” (Hornblower 1996, 193). Th. 4.40.1. As noted by Gomme/Andrewes/Dover 1970, 120–21; Edmunds 1975, 101; Hornblower 1996, 190. Thucydides highlights their failure by pointing out the similarity of the Spartan predicament in both engagements, although he feigns reluctance to “compare small things with great things” (4.36.3).

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bring Athens to its knees. It was the Spartans who suddenly found themselves forced to enter peace negotiations, compelled by fear that the captives the Athenians took on the island might be executed. Sparta’s ancient rival Argos was ready to capitalise on their misfortune. The Argives saw the collapse of Spartan standing, largely due to the defeat on Sphacteria, as an opportunity to gain supremacy over the Peloponnese.43 The Argive alliance met the Spartans and their remaining allies in battle at Mantinea in 418 BC. This battle in fact nearly ended in another Spartan disaster due to king Agis’ clumsy attempt at manoeuvre, but when he abandoned all cleverness and advanced, as we have seen, the nerve of the Argives did not hold. The Spartans “showed that they were not inferior in courage (τῇ ἀνδρείᾳ ἔδειξαν οὐχ ἧσσον)”, and therefore worthy of their old name.44 Even with their own right wing victorious, the Argives and their allies did not dare to stand and face them. As a consequence, the Spartan reputation was restored, and Thucydides’ narrative on the subject ends. The Spartans’ complete victory at Mantinea made it clear to everyone that “in spirit they were still the same”; their previous defeat was simply due to bad luck.45 The historian specifically states that all the accusations levelled against them, including “of weakness (μαλακίαν), on account of the disaster on the island […] were all wiped out by this single achievement (ἑνὶ ἔργῳ τούτῳ ἀπελύσαντο)”.46 The Spartans were feared once more. Would it be fair to assume that this is exactly what they had hoped for? Xenophon may provide an answer to this question. His Hellenika covers the fatal year 371 BC, in which Sparta was decisively beaten by the Thebans at Leuctra – a crippling blow not only to their manpower, but also to their military reputation. Xenophon concludes his account of the battle by stressing the defeated Spartans’ good order and desire to fight again, but Plutarch shows us the stark reality: “their courage and skill were so confounded that there was a flight and slaughter of the Spartans such as had never before been seen”.47 Even if they were eager to recover what they had lost, it could not be done. The advice of Jason of Pherae, according to Xenophon, was for the Spartans to “catch your breath, rest, and then, once you have become stronger, go into battle against the undefeated”.48 They soon set about trying to restore their standing in the eyes of the Greeks. In the winter of 370 BC, with Sparta at war with the newly formed Arcadian federation, Agesilaus pitched camp near Mantinea for three days to prove that he was not afraid to face the Arcadians in battle. He ultimately withdrew his army before the enemy’s Theban allies arrived in force, so that it would not seem like he had retreated in fear of them. Xenophon mentions specifically that these symbolic acts 43 44 45 46 47 48

Th. 5.28.2. Th. 5.72.2. Edmunds 1975, 178, 183–84. Th. 5.75.3; Hornblower 2008, 193. Compare X. HG 6.4.14 and Plu. Pel. 23.4. For the prestige gained by the Thebans, and especially Epameinondas and Pelopidas, for inflicting this defeat on the Spartans, see X. HG 6.5.23; Plu. Pel. 24.3–4, 29.2, 29.6; Diod. 15.52.7, 15.55.1, 15.56.3, 15.78.4, 15.88.3. X. HG 6.4.24.

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helped the Spartans regain some of their confidence.49 It may not be a coincidence that the historian includes a detailed account of the way Agesilaus manoeuvred his army out of a dangerous position during this campaign; if he, like Agis at the battle of Mantinea, was trying to showcase Spartan tactical skill, he was more successful at it than his predecessor.50 The Spartans would have been delighted to hear that the Thebans were reluctant to invade Lacedaemon itself, afraid that the Spartans would fight harder than ever – but it made no difference in the end, because the Thebans were persuaded by their allies, and Lacedaemon was ravaged for the first time in centuries.51 Sparta was humiliated again the following year. In 368 BC, however, the Spartans got their chance. While campaigning in Arcadia, they ran into a large army of Argives and Arcadians at a crossroads, trying to block their way home. Once again, as at Mantinea fifty years earlier, the enemy was a force of Peloponnesians who thought the time had come to put the Spartans in their place. The Spartan commander, Agesilaus’ son Archidamus, promptly formed up his forces for battle. Xenophon generally does not include pre-battle speeches in his historical works, but on this occasion he felt it worthwhile to record how Archidamus encouraged his men: ἄνδρες πολῖται, νῦν ἀγαθοὶ γενόμενοι ἀναβλέψωμεν ὀρθοῖς ὄμμασιν: ἀποδῶμεν τοῖς ἐπιγιγνομένοις τὴν πατρίδα οἵανπερ παρὰ τῶν πατέρων παρελάβομεν: παυσώμεθα αἰσχυνόμενοι καὶ παῖδας καὶ γυναῖκας καὶ πρεσβυτέρους καὶ ξένους, ἐν οἷς πρόσθεν γε πάντων τῶν Ἑλλήνων περιβλεπτότατοι ἦμεν. Citizens, now let us be brave men, and thus be able to look people in the face; let us hand on to those who come after us the fatherland as we received it from our fathers; let us cease to feel shame before women and children and elders and foreigners, who once thought us the best of all the Greeks.52

The mission of the Spartans could not be more explicit. Archidamos directly invokes their traditional reputation, and suggests, as was proven at Mantinea, that bravery in battle might restore it.53 The result of his words and some related good omens was that “such strength and courage came over the soldiers that it was a task for their leaders to restrain them from pushing to the front” – the Spartans were so eager to show their mettle that they nearly compromised the measured discipline that made them such a daunting presence on the battlefield. The advance of their phalanx was as terrifying as ever. According to Xenophon, “few of the enemy awaited the spears, and these were killed (ὀλίγοι μὲν τῶν πολεμίων δεξάμενοι εἰς

49 50 51 52 53

X. HG 6.5.20–21; Plu. Ages. 30.5. Compare Th. 5.71–72 and X. HG 6.5.17–19. X. HG 6.5.24–25. X. HG 7.1.30. The only other example of a pre-battle exhortation in the Hellenika is that of Thrasybulus at Mounichia in 403 BC (2.4.13); see Gray 1989, 100, 132–34. Interestingly, Isocrates made Archidamus argue the same thing in the speech he wrote for him: “we must consider how we may fight the war in a manner worthy of us, and not prove those who are used to praising our city to be liars, but behave in such a way that they will seem to have told less about us than we deserve” (6.71).

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δόρυ αὐτοὺς ἀπέθανον); the rest were cut down as they fled”.54 Ten thousand men are said to have fallen, but not a single Lacedaemonian died. When news of the victory was brought to Sparta, the whole community is said to have wept with joy. Diodorus calls it “the first, unexpected good luck they had since Leuctra”, and Plutarch records the name by which it is still known – the Tearless Battle. In his account, although it is apparently extrapolated from Xenophon, the Lacedaemonians celebrated “as if Sparta had wiped away all her unmerited disgraces and now saw the bright light shine again as it used to”.55 The Spartan response demonstrates how much they treasured their reputation. On a strategic scale, the Tearless Battle was insignificant: despite their losses, the Arcadians continued their work on the foundation of Megalopolis, reaffirming their role as a new major power on the Peloponnese.56 What mattered to the Spartans was obtaining a victory in the old way, through sheer intimidation of the enemy, reminding the world that even humbled Spartans were not like other Greeks: in a world of fickle amateur levies, “the Lacedaemonians are the only craftsmen of war (Λακεδαιμονίους δὲ μόνους τῷ ὄντι τεχνίτας τῶν πολεμικῶν)”.57 CONCLUSION: COMMEMORATION THROUGH FEAR In short, the Spartans seem to have been very conscious of the value of their military reputation. They sought to amplify it in any way they could, and to restore it when tarnished. Their fame, after all, was what allowed them to punch above their weight in the wars of the Greeks, and to win pitched battles reliably and at minimal cost. Their past achievements made others fear them, and this fear resulted in frequent victories, which in turn provided all the more reason to fear them. In this way, both the Spartans and their enemies commemorated Sparta’s past wars every time the Spartans appeared on the battlefield. The narrative found in Thucydides suggests that the Spartan reputation was a Classical phenomenon, based largely if not entirely on their legendary conduct at Thermopylae. If our earliest evidence is a reliable indication, the Spartans themselves only began to capitalise on the psychological effect of their presence towards the end of the fifth century BC, introducing uniform dress and equipment and marching into battle with deliberate calm. Their increasingly warlike appearance and developing tactical abilities may have begun with the realisation that these 54

55 56 57

For both passages cited here, see X. HG 7.1.31. Cartledge (1987, 387) has noted that this was the first major Spartan victory on land since the battle of the Long Walls of Corinth in 392 BC. Rusch (2011, 206) specifically highlighted the role of “ancient fear of the Spartans” in bringing it about. X. HG 7.1.32; D. S. 15.72.3; Plu. Ages. 33.3–5. Cartledge 1987, 385, 387; Rusch 2011, 207. X. Lac. 13.5. When Epaminondas tried to attack Sparta a few years later, in 362 BC, Archidamus led a mere one hundred men in a furious counterattack, and the entire Theban army fled (X. HG 7.5.12–13). However, Xenophon explains this as a result of divine will or Spartan desperation, rather than Theban fear.

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things allowed them to weaponise the name they had made for themselves. As their manpower waned, they came to rely on the power of their reputation to win battles and preserve their high status among the Greeks. This approach proved remarkably effective throughout the Peloponnesian and Corinthian wars; no one seems to have been discouraged from going to war against Sparta, but in pitched battle the enemies of the Lacedaemonians folded time and again. The Spartan hegemony only crumbled when they discovered on the battlefield at Leuctra that some enemies had the nerve to stand and fight them, regardless of their terrifying name. Anderson 1970: J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age of Xenophon, Berkeley/ Los Angeles 1970. Brown 2013: A. R. Brown, “Remembering Thermopylae and the Persian Wars in Antiquity”, in C. A. Matthew / M. Trundle (eds.), Beyond the Gates of Fire: New Perspectives on the Battle of Thermopylae, Barnsley 2013, 100–16. Cartledge 1977: P. Cartledge, “Hoplites and Heroes: Sparta’s Contribution to the Technique of Ancient Warfare”, JHS 97 (1977), 11–27. Cartledge 1987: P. Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, Baltimore 1987. Cawkwell 1983: G. L. Cawkwell, “The Decline of Sparta”, CQ 33, 2 (1983), 385–400. Christ 2006: M. R. Christ, The Bad Citizen in Classical Athens, Cambridge 2006. Christien/Le Tallec 2013: J. Christien / Y. Le Tallec, Léonidas: Histoire et Mémoire d’un Sacrifice, Paris 2013. Clough 2004: E. Clough, “Loyalty and Liberty: Thermopylae in Western Imagination”, in T. J. Figueira (ed.), Spartan Society, Swansea 2004, 363–84. Ducat 2006: J. Ducat, “The Spartan ‘Tremblers”’ (trans. P. J. Shaw), in Hodkinson/Powell 2006, 1–55. Echeverría 2011: F. Echeverría, “‘Taktikè technè: The Neglected Element in Classical ‘Hoplite’ Battles”, Ancient Society 41 (2011), 45–82. Eckstein 2005: A. M. Eckstein, “Bellicosity and Anarchy: Soldiers, Warriors and Combat in Antiquity”, The International History Review 27, 3 (2005), 481–97. Edmunds 1975: L. Edmunds, Chance and Intelligence in Thucydides, Cambridge MA 1975. Epps 1933: P. H. Epps, “Fear in Spartan Character”, CPh 28 (1933), 12–29. Franchi 2009: E. Franchi, “Spartani dalle lunghe chiome e Argivi rasati. Interpretazioni iniziatiche moderne e costruzioni di senso antiche”, IncidAntico 7 (2009), 61–88. Franchi 2016: E. Franchi, “Grenzkonflikte und Gedenkrituale im antiken Sparta”, FeRA 29 (2016), 1–42. Franchi 2018: E. Franchi, “Commemorating the War Dead in Ancient Sparta: the Gymnopaidiai and the Battle of Hysiai”, in V. Broum / K. Heydon (eds.), Conflict in the Peloponnese: Social, Military and Intellectual, Nottingham 2018, 24–39. Gomme/Andrewes/Dover 1970: A. W. Gomme / A. Andrewes / K. J. Dover, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, IV, Oxford 1970. Goldsworthy 1997: A. K. Goldsworthy, “The Othismos, Myths and Heresies: The Nature of Hoplite Battle’, War in History 4, 1 (1997), 1–26. Gray 1989: V. Gray, The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica, London 1989. Hamilton 1991: C. D. Hamilton, Agesilaus and the Failure of Spartan Hegemony, Ithaca NY 1991. Hanson 1989: V. D. Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece, New York 1989. Hodkinson 1993: S. Hodkinson, ‘Warfare, Wealth, and the Crisis of Spartiate Society’, in J. Rich / G. Shipley (eds.), War and Society in the Greek World, London/New York 1993, 146–76. Hodkinson 2006: S. Hodkinson, “Was Classical Sparta a Military Society?”, in Hodkinson/Powell 2006, 111–62.

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Hodkinson/Powell 2006: S. Hodkinson / A. Powell (eds.), Sparta & War, Swansea 2006. Hornblower 1996: S. Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, II, Oxford 1996. Hornblower 2008: S. Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, III, Oxford 2008. Hutchinson 2006: G. Hutchinson, Attrition: Aspects of Command in the Peloponnesian War, Stroud 2006. Kennell 2010: N. M. Kennell, Spartans: A New History, Malden MA/Oxford/Chichester 2010. Konijnendijk 2012: R. Konijnendijk, “‘Neither the less Valorous nor the Weaker’: Persian military Might and the Battle of Plataia”’, Historia 61, 1 (2012), 1–17. Krentz 1985: P. Krentz, “The Nature of Hoplite Battle”, CA 4, 1 (1985), 50–61. Kromayer/Veith 1903: J. Kromayer / G. Veith, Antike Schlachtfelder, I, Berlin 1903. Lazenby 1991: J. F. Lazenby, “The Killing Zone”, in V. D. Hanson (ed.), Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience, New York 1991, 87–109. Lazenby 1993: J. F. Lazenby, The Defence of Greece 490–479 B. C., Warminster 1993. Low 2006: P. Low, “Commemorating the Spartan War-Dead”, in Hodkinson/Powell 2006, 85– 109. Millender 2016: E. Millender, “The Greek Battlefield: Classical Sparta and the Spectacle of Hoplite Warfare”, in W. Riess / G. G. Fagan (eds.), The Topography of Violence in the Greco-Roman World, Ann Arbor MI 2016, 162–94. Rawlings 2007: L. Rawlings, The Ancient Greeks at War, Manchester 2007. Rawson 1969: E. Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought, Oxford 1969. Roy 1967: J. Roy, “The Mercenaries of Cyrus”, Historia 16, 3 (1967), 287–313. Rusch 2011: S. M. Rusch, Sparta at War: Strategy, Tactics, and Campaigns, 550–362 BC, London 2011. Sabin 2000: P. Sabin, “The Face of Roman Battle”, JRS 90 (2000), 1–17. Thommen 1997: L. Thommen, Lakedaimonion Politeia: Die Entstehung der spartanischen Verfassung, Stuttgart 1997. Trundle 2004: M. Trundle, Greek Mercenaries: From the Late Archaic Period to Alexander, New York 2004. Trundle 2017: M. Trundle, “Spartan Responses to Defeat: From a Mythical Hysiae to a Very Real Sellasia”, in M. Clark / B. Turner (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Loss and Defeat in the Ancient World, Leiden 2017, 144–61. Tuplin 2013: C. Tuplin, “Intolerable Clothes and a Terrifying name: The Characteristics of an Achaemenid Invasion Force”, in C. Carey / M. Edwards (eds.), Marathon – 2,500 Years. Proceedings of the Marathon Conference 2010, London 2013, 223–39. Van Wees 2004: H. van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities, London 2004.

THE MEMORY OF THE SACRED WARS AND SOME ORIGIN STORIES1 Elena Franchi 1. INTRODUCTION In reading the title of this paper, many may have thought: what’s this? The memory of the sacred wars is a much studied subject; and one might think that there is little more to say, especially after Davies’ papers and Sanchez’s book.2 There is, however, an interesting aspect of the memory of the sacred wars which has not yet been closely studied: the fact that the origin stories of a number of peoples are intertwined with these memories. In other words, the memory of the sacred wars influences the construction of the origin stories of some people – ethne – living in ancient Greece. Polemology has shown that one of the ways to both preserve and continuously construct memories of a war is through its commemoration, and that storytelling is one form of commemoration.3 The stories told about the sacred wars can, in fact, be said to have shaped the stories told about the origin of these ethne. The numbering of the sacred wars in Ancient Greece is a modern construct: scholars collected the different sources about various struggles fought around Delphi that involved – to a greater or lesser extent – the Amphictyony, and then recognized four different “wars”.4 According to this modern reconstruction, the First 1

2 3 4

The central idea of this paper arose from fruitful conversations with my Von-Humboldt supervisor Hans-Joachim Gehrke: by then, the focus was the link between the origin of the Phlegyans and the memory of the sacred wars, which I addressed in an article (2013a) and further developed in my book on the wars between Phocians and Thessalians (2016). The present paper extends this idea to the origin of the Dryopes and the Kragallidai, and draws further conclusions. I am grateful to Manuela Mari for her valuable comments. Every remaining error is the author’s. Davies 1994; 2007b; Sánchez 2001. See also Londey’s seminal article (2015). Hunt/Robbins 1998; Ashplant/Dawson/Roper 2000, esp. 4, 29, 40; Stanley 2000, 244 and Franchi in this book (Introductory section). On the sacred wars, see Pack 1876; Cloché 1915; Jannoray 1937; Kahrstedt 1953; Sordi 1953; Defradas 1954, 55–85; Forrest 1956; Parke/Boardmann 1957; Sordi 1958; Hackett 1970; Robertson 1978; Cassola 1980; Lehmann 1980; Prandi 1981; Wankel 1981; Kase/Szemler 1984; Miller 1986, 99–110 and 122–23; Tausend 1988; Buckler 1989a; 1989b; Londey 1990; Brodersen 1991; Spikes 1992; Hammond 2003; Zachos 2003; Davies 1994; Parker 1997; Skoczylas Pownall 1998; Mari 2002, 73–203; Typaldou-Fakiris 2004; Mari 2006; Davies 2007b; Maronati 2007; Franchi 2013a; 2013b; Steinbock 2013, 332; Franchi 2015; Londey 2015; Franchi, 2016a, ch. 4 and 5; 2018. On the Delphic Amphictyony (a league of different people united for the administration of the common sanctuary

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Sacred War broke out in the nineties of the 6th century BC, as Thessaly, Athens and Sicyon, with the blessing of the Amphictyony of Anthela, attacked and destroyed Cirrha, or Crisa, a prosperous harbour or city situated somewhere in the modern plain of Itea or close to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. In the ancient sources this war was described as holy because the allies allegedly fought for the freedom of Apollo’s sanctuary and the sacred land surrounding it, which was cultivated by the impious (asebeis) Cirrhaians. The Thessalian commander Eurylochus, Cleisthenes of Sycion and Solon of Athens are claimed to have contributed to the victory.5 The Second Sacred War took place between 449 BC-448 BC and erupted when Sparta liberated Delphi from the Phocians and handed it back to the Delphians. The Athenians recaptured Delphi in order to return it to the Phocians, their allies. This war is usually considered the first clear indication of the future hostilities between Athens and Sparta, whose military actions were quick and effective: in contrast to the other sacred wars, this war is described by the ancient sources as shorter (we must remember, however, that the ancient chronology of the other sacred wars was shaped to better fit the pattern of the ten-year war, modelled on the Troikà, the narratives about the Trojan war).6 The Third Sacred War was caused by the Amphictyonic League (dominated at that time by Thebes) which in 357 BC imposed a large fine on the Phocians for the offense of cultivating lands sacred to Apollo.7 Under Philomelus, Phocis refused to pay; it rearmed, and captured the Delphic shrine and its treasury in 355.8 The service of the oracle was suspended and the Phocians took possession of the sanctuary; later they melted down the offerings and the contents of the treasury for their military expenses.9 Thebes defeated Philomelus at Neon in 354, thus causing a Phocian retreat in 353.10 Philip helped the enemies of the Phocians (especially the Thessalians) to

5

6

7 8 9 10

and its treasures, the organization of the Pythian games and the common worship of Apollo at the sanctuary of Delphi), see especially Lefèvre 1995; Sánchez 2001. The most important sources on the so-called First Sacred War are: h. Ap. 540–43; Isoc. Plat. 31; CID I 10 = CID IV 1, ll. 15–17; Arist. fr. 637 Rose3; Speusippus Epist. ad Phil. 8–9 Natoli; Callisth. FGrHist 124 F 1; Aeschin. 3.107–12; D. 18.149; Marm. Par. FGrHist 239 A 37–9; [Thessal.] Presb. 2–4; 7; 10–13; 18; Str. 9.3.10; Fron. Str. 3.7.5; Polyaen. 3.5; 6.13; Plu. Sol. 11.1–2; Paus. 10.7.4–6; 10.37.5–8; Hyp. Pi. P. a, b, c, d. Th. 1.112.5; Theopomp. FGrHist 115 F 156; Philoc. FGrHist 328 F 34a; b; Eratosthenes FGrHist 241 F 38; Plu. Per. 21.1–3; Cim. 17.4; schol. E. Tr. 9; Hsch. s. v. ἱερὸν πόλεμον; Sud. s. v. ἱερὸν πόλεμον; IG I2 26 (= StV II 142 = IG I3 9); IG I3 27. See Sordi 1958c; Meiggs 1972, 419; Roux 1979, 44 ff.; Freitag 2000, 121; Mari 2006, 233 ff.; Gallo 2011, 188; Steinbock 2013, 332; Londey 2015; McInerney 2015, 211; Franchi 2016, 277. On the relevance of the Troikà in constructing this ten-year dating of the sacred wars and the key role played by Callisthenes in posing the alleged end of the Third Sacred War in 346, i. e. exactly 1000 years after the alleged end of the Trojan war, see Mari 2002, 140 ff. D. S. 16.23.2–3. Buckler 1985, 242–43 and 1989a, 15–17. D. S. 16.23.4–5. Cf. McInerney 2015, 216 ff. D. S. 16.33.1–2; Aeschin. 2.131; D. 19.21 (see also Buckler 1989a, 25; Giuliani 2001, 228– 30; Davies 2007a; Antonetti 2010, 174). Buckler 1989a, 44.

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defeat them, seeking peace with Athens at the same time. The outcome of the war was uncertain until 346 BC, when Philip started to play a major role11 and the socalled Peace of Philocrates was concluded.12 In 340 the Amphissans charged the Athenians with impiety for rededicating some Persian and Thebans shields, seized after the Battle of Plataea (479), in the temple of Apollo before it had been reconsecrated. As allies of the Thebans the Amphissans were in fact reacting to the inscriptions the Athenians had engraved upon these shields: “The Athenians from the Medes and the Thebans, when they fought on opposite sides to the Greeks”. (Aeschin. 3.116). The Amphissans urged the council to fine them 50 talents but Aeschines censured them for cultivating part of the plan of Cirrha.13 A sacred war – the fourth – was thus declared on the Amphissans and a Thessalian delegate proposed that Philip should be made leader of the Amphictyonic effort, this gave Philip a pretext to campaign in Greece. As a reaction, and after frantic negotiations, Thebes and Athens decided to unite against Philip:14 the Macedonian king defeated them in the famous battle of Chaeronea.15 The Third and the Fourth Sacred Wars influenced the memory of the First Sacred War. From the second half of the 4th century, especially, the First Sacred War was recounted and exploited in both historical works and orations. As an antecedent of the later wars, the First was used and abused: the impious Cirrhaians played an important role as ancestors of both the impious Phocians during the Third Sacred War and the impious Amphissans of the Fourth Sacred War.16 It is not surprising that it was a common concern to commemorate this war, and the commemorative stories that were told about were so frequently used by both historians and orators that they started to shape other stories connected to Delphi and Mount Parnassus. And it is exactly at this point that our inquiry into the origin of Phlegyans, Dryopes and Kragallidai starts. In a first paragraph the stratigraphy of the memory of the so11 12 13 14 15

16

D. 19.81; D. S. 16.60; Paus. 10.3; Griffith in Hammond/Griffith 1979, 266–67; Buckler 1989a, 138–42; Mari 2002, 104 ff., 124 ff. Hampl 1938, 371–85; Griffith 1939, 71–79; Hammond/Griffith 1979, 463–67; Ryder 1965, 100; 1454–59; Momigliano 1966, 402; Sordi 1958, 160–66; Bengston 19752, 319; Ellis 1982, 43–59; Klees 1987, 131–91, esp.185 ff.; Buckler 1989a, 140; Jehne 1995, 126. Aeschin. 3.115–122; D. 18.149–50. Cf. Bommelaer 1983; Croissant 1996, 133–34; Lefèvre 1998, 167 and n. 67; Mari 2002, 142 ff. Aeschin. 3.115–140; D. 18.143–52, 178, 216; Philoc. FGrHist 328 F 34a, b; Din. 1.74; D. S. 16.84.1–2; Polyaen. 4.2.8. Sotriadis 1903; Kromayer 1905, 16–23; Beloch 1912–272, III 1, 560; 2, 295; Costanzi 1923; Hammond 1938; Wüst 1938, 553–55; Braun 1948; Pritchett 1958; Sordi 1958, 293 and 369 ff.; Hammond 1973, 534–57; Ellis 1976, 186–87; Marchetti 1989; Sealey 1978, 311; Hammond/Griffith 1979, 517–19; Rahe 1981; Wankel 1981; Bousquet 1988; Londey 1990, 241; Harris 1995, 26; Lefèvre 1998, 22, 66, 267 ff., 293; Ma 2008; Mari 2002, 144 ff. and 152 ff.; Buckler 2003, ch. 13; Beck/Buckler 2008, ch. 17. Robertson 1978 (who even states that the First Sacred War was totally invented at the time of the Fourth: see infra); Hall 2007, 276–81 (also skeptical); Londey 2015. Most scholars, however, are less skeptical and more confident: Lehmann 1980; Davies 1994; McInerney 1999, 165–72; Mari 2002, 163 ff.; Steinbock 2013, 301–309; 331 ff.; Franchi 2015; 2016, 199– 229; 2018.

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called “First” Sacred War will be summarized, drawing on the work of Davies and Sánchez. Secondly, the origin of the Phlegyans will be dealt with in depth; then, the origin of the Dryopes will be addressed, followed by the Kragallidai. The questions arising from this survey are: to what extent can memories of the origin of an ethnos be linked to the memory of a conflict? Or better: are tales about the ethnogenesis of an ethnos in some way linked to the tales of conflicts? 2. THE STRATIGRAPHY OF THE MEMORY OF THE FIRST SACRED WAR John K. Davies has shown that the modern concept of the First Sacred War is based on several ancient sources and that these sources are divided into three groups: the first, the older – archaic – sources, mention attacks on Delphi carried out by different ethne or heroes. These accounts lie between myth and history – but are not to be dismissed a priori – and form the prehistory of the First Sacred War. Traditions about the thievish and hybristic people who lived on Parnassus also belong to this group, as will become clearer later on. The second group actually only contains two sources – both of which deal with the problem of the holy land, which could not be cultivated. The first source is Isocrates (Plat. 31), who mentions the destruction of the plain of Crisa, the second is an inscription (CID I 10, 37–40=CID IV 1, 15–17), which testifies to the fact that the cultivation of consecrated land was prohibited. These sources are important for two reasons: from a strictly philological point of view, as they very probably reflect and pass on an early-classical conviction (5th century?), and from a heuristic point of view, as they allow us to exclude the idea of the First Sacred War as a fiction invented during the Third Sacred War: Isocrates’ Plataicus was actually written in 371 BC.17 The sources in the third group were written at the time of the Third Sacred War and in the following decades, or even centuries. These sources give us the most consistent and most complete account of the “First” war. The starting point of this paper is a hypothesis which Noel Robertson and John K. Davies have already demonstrated very convincingly: that the numerous archaic and classical reports of attacks on Delphi were merged – at the time of the Third Sacred War and in the following decades – into one war, probably the first. This first war was not invented ex novo, as Robertson assumed. A reconsideration of the literary sources linked to the archaeological remains suggests that the archaeological case for locating a major horizon of violence and destruction in the years around and after the 580s is getting stronger and stronger, especially if one takes into account the dating of the first peribolos to the end of the 570s (at the earliest) and the destruction of the Maison Rouge c. 585–575.18 17 18

See especially Lehmann 1980, 242–46; Cassola 1980, 416–21; Franchi 2016, 211 ff. De la Coste/Messelière 1969; Bommelaer/Laroche 1991, 92–102; Luce 2008, ch. 4 and 7; Mari 2002, 163–69; Davies 2007b, 53.

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It was – in fact – the image of the First Sacred War which was heavily reinvented. The reinvention of this image shaped, in turn, the origin stories about peoples living in Central Greece: their origin was in some way connected to places playing a key role in the Third and the Fourth Sacred Wars. In fact, some of the tales included in the first of the above groups seem to accommodate the origin of a particular people to the political agenda of the Third and the Fourth Sacred Wars. 3. THE PHLEGYANS This paper focuses on the older tales that lie between myth and history about some impious ethne who attacked Delphi: the Phlegyans, Dryopians and the Kragallidai. All these peoples are represented in the sources as impious (asebeis), arrogant (guilty of hybris), temple robbers, and so on. Their biggest crime is having offended Delphi and/or Apollo. And the tales about their origin situate them in different places: like Phocis and Locris, for example. The first mention of an attack on Delphi by the Phlegyans (our first case study) can be found in Pherecydes (FGrHist 3 F 41 E ap. schol. T Hom. Il. N 302 = 41 c Fowler), who was writing in the first half of the 5th century BC. According to Pherecydes, the Phlegyans were from Gyrton, in Thessaly. Ephorus (i. e. Demophilus), Apollodorus and Pindar confirm this statement.19 Pausanias, however, talks about a Kingdom of Phlegyas in Orchomenus (9.36.1). This is not an invention of Pausanias. The Phlegyans’ link to Boeotia is found as early as Hom. Hymn Apoll. 278, where the city mentioned as being of the Phlegyans is most probably Orchomenus. The same belief is to be found in a scholium to Euripides and in another on Nicander’s Theriaka.20 Pausanias also states that the Phlegyans live in Phocis, as did Ephorus (FGrHist 70 F 93), so this is not an invention of Pausanias either. Interestingly, the fragment is part of a text that Ephorus – or, rather, his son, Demophilus – wrote about the Third Sacred War. Is it possible that a first link is established between the hybris of the Phlegyans and the outbreak of the Third Sacred War in the work of Ephorus-Demophilus? We can go still further and argue that it is no coincidence that at the time of the Third Sacred War it was believed that the Phlegyans were Phocians. Indeed, this belief implies that the (or some of the) Phocians were Phlegyans: in other words, that the (or at least some of the) Phocians were impious, temple robbers, violent, arrogant. The representation of the Phlegyans as Phocians and the Phocians as Phlegyans, in fact, established a direct precedent for the hybris of the Phocians in

19 20

Ephor. FGrHist 70 F 93 ap. schol. T Hom. Il. 13.302; Apollod. 3.41; 118 (see also Pi. P. 3.8 ff.; schol. A. R. 1.57; St. Byz s. v. Γυρτών). See Franchi 2013. Schol. E. Ph. 638.8 (it is a ‘scholium antiquum’: 3rd–2nd B. C., see Zuntz 1965, 249–75; Dickey 2007, 32 ff.); schol. Nic. Th. 685A.1; cf. also Eust. Comm. ad Hom. Il. 3.474.18. See Franchi 2013.

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the Third Sacred War: a hybris which was well-emphasized by contemporary sources.21 One wonders if there is a connection with the fact that in the time between the Third and Fourth Sacred Wars the memory of the First Sacred War was heavily reshaped.22 Following the Phocian takeover of the sanctuary, and the events of the subsequent decades, Delphi and the Amphictyony became very important. The sanctuary’s significance naturally prompted scholarly interest in the Delphic past, thus numerous references to Delphi in literary sources.23 Both intellectuals and orators displayed an historical approach to the events of the past, which they used as paradeigmata to support certain political decisions in the present.24 The memories of the prehistory of the First Sacred War – i. e. all these tales about the struggles and tensions around Delphi – were among many events to be reshaped. This process was so vigorous that it led to the reshaping of the origin stories of the peoples involved in the First Sacred War. Ethne that were formerly represented as impious and guilty of hybris towards Delphi were now provided with new origin stories: they are no longer considered Thessalians, or Boeotian: they are now considered Phocians. Because they are as impious, as guilty, as inclined to temple robbing as the Phocians were to be during the Third Sacred War almost 200 years later.25 So it is not by chance that a synoptic analysis of the sources on the Phlegyans and those on the Phocians show similar charges: the same words, almost the same sentences – one can copy and paste just by replacing Phlegyans with Phocians, or vice versa.26 This leads us to reconsider the origin of the Dryopes, another case of an impious and arrogant people.

21

22 23 24 25 26

Theopomp. FGrHist 115 F 248.2; F 312; Aeschin. 2.131; 135.4; 138.5; 140.7; D. 19.21; 73.1; 75; Aeschin. 3.118; D. 18.18; Ephor. FGrHist 70 F 94; Callisth. T.27b.4 (apud D. S. 16.14.4); and also by later sources: D. S. 16.23.1; 24.5; 27.1; 30.2; 32.2–3; 33.1; 38.2; 38.6; 56.3; 56.4–5; 56.7–8; 58.1; 60.1–2; 61; 64.2; Paus. 3.10.4; 10.2.1; 2.3; 3.2; 3.4. See Kajava 2010 (φλεγυᾶν means ὑβρίζειν!); Franchi 2013. See e. g. Aeschin. 3.107–12; D. 18.149; Speusippus Epist. ad Phil. 8–9 Natoli; Callisth. FGrHist 124 F 1. See Robertson 1978; Davies 1994; Sánchez 2001; Mari 2002, 163–70; Steinbock 2013, 301–309; Franchi 2016, 212 ff. with further sources. Mari 2013, 130. Ferrucci 2010, 166. See above, n. 19. A comparison of the hybris, asebeia and paranomia of the Phlegyans and Phocians: Phlegyans

Phocians

h. Ap. 278; Pherecydes FGrHist 3 F 41 ap. schol. A Gen. II Hom. Il. 13.302 (=fr. 41c Fowler); Paus. 2.26.3, 6; 9.36.2.5; 36.3, 1; schol. in A. R. 3.62.3 Wendel; Philostr. Im. 2.19.1.5; Hsch. s. v. Φλεγύαι; Eust. Comm. ad Hom. Il. 3.473.25; 474.18

Theopom. FGrHist 115 F 248.2; F 312; Aeschin. 2. 131; 135.4; 138.5; 140.7; D. 19.21; 73, 1; 75; Aeschin.3.118; D.18.18; Ephor. FGrHist 70 F 94; Callisth. T.27b.4 (ap. D. S. 16.14.4); D. S. 16.23.1; 24.5; 27.1; 30.2; 32.2–3; 33. 1; 38.2; 38.6; 56.3; 56.4–5; 56.7–8; 58.1; 60.1–2; 61; 64.2; Paus. 3.10.4; 10.2.1; 2.3; 3.2; 3.4

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4. THE DRYOPES The Dryopes’ past as noisy savages is recalled in their name, in epic proverbs associated with δρῦς, the oak tree.27 By the fifth century, at the time of Pherecydes at the latest, the mythical Dryopes had become notorious troublemakers and temple robbers.28 And again, neither their precise place of origin, nor their genealogy, was known for certain. According to Herodotus (8.43) their homeland was “the land that now is called Doris”: they were then expelled by Heracles and the Malians. In another passage (1.56) we understand that Herodotus believes that Doris lies between Mount Ossa and Mount Olympus: in other words, Olympus, in Thessaly. According to Pherecydes (F 8) they spilled over into the Spercheus valley, which is on the borders of Malis (F 19) and therefore still in Thessaly (EGM II p. 100).29 According to Herodotus, the Dryopes were evicted from their home by Heracles and resettled in the Argolid in Hermione and Asine (8.43; 73).30 The Asinaioi were then chased out by the Argives and founded a new city in Messenia, but that is another story. Of relevance to us is the fact that the history of the Dryopes is completely bound up with that of the Dorians. The Dorians play the part of the civilizers, the Dryopes – as one would expect – that of the savages to be civilised. This story involves – again, as one would expect – Heracles. The casus belli was the animal-like behaviour of the Dryopan king Theiodamas, for which he was attacked and defeated by Heracles, who then drove the Dryopes to the Peloponnese. However, we also have another version of the events that led to their eviction. According to Pausanias (4.34.9, cf. 5.1.2), the Asinaioi did not believe that Heracles had banished the Dryopes to the Peloponnese on the orders of Delphi; they affirm that the Dryopes escaped after the battle and made their own way to Euristheus, king of Tiryns (or Argos) and Heracles’ arch-enemy and taskmaster, who gave them their new home. Fowler notes that the involvement of Delphi could be due to the fact that the outcome of the First Sacred War had an effect on the myth making about the Dryopes.31 One has to agree with Fowler more generally when he recognises that the 27 28 29

30

31

Strid 1999, 12. See also Apollod. 2.155; schol. Call. Aet. 1.169; A. R. with scholium; and Ov. Ib. 486; EGM II p. 101. Aristotle (F 482 Rose in Strb. 8.6.13), Strabo (9.5.9–10), Diodorus (4.36.5–37.1), a scholium to Pindar (schol. Pi. P. 1.121c), Tzetzes and some inscriptions confirm this belief: see Hall 1997, 74–77; Strid 1999, 16 ff. “Peneios” in Pherecydes is to amend to “Spercheios” (as in Ant. Lib. 32.1 ff.) according to Meyer 1892, 98 ff. and also Berkel, ad l. (Jacoby and Uhl 1963, 29 n. 46 are doubtful however): cf. Pherecyd. F 61, where Spercheus is linked with Polydora, daughter of Peleus. See also EGM II p. 103. According to Hecataeus (FGrHist F 119, cited by Strabo 7.7.1), they live as all non-Greeks in the Peloponnese, however, it is not clear whether this statement was actually made by Hecataeus, or was added by Strabo (Jacoby FGrHist I 2 Kommentar zu F 19; Strid 1999, 14. ). EGM II p. 102 n. 50.

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sacred wars influenced the myth making on the Dryopes. We have just seen that many sources say that the homeland of the Dryopes lies in Thessaly. There are, however, many other sources who say they come from Phocis, on Mount Parnassus, or who link them with either the Phocians or the Locrians.32 According to a letter by Speusippus (ch. 28), which was written in the 4th century, most probably at the end of the forties,33 both the Phlegyans and the Dryopes (and the Kragallidai, see infra) were members of the Amphictyony who were expelled by Heracles and deprived of their votes in the union; others then took their votes and gained their shares in the union. Speusippus establishes a strong link between this and Phillip’s taking of the Phocians’ votes after the Third Sacred War: Ἐπειδὴ δὲ καὶ περὶ τῶν Ἀμφικτυονικῶν πραγμάτων δῆλος εἶ σπουδάζων, ἐβουλήθην σοι φράσαι μῦθον παρ’ Ἀντιπάτρου, τίνα τρόπον πρῶτον οἱ Ἀμφικτύονες συνέστησαν, καὶ πῶς, ὄντες Ἀμφικτύονες, Φλεγύαι μὲν ὑπ’ Ἀπόλλωνος, Δρύοπες δ’ ὑφ’ Ἡρακλέους, Κρισαῖοι δ’ ὑπὸ τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων ἀνῃρέθησαν. οὗτοι γὰρ πάντες Ἀμφικτύονες γενόμενοι τῶν ψήφων ἀφῃρέθησαν, ἕτεροι δὲ τὰς τούτων ψήφους λαβόντες τῆς τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων συντελείας μετέσχον. ὧν ἐνίους σέ φησι μεμιμῆσθαι καὶ λαβεῖν ἆθλον Πυθίοις τῆς εἰς Δελφοὺς στρατείας παρὰ τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων τὰς δύο Φωκέων ψήφους. ὧν ὁ τὰ παλαιὰ καινῶς καὶ τὰ καινὰ παλαιῶς ἐπαγγελλόμενος διδάσκειν λέγειν (Paneg.8) νῦν οὔτε τὰς ἀρχαίας πράξεις οὔτε τὰς ὑπὸ σοῦ νεωστὶ διαγωνισθείσας οὔτε τὰς τοῖς χρόνοις μεταξὺ γενομένας μεμύθευκε. καί τοι δοκεῖ τὰς μὲν οὐκ ἀκηκοέναι, τὰς δ’ οὐκ εἰδέναι, τῶν δ’ ἐπιλελῆσθαι.34

Reading this passage, it seems quite clear that there is a link between the Third Sacred War and mythmaking on the Dryopes (and on the Phlegyans, too). Speusippus’ letter champions the cause of a certain Antipater of Magnesia, who was writing a history of Greece. He had been wronged by another Magnesian and was seeking assistance from Philip, who by then controlled Magnesia. The date of the letter is unknown, but it cannot predate 343/2 because of its reference to Ambracia and Philip’s activities in that area (sec. 7). Elias Bickermann and Johannes Sykutris have shown the authenticity of Speusippus’ letter, written as part of the public debate about Philip’s imperialist policies, and to discredit Isocrates’ Philip (dated 346 BC);35 the main aim was to score points with Philip.36 32 33 34

35 36

Paus. 4.34.9–10 (Lykoreia); schol. A. R. 1.1212–20 Wendel; E. M. s. v. Δρύοψ; Str. 8.6.13. Bickermann/Sykutris 1928, 29–34; Markle 1976, 92; Isnardi Parente 1980, 395; Mari 2002, 117; Natoli 2004, 31; Mari 2013, 138. But since you clearly have a keen interest in Amphictyonic affairs also, I would like to relate to you Antipaters’ account of the way in which the Amphictyons first came into existence and how, even though they were Amphictyions, the Phlegyae were destroyed by Apollo, the Dryopes by Heracles, and the Crisaeans by the Amphictyons themselves. For all these were deprived of their votes, even though they were Amphictyons, and others received their votes and so became members of the Amphictyony. Antipater says that you have imitated some of the latter and received from the Amphictyons a prize at the Pythian Games, the two Phocian votes, on account of your Delphic expedition. In relation to these matters, he who professes to teach in an old fashion, now recounts neither ancient deeds nor your victories of more recent date nor events which took place in the intervening period. Indeed, some things he appears not to have heard of, others not to know of, and the rest to have forgotten (transl. by Natoli 2004). See Mari 2002, 116–18; Natoli 2004, ad l. Bickermann/Sykutris 1928; Markle 1976; Isnardi Parente 1980, 395; Mari 2002, 117. Markle 1976.

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We have to set Speusippus’ and Antipater’s activity within the framework of the 4th century’s mental construct of history. It is well known that in 4th century, some intellectual circles were interested in Delphi’s past in general;37 some people, indeed, committed themselves to set a precedent to the Phocians’ impious behaviour in the Third Sacred War38 (sometimes their intention was also to cast themselves in a good light in the eyes of Philip):39 this is the case of Speusippus and of Antipater, the historian whom Speusippus cites. This war began because in 357 BC a large fine was imposed on the Phocians by the Amphictyonic League (then dominated by Thebes), for the offense of cultivating sacred land. The Phocians refused to pay, and instead seized the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. Philip joined the war against the Phocians and helped to defeat them and he and his descendants were given the Phocians’ two votes in the council.40 Natoli observed that Speusippus, seeking assistance from Philip, invents or refers to precedents which had already been invented concerning the Phocians:41 one of these is the story of the Dryopes. One wonders if the roles of Delphi and Mount Parnassus in the tale about the Dryopes can be more closely linked to the Third Sacred War and the guilty Phocians. In fact, according to Pausanias (5.1.1–2; 4.34.9–10; see also 4.34.11–12), the Dryopes were living on Mount Parnassos before they were evicted. This conviction is also conveyed by Strabo 8.6.13 when he states that Heracles evicted the Dryopes “from Doris around the Parnassus”: Δρυόπων δ᾽ οἰκητήριόν φασι καὶ τὴν Ἀσίνην, εἴτ᾽ ἐκ τῶν περὶ Σπερχειὸν τόπων ὄντας αὐτοὺς Δρύοπος τοῦ Ἀρκάδος κατοικίσαντος ἐνταῦθα, ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης φησίν, εἴθ᾽Ἡρακλέους ἐκ τῆς περὶ τὸν Παρνασσὸν Δωρίδος ἐξελάσαντος αὐτούς.

More interestingly, Strabo ascribes this opinion to Aristotle: Rose attributes this fragment (482) to the Politeiai.42 There is perhaps also a tendency to connect the Dryopes with the Locrians, who offended Delphi in the Fourth Sacred War. Indeed, at the time of Nicander, the author of the Heteroioumena (FGrHist 271–2, 3nd BC?),43 Dryop was said to have a daughter, Dryope. Dryope had a son with Apollo, who was called Amphissa (fr. 41 Schneider ap. Ant. Lib. 32). It cannot be an accident that in 339 BC the citizens of Amphissa divided the Crisaean or Cirrhaean meadows – which were sacred and had to remain uncultivated – into farmland lots. The Amphictyons declared war on the Amphisseans. A Thessalian delegate proposed that Philip should lead the Amphic-

37 38 39 40 41 42

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Davies 1996; Ferrucci 2010; Mari 2013. Mari 2002, 116. Markle 1976. See also D. S. 16.60.1–3; cf. Markle 1967, 253–73 and Jehne 1995, 125. Mari 2002, 117. See also Stat. Theb. 4.122 ap. Serv. ad Aen. 4. 146: Strid 1999, 38. Strabo’s translation: “It is said that Asine too was a habitation of the Dryopians – whether, being inhabitants of the regions of the Spercheius, they were settled here by the Arcadian Dryops, as Aristotle has said, or whether they were driven by Heracles out of the part of Doris that is near Parnassus.” (English translation by Horace L. Jones, Loeb 1924). Fantuzzi 2000, 898; Cameron 2004, 298–301, Buxton 2009, 112.

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tyonic side, which therefore again gave Philip a pretext to campaign in Greece. He took Amphissa and expelled its citizens.44 To sum up, there is a tendency to connect the Dryopes with peoples who had offended Delphi, had been active on Mount Parnassos, and had links to the Phocians or the Locrians – in other words, with the ethne who offended Delphi in the Third and Fourth Sacred Wars. 5. THE KRAGALLIDAI To conclude, let us reconsider the passage by Aeschines that mentions the Cirrhaians (107–109 Dilts): Ἔστι γάρ, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, τὸ Κιρραῖον [ὠνομασμένον] πεδίον καὶ λιμὴν ὁ νῦν ἐξάγιστος καὶ ἐπάρατος ὠνομασμένος. ταύτην ποτὲ τὴν χώραν κατῴκησαν Κιρραῖοι καὶ Κραγαλίδαι, γένη παρανομώτατα, οἳ εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν τὸ ἐν Δελφοῖς καὶ περὶ τὰ ἀναθήματα ἠσέβουν, ἐξημάρτανον δὲ καὶ εἰς τοὺς Ἀμφικτύονας. ἀγανακτήσαντες δ’ ἐπὶ τοῖς γιγνομένοις μάλιστα μέν, ὡς λέγονται, οἱ πρόγονοι οἱ ὑμέτεροι, ἔπειτα καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι Ἀμφικτύονες, μαντείαν ἐμαντεύσαντο παρὰ τῷ θεῷ, τίνι χρὴ τιμωρίᾳ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τούτους μετελθεῖν. (108) καὶ αὐτοῖς ἀναιρεῖ ἡ Πυθία πολεμεῖν Κιρραίοις καὶ Κραγαλίδαις πάντ’ ἤματα καὶ πάσας νύκτας, καὶ τὴν χώραν αὐτῶν καὶ τὴν πόλιν ἐκπορθήσαντας καὶ αὐτοὺς ἀνδραποδισαμένους ἀναθεῖναι τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι τῷ Πυθίῳ καὶ τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι καὶ Λητοῖ καὶ Ἀθηνᾷ Προνοίᾳ ἐπὶ πάσῃ ἀεργίᾳ καὶ ταύτην τὴν χώραν μήτ’ αὐτοὺς ἐργάζεσθαι μήτ’ ἄλλον ἐᾶν. λαβόντες δὲ τὸν χρησμὸν οἱ Ἀμφικτύονες ἐψηφίσαντο Σόλωνος εἰπόντος Ἀθηναίου τὴν γνώμην, ἀνδρὸς καὶ νομοθετῆσαι δυνατοῦ καὶ περὶ ποίησιν καὶ φιλοσοφίαν διατετριφότος, ἐπιστρατεύειν ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐναγεῖς κατὰ τὴν μαντείαν τοῦ θεοῦ· (109) καὶ συναθροίσαντες δύναμιν πολλὴν τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων, ἐξηνδραποδίσαντο τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ τὸν λιμένα καὶ τὴν πόλιν αὐτῶν κατέσκαψαν καὶ τὴν χώραν [αὐτῶν] καθιέρωσαν κατὰ τὴν μαντείαν· καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις ὅρκον ὤμοσαν ἰσχυρόν, μήτ’ αὐτοὶ τὴν ἱερὰν γῆν ἐργάσεσθαι μήτ’ ἄλλῳ ἐπιτρέψειν, ἀλλὰ βοηθήσειν τῷ θεῷ καὶ τῇ γῇ τῇ ἱερᾷ καὶ χειρὶ καὶ ποδὶ καὶ πάσῃ δυνάμει.45 44 45

Beck/Buckler 2008, ch. 17 with previous bibliography. There is, fellow citizens, a plain, called the plain of Cirrha, and a harbor, now known as “dedicate and accursed”. This district was once inhabited by the Cirrhaeans and the Cragalidae, most lawless tribes, who repeatedly committed sacrilege against the shrine at Delphi and the votive offerings there, and who transgressed against the Amphictyons also. This conduct exasperated all the Amphictyons, and your ancestors most of all, it is said, and they sought at the shrine of the god an oracle to tell them with what penalty they should visit these men. The Pythia replied that they must fight against the Cirrhaeans and the Cragalidae day and night, bitterly ravage their country, enslave the inhabitants, and dedicate the land to the Pythian Apollo and Artemis and Leto and Athena Pronaea, that for the future it lie entirely uncultivated; that they must not till this land themselves nor permit another. Now when they had received this oracle, the Amphictyons voted, on motion of Solon of Athens, a man able as a law-giver and versed in poetry and philosophy, to march against the accursed men according to the oracle of the god. Collecting a great force of the Amphictyons, they enslaved the men, destroyed their harbor and city, and dedicated their land, as the oracle had commanded. Moreover they swore a mighty oath, that they would not themselves till the sacred land nor let another till it, but that they would go to the aid of the god and the sacred land with hand and foot and voice, and all their might. (English translation by Charles Darwin Adams, Loeb 1919).

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Aeschines says that the war was fought not only against the Cirrhaians but against the Kragallidai as well. Who are the Kragallidai? According to Apollonius Rhodius (1.1212–19 a) and Strabo (8.6.13) they lived in Trachis in Malis, on Mount Oeta and in the Spercheus valley: i. e. in Thessaly. According to Antonino Liberalis, their ancestor, Cragaleus, was asked to settle a dispute over Ambracia between Apollo, Artemis, and Heracles. Cragaleus awarded the city to Heracles and Apollo, enraged, turned him into a stone: “To this day the Ambrakiotes make sacrifice to Cragaleus after the feast of Heracles” (Ant. Lib. 4).46 So here we see a link between the Cragallidai and Epirus. But we also have a tradition that links them with Phocis. Hesychius identifies them as the kings of the Crisaians and, according to Harpocration and Photius, another name for Cirrha is Kragalion.47 The wording of the passage by Aeschines cited above proves how easily the traditions about the Kragallidai and those about the Dryopes could be merged. In fact, according to Antoninus, their ancestor, Cragaleus, was a son of Dryops (Ant. Lib. Met. Syn. 4.1).48 After all, both Dryopes and Kragallidai acted impiously towards Delphi, as did the Phlegyans. Moreover, the passage by Aeschines proves that there is a link between the impiety of these ethne and the sacred wars, especially the fourth. In 336 BC Ctesiphon proposed that his friend Demosthenes be awarded a golden crown for his distinguished services to the state; Aeschines accused Ctesiphon of having violated the law in making this proposal and in 330 BC the two rivals delivered their speeches, Against Ctesiphon and On the Crown. One of Aeschines’ arguments was his conviction that the Locrians of Amphissa had to be punished for having cultivated land that had been holy since the time when the Cirrhaians and Kragallidai had tried to do the same thing. And how did Demosthenes reply to On the Crown? By charging Aeschines with having already invented this story about the Cirrhaians in 339 B. C. in order to convince the hieromnemones that the land was holy (149): [149] πῶς οὖν ταῦτ᾽ ἐποίησεν; μισθοῦται τουτονί. οὐδενὸς δὲ προειδότος, οἶμαι, τὸ πρᾶγμα οὐδὲ φυλάττοντος, ὥσπερ εἴωθε τὰ τοιαῦτα παρ᾽ ὑμῖν γίγνεσθαι, προβληθεὶς πυλάγορος οὗτος καὶ τριῶν ἢ τεττάρων χειροτονησάντων αὐτὸν ἀνερρήθη. ὡς δὲ τὸ τῆς πόλεως ἀξίωμα λαβὼν ἀφίκετ᾽ εἰς τοὺς Ἀμφικτύονας, πάντα τἄλλ᾽ ἀφεὶς καὶ παριδὼν ἐπέραινεν ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἐμισθώθη, καὶ λόγους εὐπροσώπους καὶ μύθους, ὅθεν ἡ Κιρραία χώρα καθιερώθη, συνθεὶς καὶ διεξελθὼν ἀνθρώπους ἀπείρους λόγων καὶ τὸ μέλλον οὐ προορωμένους, τοὺς ἱερομνήμονας, [150] πείθει ψηφίσασθαι περιελθεῖν τὴν χώραν, ἣν οἱ μὲν Ἀμφισσεῖς σφῶν αὐτῶν οὖσαν γεωργεῖν ἔφασαν, οὗτος δὲ τῆς ἱερᾶς χώρας ᾐτιᾶτο εἶναι, οὐδεμίαν δίκην τῶν Λοκρῶν ἐπαγόντων ἡμῖν, οὐδ᾽ ἃ νῦν προφασίζεται λέγων οὐκ ἀληθῆ. γνώσεσθεδ᾽ ἐκεῖθεν. οὐκ ἐνῆν ἄνευ τοῦ προσκαλέσασθαι δήπου τοῖς Λοκροῖς δίκην κατὰ τῆς πόλεως τελέσασθαι. τίς οὖν ἐκλήτευσεν ἡμᾶς; ἐπὶποίας

46 47 48

Cf. EGM II p. 102 n. 50. Hesych. s. v. Κρακαλίδαι (II 3933 Latte); Harp. s. v. Κραυαλλίδαι (115.13); Phot. s. v. Κραυαλλίδαι ἢ Κραγαλλίδαι. Cf. Pomtow 1918. See also Athanadas FGrHist 303 F 1; see Gruppe GM 1.99–100; Fowler 1998, 14–15; EGM II p. 102 n. 50.

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In other words, according to Demosthenes the link between impious peoples – like that between the Kragallidai and the Locrians and Phocians – is produced by the intention to invent a precedent for the Fourth Sacred War. In this context, the Kragallidai were linked with the Phocian city Cirrha, which was the guilty party during the First Sacred War. It is necessary to stress that whether or not Demosthenes is right – and he probably is not – is not critical to our argument50: there is indeed a big difference between invention and reinvention. However, the fact that his rhetorical strategy builds on the idea that a war could be invented in order to create a precedent indirectly shows that the story of this old war had become highly relevant in the 330s (if not before) and could therefore be heavily reshaped. This relevance was largely due to three, tightly interconnected, factors: a new scholarly interest in Delphi, the Third Sacred War (and the hybristic Phocians), and the Fourth Sacred War (and the hybristic Locrians). It is very likely that at this time the stories told about other impious people offending Delphi were strongly linked to the fourth century sacred wars, and that the marauders were therefore provided with Phocian or Locrian pedigrees. Such pedigrees are documented in sources from the fourth-century onwards (e. g., Demophilus, the Politeiai, Nicander, Pausanias). 6. CONCLUSIONS The stories told in the fourth century BC (and afterwards) to commemorate the sacred wars are stories (reshaped and) told by winners or losers, depending on the case. The stories told by the winners – i. e. by the enemies of the Phocians and their allies and probably also by the enemies of the Locrians and their allies – tend to find 49

50

How did he manage it? By hiring Aeschines. Nobody, of course, had any inkling; nobody was watching – according to your usual custom! Aeschines was nominated for the deputation to Thermopylae; three or four hands were held up, and he was declared elected. He repaired to the Council, invested with all the prestige of Athens, and at once, putting aside and disregarding everything else, addressed himself to the business for which he had taken pay. He concocted a plausible speech about the legendary origin of the consecration of the Cirrhaean territory, and by this narration induced the commissioners, men unversed in oratory and unsuspicious of consequences, [150] to vote for a tour of survey of the land which the Amphissians said they were cultivating because it belonged to them, while Aeschines accused them of intruding on consecrated ground. It is not true that these Locrians were meditating any suit against Athens, or any other action such as he now falsely alleges in excuse. You will find a proof of his falsehood in this argument: Of course it was not competent for the Locrians to take proceedings against Athens without serving a summons. Well, who served it? From what office was it issued? Name anyone who knows; point him out. You cannot; it was a false and idle pretext of yours. (English translation by C. A. Vince and J. H. Vince, Loeb 1926). Londey 1990, 241; Harris 1995, 128 ff.; Mari 2002, 144. See also Martin 2009, 102, 169.

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precedents for the hybris and asebeia of the Phocians and Locrians. In this process they go as far as to invent a Phocian or a Locrian origin for people believed to have offended Delphi in the past: Phlegyans, Dryopes and Kragallidai. In other words, the stories told about the sacred wars shaped the stories told about the origin of these ethne. In the fourth century, in debating the guilt of the Phocians and the Locrians and how urgent it was to involve Philip in order to defeat them, the Greeks created certain precedents by connecting the hybristic Phocians and Locrians with other hybristic ethne whose origin stories were manipulated by providing them with a Phocian or Locrian pedigree. Philip took advantage of this scholarly propaganda and acted as Apollo’s champion in protecting Delphi and the Greeks against impious ethne – and thus gained control of Greece. Antonetti 2010: C. Antonetti, “Il koinon etolico di età classica: dinamiche interne e rapporti panellenici”, in Ead. (a cura di), Lo spazio ionico e le comunità della Grecia nord-occidentale, Pisa 2010, 163–80. Ashplant/Dawson/Roper 2000: T. G. Ashplant / G. Dawson / M. Roper (eds.), The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration, London 2000. Beck/Buckler 2008: H. Beck / J. Buckler, Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century, Cambridge 2008. Beloch 1912–1927: K. J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte 1–4, Strasbourg et al. 1912–1927. Bengston 19752: H. Bengston, Die Staatsverträge des Altertums, München 19752 [1962]. Bickermann/Sykutris 1928: E. Bickermann / J. Sykutris, Speusipps Brief an König Philipp: Text, Übersetzung, Untersuchungen, Leipzig 1928. Bommelaer 1983: J.-F. Bommelaer, “Eschine et le temple d’Apollon à Delphes”, Mélanges E. Delebecque, Aix-en-Provence 1983, 19–31. Bommelaer/Laroche 1991: J.-F. Bommelaer / D. Laroche, Guide de Delphes: Le Site, Paris 1991. Bousquet 1988: J. Bousquet, Corpus des Inscriptions de Delphes. Les comptes, Paris 1988. Braun 1948: E. Braun, “Zur Schlacht von Chaironeia”, JÖAI 37 (1948), 81–89. Brodersen 1991: K. Brodersen, “Heiliger Krieg und Heiliger Friede in der frühen griechische Geschichte”, Gymnasium 98 (1991), 1–9. Buckler 1985: J. Buckler, “Epaminondas and the embolon”, Phoenix 39, 2 (1985), 134–43. Buckler 1989a: J. Buckler, Philip II and the Sacred War, Leiden 1989. Buckler 1989b: J. Buckler, “Pammenes, die Perser und der Heilige Krieg”, in J. Beister / H. Buckler (Hrsg.), Boiotika. Vorträge vom 5. Internationalen Böotien-Kolloquium zu Ehren von Prof. Dr. Siegried Lauffer, München 1989, 155–62. Buckler 2003: J. Buckler, Aegean Greece in the Fourth Century BC, Leiden 2003. Buxton 2009: R. Buxton, Forms of Astonishment: Greek Myths of Metamorphosis, Oxford/New York 2009. Cameron 2004: A. Cameron, Greek Mythography in the Roman World, New York 2004. Cassola 1980: F. Cassola, “Note sulla guerra crisea”, in J. Fontana / M. T. Piraino (a cura di), Miscellanea di Studi Classici in onore di E. Manni, I, Roma 1980, 415–39. Cloché 1915: P. Cloché, Étude chronologique sur la troisième guerre sacrée, Parigi 1915. Costanzi 1923: V. Costanzi, “Il leone di Cheronea e alcune questioni con esso connesse”, RFC 51 (1923), 61–70. Croissant 1993: Fr. Croissant, “Les Athéniens à Delphes avant et après Chéronée”, in P. Carlier (éd.), Le IVe siècle av. J-C: approches historiographiques, Nancy/Paris 1993, 127–39. Davies 1994: J. K. Davies, “The Tradition about the First Sacred War”, in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography, Oxford 1994, 193–212.

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Davies 1996: J. K. Davies, “Documents and ‘Documents’ in Fourth-Century Historiography”, in P. Carlier (éd.), Le IV Siecle av. J.-C.: Approches historiographiques, Paris 1996, 29–39. Davies 2007a: J. K. Davies, “The Phokian hierosylia at Delphi: Quantities and Consequences”, in N. Sekunda (ed.), Corolla Cosmo Rodewald, Gdansk 2007. Davies 2007b: J. K. Davies, “The Origins of the Festivals, especially Delphi and the Pythia”, in S. Hornblower / C. Morgan (eds.), Pindar’s Poetry, Patrons and Festivals, Oxford 2007, 47–65. Defradas 1954: J. Defradas, La propagande delphique, Paris 1954. De la Coste/Messelière 1969: P. De la Coste / Messelière, “Chronologie delphique”, BCH 93 (1969), 730–58. Ellis 1976: J. R. Ellis, Philipp II and Macedonian Imperialism, London 1976. Ellis 1982: J. R. Ellis, “Philip and the Peace of Philocrates”, in W. L. Adams (ed.), Philip II, Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Heritage, Washington D. C. 1982, 43–59. Fantuzzi 2000: M. Fantuzzi, “Nikandros [4]”, in Der Neue Pauly, Stuttgart, VIII, 898–900. Ferrucci 2010: S. Ferrucci, Il retore: Anassimene di Lampsaco, in G. Zecchini (a cura di), Lo storico antico. Mestieri e figure sociali, Roma 2010, 155–79. Forrest 1956: G. Forrest, “The First Sacred War”, BCH 80 (1956), 33–52. Fowler 1998: M. Fowler, “Genealogical thinking, Hesiod’s Catalogue, and the Creation of the Hellenes”, PCPhS 44 (1998), 1–19. Franchi 2013a: E. Franchi, “Die Herkunft der Phlegyer und der dritte Heilige Krieg”, Hermes 141 (2013), 450–58. Franchi 2013b: E. Franchi, “Pausanias’ mental maps und die Polis: 10.4.1 in context”, Ktèma 38 (2013), 323–40. Franchi 2015: E. Franchi, “The Phocian Desperation and the Third Sacred War”, Hormos 7 (n. s.) (2015), 49–71. Franchi 2016: E. Franchi, Die Konflikte zwischen Thessalern und Phokern. Krieg und Identität in der griechischen Erinnerungskultur des 4. Jh.s, München 2016. Franchi 2018: E. Franchi, “Continuity and Change in Phocian Spatial Politics: Commemorating Old and New Victories in 4th Century Delphi”, in S. Montel / A. Pollini (éds.), Les questions de l’espace au IVe siècle av. J.-C.: continuités, ruptures, reprises, Besançon 2018, forthcoming. Freitag 2000: K. Freitag, Der Golf von Korinth. Historisch-topographische Untersuchungen von der Archaik bis in das 1. Jh. v. Chr., München 2000. Gallo 2011: L. Gallo, “Appunti per una storia del koinon focidese”, in L. Breglia / A. Moleti / M. L. Napolitano / R. Calce (a cura di), Ethne, identità e tradizioni, I: la “terza” Grecia e l’Occidente, Pisa 2011, 187–96. Giuliani 2001: A. Giuliani, La città e l’oracolo. i rapporti tra Atene e Delfi in età arcaica e classica, Milano 2001. Griffith 1939: G. T. Griffith, “The so-called Koine Eirene of 346 B. C.”, JHS 59 (1939), 71–79. Hackett 1970: N. J. Hackett, The Third Sacred War, DISS. University of Cincinnati 1970. Hall 1997: J. M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge 1997. Hammond 1938: N. G. L. Hammond, “The Two Battles of Chaeronea (338 B. C. and 86 B. C.)”, Klio 31 (1938), 186–218. Hammond 1973: N. G. L. Hammond, “The Victory of Macedon at Chaeronea” in N. G. L. Hammond, Studies in Greek History, Oxford, 534–57. Hammond 2003: N. G. L. Hammond, “The Meaning of οἱ ἀργυρολογέοντες and the Beginning of the Third Sacred War”, Historia 52, 3 (2003), 373–77. Hammond/Griffith 1979: N. G. L. Hammond / G. T. Griffith, A History of Macedonia, II. 550–336 B. C., Oxford 1979. Hampl 1938: F. Hampl, Die griechischen Staatsverträge des 4. Jhs. v. Chr., Leipzig 1938. Harris 1995: E. M. Harris, Aeschines and Athenian Politics, Oxford 1995. Hunt/Robbins 1998: N. Hunt / I. Robbins, “Telling Stories of the War: Aging Veterans Coping with Their Memories through Narrative”, Oral History 26, 2 (1998), 57–64. Hynes 1990: S. Hynes, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture, London 1990.

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Isnardi Parente 1980: M. Isnardi Parente, Speusippo. Frammenti, Napoli 1980. Jannoray 1937: J. Jannoray, “Krisa, Kirrha et la première guerre sacrée”, BCH 61 (1937), 33–43. Jehne 1995: M. Jehne, Koine Eirene. Untersuchungen zu den Befriedungs- und Stabilisierungsbemühungen in der griechischen Poliswelt des 4. Jahrunderts v. Chr., Stuttgart 1995. Kahrstedt 1953: U. Kahrstedt, “Delphoi und das heilige Land des Apollon”, in Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson, II, St. Louis 1953, 749–57. Kase/Szemler 1984: E. W. Kase / G. J. Szemler, “The Amphictyonic League and the First Sacred War: A New Perspective”, in Proceedings of the 7 th Congress of the International Federation of the Societies of Classical Studies I, Budapest 1984, 107–16. Klees 1987: H. Klees, “Die Expansion Makedoniens unter Philipp II und der Frieden des Philokrates”, in W. Will / J. Heinrichs (Hrsg.), Zu Alexander dem Grossen: Festschrift G. Wirth zum 60. Geburtstag, 1, Amsterdam 1987, 131–91. Kromayer 1905: J. Kromayer, “Zu den griechischen Schlachtfelderstudien”, WS 27 (1905), 1–34. Lefèvre 1998: Fr. Lefèvre, L’amphictionie pyléo-delphique: histoire et institutions, Paris 1998. Lehmann 1980: G. A. Lehmann, “Der Erste Heilige Krieg – Eine Fiktion?”, Historia 29 (1980), 242–46. Londey 1990: P. Londey, “The Outbreak of the 4th Sacred War”, Chiron 20 (1990), 239–60. Londey 2015: P. Londey, “Making up Delphic History: The 1st Sacred War revisited”, Chiron 45 (2015), 221–36. Luce 2008: J.-M. Luce, Fouilles de Delphes, ii. L’Aire du Pilier des Rhodiens (fouille 1990–1992): A la frontière du profane et du sacré, Paris 2008. Ma 2008: J. Ma, “Chaironeia 338: Topographies of Commemoration”, JHS 128 (2008), 72–91. Marchetti 1998: P. Marchetti, “Note sur la date des archontes de Delphes de 346 à 336”, Topoi (Lyon) 8 (1998), 167–72. Mari 2002: M. Mari, Al di là dell’Olimpo. Macedoni e grandi santuari della Grecia dall’età arcaica al primo ellenismo, Atene 2002. Mari 2006: M. Mari, “Tucidide e l’anfizionia di Delfi”, BCH 130 (2006), 234–61. Mari 2011: M. Mari, “Tucidide e la frontiera settentrionale dell’Hellenikon”, in J.-L. Lamboley / M. P. Castiglioni (éds.), “L’Illyrie méridionale et l’Épire dans l’antiquité. V”, Actes du Ve colloque international de Grenoble (10–12 octobre 2008), II, Paris 2011, 535–58. Mari 2013: M. Mari, “From Inscriptions to Literature (and Sometimes Back Again). Some Uses of the Epigraphic Sources in the Ancient Literary Traditions on Delphi”, in P. Liddel / P. Low (eds.), Inscriptions and Their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature. Proceedings of the Conference held in Manchester, June 25–26, 2009, Oxford 2013, 125–47. Markle 1967: M. M. Markle, The Peace of Philocrates. A Study in Athenian Foreign Relations 348–346 BC, Diss. Princeton 1967. Markle 1976: M. M. Markle, “Support of Athenian Intellectuals for Philip: A Study of Isokrates’ Philippus and Speusippus’ Letter to Philip”, JHS 96 (1976), 80–99. Maronati 2007: M. Maronati, “Gli strateghi focesi nella terza guerra sacra: Filomelo”, Aevum 81 (2007), 65–85. Martin 2009: G. Martin, Divine Talk: Religious Argumentation in Demosthenes, Oxford/New York 2009. McInerney 1999: J. McInerney, The Folds of Parnassos: Land and Ethnicity in Ancient Phokis, Austin 1999. McInerney 2015: J. McInerney, “Phokis”, in H. Beck / P. Funke (eds.), Federalism in Greek Antiquity, Cambridge 2015, 199–221. Meyer 1892: E. Meyer, Forschungen zur alten Geschichte 1. Zur älteren griechischen Geschichte, Halle 1892. Miller 1986: A. M. Miller, From Delos to Delphi, Leiden 1986. Momigliano 1966: A. Momigliano, “Per la storia della pubblicistica sulla koine eirene nel IV secolo”, in Id., Terzo contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, I, Roma 1966, 457–88.

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Natoli 2004: A. F. Natoli, The Letter of Speusippus to Philip II. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary, Stuttgart 2004. Pack 1876: H. Pack, “Die Quelle des Berichtes über den 3. Heiligen Krieg im XVI Buche Diodors”, Hermes 11 (1876), 195–96. Parke/Boardman 1957: H. W. Parke / J. Boardman, “The Struggle for the Tripod and the First Sacred War”, JHS 77 (1957), 276–82. Parker 1997: V. Parker, “Bemerkungen zum ersten Heiligen Kriege”, RhM 140 (1997), 17–37. Pomtow 1918: H. Pomtow, “Delphische Neufunde. III. Hippokrates und die Asklepiaden in Delphi”, Klio 15 (1918), 303–38. Prandi 1981: L. Prandi, “I Flegiei di Orcomeno e Delfi. La preistoria delle guerre sacre”, in M. Sordi (a cura di), Religione e politica nel mondo antico, Milano 1981, 51–63. Pritchett: W. K. Pritchett, “Observations on Chaironea”, AJA 61 (1958), 307–11. Rahe 1981: P. A. Rahe, “The Annihilation of the Sacred Band at Chaeronea”, AJA 85 (1981), 84–87. Robertson 1978: N. Robertson, “The Myth of the First Sacred War”, CQ 28 (1978), 38–73. Roux 1979: G. Roux, L’amphictionie, Delphes et le temple d’Apollon au IVe siècle, Lyon 1979. Ryder 1965: T. T. B. Ryder, Koine Eirene. General Peace and Local Independence in Ancient Greece, Oxford 1965. Sánchez 2001: P. Sánchez, L’Amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes, Stuttgart 2001. Schachter 1981: A. Schachter, Cults of Boeotia, I, London 1981. Schneider 1956: O. Schneider, Nicandrea, Leipzig 1856. Sealey 1978: R. Sealey, “Philipp II und Athen; 344/3 und 339”, Historia 27 (1978), 295–316. Skoczylas Pownall 1998: F. Skoczylas Pownall, “What Makes a War a Sacred War”, EMC 42 (1998), 35–55. Sordi 1953: M. Sordi, “La prima guerra sacra”, RFIC 31 (1953), 320–46. Sordi 1958: M. Sordi, “La terza guerra sacra”, RFIC 36 (1958), 134–66. Spikes 1992: D. Spikes, “The First Sacred War”, Balcanica Posnaniensia, Acta et Studio 5 (1992), 115–22. Sotiriadis 1903: G. Sotiriadis, “Das Schlachtfeld von Chaeronea und der Grabhuegel der Makedonen”, Ath. Mitt. 28 (1903), 302–30. Stanley 2000: J. Stanley, “Involuntary Commemorations. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Its Relationship to War Commemoration”, in Ashplant/Dawson/Roper 2000, 240–59. Steinbock 2013: B. Steinbock, Social Memory in Athenian Public Discourse: Uses and Meanings of the Past, Ann Arbor. Strid 1999: O. Strid, Die Dryoper. Eine Untersuchung der Überlieferung, Uppsala 1999. Tausend 1988: K. Tausend, “Die Koalitionen im 1. Heiligen Krieg”, RSA 16 (1988), 49–66. Typaldou-Fakiris 2004: C. Typaldou-Fakiris, Villes fortifiées de Phocide et la IIIe guerre sacrée 356–346 av. J.-C., Provence 2004. Uhl 1963: A. Uhl, Pherekydes von Athen. Grundriss und Einheit des Werkes, Diss. München 1963. Wankel 1981: H. Wankel, “Bemerkungen zur delphischen Amphiktionie im 4. Jh. und 4. Heiligen Krieg”, ZPE 42 (1981), 153–66. Wüst 1938: F. R. Wüst, Philipp II von Makedonien und Griechenland in den Jahren 346 bis 338, München 1938. Zachos 2003: G. A. Zachos, “Mnaseas and Mason: Two Elateians of the Third Sacred War”, C&M 54 (2003), 113–26.

CAESAR AND THE CHALLENGE OF COMMEMORATING THE BATTLE OF PHARSALIA Mark Thorne 1. INTRODUCTION: CAESAR’S DILEMMA The Roman empire was built on a foundation of military victory, with each new success feeding into a collective narrative of Rome’s victorious identity and divine favor.1 Such victories called for active commemoration, and toward this end the Romans found a variety of cultural avenues which functioned mnemonically to help their shared audience recall the past conquests that had collectively forged the imperium Romanum. By the late Republic, such commemorative practices formed part of the canvass of elite competition as Roman generals sought to transform their military success into lasting concrete symbols of victory that glorified not only the res publica but also their own name.2 From the Punic Wars onward, triumphal parades, honorific statues, columns, inscriptions, manubial temples, and even the occasional fornix emerged as the preferred methods of commemorating military victories.3 Pompey the Great outdid them all in 55 BC when he dedicated his magnificent new theater complex ex manubiis after his triumphant return to Rome from the East. The attached portico included sculptural representations of the 14 conquered nations, and a conspicuous shrine to Venus Victrix literally crowned the entire structure as a way to project his identity as Rome’s first Mediterranean world conqueror.4 In view of this, it is a striking anomaly that the most important military victory of one of Rome’s most victorious generals was also the most difficult for its victor to commemorate. On 9 August, 48 BC, in the central plains of Thessaly, Julius Caesar defeated his rival Pompey at the battle of Pharsalia in the decisive encounter that would ultimately determine the outcome of the opening round (49–45 BC) of the

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Fears 1981 remains essential reading; see also Hölscher 2006. On the culture of elite competition, see Hölkeskamp 2004, 151–57; Roller 2013. Partly influenced by existing Hellenistic practice, these also developed from the Roman practice of dedicating to the gods a portion of the spoils (ex manubiis). See Popkin 2016, 46–77 for a recent summary of Rome as a landscape of commemorated victory; in the private sphere, too, houses of the elite boasted atria decorated with spoils of their family members’ past conquests (Welch 2007, 501). Stamper 2005, 84–90; Sear 2006, 57–61. Plin. Nat. 8.20 and Gel. 10.1.7 emphasize the intimate connection between the theater and temple. On Pompey’s ‘world conqueror’ image, see Nicolet 1991, 28–38.

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Roman civil wars.5 Although the struggle continued to further battlefields in Egypt, Africa, and Spain over the next three years, Pharsalia was clearly the turning point in Caesar’s rise to sole control of the Republic. Caesar sought the same kinds of glorification through the commemoration of his victorious deeds as his other elite rivals, but this was a victory in civil war. While no less than five triumphal parades, numerous statues, and innumerable honors awaited him in general celebration of his victorious status once the civil war was over, Pharsalia in particular – the very battle that made him victor over Rome – remained relatively in the shadows. Caesar was proud of the victory he accomplished over Pompey at Pharsalia, as his own written account (Civ. 3.82–99) shows; he surely wanted it to be remembered. Mere memory, however, was of course not the goal of the culture of elite competition. At stake was the opportunity to shape how he would come to be remembered by his fellow Romans. Like his rivals, Caesar sought to transform his victories into lasting power through Rome’s authoritative memory institutions. Tonio Hölscher has demonstrated how important it was for victorious Roman generals to convert their victory, an event limited in space and time, into lasting political power via a process that included the creation of monuments or other “symbolic manifestations that fix and perpetuate conceptually the victor’s superiority and dominance”.6 The erection of monuments, the composition of literature, or the establishment of new holidays to promote recall of events deemed important are all examples of commemorative activities. We can see here the crucial intersection of victory and social memory. Research over the past century has demonstrated that memory operates as a selective reconstruction of the past dependent upon the perceived needs of the present.7 Memory is also a social phenomenon, for people recall the past not only as individuals but also as groups, and such collective memory operates within social frameworks as a function of ever-evolving group identity, values, and needs.8 The collective memory of any society is thus an expression of its culture, since each group has its own practices, rituals, and institutions that work to establish the memory of those things that are seen as important.9 5

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Although it is now customary to refer to the battle as ‘Pharsalus’, the Romans consistently referred to the battle as Pharsalia (e. g. Cic. Phil. 14.23; Liv. Perioch. 111.5) or some combination with the adjective Pharsalicus (e. g. Cic. Lig. 9; Suet. Caes. 35.1), and in this paper I follow their example. Cf. Postgate 1905; Bruère 1951; Heslin 1997. Notably, Caesar himself refers to his decisive victory only with the vague ‘proelium in Thessalia factum’ (e. g. Civ. 3.100.3). It is interesting that for a battle with such immense and lasting consequences, memory of its precise geographical location was simply never important to the ancient narrative. Hölscher 2006, 27. Cf. Saito 2010, 630–34; Erll 2011, 8; Galinsky 2014, 3. Maurice Halbwachs pioneered a sociological approach to this mémoire collective in the early twentieth century; helpful introductions to his work and the field of memory studies can be found in Erll 2011; Olick/Vinitsky-Seroussi/Levy 2011; and Galinsky 2016. On the link between memory and identity, see esp. Assmann 1995, 128; 2008, 113. The model of cultural memory (‘kulturelles Gedächtnis’) developed by Jan and Aleida Assmann proves especially useful in understanding the cultural dimension of commemorative practices. Their work is extensive and ongoing; Assmann 1995 and Assmann 2011 are good places to start. Erll 2011, 27–37 and Galinsky 2016, 12–14 provide overviews.

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Commemoration requires a conscious choice to privilege an event or person from the past as significant for the present and the identity of the people doing the remembering.10 In this light, Roman victory rituals and monuments participated in this working of cultural memory precisely as mediations of memory that objectified their past and made possible the “material contact between a remembering mind and a reminding object.”11 In a Roman context, these mediations of memory were so essential precisely because they carried the cultural authority to establish specific privileged memories in Roman society that would shape the contours of social memory in the present and future. An investigation, therefore, into the ways in which Caesar either chose to commemorate Pharsalia or consciously avoided its commemoration can shed valuable light upon the kind of victorious identity he sought to shape within Roman social memory in the controversial aftermath of his success in civil war, a victory that required the destruction of his fellow Roman citizens. 2. CIVIL WAR VICTOR Any difficulty Caesar might face in including Pharsalia alongside his numerous other victory commemorations would not be due to any lack of desire on his part. He had felt forced to wage civil war against Pompey and his senatorial allies to preserve his own dignitas and the right to enjoy the privileges of his Gallic victories for himself and his soldiers.12 After he emerged victorious at Pharsalia, like his earlier rivals he surely thought about potential means for commemorating his military successes both in Gaul and now Pharsalia so as to convey his victorious status to the Roman world and perpetuate his own privileged memory. In addition, the location offered deeper memory associations: Thessalian Pharsalus was the legendary homeland of Achilles, and the area also recalled Alexander the Great, the greatest conqueror in history to that time.13 Caesar likely would have found the chance for commemorative association with such martial heroes attractive. And despite the fact that the civil war continued on to further campaigns in Egypt, Africa, and Spain,

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Cf. Saito 2010, 629 on commemoration as “a ritual that transforms ‘historical knowledge’ into ‘collective memory’ consisting of mnemonic schemas and objects that define the meaning of a past event as a locus of collective identity.” Assmann 2008, 111. Caes. Civ. 1.7–9; cf. Cic. Att. 7.11.1 = SB 134; Lig. 18. See Raaflaub 2010 on Caesar’s larger political strategies for justifying the waging of civil war. See Bruère 1951, 111. Phthia, the town that Homer names as the homeland of Achilles (Il. 2.681), was associated already in historical times with Thessalian Pharsalus; cf. Paus. 10.13.5; Catul. 64.37. Later in the same poem Catullus names Peleus the ‘Emathiae tutamen’ (64.324), a reference to the region of Macedon and thus to Alexander, suggesting that already by the 50s BC the poetic tradition saw a link between Achilles and Alexander.

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Pharsalia was clearly the turning point for both Caesar and the Roman world.14 This victory was surely the one he most wanted to celebrate. A series of major obstacles lay in his path, however, the foremost of which was that this was a victory in civil war against fellow Romans. Sulla enjoyed the fruits of his victory in the contest for dominance against Marius, but he certainly led no triumphs for it. The open celebration of such a civil war victory would be against the spirit of Rome’s victory rituals, which were designed to reify her identity as powerful and triumphant over foreign enemies rather than weaker through self-destruction of her own citizens.15 A further complication in commemorating Pharsalus was the fact that Pompey was still immensely popular throughout the Roman empire, especially so at Rome. In fact, in his own Bellum Civile Caesar goes to great lengths to portray Pompey as a great Roman commander who was misled by his companions to take up arms against his old ally Caesar.16 Any commemoration of Pharsalia in particular carried with it huge risks of backfiring, since the celebration of this Roman victory would be a simultaneous celebration of Roman defeat.17 It was no doubt for all these reasons that Caesar, despite his moment of glory, dared not approach this victory in the customary way, avoiding even the traditional dispatch of the laurelled letter communicating his victory to Rome (as he did after Alexandria and Zela).18 The rewards of victory came to Caesar soon enough, however. Initial rumors of Caesar’s victory over Pompey met a cautious reception, but the confirmation in 47 BC that Pompey had been beheaded in Egypt unleashed a showering of praise upon Rome’s new supreme citizen, even though he was not even there but still fighting in Egypt.19 Senators vied with each other to vote him splendid statues, crowns, seats of honor at public spectacles, oversight of elections, extraordinary magistracies, dictatorial power, and so on to such an extent that, in Dio’s words, “the honors proposed continually grew more numerous and more absurd”.20 Caesar was granted a five-year consulship and again appointed dictator, this time for an entire year, all in absentia. These were clearly victory honors, but it is important to recognize that they all stemmed from the recognition of Caesar’s victorious status. They were not a celebration of his specific victory at Pharsalia, which had rendered Caesar victor in the first place. Pharsalia was both a victory and a disaster for Rome, and people 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

With the benefit of hindsight, Plutarch later described it as “the ultimate battle in Pharsalus that decided everything” (τὴν τελευταίαν καὶ τὰ ὅλα κρίνασαν ἐν Φαρσάλῳ μάχην, Plu. Ant. 8.3). Cf. Dio 41.55.1. On the social functions of the triumph in particular, see Brilliant 1999; Östenberg 2009, 262–92. Batstone/Damon 2006, 50–51 observe that it is not Pompey (who ends up as the “pawn of others and his own emotions”, 51) but Cato, Lentulus, and the rest who are Caesar’s true enemies. Cf. Dio’s later assessment that in this battle Rome “would be vanquished even if victorious” (ὥστε καὶ νικήσασα ἡττηθῆναι, 41.57.4). Cic. Phil. 14.23. Dio 42.19.1. Dio 42.19.4.

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were hesitant to be seen to rejoice publicly over the destruction of his fellow citizens.21 But with his rival Pompey dead, the general recognition of his victorious status was no longer so controversial. 3. A PHARSALIAN TRIUMPH? The ultimate honor for victory in the system of Roman elite competition was the triumphal procession. According to tradition, however, triumphs could only be awarded for victories over foreign (or at least non-citizen) enemies.22 The wounds of citizen slaughter at Pharsalia were too fresh to allow the possibility of celebrating an actual triumphal parade for that victory, but the surviving Senate still strove to find a way to bestow triumph-like honors. This can help us understand the striking inclusion among Caesar’s numerous honors of the right to celebrate a future triumphal parade in Rome after the coming African campaign against the rebellious Juba and his Roman allies.23 In all probability, this unprecedented awarding of a triumph for a campaign that had not yet even been fought served as a kind of triumphal compensation for Caesar’s inability to conduct a triumph for Pharsalia.24 That had been purely a civil war battle, whereas the war in Africa could be justified as the worthy victory over a foreign opponent to whom seditious Roman generals had allied themselves. After emerging victorious from further campaigns in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Africa, Caesar finally returned to Rome in 46 to a truly triumphant celebration. A fawning Senate loaded him with even more victory honors: forty days of supplications and sacrifices, the dictatorship for ten years straight, a bronze statue of him standing on the globe as world-conqueror, and so forth.25 To cap all of these honors, over the summer of 46 Caesar led a spectacular quadruple triumph to commemorate the many victories he had piled up over the past fifteen years. It was a magnificent display of Caesar’s power and supremacy, with countless captives and treasures paraded through the streets of Rome.26 And yet, Caesar’s most important victory at Pharsalia was notably absent. Following tradition, each triumph was designated as a victory over a foreign people (Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, Africa), but Caesar did not exactly try to hide the uncomfortable fact that he was in truth celebrating victory in a civil war over fellow Romans. It was literally on display, for he had paintings made showcasing various enemies he had defeated, including the graphic suicides of the 21 22 23 24 25 26

Dio 42.18.1 explains that this feeling was precisely why Caesar never did celebrate a civil war triumph for Pharsalia. The issue of triumphs in connection to civil war has been a recent topic of debate; see esp. Lange 2016, 71–124. Dio 42.20.5; strangely, Caesar himself did not know yet that an African campaign even needed to be fought, as he was still occupied with events in Egypt. See Lange 2016, 109. Dio 43.14.3–7 offers a full list, adding that the Senate’s motivation was primarily fear and self-preservation. Suet. Caes. 37; Dio 43.19–22; App. BC 2.101–2.

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Roman leaders Scipio, Petreius, and Cato.27 Even here, however, any reference to Caesar’s opponent at Pharsalia was passed over. As Appian explains, Caesar consciously excluded Pompey from the triumphal paintings since his death was still so mourned by the Roman people.28 Such evidence reveals that merely reminding his Roman audience of his victory through civil war was something Caesar was willing to do, but explicitly commemorating Pharsalia in an exclusively civil war was more than he dared at this time.29 Furthermore, Caesar even went so far as to set back up statues of Pompey and Sulla which had been earlier taken down when news of Pharsalia first reached Rome, a symbolic gesture that his fight had been less with Pompey than with others.30 The sociopolitical reality of Pharsalia continued to defy the commemoration of Caesar’s most important victory. 4. PHARSALIA AND THE FORUM IULIUM Although Caesar held no triumph for Pharsalia, could he find a way to commemorate that victory in physical form? His rival Pompey had erected a massive theater and temple complex with an attached portico to great fanfare in 55 BC as a manubial victory monument of his many conquests in the East. Caesar no doubt longed to outshine his rival with his own great monument to Roman victory, and the ultimate product of his plans was the massive new Forum Iulium (160 × 75 m) and its centerpiece Temple to Venus Genetrix. As early as 54 BC, in the midst of his successes in Gaul, he began planning some kind of addition to the overcrowded Forum Romanum, both as a practical measure and as an opportunity to place a monument to his burgeoning victories right in the heart of Rome.31 The symbolic connection of a Forum Iulium as a monumentum to his name, linked to the rest of Rome by a rebuilt Curia Iulia, is clear.32 By the time of its dedication on 26 September, 46 BC, at the end of the fourth of his triumphal parades that summer, the resulting forum and temple complex was a visually stunning testament to Caesar’s new position as master of the Roman world.33 It also pointed back in subtle ways to Pharsalia itself, the battle that made this position possible. According to Appian’s testimony, Caesar first vowed this temple to Venus, his family’s ancestral goddess, on the night before the battle of Pharsalia.34 There is 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

App. BC 2.101. Cf. Holliday 1997, 145–46. App. BC 2.101. It was only with Caesar’s triumph the following year (45 BC) after his final victory over Pompeian forces at Munda that Rome finally held a triumph for an exclusively civil war. Dio 42.18.1–2; Suet. Caes. 75.4; Plu. Cic. 40.4. Cic. Att. 4.16.8 = SB 91; cf. Ulrich 1993, 52–56; Westall 1996, 84–86. From the beginning Caesar envisioned this project as a monument to his achievements, since Cicero himself (Att. 4.16.8 = SB 91) called it a monumentum for Caesar. Dio 43.22; App. BC 2.102. On the visual splendor and construction costs of the Forum Iulium and Temple to Venus Genetrix, see Westall 1996, 84–88; Stamper 2005, 93–102. While Appian (BC 2.68 and 2.102) is our only source for this vow, it is highly unlikely that he made it up or confused something from his sources. The choice of goddess is significant; as

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some confusion here on the goddess’s cult epithet: Appian clearly states that Caesar vowed a temple to Venus Victrix (νεών τε αὐτῇ νικηφόρῳ χαριστήριον, 2.68), but I follow Westall’s convincing argument that Appian simply made an error on this point since he later writes that Caesar “erected the temple to Venus Genetrix (ἀνέστησε καὶ τῇ Γενετείρᾳ), just as he had vowed to do when he was about to begin the battle of Pharsalus”.35 Caesar thus participated in the long tradition of building votive temples following a victory, and while the temple and its treasures referenced the entirety of Caesar’s victorious career, the votive origins of the temple did hearken back specifically to Pharsalia.36 Furthermore, the two famous paintings by Timomachus of Byzantium that Caesar purchased for installation in the temple – one of Medea contemplating the murder of her children and the other of Ajax contemplating suicide – carried potential references to Pharsalia as well.37 Ajax at the end of his life was the military madman of mythology; in the midst of fighting a great campaign out East, he lost to Odysseus in a contest for honor, and in an ensuing fit of madness he fell on his sword. For the astute visual reader conscious of the temple’s votive origins at Pharsalia, the scene could very well conjure up allegorical associations with Pompey, the military man who, in the midst of fighting a campaign out East, lost to Caesar in a contest for honor.38 Both Plutarch and Appian in fact made explicit comparison between the actions of Ajax and Pompey at Pharsalia, for when Pompey realized that defeat was at hand, he returned to camp in a stunned stupor and sat down dumbfounded, “as they say Telamonian Ajax also did at Troy in the midst of his enemies when he was stricken by a god”.39 In such a painting Caesar could at last recall (however obliquely) the defeat of his rival in their contest for honor. And while Pompey did not commit suicide but was later murdered in Egypt, suicide was a viscerally appropriate image used by the Romans in describing the waging of civil war, as Lucan’s proem to his epic on the civil wars later made so clear.40 The paired painting of Medea contemplating the murder of her children also carried powerful resonances with Pharsalia. Thessaly, the legendary land of witches, was Medea’s adopted home, and the image of kin slaughtered by fellow kin was another key metaphor for civil war. Medea perhaps represented the sad fate of Rome generally, but there is a link to Pompey here as well. Just as Medea was driven by the divine power of Amor to commit kin-strife (as Vergil explains at Ecl. 8.46–7), so also

35 36 37 38 39 40

Rives 1994, 294 explains, “Caesar was for all practical purposes giving a public form to this family cult, and thereby expressing in religious terms his unique standing in the state”. App. BC 2.102; cf. 3.28. Westall 1996, 99–110. Perhaps Appian accidentally confused the name of the promised temple with the Caesarian watchword “Venus Victrix” (Ἀφροδίτην νικηφόρον, 2.76). On the tradition of triumphal votive temples, see Bastien 2008. Plin. Nat. 7.126, 35.136; Cic. Ver. 2.4.135 suggests that these two mythological subjects were a natural pairing. In this section I build upon the observations of Westall 1996, 93–98. Cf. Westall 1996, 94 on the possibility that Caesar was attracted to the fact that the artist’s very name, Timomachus, translated to ‘contest for honor.’ App. BC 2.81; cf. Plu. Pomp. 72.1–3. Luc. 1.2–3: populumque potentem | in sua victrici conversum viscera dextra.

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Pompey was overwhelmed by the power of another descendant of Venus in Thessaly.41 Lastly, Timomachus’ Medea was famously unfinished.42 In its surrounding context of Caesarian triumph, perhaps this incomplete scene of Thessalian kin-slaughter appealed to Caesar as a reminder of his own unfinished task after Pharsalia in carrying the civil war to completion. 5. PHARSALIA DAY Caesar may have been limited in his ability to insert Pharsalia directly into his triumphal celebrations, but one area in which he had more success was the Roman calendar. As pontifex maximus, he practiced ultimate oversight of Roman sacred time, and as was customary with the ritual foundations of temples he no doubt entered September 26 into the civic calendar of festivals for anniversary sacrifices to be made at the Temple of Venus Genetrix.43 This annual notice would recall for at least some the battle at which the sanctuary had first been vowed. In connection with the temple’s foundation and its associated public cult of Venus Genetrix, Caesar also established the annual Ludi Victoriae Caesaris.44 As the name indicates, these festival days came to establish a lasting association between Caesar and his victorious status, but they were also clearly linked with Venus Genetrix, the family (and now state) goddess whose temple was first made possible by Caesar’s most important victory at Pharsalia.45 Ultimately, however, it was in the fasti that Pharsalia at last found its clearest commemoration.46 As part of Caesar’s numerous honors, several new sacred days with specific links to his victorious career were added to the calendar. Many of them openly commemorated Caesar’s civil war victories, now marked as annual sacred holidays (feriae). As seen above, Caesar had been very cautious about celebrating the civil war dimension of his victorious status. This hesitation had vanished, however, by the time Caesar had crushed the last Pompeian armies at Munda. Upon his return to Rome, his fifth and final triumph in 45 BC finally broke the barrier against celebrating a civil war through the traditional trappings of Roman victory rituals, as this one was openly a triumph against an exclusively Roman enemy.47 In conjunction with this triumph over fellow Romans also came a further round of hyperbolic honors, and these too finally acknowledged that Caesar’s path to supremacy came 41 42 43 44

45 46 47

Verg. Ecl. 8.46–7: saevos Amor docuit natorum sanguine matrem | commaculare manus. Plin. Nat. 35.145. See Gurd 2007. Rives 1994, 294. Dio 43.22; cf. Westall 1996, 88. They began as the Ludi Veneris Genetricis to coincide with the day of the temple’s dedication, but they were moved by at least 44 BC to their permanent spot in late July so as to take place in the same month as Caesar’s birthday. Cf. Rüpke 2011, 122n75; Ramsey/Licht 1997, 41–57, 183–84. App. BC 3.28. On the character of the fasti (as well as our Julio-Claudian evidence), see Rüpke 2011, 6–22; Feeney 2007, 167–211. The extant fasti have been conveniently collected in Degrassi 1963. See Lange 2016, 110–11.

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not primarily from foreign conquests but from winning a civil war. Added to the fasti were new feriae of Caesar’s victories at Munda (17 March), Alexandria (27 March), Thapsus in Africa (6 April), Spain and Pontus (for Ilerda and Zela respectively, 2 August), and Pharsalia (9 August).48 The Fasti Amiterni, for example, dating to the reign of Tiberius, reads: FER Q E DIE C CAES C F PHARSALI DEVICIT.49 We do not know how widely the general public actively participated in this annual ritual celebration, but from this point on Pharsalia was there in the Roman calendar for all to see.50 The battle may not have found traditional commemoration through inscriptions or statues, but it did embed itself in Roman time. With the weight of cultural authority derived from such civic and religious institutions, Caesar thus succeeded in establishing Pharsalia as an indispensable thread within the official Julio-Claudian narrative of his rise to his position of victorious power: he had not wanted civil war, but he waged it to save a Roman state that had been oppressed by her enemies. 6. CAESAR’S LITERARY MONUMENTUM This was in fact that very argument Caesar put forward in his Bellum Civile. Pharsalia enjoyed an entry in the fasti, but its longest-lasting memorial proved to be his literary portrayal of the civil war. Indeed, Caesar’s Bellum Civile functioned as a literary monumentum, an artifact of Roman memory culture aimed at preserving what the author deemed to be dignum memoriae for the story of the community.51 In his Bellum Civile, essentially an apologia for his actions in waging civil war, Caesar wanted to publish his own account of events that were worthy of memory and give his reasoning behind them as an attempt to control the narrative.52 It was Caesar’s intent, so he wrote, “to rescue himself and the Roman people, who had been oppressed by the faction of a few men, into a place of freedom” (ut se et populum Romanum factione paucorum oppressum in libertatem vindicaret, Civ. 48

49 50 51

52

See Degrassi 1963, 369 for a list of Julian and Augustan fasti honors. He proposes 45 BC for the year of their inclusion in the fasti; I concur that this is most likely, but the possibility remains that some were instituted for Caesar posthumously in 42 BC by the members of the second triumvirate (cf. Dio 47.19.1). Fer(iae) q(uod) e(o) die C. Caes(ar) C. f. Pharsali devicit: “festival holiday because on this day C. Caesar, son of C., conquered at Pharsalus.” It remained there at least through the Julio-Claudian period, after which our surviving evidence for the fasti virtually disappears. The idea that a literary work could function as a monumentum to preserve memoria and promote lasting fame for the author and his subject was firmly embedded in Roman consciousness by at least the second century BC; see e. g. Cic. De orat. 2.63. Horace’s boast that he had created a “monumentum aere perennius” (C. 3.30.1) is perhaps the best known example; see also e. g. Cic. Ver. 4.69; Prop. 3.2.18; Ov. Tr. 3.3.77–78; Sen. 6.1.3; Mart. 10.2.12. Cf. Gowing 2005, 7–27; see also Walter 2004, 212–356 on Republican ‘Memorialpraxis’. It is likely that Caesar wrote while the civil war was still ongoing; the date of actual publication remains a controversy. See the judicious summaries in Grillo 2012, 178–80 and Peer 2015, 167–82.

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1.22.5).53 In his view, he was forced to wage civil war against his fellow Romans, but he was the right general to win and set about restoring Rome. His rendering of the battle of Pharsalia (3.82–99) in particular promoted this vision by depicting the battle’s decisive outcome as a positive victory for Roman virtue with the blessing of divine favor. Perhaps due to the probability that he wrote while campaigning, he approached the narrative of this key encounter with restraint.54 The Pharsalia episode can read at first as just the next battle after the earlier clash at Dyrrachium, and yet Caesar subtly highlights the fact that this was to be the decisive battle in the entire civil war, thereby shaping how future readers would come to remember Pharsalia’s role and meaning. In line with Caesar’s usual practice, the battle narrative itself is relatively straightforward, with emphasis primarily on troop placement, military strategy, and battle maneuvers. He gives special attention to the planning session among Pompey and his top advisors, Caesar’s senatorial enemies, who act as if they know that this would be the crucial battle, for they are so assured that victory in the coming engagement is a foregone conclusion that they are already debating which rewards each would get after Pompey had won (3.83.4). Caesar, on the other hand, shows himself constantly scanning for the strategic moment of opportunity, and upon recognizing it he shouts to his soldiers that the day they have long sought is at hand (3.85.4). To make the point even more clear, Crastinus, the Caesarian soldier who leads the charge, proclaims that only this one battle remains before they will at last regain Caesar’s dignitas and their libertas.55 The description of battle does not linger on details of combat; instead, what stands out is the superior psychological strength of Caesar’s soldiers, suggesting in turn a superior captain worthy of leadership.56 The text also acts as a monumentum of Caesar’s noble response to his victory and his policy of clementia, for he urges his men not to kill those who had surrendered or were found in Pompey’s camp (3.98). The overall image commemorated by Caesar’s textual Pharsalia is one of a decisive and legitimate victory over Caesar’s inimici who were responsible for driving him to civil war in the first place. Earlier in the year he had again been elected consul, and thus at this climactic battle Caesar “was the legitimate consul, fighting unlawful rebels”.57 He also wanted his readers to know that even the gods shone in favor upon his victory, since he unusually included at the end of the episode a list of divine prodigies that took place on the very same day as the battle that decided the fate of Rome (3.105.3–6). We read that in Elis a statue of Nike turned on its own 53

54 55 56 57

It is testament to the lasting cultural power of Caesar’s literary Bellum Civile that his heir Augustus eventually was to adapt this very language in his famous assertion in the Res Gestae that he too after Actium had extinguished civil wars from the world and restored power to the Senate and the people of Rome (bella ubi civilia exstinxeram, RGDA 34.1). Cf. the observation of Peer 2015, 125 that Caesar’s style here is “more factual than triumphant.” Caes. Civ. 3.91.2. See especially 3.92–95. Grillo 2012, 115–16 argues that Caesar’s narrative here demonstrates his superior Romana virtus in contrast to the Pompeian side’s comparative barbarity, which morally disqualifies them from being the kind of leaders Rome needs. Peer 2015, 141.

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accord to face the temple doors, the noise of armies was heard outside the walls of Syrian Antioch and Ptolemais, mysterious drumming was heard inside a temple in Pergamum, and in a temple of Nike in Tralles a palm tree suddenly grew straight out of the stone pavement at the base of a statue of Caesar himself as a sign of his newly minted victorious status. These stories too functioned as commemorations of his victory in civil war under clear signs of divine providence.58 Whether we encounter the superior military leader, the upholder of Roman virtue, or the favorite of the gods, Caesar’s written portrayal of Pharsalia in his Bellum Civile functioned as a monumentum of his new supreme status, commemorating for his future audience his own vision of what that crucial battle meant for Rome. Caesar had won, and he had deserved it all. 7. CONCLUSION Pharsalia, for all of its immense importance for Caesar’s career and Rome’s future, proved to be perhaps the most challenging of all great Roman victories to celebrate and commemorate. This was precisely because it was also a great Roman defeat. Like any internal conflict, the Roman civil wars were national traumas that carried lasting psychological impact.59 Pharsalia was indeed the turning point in the war and the starting point of his new regime, but Caesar dared not commemorate this victory openly through the customary victory rituals available to victorious imperatores. Unable to access the cultural authority that triumphal parades, celebratory inscriptions, or victory monuments traditionally carried in Roman society, Caesar sought other means. His forum complex and accompanying centerpiece Temple of Venus Genetrix, which had been vowed at Pharsalia, maintained a commemorative connection to the battle that vaulted him to his unchallenged position. The Senate’s subsequent decision to mark Pharsalia along with Caesar’s other major victories as annual feriae in the fasti also reinforced the significance of the battle within Rome’s collective memory. And Caesar’s own account of the battle in his Bellum Civile created a literary monumentum of the battle and its meaning for the Rome that Caesar was busy reshaping in the wake of the self-destruction of civil war. In comparison, however, to the glorious monuments to victory erected by his senatorial peers – and later by his heir Caesar Augustus – Caesar’s commemorations of his most important military success remained minimal. Ultimately, this proved no obstacle to his aims. The real goal for the successful Roman imperator was the honor and dignitas that came from being publicly recognized by his peers for his victorious accomplishments, and all this Caesar did achieve. The triumphs 58

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Dio 42.26–27 preserves a list of negative portents which foretold of widespread disaster around the time of Pharsalia, and Peer 2015, 127 observes that Caesar likely knew about these negative signs, which can help explain why he made the unusual decision to include these positive portents here as his reassurance that his victory that day was divinely sanctioned and thus beneficial for Rome. Cf. Lange 2016, 3.

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of 46 and 45 BC and the overflowing honors that accompanied them provided acceptable substitutes for the individual celebration of Pharsalia he may have otherwise sought. His assassination in 44 BC, only one year after the end of the civil war, prevented any further plans he might have had. Finally, the next generation did not have much reason to point back to Pharsalia as a privileged locus memoriae; Pompey and Caesar were long gone, and new enemies were again waging civil war. The narratives had changed, and with them came new memory needs. Octavian’s final victory at Actium generated its own explosion of victory commemoration, significantly overshadowing Pharsalia as the moment that made possible the reign of the line of Caesars. Nevertheless, the first Caesar’s victory that day on 9 August, 48 BC was not and was not and could not be truly forgotten.60 Pharsalia and its legacy had become in their own way an enduring component of Rome’s new imperial identity. Assmann 2011: A. Assmann, Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Arts of Memory, Cambridge 2011. Assmann 1995: J. Assmann, “Collective Memory and Collective Identity”, New German Critique 65 (1995), 125–33. Assmann 2008: J. Assmann, “Communicative and Cultural Memory”, in A. Erll / A. Nünning (eds.), Cultural Memory Studies. An Interdisciplinary Handbook, Berlin 2008, 109–18. Bastien 2008: J.-L. Bastien, “Les temples votifs de la Rome républicaine: monumentalisation et célébration des cérémonies du triomphe”, in P. Fleury / O. Desbordes (éds.), Roma illustrata. Représentations de la ville. Actes du colloque international de Caen (6–8 octobre 2005), Caen 2008, 29–47. Batstone/Damon 2006: W. Batstone / C. Damon, Caesar’s Civil War, Oxford 2006. Brilliant 1999: R. Brilliant, “‘Let the Trumpets Roar!’ The Roman Triumph”, in B. Bergmann / C. Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of Spectacle, Washington 1999, 221–29. Bruère 1951: R. T. Bruère, “Palaepharsalus, Pharsalus, Pharsalia”, CPh 46, 2 (1951), 111–15. Degrassi 1963: A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Italiae, XIII, Fasti et Elogia. Fasc. II, Fasti Anni Numani et Iuliani, Rome 1963. Erll 2011: A. Erll, Memory in Culture, trans. S. B. Young, London 2011. Fears 1981: J. R. Fears, “The Theology of Victory at Rome: Approaches and Problems”, ANRW II 17.2, Berlin 1981, 736–826. Feeney 2007: D. Feeney, Caesar’s Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History, Berkeley 2007. Galinsky 2014: K. Galinsky, “Introduction”, in K. Galinsky (ed.), Memoria Romana: Memory in Rome and Rome in Memory, Ann Arbor 2014, 1–12. Galinsky 2016: K. Galinsky, “Introduction”, in K. Galinsky (ed.), Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity, Oxford 2016, 1–39. Gowing 2005: A. M. Gowing, Empire and Memory. The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture, Cambridge 2005. Grillo 2012: L. Grillo, The Art of Caesar’s Bellum Civile, Cambridge 2012. Gurd 2007: S. A. Gurd, “Meaning and Material Presence: Four Epigrams on Timomachus’s Unfinished Medea”, TAPhA 137, 2 (2007), 305–31.

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Pharsalia was indeed not forgotten; its greatest – and most explosive – act of commemoration during the Principate was of course Lucan’s Bellum Civile, which recalled Pharsalia as the day of Rome’s greatest disaster and source of its greatest evils (e. g. 7.407–411). Cf. Thorne 2016; Joseph 2017.

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Heslin 1997: P. J. Heslin, “The Scansion of Pharsalia (Catullus 64.37; Statius, Achilleid 1.152; Calpurnius Siculus 4.101)”, CQ 47, 2 (1997), 588–93. Hölkeskamp 2004: K.-J. Hölkeskamp, Senatus Populusque Romanus. Die politische Kultur der Republik: Dimensionen und Deutungen, Stuttgart 2004. Holliday 1997: P. J. Holliday, “Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and Reception”, ABull 79, 1 (1997), 130–47. Hölscher 2006: T. Hölscher, “The Transformation of Victory into Power: From Event to Structure”, in S. Dillon / K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient Rome, Cambridge 2006, 27–48. Joseph 2017: T. A. Joseph, “Pharsalia as Rome’s ‘Day of Doom’ in Lucan”, AJPh 138, 1 (2017), 107–41. Kleiner 1985: F. S. Kleiner, The Arch of Nero in Rome: A Study of the Roman Honorary Arch Before and under Nero, Rome 1985. Lange 2016: C. H. Lange, Triumphs in the Age of Civil War: The Late Republic and the Adaptability of Triumphal Tradition, London 2016. Nicolet 1991: C. Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire, Ann Arbor 1991. Olick/Vinitzky-Seroussi/Levy 2011: J. K. Olick / V. Vinitzky-Seroussi / D. Levy (eds.), The Collective Memory Reader, Oxford 2011. Östenberg 2009: I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representations in the Roman Triumphal Procession, Oxford 2009. Peer 2015: A. Peer, Julius Caesar’s Bellum Civile and the Composition of a New Reality, London 2015. Popkin 2016: M. L. Popkin, The Architecture of the Roman Triumph: Monuments, Memory, and Identity, Cambridge 2016. Postgate 1905: J. P. Postgate, “Pharsalia Nostra”, CR 19, 5 (1905), 257–60. Raaflaub 2010: K. A. Raaflaub, “Creating a Grand Coalition of True Roman Citizens: On Caesar’s Political Strategy in the Civil War”, in B. W. Breed / C. Damon / A. Rossi (eds.), Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars, Oxford 2010, 159–70. Ramsey/Licht 1997: J. T. Ramsey / A. L. Licht, The Comet of 44 B. C. and Caesar’s Funeral Games, Atlanta 1997. Rives 1994: J. Rives, “Venus Genetrix outside Rome”, Phoenix 48, 4 (1994), 294–306. Roller 2013: M. Roller, “On the Intersignification of Monuments in Augustan Rome”, AJPh 134 (2013), 119–31. Rüpke 2011: J. Rüpke, The Roman Calendar from Numa to Constantine: Time, History, and the Fasti, D. M. B. Richardson (trans.), Malden 2011. Saito 2010: H. Saito, “From Collective Memory to Commemoration”, in J. Hall / L. Grindstaff, M. / C. Lo (eds.), Handbook of Cultural Sociology, New York 2010, 629–38. Sear 2006: F. Sear, Roman Theaters: An Architectural Study, Oxford 2006. Stamper 2005: J. W. Stamper, The Architecture of Roman Temples: The Republic to the Middle Empire, Cambridge 2005. Thorne 2016: M. Thorne, “Speaking the Unspeakable: Engaging Nefas in Lucan and Rwanda 1994”, in A. Ambühl (ed.), War of the Senses – The Senses in War. Interactions and Tensions between Representations of War in Classical and Modern Culture = Thersites 4 (2016), 77–119. Ulrich 1993: R. B. Ulrich, “Julius Caesar and the Creation of the Forum Iulium”, AJA 97, 1 (1993), 49–80. Walter 2004: U. Walter, Memoria und res publica. Zur Geschichtskultur im republikanischen Rom, Frankfurt am M. 2004. Welch 2007: K. E. Welch, “Art and Architecture in the Roman Republic”, in N. Rosenstein / R. Morstein-Marx (eds.), A Companion to the Roman Republic, Malden 2007, 496–542. Westall 1996: R. Westall, “The Forum Iulium as Representation of Imperator Caesar”, MDAI(R) 103 (1996), 83–118.

HEROES IN AULA DEI: COMMEMORATING WARS AND THE FALLEN IN THE TIME OF CHARLEMAGNE Giuseppe Albertoni 1. A LETTER FROM THE FRONT Charlemagne spent much of his life on military campaign.1 Einhard, his courtier and biographer, writing about these wars roughly fifteen years after the Emperor’s death – in the Vita Karoli – lists ten of them, in chronological order,2 beginning with the Aquitainian War of 769. This is followed by that against the Lombards in 773/774, which led to the conquest of Northern and Central Italy. Then comes the war against the Saxons, which also began in those years (and lasted for almost thirty); the Spanish campaign of 778; that against the Bretons in 786; and the Lombards of Benevento in 786/787. Next come the wars against Tassilo III, Duke of Baveria, in 787/788; against the Slavs of the Lower Elbe (the Wiltzites or Welatabians) in 789 and against the Avars in 791 and 796; and, finally, the war against the Danes in 804. All these campaigns – with the partial exception of the Spanish – were victorious, and yet none was celebrated with the construction of a monument: no triumphal arches, no reliefs, no epigraphs, no statues. Even the famous equestrian statuette of Metz, now at the Louvre, which often appears in books on Charlemagne, probably dates from 870 and is now generally considered to be of Charles the Bald, represented as the new Charlemagne.3 Some of the few existing miniatures of Carolingian battle scenes also date from this period, but do not, in fact, represent episodes from the campaigns of the first Frankish emperor, depicting, instead, Biblical kings, ‘revisited’ from a Frankish perspective.4 Even the passage of the Vita 1

2

3 4

There is currently no complete account of the wars of Charlemagne. For an initial overall view, see Hartmann 2010, 82–111; Prietzel 2014; Weinfurter 2013, 78–127. For the military organization of the early Carolingians and for Charlemagne’s early campaigns, see Bachrach 2001 and 2013. Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, c. 5–14, 7–17. The date of the Vita Karoli is still debated: some scholars believe it to have been written in the years immediately after Charlemagne’s death, others – drawing heavily on Tischler’s interpretation, in Tischler 2001 – place it between 828 and 830. On this debate, see Chiesa 2014b and Albertoni 2014. On Einhard more generally, see Ganz 2005 and Patzold 2013. See Boshof 2001. For a good synopsis, see Heuschkel 2014. I am thinking in particular of the miniature in the Goldener Psalter in the Sankt Gallen Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 22 (http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/list/one/csg/0022) and the ones which illustrate the Book of Maccabees in the Ms. PER F 17 in the Universiteitsbiblioteek at Leiden.

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Karoli which Einhard – following the example of Suetonius in his Chapters 29 and 30 of the Vita Augusti – devotes to public works, only mentions a couple of royal palaces (at Ingelheim and Nijmegen) and the restoration of “old sacred edifices […] falling into ruin from age”.5 Why this lack of commemorative monuments? How was victory celebrated – and understood – in the age of Charlemagne? This essay is my attempt to – at least partially – answer these questions. I would like to begin my analysis by referring to some passages from one of the few ‘letters from the front’ of the period. It was written by Charlemagne to his wife Fastrada, in September 791, during one of the halts on his first expedition against the Avars, a tribe from the steppe which, from the second half of the 6th Century, had been settled in Pannonia.6 After greeting her and giving a brief account of what was happening, he wrote: As regards ourselves, we have held, with God’s help, three days of litany, from the 9th of September, a Monday, and then the Tuesday and Wednesday. We prayed to the mercy of God, that he would accord us peace, safety, victory and a successful expedition and that through his mercy and pity he would help, counsel and defend us in all our travails.7

Charlemagne went on to explain how he and his men had tried to invoke God’s benevolence. Our priests – he wrote – ordered us all, except for those who had a special dispensation because of old age, or youth, or illness, to abstain from wine and meat. And if anyone wanted to obtain permission to drink wine during those three days, if they were among the more important and powerful, they had to pay one solidus a day, if they were less powerful they had to pay according to their means. And each priest was ordered to give a special mass, unless he was prevented from doing so by illness. The clerics who knew the psalms had to sing fifty of them. And while they were holding this litany, they had to go barefoot. Our priests decided thus, and thus we all did, and completed, with the help of God.8 5 6

7

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Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, c. 17, 20–21. For the English translation of the Einhard’s text see also Einhard 2008. Epistola ad Fastradam. For a biographical sketch of Fastrada, see Staab 1997. On Fastrada see also Nelson 1996 and Nelson 1997. For a first contextualization of the letter, see Hägermann 2000. On the campaign against the Avars, and on the Avars themselves see Pohl 1988 and 2002. Epistola ad Fastradam, 528; the original text is: “Nos autem, Domino adiuvante, tribus diebus letania fecimus, id est Nonis Septembris quod fuit Lunis die incipientes, et Marti set Mercoris: Dei misericordiam deprecantes, ut nobis pacem et sanitatem atque victoriam et prosperum iter tribuere dignetur, et ut in sua misericordia et pietate nobis adiutor et consiliator atque defensor in omnibus angustiis nostris exsistat”. IbId.: “Et a vino et carne ordinaverunt sacerdotes nostri, qui propter infirmitate aut senectudinem aut iuventudinem abstinere potebant, ut abstinuisset: et qui redemere evoluisse, quod vinum licentiam habuisset bibendi ipsis tribus diebus, maiores et potentiores homines hunaquaque die solidum hunum [sic] dedissent, minus potens iuxta possibilitatem ipsorum; et qui amplius dare non potebat et vinum bibere volebat, saltim vel unum dinarium donasset. Aelimosina vero unusquisque secundum propriam atque bonam voluntatem ver iuxta possibilitatem et qui amplius dare non potebat et vinum bibere volebat, saltim vel unum din[a]rium donasset. Aelimosina vero unusquisque secundum propriam atque bonam voluntatem vel iuxta possibilitatem fecisset. Et sacerdos unusquisque missam specialem fecisset, nisi infirmitas inpedisset. Et clerici, qui psalmos sciebant, unusquisque quinquaginta cantasset; et interim quod ipsas le-

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After this explanation – interesting, too, for the light which it throws on the social structure of the army and the principles of ‘equal distribution’ which often inspired the decisions of the Frankish kings – Charlemagne appealed to his wife, writing: Therefore I want you, and all our other faithful, to consider how these litanies can also be recited where you are [Regensburg]. As for you, I trust you to do as much as your illness permits [the queen was ill and died soon after].9

Prayers on the battlefield, it appears, had to be accompanied by the prayers of the fideles at the royal court and, perhaps, in all the churches of the kingdom, according to the orders included, about ten years previously, in a capitulary which stated that bishops, monks, nuns and canons had to say prayers and sing psalms for the king, for the exercitus Francorum and for an undefined tribulatio, perhaps a famine.10 That the military campaign against the Avars in 791 was preceded by a propitiatory mass is also attested in the Annales regni Francorum, a sort of official history of the early Carolingian period, written at different times by anonymous authors, who were connected with the court of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.11 Both versions of the Annales regni Francorum go into considerable detail on the war against the Avars, defined by Einhard – with good reason – as “the greatest of all the wars he [Charlemagne] undertook”.12 The first version, however, written closer to the time, is the one which gives us an accurate mise-en-scène, and largely tallies with Charlemagne’s letter to Fastrada. First, their author records how the Franks decided to intervene “propter nimiam malitiam et intollerabilem quam fecerunt Avari contra sanctam ecclesiam vel populum christianum”.13 Then he talks about how the litanies and masses held along the banks of the River Enns – which acted as a natural border between Frankish and Avarian territory – in the three days before the Franks attacked were intended to persuade Jesus Christ to keep the army safe and “pro victoria et vindicta super Avaros”.14 Naturally, victory was attained and Charlemagne’s men were able to return to base “magnificantes Deum de tanta victoria”.15

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tanias faciebant, discaltiati am[bu]lassent. Sic consideraverunt sacerdotes nostri; et nos omnes ita aptificavimus [et] Domino adiuvante complevimus”. Epistola ad Fastradam, 528: “Unde volumus, ut tu cum ill. et ill. vel ceteris fi[de]libus nostris considerare debeas, qualiter ipsas letanias ibidem factas fiant. Tu autem, iuxta quod tua infirmitas permittit, in tuo committimus arbitrio”. On the death of Queen Fastrada, see Hägermann 2000, 350–52. MGH, Concilia, 2, 1, n. 18, 108–9. On this capitulary, see the remarks in Bachrach 2003, 33. See ARF, 87–90. For a good introduction to the Royal Annals, see McKitterick 2008, 27–43 and Reimitz 2015, 410–43. For a summary of the campaign against the Avars in 791, see Hägermann 2000, 309–16; Pohl 2002, 315–17. Einhard 2008, c. 13, 27. ARF, 88. IbId. IbId.

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2. PRAYING FOR VICTORY In his book, Eternal victory. Triumphal Rulership in late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West, the North American medieval Scholar Michael McCormick identifies the Avar campaign as the real turning point in the forms of celebration of Frankish victories.16 It is based on this analysis – in what is still considered a key reference for medievalists on the subject of victory celebrations, a topic little studied by historians, even Carolingian specialists – that my account has begun with this episode of prayer and penitence during the Avar campaign of 791. According to McCormick, it was in the last decade of the 8th Century that Charlemagne, having consolidated his power, made a conscious decision to reshape the votive masses and the processions with litanies which were already an established accompaniment to war.17 The real innovation lay in the location of these rituals: the military camp, right there on the battlefield, and no longer – or not just, as noted above – in the churches and monasteries of the kingdom, as in the Merovingian period. This change should be understood in the context of Carolingian emulation of – and counterposition to – the Byzantine Empire, a process which echoed Frankish attitudes to the Romans from the 5th to 7th Centuries, when they constructed a myth of origin which identified the Trojans as their ancestors.18 It should not be forgotten, moreover, that the Avar campaign was fought in the years before the ‘return’ of the Imperial crown to the West: a particularly intense period in political, ideological and military terms.19 After a long period in which, to quote the German medievalist Karl Ferdinand Werner’s apposite phrase, the power of the Frankish king had become a “power which was no longer Roman, but was defined in Roman terms”,20 it was necessary to begin the process which would lead to the legitimation of Charlemagne’s imperial ambitions: the Carolingians – who notoriously came to power following a dramatic coup d’état – were trying to relaunch the idea of the Frank’s expansionist vocation.21 This mission was – equally notoriously – pursued through collaboration with the Popes, who were, in turn, revisiting the use of prophesy by which some influential 6th Century Gallo-Roman 16

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See McCormick 1986, in particular 352–54. As well as in this well-known monograph, McCormick examines the celebration of victory in the Carolingian in: McCormick 1984; 1987. Bernard S. Bachrach is another historian who has written extensively on this theme. See, in particular, Bachrach 2001 and Bachrach 2003. McCormick 1986, 347–56. See also Bachrach 2001, 147–58, for a detailed description of the rituals which accompanied prayers for victory in the Merovingian and early Carolingian periods. He devotes particular attention to the role of confession before battle. On this origin myth, transmitted by Pseudo-Fredegar and much studied, see (among others) Giardina 1988, Innes 2000 and Reimitz 2015. On this period – also much studied – I will limit my references to a few up to date syntheses included in recent biographies of Charlemagne: Collins 2005; Fried 2013, 433–95; Hägermann 2000, 334–418; McKitterick 2008, 114–18; Weinfurter 2013, 205–24. Werner 1998, 212. See Gandino 2007, on both this, and the subsequent points. For a summary of the “wars for the faith” see Weinfurter 2013, 103–27. In general, for an up-to-date picture of the rise of the Carolingians, see Costambeys/Innes/MacLean 2011, 31–79.

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bishops had helped to legitimize the new Frankish monarchy in a large part of what had been Gaul. This approach, which reworked the Roman bellum iustum in Christian,22 and particularly Augustinian terms, meant that the wars of Charlemagne had to be consecrated to victory, a victory which, however, only Christo or Deo auxiliante could achieve.23 As Bernard S. Bachrach put it: “a firm belief that God helped early Carolingian armies to attain victory elevated the morale of the men who went into battle”24. This victory, however, was one for which the Frankish warriors and people – the new tribe of Israel, according to the famous prologue to the second version of the Lex Salica, which may date from just this period, or some years after – had to beg, through prayer, fasting and confession before battle commenced.25 It would appear, therefore, that the most powerfully symbolic moments of Frankish military campaigns were the propitiatory prayer and purification rituals with which they began, notwithstanding the fact that campaigns were often followed by ‘triumphs’, the distribution of booty and victory celebrations.26 These prayers could be either preventative, as they were on the banks of the River Enns in 791, or contemporaneous with the actions of the Frankish king, like the three hundred kyrie eleison which the Pope was supposed to recite daily for Charlemagne, according to Pope Adrian I.27 The texts of the two propitiatory masses included in two late 8th or early 9th Century sacramentaries, associated with the conquest of the Spanish marches, are of particular interest in this context.28 One is the Missa in profectionem hostium eontibus in prohelium, in the Gellone Sacramentary (called after the monastery in southern Francia to which it was brought by its founder, the Duke of Aquitaine, William of Toulouse, who became a monk after a long military career at Charlemagne’s side).29 The other is the Missa pro rege in die belli contra paganos from the Angoulême sacramentary, which also emerged from the Aquitanian context of the wars against the Saracens and the Basques.30 A brief examination of the latter’s contents is probably relevant here. The Mass opens with an invocation to the Trinity to save the Christian people, just as once He saved the Sons of Israel from the Egyptians, and to grant victory to the servant of Christianity, the king. It goes on to draw parallels between Moses, Aaron and the Franks, calling upon God to liberate the 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

See Gandino 2007, 43–44, for some crucial remarks on this subject. Bachrach 2001, 148. IbId. On the Franks as the new Israel see Garrison 2000 and Reimitz 2015, 295–334. On the different versions of the Lex Salica, about which there is still much confusion, see the recent suggestions made in Ubl 2009. For the well-known openings of the versions D and E of the Lex Salica, in which a parallel is drawn between the Israelites and the Franks, see the Lex Salica, 2–5. This occurred above all after significant victories, like that over the Lombards. See Bachrach 2013, 374–426. See Fried 2013, 199 and n. 184, 654. See McCormick 1986, 347–52; on the subsequent point, also. Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis. Liber sacramentorum Engolismensis. On this missa, see McCormick 1986, 348 and Bachrach 2003, 35–36; the former also on the subsequent point.

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king and his army from the terror of tyranny, so that the Franks could return from battle with a jubilee. It implores the Lord to aid His servant and His servant’s army in their struggle against the ‘perfidious pagans’, just as once He helped Abraham. Thus, God should send His angel to protect the Franks, who would then be able to come home triumphantes de victoria. It ends by evoking the salvation of Israel through the grace of God, requesting that He extend the same protection to the Franks, and intervene to prevent their sustaining heavy losses. “The God of the Frankish army – McCormick wrote – was close indeed to that of ancient Israel and the liturgy provided the link”.31 The new liturgy, however, did not transform the wars of the Franks into holy wars, even when they were fought against Muslims or pagans. Nevertheless, Charlemagne’s wars had strong religious connotations, and could, on occasion – i. e. against the Saxons – become missionary wars.32 Given that victory was considered an essential element of sovereignty,33 prayers for the King and the stability of his kingdom had been a central part of the liturgy since the time of the Merovingians. These prayers were sometimes reinforced by other ‘ingredients’, such as the relics of saints, carried right to the fringes of battle; the circuitum murorum, a liturgical procession around the walls of a besieged city; or the three day fast mentioned in the letter to Fastrada.34 In these situations, it is probable that there was little space for the commemoration of the fallen because their very mention would have challenged the providential order of history. And so, the numerous accounts of the wars that marked more than thirty years of Charlemagne’s life rarely mention dead warriors, never mind fallen heroes, among the ranks of the Franks and their allies. The ruler is always centre stage, with his anonymous multitude of fideles, faithful to God and King. 3. THE FALLEN IN PARADISE The dead – who, of course, existed – could not always go unmentioned. We will now turn our attention to a small group of high ranking men whose deaths were actually recorded. Two illustrious casualties appear in the accounts of the war against the Avars, after the two expeditions conducted between 795 and 796, which succeeded in conquering the ring, the hub of the Avar kingdom, and capturing their immense treasure hoards, amassed on countless raids. The first of these expeditions involved a contingent despatched by Eric, Duke of Friuli, under the command of a Slav called Voynimir; the second was led by the ‘King of Italy’, Pippin.35 It was this booty – which Charlemagne distributed among the men of his army, also sending a 31 32 33 34 35

McCormick 1986, 349. For a useful summary, see Weinfurter 2013, 103–27. See also Effros 1997; Lampen 1999; Springer 2004. On this much studied topic I will limit my references to the overview given in Airlie 2005. McCormick 1986, 342–45. For a recreation of the events, see Hägermann 2000, 354–58 and 369–78; Pohl 2002, 318–20.

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portion to Pope Leo III – that made the campaign against the Avars and the exploits of young Pippin famous; they were recorded by Einhard,36 by the Annales regni Francorum37 and also celebrated in a short anonymous poem written by someone who clearly knew what he was talking about, maybe because he, too, had been on the expedition.38 The poem is entitled De Pippini regis victoria Avarica: it is not a description of the battle, or of Pippin’s deeds, but a celebration of these, written from the providential perspective I noted above. Since this is the approach taken, the Avars are naturally painted in sinister colours, although the brief verse describes only their behaviour in the monasteries, its brutality, and the Avars’ desecration of sacred objects: “On the holiest altars – we are told – they defiled the holy altar cloth, and the linen vestments of the priests and nuns and, prompted by the devil, gave them to their women”.39 This despoilation caused God to send St Peter to the aid of Pippin, the “rex accintus Dei virtute, rex catholicus”.40 Emboldened by Peter’s support, Pippin and the Francorum acies began to build fortifications in the area around the Danube, instilling fear in the Avars, who were so alarmed that one of their envoys, called Unguimeri, begged his king – the kagan – to surrender to the princeps catholicus: the latter thus subjugated the Avars without any real battle. This contrasts with Einhard’s account, according to which the place where the kagan’s court had been before the conflict was afterwards so devastated that no trace of human settlement remained.41 In the verse dedicated to Pippin, the cacanus rex surrendered peacefully, with a symbolic offering of branches and leaves. As the conductor of an irenic war, Pippin is portrayed in the poem as a Christian hero who is acting as an instrument of God, a god whom all Christians – in the poem – thank, for “having made the kingdom of our King defeat the kingdom of the Huns [this name was often used for the Avars]”.42 The poem’s author thus makes himself the spokesperson for all of Christianity, which, at the end of the poem, thanks Pippin: Long live, long live God fearing King Pippin, / let him reign into old age, and bring forth sons, / that they will look after his palaces, both in his lifetime, and after his death. / He has built a great, wide, very powerful kingdom, / things which until today earthly kingdoms had never done, / neither Caesar, nor the pagans, but he has done thanks to the grace of God.43 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, c. 13, 15–17. ARF, 98–101. See De Pippini regis victoria Avarica and De Pippini regis victoria Avarica 2002. I refer to this last text, XXX–XXIV, for the various hypotheses on the author. De Pippini regis victoria Avarica, 3, 116; “Vestem sanctam polluerunt de ara sacralissima / linteamina levitae et sanctaemonialium / muliebris tradatam, suadente demone”. IbId. Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, c. 13, 16, where we read: “Quot proelia in eo gesta, quantum sanguinis effusum sit, testatur vacua omni habitatore Pannonia et locus in quo regia kagani erat, ita desertus ut ne vestigium quidem in eo humanae habitationis appareat”. De Pippini regis victoria Avarica, 13, 117: “Nos fideles cristiani deo agamus gratiam, / qui regnum regis confirmavit super regnum Uniae, / et victoriam donavit de paganis gentibus”. IbId.: “Vivat, vivat rex Pippinus in timore Domini / avus regnet et senescat et procreet filios / qui palatia conservent in vitam et post obitum. / Qui conclusit regnum crande, amplum, potentissimus, / quae regna terrae non fecerunt usque ad diem actenus, / neque Cesar et pagani, sed divina gratia”.

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These invocations notwithstanding, Pippin died young – in 810, four years before his father. As well as the solemn poem on the victoria varica, his doings and his person were celebrated by Angilbert of St Riquier, a poet, and one of Charlemagne’s most important courtiers44 and by the poem Karolus Magnus et Leo papa, probably composed just after the return of the nomen imperatoris to the West, where he is described as “bellipotens, animosus heros, fortissimus armis”45. And Alcuin of York called Pippin “Spes, decus Italiae”, in a letter of recommendation written for one of Alcuin’s priests, whom he was sending to Italy.46 ‘Christian prince’, ‘brave hero’, ‘Italy’s hope’ – Pippin is almost a paragon of the most prized values of the project to develop a soldier aristocracy which inspired a number of important Carolingian intellectuals.47 These values also permeate the texts that celebrate the memory of two of Pippin’s illustrious fellows, who fell during the war against the Avars, as Einhard records in the Vita Karoli: Only two of the leading Franks – he wrote – died in that war: Eric, the duke of Friuli, who was ambushed in Liburnia by the citizens of Tersatto, a city on the coast, and Gerold, the governor of Bavaria. When he was about to engage in battle in Pannonia with the Avars he was killed, it is not known by whom, with two people who were riding with him and urging each man on.48

The fallen whom Einhard recalls were among the most significant figures engaged on the eastern borders of the Frankish territories and their deaths were recorded in similar terms to those used by Charlemagne’s first biographer, also in the Annales regni Francorum.49 The prefect Gerold was the leader of Baveria, which had ceased to be a dukedom after the surrender of Tassilo III,50 while Duke Eric was the leader of the Friuli.51 The former, moreover, had been the brother-in-law of the King of the 44 45 46 47 48

49

50 51

Angilbert, Carmina, I, 358–60. Karolus Magnus et Leo papa, v. 202, 371. For an up-to-date overview, with references to additional bibliography, see Hartmann 2010, 18–19. Alcuin, Epistolae 29, 71. On Carolingian aristocratic status and its values, see the overview given in Airlie 2005 and Stone 2011. Einhard 2008, c. 13, 27–28 Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, c. 13, 15–17; the Latin text is: “Duo tantum ex proceribus Francorum eo bello perierunt: Ericus dux Foroiulianus in Liburnia iuxta Tharsaticam maritinam civitatem insidiis oppidanorum interceptus; et Geroldos Baioariae praefectus in Pannonia, cum contra Hunos proeliaturus aciem strueret, incertum a quo, cum duobus tantum qui eum obequitantem ac singulos hortantem comitabantur interfectus est”. See ARF, 109. The second version of the Annales regni Francorum, however, does not actually make a direct connection between the death of Eric and the war against the Avars, which is only made explicitly by Gerold. This is possibly explained by the greater attention paid by the former to the eastern territories of the kingdom, highlighted in McKitterick 2008, 27. In the 1940s the North American historian James Bruce Ross noted this and attributed it to the new tensions between the Franks and the Slavic tribes – particularly the Croats – after the fall of their enemy, the Avar kingdom. See Ross 1945, in particular 225–26 and 231. To the conflict between Charlemagne and his cousin Tassilo III of Baveria I limit my references to Kolmer 2005 and McKitterick 2008, 118–27; Wolfram 2016; also for additional bibliographical information. On Erich and Gerold, Ross 1945 is still the most exhaustive study. On Erich, see also Schmidinger 1986; on the political context of his activities, see Gasparri 2011, in particular

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Franks (he was the brother of the King’s third wife, Hildegard – mother of King Pippin – who died in 783); Eric had been the key figure in the second campaign against the Avars, which culminated in the conquest of the ring. Like Gerold, he was from an important old Aleman family, and, as the Duke of Friuli, had formed close ties with the Patriarch Paulinus of Aquileia, who dedicated a sort of speculum principis to him – the Liber exhortationis – which served as a moral guide for him to follow in his various activities.52 A letter written to Eric by Alcuin of York, thanking him for a previous visit at his mansiucola, bears witness to the Duke’s success in putting Paulinus’ teaching into practice.53 In the letter the great Englishman intellectual exhorted Eric to follow Paulinus’ teachings, pius celestis vitae praeceptor, in order to make himself worthy of reaching the gate of the vita perpetua. Alcuin naturally had no idea that Eric would be knocking on that gate only a few years later. When he heard the news, and that of Gerold’s death, he wrote a heartfelt letter to Arn, Archbishop of Salzburg,54 in which he expressed his fear that the death of the two viri fortissimi, who had not only defended the borders of the imperium christianum but had, through their conquests, expanded that empire, might signal imminent new dangers. As we now know, Alcuin’s fears were exaggerated, but they are indicative of the importance of the role that the two Christian heroes played on the eastern frontier of the Frankish kingdom – the only part of that kingdom which bordered pagan lands. Alcuin, in fact, was already anticipating that the Kingdom of the Franks would become the imperium christianum – with the return of the nomen imperatoris to the West – a year before this actually happened. The Patriarch Paulinus was possibly even more affected by Eric’s death than was Alcuin. Shaken by the event, he wrote a funeral eulogy, in the Roman tradition of the laudatio funebris, the panegyric recited during rituals commemorating the dead.55 This is the oldest Early Medieval example of the planctus, the lament upon which the mourning of eminent figures – Charlemagne himself was the first – was subsequently modelled.56 This was not, then, the customary form of commemoration: it was a sung funeral rite,57 opening with an evocation of the lament of the rivers and lands that stretched from Friuli to the plains of the Danube, the setting for Eric’s military exploits. Almost as if in reply to this lament, then Paulinus expounded that of Strasbourg, where the Duke of Friuli was born, recalling the virtues of Eric, which made him a true Christian hero: “To churches – wrote Paulinus – he was the bestower of goods, / father to the poor, succour to the pitiful, to the widows

52 53 54 55 56 57

120–21 and Krahwinkler 1992, 143–58. On Gerold, see also Störmer 1986; Urban 1999, 1–10 and Innes 1998, 23–31 and Urban 1999, 1–10. See Paulinus of Aquileia, Liber exhortationis, 198–289. For an overview of Paulinus of Aquileia and his times, see the papers published in Chiesa 2003; on the relationship between Paulinus and Erich, see Duval 1988 and Stone 2011, 37–38. Alcuin, Epistolae 98, 142. Alcuin, Epistolae 185, 310. Paulinus of Aquileia, Versus de Herico duce, 213–30. IbId. 213. IbId. 216 and Gozzi 2003, in particular 199.

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he was a true support./How meek/gentle he was, beloved by the priests,/brave in battle, sharp of mind”.58 The character of this Christian hero was described by Paulinus in line with a model of masculinity which was very popular in the Carolingian period; one which combined the Christian virtues of aiding the ‘weak’ with valour in battle.59 And so, Eric was not only a defender of the poor, widows and priests, but also a brave warrior – the role in which he subdued ‘very ferocious barbarians’, but also met his tragic death. Perhaps to make his account more dramatic, Paulinus represented the killing of Eric as the result of an assault during battle, which occurred on the Liburnum litus, upon which place he invoked a kind of curse, to stop its flowers and plants from growing and bearing fruit.60 It was in this land that Eric, a vir fortis, fell “in battle/his shield shattered, his sword bloody”.61 Although in the planctus Paulinus does not actually state that Eric had been the victim of an ambush, he does imply it; describing how the Duke’s body had been shredded by the hard stones of a slingshot.62 The news of this death spread swiftly: “First the terrible shout – to make a man weep – sounded out through the squares, then with sad voices his death was made known”.63 People of all ages and classes burst into sorrowful lament, a lament which only ends with Paulinus’ closing plea to God, that He would grant Eric, ‘his servant’, the “sweet joy of paradise”.64 No such planctus was written for the Prefect Gerold, the other fortissimus vir who fell in 799; his death occurred, according to Einhard, while he was rallying his men, in preparation for a mission against the Avars, bands of whom were still active even after their defeat in 796. As noted previously, he was Charlemagne’s brotherin-law and belonged to a noble old Swabian family, related to the dukes of Bavaria, the Agilofings.65 Like Eric and King Pippin (whose uncle he was), Gerold was a great warrior, and had taken part in Charlemagne’s most important campaigns, against not only the Avars but also the Saxons, the Slavs and the Lombards. Like Pippin and Eric, too, he was an exemplar of the aristocratic ethos of Charlemagne’s time, when military skill was combined with conspicuous religiosity; the latter, in Gerold’s case, was manifested in huge donations to the Monastery of Reichenau, where he is commemorated with an epitaph which says that he died in Pannonia

58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

Paulinus of Aquileia, Versus de Herico duce, 220 and 221: “Ecclesiarum largus in donariis, / pauperum pater, miseris subsidium, / hic viduarum summa consolatio / erat. Quam mitis, carus sacerdotibus,/potens in armis, subtilis ingenio”. On these points in general, see Stone 2011. Paulinus of Aquileia, Versus de Herico duce, 222–23. IbId. 222: “Ubi cecidit vir fortis in proelio / clipeo fracto cruentata romphea”. IbId.: “[…] Sagittis fossum fundis saxa fortia / corpus iniecta contrivisse dicitur”. IbId.: “Nam clamor ante orrendus per plateas / lacrimis dignus sonuit quam tristia / eius per verba mors esset exposita”. IbId.: “[…] Herico tuo servulo melliflua / concede, queso, paradisi gaudia / et nunc et ultra per immensa secula”. See Ross 1945; Störmer 1986; Urban 1999; Innes 1998, 23–25; also for the subsequent point.

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“vera ecclesiae pro pace”.66 Initially buried under the antependium dedicated to the Virgin Mary which he had commissioned in the Mittelzell of the monastery, his remains were later moved to the new basilica founded by Abbot Heito in about 816. He also appears, as a ‘holy warrior’, in the first vision of the afterlife to appear in Medieval Latin verse, the Visio Wettini by Walafrid Strabo, who became Abbot of Reichenau in 838.67 In this text, probably written between 824 and 825, the then very young Walafrid describes the ‘journey’ into the hereafter, guided by an angel of his master, Vetti.68 The verses are very famous for their description of the punishments which Charlemagne had undergone for his licentiousness, because “his good deeds are stained by vile lust”.69 Duke Gerold, however, did not meet the same fate: unlike the sinners who were consigned to hell, he is described as a ‘martyr’, “since he was so devoted to the Lord that he defended Christ’s people, fighting against infidels and going to a willing death in this endeavour”.70 Unlike Charlemagne, he matched his devotion with almost monk-like conduct, choosing God as his ‘heir’ – through the Abbey of Reichenau – and renouncing ‘fleshly’ heirs. Charlemagne’s trusted soldier, warrior for the faith, “egregius, verax, mansuetus et honestus”,71 according to Walafrid he died in battle against the ‘ferocious Huns’.72 Warriors of their king, and for the faith – in other words, for the imperium christianum for which Alcuin called – paradise was the only possible final destination for Eric and Gerold: paradigmatic, as they were, of the ‘virtuous aristocrat’ described by thinkers like Alcuin, Paulinus of Aquileia and Walafrid Strabo. This – in a context in which a widespread cult of the fallen was not conceivable, since it would have contradicted the salvific vision of history – was their role. The available sources on Charlemagne’s only defeat – at Roncesvalles (in the battle made famous by the epic reinterpretation in the Chanson de Roland)73 – support my analysis: here too, as in the deaths of Eric and Gerold, we are presented not with battlefield deaths, but with the victims of an ambush. The Frankish war heroes could only be killed through the intervention of Evil. This Evil manifested itself in events which upset the established order, not respecting the rules of engagement between armies: ambushes, typically. According to 66

67 68 69 70 71 72 73

Epitaphium Geroldi comitis. According to the epitaph, his limbs were brought to Reichenau by an unidentified Christian Saxon (fidelis Saxo). We find traces of the memory of Gerold also in The Deeds of Charlemagne composed by Notker the Stammerer between 883 and 887; see Notker, Gesta Karoli, 48. See Walafrid Strabo, Visio. For an initial overview, I would refer to Stella 2009. Walafrid Strabo, Visio, vv. 446–74, 318–19, in particular vv. 461–62: “Restato ob hoc, quoniam bona facta libidine turpi fedavit”. Walafrid Strabo, Visio, vv. 806–8, 329: “Et ‘Quoniam zelum domini conceperat’ inquit, / ‘Gentibus infidis Christi defendere plebem / congrediens huius sumpsit dispendia vitae […]’”. Walafrid Strabo, Visio, v. 811, 329. IbId. vv. 820–26, 329–30. On the Spanish expedition of 788, subject of countless studies, see (among others): Bautier 1979; Senac 2002; Monteleone 2005; a useful recent approach is put forward in Hack 2008.

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Einhard and other Frankish sources, this was just what happened in the Pyrenees in the summer of 788, when Charlemagne’s army was returning ‘victorious’ from a badly planned expedition. The year before, an embassy had arrived in Paderborn, where Charlemagne was fighting the Saxons.74 These were unexpected visitors, led by Sulayman Ibn al-Arabi, wali (governor) of Saragoza, who was at war with the Emir of Cordoba, the Ummayad Abd al-Rahman. Charlemagne accepted this request for help, hoping thus to indirectly strengthen his own position in Aquitaine, still resistant to Carolingian dominion, through an alliance south of the Pyrenees. This situation highlights the difference between the role of the sacred in the wars of the Frankish king and that in a Holy War, or a Crusade. Charlemagne was fighting with the help of his Christian God in order to make an advantageous conquest. But this did not stop him from fighting alongside Muslims, or attacking fellow Christians. The expedition – carried out in what was almost terra incognita – proved to have been badly planned and Charlemagne’s army, having pillaged the Basque (Christian) city of Pamplona, decided to abandon the campaign. Charlemagne, however, had not taken the wasconica perfidia, the treachery of the Basques, into account. For his army was advancing with a long baggage train – writes Einhard – as the place and the narrow terrain required, and the Basques had set their ambush at the top of the mountain for […]. They attacked the rear of the baggage train and drove the men of the rearguard and those who were marching in the rear down into the valley belong. They joined battle with them and killed them to the last man, plundered the baggage and, protected by the night, went off in every direction as fast as they could. […] In this battle, Eggihard, the overseer of the king’s table, Anselm, the count of the palace and Roland, the prefect of the Breton March, were killed, along with many others. This deed could not be avenged at that time, because the enemy had so dispersed that not even a rumour remained as to where they might be sought.75

While assuming an epic tone Einhard tried to minimize this defeat, which, indeed, he would probably have passed over completely had those who died not been men of note. The presence of illustrious fighters is, however, also mentioned in the second version of the Annales regni Francorum, although they confine themselves to recording that pleriqui aulicorum died, while the first version, which was more careful to hide the less positive events of Charlemagne’s rise, does not mention the 74 75

See the two versions of the Annales regni Francorum: ARF, 48 and 49. See Einhard 2008, c. 9, 24–25 and Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, c. 9, 12–13: “Nam cum agmine longo, ut loci et angustiarum situs permittebat, porrectus iret exercitus, Wascones in summi montis vertice positis insidiis – est enim locus ex opacitate silvarum, quarum ibi maxima est copia, insidiis ponendis oportunus – extremam impedimentorum partem et eos qui novissimi agminis incedentes subsidio praecedentes tuebantur desuper incursantes in subiectam vallem deiciunt, consertoque cum eis proelio usque ad unum omnes interficiunt, ac direptis impedimentis, noctis beneficio, quae iam instabat, protecti summa cum celeritate in diversa disperguntur. Adiuvabat in hoc facto Wascones et levitas armorum et loci, in quo res gerebatur, situs econtra Francos et armorum gravitas et loci iniquitas per omnia Wasconibus reddidit impares. In quo proelio Eggihardus regiae mensae praepositus, Anshelmus comes palatii [et Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus] cum aliis conpluribus interficiuntur”.

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Basque attack, stating that the Frankish king returned in partibus Franciae after destroying Pamplona and subjugating the Basques.76 The contrasting approaches of Einhard and the authors of the two versions of the Annales regni Francorum to describing what happened in the Pyrenees in the summer of 788 show how difficult it was to commemorate the fallen in an ideological context which did not recognize defeat. Like the expedition against the Avars, the Spanish campaign as a whole is presented by the Frankish sources as ‘victorious’, apart from ‘an incident’ caused by the treachery of their enemies. The death of the King’s men was again due to Evil’s intrusion upon the historical stage, and did not detract from the perennially victorious nature of their sovereign’s deeds. Again, there is no space within which to create a cult of the fallen, the dead can only be commemorated episodically. This was very probably what Paulinus of Aquileia did: many people attribute to him an epitaph dedicated to the first of the fallen recorded by Einhard, the seneschal Eggihard.77 He, like the Carolingians, was from Metz – the cathedral city and bishop’s see celebrated in the same years by another Lombard at Charlemagne’s court, Paul the Deacon.78 In the epitaph attributed to Paulinus of Aquileia, Eggihard is portrayed as a young hero, “inclita stirpe satus, Franquorum sanguine cretus”, who died when “Carolus Spaniae calcavit arenas”. His high birth, combined with his place at court (he was in charge of the royal provisions), were what made his death ‘newsworthy’. But in this case, too, his death was fitted into God’s providential plan since, as we read in his epitaph, “in this tomb he lies: but, only buried in the flesh, gathered to the luminous way, he lives in the court of God”.79 A Christian warrior, Eggihard, like Eric and Gerold, was therefore one of the fallen to have been welcomed in paradise, a fallen soldier in aula Dei. If an epitaph was ever written for the second casualty spoken of by Einhard – Anselm, who held the extremely important post of Count Palatine – it has since been lost. The question of the third ‘fallen fighter’ – the Prefect of Brittany, Roland – is more complicated. At the turn of the 11th Century he was, of course, to become famous as the hero of the Chanson de Roland, with its reinterpretation of the events that occurred in the Pyrenees in 778, an interpretation shaped by the new crusader spirit: it was in this mythical context that Charlemagne’s defeat was situated at the Roncesvalles Pass. The intricate debate on the ‘memory’ of Charlemagne’s Pyrenean defeat, and its reworking 300 years later, cannot, unfortunately, be included here.80 Nevertheless, I feel it useful to recall, as an example of belated commemoration, based on the retelling of history. There has been much debate in the past as to whether this posthumous reinterpretation led an unknown 11th or 12th Century copyist to add Roland’s name – which does not appear in any of the other

76 77 78 79 80

See ARF, 50–51. See Paulinus of Aquileia, Epitaphium Aggiardi. Paul the Deacon, Liber. Paulinus of Aquileia, Epitaphium Aggiardi, vv. 17–18, 151: “Hoc iacet in tumulo, tantum sed carne sepultus / carpsit iter rutilum, vivit in aula Dei”. For a summary of this debate, see Hack 2008.

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surviving 8th Century sources – to a previous redaction of the Vita Karoli.81 The fact that Roland is not mentioned in the significant group of 9th Century codices which contain the first biography of Charlemagne would seem to support this theory. Here, too, the debate is still open – Roland’s identification as Britannici limiti praefectus, according to a formula which subsequently fell into disuse, undoubtedly strengthens the position of those who do not agree with the hypothesis that the name of the most famous Carolingian paladin was a later addition to the text.82 And so we reach our conclusion. The age of Charlemagne was defined by war, and yet these wars never led to any particular forms of celebration: to celebrate would have meant to allow the possibility of something other than victory, and – since the actions of the King of the Franks and the will of God had become indistinguishable – this could not be done. For the Franks, therefore, the time before a war, or battle, was more important than the aftermath: it was before fighting that the sacred alliance with God had to be reaffirmed, through prayer, fasting and penitence. This meant that there was no space for a cult of the fallen because a victorious army had to be shown to be an army whose ranks included no fatalities. Losses could only be admitted off the actual battlefield, inflicted by ‘perfidious’ enemies. Anyone – of high rank – who died thus could be publicly remembered, but their achievements in battle were not commemorated: these men were celebrated as Christian heroes, figures in whom the bellic and moral virtues united. The Duke, Eric; the Prefect, Gerold and the seneschal, Eggihard: all three fell, all three were heroes in aula Dei. PRIMARY SOURCES Alcuin, Epistolae: Alcuini sive Albini Epistolae, hrsg. v. E. Dümmler, in MGH Epistolae Karolini aevii, II, Berlin 1895, 18–481. Angilbert, Carmina: Angilberti Carmina, hrsg. v. E. Dümmler, in MGH Poetae latini aevi Carolini, I, Berlin 1881, 355–66. ARF: Annales regni Francorum inde ab 741 usque ad a. 829, qui dicuntur Annales Laurissenses maiores et Einhardi, hrsg. v. F. Kurze, Hannover 1895 (MGH SRG, 6). De Pippini regis victoria Avarica: De Pippini regis victoria Avarica, hrsg. v. E. Dümmler, in MGH Poetae latini aevi Carolini, I, Berlin 1881, 116–17. De Pippini regis victoria Avarica 2002: De Pippini regis victoria Avarica, in Testi storici e poetici dell’Italia carolingia, a cura di L. A. Berto, Padova 2002, 68–71. Ephytaphium Aggiardi: Ephytaphium Aggiardi, hrsg. v. E. Dümmler, in MGH Poetae latini aevi Carolini, I, Berlin 1881, 109–10. Epitaphium Geroldi comitis: Epitaphium Geroldi comitis, hrsg. v. E. Dümmler, in MGH Poetae latini aevi Carolini, I, Berlin, 1881, 114. Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni: Einhardi Vita Karoli Magni, hrsg. v. O. Holder-Egger, Hannover / Leipzig 1911 (MGH SRG, 25). Einhard 2008: Einhard, The Life of Charlemagne, in Einhard and Notkar the Stammerer, Two Lives of Charlemagne, ed. by D. Ganz, London 2008.

81 82

See, on this, the synthesis given in Eginardo 2014, n. 94, 82–83. IbId.

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Epistola ad Fastradam: Epistola ad Fastradam, hrsg. v. E. Dümmler, in MGH Epistolae Karolini aevii, IV, Berlin 1895, n. 20, 528–29. Karolus Magnus et Leo papa: Karolus Magnus et Leo papa, hrsg. v. E. Dümmler, in MGH Poetae latini aevi Carolini, I, Berlin 1881, 366–79. Lex Salica: Lex Salica, hrsg. v. K. A. Eckhardt, Hannover 1964 (MGH LL nat. Germ., 3, 2). Liber sacramentorum Engolismensis: Liber sacramentorum Engolismensis, éd. par P. Saint-Roch, Turnhout 1987 (Corpus Christianorum. Series latina, 159C). Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis: Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis, éd. par A. Dumas / J. Deshusses, Tutnhout 1981 (Corpus Christianotum. Serties latina, 159–159A). Notker, Gesta Karoli: Notker der Stammler, Taten Kaiser Karls des Großen, hrsg. v. H. F. Haefele, Berlin 1959 (MGH SSRG NS, 12). MGH, Concilia, 2,1, Concilia aevi Karolini (742–842), hrsg. v. A. Werminghoff, Hannover/Leipzig 1906. Paulinus of Aquileia, Liber exhortationis: Paolino patriarca di Aquileia, Liber exhortationis – Libro dell’esortazione, in Id., Opere, I, a cura di G. Cuscito, Roma 2007, 198–289. Paulinus of Aquileia, Versus de Herico duce: Paolino patriarca di Aquileia, Versus Paulini de Herico duce – Compianto per il duca Erico, a cura di S. Piussi, in Id., Opere, II, a cura di A. Peršič / S. Piussi, Roma 2007, 213–30. Paulinus of Aquileia, Epitaphium Aggiardi: Paolino patriarca di Aquileia, Epitaphium Aggiardi – Epitafio di Aggiardo, a cura di S. Piussi, in Id., Opere, II, a cura di A. Peršič / S. Piussi, Roma 2007, 150–51. Paul the Deacon, Liber: Paolo Diacono, Liber de episcopis Mettensibus, a cura di C. Santarossa, Firenze 2015. Walafrid Strabo, Visio: Walahfridus Strabo, Visio Wettini, hrsg v. E. Dümmler, in MGH Poetae latini aevi Carolini, II, Berlin 1884, 301–33. Walafrid Strabo 2009: Walafrido Strabone, Visione di Vetti. La più antica visione poetica dell’aldilà, a cura di F. Stella, Siena 2009.

SECONDARY SOURCES Airlie 2005: S. Airlie, “The Aristocracy: Captains and Kings”, in J. Story (ed.), Charlemagne. Empire and Society, Manchester 2005, 90–102. Albertoni 2014: G. Albertoni, “Noi ed Eginardo. La ‘Vita Karoli’ come documento storiografico”, in Chiesa 2014a, xlv–lxiii. Bachrach 2001: B. S. Bachrach, Early Carolingian Warfare. Prelude to Empire, Philadelphia 2001. Bachrach 2003: B. S. Bachrach, Religion and the Conduct of War. C. 300–1215, Woodbridge 2003. Bachrach 2013: B. S. Bachrach, Charlemagne’s Early Campaigns (768–777), Leiden 2013. Boshof 2011: E. Boshof, “Karl der Kahle – novus Karolus magnus?”, in F.-R. Erkens (Hrsg.), Karl der Große und das Erbe der Kulturen. Akten des 8. Symposiums des Mediävistenverbandes, Berlin 2001, 135–52. Bautier 1979: R.-H. Bautier, “La campagne de Charlemagne en Espagne (778): la réalité historique”, in Roncevaux dans l’histoire, la légende et le mythe. Actes du colloque organisé à l’occasion du 12e centenaire de Roncevaux = Bulletin de la Société des sciences, lettres et arts de Bayonne, 135 (1979), 1–47, now in Id., Recherches sur l’histoire de la France médiévale. Des Mérovingiens aux premiers Capétiens, Aldershot 1991, 1–47. Chiesa 2003: P. Chiesa (a cura di), Paolino d’Aquileia e il contributo italiano all’Europa carolingia. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Cividale del Friuli – Premariacco, 10–13 ottobre 2002, Udine 2003. Chiesa 2014a: P. Chiesa (a cura di), Eginardo, Vita Karoli. “Personalità e imprese di un re grandissimo e di meritatissima fama”, Firenze 2014. Chiesa 2014b: P. Chiesa, “Introduzione”, in Chiesa 2014a, viii–xvii.

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Collins 2005: R. Collins, “Charlemagne’s Imperial Coronation and the Annals of Lorsch”, in J. Story (ed.), Charlemagne. Empire and Society, Manchester 2005, 52–70. Costambeys/Innes/MacLean 2011: M. Costambeys / M. Innes / S. MacLean, The Carolingian World, Cambridge 2011. Duval 1988: Y.-M. Duval, “Paulin d’Aquilée et le duc Eric. Des clercs et moines aux laïcs et des laïcs aux clercs et moines”, in Aquileia e le Venezie nell’alto medioevo, Udine 1988 = Antichità Altoadriatiche, 32 (1988), 115–47. Effros 1997: B. Effros, “De partibus Saxoniae and the Regulation of Mortuary Custom: A Carolingian Campaign of Christianization or the Suppression of Saxon Identity?”, Revue belge de philology et d’histoire 75 (1997), 267–86. Fried 2013: J. Fried, Karl der Große. Gewalt und Glaube. Eine Biographie, München 2013. Gandino 2007: G. Gandino, “Il mondo franco e l’ideologia dell’espansione”, in Carlo Magno e le Alpi. Atti del XVIII Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto 2007, 17–47. Ganz 2005: D. Ganz, “Einhard’s Charlemagne: The Characterisation of Greatness”, in J. Story (ed.), Charlemagne. Empire and Society, Manchester 2005, 38–51. Garrison 2000: M. Garrison, “The Frank as the New Israel? Education for an Identity from Pippin to Charlemagne”, in Y. Hen / M. Innes (eds.), The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, Cambridge 2000, 114–63. Gasparri 2001: S. Gasparri, “Istituzioni e poteri nel territorio friulano in età longobarda”, in Paolo Diacono e il Friuli medievale (secc. VI–X). Atti del XIV Congresso internazionale di studi sull’Alto Medioevo (Cividale del Friuli-Bottenicco di Moimacco, 24–29 settembre 1999), I, Spoleto 2001, 105–28. Giardina 1988: A. Giardina, “Le origini troiane dall’impero alla nazione”, in Morfologie sociali e culturali in Europa fra tarda antichità e alto medioevo, I. Settimane di studio del CISAM, XLV, Spoleto 1988, 177–209. Gozzi 2003: M. Gozzi, “Le composizioni musicali su testo di Paolino d’Aquileia: problemi e proposte editoriali”, in Chiesa 2003, 197–229. Hack 2008: A. T. Hack, “Karl der Große, Hadrian I. und die Muslime in Spanien. Weshalb man einen Krieg führt und wie man ihn legitimiert”, in W. Hartmann / K. Herbers (Hrsg.), Die Faszination der Papstgeschichte. Neue Zugänge zum frühen und hohen Mittelalter, Köln/Weimar/ Wien 2008, 29–54. Hägermann 2000: D. Hägermann, Karl der Große. Herrscher des Abendlandes, Berlin/München 2000. Hartmann 2010: W. Hartmann, Karl der Große, Stuttgart 2010. Heuschkel 2014: G. Heuschkel, “Metzer Reiterstatuette”, in F. Pohle (Hrsg.), Karl der Große – Charlemagne. Orte der Macht. Katalog, Dresden, 2014, 32–33. Innes 1998: M. Innes, “Memory, Orality and Literacy in an Early Medieval Society”, in Past & Present 158 (1998), 3–36. Innes 2000: M. Innes, “Teutons or Trojans? The Carolingian and the German Past”, in Y. Hen / M. Innes (eds.), The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, Cambridge 2000, 227–49. Kolmer 2000: L. Kolmer / C. Rohr (Hrsg.), Tassilo III. von Bayern. Großmacht und Ohnmacht im 8. Jahrhundert, Regensburg 2005. Krahwinkler 1992: H. Krahwinkler, Friaul im Frühmittelalter. Geschichte einer Region vom Ende des fünften bis zum Ende des zehnten Jahrhunderts, Wien/Köln/Weimar 1992. Lampen 1999: A. Lampen, “Die Sachsenkriege”, in C. Stiegemann / M. Wemhoff (Hrsg.), 799 Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit: Karl der Große und Papst Leo III in Paderborn, Mainz 1999, 264–72. McCormick 1984: M. McCormick, “The Liturgy of War in the Early Middle Ages: Crisis, Litanies and the Carolingian Monarchy”, Viator 15 (1984), 1–24. McCormick 1986: M. McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzanzium and the Early Medieval West, Cambridge 1986. McCormick 1987: M. McCormick, “A New Ninth-Century Witness to the Carolingian Mass Against the Pagans”, Revue bénédectine 97 (1987), 68–86.

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McKitterick 2008: R. McKitterick, Charlemagne. The Formation of a European Identity, Cambridge 2008. Monteleone 2005: F. Monteleone, “La crisi del potere regio: l’avventura spagnola di Carlo Magno”, in Schola Salernitana, 10 (2005), 169–93. Nelson 1996: J. L. Nelson, “Women at the Court of Charlemagne: A Case of Monstrous Regiment?”, in J. L. Nelson, The Frankish World. 750–900, London 1996, 223–42. Nelson 1997: J. L. Nelson, “The Siting of the Council at Frankfort: Some Reflections on Family and Politics”, in R. Berndt (Hrsg.), Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794. Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur. Akten zweier Symposien (vom 23. bis 27. Februar und vom 13. bis 15. Oktober 1994) anläßlich der 1200-Jahrfeier der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, I, Politik und Kirche, Mainz 1997, 149–66. Patzold 2013: S. Patzold, Ich und Karl der Große. Das Leben des Höflings Einhard, Stuttgart 2013. Pohl 1988: W. Pohl, Die Awarenkriege Karls des Großen 788–803, Wien 1988. Pohl 2002: W. Pohl, Die Awaren. Ein Steppenvolk in Mitteleuropa 567–822 n. Chr, München 2002. Prietzel 2014: M. Prietzel, “Lernen durch Kriege. Die Feldzüge Karls des Großen und die Weltsicht der politischen Elite”, in F. Pohle (Hrsg.), Karl der Große – Charlemagne. Orte der Macht, Dresden 2014, 58–65. Reimitz 2015: H. Reimitz, History, Frankish Identity and the Framing of Western Ethnicity, Cambridge 2015. Ross 1945: J. B. Ross, “Two Neglected Paladins of Charlemagne: Erich of Friuli and Gerold of Bavaria”, Speculum 20 (1945), 212–35. Schmidinger 1986: H. Schmidinger, “Erich, Mgf. von Friaul”, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, III, München 1986, cc. 2144–2145. Senac 2002: P. Senac, “Charlemagne et l’Espagne musulmane”, in Carlo Magno: le radici dell’Europa, Roma 2002 = Cheiron 19 (2002), 55–80. Springer 2004: M. Springer, Die Sachsen, Stuttgart 2004. Staab 1997: F. Staab, “Die Königin Fastrada”, in R. Berndt (Hrsg.), Das Frankfurter Konzil von 794. Kristallisationspunkt karolingischer Kultur. Akten zweier Symposien (vom 23. bis 27. Februar und vom 13. bis 15. Oktober 1994) anlässlich der 1200-Jahrfeier der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, I, Politik und Kirche, Mainz 1997, 183–217. Stella 2009: F. Stella, “Introduzione”, in F. Stella (a cura di), Walafrido Strabone. Visione di Vetti. La più antica visione poetica dell’aldilà, Siena 2009, 1–30. Stone 2011: R. Stone, Morality and Masculinity in the Carolingian Empire, Cambridge 2011. Störmer 1986: W. Störmer, “Gerold, frk. Gf., Präfekt in Bayern”, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, IV, München 1986, cc. 1350–1351. Tischler 2001: M. Tischler, Einhards Vita Karoli. Studien zur Entstehung, Überlieferung und Rezeption, 2 voll., Hannover 2001. Ubl 2009: K. Ubl, “L’origine contestée de la loi salique. Une mise au point”, Revue de l’Institut français d’histoire en Allemagne 1 (2009), 208–34. Urban 1999: W. Urban, “Der Banneträger Karls des Großen. Zur 1200. Wiederkehr des Todes von Graf Gerold”, Beiträge zur Landeskunde von Baden-Württenberg 1999, 1–10. Weinfurter 2013: S. Weinfurter, Karl der Große. Der heilige Barbar, München/Zürich 2013. Werner 1998: K. F. Werner, Naissance de la noblesse: l’essor des élites politiques en Europe, Paris 1998. Wolfram 2016: H. Wolfram, Tassilo III. Höchster Fürst und niedrigster Mönch, Regensburg 2016

NATIONALISM, THE POLITICS OF MEMORY AND REVISIONISM: GERMAN WORLD WAR I VETERANS AND THEIR TRANSNATIONAL RELATIONS Alessandro Salvador INTRODUCTION In a factory in Magdeburg, in December 1919, a group of former soldiers gathered to discuss the crisis in Germany and to find a way to help their country out of its post-war troubles. They called themselves the Stahlhelm Bund der Frontsoldaten and their small group grew rapidly, beyond Magdeburg, in Halle and then in the rest of Germany. The Stahlhelm became one of the most important veteran associations in Germany. Compared with the small memberships of other associations, and given its public profile, it was for a long time ‘the German veteran association’.1 The Stahlhelm represented middle-class soldiers who wanted to defend the fledgling Republic from the revolutionary outbursts that threatened her existence. After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles they stressed their nationalist, right-conservative identity, criticizing the Republic’s foreign policy (which was mostly decided by the Social Democrats) and advocating that Germany turn in an authoritarian, nationalist and revisionist direction. However, they maintained an ambivalent attitude to the more radical and völkisch groups rising in Germany.2 The movement grew steadily, acquired Fascist elements from the Italian dictatorship and, by the end of the 1920s, had aligned itself with the conservative nationalist parties and movements. It was one of National Socialism’s biggest rivals during the 20s, then joined Hitler in an unclear alliance at the beginning of the 30s, and was eventually absorbed into the Nazi party after the latter came to power. The Stahlhelm defined the way in which former soldiers were seen in the Weimar Republic and, although it represented a minority of veterans (its membership never exceeded one million), it was the preeminent German veteran organization.3 By 1925 the leftist and pro-Republican forces had created their own veterans’ associations, the Reichsbanner Schwartz-Rot-Gold4 representing social-democratic and moderate Republicans, and the Rote Frontkämpferbund,5 close to the 1 2 3 4 5

For the history of Stahlhelm see Berghahn 1966 and Salvador 2013. Salvador 2013, 31–39. On the evolution of the Stahlhelm into a fascist-like movement, see Salvador 2017. On the relations with National-Socialism, see Salvador 2012. See Rohe 1966 and Ziemann 2013. See Finker 1982

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German Communist Party (KPD). The latter, especially, achieved a membership of over 2.5 million and actively participated in international dialogue with veteran associations in the Entente countries.6 Their international agenda followed that of the government, while the nationalist veterans pursued their own path, managing dialogue – and threats – according to a different, more revisionist, agenda. This paper will deal with the nationalist veterans of the Stahlhelm, their revisionist goals and the strategy they pursued using their international connections. It will specifically address the parallels between the increasing authoritarianism and nationalism of the German government and improvements in relations with the enemy par excellence, the French. Finally, it will highlight how dialogue with the enemy worked as an instrument to pursue a politics of memory from a nationalist, revisionist and, at the end of the day, expansionist perspective.7 The ancients said that he who wants peace must prepare for war; in this case it could be said that peace was prepared for, so that war might be waged. FROM VERSAILLES TO DÉTENTE. PEACE SETTLEMENTS AND REVISIONISM When the German delegation in Versailles signed the agreements with the Entente powers, they accepted conditions that burdened their country for several years, and threatened the stability of the Republic. The nationalist right depicted the agreements as a Diktat. However, the threat of a new war was credible enough to compel the German delegates to accept unfair conditions. It would be improper to charge the nationalists alone of being unhappy with the agreement: while the government saw it as a bitter, but necessary, pill to swallow, in order to open the door to future improvements, however, the nationalists, and the veterans, saw it as betraying the sacrifices of the trenches.8 Although the Red scare of the Spartakist revolution had held the Social Democrats and moderate forces together with the nationalists, the veterans, the Freikorps and other paramilitary organizations, Versailles opened a breach in the ‘Republican wall’. The government had to deal with significant violent actions from the radical right, and two major coup attempts – in 1920 and 1923 – in the years between 1918 and ’23. The Stahlhelm, although critical of the government, avoided direct involvement in this violence.9

6 7

8 9

On the transnational contacts of the Reichsbanner: Mulligan 2013. Despite being a veterans’ association, the Stahlhelm was a political agent in the broadest sense, and pursued an active politics of memory. For a definition of the contexts, actors and utilization of their politics of memory (or Geschichtspolitik), see Welzer 2005; Schwelling 2012; Crouthamel 2009; Assmann 2015. Winkler 1993, 89 ff. Salvador 2013, 35–37.

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In the second half of the 20s, the Stahlhelm united the remaining paramilitary and conservative forces and took the political initiative. Their main goal was to persuade their fellow citizens to accept an authoritarian government and then revise the treaties. They wanted to erase the article which stated that Germany alone was to blame for the war and – consequent upon this reapportioning of responsibility – demanded that territorial and border settlements be revised, and reparations eliminated. Only a more authoritarian government could, they believed, provide the political strength to obtain this revision.10 The military occupation of parts of German territory further complicated the dialogue between Germany and her former enemies. An Allied force occupied the Rhineland and the Saarland after the war, which meant that both areas remained de facto out of German control. Furthermore, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr in 1923, since Germany had failed to pay the reparations demanded of her. This led to a government supported passive resistance movement, some members of which died at the hands of the French soldiers.11 It is misleading, then, to think that only the nationalists considered the reparations and the foreign occupation as obstacles to a lasting peace: the German government wanted a partial revision of the terms, but was hoping to achieve this through international agreement, while the nationalists pushed for a show of strength. The unfolding situation also revealed the divisions within the Entente. The French were the most radical in their determination to keep Germany on its knees, while the main goal of the British and the Americans was to stabilize the country, although they, too, did not want to back down on the question of reparations.12 The more pragmatic Anglo-American approach led to the Dawes plan, in 1925, and the Young plan, in 1929, to increase Germany’s capacity to pay reparations while helping the economy to stabilize and grow through international investment. Despite their clear and unconditional opposition to any form of reparations and to the payment plans, the nationalists, and the Stahlhelm tried to take advantage of the divisions in the Entente. Thus, France became the German enemy par excellence while the veterans began to search for sympathetic ears elsewhere, especially in the US.13 The occupation of the Ruhr ended in 1925, after the agreement on the Dawes plan. Later that year, the Western allied powers and the new Central European states met in Locarno, Switzerland, to formalize and secure the post-war settlements and normalize relations with Germany. The Locarno conference was marked by the peculiar fact that while the western borders were secured, to reassure France about 10 11 12 13

Berghahn 1966, 106 ff.; Klotzbücher 1964, 103 ff. Penicaut 2009, 22 ff. For a general analysis of the occupation of the Rhineland see Pawley 2007. Jacobson 1983, 642–44. Local Stahlhelm groups existed in the United States from 1925, if not earlier. They usually had friendly relations with the American Legion and the local population in general. Correspondence between Germany and US and several press reports from America and Germany can be found in: Bundesarchiv (BA) Berlin Lichterfelde, R72/251 and R72/252.

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possible German claims, the eastern German border, with Poland and Czechoslovakia, remained ‘open’ and subject to future arbitration.14 With this settlement, Germany gained admission to the League of Nations and kept the possibility open of renegotiating her eastern borders at some future date. The British had promoted this outcome in an attempt to defuse French threats to German claims in the east, although it risked sacrificing the integrity of the new Polish and Czechoslovakian states. This risk, however, was lessened with the signing of bilateral treaties between France and the Eastern European countries, which made any territorial revision in favor of Germany less likely. Altogether, the so-called ‘spirit of Locarno’ represented a further step on the part of Germany into the international community – a step which nationalists, however, saw as a regression in the process of gaining a ‘true’ peace. Despite nationalist criticism, Franco-German relations took another step forward in September 1926, when Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann, the foreign ministers of France and Germany, left Geneva, where they were participating in the League of Nations, to meet secretly in Thoiry, a small village in the Jura region. Here, they discussed their conditions for a lasting Franco-German ‘Entente’.15 The project foresaw the quick withdrawal of Allied troops from the Saar (after a plebiscite) and the Rhineland, and the dissolution of the Allied commission supervising German disarmament. Despite its failure, this meeting did represent an attempt to establish a new relationship between France and Germany. It also proved how problematic the limits to German sovereignty were for any process of normalization.16 From Locarno on, all treaties and agreements reached by the international community were intended to weaken the ties between the Soviet Union and Germany, i. e. between the two major powers opposing the post-war status quo. However, fearing that Britain and the United States would take the side of the Germans, France usually acted unilaterally. In this light, the contacts between Stresemann and Briand were significant.17 However significant, their efforts were negated in 1929, by a combination of Stresemann’s death and the economic crisis. Although the Young Plan was intended to finally solve the problem of German reparations, the recession forced President Hoover to stop US financing of the Plan. France was the arrangement’s biggest beneficiary, and was therefore the worst hit by Hoover’s decision.18 The disarmament conference in Geneva in 1932 resulted in a struggle between opposing nationalist and partisan interests. In the face of economic crisis, each European state sought its own “victory”. The French delegates proposed the creation of an international police force, Britain and the US proposed national disarmament 14 15 16 17 18

On Locarno see Johnson 2009, Jacobson 1972 and Cohrs 2003. Jacobson/Walker 1975, 157–59. IbId. 158–59. Jacobson 1983, 80 ff. Bariety/Bloch 1968, 433–37.

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plans without international commitments and the Soviet Union presented an unrealistic plan for general disarmament. Germany, in turn, proposed a plan for ‘equal rights’, suggesting that all countries should undergo the same disarmament process as Germany had in the post-war period. APPROACHING THE ENEMY: FRENCH AND GERMAN EX-COMBATANTS DURING THE WEIMAR CRISIS During the late 1920s, nationalist opposition to the Weimar Republic grew, peaking between 1928 and 1930, when a Stahlhelm initiative sparked a proposal for a popular initiative and a referendum on the Young Plan. The front gathered around this project included, besides the veterans, the German Nationalist People’s Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei – DNVP), the Pangerman League, the rural organization Reichslandbund and, later, the National Socialist Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – NSDAP). Although this mobilization was mainly driven by a rejection of the Young Plan for the payment of German war reparations, its real goal was wider: to rewrite the history of the conflict from a more German-oriented perspective. The nationalist veterans, and – in some measure – the majority of Germans, did not accept the reconstruction of the origins of the Great War upon which the Versailles Treaty was based. They denied that Germany alone had caused the war and promoted what they considered the ‘historical truth’: a conflict generated by growing tensions and an arms race involving all the major European powers. They also tried to introduce a sort of ‘legally enforced memory’, fining and/or detaining anyone who claimed that Germany alone had been responsible for the war, as the peace treaties stated.19 Although they were defeated in the referendum, the nationalist opposition won more than 12 million votes. The National Socialists saw a significant increase in their ballots in 1930, owing both to their success in capitalizing on the results of the fight against the Young Plan, and the effects of the economic crisis. It proved impossible to build a working majority in the Parliament, which meant that any Chancellor had to be supported by the President, according to article 48 of the Weimar constitution. By 1930 Germany was thus facing a severe economic crisis, the rise of nationalist and revisionist forces, and potentially increasingly authoritarian government. In the light of these circumstances, the French intensified their attempts at dialogue. The invitation to Paris of Hermann Ehrhardt, a former Freikorps leader and Stahlhelm member, carried particular significance. He was invited by the Club du Fauburg, whose members included figures from the worlds of politics, economics, science and the arts. Since Ehrhardt’s past was well known in France, as was his op19

The proposed punishment of ‘denialists’ was contained in paragraph IV of the Volksbegehren. However, because the paragraph had been written in such a way that the institution of the Weimar Republic – and even the President and war hero, Paul von Hindenburg – could be charged with “denialism”, it was removed in the final draft.

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position to the Republic, his invitation was an important step in Franco-German understanding. His French hosts were very keen to find out whether the Stahlhelm might accept a Franco-German alliance. Ehrhardt, who had been expelled from the Stahlhelm some years earlier, tried to explain that other organizations representing the German national interest also existed and could be approached. He stressed that it was necessary – not to convince the Stahlhelm or any other organization to forget Germany’s rivalry with France – but to understand that the two countries’ memories and interpretations of the war and its outcome were radically different. According to Ehrhardt, French and German veterans should first agree on a shared memory before attempting to remove the political obstacles to a Franco-German Entente.20 The French and the Germans seemed to be speaking different languages. While the formers were interested in normalizing relations with their neighbors in the interest of safety, and possibly to create a front against the Soviets, the Germans were ready to risk another war, or even to ally themselves with the Soviets, rather than giving up their main ideological goal: to obtain a consensus on the history of the war that could rescue Germany from the punishing ghetto it had been forced into. Gustave Hervè, an ultra-nationalist journalist and director of the newspaper La Victoire, was an indefatigable promoter of Franco-German relations during this period. From the columns of his paper, Hervè launched several appeals for a Franco-German Entente between the nationalist forces of the two countries, calling for a response from the National-Socialists and the Stahlhelm. His proposal sought to create a platform to start a dialogue – included the restitution of the Saar without a plebiscite, the abolition of reparations and even the restitution of German colonies.21 Unlike the various international organizations that united veterans from the Entente countries, with their generic appeals for peace and dialogue, the nationalist Hervé spoke the same language as the Germans and understood how important it was to reject the history of the war reflected in the post-war agreements and to restore Germany’s honors of war by at least partially accepting their historical and moral as well as territorial claims. The Stahlhelm, however, did not respond to this appeal with any enthusiasm. Although they believed Hervé to be well intentioned, his proposal sounded much too optimistic and they were unable to gauge his actual weight in French politics.22 Other nationalists in Germany, however, welcomed the French nationalist’s peace offer with greater enthusiasm, particularly the veterans’ movement, Jungdeutsche Orden. This small organization, which had been promoting a Franco-German Entente since 1926, felt a keen sense of rivalry with the Stahlhelm; through

20 21 22

“Ehrhardt fördert Bündnis mit Frankreich”, Der Stahlhelm, 02.07.30. “Der Sinn der Aktion Hervè”, Kreuzzeitung, 02.11.30; Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde R72/759, “Die Stahlhelm-Antwort an Hervè”, undated memorandum. “Stahlhelm und Hervè-Aktion”, Der Stahlhelm, 02.11.30.

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their paper, Der Jungdeutsche, they tried to legitimize the ‘Hervé-Plan’, while criticizing the Stahlhelm for not giving such an alliance a chance.23 The Stahlhelm, like other German nationalist groups, never fully trusted Hervè, despite his repeated attempts to achieve a sort of ‘nationalist international’. For Theodor Duesterberg, Hervè’s proposal was a decoy – an attempt to distract Germany from her attempts to reach an agreement with Italy, England, the US and other central European states before the disarmament conference of 1932. The fact that at the same time leading French politicians, such as Herriot and Tardieu, basically refused any revisionist proposal lent weight to this interpretation. Hervé’s greatest limitation was that he did not speak for his government, and was no more than a lone individual trying to find a common nationalist ground, a set of conditions upon which to construct a serious dialogue. The French government, however, never gave serious consideration to the idea of reinterpreting the war in terms that might rehabilitate Germany’s international reputation.24 Despite their skepticism about any dialogue proposal coming from France, the Stahlhelm did not shun all contact with former enemies, and were particularly keen to talk to the Americans. There was a substantial German immigrant community in the US which provided fertile soil for several organizations, including – from the mid-twenties – local groups of the Stahlhelm.25 At the end of August 1930, the North American Stahlhelm organized the first official Stahlhelmtag in the United States, bringing all the local groups – from Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and Toledo – together in Detroit, together with the National Socialist group, Teutonia. The event was open to the American public and was intended to symbolize the normalization of the relationship between Germans (whether in Germany or in the US) and Americans.26 Both before and after this event, until the outbreak of war, moreover, meetings and celebrations organized by the Stahlhelm in various US states took place, often mixing American and German traditions and creating bridges between the American Legion and the Stahlhelm and also, more generally, between the German immigrant community and their neighbors.27 A pro-German propaganda strategy was also implemented in Britain, at the suggestion of a member of the British Legion, Captain Vivian Stranders, who was an honorary member of the Stahlhelm. The project involved collecting, translating and publishing articles from the international press which were favorable to revisionist politics.28

23 24 25 26 27 28

“Über Stahlhelm-Antwort ‘tief bestürzt’”, Der Jungdeutsche, 05.11.30. “Irrlichter”, Deutsche Tageszeitung, 02.11.30; “Der Sinn der Aktion Hervé”, Kreuzzeitung, 07.11.30; “Neue Verständigungsaktion Hervés”, Der Jungdeutsche, 09.07.31. See note 12. “Stahlhelmtag in Amerika” and “Erster Frontsoldatentag des Stahlhelm Amerika in Detroit”, Der Stahlhelm, 10.08.30. See note 12. BA Berlin Lichterfelde, R72/427, Communication of the Federal Office of the Stahlhelm to the local sections, Berlin, 11.08.30.

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German nationalists – fairly accurately – understood that the punishing articles of the Versailles Treaty had been primarily driven by the French desire for revenge on Germany. Britain and the United States soon realized that marginalizing and humiliating Germany was not the best way to ensure European peace. The Stahlhelm and other nationalists therefore considered British and American public opinion – especially that of the veterans, with their shared combat experience – to be ripe for the reception of counter-propaganda reflecting the German nationalist memory of the war, in which all countries shared responsibility for the conflict and the defeated deserved at least the “honors of war”, rather than insanely punitive conditions. This process of alternative memory building took place at commemorations and celebrations imbued with nationalist propaganda – mainly organized by the German communities in the United States – and through the dissemination of propagandist literature in the United Kingdom. This strategy was clearly aimed at the eventual isolation of France within the Entente. The pursuit of this strategy naturally led to the rejection of direct dialogue with the French, and the invitations received by the Stahlhelm to talk to the international organizations of veterans, such as the Confederation Nationale des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de la Guerre and the Federation Interalliee des Anciens Combattants, were refused. Theodor Duesterberg’s justification of these rejections stressed that the presence of French veterans in these international organizations was utterly incompatible with the presence of French troops on German soil, and meant that collaboration between the Stahlhelm and any veteran organization that included French soldiers was impossible.29 The rise of National Socialism from 1933 onwards slowly changed this attitude, in line with the changing international political scene. THE PEACEFUL OFFENSIVE: ENCOUNTERS UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA The consolidation of the National Socialist regime paradoxically improved relations with Germany’s former enemies. When Hitler first came to power, especially in 1935, the continuous claims of the Stahlhelm and the German veterans that only a strong nationalist government could bring long-lasting peace appeared to be more than justified. Hitler’s attempted appropriation of the heritage of the ex-combatants was a factor in this process: the days of his being mocked by Hindenburg and other representatives of veteran organizations were long gone.30 Together with Rudolf Hess and Hermann Goering, both ex-combatants, Hitler launched what the German newspapers called the Friedensoffensive, a ‘peace of29 30

BA Berlin Lichterfelde, R72/259, letter by Georges Rivollet (CNAC) to the direction of the Stahlhelm, Paris, 24.02.30. Duesterberg’s reply, also referring to the FIDAC, is in a newsletter published by the Landesverband Mitteldeutschland to the Political Section in Berlin, 11.03.30. Trichet 2002, 55.

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fensive’, which claimed that only through dialogue between ex-soldiers – and former enemies – could the long-desired peace between France and Germany be achieved.31 This sentiment was shared by the veterans’ representatives: after the failure of the détente in the 20s, and of the attempt to create an alliance between nationalist forces in the two countries at the beginning of the 30s, the French and German veterans were equally disillusioned with, and frustrated by, the politics of their governments. This created a sort of empathy that finally made dialogue possible. The Stahlhelm, now integrated into the National Socialist machine as part of the SA and the newly nominated Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Frontkämpferbund (NSDFB), became a major actor in this ‘veteran diplomacy’, along with the National Socialist Kriegsoperversorgung (NSKOV) and the Kyffhäuserbund (KB).32 In 1935, the long path to Franco-German understanding seemed to have reached its end and the restitution of the Saar marked the beginning of a long-lasting peace, at least in the minds of many at the time. On 20 January Der Stahlhelm wrote: Der Geist von Versailles, der Geist, der mit Untreue rechnete und Voelker wie eine Ware verschieben zu können glaubte, ist durch die Tat widerlegt worden. Die Rechtsordnung unter den freien Nationen der europäischen Welt kündet sich an. Eine Ordnung der gegenseitigen Achtung.

In their celebration of the final withdrawal of foreign troops from German soil, the veterans also claimed ownership of the Friedensoffensive, or peaceful offensive.33 The year before, Adolf Hitler, and subsequently Rudolf Hess and Hermann Goering, had appealed to the war veterans of all the former belligerent countries to become ‘the shapers of peace’. This led to some informal meetings between German and French veterans on both sides of the border, and to the beginning of a shared understanding.34 The more distant the war became, the keener the veterans in all countries were to commemorate the past without emphasizing division. War experience was a common ground for dialogue, seen by the Germans as key to persuading their fellows in other countries to try to understand their position, and their memory. The restitution of the Saar fulfilled the conditions that the Stahlhelm had always demanded to be met before they would talk to their former worst enemies, the French: Nur ein freies gleichberechtigtes Deutschland kann Träger einer solchen Friedensoffensive sein. Nur das Frontsoldatentum, das den Krieg kennt, den Frieden liebt, aber den Tod nicht fürchtet, kann die Stosstruppe dieser Friedensoffensive sein. Die Saar kehrt heim in das Reich! Dies war die erste Etappe unseres Kampfes. Das Ziel der zweiten lautet: der Friede kehre heim unter die Voelker Europas, die guten Willens sind!35 31 32 33 34 35

“Frontkämpfer und Diplomaten”, Der Stahlhelm, 10.02.35. Berghahn 1965, 446. Durchbruch zum Reich, Der Stahlhelm, 20.01.35 Trichet 2002, 56. “Durchbruch zum Reich”, Der Stahlhelm, 20.01.35.

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German veterans now not only acknowledged the possibility of an understanding with their former enemies, and France in particular, but they also claimed to be, as ex-soldiers in a finally free Germany, the only actors able to pursue the goal of European peace. As had already happened – under different circumstances – in 1930–1931, they found willing listeners in nationalist and radical circles in France. Of the different French veteran organizations, the Germans felt evident sympathy with the radical Croix de Feu, a paramilitary movement born in 1928, out of the increasing divisions – mainly along party lines – within the traditional Confederation Nationale des Anciens Combattants and the Union Federale. In the Croix de Feu, the Stahlhelm saw not only a veteran movement, but also an organization with an idealistic goal and the possible ability to change the political landscape of France,36 a movement whose ideas partially reflected those of Fascism and National Socialism. The traditional veteran organizations were not entirely ignored, however and, in fact, the first positive answers to Hitler’s call for understanding came from Jean Goy and Henri Pichot, respectively leaders of the UNC and the UF. Both organizations became gradually more radical, demanding a more significant role for war veterans in French politics, and later promoting authoritarian government. In the late 30s, ironically, they were to push for a veterans’ state to counter the threat posed by German militarism and expansionism.37 As in the period between the 20s and the 30s, the radical right and nationalist ex-combatants in France played key roles in this period of rapprochement. A case in point is Jean Boissel, mutilated in World War I and the founder, in 1934, of a far-right league: Le Front Franc. On April 20th 1935, Boissel was in Berlin to celebrate the birthday of Adolf Hitler. In a speech given at the occasion, he strongly advised letting the soldiers – rather than the diplomats – speak to each other: Bringen Sie uns, französische Frontkämpfer aus dem Weltkriege, nach Berlin, und wir werden mit der von gegenseitiger Hochachtung getragenen Frontsoldaten Verständigung schneller vorwärts kommen, als Diplomaten es vermögen. Die Männer der vordersten Front verstehen einander besser: man muss nur wollen, muss fest daran glauben, dann wird es auch gelingen!38

Boissel described that day, and his further encounters with National Socialist leaders, as among the most significant moments in his life. He believed that only through experiencing war could a ‘true’ peace be achieved, because only the soldier who had experienced the sacrifice of the trenches could understand what the enemy had gone through to defend his country. Veterans could sympathize with their former enemies because they could understand that the imposition of a memory that humiliated and punished their country would have been as unacceptable to them as it was 36

37 38

“Die Friedensbestrebungen der Frontkämpfer”, Der Stahlhelm, 27.01.35. In 1938, however, both French organizations, when they saw the war approaching, would push for a nationalist regime controlled by the veterans. The leaders of the organizations were also involved in the collaborationist Vichy regime. See Millington 2014a and 2014b. “Frontkämpfer und Diplomaten”, Der Stahlhelm, 10.2.35. “Ein Kamerad von drüben”, Der Stahlhelm, 28.04.35.

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to the Germans. Furthermore, he added that nationalist-oriented ex-servicemen in France had lost trust in their politicians and leaders, and eventually found an apparently more trustworthy partner in their former enemies.39 In his book Les crois de sang, he supported the idea of a soldiers’ internationalism based on a common acknowledgment that shared experience of war created the pre-conditions for fruitful dialogue with the other, including the enemy. In this process, moreover, the soldier became a member of a transnational elite, with an understanding transcending that of the non-soldier: Ich habe aber das Buch nicht nur geschrieben für die Frontsoldaten Frankreichs, sondern für die Frontsoldaten der ganzen Welt, weil nur sie die Träger und Gestalter eines wirklichen Friedens sein können. Wer den Krieg nicht an der Front erlebt hat, kennt die Sehnsucht nach dem Frieden nicht.40

The German Friedensoffensive was not limited to France. As already mentioned, friendly contacts between the Stahlhelm and American veterans had existed since the mid-twenties, and an official Stahlhelm gathering had taken place in Detroit in 1930. The goals of the Germans in America were clear: they intended to use the friendly relations between veterans to influence US public opinion, and to persuade the veteran organizations themselves to support the German cause. This activity was strengthened and extended after the rise of National Socialism. Beyond dialogue and understanding, the foreign groups of the Stahlhelm pursued a very specific agenda: Sie wirken nicht nur aufklärend und werbend, sie erfüllen auch eine direkte politische Mission, indem sie durch enge Fühlungsname mit der Frontkämpfer Organisationen unserer ehemaligen Gegner den Weg zu einer wahrhaften Verständigung der Voelker anbahnen.41

Especially in the US, the small Stahlhelm branches were very active, also celebrating important American festivities with the local population and the American Legion.42 The American Legion returned the courtesy with visits to Germany, most significantly a tour by the American veteran leader, Fred Schroeter. Starting in Bremen, going on to Hamburg, the President of the American Legion travelled around Germany, and was cheered wherever he went by thousands of Stahlhelm members. Schroeter claimed that if veterans from the ex-belligerent countries had been gathered in Germany, they could have done in a few months what it would take 100 years of diplomacy to achieve.43 Edward VII, Prince of Wales and leader of the British Legion, also contributed to the veterans’ dialogue. In a public speech, the prominent ex-soldier and member of the Royal Family, affirmed that: 39 40 41 42 43

IbId. “Trotz Genf: Frontkämpferverständigung! Eine Unterredung mit dem Franzosen Jean Boissel”, Der Stahlhelm, 28.04.35. “Frontsoldaten auf Auslandsposten”, Der Stahlhelm, 28.04.35. IbId. “Amerikanische Frontkämpfer in Bremen und in Hamburg”, Der Frontsoldat (Beilage zum Stahlhelm), 21.07.35; “Euer Führer kann stolz auf euch sein!”, Der Frontsoldat (Beilage zum Stahlhelm), 28.07.35.

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According to Der Stahlhelm, Edward VII’s speech was a response to the words of peace arriving across the channel from Germany.44 All these words, and their appeals for peace and understanding, coming from ex-soldiers all over Europe, should not, however, be interpreted as a sign that pacifism was spreading in the old continent. The veteran leaders made it very clear that this was not a search for peace by cowards, but a product of a consciousness of the high value of war. Beyond chauvinism and imperialism, there was a chance to have a constructive dialogue about war and peace.45 CONCLUSIONS In late June, early July 1935 French and German veterans met for a week-long event in Ecklingen, near Stuttgart. Following extensive preparation, and other, small, meetings, this encounter marked the high point of post-war Franco-German relations. Organized by the Stahlhelm, its goal was to make people realize that understanding German demands, and the fact that Germany had fought for her honour, was the best way to ensure long-lasting peace. The duty of the French veterans who had gone to Ecklingen was to return to France as pioneers of peace, a peace – it was emphasized – that resulted from comradery between organizations with common life experiences, and not from diplomacy.46 As Lensch, the leader of the local Stahlhelm, said: Der heutige Abend ist gleichzeitig Abschluss eines Treffens, das noch lange in uns nachklingt. Die Fronten stehen heute nicht mehr gegeneinander, sondern füreinander. Sie haben sich eingeordnet in die größte Aufgabe, die das Frontsoldatentum der gesamten Welt noch zu lösen hat. Die Gestaltung des Friedens und damit die Zukunft und Sicherheit unserer Kinder. Wir sind 1914 nicht hinausgezogen als Feinde, Sie nicht und wir nicht, sondern als die Soldaten unseres Vaterlandes, das wir zu verteidigen hatten. Sie im französischen, wir im deutschen Graben. Wir haben alles für es gegeben, weil wir es aus glühendem Nationalbewusstsein heraus liebten.47

During the Ecklingen week, French and German soldiers commemorated their fallen together. Significantly, in that same week, a Stahlhelm delegation participated for the first time in a FIDAC meeting in Paris.48 44 45 46 47 48

“Deutsch-Englische Frontkämpferbesuche”, Der Stahlhelm, 16.06.35. “Der Englischen Frontsoldaten und wir”, Der Stahlhelm, 23.06.35. “Frieden der Frontsoldaten”, Der Stahlhelm, 07.07.35. IbId. “Soldatentum ist Ritterlichkeit” and “Kriegshetzer sind Feinde der Völker”, Der Stahlhelm, 14.07.35.

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These meetings symbolized the end of the long period of mistrust between French and German veterans and might, indeed, have marked the beginning of an era of peace. However, its real significance lay in the German nationalists’ final success in revising the order of Versailles. It was years before a small but vocal minority of ex-soldiers were truly able to accept demobilization. People who joined nationalist veteran organizations, particularly the massive Stahlhelm, did not necessarily want another war, but nor could they accept surrender at any price. Versailles had left most German politicians and society in general discontented and disappointed. The moderates, however, tried to accept the harsh conditions imposed on Germany, and to work gradually to regain their country’s international standing in order to achieve a ‘fair’ peace. Other, more radical, forces, meanwhile, did not accept the compromise and demanded revisions and concessions before they would even start to discuss a long-lasting peace. The main issue dividing France and Germany was the memory of the war, their interpretations of the events that had led to the conflict and that characterized its ending and the subsequent post-war order. While for the French the war was clearly a consequence of ruthless German expansionism and militarism, for the latter it was the result of increasing confrontation generated by both sides. The Germans, furthermore, never acknowledged the defeat as a military event: their historical memory was of betrayal by internal revolutionaries and profiteers, not of foreign defeat. Generated by war propaganda, this memory lasted throughout the inter-war years and created the basis for the persistent German demands for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles. The Stahlhelm, although it was by no means representative of the majority of organized ex-combatants, was the most active of their associations, and stood unwaveringly behind both its own memory of the war and its interpretation of the defeat. For this reason, it represented, especially for the French, their fear of a Germany unwilling to compromise or search for a long-lasting peace. Convincing the Stahlhelm to talk to their former enemy was thus considered necessary to avert the threat of a revanchist war. It is noteworthy that the first attempts at dialogue came from nationalist actors in France. They understood the language of their German counterparts and recognized the importance of stressing the need to unify against a common enemy, Bolshevism, rather than promoting a vague and internationally acceptable peace. Note, too, that the Stahlhelm consistently refused any dialogue as long as they felt their position to be weak, and until their memory of the war was understood. It is therefore not surprising that the rise of National Socialism coincided with the beginning of the so-called Friedensoffensive. Although it is difficult to evaluate how consciously the Stahlhelm was initially working for National Socialist expansionist aims, their dialogue with their former enemies undoubtedly contributed to nourishing the illusory expectation that Hitler’s regime was willing to work for a long-lasting peace as long as it was the ‘right’ peace. Unlike those of the post-war settlements, however, the conditions required for this peace to be ‘right’ changed and evolved and the dialogue only served to increase German demands.

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The encounters between French, German, American and British ex-combatants went beyond simple commemoration. They became instruments for the shaping of a shared memory in which Germany, and ultimately National Socialism, was no longer stigmatized as a warmonger, and instead became a force for peace. The Stahlhelm did not just set up the dialogues between ex-soldiers, they actively pursued a politics of memory that used the war-experience as an instrument to create empathy between former enemies. The Stahlhelm, which shared the same memory as the other nationalist political forces, was the most successful and resilient actor in this process. Through their politics of memory they both tried to regain the honor and dignity of the defeated army and encouraged the delegitimization of traditional politics internationally, through their conceptualization of the ex-soldier as a citizen with more rights than others, because he puts his life – literally – on the line. Throughout the 20s, in fact, they bypassed the politicians (both German and foreign) who disappointed them and created a secondary channel in which they used the empathy generated by shared experience to rebuild a European politics of memory and to rewrite history to their advantage. It is not surprising that this talk of peace, for all its hidden nationalist and expansionist goals, was readily believed by other ex-soldiers, who wanted to believe that a peaceful Europe was possible. Assmann 2015: A. Assmann, Shadows of Trauma: Memory and the Politics of Postwar Identity, New York 2015. Bariety/Bloch 1968: J. Bariety / C. Bloch, “Une tentative de réconciliation franco-allemande et son échec (1932–1933)”, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 3 (1968), 433–65. Berghahn 1965: V. R. Berghahn, “Das Ende des Stahlhelms”, Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 13 (1965), 446–51. Berghahn 1966: V. R. Berghahn, Der Stahlhelm Bund der Frontsoldaten, Düsseldorf 1966. Cohrs 2003: P. O. Cohrs, “The First ‘Real’ Peace Settlements after the First World War: Britain, the United States and the Accords of London and Locarno, 1923–1925”, Contemporary European History 12 (2003), 1–31. Crouthamel 2009: J. Crouthamel, The Great War and German Memory: Society, Politics and Psychological Trauma, 1914–1945, Exeter 2009. Daniel et al. 2014: U. Daniel / P. Gatrell / O. Janz / H. Jones / J. Keene / A. Kramer / B. Nasson, 1914/1918 Online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, Berlin 2014– Finker 1982: K. Finker, Geschichte des Roten Frontkämpferbundes, Berlin 1982. Jacobson/Walker 1975: J. Jacobson / J. T. Walker, “The Impulse for a Franco-German Entente: the Origins of the Thoiry Conference, 1926”, Journal of Contemporary History 10 (1975), 157–81. Jacobson 1972: J. Jacobson, Locarno Diplomacy: Germany and the West, 1925/1929, London 1972. Jacobson 1983: J. Jacobson, “Strategies of French Foreign Policy after World War I”, The Journal of Modern History 1 (1983), 78–95. Johnson 2009: G. Johnson (ed.), Locarno Revisited: European Diplomacy, 1920/1929, London 2009. Klotzbücher 1964: A. Klotzbücher, Der politische Weg der Stahlhelm Bund der Frontsoldaten, Erlangen 1964. Millington 2014a: C. Millington, “Union nationale des Combattants”, in Daniel et al. 2014, DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.10053.

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Millington 2014b: C. Millington, “Union fédérale”, in Daniel et al. 2014, DOI: 10.15463/ ie1418.10052. Mulligan 2013: W. Mulligan, “German Veterans’ Associations and the Culture of Peace: The Case of the Reichsbanner”, in J. P. Newman / J. Eichenberg (eds.), The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism, London et al. 2013. Pawley 2007: M. Pawley, The Watch on the Rhine: the Military Occupation of Rhineland, 1918– 1930, London 2007. Penicaut 2009: E. Pénicaut, “L’armée française en Sarre, 1918–1930”, Revue historique des armées 254 (2009), 20–28. Rohe 1966: K. Rohe, Das Reichsbanner Schwartz-Rot-Gold, Düsseldorf 1966. Salvador 2012: A. Salvador, “The Political Strategies of the Stahlhelm Veterans’ League and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, 1918–1933” in N. Karcher / A. G. Kjostvedt (eds.), Movements and Ideas of the Extreme Right in Europe. Positions and Continuities, Frankfurt am M. 2012, 57–58. Salvador 2013: A. Salvador, La guerra in tempo di pace. Gli ex combattenti e la politica nella Repubblica di Weimar, Trento 2013. Salvador 2017: A. Salvador, “Frontsozialismus der Tat. War Experience as the Foundation of Corporatism in the Stahlhelm Veterans’ League” in A. Salvador / A. G. Kjostvedt (eds.), New Political Ideas in the Aftermath of the Great War, Cham 2017, 109–28. Schwelling 2012: B. Schwelling (ed.), Reconciliation, Society and the Politics of Memory: Transnational Initiatives in the 20th Century, Bielefeld 2012. Trichet 2002: C. Moreau / Trichet, “La propagande nazie à l’égard des associations françaises d’anciens combattants de 1934 à 1939”, Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 205 (2002), 55–70. Welzer 2005: H. Welzer, Das kommunikative Gedächtnis. Eine Theorie der Erinnerung, München 2005. Winkler 1993: H. A. Winkler, Weimar 1918/1933, München 1993. Ziemann 2013: B. Ziemann, Contested Commemorations: Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture, Cambridge 2013.

CONCLUSIVE SECTION

CONCLUSIVE REMARKS Mirko Canevaro Why is it so important to memorialise the war dead? Even at a summary glance, the thematic variety of the chapters of this volume suggests that, to the historian, the commemoration of the war dead has not to do exclusively, or even primarily, with war or with the war dead themselves. Commemoration of the war dead is fundamental to the survival of any community, because it justifies the private and individual sacrifice made by the individual members in the light of the higher interest of the community as a whole. Because of this, war commemoration is a particularly effective window into the self-representation of a community – into the community’s own imagination of its collective history, values and historical purpose. War memorials, whether material or performative, attempt to (re)imagine and (re)represent a community worth dying for, and are therefore exercises in collective self-reflection. The image they conjure up can be more or less effective, more or less widely shared, and the study of the dynamics of commemoration, and of its occasional failures, allows the historian unique insights into the social and cultural dynamics of the relevant communities, as well as into its political developments and struggles. This volume offers a rich array of case studies that illustrate the potential of such a research agenda, how it is amenable to a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches, and how it is apt to illuminating very different historical realities, geographically and chronologically removed. It also illustrates its potential for comparative study – the recognisable regularity of the responses of war commemoration puts in stark relief the specificities of each case study, pushes the historian to engage with them, and to explain them. The introduction of the editors to the volume does an excellent job of introducing the themes of the collection. This short conclusion, which expands slightly on the conclusive remarks that I was invited to deliver at the conference from which this volume originates, does not intend therefore to reduplicate the scope of the introduction. Sticking to the rather impressionistic nature of my original remarks, I rather want to reflect briefly on three separate yet interconnected issues that emerge from this collection of essays. First, the issue of the permanence of the memorial as guarantee of the permanence of memory. Second, in line with these initial observations, the issue of the kind of community that is ‘imagined’ through war commemoration. Third, the issue of the deliberate manipulation of memory through war commemoration for contingent political purposes, and its relationship with the wider dynamics of memorialisation.

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THE PERMANENCE OF THE MEMORIAL How do I preserve the memory of war and the war dead? Many of the chapters in the volume address, in a way or another, this question. The underlying dynamic is the very human preoccupation with not being forgotten, and many of the case studies in the volume investigate the sheer inventiveness of the solutions devised in various contexts to ensure that memory of the war dead will not fade. That this is a question that loomed large in the preoccupations of human communities from a very early stage in their development is suggested by Birgit Bergmann’s and Holger Baitinger’s chapters, with their investigations of relevant monuments and practices in Archaic Greece, and by Lilah Grace Canevaro’s, which examines Homer’s own reflections on the topic. Bergmann and Baitinger show that although evolution in the relevant customs and practices is undeniable, this is not a simple and linear development. The evidence rather suggests a wide range of solutions experimented at all stages of the development – the Greeks actively fought public forgetting through a variety of forms of memorialisation, always tweaking and improving on them in a constant battle against time. The overwhelming evidence for communal burials, ‘state’ burials and cenotaphs (much larger than that for private burials) from very early on also stresses the communal nature of the enterprise – commemorating the war dead had to do with the community affirming its unity and justifying it losses, and therefore creating its collective identity (see below). The existence of conscious experimentation with commemoration, and of attempts to improve its effectiveness and durability is underpinned by explicit reflection on what the best instrument is to guarantee that the war dead will be remembered – Lilah Grace Canevaro shows that such reflections are central to the Homeric poems. Against simplistic accounts of Homeric society as a purely oral society in which memory is seamlessly reworked to reflect the present without awareness that stories change, Homer is clearly nervous about the permanence of memory, and alert to the fact that a lot has been lost and is no longer remembered. His conclusion is that epic poetry is the most durable means of commemoration, while material memorials are transient. Not everybody would have agreed, and the monumental experimentation with tropaia in sanctuaries, inscriptions, cenotaphs and public burials reviewed by Baitinger and Bergmann is evidence of this constant struggle with time and forgetting. In this sense, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the ultimate solution is a typically Greek blend of orality, writing and materiality. This is most clear in the epigrammatic forms of public discourse matched by physical memorialisation typical of the Classical polis, and of Athens in particular, in which we can distinctly discern a process that preserves yet resolves the Homeric duality between epics and material memorial. The memory of the Persian Wars was fostered and developed in a mixture of monuments, inscriptions, pottery, rituals, and public discourse which in time shaped the social memory of the Athenians. Oral, discursive and physical memorialisation have all strong cognitive and mnemonic dimensions – commemoration strengthens memory and identity through the exploitation of different and complex media. This duality of public funerary rituals is further reflected in the very Athe-

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nian form of the funeral speech, which seems rather concerned with the remote past as an instrument to cement the community’s identity. And the glorious stories of Athens’s past, once again, are performed in the funeral speeches, and monumentalised in the Athenian monuments, on Athens’ temples, stoai and memorials. These processes are so pervasive that by the time of Pausanias’ writing, they had shaped the very monumental and mnemonic topography of the Greek cities – Pausanias’ Periegesis, as shown by James Roy’s chapter, remembers the Greek past, as it had been created and reimagined over several centuries, through a tour de force of monuments commemorating the many wars the Greeks had fought, with the stories and memories attached to these monuments. From the vantage point of the second century CE, the Greek landscape is one of memorials of wars of long ago, re-enacted and remembered through these memorials. This stratified landscape very much resembles that of German commemorations of the Thirty Years’ War investigated in Fehrlen-Weiss’ chapter, and the variety of the commemorative forms equally displays a blend of monuments, literature, festivals, all interconnected and reinforcing each other (see below). Such diversity is even more evident in Birgfeld’s chapter on German forms of war commemoration in the 18th century, which provide the background for Fehrlen-Weiss’ analysis of the earlier stages of the commemoration of Thirty Years’ War. Birgfeld adds a further dimension to the analysis of commemorative experimentation, by highlighting the links between social classes and different forms and foci of memorialization: from the focus on larger-scale military events and high-level ‘heroic’ victims sponsored by the courts, to the subversion of this potential hegemony by middle-class semi-independent commemorative forms. Different outlooks and perspectives – different purposes – found representation in commemorative forms “ranging from celebrations on the battle field, holding a Te deum laudamus, celebratory canon fire, and public displays of military trophies to honorary portals, equestrian statues, triumphal arches, armouries, tombs, paintings, vivat ribbons, medals, poems, epics, prose texts, and pamphlets”. In all this, conspicuous by their absence were the lower-class and lower-rank war dead – forgotten because they were not effectively commemorated. The analysis of commemorative experimentation, across time and different communities, ends up highlighting stark differences, between the demotic commemorative forms of ancient Athens, concerned with preserving the memory of all war dead, and forms, such as those studied by Birgfeld, which ‘institutionally’ forgot the largest part of the war dead. A concern with forgetting and an interplay of material and literary memorialisation – the same that we find in Lilah Grace Canevaro’s chapter, and which underpin the variety and combinations of commemorative forms experimented by the many historical communities studied in the volume – emerge also from Thorne’s chapter. Thorne demonstrates how Caesar’s strategy for memorialising Pharsalus involved both memorialisation of the battle as the key moment of the Civil Wars in his Bellum Civile, and the construction of a temple to Venus Victrix/Genetrix as a monument to that victory. That the battle nevertheless soon lost its centrality in the memory of the Civil Wars, and was generally replaced by Actium as their decisive moment, is evidence of the very mechanism of public forgetting that the vast exper-

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imentation in memorialisation attempts to counter. It is no chance that in the end it is epic poetry – Lucan’s Pharsalia – that undertakes the task of restoring that battle in public memory. Lucan, like Homer before him, entrusts memory to his epic, as the only real defence against forgetting. Something that emerges very clearly from the volume is the inventiveness in the (combined) use of different media exhibited by human communities from antiquity to the present. The various case studies also highlight how this variety and inventiveness are (at least partially) a by-product of social struggles and diverse political arrangements, manifesting themselves in diverse commemorative forms, and in diverse combinations of these forms. The social and political forces behind the energy of this struggle against time and forgetting leads us to the second strand of these conclusive reflections. ‘IMAGINED COMMUNITIES’ OF COMMEMORATION In my chapter, I have attempted to show that there is a clear agenda hidden in the heroic narratives of courage so typical of war commemoration. Death in war needs to be justified as the result of courageous acts performed for a higher end, in order for it not to be felt to be in vain. The lack of an adequate articulation of this noble end threatens the dissolution of the community. And this is why war commemoration is for us, as historians, a powerful means to access a society’s own articulation of its values, of its history, of its ethos, as the Athenians would say. Many of the chapters in this volume do precisely this: they investigate the various forms war commemoration has taken in a variety of historical societies for the purpose of shedding light on societal and political dynamics, and on their development through time. Thus, Albertoni offers a case study in which political and social conditions – the volatility of the Carolingian army and the constraints (also religious) of the imperial ideology of the Carolingian court – made the commemoration of the war dead almost unviable within the standard martial framework. The Franks were mostly victorious, and yet, strangely, there were “no triumphal arches, no reliefs, no epigraphs, no statues”. To quote Albertoni, “to celebrate [war] would have meant to allow the possibility of something other than victory, and – since the actions of the King of the Franks and the will of God had become indistinguishable – this could not be done”. As a result, death in war was relegated, in the official rhetoric, to extra-military occasions such as ambushes and evil schemes. Albertoni’s discussion highlights the connection between the community’s self-image (however rhetorical) and the available commemoration forms and practices, even to the paradoxical point of a community’s self-image which prevents real commemoration of war and the war dead. Bellezza’s chapter is a particularly illuminating example of the role of war commemoration for the shaping of a community, particularly of a new and unstable ‘imagined community’, to use Benedict Anderson’s famous description of nation and nationalism. Bellezza, through the investigation of four Ukranian lieux de memoire, sheds light on the struggle of the (relatively) new Ukranian state to define a national identity different from (and, given the current conflict, in opposition to)

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Russian and Soviet identities and conceptualisations of the past. The context of an ongoing war, in modern Ukraine like in ancient Athens, casts in stark relief the centrality of commemorative practices to the definition of an ‘imagined community’ worth dying for. Blanka Misic, in her discussion of commemoration practices in Roman Poetovio, complements these treatments by focusing on the cognitive features of communal mnemonic practices, and the effects these had on the community, forming ‘close-knit bonds’ between participants. She highlights how, in the varieties of ritual commemoration, ancient communities enlisted complex cognitive and mnemonic mechanisms to help the community come to term with death in war, and to strengthen their cohesion and identity. The mechanisms she identifies – akin to those enlisted by religious rituals, with due distinctions, can be applied to most of the case-studies of war commemoration studied in the volume, and explain how in practice, at the level of the micro mechanisms affecting the individual members of the community, the commemoration of the war dead contributes to creating an ‘imagined community’. All these case studies demonstrate what a powerful instrument war commemoration is not only for societies to come to term with their identity and their values, but for us, as historians, to penetrate their specific political, ideological and social dynamics. What the study of the commemoration of the war dead often leaves aside, however, is the real experience of the combatants, which is almost irrelevant, and certainly outweighed by the commemorative needs of the community (and of the institutional dimension of the community), and more narrowly of the relatives. For this reason, most war commemorative forms are very informative about the reference community’s self-representation, but very uninformative about the actual experience of war – the point of war commemoration is not in fact the actual commemoration of war (and the war dead), but the building of an ‘imagined community’. A significant exception to this trend is Mondini’s chapter, which concentrates on the veteran’s literary accounts of WWI. Mondini highlights various trends that attempt to move past the traditional heroicisation of war, the difficulty with coming to term and transmitting the real experience of war. It is remarkable that the way past these difficulties is once again the identification of a community of belonging, yet not the national community – the ‘imagined community’ of the nation at war – but the narrower small community of the combatants: the platoon, the group of companions in the trenches. Meaning, for the experience of war and for death in war, is found in that communal dimension. THE POLITICS OF WAR COMMEMORATION As Franchi shows in her chapter, ancient authors such as Demosthenes were very much aware of the power of memory and war commemoration to cement a community, its identity, to underpin particular values, and even particular policy decisions. With such a level of awareness, it is unavoidable that ancients and moderns would

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aim to enlist the power of war commemoration for particular, even contingent, purposes. And if the appropriate story, memorial, monument or text did not exist, or failed to conform to the particular needs of the moment, they would not shy away from rewriting existing stories, merge different events from different times, and even make up events or details, to serve their purpose. It should however be stressed that what we are talking about here, whether it is the ‘invention’ of the First Sacred War or the memorials and tombs of mythical founders and heroes described by Pausanias and surveyed by James Roy, is not an ‘oral society’, according to the definitions of Goody or Vansina, in which the past is reshaped continuously and fluidly. The very evidence discussed by Franchi of an explicit recognition of this reshaping (in Demosthenes and elsewhere) shows that what we are seeing is something more conscious and deliberate. Lucan’s attempt to restore Pharsalus to its place as the most decisive moment of the Civil Wars of the first century BCE, as Thorne shows in his chapter, is a case in point. Actium had soon replaced Pharsalus as the key battle in the memory of the war, because the ultimate winner in these wars had been Augustus, not Caesar. But the centrality of the commemoration of Actium was a statement that the resolution of the crisis had been the Augustan pax terra marique. Lucan’s refocusing on Pharsalus, in Thorne’s interpretation, has the purpose of challenging this perception, and making the point, in public memory and consciousness, that the resolution of the crisis had in fact been the emergence of a Caesar – a dominus. Ultimately, we are not simply talking of wide societal dynamics. We are talking of politics of commemoration, with a stress on politics. This is clearly what we take away from Salvador’s chapter, which analyses the politics of commemoration of the Stahlhelm, the most important veterans’ organization in Germany after WWI. Salvador discusses how defeat and occupation prevented in the 1920s and 1930s the establishment of joint memorials for the war dead of WWI, particularly French-German joint war commemorations. Division and difference were stressed in the 1920s by German veterans as a (nationalistic) means to restoring their pride. Once the occupation ended, the changed dynamics brought about a change in the politics of commemoration. Salvador highlights how the possibility of international dialogue was precluded as long as the Stahlhelm’s own ‘memory’ of the war was unacknowledged. When it eventually was acknowledged, dialogue started, and yet the recognition achieved by the Stahlhelm’s own ‘memory’ corresponded to a position of strength which facilitated growing German demands. The politics of memory proceeded side-by-side with power politics. The stratification of such politics of commemoration over the centuries, is, moreover, at the roots of the occasional incongruities in Pausanias’ account of the Greek world and its history, which cannot be attributed, as Roy shows, to his sloppiness, but to the active and political reworking of memories that has in time created these incongruities. In a sense, these dynamics of commemoration remind us not much of the fluidity typical of oral societies, but rather of modern political dynamics that condition commemoration. To give a relevant example, the role of the Ukranian lieux de memoire in defining the Ukranian ‘imagined community’, as shown by Bellezza, unfolds through a series of deliberate political acts of manipu-

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lation of the past, and the contingent political aims are found side-by-side with wider dynamics of national formation and definition. Most of the examples analysed in the volume are concerned with inward-looking political manipulation of the past – the dynamics of commemoration pertain to the community, its self-image, and internal political aims that are pursued by deliberately reshaping the past. Konijnendijk’s chapter reminds us that the same dynamics applied also to the wider international scene. Politics of commemoration could be at the same time inward-looking (as discussed above) and outward-looking, and what was internally the construction of an ‘imagined community’ worth dying for, externally could become a reputational weapon to wield against enemies. This is clearly the case with the Spartans’ efforts to preserve untarnished the memory of the Spartan valour at the Thermopylai: this was not only a foundation story for Spartan military superiority, useful for creating expectations of martial prowess and courage among Spartiates, but also a reputation that could confer the Spartans a significant advantage in war, making the enemies fear the Spartans beyond what reality would have warranted. In this instance, the commemoration of the Thermopylai appears to be a ‘conservative’ one: the Spartans attempted over time, and despite some defeats and embarrassing episodes (such as Sphacteria), to preserve the centrality of their sacrifice at Thermopylai not only in their own self-image, but by extension also in the Greeks’ general perception of their image. War commemoration assumes a central place both in the (inwards) politics of identity and in the (outwards) politics of reputation. To appreciate these dynamics fully, often a diachronic approach to the evolution and the changes in the commemoration of one event over a long period is particularly revealing. This is found to an extent in Konijnendijk’s chapter, but more fully, for instance, in Franchi’s and in Fehrlen-Weiss’s. Franchi explores through a variety of sources the stratigraphy of stories about the Sacred Wars, and their centrality in shaping the identity (and the notions of the origins) of various Greek ethne. She also highlights how these were not seamless processes, but instances of conscious manipulation with precise political aims (and re-used later with other political aims). In Fehrlen-Weiss’s chapter, the variety of commemorative forms about the Thirty Years’ War over the longue durée allows the historian to appreciate the opposition of different narratives about the past that sustain a variety of political (and religious-political) commemorative needs. Memory of the Thirty Years’ War feeds on its exploitation for nationalistic, political or confessional purposes: this war and its dead are remembered because – and as long as – they are significant within the framework of current political preoccupations. But the result is not complete fluidity – seamless reinvention – but rather the creation of a stratified, continuous and often contradictory memorial landscape which is itself the object of historiographical and public reflection, much like the commemorative landscape that gave rise to Pausanias reflection on the Greek past. It is the study of such landscapes that this volume brings to the fore. War commemoration is not only, for the historian, a productive object of investigation in its own right. Mastering its analysis is also a powerful tool for practitioners of political, social and cultural history.

ABSTRACTS AND KEYWORDS INTRODUCTIVE SECTION Maurizio Giangiulio (University of Trento), Do Societies Remember? The Notion of ‘Collective Memory’: Paradigms and Problems (from Maurice Halbwachs on) The notion of ‘collective memory’ was introduced by Maurice Halbwachs in the first half of the 20th century. Nowadays, on the one hand the expression ‘collective memory’ resonates everywhere, from the field of historiography to the public use of history, from political discourse to scholastic and journalistic language. On the other hand, it is criticized according to arguments which seem to ignore decades of theoretical reflection, as well as historiographic and anthropologic practice. This paper deals with the most basic criticism of Halbwachs’ concept of ‘collective memory’, that he attributes a typically individual function – memory – to an alleged collective subject, and moves it too far out of the individual sphere. I first discuss the scholarly reception of Halbwachs’ ideas; then, through an in-depth analysis of Halbwachs’ three major works (Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire [1925]; La topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte [1941]; La mémoire collective [1950]), I show both the inconsistency of the abovementioned criticism, and the pivotal role of Halbwachs’ theorization in the field of the sociology of memory, anthropology and historiography. collective memory – social frames of memory – mnemotechnics – sociology of memory – cultural memory Elena Franchi (University of Trento), Memories of Winners and Losers. Historical Remarks on Why Societies Remember and Commemorate Wars Why do societies remember, and even commemorate, wars? Why do they insist on remembering instead of forgetting an event which is highly traumatic? In fact, our insistence on remembering wars goes against one of the basic tendencies outlined by polemology, according to which forgetting the suffering of war is structural and periodical. The question becomes even more puzzling when we think that the losers as well as the winners remember war, and not just in commemoration rituals for the dead, where the relevance of commemoration seems self-evident, since it ensures that the fallen are remembered and mourned (although, in fact, much more is actually going on), but in almost every figure of memory. This paper tries to solve this problem by investigating some historical case-studies. Issues such as post-war

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trauma, collective memories, theories of nationalism, ways of expressing a sense of belonging, military reputation, future expectations and the sacred dimension of wars are addressed. The last part of the paper investigates some challenges facing scholars engaged with ancient sources, such as lack of evidence, remediation, intermediality, the risks of dealing with allegedly gendered narratives. collective war memories – polemology – remediation – intermediality – gendered narratives Giorgia Proietti (University of Trento), Can an Ancient Truth Become an Old Lie? A Few Methodological Remarks Concerning Current Comparative Research on War and its Aftermath Explicitly comparative studies which analyse aspects of ancient history with reference to comparanda from the modern world are becoming more and more frequent in historical research. War and its aftermath have always been a favourite topic of comparative historical research, in the political, military and socio-economic spheres, and, more recently, in relation to collective emotions, psychological reactions and forms of commemoration. Serving, to some extent, as an introduction to the whole book, this essay discusses several case studies concerning the experience of war and post-war (commemoration of war and war dead in public discourse and monumentality; the multimedia representation of war; post-war trauma), which scholars have already approached from a relatively consistent comparative standpoint. Its aim is not to treat each case study in detail, but to comment on them from a methodological perspective, in order to show, through a few relevant examples, the need to avoid perfunctory comparisons between ancient and modern phenomena, and instead to pursue a coherent historical contextualization. war memorials – war trauma – public discourse – commemoration – historical contextualization SECTION I WAR MEMORIALS: OBJECTS IN PERFORMANCE Lilah Grace Canevaro (University of Edinburgh), Commemoration through Objects? Homer on the Limitations of Material Memory Homeric women use objects to negotiate their agency, to express themselves and, as not conventionally spotlighted protagonists, to contribute to the action. Objects used by women in Homer can be symbolically significant and powerfully characterising. They can be tools of recognition and identification. They can pause narrative and be used agonistically. They can send messages and be vessels for memory. However, they are not infallible. This chapter considers the limitations of both women as objects and women and objects, in terms of the commemoration of the

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Trojan War and its heroes. It looks at how Homer reflects on the limitations of objects; how the memories encased in objects are presented as transient; the gendered aspect of this transience; and how objects as commemorators of war are consistently presented as inferior to the medium of poetry. More generally, this chapter propagates what Vital Materialist Jane Bennett has called “attentiveness to things”. It constitutes a case study in a methodology: that of reading Homeric epic not primarily through narrative or character, but through the objects which punctuate the poems. epic – materiality – memory – gender – entanglement Birgit Bergmann (Universität Regensburg), Beyond Victory and Defeat. Commemorating Battles Prior to the Persian Wars With the emergence of the polis in early Greece war with its potential for victory, land and booty or defeat, loss and even annihilation became one of the most vital common tasks. Commemorating battles, burying the war dead, and honouring the gods, therefore became a common task, too. The paper focuses on the question what was done in this respect in the time before the beginning of the Persian Wars in 500 B. C. First and foremost, the different activities of a commemorative nature that could follow a military conflict will be discussed for an overview of the variety of forms which the commemoration of battles could take in pre-classical times, namely the tropaia, the graves, the honours, the ritual acts, festivals, cults, cult statues and cult places, and – last but not least – the dedications. Next this paper will address the question of whether there are any observable changes in practice over time and, if this is the case, how these could be explained. commemoration of battles – archaic times – tropaIa – dedications – dedicatory inscriptions Holger Baitinger (Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz), Commemoration of War in Archaic and Classical Greece. Battlefields, Tombs and Sanctuaries In Archaic and Classical Greece (late 8th – 4th centuries B. C.) war and commemoration of war were virtually omnipresent. Burial mounds and other grave monuments both in regular cemeteries and on battlefields remembered fallen soldiers. On the battlefields, the victors usually erected victory monuments (tropaia), in earlier times made of wood and captured weapons, since the Classical period more and more built of stone and therefore persistent. Besides that, arms and armour were dedicated to the gods in important sanctuaries of the city-states or in ‘international’ Panhellenic cult places like Olympia, Delphi or Isthmia, especially between the second half of the 8th and the second half of the 5th century B. C. Since about 500 B. C., spoils of war were increasingly replaced in sanctuaries by other long-living monuments like

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statues (or groups of statues), treasuries, temples or other buildings financed by booty of war. In the 5th century B. C., captured arms and armour seem to have lost more and more their religious significance and to have gained an increased political meaning. Spoils and buildings financed by booty of war moved from sanctuaries to the political and administrative centre of the city-states, the agora. archaic and classical greece – mass burials (polyandrIa) – victory monuments (tropaIa) – greek sanctuaries – dedication of arms and armour James Roy (University of Nottingham), Memorials of War in Pausanias Pausanias offers extensive coverage of memorials and memories of war in the many communities of central and southern Greece, and clearly believed that war was a major and important element of the Greek past. Though his account of memorials at Olympia, Delphi, and Athens is rich, this paper concentrates on other communities. The wars concerned were, with rare exceptions, remote in Pausanias’ day, and the time elapsed had allowed memories to be reshaped. Pausanias was well-read in Greek history, but took much of his information from local people in the communities visited, especially the local elite. In rare cases mistakes by Pausanias himself can be identified, but much more often the local tradition which he generally follows had reshaped events, frequently attaching the preferred version of history to visible monuments: some specific examples are considered in detail. pausanias – war – local history – memorials – memory Nina Fehrlen-Weiss (Universität Tübingen), The Thirty Years’ War in German Commemorative Culture from the Beginning of the Holy Roman Empire to the Present – An Overview Germany now has quite a diverse and lively commemorative culture in relation to the Thirty Years᾿ War, originating, on the one hand, in a long tradition and, on the other, in new initiatives: both are tied to the denominational ῾heroes᾿, to great battles and – inevitably – to the Peace of Westphalia. The emphasis of these commemorations has evolved over time, as when, for example, after the Coalition Wars and the subsequent end of the Holy Roman Empire, the Peace of Westphalia was no longer a constitutional reality. After World War II, the memorial landscape was divided, with West and East Germany making different commemorative choices. European politicians moved the Peace of Westphalia into the center of the shared memory. There is also, however, a rich, ῾unofficial᾿, commemorative culture surrounding the Thirty Years᾿ War, which is mostly upheld by non-historians. The motives of those who cultivate the recollection of this war on the regional and local level have changed only slightly, if at all; their commemoration is primarily an expression of love for their native country. On the other hand, since the 19th century, commemorative forms have also aimed to attract tourism. Overall, the first half of

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the 17th century was an important chapter in German history, which continues to reverberate now. historical culture – commemorative culture – memorial landscape – peace of westphalia – remembering peace Simone Bellezza (University of Naples “Federico II”), Nation Building through Commemoration: Stalinism, WW II, and Holocaust Memorials in post-Soviet Ukraine This essay illustrates the development of the politics of memory in post-Soviet Ukraine through an analysis of the building and/or adaptation of the main four memorials in the country: the Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, the Memorial of the Holocaust in Babyn Yar, the Memorial of the Victims of Stalinist Repressions in Bykivnia, and the Memorial of the Holodomor. Starting with a description of the univocal Soviet politics of memory of WWII (called the Great Patriotic War), I then describe the changes that occurred after 1991: the post-Soviet state was not able to elaborate a clear politics of memory in its first decade of existence and therefore followed the lead of the Ukrainian dissidents who, during the Soviet period, had commemorated Stalin’s purges as the nation’s greatest tragedy. A real turning point occurred in the Jushchenko presidency, which elevated the 1932/1933 famine to the status of national holocaust, promoting a specific memorialization both in Ukraine and abroad. The essay concludes by underlining the importance of building and exploiting victim memorials in the construction of an effective politics of memory. politics of memory – memorial – post-soviet ukraine – holodomor – holocaust SECTION II WAR DEAD: FROM CITIZENS TO SYMBOLS Mirko Canevaro (University of Edinburgh), Courage in War and the Courage of the War Dead – Ancient and Modern Reflections Recent approaches to ‘courage’ in Athenian democracy and more widely in democratic thought have isolated a notion of ‘democratic’ courage involving rational deliberation and opposed it to more primitive forms of ‘courage’ fueled by shame and typical of ‘honor’ or ‘shame’ cultures. This chapter questions these approaches by stressing the cognitive elements of Homeric and archaic courage and, indeed, shame, and focusing then on Athenian representations of courage, particularly in funeral speeches for the war dead. It stresses the relevance of honor and shame in these representations, isolates the prototypicality of hoplitic courage, and ultimately

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stresses that far from being primitive, notions of honor and shame were understood as fundamental to values of parrhesia, lawfulness and democratic courage. courage – democracy – athens – shame – war dead Blanka Misic (Champlain Lennoxville College - Bishop’s University, Canada), Cognitive Aspects of Funerary Commemoration of Soldiers and Veterans in Roman Poetovio The present paper employs cognitive theory, specifically Harvey Whitehouse’s Modes of Religiosity theory, in order to examine funerary and commemorative practices among Roman soldiers and veterans during the first two centuries A. D. in the colonia of Poetovio (Pannonia Superior). By relying on inscribed funerary monuments in stone as primary evidence, the paper draws similarities between the transfer of religious and funerary ritual practices, arguing that funerary rituals were transmitted, learned, and kept alive through frequent repetition as well as through the close emotional connections between the participants. Since the funerary monument acted as a mnemonic device, it therefore became the primary medium through which the deceased’s identity and memory were negotiated, constructed, preserved, and transferred. The funerary monuments of soldiers and veterans at Poetovio display how they navigated between the military and civilian spheres, helping to create a new imperial provincial culture. pannonia – poetovio – funerary commemoration – ritual – army Johannes Birgfeld (Universität des Saarlandes), Commemorating War and War Dead in the 18th Century German Speaking World This paper presents a synopsis of the different strategies and practices of commemorating war and war dead employed in 18th century Germany. These acts of commemoration assumed very different forms, ranging from celebrations on the battle field, holding a Te deum laudamus, celebratory canon fire, and public displays of military trophies to honorary portals, equestrian statues, triumphal arches, armouries, tombs, paintings, vivat ribbons, medals, poems, epics, prose texts, and pamphlets. The paper also demonstrates how, although the courts had the greatest interest in, and funds for, staging and shaping the ways in which military events and victims of war were commemorated, the middle classes successfully managed to take part in, develop their own, and sometimes subvert, forms of public commemoration of war and war dead. However, those who suffered most on the battle fields, the lowest classes and ranks, hardly ever had the means to record their ‘sacrifice’ and commemorate it for posterity. war monuments – commemoration – prayers –subversion – literary memorials

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Marco Mondini (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento – University of Padua), Brothers and Heroes. Literary Sources on Death in First World War (the Italian Case) In Italy, from the 1920s, soldiers’ autobiographical writings of the First World War represented the ‘theatre of memory’ to the next generation: they handed down their meanings of intervention, mobilization and sacrifice. These writings are characterized by two elements in particular. The first is the recurring theme of self-sacrifice. At the core of all war stories lies the experience of fighting and death; this is a liminal experience that fixes one’s relation to war. The second characteristic is the author’s profile. The narrator of the ‘warrior phenomenon’ is almost invariably a young reserve officer, which usually means a twenty-year old middle-class man, often a high-school graduate or university student, reasonably well-versed in the Classics. Thus, the wartime testimony of Italian writing is centered on a heroic collectivity. However, unlike the Classical prototype of Achilles, the Homeric triumphant hero who willingly accepts war and death in order to achieve eternal glory, the sacrifice of the modest Italian brother in arms is principally for his small community of fellow soldiers. They too, however, are to be remembered as great heroes within the context of this understated epic. soldiers’ autobiographical writings – first world war – self-sacrifice – homeric heroes – brothers in arms SECTION III NARRATIVES OF WAR: HISTORIOGRAPHY, PUBLIC DISCOURSE, AND CULTURAL MEMORY Roel Konijnendijk (University of Leiden), A Terrifying Name: The Spartan Reputation as a Weapon of War Part of the commemoration of war is the way the military achievements of an army or people are remembered by others. For the Classical Spartans, this form of commemoration proved a distinct advantage. Their famous ideal never to retreat or surrender, along with their reputation for military skill, made other Greeks afraid to face them in battle. Aware of the terror they inspired, the Spartans did their best to enhance the effect, introducing intimidating dress and drill to make their advance into battle a uniquely unnerving spectacle. Their efforts paid off; in several key engagements, their enemies refused to fight them, and fled before a blow was struck. This allowed the Spartans to gain victories at minimal risk, and to retain their hegemony against the odds. Two parallel narratives found in Thucydides and Xenophon reveal Spartan efforts to restore their reputation when it was tarnished, first on Sphakteria, and then at Leuktra – proof of their desire to protect their dreaded name as a potent weapon of war. classical greece – sparta – tactics – military history – historiography

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Elena Franchi (University of Trento), The Memory of the Sacred Wars and Some Origin Stories According to a reconstruction that is partly ancient and partly modern, the First Sacred War broke out in the nineties of the 6th century BC, as Thessaly, Athens and Sycion, with the blessing of the Amphictyony of Anthela, attacked the impious (asebeis) Cirrhaians, who had cultivated the sacred land surrounding the sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi. In fact, different archaic and classical reports of attacks on Delphi were merged – at the time of the Third Sacred War and in the following decades – into one war, probably the first. However, this first war was not invented ex novo, as Robertson assumed. A reconsideration of the literary sources linked to the archaeological remains suggests that the archaeological case for locating a major horizon of violence and destruction in the years around and after the 580s is getting stronger and stronger, especially if one takes into account the dating of the first peribolos to the end of the 570s (at the earliest) and the destruction of the Maison Rouge c. 585–575. It was – in fact – the image of the First Sacred War which was heavily reinvented. The reinvention of this image shaped, in turn, the origin stories about peoples living in Central Greece: the origin of Phlegyans, Dryopes and Kragalidai was some way connected to places playing a key role in the Third and the Fourth Sacred Wars. first sacred war – phocians – phlegyans – dryopes – kragalidai Mark Thorne (Brigham Young University), Caesar and the Challenge of Commemorating the Battle of Pharsalia While it was customary for successful Roman generals to commemorate their victories through statues or other building projects, the most crucial victory in Caesar’s entire career, his defeat of Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalia in 48 BC, strikingly saw the least official commemoration of all his campaigns. The chief reason was that Pharsalia was specifically a victory in civil war, which made commemoration at the time by traditional means too controversial. The war’s continuation for four more years also meant that by the end of the conflict other victories could be celebrated, leading to a series of triumphs and victory monuments which commemorated Caesar’s victorious status generally but largely overlooked the key victory at Pharsalia that made everything else possible. Nevertheless, Caesar did succeed in commemorating Pharsalia in other ways: his Temple to Venus Victrix indirectly recalled its origin as having been vowed on the eve of that battle, the date of his victory there (9 August) was directly commemorated in the fasti, and finally his own written account of Pharsalia commemorated this decisive turning point in his career for future generations to a degree that no building program could equal. caesar – memory –roman victory – roman calendar – bEllum cIvIlE

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Giuseppe Albertoni (University of Trento), Heroes in aula Dei: Commemorating Wars and the Fallen in the Time of Charlemagne The age of Charlemagne was defined by war, and yet these wars never led to any particular forms of celebration: to celebrate would have meant to allow the possibility of something other than victory, and – since the actions of the King of the Franks and the will of God had become indistinguishable – this could not be done. For the Franks, therefore, the time before a war, or battle, was more important than the aftermath: it was before fighting that the sacred alliance with God had to be reaffirmed, through prayer, fasting and penitence. This meant that there was no space for a cult of the fallen because a victorious army had to be shown to be an army whose ranks included no fatalities. Losses could only be admitted off the actual battlefield, inflicted by ‘perfidious’ enemies. Anyone – of high rank – who died thus could be publicly remembered, but their achievements in battle were not commemorated: these men were celebrated as Christian heroes, figures in whom the bellic and moral virtues united. The Duke, Eric; the Prefect, Gerold and the seneschal, Eggihard: all three fell, all three were heroes in aula Dei. avars – carolingian warfare – charlemagne – franks – pippin of italy Alessandro Salvador (University of Trento – Herder Institut Marburg), Nationalism, the Politics of Memory, and Revisionism in the Transnational Relations of German WWI Veterans At the end of World War I, Germany was humiliated and punished by the post-war settlements. The country was considered solely responsible for the war that devastated Europe and was sanctioned accordingly. This narrative, however, was utterly rejected by political organizations, associations and pressure groups in Germany. The nationalist veterans, in particular, organized in the Stahlhelm Bund der Frontsoldaten, became political subjects and, throughout the inter-war period, fought for a politics of memory which rejected the premises of the post-war agreements. This paper analyzes this politics of memory in relation to the German veterans’ transnational activities and meetings with former enemies of the Entente. It also considers the German nationalists’ attempts to have the post-war agreements and order revised, both before and after Hitler’s rise to power. The ‘informal’ diplomacy of the war veterans is analysed in the context of Germany’s international relations in the inter-war period. veterans – politics of war – memory of war – revisionism – weimar republic

CONTRIBUTORS Giuseppe Albertoni is Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Trento. He studied History at the University of Bologna and his main research areas are early medieval politics and government, in particular the role of communities, aristocratic identity, kinships, and transmission of land in Carolingian and Ottonian society, subjects on which he has written extensively (his publications include L’Italia carolingia, 1997; Vassalli, feudi, feudalesimo, 2015). Holger Baitinger studied Prehistory in Tübingen and Munich, where he obtained his PhD in 1995. Having received a travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute in 1995/1996, he worked on several research projects in Germany, Greece, Turkey and Italy. From 2000 to 2002 he was responsible for setting up the Hessian National Exhibition “Das Rätsel der Kelten vom Glauberg” in Frankfurt on the Main. He has been teaching at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt since 2008, where he became – after his habilitation – a Privatdozent in 2016. Since 2015 he has had a research position at the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz. His studies focus mainly on the Hallstatt and Early La Tène period in Central Europe, Greek sanctuaries and the interaction between Greek colonists and indigenous people in Sicily. Simone Attilio Bellezza is Research Associate in Contemporary History at the University of Naples “Federico II”. He has completed two doctorates (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 2007; University of the Republic of San Marino, 2010). He specializes in Soviet and Ukrainian history. His current research topic is entitled “Ukrainian Transnational Activism: Human Rights and the End of the Cold War (1970s–1990s)”, the main objective of which is to investigate, through the study of the Ukrainian case, the importance of the relationship between diaspora communities and their original homeland in the emergence of human rights movements. His latest publication is The Shore of Expectations: A Study on the Culture of the Ukrainian Shistdesiatnyky (2018). Birgit Bergmann studied Classical Archaeology, Ancient History and Latin Philology at the universities of Göttingen and Munich where she completed her studies with a dissertation on Der Kranz des Kaisers. Genese und Bedeutung einer römischen Insignie supervised by Luca Giuliani. Being awarded the ‘Reisestipendium’ by the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) she afterwards spent one year visiting archaeological museums and sites around the Mediterranean before taking up a position as ‘Akademische Rätin a. Z.’ at the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the University of Regensburg. Her current research interest centres on the commemoration of battles by Greek poleis in Archaic and Classical times, a work that will

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culminate in a habilitation treatise to be handed in in 2018 whose final stage is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG). Johannes Birgfeld teaches German Literature from the 17th century to the present at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. His main research interests are Literature in German from the 18th, 20th and 21st centuries with specific focuses on literature in its historic contexts, on the relation between literature and war, and on the history of theatre and drama within the German-speaking world. His most recent publications include: Krieg und Aufklärung (2 vols., 2012), Rimini Protokoll close up: Lektüren (2015, co-editor), Albert Ostermaier: Von der Rolle oder: Über die Dramatik des Verzettelns (2016, editor). He also co-edits the series Kleines Archiv des 18. Jahrhunderts (St. Ingbert). Lilah Grace Canevaro is lecturer in Greek at the University of Edinburgh. Her research centres on ancient Greek hexameter poetry, with a focus on gender. She is pioneering new-materialist approaches to classical study, and has published also in the areas of classical reception, comparative literature, and cognitive humanities. Her first book Hesiod’s Works and Days: How to Teach Self-Sufficiency was published by Oxford University Press in 2015; her second, Women of Substance in Homeric Epic: Objects, Gender, Agency, in 2018. Mirko Canevaro is Reader in Greek History at the University of Edinburgh, and a winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize from the Leverhulme Trust, and of a Thomas Reid Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Among his main publications are The Documents in the Attic Orators. Laws and Decrees in the Public Speeches of the Demosthenic Corpus (2013) and Demostene, Contro Leptine. Introduzione, traduzione e commento storico (2016). He is the co-editor (with E. M. Harris) of the Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Law, and with B. Gray of The Hellenistic Reception of Classical Athenian Democracy and Political Thought (both with Oxford University Press). Nina Fehrlen-Weiss, M. A., has studied in Tübingen, Germany (early modern and modern history, political science and philosophy). Her current dissertation “The recollection of the Thirty Years᾿ War in Germany from 1945 till the present day” is being supervised by Prof. Dr. Matthias Asche in Tübingen. Since 2018 she has been employed as an archivist at the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg. Elena Franchi is Research fellow in Greek History at the Department of Humanities of the University of Trento (2018–). She received her PhD at the University of Genova (2008). She was a Von Humboldt fellow at the University of Freiburg i. B. (2011–2013) and won a Europa-fellowship to join the excavations at Kalapodi (Greece – Deutsches Archäologisches Institut) (2012). In 2017 she received the “abilitazione nazionale” as Associate Professor. Among her latest publications is the monograph Die Konflikte zwischen Thessalern und Phokern. Krieg und Identität in der griechischen Erinnerungskultur des 4. Jahrhunderts (Munich 2016).

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Maurizio Giangiulio is Full Professor of Greek History at the Department of Humanities of the University of Trento. He is also Coordinator of the Center of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (CeASHum) and Director in charge of the “Bernardo Clesio College”. Among his main research interests are the Western Greeks, ancient Pythagoreanism, and Herodotus. His latest books are Memorie coloniali (2010) and Democrazie greche. Atene, Sicilia, Magna Grecia (2015). His current research focuses on the processes of construction and transmission of historical traditions in Archaic and Classical Greece, and he is working on a book on oracular tales in Herodotus. Roel Konijnendijk is a Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leiden. After completing his PhD in Ancient History at University College London in 2015, he was awarded a Past & Present Junior Research Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research, and a Teaching Fellowship at the University of Warwick. His work is focused on Classical Greek tactics and tactical thought, its complex relation to the values and institutions of Greek culture, its modern historiography, and its frequent encounters with the Persian tactical system. His latest publication is the monograph Classical Greek Tactics: A Cultural History (2017). Blanka Misic obtained her PhD in Ancient History at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2013. She is currently a Faculty Member in the Department of Ancient Civilizations at Champlain College in Lennoxville and in the department of Classical Studies at Bishop’s University in Canada. Her research centres on exploring religious and cultural identities in the Roman provinces, with a particular interest in Roman Pannonia. She has previously published on the Mithraic cult at Poetovio, and is currently working on the cult of the Nymphs at Aquae Iasae. Marco Mondini studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, where he got his PhD in Contemporary History. He has been a Research Fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore, and a Visiting Professor at the École Normale Superieure of Paris, the University of Lille 3 and the University of Paris-Diderot. Currently, he is a researcher at the Istituto Storico Italo Germanico-FBK in Trento and an Adjunct Professor in Military History at the University of Padua. He is a member of the Historial de la Grande Guerre, based in Péronne (France), and section editor for “14–18 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War”. His main publications are La guerra italiana (2014) and Il Capo. La Grande Guerra del generale Luigi Cadorna (2017). Giorgia Proietti is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Greek History at the School of Humanities of the University of Trento, where she has been teaching first and second level MA courses since 2014. She has studied in Athens and London, and published several articles on national and international journals. Her research interests focus on Athens and the Greek world in the Classical period, especially on political and military history, and its social, memorial, and psychological implications. She is also interested in war and post-war from a comparative standpoint

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between ancient and modern times. She is currently working on her first monograph on the memory of the Persian Wars before and in Herodotus, stemming from her PhD thesis (Trento 2014). James Roy, after studies in the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, held posts in the Universities of Sheffield and Nottingham until retiring in 2004, since when he has been an Honorary Research Associate of the Department of Classics in the University of Nottingham. He has published extensively on Greek history from the archaic period to the Roman, especially on the history of Arkadia and the history of Elis, including the sanctuary at Olympia. These studies, especially those on Arkadia, have involved a continuing engagement with Pausanias. Alessandro Salvador studied contemporary history in Trieste and obtained his Ph. D. in Trento with a thesis on National Socialism and the radical right in inter-war Germany. He has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Herder Institut in Marburg, and at the University of Trento, and a Visiting Researcher in Munich (Institut für Zeitgeschichte), Berlin (Freie Universität) and Vienna (Universität Wien). His main research interests are the history of veterans and political radicalism in inter-war Europe, the various nationalisms involved in the dissolution of the Central Empires, and German occupation policies in World War II. His most recent publication is New Political Ideas in the Aftermath of the Great War (2017), co-edited with Anders Kjostvedt (Oslo). Mark Thorne is a Visiting Professor at Brigham Young University, where his research focuses on the intersection of Roman literature, history, and memory studies. He is particularly interested in the Roman epic poet Lucan, with publications on the role of memory in Lucan’s Bellum Civile and on the aesthetics of traumatic representation in both Lucan and literary portrayals of the Rwandan genocide. He also has forthcoming articles on the evolving meaning of Cato Uticensis in Roman cultural memory and on the theme of triumphal anxiety in Neronian literature. He is currently at work co-editing a volume that explores points of connection between Lucan’s epic and its contemporary historical, social, and literary contexts.

INDEX Anderson, Benedict 28 (n. 49), 41, 56 (n. 88), 340 anthropology 13, 17, 23, 25, 27, 28, 72, 74, 80, 82, 85 arms / armour / weapons 45, 46, 120, 124, 131, 132, 134–37, 189, 199, 225, 227, 229, 239, 249, 263, 290, 323; dedication of arms / armour / weapons 73, 113 (n. 10), 120, 121 (n. 66), 124, 135 Assmann, Jan 18 (n. 8), 25 (n. 34), 26, 48 (n. 54), 53, 56 (n. 85), 99 (and n. 23), 288 (nn. 8, 9) Assmann, Aleida 48 (n. 54), 288 (n. 9), 289 (n. 11), 320 (n. 7) Athens 46, 73, 74 (and nn. 12, 15), 75 (and n. 20), 82, 83 (n. 55), 84 (and n. 58), 115, 116 (n. 22), 119, 134, 135, 137, 144, 147–49, 152, 154, 189, 192 (n. 20), 194–97, 201, 259, 265, 272, 273, 280 (n. 45), 282 (n. 49), 338, 339 autobiographical narrations / war narratives / writings 39 (n. 20), 44, 80 (n. 39), 81 (n. 40) battlefield 42, 71, 112, 113 (and n. 7), 114 (n. 11), 115 (and nn. 17, 21), 117, 131–34, 148, 153, 158, 165, 172, 219, 220, 230, 231, 235, 239–41, 247–50, 263 (n. 35), 266–68, 288, 303, 304, 311, 314 Bergson, Henri 19, 20, 40 Bloch, Marc 18, 21, 55 brothers-in-arms / brotherhood 242, 243, 245 burials 50, 73, 75 n. 20, 77, 97, 114–16, 117 (and n. 28), 124, 131–34, 157, 212 (n. 30), 214 (n. 50) – communal burials / mass burials / polyandrion / polyandria 132, 133, 134, 338 – private burial 116, 338 – public / state burial 75 (n. 20), 114, 116, 133, 338 Caesar 47, 56, 57 n. 89, 80 n. 40, 287–98, 339–342 calendar 181, 294, 295 casualty list 37 (n. 5), 74, 75 (and nn. 19, 21), 77, 223 cenotaph 41, 74 (n. 13), 75 (n. 21), 115–18, 117 (n. 30), 338

Charlemagne 44, 301, 304–306, 308–14 Christ / Christianity / Christianization 22, 43, 44, 166, 173, 240, 305, 307–310, 312–314 civil war – American Civil War 36 (n. 2), 37 (n. 5), 73 – Roman Civil War(s) 47, 73 (n. 9), 288–98, 338, 342 – Russian Civil War 9 – Spanish Civil War 36 (n. 2), 49 (n. 58), 59 (n. 99) Classical reception 72, 78 (n. 32), 80 (n. 40) cognitivism 20, 25, 28, 192, 207, 212, 338, 341 collective identity: see identity collective memory 17–29, 36 (n. 2), 39, 40, 48 (n. 54), 54, 208, 211, 216, 240, 243, 288, 289 (n. 10), 297 commemorative landscape / topography 22, 29, 158, 166, 287 (n. 3), 339, 343 commemorative practices 22, 72 (n. 7), 208, 211, 214, 287, 288 (n. 9), 341 comparativism 13, 36 (n. 2), 53, 71–74, 77–80, 84, 85, 337 Connerton, Paul 55 (n. 81), 216 (n. 62), 243 courage 43 (n. 37), 46, 176, 187–201 cultural frames / frameworks of memory: see frames / frameworks of memory cultural memory 23, 25 n. 34, 48, 53, 54, 99 (n. 21), 194, 288 (n. 9), 289 cult of the fallen / war dead 42, 311, 313, 314 defeat 58, 60, 114, 115, 117 (n. 30), 120, 124, 134, 135, 174, 197, 221, 246, 258, 259, 265, 290, 293, 297, 311, 313, 331, 342, 343 Delphi 54, 118, 120, 123, 135–37, 144, 145, 147, 148 (n. 5), 151, 152, 271–77, 278 (n. 34), 279, 280–83 democracy / democratization 46, 49 (n. 58), 164, 189, 190, 192, 193, 195–97, 200, 201 (and nn. 54, 55), 233, 319, 320 emotions / emotional history 38 (and n. 11), 39 (and n. 18), 72, 73, 76, 77, 80, 81, 83, 190, 192, 193, 200, 201, 208–10, 212, 213, 214 (n. 44), 215, 216, 242, 243, 248, 264, 290 (n. 16) epigram 37 (n. 5), 96, 97, 198 epitaph 73 (n. 9), 78, 97 (n. 9), 134, 214 (n. 44), 239, 310, 311 (n. 66), 313

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Index

ethnic boundary 200; group 45–46; state 179 ethnos / ethne 46, 271, 274–76, 280, 281, 283, 343 ethnogenesis 45, 274; ethnopoiesis 45 face of battle 80 Fascism 175, 244, 328 fear 52, 58, 132, 175, 190, 192, 193, 194 (n. 30), 195, 198, 201, 243, 257, 259–61, 263–65, 267, 291 (n. 25), 307, 309, 331, 343 forgetting 24 (n. 28), 37, 48, 338–40 frames / frameworks of memory – cultural frames / frameworks of memory 55 – mediatic frames / frameworks of memory 53, 55, 57 – social frames / frameworks of memory 20, 24, 26, 53, 55, 288 – spatial frames / frameworks of memory 22, 27 freedom 76 (n. 22), 138, 151, 161, 188, 189, 200, 272, 295 funeral oration / logos epitaphios 73, 192 funerary commemoration 207 (n. 2), 208, 209, 215 Fussell, Paul 10, 36 (n. 2), 41, 80 (n. 39) gender / gendered 59, 60, 97, 98, 108 Halbwachs, Maurice 17–29, 40, 172 (n. 7), 288 (n. 8), 345 heroes 44, 78, 95, 99, 102, 103, 120, 152, 153, 157, 172, 173, 231, 240, 241, 243–45, 274, 289, 306, 311, 314, 342 historiography 9, 10, 13, 17, 18, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 41 (n. 26), 57, 58, 81, 161 Hobsbawm, Eric 41 Holocaust 36 n. 2, 76, 172, 175, 180, 181 home front 72, 79, 83, 84, 245 Homer 47, 59, 78, 81, 95, 96 (n. 6), 97–108, 118, 190, 191–94, 239 (n. 1), 241, 243–45, 248, 289 (n. 13), 338, 340 hoplites / hoplitism 81 (n. 41), 82, 83 (n. 51), 131, 132, 136, 199 and n. 47, 200, 257–60, 262, 264 identity 85, 120, 187, 216, 287, 288 (n. 8), 289, 290, 338, 341 – civic / polis identity 125, 213 – collective / community / polis / group identity 27, 45, 75 (n. 19), 117, 216, 288, 289 (n. 10), 338, 339, – 343 – imperial identity 298 – individual identity 211 (n. 28) – male / masculine identity 42, 240, 242 – military identity 212 (n. 34)

– national identity 172, 173, 178–80, 181, 340 – nationalist identity 319 – politics of identity 343 Iliad 58, 59, 78, 80 (n. 38), 96–107, 112 (n. 4), 239 (n. 1), 241, 245 inscriptions 51, 56 (n. 87), 57, 77 (n. 25), 96, 116 (n. 24), 120, 121 (and n. 66), 122–25, 134, 135, 137, 149, 150, 153, 174, 176, 199 (n. 47), 207, 211, 213, 215, 273, 274, 277 (n. 29), 287, 295, 297, 338 intermediality 55–57, 78 (n. 29) lieu(x) de mémoire 29, 153, 340, 342 local – cults / pilgrimage / sanctuaries / temples 120, 123 (n. 72), 150, 159, 228 – knowledge / memory / tales / traditions 28, 36, 54, 58 , 148, 149, 150–52, 164, 166 – monuments / objects / places 149, 159 – people (associations / community / families / élites / priests) 47, 77, 147, 149, 150, 164, 177, 212 n. 34, 213, 222, 321 (n. 13), 325 (and n. 28), 329, 330 losers 37, 45, 282 mass burials / polyandria: see burials media (of memory) 29 (n. 51), 55–58, 78, 101, 103, 108 mediatic frames / frameworks of memory: see frames / frameworks of memory memorial / mnemonic landscape / topography: see commemorative landscape / topography memory culture 48, 49, 73 (n. 10), 295 memory of peace: see peace memory politics: see politics of memory military history 71, 81, 187 histoire bataille 80 mnemotechnics 22 Mosse, George 10, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 240 multi-media 55 (n. 83), 77–79 multi-sensory (representation / experience): see sense / sensory history National Socialism / Nazism 52, 242, 319, 326, 328, 329, 331, 332 nationalism 40, 41, 47 (n. 49), 50 (n. 60), 52, 178, 320, 340, 346 Nora, Pierre 18 (n. 11), 25 (n. 34), 29, 172 (n. 7) objects 31, 35, 36, 59, 95, 98 (and nn. 17, 18), 99 (and n. 20), 100–3, 106–8, 122, 135, 147, 149, 151, 152, 157, 164, 171, 289, 307, 343 Olympia 113, 120, 121, 122 (n. 68), 123, 131 (n. 6), 134 (n. 40), 135, 136, 147, 148, 151

Index oral tradition 27, 28, 29, 53, 54, 57, 58, 95, 98, 99, 108 (oral memory), 208, 215 (n. 60), 338, 342 origin stories 43–46, 99, 166, 271–83, 304 Owen, Wilfred 71 Pausanias 45, 46, 132, 134, 136, 147–54, 263 (n. 35), 275, 277, 279, 342, 343 peace 49, 131, 157, 160–62, 165, 166, 265, 273, 320, 323–26, 327, 328, 330, 331 – memory of peace 49, 50, 157–66, 175, 241–45, 175, 321–22, 330–31 Pericles 73, 74, 193, 195–97 Persian Wars 45, 72 n. 3, 77 n. 28, 83 n. 55, 84 n. 58, 114 n. 11, 117, 118, 123, 133, 135, 137, 148 (and n. 7), 338 poetry 57–59, 71 n. 2, 95, 101, 103, 107, 108, 118, 192, 232, 241, 280 (n. 45), 338, 340 polemology 37, 38, 42, 271 politics of memory 36 (n. 2), 47, 48, 49 (and n. 58), 50, 73 (n. 10), 164, 166, 172, 173, 179, 320, 332, 342 post-war trauma: see trauma PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) 38, 881 (nn. 42 and 45), 82 public discourse 72, 73–74, 77 (n. 28), 200, 338 prayers 224–26, 303, 304–6, 314 remediation 55, 57–60 revisionism 319–32 Ranger, Terence 41 Ricoeur, Paul 24–25, 39–40, 48 rites / rituals 23, 29, 35–40, 41 (n. 25), 42–43, 46–47, 58, 75 (n. 20), 77, 83, 114, 118, 123, 150 (n. 18), 194, 207–16, 225, 243, 257, 288–90, 294, 295, 297, 304, 305, 309, 338, 341 Rome 37 (n. 5), 51, 53, 56–58, 83 (n. 5), 131, 287–98 sacred wars 118–9, 271–83, 342–43 sacrifice of soldiers: see self-sacrifice sanctuaries 113, 118–20, 122, 124, 131–32, 134–38, 148, 151–53, 159, 224 (n. 16), 271 (n. 4), 272, 276, 294, 338 self-sacrifice / sacrifice of soldiers 42–47, 73, 176, 188, 189, 224, 234, 235, 239–43, 248, 320, 328, 337, 343 senses / sensory history 77–80, 208 Smith, Anthony 41 social frames / frameworks of memory: see frames / frameworks of memory sociology of memory 18

361

soldiers 38, 39, 41–47, 50, 72–76, 78, 80–81, 83–84, 117, 131–38, 165–66, 174 (n. 11), 180, 198, 207–16, 219–24, 227, 229–30, 234, 239–47, 249–51, 259, 266, 289, 296, 308, 311, 313, 319, 321, 326, 328–32 Sparta 50, 52 (n. 70), 58, 59 (n. 98), 74 (n. 12), 112 (n. 4), 115 (nn. 17, 18, 20, 22), 119, 122, 133, 137, 147, 148, 149–54, 192–99, 201, 256–68, 272, 343 spectacle 79, 80 (n. 38), 260, 290, 291 Stalinism 177, 179 (n. 30) storytelling 108, 242, 243, 247, 271 tactics 52, 132, 164, 219–20, 221 temples 56, 57 n. 89, 59 n. 98, 114 n. 11, 118–20, 121, 135–37, 149–53, 273, 275–79, 287, 292–94, 297 Thirty Years’ War 46, 133, 157–66, 339, 343 tombs 41, 73 (n. 9), 74 (n. 13), 96, 97–99, 107, 108, 132–34, 144, 149, 151–52, 154, 209, 210, 212 (n. 34), 214, 116, 220, 226–27, 231, 235, 313, 339, 342 trauma 37–41, 208, 209, 239 – collective 40, 43–46, 297 – individual 38–40, 240, 246, 247, 251 – war / post-war trauma 37–41, 72, 78 (n. 28), 80–85, 240, 246, 247, 251 traumatic event / experience 37, 38 (n. 11), 39, 40, 45, 83, 208 trench 71, 239, 240, 242, 245–52, 320, 328, 339, 341 triumph 36, 42, 54 n. 77, 174, 290–92, 294, 297, 305, 340; triumphal arch 227, 235, 301; triumphal parade / procession 287, 288, 291, 292, 297 Trojans / Trojan War / Troy 78, 95, 96, 101, 105, 118, 147, 148, 190, 191, 272, 293, 304 trophies / tropaia 112–14, 117, 128, 133, 136–37, 143, 148–49, 152, 153, 221, 226, 228, 235, 239 Vansina, Jan 27–28, 95, 99, 342 veterans 36 (n. 2), 38 n. 12, 39, 46–47, 72, 74 (n. 15), 75, 80–82, 84, 85, 181, 208, 211–16, 240–44, 246, 319–31, 347 victory 37, 44–46, 50, 51–52, 56, 59 (n. 98), 76 (n. 22), 113 (n. 7), 114–15, 117–25, 133–38, 148 (n. 7), 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 162, 173, 174, 176, 178–9, 219, 221–22, 226, 228, 230, 248, 257, 259, 263–67, 272, 278 (n. 34), 287–90, 301–89, 312, 314, 339, 340 war memorials 36 (n. 2), 41, 42, 47, 51, 73 (n. 9), 74–77, 78, 96, 98, 102, 107, 113

362 (n. 7), 138, 147–54, 158, 163–64, 171–82, 227 (n. 25), 233–34, 242–45, 295, 337, 338–40, 342 war front 71, 72, 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 219, 220, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 245–52, 259, 264, 266, 301–302, 319, 323–4, 327–30 war trauma: see trauma winners 37, 282, 342

Index Winter, Jay 52 (n. 70) World War I 36 (n. 2), 37 (n. 5), 41, 42–44, 47, 49 (nn. 59, 60), 52, 74, 77 (n. 27), 111, 136, 138, 160, 187, 239–51, 319–32 World War II 36 (n. 2), 37, 49 (n. 60), 52, 55 (n. 81), 74, 77 (n. 27), 111, 131, 138, 160, 161, 164, 166, 171–76, 179–81, 240

Henning Börm

Mordende Mitbürger Stasis und Bürgerkrieg in griechischen Poleis des Hellenismus hIstOrIA – eInzelschrIft 258 2019. 362 Seiten 978-3-515-12311-2 gebunden 978-3-515-12312-9 e-bOOk

Das Phänomen der teils bürgerkriegsartigen Konflikte in griechischen Poleis, das die Forschung unter dem Begriff „Stasis“ zusammenfasst, ist in der Vergangenheit vorwiegend mit Blick auf die Archaik und Klassik untersucht worden. Henning Börm zeigt hingegen, dass es auch nach Alexander dem Großen in den Städten, die sich zunächst im Spannungsfeld der makedonischen Monarchien, später dann unter römischer Dominanz wiederfanden, vielfach zu Staseis kam. Ausgehend von einer Auswertung der literarischen und epigraphischen Überlieferung fragt Börm nach den Hintergründen und Konsequenzen der auffälligen Anfälligkeit vieler hellenistischer Poleis für innere Konflikte. Die Neigung zur Stasis lässt sich dabei nicht nur als Epiphänomen und Katalysator, sondern auch als Inhibitor von Transformationsprozessen in der griechischen Welt deuten. Statt eine bloße Randerscheinung zu sein, war Stasis vielmehr ein zentraler Faktor, dessen Analyse

dazu beiträgt, sowohl die Entwicklung der Poleis zwischen Alexander und Augustus besser zu verstehen als auch die Mechanismen der römischen Expansion im Osten des Mittelmeerraums. Aus dem InhAlt Vorwort | Einleitung | Die literarische Überlieferung | Die lokale Überlieferung | Die Stasis in der hellenistischen Geschichte | Ausblick | Bibliographie | Indizes der AutOr Henning Börm ist Privatdozent für Alte Geschichte an der Universität Konstanz. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte bilden die griechische Polis im Hellenismus, die römische Geschichte in Prinzipat und Spätantike, antike Bürgerkriege sowie die Beziehungen zwischen der Mittelmeerwelt und dem Sasanidenreich.

Hier bestellen: [email protected]

Rafał Matuszewski

Räume der Reputation Zur bürgerlichen Kommunikation im Athen des 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. hIstorIA – eInzelschrIft 257 2019. 375 Seiten mit 4 s/w-Abbildungen 978-3-515-12233-7 gebunden 978-3-515-12249-8 e-book

Dass sich Reputation und Anerkennung in vormodernen Gesellschaften, darunter im spätklassischen Athen, über Kommunikation in der Öffentlichkeit konstituierten, gilt als unbestritten. Wie wirkten sich aber Präsenz und Agieren in bestimmten Räumen, etwa auf der Straße oder der Agora, auf die Reputation der Athener aus? Welche Strategien setzten sie beim öffentlichen Auftreten ein und über welche Medien erfolgte die bürgerliche Kommunikation? Wie strukturierten Räume das Handeln der athenischen Bürger und inwiefern prägten soziale Normen ihr Alltagsverhalten? Antworten auf diese Fragen findet Rafał Matuszewski im athenischen Stadtbild: von den Straßen und Wegen, über die Agora, Bäder, Walkereien, Bordelle, Gymnasien und Palästren bis hin zu den Läden der Barbiere, Parfümhersteller, Schuhmacher und den Tischen der Bankiers, aber auch in Hotels,

Wirts- und Spielhäusern. Darüber hinaus nimmt er gesellschaftliche Verhaltensnormen und Kommunikationsmedien der Athener in den Blick und zeigt, wie Räumlichkeit, Normativität und Sozialität im spätklassischen Athen miteinander verschränkt waren. So entwirft Matuszewski ein anschauliches Bild der Lebenswelt athenischer Bürger im 4. Jh. v. Chr. Aus dem InhAlt Vorwort | Einleitung | Rolle und Wahrnehmung von öffentlichen Interaktionsräumen | Zwischenfazit | Normierung des öffentlichen Auftretens: Der Körper als Kommunikationsmedium | Selbstinszenierung in der Öffentlichkeit: Artefakte als Kommunikationsmedien | Die Macht der Pheme. Zur Bedeutung von Reputation und Anerkennung | Literaturverzeichnis | Indices | Register

Hier bestellen: [email protected]

Since Bouthoul’s seminal work on polemology (1951), war studies have been increasingly influenced by sociology, psychology and psychoanalysis, memory studies, and even literary theory; while also weathering the storms of the cultural turn and, more generally, postmodernism. These are challenges that raised new questions, or offered new answers. How is war memorialized and commemorated? How do individuals react to war trauma? How are individual reac­ tions and narratives implemented in collective thoughts, narratives and memories? How do societies remember wars, and how do these memories, in turn, affect political structures? How are public commemorations organized? These are some of the questions contemporary war studies are still engaged in. By presenting case studies both ancient and modern, from the ancient Greeks and Romans through medieval and modern times to contemporary history, this volume stimulates reflection on how and why individuals and societies remember and commemorate war.

ISBN 978-3-515-12175-0

9

7835 1 5 1 2 1 7 50

www.steiner-verlag.de Franz Steiner Verlag