Lists and Catalogues in Ancient Literature and Beyond: Towards a Poetics of Enumeration 9783110712230, 9783110712193

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp
Part I: Theoretical Approaches to Lists and Catalogues
Musing about a Table of Contents. Some Theoretical Questions Concerning Lists and Catalogues
Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology
Part II: The Cultural Poetics of Enumeration: Contexts, Materiality, Organisation
Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts. With an appendix on this Device in Borges and Hughes
Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists
The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire
Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute- Lists in Greek Hymns
(En)listing the Good Authors: The Defence of Greek Linguistic Variety in the Antiatticist Lexicon
Part III: The Poetics of the Epic Catalogue
The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic
Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach
Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues
Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid
Homeric Heroes Speaking in Lists: Comical Characterisation through Catalogues
Part IV: Beyond the Epic Catalogue: Literary Appropriations of Lists and Catalogues
Five Times Seven: Cataloguing the Seven against Thebes in Four Greek Tragedies
The Aesthetics of the Comic List
Cataloguing Contemporaries: Ovid Ex Ponto 4.16 in Context
Cataloguing Statues: Christodoros’ Ekphrasis of the Baths of Zeuxippos
List of Contributors
General Index General Index
Index of Ancient Passages Discussed

Citation preview

Lists and Catalogues in Ancient Literature and Beyond

Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes

Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Associate Editors Stavros Frangoulidis · Fausto Montana · Lara Pagani Serena Perrone · Evina Sistakou · Christos Tsagalis Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck Claude Calame · Jonas Grethlein · Philip R. Hardie Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds · Richard Hunter Christina Kraus · Giuseppe Mastromarco Gregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis Giusto Picone · Tim Whitmarsh Bernhard Zimmermann

Volume 107

Lists and Catalogues in Ancient Literature and Beyond Towards a Poetics of Enumeration Edited by Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle and Katharina Wesselmann

ISBN 978-3-11-071219-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-071223-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-071228-5 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020950025 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Editorial Office: Alessia Ferreccio and Katerina Zianna Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Preface The present volume has had a long gestation period. It originates in a conference panel of the 2014 Celtic Conference in Classics at the University of Edinburgh. Several chapters of this book were originally contributions to that conference, others have been commissioned at a later stage. We very gratefully acknowledge the generous conference funding we received from Max Geldner-Stiftung, Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft, and Fonds zur Förderung der Studien auf dem Gebiete der ägyptologischen, orientalischen und klassischen Altertumskunde (all Basel). We thank Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos for including this title in Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes. We also wish to thank the anonymous readers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of the entire book, as well as the editorial team at DeGruyter, Serena Pirrotta, Marco Michele Acquafredda, Anne Hiller and Katerina Zianna, for all their generous and efficient help with its production, and the research assistants at Kiel, Jennifer Dickler and Delf Lützen, who assiduously helped with copy-editing. We resist the temptation to give a list of reasons for the long time it has taken to publish this book, but wish to thank all contributors for their patience. R. Laemmle/C. Scheidegger Laemmle/K. Wesselmann Cambridge/Kiel, July 2020

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-202

Contents Preface  V List of Figures  XI List of Tables  XIII Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp.  1

Part I: Theoretical Approaches to Lists and Catalogues Sabine Mainberger Musing about a Table of Contents. Some Theoretical Questions Concerning Lists and Catalogues  19 Eva von Contzen Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  35

Part II: The Cultural Poetics of Enumeration: Contexts, Materiality, Organisation Nathan Wasserman Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts (with an appendix on this device in Borges and Hughes)  57 Charles Delattre Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  81 Richard Gordon The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  107 Oliver Thomas Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  145

VIII  Contents Olga Tribulato (En)listing the Good Authors: The Defence of Greek Linguistic Variety in the Antiatticist Lexicon  169

Part III: The Poetics of the Epic Catalogue Edzard Visser The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic  197 Johannes Haubold Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach  211 Christiane Reitz Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues  229 Stratis Kyriakidis Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  245 Katharina Wesselmann Homeric Heroes Speaking in Lists: Comical Characterisation through Catalogues  281

Part IV: Beyond the Epic Catalogue: Literary Appropriations of Lists and Catalogues Benjamin Sammons Five Times Seven: Cataloguing the Seven against Thebes in Four Greek Tragedies  305 Isabel Ruffell The Aesthetics of the Comic List  327 Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle Cataloguing Contemporaries: Ovid Ex Ponto 4.16 in Context  361

Contents  IX

Regina Höschele Cataloguing Statues: Christodoros’ Ekphrasis of the Baths of Zeuxippos  401 List of Contributors  421 General Index  425 Index of Passages Discussed  431

List of Figures Fig. 1: Letter from Dionysios to Ptolemaios.  97 Fig. 2: Palatinus Graecus 398: A table of contents for Antoninus Liberalis’ Metamorphoses.  99 Fig. 3: A dictionary of metamorphoses on papyrus.  102

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-204

List of Tables Tab. 1: Hyginus, Fab. 155, as a set of data.  90 Tab. 2: Hyginus, Fab. 155, towards a new edition?  91 Tab. 3: Antoninus Liberalis’ table of contents in Palatinus Graecus 398 as a set of data.  100 Tab. 4: Data available in an antique dictionary of metamorphoses.  103 Tab. 5: Catalogue of Statues on Display in the Zeuxippos (according to Christodoros).  407

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-205

Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann

Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp.

Lists and catalogues are ever-present. They are indispensable to a wide variety of cultural practices, and are a regular feature of texts and utterances of all kind. However we may define and distinguish various types of lists and catalogues, they are all instantiations of a wider practice of enumeration.1 The seeming simplicity and rigidity of the form foreground the principles of selection and combination which govern any linguistic utterance: What is in a list, what is left out? and how is it arranged? Lists and catalogues are open forms that may lead in diametrically opposed directions. Does a list aim at all-embracing, encyclopaedic comprehensiveness or rather at selectiveness and exclusion? Does a list impose order on a set of data or, on the contrary, render it discontinuous and fragmented? What, if any, taxonomies are at work in a list or a catalogue, and by what processes are they shaped and reshaped? What impact do specific writing and recording habits, as well as their media and material configuration, have on the shape of lists and catalogues? When, where and why do lists and catalogues gain currency as literary devices? Are there catalogues in purely oral discourse? If so, how are they performed? And what is their effect on the recipient, be it a solitary reader, or a mass audience of viewers and listeners? Lists and catalogues are exceedingly difficult to define. As Francis Spufford notes in The Chatto Book of Cabbages and Kings, one of the great contributions to the study of lists and catalogues, it is versatility that characterises lists and catalogues above all else, and to anthologise a great number of lists may in fact be the best (or perhaps the only?) way of describing them.2 Spufford’s introduction

 1 For a minimalist definition, see e.g. Belknap 2004, 15: “A list is a formally organized block of information that is composed of a set of members.” A vast array of refinements and specifications have been proposed, not least to differentiate catalogues from lists and other forms of enumeration. Thus, e.g., Minchin 2001, 74–75 notes different degrees of elaborateness in the presentation of enumerations, while Mainberger 2003, 4–6 differentiates enumerations according to the representational logic of different media. In this volume ‘list’ and ‘catalogue’ are not firmly separated as the terms are conceptually interrelated and both mark variations and degrees of the fundamental practice of enumeration (cf. e.g. Asper 1998, 915 for a definition of the ‘catalogue’ that emphasises variability and gradual differences). 2 Spufford 1989. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-001

  Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann cautions us that any attempt at classification and definition all too often generates another list: Writers who list may be impresarios of matter, commanding spoons, haystacks and Italian scooters to dance together; they may be mock-collectors, importing the methodology of a museum to set together the imaginary, the real, and the parodic; they may be demiurges, summoning things up out of darkness and naming them; they may be chroniclers sure that a hundred splendid names or battles are a hundred times more valuable than one; they may be connoisseurs of the mixed, the mingled, and the confused; they may be Saint Sebastians, variously pierced by flights of sharp experiences; they may be melancholy brooders over fragmentation; they may be rhetorical thunderers, raining down (as Virginia Woolf said of Swift) ‘an iron pelt of words’; they may be observers of everyday life, convinced they are reporting a naturalistic absence of connectedness; they may be treasure-hunters, more eager for profusions of pearls than for stories or histories. They may be exhilaratingly arrogant in their dispensation with the usual ways of telling, or be witty so doing, or intriguingly mute and mysterious, or more expansive than connected narration can withstand, or open in their invitation to the reader to piece matters together in whatever way seems right.3

Lists and catalogues can, it would seem, do it all, and are accordingly protean in their elusiveness. This volume, too, will side-step the question of definition and follow Spufford’s lead in exploiting the potential of the anthologising impulse which informs, to various degrees, any collection of scholarly articles. The individual studies assembled here are directed towards different types of lists and catalogues, and differ widely (and at times wildly) in their approaches. Together, they cover such a broad range of enumerative practices that (we hope) the recurring themes and shared concerns which emerge will help to trace the contours of that general poetics of enumeration towards which recent scholarship has been feeling its way. Lists and catalogues are indeed en vogue in literary studies — and well beyond. The notion that they were objects worth exploring was widely publicised and popularised when the Musée du Louvre elected none other than Umberto Eco as their ‘Grand Invité’ of 2009 to curate the exhibition Vertige de la Liste together with a series of events and associated talks.4 While his 2011 Confessions of a Young Novelist offers a facetiously autobiographical take on lists and catalogues,5 Eco  3 Spufford 1989, 6. 4 For information on the exhibition and programme of concomitant events, see https://www. louvre.fr/sites/default/files/medias/medias_fichiers/fichiers/pdf/louvre-louvre-invite-umbertoeco.pdf (last accessed 21.08.2020). 5 Cf. Eco 2011, 121–204 (ch. “My Lists”), here 121: “Perhaps, at the beginning of my career as a narrator of fiction, I did not realize how fond I was of lists. Now, after five novels and some other literary attempts, I am in a position to draw up a complete list of my lists. But such a venture

Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp.  

put his full weight as historian, art critic, semiotician, novelist and public intellectual behind the Louvre project. In the exhibition and the book published on the occasion (Vertige de la liste, Paris 2009 / Vertigine della lista, Milan 2009), Eco explored the ‘enumerative’ across time and media. Eco’s tour de force caps two extraordinarily productive decades in the academic study of lists and catalogues, a period which saw the publication of three major monographs in three different languages on the vertiginous variety of the enumerative in literature: Sabine Mainberger’s Die Kunst des Aufzählens. Elemente zu einer Poetik des Enumerativen (Berlin 2003), Robert E. Belknap’s The List. The Uses and Pleasures of Cataloguing (Yale 2004), and Bernard Sève’s De haut en bas. Philosophie des listes (Paris 2010).6 These critical assessments and theoretical explorations of enumerative modes have not yet had the impact on classical scholarship that they deserve. The engagement with lists and catalogues in modern literary studies and aesthetics routinely takes ancient models as a starting point, but there is no comparably comprehensive study focused on antiquity.7 Studies on lists and catalogues in classical antiquity remain almost exclusively limited to the epic catalogue, with the monumental Homeric Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2 taking pride of place,8 and — with some notable exceptions —9 offer little in terms of explicit theorising. The present volume is an attempt to close this gap and to foster dialogue between the re-appraisal of enumerative modes in literary and cultural theory and scholarship on ancient cultures. The volume does not of course exclude the epic catalogue — how could it? — , but it tries to recover a sense of the variety of other genres in which poets and writers used, and experimented with, enumerative forms. The contributions juxtapose literary forms of enumeration with an abundance of ancient non-literary, sub-literary or para-literary practices of listing and

 would take too much time, so I’ll limit myself to quoting some of my enumerations, and — as proof of my humility — comparing them with some of the greatest catalogues in the history of world literature.” 6 For further noteworthy interventions, see the contributions in Valette 2008, Milcent-Lawson/ Lecolle/Michel 2013 and to the issue on lists of Style 50:3, 2016. 7 For medieval literature Jeay 2006 and the contributions in Mühlethaler/Paschoud 2009 offer important starting points. 8 Seminal works on the epic catalogue include Gaßner 1972, Kühlmann 1973, Basson 1975, Visser 1997, and the contributions in the following note. For an extensive overview see Reitz/Scheidegger Laemmle/Wesselmann 2019. 9 Esp. Minchin 2001, Perceau 2001, Kyriakidis 2007 and Sammons 2010. We eagerly await Athena Kirk’s forthcoming monograph Ancient Greek Lists (Cambridge University Press).

  Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann cataloguing from fields as heterogenous as lexicography, mythography, genealogy, and magic. In bringing together these different approaches to this sprawling and variegated corpus, we hope that the volume will offer a sense of the hermeneutic, epistemic and methodological challenges which the study of lists and catalogues must confront. What unifies these studies, above all, is a shared interest in and attention to the dynamics, versatility and mediating power of lists and catalogues; what we hope emerges is a sense of how the interdependence of pragmatics, materiality, performativity and aesthetics are mediated in lists and catalogues. Part I. Theoretical Approaches to Lists and Catalogues confronts the often marginal and contested position that enumerative forms have long occupied in literary theory and criticism, and seeks to rehabilitate the project of a poetics of enumeration. The contributions in this section suggest that lists and catalogues in literature are not to be too easily dismissed as mere remnants of everyday practice or as elaborate but inert show-pieces. Rather, they must be recognised as versatile and dynamic structures that, more often than not, are inextricably intertwined with the narrative contexts in which they are embedded. For both contributors, lists and catalogues in literary texts are sites of negotiation where fundamental questions — of textuality, literariness and interpretation — can be put to the test. This section opens with Sabine Mainberger’s contribution which centres not on one of the canonical examples of literary catalogues but on that most mundane and unpretentious of lists: the table of contents to this volume. As she demonstrates in a veritable tour de force of reading, contextualising, re-reading and re-contextualising, very many ordering principles may be seen at work in the simple list of names, academic affiliations and chapter titles, some overlapping and complementary, others apparently conflicting and mutually exclusive. Mainberger’s contribution thus raises the fundamental question of where the meaning of an enumeration resides — in the semantic properties of the listed entries, the syntactic properties of the list as a whole, or in the hermeneutic practice of the reader? Eva von Contzen’s chapter similarly starts from the observation that lists and catalogues resist straightforward description. Enumerative forms are ubiquitous in human culture, and a poetics of enumeration must take account of the paradox that list-making is both a highly specific practice and an anthropological constant. Accordingly, von Contzen proposes a ‘listology’ that does not consist in a unified theory, but, perhaps inevitably, in a list of heuristic criteria for the description of lists that integrates pragmatics, formal poetics and the aesthetics of

Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp.  

reception. Ultimately, such a multi-faceted approach reflects the fact that lists and catalogues prompt complex strategies of sense-making which belie the seeming straightforwardness and simplicity of their form. The relation between lists and catalogues, on one hand, and narrative forms, on the other, is especially difficult to conceptualise. Lists are governed by a spatial logic of juxtaposing disparate and discontinuous elements, rather than a temporal logic of clear-cut sequences, and thus may seem at odds with the normal workings of narrative. As von Contzen argues, however, lists and catalogues often play a pivotal role in the reception of narratives. More than any other form, they amplify and foreground the basic hermeneutic procedures of supplementation and integration, and thus ultimately constitute “a narrative fascinosum, a literary form that startles and entertains, that attracts and repels” (51). Part II. The Cultural Poetics of Enumeration: Contexts, Materiality, Organisation offers six chapters that confront lists and catalogues within a broad range of pre-, sub- and para-literary practices of enumeration. Covering phenomena from Ancient Mesopotamian inventories to the list-making machine that is today’s Wikipedia, from love poetry to curse tablets, from alphabetical hymns to ancient lexica, the section focuses on the complex relations between enumeration and textuality. Nathan Wasserman opens the section with an overview of the types of lists that occur in the Mesopotamian literary tradition and discusses their relation to their non-literary counterparts in bureaucratic inventories and accounts as well as to the lexicographical lists of scholars and scribes. While lists and catalogues in literature have often been seen as the remnants of earlier oral poetry and formulaic composition-in-performance, Wasserman takes a sceptical view and suggests that they find an equally — if not more — important explanation in scribal culture. As Wasserman shows, scribal practice not only had one of its fundamental purposes in the production of lists, as it catered to a bureaucratic system in need of accurate records, but scribal knowledge itself crucially hinged on lists: lexicographical lists, above all else, served both as a repository and a teaching tool of scribal knowledge and skill. For all their differences in outlook, lists and catalogues in literature not only display close structural similarities to the different types of non-literary lists, such as legal texts or lexica, but they are often informed by the same semantic régimes that have come to be associated with them: the definitional impulse of simple lists which strive towards the expression of totality and exhaustiveness (A–B–C–…–N or A1–A2–A3–…–An), or the dynamism and directionality of chain-

  Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann like enumerations (A, A–B, B–C, C–D, …, –N or A1–A2, B1– B2, C1–C2, …N1–N2) which imply authorial control and meaningful order. Wasserman’s set of case studies not only sheds light on the association of lists and catalogues with writing practices but also on the specific interplay of form and function that lies at their heart. A third set of questions arises in the last section of this chapter with comparatist readings of Jorge Borges and Ted Hughes, thus juxtaposing the earliest texts discussed in this volume with some of the latest. How are we to account for uncanny similarities between these decidedly modernist poets and the early Mesopotamian tradition? Are there transhistorical continuities of list-making, or do the archaic and arcane forms of the earliest tradition hold a special attraction for 20th century avant-garde aesthetics? Charles Delattre’s chapter on lists in ancient mythography similarly stresses the need of assessing lists in their relation to writing, reading, and, fundamentally, to ‘using’ texts. Departing from the notion of the text as a mere repository of meaning, Delattre embraces the idea of the text as, rather, a site of the production of meaning, and insists that this does not rest on a uniform practice but rather a variety of highly specific forms of interaction. Above all, Delattre emphasises the mutual influence of usability and material form. The specific practices of engaging with and making use of texts shape, and are in turn shaped by, the material presentation of these texts — their script, punctuation, paragraph divisions, and general mise-en-page. Lists, Delattre argues, constitute a particularly versatile form of text and, indeed, seem almost emblematic of post-modern views of the text as ‘always already in use’. Lists do not simply contain and provide information, but they organise it in ways that permit different readings, invite further engagement and allow for interventions, additions, re-arrangement. Unsurprisingly, they loom large in the traditions of ancient mythography which collects and systematises a fundamental knowledge that permeated all aspects of everyday life — “a living material, halfway between archive and continuous use and performance” (92). Delattre illustrates these claims in a set of readings that compare the ever-expandable and fluid lists in Web environments with those in Greek and Roman mythographic manuscripts and papyri, and points out how interventions by authors, scribes, editors and readers intersect in these texts. A similar pragmatics of listing lies at the heart of Richard Gordon’s contribution on curse tablets which, by their very nature, are designed to ‘do things with words’. Transposed to a written medium, the curses gain in durability but lack the immediacy of the original speech act and must rely on compensatory strategies to assert their illocutionary force. Lists and catalogues routinely feature as a means of bolstering the authority and efficacy of the curse texts. Gordon deliberately focuses on ‘indigenous’ curse-practice, that is the texts produced by ‘the

Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp.  

man in the street’ rather than by priests and religious experts, and thus presents a set of texts that rarely, if at all, employ sophisticated rhetorical strategies. While they represent highly specific responses to everyday problems — arguments in the workplace, rivalries of opposing fan groups in the Circus, the experience of petty crime, ill fortune, ill health vel sim. — they rarely offer much detail on either the back-stories or the motivations of their authors. They do, however, often feature lists of names that betray a concern with identifying the targeted evil-doers, at times evoking the language of magisterial decrees and legal documents. Indeed, the lists we encounter in ‘indigenous’ curse tablets — which also include more complex lists such as symptomologies detailing the hoped-for effects of a curse — are often rather haphazard adaptations of established enumerative régimes and represent, perhaps, the diffuse practical knowledge of listing that has trickled down to the lower strata of society and conditions their world view. Oliver Thomas’ chapter complements Gordon’s exploration of religion and magic as it centres on the function of lists in hymnic poetry. Specifically, Thomas is interested in the lists of divine attributes that often feature in the hymnic address of a divinity. The accumulation of largely unconnected, often disparate epitheta has often been dismissed as an unsophisticated form — a sort of zero degree — of description. Thomas proposes a reading which takes the list form seriously as an attempt at conceptualising divinity. While many hymns feature relatively short and localised attribute lists, Thomas’ sample of four hymns — the Homeric Hymn to Ares, an alphabetic hymn to Apollo (AP 9.525), a magical hymn to Selene (PGM IV.2786–2870), and an Orphic Hymn to Athena (32) — consist almost exclusively of divine epithets and allow him to explore in full the effects of such lists. For all their specific differences, the four hymns share a tendency, Thomas suggests, of defying ordinary logic and flouting the need for coherence that dictates other forms of linguistic representation. The list form privileges the mere juxtaposition of divine attributes over their logical delineation, and allows for the co-presence of different ordering principles without committing to any one of them at the expense of others. Indeed, the anti-logic of juxtaposing does not privilege semantic relations between the epithets over those based on their materiality — rhythmical regularities, assonances, similarities in word formation etc. —, and it presents itself as both open-ended and finite, both as a random miscellany and as a meaningful selection. Thus, the alphabetical hymn to Apollo suggests encyclopaedic comprehensiveness as it offers a set of four epithets for each of the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet; at the same time, however, the hymn — just as its counterpart to Dionysus (AP 9.524) — somewhat inconsistently reaches its midpoint, with epithet 48 of 96, in the word μυριόμορφος — “of a thousand

  Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann forms” —, thereby undermining the zeal for total coverage. Ultimately, Thomas suggests that the list form – which has a presence in hymns well beyond strings of epithets – contributes to the triangulation of performer, human audience and divine addressee which is germane to all hymns. Lists and catalogues command the audience’s attention and advance a heightened form of engagement with the divine. The openness and flexibility of the list form also stand at the centre of Olga Tribulato’s discussion of ancient lexicography which, Tribulato argues, confronts us with a set of quintessentially open and dynamic texts: far from offering a neutral or self-contained description of linguistic usage, the lexicographical texts from antiquity offer specific interventions in literary exegesis, grammatical scholarship and the wider politics of language. At the same time, they are themselves subject to interventions over time: lexica are used, expanded, augmented, revised, shortened or epitomised. With the advent of the so-called Atticist lexica in the second century AD, moreover, ancient lexicography adopts an increasingly prescriptive stance: these lexica take account of the linguistic past in order to shape the linguistic future. In their normative orientation towards the perceived purity of Classical Attic, they paradoxically both foster and restrict the production of new texts. As Tribulato argues, the list format which lexicographical texts often adopt is the ideal vehicle for this negotiation of openness and closure, textual productivity on the one hand and normative limitation on the other. Tribulato focuses on the so-called Antiatticist lexicon which, as she shows, does not so much negate as recalibrate the linguistic agenda of Atticist lexica. Rather than attempting to shape contemporary language in the image of classical Attic, it vindicates koine usage by tracing it back to venerable precedents in literary texts, both Attic and non-Attic. Thus, it suggests a continuity of literary and spoken language and promotes a broader understanding of hellenismos, which ultimately finds an appropriate expression in the form of the ever-expandable list. Part III. The Poetics of the Epic Catalogue centres on the epic catalogue which, already in antiquity, was understood as the quintessential embodiment of literary enumeration and has been adduced as a dominant model ever since. As the contributions to the section show, however, the idea of the epic catalogue, monumental and monolithic, is a mirage. Ancient epic comprises a wide variety of enumerative and catalogic forms that permeate virtually all narrative contexts, and those catalogues which above all have become models — the Homeric Catalogue of Ships and the Virgilian troop catalogues — are notoriously complex and far removed from simple list formats. The contributions are united in their attempt not only to elucidate the origin and development of catalogues in epic but also to

Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp.  

illustrate the richness and multidimensionality that characterise both the form and literary uses of epic catalogues. Edzard Visser opens the section by re-assessing the age-old discussion of the development of the epic catalogue in the early stages of Greek literacy. He distinguishes two fundamental types of epic catalogues — the grammatically uniform and highly condensed list, mostly of names (type A), and a more loosely structured form where all entries share a number of recurring characteristics but also allow for individual elaboration and narrative vignettes (type B). Visser notes that catalogues of the first type proliferate in the Iliad and Hesiodic poetry but become much rarer in the later epic tradition which, in turn, shows a preponderance of the second type. Drawing on parallels in Linear B tablets, he suggests that the prevalence of type A lists in the Iliad reflects Mycenean influence, not just on the subject matters of early Greek epic but equally on its poetic form. Visser, however, cautions against any simplistic view of such lists as inert, fossilised relics of an earlier tradition and proposes a functional explanation instead. In his view, these early catalogues were the prime vehicle for the information about the past — historical, aetiological, genealogical — that was essential for the epic poets and their audience, as it underpinned their shared world view and sense of community. Johannes Haubold focuses on the related question of the common ground between Early Greek and Akkadian Epic. While much scholarly effort has gone into attempts at establishing trajectories of influence between the two cultures, Haubold espouses a model of comparatism which resonates with the comparative framework of the entire volume. Thus side-stepping the fraught questions of sources and influence, Haubold addresses the experience of a reader who engages with both traditions, reads them alongside each other and adduces one as the resource for the study of the other. As he argues, epic catalogues offer an intriguing case study for such a reader-oriented approach. While they have emerged in radically different cultural milieus — with Akkadian epic’s interaction with traditions of Listenwissenschaft standing in stark contrast to the oral poetics of Early Greece — the catalogues of both cultures play similar roles in their respective epic traditions: not only do they serve as repositories of knowledge or information, but they also offer subtle reflections on the poems and their world view. As Haubold demonstrates in a set of exemplary readings, comparison helps to give a more nuanced account of the catalogues’ structures and to elucidate the specific functions they fulfil. What emerges is a clear view of the multi-layered nature and malleability of epic catalogues. Thus, Gilgamesh’s catalogue of Ishtar’s former lovers (SB Gilgamesh VI.44–47 and 58–79) is not only a powerful rhetorical performance but also a meditation on divine order and justice, and as such, it is comparable to various catalogues in the speeches of the Iliad. Similarly,

  Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann the travelogues in the Odyssey and the Gilgamesh Epic both serve to map out the protagonists’ travels but equally account for their intellectual and hermeneutic journeys. The catalogue of Zeus’ offspring at the close of the Theogony (which then finds a continuation in the Catalogue of Women) and the catalogue of Marduk’s fifty names at the end of Enūma elîš both reflect on the fraught question of where cosmology ends. While the Akkadian epic concludes its account with the assertion of the god-king’s supremacy, Hesiod ultimately closes the gap between cosmogony and the dominant tradition of the Homeric epics about the heroic age. For all their differences, however, both catalogues serve as devices of closure. Christiane Reitz’s chapter surveys the Graeco-Roman epic tradition to consider the epic catalogue’s role as repository of knowledge and information. While the epic catalogue is a persistent feature of ancient epics, Reitz notes, it is by no means a static set-piece. Rather, the catalogues in epic appear as privileged sites of poetic innovation and metapoetic deliberation where fundamental epistemological questions come to the fore. Thus Reitz introduces the epic catalogue as “one of the most reliable and foreseeable parts of epic narrative” and, “at the same time, one of the most unreliable” (229). The frequent invocation of the Muses, or other divinities, at the outset of catalogues is a case in point: while such invocations serve to explain the poet’s access to privileged divine knowledge and thus to bolster his authority, they also serve as a reminder of the limitations of human knowledge and perception. Similarly, the rhetoric of ordering, numbering, or completeness is often adduced to bolster a description’s claim to precision and exhaustiveness, which is then substantiated in a detailed catalogue. There are, however, numerous instances where the potential for a catalogic description is flagged up but never actualised. Thus, the series longissima rerum depicted in Dido’s golden cups in Aeneid 1.641 opens the possibility of a catalogue without offering one. Conversely, Silius tells of the longus rerum et spectabilis ordo (Pun. 6.657) of images on the temple of Liternum which Hannibal surveys before he decides to destroy them; as Silius catalogues them in an extensive ekphrasis (6.653–697), however, they are now endowed with literary memoria, and the tale of Hannibal’s iconoclasm ultimately accentuates the mnemonic feat of Silius’ poem. In both cases, there is a disjunction between the fictional world of epic and its representation in the medium of literature, and the catalogue emerges as a site where the powers and limitations of literary representation are reflected. Reitz concludes her contribution with a perspective on further research on the (meta)poetics of the epic catalogue. The relation between catalogues and authority is also at issue in Stratis Kyriakidis’ contribution on heroic genealogies in Graeco-Roman epic. Genealogical catalogues are a mainstay of the epic tradition, as they reflect broader concerns

Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp.  

with ancestry, filiation and one’s relation to the past. As Kyriakidis shows in his comparative analysis of the Homeric poems, Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the form and rhetorical use of such catalogues varies according to the exigencies of the narrative context and indeed of the ideological outlook of the respective poems. Kyriakidis shows that these differences are reflected in the particular structure of these catalogues and in fact argues that “the structure of a catalogue is never exclusively an instance of mere poetic technique isolated from the context and content of the passage” (246). In the Iliad, most genealogical accounts are delivered by the descendant who validates himself by invoking his lineage, and the prevalent emphasis on the male line of descent (at the exclusion of women) is mirrored by the rigorous parataxis and the descending mode in which the genealogy is presented. While the Odyssey occasionally follows the Iliadic precedent — Telemachus’ account of his ancestry at Od. 16.117–120 is a case in point — it generally eschews the model of heroic self-assertion. As Kyriakidis shows, genealogical catalogues in the Odyssey are generally highly variable: not only do they follow a looser and more versatile structure, but they increasingly focus on the female line of descent and are typically voiced by a third party and not the descendants of the line themselves. Kyriakidis’ sample of Latin epics similarly offers two markedly different conceptions of genealogy. In the Aeneid, Kyriakidis argues, genealogy serves to legitimise and stabilise ideas of political progress. Thus, the genealogy of the central hero crucially contributes to the historical teleology and mediation of Roman identity that lie at the heart of the poem. But equally within the logic of the narrative, genealogical catalogues are increasingly politicised. They serve less to amplify the honour of the hero than the glory and prosperity of his people. In contrast, Ovid’s Metamorphoses repeatedly upset inherited ideas of legitimacy through descent and indeed question the value of genealogical accounts altogether. As Kyriakidis argues, the account of Julius Caesar in Metamorphoses 15.852–860 who sees his achievements surpassed by his descendant Augustus, is emblematic of this scepticism. In a world of continuous metamorphosis, genealogy can no longer serve as a stable referent but is only ever provisional, skewed, and always already in need of revision. The subversive potential of catalogues also lies at the heart of Katharina Wesselmann’s chapter which leads back to Early Greek Epic. Wesselmann argues that there are numerous catalogues in the Homeric epics which cannot easily be explained in functional terms, but appear self-defying or curiously out of place. Such catalogues can have comical or parodic effects, which, in turn, contribute to the characterisation of the respective speaker. Her main example is a short list of accomplishments which Hector gives to Aias before engaging in a duel with

  Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann him (Il. 7.237–241). In and of itself, his speech does not significantly differ from other boastful battle speeches, but the wider narrative context gives a less than flattering portrait of Hector. In an over-confident manner, he had challenged the Greeks to nominate somebody to fight him in a duel; when he learns, however, that they have chosen Aias with his gigantic shield, his courage quickly turns into panic. In light of this build-up of the scene, Hector’s list can be seen to express his fear and agitation; not only does the rushed staccato of the list betray Hector’s haste, but he also enumerates battle skills that are irrelevant in a duel and puts much weight on his small shield and the agility it allows — thus obviously confronting his fear of Aias’ signature weapon. The sudden switch from boastfulness to panic has a comical effect — probably not just to the modern reader. Indeed, Wesselmann argues, there are several other examples of parodic or comical catalogues in Homer, such as Agamemnon’s extraordinary catalogue of gifts in Il. 9.120–157: the very long list of disproportionate gifts reveals that the speaker is both desperate and completely lacks understanding of the situation (as Achilles is quick to point out, when Agamemnon’s offers are recounted to him). Agamemnon’s list finds an echo in his younger brother’s similarly hapless enumeration of inappropriate presents to Telemachus in the Odyssey (4.589–592). Further examples serve to illustrate how speakers are characterized by the catalogues they include in their speeches. For Wesselmann, the most prominent case of a potentially comical catalogue, the outrageously inappropriate record of past lovers that Zeus declaims to his ever-jealous wife Hera in Iliad 14, not only illustrates the god’s remarkable erotic appetite and susceptibility to female charm, but equally portrays a comical, hasty or panicked manner of speaking. Returning to the character of Hector, Wesselmann concludes with a reflection on the question of how the presence of such comical instances relates to the tragic world view that underpins the Iliad. Part IV. Beyond the Epic Catalogue. Literary Appropriations of Lists and Catalogues rounds the volume off with studies of lists and catalogues in a wide range of ancient literary texts, from classical Athenian drama to late Imperial epigram. What unites these texts is their engagement with the tradition of the epic catalogue, which they adopt, challenge and re-purpose while at the same time affirming it as their defining model. The contributions in this section bear eloquent testimony to the rich literary and meta-literary potential of lists and catalogues. In the first chapter of this section, Ben Sammons investigates the dynamics of tradition that underpin ancient catalogues, as he focuses on five catalogues of

Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp.  

the ‘Seven against Thebes’ from four surviving tragedies (Aeschylus’ Septem, Euripides’ Phoenissae and Supplices, and Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus). These catalogues of the Seven are not only united by their shared engagement with the catalogues of epic, but they constitute a small-scale tradition of their own, with each catalogue variously supplementing, correcting, or indeed commenting on its precedents. In this, Sammons insists, the tragic catalogues do not offer radical departures from the model of the epic catalogue, but rather acknowledge and exploit the versatility, continuing vitality and creative potential that defines the catalogic forms of epic themselves. The messenger’s account of the seven leaders in Aeschylus’ Seven (375–652) is a case in point. As it is repeatedly interrupted by Eteocles’ and the chorus’ interventions and questions, the messenger’s narration is dramatized. At the same time, however, this adaptation of epic diegesis to the dialogic framework of drama looks back to precedents in the Homeric epics, namely the Iliadic teichoskopia, which similarly blends the catalogic form with dialogue and description, and thus adumbrates the hermeneutic issues which take centre stage in Aeschylus, where the catalogue of the Seven emerges as precarious and unstable: while it purports to offer matter-of-fact description, it is open to (mis)interpretation and aggressive readings. Perhaps in reaction to Aeschylus’ loose adaptation of the teichoskopia, the catalogue of Euripides’ Phoenissae evokes the Homeric model rather more directly, even if it is the old servant who identifies the warriors for young Antigone, while in the Iliad Helen furnishes explanations for the old men of Troy (103–192). As in Aeschylus’ play, the Phoenissae thus explores the emotionalised response that the descriptive catalogue elicits from the internal audience. As Sammons argues, the reception of catalogues is also at issue in a second catalogue of the Seven in Phoenissae, which occurs in the messenger speech (1104–1140). Widely considered a later interpolation, it may in fact be seen as evidence for the continuing appeal of the catalogic form; the passage was possibly inserted to give an actor the opportunity to showcase his performative skill. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the idea of public performance is not absent from the catalogues in Euripides’ Supplices and Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus which explore the rhetorical effects of the catalogue form, not least in relation to ideas of civic cohesion in Athens which were tied up in specific practices of non-literary listing, such as the casualty lists and the epitaphioi logoi in times of war. Isabel Ruffell’s contribution on Old Comedy demonstrates the sheer abundance of lists and catalogues and related forms of verbal accumulation in tragedy’s ruder sister; Ruffell also subsumes other phenomena, such as frequently dissonant tricola or extravagant compound coinages, in her survey of the comic poets. While Ruffell takes formal considerations as her starting point, she pushes

  Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann back against a formalist reading which dismisses such a display of rhetorical exuberance as mere playfulness. Ruffell advocates the close study of the generative principles behind comic lists and list-like phenomena — the suspension of conversational norms, the defamiliarisation of central concepts, by way of displacement, inordinate condensation or expansion — and shows that they are a crucial part of the associative framework within which Old Comedy reflects on and criticises basic notions and concepts of Athenian culture and politics, be it the ‘citizen’, the ‘politician’, ‘peace’ vel sim. As Ruffell demonstrates in a detailed reading of the Acharnians, lists, catalogues and related phenomena of enumeration and accumulation do contribute to Comedy’s humorous effects in their blatant violation of the rules that govern everyday communication (a diagnosis which leads back to Wesselmann’s discussion of mis-placed or seemingly out-of-place catalogues in epic), but they are also deeply implicated in the conceptual work of the comic dramas. Scheidegger Laemmle’s contribution explores the uses of catalogues in shaping ideas of literary history, and centres on Ovid’s elegy Ex Ponto 4.16, the poem that has come down to us as Ovid’s very last, positioned at the close of the (purportedly) posthumous collection of exilic poems. The elegy sets a remarkable end point to Ovid’s poetic career, as it departs from the self-centred poetics of Ovidian exile to turn attention to the literary scene in Rome, offering a catalogue of no less than thirty-one younger contemporaries. The catalogue form itself gestures towards a specific set of enumerative practices which had emerged in earlier literary criticism and literary history — victor lists, pinakes, library inventories etc. —, and were the object of renewed interest in the cultural revolution under Augustus. Yet, Ovid’s poem puts a new and decisive spin on this tradition as it displaces its mechanisms from historical authors to contemporaries. Ovid’s poem probes the limits of the notions that commonly underpin the idea of literary history — authority, fame, canonicity —, and confronts literary history with a provocative account of the contemporary: transient and provisional, the contemporary resists any exhaustive or authoritative treatment. The paradoxical quality which Scheidegger Laemmle attributes to the catalogue of Ex Ponto 4.16 — of both providing and withholding information — makes it an ideal articulation of the contemporary, and proves particularly apt to mediate the poet’s attitude towards, and place within, the whole field of literature. In the last contribution to the volume, Regina Höschele studies Christodoros’ Ekphrasis of the Baths of Zeuxippos (transmitted as book 2 of the Anthologia Palatina), where the question of the relation between the literary and the real, which haunts so many lists and catalogues, comes to the fore. Christodoros’ poem offers

Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp.  

ekphraseis of 80 bronze statues displayed in the Zeuxippos Baths at Constantinople, which variously represent thinkers, poets, orators and statesmen, as well as divinities and mythological figures, both Greek and Roman. Scholarship on the poem has been vexed by the question of the catalogue’s referential quality; the historical record offers tantalising evidence for the construction and decoration of the Baths under Constantine and for their complete destruction in the sixth century AD, and various attempts to reconstruct the statuary, or make inferences about the curatorial design of the collection, from Christodoros’ text have unsurprisingly proliferated. Höschele argues, however, that the poetic text derives much of its power from this specific relation to extra-literary reality and in fact repeatedly thematises it by pitching poetic speech and the eloquence of literature against the silence and immobility of the mute bronze statues, and by grouping and sequencing the descriptions in such a way that the statues are incorporated into a genuinely literary order. Thus, Christodoros’ poem is structured, first and foremost, by ekphraseis of statues from the Trojan myth and Greco-Roman history which enact the framework of translatio imperii from Troy to Rome and, ultimately, to Constantinople. This is mirrored by an idea of poetic succession which connects the Homer of the Iliad and Odyssey with the Homer of Byzantium, with Virgil and, ultimately, with Christodoros himself, who are all heirs to the Homeric tradition. It is only fitting, then, that the Homeric epics also seem to provide the generative nucleus from which Christodoros develops his programme: it is the unimposing group of the four Trojan Elders, Panthoos, Thymoites, Lampon and Klytios (246–255), which holds the interpretative key to Christodoros’ enumeration. They were among the Elders who once listened in thrall to Helen when she named the Greek warriors from the walls of Troy. The Homeric teichoskopia thus not only provides a model for the catalogic organisation of the poem but also offers, embodied in the four old men — spectators par excellence —, a paradigm of visuality, description and interpretation.

Works Cited Asper, M. (1998), “Katalog”, in: G. Ueding (ed.), Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, vol. 4. Tübingen, 915–922. Basson, W.P. (1975), Pivotal catalogues in the Aeneid, Amsterdam. Belknap, R.E. (2004), The List. The Uses and Pleasures of Cataloguing, New Haven. Eco, U. (2009), Vertige de la liste, Paris [publ. in Italian as Vertigine della lista, Milan 2009]. Eco, U. (2011), Confessions of a Young Novelist, Harvard. Gaßner, J. (1972), Kataloge im römischen Epos. Vergil – Ovid – Lucan. Diss., Munich.

  Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann Jeay, M. (2006), Le commerce des mots. L’usage des listes dans la littérature médiévale (XII– Xve siècles), Geneva. Kühlmann, W. (1973), Katalog und Erzählung. Studien zu Konstanz und Wandel einer literarischen Form in der antiken Epik. Diss., Freiburg i.Br. Kyriakidis, S. (2007), Catalogues of proper names in Latin epic poetry: Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Newcastle. Mainberger, S. (2003), Die Kunst des Aufzählens. Elemente zu einer Poetik des Enumerativen, Berlin et al. Milcent-Lawson, S./Lecolle, M./Michel, R. (eds.) (2013), Liste et effet liste en littérature, Paris. Minchin, E. (2001), Homer and the resources of memory: some applications of cognitive theory to the Iliad and the Odyssey, Oxford. Mühlethaler, A./Paschoud, J.-Cl. (eds.) (2009), Poétiques de la liste (1460–1620): entre clôture et ouverture, Geneva. Perceau, S. (2002), La parole vive. Communiquer en catalogue dans l’épopée homérique, Louvain. Reitz, C./Scheidegger Laemmle, C./Wesselmann, K. (2019), “Epic Catalogues”, in: C. Reitz/ S. Finkmann (eds.), Structures of Epic Poetry, vol. I: Foundations, Berlin/New York, 653– 725. Sammons, B. (2010), The art and rhetoric of the Homeric catalogue, Oxford. Spufford, F. (ed.) (1989), The Chatto Book of Cabbages and Kings. Lists in Literature, London. Valette, E. (ed.) (2008), L’énonciation en catalogue, Paris (= Textuel 56). Visser, E. (1997), Homers Katalog der Schiffe, Stuttgart/Leipzig.



Part I: Theoretical Approaches to Lists and Catalogues

Sabine Mainberger

Musing about a Table of Contents. Some Theoretical Questions Concerning Lists and Catalogues “Lists and Catalogues in Ancient Literature and Beyond: Towards a Poetics of Enumeration” — we do not have any doubt that there are many lists and catalogues in ancient literature (and beyond) — but is there also a poetics? Does ancient literature present a poetics of the epic catalogue, the genealogies, the lists of names, events, things, words? In the strict sense of the term, a poetics is a theory of poetry. Yet lists and catalogues do not only belong to epic, drama, and poetry more generally, they belong to other textual genres and disciplines as well: to natural history, philosophy, historiography, didactic writing, magic and more. Therefore, one has to think of “poetics” in the broader sense of the term, of a theory which relates to all kinds of textual forms and genres. Here, however, we encounter a further question. Are lists and catalogues — or, more generally, enumerations — texts? Or are they not, and perhaps even the very opposite of texts? In the history of writing, lists are older than written literature – assuming that literature means written continuous text. In its earliest uses, writing does not transcribe or attempt to fix the spoken word. As a computing tool, it serves accounting; it is a notational system that — like numbers — is independent from phonetisation. Nevertheless, of course, lists and speaking are not without any connection. In oral communication and oral poetry, we also find enumerations; to what extent oral poetry refers to written lists and evolves with the diffusion of writing is a complex question. For the moment let me just say: when we look for a poetics of lists and catalogues, we must take into consideration that an enumeration is not a text in the proper sense. Instead, it is perhaps a special kind of text and related in a particular way to what we normally call a text: something fluid and continuous, regardless of whether it is spoken or written. Obviously, we find enumerations “within” a continuous text. We also find them “prior to” texts, for texts are generated from lists of words; at least the virtual list of our vocabulary is always prior to the text we speak or write. We likewise find lists and catalogues “posterior to” a text when they are extracted from texts post festum; take an index of names or concepts. And sometimes, lists are themselves texts and we cannot avoid reading or listening to them in their entirety. This is a feature of modern experimental literature, but, to give just one example, an evocation of a god by calling upon his many names functions similarly. In short: enumerations occur https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-002

  Sabine Mainberger in, prior to, posterior to and as texts. And, of course, the majority of lists do not maintain an explicit relation to continuous text. Think of a timetable, a directory, dictionaries, library catalogues. We refer to them and extract information from them. We do not read them, we browse through them or search them for something particular, which, with some luck, we find. To do so, we must be able to read — illiterate people cannot use them —, but our reading does not follow the flow of any spoken utterance. Instead we read in the etymological sense of legein: like birds, we pick and pick out. On any of these occasions we generally know what kind of practice the respective list or catalogue belongs to: to the cultural activity of shopping, for example, or to travelling by public transport. Because we are acculturated to these practices, we use the lists and catalogues properly, that is in a way such that our ability to extract information from them allows us to achieve our aims, e.g. to buy something or to get somewhere. Literature may use lists and catalogues in another manner. For example: a public lecture may consist of reading aloud a commercial catalogue, thus transforming the list of goods into a litany. We find the same phenomenon not only in comic performances but just as well in very serious or solemn contexts: think of the act of presenting the long list of victims of a catastrophe, reading aloud, one by one, each of their names. A mere list without any additional words is read out, but it is much less a jumble of information concerning the event than a reverential speech act, honouring the dead. When read out as part of public commemoration, the registered facts or names — the passenger list of an aircraft or a list of victims of persecution, for example — acquire new meaning and significance. It is the practice that determines what a list or catalogue is and is not. Taken on its own, it is undetermined and, although laden with facts, it is unable to reveal its significance. It depends on the user’s initiative; only his or her proper or improper practice produces its meaning. Thus, a poetics of lists and catalogues must analyse their forms and corresponding practices or, more precisely, their forms in function. In doing so, however, we must consider something very peculiar, a fact we cannot ignore: when we analyse lists and catalogues, they feature on the side of the object as well as on the side of the observer. Philological, sociological, ethnological, linguistic etc. studies of enumerative practices bring the analytical activity itself into focus. This book does not promise “A Poetics of Enumeration” but a movement “towards” it; does this preposition indicate the preliminary nature of the publication or is it a sign of modesty or of scepticism? I take the subtitle as a signpost: authors and readers are travelling to a country with many attractive places. The capital is a widely known and highly appreciated metropolis: Homer, but, surely, other

Musing about a Table of Contents  

highlights such as Hesiod, Herodotus, Quintilian or Ovid are absolutely not to be missed! And much more is to be detected, too, as readers may arrive from many different directions. Nonetheless, their journey through more than four hundred pages requires preparation and guidance. They need a map. To be sure, there are some older as well as more recent maps, viz. bibliographies of publications on lists and catalogues. Every such bibliographical list helps readers to explore the topic, but it remains incomplete, as its purpose is to augment the existing list of titles with further titles. The bibliographies at the end of each essay in this book have augmented it remarkably — and the title of this book itself is a new item in future bibliographical lists and catalogues on lists and catalogues. The audience of a conference are given a programme including names of speakers, titles, time schedule, and, occasionally, even numbers indicating the rooms in which the papers will be delivered; thus, conference-goers are able to select talks they wish to attend in accordance with their interests. The readers of a book are in an even more comfortable situation: they may follow everyone, when, where, how often and as fast or as slowly as they wish. There is no timetable, but only a list of names and titles combined with a list of numbers that guide the reader through the dauting pile of several hundred pages. Between two of those numbers lies a promise to satisfy their curiosity about a certain topic. It is this list that shall be the object of my attention in the following pages. I will discuss theoretical aspects of lists and catalogues using the example of the Table of Contents of the present book. It is just as suitable for this purpose as many other lists or catalogues, and, after all, it has the advantage of being accessible in full length to everyone; even those with restricted online access to the book may still be able to find the Table of Contents.

 Lists as a Visual Phenomenon The two pages of the Table of Contents display a series of paragraphs, leftaligned, and separated by larger white spaces. In each paragraph, two or three lines are grouped together (never less and never more): the listed items are thus not single words or lines but couplets or triplets of lines. This is not the simplest form of a list — that of a sequence of single elements separated from one another at equidistance — but it is the more complex form that combines the horizontal row with the vertical column; it is a table, even though there is no visible grid and the two vertical columns are visually not clearly distinguished as they might be

  Sabine Mainberger in a different (more common) layout: the first very broad, consisting of the authors’ names and the titles of the papers, the second in a narrow, maeandering form, consisting only of the page numbers, its verticality maintained by hyphens. But the tabular form gives us what matters to us when we use or create lists, namely an overview and the possibility to present a great deal of information in a small amount of space. Large quantities of data in minimal quantities of time, a quick search — that is the raison d’être of a written list or catalogue. Both needs are fulfilled by strategies that allow us to perceive writing as an image: as a spatial arrangement of signs on a surface. Of course, there is no writing without notational iconicity (Schriftbildlichkeit). Every type of writing, including alphabetic, is a spatial visual phenomenon. The same applies in the case of recorded speech where writing fixes language in its temporal extension. Alphabetic writing arranges its signs in horizontal series. The line is altered according to the available space or the chosen format of the text as it appears on the page. A list, however, results from breaking and changing the line. Indeed, this is what a list, in spite of its practical function, has in common with a poem. The alineas lend the graphical appearance of the writing a light, even airy character. Pages with lists are “whiter” than pages with continuous text. The appearance of a list as a column is customary for all types of enumeration that we skim for the purpose of extracting information but do not read as texts. In alphabetic writing, this vertical appearance of the text is the most severe alteration to the normal direction of reading. It signals that the elements should not be read successively, as related entities.1 The graphic appearance does not change the content of the list. Nonetheless, the spatial arrangement is crucial — see the Table of Contents as a running text: Contents Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, Katharina Wesselmann Introduction: Lists, Catalogues etc. pp. 5 Part I. Theoretical Approaches to Lists and Catalogues Sabine Mainberger Musing about a Table of Contents. On Some Theoretical Questions Concerning Lists and Catalogues 25 Eva von Contzen Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology 27 Part II. The Cultural Poetics of Enumeration: Contexts, Materiality, Organisation Nathan Wasserman Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts (with an appendix on this device in Borges and Hughes) 49 Charles Delattre Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists 73 Richard Gordon The Performativity of Lists in ‘Vernacular’  1 This is not always the case in literary texts: a list that is presented as a column can be adapted to be read successively. For example, the modern Odyssey, Joyce’s Ulysses, abounds in enumerations, and most of them are arranged horizontally as part of the normal, running text. Many of them derive from the Dublin directory, from manuals or from Joyce’s own lists — themselves arranged in columns — which he himself had produced as an instrument for his writing process; from these lists he crossed out items once he had inserted them into his text.

Musing about a Table of Contents  

Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire 101 Oliver Thomas Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns 141 Olga Tribulato (En)listing the Good Authors. The Defence of Greek Linguistic Variety in the Antiatticist Lexicon 165 Part III. The Poetics of the Epic Catalogue Edzard Visser The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic 195 Johannes Haubold Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach 211 Christiane Reitz Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues 231 Stratis Kyriakidis Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid 247 Katharina Wesselmann Homeric Heroes Speaking in Lists: Comical Characterisation through Catalogues 283 Part IV. Beyond the Epic Catalogue. Literary Appropriations of Lists and Catalogues Benjamin Sammons Five Times Seven: Cataloguing the ‘Seven against Thebes’ in Four Greek Tragedies 307 Isabel A. Ruffell The Aesthetics of the Comic List 329 Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle Cataloguing Contemporaries: Ovid Ex Ponto 4.16 in Context 365 Regina Höschele Cataloguing Statues: Christodoros’ Ekphrasis of the Baths of Zeuxippos 409

Bold print does not give sufficient structure to the page, and adding different font sizes would only create more confusion. Normally, we are unaware of it, but we gain essential information from the mere spatial organisation of writing. The lists and catalogues we encounter in our daily lives would be ineffective if they were not displayed or formatted as columns or tables. The information concerning the contents, as we find it on page VII–IX, is organised in four lists: one (zigzagging) made of numbers, two made of verbal writing only and one made of verbal writing and roman numbers. The list or set “Contents” has seventeen items; it contains a list or set of four items (the parts) each of which contains at least two items (the essays). Logically, they form sets, nested into each other. The introduction ranks on a higher level than the parts and these on a higher level than the individual essays, but the page layout puts all texts, introduction included, on the same level. This is crucial: sequence from a “first” to a “last” item is unavoidable, hierarchy, however, is not. By looking alone, i.e. without reading, we can, furthermore, notice that a relatively small number of essays — sixteen contributions — are grouped in four categories of unequal size. The field is, indeed, very structured!

 Delineating Borders Lists include and exclude; therefore, they create borders. The Table of Contents, the catalogue of heroes and heroines of this book, is neither a catalogue of men nor a catalogue of women, as gender is not a criterion for in- or exclusion. We count seven female and ten male Christian names: ca. 40% female to 60% male.

  Sabine Mainberger Looking at the names of the authors of the Introduction, we find another proportion: two female, one male. We might be tempted to think that the editors are from a younger generation than the majority of the contributors. Where do women stand in the list? Do we find — as in Virgil — the woman behind Turnus? 100% of the first section is female-authored, while the remaining female names are dispersed throughout the other sections; it seems that there are no exclusively male or female domains of research. Even though women are still a minority, this gender ratio demonstrates that the relation between lists and women has changed. Usually, from Hesiod to Leporello, and on to social media, women appear more frequently on lists (not counting the shortlists for academic positions) than they themselves engage with lists. Virginia Woolf, who uses a variety of list-types in her novels, assigns different types of lists to the two sexes: the rigid controlling pedantic enumeration to men — who are often scholars — and the expanding variable enumeration, the improvised list that is already lost the moment it is written, to women. Of course, she had Victorian society with its repressive gender politics in mind, and she herself seems to conform to gender stereotypes. Yet very often, she makes fun of them, for example in the fictional biography Orlando. The protagonist of this novel, which contains more lists than any other of Woolf’s books, is born a man in the Shakespearean era, and is, at the end of the novel, set in the 1920s, a thirtysix year old woman. What type of list do we need in order to register a person who changed their sex? Enumerations equalize the enumerated elements. Equalising is a precondition of enumerating and, even more, an implication of the act itself. Otherwise, the items cannot be enumerated, catalogued or listed, they are not even items. The equalising aspect may be whatever, it need not be thematic or formal, the act itself is doing it; that is what makes lists so comfortable — anything can be listed — and, occasionally, so cynical. In the table of contents, the different participants are equalized by being given the same format of presentation — name, title of paper, page number — as well as being registered in the same language. Lists classify and impose order on the world; in the context of this book, the diverse contributors are equal enough to build a class. But do all the elements fit in? Find the odd one out! It is the first of the first section: the only item that does not reference literature or the ancient world. Therefore, the border between the specialists and the others is not absolute; it has an opening: the community takes an outsider in. The editors follow a liberal agenda; they are not afraid of intruders, rather, they are open-minded hosts. The number of the odd ones, however, is modest: a one to sixteen ratio could hardly be considered a threat.

Musing about a Table of Contents  

The Table of Contents does not indicate academic titles and affiliations. All the contributors are projected onto the same level; neither age nor grade nor position at their respective universities — in the hierarchy of status, income and privileges — are visible; name or place of the university, indicating international standing, is absent, too. Generously, the list overlooks factual asymmetries and imbalances. This equality in rank is the gala dress of the academic world. It appears as a domination-free space: as the better world in which nothing counts but the sound argument. The table of contents — a utopia! Are there further exclusions? Among the personal names, for example, Asian or Arab names are missing. The publication is international in character, but not global. Is the argument itself an issue of an exclusively European-Western culture? Perhaps a later volume on this topic will present many Chinese speakers — and titles referring to Chinese texts. Lists can be found in all ancient literatures, and certainly “beyond”. Perhaps what is absent from this list is suggestive of a possible list of the future.

 How Many Items Make a List? This question has often been asked.2 Are two items already a list or must there be at least three? An anthology of English enumerative texts, The Chatto Book of Cabbages and Kings (1989),3 opted for the last answer, but did so admittedly without good reason (or renouncing any theory): according to the editor Francis Spufford, a list is something with at minimum three items. On this count, section I of this book, does not contain a list. One could say that the triad is something like the minimum of plurality. At the same time, this plurality is easily manageable, for it is combined with order, with rules, or possibly, on the contrary, with an instantly visible breaking of the rules and disturbance of the expected order. The title of the just mentioned anthology cites the well-known semantically heterogeneous enumeratio in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass: “‘The time has come’, the Walrus said, / ‘To talk of many things: / Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — / Of cabbages — and kings — ’”.4 The renown of this rhyme enables the mentioning of just two items to evoke the complete list of five.

 2 Also Nathan Wasserman asks it and gives an original answer, cf. p. 60‚ in this volume. 3 Cf. above, p. 1–2 (introduction). 4 Carroll 1970, 235.

  Sabine Mainberger However, there are definitions of lists that permit less than three elements: in set theory, there are lists or classes with only one element or even with zero elements. Or take, for example, voting in a departmental meeting: there can be a majority for a motion and only one against it with no abstentions. Here, we have one class with some members, one with a single member and one with zero members; the last is a zero-set or a list with zero items, but nonetheless it is a class or list.5 It seems that “Section V. Tell me, Google: Epic Catalogues of the Present” has remained empty, and, in order to avoid a list with zero items, it has been cancelled. I would like to suggest it for the Second Volume. The subtitle of Section II is itself an enumeration: “Contexts, Materiality, Organisation”. None of the essays uses this suggestive and versatile device in their titles, and the authors of the only example seem very concerned not to exceed the usual number of concepts. Three items are often considered the minimum of plurality, but they are often considered its maximum as well. In standardized academic rhetoric in particular, binary and ternary expressions prevail — and writers are deeply afraid of multiplicity. Having diagnosed this anxiety, Nietzsche did his best to make philosophical language ‘explode’ and he revealed the infinite variety and exuberance that lies hidden underneath a few poor simplifying terms. In order to unearth the richness and diversity of things, he wrote excessively long enumerations.6 Nevertheless, the three concepts in the subtitle of Section II are a list in a list. They show the structure of the list mise en abyme. And, as the Table of Contents itself, they confirm the assertion that enumerations are both the object and part of the analysing activity in this book.

 Classifying — but how? When focussing on semantics, we cannot identify a single term that is shared between all the listed titles. The authors do not stick to a single, strictly thematic word, but use variations and words belonging to the broader semantic field of the topic: “list(s)” and “catalogue(s)”, of course, prevail, with a notable and decisive preference for the plural, but the verbs “(en)listing” and “cataloguing” feature as  5 This fact is excluded from Eva von Contzen’s minimalist definition –“a set of items assembled under some principle in a formally distinctive unit. […] the list is immediately recognisable due to the enumerative style it relies on” (cf. below, p. 36–37); her definition is based on the rhetorical device of enumeration (which remains itself presupposed and unexplicated) and cannot tackle the logical problem mentioned above. 6 Cf. Mainberger 2010 and Mainberger 2003, 74–87.

Musing about a Table of Contents  

well. “Enumeration” is mentioned twice, and in addition to these words, we find “lexicon”, “chain”, “web”, “ekphrasis”, that is terms designating things that share certain aspects of structure or function with lists and catalogues; while the word “number” itself (varying “enumeration”), is absent, three numbers (five, seven, four) occur within a title. We do not, then, have here a case of the typical classificatory order, which requires one or several characteristics to be common to all members of the class; instead, the key words of the titles form together a class in the sense of what cognitive science calls “experiential realism”.7 According to this theory, in language and in everyday communication, i.e. outside artificial, scientific or academic discourse, we do not build classes from elements with the same characteristics, as is required by the so-called Merkmal definition. Instead, the classes or divisions that we naturally and inevitably employ are in themselves structured. They contain central elements or prototypes of a certain concept, and around these elements others are grouped. The elements of the class are thus not homogeneous (in relation to a chosen aspect); instead, they are linked together in several different ways. They are not united by a core of identical qualities, but connected through a web of family likenesses. Recall the list of titles: some use directly one of the three terms of the general heading, i.e., the terms “list” and “catalogue” and “enumeration”, while in some others the key words are more distant from the central terms, but nevertheless belong to the topic just as much as the former do. For example, “chain” is linked to “list” by metaphor: like the list, it contains several distinct elements, but it differs from it by something connecting the elements and fixing their sequence. A lexicon is a specific type of list or catalogue, containing only words; thus, it is linked to the key concepts via metonymy. The same goes for the seemingly most distant example, the rhetorical device and literary genre of ekphrasis: as it proceeds by enumeration, describing thus artfully and methodically a person or a thing, it is a special case of verbal enumeration. However, unlike the Catalogue of Ships that is known to everyone and therefore, in the sense of a non-scientific classification, is a prototype of ancient catalogues, even the best known ekphrasis, Homer’s description of Achilles’ shield in book 18 of the Iliad, does not jump immediately to mind in the same way as the Catalogue from book 2. The less obvious, more distant example is nevertheless linked to the central element via intermediaries. The act of classifying may, in line with the arguments of the cognitive scientist George Lakoff, follow propositional, metaphoric, metonymic or

 7 Cf. Lakoff 1990, and Mainberger 2003, 54–58.

  Sabine Mainberger image-schematic cognitive models. In short: the subject of the book is a field consisting of a structured plurality and lacking sharp boundaries. Essentialist — Aristotelian — definitions like “a list (or a catalogue) is x specified by y” may look alluring but would obscure rather than clarify the problems implied in the topic.

 Shaping Time Lists and catalogues impose order on time as well and (re)figure it. The arrangement of the Table of Contents is, roughly, chronological: the topics run from Akkadian to Greek and on to Roman or Latin. The idea of a temporal succession is presupposed, i.e., a series of epochs or phases that, to a certain degree, can be fitted to the succession of years. We divide the inconceivable stretch of time into more or less equal parts, we transform it into the sequence of numbers, thereby making it controllable and manageable. The succession, however, is almost inevitably linked to the idea of development: the “one after the other” tends to be read as the “one because of the other” and sometimes even the “one higher than the other” or, contrarily, “lower”. This is the trap of categorical confusion, the menace for historiography that must go beyond the mere list of facts, the chronological succession of events, and construct relations between them. But what links are there: causal, teleological, ascending, descending …? The chronological sequence tends to create meaning, but it could just as well be an attempt to renounce such a suggestion. The mere list of events in time avoids statements about relations. Yet if it does not seek to narrate, but instead to document the facts as a discontinuous series, as an elliptical text, it leaves all the more opportunity to fill in the gaps with interpretation. At a closer look, the topics in the Table of Contents do not only follow a chronological order. They are grouped thematically, and within every section (apart from the first) a roughly chronological order prevails. Thus, historical and other aspects have been carefully put into balance, without even excluding a startling jump from early Mesopotamian literature to Borges and Hughes. The relation between lists, history, and historiography is no simple matter. This fact is also well indicated here: in order to come to terms with the past, not only the ancients must “look backwards to posterity”.

Musing about a Table of Contents  

 Logic: “and” — “or” The table of contents is a complete list of all the texts written for this book. The implicit logic is “and … and … and”. Few readers – apart from the editors —, however, will work through this list faithfully; most will use it as a list of options. They will choose some texts to read and skip the others. They are unlikely to take the menu of introduction and essays as a presentation of one course after the other but as a menu to select from; they will read à la carte. For this use, the implicit logic of the list is not “and” but “or”. Luckily, the alternative of “either — or” goes only for a certain moment of reading; while at a conference, one has to choose the talks to listen to from the programme, a book, by contrast, provides the user with the opportunity to come back to anything which has been skipped in an earlier reading. Anyway, the “or” is only an issue of the user’s practice and not of the script or the written text itself. What would we think of a table of contents indicating “Richard Gordon or Olga Tribulato”, “Cataloguing Contemporaries or Cataloguing Statues”? Such an uncertain or vague list would present the book as a surprise menu. In 2000, the Canadian writer Darren Wershler-Henry published a book entitled the tapeworm foundry, andor, the dangerous prevalence of imagination. It consists of a single sentence running over fifty pages and containing items that are connected by the conjunction andor, thus combining the logic of addition and the logic of option. The tapeworm enumerates ideas of real (past) and possible (future) as well as a marjority of impossible artistic actions; it is a vast collection of short scripts for performance and a reservoir to choose from (eventually, at least one artist did so). Readers may also invent further actions, but there is the zeal for completeness, too: the long enumeration forms a circle quoting the structure and the first and last words of Finnegans Wake. The circle suggests totality and at the same time infinity; items may be added, others taken away, yet others changed: “and” does not exclude “or” and vice versa. If they go together so well, why not talk about “Lists andor Catalogues andor Enumerations andor …”?

 Different Meanings of “etc.” The list of contents is long. Could it be shortened, summarized? Perhaps in this way: “fifteen experts in Ancient Studies analyse bizarre lexica, epigraphic lists,

  Sabine Mainberger pinakes, catalogues of women, suitors, unhappy lovers, etc. pp.”8 This list whets our appetite for the book — see the potential story in the last three items! In addition, it promises even more than it explicitly says, namely “etc. pp.” Could this be an alternative to a lengthy table? We would know more or less what is at stake. It would be a list with permeable boundaries, a flexible and variable list. The “etc. pp.” contains a list of wishes, indeed, several lists of wishes; everyone may write his or her own. A collective volume to your individual liking. We know this kind of publication: when we search for “lists”, “ancient”, and “literature” on-line, we get lists of titles, and, much to our pleasure or our annoyance, every time we search, we get another list: other titles, other names, other links. Even though our key words remain the same, the results vary. No stable content exists “behind” the lists, we do not get an inventory. And the selection we find does not depend upon the inserted key words alone; other criteria interfere, especially algorithms remaining hidden and perhaps completely unknown to those who enter the search terms. Thus, a book (and equally an e-book) is still a fixed whole, in which a certain moment of knowing or stage of knowledge is petrified, and the contents are not only displayed for information but monumentalised in the table (rhyming with “stable”). Future academic publications may be as dynamic as the regularly updated databases: their contents will be fluid, generated ad hoc every time someone is searching for the topic. Sticking to the traditional book, however, could we economise on the Table of Contents, for example, by presenting only the first five items, and then writing “etc.“? The editors alone, however, would know what the “etc.” means. Or could we add “etc.” at the end of the table? In this case not even the editors would know what the “etc.” means. To the reader, it would be a menace. The Table of Contents is an inventory: an exhaustive register of a definite content. Every single item counts, none can be subordinated to another; the list cannot be synthesized into a concept. This is a feature that an inventory shares with a melody and a poem. What follows after the first five authors cannot be predicted or generated; no formula enables the reader to continue the series. There is no algorithm to calculate who the other contributors are (nor what their titles and their respective positions in the sequence are). If such a procedure to establish the next item existed, the list would be as infinite as the series of numbers and could thus not be written down in its entirety.9 But the index is a finite,  8 Translating part of an e-mail by Rebecca Laemmle from 12.09.2013. 9 For another possibility cf. below p. 31. For the difference between finite lists where “etc.” stands for a finite number of items that could possibly be written down (for example, in “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.”, “etc.” stands for “Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday”)

Musing about a Table of Contents  

exhaustively documentable list, moreover, it is not only a finite list, but also an inventory and therefore it must be exhaustively written down. Whereas other finite lists can be shortened, an inventory does not allow for the “etc.” Nevertheless, someone could shorten this list. Imagine a former classicist, who has given up his academic career to become a journalist and is now writing a book review. He could write: “After a general introduction and a lengthy raisonnement that has little to do with ancient texts, the reader will find essays by L, X, D, A, etc.” The “etc.” would signal to the average reader that there is nothing unusual about what follows and therefore nothing else to report on, and the insider of the discipline would understand: the authors are the usual suspects. The shortening of the list of names would indicate that it is not an inventory but a set that everybody knows by heart, like the seven days of the week or – for classicists – the nine Muses. The “etc.” would not only contain little information; first and foremost, it would be malicious. The enumerative act would be a polemic against the colleagues or the entire discipline.

 Lists in the Making An inventory is an unalterable list – at least for a certain moment of time. An alterable list is accepted by us at a preliminary stage, for example in the process of planning a book. Lists, too, have their genesis; normally we do not know it, but if we do, it can provide interesting insights. We can see, for example, what is considered to be the centre or the prototype of the classificatory unit, and what is considered more peripheral; likewise, we learn that some exclusions are operating from the very beginning, whereas others are adopted later. But can lists reveal their own genesis in themselves? Are they capable of doing so, or is it an absolutely necessary feature of lists to appear as if carved in stone or at least printed black on white? Is an enumeration capable of displaying its own temporality? Someone could say “The authors of the essays are L, X, D, plus, of course, A, there is N, as well, and — maybe, although I am not sure — B or, R, and, let me think, yes …, of course, C.” We frequently encounter lists of this kind in oral communication or in our re-oralised written correspondence, in e-mails, text messages, in unofficial or only partially official communication as well as in literature, when  and infinite series where an end is not even thinkable, cf. Mainberger 2003, 10–11, and Mainberger 2017, 95–96. The argument refers to Wittgenstein but while the philosopher deals with two cases in which the use of “etc.” is legitimate, even if in each case “etc.” has a wholly different meaning, I am dealing here with a case where the use of “etc.” is not legitimate.

  Sabine Mainberger it is imitating oral speech or ironizing conventions of writing. It is a list in the making or, more precisely, an ongoing act of enumeration. Is there also the contrary, a disappearing list? A list that in the act of enumeration melts or fades away? In addition to the cases in which a printer runs out of ink or an inscription disintegrates over centuries, the wording of a list may dissolve like this: “There are essays by L, X, D, who else? A, N, wait a moment, M, yes, and ... and …, hm …”. Again, this is a possibility of speaking or an assimilation of writing to oral speech – or a particular literary practice. An official, published list, however, does not allow for features that suggest it is in the making or in a process of dissolution; it is ready and, however incomplete it may happen to be, it looks finished and fixed: it hides its own temporal nature. On the other hand, nothing could be more temporal than a quickly written column of words; think of a shopping list. The list is both the most monumental and the most improvised form of writing. Lists on the internet, on the other hand, do not fit this polarity. For example, those in Wikipedia are remarkably loose, even though it serves as an encyclopaedia, normally a reservoir of sound knowledge;10 it is, however, less bookish and, as other writings in the new media, re-oralised. A sophisticated user may welcome the fluid character of entries in this site, but the innocent are deceived by the format — the list, the catalogue — which is associated with authoritative and valid information. A study of the genesis of the contents of this book would be possible, as the former version of the Table is the programme of the Edinburgh conference in 2014 on which the book is based. The differences are remarkable. There were titles with enumerations using more than three items (Lists, chains, gradations and enumerations), questions with inflected verbs (How did ancient readers actually “read” …?), more variants of “list” (listed himself, de-listed), even more words from the broader semantic field (tabulating, agenda), and words laden with pathos (the fallen, infinity, magical, multiple personality order, reincarnation). The definitive titles in the book are less multifarious in structure and lexically less colourful. While the fact of change itself does not really come as a surprise, its degree is nevertheless noticeable: from planning to publication or from program to table of contents, we note academic writing undergoing a process of standardisation. But for all that, normalisation is not the last word about this list.

 10 Cf. Tribulato in this volume, p. 170–171.

Musing about a Table of Contents  

 List — Ludism — Poetry According to the anthropologist Jack Goody, already in the oldest list documents we find playful elements, for example an Ugarit list of words beginning with “y”.11 Of course, playing with the elements of writing belongs to its use, it is a learning technique. The Ugarit list might have been a writing exercise. This dimension of lists and catalogues is a rich source for literature: as separated, single elements, the items of a list are mobile, interchangeable, ready to be manipulated; their permutations and combinations generate new meaning. By playing with a list or ignoring its proper use, as well as intentionally abusing it, we can discover or produce meaningful relations between the elements on the list. These include phonetic, semantic, iconic, numeric and other relations — in any case, patterns beyond those we immediately notice. In a list for practical use, relations of this nature occur only casually; yet, on the other hand, perhaps every list contains unintended patterns. In the table of contents, Wasser-, Wessel-, Visser may be continued by Wissen, Wissenschaft. This chain of phonetic metamorphoses is a-logic, cat-alogic. Similarly, a list can be transformed into a poem simply by forging relations where there should not be any, or by re-arranging the text, while maintaining the vertical presentation, with the column as the visual scheme common to both list and poem. Thus, the Table of Contents can be transformed into a poem. Using the technique of erasure poetry, i.e., the art of leaving out words or syllables of words in a given text, and with a modified succession of words we get the following poem: speak materiality the anti-heroes in the attic look back to the statues seven times and curse the icon suggesting an early cult of powers rising in the tents. beyond theology vice and Heidegger authors from Poe to Ovid approach the web  11 Cf. Goody 1977, 89.

  Sabine Mainberger and hug Homer. how to read the evasiveness of post-epic times? perform lists and lists and catalogues and practice the organ of tragedies and the comic.

Works Cited Carroll, L. (1970 [1872]), The Annotated Alice, with an Introduction and Notes by M. Gardner, Harmondsworth. Goody, J. (1977), The Domestication of the Savage Mind, Cambridge/London/New York/Melbourne. Lakoff, G. (1990), Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago/London. Mainberger, S. (2003), Die Kunst des Aufzählens. Elemente zu einer Poetik des Enumerativen, Berlin. Mainberger, S. (2010), “Enumerative Praktiken der Philosophie: zu Nietzsche”, in: Chr. Blättler (ed.), Kunst der Serie. Die Serie in den Künsten, München, 73–86. Mainberger, S. (2017), “Ordnen/Aufzählen”, in: S. Scholz/U. Vedder (eds.), Literatur und materielle Kultur (Reihe: Handbücher zur kulturwissenschaftlichen Philologie), Berlin/Boston, 91–98. Wershler-Henry, D. (2000), the tapeworm foundry, andor, the dangerous prevalence of imagination, Toronto.

Eva von Contzen

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology One of the most famous lists in literature is the one Jorge Luis Borges invents in his essay “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”.1 In a (fictitious) Chinese encyclopaedia, Borges claims, it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance. (1973, 103)

This is an example of the list as classification: it consists of separated entries, grouped together under one heading (animals), and follows its own system of categorisation. Not all lists are classifications, but classifications often come in lists. The system behind the entry in Borges’s essay appears to be random. Since it is fashioned as a classification, however, we as readers are challenged to detect a principle of order behind it. Of course in this case we fail – the list is a fiction, and we are left with a sense of wonder and irritation. Michel Foucault begins The Order of Things with this quotation and argues that “the exotic charm of another system of thought” (1994, xv) which we believe to be utterly impossible elicits a feeling of uneasiness. In Foucault’s terms, cataloguing, listing, enumerating, and indexing can be perceived as attempts to order the world and thereby to create ‘sameness’.2 In this broad view, lists are instances of cultural coherence and cultural identity; they are indicative of a particular view on the world. This is also true for lists occurring on a much narrower plane: those lists and enumerations that are embedded in narrative contexts, from the catalogues of ships and trees in ancient epic to enumerations of real and fictitious movie makers and architects in postmodern novels.  1 This article was written as part of the research conducted in the project “Lists in Literature and Culture” (LISTLIT), funded by the European Research Council Starting Grant 2016 no. 715021. 2 See Foucault: “the history of the order imposed on things would be the history of the Same — of that which, for a given culture, is both dispersed and related, therefore to be distinguished by kinds and to be collected together into identities” (1994, xxiv). Umberto Eco, too, discusses Borges’ list; he categorises it as a prime example of chaotic enumeration and explains its incongruence by means of Russell’s paradox (2009, 324–237; 395–396). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-003

  Eva von Contzen The term ‘list’ as I employ it here is a hypernym that comprises a range of enumerative techniques we find in all kinds of narrative texts from antiquity to the present day. Its manifestations are, among others, epic catalogues, indices, genealogies, collections, and inventories. First and foremost, the list is a formal feature, characterised by several (usually three or more) distinct elements employed in direct succession and in loose, if at all, syntactic and conceptual coherence to both the other elements and the surrounding narrative material. In his study of lists in texts by Emerson, Whitman, Melville, and Thoreau, Robert Belknap proposes the following definition, emphasising the formal distinctiveness of the list: At its most simple, a list is a framework that holds separate and disparate items together. More specifically, it is a formally organized block of information that is composed of a set of members. It is a plastic, flexible structure in which an array of constituent units coheres with specific relations generated by specific forces of attraction. Generally such structures may be built to appear random, or they may be organized by some overt principle. (2000, 35–36).

In her monograph on a poetics of enumeration, Sabine Mainberger suggests a very similar definition; she too stresses the distinct elements that relate to some shared thematic or formal aspect, as well as the scalar nature of lists, which can be more or less static or dynamic, strictly or loosely organised, and state the principle of order or motivation for the list explicitly or implicitly or not at all (see 2003, 7). With respect to the catalogue in ancient epic, Benjamin Sammons likewise accentuates the discreteness of the individual entries, which “are formally distinct and arranged in sequence by anaphora or by a simple connective, but are not subordinated to one another, and no explicit relation is made between the items except for their shared suitability to the catalogue’s specified rubric” (2010, 9; emphasis in the original). Taking my cue from these critics, I propose the following minimalist definition: the ‘list’ is a set of items assembled under some principle in a formally distinctive unit. This formal unit may be more or less prototypically list-like: a prototypical list does not use any syntactical framework whatsoever (i.e. the items of the list follow one after the other and do not feature conjunctions or other connectives), whereas a more open, less prototypical list-structure is embedded syntactically (i.e. the items of the list form part of a sentence and are linked by connectives).3 In both these extremes on a scale of possible list forms, the list is  3 In a similar vein, Nicholas Howe distinguishes the more elaborate catalogue as “a describing form” from the list as a simple “naming form” (1985, 22).

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  

immediately recognisable due to the enumerative style it relies on, whether it consists of chains of asyndeta or polysyndeta, the employment of bullet points, numbers, or other visual signposts, and so forth. Also, what counts as an ‘item’ may vary: in prototypical lists, an item is usually relatively short and elliptic, whereas in other lists — such as the catalogue, for instance — one item may comprise a full sentence or even a short paragraph of several sentences. The overall list, then, is made up of a set of parallel sentences or paragraphs describing, or relating to, a shared topic or theme.

 Why Lists? Even though lists abound in literary texts, writing about them generally seems to call for a justification. With the exception perhaps of epic catalogues, what is so interesting about enumerative structures in literature that justifies devoting an article, even a whole volume to them? After all, as Francis Spufford notes, “lists refuse the connecting powers of language, in favour of a sequence of disconnected elements. In a list, almost everything that makes writing interesting to read seems inevitably to be excluded” (1989, 1). Similarly, Lucie Doležalová begins her edited collection The Charm of a List claiming that the list “is most frequently a tool — a table of contents, dictionary, phone book, etc. One does not read but only uses a list: one looks up the relevant information in it, but usually does not need to deal with it as a whole — and is happy about this fact” (2009, 1; emphasis in the original). On the one hand, lists are often discussed in such terms as ‘practicality’ and ‘functionality’, which implies a lack of creativity and artfulness. On the other hand, special cases of the list, such as the catalogue, or the rhetorical devices of accumulatio, enumeratio, or descriptio have been met with considerable attention, exactly because they serve poetic and creative means. In the words of Umberto Eco, who distinguishes between ‘poetic’ and ‘practical’ (or ‘pragmatic’) lists, “there are lists and lists” (2009, 113). Despite the apparent dichotomy in function between poetic and pragmatic lists, we are in both cases concerned with the same basic configuration of form. Of course it is hardly surprising that the same set of linguistic means can be employed for a wide range of purposes. Metonymy and metaphor, for instance, are regularly used in everyday speech and at the same time feature as highly productive rhetorical figures in poetic and literary texts. Larger enumerative structures, however, tend not to be seen in this way, perhaps because they are not figures of thought or tropes but rely on the structural rearrangement of verbal signs. In terms of complexity, lists appear to be only marginally interesting. Spufford even

  Eva von Contzen calls into question the literariness of lists in general, arguing that it is unclear whether they “are at all a unified category of literary endeavour or whether ‘a list’ is only a name for something completely determined by what is put in it, like a paragraph” (1989, 7). Yet, in contrast to rhetorical figures such as parallelism, chiasm, accumulatio, or tricolon — of which lists make abundant use, given that the aforementioned devices all order the discourse — lists require strategies of sense-making that distinguish them from ‘simple’, straightforward, formal elements that add merely a twist to the arrangement of words or phrases. Analysing lists in literature requires taking into account both their simplicity of form and the complex mechanisms of sense-making. Lists are on a very basic level a formal element in the sense that they have a distinct appearance and function as containers of whatever the content of the list is. At the same time, they interact in intricate and complex ways with the narrative context in which they are embedded and stimulate the reader to make sense of its principles of order and its overall meaning for the narrative. A list, even though it is defined by its form, is always also more than this form because of the cognitive processes required to decode its meaning(s). While the formal aspects of the list contribute strongly to its perceived distinctness, the list is much more than an extravagancy of form. Form motivates function: because of their form, lists can trigger effects and have functions which make them highly versatile and productive when they are implemented in narrative texts. To come to grips with their idiosyncrasies, I propose starting from the following four aspects: 1. The structure of the list. How are the items and elements of the list arranged? Which principles of order are followed or undermined? How are the items connected syntactically, if at all (single words or short phrases or several sentences)? What is the degree of the entries’ ellipticality and its typographical layout on the page (bullet points, numbers; vertical or horizontal arrangement, etc.)? Is the structure straightforward or are there lists within the list/further principles of order detectable? 2. The content of the list. What is being enumerated? Is the list complete/closed or open?4 Since in principle anything can be listed, it is of special importance to pay attention to what is singled out in a specific context.

 4 Sabine Mainberger distinguishes between three kinds of enumerative series: those that are in principle finite; those that are in principle infinite; and those that may be finite, but are impossible to count. Of the three, as she points out, the first and the third group are especially produc-

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  

3.

The site (or location) of the list. Where does it occur with respect to the larger context of the literary work? Does it appear suddenly, rather abruptly, or is it motivated, introduced, explained? Is it a singular occurrence or does it belong to a network of lists or enumerative structures that are inter- or intratextually related? 4. The function(s) of the list. Is it meant to entertain the reader, by playing with the reader’s expectation, prompting the reader to riddle or to draw comparisons? Is it meant to frustrate the reader, to demonstrate the limits of narration? To showcase the poet’s rhetorical skills and eloquence? To teach the audience something, such as biological classifications or agricultural details? To pass on or store memories and memory? And so forth. A useful way to conceptualise the various functions is the notion of ‘affordance’, which allows the critic to describe what a list ‘affords’, that is, what it is potentially capable of achieving in a certain context.5 The four-fold interpretive set ‘structure — content — site — function’ can be summarised in the question: What is being enumerated how at what point in a narrative to which end?6 Importantly, in a given context, the four aspects are not necessarily of equal significance: sometimes the structure can take precedence, sometimes the contents; sometimes the function is less pronounced than structural issues; and so forth. Mark Chénetier usefully distinguishes between lists in which structure is foregrounded and lists that showcase their texture (“listes de structure et listes de texture”; 1994, 110). The latter corresponds to “la liste illustrative ou ornementale” (ibid.) and adds what Chénetier calls ‘couleur’ to the surrounding narrative material, for instance by means of rhythm and “le régime énonciatif” (ibid.). It is not quite true to maintain that for each of the four categories anything would go, but the spectrum of potential ways of arrangement and content in particular is broad indeed. As Nicholas Howe remarks with respect to the flexibility of the catalogue and its potential to digress, it “has what one might call ‘an open  tive in literary texts (2003, 10–11). See also Eco 2009, 8–25, who adduces the description of Achilles’ shield in Iliad 18 as an example of a finite, bounded list, and the Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2 as one that creates a sense of infinity. 5 See von Contzen 2017a for a more detailed account on the affordances of lists. 6 Philippe Hamon has made a similar list of altogether seven questions plus many sub-questions, which he suggests as starting points for further analysis (2013, 25–28). These questions are both broader and narrower than my four aspects and include such points as genre, semiotic domains, and the act of reading. The latter I treat separately because to me it encompasses more general strategies of sense-making that go beyond the actual list.

  Eva von Contzen middle’” (1985, 28). Under the umbrella term of the ‘list’, we can subsume such seemingly different kinds of enumerations as the Catalogue of Ships, the lists of knights in Arthurian romance, the inventory of the wreck in Robinson Crusoe, Dorian’s collections in The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the best-of lists in Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity. In view of such rich variation, it is small wonder that a frequent approach to enumerations in literature is a thematic one. The themes or contents of a list are typically rather easy to identify. Umberto Eco (2009), for instance, classifies lists into lists of things, lists of places, lists of mirabilia, and collections and treasures, among others. Francis Spufford (1989) combines thematic and functional classifications: his categories include comic elaborations, riches (collections, commodities, and vanities), sacred and profane Renaissance lists, hostilities (polemic, satire, and abuse), and feasts. Yet a thematic approach — while certainly very entertaining to read — falls short of encompassing the complexities of lists because it remains too close to the content. If we go beyond any specific realisation of a list in a literary text, we can prioritise the questions what lists, poetically and poetologically, are; how they make sense in the contexts in which they are employed; and how readers make sense of them due to their specific form and content(s) and site and function(s) as a productive, meaning-generating feature.7 In addition, the meaning of lists is inextricably linked with questions of order and authority and thus with issues that are central to literary production and reception: who draws up the list, and why? Is it a character, like Robinson Crusoe, who makes a list of everything he recovers from the wreck, or Bridget Jones, who lists her New Year’s resolutions? Or is it the narrator, as happens so often in epic catalogues, but also in novels, when the narrative flow stops and we are presented with a descriptive enumeration of people, events, and objects? As an element of narrative texts, lists are characterised by a certain tension between the narrative progression (the horizontal axis of narration) and the halt they induce, which opens up a vertical dimension. A further and crucial question is the issue of diachrony — to what extent are lists employed and conceptualised differently in different historical periods and cultural contexts? In what follows, I am going to propose a framework for theorising lists that takes into account these and further questions that come into play when one takes lists as a formal and functional device seriously. It is only appropriate to the topic that this framework takes the form of a list. A model that attempts to be

 7 See Rüggemeier 2018 and 2019 for case studies on how lists in specific contexts — graphic novels and autobiography respectively — can exercise their power over the reader.

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  

comprehensive is bound to fail: there is no one theory that allows for encompassing the many formal and functional facets of lists and the processes of sense-making their reception involves. Lists are a formal element which one can describe, and they can have many different functions which inevitably branch out. The relative simplicity of the form accounts for its remarkable versatility, and also the difficulties one encounters when trying to come to terms with ‘the’ list as form. If we assume that there is a phenomenon deserving the name ‘poetics of enumeration’, it stands to reason to focus on the breadth and depth of what constitutes such a poetics. The following five parameters, I hope, will provide useful starting points for analysing lists in narratives and putting lists on the map of literary theory. My emphasis will be put, on the one hand, on questions of text production, and, on the other hand, on reception and sense-making. Taken together, the aspects I discuss constitute the first steps towards a ‘listology’, that is, the systematic scrutiny of enumerative structures in and as literature.

 Five Parameters of Analysis . The List as Anthropological Constant The unease we feel when encountering lists in narratives can be linked to their apparent simplicity that results from their practical usage in everyday life. The practicality may be one of the reasons why lists are often neglected as a literary feature: they seem to be inherently non-literary. Anthropologically, the practice of making lists arose with the advent of writing in the early high cultures and is hence closely connected to literacy. As early as in the late fourth millennium BC, lexical lists were created in Mesopotamia for administrative, religious, and educational purposes, which led to a whole ‘science’ of lists.8 According to Jack Goody (1977), the invention of the list as a functional device in these ancient civilisations ignited a change of consciousness — for the first time, knowledge could not only be stored, used, and transmitted in the form of the list, but also be decontextualised, i.e. reordered and refined. Even though the impact list making actually had on mankind may be overestimated in this argument, the fact remains that the list is a strikingly constant and very much written device.9 Apart

 8 See in more detail Veldhuis 2014; cf. Wasserman’s contribution to this volume. 9 Enumerative patterns are also used in spoken discourse, but these tend to be much shorter than written lists and serve different purposes. See in more detail Dubois 1995 and Jefferson 1990.

  Eva von Contzen from to-do lists and ranking lists, the Internet has become one of the most influential list-making institutions these days, from Twitter and news feeds to the result list of a search engine. For our purposes of analysing lists in literature, this backdrop is significant because it reminds us of the remarkable transhistorical stability of the list and its functions as a cultural tool. Literary lists can be seen as the result of a creative process in which a basic quotidian device (something we use rather than reflect upon using) is transformed into a rhetorical figure. ‘Process’ here means a collective singular: in different periods, one can detect various processes of appropriating knowledge of and about the world in the form of the list. In the early modern period, for instance, list writing gained new momentum in the context of the newly emerging history of science, as James Delbourgo and Staffan Müller-Wille (2012) have demonstrated. The urge to classify and order the world, but also the growing impact of mercantilism and consumer culture are evident in literary texts from Restauration comedy to pop culture novels.10 Lists do not automatically or necessarily engage with discourses and concerns of a specific period, but they invite such a reflective engagement. Due to their digressive qualities, lists can negotiate patterns indicative of more general societal and cultural movements and epistemic systems. The ancient catalogue, for instance, “by supplying copious if not complete information concisely under a stated heading, is the closest thing to an encyclopedia entry offered by early antiquity” (Sammons 2010, 4). In the Old English period, as Howe (1985) has shown, so-called wisdom literature was based on traditions of accumulated knowledge and collective cultural memory, for which the form of the catalogue was crucial. Dennis Hall (2005) claims that in the twenty-first century the list has become an icon of popular culture and as such a symptom of postmodernism: “Every person is now his or her own maker of lists, participant in the struggle for authority and determination in the culture” (58). According to Hall, the list’s constancy in form is but one feature that contributes to this status of popular iconography; other features include the potential to stimulate ritual behaviour as well as memory and nostalgia, prompting disagreement about meaning, and — perhaps most importantly — exhibiting rich metonymic resonance, that is, embodying associated ideas that allow a list, simply by virtue of its being a list, to deliver meanings into the contexts in which it appears, meanings beyond the simple utilitarian functions ... The list delivers meaning quite apart from what it nominally contains. (52)

 10 See Baßler 2002 and Diederichsen 2006 for studies on lists in pop culture.

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  

Such uses of lists and their proliferation of meanings and functions need not be limited to the twenty-first century. In fact, many of the aspects Hall enumerates are not specific to contemporary popular culture but pertain to all lists, across historical periods. That Hall charges the list in this way is perhaps in itself a symptom of postmodernism, which looks for meaning and sites where meaning is accumulated (even when it is questioned). Poets and writers have always used the list and adapted it to the purposes of literature, because and despite their fundamental grounding in everyday practices of writing and ordering the world.

. The List as Simple Form From the cultural-anthropological approach to lists I now turn to questions of text production and genre. To refer to the list as a ‘simple form’ is suggestive, for obvious reasons. The Dutch-German scholar André Jolles (1968 [1930]), however, used the phrase in a very specific sense to describe a group of nine pre-literary genres (saint’s legend, legend, myth, riddle, proverb, exemplum, anecdote, märchen, and joke). Jolles analyses these genres with regard to the priorities of an aesthetic dimension (their aesthetic appeal), their meaning, and their ‘Gestalt’ (abstracted form). Language, according to Jolles, creates circumstances which in turn create ‘Gestalt’: the simple forms. The adjective ‘simple’ is not meant in a derogative sense, but denotes a category of analysis. A simple form, accordingly, is a concentration of cultural meaning in a certain form that becomes manifest in a linguistic gesture (‘Sprachgebärde’). These manifestations are the legends, riddles, jokes, etc. as we read them incorporated in literary works. Literature thus takes up and interprets the simple forms, for instance when Homer draws on Greek mythology.11 Only in such larger narrative contexts in which they are incorporated and reflected upon, do simple forms become ‘text’. Crucially, ‘simple forms’ do not constitute archetypes of patterns of literature, but “possibilities which can be selected, realized, or also not realized according to cultural codes and social conditions. Considered methodologically, they have the status of heuristic categories” (Jauss 1979, 213). As a heuristics, ‘simple forms’ constitute an analytical category that can be used to describe literary activity as grounded in basic cultural and perhaps anthropological formations. It is in this specific sense

 11 The metaphors Jolles uses for the three stages are the farmer, who produces (= principle of language); the craftsman, who creates (principle of ‘Gestalt’), and the priest, who interprets (= principle of literature; see 1968 [1930], 11–20).

  Eva von Contzen à la Jolles that Philippe Hamon calls the list a simple form because it is “probablement universelle, transhistorique et transgénérique” (2013, 21). Even though lists bear some resemblance to Jolles’s categories, in particular, as in Hamon, with respect to their transhistorical and transgeneric qualities, lists are simple forms in a sense quite distinct from Jolles’s definition. Lists, as we have seen, are closely connected to literary rather than pre-literary culture. What is more, myth, legend, riddle, and so forth are defined functionally and intentionally rather than formally, whether in the contexts of religion, identity formation, or pedagogy. Hans-Otto Dill, in his critique of Jolles’s term, suggests ‘short forms’ as an alternative to ‘simple forms’ (2010, 18). This, however, does not solve the problem of the notoriously polysemantic term ‘form’, but reduces the definition of pre-literary narrative existents to a single, not even defining, element, i.e. their length. Rather, it seems expedient to subsume ‘lists’ under Jolles’s ‘Sprachgebärden’. As linguistic gestures that are made manifest in texts, the list can be straightforwardly incorporated into and be identified in a narrative because it forms a discrete unit within the text. Due to their formal simplicity, lists are highly versatile and productive.12

. The List as Mode While the list as simple form underscores the formal distinctness and versatility of enumerative structures across genres and periods of literary history, the list as mode highlights their flexible, dynamic character within a specific literary work. As a mode, the list is conceptualised as a form of discourse, as a recognisable pattern of narrating (or dis-narrating) that considerably shapes the reading experience. What makes such a particular pattern of the narrative recognisable varies strongly: the mode of the list operates on a scale that ranges from musical, perhaps mostly ornamental auditory and visual effects to disruption and the suspension of meaning. Samuel Beckett’s novels, in particular Murphy and Watt, are an example of the latter: as David Lodge maintains, these novels can be said to resist reading “by refusing to settle into a simply identifiable mode or rhythm” (1977, 224). One of the narrative elements that contribute to this effect of resistance is, indeed, the list. A striking example is the beginning of chapter 2 of Murphy, in which Celia is described as follows:

 12 See in greater detail von Contzen 2017b.

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  

Age. Head. Eyes. Complexion. Hair. Features. Neck. Upper arm. Forearm.

Unimportant. Small and round. Green. White. Yellow. Mobile. 13¾˝. 11˝. 9½˝. ...13

Further examples of literary works that are characterised by the enumerative mode in its various manifestations include Chaucer’s House of Fame, the “Monologue Recreatif” in the anonymous early modern Complaint of Scotland, Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and Julian Barnes’s 1999 novel England, England. John Ditsky has coined the suggestive term ‘rhapsodic mode’ for what he conceives of as a particular style of writing emerging in the twentieth century. This mode, he argues, has affinity with epic catalogues and the lyric predilection for enumerations. Its main characteristic is “an immersion in content, a process of being soaked in quantity towards a desired qualitative end” (1972, 483; emphasis in the original) and “the apparent domination of form by content” (ibid. 484). Both these claims can easily be extended to lists in general: readers may come to believe that a writer has lost control over the text in view of the Dionysian quality of many a list; yet, as Ditsky points out, rhapsodic writing “involves the only apparent surrender of authorial control: the giddiness of the carnival ride based on the hidden existence of track and gear and wire” (1972, 484). List writing, in other words, is hard work. Its functions and effects may be different across historical periods and genres, but often they share the impression of a spontaneous overflow of words in quick succession. In actual fact, though, enumerations are based on the careful crafting of the narrative towards the desired effects. Perceived as a mode, then, lists are not viewed as static and closed, but apprehended as narrative elements of change and transformation that considerably shape the perception of a work.

. The List as the Other: Description and Spatial Form From the perspective of narrative theory, lists constitute, to say the least, a challenge: embedded in narrative texts, they do not narrate. Instead, they break up  13 Beckett 2009 [1938], 9. The list continues with further measurements, ten in total, and closes with Celia’s weight (123 lbs.).

  Eva von Contzen the sequence of events, bring the plot to a halt, and force the reader to pause. This is even true for catalogues such as the one of the ships in the Iliad, which is based on the notion of movement. In their disruptive, non-narrative quality, lists share several characteristics with descriptions, which likewise cause a pause in the narrative flow of events. In Hamon’s words, description constitutes “un élément étranger, inassimilable, de l’œuvre, une sorte de kyste textuel radicalement différent” (1981a, 12); it is irreconcilable with the literary. The same holds true for lists. Obviously not all lists are descriptions, nor do descriptions necessarily feature lists. Yet there is a strong overlap between the two in their representational dimension: descriptive lists, just as list-like descriptions, are defined by their referentiality to something that emerges as a whole (or a partial whole) only if one connects the separate pieces of the description. In the moment of describing, the referential and representational qualities supersede narrative progression. The result is indeed one of ‘otherness’. As the ‘Other’ in narrative texts, description does not feature prominently in narratological debates. Indeed, it is a problematic category for narrative theory, which traditionally distinguishes between various textual modes, one of which is narrative, another dialogue, yet another description. From this perspective, description and narration are incompatible: either a text narrates, or it describes. This strict opposition between description and narration as two distinct modes has been challenged, up to the point of removing any difference between the two.14 The latter is a radical step which I would caution against in the context of lists: even though a list such as Beckett’s description of Celia ‘narrates’ in a very general sense, it is difficult not to see a difference both in the link to the rest of the narrative and the dimensions opened up by the catalogue. However, it stands to reason to assume a moderate convergence of narration and description: analogous to “narrativized descriptions” and “descriptized narrations” (Mosher 1991, 426), we can distinguish between ‘descriptive lists’ and ‘narrative lists’. Lists can ‘describe’ in a narrow sense (they describe interiors, the content of something, outward appearance, etc.) and in a wider one (‘descriptions’ of an authorial stance, of the narrator’s sensitivities, etc.). In both cases, the list, due to its distinct form, is in itself neither fully descriptised nor fully narrativised. At the same time, the question of purpose is crucial: because of their descriptive impetus, lists are not an end in themselves; as Hamon notes, to describe is always already a

 14 See e.g. Genette 1982 and Kittay 1981. Ronen argues that “narrative fulfills a representational function no less often than descriptions impose narrative order” 1997, 284. See Wolf and Bernhart 2007 on description and narrative more generally.

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  

“to describe for” (1981b, 6). Lists propel us to revisit the description-narration dichotomy as they promise to shed new light on their interrelatedness: the two modes are not hermetic and can therefore overlap, verge towards, and complement each other. A suitable approach to analysing the special status of lists as ‘Other’ in a narrative text is Joseph Frank’s concept of spatiality. According to Frank, modernist literature is based on a technique that works by means of the juxtaposition of images and themes and by synchronic relations. Jeffrey Smitten’s summary of how spatial form functions reads like a ‘how-to’ for lists: The reader must work out a syntax for the text. If conventional connectives no longer exist, the reader, to make sense of the text, must discover for himself what connections are to be made among the seemingly disconnected words and word groups. Once we have succeeded in that task, we can see what the individual words symbolize and how they relate to one another and to the whole. (1981, 18)

Central to Frank’s model is the role of the reader and her strategies of sense-making. The key to spatial form, then, is “reflexive reference” which is based on both the reader’s cognitive input (her awareness of spatial form and alertness to its functions) and the specific structure of the narrative text (ibid. 20–21). In that sequentiality is replaced by a space-logic analogous to the visual arts, readers first perceive the structure as a whole before making sense of its parts: “attention is fixed on the interplay of relationships within the immobilized time-area” (Frank 1963, 15). Juxtaposition instead of sequence, space (as a metaphor) rather than time — these are fundamentally also the parameters of the list. The disruptive break from the sequencing of the plot underscores the list as an a-temporal — that is, metaphorically speaking, spatial — formal element. Stephen Barney links the spatiality of lists with Roman Jakobson’s theory of figurative discourse: “a list is obviously paradigmatic and tends towards metaphor, whereas a story is syntagmatic and tends towards metonymy” (1982, 193).15 While narratives operate on the basis of causal and temporal relations and are characterised by asymmetries that occur between them, lists lack this capacity for transitivity. They are, apart from their considerable shortness compared with narratives, “adjectival and principled, and symmetrical and intransitive” (ibid. 193). Jakobson’s model of metonymic relations thus defines narrative, which is causal, temporal, horizontal, and syntagmatic, as opposed to the metaphoric relations that can be said to define lists, which are non-temporal, quasi-spatial, vertical, and paradigmatic (ibid.). Lists counter our expectation of continuity as a fundamental quality of all  15 See Jakobson 1956.

  Eva von Contzen writing:16 they introduce a rupture, an element of discontinuity that only becomes continuous again based on the reader’s sense-making strategies. It is discontinuity deferred, or rather, continuity deferred, to a momentous spatial eruption from the narrative sequence.

. The List as Experience: Sense-Making and Affective Responses Perhaps the most important question for the study of lists in literature is how lists make sense in a narrative text. This question cannot be dissociated from the investigation of how the list is constructed and functionalised text-internally and from the question of the reader’s input in the process of sense-making. A crucial factor in this context, I would argue, is the list’s relation to experientiality. Because lists are so pervasive in our categorising and understanding of the world, they evoke, or are at least reminiscent of, a real-life experience. According to Monika Fludernik, experientiality is “the quasi-mimetic evocation of real-life experience” (1996, 12). Fludernik introduces the experiential as an alternative for plot-based approaches to narration and as a defining feature of narrativity. Narrativity — that which makes a narrative a narrative — is defined as a specific function of ‘text’ in its broadest meaning imposed on it by the interpreter due to her human experientiality. Its central factors, based on human experience, are embodiment and consciousness. Thus narrativity points to the cognitive strategies through which human beings are able to follow and understand a story, to distinguish between narrative and non-narrative texts, and also to create stories themselves. Lists in literature are experiential in that they too are indicative of cognitive strategies. By means of these strategies readers make a list meaningful. But on closer consideration, literary lists challenge the notion of the experiential: in one sense, lists are indeed fundamentally experiential (due to their grounding in everyday life). Readers can make lists meaningful and recognise their overall meaning for the narrative by imposing a ‘narrative’ framework on them, that is, by establishing connections, whether associative, temporal, or causal, between the separate items of the list as well as between the list and the surrounding narrative context. In that sense, lists can indeed function “as a kind of narrative

 16 See Lodge 1977, 231. Lodge also uses Jakobson’s model and applies it to English literary history more generally. On a very broad scale, “literature itself is metaphoric and nonliterature metonymic” (ibid. 109).

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  

short-hand” (Poletti 2008, 340). Yet, lists do not qualify as one of the typical parameters of the representation of experience as outlined by Fludernik, such as action, intentions, motivations, and temporality. From this perspective, they are much less directly linked to experience.17 More than any of the traditional elements of narrative, enumerative structures require the reader’s input in order to be rendered meaningful: the ‘gaps’ or ‘blanks’ that necessarily exist between the items of a list need to be filled. Wolfgang Iser’s aesthetics of reception fits well in order to describe the decoding processes that underlie reading lists as and in literature. Following Iser, blanks in a literary text break up the sequence of narrative schemata and counter our expectation of narrative continuation. The reader’s imagination is immediately mobilised to integrate the bits and pieces into a coherent whole. Readers “cannot help but try and supply the missing links that will bring the schemata together in an integrated gestalt. The greater the number of blanks, the greater will be the number of different images built up by the reader” (1978, 186). Of course the reception of all writing relies on processes of inference and filling gaps. Yet in enumerative structures, these mechanisms of sense-making are intensified. Iser refers to “cuts”, which authors implement in their texts and which automatically create a gap that needs to be filled, analogous to a cut in a movie from one scene to a completely different one. By relating the new scene or segment to what comes before, in other words, by filling the blank, the new segment becomes the theme and thus the point of reference or horizon against which the new segment is measured (ibid. 197–198). Lists, in their prototypical form, consist of such hard cuts only. Given that lists provide only minimal anchors for filling the gaps, there are many more potential horizons of meaning to be evoked. In extreme cases, such as Christopher Miller’s Sudden Noises from Intimate Objects: A Novel in Liner Notes (2002), or Leanne Shapton’s fictitious auction catalogue Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry (2009), which are narrated solely in the form of the list, the reader is put in the position of co-author, who (re-)creates and thereby authors her own version of the story (see von Contzen 2017b). Because of their specific form, the list transmits not only a system of categorisation, but also an attitude towards this system. Beyond what is actually meant

 17 Paul Ricoeur too maintains that temporality is crucial for making sense of a narrative (see e.g. 1984, 54–63). He argues that we have a pre-knowledge that allows us to make sense of a plot by identifying it as plot, based on structural patterns of action that unfold in time. Thus by the same operation we are able to identify non-plots, or non-action. On a different kind of experientiality which lists can evoke, see von Contzen 2018.

  Eva von Contzen by the list, on a cognitive level, lists also have a strong affective momentum: they trigger responses on an emotional level. Indeed, it is remarkable that such a simple formal element can elicit frustration, feelings of control and security (the world in order), or, on the contrary, insecurity and fear (of that which we cannot grasp, in size and number); pleasure (derived from the appeal of the act of reading, the act of decoding, and the associative powers); disappointment (lack of explanation, narrative embedding); alienation from the text; awe in view of the poet’s skills, etc.18 According to Ditsky, the rhapsodic mode “involves an immersion in content, a process of being soaked in quantity towards a desired qualitative end. The emotional potential of such a technique is enormous — as is its corresponding capacity for excess” (1972, 483). The power of the list thus is due to both its immersive capacity and its potential for reflection. Oscillating between closeness and distance, lists can empower readers just as much as disempower them.

 Conclusion: The Fascination of the List To date, the study of lists in literature has been fragmented and limited to very selective examples. Yet in view of the manifold manifestations of enumerative structures in literary texts, a listology is called for that scrutinises, synchronically and diachronically, literary lists and their functions from a more systematic angle. The question ‘What is being enumerated how at what point in a narrative to which end?’ offers a simple but effective orientation for further analysis. A listology necessarily involves a formalist approach, but it goes beyond the mere description of formal arrangements in that it always also factors in the function(s) of lists, in other words, their affordances.19 A listology is an aesthetics of reception: lists require taking into account the reader and her cognitive input in order to make sense of the list and its meaning within the narrative. At the same time, lists have an enormous appeal. There are very few narrative forms and features, which, irrespective of their contents, delight and frustrate us as much as the list.  18 See Young 2017 with several case studies from a media materialist perspective. Young maintains: “the enduring presence of the list in our thoughts, texts, and programs arises from its unique capacity to negotiate tensions and paradoxes that have perplexed us for millennia. These include fear and desire, wonder and horror, entropy and order“ (18). William Gass remarks: “Even the jeremiad is a list, and full of joy. Damnations are delightful” (1985, 120). 19 First steps towards such a listology — or a listory, the literary history of lists — are made in von Contzen 2016; 2019.

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  

A useful concept that encapsulates both these reactions, and also highlights the ‘reactionary’ potential of the list itself, is ‘fascination’. Etymologically, to be fascinated meant “to be affected by witchcraft or magic” as well as “to bewitch, enchant, lay under a spell” (OED), that is, both to be the object and the subject of a magical, bewitching act. The root of the word, Latin fascinum, means ‘spell’.20 Originally, then, ‘fascination’ has a positive and a negative side; it can be potentially dangerous and delightful. Hugo Kuhn introduced the ‘fascination type’ as an alternative approach to genre in the late Middle Ages. In order to come to terms with the heavy generic overlaps and transgressions in the later medieval period, Kuhn argued that the focus on what is fascinating, that is, what attracts an audience to a certain text, should take precedence over discussions of genre.21 Based on Kuhn’s approach, one could argue that the list is a fascination type too, that is, an element in narrative texts that exerts its force by eliciting both rejection and attraction. It has recently been argued that one could use ‘fascination’ as an aesthetic category, similar to ‘enthusiasm’, the sublime, or the miraculous.22 Beyond the modernist discourses of the holy (and Rudolf Otto’s fascinans et tremendum) and the psychological dimension of fascination, I would like to propose that the list is a narrative fascinosum, a literary form that startles and entertains; that attracts and repels at the same time. It does so because it is anthropologically grounded, a simple, highly productive form, an ‘othering’ mode between narration and description, spatial, and, last but not least, experiental with a twist. The peculiar spell lists put readers under is not unlike what has been termed ‘the Medusa effect’ with respect to the fascination exerted by encounters, visual and textual, of Medusa and her gaze: this power, as Sybille Baumbach describes, is “exerted through and within the text” (2010, 236; emphasis in the original).23 Lists are Medusean; they too have a mesmerising power that makes us want to look closely, yet that also makes us avert our eyes and return to the narrative proper. In their idiosyncratic form, lists are fundamentally about order and about making sense: of the world, of the text, of the fictional world, of the characters that inhabit it. At the same time, they challenge the reader’s responses to all of  20 The OED entry ‘fascinate’ provides three main meanings: 1. To affect by witchcraft or magic; to bewitch enchant, lay under a spell (obs.); 2. To cast a spell over (a person, animal, etc.) by a look, (esp. of serpents); 3. a. to enslave (the faculties), the judgement of (a person) (obs.); b. To attract and retain the attention of (a person) by an irresistible influence; c. To attract and ‘hold spellbound’ by delightful qualities; to charm, enchant. 21 See Gumbrecht 1979. 22 See in more detail Seeber 2010; 2012. 23 Cf. also the volume by Milcent-Lawson et al. 2013, which is based on the premise of “l’effet liste”.

  Eva von Contzen these dimensions. I hope to have demonstrated the complexities one faces when one takes lists as a fascinating distinct element of and in narrative texts seriously. Borges’s Chinese list, with which I began, reminds us of the unique power exerted by literature and its fictions: it leaves us with both uneasiness and pleasure — we stand dumbfounded in view of the apparent chaos and unpredictable randomness of the categories, yet laugh in view of the possibility that there may be a world in which these categories make perfect sense. To imagine this world is the actual attraction behind the list: we can be drawn into it, in an immersive impetus, or recognise our distance from it, by reflecting on its meaning. For all the authoritative status of the list as form, its meaning requires and depends on the reader.

Works Cited Barney, S. (1982), “Chaucer’s Lists”, in: L.D. Benson/S. Wenzel (eds.), The Wisdom of Poetry. Essays in Early English Literature in Honor of Morton W. Bloomfield, Kalamazoo, 189–223. Baßler, M. (2002), Der deutsche Pop-Roman: Die neuen Archivisten, München. Baumbach, S. (2010), “Medusa’s Gaze and the Aesthetics of Fascination”, in: Anglia 128.2, 225–245. Beckett, S. (2009 [1938]), Murphy, J.C.C. Mays (ed.), London. Belknap, R. (2000), “The Literary List: A Survey of its Uses and Deployments”, in: Literary Imagination 2.1, 35–54. Belknap, R. (2004), The List: Uses and Pleasures of Cataloguing, New Haven. Borges, J.L. (1973), “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”, in: Other Inquisitions 1937– 1952. By Jorge Luis Borges, trans. R.L.C. Simms, London, 101–105. Chénetier, M. (1994), “Kyrielle et liaison: Propos profanes sur la liste en littérature”, in: Suites et séries, Actes du 3ème colloque du CICADA, textes réunis par B. Rougé, Université de Pau, 107–122. Contzen, E. von (2016), “The Limits of Narration: Lists and Literary History”, in: Style 50.3, 241– 260. Contzen, E. von (2017a), “Die Affordanzen der Liste”, in: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 3, 317–326. Contzen, E. von (2017b), “Grenzfälle des Erzählens: Die Liste als einfache Form”, in: A. Koschorke (ed.), Komplexität und Einfachheit. Villa Vigoni-Symposion 2015, Stuttgart, 221– 239. Contzen, E. von (2018), “Experience, Affect, and Literary Lists”, in: Partial Answers 16.2, 315– 327. Contzen, E. von (2019), “On the (Epic) List: Catalogues of Heroes and Literary Form from Homer to Omeros”, in: S. Tilg (ed.), Pontes IX: Antikes Heldentum in der Moderne, Freiburg, 231– 255. Delbourgo, J./Müller-Wille, S. (2012), “Introduction Focus: Listmania”, in: Isis 103.4, 710–715.

Theorising Lists in Literature: Towards a Listology  

Diederichsen, D. (2006), “Liste und Intensität”, in: D. Linck/G. Mattenklott (eds.), Abfälle: Stoff- und Materialpräsentation in der deutschen Pop-Literatur der 60er Jahre, Hannover/Laatzen, 107–123. Dill, H.-O. (2010), “Einfachheit vs. Komplexität in Literatur, Kunst und Wissenschaft”, in: Sitzungsberichte der Leibniz-Sozietät der Wissenschaften zu Berlin 108, 105–119. Ditsky, J. (1972), “Carried Away by Numbers: The Rhapsodic Mode in Modern Fiction”, in: Queen’s Quarterly 79.4, 482–494. Doležalová, L. (2009), “Introduction: The Potential and Limitations of Studying Lists”, in: L. Doležalová (ed.), The Charm of a List: From the Sumerians to Computerised Data Processing, Cambridge, 1–8. Dubois, S. (1995), “Structural Processes in Enumeration”, in: Language Variation and Change 7.1, 113–137. Eco, U. (2009), The Infinity of Lists. From Homer to Joyce, trans. A. McEwen, London. Fludernik, M. (1996), Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology, London/New York. Foucault, M. (1994), The Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, New York. Frank, J. (1963), “Spatial Form in Modern Literature”, in: The Widening Gyre: Crisis and Mastery in Modern Literature, New Brunswick, 1–62. Gass, W. (1985), “And”, in: A. Wier/D. Hendrie Jr. (eds.), Voicelust: Eight Contemporary Fiction Writers on Style, Lincoln, NE, 101–125. Genette, G. (1982), Figures of Literary Discourse, trans. A. Sheridan, New York. Goody, J. (1977), “What’s in a List?”, in: J. Goody, The Domestication of a Savage Mind, Cambridge, 74–111. Gumbrecht, H.U. (1979), “Faszinationstyp Hagiographie. Ein historisches Experiment zur Gattungstheorie”, in: C. Cormeau (ed.), Deutsche Literatur im Mittelalter. Kontakte und Perspektiven. Hugo Kuhn zum Gedenken, Stuttgart, 37–84. Hall, D. (2005), “Listomania: The List as Popular Icon”, in: Studies in Popular Culture 28.1, 49– 59. Hamon, P. (1981a), Introduction à l’analyse du descriptif, Langue Linguistique Communication, Paris. Hamon, P. (1981b), “Rhetorical Status of the Descriptive”, trans. P. Baudoin, in: Yale French Studies 61, 1–26. Hamon, P. (2013), “La mise en liste”, in: S. Milcent-Lawson/M. Lecolle/R. Michel (eds.), Liste et effet liste en littérature, Paris, 21–29. Howe, N. (1985), The Old English Catalogue Poems, Copenhagen. Iser, W. (1978), The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response, London/Henley. Jakobson, R. (1956), “Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances”, in: R. Jakobson/M. Halle (eds.), Fundamentals of Language, The Hague, 56–82. Jauss, H.R. (1979), “The Alterity and Modernity of Medieval Literature”, in: New Literary History 10.2, 181–229. Jefferson, G. (1990), “List-Construction as a Task and Resource”, in: G. Psathas (ed.), Interaction Competence, Lanham, MD, 63–92. Jolles, A. (1968 [1930]), Einfache Formen: Legende, Sage, Mythe, Rätsel, Spruch, Kasus, Memorabile, Märchen, Witz, 7th ed., Tübingen. Kittay, J. (1981), “Descriptive Limits”, in: Yale French Studies 61, 225–243. Lodge, D. (1977), The Modes of Modern Writing. Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Literature, London.

  Eva von Contzen Mainberger, S. (2003), Die Kunst des Aufzählens: Elemente zu einer Poetik des Enumerativen, Berlin. Milcent-Lawson, S./Lecolle, M./Michel, R. (eds.) (2013), Liste et effet liste en littérature, Paris. Mosher, H.F., Jr. (1991), “Towards a Poetics of ‘Descriptized’ Narration”, in: Poetics Today 3, 425–445. Pflugmacher, T. (2005), “Description”, in: D. Herman/M. Jahn/M.-L. Ryan (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London/New York, 101–102. Poletti, A. (2008), “Where the Popular Meets the Mundane: The Use of Lists in Personal Zines”, in: Canadian Review of American Studies 38.3, 333–349. Ricoeur, P. (1984), Time and Narrative, Vol. 1, Chicago. Ronen, R. (1997), “Description, Narrative and Representation”, in: Narrative 5.3, 274–286. Rüggemeier, A. (2018), “The List as a Means of Assessment and Standardization and Its Critical Remediation in Graphic Narratives About Illness and Care”, in: Closure. Kieler e-Journal für Comicforschung #5, 55–82. Rüggemeier, A. (2019), “Lists in Life Writing: The List as a Means to Visualize the Trace of the Absent”, in: a/b Auto/Biography Studies 34.2, 330–342. Sammons, B. (2010), The Art and Rhetoric of the Homeric Catalogue, Oxford. Seeber, H.U. (2010), “Ästhetik der Faszination? Überlegungen und Beispiele”, in: Anglia 128.2, 197–224. Seeber, H.U. (2012), Literarische Faszination in England um 1900, Heidelberg. Selting, M. (2004), “Listen: Sequenzielle und prosodische Struktur einer kommunikativen Praktik. Eine Untersuchung im Rahmen der Interaktionalen Linguistik”, in: Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 23.1, 1–46. Smitten, J.R. (1981), “Introduction: Spatial Form and Narrative Theory”, in: J.R. Smitten/ A. Daghistany (eds.), Spatial Form in Narrative, Ithaca/London, 15–34. Spufford, F. (ed.) (1989), The Chatto Book of Cabbages and Kings: Lists in Literature, London. Sternberg, M. (1981), “Ordering the Unordered: Time, Space, and Descriptive Coherence”, in: Yale French Studies 61, 60–88. Veldhuis, N. (2014), History of the Cuneiform Lexical Tradition, Münster. Wolf, W./Bernhart, W. (eds.) (2007), Description in Literature and Other Media, New York. Young, L.C. (2017), List Cultures. Knowledge and Poetics from Mesopotamia to BuzzFeed, Amsterdam.



Part II: The Cultural Poetics of Enumeration: Contexts, Materiality, Organisation

Nathan Wasserman

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts. With an appendix on this Device in Borges and Hughes Stars, bread, libraries of East and West... J.L. Borges, Matthew XXV: 30

Lists, in their most basic meaning — longer or shorter sequences of words1 — are an essential part of the ancient Mesopotamian literary tradition. Since Mesopotamian literature (along with Egyptian), is the earliest recorded literary tradition in the world, we can say with some certainty that lists are a basic component of world literature. In this article I draw a picture of different kinds of lists in Mesopotamian literature, first non-literary lists, then lists found within a literary context. My paper is divided into four parts. In the first part (§ 1), I present a short introduction to the scribal tradition of lexical lists in ancient Mesopotamia. Some methodological comments follow (§ 2). The main part of my paper is devoted to lists of different kinds which are embedded in Akkadian literary compositions. I discuss simple lists or CATALOGUES, CHAIN-LIKE lists, and a special kind of enumeration which I call a COMPLEX CHAIN (§§ 3–6). In Classical rhetoric the terms relevant to our discussion are enumeratio,2 and gradatio,3 and to some extent also accumulatio4 (it should be noted that definitions of these devices differ according to textbook). A discussion of the complex relationship between enumeration and oral literature serves as a summary (§ 7). I finish my paper with notes on two modern poets, Jorge Luis Borges (§ 8.1) and Ted Hughes (§ 8.2), whose reliance on enumeration to a great extent reflects its usage in ancient literature thus reveal the enduring applicability of enumeration as a literary device.  1 This article treats lists of words with clear literary function. It does not concern keywords analysis as a means of determining the aboutness of a given text. For statistical lexicography, see Archer’s 2009 useful collection of papers. 2 Lausberg 1960, §§ 669–674; Lausberg 1967, §§ 298–305; Dupriez 1980, 185–187; Molino/Grades-Tamine 1982, 199–200. 3 Lausberg 1967, § 259; von Wilpert 1979, 305 (Gradatio), 394–395 (Klimax), 32 (Antiklimax); Braak 1980, 47; Dupriez 1980, 221–222; Morier 1981, 497. 4 Lausberg 1960, §§ 623–624; Lausberg 1967, § 256–258; Plett 1979, 34; Molino/Grades-Tamine 1982, 194–195. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-004

  Nathan Wasserman

 Already in the Late-Uruk Period, around 3100 BCE, when archaic cuneiform writing on clay tablets was first introduced into the southernmost part of Mesopotamia –current-day southern Iraq — one finds texts that list thematically grouped words: personal names, professions, different kinds of animal. In Assyriological terms these tablets are called Lexical Lists.5 Writing in Mesopotamia was invented as an aide-mémoire for the accounting system already in place in the highly centralized urban Sumerian civilization. Writing was about how much grain Mr. Smith owed the Temple and how much wool Mr. Jones was to acquire from the palace in order to weave luxurious garments to be given as gifts to foreign diplomats. In other words, writing in its earliest stage had little to do with literature. Serving as a computing tool and symbolic notation for an existing accounting system, archaic writing was based on concrete items, personal names, numbers and measures, as well as terms relating to time (days, months, years). There was less need for verbal forms which could be inferred from the context and serve as a complement to the written form. With this in mind it is not difficult to understand that lexical lists, or inventories, were useful to scribes sitting in the bureaus of the temples and palaces of Ur, Uruk, Lagaš, Umma and Nippur.6 A millennium later, in the Old Babylonian period, around 1800 BCE, lexical lists developed into a full-blown literary form. Many hundreds of tablets of lexical texts from this period have been excavated, mostly in the city of Nippur. Already in this period lexical lists started to be canonized and tablet series came into existence containing hundreds and thousands of lines. There are unilingual, Sumerian lexical lists, and bilingual, Sumerian-Akkadian lexical lists. In a later period, in Syria (Emar) and in Anatolia (Boghazkoy), we even find trilingual lexical lists: a Sumerian column, accompanied by Akkadian and Hittite columns of translation.7 Without a doubt the most important thematic lexical list, historically speaking, is the ḪAR-ra = ḫubbulu (Ḫḫ), named after its first line. This extensive bilingual list, which was arranged in groups according to a leading key-word, itemizes thousands of terms and concepts which concern the natural environment: mountains, rivers, cities, wild and domestic animals, textiles, wooden and metal utensils, and more. In fact, ḪAR-ra = ḫubbulu formed the first ever Reallexikon in

 5 Veldhuis 2013. 6 Nissen et al. 1993. 7 Veldhuis 2014.

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

world literature. See, for example, Ḫḫ V: 110–133, a section which lists different kinds of plough and their components. (Each line starts with the Sumerian lemma, its Akkadian counterpart, accompanied by the modern English translation): 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

giš-apin, e-pi-in-nu giš-apin-zu, mu-še-lu-ú giš-apin-zu-e11, mu-še-lu-ú giš-apin-zu-zu, (mu-še-lu-ú) giš-apin-zu-zu, tal-mi-du giš-apin-zu, (tal-mi-du) giš-apin-šu, a-ga-di-ib-bu giš-apin-šu-du7, šu-uk-lu-lu giš-apin nu-:šu-du7, la-a (šu-uk-lu-lu) giš-apin-zu-zu, lum-mu-du giš-apin-nu-:zu-zu, la-a (lum-mu-du) giš-apin-si-sá, i-ša-a-ru giš-apin-nu-:si-sá, la-a (i-ša-a-ru) giš-apin-ŠU.KIN, ḫar-bu giš-apin-ŠU.KIN, ma-a-a-ru giš-apin-kéš-da, ṣu-mu-du giš-apin-nu-:kéš-da, la-a ṣu-mu-du giš-apin-á-kár, ú-nu-tu giš-apin-á-kár-bir-bir-ri, su-up-pu-ḫu giš-apin-gud-8-lá, su-mu-un-tu giš-apin-gud-6-lá, e-pi-in ši-ša-at giš-apin-gud-4-lá, (e-pi-in) er-bi-it giš-apin-gud-3-lá, ša-lu-ul-tu giš-apin-gud-2-lá, šu-nu-uʾ-tu

a plough a winnower (part/type of plough) a winnower (part/type of plough) a winnower (part/type of plough) an apprentice (type of plough/plough-man) an apprentice (type of plough/plough-man) a hand seeder-plough (part/type of plough) a complete plough (part/type of plough) an incomplete plough (part/type of plough) a learned (type of plough/plough-man) a non-learned (type of plough/plough-man) a straight, normal (part/type of plough) a non-straight (part/type of plough) a plough for breaking the ground a plough for breaking up the soil a harnessed (plough) a non-harnessed (plough) equipment (for a plough) a disassembled plough a plough (drawn by) 8 oxen a plough (drawn by) 6 oxen a plough (drawn by) 4 oxen a plough (drawn by) 3 oxen a plough (drawn by) 2 oxen

Other lexical lists focus on professions (lú = ša), on body parts (u g u -m u ), on different sorts of stones and gems and their characteristics (abnu šikinšu), on legal terminology and phraseology (ana ittišu), and more. By the end of the second millennium BCE and into the first millennium, this massive tradition of lexical lists was standardized and serialized (‘canonized’, as the process is commonly called), and became the backbone of scribal knowledge in ancient Mesopotamia. Different series, at times made of many tens of tablets, each of hundreds of lines, were continuously copied and learned until Mesopotamian civilization came to an end in the post-Hellenistic period. One cannot accurately assess Mesopotamian écriture without taking into consideration the crucial role played by lexical lists.

  Nathan Wasserman

 Before venturing into the semantic battlefield to wage war on the long lines of words that are outlined in the ancient texts, a few preliminary methodological remarks are in order. – When comparing stand-alone lexical lists with enumerations embedded in literary texts, a fundamental distinction becomes apparent. The context of lexical lists is extra-literary, and their function is to be sought in bureaucratic practices, scribal curricula and scholarly education. Enumerations, by contrast, are text-bound. Their context is the oeuvre in which they are found and their function lies within the literary matrix. Enumerations in literary texts may depend, as will be shown, on lexical lists, but the two kinds of list are essentially different. – Stand-alone lists can be short or long. But in the case of enumerations within a literary context, one must ascertain the minimum number of words required to constitute an enumeration. Everyone would agree that a sequence of 20 items, or even 10, constitutes an enumeration. But what about 5 items? Or even 3? Are these short sequences also to be deemed enumerations? This is a crucial question since it defines the size of the corpus for study. Too broad an approach would give rise to a mass of insignificant data and to what statisticians call ‘noise’, which would muffle the signals. Too narrow an approach would, by contrast, create a small and non-representative corpus which might overlook important examples and lead to partial or even false conclusions. No mathematical answer can be given; one must resort to the most basic device in the philological toolbox, namely common sense. I suggest that determining an enumeration based on the length of a list is inadequate. The list needs to be assessed in relation to the length of its context. It would take a powerful argument to convince me that a 3 item-string in an epic of hundreds or thousands of lines were an enumeration, but a list of the same length in a short incantation could easily warrant that appellation. This point is important since not a few of the enumerations in Akkadian literature are found in relatively short texts, frequently incantations.

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

–

Although it may be difficult at times, one should distinguish between enumerations and fixed topoi which function similarly to epithets. The following example comes from the Sumerian myth Enki and the World Order:8 When Father Enki goes forth to the inseminated people, good seed will come forth. When Nudimmud goes forth to the good pregnant ewes, good lambs will be born; when he goes forth to the fecund cows, good calves will be born; when he goes forth to the good pregnant goats, good kids will be born.

The phrase I just quoted, based on fixed and expected pairs — ‘ewes-lambs’, ‘cows-calves’, ‘goats-kids’ — does not in my opinion count as a true enumeration of livestock which would require the free choice of items. – And finally, a comment about bibliography. Contrary to Classical studies, enumerations in the literature of Mesopotamia are not the dernier cri in Assyriology. Though they were studied from the late 1980s through the 1990s,9 enumerations were never a hot topic in cuneiform studies. The reason for this lack of scientific enthusiasm probably has something to do with the huge body of lexical lists presented above, whose publication required considerable editorial effort. With these introductory remarks out of the way, I finally get to the focus of the paper – lists of various kinds embedded in literary compositions.

 The first kind of list to be presented is the SIMPLE LIST, or CATALOGUE. It can be schematically described as A-B-C-…N. A good starting point is the catalogue found in ‘The lipšur litanies’. The name of this composition derives from the repetitive verbal form lipšur, which in Akkadian means ‘let so-and-so absolve’. The text, known from a number of manuscripts written around 700 BCE, consists of a series of incantations and prayers destined to absolve a sin committed by an individual. The first part of the text,

 8 See Enki and the World Order 52–55 (ETCSL 1.1.3): http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.1.3. 9 See Civil 1987; Veldhuis 1990; Veldhuis 1993; Wasserman 1993; Ferrara 1995; Michalowski 1998.

  Nathan Wasserman the part of interest to us, is an enumeration of mountains and geographical names: May Mount Sâbu absolve, the home of Enlil, May Mount Ḫursag absolve, the abode of the god ..., May Mount Lilmun absolve, the home of Adad, May Mount Budugḫudug absolve, through which Samaš enters to Ayya, May the Amanus absolve, the home of the cedar… May the Lebanon absolve, the home of the cypress… May Mount Dilur absolve, the home of the boxwood-tree, May Mount Dibar absolve, the home of the pistachio-tree… May Mount Ingina absolve, the home of the almond-tree, May Mount Šešeg absolve, the home of the oak… May Mount Au absolve, the home of the juniper… May Mount Zaršu absolve, the home of silver, May Mount Aralu absolve, the home of gold… May Mount Zarḫa absolve, the home of tin… May the Tigris absolve, which brings abundance, May the Euphrates absolve, the life-(giving river) of the land…10

Most of the toponyms in the litany are mountains. The order does not reflect an extra-linguistic reality, nor an obvious geographical ordering. Rather, the order of mountains is dependent on tablet Ḫḫ XXII, the lexical list mentioned earlier. And yet, this dependency of the literary composition on the lexical tradition does not answer the question of the ordering principle in the lexical list itself. The truth is that the ordering principles in Mesopotamian lists often elude us today. The second example of a simple list, or a catalogue, comes from a famous text — literary in the wider sense of the term — the Laws of Hammurāpi. Paragraph §7 of the Laws reads: If a free man purchases from a son of a free man, or from a slave of a free man — silver, or gold, or a slave, or a slave-girl, or an ox, or a sheep, or a donkey, or sundry [lit.: whatever be its name], without witnesses and contract, or if he receives anything for safekeeping — this man is a thief; he shall be put to death.11

Such enumerations appear frequently in legal texts of different kinds, and one should enquire into their function. Why does the text specify all these items, from silver to slave to donkey, if it concludes with ‘anything’? Why not simply say ‘If a

 10 Reiner 1956, 132–135. 11 Roth 1997, 82. (Translation by NW).

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

man purchases anything from another man of his social class, etc.’? This question — which concerns function, and thus differs from the one relating to the ordering principle — is easier to answer. The ancient scribe did not want to say ‘anything’ in the general sense. He meant to say ‘anything which belongs to a specific category that is relevant to this paragraph’. In this case, all purchasable and moveable goods. It should be noted that the paragraph does not include fields or houses. The reason for this exclusion is that in ancient Mesopotamia moveable goods were assumed to belong to the person who actually held and used them. The law warns against taking advantage of an inexperienced freeborn boy or a naïve slave and stipulates that such purchases should be made in good faith, publically and officially, with witnesses and a written contract. If not, the buyer is considered a crook and worthy of severe punishment. Property, by contrast, was not listed since it was unlikely, indeed impossible, that it would be sold without a written contract and witnesses. In this case, the enumeration has a clear explicatory function. The third example of a simple list, or a catalogue, is found in Tablet VIII of the standard version of the Epic of Gilgameš (put down in writing by the end of the second mill. BC), where Gilgameš mourns his dead friend and companion, Enkidu:12 O Enkidu, [whom] your mother, a gazelle, And your father, a wild donkey, [created,] Whom the wild [asses] reared with their milk, And the animals [of the wild taught] all the pastures – May the paths, O Enkidu, [of] the Forest of Cedar Mourn you, and not… by day and by night! May the elders of the populous city of Uruk-the-Sheepfold mourn you! May the crowd who would give blessings behind us [mourn you!] May the high [peaks] of hills and mountains mourn you, … … May the pastures lament like your mother! May [boxwood,] cypress and cedar mourn you, Through whose midst we crept in our fury! May the bear mourn you, the hyena, panther, cheetah, stag and jackal, The lion, wild bull, deer, ibex, the herds and animals of the wild! May the sacred river Ulay mourn you, along whose banks we would walk so lustily! May the holy Euphrates mourn you, which [we used] to pour in libation (as) water from skins!

 12 George 2003, 651–653.

  Nathan Wasserman This catalogue is still wider, but limited to items which pertain to Enkidu’s life, and which are now summoned to mourn his death. Here too the catalogue lists ‘all things which belong to a certain category’.

 Next to simple lists come SEMANTICALLY RESTRICTED CATALOGUES. I would describe them as A1-A2-A3-…An . A fine example comes from a short Old Babylonian incantation against dogs found in Išchali in eastern Iraq (OBTI 302), which though very fragmentary, can be safely reconstructed from parallel texts: 13 A blac[k dog, [a whi]te [dog], a yellow dog, a red [do]g, [a speckled] dog – Its [dwe]lling is in the pit, [In the thresho]ld [is] its [lair]…[Ni]nkarrak…

Another semantically restricted catalogue is found in an Old Babylonian incantation against snakes, known from two parallel tablets (TIM 9, 65 // TIM 9, 66): I seized the mouth of all snakes: the Kurṣindu-snake, the snake which cannot be charmed, the Aššunugallu-snake, the Burubalû-snake, the Šanapšaḫuru-snake, the speckled of eyes snake, the eel-snake, the hissing snake, the hisser, the snake of the window. (The snake) entered the hole, went out by the drain, it smote the sleeping gazelle, withdrew itself to the shrunken oak.14

The first of the two catalogues, the one listing dogs, depends on a learned tradition. The order of color — black, white, yellow, red and speckled — has its counterpart in tablet XIV of Ḫḫ, where different animals are listed according to color. In astronomical texts as well, the series white, black, red, and yellow is found in descriptions of the moon.15 Some of the snakes in the second catalogue also have parallels in Ḫḫ, but in this case the relation to the lexical list is less obvious and it seems that the incantation followed an as yet unknown tradition. The purpose of enumerations in Akkadian magical texts, like the dog and snake catalogues presented above, was to list as many possible types of potentially threatening creatures, so that the spell would be effective against them, for only a listed creature can be accounted for magically.

 13 Farber 1981, 57–58. 14 Finkel 1999, 226–227. (Translation by NW). 15 Rochberg-Halton 1984, 39 n. 52.

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

The Akkadian myth of creation, the Enūma eliš, supplies the finest example of the wish for completeness, thrown into relief in a long and elaborate enumeration. The Enūma eliš recounts the proto-history of the world, the climax of which was the battle of the young gods, headed by Marduk, against the old primordial gods. When Marduk is victorious against the evil army of Tiāmat, he creates the cosmos out of her body, thus establishing his supremacy over the entire pantheon. At the end of tablet VI of the myth, the gods assemble and say: – ‘Of the warrior son, our avenger, Of the provisioner, let us extol the name.’ They sat down in their assembly, summoning the destinies, And with all due rites they called his name:

The fifty names of Marduk are listed one-by-one in tablet VII which follows:16 Asarre, the giver of arable land who established plough-land, The creator of barley and flax, who made plant life grow. Asaralim, who is revered in the counsel chamber, whose counsel excels, The gods heed it and grasp fear of him. Asaralimnunna, the noble, the light of the father, his begetter, Who directs the decrees of Anu, Enlil, and Ea, that is Ninsiku. He is their provisioner, who assigns their incomes, Whose turban multiplies abundance for the land. Tutu is he, who accomplishes their renovation, Let him purify their sanctuaries that they may repose. Let him fashion an incantation that the gods may rest, Though they rise up in fury, let them withdraw. He is indeed exalted in the assembly of the gods, his [fathers], No one among the gods can [equal] him. Tutu-Ziukkinna, the life of [his] host, Who established the pure heavens for the gods, Who took charge of their courses, who appointed [their stations], May he not be forgotten among mortals, but [let them remember] his deeds. Tutu-Ziku they called him thirdly, the establisher of purification, The god of the pleasant breeze, lord of success and obedience, Who produces bounty and wealth, who establishes abundance, Who turns everything scant that we have into profusion, Whose pleasant breeze we sniffed in time of terrible trouble, Let men command that his praises be constantly uttered, let them offer worship to him. Tutu-Agaku, fourthly, let humans extol him, Lord of the pure incantation, who brought the dead back to life, Who showed mercy on the Bound Gods,

 16 Lambert 2013, 125–127.

  Nathan Wasserman Who threw the imposed yoke on the gods, his enemies, And to spare them created mankind. The merciful, in whose power it is to restore to life, Let his words be sure and not forgotten From the mouths of the black-heads, his creatures. As Tutu-Tuku, fifthly, let their mouth give expression to his pure spell, Who extirpated all the wicked by his pure incantation...

This enumeration of Marduk’s appellations, only the beginning of which was given here, is the laudatory apex of the myth. The number fifty is not accidental, for each of the main gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon has a representative mystical number. Unlike the list of dogs and of snakes, this catalogue is intentionally all-encompassing, with no appellation omitted, since the glory of the king of the gods depends on it.17 To sum up, simple lists and semantically restricted catalogues denote ‘everything which belongs to a specific kind of thing’. They are a stylistic device to express a totality of a specific kind. An alternative strategy to express totality, widely used in Akkadian literary texts, is the use of merismatic pairs. Such pairs can also express ‘everything of a specific category’ by enveloping this totality within polar terms, as e.g. ‘from heaven to earth’, or ‘from the upper sea to the lower sea’, or ‘from young to old’.18

 The next type of list found in Akkadian literature can be schematically described as: A, A-B, B-C, C-D… N. Following Veldhuis (1993), these lists are referred to as CHAINS.19 Chain-like enumerations are typical of Akkadian and Sumerian incantations. Together with hymns, incantations belong to the oldest literary genres in cuneiform literature, attested already in the mid third-millennium BCE, both in southern Mesopotamia (Abu-Sallabikh) and in Syria (Ebla). This is a prolific genre: incantations make up about half of the entire corpus of literary compositions of the third and second millennium.20 Contrary to certain scholarly thinking, although  17 Bottéro 1985. For more enumerations in mythical texts, see Heimpel 1993–1995, 541a. 18 Wasserman 2003, 61–82. 19 For this enumeration in Classical rhetoric, see Lausberg 1960, §§ 623–624; Lausberg 1967, §§ 256–258; Plett 1979, 34; Molino/Grades-Tamine 1982, 194–195. 20 See the catalogue of texts in SEAL.

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

incantations were practical texts used in magical procedures, they do not lack literary quality. On the contrary — many of these short compositions contain beautiful historiolae, complex metaphors, surprising similes and elaborate stylistic devices, such as chain-like enumerations. See, e.g. the following Old Babylonian incantation against a fly (YOS 11, 6):21 I hit you at the cranium, from the cranium to the forehead, from the forehead to the ear, from the ear to the nostril of the nose. I bind you by the oath of Ninkarrak: You must rise a locust’s rise from his side(?)…

Another chain-like enumeration derives from an Old Babylonian incantation destined to fight leeches, here called ‘worms’ (YOS 11, 5):22 Anu begot Sky, Sky bore Earth, Earth bore Stench, Stench bore Mud, Mud bore the fly, the fly bore the worm. The worm, the daughter of Gula, is clad in a lulumtum-garment, thick with blood, the de[vour]er of the child’s blood is reddening his eyes. Damu cast the incantation and Gula slew the [thi]ck worm, slaughtered them for the (sake of the) c[hil]d. He opened his mouth, took the (mother’s) breast, raised his eyes, (began to) s[uck]. The incantation is not mine, (it is) the incantation of Damu and Gula. Damu cast (it) and I took (it).

The difference between simple lists and chain-like enumerations lies not only in the latter’s cohesive syntactic structure, but mainly in the fact that semantically chain-like enumeration creates a vector, a line in space or time. In other words, the items listed in chains are not randomly chosen, but have a direction.23

 21 van Dijk/Goetze/Hussey 1985, 21. (Translation by NW). 22 Wasserman 2008, 73–74. 23 Some enumerations are numerically arranged, as, e.g., Emily Dickinson’s poem: “Finding is the first Act / The second, loss, / Third, Expedition for / The ‘Golden Fleece’ / Fourth, no Discovery — / Fifth, no Crew — / Finally, no Golden Fleece — / Jason — sham — too”. Other compositions are alphabetically arranged: Psalm 119 whose verses follow, acrostically, the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, cf. below, p. 155 n.24. In modern literature this ordering principle is also known: Czesław Miłosz’s Miłosz’s ABC’s (2001) followed by the Israeli (of Polish origin) writer Dan Tsalka, Tsalka’s ABC (Hebrew 2003). A rare example of enumerations leaning on numerical scaffoldings from ancient Mesopotamia is the beginning of the magical series against the demoness Lamaštu which lists seven names, or appellations of the demoness: ‘Dimme, the daughter of An’, is her first name; The second (name) is: ‘The sister of the gods (who is) in the streets’; The third (name): ‘A dagger which fractures the head’; The fourth (name): ‘She who sets on fire’; The fifth name: ‘The goddess of frenzied look’; The sixth (name): ‘The one who entrusts the hand, (the one) taken by Irnina’; The seventh (name): ‘May you be bound by the invocation of the great gods!’. Farber 2014, 144. (Translation by NW).

  Nathan Wasserman The directional character of some enumerations is utterly clear even if they are not built as chains, strictly speaking. See the following Old Babylonian incantation against flatus (OECT 11, 3):24 Go out, wind! Go out, wind! Go out, wind, son of the gods! Go out, wind, affluence of the people! From the head go out, wind! From the eye go out, wind! From the mouth go out, wind! From the ear go out, wind! From the rectum go out, wind! May the man be at rest. May the .... be at r[est].

Or the following passage from an Old Babylonian composition belonging to love lyrics, where the male lover is praised and encouraged by a woman (PRAK I B 472):25 [...] …I am.. [...] [The beating] of your heart – a pleasant tu[ne]. Rise and let me make love [with you]. In your soft lap, that of waking-time, how sweet is your lovemaking. Your fruits are profuse! Of incense is my bed, (smelling of) ballukku-plant. O the crowns of our heads, the rings of our ears, The hills of our shoulders, the attraction of our chests, The spadix of our hands, The ‘frog’ (= vagina?) of our waist. Stretch your left hand and touch our vulva! Play with our breasts! [— “Enter!”], I have opened (my) thigh(s)!

An examination of enumerations in the Old Babylonian literary corpus, and in later corpora, reveals that Akkadian literary texts tend to build enumerations which go (a) from up to down (as the flatus incantation and the love-lyric passage quoted above) (b) from the whole to its components; (c) from outside to inside; (d) from beginning to end.26 It should, however, be noted that lists in the opposite

 24 Gurney 1989, 21. (Translation by NW). 25 Goodnick Westenholz 1987, 422–424. (Translation by NW). 26 Wasserman 1993, 160–197.

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

order also exist, as in cases of hysteron proteron, where processes are described starting at their end and going back in time to their beginning.27

 The last kind of enumeration is rather complex. Semantically it is a chain, but its syntactic structure is not A, A-B, B-C, C-D… N, but rather A1-A2, B1-B2, C1-C2…, N1-N2 .28 I call this kind of list a GRADIENT, or COMPLEX CHAIN. The best example of this kind of enumeration comes from a newly discovered incantation soon to be published by Andrew George, who kindly sent me the text prior to publication, allowing me to present it here. The incantation is aimed at a magic plant which seizes the interior organs of anybody who comes in contact with it. Other magic plant incantations are known, but this one, from the Schøyen Collection in Oslo, is the longest and most beautiful (MS 3085 // MS 3097):29 [The] Heart Grass, [. . . was its] beauty. [. . .] Sun saw it, he [pulled it up and took it] up to the sky. It seized the insides (lit. heart) of Moon, it seized the insides of Sun, who had pulled it up, it seized the insides of Earth, who had buried it. It seized the insides of the ox in the stall, the insides of the sheep in the fold, the insides of the dog in its bed, the insides of the pig in its sty, the insides of the young man in the street,the insides of the young woman in the dance, the insides of the fish in the Deep, the insides of the bird in the marsh, the insides of the terrapin in the mud,the insides of the turtle under the river-bank, the insides of So-andso, son of So-and-so, whose god is So-and-so, whose goddess is So-and-so. Speak now to Asalluḫe, son of Enki, so that he [frees] the insides of the Moon in the sky, the insides of the Sun, who had pulled it up, the insides of the Earth, who had buried it…. the insides of So-and-so, son of So-and-so, whose god is So-and-so, [whose goddess is So-andso.] [Tu]-Ene[nuru-spell]. [Incantation] formula for stomach-[ache.]

The structure of this enumeration deserves special attention. Though cast in a simple, repetitive arrangement, with each line beginning with libbi…, ‘the heart of…’ and ending with the verbal form iṣṣabat, ‘it seized’ (which is dropped at

 27 Wasserman 2005. 28 Some liturgical and folk-songs have cumulative structures which form different complex chain-like enumerations. Such as, e.g., Had Gadya, a lively song sung at the end of the Jewish Passover meal. Its structure is Aa, ABAa, ACBAa, ADCBAa, AEDCBAa.... 29 George 2016, nos. 7o // 8i. I am grateful to Andrew George, SOAS, for sending me his edition of this incantation prior to publication, and allowing me to use it here.

  Nathan Wasserman some point), the enumeration develops a sophisticated chain of semantically connected units, each of which belongs to a different realm of the Mesopotamian universe: cosmos: sun, moon, and earth; cattle: ox and sheep; domestic animals: dog and pig; humans: young man and young woman; water fauna: fish and bird; mud creatures: terrapin and turtle. Clearly, the focus of the incantation is the ill person whose name must be inserted into the formula So-and-so, son of So-andso, and yet humans appear only in the middle of the chain, and at its very end — and are not given prominence. The reason for this is that the incantation is anxious to emphasize the universal power of attraction, or contamination, of the magic plant, even at the expense of placing the ill man in the center. The order in which the components of the chain are arranged are chosen to demonstrate the cosmic strength of the plant. This order follows logically the sequence of those who touched or ate the plant. First, the Sun, at sunrise, plucked it from a mountain (as we learn from parallel incantations about the magic plant)30 and became ill. Climbing the sky the Sun passed next to the moon which also got ill. At sunset, when the Sun went down beyond the orbit of the earth, the plant afflicted the earth as well. On earth the plant came into contact with the main grass-eating creatures, large cattle and small cattle, and made them ill too. Next it attracted the dog and the pig, two omnivorous domestic animals, which also get ill. Only at this point does the plant touch humans, who probably get ill while taking care of their household animals. The magic plant is finally thrown into the garbage with other domestic detritus. From there it arrives in the marshes, afflicting the marsh itself and the two main categories of marsh fauna, bird and fish. The ultimate destination of the perilous plant is the sticky mud that results from mixing water and earth, which is the habitat of reptiles, the last creatures to come into contact with the plant. Starting with the Sun and ending with the turtles, the plant affects the entire universe.

 This leads me to my final remark, which should perhaps have been my first. Enumerations and catalogues are known to be connected to the elusive and illusive notion of oral literature and to oral-formulaic compositions. Different common literary theories state that catalogues serve as the skeleton around which long sections of text may be wound. According to these theories, lists offer the bard

 30 YOS 11, 11 and YOS 11, 12, see Veldhuis 1990, 27–29.

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

interchangeable modules which suit the non-fixed manner of oral composition. So, can Akkadian and Sumerian enumerations be considered a vestige or a sign of oral transmission? Instead of answering this question directly, I prefer to present a list of open questions which will, I hope, explain my reservations. When we say ‘oral transmission’ – what do we actually mean? – Is oral transmission the same phenomenon in a culture where writing is limited or even entirely unknown, and in a culture which is infused with inscribed objects and written documents, such as ancient Mesopotamian culture? – Is oral transmission entirely detached from writing? What is a lecturer doing when he/she delivers a paper at an academic conference: is their talk an oral transmission or a written one? Aren’t we in fact dealing most of the time with oral-written and written-oral transmissions? – Is it true that oral transmission a priori precedes written modes of transmission? Can’t we find evidence for the reverse process in which fixed, even canonical written texts melt and dissolve into an oral mishmash? A well-known example of this process from 16th cent. Italy is found in Menocchio’s world view, so wonderfully presented by Carlo Ginzburg in his The Cheese and the Worms. – Is oral transmission a monolithic process which can be applied, as-is, to any kind of literature? Or rather, don’t we have to differentiate between literary genres and admit that the oral transmission of proverbs is a different process to the transmission of epics, religious rituals, or medical and astronomy manuals? – What is fixed and what is fluid? Is it true that orally transmitted texts are by definition more flexible than written ones? The resistance, indeed opposition, of pre-modern cultures — notably those in which a canonized body of sacred texts developed — to writing down their sacred lore, came precisely from the notion that orally transmitted texts are more fixed and more durable than written ones, since oral transmission is saved for select initiates while writing is open to anybody who knows how to read and write. Mesopotamian literature, from its inception, developed a solid written tradition. A complex script, widespread bilingualism, a relatively high level of literacy, careful scribal education, an intensive bureaucracy which produced a continuous flow of written records, are essential traits of Mesopotamian civilization that make the notion of orality vaguer than in the context of other ancient literary systems, notably the Greek. In my opinion, none of the enumerations presented

  Nathan Wasserman above ought to be linked exclusively to oral literature. If anything, enumerations found in Akkadian and Sumerian literary texts show a clear connection with other written texts, notably to lexical lists.31 Were there in ancient Mesopotamia no stories told by hunters around the fire? Were there no tales told by women while chopping onions in the kitchen? Were there no lullabies sung by mothers trying to get their babies to go to sleep? As in any other society, there can be no doubt that these existed in ancient Mesopotamia too. But as far as Mesopotamian literature goes, enumerations are best understood against the backdrop of intratextuality, inter-textuality, and extra-textuality, not of orality and aurality.

 Appendix: Enumeration in the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges and Ted Hughes . “Enumerations in literature”, according to Alazraki (1986, 149), “are as old as the Old Testament, but in modern times they have achieved the status of an established rhetorical device only since the writing of Walt Whitman.” If the first part of this statement is disputable (since, as this paper has shown, the roots of enumeration go back much further than the Old Testament), the second part, which stresses Whitman’s role in the function of enumeration in modern poetry is undeniable. In a number of essays, Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) pays homage to Whitman’s use of this literary device and openly acknowledges his debt to the great American poet. Indeed, as Alazraki (1986) and others have shown, Borges’ poetry and prose is so replete with enumerations that one would be hard pushed to find another modern writer better versed in this poetic technique.32 In a comment on Aquel, one of the poems in La cifra, his 1981 collection, Borges himself wrote: “This poem, as almost all others, abuses chaotic enumerations. About this figure (so  31 See, e.g., the few examples brought by Cavigneaux 1985, 3–4. Many more such cases exist. 32 A writer who deserves mention in this context is Georges Perec (1936–1982). His fascination with enumeration is best exemplified in his first novel Les choses (1965). See, e.g. “Everything that can be eaten and drunk, was offered to them. There were boxes, crates, baskets, cases overflowing with large yellow or red apples, oblong pears, purple grapes. There were displays of mangoes and figs, melons and watermelons, lemons, pomegranates, bags of almonds, walnuts, pistachios, crates of grapes from Smyrna and Corinth, dried bananas, candied fruits, yellow and translucent dried dates ...” (Les choses, Chap. X).

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

felicitously abundant in Walt Whitman) I can only say that it should resemble chaos and disorder but must be, intimately, a cosmos, an order.”33 Diaz (2012, 157) expands on this, saying: “The resemblance of chaos ruled by a secret order (in other words, an apparent disorder) is what distinguishes a successful ‘chaotic enumeration’ from a mere mess.” The second of Borges’ Two English Poems (1934) offers an example of one such successful enumeration:34 What can I hold you with? I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the moon of the ragged suburbs. I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon. I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghost that living men have honoured in marble: my father’s father killed in the frontier of Buenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs, bearded and dead, wrapped by his soldiers in the hide of a cow; my mother’s grandfather — just twentyfour — heading a charge of three hundred men in Perú, now ghosts on vanished horses. I offer you whatever insight my books may hold, whatever manliness humour my life. I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal. I offer her that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow — the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities. I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born. I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself. I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

According to Spitzer (1962, 23) chaotic enumeration consists “of lumping together things spiritual and physical, as the raw material of our rich, but unordered modern civilization which is made to resemble an oriental bazaar.” Is it possible to find cases of chaotic enumeration also in Mesopotamian literature, the most nonmodern of all writing cultures? It is an old tradition in both Sumerian and Akkadian hymnal compositions dedicated to the goddess Ištar to itemize long lists of contradicting nouns and verbs, declaring that they all relate to the goddess. In one such Old Babylonian hymn to Ištar, commonly called Ištar-Louvre, we read:35 Wrath, fight, burning and relaxation, ... causing to keep promises, Turning truth to falsity, being suppressed to the ground — are yours, O Ištar!

 33 Diaz 2012, 156–157. 34 Borges 1985, 89–90. 35 Groneberg 1997, 22.

  Nathan Wasserman Repeating the work and releasing heaps (of barley) — are yours, O Ištar! Dignity, supplication, potency and good fortune, Prosperity, abundance and strength, solid ground (i.e. a ground hard to till) — are yours, O Ištar! An only child, a brother, a servant, A foreigner, making good partners — are yours, O Ištar! A hearth (lit. flames of the house), happiness for the woman living (in it), Splitting it (the hearth?) there angrily, when you wish — are yours, O Ištar!

The hymn continues in the same vein, piling object upon action, but this passage suffices to show that enumeration, which Borges used “to articulate in poetic form [his] own physical, emotional, moral, intellectual and aesthetic Personality” (Alazraki 1986, 152), was already an established device in ancient Mesopotamia, where it was used to express, in the language of ecstatic devotion, the multifaceted nature of this supreme goddess of war and love. The long list of epithets was meant to stress the Mesopotamian conviction that behind mundane reality, a center of gravity was to be found in the divine power of Ištar — the goddess capable of integrating such contradictions as masculinity and femininity, conflict and harmony, chaos and order. In other words, the enumeration was intended to convey the notion that behind apparent disorder there is not only a hidden order, but also a divine will. If in modern times chaotic enumeration is employed as a means to construct the unity of the human mind, particularly the writer’s mind, in ancient Mesopotamia it was used to glorify the divinely ordered unity of the world.

. Ted Hughes (1930–1998) is another modern poet to employ enumeration in the manner of ancient Mesopotamian literature. (In all likelihood Hughes had no first hand knowledge of Akkadian or Sumerian literature).36 His poem Lineage (1970) is constructed as a tight chain-enumeration:  36 Some critics (Coupe 2014, 17; Sagar 1983, 215) say that Hughes was influenced by fertility rites and motifs stemming from ancient Mesopotamian mythology. This is quite possible since he studied archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge. And yet, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that Hughes actually read Mesopotamian literature in reliable translation, and I know of only one place where he refers directly to this literature. In a letter to Peter Brook (1972, undated) he writes: “All that [the lineages of Venus in Shakespeare’s plays which Hughes collected for Brook] could be very entertaining to Shakespeare addict, if it didn’t revolt him completely, but it would be even more interesting to take the lineages backward — into the Reformation conflict events, and earlier religion and mythology, using texts from Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia etc, of which there’s a mass as you know, and which are full of songs, hymns, charms,

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

In the beginning was Scream Who begat Blood Who begat Eye Who begat Fear Who begat Wing Who begat Bone Who begat Granite Who begat Violet Who begat Guitar Who begat Sweat Who begat Adam Who begat Mary Who begat God Who begat Nothing Who begat Never Never Never Never Who begat Crow Screaming for Blood Grubs, crusts Anything Trembling featherless elbows in the nest’s filth

O’Connor (2010) called this a “re-writing of Genesis”, but for me, Lineage resembles rather Mesopotamian texts, esp. the worm incantation (YOS 11, 5) translated above (which Hughes, needless to say, could not have known): Anu begot Sky, Sky bore Earth, Earth bore Stench, Stench bore Mud, Mud bore the fly, the fly bore the worm. The worm, the daughter of Gula, is clad in a lulumtum-garment, thick with blood, the de[vour]er of the child’s blood is reddening his eyes.

Another Old Babylonian incantation which begins with a chain-like enumeration describing creation, an incantation against Sty (Ish-35-T.19), can also be suggested as an ancient forerunner to Hughes’ poem:37

 curses, prayers etc or just straight narrative which fits Shakespeare’s fable perfectly” (Reid 2007, 328–329). 37 Veldhuis 1993, 48ff. and Foster 2005, 181.

  Nathan Wasserman Earth — they say — Earth bore Dirt, Dirt bore Stalk, Stalk bore Ear, Ear bore Sty. In the field of Enlil — they say — a square 70 Iku of surface, (when) Moon was reaping, (and) Sun was harvesting, into — they say — Sty entered to the young man’s eye. — “Whom should I assign and send to the Daughters of An, seven and seven?” Let them take for me a vessel of carnelian, a pot of alabaster. Let them draw for me pure water of the sea. Let them take out the sty from the young man’s eye!

Dark, wild, bloody and violent, Hughes’ poetry reveals a unique archaic – some say depressive38 — poetic landscape. Rejecting the Judeo-Christian world view and gravitating instead towards non-monotheistic, pre-modern cultures, in particular Celtic, Nordic, and Manichean mythologies,39 Hughes looks at the world — weather phenomena, geology, fauna and flora, the human and non-human fate — with an ecstatic, half-prophetic, half-epileptic gaze: as a modern shaman. When picking biblical material, as in Lineage, Hughes takes the official narrative and twists it into a personal, demonic account, which brings to mind a heathen’s distorted interpretation of a missionary’s preaching. The striking effect of Lineage emerges from its meticulous loyalty to the chain-like construction of the poem. Hughes ingeniously understood that his non-traditional view of creation would be underscored by using this traditional literary device. The Akkadian incantations presented above trace the progress of creation from cosmos to fly and sty. The Mesopotamian mind could not imagine anything but an ongoing creatio ex materia. Hughes by contrast, although formally maintaining the chain-like progress of creation, describes a non-linear process. Conception in Lineage begins with a sound (echoing sarcastically John 1:1): but not a word — a scream is what begat blood and bone and fear, revealing that creation began with a primordial act of violence. The poem continues with Adam giving life to Mary and Mary engendering God. The culmination of this asexual, selfevolving procreation is God generating Nothingness. And so, although following the chain-like structure carefully, this short poem offers a despairing notion of creation: in principio erat verbum which does not lead to the expected nihil sine deus but to the irreversible tautology of ex nihilo nihil fit.

 38 Bentley 1998, 90–93. 39 Byrne 2000, 131–133.

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

Works Cited Alazraki, J. (1986), “Enumerations as Evocations: On the Use of a Device in Borges’ Latest Poetry”, in: C. Cortinez (ed.), Borges the Poet, Fayetteville, 149–157. Archer, D. (2009), What’s in a Word-list? Investigating Word Frequency and Keyword Extraction, Burlington. Bentley, P. (1998), The Poetry of Ted Hughes. Language, Illusion and Beyond, New York. Borges, J.L. (1985), Œuvre poétique 1925–1965, Paris. Bottéro, J. (1985), “L’épopée de la création ou les hauts-faits de Marduk et son sacre”, in: Mythes et rites de Babylonie, Paris, 113–162. Braak, I. (1980), Poetik in Stichworten. Literaturwissenschaftliche Grundbegriffe: eine Einführung, Kiel. Byrne, S. (2000), The Poetry of Ted Hughes. A reader’s guide to essential criticism, Cambridge. Cavigneaux, A. (1985), The Series Erim-ḫuš = anantu ( = Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon XVII). Civil, M. (1987), “Feeding Dumuzi’s Sheep: The Lexicon as a Source of Literary Inspiration”, in: F. Rochberg-Halton (ed.), Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner (= Oriental Institute Studies 67), New Haven, 37–56. Coupe, L. (2014), “Hughes and Myth”, in: T. Gifford (ed.), Ted Hughes, Houndmills, 13–24. Díaz, H. (2012), Borges, Between History and Eternity, London/New York. Dupriez, B.M. (1980), Gradus: les procédés littéraires: dictionnaire, Paris. van Dijk, J./Goetze, A./Hussey, M.I. (1985), Early Mesopotamian Incantations and Rituals (= Yale Oriental Series 11). ETCSL, The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/ (12.10.2015). Farber, W. (1981), “Zur älteren akkadischen Beschwörungsliteratur”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 71, 51–72. Farber, W. (2014), Lamaštu. An Edition of the Canonical Series of Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals and Related Texts from the Second and First Millennia B.C., Winona Lake, Indiana. Ferrara, A.J. (1995), “Topoi and Stock-Strophes in Sumerian Literary Tradition: Some Observations”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 54, 81–118. Finkel, I.L. (1999), “On some Dog, Snake and Scorpion Incantations”, in: T. Abusch/K. van der Toorn (eds.), Mesopotamian Magic - Textual, Historical and Interpretative Perspectives (= Ancient Magic and Divination 1), Groningen, 211–253. Foster B.R., (2005), Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (3rd ed.), Bethesda. George, A.R. (2003), The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Oxford. George, A.R. (2016), Mesopotamian Incantations and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection (= Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology 32), Bethesda. Ginzburg, C. (1980), The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, Baltimore. Goodnick Westenholz, J. (1987), “A Forgotten Love Song”, in: F. Rochberg-Halton (ed.), Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner (= Oriental Institute Studies 67), New Haven, 415–425. Groneberg, B. (1997), Lob der Ištar. Gebet und Ritual an die altbabylonische Venusgöttin (= Cuneiform Monographs 8).

  Nathan Wasserman Gurney, O.R. (1989), Literary and Miscellaneous Texts in the Ashmolean Museum (= Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts 11). Heimpel, W. (1993–1995), “Mythologie. A. I”, in: D.O. Edzard (ed.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 8/1–2, 537–564. Lambert, W.G. (2013), Babylonian Creation Myths (= Mesopotamian Civilizations 16). Lausberg, H. (1960), Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik; eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft, München. Lausberg, H. (1967), Elemente der literarischen Rhetorik. Eine Einführung für Studierende der klassischen, romanischen, englischen und deutschen Philologie, München. Michalowski, P. (1998), “Literature as a Source of Lexical Inspiration: Some Notes on a Hymn to the goddess Inana”, in: J. Braun/K. Lyczkowska/M. Popko/P. Steinkeller (eds.), Written on Clay and Stone: Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Krystyna Szarzynska on the Occasion of Her 80th Birthday, Warsaw, 65–73. Molino, J./Tamine-Gardes, J.L. (1982), Introduction à l’analyse linguistique de la poésie, Paris. Morier, H. (1981), Dictionnaire de poétique et de rhétorique, Paris. Nissen, H.J./Damerow, P./Englund, R.K. (1993), Archaic Bookkeeping. Early Writing and Techniques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near East, Chicago/London. O’Connor, D. (2010), “The Horror of Creation: Ted Hughes’ Re-writing of Genesis in Crow”, Peer English 5, 47–59. Plett, H.F. (1979), Einführung in die rhetorische Textanalyse, Hamburg. Reid, C. (2007), Letters of Ted Hughes, London. Reiner, E. (1956), “Lipšur Litanies”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 15, 129–149. Rochberg-Halton, F. (1984), “Canonicity in Cuneiform Texts”, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 36, 127–144. Roth, M.T. (1997), Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (= Writing from the Ancient World 6), Atlanta. Sagar, K. (1983), The Achievement of Ted Hughes, Manchester. SEAL: Sources of Early Akkadian Literature: https://seal.huji.ac.il/ (April 2020). Spitzer, L. (1962), “Explication de Text. Applied to Walt Whitman’s Poem ‘Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking’”, in: Essays on English and American Literature, Princeton. Veldhuis, N. (1990), “The Heart Grass and Related Matters”, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 21, 27–44. Veldhuis, N. (1993), “The Fly, the Worm, and the Chain: Old Babylonian Chain Incantations”, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 24, 41–64. Veldhuis, N. (2013), “Lexical Texts, Ancient Near East”, in: R. Bagnall/K. Brodersen/C. Champion/A. Erskine/S. Huebner (eds.), Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Chichester. Veldhuis, N. (2014), History of the Cuneiform Lexical Tradition (= Guides to the Mesopotamian Textual Record 6), Münster. Wasserman, N. (1993), Syntactic and Rhetorical Patterns in Non-Epic Old-Babylonian Literary Texts (PhD Diss.) 160–198 (Chap. “Enumeratio and Gradatio”), Jerusalem (unpublished). Wasserman, N. (2003), Style and Form in Old-Babylonian Literary Texts (= Cuneiform Monographs 27), Leiden/Boston. Wasserman, N. (2005), “The Rhetoric of Time Inversion: Hysteron-Proteron and Related Constructions in Old-Babylonian Literary Texts”, in: S. Shaked (ed.), Genesis and Regeneration. Essays on Concepts of Origins. The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jerusalem, 13–30.

Lists and Chains: Enumeration in Akkadian Literary Texts  

Wasserman, N. (2008), “On Leeches, Dogs, and Gods in Old Babylonian Medical Incantations”, Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 102, 71–88. von Wilpert, G. (1979), Sachwörterbuch der Literatur, Stuttgart.

Charles Delattre

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  Introduction For some years now,1 cognitive science research has highlighted the complexity of the reading processes that determine the production of meaning: while recognizing the shape of the letters of course plays an essential role, other operations engage different levels of recognition.2 This approach has been prominent in a recent volume focusing on Distributed Cognition in antiquity, particularly in a contribution by Andrew Riggsby on tables and multiply-nested lists.3 Whereas I agree with Riggsby on many points, I will focus in the following examples on lists of a different subset, that of mythographic texts, to show ancient and modern ambiguities in their decipherment and use. Our main definition and even perception of a text is based on editorial practices that have developed through the last centuries and become so prevalent that they seem to us to be natural. In the case of mythographic lists and catalogues, word separation, paragraph recognition and general layout can be an aid to the perception and understanding of the text. If the mythographic corpus can be defined as a documentary device, quick information retrieval is essential for the reader. But papyri and manuscripts are often disappointing, as they appear opaque and difficult to decipher. One wonders how a given text could even be understood, such are the difficulties involved in the physical layout. The aim of this paper is to point out some strategies by which lists and mythographic catalogues could be decoded, read, and understood. The definition of a ‘mythographic corpus’ is not easy, as has been emphasized by those who have tried to give an overall account of the material.4 For the

 1 I owe many thanks to Katharina Wesselmann, Rebecca Laemmle and James Robson who helped me to improve greatly the English version of this text. Remaining infelicities are obviously mine. 2 The publications available in this field are of extreme variety and include vast transhistorical panoramas (Wolf 2000), biomedical analyses (Dehaene 2009) or modellings of the interpretative process (Willingham 2017). Each of these approaches of course entails biases in the eyes of proponents of other disciplines (in particular philosophy of consciousness). 3 Riggsby 2019. Interesting thoughts and examples are also provided by Battezzato 2009. 4 See most notably Alganza Roldán 2006; Pellizer 1993; Smith/Trzaskoma (forthcoming). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-005

  Charles Delattre purposes of my argument, I will rely simply on the idea that mythographic texts, especially in the Roman era,5 help to design and convey cultural knowledge, as defined by Alan Cameron: Greek mythology had become a central element in the literary culture of the age, Greek and Latin alike. It was carefully studied in school, and the main purpose of the mythographic writings we now know from the papyri to have been widespread throughout the Hellenistic and Roman world was to help people acquire this knowledge.6

As a form of Bourdieu’s cultural capital, this knowledge is of utmost importance to members of the elite, as part of their social struggle and their self-identification as literate and civilized members of the upper-class.7 It is also important to those who depend on the elite as providers of thoughts, poems, paintings, and other aesthetically articulated devices. The definition of the mythographic corpus as a compendium of knowledge also entails the possibility that any reader may get quick access to useful information that will be systematized and possibly itemized.8 This is why lists and catalogues are an important part of the corpus, whether in complete texts transmitted by medieval manuscripts or in papyrus fragments. But how did ancient readers actually ‘read’ them? The modern bibliography on ancient literacy emphasizes that ‘reading’ is not a standardized process, and that there are many different levels of literacy in any society.9 I would add that each individual of a given society has multiple ways of reading , according to circumstances, personal engagement with the text and the requirements of the text itself. Where do mythographic lists stand on this spectrum?

 5 For the specific definition of Roman-era mythography, see Delattre (forthcoming). 6 Cameron 2004, XII. For some nuancing about mythology at school, see Meccariello 2019. 7 Delattre 2013, 101–102. 8 It has to be noted that I do not imply that mythographic texts are basic summaries, quite the contrary. They can be defined as compendia as they gather and organize what can be read as information, some of it being inherited from other sources and some of it being provided by the author through his own interpretation or invention (on this ambiguous definition of information, see for example Delattre 2011). 9 E.g. Harris 1989, 5: “we shall certainly have to be on guard for the possibility that the difference between reading and writing levels was actually very great among the Greeks and Romans”; Thomas 1992, 8: “there are obviously many different levels of literacy”.

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

 Multiple Lists, Multiple Formats One way of looking at the list is to focus not only on the names it registers individually, but on the different types of sequences it proposes. The very order of the items offers a first system to understand the internal organization of the list. In the case of a genealogical list, the meaning that should be given to the order is obvious: the anteriority of a name in relation to another indicates not only a chronological relationship, but also a relationship of filiation. The proximity of two names indicates a direct filiation, the list thus becoming a continuous chain that defines a unique possible order. The funerary stele of Heropythos of Chios (second quarter of the 5th century BC), which lists thirteen or fourteen of his ancestors in the same format (patronymic in genitive form) and in a column, is an example of this both textually and visually.10 A mythographic equivalent would be the list of Miltiades’ ancestors provided by Pherecydes, also in the 5th century BC.11 In the case of a description, the proximity of two names may be interpreted as the transposition of a spatial order: the list of Argonauts in Apollonius of Rhodes (Arg. 1.23–228) reproduces a global geographical organization, according to the place of origin of each hero, while an equivalent list in Valerius Flaccus (1.350–483) adopts as an ordering principle the plan of the ship and where in it the Argonauts are seated.12 This is also the principle at work in several descriptions of frescoes or sculptures by Pausanias: the order of the names in the list indicates an order of perception, from which one can try to reconstruct the fresco or sculpture that has now been lost or destroyed.13

 10 IG XI–[XIII], Chios 369, published by Paspatis 1888, 401–2, n°1, and commented by Duplouy 2006, 60: Ἡροπύθο / το̄ Φιλαίο / το̄ Μικκύλο / το̄ Μανδροκέος / το̄ Αὐτοσθένεος / το̄ Μανδραγόρεω / το̄ Ἐρασίω / το̄ Ἱπποτίωνος / το̄ Ἑκαΐδεω / το̄ Ἱπποσθένος / το̄ Ὀρσικλέος / το̄ Ἱπποτίωνος / το̄ Ἑκάο / το̄ Ἐλδίο / το̄ Κυπρίο. (‘[stele] of Heropythos, [son] of Philaios, of Mikkylos, of Mandrokles, of Autosthenes, of Mandragoras, of Erasias, of Hippotion, of Hekaïdas, of Hipposthenes, of Orsikles, of Hippotion, of Hekaos, of Eldios, of Kyprios [or of Cyprus]’). 11 Pherecydes, Fr 2 Fowler: Φιλαῖος δὲ ὁ Αἴαντος οἰκεῖ ἐν Ἀθήναις. ἐκ τούτου δὲ γίγνεται Δάικλος · τοῦ δὲ Ἐπίλυκος · τοῦ δὲ Ἀκέστωρ · τοῦ δὲ Ἀγήνωρ · τοῦ δὲ Ὄυλιος · τοῦ δὲ Λύκης · τοῦ δὲ †Τόφων · τοῦ δὲ Φιλαῖος · τοῦ δὲ Ἀγαμήστωρ · τοῦ δὲ Τείσανδρος (…) · τοῦ δὲ Μιλτιάδης · τοῦ δὲ Ἱπποκλείδης (…) · τοῦ δὲ Μιλτιάδη (‘Philaios son of Ajax lives in Athens. His offspring is Daïclos, then Epilykos, Akestor, Agenor, Oulios, Lykes, †Tophon, Philaios, Agamestor, Teisandros (…), Miltiades, Hippokleides (…), Miltiades’). 12 Sinha 2010, 179. 13 For example Stansbury-O’Donnell 1990, 213, who, contrary to earlier reconstuctions, relied on Pausanias’ text to establish “the direction of narration and the spatial relationships among

  Charles Delattre Such an order of perception can be enriched by details in the text that reflect the existence of different visual planes. Thus, Pausanias’ description of the statue of Zeus at Olympia combines two principles of organization; pairs of theonyms follow one another, and are themselves enclosed by the names of two astral deities:14 On the pedestal, which supports the throne and the whole gorgeous image of Zeus, there are figures of gold, the Sun mounted in a car, and Zeus and Hera, and beside him one of the Graces, and next to her Hermes, and next to Hermes Hestia; and after Hestia there is Desire receiving Aphrodite as she rises from the sea, and Persuasion is crowning Aphrodite. Apollo, too, and Artemis are wrought in relief on it, and Athena and Hercules; and at the end of the pedestal Amphitrite and Poseidon, and the Moon riding what seems to me a horse.

In contrast to the genealogical list, which is based on a primarily internal organizational principle, the descriptive list exists both as an autonomous textual unit and in relation to an object outside the text.15 Multiple links are established here. First, each theonym or group of theonyms refers to one and only one identifiable figure on the pedestal. The Sun and the Moon frame the whole scene, where Aphrodite, surrounded by the other gods, at least in the description of Pausanias, occupies an original place.16 The list thus makes it possible specifically to index certain details of the sculpture, leaving other elements that might have been of interest to specialists in the history of art, such as the dimensions of the work and the colours used on the surface, out of sight. The art object becomes an abstract composition, a series of relationships between figures that Pausanias’ text also

 figures on the surface of the wall” and adapted figures from fifth-century vase-painting to create a “visual approximation”. 14 Pausanias, 5.11.8: ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ βάθρου τὸν θρόνον τε ἀνέχοντος καὶ ὅσος ἄλλος κόσμος περὶ τὸν Δία, ἐπὶ τούτου τοῦ βάθρου χρυσᾶ ποιήματα, ἀναβεβηκὼς ἐπὶ ἅρμα Ἤλιος καὶ Ζεύς τέ ἐστι καὶ Ἥρα, παρὰ δὲ αὐτὸν Χάρις · ταύτης δὲ Ἑρμῆς ἔχεται, τοῦ Ἑρμοῦ δὲ Ἑστία · μετὰ δὲ τὴν Ἑστίαν Ἔρως ἐστὶν ἐκ θαλάσσης Ἀφροδίτην ἀνιοῦσαν ὑποδεχόμενος, τὴν δὲ Ἀφροδίτην στεφανοῖ Πειθώ · ἐπείργασται δὲ καὶ Ἀπόλλων σὺν Ἀρτέμιδι Ἀθηνᾶ τε καὶ Ἡρακλῆς, καὶ ἤδη τοῦ βάθρου πρὸς τῷ πέρατι Ἀμφιτρίτη καὶ Ποσειδῶν Σελήνη τε ἵππον ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν ἐλαύνουσα. τοῖς δέ ἐστιν εἰρημένα ἐφ᾿ ἡμιόνου τὴν θεὸν ὀχεῖσθαι καὶ οὐχ ἵππου, καὶ λόγον γέ τινα ἐπὶ τῷ ἡμιόνῳ λέγουσιν εὐήθη. (Transl. Frazer, with minor modifications). 15 Whether the object is real or not, accessible or not, is here of no import: the work described can be real and still accessible (description of the Parthenon in Pausanias), real but not available any more (as the statue of Zeus at Olympia) or fictitious (as in Philostratus’ Imagines). 16 For others, an explanation seemed necessary: this is notably the case of the association between Hestia and Hermes, which has been the subject of a significant study (Vernant 1963, then Vernant 1965, and translated in Vernant 1983).

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

identifies. From that point on, the list ceases to be a description and becomes a catalogue of labels, a system of partial indexing of the artwork. It is this capacity for indexing that favours, as we shall see, the transformation of lists into ‘tables of contents’. But Pausanias’s text is also likely to be read as a source of information, not about the pedestal by Phidias, but about the religion and mythology of ancient Greece. The list he provides can indeed be easily exported from its context to become a list of the main gods, in the same way as the one given by Hesiod (Theog. 11–21) or Ampelius (Liber Memorialis, 9.1–12). In a modern context, it could serve as a canonical list of the Olympian gods,17 and thus become a general indexing system for the Greek pantheon as a whole.18 A final dimension of this list is revealed if we look at it not as a text, but as an edited object, especially if we take into account the possibilities offered by electronic editorial layouts. The capacity of the list to be a place of indexing and a node of relations takes on another dimension with the translation of its characteristics into hypertext links. So let us imagine what could become of Pausanias’ list in a Web environment: associated with a series of articles on each individual element, it could become the embryo of an article on the main gods of Olympus, and thus serve as the framework for a global recension of ancient Greek deities. This would mean that a reader could either peruse the list to its end or interrupt his or her reading to initiate a new reading process in a new textual environment. The list opens up new pages, new words, new worlds, and offers the possibility of both wandering and protracted delay. The text becomes a set of links, of bridges and windows that enable the reader to escape from the material space of the page defined by typography. Within the introductory page, the list potentially serves not only as text and hypertextual link, but also as an intratextual anchor. It foreshadows and announces what will follow in that page, and also summarizes and organizes the page’s content. It would thus serve as a gateway to the system, but would also be the table of contents of a series of quick definitions that a hypertext network would link together, and that the layout could organize into a table, i.e. a list with

 17 Despite the allusion to ‘twelve’ deities in the Hymn to Hermes, 128, and the existence of a cult to the Dodeka theoi in Athens from classical times (Thucydides, 6.54.6–7), there is no definitive list of these twelve gods, even though some dictionaries claim that there is one (Coleman 2007, s.v. “Olympian”). As a matter of fact, neither Grimal’s Dictionnaire de mythologie grecque et romaine (= Grimal 1951) nor L. Roman and M. Roman’s Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology (= Roman/Roman 2010) have an entry ‘Olympian’, ‘Twelve Olympian’ or ‘Olympian Gods’. 18 This is the pattern adopted e.g. by Burkert 1985, 125–169 (= Chapter III).

  Charles Delattre multiple entries. Illustrations, ancient or modern, could finally complete the device and provide an iconographic counterpoint19 to a list now totally detached from its origin, that is to say from the text of Pausanias and, beyond that, from the pedestal of the statue of Zeus in Olympia. This is exactly the program realized by the Wikipedia page dedicated to the “Twelve Olympians”:20 the list of gods is a textual web in multiple dimensions.

 Methodological Consequences These examples show that we should not be content with the definition of the ‘mythographic list’ as a text. Indeed, to avoid such a trap, it is enough to recall how literary criticism and hermeneutic theories have deeply modified our understanding of what a ‘text’ really is about: a ‘text’ is not a disembodied skeleton, it is not simply a semantic structure (even if it is based on a semantic structure). What French pragmatics calls an ‘énoncé’, be it a tale, a description, a list, etc., is not only a collection of elements, but the nodal locus where relationships happen. For Gérard Genette, in Palimpsestes (1983), ‘text’ is only a part of a net that he calls transtextuality. With the typical tendency of the 1970s and 80s to create sophisticated labels, he splits this transtextuality into different items or categories, intertextuality (citation), metatextuality (criticism), hypertextuality (parody), paratextuality (marginalia) and architextuality (relation with categories). His insistence in Seuils (1987) on paratext (author’s name, title, introduction, illustrations) points specifically to the material presentation of the text and its medium, which gives access not only to the text’s contents, but also to its interpretations. Genette joins here with another trend of literary criticism focused on materiality. In France, since Lucien Febvre’s L’apparition du livre (1958), ‘History of Books’ has ceased to be a subdiscipline of codicology, and the study of manuscripts has become a major trend in cultural studies. With the welcome help of modern anthropology and cognitive sciences, it has developed into the analysis of writing and reading, of literacy and textual performance.21 Reading a mythographic list in a printed volume, on an Internet site, in a medieval manuscript or

 19 For example, a Greek sculpture of the Late Hellenistic or Early Roman times, Walters Art Museum, n°23.40 (http://art.thewalters.org/detail/38764), or the Loggia di Psiche, at the Villa Farnesina (1518–1519), by Raphael. 20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Olympians; last accessed in April 2020. 21 See most recently Petrovic, Petrovic and Thomas 2018.

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

on an ancient papyrus should, therefore, be defined as distinctive procedures, depending on material and cultural conditions.22 To explain how these procedures work is, once again, a complex task: if we deal only with reading, it involves the definition of tools (what is the medium: paper, papyrus, stone, etc.?), of posture (does the reader sit, bend over, lie down?), of perception (does the reader use his or her own eyes or does he or she listen to someone else?), of purpose (pleasure, work, etc.), of time (when, how long?), of consequences (memory, commentary), etc. Even the definition of something as simple as a ‘page’ is convoluted: Anne-Marie Christin has recently denied that the page is always a welcoming surface for inscription,23 and Tim Ingold, following Michel de Certeau, has argued that the concept of a ‘surface’ was perhaps a post-Renaissance creation: the post-Renaissance writing that lays claim to a surface, and to the constructions imposed upon it, is fundamentally different from the scripture of medieval times, for the latter was understood not as something made, but as something that speaks.24

In light of these considerations, I want to challenge the idea that we could define in general terms how to ‘read’ mythographic texts, especially if we work with ancient or medieval lists. Just as there are different types of literacies, there are different strategies of reading. I would even like to suggest that lists are textual instruments that are meant to be read twice, or to be read in two directions, syntagmatically and paradigmatically, to put it in Jakobsonian terms. Lists do not just provide semantic information, they organize it. We could say that lists give to the reader a set of data, along with the software to manipulate it. How does this apply to ancient Greek and Latin lists? I will show how the software-metaphor that can only be understood in modern times is useful too for the understanding of ancient and medieval mythography. In fact, I will explain how papyri and manuscripts can work as pre-digital hardware, and in order to do so, I will concentrate on four examples. The first one comes from Hyginus’ Fabulae, for whom we have no manuscript or papyrus (see below), but only modern editions, even if we are sure that his text is genuinely Roman and ancient. The second is a fragmentary papyrus found in Graeco-Roman Egypt (P.Oxy. 62, 4308),

 22 For an interesting study of the interactions of both technical and cultural conditions, see Small 1997, 141–159. A very specific case, not studied in this article, is that of mediated reading, when a secretary or a trained slave reads to an employer or master: for a technical and anthropological approach to this cultural practice, see Valette 1997. 23 Christin 2000, 179–192. 24 Ingold 2007, 13; cf. de Certeau 1984, 136–137.

  Charles Delattre the third a manuscript from the ninth century, the Palatinus Graecus 398, and the fourth again a fragmentary papyrus from Graeco-Roman Egypt (P. Mich., inv. 1447).

 Hyginus Hyginus’s text, the Fabulae, presents us with quite an unusual problem. Even if we do not know exactly who Hyginus was, or even if the author of the Fabulae was really called Hyginus, we are fairly certain that the author of the Fabulae lived around the first century BC, perhaps a little later. The Fabulae are partly the translation of a Greek original, partly the result of an adaptation for a Latinspeaking audience, partly the result of a compilation of different sources. It is possible, too, that the original Fabulae were extended and that the last paragraphs are later additions.25 Be that as it may, we cannot call this situation an abnormality within the ancient Greek and Roman tradition. What is more unusual is that the text is known through only one manuscript, from the end of the Middle Ages, preserved in the abbey of Freising in Germany.26 It was discovered by Jacob Micyllus, who published it in 1535 in Basel. Alas, the Beneventan script was rather difficult to read, and the manuscript was probably already in bad shape when Jacob Micyllus discovered it. Worse still, the manuscript was dismembered through the process of edition, and nothing but two tiny fragments remain today (used as stiffening in book bindings).27 Modern editions and translations are therefore based on Micyllus’ text, on his interpretation and presumably also on his errors. Moreover, the presentation of Hyginus’ Fabulae and their layout respect his choices and are consequently characteristic of 16th century practices.28 This is indeed a problem when we consider that a not insignificant part of Hyginus’ text is composed of lists.

 25 See the edition by Boriaud 1997, XIX–XXII, as well as the introduction provided by Marshall 2002 (a copy of that of Marshall 1993). Both editions supersede that of Rose 1933. 26 A tiny piece of the Fabulae is also known thanks to fragment 3 of Palatinus Latinus 24 (folio 38 and 45). Part of the Fabulae were translated into Greek and adapted to fit in the Hermeneumata by ps. Dositheus. 27 Monacensis 6437 and Monacensis Bibl. Archiepiscopalis 800. See Reeve 1983, 189–190 as well as Boriaud 1997, XIII–XVII, and Marshall 2002, V–IX. 28 On this topic, see the comparison between ps. Apollodorus and Hyginus in Delattre 2017.

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

Let us take a look for example at chapter 155, which deals with ‘Jupiter’s Children’ (Iouis filii). Modern editions and translations offer a lengthy list of names that defies the capacity of memory and perhaps even of interest for most readers today: [1] Liber ex Proserpina, quem Titanes carpserunt. Hercules ex Alcumena. Liber ex Semele Cadmi et Hrmoniae . Castor et Pollux ex Leda Thestii filia. Argus ex Nioba Phoronei filia. Epaphus ex Io Inachi filia. [2] Perseus ex Danae Acrisii filia. Zethus et Amphion ex Antiopa Nctei filia. Minos Sarpedon et Rhadamanus ex Europa Agenoris filia. Hel ex Pyrrhe pimeti filia. [3] ethli ex Protogenie Deucalionis filia. Dardanus ex Electra Atlantis filia. Lacedaemon ex Taygete Atlantis filia. Tantalus ex Plutone Himantis filia. Aeacus ex egina Asopi filia. Aegi ex capra. †Boetis† [4] Arcada ex Calisto Lycaonis filia. [Etolus ex Protogenia Deucalionis filia]. Pirithous ex Dia onei filia. [1] Liber by Proserpina; the Titans ripped him apart. Hercules by Alcmena. Liber by Semele, Cadmus and Harmonia’s daughter. Castor and Pollux by Leda, Thestius’ daughter. Argus by Niobe, Phoroneus’ daughter. Epaphus by Io, Inachus’ daughter. [2] Perseus by Danae, Acrisius’ daughter. Zethus and Amphion by Antiope, Nycteus’ daughter. Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus by Europa, Agenor’s daughter. Hellen by Pyrrha, Epimetheus’ daughter. [3] Aethlius by Protogenie, Deucalion’s daughter. Dardanus by Electra, Atlas’ daughter. Lacedaemon by Taygete, Atlas’ daughter. Tantalus by Pluto, Himas’ daughter. Aeacus by Aegina, Asopus’ daughter. Aegipan by a she-goat. [4] Arcas by Callisto, Lycaon’s daughter. Pirithous by Dia, Deioneus’ daughter.29

There are some discrepancies between Micyllus’ text and modern editions: most significantly, a division into four sub-paragraphs was introduced by H.J. Rose in 1933 and is adopted by both P.K. Marshall (1993, 2002) and J.-Y. Boriaud (1997). The reasons for this light editorial modification are not clear: the division seems artificial, as it does not follow a thematic logic, and does not organize the text into discreet units which might be thought to give the reader ‘space to breathe’. It is only from a global visual perspective that the paragraph avoids appearing as a text block: as a result, the text is neither a fully organized list, nor a completely coherent paragraph. If we understand this text as a list, it is because there is some repetition in its organization: each piece of information is based on a name, each name is followed by the name of the mother. The name of the mother introduces new information, usually the name of the grandfather, and in one instance (in the first sentence) a short piece of narrative. The name of the father for all the cases is given by the general title, Iouis filii (‘Jupiter’s Children’). We can therefore choose to  29 The translation, with minor modifications and the addition of Rose’s division marks, is that of Smith/Trzaskoma/Brunet 2004, 264.

  Charles Delattre read the text not as a paragraph, but as a list of elements systematically combined in a strict order: Tab. 1: Hyginus, Fab. 155, as a set of data. Liber

by Proserpina

the Titans ripped him apart

Hercules

by Alcmena

Liber

by Semele

Cadmus and Harmonia’s daughter

Castor and Pollux

by Leda

Thestius’ daughter

Argus

by Niobe

Phoroneus’ daughter

Epaphus

by Io

Inachus’ daughter

Perseus

by Danae

Acrisius’ daughter

Zethus and Amphion

by Antiope

Nycteus’ daughter

Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus

by Europa

Agenor’s daughter

Hellen

by Pyrrha

Epimetheus’ daughter

Aethlius

by Protogenie

Deucalion’s daughter

Dardanus

by Electra

Atlas’ daughter

Lacedaemon

by Taygete

Atlas’ daughter

Tantalus

by Pluto

Himas’ daughter

Aeacus

by Aegina

Asopus’ daughter

Aegipan

by a she-goat

Arcas

by Callisto

Lycaon’s daughter

Pirithous

by Dia

Deioneus’ daughter

The text appears clearly to be not one list, but a combination of three. Only three sentences in the whole paragraph resist this reorganization, for different reasons. In the first case, the name of Proserpina’s father, Jupiter, has been replaced by a digest of the Liber/Zagreus’ tale,30 perhaps because Jupiter would then appear twice, both as Proserpina’s father and the father of her child. However, the absence of Alcmena’s father, in the second item of the list, points to another explanation: it seems that the list has been composed without a very clear structure at the beginning, and becomes systematic in its expression only after the fourth

 30 See Gantz 1993, 118–119.

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

item.31 The third case, that of Aegipan, is quite different: for obvious reasons, it is unnecessary or impossible to identify the father of a common she-goat. As a consequence, the general layout of the text suggests that we are dealing here with a framework rather than a paragraph. In a new edition we could, therefore, adopt the model of a spreadsheet, because this modern layout renders accurately what seems to have been intended by the author: Tab. 2: Hyginus, Fab. 155, towards a new edition? child of Jupiter

mother

mother’s parent(s)

Liber

ex Proserpina

Hercules

ex Alcumena

Liber

ex Semele

Cadmi et Hrmoniae

Castor et Pollux

ex Leda

Thestii filia

additional detail quem Titanes carpserunt

etc.

 A Mythographic List on Papyrus in Scriptio Continua Let us take a step back and imagine what the text might have looked like in antiquity, written on papyrus. One of the main characteristics of ancient writing is known as scriptio continua. Both epigraphical and papyrological evidence show that Greek and Roman scribes routinely failed to divide sentences systematically into individual words.32 In some epigraphic cases, a very strict division of written space was even adopted on stone, each letter being placed stoichedon, in a geometrical grid. In this instance, texts were not indecipherable, but evidently hard to read, as is shown for example by the fragments of Athenian taxation decrees preserved in the Epigraphical Museum at Athens.33  31 For a possible explanation of this phenomenon, see infra our analysis of P.Oxy. 62, 4308. 32 On the predominance of scriptio continua and the occasional use of dots to separate words or word-groups, see Cavallo/Maehler 2008, 17–18. There was no graphic regularity (spelling or what Greeks called orthographia) either; see Desbordes 1990, 161–162. On the consequences of scriptio continua for the definitions of ‘book’ and ‘text’, see Small 1997, 11–25. 33 Thomas 1992, 88. A beautiful example is IG I3, n° 71 (425/4 BC); see Meritt/Wade-Gery/ McGregor 1939, pl. XXII. An image of this inscription is currently used on the official page of the

  Charles Delattre As Rosalind Thomas has shown, the monumentality and the display of the inscriptions tend to contradict the goals that we assign to a text: inscribed texts on stone were not all meant to be read, or to be routinely read. On one side, the regularity of lines, both vertical and horizontal, the strict geometry of the letters and the almost typographic quality of their design should lead to a simplified reading: there is no difficulty for readers to decipher the signs on the stone. But scriptio continua works against this and prevents readers, ancient and modern alike, from reading the inscription quickly and effectively. On the other side, oralisation of the text by the reader could be a part of the process of understanding it. Memorizing of the text by the reader could be another aid, too: you can read such a text more easily if you know already what it is about.34 Deciphering is definitely only one aspect of the reading process. Oralisation and memorizing cannot be separated from the definition of literacy and reading in ancient and medieval times, as numerous studies in the last thirty years have shown.35 Mythographic lists in texts were therefore not only written, laid down on papyrus or parchment, and then forgotten on the shelves of a library. They were read, i.e. used, memorized, or compared to other lists. They were a living material, halfway between archive and continuous use and performance. This is especially true of documents designed for private use: their reader was also their writer. Let us consider my second example, a mythographic list preserved on a papyrus from the second century AD and found in the sands of the Graeco-RomanEgyptian town of Oxyrhynchus.36 Its contents are easy to understand: the writer has listed several mortals born from goddesses (hemitheoi). There is nothing uncommon in this short catalogue: similar lists are found in mythographic texts transmitted in manuscripts, like that of Hyginus,37 and also feature in the work of anti-pagan polemicists, such as Clement of Alexandria and Arnobius.38 According to Monique van Rossum-Steenbeek, the writer’s skills are far from negligible, but neither are they characteristic of a professional scribe. These hemitheoi are apparently organized randomly, not alphabetically:  British Epigraphy Society, as a humorous reminder to pay membership fees (http://www.britishepigraphysociety.org/how-to-join.html, last accessed in April 2020). 34 E.g. Thomas 1989, 35–36. For another point of view, see Svenbro 1988, 13–32. 35 Most famously Carruthers 1990; Small 1997, 61–78; MacKay 2008. See Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, XI, 2, 32 for a very clear example of reading linked to memory. 36 P.Oxy. 62, 4308 = van Rossum-Steenbeek 1998, n° 58. 37 Fabulae, 233, whose title was maybe Quae immortales cum mortalibus concubuerunt. The text itself has been lost, cf. above p. 88. 38 Clemens Alexandrinus, Protrepticus, II, 33, 8–9 ; Arnobius, Adversus nationes, IV, 27.

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1 3 5 7 9 10 11

Ἁρμονία καὶ Κάδμος Ἰνὼ Σ]ε̣ μ̣έλην Ἀγαύη̣ν̣ 39 / Αὐτονόην Πολύδωρο]ν̣ ἐγένοντο Καλλιρόης κ]αὶ Χρυσάορος40 Γηρυονε[ὺς Ἠοῦς καὶ Τιθωνοῦ Μέ]μ̣νων καὶ Ἠμαθίων Ἠοῦς καὶ Κεφάλου Φαέθω]ν Μηδείας καὶ Ἰάσονος Μή]δειος Ψαμάθης καὶ Αἰακοῦ Φῶ]κος Θέτιδος καὶ Πηλέως Ἀχι]λ̣λεὺς Ἀφροδίτης καὶ Ἀγχίσου Α]ἰ̣ ν̣ε̣ ί̣ α̣ς Κίρκης καὶ Ὀδυσσέως ῎Αγριο]ς̣ κ̣α̣ὶ Λατῖνος41 Καλυψοῦς καὶ Ὀδυσσέως] Ναυσίθοος καὶ Ναυσ[ίνοος Harmony and Cadmos, Ino, Semele, Agave, / Autonoe, Polydoros. were born from Callirhoe and Chrysaor, Geryon from Aurora and Tithon, Memnon and Emathion from Aurora and Cephalos, Phaethon from Medea and Jason, Medeios from Psamathe and Aiacos, Phocos from Thetis and Peleus, Achilles from Aphrodite and Anchises, Aineias from Circe and Ulysses, Agrios and Latinos from Calypso and Ulysses, Nausithoos and Nausinoos

The format of the list is not homogeneous: the first items (l. 1–2) are two names in the nominative form (subject) and four names in the accusative form (object). In the second group (l. 3), items are preceded by a verb, ἐγένοντο (‘were born’): here the list employs a whole sentence. The third group of the list (l. 4–11) follows a regular pattern, composed of two names in the genitive form (origin) and one or two names in the nominative form (subject). Clearly, the list reflects a genealogical declination. It seems that the writer has progressively discovered how to record his material, and designed a simple framework after two attempts with the first and the second groups. As mentioned above, this process could also explain the discrepancy noted between lines 1 and 2 of the last spreadsheet summarizing Hyginus, Fabulae §155 (Jupiter’s Children, above p. 89). This list gains a new meaning if we compare it to the end of Hesiod’s Theogony, a narrative and genealogical text composed, in its current form, perhaps in the eighth or seventh century BC, and probably in the sixth century for its last part42, and still widely accessible in imperial times, to judge by the remnants of

 39 Ἀγαύη̣ν̣ ed. pr.: Ἀγαυὴ̣ν̣ Van Rossum-Steenbeck. 40 Χρυσάορος add. Van Rossum-Steenbeck: χρυσαρος P. 41 Λατῖνος corr. Van Rossum-Steenbeck: λατεινος P. 42 West 1966, 48–49 and 398, with some discussion on the boundary between Hesiod’s genuine work and the addition.

  Charles Delattre Graeco-Roman papyri found in Egypt.43 Verses 975–1018, which belong to the later addition, present us with the same names as this list, in the same order. The list seems to be complete, even if the papyrus is partially fragmentary. We therefore understand it as a reformulation of the Theogony, a kind of summary or table of contents. The organization of the first group of items (l. 1–2) reproduces exactly the syntactic layout of Hesiod’s text: the strange combination of nominative and accusative forms44 in the restored papyrus is explained by the verb γείνατο (‘gave birth’) in Hesiod. The first line is therefore an almost exact citation from Hesiod. Conversely, in the second group of items (l. 3), the verb ἐγένοντο (‘were born’), which is equally familiar from Hesiodic poetic practice,45 has been provided by modern editors to explain the genitive form of ‘Chrysaor’ (Χρυσάορος). Whatever the original wording in the papyrus, this genitive is at odds with the formulation of the Theogony, which implies that the writer has willfully transformed the Hesiodic text. The third group (l. 4–11) follows the pattern of the second, but seems to have omitted any introductory verb, according to the modern editors. If this holds true, the onomastic list properly develops only in this third part of the papyrus, as a shortened systematization of the second group. The list is mimetic of the Hesiodic text insofar as it strictly follows its organization. It reformulates the syntax so as to simplify it, and omits numerous details of the Theogony in order to retain only names and genealogy. References to sexual encounters (v. 980: ἐν φιλότητι; v. 994: τελέσας στονόεντας ἀέθλους) and geographical details (v. 983: εἰν Ἐρυθείῃ; v. 985: Αἰθιόπων βασιλῆα etc.) are omitted. It seems that the writer intended to facilitate the reading of the Theogony, and to do so he reduced it to a congenial resumé. But he also chose to intervene in order to expand the Hesiodic text. In some instances the list provides an interpretation of the Theogony and an elucidation of it. For example, the periphrastic ‘daughter of Aietes’ of verse 992 becomes a simple ‘Medea’ in the list, which clearly identifies the character whose name does not appear in the corresponding

 43 For the Theogony alone, Martin West gives a list of 32 papyri in his edition (1966, 64–65), all of them of the imperial period. 44 The Nominative Ἁρμονία follows the text, of the Theogony, and the nominative Kadmos is an adaptation of the Hesiodic dative Κάδμῳ. Both names have been restored by modern editors to fill a gap in the papyrus. 45 (ἐ)γένοντο appears in Theogony, 46; 108; [111]; 123; etc. The most common verb in verses 975– 1018 is τίκτω, both in imperfect ἔτικτεν (1008) and aorist τέκε (981; 984; 1001; 1004). Then follows γείνατο (1007; 1012; 1018). There is only one occurrence of φιτύσατο (986).

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

part of the Theogony.46 The writer is therefore also a commentator who supplies information about the text he is condensing and epitomizing. In a sense, then, the list is at the same time a resumé of the Theogony, a reflexion of its genealogical and catalogical order, as well as a work in progress. The difference between lines 1–2 and 3–11 encourages us to visualize the writer as a reader too: the scribe started his reading of this part of Theogony with verses 975–978, wrote down the names that he deemed important, then proceeded to verses 979–983. Again, he recorded the principal names, but found a new way of expressing them. Then he transposed the entire sequence into this new wording, thus transforming the poetic variations of the Theogony into a strict framework. We can now assign different goals to this list. It is properly a ‘mythographic’ list, as it uses writing to record elements from a poetic text dealing with mythology. But for what purpose? First of all, we should note that the scribe was no professional writer, and that the list was probably intended for private use, or at least for a closed circle of literate people. However, even if the list was discarded and thrown away, presumably among other documents after the death of the owner, it was not a mere draft: the hand who wrote it was fairly skilled and did not hastily scribble on the papyrus. We can therefore assume that the list was intended for some use that was not restricted to a one-time process of reading and understanding the Theogony. Second, the list works not only as an extract from the Hesiodic text, but also as a door providing access to it. We have already seen that it was conceived as a reformulation of the Theogony, but this corresponds only to the first phase of its existence. If the document was used again, it would work as a table of contents, as an index or a key to the poem. Both the omission of details and the explication or reinterpretation of certain items point to the complex function of hypomnema, commentary as well as checklist or, as Alan Cameron labelled it, companion. This particular mythographic list was not part of a dictionary or of a handbook of mythology, it is a survival of the intricate relations of orality, memory and writing that composed the world of a literate individual at work.

 46 The daughter of Aietes is named Medea (Μήδεια) in verses 961–962, allowing the explanation of the periphrasis thirty verses later.

  Charles Delattre

 Ancient and medieval punctuation: the example of Antoninus Liberalis The precise reading of the list is not problematic, given its shortness. Indeed, if we interpret it as a ‘companion’ to the Theogony, we can surmise that it helped the literate to deal with both poetical difficulties of the poem and the reading complexities of the papyrus that preserved it. For the Theogony was written in scriptio continua, not an insignificant detail when a reader already had to deal with semantic obscurity and metrical complexity. As a reaction to scriptio continua, readers and writers in antiquity developed several systems that enabled them to facilitate understanding. Some systems were not even techniques, but mere practices embedded in the corporeal act of writing or deciphering. Leaving a dot with the calamus, for example, could not be considered proper writing. But it left a mark, an aid to reading on the papyrus, one that could be considered as the mere consequence of an unintentional gesture — the temporary rest or pause of the hand — or as as a mark for future interpretations. As writers were frequently readers as well, they would have needed little encouragement to improve a text that had been copied by another hand that might have been professional or half-skilled. Indeed, punctuating a text, leaving marks on it — a process kwown as punctuatio —, was considered a necessary step in the process of reading. The use of such punctuatio that belongs to the scribe’s skill as well as to the reader’s practice is a famous example of an ancient text recognition process. Punctuatio or adnotatio served to create meaning, to dissolve ambiguity, to organize thoughts and to facilitate breathing in the reading process.47 Even if there were no general rules, certain signs were developed as common markers throughout the Mediterranean.48 Various forms of punctuation indicated pauses in the sense, such as dicola (double dot), especially in dramatic texts, and middle

 47 For examples of reading disambiguation, see Plutarch, De sollertia animalium, 967F–968A and Theon, Progymnasmata, 81–82. Modern examples are adduced in comparison by Battezzato 2009, 3–5. A similar example of text reorganisation is to be found in Faral’s edition of medieval historian Villehardouin: see Fleischmann 1990, n. 26, 26–27. 48 It is possible to divide these marks into “Aids to the reader” and “Indicators of scholarly activity”, as do Cavallo/Maehler 2008, 19–24. We will deal only here with the aids to the reader. For the scholarly activity, see e.g. Irigoin 2003, 197–200. For punctuatio in the Middle Ages, see Arn 1994.

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

and high stops, common after the second century BC.49 There was a specific sign, the paragraphos (‘side-mark’), that served a variety of purposes:50 … in texts of dramatic dialogue it marks the alternation of speakers. It has the same function in the earliest papyri of Plato where the change of speaker in mid-line is additionnally marked by a horizontal dash, in analogy to the dicolon in texts of drama. The paragraphos is sometimes an oblique stroke. In prose texts, in collection of elegies, and exceptionally even in a private letter it marks the end of a section. In texts of choral lyric poetry, it marks the ends of strophe and antistrophe, whereas the end of the epode (i. e., of the triad) is indicated by a coronis.

Fig. 1: Letter from Dionysios to Ptolemaios.

Διονύσι[ος Πτολε]μαίωι χαίρειν καὶ ἐρρῶσθα[ι]. τοι[αύ]την ἐμαυτοῦ ἐλευθερ[ιότ]η[τ]α, [ο]ὐ βαναυσίαν ἐκτέθεικα πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, μάλιστα δὲ σοὶ κ[α]ὶ τῷ σῷ ἀδελφῷ 5 διά τε τ[ὸν] Σάραπιν καὶ τὴν σὴν ἐλευθε[ρία]ν καὶ πεπείραμαι, ἀφ’ οὗ τε συνεστάθης μοι, εἰς πᾶν τό σοι χρήσιμον ἐμαυτὸν ἐπιδιδόναι. ⸏τοῦ δὲ ἀδελφοῦ σου .ου συμπεσόντος μοι 10 τῆι ιζ τοῦ Μεχεὶρ καὶ ἀξιώσαντός με, ὅπως, ἐὰν ἐνέγκηι τρίτομον, μεταλάβωσιν αὐτῷ οἱ παρ’ ἐμοῦ γραμματεῖς πάντας τοὺς χρηματισμούς ⁚ εἶπα αὐτῷ μὴ ἐμὲ ἀξιοῦν, ἀλλὰ δόξαντα ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ 15 ἐν τῆι αὐλῆι εἶναι παργίνεσθαι ⁚

We can see paragraphoi very clearly in a papyrus preserved in the Louvre museum. It is a letter written by a Dionysios to a Ptolemaios in 160 BC and found, among other documents, in Memphis.51 Paragraphoi occur under lines 9 and 16, and with peculiar frequency at the end of the letter, under lines 23, 25, 27, 29 and 31. Sentence-end is marked by a combination of space, colon and/or paragraphos, as in line 16.

 49 Cavallo/Maehler 2008, 19–20. See also Cribiore 1996, 81–86 for paragraphos, diple obelismene, coronis, etc. More complex systems were sometimes developped by scholars: see the case of Nicanor, called the Punctuator (ὁ Στιγματίας) by Eustathius, in Blank 1983. 50 Cavallo/Maehler 2008, 20. 51 Louvre, inv. E 2372 = P. Par. 49 = Cavallo/Maehler 2008, n° 57.

  Charles Delattre In general, the layout of Greek and Latin texts on papyri is rather unsystematic. In truth, the alignment of the right margins improves from the second century onwards, sometimes with the help of line-fillers but, as Cavallo and Maehler remind us, “there is no evidence of ruling in papyri” and “scribes tend to begin their lines progressively further to the left (‘Maas’s Law’)”.52 Punctuation, especially the paragraphos, was therefore important to distinguish what the writing itself and the layout did not clarify. We have a good example of the combination of layout and punctuation in a medieval manuscript, the Palatinus Graecus 398. This is a major document for mythography53 as it has preserved three important texts, Parthenius’ Erotika pathemata, Antoninus Liberalis’ Metamorphoses and ps.-Plutarch’s De fluviis, as well as several paradoxographical texts. It was written in Byzantium, in the second half of the 9th century, and is therefore one of the first pieces of documentary evidence from the Byzantine Renaissance (or revival) of the ninth to the twelth century that has preserved so much of the classical Greek corpus. Modern editions of Parthenius, Antoninus Liberalis and ps.-Plutarch have omitted all the paraphernalia that helped the reading and understanding of the text in the manuscript itself. It is, however, vitally important for new editions to take into account the complex set of data that accompany these texts, insofar as they introduce us to new understandings of what mythography meant both in the Middle Ages and in antiquity.54 The Palatinus Graecus 398 is not only a collection of texts; owing to the anthological format of Parthenius’, Antoninus Liberalis’ and ps. Plutarch’s texts, it appears to be a catalogue of catalogues. The manuscript even contains a catalogical interpretation of some of the texts it contains: the Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis are introduced by two tables of contents with slightly different organization and intention.55 Modern editions, such as Manolis Papathomopoulos’ rendering in 1968 for the Belles Lettres series, only provide a transcript of them, without any translation.56 For the sake of my argument I will deal only with the second one, which gives a general summary of the complete text. Its beginning (§1–6) can be transcribed as follows:

 52 Cavallo/Maehler 2008, 19. 53 Palatinus Graecus 398 is preserved in the Heidelberg University Library and is now digitally accessible (http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpgraec398, last accessed in April 2020). 54 See Delattre 2010, 21, and Delattre 2016. 55 See Delattre 2013, 150–151. 56 Papathomopoulos 1968; Smith/Trzaskoma/Brunet 2004 omit them.

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

1. Κτήσυλλα εἰς πελιάδα μετὰ θάνατον. 2. αἱ Μελεάγρου ἀδελφαὶ εἰς μελεαγρίδας. 3. Ἰέραξ εἰς ἰέρακα. 4. Κραγαλεὺς εἰς πέτρον. 5. Αἰγυπιὸς καὶ Νεόφρων εἰς αἰγυπιούς, Βουλις εἰς πώυγγα, Τιμάνδρη εἰς αἰγίθαλλον. 6. Περίφας etc. 1. Ctesylla into a dove after death 2. Meleagros’s sisters into guinea fowls 3. Hierax into falcon 4. Cragales into stone 5. Aigypios and Neophron into vultures, Boulis into cormorant, Timandre into tit. 6. Periphas etc.

1. Κτήσυλλα . εἰς πελιάδα μετὰ θάνατον : 2. αἱ Μελεάγρου ἀδελφαὶ . εἰς μελεαγρίδας : 3. Ἰέραξ εἰς ἰέρακα : 4. Κραγαλεὺς . εἰς πέτρον : 5. Αἰγυπιὸς καὶ Νεόφρων . εἰς αἰγυπιούς . Βουλίς . εἰς πώυγγα . Τιμάνδρη . εἰς αἰγίθαλλον :

6. Περίφας. Fig. 2: Palatinus Graecus 398: A table of contents for Antoninus Liberalis’ Metamorphoses.

As we saw with Hyginus and with the papyrological summary of Hesiod’s Theogony, the list is composed of names, and each name is explained or expanded by a characteristic taken from the text. The list is therefore a reproduction and a reformulation of the text and also provides access to it. A numbering system helps the reader of the manuscript to distinguish between the items: a Greek number (A’, B’, Γ’) goes with each name, and is repeated throughout the text in the margins of the manuscript. The list is written in a small, tidy column, and a dash indicates precisely where each entry begins. But there is

  Charles Delattre also a discreet, as well as very efficient, set of punctuation within the entries. A double dot (dicolon) has been written at the end of each entry, to complete the number and the dash, and there is a tiny dot in mid sentence, to separate elements inside the list. We cannot interpret these dots as marks for rhythm or breathing, because they intervene after only one or two words: thus there is neither physical nor rhetorical necessity for these interruptions. Rather, they indicate semantic interruptions, as they help to distinguish subsections within the list, and transform the table of contents into an elaborate framework. Tab. 3: Antoninus Liberalis’ table of contents in Palatinus Graecus 398 as a set of data. name

metamorphosis



Ctesylla

dove after death



Meleagros’s sisters

guinea fowls



Hierax

falcon



Cragales

stone

a

Aigypios and Neophron

vultures

b

Boulis

cormorant

c

Timandre

tit



Periphas

etc.

Once again, we should note that the first line of the list introduces the whole table of contents without complying fully with what proves to be the prevailing structure of the list. More importantly, what we interpreted as a possibility of the text in the catalogue by Hyginus appears to be something that has been consciously considered by the scribe of this manuscript. Did he adapt the text to medieval conventions or did he adopt what he read in the manuscript (or perhaps a papyrus) which he was copying? To answer that, we need now to return to mythographical papyri.

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

 A Complex Mythographical List Without Punctuation We have seen with the excerpt and reformulation of a passage of Hesiod an example of a mythographical list on papyrus which may be understood as a work in progress for semi-private use. Such is also the case with a papyrus of the late second or early third century AD, of unknown origin.57 In the words of Monique van Rossum-Steenbeeck, “it preserves parts of two columns written in a practised, informal capital with a number of cursive and irregular features”, which means that it has been written either by a trained scholar or a scribe.58 As is the case with so many literary papyri, it has been used on the other side as a register of names and sums of money. The text preserved in this papyrus is remarkable, and it is the largest example we have of an ancient mythographic dictionary. It is roughly organized alphabetically, and deals with metamorphoses only. Four sequences are (almost) completely preserved and introduced by the name of a hero or heroine: Actaeon, Arethousa, the Aethyiae (the Seagulls) and Alcyone. 1. Ἀκταίων ὁ Ἀρισταί[ο]υ καὶ Αὐ[τονόης, τῶν Σεμέ]λης ἐφιέμενος γάμων αυτ[ ?] κατηρᾶ]το πρὸς τοῦ μητροπάτορο[ς Κάδμου καὶ] μετεμορφώθη εἰ[ς] ἐ̣λάφου δόκησιν διὰ βο[υλὴν] Ἀ̣ρτέμ̣[ι]δος κα̣ὶ̣ διεσπαράσθη ὑπὸ τῶν ἑ[α]υτ[οῦ] κυνῶν, ὥ[ς] φησ̣ιν Ἡ̣σ̣ίοδ̣ο̣ς ἐν Γυναικῶν̣ Κα[τ]α̣λ̣[ό]γῳ̣. 2. Ἀρέθουσα θυγατὴρ μὲν Ὑπέρ[ο]υ̣, Π[οσ]ε̣ι̣[δῶνι δὲ συν]ελθοῦσ[α] κατ̣ὰ̣ τὸν βοϊκον Εὔριπον, [εἰς κρήνην] ἠλλάγη ἐν Χ̣[αλκίδι] ὑπ̣ὸ̣ [τῆς] Ἣ̣ρ̣α̣ς, ὡς Ἡσίοδος ἱστορε[ῖ.] 3. Αἴθυαι Ἁλιάκμονος τοῦ Ἁλιάρτου θυγατέρες ἑπτὰ τὸν ἀριθμὸν θρηνοῦσαι τὴν Ἰνὼ μ[ετε μορφώθησαν ὑπὸ Ἣρας εἰ̣ς̣ . [.] . ρ̣[.] . . . . [. .] . . [ ?] παρ᾿ Αἰσχύλῳ καλοῦνται μισοκόρων[οι]. 4. Ἀλκυόνην τὴν Αἰόλου ἔγημε Κῆ[υξ ὁ Φωσφό]ρου τ̣ο̣ῦ ἀστέρος υἱός. Ἄμφὼ δ᾿ ἦσα[ν ὑπερή]φα[νοι, ἀλ]λήλων δ᾿ ἐρασθέντ̣ες η[. . . . ] . α̣ . [.] . [.]ρνα[ ?] Δία κα[λ]εῖ, αὐτὴν Ἥραν προσ̣ηγό̣[ρε]υεν · ἐφ᾿ [ᾧ ὀργι]σθεὶ[ς] ὁ Ζεὺς μετεμόρφωσ̣εν̣ ἀμφοτέρους [εἰς ὄρ]νε[α], ὡς Ἡσίοδος ἐν Γυναικῶν Καταλόγῳ [ ?]. 1. Actaeon, the son of Aristaeus and Autonoe, desiring marriage with Semele, ... [was cursed by] his mother’s father ... [he] was transformed to the appearance of a stag through the design of Artemis and was torn apart by his own dogs, as Hesiod says in the Catalogue of Women. 2. Arethusa, daughter of Hyperos, [having had intercourse with Poseidon?] in the region of the Euboean Euripus, was transformed [into a spring?] by Hera, as Hesiod recounts.

 57 P. Mich., inv. 1447 = van Rossum-Steenbeck 1998, n° 70, col. II = Fr 1, 3, 4. 58 See Renner 1978, 279.

  Charles Delattre 3. The Aethyiae (the Seagulls), daughters of Haliacmon the son of Haliartus, seven in number, while lamenting Ino were transformed by Hera to (birds) ... are called by Aeschylus “hating crows” (?). 4. Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus: Ceyx, son of Phosphorus the star, married (her). And both were arrogant, and enamored of one another. She (?) .. . called him Zeus, herself Hera ... On which account Zeus, angered, transformed both into birds, as Hesiod (says) in the Catalogue of Women.

The division of the text is clearly indicated by the succession of names and is confirmed by a forked paragraphos and a blank line that separate the entries. This tendency to distinguish parts within the text is remarkable if we comparate it with the disorder and obscurity induced by the scriptio continua:59

Fig. 3: A dictionary of metamorphoses on papyrus.

Deciphering the text for the first time must have been a process that required time and patience. Some corrections may have been added in the process, as well as one mark of breathing (l. 41) and a low stop (l. 28). But unlike the Palatinus Graecus 398, no mark intervenes within the text to organize it; the text is already organized, in the same way as Hyginus and the table of contents in the Palatinus Graecus 398. Each name is a lemma, followed by a genealogical definition. Then

 59 Image from Renner 1978, 281 (‘Column II’).

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

occurs a tale which ends with the metamorphosis of the hero or heroine. The name of a poet (Hesiod, Aeschylus) closes the sequence60. Tab. 4: Data available in an antique dictionary of metamorphoses. name

parents

tale = circumstances + metamorphosis

Author

.

Actaeon

son of Aristaeus and Autonoe

desiring marriage with Semele, ... as Hesiod says in his mother’s father ... [he] was the Catalogue of transformed to the appearance of a Women. stag through the design of Artemis and was torn apart by his own dogs,

.

Arethusa

daughter of Hyperos

[having had intercourse with Posei- as Hesiod recounts. don?] in the region of the Euboean Euripus, was transformed [to a spring?] by Hera

.

The Aethyiae

daughters of Haliacmon the son of Haliartus

seven in number, while lamenting Ino were transformed by Hera to (birds) ...

are called by Aeschylus “hating crows” (?)

.

Alcyone

daughter of Aeolus

Ceyx, son of Phosphorus the star, married (her). And both were arrogant, and enamoured of one another. She (?) .. . called him Zeus, herself Hera ... On which account Zeus, angered, transformed both into birds

as Hesiod (says) in the Catalogue of Women.

Dots and other marks were obviously not useful for the reader of this particular text. This means that he had grasped its characteristics and structure almost immediately. The basic text, defined by the letters written on the papyrus, was a starting point that allowed him to build an interpretative frame at the same time as he was reading. Modern readers have become used to frames, especially with the development of modern software. Indeed, frames were not a common feature of ancient writing,61 but it appears that they were not entirely absent from ancient thought.  60 The poet’s name could indicate a source, or perhaps a comparative reference. For a discussion on this issue, see Delattre 2016. 61 See most recently Riggsby 2019.

  Charles Delattre Modern editors face a choice: should they reproduce the basic text, i.e. the semantic units, following editorial habits of the 19th and the 20th centuries? Should they reproduce as many details as possible of the layout, as in the diplomatic editions that are in common use among papyrologists and epigraphists? Or should they allow themselves, in some cases, to adapt and transpose the layout with modern editorial tools? Even if the representation of a set of data within a frame is not ancient Greek or Roman practice, the principles that govern it were assumed and fully authorized by our mythographic lists. These can be labelled as textual webs, because hyper- and intratextual links are not only a matter of electronic layout, but correspond to ancient and modern practices alike. As a consequence, we should perhaps edit these texts as they were intended: they were not read, but consulted. They were not appreciated, but used. A reader did not read them only from beginning to end, but extracted information from them either to read other texts, such as the Theogony, or to recall other texts that were part of his education and culture. And above all, one did not read mythographic lists, but reconstructed what they contained in a complex negotiation between written text, layout, punctuation and memory.

Works Cited Alganza Roldán, M. (2006), “La mitografía como género de la prosa helenística”, in: Florentia iliberritana 17, 9–37. Arn, M.-J. (1994), “On Punctuating Medieval Literary Texts”, in: Text 7, 161–174. Battezzato, L. (2009), “Techniques of reading and textual layout in Ancient Greek texts”, in: Cambridge Classical Journal 55, 1–23. Blank, D.L. (1983), “Remarks on Nicanor, the Stoics and the Ancient Theory of Punctuation”, in: Glotta 61, 48–67. Boriaud, J.-Y. (ed. transl. comm.) (1997), Hygin. Fables, Paris. Burkert, W. (1985), Greek Religion, trad. J. Raffan, Cambridge, MA. Cameron, A. (2004), Greek Mythography in the Roman World, Oxford. Carruthers, M. (1990), The Book of Memory. A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge 20082. Cavallo, G./Maehler, H. (eds.) (2008), Hellenistic Bookhands, Berlin/New York. Christin, A.-M. (2000), Poétique du blanc. Vide et intervalle dans la civilisation de l’alphabet, Paris 20092. Coleman, J.A. (2007), Dictionary of Mythology, London. Cribiore, R. (1996), Writing, Teachers and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Atlanta, GA. de Certeau, M. (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley, CA. Dehaene, S. (2009), Reading in the Brain. The New Science of How We Read, New York. Delattre, C. (ed. transl. comm.) (2010), Pseudo-Plutarque: Nommer le monde, Lille.

Textual Webs: How to Read Mythographic Lists  

Delattre, C. (2011), “Le nom et la fonction: les identités de Pisa fille d’Endymion dans les scholies”, in: J. Pàmias (ed.), Parva mythographica, Oberhaid, 201–218. Delattre, C. (2013), “Pentaméron mythographique. Les Grecs ont-ils écrit leurs mythes ?”, in: Lalies 33, 77–170. Delattre, C. (2016), “Lectures et usages du Sur les fleuves du pseudo-Plutarque”, in A. Zucker/ J. Fabre-Serris/J.-Y. Tilliette/G. Besson (eds.), Lire les mythes. Formes, usages et visées des pratiques mythographiques de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance, Lille, 143–160. Delattre, C. (2017), “Apollodorus’ Text. Experimental Layout and Edition”, in: J. Pàmias (ed.), Apollodoriana. Ancient Myths, New Crossroads. Studies in Honour of Francesc J. Cuartero, Berlin/New York, 176–203. Delattre, C. (2016), “Référence et corpus dans les pratiques de commentaire. Les emplois de historia”, in: Revue de philologie 90.2, 90–110. Delattre, C. (forthcoming), “Imperial mythography”, in: S. Smith/S. Trzaskoma (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography, Oxford. Desbordes, F. (1990), Idées romaines sur l’écriture, Lille. Febvre, L./Martin, H.-J. (1958), L’apparition du livre, Paris. Fleischmann, S. (1990), “Philology, Linguistics, and the Discourse of the Medieval Text”, in: Speculum 65.1, 19–37 Gantz, T. (1993), Early Greek Myth. A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Baltimore, MD. Genette, G. (1983), Palimpsestes, Paris. Genette, G. (1987), Seuils, Paris. Grimal, P. (ed.) (1951), Dictionnaire de mythologie grecque et romaine, Paris. Harris, W.V. (1989), Ancient Literacy, Cambridge, MA. Ingold, T. (2007), Lines: A Brief History, Cambridge, MA/London. Irigoin, J. (2003), “Lire, c’est d’abord chercher à comprendre”, in: C. Jacob (ed.), Des Alexandries II. Les métamorphoses du lecteur, Paris, 197–206. Mackay, A. (ed.) (2008), Orality, Literacy, Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman World, Leyden. Marshall, P.K. (ed.) (1993), Hyginus: Fabulae, Munich. Marshall, P.K. (ed.) (2002), Hyginus: Fabulae. Editio altera, Munich. Meccariello, C. (2019), “Impulso mitografico e mitografia nelle pratiche educative greche antiche”, in: Polymnia 4 (https://polymnia-revue.univ-lille.fr/index.php/numero-4-2019/) Meritt, B.D./Wade-Gery, H.T./McGregor, M.F. (eds.) (1939), The Athenian Tribute Lists, vol. I. Cambridge. Papathomopoulos, M. (ed. transl. comm.) (1968), Antoninus Liberalis: Les Métamorphoses, Paris. Paspatis, A.G. (1888), Το Χιακόν γλωσσάριον. Ήτοι η εν Χίω λαλούμενη γλώσσα μετά τινών επιγραφών αρχαίων τε και νέων και του χάρτου της νήσου, Athens. Pellizer, E. (1993), “La mitografia”, in: G. Cambiano/L. Canfora/D. Lanza (eds.), Lo spazio letterario nella Grecia antica, t. II, Rome, 283–303. Petrovic, A./Petrovic, I./Thomas, E. (eds.) (2018), The Materiality of Text. Placement, Perception, and Presence of Inscribed Texts in Classical Antiquity, Leiden Reeve, M.D. (1983), “Hyginus”, in: L.D. Reynolds (ed.), Texts and transmission. A Survey of the Latin Classics, Oxford, 189–190. Renner, T. (1978), “A Papyrus Dictionary of Metamorphoses”, in: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 82, 277–293.

  Charles Delattre Riggsby, A. (2019), “Distributed Cognition and the Diffusion of Information Technologies in the Roman World”, in: M. Anderson/D. Cairns (eds.), Distributed Cognition in Classical Antiquity, Edinburgh, 2019, 57–74. Roman, L./Roman, M. (eds.) (2010), Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology, New York. Rose, H.J. (ed. comm.) (1933), Hygini Fabulae, Leiden. Sinha, A. (2010), “Énumérer les Argonautes: catalogues épiques et listes mythographiques, enjeux génériques”, in: D. Auger/C. Delattre (eds.), Mythe et fiction, Nanterre, 171–184. Smith, R.S./Trzaskoma, S.M./Brunet, St. (eds.) (2004), Anthology of classical myth: primary sources in translation, Indianapolis. Smith, R.S./Trzaskoma, S. (eds.) (forthcoming), Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography, Oxford. Small, J.P. (1997), Wax tablets of the mind. Cognitive studies of memory and literacy in classical Antiquity, London/New York. Stansbury-O’Donnell, M.D. (1990), “Polygnotos’s Nekyia. A Reconstruction and Analysis”, in: American Journal of Archeology 94, 213–235. Svenbro, J. (1988), Phrasikléia. Anthropologie de la lecture en Grèce ancienne, Paris. Thomas, R. (1989), Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens, Cambridge. Thomas, R. (1992), Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece, Cambridge. Valette, E. (1997), La lecture à Rome, Paris. Van Rossum-Steenbeek, M. (ed.) (1998), Greek readers’ digests ? Studies on a selection of subliterary papyri, Leiden. Vernant, J.-P. (1963), “Hestia-Hermès. Sur l’expression religieuse de l’espace et du mouvement chez les Grecs”, in: L’Homme 3.3, 12–50. Vernant, J.-P. (1965), “Hestia-Hermès. Sur l’expression religieuse de l’espace et du mouvement chez les Grecs”, in: Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs. Études de psychologie historique, Paris, 97–143. Vernant, J.-P. (1983), “Hestia–Hermes. The religious expression of space and movement among the Greeks”, in: Myth and Thought Among the Greeks, London, 127–176. West, M.L. (ed. comm.) (1966), Hesiod: Theogony, Oxford. Willingham, D.T. (2017), The Reading Mind. A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads, San Francisco. Wolf, M. (2000), Proust and the Squid. The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, New York.

Richard Gordon

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire At first sight,1 the famous case of Solomon Veniaminovich Shereshevsky (1886– 1958), the man who “could not forget”, seems to confirm that prodigious lists can be generated by means of semanticisation and eidetic images without the direct aid of writing (Luria 1975). Actually however Shereshevsky generally performed these feats by linking the items in written lists submitted to him verbally, whether numbers, syllables, words, topics etc., to physical locations, often streets in Moscow that he knew intimately, i.e. a technique akin to that of topoi or loci familiar from the Auctor ad Herennium 3.16–19 or book 11 of Quintilian’s Institutes. His ability to remember lists, however extraordinary, thus depended ultimately on a written matrix. Nevertheless it is difficult for what Bernard Sève calls ‘pure lists’ to contribute to organised cultural memory (Sève 2010, 17). Bourdeusian habitus, for example, at any rate of the ‘traditional’ or ‘integrated’ kind, does not depend on listing but is a complex scheme of ‘concepts in action’ formed over time.2 In non-literate societies, (poetic) narrative has a decided advantage in being able to relate complex cultural codes to one another in direct or indirect response to evenemential history.3 Even with the advent of writing, the development of a listing culture is a complex process. As several contributions to this volume suggest, however, historically the crucial driving force in the creation of ‘pure lists’ is surely the institutionalisation of bureaucratic processes and requirements.

 1 I would like to thank Katharina Wesselmann, Rebecca Laemmle and Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle for their invitation to attend the Edinburgh conference. In the notes, dates are indicated, as usual in epigraphic and papyrological publications, by means of a Roman numeral and a superscript (a ante J.C.) or p (post J.C.). I have usually refrained from normalising the nonstandard or regional Latin. 2 On the distinction between integrated, disjunctive and ‘split’ habitus, see e.g. Steinmetz 2013, 119–123. 3 Cf. the well-known case of the changes in recitations of the myth of the Bagre among the LoDagaa (Ghana) revealed by tape-recordings: Goody 1972; 1987, 167–190; 1995,134–136; Goody and Gandah 1981. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-006

  Richard Gordon

 Introduction At any rate in the case of Greek and Roman culture, we can differentiate here between first order, second order and third order listing. 1) The first order is the learning process itself: children learned to read and write by memorising not merely the written alphabet but every possible variety of syllable, which were written out and committed to memory.4 2) Second-order ‘pure’ listing — i.e. primarily, but not exclusively ‘instrumental’ listing — is linked to state- or, rather, in the Greek and Roman Republican cases, city-administration, especially but by no means always, democratic administration. In later fifth- and fourth-century Athens, for example, we can easily — simply by referring to the Aristotelian ‘Constitution’ — name the deme-rolls, the ephebic rolls, the rosters of the age-cohorts due for active military duty, lists of cavalrymen and their horses, lists of warships and their trierarchs, the ordering of state income and expenditure by the treasurers, lists of the members and financial obligations of the Delian League and then the Second Athenian Confederacy, lists of metics liable to the metic-tax, of cleruchs in ‘allied’ cities, lists of the silver-mines let out by the state and their lessees, the scrutiny of officials’ financial transactions, the lists of the month's prytany-members or of the jurors for the day, the agenda for the meetings of the Council and the Assembly, inventories of state-debtors and confiscated property, and the arrangement of major religious processions, such as the Panathenaika or the Greater Dionysia, lists of those killed in battle.5 Some of the earliest known epigraphic lists itemised victors at games, archons and eponymous priests, the honourable dead fallen in battle, and later prize-winners in poetic and dramatic competitions.6 Temples inventorised their treasure, and listed the wonders that took place there.7 Practitioners of all sorts, doctors, rhetors, architects and mariners, astronomers and astrologers, assembled lists and catalogues required for their routines.8 The memorisation of

 4 Quint. Inst. 1.1.25–26, 30–31, cf. Cribiore 2001, 172–173; Johnson 2010, 27–28. 5 Arist. Ath.42–69 with the commentary by Rhodes 1981, though listing is not one of his interests; cf. also Sickinger 1999. In view of the ample discussion of literary lists in this volume, I deliberately ignore them here. 6 Cf. Busolt 1920, 32–34; 1926, Appendix by F. Jandebeur, 20, s.v. Listen; Moretti 1953; PickardCambridge 1991. 7 E.g. Aleshire 1989; Hamilton 2000; LiDonnici 1995; Constantakopoulou 2017, 171–228. 8 Cf. Wilkins 2007, 69: “The domains of food and pharmacology had become vast and complex by the second century CE” (and indeed long before). Doctors: e.g. Hipp. Aff., Epid., Hum., Morb., Vict.; Cels. 5.1–25, 6.6–9 etc.; the most important Hellenistic systematiser of rhetoric was Her-

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

written lists was an essential technique in rhetorical education: listing was the handmaid of rhetorical fluency, and it depended for its articulation on the fact of writing. Some Greek writers on memory drew up long lists, consisting of thousands of words to be retained ‒ lists so long that mnemonic devices were required to recall them (Small 1997, 81–94). 3) Third-order listing is represented by the development of an encyclopaedic tradition in the late fourth century BCE and more especially in the Hellenistic period, which greatly extended the cultural role of lists: the well-known catalogue of Aeschylus’ plays in the Florentine and Venetian manuscripts must stem from this period, as well as catalogues of lawgivers, painters, tragedians, orators’ speeches and philosophers’ writings, not to forget the catalogues of famous libraries, beginning with Aristotle’s.9 Perhaps the most generally familiar grand list of this kind is the first Book of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, which simply sets out the main contents of all 37 books, together with the authors consulted, Greek and Latin.10 These books themselves contain many dozens of lists, short and long, mainly derived from this grand mustering of the world, from Mediterranean islands to sudden deaths of eminent Romans, from the occasions on which three suns have appeared to the varieties of the stone adamas.11 The administrative requirements arising out of conquest massively increased the generation of bureaucratic lists in the Hellenistic kingdoms (especially Ptolemaic Egypt) and the Roman Republican empire; but it was the Principate, with its creation of an administrative rather than a purely extractive empire, and so an empire-wide patrimonial bureaucracy, that caused an exponential increase in listing. Moreover the establishment of a regular epigraphic culture in Latin, above all in Italy and North Africa, stimulated the erection of impressive monuments carrying vast lists of names, especially in civic and military contexts: one only  magoras of Temnos (fl. ca. 150 BCE), whose influence on later theory was profound, cf. Rademacher 1913; architecture: Hermogenes (?of Priene), De aede Dianae (late 3rd – 2nd cent. BCE); coastal charts: Dilke 1985, 130–137. All astronomical and astrological works contain numerous lists; Geminus Εἰσαγ. 8.27–60, and the parapegma (pp. 98–108 Aujac); and Paul. Alex. Element. 2–4 (pp. 2–17 Boer) give some idea of the variety of possibilities here. 9 In general, see Blum 1991. Aeschylus: Med. (Bibl. Laur. Cod.32, 9) and Venet. (Bibl. Marciana, cod. Gr. [468] 653); there survive 4 columns @ 18 rows (= 72 titles), the fifth column is lost. Catalogues: Callimachus’ 120 volumes of pinakes, as revised by Aristophanes of Byzantium, contained numerous such lists, which often served as the basis for work by others, such as Eratosthenes, cf. Fraser 1972, 452–54, 781; and the remarks of Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle on pp. 382– 384 of this volume. 10 For what is known of ancient ToCs, see Riggsby 2007; defence against critics, Riggsby 2019, 22–29. 11 Cf. Murphy 2004; Carey 2003; Naas 2013.

  Richard Gordon has to enter a relatively common Latin name into the Clauss/Slaby epigraphic data-base to be assailed by incomprehensibly long lists of male names — the socalled Album of Herculaneum (c. 50 CE), for example, which even in its present fragmentary state contains 500 names, originally bore about 1000 arranged in three columns on twelve slabs; the earlier (205 CE) of two rosters of the fifth cohort of vigiles (the fire-service of the city of Rome) found on the Caelian in 1820, which is inscribed on a single block of Travertine measuring c.1.71 x 0.92m, gives the names of 918 men organised in seven centuries, not counting the officers.12 The deployment of lists and enumerations in Greek and Roman imaginative literature, with which most of the contributions to this volume are concerned, is thus to be viewed against the foil of the massive institutionalisation of what we may, for want of a better expression, term ‘real-world’, or even quasi-juridical listing. My concern in this paper, however, is with types of listing that are neither clearly literary nor administrative, being intended to serve a highly specific, immediate end, namely the transmission of an insistent demand to divine powers considered the appropriate recipient of such appeals.13 Since the subjective qualifications as well as the degree of literacy of the writers of these demands differed greatly, we find a wide range of ideas about how to go about such tasks. The fundamental distinction, as will be clear from my examples, lay between what we may call ‘vernacular’ or ‘lay’ models and those available to literate religious specialists working within the Graeco-Egyptian tradition. The first rely upon scattered, informal, unsystematic, freely-circulating knowledge about ‘how such

 12 Album: Camodeca 2008, 89–90; de Ligt/Garnsey 2012. Vigiles: the information provided by these lists was beautifully set out in pseudo-Latin majuscules by Th. Mommsen at CIL VI 1057f; see also the original publication of the two slabs by Kellermann 1835 (digitalised by the Staatsbibliothek Munich, via KvK). It is unnecessary to point out that the Roman army must have produced hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of such rosters (and lists of other kinds) between, say, 202 BCE and 395 CE. A sample from Egypt can be found in Fink 1971, nos. 1–86. Some other administrative lists from the Principate are mentioned by Riggsby 2019, 29–37. Unfortunately, the chapter of this book that might have been most relevant to my purposes (pp. 10–41) turns out to be of no use. 13 It is this interstitial quality that explains the total absence of reference to curse-texts in the substantial collection of papers edited by Colesanti and Giordano 2014. The basic problem is the unselfconscious use here, due to Luigi Rossi himself, of the term ‘literature’: curse-texts may be — often literally indeed — ‘submerged’, but for Classical philologists they do not count as literary texts. Giordano 1999 is concerned only with the Archaic period in Greece, and is anyway entirely literary.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

things are done’, constantly adapted by the principals in the light of their subjective needs, skills and religious knowledge;14 the primary reason for diversity within the second type, effectively available outside Egypt only from the second century CE and immediately recognisable from its deployment of rare knowledge, is the payment a client was willing to make to the specialist for the contract.15 Essentially, the challenge was to find the resources, rhetorical and other, required to generate at least a subjective sense of adequacy to the task: if the vernacular model, driven by a subjective sense of outraged justice, required that one cast about for scraps of legal-sounding language, formality, emotional intensity, which might include listing and/or enumeration,16 the Graeco-Egyptian practitioner derived his authority from the consciousness of standing in a prestigious tradition ultimately located in Egyptian temple-practice. The two models shared, however, one significant practice, the common (though not universal) resort to lead or pewter sheet as the material base of the written text, which is the condition, outside Egypt, for their survival.17 Although Shaun Usher in his ‘visual anthology’ Lists of Note has recently shown what can be done by combining (mainly modern) lists with images and facsimiles, the scraps of lead that carry my texts, even when they have been unrolled and cleaned, are extremely unphotogenic and cause a flutter in the heart only of gifted graphologists. Vernacular texts of the Roman period are generally badly-written, often in non-standard Latin, and their interpretation is frequently open to discussion.18 There are plenty of ancient visual lists, on Greek vases, on metopes (e.g. the Parthenon marbles), on reliefs representing state occasions, especially of a religious character, on triumphal arches and columns, in the interior decoration of Greek and Roman houses, but almost none that relate to my texts —  14 I use the term ‘principal’ for the person in whose interests a curse-text was written. For a well-reasoned argument in favour of the view that the great majority of vernacular texts were actually also written by the principal, see Dufault 2018. This does not apply to those in the Graeco-Egyptian tradition, which were written by specialists of varying ability. I use the term ‘vernacular’ for curse-texts written on the basis of knowledge drawn from local, mainly provincial, cultural resources; for the word in the context of religious practice, see esp. Bowman/Valk 2012, 1–19. 15 This distinction, though in my view fundamental, is regularly ignored in discussions of these texts, e.g. Ogden 1999; Martin 2010; Bailliot 2010, as it was in the foundational collections by Wünsch 1897 and Audollent 1904. 16 On emotional and verbal intensity in these texts, cf. Gordon 2019. 17 It is certainly possible that curses were often written on other Textträger, but, if so, very few have survived. 18 See e.g. the fine discussions of the Latinity of several curse-tablets, from Mainz and Britannia, in Adams 2016, 247–252; 398–428; cf. also idem 1992.

  Richard Gordon there is not a single graphic image in any vernacular text: that one could reinforce the text by that type of para-illocutionary resource was evidently not part of the general knowledge about how to set about framing a written curse that circulated in the western Empire, and it never occurred to any principal, in the surviving vernacular corpus from the Principate, to try it out.19 It seems best, within such a contribution, to limit the enquiry to two major areas in which listing plays a significant role, namely lists of the (human) targets’ names and lists of body-parts targeted (and related matters). In the imperial period, the first are found exclusively in relatively primitive vernacular curses, the second both in vernacular and in Graeco-Egyptian styles. However, since it is a basic contention here that vernacular styles are to be relatively sharply distinguished from texts written within the Graeco-Egyptian tradition, I have decided to restrict myself here more or less completely to the former, in order to stress the diversity of strategies and individual inventions to be found in such (generally) ‘naive’ texts. One might certainly also have examined lists of divinities addressed, but these are in fact, with one or two exceptions, extremely limited in vernacular texts, which mainly confine themselves to a single addressee.20 Bravura display of the theological knowledge required for expansive lists of divine and spirit addressees is in fact a characteristic mark of the Graeco-Egyptian tradition. Although there are quite a number of fairly low-grade, routinised texts of all kinds within that tradition, the ‘activated’ curses21 — erotic, maleficent, and  19 I am thinking here of course of Umberto Eco’s lovely Vertigine della lista/Vertige da la liste (2009). There are numerous drawings in the Graeco-Egyptian texts (not only curses), but the only ones that count as (open) lists are the very few sequences of charioteers prospectively ‘caught’ by the curse; for two examples from Rome, see Tremel 2004, 299–230 Abb. 20–21. 20 A recent notable exception is the magnificent late Ip curse against Caecilia Prima from an ustrinum-area near a mausoleum off the via Benedetto Bompiani (not far from the catacomb of Domitilla) in Rome, which begins with an extraordinary list of underworld powers: Dite Pater, Proserpina dia, Canes Orcini, Ustores inferi, / Ossufragae, Larvae, Furiae, Maniae, Aves nocturnae, / Aves Harpyiae , Ortygiae, Virga, Ximaera, Geryones, /4 Siredonas, Circe, Gegantes, Sp(h)inx, “Dispater, divine Proserpina, dogs of Orcus, pyre-workers in the Underworld, Bone-crackers, phantoms, Furies, Madnesses, night-birds, Harpy-birds, the ‘Ortygiae’, Rod, Chimaera, Geryones, Sirenes, Circe, Giants, Sphinx” (AE 2007, 260). Though this list does seem to contain allusions to Virgil (e.g. virga in Aen. 4.242; Chimaera, Gorgones, Harpyiaeque at 6.288–289) and Silius Italicus (e.g. Pun. 13.587–600) it far exceeds any surviving account of the underworld powers and completely eschews the usual geographical allusions. I take it that ‘Ortygiae’ is an error for ‘Ogygiae’, the daughters of Ogygos/Ogyges, i.e. the Praxidikai, cf. Höfer 1897–1902, 683 ). 21 By ‘activated’ I mean curse-texts directed against named individuals which were probably based on some kind of written model or recipe, such as those known from the Graeco-Egyptian formularies in PGrMag and SupplMag nos.70–100. It does not necessarily imply that they were originally composed by someone other than the practitioner or that they were slavishly followed.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

‘competitive’ (i.e. directed against gladiators, venatores [beast-fighters], chariotteams, actors, athletes …), both those found in Egypt and in a small number of urban centres beyond — are generally of high quality and were written by competent ritual specialists who took their commission seriously.22 Despite his primary orientation towards literary lists, it is nowadays difficult to write about listing without drawing inspiration from Bernard Sève (2010). At this point, I just want to refer to his claim that simple lists tend to exclude the idea of enunciation or proclamation, although he allows certain exceptions, such as school-lists, parade-lists, and lists of the dead, as at Ground Zero (2010, 87).23 The verbal curse that preceded (and indeed existed in parallel to) the written form throughout antiquity is unlikely to have encompassed more than a handful of names. By giving time for thought and reflection, the written curse, being neither necessarily finished nor unfinished, allowed the indefinite expansion of the target group (“Who might have been involved?”); indeed in a few extraordinary cases in Classical Athens connected with law-suits, literally dozens of targets might be listed.24 However, the main advantage of the vernacular written curse was its anonymity: oral cursing involves high social risk as well as the assent of witnesses to its moral justification. The written curse permitted self-justification but preferred ‘hard words’ as its main resource. The discontinuity of the elements of the simple name-list, the absence in them of syntax and grammar, represents a pure form of fragmentation and isolation, freed from the residual social inclusion implicit in verbal utterance. We turn now to the two main areas I have outlined.25

 22 The ‘competition texts’ from Carthage and Hadrumetum (DTAud 232–298 = Tremel 2004, nos. 22–63, 65–66 and 93–100) are a special case, since, although they often betray some knowledge of Graeco-Egyptian techniques, they are in many ways outside it. I therefore make some limited use of them in the section on horses’ names. 23 I remember myself answering adsum! each morning at school assembly; cf. the Scottish students’ song ‘Shon Campbell’, “But when the Last Great Roll is called, and adsums thunder loud ...”. 24 The finest example is a tablet (dated c.325 BCE) measuring 8 x 7.5cms from near the church of St Sabbas, in the west of Athens, which once listed 130 names, front and back, with an initial performative καταδῶ, κατορύττω, ἀφανίζω ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, “I bind, I bury, I obliterate from the human race …”, found at least once elsewhere in Attic curses; see Curbera/Jordan 2008. Some 450–500 years later, we find a similar phrase in a Greek curse from Rome against a team of athletes, which I cite below: κ]ατορύσσω καὶ δέδεκα καὶ καταδεσμεύω εἰς ψυχρὸν τάφον ... , “I bury and deliver and bind down to a cold tomb ...” (AE 2014, 213 ll.1–2). 25 For the sake of brevity I normally cite the texts only via their entries in AE and SEG and not from the original publication, unless this is especially informative.

  Richard Gordon

 Targets, Human and Animal With the gradual spread of functional literacy, the simple list of human targets, which was a major resource in Classical Greek curse-tablets, becomes, in Romanperiod vernacular curses, a sign of low literacy and absence of discursive fluency.26 A very rudimentary example, the ‘degree zero’ of cursing, was found among the debris of a sacrificial pit behind the temple of Mater Magna under the Lotharpassage in the centre of Roman Mainz in 1999, together with a number of other tablets. The text is uncertain but seems simply to list two Germanic or Celtic women’s names in the nominative:27 (1) Veicuna / Vassvea.

The majority of simple lists however do attempt, however briefly, to frame the curse’s intentionality, or contextualise it in some other way. I trace some of these efforts in the following nine examples, suggesting, where possible, the kind of resource being drawn on for illocutionary reinforcement. A rough rectangle of lead sheet from near Mansion House in the City of London also bears just two names but makes the point brutally clear: (2)

T(itus) Egnatius Tyranus defic(t)us est et P(ublius) Cicereius Felix defictus e(s)t.28 T. Egnatius Tyrannus is accursed and P. Cicereius Felix is accursed.

To make doubly sure, the principal wrote the same text on the reverse, omitting the final defictus est. Apart from the epanalepsis of defictus and the careful registration of the tria nomina (quite unusual in this sort of text), the mise en page, centred on est et, evokes that of many (informal) public announcements, such as

 26 Cf. Gordon 1999, 257–265. So much so, that it is sometimes impossible to decide whether a given ‘pure’ list of names is a curse or not, e.g. AE 1969/70, 311a (from the fort bath-house at Bravonium/Leintwardine, Herefordshire, Britannia), of which Wright declared, “It is not a curse”. 27 DTM 24. The tablet measures 5.3 x 2 cm. The names might also be Viecuna and Vaevea. 28 AE 1930, 112 = RIB 1, 6 = Kropp 03/14/02, 12 x 7.5 cm, Ip-IIp.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

the suffragia of claqueurs for candidates to municipal offices on the thoroughfares of Pompeii.29 Most simple lists however contain several names, which provided more opportunities for increasing the range of quasi-rhetorical resources that could be exploited in order to add weight and force to a curse. Thus the principal involved in a dispute, about whose nature we can unfortunately only speculate, sought to silence (potential) witnesses by means of a list of names, which was found in the Gallo-Roman cemetery on Schwabenheimer Weg at Bad Kreuznach (RheinlandPfalz):30 (3) Potitus Fusci adv[ersatur (?)] / Ivisum Valli, Marullum / Pusionis, Maxsumus(!) Priuni, / [Ne]rvinum Paterni, Matu/5rum Suavis, Turicum Ma/cri, Sulpicium Secundani, / [---] Prudentem Solve(n)di, / Mensor(em) Marulli, Novim[arum(?)] / Marulli s[-----]s, Seginium (?) /10 [---]S[---] litis VA[---]EST datur // Data nomina haec / ad inferos. (obverse) Potitus (slave/freedman/son) of Fuscus is in dispute with ...... [list of names ensues] (reverse) These names have been handed over to the powers of the Underworld.

Although the gaps in the last line make a meaningful translation impossible (if indeed the text was ever grammatically sound), it seems likely from the letters ADV[--- in the first line, which I would supplement as adversatur or adversor, “he/I treat as enemies, oppose at law”, that Potitus was the principal, while the other figures were plaintiffs or potentially hostile witnesses against him.31 Although, given the uncertainty about the reading of l.9,32 we must speculate, it seems likely that the men were, like Potitus himself, slaves or freedmen, or some of one legal status, some of another, who were perhaps members of a collegium

 29 E.g. Lollium Fuscum aed(ilem) o(ro) v(os) f(aciatis) (CIL IV 734); M. Cerrinium aed(ilem) Africanus rog(at) cum Victore (818); C. Iulium bium / II vir(um) / Infantio / rogat (1226); see also Mouritsen 1988, 47–52. 30 AE 1927, 68–69 = Kropp 05/01/04/10 and 11 = DTM p. 188 = HD 024943 (Feraudi), with changes. Dimensions: 10.5 (max. h.) x 10 cm; found rolled up but not nailed through. Date: c. 100 CE (so Wünsch in CIL XIII 7550). This entire area SW of Mainz had been firmly in Roman hands at latest since the Augustan period; the settlement lay at the crossing of fairly major roads, from Metz to Bingen and from Alzey to Mainz. Nothing is known of its legal status prior to the third century; the epigraphic harvest is minimal (CIL XIII 7528–49). 31 For adversari in this sense, cf. Apul. Soc. 12: illos advorsari et affligere, ‘to oppose and crush them’; Flor. 18: decipula adversantium, ‘the tricks of his opponents at law’. The usual supplement is adv[ersarius], which ignores the following accusatives. 32 The reading might be s[ervu]s, s[ervo]s (Oxé’s reading), s[i qui]s (Blänsdorf), or something entirely different.

  Richard Gordon in which a dispute had arisen over funds or embezzlement — at any rate the repetition of the name Marullus in ll. 8–9 suggests social dependency of some sort.33 The frequent misspellings of names suggests poor literacy.34 Yet the author has attempted to give his list an air of additional formality by adding the owner or patronus in each successive case, even though he failed to add f(ilium), lib(ertum) or s(ervum) — he knew their status, and assumed the (purely implicit) addressee did too. And he reinforced this move by using the word lis (l.10), the correct word for a legal dispute, or the object under dispute.35 Potitus’ use of the word nomen to refer to the persons listed may have been yet another attempt to give the text an additional modicum of authority.36 This  33 We cannot tell whether this Marullus is the same man as Marullus ‘Pusionis’ in l. 2–3 The name is fairly common in the Romano-Celtic lands. 34 E.g. Ivisus for Lusius vel sim. (normally a nomen); Pusionis for Pusinionis; Maxsumus for Maximum, Turicum for Turium (?); Solvedi for Solvendi, Mensor for Mensorem, Novim- for Novianus ... The text is in rather uneven ‘rustic capitals’. Many of the names are most frequently found in the NW provinces. 35 Given the state of the last line of the obverse, however, one cannot be sure that litis is indeed the genitive of lis. An analogous attempt to give a hint of formality can be found in a text from Rome, directed against a woman named Rhodine (cf. Alvar Nuño 2017, 66–67): ... Dite Pater, Rhodine(m) / tib{e}i commendo uti semper / odio sit M. Licinio Fausto / item M(arcum) Hedium Amphionem / item C(aium) Popillium Apollonium / item Vennonia(m) Hermiona(m) / item Sergia(m) Glycinna(m), “I place Rhodine in your power, Dis Pater, that she may for ever be hated by M. Licinius Faustus, also M. Hedius Amphio, also C. Popillius Apollonius, also Vennonia Hermione, also Sergia Glycinna” (CIL I2 1012 (p. 967) = DTAud 139 = ILS 8749 = ILLRP 1144). Item is more formal than et or atque, and often found in legal or other formal texts e.g. CIL I2 200 = FIRA2 I (Leges) no. 8 = Crawford 1996 no.2 ll.29, 30, 52, 56, 83; Tab. Hebana = lex Valeria Aurelia (Ehrenberg/Jones 1955 no.94a) 10, 11, 19, 20, 33, 34; SC de provinciis (51 BCE) III.1 and IV 1 (Caelius ap. Cicero, Fam. 8.8.7–8 = FIRA2 I (Leges) no. 37 (p. 268); Wolf 2010 no.19, §3.2, 5.10; CIL XI 3303 = ILS 154 l.18 etc. 36 Variations on the expression data nomina ad inferos occur in some of the other curses found in the cemetery at Bad Kreuznach in 1886 and 1887, implying that it was part of the informal local knowledge of how to manage such a text: CIL XIII 7555IIIa = DTAud 97a: data nomina ad inferos; cf. 7550 = DTAud 100: data [manda]ta l[igata?] ad inferos; also 7553a and b = DTAud 96: nomina inimicorum ... ad inferos, with a list of 19 names. Compare the text from Aquincum published by Barta 2017, 47 (inner text): Claudia, Flavia, Zosimus Aeracuram rogat et petit sibi Zosimus a Dite Patre ea nomina , quae vobis do: Titi, Alexandri, Candidi, Mamanis, Marcellini qui et Attani, Marciani; quicumque adversarius surrexerit, si servus, si liber ... rogamus Aeracuram, Patrem eorum nomina: at studeas, “Claudia, Flavia, Zosimus ask Aeracura, and Zosimus requests for himself of Dis Pater, that the names I give you, of Titus, Alexander, Candidus, Mama, Marcellinus also known as Attanius, Marcianus, whoever shall stand up against (us), whether slave or free person, we ask Aeracura (and) Pater (that you) concentrate on their names”. In view of the legal use of the word nomen (see below), studere may here have the sense ‘read carefully’, cf. Quint., Inst. 2.7.1.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

certainly seems to be the case in a simple list of male and female names from Apulum/Alba Iulia in Dacia, found rolled up hidden in the grave-clothes of the occupant of the inhumation tomb, on the left-hand side of the skeleton, at the level of the pelvis: (4) [Defigo --- no]/men M{a}rra, / nomen Clian/nes, nomen Iuli/5es, nomen Va[le]/ries, nomen / Fuscentis, nomen / [H]armationi[s(?)], / nomen Filom/10ini, nomen Ciri/[---]u, VIANVI[---] / [--, nomen] Clini, / nomen Flavies, / {nomen} Iulies, nomen Au/15[relie]s, nomen Iuli/es, nomen Nav/[i]nvi, nomen / [---], nomen / [---], nomen Valer[i/20es], nomen Filon/[is], nomen [--- / --nom]en.37 [I curse ---] the name of M(a)rra (?), the name of Clinias (?), the name of Iulia, the name of Valeria, the name of Fuscens, the name of (H)ermatio, the name of Filomen, ...

Despite the markedly non-standard genitive forms of first-declension proper names (iae →ies), the epanalepsis of nomen here acquires the status of a refrain, almost a drum-beat. Given the presence of at least seven women with commonor-garden names, we should assume the context was once again a conflict within a slave-familia: the shift to -ies seems to be relatively common where we find Greek-speakers using Latin (Adams 2007, 674). There is nothing in the least ‘magical’ about this use of nomen: it is a direct reference to the usual procedure of listing defendants awaiting trial, nomen alicuius deferre, balanced by the expression for a magistrate’s consent to hear a case, nomen recipere.38 The first expression recurs several times in the opening passage of the lex Acilia repetundarum (123/122 BCE), which concerns those who may prosecute/be prosecuted under the law e.g.: ... de ea re eius petitio nominisque delatio esto ... aut quoius nomen praevaricationis caussa delatum erit aut quoium nomen ex h.l. ex reis exemptum erit ..., “..he is to have suit and right of prosecution concerning that matter ... or (a person) who shall have been prosecuted by way of collusion, or whose name shall have been removed from (the list of) defendants according to this statute ...”39 A

 37 Bounegru and Németh 2013, 239 (better than AE 2013, 1308), 11 x 6 cm, S. necropolis, grave M27, IIp-IIIp. 38 For nomen recipere, see e.g. Val. Max.3.7.9: M. Antonius Creticus, cos.99, accused of having sexual relations with a vestal in 113 BCE, returned to Rome from Brundisium to stand trial even though he was a beneficiary under the lex Memmia, which forbade prosecution (recipi nomine vetabat) of magistrates who had already entered on their duties. He was acquitted thanks to the extreme loyalty of a slave (ibid. 6.8.1). 39 CIL I2 583 = FIRA2 I (Leges) no. 7 = Crawford 1996 no.1 ll.3–5 (Crawford’s text [p. 65] and translation [p. 85]), also ll.21, 24, 25. Other examples can be found in OCD s.v. nomen §23c. The earliest citation is Plaut. Aul. 416–417: Euc.: ... ad trisviros iam ego deferam nomen tuom. Co.: quám ob

  Richard Gordon parallel allusion to court procedure can be found in one of the texts from Bath, with reference to the claim that the persons named committed perjury when they swore an oath at the shrine, for which they are to be punished by the dea Sulis.40 Still in the context of plain lists without verbal reinforcement, another tack might suggest resort to social definition, as in a brief text from a late Republican tomb in Portus by Ostia: (5) Agathemeris Manliae ser(va) [Ac?]hulea Fabiae ser(va) ornatrix [C]aletuche Vergiliae ser(va) ornatrix Hilara Liciniae [ser(va) orn]atrix Chreste Corn[eliae] ser(va) ornatrix Hilara Seiae ser(va) ornatrix Moscis ornatrix Rufa Apeiliae ser(va) ornatrix Chila ornatrix. (Nine female names, the first denoted ‘slave’, all the others ‘slave hairdresser’ or ‘hairdresser’/lady’s maid).41

Here, the formal register effected by entering the owner’s nomen in each case is reinforced by the epanaphora of the status (the principal evidently did not know the relevant information in the case of Moscis and Chila).42 We find a similar device used intermittently in a pair of linked texts from Monte Ghiro in the territory of Pola, the later (?) of which reads: (6) [Mind]ius Narcissus / Mindius Maleus(?) / Decidius Hister / Decidia Certa / Minervius Epaphroditus / Me[nande]r(?) / Lu[cifer d]ispensator / Lucifer alius / Amandus dispensator / Vitalis dispensator / Trophimus qui dispensavit / Anconius qui vilicavit / Viator colonus / [Sept]imius Sabinianus / Flavius Hedistus / Annius Calvo / Annius Civilis.

 rem? Euc.: quia cultrum habes. Co.: coquom decet ... , “I’m going to take you to court”. “Why?” “Because you have a knife”. “It’s for cooking ...” 40 TabSulis 94 = AE 1982, 661: nomina eorum qui iuraverunt ... quicumque illic periuraverint deae Sulis facias illum sanguine suo illud satisfacere, ‘the names of those who swore ... Whosoever has perjured himself there, you are to make him pay for it to the goddess Sulis in his own blood’ (tr. Tomlin). 41 AE 1911, 195 = CIL XIV 5306 = I2 3036, cf. Squarciapino 1955, 137. The tablet was folded over and closed by threading a cord through five small holes; a nail had been driven through the name Corneliae (see the drawing in CIL XIV 5306). 42 Cf. Alvar Nuño 2017, 72–73.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

(Seventeen names, including one woman)43

(7) + Privatum Camidium Q. Praesentius Albus Secunda uxor Pr(a)esenti T. Praesentius Maxsuma T. Praesenti uxor --C. Arilius C. Arenus Polla Fabricia L. Allius L. Vassidius Clemens

Prisca [u]xor Vassidi Monimus Acutius Ero[tis] Acutia(?) Damio l(ib.) si quis [i]nimicus inimi[ca] adve[r]sarius hostis Orce pater [P]roserpina cum tuo Plutone tibi trado ut tu il(l)u(m) mit[t]as et deprem[as]

tradito tuis canibus tricipiti(bus) et bicipitibus ut ere[pia(nt)] capita cogit(ationes?) cor in tuom gem[ini? ---] r[ecipia]nt il(l)os [---

The curse, one of two written in different hands and not exactly contemporary, evidently relates to a dispute between the unknown principal and the workforce of an agricultural estate at the southern tip of Istria, which evidently included tenant farmers as well as slave-labour, and was run by stewards or book-keepers, who were slaves. In this curse, the principal first lists some (free or libertine) tenants, apparently his main targets, and then three slaves designated as dispensatores, men responsible for the financial side of the running of the estate, together with one who has retired or was responsible when some incident occurred (qui dispensavit) and the farm-manager at that time (qui vilicavit). The supplementary details serve to assert the principal’s familiarity with the estate’s affairs, while the list as a whole offers a good example of the tendency of such lists to inclusiveness, “And who else might have been/be involved?”.44 An attempt to combine illocutionary and paratextual devices to convey authority can be found in a very lightly incised — “e quasi evanescent[e]” — text discovered in 1908 inside a funerary urn deposited in tomb 61 in the Roman cemetery of Campo alto al Cristo at ancient Ateste/Este, Reg. X:45

 43 AE 1906, 100b = InscrItal X.1, 592b. Eight of these names are also found on the other text (100a = 592a). The appearance of the word colonus, which ought to mean ‘tenant farmer’, is problematic, but may point to some form of semi-free labour. Carlsen 1995, 112–113 refused to accept that these were curse-tablets, despite the fact that they were found in a (wealthy) tomb near the via Romana; against this, see now Bevilacqua 2012, 60–61. 44 Another list-curse from the general area, Altino (Venezia), gives at least 11 slave-names followed by perhaps 7 others, some with nomen and cognomen on the obverse, but is headed by the name L. Caulius Hieronymus, written out twice at the beginning and again at the end (Scarfì 1972). Some of the slave-names recur on the reverse. This may relate to a similar conflict relating to a working estate. 45 Alfonsi 1914, 370–371 = AE 1915, 101 = SupplItal 15, 1997, 7. Dim.: 29.3 long, 11.5 wide.

  Richard Gordon (In the matter of) Camidius’ property) (thirteen names in nominative) (and) any person, male or female, ill-disposed (to me), (any) opponent, (any) enemy! (These) I transfer to you, reverend Orcus (and) Proserpina with your (husband) Pluto that you may take them and bring them low. I hand them over to your three-headed and two-headed dogs, that they may tear out their intentions, plans, life, may carry them to your joint [----]

Although some have supposed that Privatum Camidium (l.1), is one of the targets, albeit mysteriously in the accusative, when all the others are in the nominative (and with the order of the cognomen and nomen reversed), it is in fact a heading: ‘(concerning) the private/personal property of Camidius’,46 which makes it clear that the matter concerns a hearing before a magistrate.47 The context suggested to the principal the idea of framing his curse so as to recall a legal document. For example, several records of vademonium (undertaking to appear at court) among the ‘Murecine tablets’ from Pompeii, relating to the business affairs of C. Sulpicius Faustus, are headed Vademonium factum, while the record of an interrogatio dated 28 April 35 CE, is headed simply Interrog(atio) Ero(tis).48 A proper legal document of this kind would state the name of the magistrate and provide a very brief outline of the case, followed in most cases by a list of names of the signatores in the genitive, but the principal here is of course aiming to achieve something quite different. Nevertheless the list of names in the nominative probably reproduces the list of his opponents and their supporters/witnesses in the case.49 We may assume that a dispute had arisen over some land that Camidius had acquired through usucapio (i.e. occupation over a certain period rather than by conveyance), or his violation of neighbours’ rights by his infringement of agreements as to its use.  46 There is an illegible mark or sign before the P, represented here by +. Privatus is often found on notices, stating that an item of property, mainly roads or lanes (iter), is private; but the neuter form can also be used as a substantive to mean ‘private property’ in general (OCD sense c), cf. CIL XIV 4703 = ILLRP 490 p. 334: Privatum ad Tiberim usque ad aquam, “Private property in the direction of the Tiber, down to the water”. ‘Camidium’ is a regular adjective derived from a proper name in –ius, as in via Appia, aqua Marcia, lex Cornelia etc. As in these cases, it is the nomen that is here taken, not the cognomen. Camidius is an exceptionally rare nomen, with only four occurrences apart from this, two of which refer to the same man, a freedman from Minturnae (CIL I2 2678 = ILLRP 746; X 6045 p. 983). The third is a fireman in Rome under Septimius Severus (CIL VI 1057 = 1058 = 31234 = ILS 2157). 47 For adversarius as an opponent at law, see again CIL I2 583 = FIRA2 I (Leges) no. 7 = Crawford 1996 no.1 l.25: quod per eum pr(aetorem) advorsariumve mora[m] non erit, “[insofar as] the delay shall not occur because of that praetor or adversary” (tr. Crawford). 48 Wolf 2010, 33–41 TPN nos. 1–15; Interrog.: ibid. 51 TPN 24, cf. 25; Denuntiatum (in margin): ibid 54, TPN 26. 49 Cf. advers{s}ar(i)o(s) nos{s}tro(s) in AE 1921, 95 = 2008, 1080 (Siscia/Sisak).

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

All these texts are in Latin, since, as I have already pointed out, the habit of listing the personal names of targets persisted in the Latin-speaking areas of the Empire long after it had been largely abandoned in the eastern Mediterranean. My last list entirely of human targets, however, is a carefully-written Greek text from an incineration tomb of the late first or early second century CE excavated just behind the catacomb of Domitilla (via Ardeatina, Rome): (8) ... Εὔφρονα Τρύφωνος Σίφύου υἱὸν Ἀλε/ξανδρέα καὶ Φίλιππον Ἐζανίτην / ἀθλητὴν καὶ Ἀπίωνα Ἀρίστωνος / Ἀλεξανδρέα ἐπικαλούμενον Πῶ[λο]ν /10 ἀθλη[τ]ήν, ----------ΝΑ – Ω -- / Ἀλεξανδρέα ἀθλητήν, Ἀρτέμωνα / Νικολάου Ἐφέσιον παλαιστήν, / Πρωτογένην Τρύφωνος Ἀλεξανδρέα /15 ἀθλητή̣ν̣ , Τρύφωνα Λευκίου Ἀλεξανδρέα / ἀθλητή[ν], Ἀγά̣[θ]ανδρον Ἀριστάρχου / Κῶιον ἀθλη[τήν], Μαρίωνα Διοδώρου / Τραλλιανόν, Διονύσιον Σαρδιανόν, / Μηνόφαντον Ἐφέσιον, Λευκίον Πινά/ριον Ἡρακλείδου υἱὸν Ἀλεξανδρέα /... Euphron son of Tryphon son of Siphyos of Alexandria, Philippos of Aezani, athlete, Apion son of Ariston of Alexandria also known as Polos, athlete, ------- of Alexandria, athlete, Artemon son of Nikolaos of Ephesos, wrestler, Protogenes son of Tryphon of Alexandria, athlete, Tryphon son of Leukios of Alexandria, athlete, Agathandros son of Aristarchos of Kos, athlete, Marion son of Diodoros of Tralles, Dionysios of Sardes, Menophantos of Ephesos, Leukios Pinarios son of Herakleides of Alexandria ... (there follow 6 largely unreadable lines with further names, followed by a specification of the location of the malign attack, including the feet).50

‘Activated’ curses against athletes are not common, and of those that have been published all but three are written against a single individual with the more or less elaborate rhetorical and theological apparatus typical of Graeco-Egyptian practice.51 This text is much the earliest known, and, though written in Greek

 50 Bevilacqua 2014 = AE 2014, 213 (full text not reprinted there). The text enclosed another, which could not be read, and was rolled round some fabric intended as an ousia; they were held together by a long iron nail (see Bevilacqua et al. 2012, 233–234 figs 6, 7, 11). 51 For nine texts published prior to 2014, see Tremel 2004 nos. 1–3 (against the same wrestler, Athens, IIIp); 4 (Attalos, boy wrestler, ibid.); 5 (Petres of Macedon, ibid.); 6 (Alkidamos, runner, ibid.); 7 (Pergamene, long-distance runner, ibid.); 8 (four men, Epilenaios, Kronios, Markios and Seleukos, all runners, Isthmia, ?IIIp); 10 = SupplMag 53 (Aphous and an ignotus, son of Taeis, runners, Oxyrhynchus, III/IVp). Add now SEG 57, 2007, 1985 (Antiochos, Hierax and Kastor, all runners; possibly from Egypt, with some analogies to the Oxyrhynchus text, IVp). However 8 texts were discovered by J.R. Wiseman in the excavation of the gymnasium in Roman Corinth in 1967–1968, none of them published (cf. Stroud 2013, 82 n.7). There is only one recipe referring to athletes among the formularies in PGrMag, namely XXVII, and that is an extremely perfunctory nikêtikon (victory charm) from Oxyrhynchus. There survives a contract from Antinopolis to lose a boys’ wrestling-match in 267 CE: P.Oxy 79.5209.

  Richard Gordon against Greek athletes competing, presumably, in a major (i.e. the Capitolia) competition at Rome,52 displays no evidence of Graeco-Egyptian cursing-style, and is really just a transposition into Greek of the simple type of list we have already been looking at. The only difference, and it is important, is the opening (ll. 1–5), which runs: --------- κ]ατορύσσω καὶ δέδεκα καὶ καταδεσμεύω εἰς ψυχρὸν τάφον, εἰς πύρὰν καιομένην, εἰς θάλασσαν, βάλλω εἰς ποταμὸν, εἰ[ς λο]υτρῶνα, εἰς μέγαρο[ν]...53 ..... I bury, I bestow, I bind down in a cold tomb, in a burning fire, in the sea, I hurl into the river, into the (cold pool of a) bath-house, into a subterranean chamber ...

The evident desire here to increase the illocutionary force of the curse, for example by finding striking, if rather wild, synonyms for the simple ‘I bind’, is typical of Hellenistic Greek curses (insofar as they exist).54 We shall see later that on rare occasions this ambition could be reproduced in Latin, but for the most part vernacular Latin curse-texts, i.e. those that show no sign of Graeco-Egyptian influence, remained bound to a few rather simple models. The desire to achieve an additional increment of illocutionary force is evident in the style of enumeration here: the author deliberately placed the individuals about whom he had most information, personal name, sobriquet if any, patronym, home city, at the beginning and end, slipping in those about whom he knew less (Dionysios of Sardes, Menophantos of Ephesos) into the middle, where they were less noticeable. All were undoubtedly members of the ‘world-wide’ ξυστικὸς συνόδος, the peripatetic guild of Greek athletes, parallel to the Dionysiac Technitai, which was organised in three sections: those who had never won a ‘sacred’ competition, those who had won at least once, and those who had only managed a draw.55 We are not in a

 52 I asume that the text falls somewhere between Domitian’s foundation of the Capitolia in 86 CE (Suet. Dom. 4.8–10) and Antoninus Pius’ transfer of the headquarters of the synodos from Asia Minor (possibly Smyrna) to Rome in c.143 (IGUR 236). The Capitolia were the sole permanent Greek games celebrated at Rome until the reign of Gordian III (Robert 1970, 8). 53 Bevilacqua 2014, 223 suggested that the first words might have been καταγράφω καί, I register. 54 Compare e.g. DTAud 68 = SEG 36, 1987, 218; 72/73 = SEG 37, 1988, 222 (both Attica); 85 = Ziebarth 1934 no.23 = Eidinow 2007, 401–402; 86 = Ziebarth 1934 no.22 (both Boeotia); IG XII.7 p. 1 (perhaps imperial, however) (Amorgos); SEG 34, 1985, 952 (Lilybaeum); 36, 1987, 351–352 (Arcadia, not Megara). 55 Cf. Robert 1949, 117–125; Frisch 1986, 107–109.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

position, however, to decide on the precise interests of the author in targeting these particular individuals.56 The two final texts in this section, devoted to the circus, illustrate the shift in competence between vernacular curses and those in the Graeco-Egyptian tradition. The first, discovered in an incineration tomb (late Ia–Ip) some 200m from the circus of col. Astigi/Ecija in Baetica, is by far the earliest known attempt to target circus-teams: (9) Gregs An[t]oniani Veneta et Russea quadriga / Lascivi Veri quadriga Lascivi Vetii qua[d]riga / Margaritei qua[d]riga Margaritei quadri/ga Gelotis quadriga Urbici quadriga (H)ila/5ri quadriga (H)eleni quadriga Basilisci / quadriga Nomantini quadriga Barba/rionis quariga Calidromi quad/riga Lupi agitatores Piramus agi/tator[e]s et quadrigas Antonia/10ni Patricium Martialem / Successum Atiarionem / Vaicus Narcis(s)us At/sertor /14 tota grex Antoniani.57 Stable of Antonianus! Blues and Reds! quadriga of Verus’ Lascivus! quadriga of Vettius’ Lascivus! 58 quadriga of Margariteus! quadriga of Margariteus! quadriga of Gelos! quadriga of Urbicus! quadriga of (H)ilarus! quadriga of (H)elenus! quadriga of Basiliscus! quadriga of Nomantinus! quadriga of Barbarion! quadriga of Callidromus! quadriga of Lupus! Drivers: Piramus! (I curse:) Drivers and quadrigas (accus.) of Antonianus: Patricius, Martialis, Successus, ‘Atiario’. (nom.:) Vaicus, Narcissus, Adsertor. The entire stable of Antonianus!

Because of its complete disregard for syntax, this text appears extremely awkward, which I have tried to indicate by means of the exclamation marks. On the other hand, the staccato epanaphora of quadriga does build up significant illocutionary force.59 Moreover, the text displays a certain intentionality, moving from the stable (grex) that owned the chariots and the horses and rented them to the Blue and Red factions, and only then to the twelve teams of horses,60 the drivers,61  56 Given that the other unread tablet was folded inside this one, it is quite possible that there were originally two tablets directed at different individuals on a different day of the competition. 57 AE 2013, 830. The cemetery was given up and closed early in the second century, so the date is probably Flavian or early Trajanic. 58 In their commentary, García-Dils de la Vega and de la Hoz Montoya argue that Verus and Vettius were subcontractors to Antonianus of horses both named Lascivus (2013, 249–250). 59 The twelve named horses are the introiugi, the lead horses that were crucial in enabling the quadriga to navigate the metae. All the names in this group except Nomentinus are known from other similar texts (Lascivus only in the form Lascovus), cf. Darder Lisson 1996 under each name. 60 There were three main types of races, singulae (each faction raced one 4-horse chariot), binae (two chariots), ternae (three chariots). If we knew the number of charioteers, we could tell what type of meeting was envisaged. 61 As the editors point out (p. 252), however, something seems to have gone wrong from l.8, since Pyramus has been separated from the other four charioteers, Patricius, Martialis, Successus and ‘Atiario’ (all of whom are suddenly in the accusative), and this list then segues directly

  Richard Gordon and finally back to the stable as a whole.62 The principal was evidently a supporter of the Greens and/or the Whites on this occasion, though in what capacity it is hard to say (owner, charioteer or a fan?). The reduplication of quadriga Margaritei (ll. 2–3) suggests that the writer was working from a programme-list of some kind: he evidently had no local model of how to go about framing such a text, whom he should address, or what he should demand, so he had to fall back on the day’s programme or some notes made from it by someone else, which, however, he seems not fully to have understood.63 The tota grex Antoniani in the last line is thus both a rhetorical ritorno all’ inizio and a relieved farewell to threatened disintegration. The following text is the best of a longer series of texts all relating to a major event in the circus of Hadrumetum/Sousse (Africa Proconsularis), and dates from around a century later than that from Astigi.64 Even though it is not nearly as accomplished as some of the Greek charioteer-texts from Carthage of roughly the same date, which I deliberately exclude here, and anyway do not prioritise listing in the same manner, its management of the task of listing, irrespective of the regionalism implied by the dropping of final –s,65 could hardly be more different from that of the earlier text:

 into another list of three names, now in the nominative: Vaicus, Narcissus and Adsertor, at least two of which are common names of horses, while Vaicus as such is nowhere attested as a personal name (García-Dils de la Vega/de la Hoz Montoya 2013, 253 n.74). 62 The organisation of circus races is a complicated issue (e.g. Meijer 2010, 52–64); the one certain fact is that provincial centres were not organised in the same way as the Circus Maximus at Rome. 63 As with the mistake in ll. 2–3, we must assume that the writer misunderstood the list he was given. It is thus quite uncertain how many charioteers are actually listed. 64 AE 1902, 149 = DTAud 275 = Tremel 2004 no. 25. The series is DTAud 275–284 + AE 1907, 68– 69 = Tremel 2004 nos. 24–34, 48–49. 275 was discovered by Lt. Choppard in 1894 stuffed into the feeding tube of a tomb roughly datable to Ip-IIp; no details about the provenience of the others are available, but they were found by General Goetschy, himself a keen amateur of archaeology, in a tomb or tombs south of the Kairwan road out of Sousse, cf. Gordon 2005, 76–80. 65 At Bu Njem, by contrast, final -s is never dropped in J.N. Adams’ sample, though final -m often is (Adams 2007, 636).

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

(10)

vertant nec lora teneant nec agita-

set cadant frangant dis[f]rangantur et agitantes veneti et rus-

nis audire possint nec se mo(v)ere possint videant nec vincant vertant.

sei

Obligate et gravate equos Obligate venetiet etgravate russei ne equos currere veneti possint et russei nec frene currere possint nec frere possint nec retinere equos re possint possint nec nec retinere ante equos se necpossint adversarios nec ante suosse nec adversarios suos

Privatianu Supestianu russei qui et Naucelliu Salutare Supestite russei servu Reguli Eliu Castore Repentinu. charaktêres 4 Glaucu Argutu veneti destroiugu Glauci cadant, Lydu Alumnu cadant, Italu Tyriu cadant, Faru cadant, Croceu cadant, Elegantu cadant, Prancatiu Oclopecta Virbosu cadant, Adamatu cadant, Securu Mantineu Prevalente cadant, Paratu Vargafita cadant, Divite Garulu cadant, Cesareu Germanicu veneti cadant. Danuviu cadant, charaktêres 11 Latrone Vagulu cadant, Agricola cadant, Cursore Auricomu cadant, Epafu cadant, Hellenicu cadant, Ideu Centauru cadant, Bracatu Virgineu cadant, Ganimede cadant, Multivolu cadant, E[o]lu Oceanu Eminentu cada[nt, T]agu cadant, Eucles cadant, Verbosu cadant. charaktêres 18 Privatianu cadat vertat frangat male giret, charaktêres 20 Naucelliu Supestianu russei cadat vert[at fran]gat, charaktêres Supestite russei servu Reguli cadat vertat fran[gat,] Salutare cadat vertat franga[t,] 24 Eliu cadat vertat frangat vertat, Castore cadat vertat frangat vertat, Repentinu cadat vertat frangat charaktêres

Although the influence of Graeco-Egyptian techniques here is vestigial, being limited to the lines of (rather simple) charaktêres interpolated between blocks of names,66 the writer has used the possibilities offered by his piece of lead-sheet to maximum advantage: all the names are trapped in a double paratextual cage,

 66 A reproduction of Audollent’s original drawing of the charaktêres can be found in Németh 2013, 196, who also publishes a photo of the original lead-sheet (p. 197) and reproduces on p. 195 the printed version (DTAud p. 382); cf. also Tremel 2004, 294 Abb.12.

  Richard Gordon ‘internally’ by the sigla, the purest of all signifiants since they have no recuperable signifié, and externally by the semantic charge of the full explicit curse (the arrows indicate the orientation of the texts that frame the list of names): ↓Obligate et gravate equos veneti et russei ne currere possint nec fre/29→nis audire possint nec se mo(v)ere possint /30↑set cadant frangant dis[f]rangantur et agitantes veneti et russei /31← vertant nec lora teneant nec agita/31↓re possint nec retinere equos possint nec ante se nec adversarios suos /32→videant nec vincant vertant.

28

Hobble and weigh down the horses of the Blues and the Reds so they cannot gallop or respond to the bit or move but may they fall, crash, crash totally, and may the drivers of the Blues and the Reds not keep control of the reins or be able to steer or see their opponents in front of them or win (but) come to grief.67

The two main targets, mentioned in the very first line of the main text, are the charioteers Privatianus and Superstianus,68 drivers for the Red faction, and their significance in the mind of the principal underlined by their re-appearance in ll.18 and 20 after the two blocks of text listing the horses, this time closely confined by three lines of charaktêres, and each personally accorded anticipations of the full curse: cadat vertat(ur) frangat(ur) male giret and cadat vert[at(ur) fran]gat(ur). The other five charioteers, whose names appear in ll.1–2, were evidently of slightly less importance to the principal, since they are blocked together in ll.22–26; of these only Superstes is defined more closely, as still a slave (which implies that the others were all freedmen or Junian Latins), and likewise driving for the Red faction.69 The fragments of the full curse that follow each driver’s name here, cadat vertat(ur) frangat(ur), function as a kind of flexible refrain, stuffing the lines with ill-will. As for the two blocks with the names of horses (ll.4–

 67 On this type of quasi-narrative, which is typical of these North-African circus-texts, see Gordon 2012, 56–60. 68 The cognomen Privatianus occurs almost exclusively in Africa. The name Superstianus is only known from this series of curses from Hadrumetum; its extreme rarity perhaps means that the name was in fact an agnomen: in such cases the ending –ianus typically means that the dominica potestas has been transferred from one master (in this case a man named Superstes, who of course might himself also have been a slave or freedman) to another, and this name was retained on manumission (Weaver 1972, 213). On the other hand, ordinary cognomina in -ianus, rare in the first century, become inceasingly common in the second and third. Superstianus’ sobriquet Naucellius must mean something like ‘Dwarfy’ or ‘Titchy’ (from naucum, something negligible or trifling). 69 It is not clear why the order of Superstes and Salutaris is reversed in the second list ‒ possibly under the influence of russei in l.20. Whatever the reason, it is not safe to conclude that the last three names in the list, Aelius, Castor and Repentinus must have been driving for the Blues.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

16), the directive cadant, which is used 26 times in these two blocks, irrespective of the formal grammar, is used as an insistent pesante, scattering its malice into every nook, and so helping to shift the illocutionary act into a performative one.70 On the other hand, it is not easy to understand the logic of the sequences, let alone why there are singletons, duos and trios: in the first block (ll.4–9), there are 24 names, which might yield a team for each of three drivers in two races or for 6 drivers in one race each, in the second (ll.11–16) only 18, which will only work out for triga-races, not for quadrigas.71 Since veneti appears in ll. 4 and 9, we might assume they are all assigned to the Blue faction, leaving block 2 for the Red faction, but then it is hard to understand why the main targets race for the Red faction.72 As so often in these circus-texts, detail does not necessarily equate with precision. We may summarise this section by affirming that, while the list-form retained its attraction in the Latin-speaking Empire as a preferred model within vernacular cursing-practice, its management proved rather difficult. The obvious advantages of the list in such contexts, in focusing the attention of the (often purely implicit) divine addressee(s) exclusively upon the targets as well as the exploration of possible suspects beyond those in the ‘inner circle’ of those held mainly responsible, excluded a great deal of the circumstantial knowledge ‒ the usually complex and entangled justificatory narrative ‒ that the principal was burning to impart here too, as he or she might often have done to human interlocutors, but it was hard to adapt the listing-mode to this function. Of course I have been heavily selective here, and there are many dozens of lists, long and short, but the major freedom permitted by the implicit rules seems to be in the direction of the amplification of the curse-rhetoric itself, i.e. the framing of the list by means of an imaginative projection of ideas of punishment and revenge, as in the texts from Este and the Greek curse against athletes at Rome. Otherwise the management of

 70 See already Audollent 1902, 423. 71 The word dextroiugus in line 4 (destroiugu Glauci) is a substitute for the actual name of the horse, which was unknown to the informant. Although Audollent and Tremel both treat it as a proper name, I incline to agree with Darder Lisson (1996, 331 on her no.215), who places it “a la lista de noms que no son de cavallo circenses”. The dextroiugus was the outside horse on the right side, the counterpart of the crucial introiugus on the inside: both here and in the very similar list in DTAud 284 l.3 = Tremel 2004 no.34, Glaucus is the introiugus and the unknown horse on the outside right is correctly termed ‘Glaucus’ dextroiugus’. In the similar case of DTAud 272 l.3 = Tremel 2004 no. 22, the horse is termed dextroiugus novus. 72 In his list of Latin horse-names (2004, 247–259), Tremel cautiously but properly assigns them all to Blues or Reds. As with the Astigi text, it is not possible to work out the type of competition on the basis of this information.

  Richard Gordon the list could only be re-thought under the influence of a quite different, self-conscious and professional, type of practice, namely that derived from Graeco-Roman Egypt, which only began to penetrate into the Mediterranean during the second century CE and even so remained quite unknown to the great majority of the population, since its practioners were only to be found outside Egypt in the larger conurbations. For these professionals, simple listing of targets was a primitive device only to be used in special contexts where it was unavoidable, such as work for the circus; and, even then, the sophisticated examples in Greek from Carthage make no attempt to highlight the list of charioteers and horses in the manner of the series DTAud 275–284.73

 Body-Parts, Outer and Inner It is implicit in what I have said so far that writing curses requires models, whether formal or informal: shifting from an oral performance to a satisfactory written text demands greater formality, more structure.74 The human body is one of the most obvious possible resources here, and is itself anyway highly appropriate in that common conceptions of attack by witchcraft were primarily psychosomatic, that is, the signs by which one might ‘read’ such an attack were drawn primarily from physical and mental afflictions, although the widespread notion of partible individuality meant that such an attack might also be diagnosed on the basis of illness, infertility and death within the family understood as an emotional-economic unit over time.75 Given this reduced focus, we can often work in this section with extracts. In an earlier paper on lists, I distinguished between two flexible and low-intensity ‘attack-schemes’, typical of the Archaic and Classical Greek tablets, one of which concentrated on a few individual parts, mainly the tongue and mind, while the other used recognised binary oppositions, head to foot, hands and feet, words and deeds, mind and business, to intimate total coverage of a social actant.76 Although the Classical models were effectively lost by the Roman period,  73 Cf. e.g. DTAud 234–242 = Tremel 2004 nos.53–61, some of which are beautifully presented in CIL VIII 12508–12511a. 74 „Curse tablets are usually linguistically contrived up to a point, because they employ traditional language with roots in legal and religious idiom“: Adams 2016, 251. 75 Gordon 2013, 265–266; cf. Mathews 1992, 71–73, 76–81, 84–86; Sündermann 2006, 165–168; 190–198; 246–260; Palmyre-Florigny 2009, 57–63. 76 Gordon 1999, 257–263.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

not merely because the evidence was buried and never recovered but also because the socio-political conditions that gave rise to them no longer held, the visualised body continued to supply materials for curses, albeit with striking alterations, into the late Hellenistic and Roman perids. The simplest form of coverage is offered by a second-century BCE tablet in diptych form from a tomb in the necropolis just outside the porta Stabiana at Pompeii:77 (11) (Side 1) ... Plematio Hostili (serva) facia, / capilu, cerebru, flatus, ren / ut ilai non succedat [-]/5 qui praec[----] odiu[-] / ut ilic ilac odiat. Comodo [---] / aec nec acere ne ilaec [---] / quiqua acere posit ula [3] ... 78 [Grammar uncertain] Philematio (slave of) Hostilius! (I curse) her face, her hair, her breath, her kidneys/loins -- so that she may not do well nor --- (l.5 makes no obvious sense) so that he may hate her. Just as this (tablet) cannot act so may she not be able to effect anything ...

This curse seems to have been written by another female slave of Hostilius named Vestilia; at any rate it begins by focusing on the target’s evidently attractive face and hair, shifts to her two crucial life-signs, thinking and breathing, and perhaps to a euphemism for her vagina (renes).79 Such shifting between external appearance, basic bodily functions and appreciation of subjective pain (taking ren(es) now as ‘kidneys’) is in fact characteristic of corporeal targeting in curses, since the underlying idea is usually to cast as wide a net as possible over the target’s social being in its entirety, and not just ‘body parts’. A thief-text, originally from the floor of chamber-tomb 22 in the large Roman-period cemetery on Koutsongila

 77 CIL IV 9251 = CIL I2 2541 (p. 737, 844, 1017) = ILLRP 1147. 78 All published versions differ in their readings; mine is based on Degrassi, without his normalisations. CIL I2 2541 n.1 suggests: ........./ Plematio Hostili facia[m) | capilu[pi} cerebru(m) flatus, ren(es). | ut ilai non suc(c)edas . . . || qui . . . . odiu(m) | ut ilic ila(n)c odiat. como\do\ | (h)aec nec agere ne ila[ec] | quiqua(m) agere posit ula | ....... 79 cerebrum: according to OCD, this is the earliest occurrence of the word in Latin; it can mean simply ‘brain’ (as in something to eat, or to dash out on the street, cf. Terence, Adelph. 317) but as early as Plaut. Aul. 151–152 it clearly implies the organ of comprehension too: Megad.: quia mi misero cerebrum excutiunt / tua dicta, soror: lapides loqueris, “because your words beat my poor brain so, sister! You are talking stones!” Renes: OCD gives only the meaning ‘kidneys’. This may be the meaning here, in that kidney-stones were a well-known cause of extreme pain (e.g. Plaut. Cur. 236; Cic. Tusc. 2.25.60; Cels. Med. 4.17.1), so that renes here would be a metonym of (future) pain. Georges however adds the meaning ‘Lende’, referring to Nemesianus Cyneg. 112, renibus ampla satis validis diductaque coxis, “with strong loins and clean-cut haunches” (description of the Molossian hound). Given the principal’s evident sexual jealousy, a euphemism for ‘vagina’ seems plausible. Renes as ‘seat of emotions’ seems to be late, e.g. Vet. Lat. Ps. 138.12.

  Richard Gordon Ridge at Kenchreai, however, resolutely focused on externals, reads like the notes of a man inspecting a statue of an athlete on a pedestal, i.e. a primitive ecphrasis:80 (12) .... σκιάσδω / ἐκ τριχὸς ἐκ κεφαλῦ το ἐκ [..]Ε μετώπου / ἐξ{ξ} ἐνκεφάλου Φλ[-----]οφ[ω]να, ΜΙΣΟΥΣ, κοάς, /5 ῥεινός{υς}, ὀδόντας στό[μα]τος, τράχη[λ]ον, μασ/τούς, κοιλίαν, πλευ[ράς], θ[ορ]ούς, πυγήδ{α}ια,/ ὀπισθομήρο, γόνατα, κερκίδας, πόδας, /8 δακτύλους, ὅσον καὶ εἴ[κο]σι ἔχει. ἔι μή, ἐκ/είκησαν καὶ ἐξεθέρεισον... .... I benumb (the thief), from hair, from head, from --- forehead, from brain, ----------[change of construction, to accusatives], ------ , ears, nostrils, teeth of his mouth, neck, breasts, belly, flanks, ?testicles, buttocks, back of the thigh, knees, shins, feet, digits ‒ of which he has twenty (?). Otherwise, punish and destroy (the thief)81

The text begins82 by emphasising its point of departure (ἐκ), namely the hair on top of the head, as though it were going to proceed by way of binaries, but gets distracted first by what lies under the hair, then by the thought of what lies behind the forehead, and finally abandons the scheme of binaries for good (a verb introducing the switch may lie in the corroded area in l.4). The gaze then skims rapidly down the body,83 but on reaching the feet and toes, does finally recall a common binary (αἱ χεῖρες — οἱ πόδες, hands — feet)84 and apparently jumps back up to the hands, and the thief’s light fingers.85 This principal claims no particular anatomical knowledge, and, very unusually, makes no effort (apart from the mention of the brain) to penetrate the bodily surface and benumb the inner organs, let alone mind and intent.  80 SEG 57, 2007, 332, only roughly datable, between late Ip and late IIIp. There is a partial parallel from Delos. 81 Tr. Faraone/Rife 2007, 144 with some changes. 82 The editors rightly comment on the extreme rarity of the image of shadowing or darkening here (σκιάσδω). We might note Dioscorides Simpl. 2.133, 3 p. 306–307), who claims that corn cockle (allegedly Agrostemma githago) σκορπίους σκότίζει ‘benumbs scorpions’; he refers to the same claim in Med. 3 §101, 2 p. 112 Wellmann, where he uses the expression ναρκώδεις καὶ ἀπράκτους, “stunned and incapacitated”. The sepals of this field-weed are long and pointed, and extend some way beyond the flower petals. 83 Hence the otherwise odd pointer to ὀπισθόμηρον, ‘back of the thigh’, i.e. the three major hamstring muscles, the biceps, the semitendinosus, the semimembranosus. 84 E.g. NT Luke 2439. The editors rightly cite Wünsch 1987, 98a2f., where τοὺς πόδας is followed by τὰς χεῖρας (Faraone/Rife 2007, 148). 85 To be honest, the ἔι[κο]σι is more of a guess than a reading. However the thought that it is the fingers that do the thieving appears in the parallel text from Delos, cited by the editors on p. 151: τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν τῶν ἀράντων καὶ κλεψάντων τὸ δραύκιν, “the hands of those who removed and stole the necklace”.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

Precisely this is attempted by a brief thief-text, written in a practised hand, from the important sanctuary area on the Red Hill Farm site near Ratcliffe-onSoar in Nottinghamshire: (13) Donatur deo Iovi / Optimo Maximo ut / ẹxigạṭ per meṇṭem per / memoriam per intus /5 per intestinum per cor/ [p]er medullas per venas / per [-------]ṣṣ [--] / ---------- si mascel si / femina quiquis /10 involavit | *rios Cani / Digni ut in corpore / suo {in} brevi temp[or]e / pariat ....86 There is given to the god Jupiter best and greatest that he may hound, through his mind, through his memory, his inner parts (?), through his intestines, his heart, his marrow, his veins, through ------ whomsoever it was, whether male or female, who stole the denarii of Can(i)us (?) Dignus,87 so that in his own body in a short space of time he may balance the account (tr. E.G. Turner, with slight changes).

Here the curse is directed in the first instance at the thief’s conscience, working its way through his body (in corpore suo) step by step, spreading into its very inmost parts ‒ every ache or pain, every twinge, is to remind him of what he has done and cause him finally to return the money to the temple. The effort to attain a formal, almost juridical, register is clear from the multiplication of synonyms for generalised internal parts (e.g. the very unusual intus as a substantive), as well as the formula si mascel si / femina. Similarly, in another thief-text found rolled up on the foreshore of the Hamble estuary near Southampton, where sanguis, blood, is used not simply in its ordinary sense but, as regularly in these British thief-texts, as a metonym for the physical body as well as life: (14) Domine Neptune / tb dno ominem qui / | [so]ldmu involav[it] Mu/coni et argente[olo]s / sex ide dono nomia / qui decepit si mascel si / femina si pu{u}er si pu{u}e/lla. Ideo dono tibi Niske / et Neptuno vitam vali/tudinem sangu(in)em eius ... Furem / qui hoc involavi sanguem / ei{i}us consumas et de/cipias, domin[e] Ne[p]/tune.88 Lord Neptune, I give you the man who has stolen the solidus and six argentioli of Muconius. So I give the name of him who took them away, whether male or female, whether boy or girl. So I give you, Niskus, and to Neptune his life, the health, blood ... The thief who stole

 86 AE 1964, 168, late IIp or IIIp. The Red Hill Farm site at Thrumpton, SW of Nottingham, was an important river crossing (confluence of the Trent and Soar at Trentlock) and trading centre, between the civitates of the Corieltauvi and Cornovii, with several shrines. 87 Since Canius is well attested as a nomen, whereas Canus is known only as a cognomen, Turner rightly preferred to assume that the form Cani represents Canii. 88 AE 1997, 977 (second half of IVp). 6 argentioli would probably have been worth one-sixth of a solidus. The solidus was a gold coin introduced by Constantine, while argentioli do not become common until the reign of Valentinian and after (cf. R.S.O. Tomlin, Britannia 28 [1997] 456 n.4).

  Richard Gordon this, may you consume his blood and take it away, Neptunus (tr. R.S.O. Tomlin with slight changes).

No attempt is made here to induce the thief to restore the money, but the idea of debilitation and physical wretchedness, primarily as a sign, and then as a cause of slow death, is retained. A more explicit effort to think into the target’s subjectivity is made by some of the sophisticated circus curses in Greek from Carthage: (15) κατάδησον αὐτῶν τὰ σκέλη καὶ τὴν ὁρμὴν καὶ / τὸ πήδημα89 καὶ τὸν δρόμον, ἀμαύρωσον αὐτῶν τὰ / ὄμματα ἵνα μὴ βλέπωσιν, στρέβλωσον αὐτῶν / τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ τὴν καρδίαν ἵνα μὴ [π]νέωσιν. ... bind their legs and their drive and their career and their dash, cloud their eyes so that they cannot see, torture their being and their heart so that they cannot catch their breath ....90

or in the gladiatorial ring: (16) δῆσον αὐτὸν καὶ ---- / τὴν δύναμιν τὴν καρδίαν τὸ ἧπαρ τὸν νοῦν τὰς φρή̣/νας .... bind him and ---- his force, his courage, his grit, his quickness of mind, his daring ...91

Imaginative concentration on the effects of the curse is, however, also found in vernacular texts. Not only does such a focus affirm the meaningfulness of the entire enterprise of attempting to extend one’s agency through a special kind of appeal to deities or spirits, it also suggested new images to reinforce the illocutionary pressure. In his or her tablet deposited behind the temple of Mater Magna at Mainz, where the ritual of cursing involved melting it in the ash-pit for sacrifices, one principal wrote: (17) Mando et rogo / religione ut man/data exagatis / Publium Cutium /5 et Piperionem et // Placida et Sacra / filia eius sic illorum / membra liquescan(t) / quatmodum hoc plum/10bum liquescet ut eo/ru(m) ex{s}itum sit.

 89 The word πήδημα tries to catch the idea of ‘leaping’ from the back legs, which is how in antiquity horses were supposed to gallop, or at any rate are represented as moving, cf. Gordon 2012, 61 fig. 6, 62 figs. 7–8. 90 CIL VIII 12511a = DTAud 241 = Tremel 2004 no.60 ll.12–15 (Carthage, IIp-IIIp). For the dust of the circus, which is a literary topos, see e.g. Silius Ital. 16.325–326: fulvus, harenosa surgens tellure, sub auras erigitur globus, “a cloud of yellow dust rose up from the sandy soil” (tr. J.D. Duff). 91 DTAud 252 ll.8–10 = Tremel 2004 no.98 (amphitheatre, Carthage, IIp-IIIp).

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

I hand over to you and, observing all ritual form, ask that you require from P. Cutius and Piperion the return of the goods entrusted to them. Also Placida and Sacra, her daughter: may their bodies melt just as this lead, so that it shall be their death (tr. J. Blänsdorf with changes).92

The reduction of the lead to hot ooze, which the writer’s familiarity with the ritual enabled him or her to visualise beforehand, during the writing of the text, prompted the thought that the targets’ membra (a key word in such contexts, with a much wider reference than our ‘limbs’93) should suffer the same horrible fate. Both persuasive analogy and the notion of the partible self can be found in a curse from Montfo, Hérault (Gallia Narbonensis), which was recovered from a well about 800m from a Celtic settlement named Magalas:94 (18) Qomodo hoc plumbu non / paret et decadet, sic deca/dat aetas membra vita / bos grano mer eoru qui / mihi dolum malu(m) fecerunt ... Just as this lead tablet disappears and falls (into the well) so also may the being, body, life, cattle, crops, possessions of those who have tricked me fall away ... 95

Farmstead and its prosperity are viewed as so intimately bound up with the person who owns and tends it that they suffer too through the curse. This is a direct application of witchcraft belief to an adapted thief-text. In the town, however, crops and farmsteads had no such immediate significance for the inhabitants; for them reputation and business competence were the things that mattered most. Another of the Mainz texts attacks this aspect of the target’s life: (19) Quintum in hac tabula depon[o] aversum / se suisque rationibus vitaeque male consum/mantem ita uti galli bellonarive absciderunt concide/runtve se sic illi abscissa sit fides fama faculit[a]s nec illi /5 in numero hominum sunt neque ille sit q[u]omodi et ille / mihi fraudem fecit sic illi sancta Mater Magn[a] et relegis[ti] / cuncta ita uti arbor siccabit se in sancto sic et illi siccet / fama fides fortuna faculitas ... In this tablet I curse Quintus, who has turned against himself and reason, and leads his life to a bad end. Just as the galli or the priests of Bellona have castrated or cut themselves, so may his good name, reputation, ability to conduct his affairs be cut away. Just as they are not numbered among mankind, so may he too not (be so numbered). Just as he cheated me,

 92 AE 2005, 1127 = AE 2010, 108 = DTM 11. 93 Cf. OCD sense 2: “(pl.): the limbs regarded as composing the whole body, the body (esp. as distinct from the mind)”. Oddly enough, Georges has no corresponding entry. 94 One of the people involved, Asuetemeos, has a Celtic name. 95 AE 1981, 621, dated by the editor 50–60 CE; cf. Versnel 1998, 237. For aetas = being see OCD 6d “one’s life, being, person”.

  Richard Gordon so may you (deal with him), holy Mater Magna, and take everything away from him. Just as the tree shall wither in the sanctuary, so may his reputation, good name, fortune and ability to conduct his affairs wither (tr. J. Blänsdorf).96

As with the melted lead ~ body earlier, so here we find ritual practices being used to find persuasive analogies, first the self-lacerations of the prescriptive nonmen, the castrated galli, and then the gradual desiccation of the pine-tree, emblem of Attis’ self-castration, which was brought into the temple of Mater Magna each year on the dies sanguinis (March 24th). More important here, however, is the set of pre-conditions for success in the urban context, one’s good name and reputation for fair-dealing, and one’s ability to manage one’s affairs with the proper skill and confidence (facilitas).97 If these could be undermined the target was as good as ruined — not ‘body-parts’ but ‘social parts’. I have earlier mentioned the way in which lists in circus-defixiones are often based on a quasi-narrative succession of events, and we sometimes find a similar technique in erotic texts.98 In the following case, however, it has been adapted to the elaboration of the penalty foreseen in another thief-text from Britannia: (20) ... ut ita illum [e]xigas a Vassicil/io [-]pecomini filio et uxore sua quoniam / [per]rtussum quod illi de hospitiolo m[eo ---] / [pec]ulaverint nec illis [p]ermittas sanit[a]/[tem] nec bibere nec ma[n]d[u]care nec dormi[re] / [nec nat]os sanos habe[a]nt nessi hanc rem / [meam] ad fanum tuum [at]tulerint ... (I give the god – perhaps Mercury ‒ half of the sum of 3,000 denarii) on condition that you force Vasilicius son of -pecominus and his wife to return the (something) that they stole from my room, and do not allow them to enjoy good health or to drink or to eat or to sleep or to have healthy [children], unless they return my property to your shrine ...99

The very finest of all these curses based upon the organisation of the human body, the so-called Johns Hopkins set,100 is unfortunately too long to discuss

 96 AE 2005, 1126 = AE 2010, +108 = AE 2012, +131 = DTM 6. 97 Cf. Morgan 2007, 75–76; 135–137. The loci classici, albeit at a higher social level, are Cicero’s De officiis, where he points out that a reputation for virtue cannot be bluffed (2.22f; 43f; 53) and Seneca’s De beneficiis, on which see Griffin 2003, 102–106. 98 E.g. PGrMag LXI 17–18; XXXVI 110–111, 147–148; SupplMag 45 ll.45–46, 46 ll.10–11; cf. Martinez 1991, 59–60. 99 AE 1984, 623 from Pagan’s Hill, Chew Stoke, Somerset. It was found with two others, which were in a still worse state of preservation. The finest example of such an incorporated narrative can be found in a phylactery from Beirut (SEG 41, 1991, 1530 = Kotansky 1994 no.52 ll.95–108). 100 AE 1912, 140a–e = CIL I2 2520a–e. The provenance is unknown: they were bought from a dealer in 1908, who claimed they had been found near the porta Salaria in the north of Rome.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

properly here. The five texts,101 which were transfixed by an iron nail, date from the middle of the first century BCE, and combine an extremely detailed inventory of body parts, from head to toe, external and internal, with a sketchy narrative roughly linked to the relevant section of the body: (21) ne dicere possit Plotius quid [sibi dole]at (l. 26–27); [... ni possit] aliquit se adiutare (28–29); n[i possit] senti(re], quit sibi doleat (30–31), [n]i p[oss]it dormire ... ni poss[it] s[a]nus dormire (32–33; nei possit urinam facere (34); ni po[ssit s]tare [sua vi]rt[u]te (37–38) ....102 so that Plotius may not say what is hurting him ... that he may not be able to come to his own aid ... that he may not feel what is hurting him ... that he may not be able to sleep, may not be able to sleep soundly ... that he may not be able to make water ... that he may not be able to stand up unaided.

The entire scenario is drawn from informal knowledge of a witchcraft attack correlated with a thorough knowledge of human (or animal) anatomy: the targets are imagined as plagued with woes and pains, constantly complaining, mystified by the cause, insomniac, afflicted by an extremely painful dysuria, and in the end so weak that they are unable to stand up by themselves. By the end, indeed, their death is imaginatively foreseen — they shall be unable to bear living a month longer. Although they marginally infringe my principle of excluding texts written in the Graeco-Egyptian tradition, the final pair of texts I would like to include here are phylacteries, which describe the spirit-attacks that might befall the owner/patient. This is a typically eastern Mediterranean genre, and virtually all the substantial texts, often written on gold or silver foil and kept in an amulet-case, are in Greek. The first is a text of 29 short lines on silver foil, found in a tomb and datable to the late IIp or early IIIp, while appeals to Protogenetor and the holy guardians to protect a man named Tertios, from now on:

 This could well be true: with the extension of residential building on the via Salaria, large ancient cemetery areas were destroyed ‒ the Notizie dei Scavi reports relevant finds from graves and columbaria in the area of the via Salaria for every year from 1894–1906 (Coarelli 2004, 213, 215, 218, 220–221, 223, 225, 228, 231, 235, 238, 240, 242, 246). The texts have this name because they are kept at Johns Hopkins, and were edited by W. Sherwood Fox (1878–1967) as his PhD dissertation at that university (Fox 1912). 101 Cf. Versnel 1998, 225–227; Alvar Nuño 2017, 56–59. 102 Because there are five versions of the same text, more or less identical except for the names of the targets, the lacunae in one can generally be restored from the others. The name of one of the targets remains unknown.

  Richard Gordon (22) ... ἀπὸ παντὸς κινδύνου φό{ε}βου δεμονίου βαντάσματος φάσματος κὲ πᾶν νόσου ἐνποδαμένου κὲ παντὸς φθοροποῦ πνεούματος τηρήσατε, ἐμὲ Τἐρτιον ὃν ἔθηκεν Σῖρα, ἴτε ἱερὰ{ν} νόσος ἴτε χόλος θεῶν ἴτε ἀνθρώπων ἴτε δέμονων ἴτε τῶν μύρων αὐτομανία φαντασία σκοτ̣[ο]δ̣[ενία].103 .... from every danger, anxiety, daimonic attack, phantasm, spectre, and every incapacitating illness and every harmful spirit ‒ preserve me, Tertios son of Sira, [loses the construction] whether (it be) epilepsy or anger on the part of the gods, or humans or daimons or Furies (?),104 utter madness, hallucination, dizziness.

It seems likely that this text was written after consultation with Tertios, who was evidently trying to explain to himself the possible causes of his unstable and distressing mental state. Although there are some other phylacteries against epilepsy and daemonic attack,105 none display the intensity of the language here, or seek to cover so many possible causes: it may be natural (epilepsy), I may have offended a god, or a spirit, or have committed some crime, but my condition may also be due to witchcraft — the list here is also an attempt at self-diagnosis.106 My final text, a very unusual one, is a list of harmful spirits in a phylactery, probably from Rome and formerly in the Louvre, but now lost, which adjures them to respect Solomon’s pact with spirits and refrain from attacking Syntyche, the bearer. The relevant section reads: (23) [ὁρκίζω] πάντα τὰ πνεύματα / Βαρβαρωφαναιδα(?) καὶ πᾶν πνεῦμα πυρεκτικ/ὸν καὶ πᾶν πτωματισμὸν καὶ πᾶν ὑδροφόβα-/8ν καὶ πᾶν βάσκανον ὀφθαλμὸν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐπαπο/στολὴν βιαίαν πνευμα[τικὴ]ν καὶ πᾶσαν φαρμα/κείαν, μὴ ἅψασθαι τῆς φ[ορού]σης τὀν ὁρκισμὸν / τοῦτον Συντύχης ... [I adjure you], all the spirits .... and every fever-spirit and every hydrophobic spirit and every evil eye and every spirit capable of violent attack, and every witchcraft ‒ do not attack the bearer of this adjuration, Syntyche ...

Solomon’s pact, which by virtue of his magical ring he forced the 59 wicked spirits to swear to, is known from the Testament of Solomon, a late-antique Christian

 103 AE 2002, 577, on gold foil, found in a tomb at the northern tip of Lake Garda (Alto Garda). The lines are very short, so I have not marked the breaks. 104 The editors suggested “(la sensazione) di sostanze odorose” for τῶν μύρων (Cavada/Paci 2002, 208), but this does not fit at all. I agree with Simone Follet in her commentary to AE 2002, 577, that it must be a regional or dialectal form of Μοιρῶν, in the sense of punishing spirits. 105 Cf. e.g. Kotansky 1994 nos. 57 (epilepsy, Syria), 46 (sorcery and daimones, Beroea, Syria). 106 In his long discussion of treatments for epilepsy, which he admits is extremely difficult to treat, Alexander of Tralleis (VIp) has a section on φυσικά, i.e. magical methods of treatment, including numerous recipes for amulets, diagnostic and curative: 15, p. 557–575 Puschmann.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

compilation on demonology and magic which draws on Jewish themes.107 In such phylacteries the usual addressees are the protective powers, not the aggressive ones, but in this case the specialist evidently decided that a direct appeal would be more effective.108 The closest parallel to this formulation is in fact another phylactery showing Jewish influence, the ‘Phylactery of Moses’, found at Acre in Sicily, which is clearly taken from a receptary, and which specifies that the wearer shall fear no μάγον οὐδὲ κατάδεσμον οὐδὲ πνεῦμα πονηρὸν οὐδέ τι δήποτε, “no sorcerer, no binding-spell, no wicked spirit, nor anything at all” (ll.10–12, 26– 27).109 It also claims to be effective πρὸς πυρετὸν ἢ [πρὸ]ς ἡμερηνοὺς [πυρετοὺς] ἢ πρὸς {ο} ὀφθαλ[μοῦ β]ασχανείαν, “against fever or for recurrent [fever] or against the evil eye ...” (ll.30–31).110 The coda of the Louvre amulet, finally, employs another very common sort of list, that of the daily cycle, including noon, when spirits were supposed to be particularly active.111 φύλαξον Συντύχην Συντύχης ἀπὸ πονηροῦ πνεύ/ματος παντός, ὁρκίζω σε, καὶ νύκτος καὶ ἡμέρας καὶ μεσημβρί/ας· φύλαξον Συντύχην εἰς πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς τοιαύ/της· φύλαξον Συντύχην.112 protect Syntyche, daughter of Syntyche from every wicked spirit, I adjure you, by night and by day and at noon; protect Syntyche all her days; protect Syntyche.

 107 See recently Alexander 2003; Bohak 2008, 179–182. 108 In the surviving versions of the Testament (which was a ‘living text’: Klutz 2005), fever-spirits appear in §87 (16th spirit), spirits that cause incurable fevers at §91 (no. 21), and fever in the intestines at §95 (no.25). There is however no mention of spirits that cause hydrophobia or of ‘attacking’ spirits, nor of witchcraft. It is quite uncertain, therefore, how much direct knowledge of what version of this text the author of the Louvre text knew, if any. 109 See the excellent commentary by Kotansky 1994, 126–154 no.32 (?late IIp-early IIIp). At the end (ll.33–34), which is badly preserved, the formula is altered to μάγον οὐδὲ πνεῦ[μα πονηρὸν οὐδέ φαν]τασίαν. A late-second century CE phylactery from London incorporates a famous hexameter from the oracle of Alexander of Abonuteichos to protect the wearer from the Antonine ‘plague’ (AE 2013, 946). It describes the sickness to be warded off in a striking list of sonorous adjectives: διήριον ... διαμηχόμαιμον, βαρύθοιμον, σαρκοτακές, διατηκόμενον, φλεβίων ἀπὸ κόλπων, “air-borne ... infiltrating pain, heavy-spiriting, flesh-wasting, melting, from the hollows of the veins” (tr. R.S.O. Tomlin). 110 Other phylacteries, such as the ‘Christian’ PGrMag 5b34f. or XVIIIb (spiral), specify further different sorts of fever, daily, three-daily, four-daily, or now by day, now by night ... 111 E.g. PGrMag 13 l.16; 17 l.11–12 (exorcism of Solomon). 112 SEG 53, 2003, 1110 (from Rome, now lost). This is Merkelbach’s normalised version of the text (1996, 44–46).

  Richard Gordon

 Conclusion This discussion of two types of listing in vernacular curse-tablets in the Roman period has amply exemplified Bernard Sève’s point that “la liste suppose un certain type de maniement du langage, distinct de l’usage ordinaire”.113 Despite threatening grammar and tending to reduce language to (mere) nomenclature — or perhaps indeed precisely because of this — the list demands labour and reflection.114. In the case of curses in the imperial period, the primary aim is to compensate for the loss of immediacy inherent in the oral curse and to maximise the advantages inherent in the text inscribed on lead-sheet, above all its perdurance through time. Admittedly, the bare list of targets’ names does demand a price, namely the need to forego the narrative, vast, sprawling, self-justificatory, that motivated such an act, which, though in a sense simply a moment in a longer sequence of events that excited high emotion ‒ a sense of grievance, anxieties, fears of exposure, of loss of social status or position, dread of punishment, anger at being deprived of one’s own property — it must often have been felt that the generic demand was appropriate, in that it served to concentrate the mind of the addressee(s) wonderfully on the task implied by the act of writing such a text or explicitly envisaged in it.115 As a result, we do not find complex strategies of illocutionary reinforcement in such name-lists in the vernacular tradition — at most, minor selections from the principal’s social knowledge, extracted from his or her own self-justificatory narrative. Lists of body-parts, on the other hand, while prompted by stereotyped conceptions of what an attack by witchcraft felt like, could be used quite flexibly, not only but often in ‘thief-texts’, to include some attention to the socio-moral being of the target, his or her consciousness of wrong-doing, the principal following in imagination the curse’s working and so subjectively reinforcing commitment to the meaningfulness of the institution itself. Since the written text represents a mere moment in a (much) longer process, we have of course no idea of the real-world expectations or interpretations of these actions on the part of the principals who wrote the texts: comparative evidence suggests that confidence, though nominally high, was in fact quite realistically low, and one could find compensatory pleasure even in minor setbacks on the targets’ part, many months later.116 It was the institution itself that gave a  113 Sève 2010, 19. 114 Cf. Eva von Contzen’s observation on p. 45 of this volume: “enumerations are based on the careful crafting of the narrative towards the desired effect”. 115 Cf. von Contzen again (p. 46): “describing is always already a ‘describing for’”. 116 Cf. Obeyesekere 1975, 19–21.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

sense of meaningfully extending one’s agency in a world in which deities and spirits, named or unnamed, were deemed capable in principle of re-asserting ‘justice’, even if not in any particular case. Much the same applies to practitioners’ listing of dangers and ills in phylacteries (whose texts were not accessible to the wearers): specification here served to extend the addressees’ attention one by one to the ills envisaged, thus re-asserting their commitment to an ultimately benign world-order underpinned by benevolent divinity.

Bibliography Acronyms and abbreviations AE CIL DTAud DTM

FIRA2 Georges HD IGUR ILLRP ILS Kropp OCD PGrMag

RIB SEG SupplItal SupplMag TabSulis

L’Année épigraphique. Corpus inscriptionum latinarum. Audollent (1904) (under Works Cited) Blänsdorf, J. (2012), Die Defixionum Tabellae des Mainzer Isis- und Mater MagnaHeiligtums. Defixionum Tabellae Moguntiaces (DTM), Mainzer Archäologische Schriften 9 / Forschung zur Lotharpassage 1; Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe [GDKE], Direktion Landesarchäologie, Mainz. Riccobono, S. et al. (eds.) (1968), Fontes Iuris Romani anteiustiniani, 3 vols., Florence. Georges, K.-E. (1913), Der Neue Georges8, Hannover. Repr. Darmstadt 2013. Epigraphische Datenbank, Heidelberg. Moretti, L. (1968–90), Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae, 4 vols., Rome. Degrassi, A. (1957–63), Inscriptiones latinae liberae reipublicae, 2 vols., Florence. Dessau, H. (1892–1916) Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 3 vols. in 5, Berlin. Kropp, A. (2008), Magische Sprachverwendung in vulgärlateinischen Fluchtafeln (defixiones), ScriptOralia 135, Tübingen. Glare, P.G.W. et al. (eds.) (1996), Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford (corrected impression). K. Preisendanz et al. (eds. tr.) (1928–31), Papyri Graecae Magicae. Die griechischen Zauberpapyri, Leipzig. [Cited from second ed. (1973–74), revised by A. Henrichs, Stuttgart; repr. Munich and Leipzig, 2001.] Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Supplementum epigraphicum graecum. Supplementum Italicum. Daniel, R.W./Maltomini, F. (eds.) (1990–92), Supplementum Magicum. Papyrologica Coloniensia, 16. 1–2, Opladen. Tomlin, R.S.O. (1988), “The curse-tablets”, in: B. Cunliffe (ed.), The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath, 2: The Finds from the Sacred Spring, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monographs 16, Oxford, 59–277.

  Richard Gordon

Works Cited Adams, J.N. (1992), “British Latin: The Text, Interpretation and Language of the Bath Curse Tablets”, Britannia 23, 1–26. Adams, J.N. (2007), The Regional Diversification of Latin, 200 BC–AD 600, Cambridge. Adams, J.N. (2016), An Anthology of Informal Latin 200 BC–AD 900, Cambridge. Aleshire, S.B. (1989), The Athenian Asklepieion: The People, their Dedications, and the Inventories, Amsterdam. Alexander, P. (2003), “Contextualizing the Demonology of the Testament of Solomon”, in: A. Lange et al. (eds.), Die Dämonen: Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt, Tübingen, 613–635. Alfonsi, A. (1914), “Regione X (Venetia), 1: Tavoletta di piombo inscritta”, Notizie dei Scavi 1914, 369–371. Alvar Nuño, A. (2017), Cadenas invisibles: Los usos de magia entre los esclavos en el Imperio romano, Besançon. Audollent, A. (1902), “Note sur une nouvelle ‘tabella devotionis’ trouvée à Sousse”, Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques 1902, 417–425. Audollent, A. (1904), Defixionum Tabellae ..., Paris. Repr. Frankfurt a.M., 1967. Bailliot, M. (2010), Magie et sortilèges dans l’Antiquité romaine. Archéologie des rituels et des images, Paris. Barta, A. (2017), “A letter to the Underworld: A research report on the curse-tablet Aq-2”, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 57, 45–56. Bevilacqua, G. (2012), “Defixiones latine da Pola (Istria)”, in: R. Friggeri et al. (eds.), Terme di Diocleziano: La collezione epigrafica, Milan, 60–61. Bevilacqua, G. (2014), “Atletai e palaistai in una defixio di Roma”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 188, 215–229. Bevilacqua, G. et al. (2012), “Tracce di ousia in una defixio dalla Via Ostiense: un lavoro multidisciplinare”, in: M. Piranomonte/Fr. Marco Simón (eds.), Contesti magici / Contextos mágicos. Atti del Convegno inernazionale ‘Contesti magici / Contextos mágicos’, Palazzo Massimo, Roma, 4–6 nov. 2009, Rome, 229–236. Blum, R. (1991), Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography. Tr. H.S. Wellisch, Madison. (First publ. in German in 1977.) Bohak, G. (2008), Ancient Jewish Magic: A History, Cambridge. Bounegru, G.V./Németh, G. (2013), “Cursing the nomen”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 184, 238–242. Bowman, M./Valk, Ü. (eds) (2012), Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life: Expressions of Belief, London. Busolt, G. (1920), Griechische Staatskunde, 13, Munich. Busolt, G. (1926), Griechische Staatskunde, 23, Munich. Camodeca, G. (2008), “La populazione degli ultimi decenni di Ercolano”, in: M.P. Guidobaldi (ed.), Ercolano. Tre secoli di scoperte, Naples, 87–98. Carey, S. (2003), Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History, Oxford. Carlsen, J. (1995), Vilici and Roman Estate Managers until AD 284, Rome. Cavada, E./Paci, G. (2002), “Un amuleto contro l‘epilessia dall’Alto Garda (Trentino sudoccidentale)”, Archeologia delle Alpi 6, 189–215.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

Coarelli, F. (ed.) (2004), Gli scavi di Roma 1878–1921, Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, Suppl. II.1, Rome. Colesanti, G./Giordano, M. (eds.) (2014), Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture, 3 vols., Berlin. Constantakopoulou, C. (2017), Aegean Interactions: Delos and its Networks in the Third Century, Oxford. Crawford, M.H. (1996), Roman Statutes, 2 vols. London. Cribiore, R. (2001), Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, Princeton. Curbera, J./Jordan, D. (2008), “A Lead Curse Tablet in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 166, 135–150. de Ligt, L./Garnsey, P.D.A. (2012), “The Album of Herculaneum and a Model of the Town’s Demography”, Journal of Roman Archaeology 25, 69–94. Darder Lisson, M. (1996), De nominibus equorum circensium, pars Occidentis, Barcelona. Dilke, O.A.W. (1985), Greek and Roman Maps, London. Dufault, O. (2018), “Who wrote Greek curse tablets?”, in: R. Evans (ed.), Prophets and Profits: Ancient Divination and its Reception, London, 31–48. Eco, U. (2009), Vertigine della lista/Vertige de la liste, Milan/Paris. Ehrenberg, V./Jones, Arnold H.M. (1955), Documents illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius2, Oxford. Eidinow, E. (2007), Oracles, Curses and Risk among the Ancient Greeks, Oxford. Fink, R.O. (1971), Roman Military Records on Papyrus, Philadelphia. Faraone, C.A./Rife, J.L. (2007), “A Greek Curse against a Thief from the Koutsongila Cemetery at Roman Cenchreai”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 160, 141–157. Fox, W.S. (1912), The Johns Hopkins University Tabellae Defixionum, Supplement to AJPh vol. 33, Baltimore. Fraser, P.M. (1972), Ptolemaic Alexandria. 3 vols., Oxford. Frisch, P. (1986), Zehn agonistische Papyri. Pap. Coloniensia 13, Opladen. García-Dils de la Vega, S./de la Hoz Montoya, J. (2013), “Dos nuevas inscripciones de Colonia Augusta Firma Astigi (Écija-Sevilla): Une tabella defixionis y un pavimento musivo de temática circense”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 184, 243–256. Giordano, M. (1999), La parola efficace: maledizione, giuramenti e benedizione nella Grecia arcaica, Pisa/Rome. Goody, J. (1972), The Myth of the Bagre, Oxford. Goody, J. (1987), The Interface between the Written and the Oral, Cambridge. Goody, J. (1995), The Expansive Moment: Anthropology in Britain and Africa, 1918–1970, Cambridge. Goody, J./Gandah, S.W.D.K. (1981), Une récitation du Bagre, Paris. Gordon, R.L. (1999), ‘What’s in a List?’: Listing in Greek and Graeco-Roman Malign Magical Texts”, in: D.R. Jordan/H. Montgomery/E. Thomasson (eds.), The World of Ancient Magic Proceedings of the First international Eitrem Seminar, Athens May 1997, Bergen, 239–277. Gordon, R.L. (2005), “Competence and ‘Felicity Conditions’ in two sets of North African Cursetablets (DTAud. nos. 275–85, 286–98)”, MHNH 5, 61–86. Gordon, R.L. (2012), “Fixing the Race: Managing Risks in the Circus at Carthage and Hadrumetum”, in: M. Piranomonte/Fr. Marco Simón (eds.), Contesti magici/Contextos mágicos. Atti del Convegno Internazionale ‘Contesti magici/Contextos mágicos’, Palazzo Massimo, Roma, 4–6 nov. 2009, Rome, 47–74.

  Richard Gordon Gordon, R.L. (2013), “Gods, Guilt and Suffering: Psychological Aspects of Cursing in the northwestern Provinces of the Roman Empire”, Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 49, 255–281. Gordon, R.L. (2019), “Imaginative Force and Verbal Energy in Latin Curse-Tablets”, in: C. Sánchez Natalías (ed.), Litterae Magicae: Studies in Honour of Roger S.O. Tomlin, Zaragoza, 111–130. Griffin, M. (2003), “De beneficiis and Roman Society”, Journal of Roman Studies 93, 92–113. Hamilton, R. (2000), Treasure Map: A Guide to the Delian Inventories, Ann Arbor. Höfer, O. (1897–1902), s.v. Ogygia, 2), in W.H. Roscher (ed.), Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, 3.1, Leipzig, 683. Johnson, W.A. (2010), Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire, Oxford. Kellermann, O. (1835), Vigilum Romanorum latercula duo Caeli Montana magnam partem militia Romanae explicantia, Rome. Klutz, T. (2005), Rewriting the Testament of Solomon: Tradition, Conflict and Identity in a LateAntique Pseudepigraphon, London. Kotansky, R.D. (1994), Greek Magical Amulets: The Inscribed Gold, Silver, Copper and Bronze Lamellae, 1: Published Texts of Known Provenance. Text and Commentary, Papyrologica Coloniensia 22.1, Opladen. No more published. LiDonnici, L.R. (1995), The Epidaurian Miracle Inscriptions: Text, Translation and Commentary, Atlanta. Luria, A.R. (1975), The Mind of a Mnemonist, Harmondsworth. (First publ. 1968 in Russia and the USA.) Martin, M. (2010), Soit maudit! Malédictions et envoûtements dans l’antiquité, Paris. Martinez, D.G. (1991), A Greek Love-charm from Egypt (P.Mich 757), Atlanta. Mathews, H.F. (1992), “Doctors and Root-Doctors: Patients who Use Both”, in: J. Kirkland et al. (eds.), Herbal and Magical Medicine: Traditional Healing Today, Durham NC, 68–98. Meijer, F. (2010), Chariot-racing in the Roman Empire. Tr. L. Waters, Baltimore. Merkelbach, R. (1996), Abrasax 4: Exorzismen und jüdisch-christlich beeinflusste Texte, Opladen. Moretti, L. (1953), Iscrizioni agonistische greche, Rome. Morgan, T. (2007), Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire, Cambridge. Mouritsen, H. (1988), Elections, Magistrates and Municipal Elite: Studies in Pompeian Epigraphy. AnalRomDan Suppl. 15, Rome. Murphy, T.M. (2004), Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopaedia, Oxford. Naas, V. (2013), “Indicare non indagare: encyclopédisme contre histoire naturelle chez Pline l’Ancien”, in: A. Zucker (ed.), Encyclopédire: formes de l’ambition encyclopédique dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge, Turnhout, 145–166. Németh, G. (2013), Supplementum Audollentianum. Hungarian Polis Studies 20, Zaragoza/Budapest/Debrecen. Obeyesekere, G. (1975), “Sorcery, Premeditated Murder, and the Canalization of Aggression in Sri Lanka”, Ethnology 14.1, 1–23. Ogden, D.G. (1999), “Binding Spells: Curse Tablets and Voodoo Dolls in the Greek and Roman Worlds”, in: B. Ankarloo/S. Clark (eds.), The [Athlone] History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, 2: Ancient Greece and Rome, London/Philadelphia, 1–90. Palmyre-Florigny, D. (2009), Kreolische Kultur und Religion in Mauritius, Ostfildern. Pickard-Cambridge, A.W. (1991), The Dramatic Festivals of Athens2, Oxford. Rademacher, L. (1913), s.v. Hermagoras, 5, in: RE 8.1, 692–695.

The Performativity of Lists in Vernacular Curse-Practice under the Roman Empire  

Rhodes, P.J. (1981), Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia, Oxford. Riggsby, A.M. (2007), “Guides to the Wor(l)d”, in: J. König/T. Whitmarsh (eds.), Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire, Cambridge, 88–107. Riggsby, A.M. (2019), Mosaics of Knowledge: Representing Information in the Roman World, Oxford. Robert, L. (1949), “Un athlète milésien”, Hellenica VII.14, 117–125. Robert, L. (1970), “Deux concours grecques à Rome”, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1970, 6–27. Repr. in idem, Choix d’écrits, ed. D. Rousset, Paris 2007, 247–266. Scarfì, B.M. (1972), “Una tabella defixionis da Altino”, Epigraphica 34, 55–68. Sève, B. (2010), De haut en bas. Philosophie des listes, Paris. Sickinger, J.P. (1999), Public Records and Archives in Classical Athens, Chapel Hill NC. Small, J.P. (1997), Wax Tablets of the Mind: Cognitive Studies of Memory and Literacy in Classical Antiquity, London. Squarciapino, M.F. (1955), Scavi di Ostia, 3: Le necropoli, 1, Rome. Steinmetz, G. (2013), “Toward Socioanalysis: The ‘Traumatic Kernel’ of Psychoanalysis and Neo-Bourdieusian Theory”, in: P.S. Gorski (ed.), Bourdieu and Historical Analysis, Durham NC, 108–130. Stroud, R.S. (2013), The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Inscriptions. Corinth XVIII.6, Princeton. Sündermann, K. (2006), Spirituelle Heiler in modernen Syrien: Berufsbild und Selbstverständnis — Wissen und Praxis, Berlin. Tremel, J. (2004), Magica agonistica. Fluchtafeln im antiken Sport. Nikephoros Beihefte 1, Berlin. Usher, Shaun (2014), Lists of Note, Edinburgh. Versnel, H.S. (1998), “καὶ εἴ τι λ[οιπὸν] τῶν μερ[ῶ]ν [ἔσ]ται τοῦ σώματος ὅλ[ο]υ .... An Essay on Anatomical Curses”, in: F. Graf (ed.), Ansichten griechischer Rituale. Geburtstag-Symposium für Walter Burkert, Castelen bei Basel 15. bis 18. März 1996, Stuttgart, 217–267. Weaver, P.R.C. (1972), Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves, Cambridge. Wilkins, J. (2007), “Galen and Athenaeus in the Hellenistic Library”, in: J. König/T. Whitmarsh (eds.), Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire, Cambridge, 69–87. Wolf, J.G. (2010), Neue Rechtsurkunden aus Pompeji: Tabulae Pompeianae Novae, Darmstadt. Wünsch, R. (1897), Defixionum Tabellae [ = IG III iii, Appendix.], Berlin. Ziebarth, F. (1934), “Neue Verfluchungstafeln aus Attika, Boiotien und Euboia”, Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin 33, 1022–1050.

Oliver Thomas

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: AttributeLists in Greek Hymns In 1523 Erasmus described, in a public letter to Johann von Botzheim, his attempt to translate Lucian’s Podagra into Latin: Vertere coeperam Podagram Luciani priorem, opus mire festiuum, sed destiti, potissimum deterritus epithetis, quibus abundant chori, in quibus non erat spes in Latinis assequi compositionis felicitatem, quam uidemus in Graecis dictionibus. Quod si dictiones singulas pluribus explicuissem peribat gratia totius carminis. Nam hymni sacri fere constant huiusmodi deorum cognomentis, religiose compositis, praesertim apud Graecos. Quod genus sunt illa apud Homerum: Ἆρες ὑπερμενέτα, βρισάρματε, χρυσεοπήληξ, ὀμβριμόθυμε, φέρασπι, πελισσός, χαλκοκορυστά.1 I had begun to translate the former Podagra of Lucian, a wonderfully witty work. But I gave it up, mainly because I was deterred by the epithets with which the choruses abound. In them there was no hope of achieving in Latin words the felicity of compounding which we find in the Greek; if on the other hand I had expanded single words into many, the charm of the whole poem was lost. For sacred hymns, especially in Greece, largely consist of such epithets of the gods put together according to tradition. Such are the lines of Homer: ‘Ares, overpowering, chariot-burdening, gold-helmeted, vehement-spirited, shield-bearing, citysaving, bronze-helmed.’

Erasmus picked up on three facts of interest in the present context: that the sequence of compound words at the start of the Homeric Hymn to Ares (of which ll. 1–2 are quoted) is an identifiable stylistic feature also found in other Greek hymns; that this feature is not natural in Latin; and that Lucian could already recognise and parody it from within Greek culture. Paratactic accumulation of epithets may seem like an unsophisticated form of description, in that it eschews the logical articulation of hypotaxis and particles. Within Greek discourses about hymns this poses a particular problem. Underlying the communication between hymnist and god is χάρις (charis), a word implicated in each phase in a virtuous circle of communication: divine favour leads to human thankfulness leads to a hymn leads to divine benevolence leads to another divine favour … Since charis is also an aesthetic term (‘gracefulness’), and given the value placed on the artistry of physical dedications to the gods, it  1 Erasmus 1523, a6. By ‘former’, Erasmus contrasts the Podagra with the Pseudo-Lucianic Ocypus which begins with a speech by Gout. (My thanks to Nicholas Wilshere for guidance here.) πελισσός should read πολισσόε, which I have translated. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-007

  Oliver Thomas was natural that the Greeks thought of the artistry of their hymns as part of their charis, hence part of their efficacy.2 What positive effects did hymn-composers think they could achieve using lists of attributes? This essay will suggest several possible approaches to the question. After a brief introduction to the formal features of hymns and of attribute-lists, I shall examine four case-studies whose attribute-lists have overlapping functions: the Homeric Hymn to Ares (as suggested by Erasmus), an alphabetic hymn to Apollo from the Palatine Anthology (9.525), a hymn to Selene-HecateArtemis from a magical papyrus (PGM IV.2786–2870), and Orphic Hymn 32 to Athena. I believe these four examples will demonstrate both the variety of possibilities and the existence of certain core effects which arise intrinsically from the interaction of the natures of lists and hymns. *** Greek hymns form an identifiable genre thanks not to universal characteristics, but to family resemblances in their formal structures, their contexts of performance, and their pragmatic functions.3 Even with concepts of this family-resemblance type it can be heuristically useful, as a point of orientation, to describe some prototypical formal features, which for a Greek hymn would probably include: an initial reference to the divine addressee, structured either as a direct address (invocation) or using a small range of third-person evocations (e.g. ‘I call on Apollo’, ‘Muse, sing of Apollo’); requests clustered at the end; and a variable development section, in which one could expect one or more narratives of particular past deeds, and attributive sections describing the god’s qualities.4 Such attributes can be predicated in various syntactic forms, including the use of complete sentences and hypotaxis, but they often take the form of a paratactic sequence of substantives, noun-phrases and adjectival clauses. This is the feature which Erasmus picked up on, and it will be my focus too. Erasmus sweepingly claimed that Greek hymns in general are ‘largely’ composed of such lists, but the Hymn to Ares is not really representative: in fact, the sequence of epithets marks it out as an impostor among the Homeric Hymns.5 It would be more accurate to say that short lists of up to five attributes are routine

 2 See Depew 2000; Pulleyn 1997, 49–50. 3 Furley/Bremer 2001 i.1–64 is a useful discussion of the genre. 4 Keyssner 1932 is an excellent discussion of popular types of attribute in Greek hymns. Aitchison 2012, 66–89 gives a user–friendly account of evidence for the existence of prototypes in the mental lexicon, and of their limitations. 5 The most important discussions are West 1970 and Gelzer 1987.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

in Greek hymns.6 I shall cite just three examples from rather different types of hymn, partly to show the spread of these short lists, and partly as a means of introducing the different types of attribute. Aristophanes Eq. 559–61: In a comic chorus imitating hymnic forms, the knights call upon Poseidon as ὦ χρυσοτρίαιν’, ὦ δελφίνων μεδέων, Σουνιάρατε, ὦ Γεραίστιε παῖ Κρόνου, ‘O golden-tridented, O dolphin-governing one, prayedto at Sounion, O Geraistian son of Kronos’. As punctuated, there are four attributes: the first and third are compound adjectives; the second is a participial phrase; the last a noun-phrase.7 The example also demonstrates two difficulties in counting the length of an attribute-list. First, a different reader or director might prefer to remove the comma after μεδέων so that each attribute is introduced anaphorically by ὦ, or to insert a comma after Γεραίστιε. Second, this list is preceded by another attribute-list (ἵππι’ ἄναξ, Πόσειδον, ὧι ..., ‘Equestrian lord, Poseidon, to whom …’, 551–558) separated from it only by a very brief main clause (‘Come here to our chorus’, 559): should one take these two attribute-lists separately, or is their effect still cumulative? It is only right to mention such questions of how to count attributes, but in practical terms they will not be pertinent for my main case-studies of lists which — on any viable punctuation — contain blocks of many more elements. Callimachus Lav.Pall. 43f.: Callimachus, in a poem with hymnic language dramatising the moments just before a ritual, addresses Ἀθαναία περσέπτολι, χρυσεοπήληξ, ἵππων καὶ σακέων ἁδομένα πατάγωι, ‘City-sacking Athena, goldenhelmeted, delighting in the clatter of cavalry and shields’. Here the list comprises name, two compound epithets, and a participial phrase.8 Epidaurian Hymn to Pan (IG IV2 1.130) 1–4: This cultic hymn begins Πᾶνα τὸν νυμφαγέταν, Ναΐδων μέλημ’ ἀείδω, χρυσέων χορῶν ἄγαλμα, κωτίλας ἄνακτα μοίσας, ‘I sing of Pan the nymph-leader, the concern of the Naiads, the pride of

 6 The following general claims are based on a rereading of the Homeric, Callimachean, Orphic and Proclan hymns, those printed in Furley/Bremer 2001 and GDRK, and miscellaneous others (e.g. from inscriptions) which are known to me. While not exhaustive, I believe this basis is sufficient to reach reasonably stable conclusions. 7 If any reader is moved to purely formal analysis of attribute-lists, I found it helpful to have some notation for the syntactic form: N for name, E for single-word epithet, M for a multipleword noun-phrase, P for a participial phrase, R for a relative clause, C for a main clause. This example would therefore be notated E P E M or, for more detail, ὦ E, ὦ P, E, ὦ M. Possibly productive questions which the notation can help to assess would include whether participial phrases tend to appear in blocks, and whether relative clauses tend to appear in final position. 8 For the relationship of Lav.Pall. to hymns see e.g. Bulloch 1985, 2–8.

  Oliver Thomas golden choruses, the lord of coaxing music.’ Here the list consists of name, compound epithet, and three noun-phrases. Naturally, there is no sharp cut-off, and slightly longer attribute-lists are still found in a range of hymns from different performative contexts, albeit more sporadically. For example Limenius in his paean from the 2nd century BCE asks the Muses to help sing of Apollo as Πύθιον, χρυσοχαίταν, ἕκατον, εὐλύραν, Φοῖβον, ὃν ἔτικτε Λατώ ..., ‘the Pythian, golden-haired, far-shooting, lyre-skilled, Phoebus, whom Leto bore …’ (CID iii 2.4–5).9 Mesomedes, who wrote under Hadrian, refers to Nemesis as θεὸν ... ἀφθίταν, Νίκην τανυσίπτερον, ὀμβρίμαν, νημερτέα καὶ πάρεδρον Δίκας, ἃ τὰν μεγαλανορίαν βροτῶν νεμεσῶσα φέρεις κατὰ Ταρτάρου, ‘the immortal deity, long-winged Victory, mighty, truthful and seated beside Justice, you who in indignation bear mortals’ arrogance down beneath Tartarus’ (3.16–20). Both these examples illustrate the use of relative clauses as attributes, particularly as a longer cap at the end of a list.10 A hymn from Kourion by one of Mesomedes’ contemporaries ends with a series of six attributes for Antinous, who was posthumously divinised and is here cast as Adonis: ἰοβόστρυχε, καλλικόμη, μάκαρ, Βειθύνιε, παρθενοπῶπα(?), χρυσοπτερύγου γόνε ματρός, ‘dark-curled, beautiful-haired, blessed, Bithynian, girl-eyed(?), child of a goldwinged mother’.11 But as the attribute-lists get longer, certain subgenres seem no longer to be represented. Much longer lists are therefore a more distinctive stylistic feature where they do appear, for example throughout the Orphic Hymns, in hymns from magical papyri, and to an extent in the aretalogies of Isis.12 It is on the effects of these longer runs that my interest from now will centre.

 9 Cf. Philod.Scarph. Paean to Dionysus 1–3, a list of six names/epithets. 10 Notably in the Homeric Hymns, the first relative attribute tends to be the hinge by which attributive discourse ends and passes into past-tense narrative: see e.g. Janko 1981. For Mesomedes’ response to hymnic traditions see Lanna 2013, 67–89, with a particular focus on the use of philosophical abstraction. 11 I.Kourion 104.15–17 with Lebek 1973 for restoration and commentary. 12 For example, they are unusual in the Homeric Hymns (other than the Hymn to Ares), though there is a sequence of eight attributes at H.Herm. 13–16. Isis aretalogies: e.g. Isidorus 1.1–3 (name + seven attributes); further references in Versnel 1990, 39–52. Magical hymns: see PGM ii.237–266, and the hymn to Hecate recorded in Hippolytus in the 3rd century CE (Ref. 4.35.5 = GDRK 54).

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

 The Homeric Hymn to Ares: The List and the Rocket-launcher Recall that Erasmus cited the first two lines of the Homeric Hymn to Ares. Here is the full hymn: Ἆρες ὑπερμενέτα, βρισάρματε, χρυσεοπήληξ, ὀβριμόθυμε, φέρασπι, πολισσόε, χαλκοκορυστά, καρτερόχειρ, ἀμόγητε, δορυσθενές, ἕρκος Ὀλύμπου, Νίκης εὐπολέμοιο πάτερ, συναρωγὲ Θέμιστος, ἀντιβίοισι τύραννε, δικαιοτάτων ἀγὲ φωτῶν, ἠνορέης σκηπτοῦχε, πυραυγέα κύκλον ἑλίσσων αἰθέρος ἑπταπόροις ἐνὶ τείρεσιν, ἔνθα σε πῶλοι ζαφλεγέες τριτάτης ὑπὲρ ἄντυγος αἰὲν ἔχουσι· κλῦθι, βροτῶν ἐπίκουρε, δοτὴρ εὐθαλέος13 ἥβης, πρηῢ καταστίλβων σέλας ὑψόθεν ἐς βιότητα ἡμετέρην καὶ κάρτος ἀρήϊον, ὥς κε δυναίμην σεύασθαι κακότητα πικρὴν ἀπ’ ἐμεῖο καρήνου, καὶ ψυχῆς ἀπατηλὸν ὑπογνάμψαι φρεσὶν ὁρμὴν θυμοῦ τ’ αὖ μένος ὀξὺ κατισχέμεν ὅς μ’ ἐρέθῃσι φυλόπιδος κρυερῆς ἐπιβαινέμεν· ἀλλὰ σὺ θάρσος δός, μάκαρ, εἰρήνης τε μένειν ἐν ἀπήμοσι θεσμοῖς δυσμενέων προφυγόντα μόθον κῆράς τε βιαίους.

5

10

15

Ares, overpowering, chariot-burdening, gold-helmeted, vehement-spirited, shield-bearing, city-saving, bronze-helmed, mighty-handed, untiring, spear-strong, bulwark of Olympus, father of war-valued Victory, ally of Justice, [5] a tyrant to your enemies, leader of men who excel in justice, marshal of manliness, whirling a fiery circuit among the seven-pathed signs of the sky, where your fire-breathing colts always steer you above the third orbit: hearken, ally of mortals, granter of a flourishing prime of life, [10] shining down from on high upon our livelihood a light which is benign along with Ares-like strength, so that I may be able to harry bitter badness from my head, and blunt in the mind the impulse which deceives the soul, and also check the sharp belligerence of the spirit which may provoke me [15] to embark upon chill tumult. Now grant me confidence, blessed one, and allow me to abide by the painless constitution of peace, having fled violent deaths and the turmoil of enemies.

 13 ap: εὐθαρσέος MD: Π’s εὐθαρλέσεος derives from εὐθαρσέος with the variant λέ written above ρσ, and probably preserves the archetype’s reading. Although δοτὴρ εὐθαρσέος produces an interesting echo in ll. 15–16 θάρσος | δός which could be integrated into the interpretation below, ‘flourishing’ less obviously relates to Ares and should be kept by the principle of utrum in alterum abiturum erat; I see no pressing reason to write εὐθηλέος.

  Oliver Thomas The attributes in ll. 1–3 (as far as δορυσθενές) take the form of an asyndetic list, composed of the vocative name and ten compound epithets referring to the military sphere. Most evoke concrete images of a warrior in action.14 Only ‘city-saving’, at the midpoint of the sequence, implies the social context of warfare. The list then develops from the end of l. 3 to the middle of l. 6, both formally and semantically. Formally, ‘bulwark of Olympus’ begins an appositional series of six metaphorical noun-phrases of two or three words each. Semantically, it picks up the idea of ‘city-saving’, that Ares’ military power can be exercised defensively for the benefit of a community. ‘Ally of Justice’ extends this by introducing the ethics of war, which is worked out in l. 5 by the enemy’s negative focalisation of Ares as a tyrant (typically perceived to be unjust), juxtaposed to his leadership of the just.15 The final attribute in this section of the list, ‘marshal of manliness’, again entails the social structure of war (σκηπτοῦχε, literally ‘staffbearer’, refers to the symbol of a chieftain’s authority over his troops); it also implies that as well as being ‘just’, the humans whom Ares supports will be brave. In this sequence ἕρκος Ὀλύμπου, δικαιοτάτων ἀγὲ φωτῶν and ἠνορέης σκηπτοῦχε allude to Iliadic phrasing, but with a twist: contrast ἕρκος Ἀχαίων (e.g. Il. 3.229), Λυκίων/Θρῃκῶν ἀγὸς ἀνδρῶν (e.g. Il. 7.13; 4.519) and σκηπτοῦχος as epithet of βασιλεύς (e.g. Il. 2.86). The twist may symbolise the transition away from a traditional poetic conception of the god; similarly ‘ally of Justice’ overturns Hera’s claim in the Iliad that Ares ‘knows no justice’ (Il. 5.761, also using θέμις).16 In the middle of l. 6 the list develops in form, and this shift again matches a shift in content: a syntactically complex participial phrase moves Ares from the battlefield and the city-state into the celestial spheres, as the planet Mars. This juxtaposition poses a problem: how is this facet of Ares to be integrated with what has preceded? Is it just through the fierceness implied by Mars’ ‘fiery’ nature (6 πυραυγέα, 8 ζαφλεγέες), or more?17 The planet is figured as riding a horse-drawn

 14 The images do not cohere, in that Ares has both a golden and a bronze helmet at consecutive line-ends. This incompatibility admits various interpretations: the epithets describe Ares at different times; their abundance suggests his ubiquity where helmets are involved; the incoherence imitates the tumult of battle, and so on. Càssola 1975, 565 sought to avoid it by suggesting that the relationship of χαλκοκορυστά to κόρυς had been forgotten. But we will see further inconsistent epithets below. 15 ‘Ares the tyrant’ was proverbial: see Timotheus fr. 790 Hordern; Plu. Agesilaus 14; Van den Berg 2016. 16 For the twisting of Homeric phrases see Gelzer 1987, 161. Càssola 1975, 565 ad loc. makes the contrast to Iliad 5.761. 17 For Mars’ name Πυρόεις, see e.g. Arist. Mund. 392a25; Alex.Eph. SH 21; Geminus El. 1.26.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

chariot, so that this line makes us reanalyse ‘chariot-burdening’ (1): again, an epithet of Ares drawn from epic (βρισάρματος: ‘Hes.’ Sc. 441) receives a twist as the list proceeds. After this long invocation comes the main verb, κλῦθι (8) – ‘hear’ but often implying ‘act upon’ when used of gods hearing prayers. This reference to the pragmatic aspirations of the hymn is affirmed by two further attributes which reprise Ares’ helpful relationship to humans; if I am right to read εὐθαλέος (‘flourishing’, 9), a more peaceful side of Ares is glimpsed for the first time. Again the multiple-word attributes are capped by a syntactically complex participial phrase which repeats the semantic shift to Ares the planet. This time, however, the phrase makes explicit what the first half of the hymn left implicit — the connection, via astrology, of Ares’ planetary status to his influence on human affairs. It is difficult to decide whether the participial phrase in ll. 10–11 should be taken as one of Ares’ general attributes (entailing prior benign influence, as a grounds for him to be benign on this occasion too), or as part of how he should hearken to the hymn (not entailing any prior benign influence).18 Either way, πρηΰ (‘benign’ in predicative position, 10) marks a change away from ‘vehementspirited’ (2) and the ‘fiery’ planet, and the common astrological idea of Mars’ influence as dangerous.19 Τhe planet’s light can bestow strength on ‘our’ life: a real ‘we’, as the earlier emphasis on the community suggests, or a poetic plural? The following clause pulls us towards the latter interpretation, with its first-person singular. Ares’ strength will enable the hymnist to do three military-sounding defensive actions: chase away capital κακότης (either ‘evil’ or ‘cowardice’), curb an onslaught, and withstand belligerence. But each of these, and hence even the strength which is ἀρήϊον or ‘proper to Ares’ (11), is redefined: the hymnist in fact seeks the ability to banish an evil from inside his head, his own soul’s deceptive onslaught, his own belligerent impulses in anger.20 Ares is asked to bestow θάρσος, understood by this stage not as fortitude on the battlefield but as self-belief in general. In a marvellous climax of redefinition, Ares is asked to allow the hymnist to live in peace after ‘fleeing’ disputes (16–17).21  18 Càssola 1975 ad loc. prefers the latter, following Matthiae 1805 ad loc. who compares κλῦθι directly followed by a participle in Orph.H. 4.9, 28.11, 34.27. But one could cite Orph.H. 3.3–4, where κλῦθι followed at a distance by a participle supports the other interpretation. 19 Gelzer 1987, 158–160 usefully contrasts such astrological ideas with Plato Tim. 36–47, Phdr. 245–249 and their Neoplatonist reception, whereby all planets can have positive influence. 20 Càssola’s claim (1975, 566 ad loc.) that ‘from my head’ simply means ‘from me’ is misleading. 21 Appel 1983, 453–454 briefly notes the unusual and paradoxical nature of the final prayer. His suggestion that it is unique is refuted by Orph.H. 65, which asks Ares to swap bloodthirstiness for more relaxed pursuits using a more abrupt conversion than H.Ares.

  Oliver Thomas The nineteen attributes in H.Ares 1–9 are highly structured in both form and meaning. They set up a range of thematic material: Ares the warrior, Ares the civic-minded supporter of justice, Ares the fiery planet. Their trajectory constitutes what one might imagine (taking one’s cue from Ares’ interests) as the first part of a missile’s flight: it launches Ares from ground to heaven at an angle — from anthropomorphic warrior to civic force to ethical force to astrological force — in order that he can be turned round to land in a different place, namely as a force for personal mental improvement in the fields of resilience and controlling one’s temper.22

 A.P. 9.525: Completeness and Artistry The list of adjectives describing any god could potentially be extended far beyond what is practical in one performance. Hence hymnic attribute-lists are either a designed selection, or at most a representative sample of what can be said. The Hymn to Ares would be an example of a designed selection. A pair of anonymous and undated hymns preserved in the Palatine Anthology (9.524–525) exhibit an interesting strategy for symbolising how ‘representative’ their sample is. These two hymns begin and end with a line stating the addressee (Dionysus and Apollo respectively) after a performative verb (524.1, 26: μέλπωμεν, ‘Let us celebrate in song’; 525.1, 26: ὑμνέωμεν, ‘Let us hymn’). In the middle come twenty-four lines, each containing four single-word epithets in asyndeton, of which those in verse 2 begin with alpha, those in verse 3 with beta, and so on. I will focus on the hymn to Apollo.23 ὑµνέωµεν Παιᾶνα, µέγαν θεὸν Ἀπόλλωνα, ἄµβροτον, ἀγλαόµορφον, ἀκερσεκόµην, ἁβροχαίτην, βριθύνοον, βασιλῆα, βελεσσιχαρῆ, βιοδώτην, γηθόσυνον, γελόωντα, γιγαντολέτην, γλυκύθυµον,

 22 This is not the place to address fully the question of the hymn’s authorship. In brief, West 1970 argued it was by Proclus. Gelzer 1987 rejected this for two reasons: one is stemmatic and fallacious; the other is that Proclus’ extant hymns all refer explicitly to the notion, central to his conception of hymns, of a soul’s ‘turn towards’ (epistrophe) the higher powers, away from the material; cf. Van den Berg 2001, 19–22. Conceivably Proclus’ lost hymns reflected on this epistrophe in less explicit ways; H.Ares certainly prompts a turn in how one perceives Ares. Even if the hymn is not Proclan, one can still see why he imitated it: see the evidence at West 1970, 301. 23 In the complete translation I reorder the epithets and add eight more to represent the crucial alphabetical point in English. In the ensuing discussion, I provide word-for-word translations.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

Διογενῆ, Διόπαιδα, δρακοντολέτην, δαφνογηθῆ, εὔλαλον, εὐρυβίην, ἑκατηβόλον, ἐλπιδοδώτην, ζῳογόνον, ζάθεον, Ζηνόφρονα, ζηλοδοτῆρα, ἤπιον, ἡδυεπῆ, ἡδύφρονα, ἠπιόχειρα, θηροφόνον, θαλερόν, θελξίφρονα, θελγεσίµυθον, ἰαφέτην, ἱµερτόν, ἰήιον, ἱπποκορυστήν, κοσµοπλόκον, Κλάριον, κρατερόφρονα, καρπογένεθλον, Λητογενῆ, λαρόν, λυρογηθέα, λαµπετόωντα, µυστιπόλον, µάντιν, µεγαλήτορα, µυριόµορφον, νευροχαρῆ, νοερόν, νηπενθέα, νηφαλιῆα, ξυνοχαρῆ, ξυνόν, ξυνόφρονα, ξυνοδοτῆρα, ὄλβιον, ὀλβιοεργόν, Ὀλύµπιον, οὐρεσιφοίτην, πρηΰν, πανδερκῆ, παναπήµονα, πλουτοδοτῆρα, ῥυσίπονον, ῥοδόχρουν, ῥηξήνορα, ῥηξικέλευθον, σιγαλόεντα, σοφόν, σελαηγενέτην, σωτῆρα, τερψίχορον, Τιτᾶνα, τελέστορα, τιµήεντα, ὑµναγόρην, ὕπατον, ὑψαύχενα, ὑψήεντα, Φοῖβον, φοιβάζοντα, φιλοστέφανον, φρενογηθῆ, χρησµαγόρην, χρύσεον, χρυσόχροα,χρυσοβέλεµνον, ψαλμοχαρῆ, ψάλτην, ψευσίστυγα, ψυχοδοτῆρα, ὠκύπον, ὠκυεπῆ, ὠκύσκοπον, ὡρεσιδώτην. ὑµνέωµεν Παιᾶνα, µέγαν θεὸν Ἀπόλλωνα.

5

10

15

20

25

Anthologia Palatina 9.525 Let us celebrate Paean, the great god Apollo, Arrow-delighting, agreeable, accessible, all-seeing, Beast-slaying, bowstring-gladdened, beam-bearing, benefactor, Crop-bringing, community-spirited, chorus-loving, cathartic, Delicate-haired, desirable, delighted, Delian, Enthuser, effulgent, eloquent, enriching, Far-shooter, fascinater, fascinating-tongued, foresightful, Giant-killing, gentle, golden, gold-fletching, Handsome, healing-handed, hope-offering, hymnist, Inductor, initiator, inspirational, insouciant, Joyous, jubilant, jocular, joy-spreading, King, Klarian, knowledgeable, kitharist, Laurel-glad, Leto’s, lie-loathing, lyre-loving, Mountain-ranging, magnanimous, man-breaking, multifaceted, Numinous, noumenal, nutritive, noble-hearted, Olympian, opulent, observant, oracle, Paean-recipient, plume-helmeted, painless, Phoebus, Quick-speaking, quick-footed, question-answering, quiver-emptying, Redoubtable, rosy-cheeked, road-forging, radiant, Sweet-spirited, serpent-slayer, sober, sublime, Toil-relieving, Titan, twang-gladdened, tranquil, Undying, unshorn, ubiquitous, uppermost,

  Oliver Thomas Vitalising, voluble, valuable, vaunting, Weighty-minded, world-weaving, wealth-giving, wreath-loving, Xenophile, xenial, xanthous, xystus-loving, Youthful, young-eyed, yielding, year-cycling, Zeus-born, Zeus-minded, zoogonic, Zeus’s son: Let us celebrate Paean, the great god Apollo.

The completeness of the alphabetical cycle, and the fact that we ‘cycle’ back to repeat l. 1 at the end, suggest the encyclopaedic coverage of the ninety-six intervening epithets.24 But simultaneously their sheer number, and the arbitrariness of a four-per-letter arrangement (including hefty metrical constraints), suggests with playful subversion the poetic freedom with which such epithets can be created. Both alphabetical hymns choose as their midpoint (the last epithet of l. 13) the thematic μυριόμορφον, ‘of myriad forms’, which both acknowledges the selectivity of a mere(!) ninety-six epithets, and nonchalantly suggests that the poet had plenty of options with which to complete his hymn.25 This ease comes across in the extra patterning in some lines, such as the chiastic ἤπιον, ἡδυεπῆ, ἡδύφρονα, ἠπιόχειρα (‘gentle, of sweet words, of sweet thoughts, gentlehanded’, 8). Moreover both hymns use the epithets like a 4x24 grid where vertical as well as horizontal juxtapositions are suggestive. To give one example, Apollo is ‘joyous, laughing, Giant-killing, sweet-hearted’ (l. 4); here, horizontal juxtaposition prompts the question of whether Apollo’s joy is premised on having shown no sweetness to the Giants. And immediately below ‘Giant-killing’ (γιγαντολέτην) is the similarly formed δρακοντολέτην, ‘serpent-killing’, followed by δαφνογηθῆ, ‘rejoicing in laurel’. This vertical juxtaposition involves a kind of confirmation, in that the earlier thought can now be reapplied to Delphi: Apollo’s joy in the laurel (the sacred tree associated particularly with Delphi) is premised on the destruction of the Python. Such vertical juxtapositions become operative, for an oral audience as well as for a reader, thanks to a further aspect of this list of exclusively single-word  24 As Luz 2010, 70 briefly comments, ‘erweckt das Alphabet den Anschein von Vollständigkeit’; on pp. 1–77 she surveys the literary background of Greek acrostics. I am grateful to Peter Watts and Richard Bell for drawing to my attention the similar alphabetical acrostics in the Hebrew of Psalms 25, 34, 111, 112, 119 and 145. Luz 2010, 70 n. 222 refers to Christian hymns in Greek which imitate this. See also Dieterich 1901, 94–95, emphasising the magical power with which such alphabet acrostics could also be endowed. 25 Μυριόμορφος is one of eleven shared epithets, which show — unsurprisingly — that the two compositions are related. We will see in the next section a magical hymn which also draws attention to the copia of its attribute-list, this time using the word πολυώνυμε.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

epithets: rhythm. Metrical practice in the hexameter restricts a four-word line to certain shapes. In this hymn to Apollo, eleven of the twenty-four lines in the epithet-list — including five consecutive lines (11–15) — have their three word-breaks at the strong caesuras of the second and third feet and the bucolic diaeresis. Such regularity may at first seem mesmeric, and tempt one towards Eco’s emphasis on the ‘vertiginous’ quality of lists (2009): more on this in the next section. However, in this case I would reiterate instead that the rhythmic regularity facilitates engaged (not mesmerised) ‘vertical’ reading between the lines. I do not find it helpful to take these two alphabetical hymns as linguistic games devoid of religious intent. They spin an idea present in other more ‘seriously religious’ hymns, that artistry and poetic effort contribute to a hymn’s charis and so to its efficacy.26 They also literally ‘add a dimension’ (the vertical) to the way in which the juxtapositions which result from an attribute-list offload onto the receiver the task of constructing relationships among the divine attributes; this quality too can be viewed as a distinctive but not isolated approach to the way a hymn mediates between the performer, the human audience and the divine addressee.

 A Magical Hymn to Selene: Innumerate Enumeration Attribute-lists are a regular feature in the hymns embedded in the magical papyri. Consider the following passage from the eighteenth hymn, whose papyrus dates to the 4th century CE:27 τοὔνεκά σε κλῄζουσ’ Ἑκάτην, πολυώνυμε, Μήνην, ἀέρα μὲν τέμνουσαν, ἅτ’ Ἄρτεμιν ἰοχέαιραν, τετραπρόσωπε θεά, τετραώνυμε, τετραοδῖτι, Ἄρτεμι, Περσεφόνη, ἐλαφηβόλε, νυκτοφάνεια, τρίκτυπε, τρίφθογγε, τρικάρανε, τριώνυμε Μήνη, Θρινακία, τριπρόσωπε, τριαύχενε καὶ τριοδῖτι, ἣ τρισσοῖς ταλάροισιν ἔχεις φλογὸς ἀκάματον πῦρ

20

25

 26 Similar letter-level artistry occurs in Castorion’s Hymn to Pan (SH 310), where each iambic metron contained eleven letters; the text advertises its own ‘clever act of writing’. 27 The hymn is PGM IV.2786–2870 = no.18 in PGM ii.253–255 = GDRK 59.10. Line-numbers and references to other magical hymns follow PGM ii. The syncretism of deities in this hymn is discussed briefly in Pachoumi 2017, 130–133. For formal description of the attribute-lists in the PGM hymns see Bortolani 2016, 354–360.

  Oliver Thomas καὶ τριόδων μεδέεις, τρισσῶν δεκάδων τε ἀνάσσεις· ἵλαθί μοι καλέοντι … Hence, many-named one, they call you Hecate, Moon, cutting the sky like arrow-scattering Artemis — O four-faced goddess, four-named, found where four roads meet, Artemis, Persephone, deer-shooter, nocturnal apparition, three-sounding, three-voiced, three-headed, three-named Moon, [25] Thrinakian, three-faced, three-necked and found where three roads meet, you who hold the tireless fire of flame in three baskets, and govern threefold junctions and rule over triads of ten nights. Be gracious to me as I invoke you …

The opening lines intertwine attributes in the vocative and accusative. The vocative πολυώνυμε, ‘many-named one’, is initially justified by the surrounding four accusative attributes. However, the vagueness of πολυ- and routineness of the idea of a god’s ‘polyonymy’ then develops into a mathematical mystery. Line 22 is composed of three epithets of four-ness, with anaphora of τετρα-, incuding ‘four-named’. This specification of polyonymy seems to be carried through by the four epithets of l. 23. But ll. 24–25 switch to a pattern of four epithets per line about three-ness, with anaphora of τρι-/Θρι- which continues into the relative clause of ll. 26–27 Moreover τετρα-πρόσωπε, τετρα-ώνυμε and τετρα-οδῖτι are specifically overwritten by τρι-ώνυμε, τρι-πρόσωπε and τρι-οδῖτι. If long lists have a feeling of enumeration, this one pointedly flouts basic numeracy. And that is part of what will make it effective in the alternative logic of magical performance, given how l. 28 (ἵλαθί μοι καλέοντι, ‘be gracious to me as I invoke you’) emphasises the selection of invocations as central to the hymnist’s means of pleasing the goddess.28 This idea is repeated later in the hymn: χαῖρε, θεά, καὶ σαῖσιν ἐπωνυμίαις ἐπάκουσον. θύω σοι τόδ’ ἄρωμα, Διὸς τέκος, ἰοχέαιρα, οὐρανία, λιμνῖτι, ὀρίπλανε εἰνοδία τε, νερτερία νυχία τ’, ἀϊδωναία σκοτία τε, ἥσυχε καὶ δασπλῆτι, τάφοις ἔνι δαῖτα ἔχουσα, Νύξ, Ἔρεβος, Χάος εὐρύ·…

45

 28 Versnel 2002 gives a wide-ranging account of how Classical magical efficacy involved flouting normal logical and linguistic principles. By contrast Graf 1991, in a seminal chapter on magical prayers, contrasts the familiarity of most of their linguistic strategies (though they extend their demonstration of knowledge about the addressee into new territory with voces magicae and syncretisms) with the realm of ritual action, where Graf claims that magic’s flouting of normality was more widespread. Graf discusses PGM hymn 18, but without mentioning the flouting of numeracy. Compare also PGM hymn 15/16.2 where Hermes is addressed as στρογγύλε καὶ τετράγωνε, ‘round and rectangular’, in reference to the moon and herm respectively; Heitsch 1959, 227–228 discusses this juxtaposition, as part of a sensitive reading of that hymn’s epithets.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

Joy to you, goddess, and hearken to your names. I burn this fragrance for you, child of Zeus, arrow-scattering, dweller in heaven, dweller in lakes, wanderer in mountains and found on the road, dweller in the underworld and nocturnal one, bride of Aidoneus and shadowy one, tranquil and horrifying, holding your feast on tombs, Night, Erebus, broad Chaos, …

These two passages are united by the idea that the goddess’s names are intrinsically pleasing (similarly e.g. PGM hymn 17.100–101). Both lists of names involve a heterodox syncretism of Artemis, Persephone, Hecate and the Moon, without which the act of naming would be different and, potentially, ineffectual. But whereas the former passage advertises its ‘alternative’ logic by the anaphora of mathematically incompatible prefixes, the latter limits itself to a milder paradox and uses standard aesthetic figures such as alternation and chiasmus. Lines 46– 47 list places where one might find Selene, first with oppositional pairs (sky/water, mountain/road), then with parallelism (underworld/by Hades, nocturnal/shadowy);29 the unusual feature of τε at verse-end helps the two lines to match. In l. 48, ἥσυχε picks up Selene’s appearance at the calm of night, while δασπλῆτις traditionally refers to creatures of the underworld; the pair create a paradox (‘tranquil and horrifying’) in a chiastic relationship with what precedes, and the next three attributes alternate between chthonic and nocturnal. As in the alphabetic hymn, the rhythm of predication is insistent. These passages eschew attribution through relative clauses and participles and so, given the structure of the hexameter, the attributes tend to fall into a pattern of four per line, or three of which either the first or last is extended into a multiple-word noun-phrase.30 Such rhythmic regularity is sought elsewhere in the hymn by other means too: for example, ll. 10–14 each take the form |ἡ + participial phrase. Unlike in the alphabetic hymn, the magical context here gives particular point to the rhythmic emphasis which derives from anaphora and more regularly spaced word-breaks, since it brings these parts of the hymn towards the generic codes of incantation — that is, a specific mode of performance of divine invocations.31

 29 For the opposition of the mountains beyond civilisation and the roads as part of civilisation, see Buxton 1992. 30 See in this hymn, ll. 3, 9, 16, 31–32, and the terrifying climax in ll. 53–54, ‘blood-drinking, death-bringing, begetting destruction, heart-feasting, flesh-eating, clanking in the trench, devouring the untimely dead, sent wandering by the gadfly’. 31 There is useful bibliography on the linguistic characterisation of Greek incantations in McClure 1996. Regarding the regulation of word-breaks I am reminded particularly of the sequence in the binding song at A. Eum. 328–330 τεθυμένωι | τόδε μέλος | παρακοπὰ | παραφορὰ | φρενοδαλής. A connection of such effects to rhythmical entrainment and trancing could perhaps be drawn, with sufficient space and caution.

  Oliver Thomas We have seen in this section that the lists in this magical hymn in places adopt standard strategies of juxtaposition and ideas of how to create divine charis. However, the magical context gives a particular incantatory flavour to passages with heavy anaphora and a preference for three or four epithets per line, and the shifts between the goddess’s ‘many’, ‘four’ and ‘three’ names lay claim to a kind of religious understanding which exists beyond the realm of mundane arithmetic.

 Orphic Hymn 32: Building-blocks for the Ineffable The corpus of eighty-seven Orphic Hymns, tentatively placed near 2nd–3rd century CE Pergamon, are perhaps the richest hunting-ground for extended attribute-lists — which have predictably contributed in the past to the maligning of the corpus as ‘unartistic’.32 The Orphic (hence heterodox, initiatory) milieu of the compositions leads — as did the magical context of the last example — to some particularities in how each attribute-list in the corpus functions. I take the Hymn to Athena (32) as my example: Παλλὰς μουνογενής, μεγάλου Διὸς ἔκγονε σεμνή, δῖα, μάκαιρα θεά, πολεμόκλονε, ὀμβριμόθυμε, ἄρρητε, ῥητή, μεγαλώνυμε, ἀντροδίαιτε, ἣ διέπεις ὄχθους ὑψαύχενας ἀκρωρείους ἠδ’ ὄρεα σκιόεντα, νάπαισί τε σὴν φρένα τέρπεις, ὁπλοχαρής, οἰστροῦσα βροτῶν ψυχὰς μανίαισι, γυμνάζουσα κόρη, φρικώδη θυμὸν ἔχουσα, Γοργοφόνη, φυγόλεκτρε, τεχνῶν μῆτερ πολύολβε, ὁρμάστειρα, φίλοιστρε κακοῖς, ἀγαθοῖς δὲ φρόνησις· ἄρσην μὲν καὶ θῆλυς ἔφυς, πολεματόκε, μῆτι, αἰολόμορφε, δράκαινα, φιλένθεε, ἀγλαότιμε, Φλεγραίων ὀλέτειρα Γιγάντων, ἱππελάτειρα, Τριτογένεια, λύτειρα κακῶν, νικηφόρε δαῖμον ἤματα καὶ νύκτας αἰεὶ νεάταισιν ἐν ὥραις. κλῦθί μου εὐχομένου, δὸς δ’ εἰρήνην πολύολβον καὶ κόρον ἠδ’ ὑγίειαν ἐπ’ εὐόλβοισιν ἐν ὥραις, γλαυκῶφ’, εὑρεσίτεχνε, πολυλλίστη βασίλεια.

5

10

15

 32 See in general Morand 2001, including pp. 40–75 for her analysis of the form of the Orphic Hymns, citing typical dismissive judgments of the style on p. 33; also Hopman-Govers 2001. Rudhardt 2008, 235–250 discusses small-scale logical connections between epithets.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

Pallas, sole-born, reverend child of great Zeus, illustrious, blessed goddess, war-whirler, vehement-spirited, unspeakable, spoken-of, great-named, cave-dwelling, you who traverse high-ridged upland slopes [5] and shadowy hills and find pleasure in glades, armour-glad, goading mortals’ souls with madness, gym-coaching girl, having a spirit to shudder at, Gorgon-slayer, sex-shunner, prosperous mother of crafts, urger, eager to goad the bad but sense for the good — [10] you were conceived male and female, o war-birther, cleverness, shape-shifting, serpent, inspirer, glittering in esteem, destroyer of the Phlegraean Giants, charioteer, Trito-born, releaser from evils, divinity victorious by day and night in each latest season. [15] Hear me as I pray, and grant prosperous peace and satiety and health in addition to goods of fine prosperity season by season(?), olive-eyed one, craft-founder, much prayed-to queen.33

Formally, the goddess’s epiklesis is followed by ten epithets, mostly single-word but with a couple of longer phrases; then comes a relative clause (4–5), after which the list of attributes continues with three participial phrases, then five further epithets. Only in l. 10 does the string of vocative attributes cede to a main clause, though even there the predication is simple in that the main verb is the copula ἔφυς. Eleven epithets follow, then three lines of request (14–16), and three further attributes in the final line. The arrangement of attributes of different types (single-word, multiple-word, participial, relative) is therefore not made a basis of patterning, as in the Hymn to Ares. However a different sort of semantic patterning is present. Whereas in the Hymn to Ares I compared the trajectory of the attribute-list to a rocket-launcher, here attributes with semantic connections appear in blocks. This technique starts with the tight connection in l. 1 between Athena’s unique birth (from Zeus’s head) and her being called ‘child of Zeus’. In l. 2 Athena’s war-whirling goes hand in hand with the vehemence of her spirit. Line 3 introduces a characteristic Orphic variation on this blocking: ‘unspeakable, spoken-of, great-named’ all refer to human language, but the latter two seem incompatible with the first. (We will return to this block below.) The end of l. 3 and the relative clause in ll. 4–5 form a further

 33 The text in l. 14 is doubtful because νέατος is not otherwise used of ὥρα (one could read αἰειναέεσσιν ‘ever-abundant’ — cf. Nicander fr. 78.5 — or αἰεὶ νεαραῖσιν, perhaps), and because it is difficult to attach the temporal phrases to νικηφόρε or to anything else. The two prepositions in l. 16 look wrong, but there are parallels in 10.29 σὺν εὐόλβοισιν ἐν ὥραις, 26.11 σὺν ὀλβίοισιν ἐν ὥραις, and I doubt a single unfortunate phrase (Fayant 2014 suggests σὺν ὀλβιοδώτισιν Ὥραις; cf. Vian 2004, 138–140) was corrupted in three different ways in three different passages. Elsewhere the Orphic Hymns use the phrase σὺν/ἐπ’ εὐόλβοις κτεάτεσσιν, but at 51.18 a hymn ends ἀεξιτρόφοισιν ἐν ὥραις, so it is not clear that ἐν ὥραις is wrong. I have tentatively translated as if εὔολβα were substantivised. Vian (followed by Fayant) also wanted to emend 16 κόρον, but for the rehabilitation of κόρος see e.g. Democr. fr. 219.

  Oliver Thomas block of favoured haunts. Lines 6–7 and ‘Gorgon-slayer’ return to Athena’s belligerence; the masculinity and physicality continue into γυμνάζουσα (‘gymcoaching’), after which ‘girl’ forms — in Greek terms — a paradoxical juxtaposition. The rest of ll. 8–10 bring us to a stage where it becomes clear that these blocks are interacting with each other. The girl’s virginity relates closely to ‘sex-shunner’ (a reference to Hephaestus’ failed attempt to rape Athena), but then a further paradoxical juxtaposition follows when Athena’s patronage of crafts (especially weaving, traditionally) is described with the metaphor ‘mother’. Line 9 helps to integrate this new facet of Athena: her role as ‘inciter’ involves both goading the evil (presumably with the madness of war: cf. the goading of l. 6) and providing sensible mental instigation to the good (e.g. towards skill and prosperity: cf. l. 8). Hence the previous blocks of militaristic epithets receive some nuancing, and are connected through the hinge of ‘instigation’ to Athena’s technical side. Indeed, with hindsight, ‘Gorgon-slayer’ may already combine the belligerent and the technical, since it was on that occasion that Athena invented the aulos (according to Pindar Pythian 12). Following the thread back further, even Athena’s birthmyth in l. 1 combines the two sides: she emerged from Zeus’s head fully-armed, having originally been conceived by Metis (‘Cleverness’), whom Zeus then swallowed.34 And further still: Pallas suggests πάλλω and hence someone who ‘brandishes’ weapons; but Apion mentions an Orphic interpretation of the epiklesis via the throbbing of the heart (often conceived as the body’s intellectual centre) as the effect of Athena’s instillation of intelligence and technical φρόνησις (as in l. 9) into the world.35 Line 10 confirms and extends this picture. The epithets ‘war-birther, cleverness’ correspond to l. 8 in juxtaposing militarism and craft, and in juxtaposing metaphorical motherhood (-τόκε, this time attached to the militaristic side) with Athena’s lack of connection to mothering — for Cleverness (Μῆτις) was the mother whom the father absorbed to constitute the daughter. Athena’s androgyny earlier in the line, and the focus on conception in the verb (ἔφυς), also suggest that Athena’s unique gestation and birth (her motherlessness) made her

 34 See e.g. Hesiod Th. 886–900 (on Metis), with West 1966; also Th. 924–926 (birth of Athena), ‘Hes.’ fr. 343. 35 Orph. fr. 263 Bernabé; Quandt 1955 also cites Cornutus ND p. 33.10 for Athena as phronesis; this would be one of many connections between the Orphic Hymns and Cornutus’ Stoic theology. For Πάλλας and brandishing a spear see e.g. Pl. Crat. 406d–407a, ΣD Il. 1.200; the latter also suggests a link to her springing from (ἀνα-παλ-θῆναι) Zeus’s head, which would suit my interpretation.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

masculine (militaristic), a girl of the gym, a mother not of babies but of war.36 The repeated stem for ‘goad’ (οἶστρος), furthermore, is used of sexual desire by Greek medical writers: Athena’s libido has been diverted from normal sexuality towards a gender-transgressive goading of men to war.37 Thus ll. 1–10 are not a miscellany, or even a miscellany of blocks of attributes; they take shape as a carefully controlled gradual revelation of connections between Athena’s militarism, motherlessness, and intellectualism or involvement with crafts — from a connection grounded in esoteric Orphic etymology, to links which are implicit, to the clarity of l. 9 with confirmation in the main clause of l. 10. I suggest that the odd idea that Athena likes caves and peaks (ll. 3–5, which Ruhnken wanted to seclude to avoid the anomaly) may be interpretable in terms of this coherence. As a ‘consequence’ of her gestation in a cavity in Zeus’s head, Athena likes heights and caves, which are normally the preserve of another committed virgin and ‘manly’ goddess, Artemis.38 The block of epithets which I am yet to integrate into my reading is the one concerning Athena’s relationship with human language and hence directly with the hymn itself: ‘unspeakable, spoken-of, great-named’ (3). Other phrases also allude from within the hymn to the way verbal interactions between humans and gods may work. Most obviously, the hymnist prays to a queen ‘who receives many prayers’ (17), hence situates himself within ritual tradition and normalises his request. Athena also favours inspiration (11), and wields a maddening ‘goad’ (6) — the language of mantic poetic inspiration, besides the military and sexual interpretations already raised.39 Line 9 (‘sense for the good’) shows the poet’s affiliation to her intellectual side, and it is this which has the last mention (17 εὑρεσίτεχνε) as her militarism is turned round into a prayer for peace.40 All this prompts one to wonder whether the intellectual weaving (ὑμήν) of religious poetry (ὕμνος) is a craft in which Athena takes a special interest. However that may be, ‘greatnamed’ suggests the capaciousness of the epiklesis ‘Pallas’, referred to above. The

 36 For androgyny in the Orphic Hymns see Morand 2001, 171. Guthrie 1930, 219 compares Orph. fr. 54 Kern on the androgyny of Adrasteia (compare n. 38). 37 οἶστρος in this sense: e.g. Soranus G. 1.33.2, Galen UP 14.9 (iv.179 Kühn). 38 Guthrie 1930, 219–220 explains ‘cave-dwelling’ via an Orphic syncretism of Athena with Adrasteia, and the love of mountains by a syncretism of Athena with the Phrygian Mother-Goddess, known at Iconium. Fayant 2014, 282 accepts the latter point, and on p. 277 compares Orph. fr. 267 Bernabé where Athena leads the Kouretes, to whom Orph.H. 31 was addressed. 39 See e.g. Or. Sib. 11.323, Orph.Arg. 10, 47, 102–103 with Luiselli 1993, 271–283. 40 In this sense the bottom line of this hymn and the Hymn to Ares are similar. But we have seen that the build-up is different: the Hymn to Ares worked Ares into a bestower of peace gradually; the Orphic hymnist embedded Athena’s intellectual side from the start.

  Oliver Thomas characteristic juxtaposition of ‘unspeakable’ (ἄρρητε) and ‘spoken-of’ (ῥητή) acknowledges that the hymn is speaking of Athena without uttering her name, but also that the hymnist is choosing linguistic forms which on a deeper level allow for Athena’s ineffability but still manage to adumbrate it for others.41 One of these forms is the attribute-list, whose avoidance of explicit logical sequencing allows for paradoxical juxtapositions — such as the phrases γυμνάζουσα κόρη (7), φυγόλεκτρε … μῆτερ (8), ἄρσην καὶ θῆλυς (10), and ἄρρητε ῥητή (3) itself42 — and invites the audience to construct the deity from the list for themselves. Such an attempt requires tools of analysis which may be esoteric. In an Orphic context, there are outsiders, initiates (mystai), and full initiates (epoptai) — or local variants of these strata — who have different levels of knowledge about the mysteries. Hence the interpretative requirements imposed by an attribute-list allow for the hymn to reinforce the hierarchy of knowledge within the cult: some receivers have the tools to understand more about Athena than others. My aspiration is not, of course, to discover all those tools. For example, I fail to see why Athena is called a snake in this particular context (11).43 But I hope to have shown that ll. 1–10 enact a gradual revelation of how one may connect Athena’s militarism, motherlessness, and intellectualism; and that this process is mimetic of the revelation of the unspeakable in a mystery ritual.

 Conclusions and Prospects I have focussed on lists of attributes, but lists considered more broadly certainly play a role in the construction of pagan Greek hymns. By ‘list’ here I am referring to a sequence of elements (now including whole sentences) which are grammatically substitutable, connected by parataxis or asyndeton rather than hypotaxis, and can be united as all relating to a particular subject or category. Perhaps it would be appropriate to list some of the principal kinds of list, as follows: – Lists of addressees in hymns to multiple deities: e.g. Sophocles OT 158–215; Aristophanes Lys. 1279–1290; Epidaurian Hymn to All the Gods (IG IV2 i.129); Herodas 4.1–11; A.P. 9.184 in a prayer to the nine lyric poets.  41 For such juxtapositions and the word ἄρρητος in the Orphic Hymns see Morand 2001, 147– 150. She discusses logic-bending juxtapositions also on pp. 66–67. For lists and ineffability in medieval liturgy cf. Eco 2009, 133. 42 Also, perhaps μουνογενής (1) and Τριτογένεια (3), since the latter could be understood as compounded from τρίτος (third). Recall Ares being both bronze- and gold-helmeted above. 43 Cf. Guthrie 1930, 220–221 on her iconographical connection to snakes.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

– –

– –

– –

Lists of narrative possibilities, especially in the form of a priamel: e.g. Homeric Hymn to Apollo 207–215; Pindar fr. 29. Lists of relevant places: e.g. Homeric Hymn to Apollo 30–44 (places Leto visited in labour), 216–282 (stops on Apollo’s first journey to Delphi); Philodamos Paean to Dionysus 14–20 (places which rejoice at Dionysus’ birth); Callimachus H.Del. 41–50 (places visited by Asterie), 284–290 (the route of the Hyperborean gifts); Isidorus 3.20–25 (places the god may currently be); Mesomedes Sol. 1–4 (places which should fall silent for the hymn); PGM hymn 5.1–7 (the same). Lists of epikleseis specific to the different places: e.g. Callimachus H.Art. 225– 259;44 the Naassenian Hymn to Attis (GDRK 44.2); Isidorus 1.18–24. Lists of people with a special relationship to the addressee: e.g. Aristonous Ap. 33–40 (other gods at Delphi); Erythraean Paean to Asclepius 10–15 (McCabe 1986, no.1) (Asclepius’ children); Callimachus H.Art. 189–217 (Artemis’ favourite women). Lists of requests: e.g. Palaikastro Hymn to the Kouros 27–36;45 Proclus H. 7.47–50. Lists in which anaphora highlights the structure: e.g. Orphic fr. 31 Bernabé (list of Zeus’s properties with anaphora of Ζεύς); Callimachus H.Del. 260–263 (anaphora of χρυσ–, listing parts of Delos which were gilded at Apollo’s birth); more subtly H.Dem. 135–137 (requests beginning φέρε ... φέρβε ... φέρε ... φέρε ... οἶσε ... φέρβε); Proclus H. 7.7–23 (inset narratives each beginning ἥ).46 A particular feature of hymns is anaphora of ‘you’, the so-called Du-Stil:47 e.g. Aristotle Hymn to Virtue 9–14 (PMG 842); Callimachus H.Zeus 46–49, H.Del. 219–221; I.Kourion 104; a very striking example is PGM hymn

 44 This list shows the fulfilment of Artemis’ request at ll. 6–7 for ‘many names, so that Phoebus cannot compete with me’; this request also makes sense of the interaction between the brief lists of Artemis’ gold possessions (110–112) and of Apollo’s gold possessions (Call. H.Ap. 32–34). 45 See Furley/Bremer 2001 ii.1–3 for the lineation and textual problems. These lines force eight requests into a repeated metaphor, that Zeus ‘jump upon’ various elements of Cretan society. The penultimate stanza seems to mention wine-jars, flocks, crops, households, i.e. matters relevant to individual households. There is irregular anaphora: θόρ’ ἐς ... |καὶ θόρ’ ... ἐς ... |κἐς ... θόρε |κἐς .... The final stanza mentions cities, ships, youths, justice, i.e. matters at the level of the broader community. This intensification is matched formally by a shift to regular anaphora (|θόρε κἐς in each of 32–35). Furthermore, while other gods could equally help with the first seven requests, the final one is phrased (35 θόρε κἐς θέμιν) to suggest something which only Zeus can do, since he alone impregnated (another sense of θορ-) Themis with a capital theta. In other words, the list has a strong sense of dynamics. 46 For Callimachus’ penchant for anaphora see also H.Art. 56–58, Lav.Pall. 45–48 47 Christened and discussed at Norden 1913, 143–163.

  Oliver Thomas

–

–

7.1–10, with anaphora of |σέ, apparently scanned long because of dynamic stress, followed by τόν. Lists in which the treatment of each element is pointedly varied: e.g. Callimachus H.Del. 70–161 lists places which fled from Leto to avoid incurring Hera’s anger; this list has brief patches of anaphora at 70–75 (five clauses beginning φεῦγε) and 103–105 (two more), but is punctuated by the extended treatments of Apollo’s anger at Thebe (86–99), Leto’s conversation with Peneios (106–152) and Apollo’s prediction about Cos (162–195, at which point the list loses its identity). Lists in which …

… stop! There is something unsatisfying about this exercise, which takes us back to the main purpose of this essay. A list of list-types presents one of many possible analyses of the phenomena. And my one does have some implicit taxonomic structure: ordering by content (proceeding roughly from contents normally found near the start to those normally found near the end, and making some use of formal analyses of hymns which I have found helpful), gives way to ordering by technique. But would a chronological taxonomy (reconstructed list-techniques of Indo-European, lists in Near Eastern traditions which affected Greece, lists in the 7th century, lists in the 6th century …48), or one organised by function, or by length or by ‘degree of listiness’ (however one wished to define that), or by subgenre (lists in hexameter hymns, lists in paeans, lists in dithyrambs, lists in prose hymns …), be more insightful? Once one starts seeing the particularity of individual examples — even in lists of attributes in a mere four hexameter hymns — the idea of finding a single categorisation which would be revealing for each individual example begins to look over-optimistic. A ‘meta-list’ of lists would have made an unsatisfying essay, because it would not attempt to analyse which categorisations of lists are revealing. We have seen a similar intuition applied to attribute-lists themselves — that they might make an unsatisfying hymn, because they take too easy a route to reveal a deep understanding of a deity’s character. So why use them? Although I have only been able to analyse four examples here, all written in a single metre, I believe we have

 48 Greek hymns show particular affinities, and probably share some ‘genes’, with Indian and Avestan traditions on the one hand and on the other with the connected traditions of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Hittites. A number of list-like features can be found in hymns from all these areas (and no doubt in others). Useful starting-points are West 2007, 304–325; Metcalf 2015, and the relevant chapters of Burkert/Stolz 1994.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

enough material for some provisional conclusions about how lists and hymns may interact, which may serve as a hypothesis for further work. Attribute-lists, by their nature, juxtapose elements rather than connecting them logically; they can in particular make paradoxical juxtapositions which flout ordinary principles of compatibility. Nevertheless in many cases attributelists do have implicit ordering principles — phonetic (e.g. the alphabetical hymns; the cohesion brought by anaphora, or by the repeated suffix -τειρα in Orph.H. 32.12–13), syntactic, semantic, rhythmical (e.g. the incantatory regularity in parts of the magical hymn, or the vertical juxtapositions in the alphabetical hymn), or a mixture (e.g. the semantic and syntactic trajectory of the list in the Homeric Hymn to Ares). These ordering principles, and the flouting of normal logic, can each combine effectively with the pragmatics of hymnic performance. On the one hand, the flouting of normalcy may advertise the mysterious nature of a belief, and the hymnist’s achievement in having acquired the special vantage-point from which one can make sense of the paradox; where there is a wider human audience (e.g. in the Orphic Hymns, but not those in PGM) this is equally a challenge to them to adopt that vantage-point. On the other hand, the use of implicit ordering principles tempts the audience into the act of constructing a god — a more ‘Socratic’ way for a hymn to foster as well as demonstrate understanding of the deity. The Orphic Hymn to Athena was an example where this work of audience-construction may have been differential (easier for some audience-members than others), so that the list became a tool for reinforcing ingroup identities. It seemed to implicate the audience like this as a means of mitigating the failure of any finite linguistic act to describe a deity; the alphabetical hymns responded to that failure in a different way, with a playful symbolism of completeness supplemented by suggestive juxtapositions. I referred in my title to the ‘Powers of suggestion of powers’. I have focussed on the inexplicit logical constructions of lists of divine powers, as a feature which is suggestive particularly through forms of juxtaposition. Two important ‘powers’ of that form of suggestion are — I submit — the power to involve an audience in active construction of a god, as a strategy for promoting divine charis by disseminating understanding of the addressee; and the power to demonstrate an abnormal kind of understanding of the god, as a strategy for obtaining preferential treatment.

  Oliver Thomas

Bibliography Abbreviations CID GDRK I.Kourion PGM

Bélis, A. (1992), Corpus des inscriptions de Delphes, III: Les hymnes à Apollon, Paris. Heitsch, E. (1961–1964), Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeit, Göttingen (2 vols.). Mitford, T.B. (1971), The Inscriptions of Kourion, Philadelphia. Preisendanz, K. revised Henrichs, A. (1973–1974), Papyri Graecae magicae, Stuttgart (2 vols.).

Works Cited Aitchison, J. (42012), Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon, Malden, MA (11987). Appel, W. (1983), “Wókoł tzw. Homeryckiego Hymnu do Aresa (VIII)”, in: Meander 38.12, 449– 454. Bortolani, L.M. (2016), Magical Hymns from Roman Egypt: A Study of Greek and Egyptian Traditions of Divinity, Cambridge. Bulloch, A.W. (1985), Callimachus: The Fifth Hymn, Cambridge. Burkert, W./Stolz, F. (eds.) (1994), Hymnen der Alten Welt im Kulturvergleich, Freiburg. Buxton, R.G.A. (1992), “Imaginary Greek Mountains”, in: JHS 112, 1–15. Càssola, F. (1975), Inni omerici, Milan. Depew, M. (2000), “Enacted and Represented Dedications: Genre and Greek Hymn”, in: M. Depew/D. Obbink (eds.), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons and Society, Cambridge, Ma., 59–79. Dieterich, A. (1901), “ABC-Denkmaeler”, in: RhM 56, 77–105. Eco, U. (2009), Vertige de la liste, Paris. Erasmus, D. (1523), Catalogus omnium Erasmi Roterodami lucubrationum, ipso autore, cum aliis nonnullis, Basel. Fayant, M.-C. (2014), Hymnes orphiques, Paris. Furley, W.D./Bremer, J.M. (2001), Greek Hymns, Tübingen. Gelzer, Th. (1987), “Bemerkungen zum Homerischen Ares-Hymnus (Hom. Hy. 8)”, in: MH 44, 150–167. Graf, F. (1991), “Prayer and Magic in Religious Ritual”, in: C.A. Faraone/D. Obbink (eds.), Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, Oxford, 188–213. Guthrie, W.K.C. (1930), “Epithets in the Orphic Hymns”, in: CR 44.6, 216–221. Heitsch, E. (1959), “Zu den Zauberhymnen”, in: Philologus 103, 215–236. Hopman-Govers, M. (2001), “Le jeu des épithètes dans les Hymnes orphiques”, in: Kernos 14, 35–49. Janko, R. (1981), “The Structure of the Homeric Hymns: a study in genre”, in: Hermes 109, 9– 24.

Powers of Suggestion of Powers: Attribute-Lists in Greek Hymns  

Keyssner, K. (1932), Gottesvorstellung und Lebensauffassung im griechischen Hymnus, Stuttgart. Lanna, S. (2013), Mesomede: Inno a Φύσις: introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e commento, Rome. Lebek, W.D. (1973), “Ein Hymnus auf Antinoos (Mitford, The inscriptions of Kourion no.104)”, in: ZPE 12, 101–137. Luiselli, R. (1993), “Contributo all’interpretazione delle Argonautiche orfiche: studio sul proemio”, in: A. Masaracchia (ed.), Orfeo e l’orfismo, Rome, 265–307. Luz, C. (2010), Technopaignia: Formspiele in der griechischen Dichtung, Leiden. Matthiae, A. (1805), Homeri Hymni et Batrachomyomachia, Leipzig. McCabe, D.F. (1986), Erythrai Inscriptions: Texts and Lists, Princeton. McClure, L. (1996), “Clytemnestra’s Binding Spell (Ag. 958–974)”, in: CJ 92.2, 123–140. Metcalf, C. (2015), The Gods Rich in Praise, Oxford. Morand, A.-F. (2001), Études sur les hymnes orphiques, Leiden. Norden, E. (1913), Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede, Berlin. Pachoumi, E. (2017), The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri, Tübingen. Pulleyn, S.J. (1997), Prayer in Greek Religion, Oxford. Quandt, W. (1955), Orphei Hymni, Berlin. Rudhardt, J. (2008), Opera inedita, Liège. Van den Berg, R.M. (2001), Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary, Leiden. Van den Berg, R.M. (2016), “The Homeric Hymns in Late Antiquity: Proclus and the Hymn to Ares”, in: A. Faulkner/A. Schwab/A. Vergados (eds.), The Reception of the Homeric Hymns, Oxford, 203–220. Versnel, H.S. (1990), Ter Unus: Isis, Dionysos, Hermes: Three Studies in Henotheism, Leiden. Versnel, H.S. (2002), “The Poetics of the Magical Charm: an essay on the power of words”, in: P. Mirecki/M. Meyer (eds.), Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World, Leiden, 105–158. Vian, F. (2004), “Notes critiques et exégétiques aux Hymnes orphiques”, in: RÉA 106, 133–146. West, M.L. (1966), Hesiod: Theogony, Oxford. West, M.L. (1970), “The Eighth Homeric Hymn and Proclus”, in: CQ 20.2, 300–304. West, M.L. (2007), Indo-European Poetry and Myth, Oxford.

Olga Tribulato

(En)listing the Good Authors: The Defence of Greek Linguistic Variety in the Antiatticist Lexicon  Introduction: List of Words in the Greek World In ancient Greece lists of words ranging from scholia on major authors to glossaries of dialectal or rare terms were a common means to process specialist information and make it available to various types of audiences. However, in spite of the central role that these fundamental texts held in Classical and Byzantine Greece our knowledge of them is patchy, due to the fact that a huge amount of ancient scholarship has been lost and most of what has survived has not reached us in its original form. Thus, almost nothing survives from important Hellenistic glossaries such as Aristophanes of Byzantium’s Attic glosses or the Ἄτακτοι γλῶσσαι by Philitas of Cos: the scanty fragments that we read nowadays are reconstructed from citations in later lexica, with the interpretative issues that this path of transmission entails. Such Hellenistic works, which share an interest in dialectal and rare terms, were the by-product of the Alexandrian exegetical activity on Classical literature and its literary dialects.1 The interest in difficult and rare words however must predate these surviving testimonies, given that Aristotle already identifies the use of γλῶτται as a characteristic feature of the elevated style (Po. 22.1 (1459a9)): it must thus be assumed that glossaries had already started to be assembled in the Classical age, perhaps with the primary aim of aiding the reading of ‘difficult’ authors such as Homer.2 The first extant examples of lexica of this type date to the first century AD (Apollonius Sophista’s Homeric Lexicon and Erotian’s Hippocratic glossary) but they are based on earlier Hellenistic scholarship that is now lost (for instance Apion’s Γλῶσσαι Ὁμηρικαί, late first century BC, or the Hippocratic lexicon of Bacchius of Tanagra, third century BC), which suggests an uninterrupted line of lexicographical activity. Until recent times ancient scholarship was largely the territory of specialists, who edited and used lexica to gain information about literary authors; this body  1 Introductory information on these early glossaries can be found in Schironi 2009, 28–38; Dubischar 2015, 582–583; Montana 2015, 71–72 (on Philitas and Hellenistic culture). 2 Schironi 2009, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-008

  Olga Tribulato of works was hardly studied in its own right. The past twenty years have witnessed a surge of interest in this field, testified both by the succession of new editions of scholia, commentaries and lexica, and by the number of companions and introductions which have been devoted to ancient scholarship as a whole and made it less esoteric for untrained Classicists.3 As a consequence, lexica too have begun to be studied as sources of information on the transmission of knowledge, and particularly language, in Antiquity. However, the semiotic and hermeneutical analysis of ancient Greek lexica, with their socio-cultural implications, remains a completely unexplored field, which could yield interesting results particularly in a comparative perspective.4 This paper offers a contribution in this direction.

 Methodological Questions Let us consider a few facts pertaining to ancient lexica from the point of view of the focus of interest of this volume, the definition of lists and their use in the ancient world. The first fact which is worth paying attention to is that ancient lexica should be regarded not as mere dictionaries but as veritable cultural containers, akin to encyclopaedias, only more fluid: in the course of their transmission ancient lexica became the object of textual interventions, interpolations, and forms of ‘editing in’ and ‘editing out’ which are not as common in modern works before

 3 In the field of lexicography, mention should be made at least of the lexica published in the Sammlung griechischer und lateinischer Grammatiker (SGLG) in the last twenty years, which include new editions of the Συναγωγὴ λέξεων χρησίμων (Cunningham 2003) and Orus’ lexicon (Alpers 2011); the completion of Hesychius’ lexicon by Hansen 2005 and Hansen/Cunningham 2009 and the new edition of vols. 1 and 2 by Cunningham 2018 and Cunningham 2020; new editions of Timaeus’ Platonic lexicon (Valente 2012) and the Antiatticist (Valente 2015). The knowledge of ancient grammar has been greatly advanced by Slater’s edition of the fragments of Aristophanes of Byzantium (Slater 1986) and Matthaios’ monograph on Aristarchus (Matthaios 1999), as well as by the Brill’s online encyclopaedia devoted to ancient grammar (Lexicon of Greek Grammarians of Antiquity = LGGA) produced by Franco Montanari and his team (https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/lexicon-of-greek-grammarians-of-antiquity; https://brill.com/view/db/lgga). References to these and other works can be found in the handbooks, companions and edited volumes by Dickey 2007; Matthaios/Montanari/Rengakos 2011; Montanari/Pagani 2011; Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos 2015. 4 An essay of the socio-cultural analysis of ancient lexica is provided by Matthaios 2013, who offers an unprecedented analysis of the ‘social groups’ of different speakers alluded to in Pollux’ lexicon.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

the digital era.5 While contemporary printed dictionaries are closed entities (although what they collect — i.e. the standard usage of a certain language — is obviously not, as language is perpetually in evolution), ancient lexica may be seen as the open list par excellence. Such openness was encouraged by their frequently onomastic structure (the ordering of words according to semantic fields): in principle, therefore, onomastic lists could be infinitely expanded as the semantic fields themselves grew.6 Thus, although most Classicists would approach lexica as practical tools to gain information on the language of a given author or the attestation of a certain term, the correct way to read them cannot be limited to the study of their immediate content but needs to encompass literary criticism, ancient grammatical thought and the history of scholarship as well. Another fact which sets ancient lexica apart from modern lexicography is that the ‘list status’ of many lexica may sometimes be the result of a later process of compression. As examples of this aspect one may recall the works of the most important lexicographer of the Atticist age, Phrynichus. His magnum opus, the Praeparatio sophistica in 37 volumes, must have been a detailed and discursive treatise on rhetorical style, but it has come down to us in the shape of a list, consisting of entries commenting on certain linguistic usages: the longest of them do not exceed 12 lines in de Borries’ standard edition.7 The Selection of Attic verbs and nouns, Phrynichus’ more intransigent work, is itself suspiciously laconic in many of its entries and the first word of its title, Ἐκλογή, evokes a selective process which may well have involved the abridgement of an originally longer work.8

 5 Online reference works such as the online Oxford English Dictionary, Wikipedia and The Urban Dictionary are in a state of constant augmentation and emendation which is virtually endless. They also open up challenging epistemological perspectives concerning authoriality: authors of entries in the OED are anonymous, but are part of a previously approved board of contributors, while Wikipedia or The Urban Dictionary editors can choose to contribute anonymously, under a nickname or with their real name, but they remain unknown to both Wikipedia users and staff (though the roles of ‘overseer’ and ‘CheckUser’ are known to the Wikimedia Foundation: cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_anonymous). 6 On this onomastic structure of many ancient lexica, see Tosi 2015, 623–625. 7 De Borries 1911. Most entries are transmitted through an epitome; de Borries also edits as fragments 337 quotations or mentions of Phrynichus in Byzantine lexica. 8 This was the communis opinio at the time of the Ecloga’s first modern editions by Lobeck 1820 and Rutherford 1881. The new edition by Fischer 1974 challenged this dogma: see Fischer 1974, 37, followed e.g. by Dickey 2015, 466 and Matthaios 2015, 292. I personally prefer to view the extant Ecloga as an abridgment: some entries are exceedingly short even for a work the style of which might have been brisk. Moreover, the longer entries (e.g. 394 Fischer) display a more discursive attitude which may well have been the original one.

  Olga Tribulato This paper develops a cultural interpretative approach to ancient lexica in their ontological status as lists of words and pays attention to some of the epistemological and hermeneutical issues that concern the definition of lists cross-linguistically: their degree of openness or closedness; their reduced syntax and spare style; their paradigmatic status; the difficulty to summarize them; and their lack of independence (to be interpretable, lists need to be put in a context).9 As a case-study, the paper focuses on a lesser-known lexicon of the Atticist age, the so-called Antiatticist, an anonymous work probably produced in the second century AD. This period represents a watershed in the history of ancient lexica. As far as we can tell, this was the first time lexica were produced to teach writers (and, perhaps, speakers) how to use language correctly. This prescriptive purpose, which is undocumented in earlier lexicographical works, makes the Atticist lexica an interesting cross-product between dictionaries (which simply define meanings) and grammars (which describe language and determine what is correct and what is not). Because of their normative character, Atticist lexica not only contributed to the literary and grammatical interpretation of ancient texts, but were key players in the evolution of the Greek language: through the reverberation of Byzantine belles lettres their lists of words have constituted the backbone of purist Greek, sometimes down to the new variety engineered in the 19th-century (katharevousa).10 For many reasons, however, the Antiatticist represents a special example of Atticist lexicography, and an ideal case-study for important theoretical questions concerning lists cross-culturally. For a start, the Antiatticist does not align itself with mainstream Atticism: its list of linguistic usages, by and large, aims at upholding a very different picture of what constitutes ‘correct’ Greek.11 Part of the interest of the Antiatticist lies in the way it selects and organizes the material to serve its own linguistic aims. But the Antiatticist is also unique with regard to its genesis and transmission: it is anonymous, untitled (or rather: its ancient title is no longer extant), and transmitted by a single source. It is certainly an epitome, but its ancestor is not known; nor are most of the sources which it employs.

 9 For these issues, see Mainberger 2003, 10 and Hamon 2013, 26 (both on openness vs. closedness); Mainberger 2003, 11; 31–33 (syntax); Hamon 2013, 27 (paradigmaticity); Mainberger 2003, 12 (lack of independence). 10 For introductions to the role of Atticism in the development of the Greek language, see Browning 1969, 49–55 and Horrocks 2010, 141. 11 See Latte 1915 and the overview in Valente 2015, 43–51, with further references.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

Because of these and other characteristics, the Antiatticist is also representative of the phenomena which are typical of lists and catalogues in general: economy of presentation (sometimes to the point of obscurity); potential for abbreviation, interpolation, manipulation and thus multiple interpretation. The next five sections consider the place that the Antiatticist occupies within the field of Atticist lexicography and focus on its unique criteria of organization, which are a key to understanding how different the linguistic goal of this lexicon was from that of other contemporary works.

 The Antiatticist and its Atticist Context The Antiatticist and contemporary Atticist lexica are the best-preserved examples of Imperial lexicography and the systematization of knowledge that it promoted. At the same time, they mark “a turning point in the entire field of lexicography” (Matthaios 2015, 277) because they transcend the mere interpretative function of previous as well as contemporary glossaries and acquire a distinctive ideological character. The cultural importance of these Atticist works throughout Antiquity and Byzantine times is evidenced by the fact that four lexica have survived in an extended (though epitomized and often interpolated) form: the above-mentioned Praeparatio sophistica and Ecloga by Phrynichus Arabius, Pollux’ Onomasticon and Moeris’ Atticista. The first three works were produced in the second century AD, while Moeris’ lexicon (now an epitome consisting of very short entries) is probably to be dated to the third century.12 Moreover, several fragments survive of the early second century AD lexica produced by Aelius Dionysius and Pausanias Atticista.13 All these works had the practical purpose of teaching readers of the Imperial age what linguistic features were to be used in belletristic Greek.14 Linguistic Atticism thus constitutes the scholarly counterpart to — and often the cornerstone

 12 Pollux’ Onomasticon is available in the still excellent edition of Bethe 1900–1937. Moeris is edited by Hansen 1998. Updated references to all these lexica can now be found in Matthaios 2015, 292–296; Dickey 2015, 466–467. 13 Edited by Erbse 1950. 14 The emphasis that these lexica accord to literary language has led modern scholars to deny that Atticist lexicographers were interested in giving instructions on spoken language as well. However, in his study of orthoepic prescriptions Vessella 2018 shows that several lemmas of the lexica concern pronunciation.

  Olga Tribulato of — the so-called Second Sophistic whose authors, with varying degrees of militancy and criticism, imitated the Attic style and language in their writings.15 The promotion of Attic as a model however predates the second century AD and is rooted in the classicist tendencies of the two preceding centuries, when Greek and Roman literary theory began to pay attention to the issue of mimesis and therefore to the models which should be set for literary style. Although this was still a period of relative freedom and experimentation, the rhetorical and stylistic theorizations of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Caecilius of Caleacte already tended to associate good writing with the choice of appropriate language: Attic was not yet singled out as the only suitable variety for a lofty style (Dionysius for example often praised Herodotus’ “sweet” Ionic, a view later shared by Hermogenes), but the choice of models was already practically limited to the “canonical” Attic prose-writers (Thucydides, Plato, the ten orators). The evolution of this form of meditated classicism into the linguistic purism of the following centuries, which predicated the close imitation of a limited number of Attic authors, was probably the result of two concurrent events. On the one hand, the idealization of Attic was aided by and reflected the Hellenistic interest in this dialect: Attic authors, proverbs and glosses constituted the core of a large number of scholarly works produced by Alexandrian scholars.16 Most of these works are now lost, but certainly represented a precious basis for the lexicographers of the following centuries, who did not simply use, excerpt and combine the material of these predecessors, but proceeded to shape an entirely new field of lexicography, which now laid claims to influencing the literary and rhetorical debate too.17 On the other hand, the transformation of Greek into a global language — initiated by Alexander’s conquests but dramatically amplified by the expansion of Roman domination in the East between the first century BC and the beginning of the second century AD — contributed to deepening the gulf between the ‘international’ koine employed in every-day communication and the language of Classical Athens, the main predecessor of koine. Since the political discourse construed  15 The standard work on literary Atticism remains Schmid 1887–1896. 16 The literature on the role of Attic in Greek lexicography and grammar is vast. The following recent overviews contain references to landmark studies which should be consulted for in-depth (though sometimes dated) analyses of individual lexicographers or works: Ascheri 2010, 127–128 and n. 10; Matthaios 2015, 238–247 and 290–296 passim; Dickey 2015, 464–469. 17 Tosi 1994, 168–178; Tosi 1997; Matthaios 2015, 275–277. Note in particular his remark that “[t]his manner of proceeding should by no means be regarded as suggesting a lack of originality. Rather, Imperial and Late Antique lexica represent one of the most creative moments of lexicographic activity”, a suggestion which I take up below.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

by the Graeco-Roman educated elite rested upon a connection with the values of the Classical past, identified with those of democratic Athens and her literature, ability to employ ‘correct Greek’ (i.e. Attic) became an important marker of cultural identity and social differentiation.18 The interpretation of the role and function of Atticist lexicography can greatly benefit from an interdisciplinary approach that looks at it in its ‘list status’ and applies the frameworks suggested for the cross-cultural analysis of lists. Marion Colas-Blaise distinguishes two “regimes” in the construction of lists, based on a twofold dynamic. The first is “re-productive” and characterizes ‘closed’ lists; the second is “propositionnelle” and characterizes ‘open’ lists: these adopt a special point of view and direct one’s gaze towards otherness.19 Atticist lexicography, which does not merely collect old language from old texts but aims to shape a new language and contribute to the creation of new texts, could be interpreted as an example of a ‘propositional’ list: behind their apparently arid lists of lexical items Atticist lexica are driven by a force which certainly influences the creation of new texts. Most Atticist lexica however also contain features which could rather be seen as characteristic of that ‘reproductive modality’ which, according to Colas-Blaise, rests on description, demonstration, and explication: features which are best embodied by onomastic and lexical lists.20 This is because Atticist linguistic sensitivity paradoxically enough excludes inventiveness and privileges homologation. The ‘new’ world which the Atticists wished to create did not allow any new language at all, but was marked by the strict adherence to an idea of tradition: The productive function, however, involved a close connection with the normative and prescriptive character of lexicography, as the lexicographer attempted with his work to instruct the user in the correct use of language, at the same time also exercising influence in questions of language development.21

On balance, Atticist lexica may be located at the crossroads between the two modalities identified by Colas-Blaise:

 18 The socio-political dimension of the language question is analyzed in Anderson 1993, 86– 100; Swain 1996, 17–64; Schmitz 1997, 67–96 and 110–127; Whitmarsh 2005, 41–56. 19 Colas-Blaise 2013, 34–40. A similar classification has been suggested by Mainberger 2003, 21–23 who distinguishes between “Denotation” and “Ausführung” as two modalities of lists and draws attention to the fact that some lists may be considered to be elements of ‘potential literature’ (“potentielle Literatur”). 20 Colas-Blaise 2013, 39. 21 Matthaios 2015, 277.

  Olga Tribulato La construction d’une intelligibilité du monde, qui met à contribution les dimensions cognitive, affective et sensible, peut ainsi être fondée sur un double mouvement de confirmation de / conformation à un modèle, par réactivation d’une mémoire lexicale ou discursive, et de renouvellement créateur. La liste est fondamentalement sous tension, tiraillée entre ce qui est de l’ordre du déjà et ce qui est toujours à venir … 22

In Colas-Blaise’s words, the new order envisaged by Atticism may thus be said to rest on the “double movement” of “confirmation” of beliefs, rules, etc. (the normative side of the lexica) and “conformation”, i.e. adherence to a model (5thcentury Attic) which is evoked by a kind of lexical memory: it re-enacts the (linguistic) past to transform it into a form of future. Atticist lexica endeavour to uncover linguistic usages in the literature of the past in order to prove their legitimacy. This involves an a priori decision concerning which literary texts are admissible as models. The question of which ‘canons’ each of the different Atticist lexica supported has been central to early studies of Atticism, to the point that a fictional ‘controversy’ between Phrynichus and Pollux on this matter has been invented by modern scholars.23 The issue is now viewed differently. Stephanos Matthaios, for instance, proposes that the works of these two lexicographers are set apart not by their stricter or more moderate attitude towards literary models, but by the fact that the practical goal of the Ecloga (namely the “regulations … directed toward the contemporary use of language”) differs from that of the Onomasticon (i.e. verifying whether a certain expression “is attested in … ancient literature”).24 Similarly, as we shall see shortly, the uniqueness of the Antiatticist rests not solely on its canon, but just as much on its way of answering the more complex question of ‘what Greek is’ and hence what the models might be which conform to this idea of ‘Greekness’.

 Introducing the Antiatticist: Title, Contents, Interpretation The Antiatticist is a list of 841 glosses preserved in only one copy, the 10th-century codex Coislinianus 345. It is conceivably an epitome of another work, but neither

 22 Colas-Blaise 2013, 34. 23 This view was first suggested by Naechster 1908 and endorsed by many scholars; it is now discarded as pure fiction: see Matthaios 2015, 295. 24 Matthaios 2015, 295–296 (quotations 295).

(En)listing the Good Authors  

the title of the original work nor its date (nor the date of the epitome) are known.25 Coislinianus 345 exclusively contains lexicographical texts and is of paramount importance for the knowledge of Greek lexicography, since it is the codex unicus not just for the Antiatticist but also for very important works such as Phrynichus’ Praeparatio sophistica, Timaeus’ Platonic lexicon and one of the ‘extended’ versions of the Συναγωγὴ λέξεων χρησίμων.26 The codex was assembled by someone who programmatically copied several lexica in different phases, as is suggested by the fact that the codex is divided into sections; the Antiatticist itself is part of a secondary section containing short works. Judging from the poor material quality of the codex and the informal style of the hand-writing, characterized by ligatures and abbreviations, this lexicographical collection was a private working copy.27 Unlike other lexica contained in Coislianus 345, the Antiatticist is identified neither by its author (as are the lexica attributed to Apollonius Sophista, Phrynichus, Timaeus Sophista or Moeris) nor by an indication of its content or purposes (as is the case with the Συναγωγὴ λέξεων χρησίμων, a ‘collection of useful words’, the Σοφιστικὴ προπαρασκευή, a ‘grounding in sophistic technique’, and the Λέξεις ῥητορικαί, arguably a collection of ‘words (useful) for rhetors’).28 Instead, the Antiatticist has the title Ἄλλος ἀλφάβητος in the ms., which draws attention to the fact that its glosses are arranged in a (roughly) alphabetical order — a feature alien to most other lexica in Coislinianus 345 and  25 On the history, transmission and issues concerning the lexicon see the excellent introduction in Valente 2015. 26 Description of the codex’ contents in Devreesse 1945, 329–330; Hansen 1998, 14; Valente 2008, 158–162; Valente 2015, 6–12. 27 Valente 2008, 177. 28 On titles and lists, see Mainberger 2003, 120–129. Let me add a short comparative note here. In a different tradition, that of early modern Italian lexicography, descriptive titles such as Vocabulista (‘Vocabulary’) and Promptuarium (‘Handbook’) are outnumbered by metaphorical titles such as Niccolò Liburnio’s Le tre fontane (‘The Three Fountains’ from 1526, alluding to the triad Dante-Petrarch-Boccaccio, the model of puristic Italian), Francesco Alunno’s La fabrica del mondo (‘The world’s factory/making’, 1548) and Alessandro Citolini’s Tipocosmia (which roughly translates as ‘The world’s mark/imprint’: more an onomasticon than a dictionary, published in 1561). The last two in particular are clearly conceived as order-creating monuments aspiring to universality and containing the whole world in words (cf. Marazzini 2009, 74–92). The metaphorical penchant of Italian lexicographers is continued in the title of the most influential Italian dictionary of the modern age, the Vocabolario della Crusca (‘Dictionary of the bran’, i.e. one advising readers on how to sift good language from bad language), which takes its name from the Accademia della Crusca (‘Academy of the bran’), the institution which has been promoting Italian (formerly Tuscan) lexicography, linguistic correctness and purism since the seventeenth century.

  Olga Tribulato only very rarely advertised in their titles.29 The title Antiatticista, on the other hand, was coined by the eighteenth-century Dutch philologist David Ruhnken and is rendered as Ἀντιαττικιστής in volume I of Immanuel Bekker’s Anecdota graeca (1814), the first modern edition of the lexicon, now superseded by Valente (2015).30 The different titles under which this lexicon has been known over the centuries are a good example of how differently lists of words may be perceived by different audiences and readers. Usually, titles of dictionaries provide a summary of the content and identify the principle which informs the selection of data it assembles. In the case of titles which are not original (like Ἄλλος ἀλφάβητος and Ἀντιαττικιστής/Antiatticista), this identification is necessarily also an interpretation of the content on the part of those who use it. The title Ἄλλος ἀλφάβητος superficially describes the structure of the lexicon: it lets us glimpse an early Medieval readership which did not have a clear opinion about the purpose of this lexicographical collection, and hence of its practical usefulness. It is a title which nullifies content, rather than showcasing it. By contrast, the title Antiatticist interprets content and thus clearly identifies the purpose of the lexicon; it also maximizes some aspects of the content by using the semantically charged prefix anti-. This far from neutral title has shaped the modern interpretation of the lexicon for over two centuries, allowing it to be superficially understood as a polemical work which systematically criticizes Atticist prescriptions.31 In fact, this is not entirely true. The Antiatticist is not anti-Atticist: it fully partakes of the Atticist climate in that it engages with the question of linguistic correctness (hellenismos) and its models, thus implicitly endorsing the need for a

 29 Only two other instances occur: the lexica entitled Δικῶν ὀνόματα κατὰ ἀλφάβητον (ff. 175v– 178v, edited by Bekker in Anecdota graeca I) and Ἕτερος ἀλφάβητος ὅπως συντάσσεσθαι δεῖ τὰ ῥήματα (ff. 269v–271r). Alphabetical ordering is a relatively recent phenomenon in Greek lexicography which, as noted above, preferred the onomastic structure. Apart from lost works (such as Neoptolemus of Parion’s glossary, perhaps alphabetical), the earliest example is P.Hibeh 2.175 (ca. 260–240 BC), containing a list of terms, some of which Homeric, with alphabetization limited to the first two letters: see Schironi 2009, 39; Tosi 2015, 623. An earlier papyrus, P.Hibeh 2.172 (ca. 270–230 BC), is an onomasticon specializing in poetic compounds: there are traces of rough alphabetization within groups, but this is not systematic. A classification of lexica on papyri displaying some kind of alphabetical ordering is provided by Schironi 2009, 35–36. 30 On the title, see Valente 2015, 3–4. 31 See Valente 2015, 3; 43. Studies of the linguistic agenda of the Antiatticist are Latte 1915 (the lexicon in its Atticist context); Willi 2010, 474–477 (the use of comedy in the Antiatticist); Cassio 2012 (on glosses from Sicilian comedy). See also Tribulato 2014, 205–209, and Tribulato 2016.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

linguistic standard based on a conscious relation with Classical Greek. Its representation of Classical Greek too is far from being non-Attic: as we shall shortly see, the vast majority of authors quoted in the lexicon are Attic ones. At the same time, the Antiatticist widens the range of what is admissible as exemplary Classical Greek by including, for instance, Herodotus (who wrote in Ionic), Pindar (who wrote in the Doric-based language of choral lyric) and the playwrights of New Comedy. At first sight, this may seem to be a move against strict Atticism. A careful reading of the other Atticist collections however shows that this stance is not an isolated case in Atticist lexicography: the authors quoted in Pollux’ Onomasticon significantly overlap with those quoted by the Antiatticist and even the Praeparatio sophistica allows for an ampler canon. It is only in relation to Phrynichus’ Ecloga that the Antiatticist looks more boldly inclusive: yet, the Ecloga is hardly a representative example of mainstream Atticism, embodying rather its more extremist positions. The novelty of the Antiatticist, then, does not so much reside in its selection of models as in its specific choice of linguistic features. A suspiciously high number of glosses pertain to meanings and morphological elements which characterized the koine of the Imperial age but were also documented in the language of leading Classical authors. The Antiatticist thus establishes an implicit connection between Imperial koine and Classical Greek — and this is the truly revolutionary aspect of its approach, which marks discontinuity with other Atticist lexica. This ‘koine side’ of the Antiatticist, which has not been systematically investigated, is illustrated in section 7 below.32 Having anticipated some of the conclusions reached in this paper, we shall now turn to the lexicon’s organization of its entries, which is crucial for its interpretation. The lexicon as it is transmitted to us in Coislinianus 345 consists of twenty folia (ff. 156r–165v), each with 34 to 36 lines; indentation is used for interpretations which continue onto a second or further line.33 The arrangement thus is intended to aid consultation: it should be borne in mind however that this is a relatively modern feature of the lexicon and that the original ancient work, written in scriptio continua, may have not used the same tools to set words apart.34  32 Hence Dickey’s statement that the lexicon “seems to have originally consisted of a list of Attic words, with definitions and references to the words’ occurrences in classical texts” (Dickey 2015, 46) is misleading: many of the words commented upon in the lexicon are not particularly Attic. 33 Cunningham 2003, 17. 34 Lexica on papyrus may contain special editorial signs to aid their consultation: for example, POxy. 15.1803, a sixth-century AD glossary, uses paragraphoi to mark the end of notes and angular signs may be used indicate quotations; lemmas protrude onto the margin. In POxy. 15.1801, a first-century AD glossary, two lemmas are made to project onto the left margin; blank spaces set

  Olga Tribulato A defining feature of the Antiatticist which distinguishes it from other works of the same codex is the fact that most entries are followed by the name of the author or authors who use the lemmatized word, very often accompanied by the title or book of the work. An example is Antiatt. α 7 Valente ἀκράχολος· Πλάτων β′ Πολιτείας, which draws attention to the fact that the adjective ἀκράχολος ‘quick to anger, irascible’ is attested in book 2 of Plato’s Republic (3.411c.1). This apparently clear-cut entry is in fact rather baffling. The Antiatticist is not an index: it is not meant to tell readers of certain texts where to look up and find certain words (at any rate, this is not its primary purpose). Something else lurks behind the dry information that ἀκράχολος ‘irascible’ is used by Plato in the Republic. We face here the major interpretative issue that concerns the Antiatticist as a whole, which confirms Mainberger’s statement that lists need a ‘reading methodology’ to be meaningful: they are not definitive, but potential texts, which call for interventions and transformations on the part of their users.35 There are no instructions in the Antiatticist to guide readers in its analysis: they are required to supply all the missing links themselves. The first link connects the lemma and the works in which it is quoted. This may seem like a truism, but is in fact the first step towards interpretation: what does it mean that ἀκράχολος is found in Plato? Why is Plato quoted in the first place, given that ἀκράχολος is also used by Aristophanes, Aristotle, Theocritus and other authors? By providing a tentative answer to these questions, the reader begins to interpret the choice of models in the lexicon and, it may be argued, he or she becomes a sort of ‘secondary author’ of the list: as if the list did not ontologically exist until someone read it out and, by enunciating it, reflected on its significance (this is provocatively argued by Sève: “tout se passe comme si paradoxalement le lecteur de la liste était responsable de l’effet d’énonciation”).36 As was just mentioned in passing, to an extent entries like this one are a kind of instruction on where to find certain words: “dear reader, if you are interested in ἀκράχολος, look it up in the second book of the Republic”. However, the problem remains as to why ἀκράχολος was chosen. Unlike most modern lexica, which declare from the start their criteria for the inclusion of lemmas, the Antiatticist does not have an introduction and its selection of criteria is not immediately transparent. So, readers are first prompted to ask what ‘Plato’ stands  them apart from the definitions. Cf. Delattre’s discussion of the layout of mythographical lists in this volume, pp. 96–104. 35 Mainberger 2003, 12 (she actually uses the word “Praxis”). 36 Sève 2010, 97.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

for in this entry; and then to investigate why ἀκράχολος is lemmatized. Is it because of its meaning (: semantic criterion)? Is it because it is a compound (: morphological criterion)? Is it because it was a rare word (: lexicographical criterion)? The list could go on. The superficially descriptive aspect of the lexicon reveals, on second thought, its ambition to provide a formal paradigm for the use of language.37 The Antiatticist is not the kind of list which enunciates without stating: each of its items presupposes a critical choice on the author’s part and invites the reader to pass judgment.38 In this particular case the reason for the inclusion of this word in the lexicon might be due to the particular morphology of compounds in ἀκρο-, or perhaps to the fact that in some of them the first constituent took the form ἀκρᾱ-.39 However, we would be wrong to deduce from this entry that the Antiatticist is arranged according to morphological criteria, as there are numerous glosses which clearly do not illustrate morphological features. Again, the idea that informs the collection can only be understood once the whole is considered.40 This is all the more pertinent as entries are not in every instance of the kind just illustrated. In a number of (admittedly less frequent) cases, the gloss is exemplified with a quotation, as e.g. in Antiatt. 41 Valente: βῆ· προβάτων βληχή. Ἀριστοφάνης (fr. 648)· †θύτην† μέλλει καὶ κελεύει βῆ λέγειν. βῆ: the bleating of sheep. Aristophanes (fr. 648 K-A): “(he) is going to sacrifice and orders to say baa”.

To be sure, differences between the individual entries may well be explained as the result of the process of abridgement that the lexicon has undergone. However, it should not be ruled out that what we see here are elements adopted from much earlier works, the lexicon’s sources. It may well be possible that the original work did not provide direct quotations for all the linguistic features commented upon, but it is worth noting that ancient epitomes tend to drop any information  37 On the definition of the list as a “déclinaison d’un paradigme latent”, see Hamon 2013, 25, drawing from his earlier work (Hamon 1993). 38 The semiotic question of whether there are lists which contain enunciations without assertions is discussed by Michel/Milcent-Lawson/Lecolle 2013, 9 and Colas-Blaise 2013. 39 That this entry may have been concerned with the formation of the compound and of its first constituent is suggested by parallel lexicographical passages, collected in the apparatus in Valente 2015, 86 (see particularly Eust. Od. 1735.47) and by the fact that some mss. of the Republic have the varia lectio ἀκρόχολος. 40 We have seen this above, p. 178–179, as concerns the misleading belief that the lexicon is anti-Atticist tout court.

  Olga Tribulato which is not vital; the idea that epitomization is responsible for the deletion of other quotations is further supported by the fact that almost one quarter of the glosses in the lexicon is unattributed.41

 Authoriality and the Potentially Infinite List This takes us to the core of the interpretative question concerning ancient lexicographical lists, which sets them apart from similar lists of other epochs and cultures. In principle, any list can be abbreviated or expanded. However, in the case of ancient works it is usually impossible to trace such interventions back to a particular author. We thus face the epistemological problem which may be summarized with Sève’s question “Qui parle?”.42 On the one hand, even heavily abbreviated lexicographical lists may convey certain information about their author. This is more obvious in works such as Phrynichus’ Ecloga, where the author’s voice is still very much present.43 But even an anonymous work like the Antiatticist encourages interpretative exercises which allow to at least trace its author’s methodology and beliefs. The selection of what is entered into the list and what is left out brings the author’s opinions and attitudes to the surface: the list is an intentional product. In spite of the laconic style of the Antiatticist it is still possible to isolate some longer entries in which the presence of technical vocabulary seems to indicate authorial presence. Consider for instance the entry on βόθυνος ‘pit’ (Antiatt. β 20 Valente): βόθυνον οὔ φασι δεῖν λέγειν. ἀλλὰ Σόλων ἔφη ἐν τοῖς νόμοις (fr. 60c). Κρατῖνος Σεριφίοις (fr. 219)· ἀλλ’ ἀπίωσιν ἐν χορῷ  41 An example of an unattributed gloss is Antiatt. π 28 Valente: πελεκᾶς· τὸ ζῶον. πελεκᾶς is the name of a bird, used by Aristophanes in Av. 884 and 1155 (as well as by Anaxandr. fr. 42.66 K-A). No doubt in this case the locus classicus was discarded during transmission. It may be πελεκᾶς found its way into the lexicon because there was a discussion on which bird it actually denoted: its primary meaning seems to have been ‘pelican’, but Hsch. σ 1309 testifies that it could also mean ‘woodpecker’ and this second sense may be adumbrated in the word play of Av. 1154– 1156. The sch. (vet.-Tr.) Ar. Av. 882 however reveal that the word was also discussed as concerns its correct declension and accentuation: cf. apparatus in Valente 2015, 229. 42 Sève 2010, 85. 43 The Ecloga is prefaced by a letter to Cornelianus, in which Phrynichus uses first-person verbs and the pronoun ἐγώ. First-person verbs are also found in Ecl. 167, 218, 226, 228, 234, 236, 240, 243, 244, 245, 249, 293, 332, 335, 351, 357, 383, 394. I have made the case for the presence of a strong authorial voice also in Pollux’ Onomasticon in Tribulato 2018.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

ἐς βόθυνον ἰέναι. ἔστι δὲ παιδιά τις ἐς βόθυνον ἰέναι. They say that βόθυνος should not be used. But Solon used it in the Laws. And so did Cratinus in the Men from Seriphus: “but let them go and play cherry-pit among the chorus”. “To go to the pit” is a kind of game.

Here οὔ φασι δεῖν λέγειν is technical terminology and alludes to the prescriptive attitude of Atticist lexicographers. Against their view that βόθυνος is not to be used, the compiler of the Antiatticist makes what seems to be a strong authorial statement (at any rate by comparison with the otherwise concise wording of the lexicon) by introducing his quotation of the loci classici for βόθυνος with the adversative conjunction ἀλλά. More evident still is the clash of opinions in another entry (Antiatt. ε 22 Valente): εὐειδής· οὕτως φασὶν ἀδόκιμον εἶναι τὸ ὄνομα, ἀλλ’ ὁ καλὸς Ξενοφῶν Ἀπομνημονευμάτων γ΄ (3.11.4), Ἡρόδοτος α΄ δὶς καὶ τρίς (1.35.6, 1.60.4, 1.112.1, 1.196.2, 1.196.3), καὶ ἀπειράκις οἱ κωμικοί (Com. adesp. fr. 89). εὐειδής: they say that this word is not approved. But the good Xenophon (used it) in the third book of the Memorabilia, Herodotus (used it) in the first book two or three times, and comic playwrights (use it) very often.

In Atticist jargon the adjective ἀδόκιμος, originally employed for counterfeit coins, qualifies a word which is not admitted. The author of the lexicon counters the claim that εὐειδής is ἀδόκιμος by quoting no less than three loci classici. As in the last example here, too, adversative ἀλλά is used as semantically charged terminology: the adjective καλός reminds critics that εὐειδής is used by the ‘good’ (i.e., approved) Xenophon, while the succession of the three adverbs δίς, τρίς and ἀπειράκις strengthens (almost sarcastically, one might say) the case for εὐειδής as a word that Classical authors used. At the same time, however, the particular paths of transmission to which ancient lexica are subjected work against the principle of authoriality: later lexicographers may excerpt, add and re-shape the original material of the collection; copyists too, while not being ‘authors’, may intervene, consciously or unconsciously, and alter the content. Under these circumstances, the question of authorship is even more difficult to answer: we may certainly look for an ‘author’, but must also be sensitive to what may be called the ‘ghost authors’. Furthermore, this has an impact on the degree of openness or closedness of lists. The epistemological question of the list’s potential for infinity is often debated: where does a list end? Authoriality, of course, is a factor that works

  Olga Tribulato against infinity. Jeay 2013, in a study of the metaliterary discourse of enumeration as a Medieval topos, recalls a famous poem by Christine de Pizan (Le chemin de longue estude) in which the rhetorical statement “I could make infinite examples about…” is closed by the authoress’ intervention: “but I would be boring”.44 This is of course possible because the context, as stated, is that of a metaliterary reflection on writing, and on lists as part of literary writing. To the contrary, the elimination of authoriality allows certain lists to become infinitely expandable, beyond the original compiler’s intentions. A thorough linguistic study of the Antiatticist, which has not yet been undertaken, might contribute to our understanding of such processes: knowledge of the lexicon’s relations with later lexica (which is usually neglected in favour of the analysis of the lexicon’s relation with older or contemporary works) may perhaps unmask later additions or at least explain how the epitomization has moulded the original contents of the lexicon.45

 Criteria of Organization: An Alternative View of the Canon For the time being, what I propose to do is to describe the content of the Antiatticist as it has come down to us in order to compare it to other contemporary lexica. This section provides information on the cited authors, their chronological periods and literary genres. As already mentioned, individual entries add up to 841; of these, c. 660 are explicitly attributed; the remaining entries do not mention an author. The most likely explanation for this, as already mentioned, is that the names of authors have dropped during transmission. Unsurprisingly, lemmas which are exemplified with a reference to a fifth-century author are the most numerous, adding up to almost half of the collection. However, not many people would guess that Herodotus, an Ionian, is the most quoted author of this period; no less surprising are the 12 quotations from Epicharmus, an author from Doric Sicily, as well as the 7 quotations from Pindar. The inclusion of non-Attic authors of the Classical age complies with the fact that the Antiatticist also contains almost 20 quotations from authors of the Archaic  44 Jeay 2013, 150. Classicists may recall the potentially infinite list of what people consider “the most beautiful thing on earth” of Sapph. fr. 16, which similarly ends on a strong authorial intervention (“But I say it is whatever you love”) which precludes further additions to the list. 45 A foray into the Byzantine side of the Antiatticist is made in Tribulato 2019.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

period who obviously did not write in Attic either: in this group, which comprises Sappho (1 quotation), Hipponax (4) and Solon (2), Homer is the most quoted author (11 times).46 This certainly reflects the fact that Homer, in spite of the artificial character of his literary language, was recognized as a fundamental model of hellenismos.47 Fourth-century authors however come close, with more than 50% of the entries from Plato and Demosthenes, who are both approved authors in the stricter Atticist canons too. Thus, so far, the choice of the Antiatticist confirms its broadly Atticist inspiration. However, the other half of the quotations from the fourth century are mostly from Middle and New Comedy playwrights (among these, Alexis [38 entries] and Antiphanes [24] are most frequently quoted).48 And this part of its selection distinguishes the Antiatticist from other Atticist endeavours. It is worth noting that Phrynichus often finds fault with Alexis and Antiphanes, to whom he prefers the model of older comic poets.49 The data pertaining to New Comedy are also noteworthy: Diphilus, Philemon, Philippides and Menander are all well attested in the Antiatticist, in spite of the fact that they are hardly considered suitable models by Phrynichus.50 Still, as already noted, the novelty of the Antiatticist’s selection of models cannot be appreciated simply by comparison to Phrynichus’ Ecloga. A more balanced judgment should take into account the fact that a very similar range of authors as in the Antiatticist is present in Pollux’ Onomasticon as well as in Phrynichus’ other and less militant work, the Praeparatio sophistica: both lexica for instance consider suitable words and expressions used by Homer, Sappho, Diphilus and Menander. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that the difference between all these works does not so much concern their canon as the frequency with which certain authors are quoted.51 Ultimately, however, the uniqueness of the Antiatticist and its difference from other lexica of the period is marked by its linguistic agenda. As I have remarked, any reconstruction of the original framework lurking behind this drastic  46 5 times by name, 6 times as ὁ ποιητής. 47 On Homer as a model of hellenismos, see Janko 1995, 232; Pontani 2012, 47–52. 48 See too Sonnino 2014, 170. 49 On Alexis, see Ecl. 212, 316, 349; on Antiphanes, see Ecl. 308. 50 See e.g. Ecl. 341 (against Philippides and Menander); 332 (against Philemon); 162, 170, 392, 394, 397, 402, 410 (against Menander). On Phrynichus’ use of Attic comic poets, see too Sonnino 2014, 166–167. 51 The quotations of Homer, Sappho, Diphilus and Menander are thus fewer in the Praeparatio sophistica than in Pollux and the Antiatticist. Phrynichus’ dislike of New Comedy, though less pronounced, is still detectable in the Praeparatio sophistica.

  Olga Tribulato epitome will rest on the links one can establish between the glosses and the texts in which they are attested. By and large, it would seem that the Antiatticist conjures up a vast range of authors from different epochs of the Classical past in order to comment on linguistic features typical of the koine of its times and, by highlighting the connections between these features and those good authors, to show that many koine expressions were not ‘bad Greek’ at all. At the same time, the list seems to preserve usages which were no longer common in the koine — this is perhaps best seen as an attempt to perpetuate their memory. The purposes of the Antiatticist therefore seem to be both of practical and historical nature: it contains information about the pedigree of certain words which may be useful for those who are uncertain about their origins, and establishes a link between different epochs of the Greek language. The Antiatticist thus belongs to those ‘propositional’ lists which ultimately aim at shaping a new world: by placing Homer, Epicharmus, Herodotus and koine side by side, the lexicon’s list of words recreates the linguistic continuity of Greek and simultaneously embodies the great formal diversity attained by this language.

 Defending Linguistic Continuity: The Presence of Koine in the Antiatticist In order to exemplify the difficulties faced by interpreters of the Antiatticist, it is worth considering a few glosses which are representative of the lexicon’s take on language, which is viewed not as a fixed entity, but as a living organism whose identifying character resides in the great dialectal and stylistic variety of its history. An example of the potentially inhibiting shortness of the lexicon’s entries, and of the efforts that its interpreters have to make, is one of the 61 lemmas in which the Antiatticist quotes Herodotus by name, making him (as has been stated above) the most cited author among those of the fifth century (Antiatt. ε 58 Valente): ἐπιστράτευσις· Ἡρόδοτος γ΄ (3.4.1). ἐπιστράτευσις: Herodotus in book 3.

ἐπιστράτευσις, which occurs in Hdt. 3.4.1, is a rare word in ancient Greek: the standard term for ‘expedition’ is its cognate ἐπιστρατεία, which remains common throughout the history of the language; both are less frequent synonyms of στρατεία/στρατιά in the sense of ‘expedition’. At first sight, therefore, the

(En)listing the Good Authors  

purpose of the entry is to reflect on an unsual word and this might simply confirm the superficial idea that the Antiatticist is interested in strange terms from authors situated at the fringes of Attic. The matter however is more complex than this. In ancient Greek ἐπιστράτευσις is indeed used only by Herodotus, but it strangely resurfaces in the language of late-antique and Byzantine authors. Paeanius (fourth century AD) uses the term in his translation of Eutropius (6.9.11 Lampros), a work whose literary style is not particularly high. Evagrius (sixth century AD) employs it three times in his Historia ecclesiastica (3.43.7, 5.19.31, 6.13.26 Bidez/Parmentier), a work written in a language and a style reminiscent of Classical historiography, but which specifically imitates neither Herodotus nor other authors: its style, rather, reflects “the standard Greek of the late Roman empire, especially the Greek of ecclesiastical and legal rhetoric”.52 In two of these passages ἐπιστράτευσις, in the accusative plural, is governed by ποιέω; a similar structure is found in the early 14th-century Historia ecclesiastica of Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulus (18.16.30: τὰς ἐπιστρατεύσεις πεποίηντο “they made the expeditions”). There are no reasons to think that these Byzantine writers used ἐπιστράτευσις to echo Classical prose: the appropriate terms, in ancient Greece and in Byzantium, were clearly στρατεία and ἐπιστρατεία; the latter is found in a variety of Byzantine authors, including highly Atticizing ones such as Photius (twice in the Bibliotheca) and Constantinus Porphyrogenitus (thrice in his works). It is possibile, therefore, that ἐπιστράτευσις is one of those words which might have been more frequent in common Greek but which are not sufficiently known to us simply because our knowledge of the language is so dependent on literary texts. Modern Greek offers support in this direction. επιστράτευση, the standard (though technical) word for ‘military conscription, call to arms’, has a second meaning as ‘mobilization of troops’, which clearly derives from the ancient meaning as ‘expedition’. This semantic specialization corresponds to the fact that Modern Greek has preserved only one word, στρατιά, for the meaning ‘military expedition’ (as in ancient Greek, the primary meaning of στρατιά is ‘army’). The conclusion could be, therefore, that ἐπιστράτευσις has continued to be used throughout the history of Greek, as a less common and perhaps more every-day term than ἐπιστρατεία. If this analysis is correct, the short entry on ἐπιστράτευσις would belong to the group of lemmas which in the Antiatticist reflect on the Classical roots of koine words. Of course, in order to defend this interpretation we have to assume (on the basis of much later Byzantine and Modern Greek parallels) that ἐπιστράτευσις  52 Whitby 2000, lviii. On Evagrius’ style, see too Caires 1982.

  Olga Tribulato might have been a much more common term in koine Greek than we are able to gauge from literary texts. The more transparent aim of other entries in the lexicon provides a parallel for this kind of methodology. One of them is the lemma on σωννύω, a very rare by-form of σῴζω attested in the Syracusan playwright Deinolochus (Antiatt. σ 16 Valente): σωννύω· ἀντὶ τοῦ σώζω. Δεινόλοχος Μηδείᾳ (fr. 5). σωννύω in lieu of σώζω. Deinolochos in the Medeia (fr. 5 K-A).

The fact that no other text before or after Deinolochus documents this word should not induce us to think that it was confined to the Syracusan dialect. Albio Cassio has shown that Tsakonian, the modern Greek dialect spoken in Laconia, still employed the aorist ἐσώννυσα and the future θα σωννύσω as common forms at the end of the eighteenth century.53 The fact that σωννύω has survived in a spoken variety of Modern Greek is evidence in favour of the fact that in Antiquity it was not an isolated term, but an innovation that might have made its way into colloquial koine. The Antiatticist would thus be interested not in a Syracusan rare word, but in a by-form of σῴζω which might have been used in his own times as well. Clearer still is another lemma taken from Herodotus, which together with βρέφος, πρόβατον, ἀγαθουργία, ὑπάγω and the perfect form καταλελάβηκεν is an example of the Antiatticist’s use of Herodotus to defend common koine developments (Antiatt. δ 21 Valente):54 δόμων· οὐκ ἐπὶ τῆς οἰκίας, ἀλλ’ ἐφ’ οὗ ἡ συνήθεια τάττει. Ἡρόδοτος α΄ (1.179.2) καὶ β΄ (2.127.3). δόμων [gen. pl. of δόμος] (is used) not to refer to the house, but in the meaning prescribed by common language [i.e., ‘brick’]. Herodotus in the first and second books (1.179, 2.127).

In Classical Greek δόμος means ‘house’, but in the lower koine it can also mean ‘brick’: the Antiatticist therefore defends the everyday Greek of his times (ἡ συνήθεια) with a quotation from a Classical author. Many of these lemmas concern semantics, and the various meanings which words may take in Attic, in the koine and in non-Attic dialects. There are however other lemmas which pay attention to the morphological developments  53 Cassio 2012, 262. 54 See Tribulato 2016, 187–191.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

undergone by Greek in the post-Classical age: change of voice;55 change of conjugation;56 formation rules of the perfect and pluperfect, etc.57 These developments may be illustrated and defended by appealing to non-Attic authorities (as is the case with the perfect and pluperfect forms λελάβημαι and καταλελάβηκεν, from Herodotus) but it is also common to find ‘canonical’ Attic authors. Α clear entry is Antiatt. α 40 Valente, an attempt to prove that the irregular adverb  ἀμεινόνως, built on the comparative ἀμείνων, was used by the great Attic authority Aristophanes: ἀμεινόνως· Ἀριστοφάνης Θεσμοφοριαζούσαις (fr. 353). ἀμεινόνως (is used by) Aristophanes in the Thesmophoriazusae (fr. 353 K-A).

As a final example of the Antiatticist as a list which makes a non-haphazard but informed selection of authors and linguistic material, let us consider a Pindaric lemma (Antiatt. κ 21 Valente): καυχᾶσθαι· ἀντὶ τοῦ αὐχεῖν. Πίνδαρος Ὀλυμπιονίκαις (9.38). καυχᾶσθαι is used in the meaning of αὐχεῖν [here: ‘to boast’] in Pindar’s Olympian Odes.

In O. 9.38 καυχάομαι, whose primary meaning in Classical Greek is ‘to scream’, means ‘to boast’.58 This meaning, which is rare in post-Classical poetry and Atticizing prose, is nonetheless frequently attested in the Septuagint, Diodorus

 55 E.g. Antiatt. α 10 Valente: ἀποκριθῆναι, οὐκ ἀποκρίνασθαι, perhaps commenting on a Menandrian locus (see Ph. α 2596 and Tribulato 2014, 208–209); or Antiatt. δ 40 Valente: δεούμεθα· ἀντὶ τοῦ δεηθησόμεθα. ᾿Επίχαρμος Δευκαλίωνι, analyzed by Cassio 2012, 261. 56 E.g. Antiatt. α 99 Valente: ἀνάβα, κατάβα, διάβα, ἀπόστα· Μένανδρος Ἐπικλήρῳ (fr. 134)· ὅρα σὺ καὶ φρόντιζε κἀπόστα βραχύ (ἀνάβα, κατάβα, διάβα, ἀπόστα: Menander in The Heiress: “Look, pay attention and stay behind a bit”) [= fr. 134 K-A]), commented on in Tribulato 2014, 207–208. 57 See Antiatt. κ 79 Valente: καταλελάβηκεν· . Ἡρόδοτος †α΄† (3.42.4, 3.65.1, 9.60.3); and Antiatt. λ 1 Valente: λελάβημαι· ἀντὶ τοῦ εἴλημμαι. Ἡρόδοτος ϛ΄ καὶ δ΄ (cf. 4.79.4, 8.122), Εὐριπίδης Βάκχαις (fr. 3 Dodds, cf. v. 1102), commented on in Tribulato 2016, 189–190; and Antiatt. ε 117 Valente: ἐπεπτώκειμεν· Μένανδρος Καταψευδομένῳ (fr. 206), analyzed in Tribulato 2014, 208. 58 Pi. O. 9.38–39: ἐπεὶ τό γε λοιδορῆσαι θεούς / ἐχθρὰ σοφία, καὶ τὸ καυχᾶσθαι παρὰ καιρόν / μανίαισιν ὑποκρέκει: “For reviling the gods is a hateful skill, and boasting inappropriately sounds a note of madness” (translation W.H. Race).

  Olga Tribulato Siculus, the New Testament and other Christian texts: all works written in the koine, some of them in a low variety.59 The decision to quote Pindar, a non-Attic poet who wrote in a difficult literary language, may surprise many readers of the Antiatticist, particularly since (as happens in several other lemmas of the lexicon), the meaning ‘to boast’ of καυχάομαι could be defended by citing ‘canonical’ Attic authorities such as Cratinus (fr. 102 K-A) and Eupolis (fr. 145 K-A): Pollux (9.146) quotes the latter precisely to exemplify this sense of the verb. So why does the Antiatticist here choose to quote Pindar and not Cratinus or Eupolis? This question provides an ideal place to stop and reconsider some of the interpretative issues which the list of words of the Antiatticist raises. One of them is the question of the openness or closedness of the list, as was argued above. How are we to interpret the fact that the Antiatticist chooses Pindar? One way to look at this is to argue that Pindar (just like Herodotus and Menader for other lemmas) is selected precisely in order to take up a polemical stance against an attitude which claimed to find evidence of linguistic correctness only in a restricted number of Attic authors.60 The Antiatticist thus would not only be defending the appropriateness of koine, but also promoting a form of hellenismos with ampler borders – one more inclusive of those varieties normally shunned by purists. A canon such as this, combining lyric poets, Middle and New Comedy, Doric and Ionic authors, purposely looks back at the past in order to make it part of the present and of the future. What the Antiatticist restores from the past are not only the authors themselves, but the notion of Greek as an entity which encompassed several local and literary varieties, none of which was yet considered superior by decree. In choosing this outlook on language, the lexicon follows in the footsteps of the finest Alexandrian scholarship, which provided a fundamental contribution to the definition of hellenismos by studying and classifying the language of Archaic and Classical authors.61 It may thus be argued that the lexicon contributes the construction of a sort of Greek linguistic memory. From this point of view, the Antiatticist is close to the big encyclopaedic lexica of the early Imperial age (particularly that by Diogenianus) which, by aiming

 59 There are several parallels for this lemma in lexicographical sources: see the apparatus in Valente 2015, 192. The best discussion is in Ucciardello 2015, 54–68, especially 62–63. 60 See too my discussion of the Pindaric lemmas Antiatt. α 50 (ἀφθόνητος), α 74 (ἀφθονέστερον) and α 75 (ἀρχαιέστερον) in Tribulato (forthcoming). 61 On linguistic correctness in Hellenistic scholarship, see Pagani 2015, 806–814.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

at universality, combined literature and spoken language.62 In noting the strangeness of an Atticist lexicon that quoted Pindar or Herodotus, we should be careful not to lose sight of the bigger picture. Many of the non-Attic authors quoted in the lexicon enjoyed a huge popularity in other intellectual circles of the Imperial age. Herodotus was the pivot of a vast discussion on rhetorical and historical models, which gave rise to the querelle opposing him to Thucydides. Menander was a greatly admired playwright, to the point that in a famous passage of the Eclogue (394 Fischer) Phrynichus looses his temper and taunts “the brightest Greeks manically busying themselves with this writer of comedies” (τὰ ἄκρα τῶν Ἑλλήνων ὁρῶ μανικῶς περὶ τὸν κωμῳδοποιὸν τοῦτον σπουδάζοντα). Epicharmus’ comedies may well have had a purely bookish appeal, but the numerous philosophical, medical and broadly ‘scientific’ forgeries that circulated under his name were very influential in Rome. Pindar remained one the most widely read lyric poets, a fortune confirmed by the fact that his Epinicians have survived through direct transmission. By defending the suitability of these authors and some of the elements of their language, the Antiatticist contributed to shaping their Nachleben, preserving them from the oblivion that Atticist condemnation might have entailed.63 The Antiatticist enlists these good authors just as literature or historiography may enlist ancestors and founders: in order to create, in Sève’s words, “des lignes de continuité donc chaque nom est un réservoir d’énergie”.64

 62 On the role of lists in the construction of collective memories, see the brief remarks by Michel/Milcent-Lawson/Lecolle 2013, 18. In the introduction to the first edition of his Vocabolario della lingua italiana (1922), Nicola Zingarelli also recognizes this particular role of dictionaries: “il vocabolario altro non è se non una di quelle forme in cui l’uomo tende sempre a mettere ordine e legge e carattere di immanenza ed eternità al vortice della vita” [dictionaries are merely one of the forms in which mankind orders, regulates and confers immanence and eternity to the turmoil of life]. 63 That Atticism had an impact on the transmission of certain authors from Antiquity to Byzantium is very likely. See for instance the case of Menander, whose disgrace in the later Imperial age might have been influenced by Atticism: see Tribulato 2014, 199–200, with references. 64 Sève 2010, 241.

  Olga Tribulato

Bibliography Abbreviations Bekker Bidez/ Parmentier Lampros

Bekker, I. (ed.) (1814), Anecdota Graeca, vol. 1: Lexica Segueriana, Berlin. Bidez, J./ Parmentier, L. (eds.) (1898), The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius with the Scholia, London. Lampros, S.P. (1912), “Παιανίου μετάφρασις εἰς τὴν τοῦ Εὐτροπίου Ῥωμαϊκὴν ἱστορίαν”, in: Νέος Ἑλληνομνήμων 9, 9–113.

Works Cited Alpers, K. (ed.) (2011), Das attizistische Lexikon des Oros. Untersuchung und kritische Ausgabe der Fragmente, Berlin/New York. Anderson, G. (1993), The Second Sophistic. A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire, London/New York. Ascheri, P. (2010), “Demetrio Issione “dialettologo”. L’attico e il dialetto degli Alessandrini”, in: F. Montana (ed.), Aner polytropos. Ricerche di filologia greca antica dedicate dagli allievi a Franco Montanari, Roma, 125–152. Bethe, E. (ed.) (1900–1937), Pollucis Onomasticon, 3 vols., Leipzig. Borries, I. de (ed.) (1911), Phrynichi sophistae Praeparatio sophistica, Leipzig. Browning, R. (1969), Medieval and Modern Greek, London. Caires, V.A. (1982), “Evagrius Scholasticus. A Literary Analysis”. Byzantinische Forschungen 8, 29–50. Cassio, A.C. (2012), “Intimations of Koine in Sicilian Doric”, in: O. Tribulato (ed.), Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily, Cambridge, 251–264. Colas-Blaise, M. (2013), “Dynamiques de la mise en liste. Une approche sémio-linguistique”, in: Milcent-Lawson/Lecolle/Michel (2013), 33–44. Cunningham, I.C. (ed.) (2003), Synagoge: Συναγωγὴ λέξεων χρησίμων. Texts of the Original Version and of MS. B, Berlin/New York. Cunningham, I.C. (ed.) (2018) Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, vol. 1: A–Δ, second edition, Berlin/ Boston. Cunningham, I.C. (ed.) (2020) Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, vol. 2: E-O, second edition, Berlin/ Boston. Devreesse, R. (1945), Bibliothèque Nationale. Département des manuscrits. Catalogues des manuscrits grecs, vol. 2: Le fonds Coislin, Paris. Dickey, E. (2007), Ancient Greek Scholarship. A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises from Their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period, Oxford/New York. Dickey, E. (2015), “The Sources of our Knowledge of Ancient Scholarship”, in: Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos (2015), 459–514. Dubischar, M. (2015), “Typology of Philological Writings”, in: Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos (2015), 545–599. Erbse, H. (1950), Untersuchungen zu den attizistischen Lexika, Berlin.

(En)listing the Good Authors  

Fischer, E. (ed.) (1974), Die Ekloge des Phrynichos, Berlin/New York. Hamon, Ph. (1993), Du Descriptif, third edition, Paris. Hamon, Ph. (2013), “La mise en liste. Préambule”, in Milcent-Lawson/Lecolle/Michel (2013), 21–29. Hansen, D.U. (ed.) (1998), Das attizistische Lexikon des Moeris. Quellenkritische Untersuchung und Edition, Berlin/New York. Hansen, P.A. (ed.) (2005), Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, vol. 3: Π–Σ, 2nd ed., Berlin/New York. Hansen, P.A./Cunningham, I.C. (eds.) (2009), Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, vol. 4: Τ–Ω, Berlin/ New York. Janko, R. (1995). “Crates of Mallos, Dionysius Thrax and the Tradition of Stoic Grammatical Theory”, in: L. Ayres (ed.), The Passionate Intellect. Essays on the Transformation of Classical Traditions Presented to Professor I.G. Kidd, New Brunswick, 213–233. Jeay, M. (2013), “‘Infinis exemples pourroie dire’. Le métadiscours médiéval sur la liste”, in: Milcent-Lawson/Lecolle/Michel (2013), 149–161. Latte, K. (1915) “Zur Zeitbestimmung des Antiatticista”, in: Hermes 50, 373–394. Lobeck, Chr.A. (ed.) (1820), Phrynichi Eclogae nominum et verborum atticorum, Leipzig. Mainberger, S. (2003), Die Kunst des Aufzählens. Elemente zu einer Poetik der Enumeration, Berlin/New York. Marazzini, C. (2009), L’ordine delle parole. Storia di vocabolari italiani, Bologna. Matthaios, S. (1999), Untersuchungen zur Grammatik Aristarchs. Texte und Interpretationen zur Wortlehre, Göttingen. Matthaios, S. (2013), “Pollux’ Onomastikon im Kontext der attizistischen Lexikographie. Gruppen «anonymer Sprecher» und ihre Stellung in der Sprachgeschichte und Stilistik”, in: C. Mauduit (ed.), L’Onomasticon de Pollux. Aspects culturels, rhétoriques et lexicographiques, Paris, 67–140. Matthaios, S. (2015), “Greek Scholarship in the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity”, in: Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos (2015), 184–296. Matthaios, S./Montanari, F./ Rengakos, A. (eds.) (2011), Ancient Greek Scholarship and Grammar: Archetypes, Concepts and Contexts, Berlin/New York. Michel, R./Milcent-Lawson, S./Lecolle, M. (2013), “Introduction”, in: Milcent-Lawson/Lecolle/ Michel, 7–20. Milcent-Lawson, S./Lecolle, M./Michel, R. (eds.) (2013), Liste et effet liste en littérature, Paris. Montana, F. (2015), “Hellenistic Scholarship”, in: Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos (2015), 60– 183. Montanari, F./Matthaios, S./Rengakos, A. (eds.) (2015), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, 2 vols., Leiden/Boston. Montanari, F./Pagani, L. (eds.) (2011), From Scholars to Scholia. Chapters in the History of Ancient Greek Scholarship, Berlin/New York. Naechster, M. (1908), De Pollucis et Phrynichi controversiis, Leipzig. Pagani, L. (2015), “Language Correctness (Hellenismos) and Its Criteria”, in: Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos (2015), 798–849. Pontani, F. (2012), “‘Only God Knows the Correct Reading!’. The Role of Homer, the Quran and the Bible in the Raising of Philology and Grammar”, in: M.R. Niehoff (ed.), Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters, Leiden, 43–83. Rutherford, W.G. (1881), The New Phrynichus. Being a Revised Text of the Ecloga of the Grammarian Phrynichus with Introduction and Commentary, London.

  Olga Tribulato Schironi, F. (2009), From Alexandria to Babylon. Near Eastern Languages and Hellenistic Erudition in the Oxyrhynchus Glossary (P.Oxy. 1802 + 4812), Berlin/New York. Schmid, W.P. (1887–1896), Der Atticismus in seinen Hauptvertretern von Dionysios von Halikarnaß bis auf den zweitern Philostrat, 4 vols., Stuttgart. Sève, B. (2010), De haut en bas. Philosophie des listes, Paris. Slater, W.J. (ed.) (1986), Aristophanis Byzantii Fragmenta, Berlin/New York. Sonnino, M. (2014), “I frammenti della commedia greca citati da Prisciano e la fonte del lessico sintattico del libro XVIII dell’Ars”, in: L. Martorelli (ed.), Greco antico nell’Occidente carolingio. Frammenti di testi attici nell’Ars di Prisciano, Zürich/New York, 163–204. Swain, S. (1996), Hellenism and Empire. Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World AD 50–250, Oxford. Tosi, R. (1994), “La lessicografia e la paremiografia in età alessandrina ed il loro sviluppo successivo”, in: F. Montanari (ed.), La philologie grecque à l’époque hellénistique et romaine, Genève, 143–197. Tosi, R. (1997), “Aristofane di Bisanzio e l’Antiatticista”, in: Μοῦσα. Studi in onore di Giuseppe Morelli, Bologna, 171–177. Tosi, R. (2015), “Typology of Lexicographical Works”, in: Montanari/Matthaios/Rengakos (2015), Leiden/Boston, 622–636. Tribulato, O. (2014), “‘Not Even Menander Would Use This Word!’ Perceptions of Menander’s Language in Greek Lexicography”, in: A.H. Sommerstein (ed.), Menander in Contexts, New York/London, 199–214. Tribulato, O. (2016), “Herodotus’ Reception in Ancient Greek Lexicography and Grammar. From the Hellenistic to the Early Imperial Age”, in: J. Priestley/V. Zali (eds.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Herodotus in Antiquity and Beyond, Leiden/Boston, 169–192. Tribulato, O. (2018), “Le lettere prefatorie dell’Onomasticon di Polluce. Frammenti di un discorso autoriale”, in: Lexis 36, 247–283. Tribulato, O. (2019), “Making the Case for a Linguistic Investigation of Greek Lexicography. Some Examples from the Byzantine Reception of Atticist Lemmas”, in: E. Passa/O. Tribulato (eds.), The Paths of Greek. Literature, Linguistics and Epigraphy. Studies in Honour of Albio Cesare Cassio, Berlin/Boston, 241–270. Tribulato, O. (forthcoming), “ἀφθόνητος αἶνος. Su tre lemmi pindarici dell’Antiatticista”, to appear in a Festschrift. Ucciardello, G. (2006), “Esegesi linguistica, glosse ed interpretamenta tra hypomnemata e lessici. Materiali e spunti di discussione”, in: G. Avezzù/P. Scattolin (eds.), I classici greci e i loro commentatori. Dai papiri ai marginalia rinascimentali, Rovereto, 35–83. Valente, S. (2008), “Una miscellanea lessicografica del X secolo. Il Par. Coisl. 345”, in: Segno e testo 6, 151–178. Valente, S. (ed.) (2012), I lessici a Platone di Timeo Sofista e Pseudo-Didimo. Introduzione ed edizione critica, Berlin/Boston. Valente, S. (ed.) (2015), The Antiatticist. Introduction and Critical Edition, Berlin/Boston. Vessella, C. (2018), Sophisticated Speakers. Atticistic Pronunciation in the Atticist Lexica, Berlin/Boston. Whitby, M. (2000), The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus. Translated with and Introduction, Liverpool. Whitmarsh, T. (2005), The Second Sophistic, Oxford. Willi, A. (2010), “The Language of Old Comedy”, in: G.W. Dobrov (ed.), Brill’s Companion to the Study of Old Comedy, Leiden/Boston, 471–510.



Part III: The Poetics of the Epic Catalogue

Edzard Visser

The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic The term ‘catalogue’ is frequently used in scholarly discussions of early Greek poetry and seems to have become a keyword in the scholarship on archaic and oral texts.1 But despite its importance there is no precise definition of this term, unless we put up with a very general definition like: ‘a catalogue is a text arranged by lists of names’.2 So in a catalogue the poet organizes a specific passage by putting names in the first place with regard to contents. But a closer look at the catalogues in early Greek epic will show that this definition is too general to capture important differences in the formal appearances of catalogues. The focus of the first part of this paper will be on the typology of catalogues in Greek literature. The results will then be contrasted with catalogues in other oral heroic poetry. At the end, a few comments will be made on the function and the difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey concerning the poetical importance of catalogues within these epics.

 Employment and typology of catalogues in Greek literature Unlike the literature of many other cultures Greek literature did not develop step by step from simple theological or ethical dicta towards longer and more elaborate texts up to large poems with complex structures. Instead, ancient Greek literature starts with some sort of ‘bang’, with Homer’s Iliad, a poem consisting of  1 It is impossible to discuss the research on Homeric and Hesiodic catalogues here in detail. Nowadays, there seems to be a consensus that the catalogue is an integral part of oral poetry, cf. especially Krischer 1971, 131–158. A different view was held by J. Goody 1977 in his influential book The Domestication of the Savage Mind. In my book Homers Katalog der Schiffe (Visser 1997) I have tried to prove that the Catalogue of Ships in the second book of the Iliad could quite well have been composed orally. 2 A more elaborate definition was given by Reitz 1999, 334: “Der Katalog ist eine zumeist formal deutlich abgegrenzte Aufzählung gleichartiger Begriffe in einem einheitlichen Zusammenhang. Jedes seiner Glieder ist ‘Element einer durchgehenden Erzählung’.” The last remark is cited from J. Gassner, Katalog im römischen Epos, Diss. Munich 1973. More pragmatic definitions like the one in The New Oxford Dictionary of English (“a complete list of items, typically one in alphabetical or other systematic order” (Oxford 1998, s.v.) causes problems especially with regards to the word ‘complete’. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-009

  Edzard Visser about 15.700 lines and a structure so sophisticated that even today, despite all that has been written, we have yet to penetrate it completely. This poem of such outstanding quality3 contains a remarkable number of catalogues. This leaves us with the question of how to understand their function within the Iliad, a generally non-didactic poem. In terms of contemporary stylistic perceptions the catalogue represents an element that interrupts the sequence of events and therefore seems to counteract attention to the plot. We thus tend to consider it to be an archaic feature, rooted in the epic tradition, but gradually abandoned when literacy became more predominant. This assumption seems to be confirmed by the fact that the number of catalogues decreases already in the Odyssey and then, with the important exception of Hesiod, almost disappears from poetic texts for centuries. The revival of the catalogue after the 5th century BC could be explained as a kind of obeisance to Homer, to ὁ ποιητής. This assumption, however, becomes problematic when we take a closer look at the form of the catalogues in Homer’s Iliad. It seems necessary to distinguish between two different types of catalogues. This difference, generally overlooked in Homeric research, is important for the comparison of the Homeric epics with those from other times and cultures: it will emerge that one of the two types is unparalleled in non-Greek oral texts. The first type of catalogue, labeled here as type A, consists of verses with an extremely high concentration of names, but with a grammatically very uniform structure: several names — two or three in each verse — either in the nominative or in the accusative case are simply juxtaposed and tied together by either καί or τε, rarely ἰδέ or ἠδέ. The largest catalogue of this kind in Homer is the catalogue of the Nereids in Iliad 18, stretching from line 39 to 48 and containing 33 names; catalogues with fewer names can be found in various places, for example at Iliad 16.417–419 (a list of Trojans killed by Patroclus) or 8.273–276 (a list of Trojans killed by Teukros). Another example is from Iliad 16.417–419: αὐταρ ἔπειτ Ἐρύμαντα καὶ Ἀμφοτερὸν καὶ Ἐπάλτην, Τλήπολεμόν τε Δαμαστορίδην Ἐχίον τε Πύριν τε Ἰφέα τ’ Εὔιππόν τε καὶ Ἀργεάδην Πολύμηλον, but then (sc. Patroclus killed) Erymas, Amphoteros and Epaltes, and the Damastor-son Tlepolemos, Echios and Pyris, Ipheus, Euhippos and the Arges-son Polymelos,

Type B differs fundamentally from this model. Here, the names are part of much looser structures. They consist of longer individual entries and are thus more of  3 Cf. p. 208–209.

The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic  

an itemization. Probably the most notorious example can be found in the eleventh book of the Odyssey: the list of heroines Odysseus meets in the Underworld. The repeated structural elements that form the catalogue are the following: 11.235–236 11.260–261 11.266–267 11.271–272 11.281–282 11.299–300 11.306–307 11.321–322 11.326–327

ἔνθ ἤτοι πρώτην Τυρὡ ἴδον εὐπατέρειαν, / ἣ ... τὴν δὲ μέτ’ Ἀντιόπην ἴδον, Ασωποῖο θύγατρα, / ἣ ... τὴν δὲ μέτ’ Ἀλκμήνην ἴδον, Ἀμφιτρύωνος ἄκοιτιν, / ἣ ... μητέρα τ’ Οἰδιπόδαο ἴδον, καλὴν Ἐπικάστην, / ἣ ... καὶ Χλῶριν εἶδον περικαλλεα, / τὴν ... καὶ Λήδην εἶδον, τὴν Τυνδαρέου παράκοιτιν, / ἣ ... τὴν δὲ μέτ’ Ἰφιμέδειαν, Ἀλωῆος παράκοιτιν, / εἴσιδον, ἣ ... Φαίδρην τε Πρόκριν τε ἴδον καλήν τ’ Ἀριάδνην, κούρην Μίνωος ὀλοόφρονος, ἣν ... Μαῖράν τε Κλυμένην τε ἴδον στυγερήν τ’ Ἐριφύλην, / ἣ …

There actually I saw as the first woman Tyro, of noble descent, / who ... after her I saw Antiope, the daughter of Asopos, / who ... after her I saw Alkmene, the wife of Amphitryon, / who ... and I saw the Mutter of Oedipus, the beautiful Epikaste, / who ... and I saw Chloris, exceedingly beautiful, / who ... and I saw Leda, the wife of Tyndareos, / who ... after her I saw Iphimedeia, the wife of Aloeus, / who ... and I saw Phaidra and Prokris and the beautiful Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, meditating on destruction, who ... and I saw Maira and Klymene and the hateful Eriphyle, / who ...

In each of these lines we find the name of the heroine embedded in a similar formal structure: 1) the stereotype introduction τὴν δὲ μετ’ or καί – in one line substituted through τ’, 2) the name in the accusative case, 3) the verb forms ἴδον, εἶδον or εἴσιδον, 4) a specific or generic epithet, 5) a relative clause, introduced by ἥ or ἥν, but normally in the nominative case. The function of every part can be described as follows: (1) connection with the former item, (2) the item itself, i.e. the name, (3) the action to which it is subjected, (4, 5) an elaboration of the item, first in a shorter, then in a longer form. The continued repetition of this structure justifies the labelling of this passage as a catalogue, although each entry differs in length and grammatical structures. A catalogue similar to that of the heroines can be found in book 16 of the Odyssey with a list of the names of Penelope’s suitors. Catalogues of type A are missing in the Odyssey, although the context of Odysseus’ wanderings or fighting scenes such

  Edzard Visser as the slaughter of the suitors in book 22 would offer opportunities to present lists of names. In the Theogony of the Boiotian poet Hesiod type A is predominant. This becomes immediately evident by the following list of lists from the Theogony: 133–136 211–225 226–231 237–239 243–262 266–267 271–276 337–345 349–361 375–377 378–382 383–385 454–457 509–511

the Titans: 11 names within 4 lines the Nyktids: 18 names within 9 lines the Erids: 15 names within 6 lines the Pontids: 5 names within 4 lines the Nereids: 50 names within 18 lines the Thaumatids: 5 names within 2 lines the Phorkyids: 7 names within 4 lines the rivers: 26 names within 9 lines the Okeanines: 40 names within 13 lines the descendants of Eurybie and Kreios: 3 names within 2 lines the descendants of Eos and Astraios: 4 names within 3 lines the descendants of Styx and Pallas: 4 names within 2 lines the descendants of Rheia and Kronos: 6 names within 4 lines the descendants of Klymene and Iapetos: 4 names within 3 lines.

Taken together, these numbers yield a ratio of 2.1 names per line. On the basis of type B Hesiod has even created an epic in its own right, the so-called Catalogue of Women; here every new entry is introduced by the formula ἢ οἵη (‘or as she was’). The high percentage of type A-catalogues within the Theogony has led to the surmise that this didactic feature might have been Boiotian in origin,4 but this is rather unlikely: in view of the amount of catalogues in the Homeric poems, they should rather be seen as integral and traditional parts of Greek heroic poetry.5 The number of lines in the Theogony mainly consisting of names is best understood as a deliberate accentuation of this element. If we now turn to the development in the use of the catalogue after Homer and Hesiod — always taking into consideration that the greatest part of the ancient Greek literature is lost to us — we find remnants of type A in only very few

 4 Willcock 1978, 205: “There is evidence associating ‘catalogue poetry’ with Boiotia and the school of Hesiod.” 5 For further arguments cf. Pinsent 1985, 119–125. As will be noticed I do not accept the theory according to which Hesiod’s narrative epics are prior to the Iliad and Odyssey. In my opinion it was just one argument that has made this theory worth considering, brought forth by W. Burkert 1976. He argues that the Iliadic reference of the Egyptian Thebes (9.391–392) cannot be dated earlier than 660. But this conclusion is debatable as was shown by the Egyptologist H.-J. Thissen 2002, and almost all the other considerations speak in favor of the priority of Homer.

The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic  

instances. What we do have are the lists of place-names in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (vv. 30–44;6 the hymn probably dates to the 6th century BC) and a list of the so-called Pleiads, possibly from the Titanomachia.7 There are no other examples of passages that fill a considerable amount of lines just with names. The Latin epics show only faint reminiscences of the Homeric/Hesiodic type A: Virgil’s Aeneid sometimes presents one or two verses with this structure as do Ovid’s Metamorphoses,8 but they always show some syntactical variation. The B-type on the other hand can be found in many texts, even in prose. It is not much of a surprise that catalogues are employed in historiography, as e.g. at Herodotus 7.59–83,9 or in Thucydides 7.57–58.10 In lyric and tragic poetry, the use of the catalogue is less frequent, because it does not fit easily into the smaller forms of lyric poetry and is not a typical element of character speech. It is remarkable, however, that Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis contains an epic catalogue of 71 lines (231–302), but it is delivered by the chorus, not by an actor. This exception may be explained as a sort of Homeric imitation, perhaps it was even meant as a provocation. In the Hellenistic era and the Roman Age we find entire literary works that are structured according to type B. The most prominent of these didactic epics are, in Greek, the works of Aratus and Nicander, and in Latin, the Astronomica of Manilius. In narrative epic, too, type B was maintained as a stylistic feature; especially prominent examples are Virgil, Aeneid 7.614–817 (the Italic contingents against Aeneas and his allies), Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautica 1.23–233 (list of the Argonauts), or Silius Italicus 8.356–616 (trooping of the Roman allies before the battle of Cannae). That type A catalogues are restricted to early Greek epic may suggest that for Homer this stylistic feature was a traditional element inherited from an earlier stage of poetry. He used it from time to time to present lists of personnel or places, thereby stressing the intensity of a situation or action . In these cases, it is not the individual names that matter, but their entirety. There is, however, a serious obstacle to this interpretation: the monumental so-called Catalogue of Ships in the second book of the Iliad, stretching from line 484 to 760. The size of this section leaves little doubt that the poet of the Iliad

 6 The two other segments, also labeled as catalogues by Baltes 1981, are to be classified as Btypes. 7 7 EGrF 10 (Davies), PEG fr. 12 (Bernabé). 8 Especially in the description of the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs in book 12. 9 Armayor 1978. 10 Smart 1977.

  Edzard Visser regarded the catalogue as an important element. The Catalogue of Ships depicts the Greek — or rather the Achaean — contingents by giving the names of their leaders, by listing the settlements in every kingdom represented by the contingent, and by giving the number of ships needed for the transport of the warriors to Troy. This catalogue is followed by the smaller catalogue of the Trojans and their allies (2.816–877). Although these catalogues do not show a completely uniform structure like ‘and then the people from x (governing element) under the leader y (second governing element), coming from settlements a, b, c and so on (concretion to the first element)’, a strong influence of the A-type catalogue is undeniable. In 86 lines of the Catalogue of Ships we have solely the names of towns in the accusative case, all as objects to the verbs ναίειν or ἔχειν; these lines clearly belong to type A.11

 Catalogues in heroic poetry from outside Greece The analysis of the typology and employment of catalogues in early Greek epic has led to the result that in the Iliad and the Theogony an affinity towards lists with a very tight structure is clearly recognizable, whereas in the Odyssey and the Catalogue of Women this kind of catalogue is almost non-existent. What are we to make of this result for a better comprehension of Homer’s poetics? The explanation that Iliad and Odyssey were composed by different poets would be too simple. In order to understand this result it is still helpful to do what Homeric research since Milman Parry has done: to compare the poems of Homer and Hesiod with other narrative or didactic epics without any connection to these poets. In this context H. M. and Nora K. Chadwick’s The Growth of Literature (1932–1940) and C.M. Bowra’s Heroic Poetry (1952) prove very useful. The latter work is particularly important, since Bowra as a classicist had worked on Homeric epic before.12 From both works, that have to date unfortunately not been replaced or at least supplemented, it can be inferred that the catalogues of type A are in fact rather specific to Homer and Hesiod.13 As far as I can see, there is only one text that  11 For a detailed discussion of structural aspects see Visser 1997. 12 The most valuable book was certainly his Tradition and Design in the Iliad from 1930. 13 The B-type on the other hand seems to be rather common even in the Sumerian or Akkadian poetry. A good example is Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld. To underline Inanna’s exordinary action, the poet describes the cities and temples in the human world she is about to abandon (5– 13 = Pritchard 1955, 53):

The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic  

shows equivalent structures to these Iliadic and Hesiodic catalogues: the lists in the Old-English poem Widsið.14 Here is an example of lines 59–63: mid Wenlum ic wæs ond mid Wærnum / ond mid Wicingum. mid Gefþum ic wæs ond mid Winedum / ond mid Gefflegum. mid Englum ic wæs ond mid Swæfum / ond mid ænenum. mid Seaxum ic wæs ond Sycgum / ond mid Sweordwerum. mid Hronum ic wæs ond mid Deanum / ond mid Heaþoreamum.

A translation of these lines seems unnecessary, as they are governed by an extremely simple grammatical pattern: five times we read ‘I was with’, the rest are names of tribes or peoples, some of them still not clearly identified. On the surface, there are similarities between this poem and the Homeric Catalogue of Ships, but again a closer look reveals differences. The Widsið contains no epithets and has almost no variation in the syntactic structure: the beginning of the line contains the first ethnonym together with the preposition mid, in the second place follows the stereotype ic wæs, the third and fourth element is again an ethnonym, and as copulative conjunction we always find ond. The most significant difference, however, is in the metrical form. Here, the Greek epic again forms a world of its own. It was C.M. Bowra who phrased the specific difference of the Greek epic in a nutshell when he stated in Heroic Poetry (1952, 252): The heroic hexameter, based on the quantity of syllables and formed on a ‘falling’ rhythm of six dactyls, of which the last is truncated, is a much stricter and more exacting meter than those of the Russians, Jugoslavs, or Asiatic Tatars. It has indeed its licenses, notably in its

 Inanna abandoned heaven, abandoned earth, to the nether world she descended, abandoned lordship, abandoned ladyship, to the nether world she descended, In Erech, she abandoned Eanna, to the nether world she descended, In Badtibira, she abandoned Emushkalamma, to the nether world she descended, In Zabalam, she abandoned Giguna, to the nether world she descended, In Adab, she abandoned Esharra, to the nether world she descended, In Nippur, she abandoned Baratushgarra, to the nether world she descended, In Kish, she abandoned Hursagkalamma, to the nether world she descended, In Agade, she abandoned Eulmash, to the nether world she descended. Also the list of the 40 companions of Manas, hero of oral Kirghiz epic, which D.G. Miller had taken as an example for the oral origin of catalogues (Miller 1982, 12), can be classified as B-type. 14 The date of composition is contested; cf. Neidorf 2013, Weiskott 2015. Weiskott’s article gives an instructive insight into the metrical profile of the Widsið.

  Edzard Visser artificial lengthening of short syllables and its occasional tolerance of hiatus between vowels, but this only emphasizes how rigorous it is in other ways, and how difficult it is to fit the Greek language into this demanding and exacting form.

It should be noted that in comparative research these clear facts are still largely ignored. To be sure, there is a certain similarity between the Widsið and the Homeric catalogues, and that is the intention to place names as tightly together as metrically possible. Still, the Widsið seems to be a singular exception in a vast corpus, and this poem was composed in a literate period, with the singular aim of listing personal, ethnical or geographical names; it contains no chain of events. When we look at heroic poems such as the Gilgamesh Epic, the Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied or what is presumably the last orally created epic, the Wedding of Smailagić Meho, composed from the 5th to the 7th of July 1935 by the Serbo-Croatian guslar Avdo Međedović,15 we find repetition and sometimes catalogue structures of type B, but never of type A. What a catalogue looks like in Međedovic’s epic can be seen in the episode in which the arrival of the wedding guests is described. For every single person there is a single entry the beginning of which is marked by specific introductory lines. Most frequent is the following line, which recurs seven times (7758, 7820, 7868, 7909, 8027, 8135): vihra nema, a jeknu Kozara,

which Lord translated ‘although there was no wind, Kozara (the name of a mountain) rumbled’. Compared to the introductions of the heroines in Odyssey 11, these lines show a much less structural determination; they are just repeated lines which function as a signal to the audience that the next guest is to be announced. Again, this confirms the assumption that highly condensed lists of names of the A type as we find them in Homer and Hesiod were a feature very specific to early Greek epic. In order to explain why the A-type catalogue is a restricted to early Greek epic, we must turn to pre-Homeric times and to the Mycenaean era in which the oral tradition is rooted. Already a brief glimpse at the Greek culture of the 2nd millennium BC allows us not only a better understanding of type A catalogues, but also explains the remarkable perfection of the Iliad and the Odyssey at the very beginning of Greek literature. Homer’s astonishing poetical mastery can

 15 This poem with a length 12311 lines is published in its original form and translation by Lord/ Bynum 1974.

The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic  

only be satisfactorily explained by the assumption that the highly developed Mycenaean culture had a massive impact on the Greek oral tradition. It formed the background of the Iliad and Odyssey, not only regarding stories and characters, but also in terms of form. The depiction of characters, the complexity of structure, and the metre all point to a connection between the first half of the 2nd millennium BC to Homer.16 Thanks to the decipherment of Linear B in 1952 by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, we do not have to rely on plausible guesses alone. Many of the Linear B tablets contain texts quite similar to those of the Homeric A-type catalogues. To be sure, these are not literary texts, but documents containing statistical data of the palatial economic system. Nevertheless we should not think of Mycenaean culture as only invested in perfect bureaucracy: Schliemann’s findings in Mycenae for instance show brilliant artistic achievements in arts. Still, the meticulous recordings of almost everything produced in the domain of a Mycenaean wanax demonstrate a strong affinity towards fixed structures, which are best explained by the social, cultural and theological dominance of the palace. I am convinced that this way of living which determined the life of shepherds, forgers, soldiers, carpenters and priests alike exerted a profound influence not just on the attitude towards life in general but just as much on poetry: things and facts had to be organized. A very instructive example for this is the An-series of tablets from Pylos, written in Linear B and containing lists of personnel in charge of guarding the coastline of the Pylian empire, hence pointing to a military context — as does the Iliad. The denotations of the tablets are PY (for Pylos) An 657, 654, 519, 656 and 661. I will confine myself here to only one tablet, since the others have almost the same structure. This tablet is PY An 657, the text in transcription runs as follows:17 1 2 3 4 5

o-u-ru-to | o-pi-a2-ra | e-pi-ko-wo ma-re-wo | o-ka | o-wi-to-no a-pe-ri-ta-wo | o-re-ta | e-te-wa | ko-ki-jo su-we-ro-wi-jo | o-wi-ti-ni-jo | o-ka-ra3 VIR 50 Vacat

 16 However, we have to be careful not to think of the Iliad as a quasi Mycenaen epic and should not overestimate the coherence of tradition (as did Webster 1958). Homer’s relation to the Mycenaean culture may be described as ‘nonsystematic memories of a great past’, viz. memories of powerful kings and large realms, memories of palaces with Cyclopean walls, memories of outstanding bravery and valor. Ultimately, story and form of the Iliad as well as the Odyssey are the products of an amalgamation of the Mycenaean, geometric and archaic cultures, cf. Visser 2008. 17 The exact wording follows Bartonĕk 2003, 504. The geographical context of this tablet was last discussed by Lang 1990.

  Edzard Visser 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

ne-da-wa-ta-o | o-ka | e-ke-me-de a-pi-je-ta | ma-ra-te-u | ta-ni-ko a 2 -ru-wo-te | ke-ki-de| ku-pa-ri-si-jo VIR 20 vacat a3-ta-re-u-si | ku-pa-ri-si-jo | ke-ki-de VIR 10 me-ta-qe | pe-i | e-qe-ta | ke-ki-jo a-e-ri-qo-ta | e-ra-po | ri-me-ne o-ka-ra | o-wi-to-no VIR 30 ke-ki-de-qe | a-pu2-ka-ne VIR 20 me-ta-qe | pe-i | a3-ko-ta e-qe-ta

This is a tentative translation: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

In the following way the epikouroi (= guardsmen) shall guard the coastal area: The oka of Maleus in Owithnos: Aperit(h)awon, Orestas, Etew(w)as, Kokijos, Suwerowijos; (and) the Owitnian o-ka-men (?): 50 men. vacat The oka of Nedawatas: Ekhemedes, Amphiestas, Maratheus, Tanikos; in Halwons the Kyparissian kerkides (?): 20 men vacat in Aithaleis (?) the Kyparissian kerkides: 10 men and with them as follower: son of Kerkos A(h)erigwhontas, (and) in the stag harbour the o-ka-men stationed in Owithno: 30 men; and the Apykhanian kerkides: 20 men; and with them as follower: Aikotas.

Although many details within this text are still quite enigmatic, the typology repeated on the tablets can easily be recognized: after the introductory line ‘in the following way the epikouroi (guardsmen) shall guard the coastal area’ follows a personal name in the genitive case, governed by the nominative word o-ka (which must mean something like ‘military unit’, may the later Greek word be ἀρχή, ὀχή, ὁλκάς or ὀρχάς). Then there follow male personal names in the nominative case, denoting the men in charge, at the end collective names of special contingents, called kerkides. The sentence ‘and with them as follower: Aerigwhontas and Aikotas’ concludes the entry. In all of the An-tablets mentioned above this structure is repeated ten times. The correspondences between these texts and the Homeric Catalogue of Ships are obvious; take for example the entry describing the contingent of Crete (Il. 2.645–652): Κρητῶν δ’ Ἰδομενεὺς δουρικλυτὸς ἡγεμόνευεν, οἳ Κνωσόν τ’ εἶχον Γόρτυνά τε τειχιόεσσαν, Λύκτον Μίλητόν τε καὶ ἀργινόεντα Λύκαστον

The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic  

Φαιστόν τε Ῥύτιόν τε, πόλεις εὖ ναιεταώσας, ἄλλοι θ’, οἳ Κρήτην ἑκατόμπολιν ἀμφενέμοντο. τῶν μὲν ἄρ’ Ἰδομενεὺς δουρικλυτὸς ἡγεμόνευεν Μηριόνης τ’ ἀτάλαντος Ἐνυαλίῳ ἀνδρειφόντῃ· τοῖσι δ’ ἅμ’ ὀγδώκοντα μέλαιναι νῆες ἕποντο. For the Cretans Idomeneus was the leader, famous through his spear. Those who had Knossos and Gortys, richly walled, Lyktos and Miletos and shining Lykastos, Phaistos and Rhytios, towns good to live in and the others, who settled in Crete with hundred towns: For the Cretans Idomeneus was the leader, famous through his spear, and Meriones, equivalent to Enyalios, the man slayer, together with them followed eighty black ships.

At the beginning there are the persons in charge: epikouroi resp. Idomeneus together with the description of the geographical area, in PY An 657 the o-ka of Maleus, at Il. 2.646–649 the important cities and the rest of Crete. Then follow the names of the leaders, in the Pylian tablet five names in a catalogical form, whereas Homer by naming only two is more reticent at this point. But this is not always the case: at Il. 2.494–495 Homer, too, lists five names in two lines.18 The entry is concluded by numbers of men and their ships respecitively. Finally, the actions carried out by the men and ships are the same in both cases: ἕπεσθαι (‘to follow’). The similarities, I would argue, are striking. The possibility, therefore, that the Mycenaean system of classification had entered epic narration must be considered. It may well have happened already in Mycenaean times, at least in the Submycenaean era.19 The Iliad, as a poem which is deeply rooted in the oral tradition, shows this utilization of catalogues not only in the Catalogue of Ships, but also in shorter lists, as e.g. those listing the names of fallen warriors. Hesiod made this stylistic feature the center of his Theogony (this is said without asserting a direct dependency on Homer). For him, catalogues are even more important: the names of Muses, Nereids, Okeanides and of so many other creatures reveal his intention to be recognized as a clear and graphic poet and — what is more — as a competent and trustworthy interpreter of the world: Hesiod knows names, therefore his poems are trustworthy.  18 Βοιωτῶν μὲν Πηνέλεως καὶ Λήιτος ἤρχον/Ἀρκεσίλαός τε Προθοήνωρ τε Κλονίος τε — ‘the Boeotians led Peneleos and Leïtos and Arkesilaos and Prothoenor and Klonios’. 19 It may even be possible that the specific form of the Catalogue of Ships as a whole is a result of historical events from the 2nd millennium BC, namely large-scale sea raids of the Mycenaean people, perhaps against Troy. Cf. Visser 1998.

  Edzard Visser As for the formal density of catalogue lines, which can be determined by the numbers of names within one verse, Hesiod appears even more condensed than Homer. In the Iliad, only the catalogue of the Nereids in book 18 has lines containing more than three names, and in all of these three lines the names show a high degree of semantic indefiniteness, for example 18.43: Δωτώ τε Πρώτω τε Φέρουσά τε Δυναμένη τε20

Δωτώ is ‘the woman who gives’ (viz. the gifts of the sea), Πρώτω ‘the woman who is the first’ (there is no indication in which respect she is first), Φέρουσα ‘the woman who brings’ (viz. the ships into the harbor), Δυναμένη ‘the woman who is potent’ (viz. to help). Hesiod even managed to place the names of eight of the nine Muses — whose names are thus determined — within just two lines (Theogony 77– 78): Κλειώ τ’ Ευτέρπη τε Θάλειά τε Μελπομένη τε Τερψιχόρη τ’ Ἐρατώ τε Πολύμνιά τ’ Οὐρανίη τε Καλλιόπη θ’ …

 The function of catalogues in the Homeric epics and the difference between Iliad and Odyssey21 The third part of my remarks deals with the function of catalogues, particularly those of type A, in Homer and the literary aims they serve. It is fair to say that the Homeric epics stand out by their poetical excellence, which is manifest in their extremely elaborate structure, the condensation of the long chain of events of the Trojan War into only a few days, the vivid descriptions conjuring powerful visual effects — especially in similes — as well as the astonishing detail in the portrayal of characters such as Achilles, Odysseus or Penelope. But how do these poetic conceptions go together with catalogues of names? As stated above, later poets, of lyric as well as tragic poetry, make little use of catalogues. Indeed, it seems

 20 This verse is exactly identical with line 248 of Hesiod’s catalogue of Nereids in the Theogony. However, there are so many differences between both these catalogues, that R. Wachter is probably right when he argues that the Homeric and the Hesiodic catalogue have a common source, i.e. the oral tradition (Wachter 1990). See also Higbie 1995. 21 Minchin 1996, Gaertner 2001. Still important to this topic, although with no specific reference to Homer, are the introductory remarks of Wimmel 1954.

The Catalogue in Early Greek Epic  

that already for the poet of the Odyssey, the catalogue posed a problem. The comparatively extensive use of catalogues in the Iliad can be explained in two ways. The first one is that the poet of the older epic, the Iliad, made use of catalogues simply because they were a consititutive part of the genre, handed down by tradition. The poet of the Odyssey, by contrast, was already more independent from the tradition and therefore omitted catalogues of type A. This idea of a fading tradition is relatively widespread in scholarship on the epic catalogue. The second possible explanation looks at the very specific intentions Homer might have connected with each catalogue, and the Catalogue of Ships in particular. In order to confirm this last assumption every catalogue would have to be analyzed in terms of its extent, its position, its names; this work is yet to be done. But at least for the Catalogue of Ships its fuction is now well understood. This catalogue is inserted into the Iliad because the plot of this epic — the siege of a well-fortified city, situated overseas, by an enormously numerous alliance of all Greek tribes, led by glorious kings and successfully completed — is perceived as an essential event of Greek history. For Homer as well as for his contemporaries, this plot was a part of their own as well as their national identity and history; even a skeptical mind like that of Thucydides accepted this interpretation. Thus, the description of this alliance in detail, viz. by many names in a very condensed and typologically fixed manner, emphasized the importance of the plot of the Iliad. The audience when listening to this text may have had the impression of being present at Troy themselves — to be part of their own history. This interpretation might also help us understand the lack of catalogues in the Odyssey. This epic was thrilling and very colorful, it took the audience to far away countries and it offered a pleasant happy ending, but it did not invite the audience to connect their own personal history with its plot. The Iliadic technique of, as it were, sealing the truth of the story by catalogues was not required here; it might even have been counterproductive by seriously disturbing the fabulous, exotic and individual flair of Homers’ second great work.

Works Cited Armayor, O.K. (1978), “Herodotus’ Catalogues of the Persian Empire in Light of the Monuments and the Greek Literary Tradition”, in: TAPhA 108, 1–9. Baltes, M. (1981), “Die Kataloge im homerischen Apollonhymnus”, in: Philologus 125, 25–43. Bartonĕk, A. (2003), Handbuch des mykenischen Griechisch, Heidelberg. Bowra, C.M. (1930), Tradition and Design in the Iliad, Oxford. Bowra, C.M. (1952), Heroic Poetry, London. Burkert, W. (1976), “Das hunderttorige Theben und die Ilias”, in: WS 10 N. F., 5–21.

  Edzard Visser Chadwick, H.M./Chadwick, N.K. (1932; 1936; 1940), The Growth of Literature, I: The Ancient Literatures of Europe, II: Russian Oral Literature, Yugoslav Oral Poetry, Early Indian Literature, Early Hebrew Literature; III: The Oral Literature of the Tatars and Polynesia, etc., Cambridge. Gaertner, J. (2001), “The Homeric Catalogues and their Function in Epic Narrative”, in: Hermes 129, 298–305. Gassner, J. (1972), Katalog im römischen Epos, Diss., Munich. Goody, J. (1977), The Domestication of the Savage Mind, Cambridge. Higbie, C. (1995), “Archaic Hexameter: the Iliad, Theogony, and Erga”, in: M.Fantuzzi/R. Pretagostino (eds.), Struttura e storia dell’esametro greco, vol. 1, Rome, 69–119. Krischer, T. (1971), Formale Konventionen der homerischen Epik, Munich. Lang, M.L. (1990), “The Oka Tablets Again”, in: Kadmos 29, 113–125. Lord, A.B./Bynum, D. (eds.) (1974), Serbocroatian Heroic Songs, vol. 3 and 4, Cambridge, Mass. Miller, D.G. (1982), Improvisation, Typology, Culture, and ‘the New Orthodoxy’. How Oral is Homer?, Innsbruck. Minchin, E. (1996), “The Performance of Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics”, in: Worthington, I. (ed.), Voice into text, Leiden/New York/Köln, 3–20. Neidorf, L. (2013), “The Dating of Widsið”, in: Neophilologus 97, 165–183. Pinsent, J. (1985), “Boiotian Epic”, in: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Boiotian Antiquities, Montreal-Quebec, 31.10–4.11.1979, Amsterdam, 119–125. Pritchard, J.B. (ed.) (1955), Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament (ANET), Princeton. Reitz, C. (1999), s.v. Katalog, in: Der Neue Pauly 6, 334–336. Smart, J.D. (1977), “Catalogues in Thucydides and Ephorus”, in: GRBS 18, 33–42. Thissen, H.-J. (2002), “Ägyptologische Randbemerkungen”, in: RhM 145, 46–60. Visser, E. (1997), Homers Katalog der Schiffe, Stuttgart/Leipzig. Visser, E. (1998), “Formale Typologie im Schiffskatalog der Ilias: Befunde und Konsequenzen”, in: H. Tristram (ed.), New Methods in the Research of Epic, Tübingen, 25–44. Visser, E. (2008), “Fiktion und Wirklichkeit. Die epische Dichtung und Homer”, in: Zeit der Helden. Die ‘dunklen Jahrhunderte’ Griechenlands 1200–700 v.Chr., Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe, 320–329. Wachter, R. (1990), “Nereiden und Neoanalyse: Ein Blick hinter die Ilias”, in: WJA 16, 17–31. Webster, T.B.L. (1958), From Mycenae to Homer, London. Weiskott, E. (2015), “The Meter of Widsith and the Distant Past”, in: Neophilologus 99, 143– 150. Willcock, M.M. (1978), The Iliad of Homer, ed. with introduction and commentary, London. Wimmel, W. (1954), “Eine Besonderheit der Reihung in augusteischen Gedichten”, in: Hermes 82, 199–230.

Johannes Haubold

Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach There has been a growing realisation, among classicists and Assyriologists, that Greeks and Babylonians employed similar themes, motifs and narrative techniques when describing the history of gods and early human beings in what we now call epic poetry.1 Scholars have been fascinated by the question of how these similarities arose, and have expended much effort on establishing possible lines of transmission, from Mesopotamia to Greece. This work has had important benefits, not least that of drawing the attention of classicists to a range of hitherto little-known texts. However, it has also had the unfortunate side effect of diverting attention from reading and interpreting the texts themselves. This chapter seeks to redress the balance by adopting a reader-oriented approach, as championed by recent scholars of comparative literature. Unlike many classicists and Assyriologists, students of comparative literature as currently practiced do not on the whole aim to reconstruct pathways of transmission from one literary tradition to another. Rather, they take inspiration from the adventures of what Virginia Woolf called the ‘common reader’, somebody who makes connections between the texts that he or she encounters without asking whether they are historically justified. What interests the common reader, and what interests me here, is comparison as a way of enhancing the reading experience.2 Comparing texts for the sake of reading them better may seem like a modest ambition, but it does help us sidestep the problem that we do not currently know how texts and motifs were transmitted from Mesopotamia to Greece. Still, even if we did know more about transmission, shifting the emphasis from literary history to (common) reading would enable us to reconnect to the experiences of ancient readers – and that, as well as our own enhanced reading, is the aim of this intervention. There were many literatures in the ancient world that flaunted their relationship with other traditions. Akkadian texts alluded to Sumerian ones, and found ways of saying so.3 Hittite authors copied, translated and adapted Akkadian and Hurrian sources, again quite ostentatiously so.4 Roman poets let it be known that

 1 E.g. Burkert 1994 and 2004, West 1997, Haubold 2013, Metcalf 2015, Bachvarova 2016. 2 Domínguez, Saussy and Villanueva 2015, ix–xviii; cf. Woolf 1925, discussed in Koutsantoni 2009. 3 Foster 2009. 4 Beckmann 2009. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-010

  Johannes Haubold they imitated and emulated the works of Greek forerunners.5 In all these cases, transmission from one language and/or culture to another was not just a fact of literary history but an integral part of the reading experience, a hermeneutic reality of which ancient readers would have been aware and with which they were expected to cope.6 Not so in Greece. Homer and Hesiod do not invite their readers, or listeners (I use the term ‘readers’ broadly, throughout this chapter), to compare texts from other cultures, nor do we have evidence that ancient readers ever felt tempted to do so.7 Students of comparative literature have long pointed out the dangers of allowing questions of source and transmission to dominate the hermeneutic process.8 That danger, it seems to me, is particularly pronounced in the case of Greek epic, where readers were never asked by the texts they read to look for non-Greek models. However, that does not necessarily inhibit a comparative process. Epic itself suggests models of cultural contact, as I have argued elsewhere.9 But just as important is our own perspective as modern readers: as Domínguez, Saussy and Villanueva remind us, ‘comparison enables us to discover relations, differences, hidden causes, questions not before asked’.10 The ability of comparison to unsettle old certainties and suggest new connections seems particularly salient in the early 21st century, when readers cannot help but encounter both Homer and Gilgamesh in the ancient literature section of the Western canon, and, as they do, to discover one as a resource for reading the other. This chapter aims to take that reality seriously. I am happy to concede that this is an aspiration of our time; but as Erich Auerbach pointed out, there can be no engaged reading that is not of its

 5 There is a vast amount of scholarship on the reception of Greek literature in Rome. Some of the more important contributions that have a bearing on Homer are Knauer 1964, Hinds 1998, Farrell 2004, Petrain 2014, Barchiesi 2015. 6 As they were occasionally reminded: Servius, for example, warns readers at the start of his Aeneid commentary that they must keep their Homer handy: Praefatio 83–84. The precise nature of intertextual relationships, and of readers’ attitudes to them, varied from culture to culture. At one end of the spectrum, Babylonian cuneiform literature was bilingual to the point that texts in Akkadian and Sumerian may be regarded as belonging to the same cultural tradition; see Foster 2009, 141. At the other extreme, Greek and Latin literature were experienced as culturally distinct by all involved. 7 While we may not expect archaic Greek audiences to compare Homer with non-Greek texts it is perhaps more telling that Hellenistic readers — who certainly had the means to do so — did not develop a more sustained interest in the matter. 8 Wellek 1963. 9 Haubold 2013, 18–72. 10 Domínguez, Saussy and Villanueva 2015, xvi.

Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach  

time. The only real choice we face is between being consciously or unconsciously time-bound.11

 Epic catalogues Greek and Akkadian literature both gave rise to large-scale narratives about the early stages of the universe and the history of gods and men — today we call them epic.12 Hesiod’s Theogony described the beginnings of time for a Greek audience, Enūma eliš performed a similar function for Babylonian readers.13 The Greek Catalogue of Women and the Akkadian Poem of the Flood, or Atra-ḫasīs, took the story down to the great catastrophe that separates an experimental early phase in human history from life as it is ‘now’. Within this broadly shared framework,14 texts such as the Gilgamesh Epic in Mesopotamia, and the Homeric epics in Greece, adopted a narrower focus, celebrating human achievement and reflecting on its limitations. And just as they shared comparable interests, they also drew on a range of similar narrative techniques, including catalogues. Catalogues are a prominent feature of early Greek epic, and today they are often presented as the product of an oral-traditional poetics.15 Entire poems ascribed to Hesiod took the form of extended genealogical catalogues, chiefly the Theogony and the Catalogue of Women.16 The Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2 is the most famous and monumental example of Homeric catalogues, but there are many others. That catalogue starts with a grand invocation to the Muses (Il. 2.484–493):

 11 Auerbach 1953, 573. 12 The history of the term ‘epic’, and the political implications of using it (or refusing to do so) today, need not detain us here. For some initial remarks see Haubold 2013, 19. 13 It has become fashionable to portray Enūma eliš as one Mesopotamian cosmogony among many; see especially Lambert 2013. However, this seems to me to be quite misleading. It is true of course that there were other cosmogonies in Babylon, but none of them had anywhere near the same popularity, and cultural clout. 14 Discussed in further detail in Haubold 2013, 51–57. 15 On catalogues in early Greek epic, and especially Homer, see Edwards 1980), Visser 1997, Minchin 2001, Sammons 2010. 16 For the Hesiodic catalogue poems and their relationship with other texts see West 1966; 1985, Rutherford 2000, Clay 2003, Hunter 2005, Doherty 2006; 2008, Montanari, Rengakos and Tsagalis 2009, Ormand 2014.

  Johannes Haubold ἔσπετε νῦν μοι Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχουσαι: ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα, ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν: οἵ τινες ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν καὶ κοίρανοι ἦσαν: πληθὺν δ᾽ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ᾽ ὀνομήνω, οὐδ᾽ εἴ μοι δέκα μὲν γλῶσσαι, δέκα δὲ στόματ᾽ εἶεν, φωνὴ δ᾽ ἄρρηκτος, χάλκεον δέ μοι ἦτορ ἐνείη, εἰ μὴ Ὀλυμπιάδες Μοῦσαι Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο θυγατέρες μνησαίαθ᾽ ὅσοι ὑπὸ Ἴλιον ἦλθον: ἀρχοὺς αὖ νηῶν ἐρέω νῆάς τε προπάσας. Tell me now, Muses who are at home on Olympus– for you are goddesses and are present and know all things, whereas we hear only rumour and know nothing – who were the leaders of the Danaans and their rulers. But the mass of soldiers I could not tell nor name, not even if I had ten tongues and ten mouths and an unbreakable voice, and my heart was made of bronze, unless the Muses of Olympus, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus, call to my mind all the men who came to Ilios. But I shall I tell the captains of the ships and the number of their ships.17

Andrew Ford has shown that these lines do not just invite us to reflect on the mnemonic feat that is required when recalling large data sets in an oral culture but also, more generally, on the poetic challenge of capturing an absent reality.18 That Homeric catalogues were understood not just as a useful mnemonic device but also, and above all, as a powerful poetic resource, becomes clear when we consider how Homeric speakers use them. Benjamin Sammons has shown that they valued catalogues as rhetorically effective, and malleable to the requirements of specific situations.19 He demonstrates that the point of rhetorical catalogues can be subtle (as, for example, in Iliad 9, where Agamemnon’s list of gifts is also an attempt to legislate who Achilles is and what he should do with his life);20 and that rhetorical catalogues can be self-defeating and sometimes even comical. His main example here is Zeus’ catalogue of former lovers in Iliad 14: Zeus thinks he is in control of the situation but merely illustrates the extent to which he has lost the plot – quite literally, for the ‘will of Zeus’ (Διὸς βουλή, I.5) which keeps the Iliad on course is in serious danger of getting derailed.21  17 All translations in this article are my own. 18 Ford 1992, 76–77. 19 Sammons 2010, esp. pp. 207–208. 20 Sammons 2010, 115–131. 21 Sammons 2010, 63–73; cf. Wesselmann in this volume, p. 294–297.

Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach  

Akkadian epic too makes extensive use of catalogues, though the cultural context is different. There probably were oral epic traditions in ancient Mesopotamia too, where catalogues may have featured. If so, most of these oral performances remain invisible to us.22 What is visible, and has been much discussed in modern scholarship, is the distinctly Mesopotamian tradition of Listenwissenschaft, i.e. the compiling of extensive written lists of items such as plants, gods or omens.23 We know that this tradition directly inspired the composition of some epic catalogues — more on this below. But as with Greek epic, it is important not to reduce what readers of Babylonian epic would have experienced as a poetic phenomenon to a mere habit of processing data. In fact, Akkadian epic betrays a similar awareness of the poetic possibilities of catalogues as does Greek epic, and a similar readiness to exploit them. For illustration, here is another famous catalogue of former lovers, this time from Tablet VI of the Gilgamesh Epic: Gilgamesh has just returned home from his expedition to the Cedar Forest and is at the height of his powers. At this point the goddess Ishtar proposes that they become lovers. Gilgamesh declines the offer, and in support of his decision recites a catalogue of Ishtar’s former lovers (SB Gilgamesh VI.44–47 and 58–79): al-kim-ma lu-up-pi-[iš mi-na-t]a har-mi-ki šá bu-di-im-ma x ta x[( ... )] i-di-šú a-na ddumu-zi ha-mi-ri ṣ[u]-u[h-r]e-ti-ki šat-ta a-na šat-ti bi-tak-ka-a tal-ti-meš-šú [ ... ] [t]a-ra-mi-ma re-’-a na-qid-da ù-tul5-lum [šá k]a-a-a-nam-ma tu-um-ri iš-pu-kak-ki [u4-m]i-šam-ma ú-ṭa-ba-ḫa-ak-ki ú-ni-qé-ti [ṭam-ḫ]a-ṣi-šu-ma a-na barbari(ur.bar.ra) tu-ut-ter-ri-šu ú-ţa-ar-ra-du-šu ka-par-ru šá ram-ni-šu u kalbū(ur.gi7)meš-šu ú-na-áš-šá-ku šap-ri-šu ta-ra-mi-ma i-šu-ul-la-nu lúnukaribbi(nu.giškiri6) abi(ad)-ki ša ka-a-a-nam-ma šu-gu-ra-a na-šak-ki u4-mi-šam-ma ú-nam-ma-ru pa-áš-šur-ki i-na ta-at-ta-ši-šum-ma ta-tal-kiš-šu i-šu-ul-la-ni-ia kiš-šu-ta-ki i ni-kul ù qa-at-ka šu-şa-am-ma lu-pu-ut har-da-at-ni i-šu-ul-la-nu i-qab-bi-ki ia-a-ši mi-na-a ter-re-ši-in-n[i] um-mi la te-pa-a a-na-ku la a-kul

45

60

65

70

 22 Their traces are explored in Vogelzang and Vanstiphout 1992, Henkelman 2006. 23 See von Soden 1936, Hilgert 2009, Van De Mieroop 2015.

  Johannes Haubold ša ak-ka-lu akal(ninda)há pi-šá-a-ti u er-re-e-ti šá ku-uş-şi el-pe-tu ku-tùm-mu-ú-a at-ti taš-mi-ma an-na-a qa-[ba-a-šu] tam-ha-şi-šu-ma a-na dal-la-li tu-ut-[ter-ri-šu] tu-še-ši-bi-šu-ma ina qa-bal ma-na-[ha-(a)-ti-šu] ul e-lu-ú mi-ih-ha ul a-rid da-l[u x x x x] u ia-a-ši ta-ram-min-ni-ma ki-i šá-šu-nu t[u-tar-rin-ni?]

75

‘Come, let me mak[e a catalog]ue of your lovers. As for him of …… […] arm. 45 To Dumuzi, the husband of your youth, you have allotted weeping every year. [...] You loved the shepherd, the guardian of flocks, the herdsman, who regularly provided embers for you, and slaughtered kids for you every day. 60 You struck him and turned him into a wolf. Now his own shepherd boys drive him away, and his dogs maul his thighs. You loved Ishullanu, your father’s gardener, who regularly brought you dates, 65 and made your table shine every day. You looked at him with desire and approached him: “My dear Ishullanu, let us taste your power! Stretch out your hand and touch my vagina!” Ishullanu said to you: 70 “Me! What do you want of me? Did my mother not bake, and did I not eat, that I should eat bread of insults and curses and use grass as a cover against the cold?” When you heard this sp[eech of his], 75 you struck him, and turned [him] into … (text unclear) You sat him in the midst of his labours, he cannot go up the … (text unclear), he cannot go down the …[…] And now that you love me you will [do to(?) me] as (you did to) them?’

Two things stand out. First, Gilgamesh’s catalogue of Ishtar’s lovers is repeatedly characterised as a catalogue. Gilgamesh himself announces that he will make a list of Ishtar’s lovers (Akk. minâtu at VI.44, literally ‘a reckoning’, from the verb manû, to ‘(re)count’),24 and the goddess later takes up this formulation, complaining to her father Anu that Gilgamesh recounted things that were shameful to her (VI.85, Akk. manû). Anu in turn echoes these words (VI.90, manû again), so that

 24 The text is broken but has been convincingly restored.

Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach  

we are told three times that we are dealing with a catalogue. Judging from her reaction, Gilgamesh’s speech has a powerful effect on Ishtar; and, as she herself points out, its effect rests precisely on the catalogue it includes.25 Gilgamesh’s catalogue of Ishtar’s former lovers, then, is framed as a powerful rhetorical performance. However, and that is my second point, it also conveys a more subtle message. Gilgamesh begins his list with Dumuzi, who was Ishtar’s traditional spouse and one of the most evocative figures in Babylonian literature and religion. Laments for Dumuzi were an integral part of the Mesopotamian cultic calendar, and literature about him was both extensive and popular.26 In one important version of the Dumuzi myth Inanna-Ishtar sends him to his death in anger, because he does not lament her (self-inflicted) descent to the Underworld.27 It is easy to see how, for Gilgamesh, he could become the quintessential victim of divine caprice. But Dumuzi was also known to Babylonians as ‘the shepherd’, and in Gilgamesh’s speech this triggers a sustained reflection on the relationship between humans, gods and animals. We make the transition to the animal world with the ‘lesser shepherd-bird’, Akk. allallu, whose wing Ishtar broke.28 Next come the lion and the horse, two other animals whom she loved but subsequently condemned to a wretched existence.29 At vv. 58–63 the human and animal worlds are joined in the person of the anonymous ‘shepherd’ whom Ishtar turned into a wolf hunted by his own dogs. If there was any residual ambiguity as to whether Dumuzi was cursed or blessed with Ishtar’s love, there can be no such ambiguity about his hapless counterpart. Human life, according to Gilgamesh, is suspended between gods and animals. Any attempt to move ‘upwards’ into the divine realm results ultimately in a descent to animal level.

 25 At SB Gilg. VI.85 Ishtar uses the verb manû in the iterative Dtn-stem, thus emphasising the relentless nature of Gilgamesh’s list (Anu in his reply uses the simple D-stem.) The impression of relentlessness is above all created by the recurrent verb tarāmī, ‘you loved’, that introduces each individual vignette. 26 See the collection of Dumuzi texts in Jacobsen 1987, 1–84. 27 Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld 348–358. 28 SB Gilg. VI.48–50, not quoted above. In Sumerian, the allallu is called ‘the lesser shepherd’ (sipa.turmušen); see George 2003, 834, who notes that the allallu’s cry was thought to be kappa, interpreted here to mean ‘my wing!’ (Akk. kappī). 29 SB Gilg. VI.51–56, not quoted above.

  Johannes Haubold

 Catalogues and the end of cosmogony In order to illustrate the benefits of comparison, I consider two pairs of passages in greater detail: the closing lines of Hesiod’s Theogony and Enūma eliš; and two travelogues from the Odyssey and the Gilgamesh Epic. These passages do not normally feature in comparative discussions of ancient Greek and Near Eastern epic, and I treat them here as an antidote to what Adrian Kelly called ‘the approach by isolation’, that is to say the tendency to pick out passages for comparison with no regard for the wider context that gives them meaning.30 It is precisely the wider context of epic catalogues that interests me here, and the question of what the catalogues themselves contribute to the texts of which they form a part. The closing 150 lines or so of the Theogony and Enūma eliš are taken up by lists — a list of Marduk’s fifty names in the Babylonian poem and lists of divinehuman couplings in the Theogony. On the face of it, these passages have little in common: the list of Marduk’s names can be regarded as a typical product of Mesopotamian Listenwissenschaft, the practice of accumulating knowledge in written form that I have already mentioned. Divine names were a favourite subject, and as Andrea Seri has shown, the list of Marduk’s names grows directly out of this tradition.31 The concluding catalogues of the Theogony, on the other hand, are typically Greek: they betray the same interest in divine and human genealogy that underlies much of early Greek epic, including the Theogony itself.32 The question arises of what we can learn from comparing these two very different lists. The answer, I suggest, lies as much in their narrative context as in the lists themselves. Cosmogonies begin at the beginning, of course, but where do they end? The question touches directly on a set of issues that all ancient cosmogonies had to address: how did the world come to be as it is ‘now’? And when do we reach that final stage? Both Hesiod and the poet of Enūma eliš address those questions by rounding off their texts with extended catalogues. Enūma eliš starts with a primordial couple, Apsû and Tiāmtu, giving rise to a family of gods who then come into conflict first with Apsû, and subsequently Tiāmtu. Marduk wins the decisive victory, creates the world and finally man. At this point, the other gods pronounce his fifty names. At first sight, this conclusion to the text may seem arbitrary, but not so: Seri has shown that the issue of naming  30 Kelly 2008. 31 Seri 2006, who shows that the list of Marduk’s names in Enūma eliš closely resembles the socalled ‘Triple God List’. 32 For the genealogical conception of history in early Greek epic see the discussion in Graziosi and Haubold 2005.

Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach  

has been a driving force behind the narrative from the start.33 Names encapsulate cosmic order in Enūma eliš, and it makes sense that Marduk should gather names as he becomes the guardian of the world that he himself created. In the process, he supersedes other, more established, gods. Thus, for example, Ellil, the old ruler of the Mesopotamian pantheon, cedes to him his title of ‘lord of the lands’ (bēl mātāti at VII.136). There is also Ea, the second member of the old Mesopotamian triad and father of Marduk: he hands over his name just after Ellil (VII.138– 142). As these passages make clear, the catalogue of Marduk’s names is not so much a learned compilation of items in the tradition of Listenwissenschaft as a solemn enactment of Marduk’s supremacy. Crucially, it forms part of a direct speech which the gods collectively address to Marduk. Here I recall what I said earlier about the rhetorical power of lists in Akkadian epic: the recitation of Marduk’s names at the end of Enūma eliš is perhaps the most powerful speech act in all of Akkadian epic: it asserts order at the end of creation, arrests narrative momentum and wills cosmogony to its close. All this is relevant as we turn to the very different end of cosmogony as Hesiod tells it. Much like the author of Enūma eliš, Hesiod traces a succession of divine rulers, Uranus, Kronos, Zeus. Here the story might have ended (as it effectively does in Enūma eliš), but Hesiod continues (Hes. Th. 886): Ζεὺς δὲ θεῶν βασιλεὺς πρώτην ἄλοχον θέτο Μῆτιν Zeus, king of the gods, made Metis his first wife.

Zeus has just been appointed king of the gods, against the pull of Homeric epic, where he is never called ‘king’, only ‘father’, πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε. Hesiod, it initially appears, departs from this view, aligning himself rather with Near Eastern traditions according to which the ruler of the gods must also be their king. Yet, Hesiod cannot ultimately ignore the genealogical emphasis of Homer, and Greek epic, so he re-interprets the role of the divine king in genealogical terms: Zeus as king of the gods proceeds to take wives (not one but many), and to father gods and men. Hesiod’s world, like Homer’s, is made up of divine and human families, and that is ultimately why cosmogony cannot end with Zeus’ accession to the throne, why it must spill over into the concluding catalogues that have so often been declared later additions – and why we are required to enter into the maze of heroic genealogies in the Catalogue of Women which will eventually result in the Trojan War. Jenny Strauss Clay has shown that all this is within the

 33 Seri 2006; Gabriel 2014, 268–316.

  Johannes Haubold logic of the Theogony as a text,34 but one has to come to Hesiod from Enūma eliš to appreciate just how and why the Theogony pulls back from narrative closure in the way it does. As Wilfred Lambert once remarked, the list of Marduk’s names in Enūma eliš, far from being an incidental addition, tells us something fundamental about that text.35 Just so, the much-maligned concluding catalogues of the Theogony can tell us something important about this text, its conception of cosmogony as family history, its narrative shape, and its relationship with the rest of early Greek epic.36 All this is much easier to appreciate in comparative perspective, indeed we are liable to miss it altogether unless we compare the Theogony with texts that grapple with similar issues but reach very different conclusions. Enūma eliš is precisely such a text. I am not suggesting that the Theogony was in any sense influenced by it; what I am saying is that comparative study of the two poems’ concluding catalogues can help us become better readers of both.

 Heroic travelogues Comparing catalogues in Greek and Akkadian cosmogonies, I have argued, can help us think through issues of narrative closure that might otherwise remain hidden from view. I now turn to catalogues as a way of articulating movement through space. As is well known, Greek epic is rich in travelogues, some of them highly complex and/or ironic. For example, the catalogue of Apollo’s places of worship at HApollo 29–46 turns into an account of Leto’s wanderings by the time we reach its closing frame. As Jenny Strauss Clay points out, the flexible use of the catalogue form reflects the fluid nature of the Hymn to Apollo as a text.37 Equally interesting, in narrative terms, is Etana’s journey to heaven on an eagle in the Akkadian Epic of Etana (II.30–43): iš-t[in] KASKAL.GÍD [ú-šá-qí-šu-ma] ib-ri nap-li-is ma-a-tum ki-[i mì-ni-i i-ba-áš-ši] šá ma-a-ti i-ha-am-b[u-ub xxx] ù tam-tum DAGAL-tum ma-la tar-ba-şi : šá-na-a KASK[AL.GÍD ú-šá-qí-šu-ma] ib-ri nap-li-is ma-a-tum ki-i [mì-ni-i i-ba-áš-ši]  34 Clay 2003, 162–164. 35 Lambert 2013, 147. 36 I discuss some of these issues in greater detail in Haubold 2017. 37 Clay 1989, 33–34.

30

35

Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach  

i-tur ma-a-tu a-na mu-sa-re x[x x x x x] ù tam-tum DAGAL-tum ma-la bu-gi-in-ni : šal-šá KASKAL.GÍD [u]l-li-šu-ma ib-ri nap-li-is ma-a-tum ki-i mì-n[i-i] i-ba-áš-ši ap-pal-sa-am-ma ma-a-tu u[l] a-na-ţal ù tam-tum DAGAL-tum ul i-šeb-ba-a i-na-a-a ib-ri ul e-li a-na AN-e : šu-kun kib-su lu-ut-[t]al-lak a-na URU-ia He carried him up one league. My friend, look and see what has become of the earth!’ ‘The ... of the earth buzzes, and the wide sea has become the size of a courtyard.’ He carried him up another league: ‘My friend, look and see what has become of the earth!’ ‘The earth has turned into a garden plot [...] and the wide sea is the size of a trough.’ He carried him up a third league: ‘My friend, look and see what has become of the earth!’ ‘I have looked but cannot see it, and the wide sea does not gratify my eye. My friend, I shall not go up to heaven: change direction, I want to return to my city.’

40

30

35

40

As may be seen from this extract, Etana’s journey to heaven takes the form of a mini-catalogue: at every league he covers the eagle asks him what he sees. Etana reports how the earth and sea recede from view until they have disappeared altogether. At this point his nerve fails him and he demands to be taken back to his city. At a basic level, the poet has tinged an ostensibly neutral narrative form with his protagonist’s feelings. However, he also imparts a more fundamental lesson. Reaching to heaven is often seen as an undiluted good in Mesopotamian literature, though not one that is attainable to normal human beings.38 Ancient authors do not on the whole consider the negative consequences of transcending the human condition in this way — perhaps the possibility is so remote that the issue simply does not arise. But it does arise in the Epic of Etana, and it is addressed in characteristic fashion: those who would reach heaven must sever their connections with life on earth.39 There is a price to pay, in Etana as there was in Gilgamesh, for closeness to the gods.  38 Samet 2010 discusses relevant passages in Sumerian and Akkadian, including Dialogue of Pessimism 82–83. 39 When Etana and the eagle make it to heaven on their second attempt, the vistas that so terrified Etana on his first flight are left out.

  Johannes Haubold Catalogues, then, are used to articulate sophisticated narratives of movement through space in both Greek and Akkadian epic. My second pair of passages, taken from the two greatest travel narratives of ancient literature, the Odyssey and the Gilgamesh Epic, illustrates this point in the strongest possible terms. This is how Odysseus introduces his own travels at the beginning of a first-person narrative that takes up four books of the poem (Od. 9.14–15): τί πρῶτόν τοι ἔπειτα, τί δ᾽ ὑστάτιον καταλέξω; κήδε᾽ ἐπεί μοι πολλὰ δόσαν θεοὶ Οὐρανίωνες. ‘What, then, shall I recount first for you, what last? For the heavenly gods have given me many tribulations.’

Although Odysseus frames his voyage as a catalogue (note καταλέγω) of his own tribulations, in practice it consists of a series of controlled experiments in human culture: the Cyclops, the Lotus eaters, Aeolus and his family all represent versions of humanity that fall short of normal standards in one way or another. The logic of this has been well discussed by scholars such as Vidal-Naquet, Hartog and Dougherty.40 What has attracted less attention is the framework that sustains the underlying argument: recurring transition formulae such as ἔνθεν δὲ προτέρω πλέομεν ἀκαχημένοι ἦτορ (‘from there we sailed on with grief in our heart’, Od. 9.62 = 9.105 = 9.565 = 10.77 = 10.133) elide intervening spaces and help create those characteristic vignettes (Odysseus and the Cyclops, Odysseus and Aeolus, Odysseus and Circe) that stake out the parameters of nostos and define what it is to be the ἀνήρ of the proem, a man, or the man, who has seen ‘the cities of many men and learned their ways’ (Od. 1.3). Odysseus’ travelogue creates a series of discrete cultural encounters from what might otherwise have passed as continuous travel. The point, it seems, is programmatic. Apart from Odyssey 5, with its description of Odysseus’ shipwreck, the Odyssey has very little to say about how Odysseus and his men actually move through space. There is a lesson in this, not just for the Phaeacians but also for us, the readers: Odyssean space, we learn, is cultural space. What matters in this text is not travel as such, but the encounters that result from it. Cultural man must emerge from a series of cultural transactions. If we ask how this compares to the Gilgamesh Epic we might start from the fact that in Gilgamesh too we are promised a catalogue of adventures (SB Gilg. I.9–10):

 40 Vidal-Naquet 1986, 15–38, Hartog 2001, Dougherty 2001.

Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach  

ur-ha ru-uq-ta il-li-kam-ma a-nih u šup-šu-uh šá-kin i-na na4narê(na.rú.a) ka-lu ma-na-ah-ti He traveled a distant road, became weary but was granted rest, [he] set down in an inscription all his labours.

Some of this is fleshed out in the second half of the epic, but first comes the journey to the Cedar Forest in Tablets IV–V. It is arranged as an extended catalogue, with individual vignettes marking the hero’s progress toward Mount Lebanon. But Gilgamesh, unlike Odysseus, encounters nobody along the way. He might have done: Mesopotamia possessed a developed ethnographic consciousness from early on,41 and of course in the second half of the Gilgamesh Epic the protagonist does encounter several strangers on his way to Utanapishti: the scorpion man and his wife, the ale-wife Siduri, Ur-Shanabi the boatman. Even Humbaba as the target of Gilgamesh’s first expedition is a monster not unlike some of the creatures whom Odysseus encounters in Homer.42 Yet, this is not developed into a sustained exploration of cultural space. Instead what we find is an exploration of dream space: Gilgamesh’s travelogue in Tablet IV consists of identical accounts of overland travel which are interspersed with dramatic descriptions of the dream visions he experiences at each stage in the journey. Here is an extract that illustrates the tone and scope of the travel passages (SB Gilg. IV.1–4): [a-na 20] bēr(danna) ik-su-pu ku-sa-a-pu [a-na 3]0 bēr(danna) iš-ku-nu nu-bat-tum [50 b]ēr(dan) il-li-ku kal u4-mu [ma-lak ar]ḫi(iti) u šapatti(ud.15.kam) ina šal-šu u4-mu iţ-ḫu-ú ana šadî(kur)lab-na-nu At twenty leagues they broke bread At thirty leagues they pitched camp. Fifty leagues they travelled in the course of a day, a month and a half’s march by the third day, they drew near to Mount Lebanon.

As may be seen from these lines, actual travel is radically compressed in the account of Gilgamesh’s journey to the Cedar Forest: the trek of one month and a half is literally folded into three days. The description itself lacks any distinctive features that might mark the protagonist’s progress through space. In so far as it  41 Michalowski 2010; see also Horowitz 1998, esp. pp. 67–95, on the Sargon Geography and its forerunners; and pp. 96–106 on the Epic of Gilgamesh. 42 This has become much clearer after the recent discovery of the beginning and end of Tablet V: George and Al-Rawi 2014.

  Johannes Haubold portrays geographical space at all, it shows it to be measurable (twenty leagues, thirty leagues, fifty leagues), usable (wells are dug for water, mountains climbed for prayer) and geared towards Gilgamesh’s dream encounters as the only real marker of progress. By contrast with the journey itself, the dreams are visually and aurally stunning — explosions, we might say, of narrative energy that locate the drama of the journey precisely in the moments of rest. I say ‘drama’ not just because the dreams are eventful and impressive but also because they present a challenge of interpretation — active engagement is required, from the characters in the text but also from us, its readers. As with the Odyssey, there is a lesson in all this which becomes apparent in relation to the opening of the text (I.1): [šá naq-ba i-mu-ru i]š-di ma-a-ti He who saw the deep, the foundations of the land

The Epic of Gilgamesh announces a man who ‘saw the deep’ — and a deep vision, beyond landscape and narrative surface, is precisely what the travelogue of Tablet IV requires. A version of Auerbach’s argument in Mimesis suggests itself here, as I have argued elsewhere:43 Homer captures the vivid surfaces of the world, while the Gilgamesh Epic invites us to chart inner progress. For all their differences, both texts use the catalogue form to invite reflection on how their protagonists make their journey towards an understanding of humanity.

 Conclusion I have argued for a comparative approach to catalogues in Greek and Akkadian epic. My aim has been to generate fresh readings of familiar texts: the ending of the Theogony appears in a new light when compared with the list of Marduk’s names in Enūma eliš; and the dream travelogue of Gilgamesh Tablet IV takes on sharper contours when read against the concerns of Odyssey 9–12. It may perhaps bear repeating that my argument is not aimed at proving the similarity of Greek and Mesopotamian epic (much less the direct dependence of one on the other), but rather at exploring avenues of reading. Of course, the benefits of comparison do not apply to catalogues alone. But catalogues pose a particular challenge to modern readers which seems to me to be instructive for how we approach ancient literature more generally. We do not  43 Haubold 2014.

Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach  

on the whole enjoy catalogues as much as ancient readers seem to think we should. Lacking intuitive appreciation, modern readers often focus on technical details that exaggerate the divide between cultural traditions: oral-traditional poetics on the one hand, Listenwissenschaft on the other. Cultural habits are of course real, and need to be taken seriously, but can impede access to the experiences of ancient readers, and inhibit our own range as modern interpreters.

Works Cited Auerbach, E. (1953), Mimesis. The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. W.R. Trask, Princeton. Bachvarova, M.R. (2016), From Hittite to Homer: The Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic, Cambridge. Barchiesi, A. (2015), Homeric Effects in Vergil’s Narrative, trans. I. Marchesi and M. Fox, Princeton. Beckmann, G.M. (2009), “Hittite literature”, in: From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature, ed. C.S. Ehrlich, Lanham, 215–254. Burkert, W. (1992), The Orientalizing Revolution, trans. M. Pinder and W. Burkert, Cambridge, MA. Burkert, W. (2004), Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture, Cambridge, MA. Doherty, L.E. (2006), “Putting the women back into the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women”, in: M. Leonard/V. Zajko (eds.), Laughing at Medusa: Classical Myth and Feminist Thought, Oxford, 297–325. Doherty, L.E. (2008), “Nausicaa and Tyro: Idylls of Courtship in the Phaiakian Episode of the Odyssey and the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women”, in: Phoenix 62, 63–76. Domínguez, C./Saussy, H./Villanueva, D. (2015), Introducing Comparative Literature: New Trends and Applications, London. Dougherty, C. (2001), The Raft of Odysseus: The Ethnographic Imagination of Homer’s Odyssey, New York. Edwards, M.W. (1980), “The Structure of Homeric Catalogues”, in: TAPA 110, 81–105. Farrell, Joseph (2004), “Roman Homer”, in: R. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Homer, Cambridge, 254–271. Ford, A. (1992), Homer: The Poetry of the Past, Ithaca. Foster, B.R. (2009), “Akkadian Literature”, in: C.S. Ehrlich (ed.), From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature, Lanham, 137–214. Gabriel, G. (2014), Enūma eliš — Weg zu einer globalen Weltordnung: Pragmatik, Struktur und Semantik des babylonischen ‘Lieds auf Marduk’, Tübingen. George, A.R. (2003), The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Oxford. George, A.R./Al-Rawi, F.N.H. (2014), “Back to the Cedar Forest: the Beginning and End of Tablet V of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgameš”, in: Journal of Cuneiform Studies 66, 69– 90. Graziosi, B./Haubold, J. (2005), Homer: The Resonance of Epic, London.

  Johannes Haubold Hartog, F. (2001), Memories of Odysseus: Frontier Tales from Ancient Greece, Trans. J. Lloyd, Chicago. Haubold, J. (2013), Greece and Mesopotamia: Dialogues in Literature, Cambridge. Haubold, J. (2014), “Beyond Auerbach: Homeric narrative and the Epic of Gilgamesh”, in: D. Cairns/R. Scodel (eds.), Defining Greek Narrative, Edinburgh, 13–28. Haubold, J. (2017), “Conflict, Consensus and Closure in Hesiod’s Theogony and Enūma eliš”, in: P. Bassino/L.G. Canevaro/B. Graziosi (eds.), Conflict and Consensus in Early Greek Hexameter Poetry, Cambridge, 17–38. Henkelman, W.F.M. (2006), “The Birth of Gilgamesh (Ael. NA XII .21): a Case-study in Literary Receptivity”, in: R. Rollinger/B. Truschnegg (eds.), Altertum und Mittelmeerraum: Die antike Welt diesseits und jenseits der Levante. FS P.W. Heider, Stuttgart, 807–856. Hilgert, M. (2009),“Von ‘Listenwissenschaft’und ‘epistemischen Dingen’. Konzeptuelle Annäherungen an orientalische Wissenspraktiken”, in: Journal for General Philosophy of Science 40.2, 277–309. Hinds, S. (1998), Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry, Cambridge. Horowitz, W. (1998), Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, Winona Lake. Hunter, R. (2005), The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Constructions and Reconstructions, Cambridge. Jacobsen, T. (1987), The Harps that Once ... Sumerian Poetry in Translation, New Haven. Kelly, A. (2008), “The Babylonian Captivity of Homer: the Case of the Dios Apate”, in: Rheinisches Museum 151, 259–304. Knauer, G.N. (1964), Die Aeneis und Homer, Göttingen. Koutsantoni, K. (2009), Virginia Woolf’s Common Reader, Surrey. Lambert, W.G. (2013), Babylonian Creation Myths, Winona Lake. Metcalf, C. (2015), The Gods Rich in Praise: Early Greek and Mesopotamian Religious Poetry, Oxford. Michalowski, P. (2010), “Masters of the Four Corners of the Heavens: Views of the Universe in Early Mesopotamian Writings”, in: K.A. Raaflaub/R.J.A. Talbert (eds.), Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies, Malden/Oxford, 147–168. Minchin, E. (2001), Homer and the Resources of Memory: Some Applications of Cognitive Theory to the Iliad and Odyssey, Oxford. Montanari, F./Rengakos, A./Tsagalis, C. (eds.) (2009), Brill’s Companion to Hesiod, Leiden. Ormand, K. (2014), The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and Archaic Greece, Cambridge. Petrain, D. (2014), Homer in Stone: The ‘Tabulae Iliacae’ in their Roman Context, Cambridge. Pratt, M.L. (1996), “Comparative Literature and Global Citizenship”, in: C. Bernheimer (ed.), Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism, Bernheimer, Baltimore, 58–65. Rutherford, I. (2000), “Catalogues of Women: Formulas, Voice and Death in Ehoie-Poetry, the Hesiodic Gunaikon Katalogos and the Odysseian Nekuia”, in: M. Depew/D. Obbink (eds.), Matrices of Genre, Cambridge, MA 2000, 81–96. Samet, N. (2010), “The Tallest Man Cannot Reach Heaven; the Broadest Man Cannot Cover Earth. Reconsidering the Proverb and its Biblical Parallels”, in: Journal of Hebrew Scripture 10, article 18 (http://jhsonline.org/Articles/article_146.pdf). Sammons, B. (2010), The Art and Rhetoric of the Homeric Catalogue, Oxford. Seri, A. (2006), “The fifty names of Marduk in ‘Enūma eliš’”, in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 126, 507–519.

Catalogues in Greek and Akkadian Epic: A Comparative Approach  

Von Soden, W. (1936), “Leistung und Grenze sumerischer und babylonischer Wissenschaft”, in: Die Welt als Geschichte. Zeitschrift für universalgeschichtliche Forschung 2, 411–464 and 509–557. Strauss Clay, J. (1989), The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns, Princeton. Strauss Clay, J. (2003), Hesiod’s Cosmos, Cambridge. Van De Mieroop, M. (2015), Philosophy before the Greeks: The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia, Princeton. Vidal-Naquet, P. (1986), The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World, trans. A. Szegedy-Mszak, Baltimore. Vogelzang, M./Vanstiphout, H.L.J. (1992), Mesopotamian Epic Literature: Oral or Aural?, Lewiston. Visser, E. (1997), Homers Katalog der Schiffe, Stuttgart 1997. Wellek, R. (1963), “The Crisis of Comparative Literature”, in: Stephen G. Nicholas (ed.), Concepts of Criticism, New Haven, 282–295. West, M.L. (1966), Hesiod: Theogony, Oxford. West, M.L. (1985), The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Its Nature, Structure, and Origins, Oxford. West, M.L. (1997), The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Oxford. Woolf, V. (1925), The Common Reader, London.

Christiane Reitz

Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues  Introduction Catalogues are a persistent generic feature of ancient epic and provide the possibility of expanding the spatial and chronological scope of the epic narrative. In the development of the genre, however, they allow for more innovation and more metapoetical deliberation than many a reader might think. For some years now I have thought and written about epic catalogues, once even attempting a definition,1 and I am grateful to the organisers of the panel in Edinburgh and the editors of this volume for inviting me to add some brief and more general observations to my previous work. The main aim of my paper is to show that the catalogue is subject to a strange and astonishing phenomenon: Being one of the most reliable and foreseeable parts of epic narrative, the catalogue is, at the same time, one of the most unreliable. This paradox needs to be explained. For the purpose of explanation and exemplification, I will use material from epic poetry of different periods, and build my argument on the assumption that intertextual links between texts exist also in terms of genre and substructures such as catalogues and enumerations.2

 This article was written in the welcoming atmosphere of the Fondation Hardt, Vandoeuvres, in September 2015, and I am grateful to have been its guest again.  1 Reitz 1999; Reitz 2013; Reitz 2014; Reitz 2017 as well as Reitz/Scheidegger Laemmle/Wesselmann 2019 (see below, n. 2). For the definition see Reitz 1999, 334 and 2003, 6 (English translation): “A catalogue is a listing of similar terms in an homogenous context, which in its form is clearly delineated. Each of its components is an ‘element of a continuous development’” (with reference to Gassner 1973, 64). 2 This understanding of the epic tradition also informs Reitz/Finkmann 2019 which offers a comprehensive study of structures of epic poetry; for the epic catalogue, see the contribution of Reitz/Scheidegger Laemmle/Wesselmann 2019. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-011

  Christiane Reitz

 Invocation Many catalogues contain an invocation or begin with it. A Muse, a goddess or other authorities are asked to help with the task the poet has to fulfil. Thus, the invocation may be said to encompass the poet’s poetic programme.3 In their prayer for inspiration, the epic poets give one main reason for seeking divine help: The gods, or the Muses, have more knowledge at their disposal as they are eyewitnesses or chroniclers of the events to be listed. In the Basel Commentary on Homer’s Iliad, this special qualification of the Muses is explained as “Leistungsfähigkeit und Stoffwissen” — efficiency and knowledge.4 In a recent study on ancient concepts of cosmogony, Jenny Strauss Clay has well explained the authority of knowledge thus purveyed:5 When it comes to the eschatological subject of cosmogony, the relevant knowledge lies beyond human grasp. But the poets might negotiate access to knowledge, and, with the help of the inspiring divinity, achieve a share in information not usually available to humans. Knowledge that is in principle only available to the gods might, by learning and by a physical process, be turned into knowledge about the gods, and, at the same time, into more secure knowledge about human affairs.6 Clay’s reconstruction of the agency of inspiration and invocation can be applied to the catalogue as well. Shifting between infinity and precision, the catalogue holds the middle ground between human and divinely inspired knowledge. This is evident in the invocation that the poet of the Iliad puts at the beginning of the Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.484–493). For the poet on his own, the twin tasks of remembering and enumerating (μυθήσομαι/ὀνομήσω) the names (οἵ τινες) and numbers (ὅσοι) of the warriors who sailed to Troy are overwhelming. Ten mouths were not enough to achieve them. The challenges of remembering and enumerating could be subsumed under the interdependent principles of dynamis and energeia as theorised by Aristotle. Virgil uses the words meminisse and memorare (e.g. Verg. Aen. 7.645: meministis … et memorare potestis). Ultimately, the poet and the Muses have to collaborate. The Muses are invoked as counsellors

 3 Schindler 2013, 185–200; here 192, 194; Schindler 2019. On invocation in Statius, see Myers 2015. 4 Latacz 2010 ad Hom. Il. 2.484/93. 5 Strauss Clay 2015. 6 Strauss Clay 2015, here 106: “In several passages, we learn that the Muses or Apollo instruct (διδάσκειν) the poet; and the poet then becomes someone with expert knowledge (ἐπισταμενῶς [recte: ἐπισταμένως]). Phemius acknowledges that a god has ‘implanted’ (ἐνέφυσεν) all kinds of songs in him, but he also claims to be αὐτοδίδακτος (Od. 22,348)”.

Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues  

because of their superior knowledge which is grounded in their status as eye witnesses: πάρεστέ τε, ἴστέ τε πάντα (Il. 2.485). The resulting “duality of knowledge”, as both divine and human, is a prominent feature in all epic catalogues where it is more or less explicitly mentioned and discussed. Reference to the reliability of divine information is always and inextricably linked with the limitations of human knowledge, as the poet admits his shortcoming and calls for assistance. The resulting catalogue might be reliable and record the truth but, at the same time, we are reminded that, in the human sphere, there can never be absolute certainty; perhaps the reported items are just “a faint breeze of rumour” (tenuis famae aura Verg. Aen. 7.646).7

 Order There are several literary means, though, to convey more reliability in the catalogue. Two of them shall be my concern here: establishing order, and using numbers. Both by indicating order (κόσμος, ordo, series) and by giving precise numbers, the enumerations can gain precision and completeness. Ordering particles emphasise the neat organisation of the material. Linearity, i.e. establishing a consecutive order is of course a general feature of literature, be it oral or written. But the consecutive order of a list is, equally, a visual means;8 the order thus achieved is similar to a series or ordered sequence of events on display, like a series of pictures to be viewed by a spectator. It is no wonder, then, that the terminology is similar when such situations are described: ex ordine or in ordine designates the orderly fashion in which people and/or events are depicted in a painting or other visual media. A well ordered sequence is constitutive of ecphrastic contexts, and narrative sequences regularly feature on the ecphras-

 7 The problem of the tension between reliability and fictionality cannot be discussed here in detail. An inspiring discussion is Primavesi 2009. However, in my opinion Primavesi is too onesided when he tries to make a clear distinction between Homer and Hesiod. Does not the invocation in Homer Il. 2.484–7 modify the poet’s assurance rather than claim absolute reliability? Primavesi 2009, 107 states about the Homeric narrative: “Der Anspruch auf eine als Tatsachentreue zu verstehende Referentialität, den die homerische Erzählung … erhebt, wird dadurch garantiert, daß die Musen dem Sänger den sachlichen Gehalt ihres Augenzeugenwissens eingeben. Das Epos erzählt, ‘wie es wirklich gewesen’; es versteht sich als Historie.” Primavesi, for the problem of fictionality, refers to Kannicht’s seminal lectures on philosophy and poetry (Kannicht 1980). 8 See especially the contribution by Delattre in this volume, p. 81 ff.

  Christiane Reitz tic showpieces of epic such as the shield of the hero or the murals in Troy. A striking example is the genealogical outline of Ascanius’ descendants and their future battles on Aeneas’ shield (Verg. Aen. 8.628–629: illic genus omne futurae/stirpis ab Ascanio pugnataque in ordine bella). Conversely, Virgil uses the word series when he describes the decoration of Dido’s palace in Carthage contemplated by Aeneas. This is the long and imposing row of ancestors and their deeds, reaching far back in history and containing many items. The list is not explicated in full detail, but the reader (and Aeneas as focaliser) is confronted with the possibility of a catalogue, with a detailed description: caelataque in auro/fortia facta patrum, series longissima rerum/per tot ducta viros antiquae ab origine gentis (Aen. 1.640– 642). At this point, a list of the many men (tot viros) might eventually follow; the reader is left in uncertainty as to whether the focaliser actually does peruse the paintings’ single items, as he did previously in the newly built temple (singula lustrat — videt, Aen. 1.453, 456), or whether he is left in the same position as the reader — merely knowing that the series is there. Thus, although the passage contains the potential for a catalogue, it does not realise it. In Silius Italicus, to cite just one other example, the decorations on the temple at Liternum, which cause an outbreak of Hannibal’s fury, show longus rerum et spectabilis ordo (Pun. 6.657): the adjective spectabilis communicates the same kind of uncertainty between the potential and the actual gaze. Silius integrates the verse into the action: we have read a few lines previously that Hannibal takes the role of spectator (Pun. 6.653: spectat, 670: cernit, 672: videt). Yet the pictures in their orderly series exist up to a certain point independently from the outcome of the narrative: They resist the force and fury of Hannibal who, after the long ecphrasis, commands their destruction: His attempt at the destruction of memory (Pun. 6.716: in cineres monumenta date atque involvite flammis — “put the monuments to ashes and burn them”), the reader knows, ultimately remains unsuccesful as the pictures are endowed with the memoria of literature.9 While the metapoetical dimension of ecphrastic contexts has long been a subject of research interest,10 the metapoetics of the catalogue have not been fully explored. Making the question of orderly organisation our starting point, we can look at the Argonauts. Some kind of order such as it is implied in a seating plan evolves by itself, we might think. The Argonauts, assembled by Jason to join his expedition, take their seats in the Argo one by one, in rows: ἑξείης (Apoll. Rh. 1.30). Even though the catalogue follows a geographical logic, similar to the one  9 On the merger of ecphrasis and prophecy, “proleptic ecphrasis”, esp. in Silius Italicus, see Harrison 2011 and Harrison 2019. 10 The most insightful study is still Fowler 1991.

Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues  

underlying the Homeric Catalogue of Ships,11 the reader is first and foremost prompted to envisage the layout of the ship. This connection between the list of names and the visual outline of the ship is even more evident in Valerius’ re-writing of the catalogue of Argonauts. The single elements of the catalogue, the men who will from this moment onward become the Argonauts, shape themselves willingly into a group, into the form of a catalogue: dant nomina transtris (Val. Fl. Arg. 1.352 — “and they gave their names to the oars”).12 The act of seating and the act of sailing away are thus amalgamated in the list as it is presented; the narrative and the catalogue become one entity. Critics have mentioned the fact that Valerius dispenses with an invocation to the Muse at this point of the poem and postpones it to the beginning of bk. 6, before the battle between the Colchians and Scythians. We do, however, observe a telling variation on the traditional invocation: At first sight, the Muse is asked to report the horrors of war: hinc age Riphaeo quos videris orbe furores;/musa, mone (Val. Fl. Arg. 6.33–34 — “From here, come, Muse, and tell which frenzy you have seen in the Riphaean area”). But in the next sentence it becomes clear that the main task at hand will be to enumerate the participants in this horrible war: quanto Scythiam molimine Perses / concierit, quis fretus equis per bella virisque (6.34–35 — “with how great an exertion did Perses summon Scythia, and in which horses and men did he put his trust for the war”). Human memory and knowledge are insufficient for such masses of men: verum ego nec numero memorem nec nomine cunctos / mille vel ora movens (6.36–37 — “but I can neither by number nor by name mention all of them, even if I moved a thousand mouths”). The Homeric topos of the ten mouths is multiplied, as the ultimate assignment in Valerius’ catalogue is numerical correctness.

 Completeness — incompleteness — numbers The two principal catalogues in Valerius’ epic hold pride of place in books 1 and 6, but the poet’s experimenting with the catalogue form does not stop at these variations of the catalogues of Apollonius, Virgil (the catalogue of Latins in Aen. 7.641–817) and Lucan (the orientalising catalogue in BC 3.169–297). Close to the end of bk. 5 (Val. Fl. Arg. 5.581–606) Valerius inserts another catalogue, this time

 11 Maugier-Sinha 2010, 179. 12 Maugier-Sinha 2010, 179 n. 35 rightly criticises Kleywegt’s suggestion that the rowers inscribe their names on the oars (Kleywegt 2005 ad loc.).

  Christiane Reitz put into the mouth of one of the characters. During the banquet in honour of the Argonauts, whose help Aeetes is enlisting, Jason asks for the names of the local Colchian warriors. Aeetes declines to give a complete list. He starts to recount the individual heroes, but suddenly breaks off with a reference to the unutterable dimensions of individual contingents: hos autem quae quemque manus, quae signa sequantur,/si memorem, prius umentem lux solverit umbram. (Val. Fl. 5.605f — “But were I to tell what troop, what standards follow each one of these, the light would disperse the humid shade”). Between the self-structuring catalogue of the Argonauts on the ship and the catalogue of Scythians, for which the poet invokes the help of the Muses, the reader is confronted with the possibility that a list, though visually present in the setting of the narrative, is deliberately cut short and remains incomplete. Thus, we may identify the negotiation between completeness and incompleteness as another guiding principle, besides order and sequentiality, in epic catalogues.13 I have suggested elsewhere that the number of ships enumerated in the Homeric catalogue becomes a fixed entity, χίλιοι or mille (sc. naves), which serves as a shorthand for the Greeks’ fleet against Troy.14 Similarly, the exact number of the Argonauts plays a significant role in Apollonius and other lists of the Argonauts. The canonical number is 50, but no author confines himself to that number. In Valerius Flaccus, 52 warriors sail on the boat whilst two characters explicitly mention the number 50 in the course of events: Aeetes (7.43) and Absyrtus (8.274). Within the narrative, then, there are conflicting numbers — the mythographical tradition and the complete list that the poet has given. Is the poet being more meticulous when he digresses from the tradition, or is he unreliable? Another text provides us with a possible answer: In the Ilias Latina, the traditional number of a thousand ships is scrupulously corrected: His ducibus Graiae Troiana ad litora puppes / bis septem uenere minus quam mille ducentae. (Il. Lat. 220–221) The exact number is important, be it as a comment on a scholarly debate, or as a prompt for school children reading this abbreviated version of Homer’s Iliad. Both canonical and exact numbers can be used as a sign of preciseness. One last example to elucidate this: Apollonius, too, claims the assistance of the Muses. Orpheus is mentioned first: πρῶτα μνησόμεθα (Arg. 1.23). In the following list, we find a number of structuring devices but cardinal numbers are notably absent. At the end of the long catalogue, however, we hear the summarising τόσσοι (Arg. 1.232: “so many were the comrades who had assembled on behalf of  13 On the question of completeness in epic and historiography, see Canfora 1972, esp. 27f. 14 Reitz 2017, 100–101.

Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues  

Jason”). Though there is no explicit numbering, numbers thus constitute an implicit, yet defining element of the catalogue. But there are instances when the catalogue itself is pursued ad absurdum — when the enumeration is explicitly incomplete and breaks off. We have already seen an example of this in the banquet scene in Colchis, where the intradiegetic narrator abruptly ends the list. It might be worth asking whether there is a pattern according to which definite numbers or innumerability appear in lists. In my opinion, the topos of the uncountability of items belongs to the realm of intradiegetic fictionality: While the poet, with the help of an inspiring goddess or Muse, is, in principle, able to report the exact numbers, there are situations within the epic narrative where preciseness is not possible. This is nearly always the case in prophecies. Phineus, when asked for the route the Argonauts should follow on their way to Colchis, first announces his willingness to answer: fata locosque tibi … expediam rerumque vias finemque docebo (Val. Fl. Arg. 4.557– 558 — “I will explain the fates and the places to you, the routes and the outcome of events I will teach”). An enumeration of the places that the Argo will have to pass follows, structured by the typical linguistic markers (hinc — tum — demum) and, as may be expected in a prophetic speech, set in the future tense. But after an interruption — Jupiter’s speech is inserted into the narrative — the seer unexpectedly breaks off with the formulaic phrase quid memorem? (4.600). Parts of the route are left vague and the seer refers to ‘innumerable kings reign on the shores whose hospitality is unreliable’ (4.613–614: inde omnem innumeri reges per litoris oram,/hospitii quis nulla fides). The prophecy seems not very useful as the information if contains becomes so unclear. Either innumeri should not be taken in the literal sense, or Phineus is playing the part of the catalogue-poet and hinting at the potentially uncountable character of his enumeration. Why does he not give the kings’ names? Murgatroyd15 explains Phineus’ expressive silence as an intertextual link to the long and extended ethnographical list provided by Apollonius in a comparable passage in the second book of his Argonautica (Arg. 2.373ff.). By abbreviating the narrative, and foregoing a list of names and places, the poet, according to Murgatroyd, quickens the pace of his narrative.16 But if we  15 Murgatroyd 2009 ad loc. 16 Murgatroyd ibid. As has been observed before, this formulaic breaking off of the speech resembles the end of Helenus’ prophecy in the Aeneid (Aen. 3.372–462, here 3.461). In Virgil, the series of events is organised by Jupiter himself: is vertitur ordo (3.376). The contrast between the mass of material (multa) and the small amount that may be revealed (pauca) is a topic in both prophecies. Walter 2014, 103 succinctly calls this technique ‘the curtailing of prophetic speech’ (“Einschränkung der prophetischen Rede”). She argues that the prophet is condemned to silence and to ignorance about the true development of the epic and interprets this silence as a signal of

  Christiane Reitz look at the end of Phineus’ speech in Valerius, another interpretation seems plausible: “meque ultima nobis / promere fata nefas; sileam, precor”. atque ita facto / fine dedit tacitis iterum responsa tenebris (Arg. 4.623–625: “‘And now it would be a sacrilege for me to put forward the final destiny; let me, please, be silent’. And by so ending he restored his answer back to taciturn darkness”). This moment of uncertainty can also be read as a metapoetic commentary, commenting not only on the task of the prophet but on that of the poet as well. It is their task to master not only the huge masses of material but also the literary tradition. Both the prophet and the poet can either fulfil that task more or less extensively, or leave it undone. Introducing a catalogue for future events opens the opportunity to blur the boundaries between the precision of a clear-cut list of names and the elusivity of prophetic speech. That future events are concerned is significant, too, for another blurry catalogue. I will now turn to Statius’ Achilleid. In my example, again, there are no concrete numbers but we can recognise other typical markers. Ulixes visits Scyrus to persuade or even to force the young Achilles to join the troops before Troy. There are many hints and allusions to the Trojan war which is going to take place in the future,17 and the Catalogue of Ships is alluded to in the banquet scene (Stat. Ach. 1.738–818). The banquet is set between the two worlds of the poem: the unheroic world of Scyrus where Achilles, so far, has lived a sheltered life, and the heroic world that forms the background of the two intermediaries Ulixes and Diomedes. This heroic world is called forth and comes to life when the two Greek heroes appear. Responding to the questions of the old king Lycomedes, Ulixes tells the other dinner guests about the ongoing preparations for the Trojan war. As Lycomedes expresses his regret that he cannot take part in the preparations, Ulixes answers with a rhetorical question: quis enim non visere gentes / innumeras variosque duces atque agmina regum ardeat? (1.785–786, “…who would not burn to see the countless peoples and the various captains and the columns of kings?”).18 A condensed catalogue follows, which, though unspecific about names, is otherwise informed by the fixed topoi of epic catalogues. The ships and the heroes are uncountable, and the end reminds the reader strongly of an epic catalogue: non alias umquam tantae data copia famae / fortibus (Ach. 1.792–793,  uncertainty, characterising the ambivalence of fatum and nefas. Less convincing is Stover’s interpretation which tries to uncover here an underlying stress on the topic of political liberty (Stover 2012, 165–170). 17 The question whether the epic was supposed to continue to tell Achilles’ whole life story is for my argument unimportant. In general I agree with Rosati’s ironic reading, Rosati 2005. See also Fantuzzi 2012, esp. 73–89 for an overall interpretation of the Achilleid. 18 Translations of Statius are taken from Shackleton Bailey 2003.

Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues  

“Never at any other time was opportunity of such great renown given to the brave”). Only the enjambement of the last line makes clear who the intended audience of this list is: fortibus. As force can hardly be attributed to the king who has just regretted his own frailness it is clear that Ulixes no longer addresses Lycomedes. Rather, he has taken on the role of epic narrator with the aim of convincing his intended listener, fortis Achilles. He has turned from guest of honour at the banquet into a messenger providing information about the far distant war. His purpose is — much like a poet’s — to draw the listener into the epic narrative, to make him attentive and, ultimately, to guide him to play a part in the narration. The ships and heroes are, at this moment we might add, beyond count. Ulixes, in his report, presents his catalogue of troops so that Achilles, present as a listener and a fellow guest, first takes on the role of the audience and, in a second step is willing to participate in the action proper, becoming himself a part of the story — and an item in the list (Ach. 1.784). The uncountability is a hint that we are at that precise moment, pausing in a zone between reality and fiction, or again potentiality and actuality, within the fictional narrative. Ulixes could have counted and named the men very carefully and correctly, as he had witnessed the assembly of the troops. But for the picture evoked here it is much more appropriate to make Achilles take part in a dream, in a fictional heroic tale, in an epic tale within the epic of his own story — the young hero has yet to learn that this story will, in due course, be a part of his own, very real life just as his life will become part of the epic story. The layers of reality and fiction, in this passage, are ostensibly blurred.

 Completeness and gaps To turn to another feature which reveals poetic sensitivity towards the generic consistencies and inconsistencies of catalogues, we will remain with Achilles and the Achilleid. Shortly before the passage on Scyrus, the narration had shifted to Troy itself. The troops are uneasy, success is not as quick and easy as the Greeks had hoped. In 1.467ff we encounter a list of six names of heroes who are present among the assembled troops (1.467ff.), including the gemini Atridae — this adds up to seven leaders and six names. However, the stress lies on another hero who is missing from the assembly: Achilles. His name is explicitly called three times. His origin and prowess receive special attention in a short excursus. It is often the case that catalogues get interrupted by some tale about a special heroic deed of the past, or a genealogical, geographical or aetiological explanation, and Statius’

  Christiane Reitz catalogue of Argive troops in Theb. 4 contains several examples of this technique.19 In our case, however, the matter is different. The hero who receives the poet’s special attention is the one who is not present and therefore should not be part of this particular list of heroes: gemini Atridae, Tydides, Sthenelus, Antilochus, Aiax, Ulixes…/omnis in absentem belli manus ardet Achillem, / nomen Achillis amant et in Hectora solus Achilles/poscitur (Ach. 1.467–76, “… but all the warrior host burns for absent Achilles, Achilles’ name they love, only Achilles is demanded against Hector, they speak only of him as the doom of Teucrians and Priam”). The list contains a ‘zero-entrance’; it leaves an empty place where someone is lacking (absentem). At its end we are informed who the speakers were: iterant traduntque cohortes (1.482). The task of listing and producing a catalogue is assigned to the participants in the war themselves; and as they are the ones suffering under the absence of the most important hero, they make this evident in their list, in which the absent Achilles receives more attention than the leaders who are present.

 Uncountability and the fictional The topos of greatness and uncountability, on the one hand, belongs to the area of “historiographical gambits”.20 On the other hand, uncountability is characteristic of the unreal, of an unknown past, and of future events still to happen. Therefore, let us look at a passage where many of the characteristics that we have identified as important in for the catalogue of troops are combined in a meaningful way: Pompey in book 7 of Lucan’s Bellum Civile uses the trope in his address to his soldiers before the battle of Pharsalus (7.360ff.). He tries to convince his army that victory is possible, drawing on a whole range of rhetorical and epic devices. Pompey conjures up the noble ancestry of exemplary republicans who would have taken his side in the conflict and would have been partisans of his cause (clari viri ... Curios, Camillos, Decios, 7.356–9). In a short catalogue of troops, he lists the assembled warriors who have come from numberless eastern cities (Primo gentes oriente coactae/innumeraeque urbes, quantas in proelia numquam, excivere manus, BC 7.360–361). But he immediately interrupts his list in the traditional manner of an epic catalogue, while using the historiographical topos

 19 Reitz 2014. 20 Gibson 2011, 53 and n. 23, pursues this trope, starting from observations on Silius Italicus’ catalogue Pun. 3.222–30.

Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues  

that “this is the biggest army ever to have gone into battle”, quantas in proelia numquam. Then, directly after declaring the historical dimension of the armies and the battle, Pompey conjures up before the mental eye of the soldiers the spectators of the upcoming battle: wives, the elderly citizens, and Rome herself will be present. In my opinion, this goes even beyond the format of mere enumeration and alludes to the epic and dramatic situation of the teichoscopia.21 While this foregrounds the poeticity of the speech, we experience, at the same instant, a programmatic appeal to a more historiographical mode of narrating. The military leader behaves and speaks in a supremely poetic way and transcends his own historical oration by epic devices; he is at this moment not only the leader of his army, but also the singer of his own song.

 Poetic responsibility We have seen that catalogues can vary between exactitude, the semblance of exactitude and explicit vagueness. What is the reason that poets offer for their being more or less precise, and how is the difference in preciseness rationalised? We have also seen that the responsibility in most cases is laid on the Muses or other inspiring goddesses. So, to come back to the question of inspiration and divine help, I would like to take up an argument recently made by Sara Myers.22 In her study, Myers shows that Statius problematises “the very issue of poetic inspiration” from the very beginning of the poem:23 Against the backdrop of Statius’ topic of the fraternal strife in Thebes, inspiration comes under suspicion as it is close or even equivalent to passion and madness. The inspiring forces come “from outside the rational self”. Right at the beginning of the Thebaid, in the proem, Clio herself introduces an abbreviated catalogue of horrors (1.41–5). Myers convincingly analyses the six other invocations of the Muses in the poem. Only in one point, which concerns the invocation of Calliope at the outset of the catalogue of troops in Th. 4.32–38, am I unable to fully agree with her argument. Nunc mihi, Fama prior mundique arcana Vetustas, cui meminisse ducum vitasque extendere curae,

 21 The format of teichoscopia merges, on the model of Il. 3, with the catalogue in Stat. Theb. 8; the Theban troops and warriors are listed by old Phorbas. See esp. Smolenaars 1994 ad loc. Still one of the best treatments of Statius’ catalogues is Georgacopoulou 1996. 22 Myers 2015. 23 Myers 2015, here 33.

  Christiane Reitz pande viros, tuque, o nemoris regina sonori, Calliope, quas ille manus, quae moverit arma Gradivus, quantas populis solaverit urbes, sublata molire lyra: neque enim altior ulli mens hausto de fonte venit. Now, old-time Fame and secret Antiquity of the world, whose care it is to remember leaders and extend their lives, set me forth the men. And you, queen of the tuneful grove, Calliope, raise your lyre and tell what bands, what arms Gradivus set moving, how many cities he left deserted of their peoples. For to none comes deeper understanding from the fount from which you draw.

Myers assumes that in calling on Fama and Vetustas, Fame and Antiquity, Statius is consciously “reversing the Virgilian emphasis” of memorare and meministis.24 However, I would rather suggest that Statius, at the beginning of his catalogue of the Argive troops, splits up the topoi of invocation. The opening is marked by Fama and Vetustas. They are the usual sources of historical knowledge; we might even read the two nouns as a hendiadyoin (fama vetustatis).25 At the same time, however, it is the Muse Calliope who is endowed with the knowledge (altior mens) to transform these sources into a meaningful narration and thus to actualise the tradition. Without her, the tradition and transmission of knowledge would be matters of importance (cui meminisse ducum vitasque extendere curae), but they would ultimately remain in the realm of potentiality. Statius stresses this point when he takes up the motif of the author’s (indeed, any mortal’s) weakness in the face of this huge subject and emphatically displaces it from the invocation proper to the middle of the catalogue of Argives: Quis numerum ferri gentesque et robora dictu/aequarit mortale sonans? (Th. 4,145–146, “Who of mortal voice could match in words the quantity of steel, the peoples, and the might?”). By appealing to superhuman forces again, the unusual form of invocation at the beginning of the catalogue is recalled. As Myers observes, invocations do mark poetic innovations, here and elsewhere. But rather than just to capitalise on the meta-poetic potential of the invocation in the epic tradition, I believe Statius displays an acute awareness of its importance in epic discourse.

 24 Myers 2015, 42–43. 25 One of the parallels quoted by Parkes 2012, 66 ad loc. is Th. 10.630–631. But I see an explicit differentiation between vetustas digesta and vetustas arcana. Clio, in the second passage, is the keeper and purveyor of historical memory, such as the suicide of Menoeceus, which is soon to be narrated. In the passage opening the catalogue, ancient memory is hidden and must be transmitted by the poet through Calliope’s help.

Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues  

Invocation and divine responsibility, order, exactitude on the one hand; shifting numbers, incompleteness, indefinite and innumerable dimensions on the other — these are the spheres where catalogues are unfolded.

 Breaking off — further questions A number of additional features could be discussed which point to the flexibility and potential of the catalogue; However, I will close with a few remarks to outline where further research into the poetics of catalogues might lead. Catalogues contain excursus — the neat order and series of the enumeration is often interrupted by a tale from the past or even by someone breaking into and disturbing the parade heroes. Thus Atalanta disturbs the catalogue of Argives because she tries to dissuade Parthenopaeus from joining the forces (e.g. Th. 4.309– 344). Catalogues contain apostrophes by the author that point to future events and the outcome of the narrative and therefore interrupt the visual presentation and linear narrative (e.g. Amphiaraus at Th. 4.236f). Catalogues are cut short or abbreviated by intradiegetic narrators (e.g. Val. Fl. 5,605f). Catalogues sometimes have an absent presence in the narrative where the audience is led to expect a catalogue but ultimately see their expectations disappointed (Th. 7.227–31).26 This is an incomplete list, but it shows that it is worthwhile to pursue the close reading and interpretation of this old, perhaps oldest, element of poetry and so to gain more insight into the functioning of poetry, both within and beyond the realm of epic.

Works Cited Canfora, L. (1972), Totalità e selezione nella storiografia classica, Bari. Fantuzzi, M. (2012), Achilles in love. Intertextual Studies, Oxford. Fowler, D. (1991), “Narrate and describe: The problem of Ekphrasis”, in: JRS 81, 25–35. [Repr. in: D. Fowler (2000), Roman Constructions. Readings in Postmodern Latin. Oxford, 64–85]. Gassner, J. (1973), Kataloge im römischen Epos. Vergil — Ovid — Lucan. PhD thesis, München.

 Only titles mentioned in the text are listed. For a more ample bibliography, see Reitz 2013 and 2017, 109–110.  26 Nuntius … longo agmine … docet – this is not just a messenger’s report, but it can be also read as the opening of a catalogue.

  Christiane Reitz Georgacopoulou, S. (1996), “Ranger/Déranger: Catalogues et listes de personnages dans la Thébaide”, in: F. Delarue et al. (eds.), Epicedion. Hommage à P. Papinius Statius, 96– 1996, Poitiers, 93–129. Gibson, B. (2011), “Silius Italicus: a consular historian?”, in: A. Augoustakis (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Silius Italicus, Leiden/Boston, 47–72. Harrison, S. (2011), “Picturing the feature again: proleptic ekphrasis in Silius’ Punica”, in: A. Augoustakis (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Silius Italicus, Leiden/Boston, 279–292. Harrison, S. (2019), “Artefact ekphrasis and narrative in epic poetry from Homer to Silius”, in : Reitz/Finkmann 2019, vol. I, 773–806. Kannicht, R. (1980), “ ‘Der alte Streit zwischen Philosophie und Dichtung’. Zwei Vorlesungen über Grundsätze der griechischen Literaturauffassung”, AU 23/6, 6–36. [Repr. in: R. Kannicht (1996), Paradeigmata. Aufsätze zur griechischen Poesie, ed. by L. Käppel, E.A. Schmidt, Heidelberg, 183–223]. Kleywegt, A.J. (2005), Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, book I: A commentary, Leiden. Latacz, J. et al. (eds.) (2010), Homers Ilias, Basler Gesamtkommentar, Band II: Zweiter Gesang (B). Fasz. 2: Kommentar (C. Brügger/M. Stoevesandt/E. Visser, unter der Leitung von J. Latacz), München/Leipzig, 2. ed. Maugier-Sinha, A. (2010), “Énumerer les Argonautes: catalogues épiques et listes mythographiques, enjeux génériques”, in: D. Auger/C. Delattre (eds.), Mythe et fiction, Paris, 171– 184. Murgatroyd, P. (2009), Valerius Flaccus, A Commentary on Book 4, Leiden/Boston. Myers, K.S. (2015), “Statius on invocation and inspiration”, in: W.J. Dominik/C.E. Newlands/ K. Gervais (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Statius, 31–53. Parkes, R. (2012), Statius, Thebaid 4, Oxford. Primavesi, O. (2009), “Zum Problem der epischen Fiktion in der vorplatonischen Poetik”, in: U. Peters/R. Warning (eds.), Fiktion und Fiktionalität in den Literaturen des Mittelalters, München, 105–120. Reitz, C. (1999), “Katalog”, in: Der Neue Pauly, Bd. 6, Stuttgart, 334–336 [Engl. translation in: Brill’s New Pauly, vol. 3, Leiden/Boston 2003, 6–8] Reitz, C. (2013), “Does mass matter? The epic catalogue of troops as narrative and metapoetic device”, in: G. Manuwald/A. Voigt (eds.), Flavian Epic Interactions, Berlin/Boston, 229– 243. Reitz, C. (2014), “Ursprünge epischer Helden. Mythologie, Genealogie und Aitiologie im Argiverkatalog von Statius’ Thebais”, in: C. Reitz/A. Walter (eds.), Von Ursachen sprechen. Eine aitiologische Spurensuche, Telling origins. On the lookout for aetiology, Hildesheim (= Spudasmata 162), 57–76. Reitz, C. (2017), “Das Unendliche beginnen und sein Ende finden – Strukturen des Aufzählens in epischer Dichtung”, in: C. Schmitz/A. Jöne/J. Kortmann (eds.), Anfänge und Enden. Narrative Potentiale des antiken und nachantiken Epos, Heidelberg (= Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften, N.F., 2. Reihe, 154), 97–110. Reitz, C./Finkmann, S. (eds.) (2019), Structures of Epic Poetry, 3 vols, Berlin/New York. Reitz, C./Scheidegger Laemmle, C./ Wesselmann, K. (2019), “Epic Catalogues”, in: Reitz/Finkmann 2019, vol. I, 653–725. Rosati, G. (2005), Publio Papinio Stazio, Achilleide, intr., trad. e note di G. Rosati, Milano, 3. ed. Schindler, C. (2012), “Musen”, in: RAC 25, 184–220, esp. 185–200. Schindler, C. (2019), “The invocation of the Muses and the plea for inspiration”, in: Reitz/Finkmann 2019, vol. I, 489–529.

Reliability and Evasiveness in Epic Catalogues  

Stover, T. (2012), Epic and Empire in Vespasianic Rome. A New Reading of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Oxford. Strauss Clay, J. (2015), “Commencing cosmogony and the rhetoric of poetic authority”, in: T. Fuhrer/M. Erler (eds.), Cosmologies et cosmogonies dans la littérature antique, Vandoeuvres (= Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt 61), 105–137. Walter, A. (2014), Erzählen und Gesang im flavischen Epos, Berlin/New York (= Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft – Beihefte).

Stratis Kyriakidis

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid The impact that genealogy had in a hero’s life is amply illustrated in the Homeric epics — especially in the Iliad — and in a way reflects its important role in ancient aristocratic society.1 The literary import of the phenomenon is shown by the fact that the genealogical2 catalogue remained a standard feature of the epic genre in all periods. Undoubtedly, this feature was subject to significant changes from one work to the next. Our approach in this paper will be limited to the Homeric epics, Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Here we shall attempt to show the tendencies formed in the work of each one of the above poets regarding the issue of the heroic lineage (in other words, the nature of the relationship of the epic characters — or of the poets themselves — with the past), and we shall examine the response of both Virgil and Ovid, to their forebear(s).3 In our discussion, the structure of these catalogues is of major importance. More generally, as I have tried to show elsewhere,4 the structure of a catalogue is never exclusively an instance of mere poetic technique isolated from the context and content of the passage or the textual unit to which it belongs, nor is it alienated from the message the poet wishes to convey to the readers. To begin with a clarification of terms, I have purposely avoided any distinction between ‘catalogue’ and ‘list’, and I have used both terms interchangeably. I have defined the term ‘catalogue’ as “a piece [of diction] in which at least three  1 I am most grateful to the three editors of the volume, Rebecca Laemmle, Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle, and Katharina Wesselmann, for their careful and meticulous editing. I would further like to thank Cédric Scheidegger Laemmle for a wealth of creative and penetrating thoughts and suggestions, some of which I have included in my notes. Unfortunately, I could not take into consideration the recently published work by Irini Kyriakou (2020), Généalogies épiques. Les fonctions de la parenté et les femmes ancêtres dans la poésie épique grecque archaïque, Berlin/ Boston, which the anonymous reader has brought to my attention. I thank her/him very much. 2 For the way the ancients used the term ‘generation’ and ‘genealogy’/‘genealogical’ see the interesting article of Nash 1978. 3 A discussion of this sort considers the Homeric poems as written texts and does not take into account their oral form. This is because for the two Roman poets the Homeric poems were transmitted as texts and their reception was enriched by earlier responses to Homer, mainly during the Hellenistic period. This is also true for other ancient texts, as, for instance, Hesiod. According to Ziogas 2013, 2–3, for Ovid the archaic Hesiod was equally important with the ‘Hellenistic Hesiod’. 4 Kyriakidis 2007, 2–66; 2010, 8–11; 2014, 286–289 and n. 89. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712230-012

  Stratis Kyriakidis proper names are distributed across at least two hexameters.”5 In a catalogue, or a list for that matter, “all names are placed together in the same register on the basis of a common feature or denominator which ensures its cohesion.” It is exactly what the ancient scholiast had described as τὸ ὁμοειδὲς τοῦ καταλόγου (‘the homogeneity of the catalogue’, scholia in Il. 9.125–126, Erbse).6 This definition has served its purpose at least in studying epic catalogues and can also be applied to the genealogical ones.7 As is obvious, the mere entry of a proper name in a catalogue is enough to ensure its potential reiteration in the future once the catalogue is heard or read. In other words, the proper name can pass from oblivion to memory and thus acquire κλέος, κῦδος and honos.8 There are a number of genealogical catalogues in epic poetry and on occasion we can easily detect the poetic intent for their use. However, it is of great importance to know who recites such a catalogue. When, for instance, a character of a scene relates his own ancestry, his aim may be to establish his importance; he looks back,9 that is to the past in order to gain honos and to claim the survival of his name in the future. This is a common case. A genealogy recited by the character involved would hardly be evoked for the mere information of the reader. But the motivation may alter when a character’s lineage is recited by someone else, as is the case in Odyssey 11 when Odysseus recites the genealogy of the women he met in the Underworld. Α third case is when the omniscient poet at times resorts to ancestry in order to add narrative ‘weight’ to someone’s characterisation by enriching his background with qualities and attributes of family members from the past. Thus a character may acquire increased importance through the

 5 Kyriakidis 2007, xiii. Obviously other scholars define catalogues in their own way: e.g. Minchin 1996, 4f, and 2001, 74ff.; Sammons 2010, 9; Mainberger 2002 exhaustively studies the dynamics of the catalogue before giving its definition; see further Tsagalis 2010, 323–324 (with nn. 3 and 4), where he also refers to Sammons’ formulation. 6 Kyriakidis 2007, xiii. 7 One further clarification is necessary: We restrict the term ‘genealogical catalogue’ to cases where three or more generations are mentioned. Thus, we shall not apply it to a passage with a reference to the genealogy of –for example– two sons and their father. 8 Virgil, for example, states with regard to the Mons Albanus: qui nunc Albanus habetur;/tum neque nomen erat neque honos aut gloria monti (“what is now called Albanus; then there was no name nor fame or glory of the mountain”, Aen. 12.134–135). This has been a common human experience repeated time and again and requires no specific literary evidence to prove it. 9 Bettini 1991, 123 on the theme of ‘looking back’.

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

reading time allotted to him in the narrative.10 All the above issues, however, have been treated by the individual poets differently and we shall see below the stance of each one.

 The Homeric epics In Latin epic everything starts with Homer. It is in the Homeric epics that we find the basis and the motivation which inspired Virgil and Ovid in their own work. It is for this reason that we give great emphasis to the Iliadic text in particular and to that of the Odyssey, since all features of the genealogical catalogues in the Latin epic in this matter allude in one way or another to archaic heroic epic.

. Giving value to one’s self: The Iliad The Iliad deals with the Trojan war, the war which Hesiod places in the fourth Age,11 the heroic age that is, when the heroes are considered as demigods (ἡμίθεοι) and constitute the θεῖον γένος, the god-like race (Hesiod, Opera 157– 160):12 αὖτις ἔτ᾽ ἄλλο τέταρτον ἐπὶ χθονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ Ζεὺς Κρονίδης ποίησε, δικαιότερον καὶ ἄρειον, ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων θεῖον γένος, οἳ καλέονται ἡμίθεοι, προτέρη γενεὴ κατ᾽ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν. Cronius Zeus made another one, the fourth [i.e. generation] on the fruitful earth, which was more just and braver, a god-like race of heroes who are called demigods, the race before our own, throughout the boundless earth.

Indeed, the genealogical catalogues of the Iliad, as we shall see, highlight the perception of a hero as a demigod of the Hesiodian Myth of Ages, as a character  10 This is one of the ways “lists and catalogues in the Aeneid play a crucial role in expanding the temporal scope of the narrative”: Reitz, Scheidegger Laemmle, and Wesselmann 2019, 686. One has to note that this quality of lists and catalogues is present as early as Homer. 11 Hes. Op. 164–165: τοὺς δὲ καὶ ἐν νήεσσιν ὑπὲρ μέγα λαῖτμα θαλάσσης/ἐς Τροίην ἀγαγὼν Ἑλένης ἕνεκ᾽ ἠυκόμοιο (“Some [were destroyed] when [war] brought them in ships over the great stretch of the deep sea to Troy for the sake of Helen with the lovely hair.”) 12 In Hesiod’s Theogony, however, which actually forms an extensive catalogue, we do not find the ‘pride’ and ‘self-praise’ we meet in the heroic epic.

  Stratis Kyriakidis that is, who has divine origins.13 Through ancestry, as we have said, each hero strives for the authority14 that will enable him to face a situation at hand and also secure him a place in the memory of the future generations. To this end, certain catalogue techniques are often employed. One is the formation of a frame15 at the beginning or/and the end of a catalogue, sometimes in ring composition16 (e.g. Il. 20.213–214/241). We can also have ring composition within the catalogue, when a proper name or a relevant pronoun opens and closes it, as, for instance, at lines Il. 2.100–109 (see below, p. 250). In one way or another, ring composition seals the catalogue which thus becomes a distinct structural unit of the narrative; the content does not spill over and the poet succeeds in keeping the attention of, and stimulating the mnemonic faculties of the reader. Needless to say that ring composition with a hero’s name adds prestige to him. An equally frequent characteristic of a catalogue is the paratactic ordering of the names involved;17 this is a typical feature in the genealogical catalogues of the Iliad. By this I mean that one name follows another in a more or less similar fashion. The catalogue, therefore, may become ‘plain’ without internal elaboration or ‘embellishments’. If, however, the poet wishes to stress the importance of a name, he may give more space to it than he does to the other names.18 The prevailing model in the Iliad for the genealogical catalogue is characterised by a linearity of the male members of the house. Only on rare occasions does the poet of the Iliad include feminine names.19 Besides, in many instances there is a lack of emphasis on the ancestors falling in the middle of the catalogue and the emphasis is shifted to the divine origin at the beginning of it, in order to serve the repute of the speaker’s ego rather than show respect to his ancestors.20 Overall, these catalogues have a structure which serves the primacy of a single character.

 13 Cf. Bettini 1991, 191: “If … as seems clear from the anthropological perspective, ‘before’ resembles ‘high’ in expressing the stronger member of a cultural opposition, we have to conclude where time is concerned that in the relation ‘anterior/posterior’, the ‘first’ is considered culturally dominant over ‘then’.” 14 See below, pp. 250, 261. 15 Kyriakidis 2007, 74–80, 99–102; see also Gen. Index s.v. 16 Kyriakidis 2007, 145, and Gen. Index s.v. 17 Cf. Herrnstein Smith 1968, 98–108. 18 Kyriakidis 2007, 4 (with n. 14), 10. 19 As at Il. 6.198 (Laodameia), 21.85 (Laothoe), 21.142 (Periboea). 20 Cf. Sthenelus’ words who proudly claims to be better than his ancestors: ἡμεῖς τοι πατέρων μέγ᾽ ἀμείνονες εὐχόμεθ᾽ εἶναι (“we proudly claim to be very much better than our fathers”, Il. 4.405); see also n. 90 below.

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

There is also an alternative technique: a character does not appear in a catalogue under his own name but under his father’s or his ancestor’s.21 The most characteristic example in this instance is Diomedes who time and again appears in the narrative with his patronymic, Tydeides. In such a case, the use of a patronymic may lead to the formation of a condensed catalogue, thus obliquely adding one more generation, as e.g. in the Odyssey 16.118 (cf. 24.270).22 In the Iliad one more feature is attested in the majority of the genealogical catalogues: they start from the origins, with the founder of the genos who is usually a god, and go down to the hero’s present. The majority of such catalogues in the Iliad are recited by the character concerned.23 In these cases, the hero usually refers to himself both at the beginning of the catalogue, where the divine origin of his race is presented, and at the end, thus forming a ring composition on his name. An example is found at Il. 13.449–453: ὄφρα ἴδῃς οἷος Ζηνὸς γόνος ἐνθάδ᾽ ἱκάνω, ὃς πρῶτον Μίνωα τέκε Κρήτῃ ἐπίουρον· Μίνως δ᾽ αὖ τέκεθ᾽ υἱὸν ἀμύμονα Δευκαλίωνα, Δευκαλίων δ᾽ ἐμὲ [sc. Ιδομενέα] τίκτε πολέσσ᾽ ἄνδρεσσιν ἄνακτα Κρήτῃ ἐν εὐρείῃ. … so that you know what kind of Zeus’ offspring am I who have come here: he first begot Minos to be a guardian over Crete, and Minos in turn begot a son, the incomparable Deucalion, and Deucalion begot me, a king over many men in wide Crete.

The catalogue presents the genealogy of Idomeneus, claimed by the hero himself, when he addresses Deiphobus during the battle. In each line, a generation is represented and the catalogue ends with a self-reference [ἐμέ] thus forming ring composition with the subject of the verb on the first line of the catalogue ([ἐγώ] γόνος … ἱκάνω). The catalogue starts with Zeus (Ζηνὸς) and is followed by the names of the descendants in order, down to Idomeneus himself. It is this mode of catalogue which serves the hero’s pride in his divine origin through the proximity

 21 The use of patronymics is not very common in the formation of the Iliadic genealogical catalogues. 22 See below, pp. 254, 263, 265, 271. Kyriakidis 2017. On condensed texts see Reitz 2010. 23 In the Iliad it is mostly the character-hero himself who claims with pride his ancestry whereas in the Aeneid, as we shall see below, it is the poet or another character who pronounces someone else’s genealogy. See Gaertner 2001, 299: “a considerable portion of the catalogues is not pronounced by the narrator, but it is put into the mouth of one of the characters”.

  Stratis Kyriakidis of the god’s name in genitive to the word γόνος and the active verb in the first person singular (Ζηνὸς γόνος ἐνθάδ᾽ ἱκάνω) at the beginning of the catalogue. At Il. 2.100–109 a quasi-genealogical catalogue starts again from the origins going down to the present and, as above, it forms a ring composition, this time on the name of Agamemnon. It is a catalogue of the successors to the throne of Mycenae24 and holders of the sceptre25 which the god Hephaestus had made and now symbolises Agamemnon’s power: ἀνὰ δὲ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων ἔστη σκῆπτρον ἔχων, τὸ μὲν ῞Ηφαιστος κάμε τεύχων. ῞Ηφαιστος μὲν δῶκε Διὶ Κρονίωνι ἄνακτι, αὐτὰρ ἄρα Ζεὺς δῶκε διακτόρῳ ἀργεϊφόντῃ· Ἑρμείας δὲ ἄναξ δῶκεν Πέλοπι πληξίππῳ, αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Πέλοψ δῶκ᾽ Ἀτρέϊ ποιμένι λαῶν, Ἀτρεὺς δὲ θνῄσκων ἔλιπεν πολύαρνι Θυέστῃ, αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Θυέστ᾽ Ἀγαμέμνονι λεῖπε φορῆναι, πολλῇσιν νήσοισι καὶ Ἄργεϊ παντὶ ἀνάσσειν. τῷ ὅ γ᾽ ἐρεισάμενος26 ἔπε᾽ Ἀργείοισι μετηύδα.

105

Then lord Agamemnon stood up, having the sceptre which Hephaestus laboured to make. Hephaestus gave it to lord Zeus, son of Cronos, and then Zeus gave it to the messenger Hermes; and Hermes, the lord, gave it to Pelops, the driver of horses, and then again Pelops gave it to Atreus, shepherd of men; and Atreus when he was dying left it to Thyestes, rich in sheep, and then again Thyestes left it to Agamemnon to carry, to rule over many islands and all of Argos. Leaning on it he addressed the Argives.

The proximity of the Hephaestus’ name to that of Agamemnon’s, the current holder of the sceptre, at the beginning of the catalogue and the repetition of the king’s name at the end in circular construction, structurally affirm his authority as leader of the expedition.

 24 It is interesting to note, as Scheidegger Laemmle suggests, that the resulting list (which incidentally, merges genealogy and inheritance) follows what N. Wasserman in his contribution on Akkadian texts calls ‘chain’: A, A–B, B –C, C–D, etc. (this volume, p. 66, 69). 25 Brown 2006, 21–23. Sammons 2008, 355: “Some objects are notable for belonging to a succession of illustrious owners, like Agamemnon’s scepter (Il. 2.100–108) or the boar’s tusk helmet Meriones lends Odysseus, which has a history going back to the recipient’s own grandfather (Il. 10.261–271). It is correct to say that such objects have ‘genealogies,’ since their owners may be listed much in the manner of genealogy”. See also Reitz, Scheidegger Laemmle, and Wesselmann 2019, 667. 26 For Scheidegger Laemmle, the phrase τῷ ὅ γ᾽ ἐρεισάμενος (109) “almost reads like a reference to the list as well as to the sceptre.”

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

As most of the Iliadic catalogues of lineage of this mode are recited by the character immediately concerned, the pride the hero takes in his origins is obvious in all cases.27 Characteristic is the phrase εὔχομαι εἶναι (“to boast”/“to proudly claim to be”), which appears in two of these catalogues (Il. 14.113 and 20.241).28 We shall see further down how this phenomenon develops afterwards. Revealing of the dynamics of genealogical catalogues in the Iliad is the exchange between Aeneas and Achilles. When they are preparing themselves for a duel (20.160ff.), Aeneas recites his ancestry which springs from Zeus himself. The catalogue itself 20.213–24129 covers 29 lines and once again it begins from the origins down to the hero’s present:30 εἰ δ᾽ ἐθέλεις καὶ ταῦτα δαήμεναι, ὄφρ᾽ ἐῢ εἰδῇς ἡμετέρην γενεήν, πολλοὶ δέ μιν ἄνδρες ἴσασι· Δάρδανον αὖ πρῶτον τέκετο νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς, κτίσσε δὲ Δαρδανίην, ἐπεὶ οὔ πω Ἴλιος ἱρὴ ἐν πεδίῳ πεπόλιστο, πόλις μερόπων ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλ᾽ ἔθ᾽ ὑπωρείας ᾤκεον πολυπίδακος Ἴδης. Δάρδανος αὖ τέκεθ᾽ υἱὸν Ἐριχθόνιον βασιλῆα, ὃς δὴ ἀφνειότατος γένετο θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων· ---------------------Τρῶα δ᾽ Ἐριχθόνιος τέκετο Τρώεσσιν ἄνακτα· Τρωὸς δ᾽ αὖ τρεῖς παῖδες ἀμύμονες ἐξεγένοντο Ἶλός τ᾽ Ἀσσάρακός τε καὶ ἀντίθεος Γανυμήδης, ὃς δὴ κάλλιστος γένετο θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων· τὸν καὶ ἀνηρείψαντο θεοὶ Διὶ οἰνοχοεύειν κάλλεος εἵνεκα οἷο ἵν᾽ ἀθανάτοισι μετείη. Ἶλος δ᾽ αὖ τέκεθ᾽ υἱὸν ἀμύμονα Λαομέδοντα· Λαομέδων δ᾽ ἄρα Τιθωνὸν τέκετο Πρίαμόν τε Λάμπον τε Κλυτίον θ᾽ Ἱκετάονά τ᾽ ὄζον Ἄρηος· Ἀσσάρακος δὲ Κάπυν, ὃ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Ἀγχίσην τέκε παῖδα· αὐτὰρ ἔμ᾽ Ἀγχίσης, Πρίαμος δὲ τέχ’ Ἕκτορα δῖον. ταύτης τοι γενεῆς τε καὶ αἵματος εὔχομαι εἶναι. Ζεὺς δ᾽ ἀρετὴν ἄνδρεσσιν ὀφέλλει τε μινύθει τε ὅππως κεν ἐθέλῃσιν· ὃ γὰρ κάρτιστος ἁπάντων.

215

220 230

235

240

 27 The verification that one’s ancestry was held high among the heroes in the Iliad is implied in Agamemnon’s words (Ιl. 10.68–69): … πατρόθεν ἐκ γενεῆς ὀνομάζων ἄνδρα ἕκαστον, /πάντας κυδαίνων (“… calling each man by his father’s name and his lineage, honouring all of them”). 28 Cf. Il. 21.109: Higbie 2002, 175–176. 29 On this catalogue see also: Reitz, Scheidegger Laemmle, and Wesselmann 2019, 666. 30 It is a telling detail that, unlike Achilles (see below, Il. 21.184–191, p. 255) who belongs to the fourth generation from his divine origins, Aeneas belongs to the eighth.

  Stratis Kyriakidis And if you want to learn these so that you know well my lineage, many men know it: Zeus the cloud-gatherer, first begot Dardanus and he founded Dardania since sacred Ilion had not been built as a city of mortal men but they still lived on the foot of mount Ida with the many springs. Then Dardanus begot a son, king Erichthonius who became the wealthiest of mortal men; - - - [230] Erichthonius begot Tros, king of the Trojans; and again to Tros three noble sons were born, Ilus, and Assaracus, and godlike Ganymedes, who was the handsomest of mortal men; and because of his beauty the gods snatched him and carried him off so that to pour out wine to Zeus and be among the immortals. And Ilus again begot a son, noble Laomedon, and Laomedon begot Tithonus and Priam and Lampus and Clytius and Hicetaon, scion of Ares; and Assaracus begot Capys, and he Anchises; Anchises begot me and Priam noble Hector; of this lineage and blood I proudly claim to be. But Zeus increases or lessens valour in men as he pleases, for he is the mightiest of all.

A few lines earlier Achilles, in his effort to intimidate the Trojan hero and his comrades, says that it was Zeus and the other gods who saved him in their previous contact (194). Aeneas answers that he does not yield to intimidation (200–201) and that each one knows the other’s lineage (203–209); they both are sons of goddesses (207–209). The interesting thing here is that, although Aeneas could establish his divine origin at the level of his mother to whom he refers before the beginning of the catalogue (208–209), he proceeds further back in his ancestry, to start with Zeus who begot Dardanus, the founder of the royal house of Troy (215–216). This expanded version may have been invited by Achilles’ sarcastic remarks (179–183) regarding Aeneas’ alleged pretensions to the Trojan throne.31 In this case Aeneas feels the need to strengthen his position with this glorious lineage by putting the name of Dardanus (215) immediately after his self-reference (ἡμετέρην γενεήν, 214) in the same line as the founder of the lineage who is none other than Zeus (215).32 Aeneas’ pride is also evident by the closural phrase ταύτης τοι γενεῆς τε καὶ αἵματος εὔχομαι εἶναι (“of this lineage and blood I proudly claim to be”, 20.241) which corresponds to the εὔχομαι ἐκγεγάμεν at 209 (Il. 20.206–209): φασὶ σὲ μὲν Πηλῆος ἀμύμονος ἔκγονον εἶναι, μητρὸς δ’ ἐκ Θέτιδος καλλιπλοκάμου ἁλοσύδνης· αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν υἱὸς μεγαλήτορος ᾿Αγχίσαο εὔχομαι ἐκγεγάμεν, μήτηρ δέ μοί ἐστ’ ᾿Αφροδίτη.

 31 Such allegations seem to have survived in the Aeneas’ legend which Virgil variously tried to dismiss in the Aeneid where, according to Gowers 2011, 106, “Priam’s surviving grandson through Creusa exists to mollify those genealogists who would label Aeneas usurper” (with n. 70). 32 Edwards 1991, 313 ad 200–258. Kyriakidis 2007, 77–78. For a discussion on the impact of this catalogue on Ovid (Her. 17.60) see Ziogas 2013, 41.

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

They say that you are son of excellent Peleus and your mother is the daughter of the sea Thetis with the fair locks; but I am proud to be the son of great-hearted Anchises and my mother is Aphrodite.

Aeneas uses this latter phrase to refer to his parents who are mentioned together with those of Achilles (206–209) just before the beginning of the above catalogue. In this way the matrilinear descent of the hero is left out of the catalogue proper. Achilles, on the other hand, does not boast about his ancestors by recounting his pedigree. He asserts his superiority instead through his rhetoric and, of course, mainly through his deeds and prowess. Nevertheless, the fact that Achilles very rarely has recourse to his genealogy,33 does not mean that he dismisses it outright as an asset:34 The hero challenges his opponent, Asteropaeus, Pelegon’s son, on the ground of genealogy: τίς πόθεν εἰς ἀνδρῶν ὅ μευ ἔτλης ἀντίος ἐλθεῖν; (“who are you, and where are you from, that you dare to come against me?” Il. 21.150). The question implies Achilles’ pride in his own origins and leads Asteropaeus to reply with a rhetorical question: Πηλεΐδη μεγάθυμε τίη γενεὴν ἐρεείνεις; (“magnanimοus son of Peleus, do you ask about my descent?” Il. 21.153), thus introducing the catalogue of his genealogy by reciting it himself (Il. 21.152– 160):35 Τὸν δ’ αὖ Πηλεγόνος προσεφώνεε φαίδιμος υἱός· Πηλεΐδη μεγάθυμε τί ἦ γενεὴν ἐρεείνεις; εἴμ᾽ [sc. ἐγώ] ἐκ Παιονίης ἐριβώλου τηλόθ᾽ ἐούσης Παίονας ἄνδρας ἄγων δολιχεγχέας· ἥδε δέ μοι νῦν ἠὼς ἑνδεκάτη, ὅτε Ἴλιον εἰλήλουθα. αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ γενεὴ ἐξ Ἀξιοῦ εὐρὺ ῥέοντος, Ἀξιοῦ, ὃς κάλλιστον ὕδωρ ἐπὶ γαῖαν ἵησιν, ὃς τέκε Πηλεγόνα κλυτὸν ἔγχεϊ· τὸν δ᾽ ἐμέ φασι γείνασθαι.

155

Then, the glorious son of Pelegon spoke to him: great-hearted son of Peleus, why do you ask of my descent? I come from fertile Paeonia, a far away place, leading the Paeonians with their tall spears, and this is now the eleventh day since I came to Ilion. But my origin is from

 33 In fact, Achilles’ behaviour limits to a degree the use of genealogy in the Iliad. On this see Calhoun 1934, 192: “We should expect to find [genealogy] used in abundance and elaborated at every opportunity. Yet in actual fact it is kept very definitely within bounds, and the emphasis, as has been said, is rather upon individuals and their personal qualities”; also 207. 34 Donlan 2007, 38. 35 Webber 1989, 5. As also happens on other occasions, “the warriors of the Iliad identify themselves in the same way, by country and genealogy, but not by personal name (Il. 6.145–211; 21.153–160).”

  Stratis Kyriakidis wide-flowing Axios, Axios, who lets flow the fairest water on earth, who begot Pelegon renowned for his spear, and they say he begot me.

Again this catalogue goes from the past to the present and also has a circular construction. A little earlier, however, it was the poet who presented Asteropaeus’ lineage (Il. 21.139–143): τόφρα δὲ Πηλέος υἱὸς ἔχων δολιχόσκιον ἔγχος Ἀστεροπαίῳ ἐπᾶλτο κατακτάμεναι μενεαίνων, υἱέϊ Πηλεγόνος· τὸν δ᾽ Ἀξιὸς εὐρυρέεθρος γείνατο καὶ Περίβοια, Ἀκεσσαμενοῖο θυγατρῶν πρεσβυτάτη· τῇ γάρ ῥα μίγη ποταμὸς βαθυδίνης.

140

Meanwhile the son of Pyleus holding his spear with the long casting shadow lept on Asteropaeus, the son of Pelegon, eager to slay him; Pelegon was born to broad-flowing Axius and Periboea, the eldest daughter of Acessamenus; for the deep-eddying river coupled with her.

It is interesting for one to note that at lines 152–153, the proximity of Πηλεγόνος … υἱός (for Asteropaeus, 152) to Πηλεΐδη (for Achilles, 153) and of Πηλέος υἱός (139) to υἱέϊ Πηλεγόνος (141) in the last catalogue “seems to activate an etymological play between the name Pelegon and Peleus’ son: it is as though Pelegon stands for ὁ γόνος τοῦ Πηλέος, a sort of Πηλέος υἱός for the opponent of Achilles … The structure of the whole passage does not seem to be haphazard: the(se) patronymics seem to relate, or even connect — in fact they equate the two rivals — Achilles and Asteropaeus, before the combat starts. The technique seems to allude to the common fate awaiting both of the heroes. It is an implied comment of the poet effected through the involvement of agents from the previous generation and external to the scene. In this case (and it is not the only one) past seems to be temporally neutralized and functions transcendentally, forewarning the common future.”36 One can also note that this catalogue (139–143) recited by the poet himself, goes from the hero’s present back to the past, also introducing Asteropaeus’ grandmother. The encounter ends with the death of Asteropaeus after a hard duel with Achilles (Ιl. 21.179–184). The very moment, however, Asteropaeus is dying,37 the narrative takes a surprising turn: Achilles, without any external motivation — since his opponent can no longer react (Il. 21.184: κεῖσ᾽ οὕτως, “lie there as you

 36 Kyriakidis 2017, 83. 37 Cf. also lines 21.179: ἄορι θυμὸν ἀπηύρα (“took life away with the sword”) and 21.181: τὸν δὲ σκότος ὄσσε κάλυψεν (“darkness covered his eyes”).

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

are”) and there are no other obvious listeners — presents his own divine lineage (187–189) in a brief and dense list (Il. 21.184–191): … χαλεπόν τοι ἐρισθενέος Κρονίωνος παισὶν ἐριζέμεναι ποταμοῖό περ ἐκγεγαῶτι. φῆσθα σὺ μὲν ποταμοῦ γένος ἔμμεναι εὐρὺ ῥέοντος, αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ γενεὴν μεγάλου Διὸς εὔχομαι εἶναι. τίκτε μ᾽ ἀνὴρ πολλοῖσιν ἀνάσσων Μυρμιδόνεσσι, Πηλεὺς Αἰακίδης· ὃ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Αἰακὸς ἐκ Διὸς ἦεν. τὼ κρείσσων μὲν Ζεὺς ποταμῶν ἁλιμυρηέντων, κρείσσων αὖτε Διὸς γενεὴ ποταμοῖο τέτυκται.

185

190

It is surely hard to rival the sons of mightiest Zeus, even for one who was born to a river. You said you are the offspring of a wide-flowing river but I proudly claim to be of the generation of great Zeus. Peleus, son of Aeacus, a king of the numerous Myrmidons, is the man who begot me; and Aeacus was begotten of Zeus. Therefore, since Zeus is mightier than the rivers flowing to the sea, mightier also is the offspring of Zeus than the one of a river.

Strictly speaking the four generations of Achilles’ lineage are presented within three hexameters (187–189) with a ring composition on the name of Zeus (187, 189) whose name emphatically pervades the catalogue as well as the verses that frame it (Κρονίωνος, 184; Διός, 191, 198; Ζεύς, 190; Διί Κρονίωνι, 193) and the word γενεή (187, 191). This catalogue is introduced at line 187 where, as we have seen in other genealogical catalogues in the Iliad, the self-reference (ἐγώ) is put near to the name of the god (Zeus, 187). Ηowever, unlike other genealogical catalogues in the Iliad recited by a hero himself, this one goes back from the narrator’s present to the past. Furthermore, the ring composition at the end of the passage (Διός γενεή, 191) leaves out any self-reference and the emphasis falls on the god’s name.38 In this instance, therefore, the typical Iliadic features are blurred while the catalogue is recited, in essence, in the absence of any interlocutor, as Achilles seems to be the only character present in the scene. It is as if the Greek hero wishes to draw from his nobler ancestry39 the reassurance that perhaps he lacks in the present situation having in front of him dying Asteropaeus. We shall recall here that earlier, in book 18 (95–96) Thetis has warned her son of his imminent death in the event that Hector is killed, an ominous prospect with which Achilles seems to have reconciled himself after the loss of his dear comrade, Patroclus

 38 In line 187 the word γενεή does not bear the same meaning with that of γόνος, as it usually refers to all the generations of a γένος. 39 On Achilles’ arrogance see Richardson 1993 ad 21.184–199.

  Stratis Kyriakidis (18.90–93, 98–126). Then in book 21, immediately before his clash with Asteropaeus, Achilles, in his speech (99–113) to Priam’s son, Lycaon, who supplicates for his life, shows an extreme arrogance and contempt, but at the same time he shows full awareness of the fact that he will eventually share the fate of death, an awareness which is nonetheless closely associated with his pride of descent. In this instance Achilles also refers to his mother (Il. 21.109–112). πατρὸς δ᾽ εἴμ᾽ ἀγαθοῖο, θεὰ δέ με γείνατο μήτηρ· ἀλλ᾽ ἔπι τοι καὶ ἐμοὶ θάνατος καὶ μοῖρα κραταιή. ἔσσεται ἢ ἠὼς ἢ δείλη ἢ μέσον ἦμαρ, ὁππότε τις καὶ ἐμεῖο Ἄρῃ ἐκ θυμὸν ἕληται.

110

My father was well-born and my mother was a goddess; but there is over me too death and mighty fate. It will come at dawn or in the evening or at midday when some man will take my life too in battle.

It is perhaps this awareness of the inescapable fate which in front of dying Asteropaeus creates a feeling of insecurity for Achilles himself40 who does not recite his genealogy before or during the battle, but rather at its conclusion. At this very moment the hero seeks mental support from his noble descent. It is this kind of situation which causes the subversion of the usual formation of the genealogical catalogues of the Iliad. Through this novel presentation we can perhaps sense the hero’s moment of truth when he faces his victim, that no one is immortal and forever unharmed. Achilles’ reference to Zeus’ supreme power (ἐρισθενέος Κρονίωνος, 184) brings to mind the gnome with which Aeneas closed his genealogical catalogue in Il. 20:41 Zeus “increases or lessens valour in men as he pleases” (20.242–243: Ζεὺς δ᾽ ἀρετὴν ἄνδρεσσιν ὀφέλλει τε μινύθει τε, / ὅππως κεν ἐθέλῃσιν). With this, Aeneas on the one hand stresses his great origins, but on the other he puts the importance of noble ancestry and the value of boasting into perspective.42 This is significant and it will be of use to us below.  40 We can also remember Achilles’ words in the Underworld in the last book of the Odyssey 24.29: μοῖρ᾽ ὀλοή, τὴν οὔ τις ἀλεύεται, ὅς κε γένηται (“the destructive fate that no one born can escape”). 41 See above, pp. 251–252. 42 See Donlan 2007, 39: “In a sense this is true: noble ancestry could be validated only by noble deeds. But pride in one’s lineage would likely be a strong motivator; the obligation to live up to the genos could be the very thing to spur an individual to achieve what he knew was expected of him. In the passages above, genos boasting and genealogical recitation make Asteropaeus and Aeneas impatient to get on with the real duel. And, as we have seen, Odysseus’ final words to Telemachus before they face the suitors are, ‘You will learn not to disgrace the lineage of your

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

Earlier, in book 6, a similar perception of humanity was grafted onto the epic: in the introductory frame to his genealogical loosely presented catalogue (Il. 6.153–211), Glaucus addressing Diomedes starts with the same rhetorical phrase (145) that Asteropaeus uses in his answer to Achilles at Il. 21.153 (above, p. 253), but he frames his catalogue at the beginning with the famous simile of the falling leaves to which he likens the generations of men (Il. 6.145–149):43 Τυδεΐδη μεγάθυμε τίη γενεὴν ἐρεείνεις; οἵη περ φύλλων γενεὴ τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν. φύλλα τὰ μέν τ᾽ ἄνεμος χαμάδις χέει, ἄλλα δέ θ᾽ ὕλη τηλεθόωσα φύει, ἔαρος δ᾽ ἐπιγίγνεται ὥρη· ὣς ἀνδρῶν γενεὴ ἣ μὲν φύει ἣ δ᾽ ἀπολήγει. Great hearted son of Tydeus, do you ask about my descent? As are the generations of leaves, such are those also of men. The wind throws the leaves on the ground, but the flourishing forest produces others when spring comes; the same with the generations of men, the one springs up and the other ceases.

With this simile on the perennial natural phenomenon of renewal Glaucus stresses the awareness of human limitation and therefore, he actually seems to undermine in a way the value even of his own genealogy. Although it has been suggested that the weight of the simile’s meaning falls on the coming of spring and its rejuvenating qualities which give a positive aspect,44 the first thing that comes to the reader’s mind is that its importance lies in the perpetual change it describes. Indeed Glaucus45 here points to the transient nature of the human race. Taking into account the Iliadic context, I side with Sammons who rightly consid-

 fathers’ (Od. 24.507–508). Perhaps the purpose of reciting genealogies before a duel was not so much to win points as to rally one’s own strength and courage. Genos looks backwards to ancestors, it does not look to the side at collateral kin or forward to future offspring. But perhaps it does look forward in a way. When a warrior faces his rival, death is on his mind. He understands that after he dies, his patriline, not his oikos, will be the vehicle for his kleos. His desire is to ensure his place as one of the links in the long line of ancestors who are remembered in song”. 43 On this see Kirk 1990, on 6.144–151, p. 176. Cf. lines Il. 21.464–465: Sammons 2010, 38 and n. 42. 44 Nash 1978, 2 argues that the phrase ἔαρος δ᾽ ἐπιγίγνεται ὥρη “‘spring comes into existence’ specifically applies to the young warrior [i.e. Glaucus], whose prowess is the natural extension of his past ancestry”. And then: “The positive aspect of the simile is affirmed by the speech that follows. Glaucus more than answers Diomedes’ inquiry by tracing his ancestry five male generations back to the god Aeolus”. 45 Cf. Scodel 1992.

  Stratis Kyriakidis ers that “this final vision of the world corresponds most closely to the world described in the rest of the Iliad.”46 Glaucus’ thoughtful reminder implied that whoever loses in battle will eventually have the same end as the winner. At the close of the catalogue (6.206) — which follows the common Iliadic pattern (from the origins to the present) but is rather loose and no longer paratactic — Glaucus proudly states that what counts is the personal worth of a man on which one’s ancestors should be proud of. This was what Hippolochus, Glaucus’ father, had prescribed to him (Il. 6.206–211): Ἱππόλοχος δέ μ᾽ ἔτικτε, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ φημι γενέσθαι· πέμπε δέ μ᾽ ἐς Τροίην, καί μοι μάλα πόλλ᾽ ἐπέτελλεν, αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων, μηδὲ γένος πατέρων αἰσχυνέμεν, οἳ μέγ᾽ ἄριστοι ἔν τ᾽ Ἐφύρῃ ἐγένοντο καὶ ἐν Λυκίῃ εὐρείῃ. ταύτης τοι γενεῆς τε καὶ αἵματος εὔχομαι εἶναι.

210

But Hippolochus begot me and I claim to have sprung from him; he sent me to Troy and ardently prescribed to me always to be the best and excel of all the others, and not to shame my forefathers who were the very best in Ephyre and in wide Lycia. Of this ancestry and blood I proudly claim to be.

The lineage that Glaucus recites finally leads to an unconventional outcome of a would-be-battle scene: Diomedes realises that Hippolochus was a friend of old to his father’s house (ἦ ῥά νύ μοι ξεῖνος πατρώϊός ἐσσι παλαιός, “truly now, you are an old friend of my father’s”, 6.215). This resulted to the suspension of hostilities and the exchange of shields as a token of friendship.47 As we can understand from the above, together with the prevailing structural characteristics of the genealogical catalogues (from the origins to the present, the proximity of the hero’s (self-)reference to the name of the god-founder of the genos, the paratactic allocation of names, ring composition and the absence of women), a very important factor — as we have said above — is who recites the catalogue. In the Iliad the genealogical catalogues are most of the times recited by the characters concerned and the reason for this is that the heroic model sustains the kleos of its heroes — to a great extent — on their great origins. In the

 46 Sammons (above, n. 43). 47 As Scheidegger Laemmle suggests to me, “the genealogies of the two rivalling warriors are thus transformed into a genealogy of friendship; cf. Il. 6.230–231: ὄφρα καὶ οἵδε/γνῶσιν ὅτι ξεῖνοι πατρώϊοι.”

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

narrative world of the Iliad, the value of ancestry is greatly acknowledged; scepticism however, on occasion, is not shaken off.

. The exploitation and manipulation of the genealogy: the Odyssey In the Odyssey things cease to be so straightforward: the genealogical catalogues are not usually recounted by the characters immediately concerned, but by a third party, be it the poet himself or one of his characters. A prime example of this is Odysseus, who recites in the Nekyia the lineage of women he met in the Underworld, claiming to report what they had declared themselves (Od. 11.233–234): ἠδὲ ἑκάστη ὃν γόνον ἐξαγόρευεν· ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἐρέεινον ἁπάσας. … and each one stated her birth and I questioned them all.

This in turn reflects on occasion on the thematics of the genealogical catalogues recited by Odysseus as he actually refers to the high status of some of the women (a rather inconceivable notion in the Iliad); Tyro, for example, is presented as βασίλεια γυναικῶν (Od. 11.258) and Chloris as queen of Pylos (ἡ δὲ Πύλου βασίλευε, Od. 11.285). In the Odyssey, the importance of the woman and the female contribution in a lineage has been decisively increased.48 This becomes obvious with the great attention paid to Arete: when Athena leads Odysseus to the Phaeacians, she advises him to approach Arete first (7.53),49 and focuses on the queen by mentioning her lineage (Od. 7.54–66), which she shares with king Alcinous. This feature results in a rather different framework within which the genealogical catalogues of the Odyssey function. Nevertheless, the Iliadic mode of a catalogue from the (divine) origins to the present together with a ring composition on the name whose lineage is recited, continues to appear (Od. 7.53–68): δέσποιναν μὲν πρῶτα κιχήσεαι ἐν μεγάροισιν· Ἀρήτη δ᾽ ὄνομ᾽ ἐστὶν ἐπώνυμον, ἐκ δὲ τοκήων τῶν αὐτῶν, οἵ περ τέκον Ἀλκίνοον βασιλῆα.

55

 48 For Lateiner 2005, 420, “women have very little ‘room’ in the Iliad or the Odyssey”. However, the attention paid to women in the genealogical catalogues of the Odyssey is striking when compared with those of the Iliad. 49 Garvie 1994, on 7.56 (p. 176; for Arete’s family tree p. 173).

  Stratis Kyriakidis Ναυσίθοον μὲν πρῶτα Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων γείνατο καὶ Περίβοια, γυναικῶν εἶδος ἀρίστη, ὁπλοτάτη θυγάτηρ μεγαλήτορος Εὐρυμέδοντος, ὅς ποθ᾽ ὑπερθύμοισι Γιγάντεσσιν βασίλευεν. ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν ὤλεσε λαὸν ἀτάσθαλον, ὤλετο δ᾽ αὐτός, τῇ δὲ Ποσειδάων ἐμίγη καὶ ἐγείνατο παῖδα Ναυσίθοον μεγάθυμον, ὃς ἐν Φαίηξιν ἄνασσε· Ναυσίθοος δ᾽ ἔτεκεν Ῥηξήνορά τ᾽ Ἀλκίνοόν τε. τὸν μὲν ἄκουρον ἐόντα βάλ᾽ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων νυμφίον ἐν μεγάρῳ μίαν οἴην παῖδα λιπόντα Ἀρήτην· τὴν δ᾽ Ἀλκίνοος ποιήσατ᾽ ἄκοιτιν, καί μιν ἔτισ᾽, ὡς οὔ τις ἐπὶ χθονὶ τίεται ἄλλη, ὅσσαι νῦν γε γυναῖκες ὑπ᾽ ἀνδράσιν οἶκον ἔχουσιν.

60

65

In the palace you shall approach first the queen. Her name is Arete and they call her with this name; she is from the same parents as those who gave birth to Alcinous. Nausithous was first born of the earth-shaker Poseidon and Periboea, the noblest of women, youngest daughter of magnanimous Eurymedon, who once reigned overweening Giants but he destroyed his reckless people and destroyed himself. Poseidon in intercourse with Periboea begot magnanimous Nausithous who reigned over the Phaeacians. Then Nausithous begot Rhexenor and Alcinous. Rhexenor, being without a son, Apollo of the silver bough hit him in his palace, even though he was a bridegroom, leaving only one daughter, Arete, whom Alcinous made his wife and honoured her more than any other woman on earth is honoured of those who nowadays run a household under their husbands.

Lines 53–55 and 66–68 form the frame while the catalogue proper consists of lines 56–66. The ring composition on the name of Arete (54, 66) further stresses her importance.50 Although the name of Alcinous also appears in the frame (55, 66), the structure and the content of the passage clearly throw the weight behind Arete. The lineage in this catalogue is presented — as often in the Iliad — mainly from the origins to the present, but the pattern is not strictly observed anymore as the reference to the father of Periboea turns to the opposite direction momentarily going back from the present to the past. The female presence and the poet’s elaboration on specific names within it give the catalogue a looser and a less clear structure in comparison with the Iliadic genealogical catalogues.  50 Since the introductory frame of an epic catalogue on many occasions functions in a complementary way to the frame lines at its other end [Kyriakidis, 2007, 74–80, 99–102], the poet through the etymological marker ὄνομ᾽ ἐπώνυμον (54) at the beginning of the catalogue activates an association of the name Arete to the word ἀρετή as is implied by ll. 67–74, where Arete was honoured by her husband, children and people of her city. Skempis/Ziogas, 2009, 228ff., esp. 230, 236, 240. In this way Arete is related to Penelope who was also distinguished for her ἀρετή (Od. 18.251, 19.124). The repetition of the verb τίω / τιμάω at lines 7.67 (twice) and 7.69 point to Arete’s τιμή, a quality also characterizing Penelope (τιμήεσσα, 18.161).

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

Similar remarks can be made on the recitation of Circe’s ancestry which goes from the present back to the past; again the female participation plays its own role (Od. 10.135–141): Αἰαίην δ᾽ ἐς νῆσον ἀφικόμεθ᾽· ἔνθα δ᾽ ἔναιε Κίρκη ἐϋπλόκαμος, δεινὴ θεὸς αὐδήεσσα, αὐτοκασιγνήτη ὀλοόφρονος51 Αἰήταο· ἄμφω δ᾽ ἐκγεγάτην φαεσιμβρότου Ἠελίοιο μητρός τ᾽ ἐκ Πέρσης, τὴν Ὠκεανὸς τέκε παῖδα. ἔνθα δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀκτῆς νηὶ κατηγαγόμεσθα σιωπῇ ναύλοχον ἐς λιμένα, καί τις θεὸς ἡγεμόνευεν.

135

140

We arrived at the island of Aeaea, where Circe with the beautiful locks of hair lived, a dread goddess with a human voice, sister to baleful Aeetes. They were both born to Helios who brings light to mortals and to Perse, their mother, whom Oceanus begot. Here we silently reached the shore with our ship into a port with safe anchorage and some god was guiding us.

In both of the above genealogical catalogues we can note a structural feature which is rather common in the Odyssey, but different from that in the corresponding catalogues of the Iliad: parataxis is often flagging. One reason for this is that digressions concerning the maternal side of the lineage have been multiplied, as in the case of Tyro in the Nekyia where the multi-genealogical catalogue is greatly diffused into the narrative with intense the element of sub-plot (11.235–259). This on occasion results in the loss of the catalogues’ structural self-containment; in one way or another, the contents of these catalogues often trespass into the surrounding narrative area, giving the impression that the aim is not the proper formation of a list. As a result of this, the Odyssean genealogical catalogues often lack a clearly defined form. As to their contents, the reader of the Odyssey has the feeling that genealogies are no longer the means for (self-)assertion. Odysseus, in book 11 where he recounts the lineage of a number of women he met in the Underworld, does not seem to consider it necessarily a serious qualifying asset.52 The element of pride that we have met in the Iliad is no longer a standard feature. The poet rarely allows his characters to draw authority or glory for themselves from their lineage. Indeed in Odysseus’ own case, genealogy proves to be rather a vehicle of expediency, since the concealment of his identity seems to serve a specific narrative

 51 On the meaning of ὀλοόφρων see, however, LSJ s.v. II. 52 It can, however, be argued that “the women themselves may well have considered it an important asset”, as Scheidegger Laemmle suggests.

  Stratis Kyriakidis purpose: the hero uses the catalogue of ancestry in order to impose on others a way of seeing things that suits his purposes and not as a real means of self-appraisal. Unlike Achilles in the Iliad who recites his genealogy once and under unusual circumstances,53 Odysseus in the Odyssey in the guise of a stranger recites ‘his’ genealogy three times. But at no time does he ever state particulars corresponding to his true identity. Before the recognition scene, Odysseus, pretending to be a stranger from Crete, hides his identity from his wife, borrowing from Idomeneus’ genealogy in the Iliad54 (Od. 19.178–184):55 τῇσι δ᾽ ἐνὶ Κνωσός, μεγάλη πόλις, ἔνθα τε Μίνως ἐννέωρος βασίλευε Διὸς μεγάλου ὀαριστής, πατρὸς ἐμοῖο πατήρ, μεγαθύμου Δευκαλίωνος. Δευκαλίων δ᾽ ἐμὲ τίκτε καὶ Ἰδομενῆα ἄνακτα· ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν ἐν νήεσσι κορωνίσιν Ἴλιον εἴσω οἴχεθ᾽ ἅμ᾽ Ἀτρεΐδῃσιν· ἐμοὶ δ᾽ ὄνομα κλυτὸν Αἴθων, ὁπλότερος γενεῇ· ὁ δ᾽ ἄρα πρότερος καὶ ἀρείων.

180

Among the cities is Cnosus, a great city where Minos, an interlocutor of great Zeus, reigned for nine years, and was father of my father, great-hearted Deucalion; Deucalion begot me and king Idomeneus but he went to Ilion together with the sons of Atreus in his curved ships; my glorious name is Aethon; I was the younger by birth, whereas he was the elder and a better man.

Interestingly, the defining features of the Iliadic catalogue are still present: Odysseus’ account follows again the mode from the past to the present, there is no reference to women, there is a frame, and a ring composition on ἐμοῖο (180) — ἐμοὶ (183). However, here Minos, the great ancestor of Idomeneus, is only the interlocutor of Zeus and not a descendant of the god as was at Il. 13.449–450. Later on, Odysseus tries to conceal his identity from his father, pretending that he was a stranger who had once offered hospitality to Odysseus, and he gives his own genealogy as the indirect speech of the real ‘Odysseus’. In this short catalogue there is no claim of divine origins. (Od. 24.269–270):56 εὔχετο δ᾽ ἐξ Ἰθάκης γένος ἔμμεναι, αὐτὰρ ἔφασκε Λαέρτην Ἀρκεισιάδην πατέρ᾽ ἔμμεναι αὐτῷ.

 53 See above, pp. 255–256. 54 Hom. Il. 13.449–453; see above, pp. 249–250. 55 Haft 1984. 56 Henderson 1997, 96.

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

He proudly claimed to be by lineage from Ithaca and said that Laertes, son of Arceisius, was his father.

For a third time, a few verses later, Odysseus, still in the guise of the stranger, recites a different genealogy (Od. 24.303–307): τοιγὰρ ἐγώ τοι πάντα μάλ᾽ ἀτρεκέως καταλέξω. εἰμὶ [sc. ἐγώ] μὲν ἐξ Ἀλύβαντος, ὅθι κλυτὰ δώματα ναίω, υἱὸς Ἀφείδαντος Πολυπημονίδαο ἄνακτος· αὐτὰρ ἐμοί γ᾽ ὄνομ᾽ ἐστὶν Ἐπήριτος· ἀλλά με δαίμων πλάγξ᾽ ἀπὸ Σικανίης δεῦρ᾽ ἐλθέμεν οὐκ ἐθέλοντα. Well then, I shall truly tell you everything. I come from Alybas where I live in a glorious house and I am the son of Apheidas, son of king Polypemon, and my name is Eperitus; but a god turned me away from Sicania to come to this place unwillingly.

The names here are fictitious.57 His father is supposed to be Apheidas, the son of Polypemon. The presence of the patronymic, Πολυπημονίδαο, denotes, as always, another generation, a characteristic appearing more often in the Odyssey. At the same time, the catalogue — albeit non-paratactic — keeps the Iliadic feature of ring composition on the personal pronoun of the character (εἰμί [ἐγώ], 304; ἐμοί γ᾽ ὄνομ᾽ ἐστίν, 306). Different is the case with Telemachus who recites his ancestry truthfully and in full: the names appear again from the past to the present in parataxis with emphasis on the hero himself, retaining thus all the main Iliadic features (Od. 16.117–120): ὧδε γὰρ ἡμετέρην γενεὴν μούνωσε Κρονίων· μοῦνον Λαέρτην Ἀρκείσιος υἱὸν ἔτικτε, μοῦνον δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ Ὀδυσῆα πατὴρ τέκεν· αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς μοῦνον ἔμ᾽ ἐν μεγάροισι τεκὼν λίπεν, οὐδ᾽ ἀπόνητο. In this manner Cronion made our generation run in a single line; Arceisius begot Laertes, his only son; Odysseus was begotten by his father as his only son and then Odysseus begot me as his only son and left me in his palace but had no joy of me.

The catalogue is a praise of himself and his father Odysseus and is recited in a purely Iliadic manner. Furthermore, the verb μούνωσε and the anaphora of  57 But still ‘true’ in a way: Peradotto 1990, 143–145, esp. 144–145, relates the etymology of the above proper names with the name of Odysseus thus showing that these names actually correspond with the true identity of the hero and function, one may argue, metonymically: “all [sc. names] are easy transformations of odyssamenos, the condition of mutual hostility”.

  Stratis Kyriakidis μοῦνον highlight the direct lineage and exclude any other person (such as women) from it. In this way it points to the notion of “patrilinear exclusivity”,58 thus enhancing the heroic nature of the ancestry. Without alienating himself from his Iliadic prototype, then, the poet of the Odyssey has developed new characteristics in the formation of the genealogical catalogues, which open new horizons for the poets to come. Genealogy serves much more complex aims; the divine origins are not as important. The prevailing characteristics we have already detected in the genealogical catalogues of both Homeric epics will be the basic element for the corresponding catalogues of Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses we shall see below. It is obvious that the reception of the Homeric text will be heavily influenced by that of the Hellenistic age which regrettably the present study does not take into consideration.

 Moulding a new heroic model: Virgil’s Aeneid Virgil is the poet who always looked back to Homer. But a major change has come about: Aeneas, the hero par excellence of the Roman epic, is far from the archetypal heroic model of the archaic period as is described mainly in the Iliad. The Roman hero acts for the welfare of his people and for the realisation of the fata as they are revealed to him in the narrative. In the Aeneid, there are not many catalogues of ancestry, though there are enough of them to permit us see the changes that have been made as compared to their archaic forebears in content and style. The majority of these catalogues have to do with only one genealogy, which is none other than that of the central hero. In one case, the catalogue is recited by Aeneas himself as he points to the common roots of his race with that of Evander’s in book 8 (Aen. 8.134–137: Aeneas’ gens; 8.138–141: Evander’s gens). Obviously, for the Romans it was important to accept their Trojan roots. Rome’s mythical past and the sense of continuity are significant issues in the formation of the Roman identity. The poetic emphasis given by the repetition of Aeneas’ ancestry does not aim to enhance the central hero’s honos so much as to consolidate the Roman identity. The genealogy of Aeneas has to be impressed on the Roman reader’s mind by any means. It is the gens which connected Rome with Troy and it is the backbone of the aetiological myth for the foundation of the Vrbs

 58 As Scheidegger Laemmle suggests to me.

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

aeterna. The epic, ultimately, provides both a vision for Rome and an apology of its expansionist wars: Rome would conquer the people who had humiliated her ancestors.59 To this purpose, the function of this lineage is of the utmost importance for the narrative. Aeneas’ glorious ancestry was obviously well-known. Already in book 1 of the epic, Dido refers to it (Aen. 1.617–618): tune ille Aeneas quem Dardanio Anchisae alma Venus Phrygii genuit Simoentis ad undam? Are you that Aeneas whom nourishing Venus bore to Dardanian Anchises, by the river of the Phrygian Simoes?

This is a condensed catalogue where three generations appear in only one line through the patronymic Dardanio60 while in the next line the name of the divine mother is included.61 It obviously lacks the paratactic structure and is completely narrativised. Although Aeneas shows awareness of his ancestry (e.g. Aen. 3.167, 503), and is reminded of it by Dido for a second time (4.365), it is only in the Underworld that he comes face to face with the past as well as the future of his generation, when the Sibyl leads him to the Elysian Fields. There, Aeneas sees his ancestors (Aen. 6.648–650): hic genus antiquum Teucri, pulcherrima proles, magnanimi heroes nati melioribus annis, Ilusque Assaracusque et Troiae Dardanus auctor.

650

Here is the ancient line of Teucer, the noblest of all stocks, great-hearted heroes born in better years, Ilus and Assaracus and Dardanus, the founder of Troy.

The Virgilian verse 650 strongly recalls the corresponding Homeric line from Aeneas’ genealogical catalogue in the Iliad 20.232: Ἶλός τ᾽ Ἀσσάρακός τε καὶ ἀντίθεος Γανυμήδης (above, p. 251), whose second hemistich Virgil has replaced with Troiae Dardanus auctor. In this way Virgil includes the founder of the Trojan  59 At any rate the ‘humiliation’ of the Greeks is yet to come. While the myth does not give much room to the scions of the Greek heroes, to the generation, that is, after the Trojan war, the myth of Troy continues with the generation of Aeneas onwards. The humiliation of the Greeks comes much later. For Nash 1978, 3: “If ever there was a ‘lost generation’ in Greek mythology, it is that of the post-Troy heroes, the sons of those who sacked Priam’s city”. 60 Kyriakidis 2017, 93 and n. 45. 61 See above p. 252 and Kyriakidis 2017, 80.

  Stratis Kyriakidis race and omits the name of Ganymedes whose abduction by Jupiter hardly contributed to the procreation of the Trojan race but instead was one of the main causes of Juno’s fury (Aen. 1.28).62 In book 7, a different genealogy is presented in the poet’s own words: it is the ancestry of Latinus (Aen. 7.45–53): Rex arva Latinus et urbes iam senior longa placidas in pace regebat. hunc Fauno et nympha genitum Laurente Marica accipimus; Fauno Picus pater, isque parentem te, Saturne, refert, tu sanguinis ultimus auctor. filius huic fato divum prolesque virilis nulla fuit, primaque oriens erepta iuventa est. sola domum et tantas servabat filia sedes iam matura viro, iam plenis nubilis annis.

45

50

King Latinus already an old man had reigned in serenity over the fields and the cities for many peaceful years. We hear that he was born to Faunus and the Laurentine nymph Marica. Faunus’ father was Picus, and Picus claimed you, Saturn, for a father; you are the first founder of the bloodline. By divine fate there was no son or male offspring to him; his son was taken away in the bloom of youth. Only a daughter was kept to the household and preserved such a great palace, a full-grown woman by now and ready for marriage.

As in Homer, the structure of a catalogue is decisive in shaping the poetic message.63 The catalogue (45–49)64 constitutes a clear narrative unit65 closing at line 49 with the god’s name and founder of the race.66 A mother’s name has been

 62 While in the Iliad (20.234) the gods have snatched him for Zeus, in hVen. 20–203 it is Zeus himself who did it: ἦ τοι μὲν ξανθὸν Γανυμήδεα μητίετα Ζεὺς/ἥρπασεν ὃν διὰ κάλλος. Omission is a crucial issue in the study of the catalogues; cf. in this volume Delattre, p. 95; also Herrnstein 1968, 98–99. 63 Cf. Boyd 1992, 214: “The question of catalogue structure is a good one, for it is reasonable to suppose that, as so often in the Aeneid, here too Virgilian design is meaningful.” Kyriakidis 2007, see also above p. 245). 64 See Rosivach 1980, 140. This genealogy is repeated in a different form further down (Aen. 7.178–191) when Virgil describes the effigies of the Latin kings and heroes in the palace of Picus (7.170–191); it is the palace where Latinus receives his guests. Rosivach 1980, and Moorton 1988, 253–259, look into the relationship of these two catalogues. 65 Horsfall 2000, on 45–57: “A neat, lucid and wonderfully unobtrusive archaiologia, elegant particularly in its transitions.” 66 As Rosivach [1980, 140] notes: “One obvious point is that in Vergil’s genealogy Latinus’ forebears were all gods — or at least all had the same names as gods: Vergil’s language is ambiguous enough, and it is perhaps best to think of at least Faunus and Picus here as diui, human rulers

Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid  

added but only in one generation.67 The mode is one from the present back to the origins: the divine founder of the race is placed last, which is opposite to the prevailing mode of the Iliad68 (Latinus → his parents (Faunus and Marica) → Faunus’ father Picus → the latter’s father Saturnus69) showing clearly the distance70 between the king and his divine origins,71 as Latinus’ name is placed at the beginning of the catalogue, the other end of it, that is. The element of proximity of the character’s name to his divine origins is here modified as lines 50–51 filius huic fato divum prolesque virilis / nulla fuit refer to Latinus again, but only to show that there is no continuation in this gens, and not to enhance his relation to the god — who is the ultimus auctor, very far from Latinus. Although the name of the god grants authority to him as a scion of a divinely established royal house and it conveys the prestige of antiquitas to his people,72 the position alone of his name brings Latinus down to a more human level. Now it is the poet who claims a sort of affinity to the god as he apostrophises him by the phrase tu sanguinis ultimus auctor (49).73

 divinized after death, as Julius Caesar, and eventually Augustus, were divinized in a later age.” On Saturnus as founder of the race see also Cairns 1989, 63. See also below, nn. 69, 73. 67 It is worth noting here that after the end of the catalogue there is mention of Latinus’ descendants and the poet informs us that the son had died and only a girl was left to the house, not named, however, before line 7.72. As Scheidegger Laemmle suggested to me, “it is striking that the catalogue is immediately followed by the reference to Lavinia’s marriage prospects; it could be argued that it is a catalogue that implies its own continuation.” 68 Serv. on Aen. 7.49 [Th.-H.]: VLTIMUS AUCTOR primus, ut ‘supremum’ summum dicimus: “pro supreme Iuppiter”. 69 Saturnus, when expelled from Olympus by Jupiter, took refuge in Latium where he hid (Latium