The Tyrant's Writ: Myths and Images of Writing in Ancient Greece 9781400872855

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Author's Note
Introduction
1. Tokens and Texts
2. Rites of Inscription
3. Impressions and Assemblages
4. The Tyranny of Writing
5. The City of Words
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index of Principal Passages Cited
General Index

Citation preview

THE TYRANT'S WRIT

MYTHS AND IMAGES OF WRITING IN ANCIENT GREECE

Deborah Tarn Steiner

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Copyright © 1994 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved

Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Steiner, Deborah. The tyrant's writ ; myths and images of writing in ancient Greece I Deborah Tarn Steiner. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-03238-6 1. Greek language-Political aspects-Greece. 2. Written communication-Greece-History. 3. Language and CultureGreece-History. 4. Literacy-Greece-History. 5. WritingGreece-History. 6. Poetics. 1. Title. PA227.S74 1994 302.2'244'0938-dc20 93-14205 This book has been composed in Galliard Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

3 2 1

For Andrew

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Abbreviations

xi

A uthor’s Note

xiii

I n tr o d u c tio n

3

1. TOKENS AND TEXTS Two models o f communication Phmzein and anagigndskein Inscribed semata The Hymn to Hermes and the SevenAgainst Thebes

10 11 16 29 40

2. RITES OF INSCRIPTION Oath taking, treaties, and the law Cursing Vows and prayers Oracles Enshrining the text: publication and circulation Pindaric agalmata

61 64 71 75 80 86 91

3. IMPRESSIONS AND ASSEMBLAGES Writing and physiology W ritingandcosm ology Writing and regulation

100 100 116 122

4. TH E TYRANNY OF W RITING Two archetypes: Sesostris and Deioces The inscribed marker: commemorative pillars, boundary stones, graves The catalogue and inventory The dispatch Inscribing the body Coins, seals, and trade Writing in Greece The Scythians and Spartans

127 128 132 142 149 154 159 166 174

v ii i

CONTENTS

5. T H E CITY O F W O RD S Speech and the agora The w riter in the countryside T he w riter oligarch in the city center Nomoi gegrammenoi

180 187 193 216 227

E pilogue

242

Bibliqgrftphy

253

Index of Principal Passages Cited

265

General Index

275

Acknowledgments

as a doctoral dissertation w ritten at the University o f California, Berkeley, and was completed in 1991. C hief thanks are owed to my teachers at Berkeley, and m ost particularly to M ark Griffith, whose encouragement and exacting advice accompanied this study from its start to finish, and w ho was everything one could wish for in a scholar, teacher, and friend. M any thanks are also due to John Ferrari for his guidance and suggestions, and to Leslie Kurke who contributed her time, advice, and knowledge. Beyond Berkeley, R uth Padel, D eborah Boedeker, and H elene Foley have also read and com mented on the text, for which I am very grateful. A M abel M cLeod Lewis Fellowship financed my final year o f w riting, and I would like to thank Thom as Rosenmeyer and Thom as Habinek for supporting my application for that fellowship. O ther debts are to the several friends outside the field w ho made this whole enterprise a much richer and more pleasant one, to Deeana Klepper, Sheila M cTighe, M arga­ ret M alamud, Amy Remensnyder, and Karen Remmler. M y father contrib­ uted the title to a sadly nameless manuscript. This book m ight have been completed w ithout the many things that my husband Andrew Feldherr has brought to the endeavor, but w ithout him the writing would have been a far m ore onerous and lonely task; to him therefore it is gratefully dedicated.

T h is b o o k b e g a n l i f e

Abbreviations Bcrgk DK FGH IG LP LSCG LSJ ML Nauck Page Roscher SEG SIG Tod W

T. Bcrgk, ed. Poetae Lyrici Graeci. 3 vols. Leipzig 1882. H. Diets and W. Kranz, eds. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 6th ed. Berlin 1951-52. F. Jacoby, ed. Die Fragmente dergriechischen Historiker. Berlin and Leiden 1923-58. Inscriptiones Graecae. 2d ed. Berlin 1913—29. E. Lobel and D. Page, eds. Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragment a.. Oxford 1955. F. Sokolowski, ed. Lois sacrees des citesgrecques. Paris 1969. H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, eds. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed,, revised by H. Stuart Jones. Oxford 1968. R. Meiggs and D. M. Lewis, eds. A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. Oxford 1969. A. Nauck, ed. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. 2d ed. Hildesheim 1964. D. Page, ed. Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford 1962. W. H. Roscher, ed. Ausfuhrliches Lexikon dergriechischen und romischen Mythologie. Leipzig 1884—1937. J.J.E. Hondius, ed. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Leiden 1 9 2 3 - . W. Dittenberger et al., eds. Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum. 4 vols. 3d ed. Leipzig 1915—24. M. N. Tod, cd. A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions. 2 vols. Oxford 1948. M. L. West, ed. Iambi etElegi Graeci ante Alexandrum Cantati. 2 vols. Oxford 1971—72.

A uthor’s N ote

M o s t G r e e k a u t h o r s are cited according to the relevant Oxford Classical Text with the exception o f Pindar, for whom I use the sixth edition o f the Tcubner text edited by B. SnelI and H . Maehler (Leipzig 1980). Tragic fragments are cited (to date) from Tragicorum GraecorumFragmenta, edited by B. Snell, R. Kannicht, and S. Radt (Gottingen 1971—), otherwise from A. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta^ 2d ed. (Hildesheim 1964). Comic fragments arc cited (to date) from Poetae Comici Graeci, edited by R. Kassel and C. Austin (Berlin 1983—), and otherwise from Comieorum Atticorum Fragmenta^ edited by T. Kock (Leipzig 1880—88). In transliterating Greek names, I have, for the most part, used Latinized spellings, with the exception o f citations from inscriptions. Greek terms that appear frequently in the text have also been transliterated, whereas those that are less familiar, or used only once, appear in the original Greek. One omission in the bibliography should be noted; I have been unable to include a new work by Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1992), which covers some o f the same ground as this study and came to my notice too late for me to consult.

THE TYRANT'S WRIT

In trod u ctio n

If the question were put to a he m ight have replied w ith the name o f a god or a culture hero: Hermes, Theuth, Palamedes, Prometheus, or Cadmus perhaps. Press him further as to the circumstances surrounding the innovation, and he could have cited myths concerning a beleaguered Achaean army wishing for distraction, a Titan determ ined to help mortals civilize themselves, an Egyptian god seeking to improve his people’s powers o f memory.1 M ore fantastic tales and images o f writers and their texts appear in the literature and art o f the classical age: the severed head o f O rpheus covering tablets with writing as it sings, inscribed messages tat­ tooed onto the bodies o f slaves and cut into the oars o f ships, documents that escape their author and wander about the city streets before running home in search o f help.2 Subsequent approaches to the question have largely abandoned these highly colored and imaginative visualizations. Instead scholars have tried to pinpoint the time, place, and even the historical person responsible for the invention o f the alphabet through an exhaustive scrutiny o f the early epigraphic record, and w ith painstaking linguistic analyses detailing the rela­ tionship between Greek w riting and its Near Eastern predecessors.3 They explore the circumstances behind the invention o f the alphabet and probe the reasons why the Greeks should have modified the Phoenician syllabary so as to produce a writing system uniquely suited to record the sounds o f speech.4 Discussions o f how quickly literacy spread, how many people in a Greek city-state could actually read and write, and how ancient literacy should be defined dominate the literature on the subject, and debates con­ cerning the impact o f writing on the oral culture o f archaic and classical Greece persist.5 The picture created in these treatments is at once m ore W h o in v e n te d a lp h a b e tic w ritin g ? Greek o f the fifth or fourth century B .C .,

1 Palamedes invented writing when the Greeks were stranded at Aulis (schol. ad Eur. Or. 432), Prometheus gave w riting to men as part o f his civilizing bequest (Aesch. P V 460), T heuth creates letters as an aid to memory (PI. Phaedr. 274e). 2 For representations o f Orpheus, see Chapter 5. Histiaeus, tyrant o f Miletus, tattoos a message on his slave’s head (H dt. 5.35.3), Palamedesi Erothersends news o f the hero’s death by inscribing oar blades (schol. ad Aristoph. Thesm. 770), and Socrates describes grammata wandering about (PI. Phaedr. 275e). 3 Recent treatments o f these issues include Powell 1991, Bernal 1990, McCarter 1975. 4 T he traditional view suggests a commercial impetus, but more recent studies focus on the invention o f w riting as a means o f recording oral song (Powell 1991; Schnapp-Gourbeillon 1982, 717; Snodgrass 1980, 8 1 -8 3 ; R obb 1978). 5 Am ong the m ost illuminating studies on the spread and extent o f ancient literacy are Harris 1989, Havelock 1963 and 1982. M ore particularized investigations include Boring 1979,

exacting and m ore sober than the ancient tale: merchants and craftsmen stand in the role o f gods and culture heroes, and inscribed abeccdaria and potsherds replace the w ritten communications that the earlier representa­ tions hide in the belly o f a hare or weave into a tapestry.6 If allowed a place in the account o f the invention and spread o f writing, myth is regarded as a screen whose removal m ight reveal some piece o f historical tru th .7 But the questions posed by m odern scholarship arc ones the ancient literary and cpigraphic texts obstinately resist. Despite multiple investiga­ tions, there is still no firm consensus on the date o f the appearance o f writing in Greece, and no agreement on the degree o f literacy achieved by the Greeks in the late archaic and classical age. The sources do not give us bald facts concerning the influence o f writing on a particular scientific or political enterprise, or describe the changes brought about when a poet or philoso­ pher chose to dictate or write down his composition. A recognition o f the continuing importance o f oral modes o f communication in Greece sits uneasily w ith the assumption that the discovery o f the alphabet belongs am ong the signal advances o f the archaic period, and our own preoccupa­ tion w ith the issue comes up short against the seeming lack o f interest am ong many o f the poets, philosophers, and politicians o f the time. So rather than persist with inquiries that yield much valuable inform ation but no certain responses, I want to return to questions the sources them ­ selves do answer— questions concerning the attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs surrounding writing, and the powers and properties invested in w ritten texts. The myths and images attached to writers and documents provide a rich account o f Greek writing and an alternative means o f explor­ ing the place o f the w ritten word in the ancient w orld.8 The inform ation available in the works o f mythographers and dramatists and in the biograph­ ical tradition may be compared and contrasted with the evidence supplied by the often m ore fragmentary inscribed pillars, pots, and stones. O ne o f the surprises is how closely the different areas o f inquiry overlap: the most unlikely accounts o f writing in myth can often be supported w ith archae­ ological finds, and historical events sometimes seem to follow the course already laid o u t in an imaginary scheme. M etaphoric representations o f w riting become reality. There is no determining priority or causality here: the several types o f evidence together indicate a com mon set o f perceptions o f writing, its purposes and properties. Cartledge 1978, F. Harvey 1966, Immerwahr 1964, and Turner 1952. Thomas 1989 offers an excellent introduction to the problem o f how ancient literacy should be defined, and discusses recent approaches. N ote too Street 1984, Clanchy 1979, G oody and Watt 1968, and Goody 1986. 6 For these tw o stories, see H dt. 1.123.3, Apollod. Bib. 3.14.8. 7 An approach taken by Edwards 1979. 8 T his is also the territory explored in som e o f the articles included in D etienne 1988a, and in Svenbro 1988b. N ote to o the very subtle treatment o f Lanza 1979.

By shifting the investigation onto fresh ground, I aim n o t merely to recapture the Greek perspective on writing but also to dem onstrate that the ancient understanding o f the technology was radically different from our own. Difference has become a favored topos in contemporary classical scholarship as it attempts to replace the civilized, cultivated, “European­ ized” Greek o f earlier accounts w ith the inhabitant o f an alien world popu­ lated by demonic and uncontrollable forces, the participant in strange and primitive rites and systems o f belief. I f I raise this familiar issue once again, it is because the subject o f Greek w riting has largely escaped the change in approach. It is ou r own view o f the alphabet as a tool o f cultural progress, o f rational thought, o f scientific analysis, a critical marker that separates the developing from the developed world, that has shaped many o f the ques­ tions asked o f the Greek evidence. Two elements prom ote this sense o f familiarity and foster the impression that ancient writers and readers re­ garded their texts as we do our own: one is the obvious kinship between the writing system first devised by the Greeks and the later alphabets modeled on the same phonetic principles, the other our dependence on the w ritten texts that supply our chief bridges back to the thoughts and attitudes o f ancient Greece. B ut the events portrayed in the sources rapidly dismantle these assumptions and introduce a world o f letters that is very remote. I will be focusing on two chief areas, one broad-based, the other more narrowly defined, where Greek writing rejects the paradigm developed in later accounts. First, according to ancient representations, w riting is n o t a discovery that inevitably heralds in a new rational, skeptical, and objective approach, one whose impact can best be recognized in the advances made in logic, science, and technology.9 A lthough we can link innovations in Greek medicine, geography, philosophy, and law to the new tools that literacy supplied, the earliest references to w riting in the sources concentrate on som ething very different.10 W riting first figures in accounts o f traditional signs and symbols, the semata that allow individuals separated by time and space to communicate w ith one another and w ith the gods (Chapter I). Both the literary and archaeological record include multiple examples o f inscribed semata, and suggest that alphabetic letters were perceived as an appropriate addition to the existing message-bearers. Rather than displac­ ing or rationalizing the traditional nonalphabetic signs, writing supple­ ments the tokens and assumes their enigmatic and polysemous character. Like seers and diviners, early writers and readers o f the alphabetic symbols must exercise the hermeneutic powers that all semata demand: when the meaning o f the message extends beyond the surface communication, and depends on the token as much as the text, deciphering the letters according 9 For a comprehensive statement o f the link between literacy, rationality, and logic, sec G oody and Watt 1968 (with Thomas 1989, 25). 10 On these different areas, see Detiennc 1988a.

to a formal semiotic code only supplies a partial account. Hermes is simul­ taneously the god o f sign making and o f reading and writing. A second class o f traditional message-bearing objects, agalmata^ also attracts inscriptions in the literature, art, and material record o f archaic and classical Greece (Chapter 2). These tokens and talismans play a central role in ritual transactions, in the establishment o f guest friendships, the swearing o f oaths, and the ratification o f the exchanges that structure relationships between men and gods. The texts so frequently inscribed on the existing symbolic markers rapidly assume the powers already invested in the material artifacts, and take on the ritual charge o f the cult apparatus involved in the ceremony. Like fetishes, tokens possessed by a sentient force, inscribed objects can carry the personality o f their nominee, and their preservation or destruction may symbolize the fate of the individual or event described in the alphabetic signs. Once again, writing does not displace the traditional object by introducing a more explicit and exact written record in its place. Instead the Greeks join writing to the material symbol, and fashion a new vessel for the forces released in the rite. If the powers and properties o f inscribed artifacts suggest that the new technology has been harnessed to existing systems o f belief, then meta­ phoric representations o f writing are no less conservative and backwardlooking (Chapter 3). Images o f inscription, o f alphabetic letters and of writing tablets are used to explore and explicate the phenomena that poets and philosophers had traditionally described through simile and metaphor, the biological, mental, cosmological, and political processes that reveal themselves only through analogy. In the ancient accounts, figurative repre­ sentations can both explain the phenomena they portray and elucidate the activity used as the basis for the comparison: to describe something in terms o f writing is to describe writing. A second area where Greek views of writing are quite unlike our own is in the realm of politics. Although the merits o f literacy still remain a subject o f dispute, conventional wisdom declares that an individual must be able to read and write in order to participate in a democracy, and that “a literate population is more likely than an illiterate one to resist oppression.” 11 A loose but potent equation seemingly exists between the Greek invention of the alphabet and the appearance of democracy in the ancient city-states, and both are treated as indicators o f the “advanced” character o f Greek civiliza­ tion and its kinship with later Western societies. I shall be suggesting that modern accounts of the role o f writing and written law in ancient govern­ ment have given an incomplete or distorted picture o f events, neglecting a large portion o f the evidence in the dramatists and historians o f the time. One way o f restoring the proper perspective is to look at the many fifth11 Harris 1989, 335. However, the author also presents the counterargument.

century representations o f tyranny and to observe how frequently docu­ ments, scribes, and w riting equipm ent feature in the retinue o f despotic Oriental kings (Chapter 4). The Eastern monarchs are repeatedly engaged in the business o f w riting decrees and dictating dispatches and use w ritten communications to replace oral encounters w ith their people. Their inscrib­ ing activity becomes an obsessive one as they set their appropriating signa­ tures on men, objects, and land, raising engraved columns, demarcating space, stam ping coin, and branding subjects as slaves. By including writing in the complex o f symbols that surrounds the barbarian tyrants o f the East, the fifth-century sources not only locate the activity outside the democratic government they celebrate as a distinctively Greek (and m ore particularly Athenian) achievement but also emphasize its foreigness. Far from being an integral part o f the identity the Greeks construct for themselves, w riting is the technology employed by those w ho w ould destroy their uniquely suc­ cessful way o f life. W hen we turn to accounts o f democratic government back in Greece, a very different picture emerges. W hat the historians and dramatists o f fifthcentury Athens repeatedly state is that a democracy depends on the ability o f citizens to speak and to declare their will o u t loud (Chapter 5). It is logos and not writing that exists at the heart o f democratic Athens’s self-definition and the good speaker— n o t the w riter— w ho keeps popular government on course. I f speech is the hallmark o f the democratic city, then w riting is associated w ith those o u t o f sympathy w ith its radical politics. The sources announce the presence o f the disaffected noble o r aspiring oligarch by presenting him in the guise o f a w riter o r noting his involvement w ith w ritten modes o f communication. Again they mark the alien character o f writing, its necessary exclusion from the lives o f right-m inded citizens: the readers and writers o f Greek myth and history are those w ho reject civic life and the institutions o f the polis, and choose instead a private existence beyond the city walls. There is one obvious flaw in the scheme I have sketched out. Isonomia, the equality o f citizens before the law, depends in part on the existence o f a w ritten legal code, a single standard o f justice accessible and visible to all. Several fifth- and fourth-century sources explicitly equate w ritten law with democratic government and point to the inscriptions proliferating through­ out Athens as evidence o f an open, egalitarian, and participatory society.12 A t the close o f this study I shall return to their remarks and attem pt to make sense o f the two antithetical views recorded in the sources. For the m om ent I w ant only to note that tyrants are the chief writers o f the mythical and historical account and that the association between w ritten law and democ­ racy will emerge as a highly problematic one. 12 The canonical statement appears in Eur. Supp. 433—37.

The ambivalence that marks the Greek account o f w riting’s role in govern­ m ent extends well beyond the political arena. M any o f the myths and images treated in this book are similarly concerned with the opposing powers o f the art, its ability to undergo a rapid change in nature and to achieve seemingly contradictory ends: writing may elucidate and obfuscate, help and harm, preserve and destroy, liberate and enslave. The Greek evidence cautions against attem pting to return a single verdict cither for o r against writing, and frequently suggests that we follow Socrates’ lead in presum ing that the value o f a text depends on the nature and aims o f its author.13 But the equivocation that lies at the heart o f so many Greek representations o f w riting has left an enduring legacy, and in the epilogue to this study I indicate some o f the ways in which we are heirs to the paradox framed by the ancient sources. Finally a word about the organization and scope o f this investigation. I do n o t attem pt a systematic study o f every myth, image, or representation o f writing in the literature and art o f late archaic and early classical Greece, but concentrate instead on areas where the evidence seems to form a significant pattern. Each chapter discusses one issue or theme in Greek attitudes toward writing, and the connections between the different portions o f this study at times depend on the use o f the same stories and artifacts to illustrate differ­ ent points. A loose chronology dictates the order o f the chapters, b u t all focus chiefly on the issues raised in the fifth- and fourth-century sources. These boundaries necessarily exclude much o f the recent theoretical contro­ versy surrounding the status o f the w ritten word, although I w ant to signal the tw o areas where more contemporary debates coincide w ith my presenta­ tion. W hat the ancient sources draw attention to is the “marked,” anom a­ lous, and foreign character o f writing, its association w ith those despots, invaders, mystics, metics, and slaves who may belong at the top o r bottom o f a society, but invariably exist at its margins. So too recent theory has refo­ cused attention on writing as a figure that is structured by difference, dis­ tance, and “exteriority” in contrast to the imminence o f speech; it is a phenom enon that separates, demarcates, and differentiates.14 The second issue concerns the association between w riting, totalitar­ ianism and imperialistic aggression. As contemporary historians and an­ thropologists examine the formation o f m odern, centralized states and ex­ plore the policies and attitudes o f colonial powers, they perceive more clearly the truth to the Greek account. As the ancient sources suggest, writing seems the instrum ent o f choice o f the hegemonic political and spiritual authority, the means whereby a dom inant power asserts its rights o f ownership over the men and land it would possess both at hom e and 13 Sec Chapter 5 for a discussion o f Socrates’ position. 14 The chief explorations remain Derrida 1967a and 1967b.

abroad.15 The service that writing has given to the state builder, the impe­ rialist, and the enslaver through the centuries calls Socrates’ formulation into doubt, and forces us to ask whether certain tools are not better suited to certain ends. This is a question that already subtends many o f the myths and images woven by the Greeks around the phenomenon o f writing. 15 A m ongthe various discussions o f the issue are Levi-Strauss 1961, F urctandO zouf 1982, Todorov 1992, de Certeau 1988, Greenblatt 1991.

I Tokens and Texts

conventionally enough, with the earliest references to inscribed objects in the Greek sources. H om er’s Iliad includes only two scenes where inscription appears, but both have generated long centuries o f dispute. The controversy is a double-headed one: it concerns both the nature o f the graphic signs evoked by H om er and the poet’s knowledge o f and attitude toward writing. Are the objects presented in the song inscribed w ith picture markings, or with the letters o f the alphabet? Has the singer included an anachronistic reference to writing, revealing his own familiarity w ith the technology, or does the traditional song preserve a faint memory o f Linear B or o f a Semitic script, witnessed but not understood?1 N either the wranglings o f scholiasts n o r subsequent generations o f scholars have re­ solved these puzzles. But if the enigma o f the markings remains, then the scenes can shed light on a different problem. By placing the inscribed o b ­ jects back in their context, we can trace the relationship between alphabetic letters and semata and suggest how the Greeks m ight have included writing within existing modes o f communication. In Iliad 7, Ajax and the other Achaean heroes who have volunteered to meet H ector in single combat mark their tokens with a sign (έσημήναντο, 175) and put the lots in Agamemnon’s helmet. Nestor shakes the helmet, and o ut jumps Ajax’s lot. The herald carries the token through the assem­ bled army, and when he reaches Ajax, the hero recognizes it as 2. sema (189). In Iliad 6, Proetus sends Bellerophon to Lycia carrying a tablet he has inscribed with “baleful signs” (σήματα λυγρά, 168). W hen the Lycian king receives the message, he too identifies it as a sema ( 176—78). The two scenes closely parallel one another, both closing with an acknowledgment that the artifact received is a sema. My question concerns the relationship between the designs, alphabetic or pictorial, on the surface o f the lot and the tablet, and their status as semata or tokens in the eyes o f Ajax and the Lycian king. A brief glance at other episodes in the Homeric songs shows that it is not the markings on the objects that elevate them to the rank o f signs. N u ­ merous other natural events, artifacts, and living things, w hether thunder­ bolts, stars, tom bstones, o r animals, qualify as semata, and none o f them is

T h e s t o r y b e g in s ,

1 The most useful collections o f the various ancient and modern views o f what the poet intended can be found in Jeffery 1962, 5 4 5 —59; 1 9 6 7 ,1 5 2 —66; and Heubeck 1 9 7 9 ,1 2 6 —46. M ore recently, Ford 1992, 1 3 1 -3 8 .

inscribed. Instead, the lot and tablet arc significant communications, in and o f themselves, which function independently o f the graphic symbols that they include. T he pictures or words they carry seem almost redundant, bearers o f a surplus meaning. But the link that H om er creates between a sema and an inscription is not a gratuitous one.2 H e stands at the head o f a long tradition o f poets and philosophers who similarly conflate tokens, pictograms, and alphabetic script and explicitly and implicitly compare and contrast the manners in which objects and graphic signs fashion meaning.31 believe that these likenesses and differences underlie early Greek views o f writing and that we must approach texts through the tokens that are their precursors and subsequent companions in both the literary and the archae­ ological record.

Two m odels o f com m unication W hat is crucial about semata is that they be acknowledged as message car­ riers. An individual who fails to recognize that a set o f entrails, a lightning flash, or a chance remark (kledon) is significant will not think to search out the meaning.4 This distinguishes semata from more conventional types o f communication: when one person addresses another, the listener knows that the speaker wants to reI! him something. B ut with the exception o f oracles (and these involve their own methods o f oblique message-giving), semata do not communicate so directly: unless the individual is looking for a sign, he m ight miss the message when it comes. So recognizing an object or event as significant is the first o f the tasks performed by the receiver o f a sema, whereas discovering the meaning o f the communication is the second. Sometimes a conventional code can help out: one type o f bird flying from one part o f the sky spells luck, another misfortune. But even where such a code exists, it is not a linguistic one. The sign is not encoded speech after the fashion o f the alphabetic mark, nor can it be decoded into an exacdy corre­ sponding semantic representation. Picture writing functions similarly, pre­ senting its images not merely as decorative devices, but as significant com ­ munications whose meaning must be extracted o r disembedded. Even when each picture represents a thing, the viewer must still supply the necessary links between the individual designs and the overall message. Again, the 2 This is also the starting point for the very different analysis in Ford 1992, 137—71. 3 Very helpful here is the discussion in the first chapter o f Gelb 1963 treating the relation o f picture writing to later alphabetic writing; as Gelb remarks, in its early stages writing only loosely expressed the spoken language. See too Bottero 1982, 13—35. 4 This point could also be made in terms o f our own tendency to impose order or meaning on natural phenomena and chance encounters.

pictures do not express phonetic signals by visible symbols, but operate outside the linguistic code. Recent w ork by Dan Sperbcr and Deirdrc Wilson offers an account o f communication that captures the distinction between messages fully depen­ dent on a linguistic code and semata. People communicate successfully by using both the scmiotic and the inferential model.5 The semiotic model describes how the speaker encodes a thought into a phonetic signal accord­ ing to a conventional system o f differences while the receiver decodes what he has heard into its corresponding semantic representation. Two assump­ tions lie behind this model: first, all hum an languages are codes that associ­ ate thoughts to sounds; second, communication depends on an underlying system o f signs that arc random and differential. But semantic representa­ tions elicited by the linguistic code from the phonetic signal do not always precisely correspond to the thought the speaker hopes to communicate. Sometimes the gap has to be filled by the receiver o f the message, w ho draws on a host o f other indicators— his knowledge o f the situation, o f the speaker, o f the broader “environm ent” surrounding the communicative act. At this point the inferential model can supplement o r bypass the linguistic code. Spcrber and Wilson supply an example o f inferential communication: John asks Mary how she is feeling today, and her only response is to produce an aspirin bottle from her bag. There is no formal code that matches the aspirin bottle to the message “I feel terrible,” but John has no trouble understanding w hat M ary means. H e does not decode the communication but infers its sense using his ordinary processes o f reasoning and his knowl­ edge o f the situation and the speaker. W hat makes Mary’s gesture com muni­ cative is John’s recognition o f her intention to tell him something: he can understand the meaning o f the bottle w ithout recourse to linguistic conven­ tion or a formal code.6 In Book 20 o f the Odyssey, the hero o f the song confronts an inferential token o r sema whose success depends on his recognition o f its messagebearing character. H ere the disguised Odysseus contemplates his coming battle w ith the suitors and feels discouraged. H e turns to Zeus for reas­ surance, asking the god to send him a double portent to show that he supports his cause. H e wants both a verbal communication and a nonlinguistic one, an utterance (φήμη) from some mortal here within his house an d ap o rten t (τέρας) from the sky (100—101).The god delivers o n request: “Zeus heard him, and straightaway he thundered from gleaming Olympus” (102—3). The thunderclap is Zeus’s aspirin bottle. It does not match any linguistic code spelling out the success o f Odysseus’s endeavor, but the hero instantly infers the meaning o f the natural event and rejoices in his coming 5 Spcrber and Wilson 1986. The authors outline the main points o f the theory in the first chapter o f the book. 6 For this example, Sperber and W ilson 1986, 2 5 —26.

good fortune (104). Recognizing the god’s intention to inform, he under­ stands the thunder as a communication which tells him that all will be well when he fights the suitors. N o sooner has Odysseus received the first message than the second one arrives. A woman sitting at her mill grinding wheat hears the thunderclap. She too recognizes the disturbance in the otherwise clear sky as a terns and, drawing on w hat she knows o f meteorology, infers Zeus’s communicative intention (113—14). She quickly adds a retroactive prayer asking th at this may be the last day the suitors spend on earth. W hen Odysseus hears her petition, he decodes the message according to the regular semiotic model, matching the phonetic signs to a linguistic code. B ut a semantic representa­ tion would only tell the hero that he has an ally close at hand. It is the inferential model that allows him to recognize the words as part o f Zeus’s own communication, a second thunderclap embedded in the w om an’s speech. The poet makes sure his audience understands the true nature o f the remark: the millwoman has uttered a sema ( 111) for the disguised hero and a kledon (120), a w ord o f omen significant only to the listener who is seeking a response to a question or problem unknown to the speaker.7 T he natural phenom enon and chance remark become semata precisely because Odysseus infers the god’s intention to inform.8 The tw o Iliadic episodes cited earlier follow a similar pattern. Again it is the broader “environm ent” surrounding the sending and receiving o f the token and tablet that explains their status as semata,. In Iliad 7 the poet sets the scene for a divine communication. In the moments before N estor shakes the helmet, the assembled Achaeans raise their hands to Zeus and make their individual prayers: “And so one m ight say looking up to the broad heaven, cFather Zeus, grant that the lot falls on Ajax, or on the son o f Tydeus or else on the king o f gold-rich Myccne himself” ’ (177—80). N ow Ajax occupies the same position as Odysseus w ho made a prayer-invocation and then waited for a reply; the army has named Ajax as their hero o f choice, and he too m ust receive confirmation from Olympus. Several other details reinforce the portentous quality o f the mom ent. The selection by lot is a sacred occasion, which brings suprahum an powers into play. Nestor, a figure whose age and wisdom give him an almost mantic status in the poem, shakes the helmet. O n other occasions he will act as a sign giver or serve as the mediator between a divine com m unicator and a mortal addressee.9 As he mixes up the objects, he copies the gesture o f the oracular priestess who shakes (πάλλεν, 181) the mantic symbols before 7 On the kledon, see Pcradotto 1969, 1—2 1 , and Cameron 1970, 9 5 —118. 8 Cf. O d. 2 1 .4 1 3 for another instance where Zeus’s thunderclap is a sema·. “he thundered, show ing semata. ” 9 C f II. 23 .3 2 6 . N ote too 2 .1 6 —3 4 where Dream disguises itself in the shape o f N estor in order to make its communication to the sleeping Agamemnon. Here the figure identifies itself as a messenger from Zeus.

drawing o ut the chosen lo t.10 W hen Ajax’s token leaps from the helm et (as though impelled by divine impetus), the herald who carries it through the crowd moves w ith the authority granted him by his sacrosanct profession. Occupying the liminal ground between men and gods, he is the proper person to deliver Zeus’s message to its rightful receiver. T he hero instantly affirms that he is the owner o f the token: “he recog­ nized the sign o f the lot seeing it” (γνώ δέ κλήρου σήμα Ιδών, 189).11 The term sema carries a double meaning here, referring at once to the mark that each Achaean cham pion originally set on his token (έσημήναντο, 175), and to the message-bearing character that the object has now assumed. It is the lot’s new aspect that causes Ajax to respond in precisely the manner o f Odysseus on hearing the thunderclap, to “rejoice in his heart” (γήθησε δέ θυμφ, 189; cf. O d . 20.104).12 Ajax explains the reason for his pleasure. It is n o t so much that he has w on the lottery but that his w in stands p ro o f o f the divine force that favors his enterprise: “I rejoice in my heart since I think I shall conquer goodly H ector” ( 191—92). According to the logic o f the sema, his prediction should come true. The “signifying” character o f the token explains a second element in the scene that has preoccupied both ancient and more m odern commentators. If the signs scratched on the tokens indicate the heroes’ names, then why do the bystanders not identify the owner o f the object long before the herald completes his circuit, and why does only Ajax recognize the mark as his?13 But divine sem ata often have a m ore exclusive target: the millwoman knew the thunderbolt was significant (otherwise thunder would n o t appear in a clear sky), but because she was n o t the proper receiver o f the message, she missed the full communication apprehended by Odysseus. N ow the massed Achaeans fail to understand the lot because it is n o t addressed to them. Only Ajax can grasp the double meaning o f the token, which both identifies him as the champion in the coming com bat and indicates that Zeus will stand by his side. According to this analysis, the disputed markings would have little role to play. The lot becomes a sema when Ajax recognizes Zeus’s intention to inform and infers the meaning o f the divinely issued sign. I f the symbols 10 In the very early days o f Delphi, the oracle would regularly make her predictions by drawing from a collection o f pebbles, beans, or pieces o f wood or leaves. The verb άναιρειν, which originally described the “taking up” or selection o f the chosen article was transferred to oral prophecy where it was used o f delivering a spoken response (see Scheinberg 1 9 79,9, and the fuller account by Amandry 1950, 25 -3 6 ). 11 For a discussion o f the verb gigndskein, to recognize, see the second part o f this chapter. 12 For the same sequence, see Od. 2 1 .413-15. 13 One scholion suggests that because o f the existence o f different dialects, the various participants in the expedition would not be able to read one another’s writing. Leaf 1971 adll. 7.184 comments “it is evident that the marking in 175 did not imply writing, as no one understands any mark but his own.”

scratched by the heroes arc some form o f w riting o r cipher, then they belong to a different model o f com m unication, one th at depends on the linguistic code and deploys its symbols w ithin a conventional system o f differences. B ut the “protow riting” that goes on here suggests th a t for the singer o f the episode, the tw o forms o f sign m aking were n o t strictly differentiated. A traditional token m ight readily accommodate inscription, and surface m ark­ ings can draw attention to o r reconfirm its role as a significant com m unica­ tion. Ajax’s sema is a doubly determ ined one. But w hat o f semata that have noth in g to do w ith the gods? T he second H om eric example turns about a token exchanged between m ortals and involves no divine intervention. In his encounter w ith D iom edes in Book 6 o f the Ilia d, Glaucus names his ancestor Bellerophon, and describes the inauspicious start to th e hero’s career. Proetus, deceived by his wife Anteia into believing that the young hero has tried to seduce her, sends Bellcrophon to the hom e o f his father-in-law and equips him w ith an inscribed tablet to give to his host: π ό ρ εν δ ’ δ γε σήματα λυ γρ ά , γ ρ ά ψ α ς έν π ίνα κ ι π τ ν κ τ φ θ νμ ο φ θ ό ρ α π ο λ λ ά , δ εϊξα ι δ ’ ή νώ γειν φ π ενθερω , ό φ ρ ’ ά π όλοιτο.

and he gave him baleful signs, which he inscribed many and soul-destroying in a folded tablet, and told him to show them to his father-in-law, so that he might perish. (168—70) For nine days the Lycian king entertains his guest w ith lavish feasting, and on the tenth he asks for the treacherous tablet: “and then he inquired o f him and asked to see the token” (καί τότε μιν έρέεινε κ α ί ήτεε σήμα ίδέσθαι, 176). N o sooner does the king receive the sema than he dispatches the hero to perform a series o f life-destroying tasks. Again com m entators debate the m eaning o f Proetus’s inscriptions. Some declare that these arc alphabetic signs, whereas others prefer to understand them as some kind o f picture w riting (w hat the scholia call είδωλα or ζω γραφία) o r a cipher known only to Proetus and the k ing.14 B ut once again the question is peripheral to the events that the p o et describes. The tablet, like other semata, functions inferentially and can deliver its message even w ith o u t the semiotic inscriptions. T h e language o f the episode dem on­ strates the tw o models o f com m unication at work. W hen Proetus inscribes his tablet, he scratches on it “baleful signs (semata)” or encoded language; b u t w hen the Lycian king receives the letter, he acknowledges it as a token (.sema, 176 and 178). The transition from th e plural to the singular form signals the move from the formal code to th e token message. T h e Lycian 14 The more recent suggestion (Bellamy 1989, 289—307; Heubeck 1979, 126—46) is that the signs are those o f an Oriental language, in keeping with the setting and motifs o f the story.

king decodes a semantic representation from the inscriptions in the letter but infers the sender’s intention in giving him damaging inform ation about the bearer. Like Ajax’s lot, the tablet collapses the difference between w rit­ ing and sign making, introducing scmiotic communication w ithin the framework o f the traditional token.15 Two further elements in the episode locate us squarely in the context o f sign recognition. The verb paradechomai, “I receive,” marks the m om ent when the king takes the tablet and infers its message-bearing character (178). Dechomai and its compounds regularly describe individuals in the act o f accepting portents and tokens addressed to them , w hether the signs come in the form o f objects, words, or natural events.16 Once received, the charged object can go to work, prom pting an instant response and reaction to its message. Homeric heroes typically experience some kind o f em otion when they accept and understand a sign, some violent movement within, but here the king’s feelings go unremarked. Instead he moves immediately to action, the rapid dispatch o f Bcllcrophon to perform his death-defying tasks. 17T hroughout the episode, the hero remains happily unaware that the tablet refers to him: he is only the vector between the sender and recipient o f the message, and never suspects that Proetus has given him a m urderous instrument. Ignorant o f Anteia’s plot, he lacks the pieces needed to establish the full picture and has no cause to w onder about the contents o f his tablet, or to recognize its intention to inform. For Bellerophon, it is no sema.

Phrazein and anagignoskein The H om eric examples supply a loose definition o f how semata operate: the heroes m ust first recognize (or infer, according to the Sperber-Wilson model) that phenom ena or objects arc communications and then discover the content o f the sign by applying their background knowledge o f the situation and setting the token w ithin its proper context. The examples also suggest that semata attract encoded symbols that refine o r particularize their messages, and clarify the precise significance o f the communication. The sources exhibit the continuity between tokens and graphic marks in a second fashion: the vocabulary originally used for the giving and receiving 15 I shall be considering the tablet as a sumbolon or token by means o f which a guest and host may recognize one another later in this chapter. 16 E.g., Aesch. A g. 1653, Eur. I T 793, and Peradotto 1969, 1—2, for discussion. 17 See Pricr 1978, 96, for the instant action prom pted by semata. Von Fritz (1943, 83—88) argues for the association between H om er’s use o f the verb noein (“to remark”) and strong emotion on the part o f the individual who does the remarking. But in those cases where the verb appears in the context o f sign recognition, I would argue that the sign itself is responsible for the emotional response.

o f signs spills over into the first accounts o f w riting and reading, and so reinforces the affinity between letters and semata th at operate outside a formal code. D espite the differences between the models o f com m unication that structure alphabetic w riting and token messages, a single set o f term s can encompass the activities o f writers and sign makers, readers and seers. In the final books o f the Odyssey, th e covert nature o f the hero’s return requires th at the key characters com m unicate n o t so much by direct speech as through a set o f nonverbal, concrete semata. T he disguised king reveals his identity by exhibiting a sequence o f signs that only his m ost intim ate family and friends, hisphiloi, will recognize. T he scar, bow, and bed perfectly conform to the aspirin-bottle model. T he tokens have no significance for those incapable o f perceiving their status as com m unications, and o f infer­ ring w hat they mean, b u t release their message only to individuals w ho are w aiting for the sign and possess all the necessary background inform ation to receive it w hen it com es.18 W ithin this circle o f intimates, only Telemachus has to be told that his father has returned w ith o u t the use o fsemata·. because he was a mere infant w hen Odysseus left, he lacks the requisite knowledge that allows Penelope, Eurycleia, Eumacus, and Laertes to understand the signs presented by the stranger.19 Each time a token is given and received, the poet uses a formulaic line: σήματ’ άναγνούση τά oi έμπεδα π έφ ρ α δ’ Ό δυσσεΰς, “he [or she] recognized the certain signs th at Odysseus had indicated” (19.250, 23.206, 24.346).20 T he tw o key term s here are the display {phrazein) and the recognition (anagignoskein) o f the semata,. T he expression phrazein is a polysemous one describing bo th the presen­ tation o f a sign, as in the Odyssean formula, and the instant w hen an audience perceives th at an object, gesture, w ord, o r natural event has a message to transm it. T he epithet ariphrades, “clearly visible,” is built ab o u t the same ro o t and regularly accompanies such striking visual and oral por­ tents as stars, tom bstones, or significant remarks in the H om eric songs.21 It too incorporates a double process: phenom ena described as “clearly visible” are at once manifest and intelligible to a select audience. 18 See Murnaghan 1987, 141, on the token o f the bed. 19 Side-by-side arc the more conventional semata sent by the gods— the thunderclap, the kledon, Penelope’s dream, Theoclym enus’s prophecy. Again, for those w h o are looking for a comm unicative pattern in the events around them , these indicators work to prepare the way for their recognition o f the signs offered by Odysseus. O n the suitors’ unawareness o f their significance, see M urnaghan 1987, 7 4 —7 5 , 80. 20 Murnaghan (1 9 8 7 , 5 2) treats the exchange between the still-disguised Odysseus and Penelope in B ook 19. A s she points out, the episode follow s the usual pattern leading up to a recognition, including the formula cited here, but does not end w ith the plot making that usually concludes such scenes. T he concept o f “inferential” com m unication could be useful in accounting for Penelope’s behavior. She may infer the significance o f the tokens presented by the beggar but does not express that knowledge in direct speech. 21 E .g., Od. 2 1 .2 1 7 ; 2 3 .7 3 , 27 3 ; 2 4 .3 2 9 ;//. 2 3 .2 4 0 .

O n several occasions, phrazein applies to communications that depend on silent indicators or oblique messages. Odysseus simply allows Eurycleia to find the telltale scar, and Penelope introduces the token o f the bed into her conversation in such a way that only her husband could recognize it for a sign. Odysseus’s self-revelation to Laertes depends on the same elucidating scar and the litany o f names belonging to the trees planted many years before in his father’s orchard. The poet uses the term phrazein for both the display o f the visual sign and the spoken message (O d. 24.346).22 In later sources the same expression frequently describes messages that bypass the linguistic code, as when Clytcmnestra concludes that the stubbornly m ute Cassandra is incapable o f speaking Greek and invites the captive girl to “indicate w ith barbarian hand instead o f speech,” αντί φωνής φράζε καρβάνω χερί (Acsch. A g. 1061). H erodotus presents the encounter between an amorous Scythian and Amazon w ho have no com m on language: the woman must communicate her wishes through signs, “and although she was not able to speak, she signaled w ith her hand,” τή δέ χειρί έφραζε. She tells the Scythian to come back the next day w ith a com panion, signifying (σημαίνουσα) that she will do the same (4.113.2).23 B ecauselanguagcm ost commonly takes vocal form, this nonverbal, silent gesture makes for the m ost effective contrast w ith m ore conventional speech acts. But the distinc­ tion between silence and vocalization is a superficial manifestation o f a more profound difference between two modes o f communication, the inferential and semiotic: phrazein indicates the presence o f the former.24 Elsewhere the expression is concerned with the recognition o f a sign. Eurycleia, trying to convince Penelope that Odysseus is the husband he claims to be, tells how she marked the scar-token as she was washing the disguised king: την άπονίζουσα φρασάμην, “which I perceived washing [him]” (23.75). This same scar confirms Odysseus’s identity in the eyes o f Eumaeus and Melanthius, w ho first view (είσιδέτην) the mark inflicted by the boar’s tooth, and then grasp its significance (έφράσσαντο, 21.222).25 In the Works and Days, H esiod tells his brother to pay close attention to the various messages hidden in bird cries: φράζεσθαι δ’ εΰτ άν γεράνου φωνήν έπακούσεις ύψόθεν έκ νεφέων ένιαύσια κεκληγυίης 22 See Od. 11.126 for another “manifest sign” expressed verbally. 22 For an exploration o f where and w hy nonverbal communications occur in H erodotus, see Lateiner 1987, 83—119. These tw o examples are also cited by Svenbro 1988b, 2 1 , for w hose analysis see n. 24. 24 Here I disagree with the account o f the term in Svenbro 1988b, 2 0 —22. The author locates the distinctive element o f the verb in the non-oral/aural character o f the communica­ tions it describes. Closer to my suggestion is Mourelatos 1977, 20 n. 28. 25 The scar as asema anticipates writing in a particular way: in Chapter 4 ,1 discuss w ounds as a form o f inscription.

ή τ’ άρότοιό τε σήμα φέρει καί χείματος ώρην δεικνύει δμβρηροϋ. Mark then, w hen you hear the voice o f the crane w h o cries from the clouds up above year by year, and w h o brings the sign for plowing and shows the season o f rainy winter. (4 4 8 —51)

H esiod distinguishes between tw o different acts, directing his brother not merely to hear the call o f the crane (έπακοίισεις) b u t to infer the m eaning o f the cry (φράζεσθαι). W ith his brother’s almanac at his side, Perses can recognize th at the wordless sound is a sema and discern th at it is tim e to plow. Signs, as we saw in the case o f the Lycian king and Bellerophon, com m and instant response. N o sooner are they received than th e addressee m ust begin to act, to set his hand to the plowshare.26 The etym ology o fphm zein in part explains its relationship to the particu­ lar type o f apprehension it describes. A t the ro o t o f the term lie the phrenes, variously defined as the midriff, diaphragm , o r lungs, w here em otion and cognition both go o n .27 These organs arc located deep inside a m an, and their site corresponds to the functions o f “deep th o u g h t” they perform . The phrenes house the particular skill o f the prophet, the individual best able to grasp and decipher the m eaning o f semata. Zeus endows A pollo w ith mantic craft in his phren (Aesch. E u m . 17), and th e oracular god in tu rn places Cassandra’s prophetic powers in precisely the same site (Aesch. A g . 1084). The T heban seer in Aeschylus’s SevenApam st Thebes observes the indicators given by the birds, and then ponders them in his phrenes before delivering his predictions (2 4 -2 6 ).28 'Whether phrazein describes th e display o r recognition o f a sign, its emis­ sion o r its analysis w ithin the depths o f the m ind, the success o f the activities it represents depends in part on the disposition o f the tw o parties to the com m unication. Sign transm ission only becomes effective w hen bo th the sender and receiver share a com m on purpose o r identity o f interests. It is no coincidence that only Odysseus’s allies can understand the signs he shows. The suitors clearly see the bow b u t do n o t grasp its relation to the king, w hom they hope is dead o r far away.29 Clytem nestra believes th at the for26 A s M . West 1978 a d 4 4 8 points out, som e oracular warnings also use phrazomai in their address (H dt. 8 .2 0 .2 ; Aristoph. Eq. 1030, 1067). 27 For the etym ology, see Chantraine 1 9 6 8 —8 0 , 1225, 1228. Important discussions o f the phrenes include Snell 1953; 1978, 5 3 —56; and Onians 1988. M ore recently, Padel 1992. 28 See Sansone 1975 (esp. 16—2 0) for Aeschylus’s use o f the term. These innerm ost organs also guard those thoughts and perceptions w hich, if divulged, w ould prove the truest “signs” o f an individual’s character and intentions. A t i l . 9 .3 1 2 —13 the straight-dealing Achilles declares his hatred for the man w h o “hides on e thing in his phrenes, but speaks another.” See to o Eur. H ipp. 9 2 5 - 2 9 . 29 M um aghan (1 9 8 7 , 2 3 ) also remarks on the “mutual loyalty” that exists between the participants in recognition scenes in the Odyssey.

cign prophetess is άξυνήμων, w ithout com mon understanding or intel­ ligence (Aesch .A g . 1060), and so commands her to communicate through manual signs. B ut Cassandra’s silence marks her recognition that she is in the presence o f the woman w ho plots her death, and the captive remains unwilling to indicate her prophetic message in this hostile company. H er­ odotus’s episode presents the countercasc, where the Amazon readily con­ veys her meaning through signs and builds on the happy understanding she and her future Scythian lover have already achieved. The Scythian instantly infers the meaning o f the woman’s gestures, using his knowledge o f what has just transpired between the two o f them and interpreting the wordless message according to their mutual desires. Fragm ent I D K o f Heraclitus both recapitulates several o f the terms discussed so far, and supplies the necessary bridge from inferential tokens into writing. Preserving much o f the traditional language o f sign giving and reception, the philosopher simultaneously suggests the exegesis o f a written text: τού δέ λόγου χούδ’ έόντος αίεί άξύνετοι γίνονται άνθρωποι καί πρόσθεν ή άκοϋσαί καί άκούσαντες τό πρώτον- γινομένων γάρ πάντων κατά τον λόγον τόνδε άπείροισιν έοίκασι πειρώμενοι καί έπέων καί έργων τοιουτέων όκοίων εγώ διηγεύμαι κατά φύσιν διαιρέων έκαστον καί φράζων όκως έχει· τούς δέ άλλους ανθρώπους λανθάνει όκόσα έγερθέντες ποιοϋσιν δκωσπερ όκόσα εύδοντες έπ ιλαν θ άνο ντα ι. But o f this account, which holds forever, people forever are w ithout comprehen­ sion, both before hearing it and once they have heard it. Although all things come to pass according to this account, they are like men without experience w hen they experience words and deeds such as I m yself set forth, taking each thing apart according to its nature and indicating how it is. As for the rest o f men, they are unaware o f what they do when they are awake just as they are unmindful o f what they do while asleep.

Heraclitus introduces his logos or account as a communication whose mes­ sage men have failed to grasp. Like Cassandra in Clytemnestra’s eyes, they appear uncom prehending (άξύνετοι) to the philosopher because they lack a shared, communal knowledge that allows them to recognize the meaning o f his remarks, and to perceive that other logos, the structure o f reality, which he will attem pt to elucidate.30 But Heraclitus does n o t expect his audience to understand his exposition at first hearing. After the fashion o f H esiod’s brother, men m ust n o t only listen to the sound but realize that w hat they 30 S o R am n oux (1 9 5 9 , 55) points o u t the play o n the w ord ά ξ ύ ν ε τ ο ι: these are m en w h o b oth lack understanding, and w h o are deprived o f w hat is com m on or ξ υ ν ό ν . N o te to o the sentim ent o f fr. 1 0 7 D K : “P oor w itnesses for people are eyes and ears if they possess u n com ­ prehending [literally, ‘barbarian’] sou ls” (trans. R ob in son 1987).

hear is significant. Like the sema, the logos requires that its audience first apprehend its message-bearing character and then give to it the close atten­ tion th at it deserves. A second set o f terms belonging to the traditional language o f signs and their transmission appears at the fragm ent’s end. Twice Heraclitus speaks o f the condition o f “unmindfulness” in which men pass their lives, as som ­ nolent in their waking hours as they arc w hen they sleep. The verb lanthand and its com pounds express the risk o f forgetfulness or inattention to a correct course o f action, which a successful token can forestall. H om eric heroes repeatedly caution their audience against forgetting or neglecting a sema, simultaneously offering the sign as a mnem onic device that will re­ m ind the recipient o f w hat he m ust do. Before the chariot race at the funeral o f Patroclus, N estor tells his son how to win the contest, speaking a “very clear sign,” which cannot escape Antilochus (σήμα δέ τοι έρέω μάλ’ άριφραδές, ουδέ σε λήσει, II. 23.326). Exactly the same formula returns when the full-fledged prophet Tciresias describes the sema that will indicate the end o f Odysseus’s extended travels (O d. 11.126). In bo th instances, the tokens nam ed, the stone and oar, will prom pt the characters to perform the required acts, w hether changing the pressure on the reins o r m aking a sacrifice to Poseidon in the m ost inland o f places. T he detailed instructions arc em bedded in the concrete object, the sema th at offers a shorthand for the complex o f activities.31 Heraclitus to o promises a token th at can transform his audience from som nam bulcnts into those aware o f the m eaning o f w hat they do and able to apply the lessons o f their experience. In the central phrase o f the fragment, Heraclitus describes in m ore detail the task he will undertake, offering a m ode o f instruction and revelation that stands equipoised between sign interpretation and the explication o f a w rit­ ten text. I f we begin by understanding the logos as a token, then the philoso­ pher appears in the guise o f the prophet w ho can discm bed and elucidate its obscure signs. H e proposes to dissect (διαιρέων) all things around him and, by dividing each phenom enon, w ord and deed, into its com ponent parts, to reveal its innerm ost nature. This “dissection” also takes place in the context o f the sacrificial rite w hen the haruspex, priest, o r petitioner separates o u t the slaughtered victim’s entrails prior to reading the signs hidden by the gods w ithin the organs o f the animal. So Aegisthus takes the splanchna in his hands, and “dividing them (διοαρών), gazed closely at them ” (Eur. El. 838—39). T he fifth-century philosopher and healer Empedocles also lo­ cates the fruits o f his inquiry w ithin the entrails, remarking th at the “sure signs” o r πιστώματα that should guide o u r conduct can be known only after the logos w ithin the splanchna has been dissected (διατμηθέντος, B 4.3 31 T he same theory lies behind the use o f mental images or topoi for m nem onic devices. For discussion, see Yates 1966, chap. I.

22

CHAPTER I

D K ).32In order to uncover and to read signs, a person must look beneath the surface, dividing matter up, examining what lies within and exposing the underlying constitution o f a man or thing.33 Once the dissecting and discerning is done, both Heraclitus and the haruspex can display the signs and communicate to their audience the mean­ ing o f the indicators.34 The philosopher completes the preview o f his ap­ proach with the term φράζων, locating his analysis within the tradition o f the semata once revealed by Odysseus to his intimates. An anecdote re­ ported by Plutarch gives a clearer picture o f the way in which Heraclitus m ight choose to exhibit the message o f the logos, allowing the token suc­ cinctly to communicate the signs that its division had exposed. The citizens o f Ephesus once sought Heraclitus’s opinion on the subject o f political concord. G oing up to the speaker’s stand, he took a cup o f cold water, sprinkled it with barley meal, stirred in pennyroyal, and drank the mixture dow n.35 Still without speaking a word, he left his audience (.Mor. 511c). The silent gesture exactly “distinguishes each thing according to its constitution” and leaves the spectators to infer the message o f the token: elements natu­ rally unmixable can coexist when held together by a bonding agent. Plu­ tarch, w ho frequendy reveals his own deeply religious and even mystical cast o f mind in the anecdotes he tells, approves the philosopher’s demonstration, and his gloss on the incident perhaps deliberately echoes Heraclitus’s own 32 N ote too PI. Pit. 287c and the scholia ad Aristoph. Ran. 826 where the verb δα ίομ αι, to divide or distribute meat from a sacrifice, is glossed with three other verbs drawn from sacrificial ritual, κατατέμνω and διαιρέω among them. For a discussion o f this and other passages, sec Svenbro 1984,219—21, and for more on “division” and entrails, Padel 1992, 15—16. It is also curious to note the persistence o f this association between reading and innards in later litera­ ture. In Augustine’s famous account o f Ambrose reading in Confessions 6.3, the author de­ scribes how “his eyes scanned the page and his heart searched o u t [rimabatur] the meaning.” The verb rimor, related to the noun rima meaning a crack or fissure, is used by Vergil to describe a vulture feasting on entrails (.Aen. 6.599) and by Juvenal o f an auger scrutinizing the heart o f a sacrificial chicken (6.551). On this metaphor, see the discussion in Carruthers 1990, 172. 33 Another o f Heraclitus’s remarks reinforces this impression o f the logos as an embedded sign that needs extraction: fr. 45 DK warns against seeking the limits o f the soul, so deep is its logos. I f logos means not measure, as m ost commentators assume, but the true account to be found in the deepest o f spaces, located “in the depth” (so Democr. B 117 D K and C. Kahn 1979, 129—30), then the philosopher’s and his audience’s task is to risk the plunge. 34 English translations regularly fail to give the verb its proper weight; “declaring,” “telling,” and even “pointing out” (terms belonging respectively to the translations by Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 1983; C. Kahn 1979; and Robinson 1987) miss the in-depth character o f H er­ aclitus’s communication. M ore satisfactory is the French signifiant (Ramnoux 1959), which captures the “sign-making” aspect o f the philosopher’s activity. 35 As Battegazzore (1 9 7 9 ,9 -2 5 ) discusses in detail, Heraclitus’s display involves an already charged symbol, the barley drink or κυκεών that figured prominently in Eleusinian rites. Fr. I also recalls Eleusis with its echo o f the three-step process o f revelation that w ent on in the Mysteries, consisting o f “things done, things said, and things revealed.” Words, deeds, and revelation are the central components o f Heraclitus’s own presentation o f the logos.

fo rm ulation o f his m ethodology. H e explains th a t th e p h ilo so p h er was o n e am o n g those adm irable m en w h o “indicate w h a t m u st be d o n e th ro u g h sym bols rath er th an speech” (συμβολικώ ς άνευ φ ω νής α δ ει φ ρ ά ζοντες, S l l b ).36 B u t H eraclitus’s in tro d u c tio n allows the logos to show a second face; it is a literary oeuvre th a t w aits fo r an audience and ex p o u n d er.37 T h e first frag­ m en t is a carefully co n stru cted proem , advertising th e m erits o f th e text th a t is to follow, cau tio n in g its audience n o t to expect to grasp its m eaning at a first reading, and suggesting th e p ro p er way o f approaching th e c o n te n ts.38 T h e sam e term s th a t presented H eraclitus as diviner, a n d th e logos in the shape o f th e trad itio n al sign, now recast th e ph ilo so p h er as a textual exegete w h o explicates a line o f w riting. As C lem cnce R am n o u x has suggested, w h at H eraclitus perform s in dividing and dissecting is th e “c u ttin g u p o f th e inscribed tex t,” a b o d y o f w ritin g th a t w ould originally have appeared w ith ­ o u t p u n c tu a tio n o r w o rd division.39 Like th e m etricians o f later centuries at w ork o n th e texts o f earlier poets, th e ph ilo so p h er also establishes the diaereses necessary fo r a full u n d erstan d in g o f his c o m p o sitio n .40 H eraclitus’s in stru ctio n n o t only tu rn s th e obscure scram ble o f m arks in to a co h e re n t text fo r th e reader, b u t also elucidates th e stru c tu re a n d the m ean in g o f its phrases. T h u s he m ig h t explain how single term s could be co n stru ed in several ways (as w ith th e adverb α ίεί in th e first line o f fragm ent I), and analyze th e cm pacted argum ents by taking th e m ap art an d exam in­ ing th e expressions o n e by one. T his approach to w ard th e logos, w hich Plato later defines as “division” o r δια ίρ εσ ις and in tro d u ces as o n e o f th e dialecti­ cian’s tw o tools, is n o t restricted to a w ritte n text a n d can be applied to a co m p o sitio n originally conceived for oral perfo rm an ce.41 B u t th e riddles th at H eraclitus prom ises to solve som etim es d e p e n d o n th e disjuncture betw een w ords in th e ir w ritten a n d th eir spoken form an d can o nly be u n d e rsto o d w hen th e term s are seen as well as articulated. T h u s in fragm ent 36 According to Plutarch, the master o f such pithy com m unication is A pollo w h o delivers oracles that are both concise and clear. Battegazzore (1 9 7 9 , 38) suggests that Plutarch’s description o f the god also echoes Heraclitus’s characterization o f D elphic pronouncem ents (fr. 93 D K = M or. 404e). For more on Plutarch’s ow n interpretative background, see Brenk 1977. 37 H ere I assume both that the fragments were com posed w ith the aid o f w riting, and that Heraclitus framed his remarks with an audience o f readers as well as listeners in mind. C. Kahn (1 9 8 3 , 114—17) gathers the evidence that suggests that the work existed in “book” form and persuasively counters the view that Heraclitus’s enterprise was “nonliterary”. 38 Other such proems can be found in the written works o f Hecataeus, Ion o f C hios, and Alcmaeon (see C. Kahn 1979, 7, 9 6 —97). 39 R am noux 1970, 4 6 8 . 40 See Svenbro 1 9 8 4 , 2 2 2 , 2 2 4 . I shall return to the notion o f reading and division in Chapter 3. 41 Cf. Phaedr. 2 6 5 e—2 6 6 b and the discussion in Svenbro 1 9 8 4 , 2 2 2 . A t P it. 2 8 7 c such logical division is compared to a sacrifice.

56 DK, the philosopher suggests that w hat the children have perceived is an affinity between two expressions that has nothing to do with their conven­ tional meanings according to the linguistic code: the bond between the words φθείρ (louse) and φθείρω (to destroy) rests not with the semantic representations they produce when the signs arc decoded but with the similarity in their sound and appearance.42 M y suggestion then is that Heraclitus is introducing his logos simul­ taneously as a token and a text, and that he chooses the term φράζων because it both describes the mode in which signs and alphabetic writing communicate and expresses the underlying messages that they include. By presenting his logos in this double guise, the philosopher gives to his remarks a significance extending beyond the scmiotic code that structures both spoken and written discourse and counters the random and differential character o f language. Frequently Heraclitus warns his audience against placing too much trust in the truths that can be derived from encoded speech, and he exhibits the plurality o f meanings that emerge when we treat words not as conventional signs but as pointers toward a more complex reality.43 The βιος or bow o f fragment 48 D K is one such token, whose unaccented written form at first confuses the reader (does it mean bow, or does it mean life, and how can the name and the function be at such odds?), and then reveals the paradoxical nature o f human life where the hunter’s existence depends on the death o f his prey.44 W hen Heraclitus’s pupil con­ fronts the limitations o f the scmiotic code and discovers that the semantic representation yielded by a word or phrase produces a contradictory or enigmatic message, he will look beyond the conventions determining w rit­ ten or spoken language and understand that words are tokens or semata that can signify in multiple fashions.45 It is Heraclitus’s ability to intimate rather than to spell out meaning that has prom pted readers since antiquity to liken his remarks to his own description o f the utterances o f the Delphic oracle: through the voice o f his priestess, Apollo “neither speaks, nor conceals, but gives a sign [σημαίνει]” (fr. 93 DK). Heraclitus is not alone in using phrazein to frame a communication that both functions as an inferential token and is presented as a written text. In Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris, the heroine proposes to give Pyladcs a 42 So Robinson (1987, 120) comments that the children know “the truth, to o ‘obvious \phaneron ]’ to need expressing, that language itself and in particular written language, can indicate truths otherwise difficult to excavate” (italics in the original). 43 Warnings o f the limitations o f the code include frr. 34, 93, 101a, and 107 DK. 44 C Kahn 1979, 2 0 1 -2 . 45 C. Kahn ( 1983, 121) concludes that Heraclitus’s verbal artistry is designed “to guarantee that the relative opacity o f the written word will not g o unnoticed, and thus to stimulate the reader to make the effort o f understanding that will permit him to appropriate som e o f the author’s insights for himself.”

letter to deliver to Orestes. W hen Pylades asks w hat he should do in case the tablet is lost at sea, Iphigcnia replies th at she will “indicate in w ords” (λόγφ φράσω) its w ritten contents so th at Pylades may give the message to her friends in its spoken form (760—61). Should the tablet survive th e crossing unharm ed, then it may deliver its ow n account: “the w riting [γραφή] itself silently will indicate [φράσει] the things w ritten w ithin” (7 6 2 —63). T he repetition o f the term phrazein n o t only illustrates the com m on ground between the com m unication in its oral and w ritten forms b u t also identifies the character o f Iphigcnia’s device. She has contrived a sema th at can tell Orestes she is still alive, and alert her allies to her plight. T he token works m ore quickly than Iphigcnia had anticipated, instantly releasing its message as Orestes, present at the scene, recognizes his sister’s intention o f revealing who she is. N o sooner does he receive (δέχομαι, 793) the tablet and ac­ knowledge the sign than he greets the priestess as his lost sister, and im m e­ diately displays all the vehem ent em otion th at portents so com m only generate. T he signs th at Aeschylus’s Prom etheus speaks to Io also take w ritten form; giving her directions for her journey, he cautions her to safeguard w hat he says: “I shall indicate to you your much-driven w andering, which you m ust inscribe in the rem em bering tablets o f your w its” (πολύδονον πλάνην φράσω, / ήν εγγράφου σύ μνήμοσιν δέλτοις φρενών, P V 788— 89).46 The vocabulary o f sign giving exactly suits the character o f P rom e­ theus’s revelation. T he journey th at he goes on to detail, dividing it up into its com ponent parts and ordering its stages into a coherent “map,” serves as a token for the disoriented Io and allows her to perceive the future course o f events normally hidden to m ortal creatures.47 Transm uted into th e m eta­ phoric inscriptions that Io carries in her wits, Prom etheus’s com m unica­ tions are clucidators th at will signpost the w anderer’s way. In keeping w ith the semata displayed by Odysseus, these tokens are both revealed and reveal­ ing. A nd like other signs spoken and rem em bered in the H om eric songs, the place-names preserved in Io ’s m ind come complete w ith inform ation and warnings concerning the dangers o f each site. These m nem onic devices will release a set o f directions at an appropriate tim e and instruct the traveler in how to confront the m anifold difficulties in her path.48 The wits, o rphrenes, 46 The metaphor o f inscription on the tablets o f the mind will receive a much fuller treatment in Chapter 3. 47 L ong (1 9 5 8 , 2 6 2 ) also notes the use oiph razein in his com m ent o n line 6 0 8 , remarking that Prometheus willingly reveals to Io (7 6 5 , 7 8 1 , 7 8 8 , 8 2 5 , 84 4 ) but refuses information to H erm es (9 5 0 , 995). Here sign com m unication goes on only between friends. 48 In another case o f “signposting,” Parmenides’ divine guide establishes semata for her pupil to follow on the route to knowledge (8.2 D K ). These semata return in a reference to the role o f the stars as markers for the navigator (1 0 .2 D K ). See the com m ents o f M ourelatos (1 9 7 0 , 2 0 —21) w h o also links the m o tif w ith Odysseus’s navigation in the Odyssey and points

26

CHAPTER I

arc the natural repository for the written tokens: here, in the innermost organs, spoken or inscribed signs may best be preserved, analyzed, and understood. A second term completes the Homeric formula for the giving and receiving o f semata. A verb o f recognition, anagignoskein, announces the m oment when Eumaeus, Euryclcia, Penelope, and Laertes understand the message framed within the tokens devised by Odysseus.49 The expression resembles phrazein on several counts: it too belongs to the recognition o f objects, utterances, and events that need not be structured by a conventionalized code, and it too describes a particular mental activity that both sign receivers and sign readers perform in sources extending from archaic to classical times. The tokens that Homeric characters “recognize” often exist outside a formal system o f signs: no necessary relationship tics a thunderclap to a particular message or makes a tablet signify death for its bearer. Odysseus’s scar, bed, and bow do not conform to an internally coherent code in which each clement exists in a strict relation to the other, nor does each participate in a broader set o f symbols made up o f different kinds o f objects belonging to the same general type.50 Washing the beggar’s feet, Euryclcia simply discovers the scar and figures out the stranger’s identity.51 Like phrazein, this type o f recognition depends on the ability o f the receiver o f the sign to match the token to his or her knowledge o f the situation. o ut die use ofphrazein in Calypso’s design o f his route. Note tooPlut. Mor. 407f. Jacob (1988, 2 8 7 -8 8 ) describes the place-names on maps as “crystallizations” o f etiological, historical, and ethnographic information, an account that exactly captures the function o f the list o f names given by Prometheus. 49 Aristotle would later observe the importance o f the m otif in the poem, categorizing the Odyssey as a “complex” story because it is full o f “recognitions” (Poet. 1459b 15). 50 H ere I take issue with Nagy ( 1983), w ho argues that thesema is a “coded message” whose correct decipherment or άνάγνω σις depends on the receiver’s powers o f cognition (νόησις), situated in his mind or νόος: this power o f cognition allows Antilochus to recognize the sema given by his father, and prompts the king o f Lycia’s correct “reading” OfProetus3S signs. But Nagy’s account builds exclusively on the semiotic model o f communication, making the re­ ceiver o f the sema decode his sign according to a preexisting system or cipher. Discussing Priam’s comparison between Achilles and the D og Star that announces the coming parching season, and his recognition that the warrior is an “evil Seman (I l. 22.30), Nagy remarks: “In order to recognize the D og Star as a sema bearing a yearly message o f parching in store for mankind one has to know its relation to the other stellar semata in the sky” (39). But the “system” o f stars is not immediately relevant to Priam’s perception. Instead he has inferred the analogy between the battle-bringing hero and the wasting activity o f Sirius. Both Achilles and the star “mean” harm. 51 Aristode acknowledges the role o f “signs and tokens” in producing such a recognition (άναγνώρισις), while classifying tragedies that rely on such devices as birthmarks, wounds, and necklaces to prom pt the necessary revelation as among the “least artistic” (Poet. 1454b20).

Several centuries on from the H om eric songs, anagignoskein appears as the first term used in the sources for the act o f reading. Pindar, com posing in the early fifth century, opens his tenth Olympian w ith the injunction: “read [άνάγνωτε] the name o f the Olym pian w inning child o f Archestratus, where it has been w ritten in my m ind [φρενός]” (1—3). But for all the novelty o f the usage, traditional sign vocabulary continues to surround the expression chosen by the poet. This message lies in the depths o f the speaker’s pbren, in the internal space where sign perception, analysis, and preservation regularly take place.52 T he prom pt exists alongside other m ne­ monic tokens, precursors o f w ritten com m unications: Pindar stands ac­ cused o f having been unm indful o f his debt to the victor (έπιλέλαθ’, 3), but a pebble or lot, the ψ άφ ος o f line 9, reminds him o f w hat is owed. Like the near-contem porary text o f Heraclitus, Pindar’s song is a pivotal one w hich looks both back and forwards, and conflates in one the tw o activities o f recognizing a sign and reading an inscription.53 W hat motivates the transfer o f the term from one sphere to the other, and w hat affinities exist between Odysseus’s allies and later readers o f a text? Discussions o f the application o f anagyipnoskein to reading routinely dwell on the notion o f recognition, presenting the reader w ho recognizes o r identifies the individual letter in the com posite word. Pierre C hantraine pinpoints the tw o activities we perform as we read, first recognizing the particular alphabetic character and then deciphering it.54 Jcsper Svenbro modifies Chantraine’s definition and focuses on the audible phonetic se­ quence; he suggests that, for the ancient Greeks, the ear recognized the meanings o f the sounds elicited from the graphic signs w hen w riting was read aloud.55 B ut because b o th analyses start from a purely semiotic account o f com m unication, where each individual sign functions as a random and differential elem ent in a conventional code know n to the reader, they risk divorcing anagijynoskein from its original usage. A ccording to the model that structures these accounts, recognition depends on slotting the graphic symbol o r phonetic sound into a preexisting system o f signs; w ith o u t knowledge o f the code, the reader is incapable o f deciphering the w ritten marks. The H om eric tokens once again provide the necessary corrector and key. I have suggested that receivers o f inscribed tokens in the Iliad and Odyssey perform tw o operations, both inferring the communicative function o f a 52 Cf. N . 4 .6 —8 where again the phrenes are involved in “deep thought.” 53 In other fifth- and fourth-century examples (e.g., Arisroph. Eq. 118, 1065; Thuc. 3.49; Andoc. 1.47; D o n . 2 0 .2 7 , 18 .1 1 8 ), anqgigrwskein simply means “to read” and has n o associa­ tion w ith nonalphabetic signs. The verb is regularly used for the reading o f decrees in the lawcourts and assembly. 54 Chantraine 1950, 115. 55 Svenbro 1988b , 1 8 3 -8 4 .

sign and deciphering its meaning. Plato’s account o f reading in his Theinvolves both these steps. At 163b, Socrates and Thcaetetus discuss the ease o f the illiterate man who, when confronted w ith a piece o f writing, perceives the shape and color o f the individual letters but fails to get any further than that. H e neither figures o u t what words arc there— the elemen­ tary school master or γραμματιστής teaches this step (163c)— nor goes to the next stage o f understanding what those words mean, which is the role o f the expounder o r έρμηνευς (163c). W hat Socrates wants to illustrate is the distinction between perception and knowledge, perceiving through the senses and understanding the significance o f what is perceived. But the example also reveals that would-be readers must perform two separate activ­ ities, first recognizing that the graphic marks have m ore to them than mere color and shape, and then decoding the elements in the individual word and phrase.56 The reader attempts to decipher his text because he knows that the signs are part o f a significant communication; so too the Lycian king exam­ ines the semata. inside the token because he understands that tablets arc message bearers. Wc can take the two elements o f anagijjnoskein apart, and see how each connects with the behavior o f both the sign receiver and sign reader. The Homeric songs differentiate between the act o f seeing (ίδεΐν) and o f recog­ nizing (γιγνώσκειν), applying the first term to all those instances when something comes to the perceivcr’s knowledge by the sense o f vision and the second to the actual recognition o f the object as something definite. An unidentified patch o f brow n or green is seen in the distance, and the blur then resolves itself into a tree or a m an.57 This is precisely w hat happens when Ajax sees his lot— γνώ δέ κλήρου σήμα Ιδών (“he recognized the sign o f the lot seeing it,” 11.7.189) — o r when the Socratic reader moves from an appreciation o f the colors and shapes o f graphic marks into an understand­ ing o f their character as letters. The prefix άνά, as Chantrainc suggests, refers in turn to the additional effort that making the identification often involves.58 W hether it is a m atter o f a reader struggling to understand the still unfamiliar alphabetic letters, or a Homeric character who succeeds in perceiving a man’s true identity, which other witnesses have n o t observed, the process demands particular mental acuity.59 But the prefix also describes C K tetu s

56 T hc term Plato uses for this second step is διαγιγνώ σκειν, “to discern” (Rep. 402b , Theaet. 206a). 57 Here I follow the analysis by Snell 1924. Leshcr (1 9 81 , 2 —2 4 )— taking issue with Von Fritz ( 1943) w ho reformulates Snell’s argument— offers a more recent discussion o f perceiving and knowing in Homer, but reaches much the same conclusion. 58 Chantrainc 1950, 115. 59 E.g., Od. 4.2 5 0 , 21 .2 0 5 . See Murnaghan 1987, 2 4 —2 5 , for a discussion o f the recogni­ tion vocabulary in this second scene. Od. 1.216 and 1 1.144 supply other examples o f this “indepth” identification.

upw ard m otion, from bottom to top. It closely corresponds to the disembedding process required when individuals display those signs recognized and/or concealed in the inner space o f the wits, o r w hen readers reveal the underlying message in a text and expose its latent contents.

Inscribed semata So far I have been m arking o u t the overlap between semata and w riting, and arguing for their continuity on the grounds o f shared vocabulary and com ­ m on contexts. But this overly neat equation neglects some o f the changes th at occur when tokens incorporate w ritten elements into their makeup, and obscures the breach between the tw o models o f com m unication noted at the opening o f this chapter. B ellerophon’s tablet dem onstrates the differ­ ence. T he Lycian king correctly infers the m eaning o f the token, recog­ nizing that its bearer m ust be p u t to death. B ut there is nothing th at can tell him that the signs inscribed by Proetus arc the vehicles o f a falsehood, expressions o f the lying charge laid against Bcllerophon by Anteia. As I present other examples o f inscribed semata, and look m ore closely at the relationship between the traditional symbols and the supplem entary alpha­ betic script, this dichotom y between the token and its w ritten contents will return. In several o f the examples, w riting elucidates the m eaning o f a sign, and repeats its larger message in a m ore precise and detailed fashion; in others, it distorts th at message and underm ines the tru th th at the uncoded sema transmits. Prophetic indicators, like Ajax’s lot, can draw on w riting to clarify the token’s origin o r its addressee. In Aeschylus’s Choephoroe^ Electra confronts the problem o f a sign that docs n o t clearly state w here it comes from o r w ho its rightful ow ner is: she cannot be sure th at Orestes is the source o f the lock o f hair that she discovers at her father’s tom b and wishes th at it had a voice plainly to state its origins (195). Ajax’s inscribed design suffers no such ambiguity, com m unicating the identity o f the ow ner o f th e lot and func­ tioning in the m anner o f a property mark. In the context o f cleromancy, the issue is a critical one. The result o f the lottery depends on the proper identification o f the ow ner o f the ctw inning” token, and w riting offers a seemingly unequivocal way o f tying an individual to his sema. A tale pre­ served by Plutarch describes how Delphic ritual incorporated w riting into selection by lot. W hen the people o f Thessaly decided to entrust the choice o f their next king to the Pythia, they took a num ber o f roasted beans, and inscribed the names o f the candidates on each. T he priestess then drew one o f the lots, and the m an w hose name it carried became king (M or. 492b). But the outcom e o f the selection is a puzzling one. The uncle o f the “hero” o f the story has surreptitiously inserted an extra bean bearing his nephew ’s

name into the lottery, and, according to the logic o f the folktale, this is the token that the Pythia selects. The other participants arc baffled and be­ lieve that there m ust have been some error in the initial recording o f the names. Alphabetic symbols could also supplement and replace the traditional prophetic signs placed by the gods in the organs o f animals, transforming the configurations o f the entrails into an actual text. Again according to Plutarch, the Spartan king Agcsilaus persuaded his unwilling army to face an enemy many times its size by tampering with the liver o f the sacrificial victim: writing the word v i c t o r y on his left hand, he pressed the entrails to his palm and then displayed the im printed token to the assembled troops. H eartened by this “sure sign,” the soldiers eagerly headed into battle (.Mor. 214 c—f).60 T he introduction o f writing complicates and even distorts the process o f inquiry by grafting a humanly contrived sign onto the unmediatcd and divine indicator. But the gods do n o t punish Agcsilaus for his attem pt to manipulate their own mode o f communication, and his predic­ tion appears to coincide with theirs: the Spartans win a decisive victory over their enemy.61 O n other occasions, writing may clarify and spell o u t the purpose o f communicative objects exchanged between men. The events surrounding the inscribed sema brought by Bcllcrophon from Proetus suggest that the poet is thinking not only o f a writing tablet but o f the token o f hospitality or sumbolon exchanged by guest friends, and then re-presented when either o f the two parties, or a relative o r friend, needed shelter or assistance from the other.62 Masking the death-dealing tablet in the guise o f the traditional “

”

60 Polyaenus, the author o f eight books o f stratagems in the second century a . d . , attributes the same ruse to AttaIus o f Pergamon (4.20). 61 With the aid o f writing, extispicy also becomes a more exact science, and its uncertain signs can be deciphered according to prcestablishcd conventions noted in written form. The clay livers and lungs from the Bronze Age temple at the Ugarit site o f Ras Shamra and the “liver o f Piacenza” include inscribed markings and texts as aids to interpretation (Padel 1992, 14— 16). So too Pausanias cites the existence o f a tablet in the temple o f Heracles near Bura in Achaia, where the markings on a dice thrown by the petitioner correspond to explanations written on a tablet. The reading o f the remark at 7 .2 5 .1 0 is disputed, but the passage seems to run “for every figure made by the dice there is an explanation expressly written on the tablet.” An inscription from Pamphylia from the first century a .d . similarly describes a tablet on which replies inscribed in advance arc chosen by casting a lot (Bouche-Leclercq 1879—82, vol. 1 : 196, for an account o f this “table cleromantique”). Roman practice took the substitution o f letters for lots one step further: prophets w ould use detached letters capable o f forming words. See also Tac. Germ. 10 with its account o f prediction through runes. 62 Pace Herman (1987 , 63 n. 65), w ho discusses the incident and takes issue with M om ­ msen, w hose suggestion that the tablet was a sumbolon he cites. The larger context o f the episode also suggests that we understand the tablet as a sumbolon: GIaucus is in the process o f establishing a guest friendship with D iom edes, one that will involve an exchange o f tokens.

“letter o f introduction,” Proctus sends Bellerophon to the hom e o f his father-in-law. In similar fashion Jason offers to aid M edea in her quest for hospitality by giving her sumbola, which will guarantee her a warm recep­ tion at the homes o f his friends (Eur. Med. 613). A scholion to the line defines the term : “people who entered into a guest friendship [ξενία] used to cut a piece o f bone in tw o and keep one half themselves and leave the other half w ith their host. W hen either they o r their friends or relations required hospitality in the house o f the other o r vice versa, they m ight bring the half w ith them and renew the guest friendship.”63 Inscribed hospitality tokens o f the fifth century play a similar role. Ar­ chaeologists found three terracotta plaques carrying painted names and broken into tw o irregular halves in a rubbish p it in the Athenian agora, and suggested that the objects were designed for guest friends w ho could iden­ tify one another by reuniting the pieces.64 Simply m atching the tw o jagged halves would allow their owners to recognize one another, b u t the w ritten names particularize the tablets and make the recognition all the m ore secure. By the fourth century, the tokens have evolved once more, and texts increas­ ingly appear in the place o f the original artifacts. D em osthenes describes how he dispatched one Euctem on “giving him m oney and w riting [grammatct] for my father’s hosts and I ordered him to recruit for me the best sailors that he could” (50.18). Dem osthenes entrusts the chief purpose o f the mission to Euctem on verbally but uses w riting as a means o f introducing the envoy to his hosts, and to serve as a token o f identification.65 Plato similarly distinguishes between two parts o f a letter that he writes, offering his first remark as a sumbolon o f his identity quite divorced from the real substance o f his comm unication. Citing an anecdote known b o th to the author and his addressee, he com m ents “let tire beginning o f my letter be for you also at the same tim e a sign [sumbolon] that it comes from m e” (Ep. 360a).66 In both instances, the w ritten text faithfully replicates the role o f the original token object: w hat matters is not the particular contents o f the words, but their broader role in identifying the sender o r messenger.67 63 See Gauthier 1972, 66ff. for a m ore detailed treatment. Ladner (1 9 7 9 , 2 2 3 —25) offers a very illum inating discussion o f the m eaning o f the sumbolon in b oth the Greek and later Christian context. 64 O n these, see Herman 198 7 , 6 2 , fig. 8a—d and note. 65 See Gauthier 1972, 86. Clanchy (1 9 7 9 , 2 0 8 ) supplies evidence o f remarkably similar uses o f com bined oral and written signs to identify the bearers o f messages in medieval England. 66 O n this and other examples, see Youtie 1970, 105—16. 67 Such precautions are necessary in part because handwriting could not adequately identify authorship. Noncursive w riting styies lacked the distinctiveness o f cursive script, and slave-scribcs w ould often write for their masters. I return to this issue in Chapter 4 where the question o f authorship receives fuller discussion.

A m ong the sumbola listed by ancient commentators and lexicographers arc coins, broken in tw o.68 These not only enabled guest friends to recog­ nize one another, but commonly served as aids in business relationships where the tw o parties to a commercial contract would exchange tokens designed to recall the obligations existing between them. The coins func­ tioned in a variety o f ways: in some instances the participants in the agree­ m ent w ould each keep one-half o f the coin and reunite the whole when the exchange had been completed, in others an individual making a deposit in a temple or bank would take one-half o f a broken piece while leaving the other w ith the guardian o f his wealth. W hen he wished to reclaim the property, he had only to produce the coin and so prove his identity.69 T he coins, like the w ritten texts or sumbola devised by Demosthenes and Plato, privilege their “inferential” function. The object is stripped o f its monetary properties, and its w orth depends neither on its metal content nor on its conventional value, but on the particular and exclusive role assigned to it by the participants in the exchange. W hatever the am ount o f the coin, it never was included as part o f the price o f the transaction but served only as a symbol o f the contract.70 Coins are not only markers o f a contractual relationship but also selfstyled semata that carry pictograms and alphabetic legends on their sur­ faces.71 The first known inscribed Greek coin was a stater m inted in Ephesus around 600 B .C . and displays the figure o f a stag accompanied by a legend reading “I am the sema o f Phanes.”72 The writing elucidates the meaning o f the piece, telling its audience that the animal is no mere decoration but a message-bearing sema offering the information that Phanes is the owner or issuer o f the coin. If someone did not know that the stag was the badge o f Phanes, then the inscription itself would reiterate the point.73 The inscribed coin involves a second level o f complexity. It was the addi­ tion o f the stamp that turned bullion o f conventional size and weight into 68 Poll. 9.71 (sec Miiri 1976, 5). Gauthier (1 9 7 2 , 68 n. 18) cites an interesting example o f metal pieces, although not coins, that serve explicitly as sumbola used in a contract. These are tw o leaden plates from sixth-century Corfu carrying an inscription in boustrophcdon style referring to a numerical sum and giving the names o f the individuals w ho entered into the agreement.