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Pindar and the Prostitutes, or Reading Ancient "Pornography" Author(s): Leslie Kurke Reviewed work(s): Source: Arion, Third Series, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Fall, 1996), pp. 49-75 Published by: Trustees of Boston University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163615 . Accessed: 11/09/2012 06:10
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Pindar

and the Prostitutes,

or Reading

Ancient

"Pornography"
LESLIE KURKE

theories of pornography have recent JL V-Lodern ly been applied to the writing of ancient authors.1 Here, Iwould like to do the opposite: to contemplate what we might call etymo
logically ancient "pornography"?writing about prostitutes?on

its own terms and to ask why the topic was of such enduring
est about to the Greeks. prostitutes The are answer a form of most sexual obvious to us?that titillation?seems

inter
stories not to

apply (or not to apply exclusively) to a large number of narratives, and it is these texts that Iwish to interrogate.2 Consider the fol
lowing exemplary anecdotes:

in need of money to complete the Pharaoh Cheops, Great of the Pyramid, prostituted his own daughter. She building decided to leave behind amonument of her own and so asked each of her customers for a stone as well as money payment. With the stones she built the middle one of the three pyramids in front of the 1) The
Great Pyramid, the sides of which measure one and one-half

plethra.

(Herodotus 2.126) debate

statue One said of

2) A group of first century CE tourists at Delphi

appropriateness mistress, disapproving, the of courtesan cites the Praxiteles' Mnesarete, comic poet erection of a golden in the precinct. Crates, who

the
his

sightseer, "set she was

up as a trophy to the incontinence of the Greeks" (f\vKo?rnc elate tfj? xcov cEM/r|va)v axoao?ac ?vaxeiaGai XQ?Ttaiov). His interloc utor responds that "Crates should have commended [Praxiteles] for setting a golden courtesan beside the golden kings, thereby for having nothing admirable or august" reproaching wealth (?cjovei?i?cov toy tcXovxov (b? ovb?v ?xovxa Gaufx?atov ov??
aeu.v?v). (Plutarch, de Pythiae oraculis 401a-d)

3) "The ?ramenos
mistress [the courtesan]

of Sophocles, Demophon,
Nico, 'the she-goat.'.

once kept as his

. . She had a lovely

50
ass, as me,

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES

which long he as you once pass wanted it on, to once fr. take. you've she 'OK

Laughing gotten apud

said,

then, from

it, to Sophocles Athenaeus, Deipnoso

dearest.'"

(Machon

18 Gow,

phistai

13.582e-f) in the ranging from Herodotus in the third century of our era,
surrounding prostitution.

These three textual moments, fifth century BCE to Athenaeus

adumbrate the nexus of

associations

Conflicting
agalmata, and

exchange
political

systems, monumental
autocracy, relations the they exotic entail?all

building projects and

East, sexual these positions themes clus

the power/status

ter around the bodies or images of prostitutes. To cut through this Gordian knot would be a vast project indeed. My purpose here is
a more modest one: to analyze the imbrication of economic, social,

and political power in one example of ancient "pornography" and thereby also to shed a little light on one of the more obscure byways of literary history.
* # *

In 464 BCE, Xenophon of Corinth vowed that if he won at the Olympics, he would dedicate a large number of temple prostitutes to Aphrodite in his native city. (As we are informed by later
sources, custom this and was "un-Greek" strangely practice one source enormous of the city's an old Corinthian Suc prosperity.3)

cessful in both stade and pentathlon, Xenophon commissioned from Pindar an epinikion (our Olympian 13) and a skolion to cele
brate the thanks-offering to the goddess. Athenaeus, who trans

mits
was

sixteen
sung

lines of this little poem,

trrv Gvaiav "on the

informs us that the skolion

occasion of the sacrifice."4

Jtao?

According to the most plausible reconstruction, Xenophon made a thanks-offering to Aphrodite, then assisted by the hierodules, a to his hiero with the attended guests adjourned by banquet,
dules?now turned hetairai?as a normal part of the entertain

ment.

the symposium which followed the banquet, Pindar's skolion (fragment 122 Snell) was performed, almost certainly solo, perhaps by the poet himself.5 It is probably safe to say that we can At
reconstruct more of almost of any the details other of this can Pindaric than particular performance context. then has song Why

we

in the extensive this fragment not figured more prominently discussion of Pindaric occasionality? The answer, I suggest, lies
in the ode's subject matter and context, which have occasioned

Leslie

Kurke

51

embarrassment

on

the part

of modern

critics.

And

yet,

this

little

poem
between

has a great deal to teach us about

the poet's ego and his audience

the shifting

relations the

in performance.6

In this extraordinary
prostitutes:

context,

Pindar begins by addressing

(A') noX?^evat veavi?e?, ?u^tftokn ?leiQov? ?v ?<j>vei(p Koq?vBo), a? te xa? %kwga? Xi?avov ?av0? ?axQT] Guuxaxe, jroXX?xi |iax?o' eoobxcov o?joav?av m?\ievai vor^axi jtq?? A(|)QO?LTav, 5 (B) v\i?v ?vevB' ?jtayoQ?a? ?jrooev, Jia??e?, ?paxetva?? <?v> e?vat? uaXOax?? ?oa? ?ji? xapjtov ?o?jteooai. ovv ?' ?vayxa Jt?v naX?v... 9 Young women
inth, you who

visited by many,
burn the tawny

servants of Peitho in rich Cor

tears of pale frankincense, on

many occasions fluttering in thought to the Ouranian mother of desires, Aphrodite?To you she has granted without the possibility of refusal, O children, to have the fruit of your soft
bloom thing plucked is beautiful... in lovely beds.7 And with necessity, every

Then we've

lost probably only four lines, and the poet resumes:

(F) ?kX? Qav\iaC,(?, xi u? ?i^ovxi 9loQ\iov 13 ?eajtoxai xotav?e u?X?x|)qovo? ??%?v etJQ?fievov onolxov |uv?oQov ?uvat? yuvai^iv. (A') ?i?a?;au?v XQU?OVxaOao? ?aaavcp ... 16

But Iwonder what the masters of the Isthmus will say of me, skolion, as a finding such a beginning of the honey-minded consort to common women. We teach the quality of gold with
a pure touchstone ...

At

this

point,

Athenaeus'

quotation

breaks

off

again,

omitting

at

least six lines, and the poem may well end with by the deipnosophist:8

the first lines cited

52

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES d)K?JtQou ??oJtoiva, xe?v ?e?x' ?? ?X,ao? (()OQ?aocov xog?v ?y?Xav exaxoyy^i ov Eevocjx?v xeXiai? ??tayav' r?%a)Xatc iavGei?. 23(?)

O mistress
vows

of Cyprus, here to your grove Xenophon has led herd of grazing women, rejoicing in his the hundred-limbed
accomplished.

What
self tells

ismost
us

remarkable about this poem

opening

iswhat Pindar him

so sympathetic

is transgressive?the

address,

to the hierodules. What are we to make of it? Modern scholars as and Jesper Svenbro perceive in this diverse as Gilbert Norwood fragment a strong identification between the poet and the prosti this identification not only in his exquisite opening representation of the hierodules, but also in his as ^w?oQOV ^uvat? yuvai^?v, rein striking self-identification
forcing the equivalence with alliteration and assonance.9 For Nor

tutes.

Indeed, Pindar enacts

wood,
commission, refer also

the
to his

fragment
so that own

expresses

Pindar's
words

distaste
patron:

for

his

the poet's contractual

concluding obligation

to the hierodules

to his

For

once

we

have

no

need

to hum

and

haw

about

modern

prudery and the simple directness of the ancient Greeks. Pindar himself ruefully asks what "the lords of the Isthmus" will say of him for "devising such a prelude to a honey
hearted roundly associated with"?then drinking-song out with it?"common women." The he best comes that the

lords of the Isthmus or anyone else could say for him iswhat he writes himself: on?v ?' ?vayx?t Jt?v xaX?v, "necessity
annuls sans, dishonour." but Pindar may Those well words have his are own applied to the courte also embarrassment

inmind: the reflexion that he writes for pay comes upon him at other times too, but not (we may believe) with such
pungency.10

In

somewhat Jt?v

different xaX?v as a

register, metapoetic

Svenbro

too

reads on

ovv Pindar's

?'

?vayxa

commentary

alienation
Le role:

from the subject imposed on him by his commission:

reste en en quelque sort il y est en dehors Ce de n'est sa propre que sous pa la

po?te tout

l'?non?ant,

absent.

Leslie

Kurke

53

contrainte du contrat qu'il se met ? chanter, et il est difficile de ne pas interpr?ter un vers paradoxal du m?me fragment
dans ce sens: "Sous la contrainte, tout devient beau."11

After

all,

as

Svenbro

has

argued,

the

encomiastic

poet

of

the

fifth century BCE confronted a dilemma in his work: composing on commission, he lacked the autarky of his poetic precursors. As Pindar is said to have quipped about Simonides, "he lived for another, not for himself." That is, poetry for pay (supposedly first invented by Simonides) comes dangerously close to the banausic?
to life in the service of another?or, to use Pindar's own metaphor

from Isthmian 2, to prostitution:12 Ol ot %Qvoa\mvKt?)v fx?vn?kai, cd 0oa?i>?ovA,e, <|>?>xec, Moi??v ?? ??(|>qov e?aivov xXvxq c|>?qu?yyi cruvavx?jievoi, vu/vou?,

Q?|i(j>a Jtai?eimj? ex?^euov u^iy?ovac oaxi? ?(bv xaX?? e?/ev Ac|>Qo?ixa?

evOoovou u/v?oxeipav ??taxav

?jtoaoav.

? Mo?aa y?o ov (|>i?oxeQ?r[? Jtoox?x' fjv ot>?' epyaxic/ o??' ?jt?ovavxo y^xe?ai JtoxiTeoi|HxOQa? [xe>.L(|)0?YYOD aQyxjQC?Gei?ai jtQ?ocojra ^ia^0ax?(|)O)voi ?oi?ai. (Isthmian 2.1-8)
The men of old, O Thrasyboulos, who used to mount the

chariot of the gold-frontletted Muses meeting with the glori ous lyre, lightly fired their honey-sounding hymns to boys at whoever in his beauty had the sweetest bloom reminiscent of
beautiful-throned a lover of profit, Aphrodite. nor a working For the Muse Nor was were not sweet, yet then girl. gentle

voiced

songs sold with

their faces silvered by honey-voiced

Terpsichore.

long ago, ?oyati? (like our "working an evocation enhanced by the verb girl") suggests prostitution, ?jt?ovavxo and the image of songs with their faces silvered. The ancient scholiasts tried to displace this critique by reading it as Pindar's attack on Simonides' philokerdeia, but modern scholars observed have been forced to acknowledge
elaborate contrast of "then" and

As Wilamowitz

(for better or worse)

"now" figures his

that Pindar's
own odes as

prostitutes.13 In the shift from the spontaneous paideioi hymnoi of to the elaborate choral performances of his the older monodists

54
own

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES

Pindar charts the movement and from from love of the to money, symposium from to

day,

spontaneity the public

to artifice, streets.14

the privacy

Given the poet's dilemma and the terms inwhich it is figured in Isthmian 2, can we see this problematic played out in fragment in a poem 122? Here the poet deals with the theme of prostitution he is himself composing for a monetary wage, and, through his the hierodules, he makes explicit the issue of to say that fragment 122 thematizes the But poetic autonomy. is not of poetic autarky through the topic of prostitution problem to agree with Norwood's and Svenbro's reading of the fragment as identification with a simple expression of the poet's distaste for his subject matter. Rather, Iwould suggest, the movement of the ode as a whole is far more complicated than such a reading allows. What we have of the poem falls clearly into two parts: the first half addresses the temple
prostitutes cratic themselves; for whom the second the poem half was turns to the male, at the aristo sympo audience performed

sium. This shift is emblematic of the movement of the poem, which first identifies with the prostitutes only to distance itself from them in the second half. In the opening apostrophe, Pindar fashions a lyrical blend of compulsion and beauty in the characterization of the hierodules' means of livelihood. This odd yoking produces the poignant oxy moron Xx?avou ?ov9? ??xQT| ("pale tears of frankincense"), as ?jtooev ("she well as the striking juxtaposition ?veuO' ?jiayooia? of refusal"). The exquisite the possibility has given without
phrases seduce us and draw us in, enacting what the poet affirms

at the end of this movement?"with necessity, all is beautiful." must In this context, something be said about the textual tradi read avcoBev tion in line 6. The manuscripts of Athenaeus to aveuG' ?jtayoQ?a?. This reading was emended by Meineke and that emendation has been almost universally editors and commentators of Pindar. The reason given by accepted in fact, if is a hapax?but, for the emendation is that ?jtayoQ?a ?jtayoQ?a?
one looks more closely into the usage of ejtayoQia, it turns out

that it first occurs

(in the ters of fourth century a millenium

inDio Cassius

(around 200 ce) and Themistius

a gap of nearly does ejtayoQia not three-quar seem to

ce). To postulate in the occurrence of

me preferable to accepting ?jiayoQta as a Pindaric hapax, whose meaning is perfectly clear from the verb ?jtayooeuco. The real rea
son Meineke's emendation has been so widely accepted, I suggest,

Leslie Kurke
is modern commentators embarrassment. been much more As Pindar's than editors the poet

sS
and him

scholarly have

often,

squeamish

self. To nineteenth was inconceivable

and twentieth century male classical scholars it that Pindar could pen such exquisite lines for the temple prostitutes of Aphrodite without apologizing for their "without the possibility of refusal" becomes plight. Therefore,
"without is one of reproach"?as "galanterie van parfaite" Groningen toward assures the poor us, Pindar's tone demi-mondaines.15

But the introduction of this moralizing note falsifies the effect of the first nine lines, which dwell on the heady mixture of beauty and compulsion with no hint of moral approval or disapprobation. From this seductive picture of the hierodules, Pindar turns to his male audience TaGuxx? (significantly designated and what will wonders think of the oeajt?xai), they song's anoma lous opening. Then abruptly, using asyndeton at the beginning of a new strophe, Pindar shifts to the gnomic: "We teach the quality address of gold with pure touchstone." Van Groningen argues quite plausi bly that this gnomic line must have formed the transition to the praise of Xenophon, which we would expect to find in a sympotic ode composed in his honor. Mention of his athletic achievements, his wealth, his liberality as a host?all these would have filled at least a strophe and a half.16 But, for the moment,
transition, ?i???;au?v

Iwould
xqvo?v

like to focus on Pindar's gnomic

xaSap? ?a?ava). The image of

testing gold on the touchstone (as the parallels show) belongs to the world of the closed aristocratic hetaireia, where it functions to affirm the noble quality of the privileged male participants. Thus,
for example, Theognis assures his audience:

ei)QT|aei? ?? jxe jt?aiv era' ?oyuxxaiv ajteo ?;rce(j)6ov XQvoov ?ovOQ?v l?e?v xQi?ou?vov ?a?avcp, xov XQolfl? xaBiirceoBe \ieka? ov% ?jtxexai io? ov?' evQib?, aiet ?' ?vOo? ?xei xa?aoov. (Theog. 449-52) find me for all deeds like refined gold, ruddy to see when rubbed on a touchstone; on top of the surface no black rust fixes nor mould, but it has always a pure bloom. You will Other similar passages in the Theognidea confirm that the testing of gold on the touchstone is a figure for the true jclox?? ?xatooc-? one's fellow in the hetaireia.17

56

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES

In epinikion, this image is transferred from the purity of the aristocratic self to the authenticity of poetic praise: in Pindar and Bacchylides, the topos of gold on the touchstone always figures as
a guarantee of the poet's sincerity, representing his song as a

freely-offered gift within gift exchange.18 In perhaps elaborate example, in Pythian 10, Pindar asserts: jr?jroiOa gevi?t Jtpooav?i 0(?)Qa xo?, ??Jteo ?fx?v Jiourv?cov x?piv xo?' ?^eu^ev ?pua nieoi?cov xexp<?o>pov, fyik?wv c|)d?ovx', ?ycov ?yovxa jxqo(|)qovco?. jieiQcavxi ?? xai xqvoo? ?v ?a?avcp Jtp?jtei xat voo? ?pOo?. (Pythian 10.64-8)

the most

I trust to the gentle hospitality of Thorax, the very one who, bustling after my grace, yoked this four-horse chariot of the Muses, a friend to a friend, leading one who leads in kindness of spirit. And for the one testing, both gold against the touch
stone is conspicuous, and the upright mind.

Here, the hospitality of Thorax and Pindar's praise of Hippokleas stand as reciprocal gifts, perfectly balanced by the balanced phrases fyik?wv fyik?ovx9, ?ycov ?yovxa JtpO(|)pov(D?. Coming right after these verbal icons of reciprocity, the reference to gold on the touchstone applies equally to both partners in the exchange: Pindar can depend on Thorax's generosity and Thorax on Pindar's integrity of praise. By this image, Pindar has transformed a con tractual obligation
aristocratic equals.

into a freely offered gift exchanged

between

So too in fragment 122, the invocation of this image distances the poet from the compulsion of the hierodules, representing his rela tion with his patron as a cordial and reciprocal aristocratic bond. The opposition implied between the precious metal of aristocratic friendship and the money of prostitution sets off a chain-reaction (as itwere), by which the poet crystallizes awhole set of other oppo
sitions: female vs male, slave vs free, the purchase of hetairai vs the

personalized bonds of the aristocratic hetaireia. Pindar has thus effectively constructed a gulf between the hierodules attending
the symposium and the male symposiasts they serve. And, lest we

have any doubt about which

side the poet himself occupies,

he has

Leslie

Kurke

57

modified the traditional image to enhance his own status and under score his poetic integrity. For we expect, "we show pure gold with a touchstone" (as at Theognis 452), but instead Pindar transfers the
epithet mettle?to xaOapo? the from poetry "the which gold"?Xenophon's proves and reveals fine aristocratic it. Furthermore,

with
rior

the verb ?i??S;au?V the poet constitutes

partner in an aristocratic exchange of

himself as the supe

wisdom.19 By this

gnome, the "public women" are constructed as foil (both poetic and social): every hint of compulsion or lack of freedom is dis placed onto them, so that the poet can construct his relationship with Xenophon and the "masters of the Isthmus" as one of free on both sides. will turn from the hierodules The effects of this poetic pivot?this to the male sympotic audience?are legible in the poem's final
lines. From "young women, visited by many," so sympathetically

addressed
stall-fed.

in the proem, the hierodules

And, at the very moment

tiated "hundred-limbed formed

have become an undifferen herd," grazing at random rather than

the temple prostitutes are trans

into beasts, Xenophon and his fellow symposiasts are to assimilated the divine. First, the invocation of strangely as and echoes the designa ??orao?va up Aphrodite K?Jtpou picks
tion of the male audience as TaOuxru ?eajtoxai, constructing an

equal and reciprocal

goddess. Then?even

relation between
more strikingly?in

the symposiasts
the poem's

and the

last words,

is said to "rejoice in his vows fulfilled." Normally, the Xenophon one rejoicing in vows fulfilled is the god or goddess to whom they were originally made?and indeed, in three of the other four
occurrences cation poem at of some ?a?vco human and in Pindar, offering.20 extends the verb Thus, the a god's designates gratifi in its closing the lines, con elaborate oppositions

completes

structed between
to female vs male,

the hierodules
slave vs free,

and the symposiasts.

base vs noble, and money

In addition
vs metal,

these lines hint at a final opposition

symposium: beasts vs gods.

within

the play-space

of the

strange assimilation of the symposiasts to the divine sug it is not simply the poet's anxiety of autarky that is that gests out in fragment 122. The male symposiasts as well, it played This
seems, harbor final and some anxiety about their own autonomy, Indeed, of citizen Pindar's anxiety. we for which may poem In go a the poem's step whole further lines must suggest by overcompensate. that a the structure male

as a this

is generated

certain

58

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES

it is worth to the two that the movement as van of the poem corre recon to the

respect, sponds structs

noting parts of

the celebration to the

Groningen corresponds

it. Pindar's

address

hierodules

sacrifice itself, in which, as Athenaeus tells us, the temple prosti tutes participate actively (the verb he uses is ovv?Qvoav). And indeed, in the opening lines, Pindar highlights their sacral activity with the verb Ouux?xe. After the sacrifice, the hierodules attend the banquet and symposium as hetairai, to serve the desires of the male guests. This stage of the celebration corresponds to Pindar's second section, with his turn to address the "masters of the Isth mus," his image of gold on the touchstone, and his transformation of the prostitutes into an undifferentiated herd.
The fact that the structure of the poem replicates the structure

of the rite gives us a key to understanding

of Pindar's skolion twofold as a response If the to male attendant hierodules' role.

the strange development

citizen women anxiety were at the simply

I doubt Pindar's ode would perform its strange turn. prostitutes, His identification with the women and subsequent distancing is necessitated by the fact that they are temple prostitutes, whose
sacred status gives them a special link to the goddess. After all, we

should remember that citizen wives did not normally participate

the lous act of animal sacrifice.21 sacrifice But to these women and occupy they can an anoma intercede status?they Aphrodite,

in

with her for public or private causes. Their

dess, males, forms. I suggest, and First, generates anxiety merges a certain that anxiety Pindar's the it is this the

special link to the god

on ode the manages sacred part of and and citizen trans sexual

poet

hierodules'

roles in lines which also

effaces their sacral

emphasize not only the women's beauty, but their complete lack of autonomy. Then he progressively
status entirely, while constructing a direct rela

tion between
Cyprus," now

the "masters of the Isthmus" and the "mistress of

nearly equal in power and freedom.

In this context, we should note a final effect produced by the in the poem's last transformation of the hierodules metaphoric lines. For ?y?Xa is the vox propria for a herd of cattle, which, cou pled with ?xax?yymov, fleetingly evokes a Homeric hekatomb.22 in the sacrifice of the goddess who participate and led to become sacrificial adorned have victims, 1) (?u4>?jroXoi, her grove in fulfillment of a vow. As Marcel D?tienne and Helen King have shown, this puts the woman back in her "proper" place, The servants

Leslie

Kurke

59

as the animal
blood.23

that bleeds

rather than the sacrificer who

sheds

Indeed, the poem's shifts and ambivalences toward the hiero dules are prefigured and emblematized by the multiple meanings Pindaric diction, of its very first word, noh?'E?vai. Within JtoX?^evoc evokes the privileged sphere of aristocratic gift that xenoi extend to each generous hospitality exchange?the other.24 Thus, for example, in Olympian 1, Pindar characterizes the blessed condition of Pelops at Olympia as a kind of sympotic
paradise:

vDv ?' ?v aiuxxxouptai? ?yXaatoi uiuxxxai, 'Akfoov Jt?popxXioei?, xvfx?ov afxc^utoXov ?xcov jtoXv^evcox?xa) Jiap? ?couxp* (Olympian 1.90-93) But now he ismixed with shining blood-sacrifices, reclining on the way of Alpheios, having a much-visited tomb beside the altar that hosts the most people. xXi?eic represents Pelops "reclining on the way of Alpheios" as one reclines on a banqueting couch, transforming the public offer
ing into a private sympotic context where noXv^ev(bxaxo? is most

at home. In fragment 122, the use of JtoXii?evai in the opening address to the hierodules fleetingly constructs them as partners in
an aristocratic hetaira exchange and hetairos with meet the male as equals. guests: This for a moment not at only least, gesture

sanitizes the hierodules' means of livelihood, but also (recipro cally) enables an imaginative identification of the male symposiast with the female slave. That is to say, the epithet suggests a second
level of correspondence: not only the poet, but the male aristo

cratic audience as well

Persuasion." We must

is invited to identify with

understand this collapse

the "servants of
of categories

within
has

the frame of the symposium, which much

us to read as a play-space with its own

recent discussion
set of rules, a site

taught

for experimentation
sheltering frame, the

and controlled
symposiasts may

transgression.25 Within
engage in fantasies of

this
com

pulsion as well as those of freedom. In this respect, we might say that Pindar's skolion achieves the effect of poetic S&M?a brief and pleasurable flirtation with bondage.

6o

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES

But if jtoM?evai momentarily collapses the distinction between reinforces it, for xenos is hetaira and hetairos, it simultaneously also the technical term for the man who visits a temple prostitute.
Here xenos evokes, not the reciprocal bond of the guest-host rela

tion, but the extreme of otherness:

narratives of temple prostitution that

it is clearly
the man be

important
a "stranger"

in the
in

every sense of the word.26 Thus JtoXi^evai both identifies the hierodules and the male symposiasts for a moment and prefigures establish between them as the poem the gulf Pindar will
progresses.

Still we have not yet exhausted the implications of the poem's first word: it is not simply the dance of identification and distance In retrospect between hetaireia and hetairai that it emblematizes. from the end of the poem, we might see in the epithet a faint after image of the mythical figure Polyxena, whose sacrifice, together with that of Iphigeneia, bracketed the great expedition to Troy. This single figure, then, unites the poem's opening (the hierodules as "young women") and its close (the hierodules as sacrificial
"herd"). Her grim to precedent hovers over the poem's first lines,

shadowing
in thought

the picture of the women

Aphrodite," and having

burning
their

incense, "fluttering
fruit plucked.27

sweet

The multiple
the poem

significations
We

of jtoX/u^evai reveal the mechanics

might say that Pindar's poetic mobilizes

of

in miniature.

in the service of certainty, as the scintillating multiple possibilities of its opening lead ineluctably to its close. ambiguity
* * *

Lest

this

reading

seem

an anachronistic

fantasy

of male

anxiety,

like to corroborate it with two other bits of poetic evi dence from the fifth century BCE?a sympotic fragment of Bac chylides and a dedicatory epigram by Simonides. The former will show us the norm from which Pindar's skolion deviates at crucial points; the latter will provide a parallel (within the public sphere) Iwould
for the ambivalence generated when poetry encounters temple prostitution.

In an enkomion composed for Alexander, son of Amyntas, King of Maced?n, Bacchylides employs a similar range of sympotic topoi, revealing explicitly what is at stake behind Pindar's more
allusive treatment:

Leslie Kurke (A) ~Q ?ap?txe, u/nx?xt Jt?ooaXov (jn)X?a[o?)v ?jrx?xovov X[i]yup?v x?jtJtaue y?pvv ?evp' ?? ?u?? x^pa?* ?pfxaivco xi jc?ujt[eiv Xpi3aeov Mova?v AX.e|?v?p(oi jtxepoy (B') xaiovujtoa[?ai]aiv ?yaX^i' [?v] elx??ea[aiv, eixe v?cov ?[jtaXov] [yXuxeF ?]v?yxa aeuou^vav x[vM,xcdv O?XjtnJoi Qv\i[?v, [I?<?i>aiGi>aaT]i <J)p?]va?;, Kujtpi?o? x' 8?.JC (F) ?u^eiyvuu?yfa Atovuaioiai] ?copoi?* ?v?p?ai ?' in|>o[x?xa) Jt?ujiei] u?pi|iy[a? [Xvei, ai>xtx[a] u?v jt[oXicov xp??]e|iva n?o[i ?' ?vOpcbjioi? [xovap]xr|cr[etv ?oxe?* (?') XQu[a](o[i ?' eX?(j>avx?xe uxxpuJa?p[ouaiv o?xoi, jrupo<|)[?poi ?? xax' aiyX?evx]a jio[vxov v?e? ?yo[vaiv an' Aty?JTXov uiyiaxov jtXoiJxov co? jttvovxo? ?puxx?ve? x?ap.
(Bacch.,fr.20B.l-16)

61

lyre, no longer, keeping your peg, stop your high seven toned voice; [Come] here to my hands. I desire to send to
something of the Muses, golden and winged,

Alexander

and an ornament
month, whenever

for symposia
the sweet

in the last ten days of the

of rushing cups warms

necessity

the heart of young men so that it is tender, and the hope of Kypris shivers through the wits, mixed with the gifts of Dionysus. And it [the hope of Kypris] sends ambitions highest for men: immediately it looses the crowns of cities and thinks itwill be sole ruler over all men.

And houses glint with gold and ivory, and grain-bearing ships bring the greatest wealth from Egypt over the shining sea; thus the heart of the drinker ponders. It is difficult in translation to capture the swift and easy movement of the poem's first sixteen lines, which after a choppy beginning (lines 1-3) cascade in a single sentence from the poet's desire

62

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES

(?puxx?vxoxi Jt?ujt[eiv, 3). Indeed, this whole section of the poem purports to be the poet's fantasy of what he will send, meeting and the drinker's (o? encompassing fantasy of fabulous wealth ,28 jttvovxo? ?puxx?ve? x?ap, 16) Within this perfectly symmetrical relationship predicated on mutual desire, the poet wishes to send his poem as a top-rank gift within gift exchange. It is golden (xp?oeov, 4); it is a precious ornament (?y?k\ia, 5); and most importantly, it is immortal (for this is the significance of rcxep?v, 4)P Like the figure of gold on in Pindar's skolion, these images constitute the the touchstone
relation the of poet and patron the as one power of aristocratic and freedom of equals. poet Framed and patron, at center, between

"the hope of Kypris"?the anticipation of sex to the symposiasts through the hired bodies of with the wine and sends the drinkers' ambitions nificant that the hetairai are never mentioned, women

readily available hetairai?mixes soaring. It is sig for it is not the

themselves but the relationship of sexual domination that inspires fantasies of absolute wealth and power. Bacchylides could hardly be more explicit: sexual control over hired women affirms
and exalts the symposiasts' sense of autonomy in the economic

and political spheres. The transition from sexual to political domi nation is neatly made in line 11, aiJXtx[a] [x?v jtjpAXcov xp?o]ejxva [Met, where the poet plays on the traditional equivalence between
the rape of of a woman cities," and the sack of a city. crowns mate thence the poet's thought and By advances early the end From the "loosing to tyranny, the ulti classical of the Greece, sequence, and the

in archaic of autarky figure to visions of vast wealth.30

"hope of Kypris"
Jt?ujtei, has been

(the promise
effaced, since

of sex) which was

Jteujiei and the whole

the subject of
fantastic pro

gression
poem

are resumed

?puxx?ve? x?ap
enacts

in line 16 by the &? clause: ? Jtivovxo? ("thus the heart of the drinker ponders"). As the
descent of the symposium, sexual domi

the drunken

then disappears entirely, sub first liberates the mind, in the drinker's befuddled imagination of success.31 As in merged Pindar's skolion, the freedom and fantasy of the symposiasts are nation
constituted selves But, by the compulsion written we out imposed of the on text. the sex of the part others, who are them progressively itmay

be objected,

cannot

determine

ners

implied in the "hope of Kypris"?why (hired or otherwise) rather than boys? Aside
xp??eLiva are only accoutrements

it be women from the fact that the must

of women, the whole

pivotal

Leslie Kurke
context of absolute I believe, a reference

63
to

domination,

precludes

pederasty. What
up to be men and and, subjected

complicates
therefore, to the

the status of boys is that they grow

eannot sexual be represented of as completely We domination others.32

available

might compare the conventions of visual representation inwhich, as H. A. Shapiro has noted, though scenes of hetairai with their customers are popular on drinking cups from approximately 520
470 BCE, "we do not have a single certain goes prostitute matic in Athenian contrasts between art."33 male Shapiro representation on to note scenes of a male the program and those of

homoerotic

hetairai and clients: the homoerotic

scenes are

the reverse of the heterosexual scenes; while the latter exag are gerate and indulge in wild fantasies, the homosexual not restrained and understated-More do specifically, they
as a rule us depict to expect: the one activity intercourse. that written Instead, sources the erast?s would fon lead anal

dles his er ?rnenos, offers him gifts, and, in the most explicit type of intercourse depicted ("intercrural"), rubs his penis between the boy's thighs. Oral sex, popular in depictions of
hetairai, erast?s also and is not shown. and . . . respect Equality for each of other social are status the domi of er?menos

nant motifs
tionship the dominant

of the consciously
on the vases. motifs are power as a woman

idealized versions of the rela

... and In heterosexual abuse, and and scenes, is to the hetaira as an alien

presented

doubly subjugated, a citizen.34

to a man

Though Shapiro's analysis is based entirely on Attic evidence, I suggest that the same proprieties obtain inGreek lyric poetry. We find no explicit references to sex with boys in archaic lyric, and
when boys are the object of erotic interest, as often as not they are

figured as subjecting the male poet to his desire (e.g., Anakreon fr. 15/360 PMG, Pindar fr. 123 SM). The passage through sex and wine to fantasies of absolute power and wealth has no parallel in homoerotic lyric, but corresponds closely to Shapiro's description of the "wild
abuse" their portrayed at clients

fantasies"
on

and "dominant motifs

visual scenes

[of] power
of hetairai

and
and

contemporary

symposia.35

And yet, if Bacchylides' poem shares with Pindar's the constitu tion of autonomy through the subjection and progressive efface
ment of "others," there is also a significant point of contrast. In

64

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES

fragment 20B, Bacchylides identifies the experience of the drinkers as "sweet necessity" (yXvueV ?vayxa), whereas for Pindar, beau tiful compulsion characterizes the life of the hierodules, not the symposiasts. In this contrast, I suggest, we find corroboration for the claim that the hierodules' ambiguous status is a source of male citizen anxiety. We might say that Bacchylides can afford a refer ence to the oxymoron of drink?both sweet compulsion and source of wild ambition?while Pindar cannot. For Bacchylides, hired hetairai form the normal (and indeed necessary) backdrop to for the symposiasts' from compulsion staged progression status For the the hierodules' sacral Pindar, autarky. problem of
requires a strategy of extremes: using the first person he must

negotiate

from a position

of greater identification

to one of com

plete differentiation. That the hierodules' ambiguous status provokes an ambivalent poetic response is confirmed by the text of another fifth-century is praise poet preserved by Athenaeus. For the story of Xenophon the second narrative Athenaeus relates about the hierodules of Cor inth?the fact that i?uoxai sometimes dedicated hierodules is cou pled with the more significant fact that the prostitutes themselves
contributed to the salvation of Greece. During the Persian Wars, we

are told, the prostitutes

the for salvation this service of Hellas, to the

entered the temple of Aphrodite,

and state, participated the Corinthians in sacrifices. set up As

prayed for
a reward plaque

a bronze

in the temple, on which was inscribed the name of each hierodule who participated in the rite. Along with the plaque, Simonides com posed a dedicatory epigram, which Athenaeus transmits: a??' VKSQ 'EXXtjvxdvxe xai eaOuuxxxcov jroXinxav ?axaOev e#xea0ai K?jtpi?i ?auxovia o?>y?p xogo(()?poioiv eur|oaxo ??'?c|)po?ixa eEX?avo)v ?xpOJtoXiv jtpo?o^iev. n?paai?
These women were set up to pray with supernatural power to

Kypris on behalf of the Greeks and their straight-fighting cit izens. For divine Aphrodite did not contrive to betray the Acropolis of the Greeks to the bow-bearing Persians.36 as a whole) The first two lines (and presumably the monument recreate the moment at which the hierodules made their suppli cation to Aphrodite. The second two lines, however, shift from

Leslie Kurke

65

celebration through a vibration of distrust to relief: Aphrodite did not contrive to betray her Acropolis to the invaders. The odd wording of the second couplet implies the suspicion that Aphro dite might possibly have done so, captured in the negative (and apparently gratuitous) word choices euT|oaxo and Jtpoo?jxev. That
these words reflect some ambivalence on the poet's part is con

firmed by the modern scholarly consternation they have caused: this diction is regularly fudged in translations and written out of
editions.37 These modern responses represent a mistaken attempt

the ambivalence of the epigram.38 After all, we should to whom hierodules remember that the Corinthian Aphrodite were dedicated was believed by the Greeks to be an Eastern to normalize import. Here, she is clearly aligned with the metis of Eastern archers who fire backwards from their horses: notice the juxtapo sition xo?;o<j)?poioiv euT|aaxo and the way the "Persian bowmen" in the second couplet.39 The cun iconically surround Aphrodite ning of Aphrodite and the Eastern bowmen is thus implicitly con the "straight-fighting" citizens of the trasted with Greek line The jtokrrr?v). (ei>0uuxxxoov goddess of epigram's opening
Acrocorinth is furthermore, as Pausanias tells us, "the armed

congener of the Eastern Aphrodite" ((bjtXiou?vrj, Paus. 2.5.1)?a Ishtar, goddess of love and war.40 Like the women who serve her,
she confounds then, that "proper" Greek epigram gender suggests hierarchies. some It is no wonder, on the part Simonides' suspicion

of the Greeks
occupied ode, brating poetic a at the Simonides'

that the goddess might

center epigram of the city. forms part For of this

betray
a public reason, their

the Acropolis
sympotic monument though strategies the

she
cele two

In contrast

to Pindar's

singular

achievement. a similar

artifacts

evince

ambivalence,

differ.

"other world" of the symposium gives Pindar the space to transform the hierodules from servants of the goddess into sacrifi cial victims, in the process transferring their special power to the male symposiasts. The bronze plaque, given its public celebratory The
function, must maintain an unwavering focus on the hierodules

and the outlandish

son, voices

goddess

they serve, and, perhaps

more clearly than Pindar's

for this rea

ode.

its ambivalence

To return to Pindar's skolion, we might say that the hierodules of Corinth pose a threat because they make visible the uncomfort able coexistence of economic and sacred values within civic ideol in the temple of Aphrodite on Acrocorinth, ogy. Consecrated they enrich her by trafficking with the city's merchants and traders.41

66

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES becomes

Their doubleness

a screen on which poet and audience alike project their anxieties and status ambiguities. Thus, in the first instance, the hierodules offer an analogy for the poet, caught between his traditional role as sacral "master of truth" and his new
status as secularized merchant status in turn of But, praise.42 is just a part of in a a much sense, the larger,

poet's

ambiguous

far-reaching
exchange value. For the

crisis

between
of the

"embedded"
sacral Isthmus" and

and

"disembedded"
monetary Corin

systems?between "masters

secularized, themselves?the

their preeminence in this period thian aristocracy?maintained control of Corinth's and the Isth trade, ports through through
mus.43 We can map these opposed value systems onto the civic

space: the vertical of Acrocorinth represents the city's sacral space; the horizontal of streets and harbors the source of her material shuttle between and, in this sense, prosperity. The hierodules emblematize Corinth as a whole and her wealthiest families. Within this larger crisis of exchange systems, the poet's identifica tion with the hierodules is revealed as a strategy of mediation. Through
poetic ambiguity, I began

the movement
structure only with enables to displace

of the poet's
the male it onto a

ego toward and away, the

to confront constructed to suggest the its status "other." range and

audience carefully

three

exemplary

anecdotes

complexity of ancient "pornography." The analysis of the poetry of Pindar, Bacchylides, and Simonides may offer some strategies for reading these anecdotes. Perhaps, borrowing from the fifth
century stories and/or each or poetic also status case, economic. the texts, we can onto of interpret whom the men the are who female displaced make sexual, narrative, use figures the of in these anxieties them. political, beloved In as mediators, ambiguities issue

is autonomy?whether satiric

social,

In Machon's

Sophocles'

attempts quite literally to project his own social and sexual subor dination onto the body of the hetaira Nico, "the she-goat," consti tuting himself as an autonomous citizen by arrogating his lover's sexual position. (As in Bacchylides' sympotic ode, sexual domina tion of a hetaira affirms autonomy.) But ifNico is a signifier?a is a signifier who signifies for sign exchanged between men?she herself also: by her wry quip she turns the tables on Demophon, repositioning him as the (literal) mediator in an absurd threesome. If the story of Nico plays on the anxieties of sexual/social posi
tioning, the other two anecdotes confront the autonomy of a dis

embedded

economic

sphere and the slavery it imposes on those

Leslie Kurke
who it. In the narratives female power, body and stands of Herodotus at the same and confluence

67
the

espouse

Plutarch, of econom

prostituted ics, royal

commemorative

monuments.

In both

cases,

we might say, the prostitute functions as a figure for the crisis of disembedded economics (as indeed the hierodules do in Pindar's In Herodotus' account, the Egyptian king proves himself a ode). and tyrant by distorting destroying all public and private relations for the sake of his oversize monument. To achieve his self-aggran dizing goal, he becomes fixated on the economic to the extent that he taints his own family line and the Egyptian royal house by pros and tituting his daughter. Her pyramid, the commemoration record of her forced promiscuity, stands for all time as an ironic
commentary to her father's excess?his obsession with number

and size.44 In Plutarch's scene of tourism, his philosophically minded interlocutor rejects the reading of the life-size gold statue
of Mnesarete as a "trophy to Greek incontinence." Instead, he sug

she stands as an allegory for the disembedded economic power of kings, an icon for wealth stripped of its proper social gests,
relations, In all site of respect, three cases, and we constraints. note, the narrative itself preserves mediating a might a trace of

contestation,

resistance

to the enforced

function of the prostitute. The pyramid of pharaoh's daughter, and the bon mot of Nico?all golden statue of Mnesarete,
inscribed within their texts as a challenge to the completely

the are
suc

cessful
all the three blame

ideological appropriation
cases, the prostitute of her mediating

of the figure of the prostitute.

refuses she casts to retain the

In

(or her monument) function?instead,

crisis

of autonomy
their

back onto
all

the men who

three anecdotes

surround her. Indeed, by

debunk the prostitute's

inset monuments,

in the mode of irony. In contrast, Pindar's mediating poetry (which may be wry, but is never ironic) allows no such resistance. His appropriative strategy is insidious and complete, absorbing everything into itself, and leaving no gap from which function
another voice might speak.

NOTES
Versions Orleans 1993); inNew of this essay were given as lectures at the APA Annual Meeting (December 1992); at UCLA (May 1993); atWellesley College (September and at Princeton thanks to those who University (April 1994). Many

68

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES

in all these venues (Ihave recorded my invitations, and to lively audiences to particular in the notes that follow). For discussion individuals and com on earlier versions, I am especially grateful to Carol Dougherty, Mark Grif Celeste Langan, Lydia Liu, Michael Lucey, Richard Martin,

extended debts ments

fith, Tim Hampton, and Naomi Rood.

1. See the essays collected in A. Richlin, and Representation ed., Pornography and Rome (Oxford 1992). 2. Froma Zeitlin reminds me that the ancients made a significant distinction "courtesans." While I have no wish to between pornai, "whores," and hetairai, in Greece elide that distinction a loose etymological anecdotes and poetic We in here, I use the term "prostitute" (and hence "pornography" In practice, most of the sense) to designate both categories. texts Iwill be considering concern hetairai rather than pornai.

should perhaps note in this context Claude Calame's observation that the word porn? derives from the verb "to sell" (limiting the role of the pome to a woman who hetaira associates its bearer with the plea sells her charms), while the designation sures of the idealized symposium?wine, song, and eros (C. Ca?ame, "Entre rap des 103; this

l'h?ta?re au banquet politique ports de parent? et relations civiques: Aphrodite inAux sources de la puissance: sociabilit? et parent? [Rouen 1989], h?tairoi," cf. A. Lesky, Vom Eros der Hellenen 1976], 106-8). For Ca?ame, [G?ttingen

role between the distinction means that the hetaira can play more of a mediating I agree with Ca?ame about the hetai public and private spheres of the polis. While Iwould ra's mediating inflect that mediation somewhat differently (see capacities, in the representation and discursive use pp. 66-67). My interest here is exclusively of female prostitution: for an excellent analysis of the (somewhat different) ideo of male prostitution logical complexities cratic Body: Prostitution and Citizenship in Athens, in Classical see D. Halperin, "The Demo in One Hundred Athens," (New York is Strabo 1990), 8.378: 88

Years of Homosexuality and Other Essays on Greek Love 112 (to which this essay owes a pervasive conceptual debt). in old Corinth 3. The main source for temple prostitution

"And

the temple of Aphrodite was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple . . . whom both men and women had slaves, courtesans ?xaioa?), (ieoooouXxyuc that dedicated to the goddess. And therefore itwas also on account of these women crowded with people and grew rich; for instance, the ship-captains 'Not for every man is the and hence the proverb, squandered their money, (trans. H. L. Jones, Loeb ed., vol. 4 [1927], 190). Strabo's voyage to Corinth.'" who probably derives his (13.573c-574c) by Athenaeus report is supplemented freely Conzelmann Phil.-Hist. tution from Chamaeleon, 573c). H. (cf. Athen., Deipno. JiepL?ivoapoii der Aphrodite: Zur Religionsgeschichte ("Korinth und die M?dchen in G?ttingen, der Akademie der Wissenschaften der Stadt Korinth," Nachrichten information the existence of temple prosti KL, No. 8 [1967], 247-61) has challenged in Corinth at any time in antiquity, contending that we have no contempo rary evidence and that Strabo simply fabricated the tradition based on his reading of Eastern temple prostitution. Conzel and his personal knowledge of Herodotus is right to insist that scholars have interpreted the term ?EQO?O'?X.O'u? sloppily it designates (for on many occasions, simply a "temple slave" with no implication cf. Strabo 12.535), and his argument provides a good corrective to of prostitution; sacra nell' Italia flights of fancy such as those of E. Peruzzi, "Sulla prostituzione Vol. 2, 673-86. in Scritti in onore di Giuliano (Brescia 1975), antica," Bonfante the city was

mann

Leslie Kurke
Nonetheless, I am not convinced

69

by Conzelmann's major claim (that Corinthian is Strabo's invention), since it does not account for the fact that temple prostitution the Corinthian it diverges in every detail from Herodo practice as Strabo describes tus' account of

description

of Babylonian (Hdt. 1.199) and from Strabo's own temple prostitution in Armenia sacred prostitution and Egypt (Str. 11.532-33) (Str. does away with the contemporary 17.816). Furthermore, Conzelmann fifth-century evidence we have: he denies Pindar's its full significance (as H. A. fragment

und Bios: Stilistische zum Alltagsrealismus in Schmitz, Hypsos Untersuchungen der archaischen the skoli [Bern 1970], 71 n. 50, observes, griechischen Chorlyrik on1 s last lines replicate the form of a dedicatory that the inscription, suggesting to Aphrodite). hetairai were in some sense consecrated is followed in Conzelmann his skepticism by Ca?ame (note 2), 106-7, who wants to assimilate the special medi to hetairai in general. I find Calame's ating status of the Corinthian prostitutes inclusion of argument dubious, however, because his Athenian comparanda?the and the Eleusinian mysteries?are not really parallel to hetairai in the Panathenaea the special role of the Corinthian in the cult of Aphrodite. (Itmust be prostitutes said that both Conzelmann apparent "un-Greekness" and Ca?ame are motivated of the Corinthian practice?see the by a desire to minimize the explicit acknowl

[250,260].) edgement of this in Conzelmann 4. According to Athenaeus' account, "Even private citizens vow to the goddess that, if those things for which they make petition are fulfilled, they will even render to her. Such, then, being the custom regarding the goddess, courtesans Xenophon of Corinth also, when he went forth to Olympia to take part in the contest, vowed that he would at first wrote the round which render courtesans in Xenophon's at Olympia was honour to the goddess if he won the victory. And so Pindar the eulogy which begins with the words,

is the house which I praise'; and later he wrote also sung at the sacrificial feast, inwhich, at its very beginning, he has addressed the courtesans who joined in the sacrifice when Xenophon was pres ent and offered it to Aphrodite." trans. C. (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai 13.573e?f, B. Gulick, Loeb ed., vol. 6 [1980], 99). On the interpretation of the phrase Jta?? I follow B. A. van Groningen, Pindare au banquet TT]VBuotav, (Leiden 1960), 21. 5. This is the reconstruction of van Groningen (note 4), 20-1. For a slightly dif see H. Fr?nkel, Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy, ferent reconstruction, trans. inwhich

'Thrice victorious

M. Hadas

and J.Willis (New York 1973), 469-71. Fr?nkel asserts that the sacrifice the hetairai participated took place at the banquet itself. Against Fr?nkel's van Groningen indicate that interpretation, points out that a? xe and noW?m is a generalizing present rather than a representation of concurrent action. Buril?te 6. There is almost no discussion it is usually literature: of fragment 122 as a literary artifact within the read as a source of historical information (on the exis in Corinth, or lack thereof?so Ca?ame [note 2], Con

Pindar zelmann

tence of temple prostitution [note 3]), or as an example of Pindar's lighter side (so van Groningen [note as far as I know, is the attempt of Schmitz 4], Fr?nkel [note 5]). The sole exception, (note 3), 30-2 to discuss the relation of subject matter to style in fragment 122. 7. For this translation of the middle ?Q?jteoOat, I follow van Groningen (note 4), Grammatik. Zweiter Band. Syntax und syntak 34; cf. E. Schwyzer, Griechische tische Stilistik (Munich 1950), 232 on the "causative" or "factitive" middle. 8. On the extent of the lacuna after line 16,1 follow van Groningen (note 4), 22, cum Fragmentis, Pindari Carmina Pars 11:Fragmenta, Indi 39, vs Snell-Maehler, allows for a gap of only one line. For ces, 4th ed. (Leipzig 1975), whose numeration

70

PINDARAND THE PROSTITUTES

see Schmitz that the poem ends with the invocation of Aphrodite, (note 3), 32; Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones points out to me that Pyth. 4.299 provides a par allel for a poem ending with an aorist passive participle. . . . oxoAiau, to aQx?v but it 9. This phrase is generally taken in apposition the accusative can also be construed should be noted that the syntax is ambiguous: to |AE . . . evQ?^ievov in apposition (as it is taken by L. R. Farnell, The Works of II: Critical Commentary Pindar,Vol. [London 1932], 446). Ca?ame (note 2), 104 the possibility notes the significance of ^UvaOQOV in this context: it suggests that the poet (or his poem) is consort or husband to common women. 10. G. Norwood, Pindar (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1945), 20. 11. J. Svenbro, La parole et le marbre: Aux origines de la po?tique grecque (Lund 1976), 182. see the Pindaric Apophthegmata, in A. 12. For Pindar's remark about Simonides, B. Drachmann, ed., Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina. Vol. 1 (Leipzig 1903), 3. For status of the poet, see Svenbro of the problematic (note 11), general discussion 173-93. see scholia (A. B. 13. For these lines as a critique of Simonides' philokerdeia, Drachmann, ed., Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina. Vol 3 [Leipzig 1927], 214). For fr. 208 West cf. Archilochus in EQy?Tic and ejiecvavro, the image of prostitution Pindaros and see U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, (Berlin 1922), 311; M. Simp for Poetry in Pindar," TAPA 100 son, "The Chariot and the Bow as Metaphors that the "mercenary (1969), 471-72. For recent scholarship which acknowledges ANHP ed ilmot Muse" is Pindar's own, see C. Pavese, "XPHMATA XPHMAT' ivo d?lia Woodbury, 527-42; liberalit? nella "Pindar and the Mercenary ?stmica di Pindaro," QUCC 2 (1966), 103?12; L. TAPA 99 (1968), Isthm. 2.1-13," Muse: in Isthmian!" CSCA10 "Convention and Occasion (1977), seconda

F. J. Nisetich, 133?56; G. Nagy, Pindar's Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore L. Kurke, The Traffic in Praise: Pindar and the Poetics 1990), 151,187-89,340-42;

of Social Economy 14. See Simpson

(Ithaca 1991), 240-56. (note 13), 471?72 for these contrasts. How Pindar then resolves in the course of Isthmian 2 is this dilemma and recuperates the "mercenary Muse" another question: for attempts to answer it, seeWoodbury, Nisetich, Nagy, Kurke

(note 13). more English phlegm than 15. Van Groningen (note 4), 49; cf. 38. Exhibiting cannot be continental charm, Farnell baldly asserts, "The MS. reading ajiayoQiac defended on any known meaning of the word" (Farnell [note 9], 445). Finally, C. A. M. offers a novel solution to the embar Fennell (who reads dveuG' ?jrayoQ?a?) is the in the proem, suggesting "The constraint rassing references to compulsion and enthusiasm excited by the goddess." (C. A. M. Fennell, Pindar: The Nemean Isthmian Odes [Cambridge 1883], 220).

16. Van Groningen (note 4), 37-9. For an extended discus 17. Cf. Theognis 77-78,415-18,499-502,1104a-1106. see context of the image of testing gold on the touchstone, sion of the aristocratic Helios n.s. 22 (1995). L. Kurke, "Herodotus and the Language of Metals," Paian 14.35-40; Bacchylides fr. 18. Cf. Pindar Pyth. 10.64-68, Nem. 4.82-85, the image, see H. Gundert, Pindar und sein Dichterberuf (Frankfurt am Main 1935), 36-37 with note 162. H. Fr?nkel (note 5), 470 cites Pythian 10 as a par 14.1-5. On just the wrong conclusion: allel, but derives what is (to my mind) can probably be supplemented that survive of his justification "The few words (from Pyth. 10,

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bids me 64-68) to the following effect: 'My friendship pure as gold with Xenophon to which I expose myself by this poem; that is the touch take on the embarrassment stone on which my friendship must be tried.' Thus the poet also was acting under It ismy contention that the image of testing gold on the touchstone compulsion." (with the milieu of aristocratic gift exchange that it evokes) exerts a kind of mag In netic repulsion against the discourse of necessity the hierodules. surrounding itmay be relevant to cite another Theognidean dictum which charac this context, terizes proper sympotic pleasure: Ji?v y?? ?vayxatov XQ^M*' ?viTj?ov ?<j>u ("For is by nature annoying," Theognis every form of compulsion 472). 19. On the poetics of ?i?a^a^iev within the genre of aristocratic hypoth?kai, cf. Theognis 48 Hermes 437, 565, 578, and see P. Friedl?nder, "YITOOHKAI," and the Instruction of Princes," "Hesiod, Odysseus, (1913), 558-616; R. P.Martin, of TAPA 114 (1984), 29-48; L. Kurke, "Pindar's Sixth Pythian and the Tradition Advice Poetry," TAPA 120 (1990), 85-107. 20. Cf. Ol. reaction 2.13, Ol. is Pyth. 2.90. 7.43, Pyth. 1.11; the only other time it designates a mortal

21. See the discussion of M. D?tienne, "Violentes 'eugenies.' En pleines Thesmo phories: des femmes couvertes de sang," in La Cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec, ?d. M. D?tienne and J.-P. Vernant (Paris 1979), 186-88. D?tienne points out that in many rites, citizen wives were allotted portions of meat by virtue of their connec in the blood tion with a citizen male, but that they were never allowed to participate sacrifice Greek in the itself. See also S. G. Cole, "Gunaiki ou Themis: Gender Difference Leges Sacrae" Helios n.s. 19.1 and 2 (1992), 113. 22. The sacrificial imagery in the poem was pointed out to me by Simon Goldhill. accounts It may be that the evocation hekatomb for the poet's of the Homeric

choice of exaxovyuiov. This would obviate the dilemma of van Groningen (note 50,25, or simply a large 4), 41-46: does the word designate one hundred hierodules, number (depending on how many limbs count)? Schmitz (note 3), 73 n. 70, makes the same connection between exaxoyvviov and exaxou?T], though he offers no for this evocation of sacrifice in context. explanation 23. See D?tienne and (note 21), 213-14; H. King, "Bound to Bleed: Artemis in Images of Women in Antiquity, Greek Women," ed. A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt in Ancient (Detroit 1983), 109-27 and "Sacrificial Blood: The Role of Amnion Helios n.s. 13.2 (1987), 117-26. King argues that the gender differen Gynecology," tiation of bleeding or shedding blood inscribed in sacrificial practice, war, and the medical writers is central to and constitutive of Greek constructions of female and male, respectively. 24. On xenia as an overwhelmingly aristocratic system in archaic and classical see G. Herman, Ritualised and the Greek City (Cambridge Greece, Friendship in Pindaric poetry, 1987), esp. 34?40; on aristocratic gift exchange as it ismapped (note 13), 85-159. 25. See especially E. Pellizer, "Outlines of aMorphology of Sympotic Entertain "The Affair of theMysteries: and the Drinking ment," and O. Murray, Democracy as well as the other essays collected on the in Sympotica: A Symposium ed. O. Murray (Oxford 1990). Symposium, 26. For this usage of xenos, cf. Herodotus Strabo 11.14.16 and 1.199.1,1.199.3, see J. Stern, "Demythologization in Herodotus: 87 (1989), 18, 5.92.T]," ?ranos where Stern defines the xenos as "the human who represents the male god in the rit Group," ual hierogamy." see Kurke

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evocation of Polyxena was pointed out to me independently by Simon Seaford. Relevant here is much recent work on the equiva sacrifice and sexual union/marriage within Greek representations:

27. The Goldhill

and Richard

lence of virgin trans. A. Forster see, for example, N. Loraux, Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman, 1987). (Cambridge, Mass. 28. Nagy (note 13), 288 n. 65 observes the ring composition ?Q^a?vco/?QfAa?VE?, but offers no interpretation of it. 29. For wings as an image of immortality, Isthm. 1.64-65. For an extended 8.34, 90-91,

Man

see I. Morris, gift exchange, 21 (1986), 1-17 and Kurke (note 13), 94-107. 30. For the rape imagery implicit in "loosing the crowns of cities," see M. N. and Tradition: A Study in the Oral Art of Homer Nagler, Spontaneity (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1974), 44-54; for the tyrant as a fantasy figure of absolute power aristocratic Essays and autonomy, inHonor

cf. Theognis Pindar Pyth. 237-54, of "top-rank" gifts and discussion inArchaic Greece," "Gift and Commodity

Gernet, Hamilton Tyrant:

see W. R. Connor, in Ancient and Modern: "Tyrannis Polis," (Ann Arbor 1977), 95-109; L. of Gerald F. Else, ed. J. H. D'Arms in The Anthropology "Marriages of Tyrants," of Ancient Greece, trans. J. and B. Nagy

(Baltimore 1981), 289-302; V. Farenga, "The Paradigmatic 8 (1981), 1-31; Tyranny and the Ideology of the Proper," Helios (note 13), 274-313. Nagy 31. Scholars have followed the drinker in his descent: the progressive disappear Greek ance of sex from the equation is reenacted by a modern tendency to ignore the fact in Greek lyric it iswine that eXjt?? is the subject of Jte^iJCEi. elsewhere Admittedly, by itself that stimulates fantasies of wealth and power in sympotic poetry: see the parallels collected by H. W. Smyth, Greek Melic Poets (New York 1963), 451. For an exceptionally discussion of the construction here, see Nagy (note clear-sighted 13), 284 n. 42. status of boys in homoerotic 32. On the ambivalent relations, see K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (London 1978); M. Foucault, The Use of Pleasure. The His 2, trans. R. Hurley tory of Sexuality, Volume (New York 1985); and Halperin (note 2). 33. H. A. Shapiro, "Eros in Love: Pederasty and Pornography inGreece," in Por and Representation in Greece and Rome, ed. A. Richlin (New York, nography on the Oxford 1992), 53-72 (quotation from 55-56). Shapiro bases his discussion more extended treatment of O. Brendel, "The Scope and Temperament of Erotic Art in the Greco-Roman in Studies in Erotic Art, ed. T. Bowie and C. V. World," Christenson (New York 1970), 3-108. The invisibility of the male prostitute applies to literary as well as visual representations: to my knowledge, there is no certain lit before Old Comedy erary reference to male prostitution (mainly in contexts of Memorabilia 43/388 (1.6.13), and the speeches of the Attic but the PMG, line 5 mentions eOeX?jioqvoi, it has only two terminations and so may refer to

political abuse), Xenophon's orators. Anakreon fragment male

as a compound term is ambiguous: or female "willing prostitutes." 34. Shapiro (note 33), 56?57. For visual representations of the sexual domination of hetairai at the symposium, cf. E. C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Poli tics in Ancient Athens (New York 1985), 174-82. 35. The objection sentational

wilds

from Greek repre might be made that we cannot extrapolate to the sexual proprieties in the (or lack thereof) obtaining practices son of Amyntas, of Maced?n, where Bacchylides' ruled. I patron, Alexander

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status as a desperate since Alexander's that this is a specious argument, is proved, not merely by his act of commissioning but Bacchylides, in the Olympic also by the story preserved inHerodotus (5.22) of his participation Games. For another literary parallel of a symposiast constituting his own status by believe Greek wannabe 1211-17. of a female slave, cf. Theog. 36. For the text and translation of the epigram the problematic (particularly ou Chamael?on? I follow B. A. van Groningen, ? propos "Th?opompe oauAOvig), ser. 4, vol. 9 (1956), 11-22. de Simonide 137 B, 104 D," Mnemosyne the domination 37. See for example Gulick, whose Loeb translation reads, "For the divine not it of Greece that the should be citadel into the hands willed betrayed Aphrodite See also Page's edition of Simonides' of the Persian bowmen." (Epi epigram grammata innocuous Graeca version the more [Oxford 1975], no. XIV), which simply reproduces of the poem preserved in the Pindar scholia (see next note). of normalization started already in antiquity, I believe. We actu each one associated

38. This process three different versions of this epigram, ally have preserved with a slightly different account of its history:

573c. Athenaeus attributes Deipno. the hierodules of Aphrodite honoring plaque which lists their names): 1) Athenaeus, a dedication

it to Simonides, as part of (together with a bronze

a??' vn?Q eEKk?\v(x)v xe xai evQv\i?%(x)v jioAiTjx?v EOxa0EV EV%eoQai Kvn?ibi ?aifxovi?r oi) y?? xo?o(|)?qoiotv ?uMiaaxo ?F A(j>oo?txa n?ooai? eEXX?v(ov ?xQOJtoXiv jiqo?ou.ev.

2) Scholia to Pindar (apud Ol. 13.32b; A. B. Drachmann, in Pindari Carmina. Vol. 1 [Leipzig 1903], 364-65). The

ed., Scholia Vetera scholiast reports the

to Aphrodite was and asserts that the supplication epigram anonymously made by "the wives of the Corinthians." They are represented as part of a dedication on a painted panel: a??' vjteq eEM.?v(ov xe xai ayxEjiaxeov jtoXiTjxav Eoxaoav E^x?^Eva? KUJtpi?i ?aijiovi?r ov yap xo?;o<|>?QOiaiv e?ovXEXo ?F X(|>po?ixa ?ou^vai. eE?Aavu)v ?xp?jiokv Mr|?oi? is named as the author 3) Plutarch, de malign. Herod. 39, 871a?b. Simonides to commemorate of an epigram composed the supplication of "the Corin are represented by bronze statues set up in the thian women." The women temple of Aphrodite:

a??' vn?Q eEXX?va)v xe xai iQv\i?x(ov Ko\ir\T?v E?xaOEv Et>?=?|j,EvaiKvjcqi?i ?aifioviar ov yap xo?;o<|>?qoloiv eut|?exo ?F A(|>Qo?ixa n?paai? 'EMxxvc?v axQ?JtoXiv jtoo?ou.EV.

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in antiquity which I suggest there was a normalizing urge already at work from from the narrative and the ambivalence effaced the hierodules simultaneously the language of the epigram. Thus I believe that the epigram preserved by Athe naeus (and, with slight variations, also by Plutarch) represents the original, while to a in the Pindar scholia reveals an ancient transformation preserved context and phraseology. D. L. Page (Further Greek Epigrams, less problematic rev. by R. D. Dawe and J. Diggle 1981], 207-11, following M. Boas, [Cambridge De Epigrammatis Simonideis, [1905], 47-66) Inaug. diss., Univ. of Groningen the version regards the scholiast's Simonidean). authentically three grounds: epigram as the older, more authentic version (though still not on reconstruction I would this traditional challenge

that the 1) The argument of Boas and Page is predicated on the assumption of an inscrip tradition must be older, because "the attribution anonymous tional epigram to a particular author is almost without parallel inGreek writ as Page himself ers before the Hellenistic (Page, 208). Yet, period" other and Aristotle both Herodotus attribute inscriptional acknowledges, epigrams to Simonides. Beyond this written evidence, the entire argument of of an oral Boas and Page falters because it does not allow for the possibility It is highly likely, however, that epigrams commemorating tradition. great events of the Persian Wars contextual anecdotes did circulate widely and authorial in oral form, together with so there is no a priori reason attributions, tradition must be older (on the endurance of see R. Thomas, [Cambridge Oral Tradition J. A. and 1989];

to assume that the anonymous oral history through the fifth century, in Classical Athens Written Record

S. Evans, Herodotus, Explorer of the Past: Three Essays [Princeton 1991], 89-146; for see case of oracular responses circulating in oral traditions, the analogous [note 13], 158-74; L. Maurizio, Recontextualizing Delphic Narratives: Nagy Princeton diss., 1992). the Pythia and her Prophecies, of Boas and Page requires that the scholiast's ver 2) The reconstruction sion of the epigram be older, but that later in the tradition (by a lucky guess be cor the activity of supplication of Chamaeleon, preserved inAthenaeus), to the hierodules of Corinth, rather than the wives of the rectly reattributed seems a very uneconomical reconstruction: Corinthians (Boas, 58). This assume to infor his anecdotal derives both it is easier that Chamaeleon surely mation and the text of the epigram from a reliable older source. account of Boas and Page is completely unable to explain the to JTpo?ou^v. and oojiEvai changes from e?oijXEXO to ?nr|oaxo/EUvr|??XO this tradition: is lectio of the That is to say, t\ir\oaxo... difficilior Jtpo?o^EV 3) The its ambivalence and also that the analysis offered here explains to e?oijXEXO . . . ?ou^vai in the process of for the transformation that preserves It is worth that the tradition transmission. emphasizing the fact that the women (or suppressed) suppli e?ouXEXO has also forgotten are her temple prostitutes?in the Pindar scholia, they are cating Aphrodite of fac This co-occurrence described simply as "wives of the Corinthians." I believe accounts the argument that the epigram's ambivalence derives from the status of Aphrodite Van Groningen and her hierodules. (note is the lectio difficilior that ?\ir\oa.TO . . . Jtpo?ou^v (and 36) acknowledges so accepts the reading), but he complicates the reconstruction excessively by tors confirms

problematic

Leslie Kurke
one by the wives two acts of supplication (one by the hierodules, postulating of the Corinthians) and two dedications (one plaque, one set of statues), only one of which essarily is commemorated cumbersome: by Simonides' epigram. This theory is unnec it seems much more likely that there was only one sup (by the hierodules), which was then transformed in

75

plication and dedication the tradition.

39. On the semantic sphere of metis the back-turning, (including the oblique, to the straight), see M. D?tienne and opposed and J.-P. Vernant, Cunning Intelli gence in Greek Culture and Society (Sussex 1978). We might add that ov . . . Jtpo?o^iEV, the framing words of the second couplet, then spring the trap (as it the invaders who were), for they demonstrate Aphrodite's cunning in surrounding encircle her. The framing words might thus be said to exculpate the goddess, since think, shows they show her prevailing over Eastern metis with metis. This final twist does not, I of anxiety in EUT|oaxo . . . Jipo?o^EV: it simply invalidate the suggestion the ultimate triumph of the poet's controlling metis.

see L. R. Farnell, Greece and Baby 40. On the cult of Aphrodite on Acrocorinth, lon (Edinburgh 1911), 268-83; Cults of the Greek States Vol 2.653, 734 n. 16;M. Geschichte der griechischen Abt. 5, Teil 2, Band 1 (Munich Nilsson, Religion, sur l'histoire et la civilisation de Cor Recherches 1955), 521; E. Will, Korinthiaka: inthe des origines aux guerres mediques (Paris 1955), 225-33; C.K. Williams II, in Corinthiaca: and the Cult of Aphrodite" Studies inHonor ofDarrell A. Amyx, ed. M. A. Del Chiaro (Columbia 1986), 12-24. "Corinth 41. Recall Strabo 8.378, who mentions specifically their converse with "sea captains." 42. For the secularization the discussion

see of the poet in early Greece, Les ma?tres de v?rit? dans la Gr?ce D?tienne, (Paris 1967), 105-19. For the impact of the shift of exchange models on archa?que the biographical see J. M. Bell, "Ki|i?i| tradition and poetry of Simonides, xai in the Anecdotal 25 (1978), 29-86 and A. Tradition," QUCC ao<j>o?: Simonides or Your Life," Yale Journal of Criticism 6.1 (1993), 75-92. Carson, "Your Money of the sacral function inM. of Simonides Primitive, 43. For the concepts "embedded" and "disembedded" see K. Polanyi, economies, Economies: Archaic, and Modern Essays of Karl Polanyi, ed. G. Dalton (Garden City 1968), 81-84; for the mercantile activity of the Corinthian aristocracy in this period, see Will (note 34), 657-63. 44. This

reading may also account for the famous passage in which Herodotus is inscribed on Cheops' pyramid (immediately before the narrative of his prostituting his daughter): "And it is signified through Egyptian letters on the pyramid how much was spent for radishes and onions and garlic for the workers. records what And, as well as I can remember the things the interpreter who read the inscription to me said, it cost 1,600 talents of silver" (Hdt. 2.125.6-7). This passage, most fre in the face of native informants, is quently taken as proof of Herodotus' gullibility perhaps better read as part of the same deadpan irony. In a perfectly even tone, Herodotus spoofs the pharaoh's own obsession with number and expenditure by in inscribing the cost of radishes, onions, and garlic onto the grandest monument the known world (where, of course, Cheops' name and exploits should stand).