Among our earliest extant references to the word ‘philosophize’ is an unfamiliar one, from the mythographer Herodorus of Pontic Heraclea, whose son Bryson associated with Plato and Aristotle. A Byzantine compiler quotes Herodorus, probably from his book on Heracles, as saying that his hero ‘philosophized until death’ (φιλοσοφήσας μέχρι θανάτου,FGrHist31 F 14). This is a surprising claim in light of the fifth/fourth-centuryb.c.view of Heracles as long-toiling but not intellectual. Euripides'Licymniuscharacterizes him as ‘unimpressive and unadorned, good to the greatest (...) degree, confined from allsophiain action, unversed in talking’ (φαῦλον ἄκομψον, τὰ μέγιστ᾽ ἀγαθόν, | πᾶσαν ἐν ἔργῳ περιτεμνόμενον | σοφίαν, λέσχης ἀτρίβωνα, fr. 473TGF). Heracles is thus explicitly distinguished from those who strive for dialectical understanding or theoretical knowledge. (shrink)

Las Imágenes de Filóstrato contienen un número importante de escenas violentas, entre las que se destaca la serie dedicada a Heracles (2.21, 23, 25). La mayor parte de la crítica ha interpretado este motivo como actualización de los ideales heroicos del pasado griego en la paideia de la elite imperial; otras lecturas proponen leer las ecfráseis como expresiones de una estética del horror más amplia, que afecta a la iconografía escultórica de los siglos II y III d.C., y que (...) se vincula con el espectáculo del furor como entretenimiento, propio de la ideología del poder de estos años del Imperio. El presente trabajo busca reconsiderar las hipótesis a partir de los vínculos entre ferocidad, fuerza, atletismo y espectáculo según la estética visual y la secuencialidad de las ecfráseis en la galería y en continuidad con la obra Gimnástico, donde estos tópicos resultan programáticos. (shrink)

Scholars have long grappled with the nature of Heracles’ νόσος and his consequent feminization in Sophocles’Women of Trachis(=Trachiniae). Despite being triggered by a poisonous garment, which acts by means of magic incantation, the evolution of Heracles’ symptoms is described as a clinical case. Yet, making sense of his feminization from a scientific perspective has proven hard. In this paper, I investigate the symptoms experienced by Heracles, which Sophocles generically refers to as νόσος. The first part focusses on (...) Sophocles’ description oferôsas a disease inTrachiniae. I then move on to dividing Heracles’ symptoms into two categories, which I will call νόσος1and νόσος2. The erotic passion for Iole which Heracles naturally experiences in the first part of the tragedy will be denoted by νόσος1, whereas νόσος2will refer to the magic-induced symptoms from which he suffers in the second and final part. In the final section of the paper I will seek to provide a scientific explanation for νόσος2and, ultimately, to describe the medical reasons behind Heracles’ feminization. (shrink)

Qu’il soit placé à l’origine des revendications desHéraclides ou instrumentalisé dans le cadre de l’opposition séculaire entre Messéniens et Spartiates, l’épisode du combat d’Héraclès contre Hippocoon et ses fils occupe une place de choix dans le passé de Sparte tel que le transmet Pausanias. Aussi vénérables qu’ils paraissent, les éléments de cette tradition et les monuments spartiates qui lui sont liés s’intègrent néanmoins très concrètement dans l’horizon politique et religieux du iie siècle ap. J.-C. Le discours développé dans la Périégèse (...) semble d’ailleurs bien répondre à des préoccupations similaires à celles qui animent les grandes familles spartiates de cette époque.Heracles, Tyndareus, and Hippocoon in Pausanias’ Description of Sparta: mapping out a mythical tradition. Placed at the origin of the claims of the Heraclids or instrumented within the framework of the secular conflict between Messenians and Spartans, the episode of the fight of Heracles against Hippocoon and its sons occupies an important place in the Spartan past, just as Pausanias states. As ancient as they appear, the elements of this tradition and the Spartan monuments related to it integrate nevertheless very concretely into the political and religious context of the IInd c. AD. The purpose of the Periegesis seems moreover to meet needs quite similar to those preoccupying the great Spartan families at this time. (shrink)

In this article, I analyze the role of Heracles' famous body in the representation of madness and its aftermath in Euripides' Heracles. Unlike studies of Trachiniae, interpretations of Heracles have neglected the hero's body in Euripides. This reading examines the eruption of that body midway through the tragedy as a part of Heracles that is daemonic and strange, but also integral to his identity. Central to my reading is the figure of the symptom, through which madness (...) materializes onstage. Symptoms were contested sites of interpretation in the late fifth century, supporting both conventional narratives about human suffering and new stories advanced by contemporary medicine and ethics. In exploring the imaginative possibilities of these new stories, I do not privilege a “secular” over a “divine” reading. Rather I aim to offer a model of interaction between medicine and tragedy that sees the cross-breeding of worldviews as productive of innovative drama. (shrink)

Commentators on the Trachiniae, when dealing with Heracles' second request of Hyllus, normally take it that the dying hero asks his son to marry Iole, Heracles' concubine. Such a request on the part of any Greek in Heracles' situation would be puzzling. It is specially so on the part of Heracles, who has not been notable in the drama up to this point for tenderness to his womenfolk, having given no consideration to Deianeira's sentiments in the (...) matter of his liaison with Iole, and less to Iole's, in that he has sacked her city, slain her kinfolk, and enslaved herself. Albrecht von Blumenthal expresses the bewilderment which all who have read the passage in this light must initially have felt: ‘Warum Herakles den widerstrebenden Sohn zur Erfüllung dieses mit hellenischer Sitte unvereinbaren Vermächtnisses durch die schrecklichsten Drohungen zwingt, ist ein noch nicht enträtseltes Geheimnis des Sophokles.’ Explanations must be sought. (shrink)

The article seeks to show that, contrary to the standard view, the 'Choice of Heracles' preserved at Xen. Mem. 2.1.21-33 is not a summary or paraphrase, but is a very close approximation to the actual wording of Prodicus' epideixis. The language and style are shown to be uncharacteristic of Xenophon, and the fact that Prodicus' original was known to exist in both written and orally performed versions serves to explain why the piece is framed by language that disclaims strict (...) accuracy in reproducing it. It is further shown that the way in which near-synonyms are used in the piece is not necessarily inconsistent with other evidence for Prodicus' practice: it is rather the personified character Vice whose usage conflicts with that of Prodicus himself and with that of the personification of Virtue. Finally, it is proposed that the 'Choice of Heracles' represented the contents, not of Prodicus' advanced teaching, but of the popular, cut-rate lecture intended for a general audience. (shrink)

En Heracles de Eurípides, el héroe en un ataque de locura mata a su familia. Una vez que toma conciencia de lo que ha hecho decide suicidarse, pero Teseo es capaz de persuadirlo para que no se quite la vida. Dada la particularidad de esta tragedia en comparación con otras que abordan la misma temática, analizaré la función curativa de la palabra en la recuperación de Heracles, para luego abordar la influencia del movimiento sofistico -en particular Protágoras y (...) Gorgias- en la obra de Eurípides, dado que propongo que la condición para el desarrollo de una cura por la palabra es el estudio de la función persuasiva del lógos que realizan los sofistas. On Euripides' Heracles, the Dorian hero kills his family in a fit of madness. Once he is aware of what he has done, he decides to commit suicide, but Theseus persuades him otherwise. Given the peculiarity of this tragedy -in comparison with others that raise the same subject- I will analyse the healing power of the word in Heracles' recovery. I will focus on the influence of the sophist movement, particularly the figures of Protagoras and Gorgias in Euripides' work since I consider that the condition to develop a cure using words is the study that the sophists do on the persuasive function of the lógos. (shrink)

The author, in this series of essays, depicts the law as an essentially literary, rhetorical, and ethical activity. The topics discussed include a talk to students entering law school, describing the intellectual activity of the law, an exploration of the structure of legal thought and expression, and a dialogue which explores the ethics of argument.

In order to explain ancient myths rationally, Vico claims that one must affect to have no erudition whatever (in his words, “ridursi in uno stato di somma ignoranza di tutta l'umana e divina erudizione”), for myths are not fables but accounts of the beginnings of civil history as primitive minds, comparable to the minds of children, might have been expected to relate them. Later thinkers who dwelled on these “narrations” with their own civilized minds, failed to seek in them the (...) very framework of the primitive and poetic world they described. (shrink)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

Le célèbre passage des Histoires où Hérodote distingue deux types de sacrifices en l’honneur de deux Héraclès — le dieu et le héros — (II, 44) a fait l’objet d’un grand nombre de commentaires. Considéré tantôt comme la preuve de la dualité rituelle d’Héraclès, tantôt comme une spéculation d’Hérodote, il n’a cessé de susciter la curiosité des chercheurs. Cette étude a pour objectif d’envisager, à la lumière des recherches les plus récentes, le rapport éventuel entre ce passage et le culte (...) d’Héraclès à Thasos. Après avoir proposé une analyse philologique approfondie du passage d’Hérodote, nous tenterons d’éclaircir la signification d’une inscription toujours problématique à ce jour, le règlement du culte d’Héraclès Thasios. (shrink)

La violence est un sujet d’une brûlante actualité et de nombreuses recherches ont tenté d’en comprendre les causes et les mécanismes, tant dans notre société que dans les mondes anciens. C’est dans cette perspective que s’inscrit le livre de Katherine Lu Hsu, The Violent Hero: Heracles in the Greek Imagination : un bien vaste programme, centré sur l’une des divinités les plus complexes du panthéon grec. À la lecture du livre toutefois, le thème apparaît beaucoup plus restreint puisque cette (...) é... (shrink)

The fifth book of theIliadcontains a curious story about the fight between Heracles and Hades at Pylos, told by Dione (395–7): τλῆ δ' Ἀΐδης ἐν τοῖσι πελώριος ὠκὺν ὀϊστόν, | εὖτέ μιν ωὐτὸς ἀνὴρ υἱὸς Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο | ἐν Πύλῳ ἐν νεκύεσσι βαλὼν ὀδύνῃσιν ἔδωκεν; the tale seems to have no clear mythological reference or at least not any known to us. Neither can one be found for the most puzzling element of this passage: the bizarre phrase in line (...) 397 that Hades was wounded ἐν Πύλῳ ἐν νεκύεσσι, as we know nothing about a myth which might have been connected with this event. The lines in question have not been of great interest to scholars hitherto and tend to be mentioned only cursorily; even if some attempts at explanation have been made, no satisfactory solution has yet been offered. In this paper I would like to address two issues: (a) the myth(s) involved in the story and the meaning of ἐν Πύλῳ ἐν νεκύεσσι within it, and (b) the mechanisms through which the confusion of the transmitted versions of the motif of Heracles fighting various gods might have originated, amalgamating separate tales into an apparently unitary story. The motif of Heracles’ fight with Hades is particularly interesting and deserves careful examination. (shrink)

Interpretations of Euripides’Heraclesoften focus on Theseus’ and Heracles’ cooperative social values in the final scene as a culmination of themes ofphilia. I argue that the relationship Theseus forges competes with Heracles’ attachment to his household,oikos, which is the central social relationship Euripides describes. The drama consistently develops Heracles as his household's leader by inviting the audience to compare Heracles with interim caretakers Megara and Amphitryon, and later through the protagonist's performance of emotional attachment before and after (...) his madness. The closing scene continues to reveal the value and vulnerability of household attachment by accentuating Heracles’ exclusion from the identity of human family member. This trajectory suggests a painful misalignment between Heracles’ experience in theoikosand the public position Theseus offers at Athens: of a semi-divine hero receiving public cult and honours. Euripides emphasizes this tension to distinguish the experience ofoikos-membership. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the presumed existence of two versions of Medea and Heracles in the Euripidean corpus that circulated in antiquity. After a brief review of the main papyrological evidence, namely P.Oxy. LXXVI 5093 for the Medea and P.Hibeh II 179 for the Heracles, I discuss the implications of adding another Medea and another Heracles to the Euripidean corpus in the light of the extant ancient testimonies on the number of works in Euripides’ oeuvre. Moreover, I (...) examine the clues provided by the headings of the hypotheses of the extant Medea and the extant Heracles as preserved in P.IFAO inv. PSP 248 and P.Oxy. LXXXI 5284. On these grounds, I argue that the supposed evidence for the existence of two distinct Medea and two distinct Heracles plays should not be interpreted as evidence of double authorial versions. (shrink)

Much has been written on the genesis of the pseudo-hesiodic Shield of Heracles — so much, that true progress is difficult to discern among the welter of theories. But some has been made, although the conclusions that have been reached must be regarded as likely hypotheses rather than proven facts. In this article I propose to proceed from some of these conclusions, ensuring that they are as firmly grounded as possible, to an assessment of how this poem's version of (...) the combat of Heracles and Cycnus relates to the likely circumstances and occasion of its original performance. This will involve considering the legend's variants , and a new look at the first half of the Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo. (shrink)

This passage is interpreted by all commentators and translators as follows: ‘Or how shall we call it glorious that I went out to fight the hydra and the lion at the command of Eurystheus—and shall I not labour to shield off death from my own children ?’ The purpose of my note1 is to suggest that we have here a very remarkable use of the verb , and that Euripides used it here with a precise and subtle intention.

Uno de los principales debates en torno a la Alcestis de Eurípides es su clasificación dramática, pues a pesar de ser representada en el lugar que habría ocupado un drama satírico, no tiene elementos característicos de dicho género, como el coro compuesto de sátiros, pero sí posee características propias de la tragedia (estructura, temáticas), a la vez que tiene un final feliz al modo de la comedia. Como lo apunta Voelke (2015), la esencia del encuentro entre tragedia y drama satírico (...) en Alcestis yace en la confrontación de la vida y la muerte a partir de la cual se estructura la obra. Uno de los elementos en los que se condensa dicha confrontación es el discurso de Heracles sobre la muerte (773-802), el cual parece estar atravesado por una visión filosófica sobre la muerte. Sin embargo, es pronunciado en medio de la ebriedad. Heracles mismo es un personaje ambiguo que se desenvuelve en la tragedia como en la comedia, tanto así que puede ser considerado como un equivalente de Dionisio. Por tanto, aquí quisiéramos explorar en qué medida, a partir de esa confluencia de elementos satíricos y trágicos, es posible encontrar una concepción de la muerte en el discurso de Heracles. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pictorial Description as a Supplement for Narrative:The Labour of Augeas' Stables in Heracles LeontophonosGraham ZankerIn this article I propose to explore the pictorialism of the twenty– fifth poem of the Theocritean corpus, uncertainly ascribed to Theocritus and entitled Heracles Leontophonos by Callierges.1 In the course of my discussion I wish to address a contention by A. S. F. Gow2 that "The three parts of the poem... can (...) be fitted into the story [of the cleaning of the stables of Augeas] told by Apollodorus [2.5.5], and the reader can, if he chooses, reconstruct a context for them. Except in the most general way, however, he is neither obliged nor invited to do so: the poet's themes are the landscape and the conversation, and insofar as he is concerned with the Labours at all his subject is the Nemean lion, whose death is narrated in Part iii, rather than the stables of Augeas." I shall suggest that the landscape and other detail is in fact so insistent that it plays no such superficial and passive role, but does indeed invite the reader to reconstruct the myth. In particular I shall attempt to demonstrate how the author uses pictorial detail, in a manner strikingly analogous to procedures observable in contemporary Hellenistic fine art or at least discernible in later copies, to enable the reader to construct the narrative of the formal setting of the poem, i.e., Heracles' cleaning of the stables of Augeas, even though the episode is not related directly in the poem.In Realism in Alexandrian Poetry3 I briefly examined the remarkable pictorialism of Idyll 25. I concentrated on the author's care to impose pictorial coherence on Heracles' narrative of his defeat of the Nemean lion, with Heracles in the final assault standing and astride the back of the beast, his thighs squeezing its flanks, his heels holding its back paws down, and throttling it from behind with his arms around its neck (266–71).4 I also tried to bring out the author's deployment of pictorialism [End Page 411] to motivate the poem's tripartite narrative: the lion–skin arousing the Farmhand's curiosity concerning its wearer's identity (62–67); the skin provoking the bull, Phaethon, the protector of the herd (142–44); and the skin confirming to Phyleus that he is correct in guessing that his companion is the slayer of the Nemean lion (174–76). My discussion of the piece appeared in a chapter on the pictorial realism of the poets who were more or less demonstrably following the lead of Callimachus on the aesthetic principles appropriate to contemporary poetry, and whom I thus chose to consider as a movement. I argued that the historically appropriate term for pictorial realism, or visually precise and vivid description, is enargeia; the ecphrasis of the Greek rhetors from the Imperial and subsequent periods, of which enargeia is an aim, is attested later than enargeia.5 I hope here to be able to fill out the picture I sketched of the deployment of pictorialism in Heracles Leontophonos.In art criticism it has been recognised for some time that a prominent [End Page 412] feature of Hellenistic art is the appeal to the imagination of the viewer, when, for example, we have the representation of a moment prior to the climax of an act, so that the viewer can construct the denouement from the perspective of anticipation, or when the viewer is invited to supplement in his or her imagination details of a scene which have not been actually represented. P. H. von Blanckenhagen ("Betrachter") applied the term "der ergänzende Betrachter" to the viewer enticed to go through this process. So, to use some of his examples, it is the viewer who surprises the Crouching Aphrodite ascribed to Doidalsas, causing her to attempt to hide her sexual beauty. In the case of the Ludovisi Gaul and his Wife, it is the viewer who is to supply the object of the Gaul's stare, his victorious advancing enemy. The upward gaze of the Terme Boxer is directed at the viewer himself, in expression of the athlete's exhaustion. I would... (shrink)

In an article in an earlier issue of this journal Vivienne Gray sought to challenge my claim that Xenophon's account of Prodicus' narrative concerning the Choice of Heracles represents ‘a very close approximation to Prodicus’ actual wording'. Since that time, Gray's article has been cited approvingly by Louis-André Dorion and David Wolfsdorf, both of whom consider that Gray has settled the matter, at least as far as the linguistic aspect of my argument is concerned. In view of this, I (...) feel it necessary to point out that Gray's argument is fundamentally flawed. In addition, I should like to take this opportunity to show that the arguments of Dorion and Wolfsdorf, which are aimed at other aspects of the case that I made for Xenophon's faithfulness to Prodicus' text, are likewise invalid. (shrink)

Against a background of anxious evocation of Dionysiac rites, Euripides'Heraclesstages the extreme degradation of the tragic hero who, as a consequence of the hatred of a divinity, loses his heroic traits and above all his human ones in the exercise of brutal violence. By comparing Heracles in the grip of madness to a furious bull assailing its prey, the tragedian clearly shows the inexorability of the divine will and its arbitrariness, and emphasizes madness itself through images traditionally associated with (...) the bull. However, the reference to monstrosity and animals does not only involve Heracles, but also concerns the representation of Lyssa, the demon of madness sent by Hera to induce Heracles to slaughter his own family. This representation of Lyssa includes the monstrous and disturbing Gorgon and the dog, set alongside the metaphor of hunting, which in turn highlight the link between the demon and the Erinyes, those other bringers of madness. (shrink)

In a well-known parable, told by Xenophon but credited by him to the sophist Prodicus, the young Heracles setting out on the road meets two women whose appearance turns out to be in accord with their characters and names, which are soon proclaimed by each to be Virtue and Vice. The former comports herself as a proper Greek woman should, ‘becoming to look at and freeborn by nature, her body (σῶμα) adorned with purity, her eyes with shame, her stature (...) with moderation (τὸ δὲ σχῆμα σωφροσύνῃ), dressed in white’ (transl. Mayhew). Vice, on the other hand, is self-absorbed and slutty: ‘well nourished to the point of fleshiness and softness, made up to appear whiter and redder than she was in fact’, τὸ δὲ σχῆμα ὥστε δοκεῖν ὀρθοτέραν τῆς φύσεως εἶναι, ‘with wide-open eyes, dressed to show off her ripeness, often checking herself out and seeing whether anyone was looking at her, often even looking at her own shadow’. (shrink)