Aphrodite and the Pandora complex

Classical Quarterly

Volumn 47, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 26-47

  Brown, A S ^a  

^a NONE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 67649695542     PISSN: 00098388     EISSN: 14716844     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/cq/47.1.26     Document Type: Article

References (134)

1. This article is based on part of my 1994 Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 'A Study of Gold in Early Greek Poetry'. For criticism and encouragement my thanks are due to Jasper Griffin, Robert Parker, the CQ referee, and above all my wife, Clare.
2. The following will be referred to below by author's name only: M. B. Arthur, 'Early Greece: Origins of the Western Attitude Towards Women', Arethusa 6 (1973), 7-58;
3. M. Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, tr. R. Hurley (Harmondsworth, 1988) - not about Pandora, but covering much of what she stands for;
4. N. Loraux, 'Sur la race des femmes et quelques-uns de ses tribus', Arethusa 11 (1978), 43-87;
5. L. R. Sussman, 'Workers and Drones, Labor, Idleness and Gender Definition in Hesiod's Beehive', Arethusa 11 (1978), 27-41;
6. J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, tr. J. Lloyd (London, 1980) pp. 168-85;
7. F.I. Zeitlin, 'The Economics of Hesiod's Pandora', in E. D. Reeder, Pandora: Women in Classical Greece (Princeton, 1995), pp. 49-56.
8. For cross-cultural parallels, see I. Trencsényi-Waldapfel, Untersuchungen zur Religionsgeschichte (London, 1966), pp. 49-75.
9. Cf. Semonides 7W (which can be seen as a sort of commentary on Hesiod: Loraux, p. 54), especially 21-6, 43-9, 83-93.
10. Vernant, p. 180; the belly in the Theogony has been further explored by M. B. Arthur, 'The Dream of a World without Women', Arethusa 16 (1983), 97-116, who regards it as 'the floating signifier for every kind of ambiguity' in the poem (p. 111).
11. See LSJ s.vv. P. du Bois, Sowing the Body (Chicago, 1988) discusses field (pp. 39-64) and furrow (pp. 65-85) as Greek metaphors for the female body.
12. See Zeitlin (n. 2), and the longer version of the same argument (dealing at greater length with the Theogony context) in her Playing the Other (Chicago, 1996), pp. 53-86.
13. 2 (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 276-85.
14. Vernant, pp. 172, 174.
15. Cf. J. Redfield, 'Notes on the Greek Wedding', Arethusa 15 (1982), 181-201, pp. 194ff.
16. For an iconographical view, see Reeder, Pandora (n. 2), pp. 126-93.
17. Loraux, p. 49. Zeitlin (pp. 54ff.) rightly observes that this emphasizes woman's 'artificial' and therefore 'secondary' status.
18. Vernant, pp. 130-67, 181-5;
19. cf. Zeitlin, p. 50.
20. P. Walcot, 'Pandora's Jar, Erga 83-105', Hermes 89 (1961), 249-51.
21. Zeitlin, p. 54, notes the parallels between Perses and Pandora herself, the difference between the two being that while Perses 'may be persuaded to resume his proper masculine role and to enter into the economy of labour ... Pandora ... remains ambiguous, excluded ...'.
22. For further reflections on Pandora as pot, see G. Sissa, Greek Virginity, tr. A. Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, 1990), pp. 154ff.
23. The relationship between the order (65f.) and its execution (73-5) is not immediately obvious, but while West may have succeeded in refuting the over-precise connections suggested by K. Robert, 'Pandora', Hermes 49 (1914), 17-38, p. 28, I think his remarks leave room for the view of the lines I propose below.
24. On Aphrodite's origins, cf. W. Burkert, Greek Religion, tr. J. Raffan (Oxford, 1985), p. 152;
25. C. Penglase, Greek Myths and Mesopotamia (London, 1994), pp. 160-5. There is a sharp contrast between the gold of Aphrodite and Ishtar, often associated with deception, and that of the Egyptian goddess of love, Hathor (the 'gold of the gods').
26. Just as Egyptian culture generally takes a much more unequivocally positive view of the metal than the Greeks did, so Hathor 'represented not only what was true, but what was good, and all that is best in woman as wife, mother and daughter' (E. A. W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians [London, 1904], vol. I, pp. 428-38): this is nothing like Aphrodite!
27. ANET, p. 638, ll. 11-25: the full list includes a very wide range of precious substances (lapis lazuli, boxwood, alabaster and black willow).
28. Gilgamesh I.iii-iv, tr. S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia (Oxford, 1989), pp. 55f;
29. cf. J. Griffin, Homer on Life and Death (Oxford, 1980), p. 200, n. 63;
30. Gilgamesh III.ii, tr. Dalley, p. 65.
31. Dalley (n. 24), pp. 155-60; they are put back on in reverse order as she leaves again.
32. On the likely ritual context of the text, see Dalley, p. 161, n. 9; Penglase (n. 22) pp. 17-31 and 166f.
33. For the use of gold in the ritual clothing of images of the gods in Mesopotamia, see A. L. Oppenheim, 'The Golden Garments of the Gods', JNES 58 (1949), 172-93.
34. Penglase (n. 22), p. 239, concludes that the main period of Mesopotamian influence began 'several generations before Homer' (and ended at the start of the sixth century).
35. The etymology of the word (Mycenaean ku-ru-so) indicates that the Greeks first acquired the metal from speakers of a Semitic language: cf. H. Quiring, Geschichte des Goldes (Stuttgart, 1948), p. 24.
36. Geology and archaeology strongly suggest that Near Eastern traders provided the Greeks with almost all their gold from at least the period of the Mycenaean Shaft Graves until the middle of the seventh century (when the area around Thasos and Mount Pangaeus began to be exploited by the Greeks). On the Near East as a source of luxury objects, see the Homeric voyages of Odysseus, Menelaus and Paris; J. D. Muhly, 'Homer and the Phoenicians', Berytus 19 (1970), 19-64;
37. E. L Smithson, 'The Tomb of a Rich Athenian Lady', Hesperia 37 (1968), 77-116;
38. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece (London, 1977), pp. 41f, 64f, 358.
39. On the early history of Greek gold jewellery, see in general G. Becatti, Oreficerie Antiche (Rome, 1955), pp. 1-40;
40. E. Bielefeld, Schmuck (Göttingen, 1968, = Archaeohgia Homerica, ed. H.-G. Buchholz and F. Matz, Teil C: hereafter cited by author's name and Teil letter only);
41. 2 (London, 1980), pp. 7-120;
42. D. Musti, L'Oro dei Greci (Novara, 1993), pp. 17-31 and 232-51;
43. D. Williams and J. Ogden, Greek Gold (London, 1994), pp. 10-46.
44. For the relation of this last item to Near Eastern and later Greek magical practices, see C. A. Faraone, 'Aphrodite's Kestos and Apples for Atalanta,' Phoenix 44 (1990), 219-43.
45. On the ear-rings, see Bielefeld, AH C, 4;
46. Higgins in M. R. Popham et al., Lefkandi I (London, 1980, = BSA Suppl. 11), 219ff; Janko ad loc.
47. For Cypriot versions of the ear-rings and charm, see C. Bonner, and the Saltire of Aphrodite', AJP 70 (1949), 1-6;
48. J. L. Myres, 'Homeric Art', ABSA 45 (1950), 229-60, p. 237.
49. Golden monumental parallels for Hera's tasselled girdle have been found in both Mycenaean and contemporary Near Eastern contexts: cf. A. W. Persson, The Royal Tombs at Dendra (Lund, 1931), p. 14;
50. Bielefeld, AHC, pp. 35f, 58;
51. Marinates, AHA, pp. 12 and 28.
52. W. Burkert, 'Oriental Myth and Literature in the Iliad', in R. Hägg (ed.), The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century B. C. (Stockholm, 1983), pp. 51-6;
53. on a possible Near Eastern prototype for the Zeus-Hera episode, see L. A. Stella, Tradizione micenea e poesia dell' Iliade (Rome, 1978), pp. 96f.
54. Others (C. H. Whitman, 'Hera's Anvils', HSCP 74 [1970], 37-42;
55. C. Kerényi, Zeus und Hera [Leiden 1972], p. 84) have noticed a number of 'cosmogonic' motifs in these books, and it is worth mentioning here that the contains one of Archaic poetry's relatively few references to the hieros gamos (Il. 14.343-51). Homer uses gold here to express the fecundatory effect of divine intercourse, and he is followed in this by Pindar (cf. P. 5-9, 55-59, 67-70,
56. with A. Köhnken, Die Funktion des Mythos bei Pindar [Berlin 1971], pp. 87ff;
57. See A. B. Cook, Zeus III (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 473ff.;
58. Trencsényi-Waldapfel (n. 3), pp. 192-231;
59. F. Daumas, 'La valeur de l'or dans la pensée égyptienne', RHR 149 (1956), 1-17;
60. W. Burkert, 'Oriental and Greek Mythology: The Meeting of Parallels', in J. Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology (London, 1987), pp, 10-40, n. 83;
61. G. Costa, 'Il dio d'oro in Grecia e in India', AGI 69 (1984), 26-52, pp. 34f.
62. In fact the Cypria poet was not content to present the Trojan War as resulting simply from the rivalry of the three goddesses, and so (fr. 1) seems in a rather inorganic way to have subordinated the traditional story to another Near Eastern motif: cf. Burkert (n. 32), p. 55.
63. On Helen, Aphrodite, and the war, cf. Ibycus 282 (a) 8f., Alcaeus 42 and 283, and (more sympathetic to Helen) Sappho 16.
64. Chapman renders: 'The force, O Muse, and functions now unfold/Of Cyprian Venus, grac'd with mines of gold', here is an emphatic variant on the more usual shedding the economic sense it has in Homer (e.g. Il. 7.180) to assume a purely visual force. Cf. Hes. fr. 185.17, Scutum 47f.;
65. D. Boedeker, Aphrodite's Entry into Greek Epic (Leiden, 1974, = Mnem. Suppl. 32), p. 26.
66. Anchises is confronted by something that looks too good to be true, but the strength of his passion compels him to believe in it. For the psychology, cf. A. T. L. Bergren, 'The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: Tradition and Rhetoric, Praise and Blame', CA 8 (1989), 1-41, pp. 14-22.
67. Cf. Burkert, Greek Religion, p. 150
68. and F. Lissarague in P. Schmitt Pantel (ed.), A History of Women in the West I, tr. A. Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, 1992), p. 214.
69. Hes. Th. 950-5;
70. This, I think, is one reason why in early Greek poetry, the consequences of sex initiated by a male god with a mortal woman or nymph are generally unproblematic for both parties (contrast the cases of Cassandra and Creousa: E Tro. 253ff.;
71. E. Ion 881ff.). However, the female concerned is seldom the focus of interest on these occasions, simply serving as a link between a hero and his divine father: cf. Hes. fr. 253, and the examples cited in n. 45 below.
72. See Sikes and Allen ad loc. for other examples of the dangers of sleeping with goddesses. Perhaps Anchises also voices the deeper Greek anxiety identified by Foucault, surrounding the 'cost' of the sexual act and 'the death to which it was linked' (p. 125).
73. The question whether the epithet ultimately derives from (and thus originally meant 'of the golden robe') or (i.e. 'of the golden throne') is irresoluble: for etymological bibliography, see Càssola ad loc. The former derivation might be thought particularly appropriate to Eos' amorous behaviour (cf. h.Aph. 226, and Od. 15.250, where she abducts Cleitos), but I find it hard to believe that the latter would not much more readily have suggested itself to a contemparary audience. of course, also used of Hera in contexts where sex, or at least sexual jealousy, is involved, but we also find the epithet used of Artemis (Il. 6.205;
74. cf. at B. 19.22: the two qualities are of course linked - Il. 14.212f).
75. Including weaving, the occupation of virtuous women like Penelope: for the disruptive impact of love on this steady pursuit, cf. Sappho 102.
76. Cf. J. Rudhardt, 'L'Hymne homérique à Aphrodite', MH 48 (1991), 8-20, pp. 17f.
77. Pace J. S. Clay, The Politics of Olympus (Princeton, 1989), pp. 166ff., 200f., there is nothing in the poem itself to suggest that she has lost her power to unite mortals and immortals. Rudhardt (n. 46) pp. 14f. puts things a little more persuasively. Note also how the post-Hesiodic final section of the Theogony formulaically emphasises the responsibility of 'golden Aphrodite' for a number of such mixed unions which produce undesirable or unfortunate children. So Th. 975ff. (Cadmus' daughters); 1004f. (Phocus); 1014 (Telegonus) - cf. similar phrasing in the cases of Typhoeus (821f.) and Medea (958ff.).
78. Cf. P. 9.67ff., and the rapid abduction of Ganymede (h.Aph. 202-8); admittedly, the examples that spring to mind involve male rather than female gods.
79. Theologically, this can be viewed in a positive light: 'Dire la puissance de la divinité et rappeler du même coup les règies qui s'imposaient à son activité, c'est l'inciter à intervenir parmi les hommes sans nuire à l'equilibre de leurs société s.' (Rudhardt [n. 46], p. 20).
80. So Bergren (n. 37); cf. M. B. Arthur, 'Cultural Strategies in Hesiod's Theogony: Law, Family, Society', Arethusa 15 (1982), 63-82, pp. 66f., on the birth of Aphrodite in the Theogony. Again a Foucauldian terror looms, for what Greek male ideology appears most to have abhorred in sexual matters was passivity (Foucault, p. 46f.), and even if in a heterosexual act the male is likely to be mechanically 'active', awareness of the seductive power of the female undermines his psychological dominance.
81. In the female-centred world of Sappho we find a presentation of gold and jewellery significantly different from this pattern. The exception proves the rule: among women, golden jewellery and other items of luxury clothing can be valued in a way analogous to the male appreciation of fine arms and armour seen in Homer or Alcaeus (with Sappho 39, 44.8ff., 98a, cf. Alcaeus 140).
82. Cf. Hera's use of gold jewellery for seductive purposes in Il. 14, and the integral part it plays in the charms of Aphrodite herself (Hymns 5 and 6). Like Pandora, Hera combines conventional ornament with less tangible, but even more potently Aphrodisiac qualities (Il. 14.214-21).
83. Pandora may be 'like a modest maiden', but then so was Aphrodite when she entered the hut of Anchises (h.Aph. 82): cf. Redfield (n. 11), p. 196 on the sexually charged nature of wifely modesty.
84. Lissarague (n. 38), p. 204 points out that the perception of male attractiveness was quite different: '[t]he ephebe's beauty was entirely in his body'.
85. J. Rudhardt, 'Hésiode et les Femmes', MH 46 (1986), 231-46, makes the point that Epimetheus' folly in effect ends what had been a brief period in which men were completely independent from the gods.
86. See Foucault, pp. 81f
87. and T. Harrison, 'Herodotus and the Ancient Greek Idea of Rape', in S. Deacy and K.Pearce (edd.), Violence and Power (London, 1996).
88. In Schmitt Pantel (n. 38), p. 61.
89. Cf. Arthur (n. 6), p. 104.
90. P. Millett, 'Hesiod and his World', PCPS n.s. 29 (1984), 84-115 correctly refutes those who have tried to present Hesiod as an aspiring or impoverished aristocrat.
91. D. Ohly, Griechische Goldbleche des 8 Jahrhunderts vor Chr. (Berlin, 1953), suggested that these diadems were only ever used in funerary contexts, but others have not been convinced:
92. see the review by R. M. Cook, Gnomon 26 (1954), 107-10, and related comments by Higgins (n. 28), pp. 96f.
93. Zeitlin, p. 52, with Sussman and Arthur (n. 2) in mind: but although Sussman relies too heavily on debatable hypotheses about post-Mycenaean agriculture, and Arthur reads back into Hesiod too much from fourth- and fifth-century sources, their view that contemporary social change is one root of Hesiodic misogyny is attractive. Can it be a coincidence that this period witnessed the growing dominance of the male-centred structure of the polis over that of the oikos, in which the interrelationship of genders was less imbalanced?
94. M. Wyke has observed a similar spanning of social class-types in Roman rhetoric against feminine adornment (mostly in the form of cosmetics, not jewellery), but this is related to a general negativity about luxus which has no consistent parallel in Archaic Greek texts ('Woman in the Mirror: The Rhetoric of Adornment in the Roman World', in Women in Ancient Societies, ed. L. J. Archer et al. (London, 1994), 134-51, p. 136).
95. Both Pandora and Helen can be seen as 'Trojan Horse' figures: cf. W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley, 1979), pp. 73f;
96. C. A. Faraone, Talismans and Trojan Horses (Oxford, 1992), pp. 100f.
97. Mimnermus (fr. 1 W.1-5) appears to echo these lines when voicing a much more positive attitude towards the gifts of Aphrodite; cf. A. W. H. Adkins, Poetic Craft in the Early Greek Elegists (Chicago, 1985), p. 99.
98. It is in elegy, and even more in lyric, that the erotic as an end in itself first appears as the focus of positive poetic interest, for poets concerned not with the disruptive effect of (fulfilled) passion upon society, but with the emotional turmoil of the (often frustrated) individual: cf. Theognis 1381-5;
99. This in turn leads to a more positive and 'user-friendly' portrayal of Aphrodite herself (Sappho fr. 1 - cf. E. S. Stigers, 'Sappho's Private World', in H. P. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity [New York, 1981], pp. 45-61).
100. Od. 17.37, 19.54 (cf. [Hes.] Sc. 7f., on Alcmene). The sufferings unwittingly caused by the beauty of Briseis or Penelope occupy large parts of the two epics. In the Iliad, Cassandra occasions more limited misfortune (Il. 13.363-9), since the poem contains no hint of her part in the downfalls of Agamemnon and the lesser Ajax.
101. Cf. Alcman 1.51-4; 3.64-8; 5. fr. 2, col.ii;
102. Sappho frr. 132 and 156. Although there is often a general undercurrent of eroticism in Alcman and Sappho, it seems to me that in none of these passages does the gold owe anything, as it were, to Aphrodite. The same can be said of Ibycus' description of the beauty of Troilus (Ibycus 282(a) 41-5): Theognidean elegy had made the process of refining gold, and testing it by means of the basanos, into a symbol for the qualities most desirable in a fellow symposiast (Thgn. 415-18 ≅ 1164e-h, 447-52, 1105f;
103. cf. more generally Thgn. 77f., 499-502;
104. Simonides PMG 541.1-5, 592;
105. Men. Mon. 385), but Ibycus elaborates the detail of the image while simplifying the thought behind it, to create a purely aesthetic comparison. These rather different erotic manifestations of gold all appear in contexts which are unrelated to the particular vulnerability exposed by seduction or the economic problems that can overshadow marriage.
106. S. von Reden, Exchange in Ancient Greece (London, 1995), pp. 54f.
107. Briseis and Chryseis are the obvious examples; cf. also Nestor's Hecamede (Il. 11.624-7).
108. Chryseis' name - which, like that of her home, Chryse, is common in myth - may suggest a particular affinity with treasure, or at least beauty, but its etymological relationship to is uncertain: cf. H. von Kamptz, Homerische Personennamen (Göttingen, 1982); more generally, RE III, 2486-94.
109. The bride-price-or-dowry controversy is a false dichotomy in most Homeric cases: see I. Morris, 'The Use and Abuse of Homer', CA 5 (1986), 81-138 (pp. 105ff., with full bibliography).
110. Even the slightly unusual process of selection by which Atalanta's husband was chosen ended up revolving around the determined virgin's inability to resist the attraction of Aphrodite's metal: see Hes. fr. 76.6-14,
111. and also Theog. 1287-94,
112. with H. Fränkel, Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy, tr. M. Hadas (Oxford, 1975), p. 443, n. 4.
113. An eventuality avoided by Odysseus in the case of Helen (Hes. fr. 198.2-8): rather than waste his resources in fruitless competition with the Atreidae, he sends a respectful embassy, but no gift.
114. Reeder (n. 2), pp. 267-76.
115. 'L'argent, c'est comme les femmes: pour le garder, il faut s'en occuper un peu, ou alors ... il va faire le bonheur de quelqu'un d'autre' (Ed. Bourdet, Les Temps difficiles).
116. See in general T. E. V. Pearce, 'The Role of the Wife as Custos', Eranos 72 (1974), 16-33.
117. Cypria, Argumentum Procli. Euripides (Tro. 991-7) makes much of this aspect.
118. Cf. S.El. 837 and A. Cho. 615ff. (Scylla). Vase depictions (LIMC III.l, pp. 843ff.; III.2, pp. 606ff.) show Eriphyle's necklace not as an elaborate work of craftsmanship, but as a long string of large pieces of gold, suggesting that the transaction was regarded more as a bullion bribe than as an essentially symbolic token-gift which happened to bind the recipient to oblige the giver (contra L. Gernet, The Anthropology of Ancient Greece, tr. J. Hamilton et al. [Baltimore, 1981], pp. 83ff.).
119. Foucault, pp. 146f.
120. The woman more frequently called is Eurynome, an unimportant figure who has been called a double of Eurycleia (e.g. Od. 17.495ff., 20.4).
121. Cf. Pearce (n. 87), pp. 30-2.
122. Foucault, pp. 163ff.
123. This manipulation by a goddess of intangible qualities of attractiveness (Od. 18.188-96), parallel to Athene's beautifications of Odysseus (Od. 6.22911; 23.156ff.) recalls some of the divine dressing scenes discussed above, particularly Hera's preparations in Il. 14: cf. N. Forsyth, 'The Allurement Scene in Greek Oral Epic', CSCA 12 (1979), 107-20.
124. Cf. S. L .Schein, 'Female Representations and Interpreting the Odyssey', in Cohen (n. 106), pp. 17-27, p. 24: 'Why ... should we accept Odysseus' reading of the situation, which obviously is self-serving?'
125. References to the older approach can be found in Russo's commentary. Examples of the current boom in Penelope studies include: M. A. Katz, Penelope's Renown (Princeton, 1991);
126. N. Felson-Rubin, Regarding Penelope (Princeton, 1994);
127. and many of the papers in B. Cohen (ed.), The Distaff Side (Oxford, 1995).
128. For an overview, see in particular Katz, pp. 78-93.
129. Felson-Rubin (n. 106), p. 29.
130. F. I. Zeitlin, 'Figuring Fidelity in Homer's Odyssey', in Cohen (n. 106), pp. 117-52, 141.
131. S. Murnaghan, 'The Plan of Athena', in Cohen (n. 106), pp. 61-80
132. H. P. Foley, 'Penelope as Moral Agent', in Cohen (n. 106), pp. 93-115, 102.
133. Cf. R. G. A. Buxton, Imaginary Greece (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 127f.
134. Cf. Zeitlin, p. 55.