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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 January 2021
One of the more powerful recurring motifs in the Iliad is that of the grief-stricken woman lamenting the death of a hero. As with much else in the Homeric epics, these scenes have a formulaic character; when Briseis laments Patroclus, and Hecuba, Andromache and Helen lament Hector, each is depicted delivering a specialized form of speech, specific to the context of a woman's lament. The narrative depiction of grieving women, as well, is formalized, with specific gestures and recurring images that typify these scenes. One element of this depiction that has largely escaped serious consideration is the comparison of a woman in her initial moment of recognition of the corpse to Aphrodite. In this article, I will argue that the allusion is not merely to her beauty but to the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis, specifically the moment of the goddess’ discovery of the death of her mortal lover. As the earliest surviving explicit reference to Adonis in Greek literature appears c.600 b.c.e., this would require a raising of the terminus ante quem for the transmission of the Adonis myth from the Near East to the mid eighth century.
I would like to thank Carolina López-Ruiz, Brent Davis, Tim Parkin and James K.O. Chong-Gossard for their encouragement, critical comments and suggestions for further reading.
2 Il. 19.287–300, 22.431–6, 22.477–514, 24.725–45, 24.748–59, 24.762–75. For the women's lament as a formal theme, see Foley, J.M., Homer's Traditional Art (University Park, PA, 1999), 187–98Google Scholar.
3 Kakridis, I., Homeric Researches (Lund, 1949), 65–71Google Scholar; Edwards, M.W., ‘The conventions of a Homeric funeral’, in Betts, J.H., Hooker, J.T. and Green, J.R. (edd.), Studies in Honor of T.B.L. Webster, vol. 1 (Bristol, 1986), 84–92Google Scholar.
4 For the date of the Iliad, see Janko, R., Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns: Diachronic Development in Epic (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar.
5 Dué, C., Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis (Lanham, MD, 2002)Google Scholar, 6, 11, 71–2; Edwards, M.W., The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. V: Books 17–20 (Cambridge, 1991), 268CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Edwards (n. 5), 268 refers to the former as a ‘complimentary phrase’; for the exceptionality of Od. 4.14, see n. 20 below. The formula γυνὴ ἐϊκυῖα θεῇσι ‘a woman resembling the goddesses’, by way of contrast, is best understood as a generic formula, equivalent to the male epithets ἀντίθεος, θεοείκελος, θεοειδής and the like, all versions of ‘godlike’ in the generic sense without specific allusion.
7 Dué (n. 5), 74.
8 Reitzammer, L., The Athenian Adonia in Context (Madison, 2016), 33–4Google Scholar.
9 One other case in which a woman is compared to Aphrodite warrants mention. In Il. 9.388–90, Achilles retorts that he would not marry Agamemnon's daughter, even if she rivalled Aphrodite in beauty, or Athena in skills. The optative indicates that she likely does not, in fact, rival Aphrodite in beauty. The comparison is hypothetical and probably falls short.
10 Reitzammer (n. 8) also includes Helen's lament over Hector (24.762–75) in her suggestion that Aphrodite ‘looms large’ over Iliadic lamentation, on the basis of Helen's general connections with Aphrodite. Helen is elsewhere associated with Aphrodite, but she also has many other associations in the Iliad and the context of her lament here is quite different from that of the three explicit references to Aphrodite in the context of lament. Without specific evocation of Aphrodite, I find alternate explanations of Helen's appearance here more plausible. See, for example, Tsagalis, C., Epic Grief: Personal Laments in Homer's Iliad (Berlin, 2004), 161–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kullman, W. ‘Vergangenheit und Zukunft in der Ilias’, Poetica 2 (1968), 5–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 20; Pantelia, M., ‘Helen and the last song for Hector’, TAPhA 132 (2002), 21–7Google Scholar, at 27.
11 This is a recurring theme for Andromache and part of a larger complex of possible allusions to the Theban epic tradition. See C. Tsagalis, The Oral Palimpsest (Cambridge, MA, 2008), 1–29. The connection of Andromache with Dionysus and Aphrodite is intriguing; a classical tradition held Adonis as the lover of both gods [Reitzammer (n. 8), 15–16], linking the two in relation to Adonis and therefore to lamentation. Not enough is known of this tradition, however, so the connection remains speculative.
12 For the comparison of mortals with specific gods, see Sayce, O., Exemplary Comparison from Homer to Plutarch (Cambridge, 2008), 9–28Google Scholar. Nagy argues for the special significance of the formula ἶσος Ἄρηϊ ‘equal to Ares’ for Patroclus (Il. 11.604) based on its application to Achilles and Hector; its association with the minor characters Leonteus (Il. 12.130) and Euryalus (Od. 8.115), however, seems to dilute the significance of its use for Patroclus: see Nagy, G., The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Cambridge, MA, 1999 2)Google Scholar, 33, 293–5.
13 Kakridis (n. 3), 67 makes this point regarding Thetis’ visit to Achilles after Patroclus’ death. She begins the lament among the Nereids over Achilles and, when she arrives, she finds him prostrate and holds his head as in a prothesis.
14 This is the interpretation favoured by J. Russo, M. Fernandez-Galiano and A. Heubeck, A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey: Volume III: Books XVII–XXIV (Oxford, 1992), 21: ‘In our passage, Penelope has been a chaste Artemis-figure during Odysseus’ twenty-year absence, but she is at the same time a desired sexual object or Aphrodite-figure every time she appears before the suitors.’ Of course, in both instances of this formula, she appears not before her suitors, before whom she may indeed appear Aphrodite-like, but before her son and her husband disguised as a beggar.
15 Her claim to innocence, virginity and helplessness in Hymn. Hom. Ven. 133–5, as part of her ruse to seduce Anchises, is especially amusing given what she seeks (and obtains); having achieved her goal, she immediately reverts to her true character. Just as she actively sought to sleep with Anchises, she now actively dictates the terms of their parentage; she is hardly excited by the prospect of motherhood and balks at the idea of marriage. Her concern in this affair is purely and actively sexual.
16 If Penelope resembles any character in Demodocus’ second song, it is Hephaestus, who is skilled, wise and the only member of the company not to engage in adultery. It is surely not a coincidence that Penelope's epithet περίφρων ‘very thoughtful’ is applied by Hesiod to Hephaestus (Sc. 297, 313). Aphrodite, on the other hand, is κυνώπιδος ‘dog-eyed, shameless’, καλή ‘beautiful’ but οὐκ ἐχέθυμος ‘not possessing reason’ (Od. 8.319–20). For ἐχέθυμος as ‘possessing reason’ and a comparison of the intelligence of Hephaestus to the dimwittedness of Aphrodite, see Braswell, B.K., ‘The song of Ares and Aphrodite: theme and relevance to Odyssey 8’, Hermes 110 (1982), 129–37Google Scholar, at 133 n. 12.
17 C. Segal, The Theme of the Mutilation of the Corpse in the Iliad (Leiden, 1971), 3–4; J.M. Foley, Immanent Art (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1991), 6–9.
18 See Tsagalis's discussion of Helen's inaccurate claim of being gone for twenty years as a means of symbolically identifying herself with a more pitiable character of another tradition, Penelope [Tsagalis (n. 11), 147–9]. This allusion to another epic tradition's formula works so well because its factual inaccuracy forces the audience to think more deeply about the connection being made. So too does the jarring comparison of Artemis and Aphrodite serve as a signal to reconsider the meaning of the formula.
19 The fierce opposition between the sexualities of Artemis and Aphrodite is expressed most explicitly in Euripides’ Hippolytus, in which the title character dies as a result of his aligning himself too closely with the chastity of Artemis and thereby snubbing the sexuality of Aphrodite. For a further possible connection between Artemis, Aphrodite and lamentation, see below.
20 The only comparison to Aphrodite that occurs outside the context of lamentation, Od. 4.13–14, specifically calls attention to the physical form of the woman, something none of the other allusions to Aphrodite does: παῖδ᾽ ἐρατεινήν | Ἑρμιόνην, ἣ εἶδος ἔχε χρυσέης Ἀφροδίτης, ‘her lovely child | Hermione, who had the shape of golden Aphrodite’. The specification that it is only in form that Hermione resembles Aphrodite serves to rule out the more common association of the comparison, namely the image of the goddess lamenting Adonis.
21 Foley (n. 17), 142.
22 For a recent assessment of Homer's mythological sources, see B. Currie, Homer's Allusive Art (Oxford, 2016), especially 8. One need not accept the premise that Homer is alluding to specific fixed texts, in order to see the depth with which Homer layers his epics via allusion to other mythological traditions, incorporating the entire mythic system; see B. Heiden, Homer's Cosmic Fabrication: Choice and Design in the Iliad (Oxford, 2008), 227–9.
23 Possibly for the purpose of subordinating the themes of the Theban tradition into the Homeric epics (Tsagalis [n. 11], 1–29).
24 W. Atallah, Adonis dans la littérature et l'art grecs (Paris, 1966), 16–17, 303–16; D. Boedeker, Aphrodite's Entry into Greek Epic (Leiden, 1974), 66; W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1979), 108–11.
25 The word for ‘lord’ in Northwest Semitic is ’dn, while in Akkadian it is bēl- and in Aramaic māre’, indicating Adonis’ transmission from the Levant rather than from Mesopotamia or Syria. Within Levantine dialects of Northwest Semitic, the Proto-Northwest Semitic /ā/ vowel deepened to /ō/ in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age, a process known as the ‘Canaanite Shift’. This shift is attested already in the Canaanizing Akkadian of the Late Bronze Age El-Amarna Letters and is fully present in the Iron Age Canaanite dialects Hebrew and Phoenician. Thus ’adān- attested in Ugaritic in the Late Bronze Age Northern Levant is ’adōn in the Canaanite dialects of the Iron Age Southern Levant. For the extent of the Canaanite Shift and its effects on the Iron Age dialects, see W.R. Garr, A Dialect-Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000 to 586 b.c.e. (Philadelphia, 1985), 31; W.M. Schniedewind, A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins through the Rabbinic Period (New Haven and London, 2015), 41–2, 47, 49–50.
26 For the early Sumerian laments of Inanna for Dumuzi, see T. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven, 1976), 47–54.
27 Gurney, O.R., ‘Tammuz reconsidered: some recent developments’, Journal of Semitic Studies 7 (1962), 147–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 157; R. Kutscher, ‘The cult of Dumuzi/Tammuz’, in J. Klein and A. Skaist (edd.), Bar-Ilan Studies in Assyriology (Ramat Gan, 1990), 29–44, at 41–3; S. Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah (Leiden, 2001), 79–92.
28 In later texts, worship and lamentation of Tammuz is most closely associated with the Phoenician city Byblos; see Lucian, Syr. D. 6–9, which describes the lamentation of Adonis (= Tammuz) in the temple of Aphrodite of Byblos (= Baalat Gebal). Already by the fourteenth century, there is evidence for the worship of Tammuz at Byblos (EA 84 line 33); A. Rainey, The El-Amarna Correspondence, vol. 1 (ed. W. Schniedewind) (Leiden, 2015), 496–7.
29 M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge, 1974), 55–7; Reed, J., ‘The sexuality of Adonis’, ClAnt 14 (1995), 317–47Google Scholar, at 318; Reitzammer (n. 8), 20–7. The earliest surviving textual reference for the Adonia in Athens comes in the late fifth century with Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (387–98).
30 Reed (n. 29), 318–19. One plausible avenue of direct female contact is through the transportation of Near Eastern slave women to Greece, although contact between women in mixed Phoenician/Greek-speaking communities, as existed in Cyprus, is just as likely a scenario for transmission. For mixed marriage as a force for cultural transmission between Phoenicians and Greeks, see C. López-Ruiz, When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East (Cambridge, MA, 2010), 36.
31 W. Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (transl. J. Raffan) (Cambridge, MA, 1985), 177.
32 Boedeker (n. 24), 2–17; S. Budin, The Origin of Aphrodite (Bethesda, MD, 2003), 199–241; C. Penglase, Greek Myths and Mesopotamia (New York, 1994), 138; see especially C. López-Ruiz, ‘From Kothar to Kythereia: exploring the Northwest Semitic past of Aphrodite’, in H.H. Hardy II, J. Lam and E.D. Reymond (edd.), ‘Like ’Ilu Are You Wise’: Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures in Honor of Dennis G. Pardee (Chicago, forthcoming). For the potential reliance of archaic poetic depictions of Aphrodite on Near Eastern forerunners, see Eisenfeld, H., ‘Ishtar rejected: reading a Mesopotamian goddess in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite’, Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 16 (2015), 133–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 Budin (n. 32), 273.
34 A.C. Cassio, ‘Kypris, Kythereia and the fifth book of the Iliad’, in F. Montanari, A. Rengakos and C. Tsagalis (edd.), Homeric Contexts: Neoanalysis and the Interpretation of Oral Poetry (Berlin and Boston, 2012), 413–26, at 417.
35 In the Theogony, Aphrodite is the product of the castration of Ouranos, ‘Heaven’; this has been compared to the Hurro-Hittite Song of Kumarbi (and its Phoenician version recorded by Philon of Byblos), in which the castration of Anu ‘Heaven’ as part of a battle over divine succession results in the birth of other gods. See M.L. West, The East Face of Helicon (Oxford, 1997), 277–80; López-Ruiz (n. 30), 84–129. In Il. 5.330–430, a wounded, humiliated Aphrodite flees to her father Zeus and her mother Dione. This narrative appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh (SB Gilg. VI 80–114), where a rebuffed Ishtar runs to her father and mother, Anu and Antu, demanding the punishment of Gilgamesh. At Ugarit on the Levantine coast, it is Anat who is offended and runs to her father, demanding punishment for the mortal who has humiliated her; see West (this note), 361–2.
36 M. Bachvarova, From Hittite to Homer: The Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic (Cambridge, 2016), 301–30.
37 Reitzammer (n. 8), 46. F. Ferrari, Sappho's Gift: The Poet and her Community (Ann Arbor, MI, 2010), 150.
38 G. Nagy, ‘The Aeolic component of Homeric diction’, in J. Jamison, H. Melcher and B. Vine (edd.), The Proceedings of the 22nd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference (Bremen, 2011), 133–79.
39 Nagy (n. 38), 156–7; G. Nagy, Comparative Studies in Greek and Indic Meter (Cambridge, MA, 1974), 118–39.
40 O. Levaniouk, ‘Did Sappho and Homer ever meet? Comparative perspectives on Homeric singers’, in J. Ready and C. Tsagalis (edd.), Homer in Performance (Austin, 2018), 178–202, at 183.
41 Il. 6.410–13, 2.477–84, 24.725–7.
42 Reitzammer (n. 8), 16–17.
43 They appear together in only one other line in extant archaic poetry, in the list of goddesses whom Anchises names while guessing Aphrodite's identity (Hymn. Hom. Ven. 93). There, however, they appear among many goddesses, effectively neutering the implied comparison between Artemis and Aphrodite.
44 I thank Carolina López-Ruiz for this observation. See López-Ruiz (n. 32).
45 Budin (n. 32), 225–8, 275.
46 George, A.R., The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2003), 473Google Scholar. While Aphrodite's relationship to Adonis parallels the myth of Ishtar and Tammuz (SB Gilg. VI 45–7), Ishtar's treatment of the unnamed shepherd only a few lines later (VI 58–63) is most closely paralleled in Greek mythology by Artemis’ punishment of Actaeon.
47 M. Mueller, The Iliad (London, 20092), 103.
48 E.g. Il. 207–12 and Od. 6.102–9.
49 For Otus and Ephialtes, see Hirschberger, M., Gynaikōn Katalogos und Megalai Ēhoiai: ein Kommentar zu den Fragmenten zweier hesiodeischer Epen (Leipzig, 2004), 198–9Google Scholar. The youth's death at the hands of a jealous lover may well be Phoenician in origin. A second-century Syriac text also preserves this myth, in the form of the euhemerized ‘Queen of Cyprus’ Balthi (= Baalat Gebal/Lady of Byblos), wife of Kuthar/Hephaistos king of the Phoenicians, who leaves Cyprus and takes up residence in Byblos. After an affair with Ares, she falls in love with Tammuz, whom Hephaistos slays during a boar hunt out of jealousy. See Brown, J.P., Israel and Hellas, vol. 1 (Berlin and New York, 1995), 245Google Scholar; López-Ruiz (n. 32).
50 Cassio (n. 34), 422–3. Cassio, following Kullman, understands this tale to be the authentic backstory of Dione's speech.
51 The Judgement of Paris is a story Homer knows but sidelines, alluding to it only briefly in 24.27–30 as distasteful, calling it the ἄτη ‘blindness’ of Paris (see also Od. 4.261–4). Besides stripping the allusion of most of its details, Homer sublimates it by associating it with Poseidon's justified reason for opposing the Trojans. Poseidon played no part in the Judgement of Paris, but is included among the spurned goddesses who hold their grudge against Troy (24.25–6) as a reference to his anger at Laomedon, king of Troy, for cheating both him and Apollo (21.441–57). See Muellner, L., The Anger of Achilles (Ithaca, NY, 1996)Google Scholar, 169 n. 76.
52 This is precisely the effect that Gilgamesh intends when he rebuffs Ishtar's advances with reference to the many other mortal men she has loved (SB Gilg. VI 42–79). By calling attention to these former lovers, including Tammuz/Dumuzi (46–7), Gilgamesh insinuates that whatever interest she has will be fleeting and ultimately disastrous for him (see George [n. 46], 470–5). In the Iliad, this is hardly the picture that Homer constructs of Aphrodite, whose motherly affection draws her into harm's way in an attempt to save her son (5.311–18).
53 Homer makes a similar calculus in sidelining multiple aspects of Thetis, in order to highlight those most relevant to the Iliad: her sorrow and helplessness as the mother of Achilles. Nevertheless, her enormous power is key to understanding the actions of the other gods and must be kept in mind to make sense of the Iliad. See Slatkin, L., The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad (Berkeley, 1991), 78Google Scholar.
54 E.g. Currie (n. 22), 160–8.