Greece& Rome, Vol.53, No. 1, ? The ClassicalAssociation,2006. All rightsreserved doi: 10.

1017/S0017383506000040

INTERTEXTUALITY AS IRONY: HERACLES EPIC AND IN SOPHOCLES*

By VAYO S LIAPIS

IN

Heracles' image in antiquity is notoriously kaleidoscopic. Comedy represented him as a gluttonous buffoon, and myth made no secret of the brutal violence of many of his exploits. On the other hand, Pindar exalts him as a superlative figure who enforced the nomos of the gods,1 while Prodicus in a famous myth makes Heracles a supreme example of commendable conduct, a youth who chooses the path of Virtue over the path of Vice out of his own free will.2 This image of a moralized Heracles soon took root in the Greek imagination, and a whole host of Greek thinkers (Isocrates, Antisthenes, Diogenes the Cynic, and Plutarch, to name but a few) found in him a perfectly malleable exemplumfor their various courses in moral edification. After undergoing a large number of transformations in Roman literature and the Church Fathers, Heracles resurfaces unscathed in the early Renaissance, when we find him again as an already established exemplum virtutis, now a man of letters, now a Christian. It would appear that, despite his multifarious metamorphoses, Heracles remained throughout the centuries essentially what he had been since Prodicus' day: an exemplary figure who undertook extreme toils and gained supreme recompense.3 Matters stand quite differently in Homer. Granted, there is no single, consistent image of Heracles in Homer - rather, there is a multiplicity of images which cannot be readily integrated into a coherent picture. However, the prevailing mood is one of disparagement or of pathos. Thus, in Iliad 5.381-404, we are presented with a
* An earlier draft of this paper was presented in the conference 'From Epic to Drama', organized by the Hellenic Festival and the Desmoi Centre for Ancient Drama (Nauplion, August 29-September 1, 2002). I am especially grateful to Chris Carey, Menelaos Christopoulos, Stella Georgoudi, Nicos Hourmouziades, and Richard Seaford for valuable comments and suggestions.
1 See Ol. 3, 9 and 10; Nem. 1. However, Pindar's approval of Heracles, even as a champion of nomos, is not a wholesale one: see M. Ostwald, 'Pindar, Nomos, and Heracles (Pindar, frg. 169 [Snell2] + POxy No. 2450, frg. 1)', HSCPh 69 (1965), 109-38 (here 117-31). 2 The myth is recounted in Xen., Mem. 2.1.21-34. 3 The standard study of Heracles' literary fortunes is that of G. K. Galinsky, The Heracles Theme: The Adaptations of the Hero in Literaturefrom Homer to the TwentiethCentury (Oxford, 1972), 9-39, 101-25, 185-230.

HERACLES IN EPIC AND IN SOPHOCLES

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downright castigation of Heracles as a doer of violent deeds, one who is so heedless of the gods as to dare to harm them with his weapons:
To her (sc. Aphrodite) then replied Dione, supreme among goddesses: 'Have courage, my daughter, and bear your pain, however great it may be; for many of us denizens of Olympian dwellings have endured sufferings at the hands of men, while inflicting harsh pain on one another. [... .] So suffered Hera when Amphitryon's mighty son wounded her in the right breast with a three-barbed arrow; she, too, was then seized by pain incurable. Besides, enormous Hades suffered, too, the wound of a swift arrow, when this same man, the son of Zeus the aegis-bearer, struck him in Pylos among the dead, and handed him over to pain. [ ...] Cruel man, doer of violent deeds, who did not shrink from performing despicable acts, who pained with his bow the gods who hold Olympus.'

Several books later (Iliad 18.115-19), we move from castigation to pathetic brooding. Achilles, musing over his impending death, remembers that even Heracles was unable to escape death, although he was the son of Zeus:
I shall accept my doom when Zeus wishes to bring it about, and the other immortal gods. For not even mighty Heracles escaped doom, he who was nonetheless dearest to lord Zeus, son of Cronus; but he was subdued by fate and the painful wrath of Hera.

As is well known, the Odyssey is a very different poem from the Iliad, possibly even the work of a different poet, and it is only natural that Heracles should be presented in a somewhat different light there. He comes under fire again, but the manner of the attack is now subtler and less direct. In Od. 11.601-19, Odysseus describes how he saw Heracles' shadow down in Hades: resembling black night, a fierce look in his eyes, he is in a state of never-ending, futile battling - he looks as if he is continually about to shoot with his bow but, presumably, never actually does. One wonders if this description of Heracles might look ahead to Odysseus' shooting of the suitors - the crucial difference being, of course, that Odysseus, unlike Heracles, will be spared the frustration of never actually managing to shoot. We might tentatively argue that, in the Odyssey passage, Heracles provides a negative mirror-image for Odysseus: his perpetual failure to shoot with his bow will be counterbalanced by Odysseus' successful killing of the suitors with his own bow. Now, this bow - the one, that is, with which Odysseus kills the suitors - has an interesting history, which is set out in Odyssey 21.1-41. In the context of Penelope's preparations for the fatal archery contest, in which the bow of Odysseus will be central, the

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narrator relates the circumstances of Heracles' killing of Iphitus. The bow, we hear, was presented by Iphitus to Odysseus in an exchange of gifts that was supposed to mark the beginning of their friendship. However, it hardly served this purpose, because Iphitus was soon murdered by Heracles, in what the narrator presents as a blatant violation of the rules of guest-friendship (21.27-9: '[Heracles] murdered him, the very man whom he had as a guest in his own house. The wretch! And he had no regard either for divine punishment or for the table he had set before him').4 The bow, therefore, is a strong reminder of a violation of hospitality on Heracles' part, but is about to be used for the restitution,by Odysseus, of another violation of hospitality, on the part of the suitors. Once again, that is, Heracles' failure (his relapse into lawlessness) provides a foil that sets off Odysseus' successful effort to restore order and propriety. This is an essential difference between two heroes who, otherwise, have a lot in common - indeed, it is their similarities that set off their crucial difference all the more starkly. The parallels between them are tersely epitomized by Heracles himself in his encounter with Odysseus in the Underworld (Od. 11.601-19): both of them have had to descend to Hades (although for different reasons), and both of them, albeit descended from Zeus, have suffered many toils and wanderings they both 'drag out a wretched life as their destiny', as Heracles puts it.5 Heracles falls just short of being an Odysseus: he is an archer manque, just as he is a civilizer manque; his failures lie precisely in those respects in which Odysseus distinguishes himself: the latter succeeds in restoring civilized order by means of his extraordinary bowmanship. The Homeric narrative about the killing of Iphitus surfaces again, barely disguised, in Sophocles' Trachiniae(259-79). After his sack of Euboean Oechalia Heracles is coming back to Trachis, where his family had been residing (Tr. 38-40). Heracles' herald Lichas brings the news of his master's imminent arrival, and reports on his master's activities prior to his homecoming. Heracles, Lichas says, was so outraged by the grossly insulting behaviour of Eurytus, king of Oechalia, during a banquet the latter was holding in his honour, that he took vengeance by insidiously slaying Iphitus, Eurytus' son (Tr. 262-9). Zeus, angered at Heracles' inadmissible behaviour (Tr. 277,

5 11.618: KaKOV Ldpov '17pYo7ALhELSZA

HERACLES IN EPIC AND IN SOPHOCLES

51

280), decreed that he atone for his act by becoming Omphale'sslave for a whole year (Tr.248-53). Sophocles formulatesLichas' narrative of the events surroundingthe incident at Eurytus'house on the model

of the Homericaccountof Iphitus'murder,which he followsquite

closely:6
(al) Od. 21.27 69 t v EWLevov w)E'LtOLKW ovra KLTE KTLVv Who (sc. Heracles) murdered him (sc. Iphitus), the very man whom he had as a guest in his own house. (a2) S., Tr.262-3 "g a~?dvv Er 86oovU Ef cvov EAOVr"' areov, j rraAauv v-ra ... Who (sc. King Eurytus of Oechalia) [chided] him (sc. Heracles), though he had come to the hearth of his own house, being an old guest-friend ... (bl) Od. 21.28-9 o08E 7TpapdEav (sc. 68'uaaro),I r'v jv oL7TapE'1r7KEV And he had no regard either for divine punishment or for the table he had set before him. OI EppL (b2) S., Tr.268-9 E8rvotos ' ~bV iKT~Savo7v. "vtKIC qv VCWLEvOS And at dinner, when he was drunk, he (sc. Eurytus) threw him (sc. Heracles) out of the house.

Both Iphitus and Heracleswere xenoi,guest-friendsby default entitled

to respect,and the respective offencesagainstthem were committed

during dinner, i.e. precisely when respect towards them should be at its greatest. It will be noted, however, that Sophocles - so often dubbed, since ancient times, 'the tragic Homer'7 - has appropriated the language of the Homeric description of Iphitus' murder by Heracles, in order to describe a related but different episode, namely Eurytus'offence againstHeracles that led to the murderof Iphitus.In other words, whereas Homer castigates' Heraclesfor his violation of the rules of guest-friendship(xenia), Sophocles deploys timely remin-

of violation iscencesof the Homerictext in orderto castigate Eurytus' the rulesof xeniato Heracles' cost.

6 The oblique referencesto Homer have been also noted by M. Davies (ed.), Sophocles: Trachiniae (Oxford, 1991), 482; M. R. Halleran, 'Lichas' Lies and Sophoclean Innovation', GRBS 27 (1986), 239-47 (here 242); and B. Heiden, 'Lichas'Rhetoricof Justicein Sophocles' Rhetoric: An Interpretation Hermes116 (1988), 13-23 (here 18);id., Tragic "Trachiniae"', of Sophcf. also C. Fuqua, 'Heroism, ocles'Trachiniae (New York, 1989), 58 (henceforth,Rhetoric); Traditio 36 (1980), 1-81 (here 13 n. 36). Heracles,and the "Trachiniae"', Fond.Hardt29 (1982), 185-222 Entretiens 7 Cf. S. Radt, 'Sophoklesin seinen Fragmenten', 'The TragicHomer',BICS 31 (1984), 1-8. (here 199-202); P. E. Easterling, 'wretch',in Od.21.28. 8 Note especiallythe disparaging aX&Ator,

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How is this intertextual shift to be accounted for? My suggestion is the following. Sophocles' language in disparaging Eurytus for his offence against Heracles is carefully calculated to hark back to Homer's castigation of Heracles for the murder of Iphitus, so that he may insinuate - subtly, implicitly and ironically - a comparison between his own Eurytus and the Homeric Heracles. If the Sophoclean Eurytus' behaviour towards his guest is heinous (which it undoubtedly is), Heracles' behaviour towards his own guest in Homer is all the more heinous since it involves not merely insult but murder. By his verbal allusions to the Homeric passage in question, Sophocles forestalls any sympathy one might have for Heracles' reaction at his host's the subtle intertextual reference reminds one that Eurytus' grossieret9: act of insolence has a much more exacerbated precedent in Heracles' own murderous behaviour against his own host, Iphitus. The network of Homeric references is completed, and becomes wholly explicit, when Lichas recounts, a few lines later (Tr. 269-80), the actual murder of Iphitus, a guileful and hubristic act (277, 280) which earned Heracles the wrath of Zeus and a penalty of year-long subservience to a barbarous woman. Sophocles' implication seems to be that Heracles is dangerously prone to lapse into the kind of lawless behaviour that is typical of his enemies (in this case, of Eurytus): Heracles is perilously close to being absorbed by the disorder he is supposed to be fighting as a civilizer.9 This is a central theme in the Trachiniae,where Heracles is consistently presented as a highly ambiguous, interstitial figure - a civilizing hero that is all too prone to relapse into savagery. He has gloriously delivered Deianeira from the pursuit of her monstrous suitor Achelous (cf. 9, 15, 17),10 and has secured her an enviable marriage (27) to the best of men - that is, to himself (cf. 176-7). Nonetheless, the household that has been set up as a result of this marriage is abnormally transformed into its opposite, namely an apovpa EKTO'TOS (32) - a remarkable phrase denoting a plot of land that lies outside the space of regular human activity, an outdoors-like place." Instead of providing, as it should, 'the node and starting point of the
9 See the pertinent remarks of Th. Papadopoulou, 'Revenge in Euripides' Heracles', in F. Budelmann and P. Michelakis (eds.), Homer, Tragedyand Beyond: Essays in Honour of R E. Easterling (London, 2001), 113-28 with reference to Euripides' Heracles;and compare my review in BMCR 2002.08.19. 10 On Achelous as a monstrous parody of a suitor see C. E. Sorum, 'Monsters and the Family: The Exodos of Sophocles' Trachiniae',GRBS 19 (1978), 59-73 (here 61); contraHeiden, Rhetoric (n. 6), 26-7; D. Wender, 'The Will of the Beast: Sexual Imagery in the Trachiniae', Ramus 3.1 (1974), 1-17 (here 5). 11 Cf. Heiden, Rhetoric (n. 6), 29.

HERACLES IN EPIC AND IN SOPHOCLES

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orientation and arrangement of human space',12 Heracles' household shifts into a dangerous proximity with the wilderness of the outdoors. Significantly, when Deianeira describes her and her children's lives as members of Heracles' household, she uses a word signifying the exact
negation
o Aar-Ep

stands, to say the least, in an ambiguous relation to that nucleus of civilized life which is the oikos. This ambiguous, interstitial status of Heracles extends also beyond the confines of his own oikos. One of the very first items of information that Lichas imparts, in his report of Heracles' long-awaited arrival, is that the hero is demarcating the sacred ground on which new altars are to stand (237-8) - an act that is practically equivalent to the setting up of altars,'5 an act typical of the civilizing hero who transfigures the wild into domestic space. Altars/hearths are nuclei and symbols of such humanized spaces as the polis and the household: Protagoras in Plato's homonymous dialogue (322a) states that the setting up of altars distinguishes human beings from animals and approximates them to the gods.16 Nonetheless, Sophocles the ironist
12 13

E<Evwpu Heracles

namely Jvda'rarot (39), a wop8 vaoE oaXKE8 OEX-qaAta(240).13 A stranger to his own house (65 T]E vov),14 a man whose abode is unknown to his own kin (68),

of the oikos-concept,

as man partook of the divine, he first establishedthe1sp6VaEOat cult of gods - alone among all other animals,thanks to his affinityto the Godhead - and attemptedto erect altars and statues of de Sophocle',AC 44 (1975), gods'. Cf. also C. Segal, 'Mariageet sacrificedans les Trachiniennes 30-53 (here32-3), henceforthMariage; id., Civilization (n. 13), 61, 65-74. On the hearthas the domesticsacrificial site, and on the duty of the head of the house to sacrificeat it see W. Burkert, Greek For the hearth'ssacrificial Religion, Engl. transl.(Oxford,1985), 255, henceforthReligion. function (on which see again Burkert,Religion,61) cf. the fact that a-ria and pofw6ds can be synonyms:see J. Diggle, Studieson the Textof Euripides(Oxford, 1981), 33-4 for copious evidence (as Sophoclean examples he cites Tr.658, O.C. 1495; add Tr.607), and cf. Segal, Mariage,34. On the associationbetweenthe familyhearthand the public Hearth,which is the centre of collective sacrificialactivity,see L. Gernet, TheAnthropology of AncientGreece, Engl. transl. (Baltimore, 1981), 323, 325-7, 333. 'Hearth-houses', early forms of Greek temples Ritual and Myth, Engl. (W. Burkert,HomoNecans:TheAnthropology of AncientGreekSacrificial transl. [Berkeley1983], 10 n. 43; id., Religion,61), were apparentlyconnected with sacrificial evidence of such activityin rulers' dwellings (possiblythe original activity.For archaeological form of Greek temples) cf. A. J. MazarakisAinian, 'Early Greek Temples:Their Origin and
Function', in R. Hiigg, N. Marinatos and G. C. Nordquist (eds.), Early Greek Cult Practice (Stockholm, 1988), 105-19.

J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Thoughtamong the Greeks,Engl. transl. (London, 1983), 128. See C. Segal, Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretationof Sophocles (Cambridge, MA, 1981), 80 (henceforth, Civilization); id., Sophocles' Tragic World: Divinity, Nature, Society (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 29 (henceforth TragicWorld). 14 Glossed as 'foreigner' or 'exile' by R. C. Jebb (ed.), SophoclesThe Plays and Fragments.Part V The Trachiniae(Cambridge, 1892), ad 65f. and Davies (n. 6), ad 65 respectively. For Heracles' ambiguous relation to his oikos cf. Sorum (n. 10), 62. 15 See J. C. Kamerbeek (ed.), The Plays of Sophocles.Part II: The Trachiniae(Leiden, 1959), ad 237; cf. W. Burkert, 'Opferritual bei Sophokles: Pragmatik-Symbolik-Theater', AU 28.2 (1985), 5-20 (here 15). I 16 OEO? aUvyEVELWav 8E 6 VOpl7T09 OELa~L /tolpac, p7TpTrov JE'v &L T'T)v -rOO 5EITELr7 tET-EaXE 6 EOVS EVO AUrEV, Ecv:'assoon Kat&dyAAt5aTra gCO[3E KatiE7TrEXELpEL ~4ov 010vov

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presents us with an unexpected dramatic twist: Lichas informs Deianeira that her husband is offering thanksgiving sacrifices in fulfilment of a vow he made when he was about to sack Oechalia (239-41; cf. 287-8) and make Eurytus' family 'dwellers of Hades' (282), i.e. of an 'abode' which forms the exact negation of our familiar dwellings in the Upperworld.'7 So, Heracles' setting up of new altars, which should mark the establishment of a new city and new households, is in fact the consequence of his destruction of a city and a household. The 'civilizing hero' is setting up altars at Cape Cenaeum, having first destroyed the hearths of Oechalia.'s The Eurytus episode in the Trachiniae, to which we shall now briefly return, provides a further instance of this duality of Heracles of his being betwixt and between savagery and civilization. While Eurytus' behaviour deservedly attracts Heracles' revenge, the specific form his revenge takes, namely the murder of Eurytus' son Iphitus, must be perceived as wholly unjustifiable. As we have already seen, Sophocles drives this point home by cunningly exploiting intertextuality: by alluding to the Homeric subtext, he describes Eurytus' lawless act in terms that disturbingly resemble Heracles' much more lawless behaviour towards Iphitus in the Odyssey. As the title of my paper implies, Sophocles the ironist can exploit intertextuality to heighten ironic effect. I insist on the term 'intertextuality', because what we have here is not imitation for imitation's sake: Sophocles is not simply paying tribute to Homer the great master; rather, he utilizes the Homeric subtext as a template, a frame of reference, against which his own cunning variation can be effectively played out. The ambiguities that beset Heracles in life appear to persecute him also into his death. Whereas in II. 18.115-21 (quoted above, p. 49) Heracles' death is envisaged as an undeniable fact, Od. 11.601-19 (above, p. 50) presents us with a highly problematic picture. Odysseus descends to the Underworld where he sees, among others, Heracles or rather (the self-correction is the narrator's) his shadow, or 'likeness', E'whAov: for Heracles 'himself' (arodsg)is on Olympus among
17 Cf. Segal, Tragic World(n. 13), 237 n. 58. 18 Segal, Mariage (n. 16), 36-7 makes a similar point, appropriately emphasizing the use of optEtv/-Eaatal (237) in Sophocles to imply 'les actes constitutifs de la civilization'; this usage is ironically reversed in our passage, where 'cet acte de 6pL?Etv, de crier un espace humain, solennise la destruction d'une communaute humaine.' Cf. also Segal, Civilization (n. 13), 65-6. More recently, J.-R. Dumanoir, 'La moisson d'H6rakl's: le heros, le domaine et les enfants dans
les Trachiniennes', REG 109 (1996), 381-409 demonstrated in extenso that Heracles' relation-

ship with his oikos is highly problematic, his household's cohesion exceedingly fragile, and Heracles' capacity as paterfamilias doomed to failure.

HERACLES IN EPIC AND IN SOPHOCLES

55

the rest of the gods enjoying their banquets with Hebe as his wife. As we learn from the ancient scholia, lines 602-4 were 'regarded by ancient scholars as the work of an interpolator (Onomacritus, in the sixth century)', because they run 'counter to the principle, elsewhere strictly maintained by the poet, that physical death is the precondition for the presence of an Et''wAov in the Underworld'.19 This is a typical philologist's solution, and it seems that a similar course was taken by ancient scholars in the parallel case of the Hesiodic fragment 25.25-33 Merkelbach-West (from the 'Hoiac). The poet there states that Heracles died as a result of the poisoned robe, but in the very next line he continues: 'But now he is a god, and has escaped all evil, and lives together with the rest of the Olympian dwellers.'20 In POxy 2075 fr. 1, which transmits the fragment in question, the passage relating Heracles' eventual deification has been marked with obeloi, presumably on account of its incompatibility with the version of Heracles' death expounded immediately before in the fragment. I wish to suggest a more sensitive and less surgical solution to the problem, one that focuses on audience reception rather than authorial intention. To present Heracles as being simultaneously down in Hades with the dead and up in Olympus, alive and kicking, is, to be sure, equivalent to eating one's cake and having it. Whatever the reason for this compromise may have been (perhaps an attempt at reconciling two conflicting traditions about Heracles, or the Homeric version with later religious beliefs?), the fact remains that the Odyssey of Sophocles' time must have been perceived by its audience as remaining decidedly undecided over Heracles' posthumous fortunes: Homer's Heracles hovers in aeternum between death and immortality. And as if to indicate that Heracles' paradoxical status (both dead and immortal) is part of a wider ambiguity typical of this mythical figure, a six-line description of Heracles' baldric (Od. 11.609-14) is tagged on, unsparingly expressing the narrator's utter horror at the brutality of its decoration:
And there was a heinous baldric across his chest, a belt made of gold, where wondrous deeds were depicted: bears and wild boars and fierce lions, and conflicts, and battles, and murders, and killings of men. May he never have fashioned it, nor ever fashion anything else, he who made that belt one of the masterpieces of his craft.21
19 A. Hoekstra (ed.), A Commentaryon Homer's Odyssey,vol. II (Oxford, 1989), 114 (ad Od.

11.601-27).
lE

20 Ka'] OdCVEKaI

A' Ata[ao

IroAU'lr-ovov lKaE]To &oa.

I v1Jv

"

?l7 OEOEE(T,

JV KcKQv
7

A. Heubeckad loc.

SCWEL 8" 4'a 7rEp AAot "OAlz4Tna 6~/a7r' E1OVTES KcrA. ,AvOe 21 OnrLvl-rv, the difficult, and possibly corrupt, 614 (89 KrELOV rEAcOL~ LVa yKlK7Ero70

XVv)see

56

HERACLES

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Heracles 'himself' (a~h-6s) may well be in Olympus partaking of the remains eternally gods' civilized feasts,22 but his 'likeness' associated with images of utmost savagery.(E'8wAov) The end of the Trachiniae has been a notoriously moot point. Heracles commands his son Hyllus to light the pyre that will consume his flesh (Tr. 1191-1202); however, apotheosis from the pyre, a version that appears in several literary and artistic sources, is never explicitly referred to in the Trachiniae.Does this mean that Sophocles plays on his audience's knowledge of what was evidently a widespread version of the Heracles story, namely apotheosis from the pyre, and expects them mentally to supply the traditional ending to his somewhat open-ended play? Or is the omission a sign that, contrary to the 'official' version of the myth, we are to envisage no other end for Heracles but death and disintegration?23 Critics who espouse the former view24 tend to emphasize the fact that Heracles' status as an immortal is attested in literature as early as Hesiod (Theogony954-5), while cults in his honour were extremely common throughout Attica.25 Moreover, these critics argue, the sharp focus into which Heracles' funeral pyre is brought in the last portion of a play can hardly have failed to recall the famous bonfire ritual on Mt. Oite26
22 O. Murray has argued, on various occasions, for the significance of the symposium as a 'miniature city', as a model for fundamental civic functions; for a synopsis of his arguments and relevant bibliography see P. Schmitt Pantel, La cite au banquet:histoiredes repaspubliquesdans les citesgrecques (Paris/Rome, 1992), 46-8. 23 Cf. the dilemma as formulated by P. Holt, 'The End of the Trachiniai and the Fate of Heracles', JHS 109 (1989), 69-80 (here 69). For a list of critics who do not favour apotheosis see T. C. W. Stinton, CollectedPapers on Greek Tragedy(Oxford, 1990), 480 n. 89; T. F. Hoey, 'Ambiguity in the Exodos of Sophocles' Trachiniae',Arethusa 10 (1977), 269-94 (here 290 n. 2); and Holt, op. cit., 69 n.1; against apotheosis are also V. Ehrenberg, Polis und Imperium,ed. by K. F Stroheker and A. J. Graham (ZUirich, 1965), 390-1; V. di Benedetto, Sofocle (Florence, 1983), 158-60; and J. D. Mikalson, 'Zeus the Father and Heracles the Son in Tragedy', TAPhA 116 (1986), 89-98 (here 92 n. 6, 97-8), who feels that Sophocles (unlike Euripides in H.E) does not seem to link the end of his play with actual Athenian cultic practice. P. E. Easterling, 'The End of the Trachiniae', ICIS 6.1 (1981), 56-74 (here 64-9) remains noncommittal. 24 A comprehensive list of such critics is given in Stinton (n. 23) 480 n. 89; to this list one should also add Segal, Mariage (n. 16), 49; R. Scodel, Sophocles (Boston, 1984), 40-2; H. Friis Johansen, 'Heracles in Sophocles' Trachiniae',C&M 37 (1986), 47-61 (here 55-6); J. R. March, The Creative Poet: Studies on the Treatmentof Myths in Greek Poetry (London, 1987), 72-7; R. L. Kane, 'The Structure of Sophocles' Trachiniae:"Diptych" or "Trilogy"?', Phoenix 42 (1988), 198-211 (here 208-11); Holt (n. 23) 70-6; and C. S. Kraus, "'"Adyosjdv VaEr' dpxyaos":Stories and Story-telling in Sophocles' Trachiniae', TAPhA 121 (1991), 75-98 (here 96-8); also C. P. Gardiner, The Sophoclean Chorus:A Study of Characterand Function (Iowa City, 1987), 135-7, with original, but very strained arguments. 25 See E. Kearns, The Heroes of Attica (London, 1989), 166, who refers to S. Woodford, 'Cults of Heracles in Attica' in D. G. Mitten et all. edd., Studies Presented to George M. A.

Hanfmann (Mainz, 1971), 211-25 for a catalogue and discussion of the cults. 26 On the bonfire ritual see imprimis M. P. Nilsson, Opuscula Selecta, Vol. I (Lund, 348-54; cf. further Burkert (n. 15), 17.

1951),

HERACLES IN EPIC AND IN SOPHOCLES

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which celebrated, precisely, Heracles' status as an immortal.27 Besides, apotheosis and pyre are explicitly connected in literary and artistic sources, which are admittedly later (in all likelihood) than the Trachiniae but not so late as not to deserve consideration: in Eur., Hcld. 910-18 and Soph., Phil. 727-9 the pyre is clearly a preamble to immortalization; in three vase-paintings from c. 420 to 380 BC Heracles soars above his pyre in a chariot on his way to Olympus;28 and a series of vase-paintings from the mid-fifth century may suggest that pyre and apotheosis were linked already at that date.29 Most remarkably, Caroline Hahnemann,30 thanks to a thoughtful re-examination of two fragments from Aeschylus' Heraclidae (73b and 75a Radt), was able to tease out evidence suggesting that the apotheosis version was current already in Aeschylus' time, i.e. before 456 BC. On the other hand, critics who oppose the prospect of Heracles' apotheosis from the pyre, maintain that the play seems to end on a note of grim finality, leaving no room for hints at a future recompense: Heracles sees his imminent conflagration as 'the final end of and envisagesno this man' (1256: rEAEVT'1 roVE8 rvip9S 7alr6r),

other futurefor himselfexcept as an Underworldspirit(1201-2; cf. also 1046-3),31 while Hyllus bitterly complains of the gross insensitivity of the gods toward their own (1266: jEydaAv . . ayvwotoaivq-v) offspring- an insensitivitythat brings sorrowto Heracles'folk, shame to the gods, and great suffering to Heracles himself (1271-4).32 In
27 Cf. Holt (n. 23), 74: '[w]e often find the apotheosiswithoutthe pyre,but we seldom find the pyre withoutthe apotheosis.Nor should we expect to, if the story of the pyre is a cult-myth which assumedHeracles'exaltedstatus and sought to explainhow it came about. [ ... ] [A]n for his cremationwould find it very easy to think audiencethat saw Heracleson stage preparing of The importanceof the Oite fire-ritualfor the overallinterpretation ahead to his exaltation.' and Heracles' 'The Second Stasimonof the Trachiniae the play is also stressedby M. Finkelberg, Festivalon Mount Oeta',Mnemosyne, ser.IV,49 (1996), 129-43. of 28 For details on the vases see Holt (n. 23), 73 n. 19. For possible representations Heracles' apotheosis outside vase-paintingssee P. Holt, 'Heracles'Apotheosis in Lost Greek Literature and Art',AC 61 (1992), 38-59 (here 56-9), henceforthApotheosis. 29 See Stinton (n. 23), 481 with n. 92. 30 See C. Hahnemann,'Mount Oita Revisited: in Light of the Evidence Sophocles'Trachiniai ZPE 126 (1999), 67-73. Cf. alreadyHolt, Apotheosis of Aischylos'Herakleidaz', (n. 28), 46-51, with less conclusivearguments. 31 Among others, Hoey (n. 23), 271-2; Friis Johansen (n. 24), 57 n. 43, 59; and March (n. 24), 76 with n. 156 havevariouslytried to disputethe sense of finalityimplicitin these passages. 32 Holt, and others before him (e.g. C. M. Bowra, Sophoclean [Oxford, 1944], Tragedy 159-60; H. Lloyd-Jones,TheJusticeof Zeus [Berkeley,19832], 127-8), took the view that the allusionto apotheosisis only faintin ordernot to spoil the overallsombreeffectof the play.This, boils down to havingone's cake and eatingit: if the however,as Stinton (n. 23), 482 remarked, hint of apotheosisis clear enough to be taken by the audience,then it will of course mitigate,if not annul,the sombreeffect.Cf. also the criticismof Holt's view by Finkelberg (n. 27), 140 with n. 30.

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addition, Stinton33 insisted that, while Heracles' divine status was undoubtedly well-established at the time of the play's production, apotheosis by means of the pyre was probably not the version likely to have been widely known at the time (see however above, pp. 56-7). Stinton, in particular, brought intertextuality to bear on his interpretation of the end of the Trachiniae.34 Sophocles, he argued, exploited the Iliadic version of Heracles' end as a subtext, making dramatic capital of his audience's knowledge that 'even Heracles was not exempt from death' (cf. II. 18.117-19), in order to discourage them from taking apotheosis for granted. In Stinton's own words, 'the audience's knowledge of the version in Hesiod and in cult, which ends in apotheosis, will already modify their response to the play, by making them aware that Sophocles is diverging from it, after the Iliad. This divergence itself attests the poet's confidence in his own particular version.'35 But why assume that Sophocles' subtext was Iliad 18 rather than Odyssey 11? After all, Iliad 18 does not seem to be concerned with the telling of the full story and therefore, as Holt has rightly remarked,36 is not to be elevated into a fully-fledged alternative version of Heracles' end: rather, it should be seen as a rhetorically apt focalization on the sombrest aspects of the Heracles myth, intended to tone up the grimness of Achilles' own impending death. If there is a Homeric passage that goes into any detail about Heracles' posthumous fate, this is Odyssey 11; and although it contains glaring contradictions and, most probably, a less-than-seamless interpolation, it surely was the standard text in Sophocles' time. It is therefore much more likely to have conditioned, as a subtext, the reception of the Trachiniae. If this hypothesis is correct, then the dilemma formulated above with reference to the Trachiniae(namely, whether Heracles' apotheosis is alluded to or not) turns out to be meaningless. If Odyssey 11 can hover between the two versions of Heracles' end, unable - or rather, unwilling - to decide between them, then this sets a precedent for the Trachiniaeto remain equally indecisive and ambiguous. As T. F. Hoey first suggested, the play leaves the question of apotheosis open, 'as

33 Stinton (n. 23), 493-507.

34 Stinton (n.23), 479-90.

35 Stinton (n. 23), 489. Cf. also D. H. Roberts, Arethusa 21 (1988), 177-96 (here 191-2), and, again, Stinton (n. 23), 500 n. 50. 36 Holt (n. 23), 72.

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59

though [it] had weighed both options and felt itself unable to
decide'.37

Such a reading of the end of the Trachiniae is also thematically The of Heracles remains end pertinent. open, ambiguous,undecided, as his life and veered just endlessly hopelessly between ambiguities. He has devoted his life to ridding Greece of monsters and to making a habitable place out of her (1010-13), but he has often shown a paper, Heracles has been notably the creator of households (his marriage to Deianeira was conspicuously such an occasion), but he has also been the destroyerof households (he ravagedthe entire city of Oechalia).Just before his end he becomes the destroyerof his own oikostoo: for he threatensto kill the mother of his children with his bare hands (1064-9, 1133), and he preposterously asks his son to prove his filial obedience by incurring a double pollution, i.e. by contributingto his father'sdeath and contractinga marriagewith the Erinys-like woman (cf. Trach.893-5) who killed both his parents. Heracles finds himself incapable of rising above the ambiguities and tensions in which he has been trapped. By integratingthese ambiguities and tensions into its narrativefibre, the Trachiniae exploits the subtext of Odyssey11 in orderto allow itself to remain open-ended, to
negate narrative closure, and to transubstantiate an ambiguous myth into a text that self-consciously lacks finality.

of this to animality.38 As we sawat the beginning dangerous proximity

37 Hoey (n. 23), 272-3, with the additional remark that the play remains 'agnostic' regarding any possible afterlife for Heracles. See however Easterling (n. 23), 68 and Stinton (n. 23), 483 for criticism. 38 On the antinomy between humanity and animality in Heracles see e.g. G. S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths (London, 1974), 206-9; id., 'Methodological Reflexions on the Myths of Heracles', in B. Gentili and G. Paioni (eds.), II mito greco (Rome, 1977), 285-97 (here 291); Fuqua (n. 6), 11 n. 29; Friis Johansen (n. 24), 57-61. Cf. also M. Ryzman, 'Heracles' Destructive Impulses: A Transgression of Natural Laws (Sophocles' Trachiniae)', RBPh 71 (1993), 69-79, although her emphasis on Heracles' animalistic aspects seems rather excessive. More recently, C. Calame, 'Heracl6s, animal et victime sacrificielle dans les "Trachiniennes" de Sophocle' in C. Bonnet et al. edd., Le bestiaire d'Hraclis (LiIge, 1998), 197-215, argued that Heracles' death, with its sacrificial overtones, illustrates the bestiality of his own nature. On Heracles' death as a perverted sacrifice see e.g. R. Seaford, Reciprocityand Ritual: Homer and Tragedyin the Developing City-State (Oxford, 1994), 391 with n. 101; Segal, Mariage (n. 16), 38; Civilization (n. 13), 71; Tragic World(n. 13), 46-7, 55-6.