The Ephebes' Song: Tragidia and Polis

Author(s): John J. Winkler

Source: Representations, No. 11 (Summer, 1985), pp. 26-62
Published by: University of California Press
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JOHN

J. WINKLER

The Ephebes' Song:

Tragoidiaand Polis
origin has forquite some timebeen
OF TRAGEDY'S
THE QUESTION
stuck in an impasse, with the same few bits of ancient informationbeing constantlyand inconclusivelyrecycled.' The average skeptic (and I count myself
one) would rightlydoubt thatanythingnew-much less true-could be said on
the subject.Nevertheless,the presentessayclaims both to be new and to stand a
reasonable chance of being true. If I may be allowed just one small attemptto
elicitthe skepticalreader's benevolence: I herebyacknowledge that each of the
itemshere assembled could, one by one, be construedin another waythan I do.
Some are late, some are incomplete,most are relativelysmall and eitherambiguous or inconclusive.Indeed, it is because of these veryfeaturesin the evidence
that no one has noticed the coherence that I am about to trace. In its favor,it
maybe said thatthe followinghypothesisdrawstogetherinformationfromquite
differentareas-ritual, politics,vase painting,dance, costume, audience, and
even fromthe texts.Like the individualpoles thatforma teepee, no one of these
data can stand alone, but theircoincidence formsa structurethatis farstronger
than its simple components. I will firstset up the evidence in the firstfour sections,thenletthe skepticalperspectiveexpress itsreservationsin the nextsection,
and conclude witha tail-pieceon satyrs.My minimalhope is that the comprehensiveness,as well as the novelty,of this hypothesiswill provoke furtherdiscussions,whetherby way of confirmation,refutation,or amendment.

A Duel on the Border: The Trick of the Black Goatskin

A storywillfocusthe issue. In the old daysof the kingsa disputearose
betweenAttikaand Boiotia over the controlof a village in the hill countrythat
formsthe natural boundary between them. Border squabbles, of course, were
endemic in a culturethatis aptlydescribed as not only face-to-facebut scowling,
and it is not surprisingto finddisagreementtoo over the name of the hamlet,
whichis variouslygiven as Melainai, Oinoe, Panakton,or Eleutherai.2An agreement was reached to settlethe issue by single combat betweenXanthos, king of
Boiotia, and Melanthos,who had been promisedthe kingshipof Attikaifhe won
the fight.As Melanthos strode forwardhe either saw or claimed to see behind
Xanthos an apparition of a beardless man wearing a black goatskin over his
26

REPRESENTATIONS

11 * Summer 1985 ?

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

shoulders. He shouted out to Xanthos thatitwas unfairforhim to bringa helper

to fightwhatwas agreed to be a singlecombat; as Xanthos turned to look behind
him, Melanthos struckwithhis spear and killed him.
There is a curious fact about the use of this story,which will set up the
parametersof myhypothesis.In the cycleof Athenianfestivalsthe tale of Melanthos' trickor deception (apatM)served as the etiologyfor the Apatouria, a very
old kinshipcelebrationin the fourthmonthof the Atticyear (called Pyanopsion,
roughlySeptember-October).3On the three days of this festival,the phratries
recognized boys and girls born in the preceding year with sacrificesto Zeus
Phratriosand Athena Phratria and also acknowledged the coming manhood
(hebe)of sixteen-year-oldboys with a sacrificecalled the koureion(on the day
Koureotis). The latterwords were etymologizedeither by referenceto kouros,
"youthor young man,"or to koura,"cuttingthe hair,"which was then dedicated
to Artemis.4The later word for kouroi,young men in the prime of life on the
"ephebes,"literallythose at (ep') theiryouththresholdof adulthood, was epheboi,
ful prime (hebe).In addition to denotingthe ideal youthat the firstfloweringof
his adult vigor (a flexibleusage), "ephebe" came to be the specificdesignationof
the eighteen-to twenty-year-old
citizenin militarytraining.5This trainingbegan,
aftertheirenrollmentas eighteen-year-oldsin the registerof tribeand deme, in
the thirdmonthof theAtticyear(Boedromion).6Their new statuswas confirmed
by an ancientoath of loyaltyto the polis, whichbegins,"I willnot disgrace these
sacred weapons [hopla]and I will not desert the comrade beside me [parastaten]
whereverI shall be stationedin a battleline."7
Pierre Vidal-Naquet has brilliantlydiscerned the relevance of that strange
tale to the Apatouria by emphasizing that one of the themes incorporatedinto
the celebrationof clan inductionwas thatof the young man as new soldier.8In
developing thistheme fromVidal-Naquet we mustallow for (and watchout for)
a certain play between the looser and strictersenses of "ephebe" and between
the older phratry(clan) organizationand the newerdeme-and-tribeorganization
of the polis. Even more importantis an ambiguityinherentin the institutionof
the ephebate itself.The two years of ephebic trainingare not only a practical
in whichheavilyarmed soldiers
inductionintothe techniquesof infantryfighting,
(hoplites) arranged in a phalanx marchout to meet an opposing phalanx on the
field of battle; it is also a passage between two distinctsocial identities.9The
ephebate thereforecontains not only trainingin militarydisciplineand in civic
responsibilitybut also rites and fictionsthat dramatize the differencebetween
whattheephebes were (boys)and whattheywillbe (men). The mythof Melanthos
told at the Apatouria expresses the characterand statusof the new soldiers as
in-betweeners,mixingthe categories,specificallyby an implied contrastbetween
thatdisciplinedand honorable phalanx fightingon the plains thatwas the duty
of every citizen-soldier,10
and Melanthos' tricky,deceitful,solo fightingin the
mountains. To appreciate how shocking was Melanthos' trickone must read
The Ephebes'Song

27

chapters 7-9 of W K. Pritchett'sThe GreekStateat War,part 2 (Berkeley,1974):

warfare between Greek poleis was governed by rules of honor comparable to
those for dueling. Enemy armies mightcamp quite close to each other without
fearof surpriseattack;battlestook place in response to a formalchallenge,which
mightbe declined for several days in succession; ambuscades and nightattacks
are serious violationsin honor,at least betweenGreeks.
There is some indicationthat the exercises of the Athenian ephebate contained a literal acting out of Melanthos' role, though it may have been more
symbolicand conventionalrather than the literalprogram described by VidalNaquet. Like all thingsmilitaryand most thingsarchaic, the discipline of the
young is best attestedfor Sparta, where the sons of citizenswere segregated in
"herds" (agelai) according to a carefullyregulated systemof age classes. The
trainingof Spartan youthis known to have included distinctlynonhopliticexercises-unarmed foraysin the hills, feeding off the wild land instead of in a
company mess, stealthynightfighting.Such exercises do contain a component
of the practical,insofaras theypromoteruggedness and self-reliance,but on the
fightingsince theydo not develop
whole theyare quite useless forGreek intercity
thatcorporatedisciplineand well-drilledobedience thatwas the essence of infantrymaneuvers.'1
The Atticevidence is much sparser but contains some significantparallels.
Specificallythe ephebes in Aristotle'saccount of militarytrainingwere sundered
fromall citizendutiesor claims at law and were takenout of the cityto the series
of fortson the perimeterof Attika.12It is not necessarilythe case thatAthenian
ephebes in this period were much exercised in mountain foragingand ambuscades, as Vidal-Naquet concludes fromthe Spartan parallel. Insofar as the goal
of the ephebate was to produce hopliteswho would not break ranks,lone wolf
trainingmust form only a very limited and subordinate part of the program;
the point that such trainingserves is more symbolicthan practical.We should
rathersaythatin the ephebes' timeof novitiate,when theywere segregatedfrom
the regular communityand waitingfor entryinto the ranks of full citizen-soldiers, the Melanthos tale becomes theirsfor its border setting,its patriotism,its
unproven hero, and above all because Melanthos is one who has not yetlearned
the honorable conventionsof phalanx battle. Because the ephebate is both a
period of practicalmilitarytrainingand containsritualsof passage bysegregation
and inversion,a tale of a fightingtrick set on the border captures the very
confirmedwhen
characterof the ephebic ideal (or anti-ideal).This is strikingly
we observe that the mysteriousapparition is both beardless (the iconographic
sign for ephebes) and black-caped, for Athenian ephebes wore a distinctive
black cape.13
But, grantingall that,thereremainsa problem. The black-caped apparition
is Dionysos, explicitlynamed in some versionsof the story,and well known by
thattitle(Melanaigis) elsewhere.14 Dionysos,as faras we know,has no particular
28

REPRESENTATIONS

connectionwiththe Apatouria;15 in factthe association is distinctlyodd.16 The

place names Oinoe and Eleutheraifallwithinhis sphere of influence,the former
suggestingoinosor wine, the latter the title Eleuthereus under which he was
worshipped at the CityDionysia,the five-daydramaticfestivaleach spring.The
Greek lexicon) by the
titleMelanaigis is explained in the Souda (a tenth-century
storythat the daughters of Eleuther (eponymous hero of Eleutherai) saw an
apparitionof Dionysoswearinga black goatskinand because theymockeditwent
mad; to cure theirinsanitytheirfatherfollowedtheadvice of an oracle to institute
the cult of Dionysos Melanaigis. The tale typeis fairlycommon. Its most significant instanceforour investigationis the foundationmythof the CityDionysia:
a certain Pegasos ofEleutheraibrought the statue of Dionysos to Attika,but the
Athenians did not receive it withhonor. The angry god then sent an incurable
afflictionon the genitalsof the men, which could only be cured (said an oracle)
by paying every honor to the god, which they proceeded to do by fashioning
phalloi for use in his worshipas a memorialof theirsuffering.17
Most tellingfor presentpurposes is the factthatthe entryof Dionysos into
Athens was reenacted each year by the ephebes. They inaugurated the festival
bybringingthe cult statuein processionfromthe Academy (just outside the city
boundaries on the road to Eleutherai) back to itstemple and theaterprecincton
the southeastslope of the Akropolis.This reenactmentof the originof Dionysos
Melanaigis by the ephebes for the cityseems to mirror(withthe normal cloudiness and unevenness of ancient metal mirrorsrather than with the sharpness
of our silvered glass ones) those ceremonies of induction and that mythof
apprenticeshiplocated at the opposite end of the year.
One might,of course, tryeither to expunge Dionysos fromthe tale of the
warrior'strickor to severthe tale fromthe Apatouria.18 An older styleof analysis,
well exemplifiedby W R. Halliday,excelled in the use of text-editorialmethods
to detect inconsistenciesand to delete intrusiveelements in the myth.19Like
restorersof old paintingssuch scholarsaimed to uncover the authenticoriginal
fromcenturiesof grime and inexpert retouching.The currentunderstanding
of such myths,however,recognizesthat logical gaps and overlayare sometimes
not the unfortunateaccretionsof timebut signsof a social process,of an ongoing
negotiationbetweenvarious groups or pointsof view.Our storyseems caught in
some sortof forcefieldbetweenthe Apatouria and the CityDionysia: I propose
that a specificfeatureof these two festivalsmade it seem to belong to both and
thatephebes are the link.
There are in factnumerous indications-all of them a matterof record but
not hithertoassembled in this way-that the City Dionysia was a social event
focused preciselyon the ephebes.20By "focused" I mean thatin the complex and
ever-changingorganizationof the CityDionysiathe ephebes wereboth physically
and analyticallyat the centerof attention-often(as we will see) a stillcenter.A
careful analysisof this materialwill lead to the theorythat the earliestform of
The Ephebes'Song

29

tragicperformancewas by,for,and about them. So put, the claim willundoubtedly seem hyperbolic,but I believe there is enough hard evidence to support it
as a literaland accurate (though not exhaustive)account of the origin of Greek
tragedy.The evidence is found in all three components of the festivalexhibition-audience, scripts,and performers.The firsttwo (the "for"and the "about"),
though theyare in no wayless essentialcomponentsof the triangle,can be dealt
withrelativelybriefly.It is the thirdelement,the performers(the "by"),on which
and then
I will have most to say,leading up to a new etymologyof tragoidoiY2
concluding with a brief assessmentof remainingdifficultiesand an encore on
satyrplays.
Audience
The opening eventof the CityDionysia was the ephebes' reenactment
of the advent of Dionysos, which included a sacrificeat a hearth-altar(eschar&)
near the Academy,a torchlightprocessionwiththe cult statue,and (perhaps on
the next day,as part of the general barbecue) theirsacrificeof a bull on behalf
of the entire city.22The daylightparade was a lavish spectacle-metics in red
robes, phalluses and other precious religiousobjectscarried by priestsand honored citizens,twentydithyrambicchoruses (ten of fifty
boys each and ten of fifty
men each) in theirelaborate and expensive costumes.In the centerof all thisthe
ephebes stood as the god's immediateacolytes.23
They also had a special block of seats in the theater.Aristophanes refers
the sectionof the auditoriumwhere the membersof
explicitlyto the bouleutikon,
the Boule (Council) sat-fiftycouncillorsfromeach of the ten tribes.The scholiast thereon, seconded by Pollux and Hesychios, informsus that the ephebes
too were so honored.24The parallelismbetween the dithyrambicchoruses (ten
groups of fiftyin competition)and the Boule (fiftycouncillorsfromeach of the
ten tribes) is not accidental. The City Dionysia, like the Panathenaia, was an
occasion for marking the structureas well as the magnificenceof democratic
Athens,thatis,the specificstructuregivento the democracybythe constitutional
reformsof Kleisthenes(509-508 B.C.E.). The prominentelementsof thatstructure were carefullydisplayed-the ten tribes; the governing Council; and the
newestgenerationof citizens,the ephebes. The layoutof the auditoriumformed
(at least ideally) a kind of map of the civic corporationwithall its tensionsand
balances. The fundamentalcontrastwas that between the internalcompetition
of tribeagainst tribe(mirroredon other levels of Athenian societyby the always
vigorous competitionof individuals and households) and the equally strong
so thatthe polis as a whole
determinationto honor and obey legitimateauthority,
would displaya united frontagainstitsenemies. These two vectorsof civicmanlinesscross at a balance point thatis a locus of no littleanxiety,particularlysince
the unit of intra-Atheniancompetition,the tribe, is also the unit of military
30

REPRESENTATIONS

organization.In describingthe concernsthatwerewrittenintothe physicalorganizationof the audience we will at the same time be characterizingthe expectationsof thataudience, itsreadiness to perceivecertainmessages elicitingitssympathyand anxiety(eleosand phobos).This in turnwillexplainwhythe city'sephebes
were placed preciselyat the cross hairs of those powerfulforces.
Consider firstthe seating of the ten tribes.Three statue bases found at the
"wedges") correspond to the trafoot of the thirteenseating sections (kerkides,
ditionalorder of the ten tribes,assuming thatthe centralwedge was thatof the
Boule and ephebes and the two outermostwedges were assigned to noncitizens.
The statuesare Hadrianic, but much earlier evidence existsin the formof lead
theatertickets,whose spellingconventionsand letterformsput them at least in
the earlypart of the fourthcenturyB.C.E. ifnot earlier.These ticketsare marked
withtribalnames.25If the citizensare seated (at least grossomodo)by tribalaffiliation,these ten tribalblocks will to some extenthave been in competitionwith
each other since the dithyrambicperformances(unlikecomedyand tragedy)are
organized by tribe;on the choregic monumentsit is the tribethatis announced
as the winner.(This would be true even though-as it seems-the dithyrambs
were performed in the agora; see note 79 below.) The panel of tenjudges for
all eventswas selected one fromeach tribe,and as a matterof course theywere
carefullysworn not to show favoritism.The recorded instancesof briberyand
cheatingshow thatthe oath and other safeguardswere necessary.26
The lateral spread of the auditorium thus formed an axis of competition
among the ten citizengroups,withthe Boule as theirrepresentativesand mediators at the center.The verticalaxes up and down the blocks displayed relative
prestige.Prohedria,frontrow seating,was one of the highesthonors that could
be paid to benefactorsand special friendsof thecity,attestedin numerousdecrees
and in one funnystoryabout Demosthenes.27Since this festivaltook place just
when the winterstorms had ceased and travelbecame tolerable, its splendor
attracteda large audience of sightseers,guests,and other noncitizens,who are
generallythoughtto have been seated in the twooutermostwedges. Athensused
the opportunityto score propaganda points. Before the musical events, ceremonies were held in the orchestra: golden crowns were bestowed on favored
friendsof the city,the tributepaid by the allies was carried in and displayed(fifth
century),and boys whose fathershad died in war and who had been supported
bythecityuntiltheyreached hebewereparaded in a suitof hoplitearmor supplied
to themby the city,now thattheywere ready to enterthe ranksof the ephebes.28
If the tributeand the presence of the city'sfriendsrepresenther active militaryalliances,the war orphans who are ready to become soldiersin theirfathers'
places inevitablybring to mind the city'sbattles,both past and future.29This
descriptionmay sound more like a West Point graduation ceremony,but it is
importantto underscore the fact that the totocaelo differencewe experience
between the militaryrealm and the theatrical,between marching to war and
The Ephebes'Song

31

going to a play,did not apply to the City Dionysia. To cite a caricaturewhose

degree of truthwill later become apparent, AristophanespresentsAischylosin
theFrogsdefendinghis tragediesas a formof martialart: his SevenAgainstThebes
made everyman in the audience lust forbattle(1022).
On the map of the body politicformedby the theaterseating,the lateralaxis
of intracitycompetitionamong tribesis crossed in the center by a verticalaxis
containingthe Boule and ephebes. Like the Boule the ephebes are organized by
tribe.That centralaxis thuscontainstwokindsof tribalrepresentatives-citizengovernors and citizens-in-training-whosecompetitionis muted by theirfunction as administratorsand defenders of the polis as a whole. Since the vertical
the presence of
axes in all the wedges are used to symbolizerank (prohedri&),
councillorsand ephebes on the centralaxis highlightsthe relationshipbetween
those who rule and those who are ruled. (My conjecturethat the ephebes were
seated in thecentralwedge is not theonlyconceivablearrangement,but itaccords
best withthe social map of the auditorium,making them separate, central,and
subordinate to the Boule.) In sum, then, the entire audience is organized in a
way that demonstratesits corporate manliness as a polis to be reckoned with,
comprisingindividualswho are both vigilantto assert excellence against other
membersof the city(tribeversus tribe)and ready to followlegitimateauthority
against external threats(cadet soldiers and Council).
The playstheywatched spoke to thisorganization.
Script
The survivingscriptsfortragicperformancesand the plot summaries
of lost plays are rich in ephebic themes. There already exists some work of
brilliantconception and detail along these lines by Froma I. Zeitlin30and Pierre
Vidal-Naquet,31and much more remains to be done. But for present purposes
we can be contentwitha briefsketchsince the burden of thisessayis not literary
criticismbut a reconstructionof performancesbased on the hard evidence of
the sectionon "Performance,"below.
Against the festivalbackground that I have described, occasional moments
of tragediesstandout as directimitationsof ceremonialevents.The moststriking,
to my mind, is the entryof a chorus of sons of fallen soldiers at the end of
Euripides' SuppliantWomen.They mourn for theirfathersand look forwardto
the day when theywill put on armor and take their fathers'places in the city's
defensiveranks (1143ff.,1150ff.).Since the audience has recentlywitnessedthe
ceremonialarmoringof Athenianboyswhose fathershad died in battleand who
are now enteringthe ephebate, this scene must have had an unusually strong
impact on the audience as a sort of premonitionex postfacto: the Argive boys
look forwardto the momentwhen theywill do what theirAthenian equivalents
have indeed just done.
32

REPRESENTATIONS

But the boys are Argive,not Athenian,sons of the soldiers led by the magpast. Balancing the
nificentSeven who attacked Thebes in the myth-historical
visibleimmediacywithwhichthattragicscene representsthe parade of Athenian
orphan-ephebesis the removalof the signifierfromthe presentlocation(Athens)
of tragedy
and the presenttime(c. 425 -415 B.C.E.). It is genericallycharacteristic
(as opposed to comedy) to be removed in space and time from the Athenian
here-and-now.The ephebic realitiesprojected into the dramaticscripttherefore
are as a rule considerablymore remote and less recognizablyexact than the
orphan scene of the SuppliantWomen.For instance, the presumed subject of
Sophokles' Sk9rioiwas the summoningof Neoptolemos fromthe island of Skyros,
where his fatherAchilles had been hidden in maiden's clothes,to take his dead
father'splace in the Greek forces at Troy.32This is more typicallythe level of
relevance and remoteness at which tragedyoperates, the distance in fictional
speaks to the audience and (as I
space and time fromwhich it characteristically
argue) to the city'scentral concern for ephebes. I offera tentativetypologyof
these ephebic concerns under three headings.
and to be
1) A son, now grownto manhood,comeshometo claimhis patrimony
ofhisfatherThe paradigm is Orestes,and a key
successor
as thelegitimate
recognized
issue in his restorationis the guileful (that is, primafacie unmanly) means by
which he confrontshis enemies and gains control of his paternal territory:
A(ischylos) Choiphoroi,S(ophokles) Elektra,E(uripides) Elektra.Some protagonists,likeOrestes,face a usurper in locopatris(Jason,33Kresphontes34)who must
be overcome by guilefulviolence; othersfindthemselvesthe unexpected victim
of violence froma stepmother(Theseus almost poisoned by Medeia, E. Aigeus)
who doesn't recognize her/hisson (E. Ion, in which Ion is
or a mother/father
in which Alexandros is set upon by
almost poisoned by Kreousa; E. Alexandros,
in which Kresphontes is
his brothersat Hekuba's instigation;35E. Kresphontes,
saved at the last minute from his axe-wieldingmother Merope; S. Euryalos,in
Akanwhich Euryalos is killed by Odysseus at Penelope's instigation;S. Odysseus
It
him).
and
slays
his
father
Odysseus
attacked
is
by
in
which
Telegonos
thoplex,
intrafamilial
generic
is possible to read the violence of these plots in terms of
anxiety,but insofaras the principalactor is an ephebe in search of his adult role
and identity,those anxieties can be given a more specificlocation in social psychologythan has usually been done.36
Often the ephebe sets out to assume his adult identitynotjust by findingor
avenginghis unknownfatherbut by performinga bold and heroic deed thatwill
establishhis manhood for all to see: Theseus' journey to Athens,37Phaethon's
ride in the chariotof his true fatherHelios,38Bellerophon'scapturingand riding
Jason'squest for the fleece (S. Kolchides),
of Pegasos (S. Iobates[?],E. Stheneboia),
Pelops' chariotrace (S. Oinomaos,E. Oinomaos),Oidipous' outwittingof the Sphinx
(E. Oidipous),Meleagros' huntingof the boar,39Telephos' prowessin an athletic
contestand in battle (S. Mysoi),40Perseus' exploit withthe Gorgon and the sea
The Ephebes'Song

33

FIGURE 1 (aboveand opposite).Detail fromthe Pronomos vase, late

fifthcenturyB.C.E. From MargaretBieber, TheHistoryof
Greekand RomanTheatre,2nd. ed., by permissionof
PrincetonUniversityPress.
The young man's demonstrationof manhood by a bold
monster(E. Andromeda).
deed sometimeswins him a royal bride: Jason and Medeia, Pelops and Hippodameia, Perseus and Andromeda, Theseus and Ariadne (E. Kretes),Bellerophon
and princess (S. Iobatks),Telephos and Teuthras' adopted daughter,who turns
out to be Auge, Telephos' own mother(S. M~soi); Phaethon'smarriage,probably
to a daughter of Helios, has just been arranged when he sets out to find his
father.4'But neitherthe winningof a bride nor the successfulperformanceof
a heroicdeed guaranteesthe ephebe's smoothentryintohis rightfulplace. Often
enough he too, like those cited above, meets resistanceand becomes involvedin
an act of righteousor unrighteousviolence against membersof his clan: Jason
killshis uncle Pelias (E. Peliades),Meleagros and Telephos each killshis mother's
brothers(E. Meleagros,S. Aleadai), Perseus is reconciled with his wicked grandfatherAkrisiosbut accidentallykillshim witha discus (S. Larisaioi).
Shelvingthe deeper questions of interpretationwe can at the veryleast suggest that an audience arranged in competitivemale groups and centered on its
34

REPRESENTATIONS

current commanders and newest initiatesmight well be fascinated and profoundlymoved by such tales of manhood's firstassertion,the necessityof proper
violence against other men and the sometime demonic ease with which that
violence may be misdirected.Both the structureof the familyand that of the
democratic polis in their differentways demand that individual men be both
allies and enemies, both cooperators and competitors,and that these polarized
and shiftingroles be maintainedwithpassion. The tensionbetweencasual accident and late-discoveredephebic design is at its most extreme in Sophokles'
OidipousTyrannoswhere the ephebe sets out to find his true fatherand, in a
confrontationthat is much closer to the realityof daily life on the Greek roads
than the meeting with monstersand warriorsof other plays,once and for all
proves himselfa man in combat.42
In addition to looking forhis father,the young man sometimessearches for
and E. IphigeneiaAmongtheTaurians)
his sister(Orestes-lphigeneia in S. Chryses
or his mother(Telephos-Auge in S. Mysoi), thusdisplayinghis role as familyprotector.Several plays featurea beleaguered motherwho is rescued by her nowE. HypsipylM,43
E. Melanippe inBondage,E. Antiop). The return
grownsons (S. Tyro,
to defend the mother is the polar opposite of the return to kill the mother
(Orestes, Alkmeon), which Zeitlinreads as ritualsymbolfor expelling all thatis
femininefromtheboyin order to make himdecisivelyand unmistakablya man.44
The Ephebes'Song

35

The paradigm of the boy who divestshimselfof the feminineworld in whichhe

has until now been engulfed is Achilles dressed in girl'sclothingbut showing
a man when it is time for him tojoin the ranks of warriors
himselfinstinctively
(E. Skyrioi).The extirpationof the feminineand the rescue of the mothermay
be reconciledbynotingthatin all the examples mentionedthe ephebes save their
oppressedmotherfroma wicked,domineeringwoman,who is eitherkilled(Antiope,
This gives equal
Melanippein Bondage,Tyr6)or simplydissuaded (HypsipylM).45
expressionto the ephebic propositionsthatwomen who have and exercisepower
are dangerous and thatgood women are vulnerable,helpless,oppressed by circumstance,and in need of a man's protection.
unwise.If the plotsof the first
showshimself
office
2) A rulerwhohasjust entered
group are symbolicenactmentsof what a grown boy must do and may have to
sufferto be acknowledged as a man, those in the second group are cautionary
tales of a more literalkind. "This is how,as a young man newlyundertakingthe
responsibilitiesof controllinga household, you are notto behave'"Aischylosgives
us the best examples. The siege of Thebes provided one of the most important
tragicstories,essentiallythatof two brotherswho begin theiradult rule withan
agreement to share it by turns,but Eteokles afterhis firstyear refuses to yield
his authorityto his brother.The most likelyreconstructionof the Aischylean
Prometheustriologyis thatZeus is to be conceived as a new ruler who is overly
harshbut eventuallylearnsthewisdomof compromise.The PersaipresentsXerxes
as a headstrong young man, a new king who overextends himselfand brings
down a greatempirethroughhisyouthfulfolly.All of thesestoriesconcernrulers
at the inaugural or early momentsof theiradult career who are implicatedin a
catastrophethat,if characterwere not destiny,mighthave been avoided.
The patternrecursin theBakkhai:Pentheusis a new ruler,excessivelystrict,
warned by his elders Teiresias and Kadmos that he must come to terms with
powers he findsscandalous but who remains determined against theircounsel
to dominate entirely.The energy of the conflict,as the audience would have
perceived it, lies in the contradictoryinjunctionslaid upon all male citizens,
whetheractingas soldiersor as householders,to maximizetheirdominance and
of some cooperation. Because the discriminations
yetto accept the inevitability
that determinewhichbehavior is appropriate are finelytuned, elusive to rules,
and onlylearned by long experience,youngmales are the ones mostlikelyto get
it wrong. It is not that Pentheus is overlyharsh but that he displaysadmirable
strictnessat the wrong time and over the wrong persons. I would also suggest
thatthe protagonistneed not be literallya young man to make thisyoung man's
mistakes.Kreon in Sophokles' Antigonehas just assumed controlof the cityand
displaysin his firstexercise of authorityexactlythe same misdirected,uncompromisingsternnessas does Pentheus.
and hamartiaconspireto produce a pattern
Unlikethe firstgroup,wheretyche
fears
and
worst
our
deepest sympathiesfor the ephebe-inof events that elicits
36

REPRESENTATIONS

passage, this second group is more directlyhortatory(or better,cautionary),

showingthe consequences of an ephebe's ill-advisedbehavior.
3) In a grab-bagof armytales I class all those playsthatshow the problems
of militaryauthority,heroism in battle, and the misfortunesof war. Though
ephebes are oftenenough the subjectof these plots,the pointof gatheringthem
here is more preciselythat such lessons are inevitablydirected at those in the
audience who may be presumed not to know them ratherto those more experienced memberswho are presumed already to understand them.
The death of a young man on his firstentryinto fightingwas a peculiarly
poignant subject-the death of Protesilaos,firstGreek to leap off the ships at
Troy and just married to boot, was portrayedin Sophokles' Poimenes.His Tr6ilos
told of the Trojan prince of whom it was prophesied thatif he lived beyond the
age of twentyTroy would not fall.46The same motifinformsthe Rhesos:on the
verynighttheThracian kingarrivesto help theTrojans,Athena warns Odysseus
(600-605) that if Rhesos lives throughthe nightno Greek will be able to stop
him,so he mustbe killed at once in a nightsally.
Greek tragedies frequentlyexamine moral issues that become acute under
the pressureof warfare.Neoptolemos mustlearn to definethelimitsof deception
and personal integrityin Sophokles' PhilokttMs.The waysof conquerors withthe
defeated are examined withprofound ironyin Euripides' Trojan plays. Sophokles twice presentsthe issues that arise around a soldier who runs amuck and
becomes an enemyto his own side-in theAias and theAias Lokros.On a simpler
level tragedyalso showed soldierswho were over-eageror under-eager to fight:
Achilles, in a fragmentof Euripides' TMephos,is impatientof restraint,47and
Mainomenosfakes madness when the recruiters
Odysseus in Sophokles' Odysseus
visitIthaka.
puts one of his favoritethemes,
A lengthyrhesis fromEuripides' Erechtheus
the heroismof young maidens who sacrificethemselvesfortheirpolis, into perspective as an equivalent to what is demanded of young men. An oracle has
announced thatAthenswillfallunless theking'sdaughteris sacrificed.The queen
says,"If I had a son at home insteadof daughtersand enemyfiresweremastering
mycity,would I not be sending him forthto battlewithhis spear, howevermuch
I feared his death? ... When crowds of men die in battletheyshare a common
tomb and a single fame,but mydaughter'scrownof glorywillbe for her alone,
In a startlingcombinationEuripides
awarded to her when she dies forthiscity."48
both a heroic young woman who gives her lifeto save
presentsin the HMrakleidai
a polis under siege and a doddering old man who dons armor and enters the
fight:as he charges toward the enemy he praysto Hebe and Zeus and is miraculouslytransformedinto an ephebe (hebe~tn)withbulging muscles (843-58)!
The textsof tragedy,not only because theyremain available to us when the
music and movementand audience have long ago been forgottenbut because
theyare words, invitean endless response of other words. But in the structure
The Ephebes'Song

37

FIGURE2. Polychrome

fragment,
detail,
earlyfourthcentury
B.C.E. Martinvon
Wagner-Museum
der UniversitAt

Wurzber. Photo:
museum.

tobe resisted.Havingsketched
thecharacter
ofmyargument,
thisisa temptation
of tragedyoftenspoketo
of the audienceand establishedthatthe narratives
ephebicissues,I wantto drawno immediateconclusionsbut simplyto regard
In the
forthe following
explorationof tragicperformance.
thisas a nihilobstat
ratherthanexpositiontheevidencecitedin thenextsection
orderof discovery
in thepreceding
pointthatconvertstheinformation
is in factthefirmstarting
to significant.
sectionsfrominteresting
Performance
The habitsofmodernplayreadingand playgoingmakeitall tooeasy
itis not
As a convention
forus to scantthechoruswhenreadingGreektragedy.
onlyforeignto our dramaticsense,but thereis evenevidencethatin thefifth
Whenwe do try
centuryitwas alreadycomingto seeman archaicinstitution.49
to givefullweightto theroleof thechorusour attention
is usuallydrawnto the
beautyand powerof someof thechoralodes. But fewwilldeclarethemselves
compartisansof the chorus's(actuallythe chorusleader's)standardtrimeter
emphasizesthattheevents
mentsof praiseand warning.Myaccount,however,
in tragedyare meantto be contemplated
and characters
as lessonsby
portrayed
youngcitizens(or ratherbytheentirepolisfromthevantagepointoftheyoung
of the chorusstructurally
makesthe watchfulscrutiny
citizen),and therefore
importantas a stillcenterfromwhichthe tragicturbulenceis surveyedand
evaluated.
38

REPRESENTATIONS

Consider now the relationof role to performer,firstforactorsand then for

chorus members.While the actors portrayyoung men and maidens, older men
and women, who carryor support the responsibilityof correctsocial action,the
chorus usually performsin the guise of persons who do not bear such responsibility-slave women, prisonersof war, old men-who will certainlybe implicated in the effectsof unwise,headstrong,or ignorantaction on the part of their
principals. On the level of roles, then, there is a vector of attentionfrom the
watchful(though not personallyresponsible)chorus to the actors.This seems to
be balanced by an inversion on the level of performers,for several kinds of
evidence conspire to suggestthatthe three actorsforeach tragedywere menbut
chorus memberswere ephebes.
the twelve(or, afterSophokles, fifteen)50
There are many vase paintingsbased on tragic plays from which we can
cautiouslydeduce informationabout plots,scenery,and costumes,51but thereis
only one unbroken representationof the complete cast fora tragiccompetition.
Atticvolute kraternow in the Naples
It is a late fifth-or early fourth-century
Museum (fig. 1) whose obverse depicts the threeactors,each dressed forone of
the partsof a play(Herakles, Pappasilenos,and probablyLaomedon) and holding
the maskof thatrole; eleven chorus membersin costumeand holdingtheirmasks
(one has donned his mask and is practicinga kickstep); the poet-trainerDemetrioswatchingthatchorus memberget his pose right;the aulos playerPronomos
(from whose prominence in the composition the krateris nicknamed the Pronomos vase) in fullcostumeand playinghis double aulos; an auxiliarylyreplayer;
the god Dionysos and his consort(probablyAriadne); and another figureseated
on the divinecouch whose sex, identity,
and functionin thiscontextare debated.52
It appears to be the victorydedicationof a successfulensemble,who have chosen
to be portrayedin the equipment of their final and more hilarious satyrplay
ratherthan in that of one of theirthree tragedies. (The personnel is of course
identicalfor all four plays.)
I take it to be significantthatthe three actors are representedas full-grown
men withbeards whilethechorus membershave full-grownbodies but are beardspeaking,ephebes. (Whethertheyare ephebes
less,i.e., theyare, iconographically
in the loose or the strictsense remains to be seen.) The number of persons
involved is obviouslytoo large for the distinctionto be due to coincidence,and
if it is not coincidence it must representsome sort of rule or principle,at least
forthisgroup of actorsand tragbidoi.
Now if it is a rule forthisparticulargroup
of competitiveperformers,it is virtuallycertain that it was a rule for other
performinggroups in the same competition.We cannot with quite the same
confidenceassert that the rule (however we may formulateit) must have been
operative for tragiccompetitionsin some or all years previous to this one; but,
sinceinnovationsin festivalprocedureswerewelldeliberatedand farfromcasual,
there would seem to be everylikelihoodthat such was the case. Thus, although
sufficientingenuitycould of course devise other explanationsof thisvisiblerule
The Ephebes'Song

39

distinguishingactorsfromchorus memberson the Pronomosvase, theprimafacie

interpretationis that in the late fifthcenturyand for some previous time Attic
tragedywas performedby choruses of young men.
Though the chorus's contributionto the whole performancewas probably
being more and more overshadowed in the course of the fifthcenturyby thatof
the actors, the Pronomos vase is witnessboth to the continued importance of
chorus membershipand to the segregationof actorsfromchorus. Note thatthe
honor of the upper registeris given to the divine figuresand the heroic roles,
but itis the musicaland dancingperformerswho are dignifiedwiththeirpersonal
and nine membersof thechorus have
names: the twomusicians,the poet-trainer,
theirnames inscribed;the actorsdo not (though the role playedby one is labeled
but the
Herakles).53Several detailson thisvase are of uncertaininterpretation,54
mattersof controversydo not touch on the distinctionof the performersinto
two groups-fully mature,bearded men (actors) and young men who have yet
to grow a beard (chorus members).55
Among
The othermonumentsknownto me are consistentwiththisdistinction.
them I would single out the lovely polychromefragmentin Wurzburg (fig. 2)
showing an actor witha commoner's face holding the mask of a noble-visaged
king; the man has salt-and-pepperhair,which is thinningand receding,and a
three-days'growthof stubble on his cheeks and chin.56Several vases show two
or three chorus members in differentstages of dress: a "maenad" holds the
a "maenad'
costumefora youngman who is hurriedlypullingon his kothurnoi;57
whose face is clearlya mask, does a dance step while a beardless youthwearing
the same loose-sleeved dress and holding a woman's (?) mask looks on;58 two
ephebes in furrydrawers hold satyrmasks while a thirdhas donned his mask
and is practicinga hip thrust(fig.3).59 There are some other fragmentsof vases
thatmight,iftheyhad remained whole, have been informativeon thissubject.60
The Pronomos vase is the principalpositiveevidence for the hypothesisthat
choruses were composed of young men who were reaching their
tragic-satyric
Ube. Other evidence is consistentwiththat hypothesis,and one item willjustify
our calling these young men ephebes in the strictsense. Direct testimonyabout
theconstitutionof choruses is extremelymeager.Aristotle(Politics3.3.1 276b4 -6)
not andres)may perform in a comic
remarksthat the same persons (anthr6poi,
and in a tragic chorus.61 A scholiast on Aristophanes (Ploutos953) says that
noncitizenscould not performin the choruses of the CityDionysia though they
could perform (and meticscould produce) at the Lenaia, a Dionysian festival
held two monthsbeforethe CityDionysia.62One occasionallyencountersa statementin modern writersto the effectthatchorus membershad a special exemption from militaryservice,which would implythat theywere men rather than
ephebes, but thishalf-truthmerelyserves to reveal our own collective(I do not
to age classes and festivals.There was a military
exempt myself) insensitivity
exemption during their year of officefor members of the Boule (Lykourgos

40

REPRESENTATIONS

LeoArates37) and forcustomsofficers([Demosthenes] 59.27). Twice Demosthenes

mentions such an exemption for choral performers,but we must then ask in

what kind of chorus-comedy, tragedy,men's dithyramb(boys' dithyrambis
obviouslyout of the question)-and at whatfestival?One of themcertainlyrefers
to a men'sdithyrambicchorus at the CityDionysia (21.15 and scholion),the other
is apparentlyalso at the CityDionysia but what chorus is not clear (39.16).63
On the surface thismeager evidence about militaryexemptiondoes not tell
against the ephebic-choral hypothesis;on a deeper level it speaks for it. The
question to ask is whyshould therehave been an exemptionfrommarchingand
fightingforthe fivehundred men each yearwho danced the dithyrambin honor
of Dionysos? Part of the answer may be sheerlypractical-a feelingthat in the
winterand earlyspringa busycitizencould be expected to spend about the same
amount of time either practicingdrill with his (tribal) company and gettingin
shape for the coming summer'sbattlesor rehearsingthe (tribal)dance, but not
both. Was therein addition any deeper, symbolicequivalence betweenthese two
civicduties thatmade sense of the exemption?In what frameworkdoes a dance
for Dionysos equal a season of campaigning?64The relation is one of contrast
Aristophanes,forinstance,showsus the oppositionin a diptych
and of similarity.
contrastingthe general Lamachos called up to serviceagainstmidwinterbandits
in Boiotia while Dikaiopolis, the man who refusesto fight,celebratesthe Antheson the
teria with the priestof Dionysos (Acharnians1071-end). The similarity,
other hand, can be seen in the militarytone of some dithyrambs,and in the fact
thattheywere performedin the region of the agora, whichwas also the location
is actuallybest seen not in the
of war monuments.65But such mimetomilitarism
dithyrambsbut in the oldest component of the CityDionysia, the dances of the
It is thiscomponent of the performancethatwilljustifymyreading of
tragoidoi.
the young men on the Pronomos vase as ephebes in the strictersense of the
cadets in training.
word-eighteen- to twenty-year-old
One must recall that the historyof performances at the City Dionysia is
firstperformunder the directionof Thespis in
markedby three stages: tragoidoi
of Peisistratos;prizesformen'sand boys'dithy534 B.C.E. duringthe long tyranny
rambs are added at the time of the constitutionalreformsof Kleisthenes,508
are introducedas a prize categoryin 486 B.C.E. (Of course dithyB.C.E. ;66 komoidoi
rambicand comicchoruses are mucholder thanthese particularfestivalarrangements,which simplygive a new financialand competitivestructureto old traditions.) There are two contrastsin the structureof thisset of performancesthat
are "ephebically"significant.The firstis that the dithyrambsare designated as
belonging to two age classes, men and boys. "Men's chorus" and "boys' chorus"
are the terms,both officialand popular, for these dances at all timesfor which
we have records. This is at least consistentwith the hypothesisthat tragoidoi
specificallydesignated ephebes. When the dithyrambsofficiallybecame a competitiveevent in the City Dionysia, theywere comprised of and named for the
The Ephebes' Song

41

age groups above and below ephebes-men and boys. (Paralleling the series
"boys, ephebes, men" in the Dionysia, the age classes at the Panathenaia and
several other panhellenic games were boys, ageneioi,and men. Ageneioi,designatingephebes, literallymeans "beardless ones.")
The second contrastis thatmen'sand boys'dithyrambicdances were circular
dances, while tragoidoimoved in a rectangularformation.Reasonably detailed
The chorusmembersprocessed
survivesabout this"square"-dancing.67
information
in threefilesand fouror fiveranks (depending on whethertherewere twelveor
fifteenpersons marching). Since theyentered the orchestrathree abreast and
the left-handfilewas nearest the spectators,the best performerswere stationed
in the left-mostfile.When thatfilecontained fivemembersthe koryphaiosoccupied the centralposition.The orchestraof course was a circularspace, but there
is no evidence that tragicchoruses ever took up a circular formation;68on the
choros,which is used as a general term for all dithycontrary,the name kyklios
performed in rank
rambs, seems to guarantee that tragoidoicharacteristically
and file.69
We oftenand quite casuallyuse the term"marching"of the chorus'sentrance
withoutreally thinkingabout its implications.Rectangular formationabove all
requires thatthe dancers move withprecision,since theyare ordered along two
can be
sightlines. Circular dancing, by comparison,especiallyin masses of fifty,
impressivewhile admittinga certain degree of, not sloppiness, but looseness.
The usual reconstructionof tragicchoral movementimagines that the dancers
sometimesoccupied the centerof the orchestra,sometimessplitintotwo groups,
at timesfacingthe actors and at other timesthe audience. The performanceof
such maneuverswould have exercisedthesame precisionskillsthatwererequired
forhoplitemarching,70and thoughI do not imaginethatthe koryphaiosactually
barked sottovoce"Right face"' "Company halt,"and so forthto his squadron of
ephebes, such commands were implicitin theirwell-regulatedmotion.71
Not onlyour phrase "rankand file"but a numberof traditionalGreek choral
terms point to a homologybetween the movementof tragoidoiand of hoplites:
parastatesand other compounds of -states,psileis(unprotected) of the persons
of the chorus leader. Sometimes
withan exposed side in the formation,hegemon
the comparison is explicit,as in thisverysignificantfragmentof Chamaileon:
or PlatoinhisGear,
and manly;]therefore
Aristophanes
[The olderdancesweredignified
as Chamaileonwrites,spokeas follows:"So thatwhenanyonedancedwellit was a real
butnowtheydo nothing;theyjust standinone placeas ifparalyzedbya stroke
spectacle,
and theyhowl."For theformof dancingin chorusesthenwas wellordered[euschemon]
in fullarmor[kineseis
entoishoplois];
ofmovements
and impressive
and as itwereimitative
choraldancersare bestin war;I quote,
whenceSokratessaysin hispoemsthatthefinest
honorthe gods in chorusesare bestin war."For choral
"Those who mostbeautifully
and a display
likea troopreview[ormaneuverin arms,exhoplisia]
dancingwaspractically
of physical
in generalbut more particularly
not onlyof precisionmarching[eutaxia]

preparedness.72

42

REPRESENTATIONS

FIGURE

3. Apulian bell-krater
by the Tarporley
Painter,400-380
B.C.E. The Nicholson
Museum, University
of Sydney.Photo:

museum.

So too a scholiaston Aristeides:"The best in the chorus are stationedon the left
... since in choruses the left side is more honorable, in battles the right."73
Teachers of each disciplineare even found givingthe same advice to put the best
soldiersor dancers in the frontand rear ranks,theless good ones in the middle.74
The homology extends to the accompanyingmusic (Dorian in large part) and
the instrument(aulos).75 We may have a depiction of such precisiondancing by
a semichorusof six on a red-figurecolumn-kraterin the Manneriststyle,c. 480
B.C.E. (fig.4).76 In presentingthe Pronomos vase I leftitopen whetheritschorus
membersare to be thoughtof as ephebes in the loose sense of young men who
have just reached their physicalprime or in the strictersense of eighteen-to
twenty-year-old
citizensin militarytraining.The evidence of choral dancing in
tragedyseems to me an irresistibleargument for the relevance of the stricter
sense.
The suggestion that the tragic chorus's formationand movements were
homologous to (or aestheticrefinementsof) hoplite drill becomes all the more
The Ephebes'Song

43

plausible when we consider how widespread were the practicesof militarydancing. By wayof a verysummaryaccount,we can say thatdancing witharmor and
weapons was a regular part of everyGreek man's local culture(though presumably not everyonewas equally good at it). Styleswere traditionaland differedby
region and polis. Xenophon describes a banquet where his foreign
guests were amazed at the Greek soldiers' dancing skills:each local contingent
had itsown formof dancing featuringleaps or somersaultsor mock battles-all
in armor and all strictlyin time to an aulos (Anabasis6.1). At Athens our information converges fromtwo directionsand just misses meetingat a description
of ephebic militarydancing in the theater of Dionysos. On the one hand, we
whichimitateswrestlingand pankration,
know of dancing called gymnopaidike,77
paides,boysin armor.78
a fast,warlikedance performedbyenhoploi
and thepyrrhikO,
Aristoxenosconnectsthese as phases of a regular sequence: "In olden timesthey
before theyentered into
then progressed to pyrrhike
firstpracticedgymnopaidike,
the theater."From thiswe know thatDionysos' theateris in some sense the final
stage where boyswelltrainedin militarydancing would perform.To what might
this refer?One obvious candidate, the boys' dithyramb,can probablybe ruled
out on the grounds that dithyrambsat the City Dionysia seem to have been
performedin the agora, not in the theater.79I propose thatthe athletic-cultural
cursus described by Aristoxenosculminates"in the theater"with the ephebes'
tragic marching,a small corps display of virtuoso dancing that was, in coordione grade higherthan thevigorous,paramilitarydancnationand in refinement,
ing of boy soloists.
From the otherside we have one secure witnessto ephebes actuallyperforming in a body in the presence of Dionysos and the people, though what they
performis a regular drillof the whole class ratherthan a virtuosodisplayby the
[the
top fifteen:"In theirsecond year,beforean assemblyconvened in thetheater,
ephebes] made a display to the populace of all that pertained to taxeis[orderly
vase showingsix young men doing a preThe earlyfifth-century
formations]."80
cision dance in threepairs fitsneatlyhere as an image of thattowardwhichboth
wings of our evidence converge.8' Altogether,the evidence is richlysuggestive
of the cultural frameworkwithinwhich my hypothesisoperates, though it falls
shortof convertingthathypothesisinto an iron-cladsurety.
In sum, then, our evidence about tragic performance contains reasonably
strong indicationsthat the chorus members were ephebes. If true, this would
allow us to sense a complex and finelycontrolledtensionbetween role and role
player,for the ephebes are cast in the most "disciplined"part of the tragedydisciplined in the exacting demands of unison movement,subordinated to the
more prominentactors,and characterizedas social dependents (women, slaves,
old men)-while the actors,who are no longer ephebes, performa tale showing
the risks,the misfortunes,and sometimesthe gloryof ephebic experience. What
most makes the tensioncome alive is the scrutinyof the watchfulaudience, the
44

REPRESENTATIONS

body politicof Athensarranged in a seatingthatconfirmstheircompetitivespirit

and theirprecarious,hard-woncivicunity.These social tensionsin the audience
are focused on the crucial and centraltransitionfiguresof the ephebes, who are
(as it were) the growthpoint,the bud and flowerof the city.Tragedy is the city's
nurturanceof thatprecious youthby a public ritualof discipline,enactingtales
(more oftenthan not) of itsblight.
Let me conclude this section with two points that are conjectural but very
important-the politicalrationale behind the institutionof tragedyunder Peisistratosand the meaning of the word.
The conventional account conjectures that Peisistratosinvented or elaborated the City Dionysia to please the common people-a policy of wine and
circuses.But as Dionysos comes to be betterunderstood,thisincreasinglyseems
to be too simple an explanation.82The institutionalfeaturethatwe ought to look
at carefullyis the contrastbetweenthe dithyrambiccompetitionas tribaland the
tragiccompetitonas nontribal.
Afterthe revolutionthatoverthrewthe Peisistratid
tyranny,Kleisthenes reorganized the civic structuresof Attika,inventingnew
corporationsto exercise politicalpower and leavingthe older bodies withmerely
ceremonial functionsin the hopes that theywould witheraway.Not all did: in
the fifthcenturycitizenswere stillbeing introducedto theirfather'sphratryas
well as enrolled in his deme, but some parts of the new Kleisthenicsystemwere
so successfulthatwe have virtuallyno idea what it was theyreplaced.83One of
the most successfulwas the devisingof ten new tribesto replace the old four.84
It will not be too wild to imagine that the provisionof a formatfor tribalcompetitionin the dithyrambsof the CityDionysia helped instilland solidifya consciousnessof the new tribalidentity.
The Attichoplitesfoughtin tribalunits;thelistsof thewar dead werearranged
bytribe;theannual funeralorationwas deliveredin frontof tencypresscoffins85and the ephebes were inducted and trained by tribe.86All thisof course refers
to the yearspost-Kleisthenes;beforetherewere ten tribes,the militaryrollswere
maintained by an old institutionknown as the naucrary.87But tragedyseems
never to have been organized as a competitionby tribeor by naucraryor by any
other subgroupingof the polis.88It was fromthe firsta celebrationof the polis
as a whole (here we slide over intointerpretation)and notof itscompetitiveparts.
For thisperiod our informationis notoriouslythinand we can only grope in
the dark, but it may not be amiss to note that Peisistratosaccording to one tradition succeeded in disarmingthe citizensand protectedhimselfby a personal
bodyguardof armed men.89No sixth-century
polis could have survivedforlong
if its citizen-soldiersremained permanentlyunarmed. It seems safe to imagine
thatcitizen-hoplites,
perhaps aftera timeof troubles,continuedto be on call for
militaryoperations and thatyoung men continued to be trainedin the essential
arts of war. Against this background of a strugglefor power and the need to
directcitizens'allegiance, and afortioritheirwillto fight,to the polis as a whole,
The Ephebes'Song

45

I would tentatively
conjecturethatthe flowerof Athenianyouth-in-training
were
set by Peisistratosand Thespis to performtheirbest manlydances in a waythat
declared thattheybelonged to all Athensand not to any smaller,traditionalclan
grouping.90
Such a social-aestheticritualwould obviouslybe useful to a polis under any
formof government,not only under tyranny,
so it would be sensible for Kleisthenes to have maintained it in his new order, merelyreorganizingthe dithyrambic dances of men and boys as a tribalcompetitionalongside the already
existingnontribalephebic dances of Peisistratos.
That public eventscould havejust such a functionin the sixth-century
Greek
polis is explicitlyattestedin connectionwithour one mostimportantitemin the
early historyof tragedy.Kleisthenes of Sikyon,maternal grandfatherof our
AthenianKleisthenesand a likemind,reorganizedthe festivalof theArgivehero
Adrastos as it was celebrated in Sikyon. He demoted the ancient hero of nowhated Argos by reassigningAdrastos' splendid sacrificesand festivalsto Melanippos, the Theban hero who was Adrastos'worstenemy,and the "tragicchoruses
withwhichtheyhonored his sufferings"to Dionysos.91This is pure Kulturpolitik
and not uncharacteristicof the shrewd power-brokeragein that era. The same
Kleisthenesrenamed the tribesof Sikyonin a waythatsignificantly
affectedtheir
honor. It was this latteract, according to Herodotos, that served as model for
the AthenianKleisthenes'structuralreforms.The eventsin sixth-century
Sikyon
are not well enough known for us to draw any verydefiniteconclusions.They
do, however,indicate that tribalallegiance and reform,a leader's manipulation
of cult and festival,and choral performancesin honor of a dead warriorbelong
togetherin a once-coherentstory.It may never be possible to know the complications of thatstoryin any detail for sixth-century
Athens,but I would suggest
thatit consistedof twocriticalinterventions.The firstwas Peisistratos'invention
event that displayed the ephebes' physical prowess as a
of a military-cultural
resourcecontrolledby the polis as a whole ratherthanbyany smaller,potentially
factionalgrouping. The second criticalevent was Kleisthenes'addition of a set
of publichonorsto thedithyrambic
performancesbythosenewlydefinedsubgroups
(the tribes),subgroups thatrearticulatedthe internalstructureof the polis as a
complex competitive-cooperative
entityno longer operatingunder the Peisistratean fictionof a relativelyhomogeneous polis guided (albeit deftlyand behind
the scenes) by a single leader.
My second speculationconcernsthe word trag6idos.
Already,or so Herodotos
says,those choruses in Sikyonwere "tragic."It seems sure thatby thishe means
that theywere similarto the choruses thatwere so called in his own day rather
than thattheywere "goatlike."On myreading theremaywell have been ephebic
choruses in Sikyonperformingin memoryof Adrastos,who led the disastrous
expeditionof the Seven againstThebes, and Kleistheneswould have been operating in an acceptable range of associationsin reassigningthose honors to Dio46

REPRESENTATIONS

nysosand Melanippos.92Is the purportedephebic characterof tragedyconsistent

withor intelligiblyconnected to the name of the performers?
The etymologyis as
Tragoidoiseems obviouslyto mean "billy-goat-singers."
patent as its significanceis obscure. Given the habits of sophisticplayfulness93
and the reluctanceof ancient scholarsever to doubt thatthe path of least resistance to an explanation was correct,it would be amazing if someone had not
conjectured that a billygoat was the prize for the winningtragicchorus. This
conjectureis indeed found in a document of the thirdcenturyB.C.E.-a chronologyof famouseventsin Greek historywitha special emphasison data of literary
interest.94The notion became dogma and was repeated numerous times
by later ancient writers,though other possibilitieslong continued to be entertained. It mayeven be true,but it can hardlybe anythingelse than a good guess.
The exhaustiveinquiryof W.Burkertfindsgoats fromearliesttimesin the entourage of Dionysos but no explicitevidence of a billygoat prize or (whatwould be
Burkertneverthelessbelieves
in thiscontextthe same thing)a billygoat sacrifice.95
were named from
that a billygoat was sacrificedto Dionysos and that tragbidoi
this.The ephebic hypothesismakesanotherinterpretationpossible,one thatdoes
not entail the denial of a billygoat prize or sacrificebut maystand independently
beside it.96
It goes like this. In dealing withthe social institutionof the Athenian ephebate we should tryto give equal weightto the practicaldisciplinethatexercises
young men in doing what men are to do (march in file and be honorable and
prudent) and to the symbolicinversionsthat variouslyinformed that liminal
period. Such inversionsalso have theirpracticalside. For instance,just as it still
happens in modern militarytraining,the young men are de-graded in order to
be up-graded- that is, theyare insulted as sissies,girls,and cry-babiesin order
to promote theirdecisive rejectionof all boyishness.The army,as we say,turns
boys into men: "And theywere not allowed to returnto the cityuntil theyhad
between
become men."97Here we mustbrieflyallude to the well-knowndistinction
physicalpubertyand social puberty.98A riteof passage to manhood is symbolically a pubertyrite that may take place years after a boy's body has begun to
undergo the physicalchanges of adolescence.
Withthisin mind I will simplymentionthat,among the meanings of tragos,
onlyone has anyprimafacie connectionto the human voice or to singing(-Oidos).
Aristotle,once in a discussion of puberty and again in a discussion of voice
pitch,99uses the word tragizeinto mean the breaking or changing in voice that
adolescentboys experience. Aristotleattaches"whattheycall" (ho kalousi)to tragizein,indicatingthatadolescent voice change is not the primaryreferentof the
roottrag-but one thatis in use in some special circumstancethathis reader might
need remindingof. An analogy would be our use of "frog"in the phrase "a frog
in one's throat":the wordfrogalone does notmake one thinkof a person emitting
a hoarse croak. I propose thattragoidoi
began as a slightly
jocular designationof
The Ephebes'Song

47

ephebic singers,not because theirvoices were breaking (that was long past and
anywayno one can sing well whose voice is breaking) but because they were
identifiedas those undergoing social puberty.10?(More accurately,they were
of those undergoing social puberty:only a select group of the best
representative
ephebic singer-dancerscould actuallyperform.)101
Other derived senses of the tragosword familycan be related to the actual
being of billygoats-rank smell,indiscriminatelust; like ephebes, billygoats are
noticeablywaywardand mustbe controlled.On one level, tragizeinused of the
boy'svoice may simplymean "bleat,"but the implicationsare probablywider.It
may in the Greek folksystemalso be a wayof sayingthata boy'schange of voice
is a warningsignof theonsetof otherbilly-goadlike
qualities.Tragizein(and tragan)
mightbest be translated"to go throughpuberty,""to show the signs of adolescence;' of whichvoice change is onlyone. The noun tragosindicatesanothersuch
change in itsoccurrence in a crypticHippokraticsayingat Epidemics6 about the
which Galen commented on.103Arisswellingof a boy's testiclesat puberty,102
totle'sexplanation of the connection between testicularand vocal change is in
termsof mechanics: the increased tensioncaused by heavier testeson the channels thatlead fromthe scrotumthroughthe heart to the vocal cords cause the

FIGURE4. Red-figurecolumn-krater,
detail,c. 480 B.C.E.
Antikenmuseumund SkuipturhalleBasel. Photo:
museum.
48

REPRESENTATIONS

voice to drop lower; he compares the effectto that of loom weights.104 Two
activitiesaffectthisnaturalprocess-sexual activityacceleratesit; the voice exercises of boys who take frequentpart in choruses retardsit.105We seem to have
in the tragosword group a coherentand ratherinterestingview of pubertyas a
complex of new smells,attitudes,and bodilychanges summed up in the emblem
of the billygoat.106
The last twolines of argumentabout Peisistratos'motivesand boys'breaking
voices are very speculative indeed. Even withoutthem the hypothesisI have
offered remains, I think,a stable construction,one whose interestlies in its
suggestiverecenteringof the fieldof Greek tragedyas a very specificform of
social and religiousritual,and one whose poweris drawnfromitsnew integration
of discrete realms of information.The complete picture is bound to be more
complex and detailed than I have sketched,but as a ground plan for the City
Dionysia I propose thatperformance,audience, and scriptshow us thattragedy
was fundamentallyexperienced as by,for,and about ephebes.
Loose Ends
To brieflyindicate a number of points thatrequire furtherexamination: 1) I have been assuming, withmany,that some form of ephebic military
group was in existencefromthe sixthcentury,and for presentpurposes it is no
doubt sufficient
to pointto threeundeniable but underexploitedfacts:the strong
sense of age classes,'07 the need for some form of militarytrainingof young
men, and a long-standingGreek fascinationwiththe downyadvent of manhood
of the cheek.'08 Yet plentifuland solid testimonyto the existenceof an Athenian
compulsorymilitarytrainingdoes not exist before the 330s. It has even been
possible to deny thatany sort of ephebate existed in Athensbefore thattime.109
What an interestingparadox we will have if we accept thatephebic trainingwas
the fountainhead fromwhich sprang Attictragedyand also that that training
received no permanentrecord or memorialbeforethe late fourthcentury.Fully
to understandthe paradox we would need to enterinto a detailed inquiryabout
the sociologyof record keeping. Did the ephebate firstbecome a matterof concern for officialrecords preciselyat the moment when the traditionalreliance
was beginningto appear obsolete?
on a citizen-soldiery
2) How could a social arrangementlike thatof ephebic singersboth survive
as an institution(at least untilthe early fourthcentury:Pronomos vase) and yet
manage to be forgottenbefore the centurywas out (Aristotle'sPoetics)?One of
the factorsmusthave been the gradual change in the fifthcenturyof the relative
importanceof the chorus vis-a'-visthe actors. In Aristotle'saccount, tragicperformancesbegan withthe chorus and a single actor,'10but by the middle of the
fifthcenturythe numberof actorshad risen to threeand toward the end of the
centurythe choral contributionhad become increasinglyirrelevant.1" ' His interThe Ephebes'Song

49

pretationof these factsis thatdrama had at last discovered thatitstrue strength

lay in eventsand charactersratherthan in choral chanting.Note thatit was not
that the chorus dwindled away while every other element in the performance
remained staticbut rather that the development of actors' skillsand of more
complex narrativelines led to a certain overshadowingof the chorus's contribution to the whole."12A decisive moment in the institutionalrecognitionthat
the choral element was no longer the sole or primarycenterof interestwas the
introductionof separate prizes foractorsin about 449 1.C.E.1 3 This decentering
of the chorus as other featurescame to be regarded as more worthyof attention
was a primaryreason (in myview) for the forgettingof tragedy'sorigin.
It is tantalizingthat Aristotle,whose biological writingsprovide our best
"show signs of puberty,"should have discussed the etyknowledge of tragizein,
(Poetics3.1448'28 -b2;
drama,and iambosbut notthatof tragoidos
mologiesof k6mos,
4.1448b31-32). This could mean a) nothing,b) thattheconnectionwas too obvious
to require comment,or c) that it had already been forgotten.If we emphasize
the rapid change and experimentationin tragedyin the two centuriesbetween
Thespis and Aristotle,and the currencyalready of the rustic hypothesisin a
debate over dramatic origins (Poetics3.1448a29-48b2), we will perhaps incline
to c). I can imagine thatit was stilla rule forperformancethatephebes manned
the chorus but thatthe chorus had in the course of timebeen so overshadowed
by poets and actors thattheiroriginalcentralitywas simplyno longer apparent.
The ephebes maystillbe present,but the at-largeawarenessof theirsignificance
has grown dim compared to the arc lightof public attentioncast on the poets
and actors.
3) Militaryrealitieswereperhaps alwaysat some distancefrompatrioticexhibitions."Athenswas, practicallyforthefirsttimeand in anycase forthe last time,
faithfulto the ideal scheme [of a ten-triberepublic of hoplites] at the battleof
Marathon,in 490, seventeenyearsafter[Kleisthenes']great reform."114In later
centuriesthe Athenian ephebate became an elite school in whichnon-Athenians
could enroll."15 How farwas the ephebic hoplitetrainingalready an upper-class
mirage in the earlyfifthcenturywhen Athensdeveloped itsextraordinarynaval
power? Was the polis's self-imageput at risk by the ever greater reliance on
mercenariesin the next two centuries?Such issues of militaryrealityought to
receive a much finersiftingin order to estimatethe shiftinglocation and importance of ephebes in the polis's ideology.
4) Similarquestionscan be asked about professionalismin music.Aristotle's
discussion of the role of music in the education of citizensis much concerned
withthe danger thatit willliken them to the professionalperformerswho earn
a livingby it (Politics8.4-7). In what stages does the concept of manlydancing
in arms lose its value by blurringwiththe effeteand banausic entertainmentof
specialists?Could itssurvivalamong soldiers(see Xenophon's descriptionquoted
above) have served as a baseline formeasurement,both promptingthe theatrical
50

REPRESENTATIONS

formsto ever greater refinementand eventuallyservingto condemn them for

seeming all too exquisite?
5) More paradoxically,we would like to assess to whatdegree the Old Comic
image of degeneracyin tragedy'smusicand in theyoungergenerationin general
(Aischylosversus Euripides in the Frogs) was already a distortion.What value
shallwe assignto itsexaggerateddisciplinarianimage of old tragedyas the teacher
of ephebes, which fitsso nicely with the present hypothesiseven though it is
somethingof a joke? "Little boys have as their teacher whoever sets them an
poetai;
have the [tragic]poets" (toisind' hebosi
example, men who have reached hUbe
"Aischylos"at Frogs1054-56).1 16
traditionof scholarshipon the originsof trag6) Must the post-Aristotelian
edy be declared a rusticfantasy,withits tales of Ikarios entertainingDionysos
(and vice versa, changing water into wine), the killingof a goat who fed on the
grapevines,a basket of dried figsas prize for comedy,and Thespis' woodland
sportings?"17 (Whateverwe decide about the goat prize,the beliefof Dioskorides
and the Parian chronographer in a fig prize for comedy firstawarded in the
period 580-560 B.C.E. can hardlybe taken seriously.)
7) And, finally,what doesthis have to do with Dionysos? Is his own loss of
painting in some way a reflexof the honor he received
beard in fifth-century
fromephebes? If the hypothesisput forwardhere can stand, we must correct
the focus of all those discussionsof tragedythat have spoken in termsof "the
Dionysian spiritfloweringinto drama." The old Greek proverb,"Nothing to do
withDionysos,"was right,and it referrednot merelyto the subjectsof the plays
performnot to express the spirit
but to dramaticperformanceas such. Tragbidoi
of Dionysos but to displaythe polis'sfinelytuned sense of disciplineand impulse,
of youth'sincorporationinto a competitiveharmonyof tribesand age classes. It
so happens, expostfacto,thatDionysos can be seen as an appropriate patron for
such a display.But the realitythatgeneratesand perpetuatesthe "bleatingsingers" is a specificsocial and militarytension in the postoligarchicpolis (perhaps
firstat Sikyon).This refocusingof the relation between Dionysos and the dramatic would accord with his actual cult history.Drama is not found wherever
Dionysos is presentand he may even be snubbed; at Delphi, forinstance,where
hisworshipwas ancientand deep-rooted,dramaticcompetitionswereintroduced
to honor Apollo, not Dionysos.118
SatyricFinale
Many scholars have tried to followAristotle'slead in seeing the satyr
play as the humble beginningfromwhichtragedygrewso tall and grand (Poetics
4.1449a19-23). This runs into two major obstacles: 1) Aristotlealso seems to
tracetragedyto the "leaders of the dithyramb"(Poetics4.1449a9-14); 2) another
The Ephebes'Song

51

traditionattributesthe inventionof satyrplays to Pratinasof Phlious in the late

sixthcentury,afterThespis, not before."9
The firstof these is based on a misreadingof Aristotlethat was probably
inevitablebut ought long ago to have vanished.'20 In chapter 4 of the Poetics
Aristotleemploys two frameworksfor the discussion of innovationin dramasome changes are due to the inner necessityby which a genre strivesnaturally
to attain its perfectform,others are due to the creativityof giftedindividuals.
This latter thread of thought is usually overlooked, but it is an unmistakable
aspect of Aristotle'sthoughtabout physis.The relevantphrases are "those who
were naturallygiftedin regard to [imitation,harmony,and rhythm]gradually
led poetryforwardand broughtitintobeingthroughimprovisations"
(1448b22-24)
and "once tragedyand comedy had appeared, those who had an impulse for
either type of poetry according to theirown proper nature" (1449'2-4). The
plain factis that some of us can carrya tune or dance a jig, some of us can't to
save our lives. The innate musicalgiftednessof certainindividualsis an essential
componentof Aristotle'saccount. He does not saythattragedygrewout of dithyrambs; he says that the earliestcreativeperformerswho did anythinglikewhat
who improvised(words,
tragicperformerslaterdid weretheleadersof dithyrambs
the
of
a
gestures,whatever),evidentlyagainst
background
steadychoral chant.121
The second objection, however,is genuine. The ephebic hypothesisabout
tragedysuggestsa reading of satyrplays that may account both for their later
appearance than tragedyat the City Dionysia and for Aristotle'simpressionor
instinct(it can hardlyhave been more than that) that satyrplays were somehow
a radicallysimplifiedformof tragedy.This too is venturesome,but nothingelse
to date has made any sense of Aristotle'sclaim that satyrplays,small and ridiculous as theyare, were the originalformof the tragbidoi's
performance.
A common plot or skitserves as the frameworkfor the only two satyrplays
of which enough survives for us to have an opinion about them-Euripides'
and Sophokles' Ichneutai.122It is an interactionbetweenPappasilenos, the
Kykl6ps
hairy old father of the young satyrchorus, and his "boys." Both plays show
Pappasilenos as a pompous disciplinarianwho takes a stern tone to his sons123
but who is then shown up as himselfa whoring,cheating drunkard.'24 The
chorus are notmuchbraverthantheirold dad, buttheydo takea hand in bringing
the mythologicalaction of the play to a successfulconclusion afterPappasilenos
has had his comeuppance. The language ofIchneutai1 1- 34 is particularlystriking; it is the veryidiom of a militarytaskmasterdressingdown his raw recruits.
It may be no more than a coincidence thatthe subject of the Ichneutaiis a babygod who miraculouslyreaches adolescence in six days (paidos eis hebesakmen,
227).

125

A generalizationbased on two instances is hazardous in the extreme,but

nonethelessI ventureto suggestthat there was an elementarysatyricarmature
(if not for all at least for some or many satyrplays),on which various fantastic
52

REPRESENTATIONS

mythologicaleventswerelooselyhung,consistingof theinterplayof Pappasilenos

and thepaideslneoiwho were under his command; thatthe core of the interaction
was a reversalof authoritybetweenthe old man and the boys; and thatthisreads
like nothingso much as a militarygraduation play in whichhigh-spiritedcadets
take theirtaskmastersto task.
The traditionin which Pratinas introducesthe satyrplay some thirtyyears
aftertragediesbegan and Aristotle'snotionthatsatyrplaysare the simplestform
of tragedycan both be maintained.We merelyhave to thinkof the satyrplay as
an addition to the tragedies that recalls their performersand audience to the
ephebic characterof the festivalin the simplestterms,a characterand meaning
that was perhaps already slipping out of focus due to the rapid elaboration of
dramaticart.126
That elaboration must have been much admired, though many of the survivingdocuments (Old Comedy,Plato) also testifyto an easy scorn. Let us close
witha citationof Plato, lamentingthe degeneracy of modern dance but at the
same timerevealingthe deep and quite traditionalfascinationfeltforyoungmen
performingat theirpeak of prowess. "So our young men [neoi]are themselves
ready to dance in chorus, while we older gentlemenconsider it more dignified
since the
to watch them, made glad by their youthfulsporting and festivity,
lightnessof body we once had is leavingus now; but since we desire it and regard
itwithaffectionwe arrange competitionsforthose who can best arouse in us the
memoryof what it was to be young" (Laws 2.657D). The elders on the walls of
Troy could not have said it better.

Notes
For help in preparing thisarticleI owe thanksto WalterBurkert,MichaelJameson,
Thomas Rosenmeyer,Froma Zeitlin,Evelyn Harrison, Marsh McCall, Susan Cole,
and JeffreyHenderson.
1. Abbreviationsare used for the followingworks:
DFA = Arthur Pickard-Cambridge,DramaticFestivalsofAthens,2nd ed., revised by
John Gould and David M. Lewis (Oxford, 1968);
JHS = JournalofHellenicStudies;
of GreekDrama
IGD = Thomas B. L. Websterand Arthur D. Trendall, Illustrations
(London, 1971);
Bieber = Margarete Bieber, The Historyof theGreekand Roman Theater,2nd ed.
(Princeton,1961).
The Ephebes' Song

53

2. Melainai and Oinoe are demes, Panaktona fort,Eleutheraia village; Lilian Chandler,
"The North-WestFrontierof Attica,"JHS 46 (1926): 1-21. The historyof actual
fightingover these settlementson both sides of Mount Kithairon is surveyed by
Angelo Brelich, Guerre,Agoni e Culti nella GreciaArcaica,Antiquitas,ser. 1, vol. 7
(Bonn, 1961), 53-59.
Feste(Berlin, 1932), 232-34; Herbert W. Parke,Festivalsof
3. Ludwig Deubner,Attische
theAthenians(Ithaca, 1977), 88-92.
4. Scholiast on AristophanesAcharnians146; Hesychios s.v. "Koure6tis." The young
men having theirlocks cut also honored Herakles (whose divine consortwas Hebe)
by a special libationand shared cup; Hesychios s.v. "Oinisteria";Pamphilos quoted
in AthenaiosDeipnosophists
11.494E
5. ChrysisPelekidis,Histoirede l'ephebieattique(Paris, 1962); Jacques Labarbe, "L'Age
et les donnees historiquesdu sixiemediscours
correspondantau sacrificedu koureion
de l'Academie
Royalede Belgique,5th ser.,no. 39
d'Isee," Bulletinde la ClassedesLettres
(1953): 358-94.
6. On the relationof the phratry'senrollmentat age sixteen(hebeproper) to the deme's
enrollmentat age eighteen(technicallydescribedas epidieteshebesai,"havingreached
52-70; Mark Golden, "Demosthenes
one's hebefortwoyears"),see Pelekidis,Histoire,
and the Age of Majorityat Athens,"Phoenix33 (1979): 25-38.
Athens,"JHS97 (1977): 102-11,
7. PeterSiewert,"The Ephebic Oath in Fifth-Century
findsechoes of thisoath in Aischylos,Sophokles,and Thucydides. Pelekidis,Histoire,
76, n. 2, detectsit twicein Aristophanes.
8. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, "The Black Hunter and the Origin of the AthenianEphebeia,"
in Myth,Religionand Society,
ed. Raymond L. Gordon (Cambridge, 1981), 147-62.
9. Thus Artemidoros(Oneirokritika
1.54) sees a dream of being an ephebe as symbolic
of transitions-for the unmarried,marriage; for an old man, death.
revolutionin militarytacticsin whichthe older heroic soloists
10. The seventh-century
and horsemen were replaced by shield-to-shieldmasses of heavilyarmed infantry
is connectedby mostanalystsas cause and/oreffectof the social revolutionin which
citizenrightsin the polis were extended to a larger land-owningbut not aristocratic
class. See Marcel Detienne, "La Phalange: Problemes et controverses,'in Problemes
ed. Jean-PierreVernant(Paris,1968), 119-42; Anthony
de la guerreen Greceancienne,
Snodgrass, "The Hoplite Reformand History,"JHS85 (1965): 110-22; Paul Cartledge, "Hoplites and Heresies: Sparta's Contributionto the Technique of Ancient
Warfare,"JHS97 (1977): 11-27, esp. 21-24; John Salmon, "PoliticalHoplites?"JHS
undKampfwirkKampfdarstellung
97 (1977): 84-101. JoachimLatacz, Kampfpardnese,
lichkeit
in derIlias, beiKallinosund Tyrtaios,
Zetemata,no. 66 (Munich, 1977), givesan
excellentanalysisof the phalanx formationin Homer, which sometimesassumed a
close and quasi-hopliticorder fordefensivepurposes (esp. 55-65).
11. Henri Jeanmaire,"La Cryptielacedemonienne,' Revuedesetudesgrecques26 (1913):
121-50. However, one must be more reserved than Jeanmaire and Vidal-Naquet
as an ephebeia.
about the simple identificationof the Spartan krypteia
of theAthenians42.3-4; peripolousitenchoran,"theypatrol the
12. AristotleConstitution
countryside."
13. Artemidoros(Oneirokritika
1.54) knows threecolors of ephebic cloak-white, black,
and crimson (later second centuryC.E.). The substitutionof white for black cloaks
at the Eleusinian procession was a beneficenceof Herodes Attikosabout 176 C.E.,
knownboth fromPhilostratosLivesoftheSophists2.550 and a contemporaryinscripGraecae22.3606). PierreRoussel,"Les Chlamydesnoiresdes ephebes
tion(Inscriptiones

54

REPRESENTATIONS

14.
15.
16.

17.

18.

19.

20.
21.

22.
23.
24.

"Remarks
43 (1941): 163-65; P.G. Maxwell-Stuart,
anciennes
atheniens'Revue desNtudes
PhilologicalSociety
of theCambridge
on the Black Coats of the Ephebes," Proceedings
196, n.s. 16 (1970): 113-16. The inscriptionrelates the change fromwhiteto black
withTheseus' failureto change his black sails to whitewhen he returnedfromCrete.
It is just possible,therefore,thatSimonides' referenceto the fatalsails not as black
but as crimsonhas some bearing on the color of ephebic cloaks; Denys Page, Poetae
MeliciGraeci(Oxford, 1962), 550.
For instance at Hermione, where there were annual contestsin music,swimming,
ofGreece2.35.1.
and boat racing in his honor; Pausanias Description
None, that is, except this story,whence the rare report that the Apatouria was
Magnum118.55.
celebrated in honor of Dionysos; Etymologicum
Dionysos does not figurein the listof gods in the ephebic oath; neitherdoes Apollo
Lykeios,a principalpatronof theiraccomplishedinitiation;MichaelJameson,"Apollo
Lykeiosin Athens,"Archaiognosia1 (1980): 213-35. In addition to the gods mentionedabove, Hephaistos was honored at the Apatouria bymen dressed in finerobes
who littorchesfromthehearthand sang a hymnto him; Harpokrations.v."Lampas."
Scholiaston AristophanesAcharnians243. Atheniancolonies wereevidentlyrequired
to send a phallos to the mothercityfor the Dionysia; we have a record of one such
Graecae22.673;
Graecae 12.46, line 12. See also Inscriptiones
fromBrea; Inscriptiones
and on the phallic-animalstatuesin various theaters,see Ernst Buschor,"Ein chorAbteiAthenische
Instituts:
Archaologischen
desDeutschen
egischesDenkmal,"Mitteilungen
Drama
lung53 (1928): 96-108; GregoryM. Sifakis,Studiesin theHistoryofHellenistic
(London, 1967), 7-10.
At least one ancient scholar understood thatApatouriawas not derived fromapatO,
but referredratherto the old communityof clans; Scholiaston Aristophanes
"trick,"
"watchers,worAcharnians146. 0. Szemerenyiderivesthe word fromha-patro-woroi,
shippersof the same father";Gnomon43 (1971): 656.
"The proximityto Eleutherai, the name Oinoe and the name Melanthos may all
have played a part in bringingDionysos Melanaigis into the story";WilliamR. Halliday,"Xanthosand Melanthosand theOriginof Tragedy,"ClassicalReview40 (1926):
179- 81 (quotationfromp. 179). Halliday argues againstthe theorythatthe combat
served
understoodas Black Man/FairMan and Winter/Spring,
of Melanthos/Xanthos,
as a ritual background for the development of classical tragedy.Arthur Pickardand Comedy,
2nd ed., revised,byThomas B. L. Webster
Tragedy
Cambridge,Dithyramb
(London, 1962), 120-21.
The institutionalhistoryof the ephebeiaas a formal period of training,firstclearly
is verycontroversial(see "Loose
of theAthenians,
described in AristotleConstitution
Ends" below).
Trag6idia,"tragedy,"is a secondary formation,derived from trag6idoi,plural and
themselves.Trag idoiratherthan trag6idiais the
naming the group of tragos-singers
term used in inscriptionsand in ordinaryspeech in the fifthand fourthcenturies;
DFA 127-32; W. Burkert,"Greek Tragedy and SacrificialRitual,"GreekRomanand
ByzantineStudies7 (1966): 92.
Many cattle were killed on this occasion. William S. Ferguson uses inscriptional
evidence foran estimateof 240 slaughteredanimalsin 333 B.C.E.; "DemetriusPoliorcetes and the Hellenic League," Hesperia17 (1948): 134.
DFA 59-67.
AristophanesBirds 794 and scholion (= Souda s.v. "Bouleutikos"); Pollux Lexicon
4.122; Hesychios s.v. "Bouleutikon"; Trugaios at AristophanesPeace 887 addresses
The Ephebes' Song

55

the Boule and prytaneisdirectlyas audience members; the scholiaston Peace 882
confirmsthe seatingarrangement.
25. On seatingand tickets,see DFA 269-72.
26. DFA 95-98.
27. The inscriptionalevidence is surveyedin chapter 4 of Michael Maass, Die Prohedrie
inAthen(Munich, 1972). The Demosthenesanecdote can be found
desDionysostheaters
in Aeschines AgainstKtesiphon76. When the Athenians took over controlof Delos
in the mid second centuryB.C.E., theytransferredthe announcementof civichonors
fromthe Apollonia to the Dionysia; Sifakis,Studies,14.
28. Ronald S. Stroud, "Greek Inscriptions:Theozotides and the Athenian Orphans,"
Hesperia40 (1971): 280-301, esp. 288-89.
29. The city'smilitarypreparedness was also advertised by the ten generals (one per
tribe), who offered a ceremonial libation at the beginning of the performances.
Plutarch atteststhis for an early date (468 B.C.E.) in a storyabout competitionso
fiercethatthe archon refusedto selectjudges by the usual lot but instead persuaded
the generals,who were presentfortheircustomarylibation,to act as the panel; Life
ofKimon8.7-9. On the generals'prohedriain the theater,see AristophanesKnights
832-35; Theophrastos Characters
573-77, 702-4; AristophanesThesmophoriazousai
Graecae22.500.32-35.
5.7; Inscriptiones
30. Froma I. Zeitlin,"The Dynamics of Misogyny:Mythand Mythmakingin the Oresteia,"Arethusa11 (1978): 149-84; "The Power of Aphrodite: Eros and the Boundaries of the Self in Euripides' Hippolytus"
(forthcoming).
31. "Sophocles' Philoctetes
and the Ephebeia," in Tragedyand Mythin AncientGreece,ed.
Jean-PierreVernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, trans.Janet Lloyd (Sussex, 1981),
175- 99. Contra,see Vincenzo Di Benedetto, "II 'Filottete'e 1'efebiasecondo Pierre
Vidal-Naquet,"Belfagor33 (1978): 191-207.
32. So also Eurypylosreplaces his fatherTelephos at Troy in Sophokles' (?) Eurypylos.
For discussionsof Sophoklean playsnot extant,see AlfredC. Pearson, TheFragments
of Sophocles,3 vols. (Cambridge, 1917). The more recent edition by Stefan Radt,
Graecorum
Fragmenta,vol. 4, Sophocles(Gottingen,1977), contains some
Tragicorum
papyrus fragmentsunknown to Pearson, but virtuallyno discussion.
33. Probably Sophokles' Rhizotomoi,
certainlyEuripides' Peliades.For bibliographyand
ofEuripides
discussionof Euripides' lostplays,see Thomas B. L. Webster,TheTragedies
(London, 1967).
34. E. Kresphontes;
Colin Austin,ed., Nova Fragmenta
Euripideain PapyrisReperta(Berlin,
aetatem
1968), 4 1-48; itsplot is givenin HyginusFabulae 137 (quipostquamad puberem
uenit.. .); ApollodorosBibliotheca
PapyrusOxyrhynchus2458 seems
2.8.5 (andr6theis);
to be an actor'scopy.
UniofEuripides'"Alexandros"
Papyrus:TheHypothesis
35. R. A. Coles, A New Oxyrhynchus
versityof London, Instituteof Classical Studies Bulletin,supplement no. 32 (London, 1974).
and theGreekFamily(Boston, 1968);
36. Philip E. Slater,TheGloryofHera: GreekMythology
Helene P. Foley,"Sex and State in AncientGreece,"Diacritics(Winter1975): 31-36.
37. S. Aigeusseems to have placed Theseus' conquering of the Marathonianbull before
his recognitionby Aigeus. At least one exploit of Theseus on the wayto Athenswas
the subjectof a satyrplay: E. Skiro'n.
17.208
38. James Diggle, ed., EuripidesPhaethon(Cambridge, 1970); scholiaston Odyssey
quoted by Diggle, Euripides,31.
(andr6theis),
39. Meleagrosis a title attested for Sophokles, Euripides, Antiphon, and Sosiphanes.

56

REPRESENTATIONS

40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.

47.
48.
49.
50.
51.

52.

53.

54.

Some of these may have dealt not withthe Calydonian hunt itselfbut withthe later
siege by the Kouretes of Pleuron when Meleagros sulked like Achilles and refused
to help defend his city.Phrynichos'Pleuroniaiprobablydealt withthis.
StudAkiko Kiso, "Sophokles,Aleadae: A Reconstruction,'GreekRomanand Byzantine
ies 17 (1976): 5-21.
See Diggle, Euripides,39ff.,158-60.
Described in Euripides Phoinissai32: "Alreadyhis cheeks were darkeningas he was
coming to manhood...."
GodfreyW. Bond, EuripidesHypsipyle
(London, 1963).
esp. 160-61.
Zeitlin,"Dynamicsof Misogyny,"
In the mostpowerfulinstance,thatof Orestes,itis a sisterwho is saved and a mother
who acts the role of wickedoppressor.
2:254ff.A source contemporarywithSophokles, Ion
Pearson,Fragments
ofSophocles,
of Chios, has him quote a line of Phrynichosabout the beauty of Troilos. By this
tenuous thread some would link to Sophokles' Troilosthe version of the storyin
Lykophron'sAlexandra307-13 thatmakes Achillesand Troilos lovers.
Papyrus Berolinensis9908; before the discoveryof Papyrus Oxyrhynchus2460, it
of Sophocles,
was judged to be from Sophokles' AchaionSylloge;Pearson, Fragments
1:94-102.
Graecorum
Fragmenta,
2nd ed. (Hildesheim, 1964), 467ff.,
August Nauck, Tragicorum
26ff.
frag.360 (= LykourgosAgainstLeokrates100); Austin,Nova Fragmenta,
See "Loose Ends" below.
4.
Anonymous,LifeofSophokles
and SatyrPlay,London
Tragedy
Illustrating
Listed in Thomas B. L. Webster,Monuments
Instituteof Classical Studies Bulletin,supplementno. 14 (London, 1962).
University,
There is a fine collection of photos in IGD, mainly on play subjects rather than
theatricalequipment; see also DFA chap. 4.
Museo Nazionale Archeologico3240; Paolo E. Arias,A HistoryofGreekVasePainting,
trans.and revised by Brian B. Shefton(London, 1962), 377-80, withbibliography,
plates 218 -19. The names, invisibleon mostphotographs,are included in the drawing of the vase in Bieber,fig.32 (reproduced here, fig. 1), and much more visiblyin
Vasenthe huge reproductionsin Adolf Furtwanglerand Karl Reichhold,Griechische
malerei(Munich, 1904 - 32).
173A: the symposiontook place on the day after
IGD 29 aptlycites Plato Symposion
Agathon and his chorus memberscelebratedtheirvictorysacrifice-no mentionof
actors.An inscriptionpublished in 1965 listsSokratesas producer (choregos),
Euripides as poet-trainer(didaskalos),and fourteentrag6idoi-no actors; PauletteGhironsurlesacteursdansla Greice
antique(Paris, 1976), 119-21; see next
Bistagne,Recherches
note on the numberof performers.
On these uncertainmattersI have some tentativesuggestionsto add to the pool of
possibilities.The feminine-lookingcouch-sittermay representa fourthrolein the
play,but since one of the three actors already pictured in other roles would have
acted thispart, he is not drawn a second time. (In thiscase alone I would allow for
whatPickard-Cambridge[DFA 187] sees as a "melting"of actorintorole.) Whyeleven
choreuts?The poet-trainerhimselfcould have performedas the twelfthperson in
the chorus, presumablythe chorus leader,a practiceattestedforthe earliestdays of
tragedy;but other evidence points to fifteenas the expected number for this time
(note 53 above). Since even inscriptionallistsof Boule memberssometimesrecord
only forty-ninenames, we should not be too surprisedat a vase painter'sinexacti-

The Ephebes'Song

57

55.

56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.

62.
63.

64.

65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.

58

tude. Finally,could the chorus member in fancydress already have changed his
clothesfor the victorycelebration?
Even on Ernst Buschor's hypothesisthatthe roles are takennot by actorsbut by the
heroes themselvesthecontrastis stillevident;see Buschor in Furtwanglerand Reichhold, Griechische
Vasenmalerei,
3:132 -50. Pickard-Cambridge(DFA 187) sees a certain
"melting"between the faces of the actors and theirmasks; I should say ratherthat
the actors look verylike each other and not particularlylike theirmasks.
Wurzburg 832, fromTaranto (reproduced here, fig.2); color reproductionin Ghiron-Bistagne,Recherches,
frontispiece,and also in Paolino Mingazzini,GreekPottery
Painting(London, 1969), fig.57; see also Bieber,fig.306a-b, and DFA, fig.54a.
On a red-figuredAtticpelikebythe Phiale Painter(Boston 98.883); seeJohn Beazley,
AtticRed-figure
Vases,2nd ed. (London, 1963), 1017; Thomas B. L. Webster,TheGreek
Chorus(London, 1970), plate 8; DFA, fig.34; Bieber,fig.90.
Red-figurebell-krater,about 460-450 B.C.E. (Ferrara T. 173C); DFA, fig.33, where
the mask is said to be certainlythat of a young man-it seems to me too poorly
drawn to be certain.
Apulian bell-kraterby the TarporleyPainter,400-380 B.C.E. (Sydney47.05; fig.3);
IGD 2.2; Frank Brommer,Satyrspiele,
2nd ed. (Berlin, 1959), fig.7.
Esp. a kraterfrom Taranto, now in Wurzburg, of about the same time and style
as the Pronomos vase, evidentlyshowing an entire cast; DFA 187-88, fig. 50a-c;
Beazley,Red-figure
Vases,1338.
Cf. the bell-krater,390-370 B.C.E. (Heidelberg B 134), showingtwo comic chorus
membersimpersonatingwomen,one withhis mask thrownback to reveala beardless
young face; Thomas B. L. Webster,GreekTheaterProduction(London, 1956), plate
15a; Bieber,fig.208.
A recentlydiscovered example in Colin N. Edmondson, "Onesippos' Herm," in
Presented
to Eugene Vanderpool,
HesStudiesin AtticEpigraphy
Historyand Topography
peria, supplementno. 19 (1982), 48-50.
At 21.58 -61 Demosthenes refersto twopersons who had been convictedof astrateia
and yet had later directed or performed in choruses. The point is that theywere
such exceptionallyskilledindividualsthatno citizenwho observed them wanted to
of enforcingthe legal ban on theirparticipation.Presumably
take the responsibility
the year in which theyhad been convictedof astrateiawas not a year in which they
had been dancing for Dionysos.
Note thatin the second case cited fromDemosthenes the speaker contrastsmilitary
servicenot onlywithchoral dancing at the CityDionysia but withthe celebrationof
the DionysianAnthesteriaa monthearlier.(At the back of mymind in thisargument
is the role of army musicianstoday-"privates on parade"; behind the ideology of
the citizen-soldiermust lie the practicalrecognitionthat not all men are suited to
thatrole.) It mustbe admittedthatit is unclear whetherthe exemptioncovered the
entireyear or only the period of trainingfor the festival.
desKleisthenes,
Atikasund die Heeresreform
Peter Siewert,Die Trittyen
Vestigia,no. 33
(Munich, 1982), 150-53.
Ibid., 62 -67.
DFA 239-54.
DFA 239, n. 2.
5.181C.
LysiasOration21.3; AthenaiosDeipnosophists
Before
Aristotlenotes thatthe essence of hoplite fightingis coordination(syntaxis).

REPRESENTATIONS

men discovered taxisand so made heavily armored infantryuseful, cavalry was

supreme; Politics4.13.1297b18-22.
71. Command words are listedby AsklepiodotosTacticschap. 12; chaps. 10-11 describe
the various troop formationsformarchingand turning;textand translationin the
Loeb Classical Libraryalong withmilitarytextsby Aeneas Tacticusand Onasander
(London, 1923). For the sixthand fifthcenturiesour positiveknowledgeof military
trainingis almost zero; William K. Pritchett,The GreekStateat War,part 2, chaps.
11-12 (Berkeley,1974); John K. Anderson,MilitaryTheoryand Practicein theAge of
Xenophon(Berkeley,1970), chaps. 5-6.
14.628E-E
72. Chamaileon fragment42 (ed. FritzWehrli) = Athenaios Deipnosophists
(This maybe twoquotations,one fromChamaileon, one fromSokrates.) It is important to note that Chamaileon gets his information,and his authority,principally
fromOld Comedy,which he cites not only in thisinstancebut to back up many of
his survivingopinions about earlytragedy(frags.40-42 Wehrli).This relocationof
theirauthorityat once makes such pronouncementsboth earlier and more oblique:
theyremain importantevidence even if theywere originallythe grouchyexaggerations of a curmudgeon on the comic stage.
73. Scholiaston Aristeides(3.535 ed. Dindorf), cited in DFA 241, n. 1.
74. Compare Xenophon Memorabilia3.1.8 and Hesychioss.vv."Laurostatai"and "Hypokolpion."
75. On the Dorian mode, see DFA 258-60. The presence of an aulos playeris one way
of identifyingthe earliest representationsof hoplite fighterson seventh-century
vases; Hilda L. Lorimer,"The Hoplite Phalanx,"AnnualoftheBritishSchoolat Athens
42 (1947): 76 -138. The Spartans tookthisso seriouslythattheyemployednumerous
aulos playersin unison (pollonhomou,Thucydides 5.70, who does not,pace Lorimer
and others,say thatthe Spartans alonemarched to the flute;theymayhave invented
the technique or may have been best known for it, as Aristotle[quoted by Aulus
GelliusAtticNights1.11.17-19] alleged,but theydid not patentit.See esp. Xenophon
in the next paragraph.) Thucydides also makes clear that the point of the music is
not to raise spiritsbut to ensure rhythmicstepping and so to maintaintaxis.The
aulos player who served on Athenian triremesevidentlyhad the same function
(Inscriptiones
Graecae22.1951.100).
76. AntikenmuseumBasel, Inv. BS 415 (fig. 4); Margot Schmidt,"Dionysien,"Antike
Kunst10 (1967): 70-81. I should preferto see in the cloaked figurewatchingfrom
behind the altar the producer ratherthan a bust of the god.
77. The name may mean not "naked boys" but more specifically"boyswithoutequipment or armor."
78. In other Greek citieswe hear of dances in armor called telesias,orsiths,
and epikredios
(Athenaios Deipnosophists
629C, 630A). Ephoros (4th centuryB.C.E.) described the
trainingof Cretan boys,who froman earlyage were trainedto use armygear (hopla),
to harden themselvesto blows in the gymnasiumand in battleformation,and specificallyto dance in armor (paraphrased by Strabo 10.4.16); Pritchett,GreekStateat
War,2:216.
79. Peter Siewert,Trittyen
Attikas,
64-65.
80. AristotleConstitution
oftheAthenians42.4.
81. Cited in note 76 above. If theyare wearingmasks,it is a case of ephebes dressed as
a chorus of ephebes, as in Aischylos'Neaniskoior Thespis' Eitheoi.
82. E Kolb, "Die Bau-, Religions- und Kulturpolitikder Peisistratiden,"
Jahrbuchdes

The Ephebes' Song

59

83.
84.

85.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.

91.
92.
93.
94.
95.

96.

60

Institut
92 (1977): 99-138. I believe thevague and difficult
Deutschen
Archaeologischen
of theAthenians1.13 refersto a class conflict(the
text of [Xenophon] Constitution
demos' participationin musical performancesthat had been managed exclusively
by the elite) ratherthan to an earlystage of musicalprofessionalization.Cf. M. Treu,
Zeit,"Historia7 (1958): 385-91.
"Eine Art von Choregie in Peisistratischer
David M. Lewis, "Cleisthenesand Attica,"Historia12 (1963): 22 -40.
Herodotos Histories5.66.2; John S. Traill, "The Political Organization of Attica,"
MitPhylenheroen,
Hesperia,supplement no. 14 (1975); Uta Kron, Die zehnattischen
teilungendes Deutschen ArchaologischenInstituts,AthenischeAbteilung,supplement no. 5 (Berlin, 1976).
Pierre Vidal-Naquet, "La Tradition de l'hoplite athenien,"in Jean-PierreVernant,
de la guerreen Grke ancienne(Paris, 1968), 161-8 1, esp. 165ff.
ed., Problemes
oftheAthenians42.2 -3.
AristotleConstitution
33 (1984): 282-94,
FrankJ.Frost,"The AthenianMilitaryBeforeCleisthenesrHistoria
emphasizes how littleis knownof Athenianmilitaryorganizationin thesixthcentury.
Neitherwas comedy at first,thoughitbecame so in the fourthcentury;see Aristotle
Constitution
oftheAthenians56.3.
More severe policies for dealing with a polis's young warriors were conceivable:
Periandros dispatched three hundred sons of Korkyra'sleading familiesto Sardis
to be castratedand used as eunuch-slaves;Herodotos Histories3.48.
PeterJ. Rhodes, A Commentary
on theAristotelian
"Athenaion
Politeia"(Oxford, 1981),
210. Peisistratos'confiscationof arms mightbe interpretedas his assumingthe right
to issue arms to the citizenswhen war became necessary,ratherthan as his permanent disarmamentof them: "Upon hearing this,Peisistratosfinishedthe rest of his
speech and then told the crowd whathad happened to theirarms, adding thatthey
should not be surprised or distressed,but should go home and take care of their
privateaffairs,since in the futurehe would attend to all the business of the polis";
AristotleConstitution
oftheAthenians15.4.
He also abolished the rhapsodes' performancesof Homer because the Iliad was too
fullof Argos and Argive heroes; Herodotos Histories5.67.1.
In lightof theblack capes, Melanaigis,Melainai, and Melanthios(firstsectionabove),
the melan-root willleap to the eye of some whose mindsworkthatway.I don't think
there is enough there to make any claims.
Plato Kratylos408C-D is the earliest association of tragedywithgoats-because of
theirrough (trach-)hides.
A long marbleinscriptionfound on the island of Paros, hence knownas the Marmor
dergriechischen
vol. 2D (Berlin, 1930),
Historiker,
Parium; FelixJacoby,Die Fragmente
no. 239.
Cited in note 21 above. As this article was going to press I noticed that there is a
billygoat sacrificeon the firstday of the CityDionysia, not in Athens proper but in
Graecae22.1358 B 17-18. Further,on that
the MarathonianTetrapolis-Inscriptiones
sacred calendar the billygoat victimis specifiedas one that is all black (pammelas),
surelya confirmationof the ephebic symbolismseen by Vidal-Naquet.
My reservationsabout Burkert'smagisterialtreatmenthave to do not withthe existence of a goat prize but withthe elaborationof a culturalperformanceon sacrificial
themes(his interpretationof tragedy)at the one festivalforwhicha sacrificialprize
is least attested.If tragedyis viewedas mainlyand originallyabout issues of sacrifice,
it mightas well have developed at any of the numerousanimal slaughtersof ancient
Greece. Further,thatit should have grown fromthe (unattested)sacrificeof a goat

REPRESENTATIONS

ratherthan,say,a bull seems to me faintlyludicrous: can we imagineAischylossaying

of great Agamemnon that he was cut down like a goat at the manger? In reply,
however,it mightbe possible to hold that it was preciselybecause there was nota
literalenactmentof an animal sacrifice(or onlya slightlyludicrousone) thata choral
meditationon sacrificedeveloped at the Dionysia.
97. Justin3.3 on the Spartan krypteia.
98. Arnold Van Gennep, The RitesofPassage, trans. M. B. Vizedom and G. L. Caffee
(Chicago, 1960), chap. 6.
ofAnimals5.7.787b32-788a2. The words
99. AristotleHistoryofAnimals7.1; Generation
continuein use; see Porphyryon Ptolemy'sHarmony253A; Alexander of Aphrodisias
Problemata1.125.
100. There maybe a more literalaspect thatreinforcedthismetaphoricaldesignationof
(London, 1911), 61-62,
theirsinging.David S. Margoliouth,The PoeticsofAristotle
broughtvoice-breakinginto connectionwithtragedyon the basis of the mournful
and unevennature of the singing,as described by [Aristotle]Problems19.6.
101. Because of this fact I have not stressedwhat will seem to many the most obvious
connectionbetweenritesdepassageand the ephebes' tragicchorus-their sometime
dressingas women. The ephebes as a group havejust as importanta role to play in
the festivalbybeing in the audience as theirrepresentativebest dancers and singers
do by being in the orchestra.Further,the keyephebic issues are familyand political
to the gods and the dead, and a young man's maximizingof
responsibility
authority,
personal timewithoutinsultinghis peers or betters. Gender is a key item in the
system,but it is a dependent ratherthan an independent variable. Finally,theydid
not always dress as women; sometimestheyeven dressed as ephebes (see note 81
above).
fromhircus,"goat,"forboys becoming men: "Hirquitallipueri
102. Cf. Latin hirquitallus
primumad uirilitatemaccedentes: a libidine[sc. hircorum]dicti";FestusDe verborum
lOiM, 105M. CensorinusbringsthisLatin expression into conjunction
significatione
withthe Greek and mentionsthe connectionwithvoice ratherthan lust: "In secunda
hebdomade,uel incipientetertia,uocem crassioremet inaequabilemfieriquod appellat
antiqui nostrihirquitallire";CensorinusDe die natali5.
[tragizein],
6 (17.B.21 1ff.
14.7 (4.17 1ff.Kuhn) and Galen'sCommentaryonEpidemics
103. De usupartium
Kuhn). See also De semine2.5 (4.633 Kuhn).
104. Generationof Animals 787b20-788a7.
105. HistoryofAnimals581a21-27.
106. ProfessorEvelynB. Harrison drawsmyattentionto Plutarch'saccount thatTheseus,
just before he set sail to Crete (the last and greatestof his ephebic exploits), was
sacrificinga she-goatby the seaside and it suddenly turned into a he-goat; Theseus
18. This storyillustratesnot only the dramatic change of state that ephebes were
thoughtto go throughbut the complex involvementof several divinitiesand social
classes: Theseus' sacrificeis directedto Aphrodite,and the storyis tied to a procession of Athenian maidens to the temple of Apollo Delphinios on Mounychion.
Academie
dans le mondehellenique,
107. Pierre Roussel, Etudesur le principede l'anciennete
des inscriptionset belles-lettres,Extraitdes Memoires de l'Academie, vol. 43, part
2 (Paris, 1942); a book verydifficultto obtain.
108. "Like to a princelyyouthwithhis firstunder-beard,whosehebeis themostgratifying,"
4.23; Anabasis
Homer Iliad 24.347ff.;Plato Protagoras309A-B; Xenophon Symposion
2.6.28; virtuallypassimin Greek culture.
109. ArthurA. Bryant,"Boyhood and Youthin the Days of Aristophanes,"HarvardStudies
The Ephebes' Song

61

in ClassicalPhilology18 (1907): 73 -122. Defenders of an earlier ephebeia are John

0. Lofberg,"The Date of theAthenianEphebeia,"
ClassicalPhilology
20 (1925): 330-35;
ser. 4, 18 (1965): 441-46; Philippe
Pelekidis,Histoire;Harry W Pleket,Mnemosyne,
Gauthier,Un Commentaire
historique
des "Poroi"de Xgnophon
(Geneva, 1976), 190-95.
110. Poetics4.1449a15-18; Aischylos"diminished"the chorus and made the spoken part
the "protagonist."This probablyrefersonly to diminishedimportanceratherthan
diminished numbers,in spite of the later lore that Aischylos'early choruses contained fiftymembers(Pollux Lexicon4.110).
111. Poetics18.1456a25- 32; DFA 232 - 34.
112. See my "Aristotle'sTheory of the Novel and the Best Tragedy" (forthcoming).
113. DFA 72. The fame of great actors made them much in demand for performances
in other cities; see the prosopographyin John B. O'Connor, Chaptersin theHistory
of Actorsand Actingin AncientGreece(Chicago, 1908), nos. 62 (Aristodemos),230
(Theod6ros), 239 (Thettalos), 274 (Kallipides), 359 (Neoptolemos), 429 (Satyros).
But we never hear of Athenian choruses makingsuch trips.
114. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, "La Traditionde l'hoplite,"167.
115. Pelekidis,Histoire,186-97; Henri I. Marrou,A HistoryofEducationin Antiquity,
trans.
G. Lamb (New York, 1956), 147-55.
116. Hellenisticand laterscholarstook Old Comedy as a straightsource forearlytragedy
(see note 72). The validityof such evidence wasjust so far fromobvious as to need
assertion: "The comic textscontain trustworthy
informationabout tragedy";Chamaileon (or Athenaios), AthenaiosDeipnosophists
1.21E-E
117. EratosthenesErigone,inJ. U. Powell,Collectanea
Alexandrina
(London, 1925), 64-65;
Marmor Parium, sections 39 and 43, in Jacoby,Fragmente;Dioskorides, epigrams
Hellenistic
20-23 in A. S. F Gow and Denys L. Page, The GreekAnthology:
Epigrams
(Cambridge, 1965).
118. Sifakis,Studies,61-62.
65-68.
119. Pickard-Cambridge,Dithyramb
Tragedy
and Comedy,
120. Carnes Lord, "Aristotle'sTheory of Poetry,"Transactions
of theAmericanPhilological
Association104 (1974): 195-229, esp. 197, 213.
121. Witha certaintrepidationI referto the practiceof drillsergeants,improvisingwords
against the marchingsquadron's refrainof "Sound off...."
122. Text and translationof the Ichneutaiin Denys L. Page, SelectPapyriIII: Literary
Papyri-Poetry,Loeb Classical Library(London, 1941), 26-53.
123. This is somewhatfainterin the Kyklops:braggadocio of an old warriorin lines 1-9,
shock at theirlewdness and undiscipline(37-40). Ichneutai90-134.
124. On Pappasilenos' alcoholism and lechery,see Kyklops163-72; on his punishment,
Kyklops581-89. In the Ichneutaihe gives a long lecture on disciplineand courage,
then suddenly runs offat the firstsign of trouble (135-56).
125. Note Kyllene'scharacterizationof the chorus as pais and neosanersproutinga beard
in the same lines (284 - 85). In the fragmentsof Sophokles' Inachosthereis a broken
referenceto fearof theenemyand to a phalanx (PapyrusTebtunis692, lines 39 - 4 1).
126. Richard Seaford, "On the Origins of SatyricDrama,"Maia 28 (1976): 209-21.

62

REPRESENTATIONS