Chapter 11. Poetry and the Ideology of the Polis: The Symbolism of Apportioning Meat

This passage, if its testimony is to be believed, illustrates an ideology basic to the polis, namely, the notion of community through the participation of social equals. The ritual that is being described, the awarding of a cut of meat to the winner of a contest, dramatizes such an ideology. As the studies of Jean-Pierre Vernant and Marcel Détienne have shown, the archaic Greek custom of competing for prizes in contests presupposes the communalization of property that is to be apportioned and distributed in a manner that is egalitarian in ideology—but without excluding the option of awarding special privileges. [1] Where the prize is a cut of meat, the communalization takes place through the central act that integrates the community, namely, the sacrifice of a victim and the apportioning of its meat. [2] {269|270}

In the passage under consideration the prize is being awarded for the best performance of the poetry of Tyrtaeus. It is my contention that the very contents of this poetry are pertinent to the ritual of awarding the cut of meat. The poetics of Tyrtaeus in particular and elegiac poetics in general amount to a formal expression of the ideology of the polis, in that the notion of social order is envisaged as the equitable distribution of communal property among equals. Giovanni Cerri adduces a striking illustration from the elegiac poetry of Theognis, in a passage where the poet condemns the breakdown of the social order: [3]

In the language of elegiac poetry, the dasmós ‘distribution’ is envisaged specifically as the distribution of food at a feast, as we see from Solon’s condemnation of the elite for their destroying the social order:

The word daís ‘feast’ is derived from the verb daíomai, meaning ‘divide, distribute, apportion’. [8] The very poem of Solon from which this passage is taken centers on the concept of Eunomíā, personified as a goddess (Solon F 4.32 W). Like the word īsonomíā, [9] Eunomíā is derived from the verb némō, meaning ‘distribute, apportion’. [10] The same word Eunomíā is reported by Aristotle (Politics 1306b40) and Strabo (8.4.10 C362) as the name of a poem by Tyrtaeus concerning the constitution of Sparta (F 1-4 W).

The daís ‘feast’ that is described by Solon as being disrupted because of húbris ‘outrage’ is to be envisaged specifically as an occasion for the distribution of meat, as we see from the following condemnation of húbris the elegiac poetry of Theognis:

In the Odyssey (xxi 295-304), the leader of the suitors, Antinoos himself, retells a myth about the disruption of a feast by the Centaur Eurytion—a disruption that precipitated the battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths. This retelling entails an irony unintended by Antinoos, since the suitors themselves violate all the norms of a daís ‘feast’, an activity {271|272} that conventionally centers on the ritual core of the sacrifice of a victim and the distribution of its meat. [12]

Thus the evidence of elegiac poetry, as supplemented by that of epic poetry, implies a coherent picture of díkē ‘justice’ in terms of an orderly apportioning of meat at a feast that centers on a correctly executed sacrifice; conversely, húbris ‘outrage’ is represented as the disruption and perversion of this process. [13] Given that the poems of Tyrtaeus, one of which is even called Eunomíā (as we have seen), are representative of the function of elegiac poetry as an expression of the polis, the performance of this poet is ideologically suited to the ritual reported by Philochorus, namely, the awarding of a cut of meat to the one who gives the best performance.

I therefore call into question the opinions expressed on this matter by Felix Jacoby, who thought that the practice reported by Philochorus cannot be dated further hack than the early fourth century B.C. [14] Jacoby argued ex silentio that, in the fifth century B.C. and in the first decade of the fourth, there was nothing known about Tyrtaeus in Sparta. [15] According to Jacoby, the references to Tyrtaeus by the likes of Philochorus (FGH 328 F 215, 216; second half of the fourth century B.C., first half of the third), the orator Lycurgus (Against Leocrates 106-107), and Plato {272|273} himself (Laws 629b) are based on an Athenian transmission of Tyrtaeus, as supposedly evidenced by the tradition that the poel himself was a native Athenian. [16]

But this is to misunderstand the accretive nature of myths about poets and their poetry: even if we concede that the detail about the Athenian provenience of Tyrtaeus reflects an anachronistic elaboration, it does not follow that the other details of the Tyrtaeus story as reported by Athenian sources are likewise anachronistic. [17] Moreover, there is reason to doubt the notion that the story of an Athenian Tyrtaeus is necessarily an Athenian tradition. There is evidence to suggest that the stories about the foreign proveniences of Sparta’s poets are not foreign but native Spartan traditions, suited to the overall ideology of the polis. [18] Besides, it is a common traditional theme that the culture hero of a given polis is really a foreigner or at least one who introduces his cultural boon from a foreign source. [19]

In the case of stories about cultural boons introduced from foreign sources, there is an interesting example in the elegiac poetry of Theognis: here the poet’s model of social cohesion is the foundation not of his native Megara but of Thebes (Theognis 15-18), which is the city where the poet represents his own tomb, in the mode of an epigram:

That the poet here pictures himself as already dead becomes clear from the verses that immediately follow: after some further cryptic words that are beyond the scope of this inquiry (Theognis 1211-1213), the poet reiterates that he is an exile (1213-1214), and then he indicates overtly that his abode is next to the Plain of Lethe (1215-1216). [21]

These themes are strikingly analogous to what we find in the story of Lycurgus: the Spartan lawgiver is said to have introduced his, laws from a foreign source, in this case, Crete (Herodotus 1.65.4; Plutarch Lycurgus 4.1), which is where he returns in self-imposed exile and starves himself to death in order to make these laws permanent (Plutarch Lycurgus 29.8, 31; Ephorus FGH 70 F 175, from Aeliau Varia Historia 13.23). [22] The theme of Lycurgus’ death by hunger brings us hack to the name Aithōn assumed by Theognis as an exile speaking from his tomb (1209-1210). The adjective aithōn can mean ‘burning [with hunger]’ and is used as an epithet for characters known for their ravenous hunger, such as Erysikhthon (Hesiod F 43 MW). [23] Odysseus himself assumes the name Aithōn (Odyssey xix 183), and he does so in a context of assuming the stance of a would-be poet (xix 203, in conjunction with xiv 124-125 and vi 215-221). This poet-like stance of Odysseus is symbolized by the concept of the gastḗr ‘belly’ (as at Odyssey vii 216): hunger can impel a man to use ambiguous discourse in order to ingratiate himself with his audience—and thus feed his gastḗr. [24] But this ambiguous discourse of the poet, the technical word for which is aînos (as at Odyssey xiv 508), is not {274|275} just a negative concept. It can also he a positive social force: when the disguised king Odysseus is begging for food at the feasts of the impious suitors, he is actually speaking not only in the mode of an aînos [25] but also in the role of an exponent of díkē ‘justice’. [26] The role of Aesop, master of the aînos in both the general sense and in the specific sense of ‘fable’, [27] is analogous: he uses this discourse to indicate cryptically what is right and wrong, [28] and we must keep in mind the aítion ‘cause’ of his death, which was that he ridiculed the ritualized greed of a Delphic rite where meat is being apportioned in a disorderly and frenzied manner (Oxyrhynchus Papyri 1800). [29] In the praise poetry of Pindar, the technical word for which is likewise aînos (in the testimony of the poetry itself), [30] the concept of the gastḗr can again be seen as a positive social force (Isthmian 1.49).

In elegiac poetry as well, we have seen that the poet as exponent of díkē ‘justice’ associates the social order of the polis with Lhe orderly apportioning of meat at a feast. At the beginning of this presentation we observed this association in the negative context of the poet’s condemning the behavior of the elite, as when Solon compares their acts to the disruption of a feast or when Theognis compares the perpetrators of disruption to unruly Centaurs. There is also an important positive context in the description by Theognis of the foundation of Thebes by Kadmos, which is celebrated by the poet as the inauguration of his own poetry (15-18): [31] myth has it that the actual occasion for the foundation was a feast, featuring an egalitarian distribution of food (Nonnus Dionysiaka 5.30-32). And the bride of Kadmos the Founder is none other than Harmonia incarnate (cf. Hesiod Theogony 937, 975). [32]

In sum, the Spartan ritual practice involving the award of a cut of meat as reported by Philochorus is perfectly in accord with the ideology of the archaic polis as expressed in the elegiac poetry of Tyrtaeus. To perform the poetry of an exponent of díkē ‘justice’ is perfectly in accord with the prize of meat that is awarded to the winning performer. {275|276}