Zeno's Game of (A. P. ix. 482) Author(s): Roland G. Austin Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol.

. 54, Part 2 (1934), pp. 202-205 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/626864 Accessed: 05/12/2008 12:20
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=hellenic. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

202

NOTES
iTT'&

of drawing in the classical style, in addition to its interest as the only surviving representation in ancient art of a famous incident in the Nekyia of the Odyssey. The concluding lines of the passage describing the meeting of Odysseus with Elpenor (XI, 81-83) must have have been clearly in the mind of the artist:
Noi
pEv os5 TErIcv dIpEIpoHIv)o oT-ruyEpoioV

plv EKTOS EXeV, pliavetvaTOS'

aciTap

6 aoOppoS

laoos?lv SEKMOT' 8iaca&as a&lplrwcov

CaOUppov 8io OS TE ErriETpETr& pouv&8a 8' aArirv, IXEV qf9pov -r v TupOi&TTrV apcplEcTroKE Sipos. a?aX p&ka'sSitooCas plev V6yo&y-rc hire XCpcp Kal T60roraS TirpaS EiS UOCivfv6EK6TT)vapqil Suco6EKarrov 8E S81'rpE-rov EiKEAXOl ahXa, KaXi iia TplKaitSEK6aTcp 'p9os5 iKEIT'O

10

15

d6AA Kcai CiTZO i8{3yES 'AvTiyovov sIEKO6aEOV-'

fCToS iEplve TVrITcsTrEvTTrwIKat8EKaTc, OKTcoKaiSEKoTc TFravopo10os' ECrTtl 8' &XXa EtXEV 81X09a6ias T'TpaTOS ?K TVuV6TOV. ava Xnsuxoio hXcXov CprtlTia Iocwraou, Kai T-rV Ecroplvi)v oV voeov rrayiSa . . . Kati ? Kai TrevrgT KTa-ryayEv-' CaTiKa 8' OKT"C ax3uyas EixEv oias Trp6o0aE ppi3oplvas5. ipavoS aOUToS TUOXas. 20

i?p' calpaTt ipcyacvov trX>cov, ijiEO', Eycb p.ev &vEUEv EicXov 8' ETEpcoGEV iCaipou ir6XX &y6pEuVv.

In the centre, Odysseus (OAYYEYE), seated on a rock with his chin resting on his right hand, gazes sorrowfully into the staring eyes of his dead comrade. His left hand holds the sword with which he has cut the throats of the two sheep lying before him. Their blood drips into the
TE 'TruyocJIOv Evea Kai evea-prepared for the purpose. The ghost of Elpenor (EATENOPO:), whose legs from the knees down are pit-oaaov

aOTrTp

Sola

'

23

K:a Tr&vTES, ErlEi Kai rT&PTrV9pEVyETE K?ivTSS Ta&5 Xoyous oOuX ui&rxie

The purpose of this note is to shew the faultiness of Henry Jackson's reconstruction of Zeno's
l (JPh. vii, game of T-r6As

hidden in a depression of the ground, leans his body and raised left arm against a rock, the hand grasping a projection from it, while his right hand, planted on another rock, gives him the additional support he needs to hold himself erect.
One is reminded of the epithet apEvrnva K&plva,

and to suggest that the correct solution is given

by Becq de Fouquieres (Jeux des Anciens, Ist edn.,

1877, pp. 240 fF.),

and of the description of Agamemnon later on in the story (11.393-4):

oirl TEp T&poS Eg6(V EVi yvapw-MTOIcnpl oU8e T KIKUs, o0/ y&p ol ?-r' /v IS pr1e805jos WhX' crcn.

The rendering of the landscape recalls Circe's description of the entrance to the Lower World (X, 513-5):
Evea pEv eiS 'AX?pOVTa TTlupipeyEQcov TIE Ooouct
KCOKUT6S 0', 6s 86i Z-rvyos U85TOS 'CTrVv aroppcb6, 8uco TOTrapCoVept8oOTiftv, TIVwiYS TrE E Tr-ETpTI

I863, pp. 371 f.). Agathias' epigram forms our chief and most circumstantial evidence for the game; the incident narrated must have become a commonplace among anecdotists, as Agathias himself was not born until nearly fifty years after Zeno's death in 491 A.D. Jackson and Becq both suppose that Agathias is describing a game of' xii scripta.' But whereas the latter was played on a board needed only two such rows, as is clear from the in fact, is a direct descendant epigram. T6dpA, of 'xii scripta'; although both are of the is the more developed backgammon type,2 T&IpAr form and more akin to the modern game; it is to be identified with the game of tabula or alea described by Isidore (Orig.xviii. 6o ff.). The point of the epigram is that Zeno's men were so placed that a throw of 2, 6, and 5 gave him eight 63uyEs, thus virtually ruining his game: for a3uyes,as Jackson shewed, are the 'blots' of backgammon, single pieces liable to capture if one's opponent chances on an appro1 Lamer (RE., s.v. lusoriatabula) rightly refuses to admit that Becq's theory can be applied to xii scripta, but is wrong in alleging that the game is nowhere named: Agathias gives the name, Trtpal. 2 'Tables,' the generic name, is more accurate; is not exactly equivalent either to backgammon Tapr6iX or to the French tric-trac,but is merely one representative of the family.

with three rows of I2 points (see my papers in Greeceand Rome, Oct. 1934 and Feb. 1935), Tc-rxr

The reeds suggest the proximity of the rivers, and the rock at their confluence is represented by the undulating line against which Elpenor leans. Hermes (H<E>PMO), who stands behind Odysseus, plays no part in this episode of the Odyssey. The artist may have added him because of his connection, as Psychopompos, with the Underworld. It is possible also that the god appeared in one of the lost tragedies dealing with this theme.
L. D. CASKEY.

Zeno's game of rT&pAi(A.P. ix. 482).

861TrOTE yap Tratyvlov Toifl

Zivcova,
ex<ppac-rcov

TroXtcaouxov

PaclAiia,

KTEEO0VTac K3pCOV, E&T' c&Tr AEUKO0,

T0OIKl?OTEUl-rTOS E?V O?etlS,

TOo Kai 6roiailSfiv Eis 686v

pXOpEVOU,

NOTES
priate throw. A position where Zeno could escape eight blots is therefore invalid. Zeno is playing White; he has 7 men on the 6th point, i on the gth, 2 on both the loth and the aoupios, 2 on the point after the aooppos, and one on the Sipos. Black has 2 on the 8th, i th and I2th points, I on the I3th, 2 on Av-riyovos, 2 on both the i5th and i8th, and White 2 again on the 4th point from the last. is described as 6oli5iinrv EiS686v ipXO6pvos,which must mean that he is transferring his men through his opponent's tables back to a home I append table, exactly as in backgammon. The (Fig. I) a diagram of Becq's arrangement. vertical division between the tables is found in all xii scripta boards, and may certainly be assumed in rap?Ar also. The horizontal division
, BLACK
24 23 o 22 21 * * 20 0 0 19 0 0 18 *

203

regular order from lower to higher numbers: the only exception to this is the rouipos, named before the Ioth point instead of after it, but as the two are coupled in a single clause for metrical reasons, the disturbance of order is only apparent. The Sipos is more difficult to assign; Becq places it on 23 by elimination, as it is in fact the only point left where the presence of a blot fulfils the conditions of the game; there may be some connexion between the name and the 2nd point from the end of the board.' Zeno now threw (KaTrriyayEv,cf. French amener)
2, 6, and 5. He could not move any piece from 6, as 8, I I, and 12 are all blocked,2 nor the piece on 9, as I , I4, and 15 are blocked, but he could move one of the men on Io to I6. He then had a 2 and a 5 to play; he could only move 20 to
< 17 WHITE < 16 15 14 * 0 13

0 0 00 0 I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

0 o 10 II /2

> WHITE

>
FIG. I.

BLACK<

is necessitated by the type of game; it can easily as originally be accounted for if we regard -rPApq played on a xii scripta board in which the middle row was not used for movement. The diagram will shew how Becq disposes of those points which had special names. The aooiios he puts at the i9th, on the certain ground that this is the furthest point to which a piece starting from I could travel by the highest possible throw, i.e. three sixes. In confirmation of this, Mr. H. J. R. Murray tells me that in the Middle Ages this point and the 6th (Black's aooppos) had technical names, corresponding as they play an important part in the tactics of The place of 'AvTiyovoS at 14 is the game. clear from the Greek, which names the points in

22 and 19 to 24, which resulted in his eight blots

It should be added as described by Agathias. that he could not have moved from 19 with his 6 or from 20 with 5 or 6: these moves would have 1 I cannot understand why Sipos has been equated with divus; surely the quantity alone would prevent this. The word is not mentioned in the old Liddell and Scott; in the new edition it should rather be explained as 'a point on a backgammon board' than as 'a square on a draught board.' E. A. Sophocles, in his Lexicon of Byzantine Greek, wrongly accents it sipos. 2 Because two or more men on any one point make movement impossible to that point by an opponent.

204

NOTES
which the o3uyEs or blots could not be moved. Such a rule nowhere exists in this family of games, and of course makes any real play impossible, as may be seen from experiment; and as without it Zeno is not forced to his eight blots, Jackson's reconstruction must be wrong. Nothing, in fact, suggests that the blots were immovable per se; only their position might make them immovable for the purpose of any one throw, since their progress would be blocked by the presence of two or more hostile pieces on the point to which they might otherwise go. It is position alone that matters, and Becq's arrangement satisfies this condition, Jackson's does not.' This brings us to a most important piece of evidence, in which Mr. Murray has solved a

taken him off the board, which in games of this sort is not allowed until a player has all his men in his home table (i.e. for White, I9-24). Becq's reconstruction (accepted in essentials by Stadtmuller in his edition of the Anthology) thus fulfils the conditions of the epigram, and must be regarded as correct; Mr. Murray tells me that he arrived at the same position independently, which confirms Becq's theory. Let us now turn to Jackson. He arranges his board (see his diagram Fig. 2) with I and 24 on the right-hand side of the board, a perfectly possible system. But he is fundamentally wrong in his unnatural direction of movement. He makes White move forward from I2 towards I (on his diagram) and back again from 24 to 13,

BLACK
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 2t 22 23 24

$t$9:
12 II 10 9 8 7

1X

<??
5 4 3 2 1
2.

6 WHITE
FIG.

instead of through a natural progression from I through I2 up to 24. Such a direction is quite opposed to the invariable practice in games of this type, and precludes any natural movement from the lower to the upper tables. Jackson then, in order to arrive at the necessary eight blots, at 24, thinking that it must be an puts aoOppos end point, 'Av-ryovos at I, and Sf3po provisionally at 2. But this arrangement is forced on him by his unnatural direction; apart from anything else, it quite ignores the methodical, neatly even so, expressed Greek order. However, Zeno is not so placed that eight blots are inevitable; he could still have saved two of them; therefore Jackson is driven to invent a rule by

problem which has hitherto caused the greatest misapprehension. Isidore, in describing the moves in 'tabula' (certainly the same game as states (Orig. xviii. 67): 'calculi partim rpha1), ordine moventur, partim vage: ideo alios ordinarios, alios vagos appellant; qui vero moveri omnino non possunt, incitos dicunt.' Mr. Murray points out that Isidore's termin1 Jackson supports his view of the a3uyEsby an analogy (itself false) from latrunculi, an utterly different type of game; he further states, wrongly, that the men were originally arranged in threes, an inference from Ovid's account of the game of Merels (A.A. iii. 365), another quite different game.

NOTES

205

The Campaign of Marathon.-I have through ology need not and in fact does not apply to the men per se (an assumption which has so much the courtesy of Professor Sotiriadis of the vitiated most researches on this subject), but University of Athens received an extract from only in virtue of their relative position. rTpCKT. 1933, 8, p. 377, entitled 'The Campaign ' Ordinarii' are men moving in rank, two or of Marathon according to a recent critic.' In more at a time for protection, as in backgammon: this paper ProfessorSotiriadis refers to my paper ' vagi ' are single blots (&a3uyes) which have on the campaign of Marathon (JHS. 1932, pp. ' inciti' ' strayed ' from their companions: I regret to find that he considers my I3-24). are pieces which at a given throw cannot be paper 'an unjustifiable attack on Herodotus.' moved at all. Thus, according to the fluctua- I may say at once that my studies of the military can become campaigns described by Herodotus fill me with tions of the game, (a) an ordinarius vagus if its companions are played to another admiration for the father of history. I said in if my paper (p. 13): 'We have to remember in point, (b) any vagus can become an ordinarius another piece is played to its point, (c) either dealing with the story of Marathon that Heroordinariior vagi are also inciti if for the moment dotus was writing long after the event with the their way is blocked by hostile ordinarii. Now, greater event of Xerxes' invasion between him does not this apply admirably to Zeno's game, and the campaign of Marathon. It was as if a as reconstructed by Becq? For example, the British historian were to attempt to write now on 9 and 23 are vagi which have become the history of the South African War without &uVyES inciti; one of the ordinariion Io becomes vagus any of the carefully catalogued records which are when its mate is played to I6, but the other is to-day at his disposal. The wonder then is incitus. Thus Mr. Murray's account illustrates not that there are improbabilities in Herodotus's Isidore and makes him plain by means of Agath- story of Marathon, but that there are so few of ias; and the obvious fact that Isidore is describing them.' Indeed, as I say (p. 24), my story' involves 'tabula' and not 'latrunculi' or any other only one important departure from Herodotus, game, when taken with this explanation, rids the date of the fall of Eretria.' It is upon this point that Professor Sotiriadis the history of these games of a most undesirable challenges me. He says (p. 380) that Herodotus will-o'-the-wisp. There is one further point. What is the mean- VI. Ioo, in which the appeal of the Eretrians to ing of vv. 25-6 of the epigram? Gottling Athens is described, is an insertion (rrapeppoAi) with Trpo6as, interpreting in the story of the campaign of Marathon and apparently took 6oAac 'he had eight divided pieces, which were pre- refers to events which preceded the first landing viously 6oAcl ; but the use of the present participle of the Persians in Euboea and the fall of Karystos. then appears strained, and the whole run of the It is quite possible that Professor Sotiriadis is line is against the interpretation. Jacobs sug- right, and it is arguable whether the words with 6pf i3lopvas; Jackson objects both which Ch. 1oo begins refer to what was taking gested ?rrp6ao' to this and to Gottling's translation on the place while the Persians were ravaging the ground that two of the ultimate eight blots country round Karystos as described in Ch. 99 or existed before Zeno's fatal throw. The objection, to events which preceded the landing in Euboea. though a real one, cannot be pressed: Agathias Indeed it is quite probable that the Eretrians, may have been speaking loosely. Stadtmiller remembering the part which they had taken in as a middle used the burning of Sardis, were in a panic when they appears to take pEpl3opavas absolutely, translating ' he had eight blots learned of the approach of the Persians to which previously when in partnership (vept3opEvas) Euboea and appealed at once to the Athenians were not separated (6hAs) '; this solution for help. The point is immaterial. The real is ingenious to a degree, but it seems very hard points are:to extract from the Greek. A definite decision I. Whether the whole Persian army landed at seems scarcely possible; I should like to think Marathon after the fall of Eretria; that Stadtmiiller is right. Jackson's own emen2. Whether Miltiades marched out from dation is -rp6S ENp'6pl3opivas, 'marked out as Athens before or after the fall of Eretria. prizes.' ROLANDG. AUSTIN. With regard to (i) I have already pointed out (1. c. p. I6) that the whole of the Persian expedition could not have been required against little 1 In the earlierxii scriptagame the Latin term for Eretria. With this view Professor Sotiriadis seems to a blot may have been 'distans'; see S. G. Owen's note on Ovid, Trist. ii. 475-6. agree, for he says (p. 379), after speaking of the
J.H.S.-VOL. LIV.