A Branch On The Altar. Supplication and Symbolic Capital in Ancient Greece

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
A BRANCH ON THE ALTAR:
SUPPLICATION AND SYMBOLIC CAPITAL IN ANCIENT GREECE
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICAL LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
BY
ALEX GOTTESMAN
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
DECEMBER 2006
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UMI Number: 3240090
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Gottesman, Alex
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Contents
Illustrations................................................................................................................... iv
Acknowledgment......................................................................................................... v
Abstract..........................................................................................................................vi
Abbreviations................................................................................................................viii
One Supplication without the V e il......................................................................................1
Two The Construction of Authority (Telemakhos and the B eggar)...............................32
Three The Production o f Knowledge (Spectacle and Education in A thens)................... 65
Four The Performance of Tradition (The People’s Supplicants and their Sponsors) ..115
Five The Staging of Identity (Supplication as Self-manumission)..................................147
Conclusion.................................................................................................................... 185
Works C ited.................................................................................................................. 193
iii
Illustrations
1 Telephos at the altar with baby Orestes.......................................................................28

(Attic red-figure pelike: London E 382; ARV2632)
2 Reverse o f fig. 1: Satyr negotiating with prostitute....................................................28
iv
Acknowledgment
Many individuals gave liberally o f their time and energy in reading and discussing
this dissertation with me as it took shape. In particular, my advisor Danielle Allen has
been an indefatigable mentor, reading an obscene number o f drafts, prodding me gently,
and sometimes not so gently, to clarify, rethink and improve. Jonathan Hall and Chris
Faraone, the other members o f my dissertation committee, were astute readers who
helped me avoid (at least some) error and embarrassment.
A generous fellowship from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation gave me the
opportunity to devote a year entirely to research and writing. I had the added luxury o f
spending a good part of that year in the Classics reading room o f the Regenstein Library
in Chicago. Those who know it know what a special place it is. I am grateful to
Catherine Mardikes for creating it.
In addition to the people I credit throughout the text, I wish to thank Janet
Downie, Sheila Kurian and Angeliki Tzanetou, who read entire drafts and gave me
invaluable criticism and encouragement. I also thank Donald Lateiner for his
conversation on the Homeric material. Finally, I thank Susanne Cohen, who has been a
merciless editor, an impudent interlocutor, and above all, a loving girlfriend, fiancee, and
wife.
Abstract
A supplicant (hiketes) enjoyed a special status. His body was sacrosanct. His
requests carried a religious compulsion that made him hard to ignore and impossible to
harm without moral opprobrium. In this dissertation I seek to uncover the political uses
to which supplication was put, and the economic logic which determined who could
become a supplicant.
The dissertation breaks down as follows. Chapter One outlines my methodology
and theoretical orientation, and sets forth the two main theses o f my dissertation: one, that
supplication was a traditional, public and dramatic spectacle which could shape public
knowledge; and two, that ultimately an economic logic underlay it. The ritual effected a
conversion o f material capital into “symbolic capital,” in Bourdieu’s sense, that is, capital
whose economic basis is denied in order to permit it to do social and political work. The
supplicant was a valuable person whose worth was in the final analysis economic.
Consequently, the people who would most benefit from the status o f the supplicant could
not become supplicants. Mendicants, who relied for their subsistence on the charity of
others, could not become supplicants. By definition, they lacked the capital that was at
the basis of supplication.
These two theses are substantiated and elaborated by the subsequent chapters. In
Chapter Two I discuss the only case o f a beggar supplicant known to me. While scholars
have discussed other Homeric instances o f supplication they have neglected to see
Telemakhos’ reception o f the disguised Odysseus as a supplication. Telemakhos, I argue,
by treating a beggar as a supplicant dramatizes his authority to define the status of those
around him.
vi
vii
If Telemakhos had his reasons for protecting a paradoxical supplicant, historical
figures also had their reasons to supplicate or to endorse supplicants. Chapters Three and
Four look at supplication in Athenian politics. Chapter Three places supplication in the
context o f the “politics o f spectacle,” dramatic and theatrical performances that
politicians staged in order to evoke sentiment and define public knowledge. These
resources were crucial in the Athenian political system, which primarily relied on the
crowd to enforce its pronouncements, such as verdicts, decrees and laws. The chapter
considers how two Athenian politicians, Ephialtes and Andokides, used the practice to
evoke the crowd’s sentiment and channel it towards their particular goals.
Chapter Four suggests a shift in Athenian supplication in the 4th century. In the
5th century supplication seems to be an impromptu practice one was equally likely to
perform in a court or on the street in order to spark interest and shape sentiment. Starting
in the mid-4th century, supplication also becomes a spectacle regularly staged in the
Assembly. One of four regular, monthly meetings was devoted to hearing supplications.
This chapter seeks to understand the factors that led to this shift, and what its
consequences were for those who performed the ritual.
Chapter Five deals with the supplicants, who, indications suggest, were the most
common in sanctuaries: runaway slaves. Scholars have noted the frequency with which
slaves appear in sanctuaries as supplicants, but they have not been able to determine what
their purpose there might have been. I will argue that slaves hoped to “purchase” a new
identity for themselves behind the veil o f supplication.
This dissertation, in brief, is a study o f the performances through which capital
influences the social world without revealing itself.
Abbreviations
Ancient author abbreviations are drawn from LSJ but according to a Greek-based
transcription rather than a Latinate one (with a few exceptions for names which would
become too unfamiliar). Hence Thuk. for Thucydides and Ar. Akh. for Aristophanes’
Akharneis rather than Ach. for Acharnians. Journal abbreviations are in accordance with
L ’A nnee Philologique. Other abbreviations used in the dissertation are as follows.
Agora The American School o f Classical Studies at Athens.

(1961-) The Athenian Agora, v. Princeton.
AP [Aristotle]. Athenaion Politeia.
APF Davies, J. K. (1971) Athenian Propertied Families, 600-

300 B.C. Oxford.
ARC Beazley, J .D. (1963) Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd

ed. 3 v. Oxford.
CID Ecole frangaise d’Athenes. (1977-) Corpus des inscriptions

de Delphes. Paris.
DK Diels, H. and W. Kranz. (1951-2) Die Fragmente der

Vorsokratiker. 6th ed. 3 v. Berlin.
FrGrH Jacoby, F. (1923-1952) Die Fragmente der griechischen

Historiker. 15 v. Berlin and Leiden.
Gerasa Kraeling, C. H., ed. (1938) Gerasa, City o f the Decapolis.

New Haven.
GH1 Tod, M. N. (1946-50) A Selection o f Greek Historical

Inscriptions. 2nd ed. Oxford.
Hellenica Robert, L. (1940-) Hellenica: Recueil d'epigraphie de

numismatique et d'antiquities grecques. v. Limoges.
IC Guarducci, M. (1935-50) Inscriptiones Creticae. 4 v.

Rome.
ID Durrbach, F., P. Roussel and M. Launey. (1926-)

Inscriptions de Delos, v. Paris.
viii
IX
IG Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. (1913-

[2nd ed]; 1981- [3rd ed]) Inscriptiones Graecae. v. Berlin.
IGLS Jalabert, L. and R. Mouterde. (1929-) Inscriptions grecques

et latines de la Syrie. v. Paris.
LfrgrE Snell, B., et al., ed. (1955-) Lexikon des frithgriechischen

Epos. v. Gottingen.
LSAG Jeffery, L. H. (1990) The Local Scripts o f Archaic Greece.

2nd ed. Oxford.
LSAM Sokolowski, F. (1955) Lois sacrees de I ’A sie Mineure.

Paris.
LSCG Sokolowski, F. (1969) Lois sacrees des cites grecques.

Paris.
LSCGS Sokolowski, F. (1962) Lois sacrees des cites grecques:

Supplement. Paris.
LSJ Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, H. S. Jones et al. (1996) A Greek-

English Lexicon. Oxford.
LSS de Prott, I. and L. Ziehen. (1896-1906) Leges Graecorum

Sacrae. 2 v. Leipzig.
M-L Meiggs, R. and D. Lewis. (1969) A Selection o f Greek

Historical Inscriptions to the End o f the Fifth Century B. C.
Oxford.
Nomima Ruze, F. (1994) Nomima: Recueil d'inscriptionspolitiques

et juridiques de I ’archaisme grec. 2 v. Rome.
OdCom Heubeck, A., S. West et al. (1988-1992) A Commentary on

H om er’s Odyssey. 3 v. Oxford.
PA Kirchner, J. A. (1901-3) Prosopographia Attica. 2 v.

Berlin.
PAA Traill, J. S., ed. (1994-) Persons o f Ancient Athens, v.

Toronto.
PCG Kassel, R. and C. Austin. (1983-1995) Poetae Comici
Graeci. 8 v. Berlin and New York.
R -0 Rhodes, P. J. and R. Osborne (2003) Greek Historical

Inscriptions, 404-323 B. C. Oxford.
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (1923-) v. Leiden.
SIG Dittenberger, W. (1915) Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecorum.

3rd ed. 3 v. Berlin.
SGDI Bechtel, F., A. Bezzenberger, H. Collitz et al. (1884-1915)

Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften. 4 v.
Gottingen.
TrGrF Snell, B. et al. (1971-2004) Tragicorum Graecorum

Fragmenta. 5 v. Gottingen.
ONE
Supplication without the Veil
Only in imaginary experience (in the folk

tale, for example), which neutralizes the
sense o f social realities, does the social
world take the form o f a universe o f
possibles equally possible for any possible
subject (Bourdieu 1990[1980]: 64).
Introduction: the fable o f supplication
An eagle was hunting a rabbit. The rabbit, unable to escape, saw a dung-beetle
and supplicated it. The beetle accepted the supplication and confronted the eagle,
warning it that the rabbit was its supplicant. But the eagle ignored the beetle, and
devoured the rabbit as the beetle looked on. The beetle took it personally. It began to
follow the eagle, and whenever the eagle laid eggs the beetle would roll them out o f the
nest. Finally, the eagle turned to Zeus in desperation and begged him to protect its eggs
from the vengeful beetle. Eagles are sacred to Zeus, so the god allowed the eagle to lay
its eggs in his lap. But even this did not deter the beetle. It flew up to Zeus, made a
dung-ball and secretly put it in the god’s lap along with the eagle’s eggs. When Zeus
realized that one o f the eggs in his lap was not an egg, he jumped up to shake it off, and
all the eggs rolled out and broke (Aesop 3i H-H).
Not surprisingly, this fable was a favorite o f Aristophanes’. The only fable of
Aesop’s he mentions, the comic poet alludes to it three times in his plays. He also
expected his audience to know it well, for each time he brings it up obliquely {Peace 127-
2
30; Wasps 1446-9; Lys. 695).1 Two words suffice to evoke it: “the eagle and the dung-
beetle.” According to tradition, Aesop told this fable to the Delphian priests as they were
about to execute him. They were worried that he would announce their corruption to the
world, and so conspired to frame him. In an act simultaneously sacrilegious and cynical,
they hid in his bag a golden cup from Apollo’s sacred treasure and then accused him of
stealing it ( Vita G , W 135-9 Perry; cf. Wiechers 1961). Aesop’s message to the
Delphians was clear: no one is so low that he cannot get revenge, and no one is so high
that he can evade it. This is how the Aesopic corpus’ ancient editor took it, as did
Aristophanes. The fable suggests that everyone can use his natural abilities to advantage.
The dung-beetle makes use o f its singular ability to roll and transport dung-balls through
the air to make Zeus break the eggs he was guarding in his lap. Aesop’s revenge would
come as the world learned that this fable was really about the Delphians.2
But there is another message as well. The beetle was not avenging just any insult,
he was avenging a supplicant. The fable thus also suggests that no one, not even
someone in a privileged position, such as Zeus’ bird or Apollo’s priests, can injure a
supplicant with impunity. No power can protect those who disrespect supplicants— not
even Zeus himself. A cosmic compulsion governs the ritual o f supplication, the fable
1See Demandt 1991; Rothwell 1995 on Aristophanes’ use o f Aesop in his plays. See Zafiropoulos
2001: 128-33 for discussion o f this particular fable.
2The Delphic priests’ reputation for corruption is very old, judging from the Homeric Hym n’s
etiological claim that their ancestors were Cretan merchants sailing “on business,” ett'i Trpfj^tv (388-99).
On the tradition o f A esop ’s death in Delphi as a popular reaction to Delphic high-handed cultic politics see
Kurke 2003: 80-2.
3
seems to suggest. Identities and relationships are irrelevant.3 Supplication, once
performed, according to the fable, is effective and powerful regardless o f who performs it
and why. “Anyone who wants supplicates about anything he wants [061s o (BouAopsvos
iKSTrjptav, UTTsp cbv av (3ouAqTai],” a regulation of the Athenian Assembly explicitly
stated (AP 43. 6; see further ch. 4).
Indeed, supplication was performed in many ways, with many objectives. It
could take the form o f a solemn petition. For example, the Iliad opens with Apollo’s
priest Khryses arriving at the camp o f the Greeks with a small treasure to request the
return of his daughter, Khryseis, whom Agamemnon has taken as a prize after a
successful raid (1. 12-34). Khryses is marked as a supplicant by one word: lisseto, “he
beseeched” (cf. Aubriot-Sevin 1992: 439 ff.).4 This is also the word that introduces
perhaps the single most famous supplication in Greek literature, Thetis’ supplication of
Zeus (1. 500 ff.). Khryses approaches the Greeks proudly. We can imagine him standing
before them with his scepter in hand. Thetis takes a different approach. She sits in front
of Zeus, places her left hand on his knee and her right hand on his chin and requests that
he honor her son. Khryses and Thetis are both supplicants, though they perform the ritual
in different ways and use it to ask for very different things. One is accepted, the other
refused. Both have dramatic repercussions.
3Rodriguez Adrados 1988 suggests the peculiarity o f this supplication may be due to the fable’s
origin in Egypt, where the sacredness o f the beetle would have made the scene more plausible.
4Pulleyn 2000 disputes that w e should consider Khryses a supplicant, but no less an authority than
Plato (Rep. 3. 393d4-5) considered Khryses as such. See further M. C. Clarke 1998.
Another form o f supplication involved taking refuge on sacred ground, usually by
an altar. In this guise it was similar to church asylum.5 Inscriptions commemorate such
supplications that occurred in Samos (SEG XXVII 545; 3rd cent. BCE), in Kyrene (SEG
IX 72. 111-21; 4th cent. BCE), in Rhodes (SEG XXXIX 729; 3rd cent. BCE), in Epidauros
(SEG X X V I449; 5th cent. BCE), in Mykenai (IG IV 492; 5th cent. BCE), and of course in
Athens (IG II2 192, 211, 218, 276, 336-7, 404, 502; 4th cent. BCE), to name a f e w .5
But not all who supplicated were deemed supplicants. A beggar could never be a
supplicant. An unbridgeable conceptual gulf separated the two figures. If a beggar
approached you while you sat he was not an hiketes but an epistates, “a stander-over”
(Od. 17. 455; cf. 352, 449). If he himself sat he was a ptdkhos, a “cowerer” not an
hiketes.7 If a beggar approached an altar he was a bomolokhos, an “altar-ambusher,” not
a supplicant (Bolkestein 1939: 203). When an exiled murderer approaches a group of
men in supplication, they feel awe [0ap(3os] (II. 24. 480-4). When a beggar approaches,
according to Theognis, men feel disgust [oTuyos] (278 W; cf. Od. 18. 356-64).
Philodemos seems to have noted this: “Homer never introduces a single unfortunate by
5On the transition from “pagan” asylum to church asylum see Ducloux 1994. For a very recent
case o f asylum see “Chicago Woman’s Stand Stirs Immigration Debate,” N ew York Times, Aug. 19, 2006,
p. A10; “Church is Sanctuary as Deportation Nears; Immigrant Activist D efies U .S. Order,” The
Washington Post, August 17, 2006, p. A10.
6The list would double if w e were to extend it beyond the 3rd century. For a complete list o f non-
literary evidence for supplicants, see Naiden 2006: 365-6.
7Ptokhos was the most common term for “beggar” (Bremmer 1992: 25).
5
the hearths o f his monarchs; but always the noble in thought and deed” {De bono rege
sec. Horn. XXI. 9-10 Dorandi).8
Plato attests to the vast gulf between the beggar (a worthless figure o f abject need)
and the supplicant (a worthy figure of performed need). In a passage frequently cited as a
statement o f traditional belief, Plato declares that among the greatest sins one can commit
is to harm supplicants, for these are defenseless and far from home:
The stranger without friends or family is most pitiable to

gods and m en.... It is a point of great piety, even for
someone with little caution, to go through life without
committing any crime against strangers. Among crimes
involving either strangers or locals the greatest concerns
supplicants. For by supplicating the supplicant obtains a
god as witness to a contract, who becomes the special
protector o f his suffering. So he never goes unavenged if
something happens to him
epppos ycxp cov o £svos sxaipcov rs Kal auyyevcov

sAssivoxspos dvSpcoTtois Kai 0so)s... TroAAps ouv
suAa(3e(as, cp Kai apiKpov TTpopp0£ias svi, pp5ev
a p a p x p p a TTspi ijsvous a p ap x o v x a sv xcp ^(cp Ttpos xo
xeAos auxou tropsuSfjvai. £evikcov 5’au Kai etrixcopicov
apapxppaxcov xo Txep'i xous ikexcxs pgyiaxov yiyvexai
a p a p x p p a ekcxoxois- pe0’ ou y a p iKsxsuaas' papxupos
o iKsxps 0eou exuysu opoAoyicov, (jiuAa| Sia^spcov
ouxos xou tra0ovxos y iy v sx ai, cdox’ ouk av troxs
axipcbppxos TtdOoi o xuycov cov Etra0E {Laws 5. 729e5-
730a)
8' 0 |jr ip o s Se x [ i v a ] S u [a x r|v ]o v ou S ettot etti [ tcxj t ] cov povapxcov E o r ia ? T r a p a y s r 5 i a

[TTav]xos [5s] t o u ? a p i a x o u s y[vco]p rii [K ai] TTpccÊi. Others read x [ iv ’ a ] 5 u [ v a x ] o v . Fish’s (1999: 55)
x [ iv ’ r|]5u[Xoy]ov i.e. “jester” or “flatterer” does not make sense as a contrast to a p io x o u s and ignores the
clear implications o f etti. .. E o x ia ? . It is further wrong in the O dyssey, for the first thing Odysseus does in
the court o f A lkinoos is flatter the assembled company (7. 146-53).
6
But those whose need was mundane, who as Sophokles’ Oidipous put it, “asked for little
and received even less than little” (OK 5-6), were a different story. Whereas strangers
are the most pitiable to him, Plato does not hide his contempt for the hungry:
The man who is hungry or suffering from some such thing

is not pitiable. Rather [he is pitiable] who is wise or
virtuous or partially virtuous and who has fallen onto hard
times. It would be remarkable if such a person— whether
free or slave—was completely ignored and fell into
extreme poverty in a city and state run even moderately
well. For this reason regarding these people the Lawmaker
should make a strict law such as this one: ‘No beggar is
allowed in our city. If someone tries to “a living make by
prayers with no end” let the agoranomoi keep him out of
the agora, let the astynomoi keep him out o f the city, and
let the agronomoi send him out beyond the borders o f the
rest o f the territory, in order that the territory remain
completely pure from such a creature’
OlKTpOS 5 ’ OUX o TTEIVCOV p Tl XOIOUXOV TTCtaXCOV, 6XK

o acotfipovcov p xiva apExpv p pspos s'xcov xauxps, av
Tiva aup(j)opav Trpos xouxois KEKxrjxar 5io Baupaaxov
av ysvoixo e’i xis cov xoiouxos apsApBsip xo TTapaiTav,
coax’ sis TTXcoxsiotv xpv saxaxpv sA0eTv, SouAos p koci
sAsU0EpOS, EV OlKOUpEVp Kai psxpicos TroAlXEia XE Kai
ttoAei. 5io xcp vopoBsxp BsTvai vopov aaâA ss
xoiouxois xoiov5e xiva ■TTxcoxos ppSsis ppTv ev xrj
ttoAei yiyvEa0co, xoiouxov 5’ av xis ETTixeipp 5pav,
Euxais piov avpvuxois auAAsyopEvos, ek pev a y o p a s
ayopavopoi E^sipyovxcov auxov, ek 5 e xou ccoxeos p
xcov aaxuvopcov ap y p , aypovopoi 5 e ek xps aAAps
ycopas sis xpv UTrspopiav ekttepttovxcov, ottcos p
Xcopa xou xoiouxou ^cpou K a0apa y iy v sx ai xo
TrapaTrav (11. 936b-c).9
9Also: “It is clear that wherever you see beggars, in that place are hidden thieves, purse-snatchers,
temple-robbers and other craftsmen o f such evils [ApAov d p a . . . e v t t o A e i ou a v i'Sps t t t c o x ° u s , o t i siat
TTOU EV T O U T C O TC O TOTTCO a T T O K E K p u p p E V O l K A E T T T a i T E K O I [ S a A A a V T l O T O p O l K a i l E p O O u A o i K O I TTCCVTCOV
xcbv to io u tc o v k o k c S v S rip io u p y o i]” {Rep. 5 5 2 d 5 ).
7
Apparently, for Plato, there was little danger that the “special protector o f a supplicant’s
suffering” would avenge an insulted beggar. As Hesiod reminded his lazy brother, if he
becomes a beggar he should not expect his neighbors to receive him kindly more than
two or three times ( W&D 401-3; cp. 327-32). Perpetual supplicants, making “prayers
with no end,” were not supplicants at all.
The fundamental distinction between beggar and supplicant shows that sheer need
and performance (as Aesop’s fable implies) were not enough to produce a supplicant.
This simple fact points to the need for a more carefully contextualized understanding o f
supplication. If an individual decided to present him self as a supplicant, he had specific
reasons for doing so. That an individual was able to present him self as a supplicant was
due to factors, external to the performance, that were concealed behind an ideological and
performative uniformity that equated all supplications. Insofar as the ideology of
supplication suggests that anyone could be a supplicant, it masked the reality that the
successful supplicant nearly always possessed capital.10
Supplication was ultimately an economic practice in which a person transformed
economic capital into symbolic capital, and in the process made himself appear
inherently worthy and special. Symbolic capital, in Bourdieu’s sense, is an eminently
social substance which “produces relations o f dependence that have an economic basis
but are disguised under a veil o f moral relations” (1990[1980]: 123). The task I set
10Here and throughout I use the term “ideology” only in the sense o f a discourse that conceals the
material conditions o f a practice: see Eagleton 1991: 84-91.
8
myself in this dissertation is to lift the veil and examine the politics and economics at
work behind supplication.
1.1. The ethnography o f supplication
Supplication appears in nearly all genres o f Greek evidence. Most scholars have
accordingly bounded their study o f the practice between primarily generic lines.
Kopperschmidt (1967), Burian (1973), and more recently Grethlein (2003) looked at the
tragedians’ emplotment of supplication. Mercier (1990) confined himself to Euripides.
Godde (2000) focused on Aiskhylos’ Supplicants. Giordano (1999), Crotty (1994),
Stagakis (1975), Pedrick (1982), Schlunk (1976) are among those who have looked at
supplication in Homer from poetic and/or social perspectives. I should also mention
Engel (1899) here who is seldom cited, but who in fact anticipated Gould (the most
influential author on supplication) in comparing Homeric supplication to Bedouin notions
about sanctuary. Others have studied supplication as a form o f asylum. Schlesinger
(1933) was among the first, followed more recently by Sinn (1990; 1993), Dreher (1996;
2003) and Derlien (2003). Dreher indeed argues that supplication and asylum had little
to do with one another, but the evidence suggests that the Greeks did not distinguish
fundamentally between altar supplicants (“asylum-seekers”) and personal supplicants
(“petitioners”). Both were called hiketes.
To grasp the logic of supplication it will be necessary to combine varied sources,
always keeping each source’s milieu and motives in mind. After all, supplicants
themselves, in supplicating, sought to evoke the entire tradition o f supplication. Their
performative evocation of a self-perpetuating tradition means for us that when it comes to
9
supplication, varied sources such as Homer, oratory and epigraphy, on some level,
illuminate each other. Two authors in particular have offered a total synthesis o f the
evidence on supplication. I will discuss their approaches and findings, and point out
where I differ and where I draw from them.
The single most influential study o f supplication has been Gould’s 1973 article
“Hiketeia. ” If Delatte in 1951 could describe supplication as a kind o f terra incognita
(441), Gould drew the first map. Gould approached supplication using a method inspired
from anthropology. Drawing on literary texts, first he supplied an “‘ethnographic’
description of the act itself’ (75), and then he extracted from that description the “rules of
the game” (82-5), the norms that governed supplicatory behavior. In his discussion he
privileged the well-known supplications of epic, specifically Thetis’ supplication o f Zeus
in the Iliad and Odysseus’ of Arete in the Odyssey. Thetis finds Zeus sitting apart from
the other gods and falls at his knees. She grips him tightly, Homer says graphically, “as
if she was growing out o f him [cos £ X £ T ' £ M T tE ( } )u u T a ]” (II. 1. 513). With her other hand
she touches his beard and asks him to help her son. Thetis’ gestures— sitting, touching—
stand out for their realism and emotional power. Gould understandably trained his
attention on them, especially because they seem to have something instinctive about them
(cf. Karademetriou 1975: 35). According to Pliny (11. 103), supplicants touch knees
because that part o f the body is associated with a man’s vital energy.11 Gould suggested
n Extending this line o f thought, Onians (1954: 174-186) suggested that knees and beards are the
objects o f the supplicant’s touch because they both have to do with a m an’s generative capacity. Hence
both linguistically derive from the root *gn: gony “knee” and geny “beard.” See also Deonna 1939.
Giordano more recently follow s this line o f thinking: “L ’uomo greco arcaico concepisce il corpo come un
sistema nel quale predomina l’intuizione delle parti e delle giunture del corpo umano e della dinamicita che
le caraterizza” (1999: 23).
10
that the supplicant reached for those particular body parts because they were
paradoxically also the parts which were the most vulnerable in terms o f the Greek honor
system.
Odysseus’ supplication of Arete {Od. 8. 159-66), according to Gould, exploits
another vulnerability in the Greek honor system. Thetis approached Zeus, the king o f the
gods. By contrast, Odysseus falls at the knees not o f the Phaiakians’ king but of their
queen, though he also grips her knees. Then he lets go and sits down by the hearth.
Everyone is stunned. They had been enjoying a feast, and are not accustomed to
strangers {Od. 7. 32-3). Finally Ekhenaus, the court elder, reminds King Alkinoos what
he has to do. Alkinoos takes Odysseus by the hand, lifts him from the hearth and places
him on the seat next to his own, his son’s place.12 Odysseus obviously does not stroke
Arete’s beard, but the performance is fundamentally the same as Thetis’ in the Iliad. The
difference is that Odysseus is under Athena’s instructions to go directly to the queen.
Gould also compares Themistokles’ supplication o f the Molossian king, Admetos, by
means of his queen (Thuk. 1. 136). There too a woman serves as the conduit of a
supplicant’s appeal to her husband. In Gould’s view, the fact that supplicants reach for
beards, knees and women means that supplication was
essentially a mime of aggressive symbolical significance,

directed at what must be kept inviolate, but a mime whose
aggressive implications are contradicted by the inversion of
normal competitive behaviour-patterns which is also a
definitive feature of the ritual (100).
12Compare Zeus’ treatment o f A pollo upon his first entering the assembly o f the gods in the
Homeric Hymn to Apollo (10-1).
11
This is an interesting theory but it is open to criticism on at least two fronts. First,
the supplications o f Odysseus and Themistokles are the only examples o f this pattern, in
which a man appeals to another man by infiltrating his house and touching his wife.13
Supplicating a man through his wife was an unusual form o f supplication, as Thukydides
himself acknowledges (1. 137. 1). Other kinds o f supplication are difficult to construe as
inversions o f normal behavior. For instance, Athenian supplicants deposited on altars
olive branches wreathed in wool (And. 1. 116; Plut. Thes. 22. 6). Skythians, according to
Lucian (Tox. 48), sat on the hide o f a sacrificed ox with their arms behind their backs.
Second, his suggestion that supplication was an inversion o f normal behavior
assumes what was “normal” and what was “behavior.” Gould wants his analysis to be
valid for all Greek society, not just for Homer. Here he must then rely on established
models of “honor-based” societies’ motivations and constraints.14 He attempts to buttress
his theory by citing the work of Julian Pitt-Rivers (1970), a British anthropologist who
wrote on the similarities between Homeric and Bedouin practices of sanctuary. Not
coincidentally, Pitt-Rivers was a central figure in the tradition o f Mediterraneanist social
anthropology which developed the concept of honor as an analytic and comparativist
13Gould tried to avoid this difficulty by acknowledging and then ignoring it: “The role o f women
in Greek supplication, taken by itself, is too peripheral and too weakly attested to be made the basis o f a
general theory.... And yet the association between the sacred parts o f the body (knees, chin and perhaps
hands— the first two emblematic o f a m an’s reproductive power), the sacred and inviolable centre o f the
house (the hearth) and the symbol o f the house’s continuity (the son) with i k e t e i c c , and other rites to
incorporate outsiders, is striking and may be thought to support the interpretation... I am putting forward”
( 100).
14E.g. Campbell 1964; Peristiany 1965; Herzfeld 1985; Peristiany and Pitt-Rivers 1992. For a
recent application in classics see Fisher 1998.
12
tool.15 Gould’s methodology here becomes somewhat circular. For in the paper that
inspired him, Pitt-Rivers began not from observed Bedouin behavior but from the
Odyssey! Gould’s information about the Bedouin is at least third-hand. Pitt-Rivers
himself looked to a paper by Abou-Zeid (1965) on Bedouin concepts o f honor, published
in Peristiany’s edited volume Honour and Shame, a seminal text to which Pitt-Rivers also
contributed a paper based on his own fieldwork in Andalusia.
Odysseus’ penetration o f Alkinoos’ palace or Themistokles’ o f Admetos’—
Gould’s main evidence for the Bedouin parallel— does not necessarily suggest that
supplication was an inversion of normal behavior whereby an outsider gained access to
the supplicand through his wife. It is difficult to imagine that access to a woman was
ever a truly practicable way of supplicating. Rather, it is almost as if because access to
an inner sanctum is so impracticable that it figures as a powerful supplication in the first
place. In order to gain access to Arete, Odysseus needs the supernatural help of Athena,
just as Priam needs the help of Hermes to penetrate the camp of the Greeks and reach the
tent of Akhilles. According to Plutarch, some suggested that either the Molossian queen
or King Admetos him self helped Themistokles stage the supplication (Them. 24. 5-6).
The Bedouin fugitive would also have needed help (or supernatural courage!) to infiltrate
his victim’s tent and stage his supplication.
Interestingly, Abou-Zeid himself did not use the term “sanctuary” to describe the
Bedouin practice. Instead he calls it the “right o f wajh,” according to which “a murderer,
whose blood and life are sought in retaliation, can go to the beit [tent] o f his own victim
15For a critique see Herzfeld 1980.
13
and claim immunity” (255). Wajh means “face,” and in this context it probably meant
the offender’s right to literally face his victim and bring their feud to a resolution (Abu-
Lughod, pers. comm.). Bedouin sanctuary, in other words, has to be seen within the logic
of feud. Gould and Pitt-Rivers were concerned with finding cross-cultural parallels. This
concern led them to ignore the specifically Bedouin context o f their sanctuary practices.
If we understand the postulated Bedouin “right o f sanctuary” as a paradigmatic
idealization of how to resolve a Bedouin blood-feud rather than a neutral description of
practice, as Pitt-Rivers and Gould took it, we can make better sense of its impracticality.
The (imagined) scene o f a fugitive murderer in his victim’s tent illustrates the
logic o f Bedouin sanctuary. This idealized logic certainly had real-world applications,
which evoked the same notions o f autonomy and honor on a more practical level. The
anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod during her fieldwork among the Awlad ‘Ali Bedouin,
who were also Abou-Zeid’s subjects, did witness cases o f women taking sanctuary with
important families to avoid undesirable marriage arrangements. She also knew of cases
where a murderer’s extended family took refuge with an important family in order to
avoid the retaliation o f the victim’s family.16 This was, she notes, only the first step of a
long process that could take years to be resolved (pers. comm.).
We can only see the connection between discourse and practice as long as we
maintain the separation between the two (pace Foucauldians). We can be fairly certain
that rabbits do not supplicate dung-beetles (to return to where I began), but the fact that in
16Gould (99, n. 121) does cite another observer (E. L. Peters) who witnessed, indeed participated,
in an act o f Bedouin sanctuary involving a murderer. The murderer set up his tent alongside Peters’. Peters
described this as “sanctuary,” which Gould then translated into “sanctuary through physical contact.”
14
a fable they do tells us much about the idealized practice. The practice’s idealization, in
turn, had real social force even if it did not reflect social reality. It is important to be
careful, however, not to equate idealization with description, as Pitt-Rivers did. Reality
and idealization overlapped and diverged as it suited the interests o f the people involved.
The ideal was one factor among many that gave content to supplication. Other factors,
external to the act, were equally important. Supplication can only be understood as a
performance that someone thought fit to stage at a particular place and time for particular
motives.
Naiden (2006) has most recently taken a very different approach to supplication.
In the first book-length treatment o f the subject, Naiden rightly stresses that supplication
did not succeed automatically simply because the supplicant adhered to certain key
“rules,” as Gould supposed. A rejected supplicant was not merely a symptom of
supplication’s inadequacy in the face o f increasing social secularization (Gould 1973:
101; cf. Chaniotis 1996). Gould sensed in supplication a quasi-magical force to
constrain, and tried to determine its source. By moving the study of supplication away
from this perspective, Naiden makes it possible to see that supplication belonged to a
system of practices and procedures that had as much to do with law as they did with
ritual. As he notes:
Supplication is a mix of divine and human law, partly

statutory, partly customary; partly quasilegal and partly
paralegal (2000: 344).
Naiden argues that supplication, being part o f the Greek legal universe, was not a
“time-out” from normal interaction, as Gould supposed, but rather a practice that
depended on norms of evaluation and judgment. It was not enough to supplicate. To
15
obtain the benefits o f supplication, the supplicant, Naiden stresses, must still assert his
individual worth by arguments, pleas, and promises (2004: 82-3; 2006: passim). Gould
tried to determine the logic of the ritual by analyzing its constituent gestures. Naiden
concerns himself with the norms o f evaluation and judgment which determined the
success or failure o f a supplicant’s petition. Gould located these norms in tectonic
“structures o f behaviour.” Naiden locates them in variable morals and regulations.
Supplication, for Naiden, is the “Siamese twin o f the law” (2006: 291). While law speaks
in generalities, supplication speaks for this person, right here and now, with his personal
and pressing needs.
Naiden has moved the study o f supplication forward in important directions. But
perhaps he is too quick to demystify the practice, dissolving it into its constituent
elements of petition and judgment. Gould, in a way, was right. There was something
magical about a supplicant, an aura o f potency and danger that could almost make time
stand still and history repeat itself. Gould’s mistake was to look for the source o f this
social magic somewhere outside its performance, namely in social structure. Naiden’s
mistake is to ignore it entirely.
1.2. The behind-the-scenes work o f supplication: Aiskhylos ’ Supplicants
Generally, the scholarship reviewed above tends to treat the motives of
supplicants as uniform and self-evident: to express a need, to make a request. Much of
this has to do with the tendency to view supplication primarily as a ritual, a habitual and
somewhat intuitive act with a relatively fixed range o f meaning. (Even Naiden, who
roundly dismisses the ritualism of Gould and others, ends up falling into the same trap by
16
insistently defining supplication as a practice which always expresses a request that leads
to a judgment.) This orientation, I suggest, has led scholars to overlook more interesting
aspects of the practice. Though supplication certainly characterized itself with a
ritualized formality, we must consider how people used that formality strategically and
even manipulatively to further their own personal objectives, which ultimately might
have little to do with supplication’s function as an appeal or request.
Supplication was not an automatic or instinctive act. In this I agree with Naiden.
But the substance o f the supplicant’s argument and plea did not suffice to make a
particular supplication work. Substantial work had to be expended, and concealed, to
make a supplication possible and effective. This applies especially to the momentous
supplications that have inscribed themselves in the historical record. Aiskhylos’
Supplicants gives us a sense o f how a supplication became momentous. We will see that
Aiskhylos shows a keen awareness o f what kind o f work went into staging a supplication,
and into making it the talk o f the town.
When the Danaids arrive on the shores of Argos, they assume the position of
supplicants at a sanctuary. The Argive king, Pelasgos, appears and tries to discern who
they are and why they are supplicating. The first movement of the play involves the
girls’ trying to persuade Pelasgos that they are descended from Io and hence have a claim
on his help based on kinship. After extensive argument, he accepts that despite their
outlandish appearance they are in fact Argive. However, when they tell him what they
want from him, he balks. They want him to defend them against their cousins, the
Aigyptiads, who are eager to marry them. Pelasgos argues that he cannot accept their
supplication personally as they are not supplicants at his own hearth but at the public
17
altars o f the city; the citizens have to be consulted first. To which the Danaids exclaim,
“You are the city, you are the people! An unelected official, you have the power over the
altar, the hearth o f the land [ou t o i ttoA i s , ou 5e to 5d|_tiov rrpuTavi? dxpixos cdv
KpaTuvsi? (3cop6v, e a ria v xQovos]” (370-2). Flattery gets them nowhere. He hesitates
to accept their supplication without first consulting the people: “As I said before, I would
not do it without the demos, though I have the power [ eI ttov 5 e kcc'i Trpiv, ouk av£u
5 t) mou ra d s TTpdâip’ au, ou6 e Trsp Kpaxcov]” (398-9).
The Danaids are losing their cause. Pelasgos says he is willing to “perform many
sacrifices and consult many oracles o f many gods,” but he offers no concrete help. He
washes his hands of the matter, saying, “I want to be inexperienced rather than knowing
o f evils. But may it all turn out contrary to my expectation [5e7 K c c p x a 0 ueiv kcu ttecjeTv
XppoTppia 0Eoiai rroAAois tto A A c L . 0eAco 5’ aiS p i? paAAov r] acx})6s kcxkcov Elvar
ysvoixo 5’ £\j T ra p a yvcopriv 8|ut)v]” (450-4). What finally changes his mind is their
sudden threat to hang themselves with their girdles from the statues o f the gods, or, as
they say cryptically, “to decorate these statues with new votive tablets [v e o is m vaîv
(BpETEa Kooprjaai xcxSe]” (463).
Half the drama consists o f the Danaids’ persuading Pelasgos to accept their
supplication. Once they compel him to accept, he turns from the Danaid chorus who
have dominated the stage to address their father, who has stood by in silence since the
king’s entrance:
You there, old father o f these girls, take these branches in

your arms and place them on other altars of the gods inside,
so that all the citizens see evidence o f this supplication and
talk does not fall against me; for the people love to blame
authority. And also they might pity when they see them
18
and hate the arrogance o f the male convoy. The demos

might be more kindly to you. Everyone bears good will
toward the weaker.
ou pev, TrcxTsp yepaie xcovSs Trap0svcov,

kAccSou? te xouxou? a l'l'’ eu ayK aA ai? Aa(3cbv
(3copou? stt’ aAAou? Saipovcov syxcopicov
0es, co? ’iScooi xrja5’ a ^ s c o ? XEKpap
TtauTe? TToXixai, pqS’ dTToppKj^rii Aoyos
epou xax’ • dpxrjs y a p 4>iAa(xio? Ascos.
Kai y a p x a y au xi? oiKxioa? iScov xcxS b
u^piv psv 8X0fipeisv aposvo? oxoAou,
upfv 5’ av s’ir] 5fjpo? eupeveaxspo?-
xof? paooaiv y a p tia s xt? suvoias <j)8pet(480-9).
Prior to their suicide threat, Pelasgos argued that he was obliged to consult the
people before accepting the Danaids’ supplication. But now this obligation becomes
irrelevant as he proceeds to instruct Danaos how to place the branches and stage his
daughters’ supplication. He instructs his men to accompany Danaos but speak to no one:
“Lead him to the city altars and temples o f the gods. But you must not say too much to
those who will gather [pyefoOe (dcopou? aoxiKous 0ecov 6’ eS p a?- Ka'i £up(3oAouaiv ou
troAuaxopsfv xpscov]” (501-2). Pelasgos is carefully choreographing the silent
procession in order to evoke the people’s interest and sentiment, and orient their
disposition in a way that favors the Danaids.
In the assembly Pelasgos takes full advantage o f the procession. Danaos quotes
the decree to his daughters:
We are to be resident aliens in this land, free and immune

from reprisals with the asylum of mortals: no inhabitant or
foreigner may lay hands on us. And if force is applied the
citizen who does not help is to be disfranchised and an
exile by the demos driven.
p p a s msxoikeTv x^ oSe y p ? eAeu0epou?

Kappuaiaaxou? £uv x’ aauAiai (3poxcov
19
kcu |_nqT suoiKcou pqx’ STTqXuScov Tiva

a y s iv bcxv Se TTpoariSfji to Kapxspov,
tov pf] (3or]0f)aavTa tcovSs yapopcov
axipov slvai §uv cûyfji SqpqAdxcoi (608-14).
The decree’s language, evoking the unmistakable register of the Athenian Assembly,
underscores the fact that the people do not know that war is inevitable if they pass it. The
decree resembles the honorific decrees that the Athenians ratified on a regular basis.
Pelasgos knows the decree’s implications but he does not mention them, speaking instead
of the wrath o f Zeus that would fall on the city if they do not respect supplicants (615-
20). Sommerstein thus has cause to suggest that “Pelasgos is shown as obtaining this
decision by blatant manipulation” (1997: 75). Aiskhylos characterizes Pelasgos’
assembly speech as “people-persuasive turns,” demopeitheis strophas (623), which
echoes the strophous, “twists,” of the Danaids’ robes by which they threatened to hang
themselves (457).
The Danaids’ supplication is not just a simple supplication to the Argives,
involving an approach, a ceremony, a request, and a judgment (Naiden’s definition of
supplication). It entails stage-managing and directing, orchestrating and contriving, in
brief, it requires work that attains its goal only if the work disappears in the process.
Danaos directs his daughters how to sit and speak (191-203). He revealingly calls their
supplication “the might of contrivance [pqxavi15'--- Kpaxos]” (209).
The Danaids’ supplication is not unique in being stage-managed and even
contrived. Every successful supplication required that work and labor be expended
backstage in order to put on a seamless performance onstage that seems to flow naturally,
inevitably and instinctively. The metaphor of dramatic performance to characterize
20
social action is a notion closely associated with the work of sociologist Erving Goffman,
especially his The Presentation o f S e lf in Everyday Life (1959). Here, I am especially
concerned with Goffman’s suggestion that every performance aims to make itself seem
effortless and natural to its audience, who occupy the performance’s “front-stage.” The
front region presents the “face” o f interaction, while the “back-stage” is where the work
goes on that composes that face. Appearances carefully fostered in the front region are
often belied or even contradicted by what takes place in the back region.
Goffman saw this division between front and back regions as a fundamental social
operation. Society would not be possible if the seriousness of the front regions was not
prepared by the comic hustle and bustle that of the back regions. The finished
performances that conform to our expectations result from practical choices and “dirty
work” (43-51). To lay bare the “dirty work” that went into producing an effective
performance would diminish the performance’s effect. If this work is not practically
acknowledged, according to Goffman, it is because social actors have a moral stake in not
breaking the illusion o f performance:
Society is organized on the principle that an individual who

possesses certain social characteristics has a moral right to
expect that others will value and treat him in an appropriate
way. Connected with this principle is a second, namely
that an individual who implicitly or explicitly signifies that
he has certain social characteristics ought in fact to be what
he claims he is. In consequence, when an individual
projects a definition o f the situation and thereby makes an
implicit or explicit claim to be a person o f a particular kind,
he automatically exerts a moral demand upon the others
obliging them to value and treat him in the manner that
persons of his kind have a right to expect (Goffman 1959:
13).
Goffman is not concerned with how those “social characteristics” that “exert a
moral demand” come to be what they are, or how one individual comes to possess them,
or how their use is implicated in society’s politics and economics. From Goffman’s
perspective the dirty work that Aiskhylos stages in the extraurban sanctuary, which is
then concealed by performance in the assembly, would be a necessary part of any
supplication. In addition, while the performers expend work to conceal the workings o f
their performance, they also conceal the social work, or economic labor, that goes into
making their performance work. If we consider the relation between what supplication
conceals as a performance and what it conceals as a practice, we will see how the
production o f supplication in the dramatic sense relates to production in the economic
sense.
1.3. The economics o f supplication 1: Economic/Symbolic capital
Here the work o f French theorist Pierre Bourdieu becomes relevant, particularly
his notion o f “symbolic capital.”17 This notion is Bourdieu’s contribution to the
anthropological theory o f non-capitalist exchange, which is above all associated with the
names of Mauss (1990[1925]) and Polanyi (1968; 2001 [1957]) and, in ancient economic
history, Finley (1965; 1985). Generally speaking, this theory makes a sharp distinction
between pre-capitalist and capitalist economic exchange. It posits capitalist exchange as
short-term, impersonal, commodity-based, and individualistic; pre-capitalist exchange as
17His most concise treatment is in The L ogic o f P ractice (1990[1980]: 112-34), which is a slightly
more readable version o f his Outline o f a Theory o f P ractice (1977[1972]: 171-97).
22
long-term, embedded, gift-based, and communitarian. Bourdieu’s concept o f symbolic
capital collapses the distinction between the pre-capitalist and the capitalist economies by
highlighting the economic aspects o f status or honor. He insists that the truest picture of
a society’s economic system is to be found where economic motives are most denied.
Ostensibly non-economic values such as honor or prestige are in Bourdieu’s view
ultimately reducible to a series o f economic accumulations and expenditures over time.
As he notes,
Even when they give every appearance o f disinterestedness

because they escape the logic of ‘economic’ interest (in the
narrow sense) and are oriented towards non-material stakes
that are not easily quantified, as in ‘pre-capitalist’ societies
or in the cultural spheres o f capitalist societies, practices
never cease to comply with an economic logic (1990[1980]:
122, my emphasis).
Economic logic, however, is not straightforward. To decode it one must also take
into account the techniques through which economic capital is transformed into symbolic
capital and vice versa. Through practices such as marriage, feasting, gifting, hospitality
etc.— in brief, the entire field of “honorific” exchange— social agents aim to transform
their material capital expenditures into symbolic capital that is redeemable for material
profit. This economic principle explains, for example, why the Kabylian farmer buys a
second team of oxen after the harvest only to have to sell them before the plowing season
for lack of fodder (Bourdieu 1990[1980]: 120). The farmer’s irrational behavior makes
economic sense when one notes that the purchase o f the unneeded oxen coincides with
the marriage season, when he might want to appear wealthier than he is in order to
23
negotiate an advantageous marriage.18 The farmer is attempting to increase his credit in
the hope of capitalizing on it. As Bourdieu puts it:
When one knows that symbolic capital is credit, but in the

broadest sense, a kind of advance, a credence, that only the
group’s belief can grant those who give it best symbolic
and material guarantees, it can be seen that the exhibition
o f symbolic capital (which is always very expensive in
material terms) is one o f the mechanisms (no doubt
universally) which make capital go to capital (Bourdieu
1990[1980]: 120).
In this view, the farmer who makes the uneconomic purchase o f a second team of oxen
displays a minimum o f economic sense but a maximum o f symbolic sense. He knows
that these displays are their best hope for improved capitalization in an economy where
investments in symbolic capital can be redeemed as material capital.
To speak o f “investment” in symbolic capital is to suggest that the investor
intends to capitalize on his investment. This might be more applicable to some cases than
others, for instance in Kabylian marriage. In other cases, the symbolic capital purchased
might not be readily converted into economic capital for several generations, perhaps not
at all. Regardless of whether it is promptly reconvertible, symbolic capital conducts itself
in a rarefied realm of exchange, governed by the principles o f grace and distinction,
where its material heritage is not only obscured but flatly denied. This denial gives
18In a related vein w e might note the well-documented behavior o f hedge-fond managers w hose
personal lifestyle becom es more luxurious and expenditures become more extravagant the closer their fund
really is to bankruptcy. See, for example, the recent case o f the Bayou Hedge Fund: “What Really
Happened at Bayou” (New York Times September 17, 2005: C l ) . More interesting, because o f its
implication in charities and the arts, is the case o f philanthropist and fund manager Alberto Vilar. See “Art
Patron Left Trail O f Angry Investors” (N ew York Times June 2, 2005: E l); “Learning to Look Gift Horses
in the Mouth (New York Times June 6, 2005: E l); “Financier Makes Bail, With Conductor’s Help” (New
York Times June 23, 2005: E9).
24
capital a respectable persona, behind which it can operate in the realm of the general, that
is, the political. Relationships that hinge on economic value, such as those forged by
supplication, are publicly represented as solely having a symbolic character. The more
honorific they become the more their economic nature is concealed, and vice versa.
Supplication, I suggest, effected the conversion o f material capital into symbolic
capital and in the process made capital respectable and politically useful. In Greek terms,
the supplicant was an agalma, a prestige-object o f religious as much as of economic
veneration (see Gemet 1948). An illustration: When his pursuers carried out the
supplicant Pausanias from his sanctuary, they were under the mistaken belief that he was
dead. But he expired before they carried him across the sacred boundary. This meant
that they had removed sacred property, because supplicants were said to be the
“property”o f their protector. In effect they had commited sacrilege (hierosylia). To
expiate this crime the god demanded that they give “two bodies in exchange for the one
[5uo ocbpaxa av0’ evo?]” that they took. Thus they dedicated two solid bronze statues
(andriantes), which were still standing when Pausanias saw them five centuries later
(Thuk. 1. 134. 3; Paus. 3. 17. 7; cf. Plut. Mor. 560e-f). As with any theft requiring
compensation, Pausanias’ pursuers had to pay for the property they “stole” with
something o f equivalent value.19
Pausanias, as regent of Sparta, was inherently a valuable supplicant. His value
preceded his supplication. Ideology, as we saw, insisted that supplication itself created
19“Sacred” compensation with statues and tripods is attested on Krete in the Classical period (Paul
Perlman 2004). Similarly, Athenian arkhon magistrates swore an oath that they would dedicate a gold
statue should they be convicted o f malfeasance (AP 7. 1). For a religious motivation o f the tw o statues’
dedication see Faraone 1992: 83.
25
the supplicant’s value. Literary representations o f the practice often reproduce this
ideology in statements to the effect that “beggars and supplicants are from Zeus” (Od. 17.
445-491; 8. 546; 9. 270; Hes. W&D 327-8; Adkins 1960: 65-6). In truth, some
supplicants (like Pausanias) were more valuable than others. Aiskhylos’ Supplicants, I
argued, is unique in its dramatization o f the tension between backstage machinations and
onstage performance. It is no coincidence that the first thing Pelasgos notices about the
Danaids are their luxurious (khlionta) raiments.20 The Danaids themselves call their garb
“Sidonian,” which was synonymous with extravagant wealth (121).
Epigraphic evidence gives us a fuller view o f the process through which
supplicants came to be valuable. Rigsby (2000) has assembled some inscriptions that,
taken together, offer unequivocal evidence that in the normal course o f business,
supplicants (at least in sanctuaries) had to pay in exchange for their status. He begins by
considering two Roman inscriptions from Gerasa, near modern Jerash in Jordan (Gerasa
5-6). These relate to a supplicant of Zeus Olympios named Theon, in 69/70 BCE. Theon
made increasingly generous donations, culminating in the princely sum of 10,000 dr. of
“good Tyrian silver” toward the construction o f a new temple and an image of Zeus o f
Refuge (.Phyxios). Riggsby suggests that Theon might have been a wealthy Jewish
fugitive fleeing the turmoil of the Great Rebellion. Gerasa itself, Josephus tells us,
witnessed a series of escalating reprisals between Jews and non-Jews (BJ 2. 458, 487).
Ethnic tensions were high. According to Josephus, the Gerasenes “escorted to their
20“From what land is this un-hellenically-dressed group, luxuriant in foreign cloths and bands, that
I address? It is not the Argive dress o f women, nor from Greek places [TroSairov opiAov xovS’
dvsAArivoaToAou ttettAoioi j3ap(3apoiai KdptTUKcopaai y /d o u x a Ttpoa^cououpEu; ou y ap ’ApyoAis
Ea0f]s yuuaiKcov ouS’ dtjf 'EAAaSos xottcov]” (234-7).
26
borders those [Jews] who wanted to leave [xous s£gA0eiv sSsArioavTas TrpoeTTepâv
(tsxpi tcov opcov]” (2. 480). Riggsby suggests that Theon’s donation was thus not a sign
o f generosity, but o f extortion. The price of his supplication increased in proportion to
Theon’s need for it. The authorities o f the sanctuary o f Zeus Olympios even went so far
as to charge him interest on the portion o f his original donation that he failed to produce
within one month— an otherwise unheard-of arrangement.
According to Strabo (16. 2. 14) the Phoenician island of Arados (off the coast of
Tyre) grew in wealth and connections thanks to its role as a haven for wealthy and well-
connected refugees from the Seleucids. They had an agreement with the Seleucid King
Kallinikos allowing them to offer asylum only to those whom the king allowed. Strabo
insinuates that the king was complicit in allowing a few refugees to enjoy asylum from
him. Their refugees’ gratitude towards the Aradians would translate into gratitude for
Kallinikos, allowing Kallinikos to further profit from enemies whom he had already
driven into exile. The Seleucids were therefore known for such arrangements as that
postulated by Riggsby behind Theon’s supplication. But we should not hasten to
attribute “asylum-for-profit” solely to the Hellenistic East. Riggsby adduces further
epigraphic evidence suggesting that Classical Greek temples also profited from their
supplicants (SEG XXXIX 729. 3-11; S E G IX 72. 122-7). Here the price o f supplication
was much less than what Theon paid, perhaps as high as 200 dr. (Kontorine 1989: 28)
27
and a nominal donation respectively.21 Political and personal circumstances probably
accounted for Theon’s extraordinary payment.
Supplication was not free. The supplicant owed the symbolic capital o f his status
to the capital he gave his protector, which was symbolic and material at the same time. It
was symbolic because the protector also gained the opportunity to perform the traditional
and honorable role of protector o f supplicants. This exchange underlies the distinction
between beggar and supplicant, with which I began this chapter. Beggars are like death,
according to Artemidoros (3. 53), because they alone do not give something in exchange
for what they receive. Supplicants always gave something in exchange. This is perhaps
the message of a red-figure Attic pelike depicting the supplication of Telephos on one
side, and paralleling it closely and provocatively with the scene o f a negotiation between
a satyr and a prostitute (figs. 1,2; cf. Keuls 1993[1985]: 362). Both seem to be saying, “I
have what you want, give me what I want.”
The epic supplications that loom large in scholarship also suggest that supplicants
took pain to emphasize their economic benefits. As he is about to die, Hektor supplicates
and promises bronze and gold if Akhilles will return his body to his parents (II. 22. 338-
21Much is disputable about this section o f the famous “Cathartic Law o f Cyrene”, mostly
involving the meaning o f telos: ikeoios a r e p o s , teteA eopeuos q axEArjs, ia a a p sv o s In i xcoi Sapoaicoi
la p co r a i p ly KatrpocjiEpqxai, ottoooco kcx TTpo<J)Epr]xai, ouxcos T8A(aK[E]a0ar a i 51 kcc pf]
tTpoc|)Epr|Tai, y d s kccpttov 0[u]ev kcu oTTovbav Ka0’ sx o s a s r a i 51 Ka Ttcxpfji, [Is] vice S is x o a a a .
Rigsby takes it as “payment,” whereas m ost scholars take it to mean “initiation” o f some sort (Parker 1983:
349-50). The regulation, in this reading, distinguishes between those who pay a monetary sum and those
who pay in kind. Noteworthy is the provision that those who pay in kind pay yearly and “forever,” whereas
those who pay in coin pay any sum at all. Kyrenean sanctuary authorities, it seems, wanted to discourage
supplicants who could not pay in coin without outright rejecting them. The requirement that the supplicant
pay a tithe in kind in perpetuity, in addition, is a requirement that would have prevented the m ost needy
from supplicating. It seem s to set as a minimum requirement for supplicating the ability to support oneself.
Why would the authorities want to limit supplication by that parameter? I w ill offer an answer to this
question in Chapter Five.
28
43). The sons of Antimakhos also supplicate Agamemnon and say that their father will
reward him generously if he spares them (II. 11. 131-5). The first supplicant of the Iliad,
Khryses, comes for his daughter and supplicates but also brings “countless
compensation” (II. 1. 12-6).22 Priam humbles himself to kiss the hands that killed his son,
but also brings along a wagon o f treasure (II. 24. 175-87, 500-4).
Figure 1. Telephos at the altar with baby Orestes, Figure 2. Reverse o f fig. 1: Satyr bargaining with
approached by Agamemnon. Courtesy o f the prostitute. N ote the mirroring gestures.
Trustees o f the British Museum.
1.4. The method
A central point o f my methodology is to examine not only the literary, artistic or
political purposes supplication served in its context, but also to consider supplication
within a broader system o f practices. Gould overestimates structure. His supplicants
22W ilson (2002: 29) argues that supplication and compensation “are fully autonomous themes in
Homer, and as such exist independently o f one.” One can make this argument for m aterial compensation,
but the supplicant, as I argue, also offers sym bolic compensation.
29
appealed to rules of behavior and honor which he considered universally valid within the
Mediterranean. Naiden, on the other hand, all but ignores structure, assuming that
supplications were fundamentally petitions or requests. He sees supplication as a quasi-
legal matter between two people, or between a person and a legislative body, where the
content of the argument was crucial. My approach to supplication seeks to steer between
Gould’s over-determination and Naiden’s over-rationalization. I believe it is important to
consider individual cases on their own terms and in their proper, historical contexts.
Supplication was a choice that individuals made consciously and strategically. However,
it was not a free choice.
In the following chapters I will analyze supplication on two levels. One level
entails exploring individual supplicants’ motives and strategies within their contexts. If
the particular supplication is in a literary work, I ask how supplication contributes to the
narrative (as in Chapter Two). If the supplication figured in a political project, I ask how
supplication helped the politician at that particular point in time (as in Chapter Three). If
a supplication is epigraphically attested, I ask why that particular act, but not another,
figures as a supplication (as in Chapters Four and Five).
My second level of analysis entails adducing and comparing other practices which
had an affinity with supplication. If meaning can only be determined by relations and
oppositions, we must consider not only appearances of the lexeme hiket-, but the other
notions, terms, and practices which cluster around it. The Pythagoreans, for example,
noted that supplication resembled marriage because both rituals involved taking the
bride/supplicant from the hearth by the hand (Iambi. VP 84, 48; [Arist.] Oik. 1344a8-12).
This is the most outspoken statement of supplication’s place in the practical economy.
30
Affinities with other practices are not as outrightly expressed. It will be necessary to
establish these affinities by means o f careful investigation.
Thus, Chapter Two compares supplication to the practice o f conveyance (pompe)
and argues that individuals (in the O dyssey’s narrative) used these practices in order to
make and contest authority claims. Telemakhos uses the supplication o f his father, who
is paradoxically disguised as a beggar, to create a dramatic situation in which he can
compel the suitors to yield to his authority. This is in part because he has been denied the
opportunity to exercise conveyance, which is a defining practice o f kingship.
In Chapters Three and Four I turn to Athens, the one Greek city with enough
evidence to allow a relatively detailed and historically contextualized analysis of the
political and social uses of supplication. I will show that supplication in Athens was
intimately related to practices o f knowledge-production and status-construction. Chapter
Three deals primarily with the fifth century and Chapter Four with the fourth century.
Chapter Three places supplication in the politics of spectacle, through which politicians
furthered their agendas in extra-institutional venues. Politicians used supplication as one
of the practices which aimed to produce knowledge and sentiment in the Athenian crowd,
which was a vital factor o f political action.
Chapter Four examines the “supplicants o f the people” in the assembly (ekklesia
or demos). In the 5th century, supplication appears to have been an impromptu practice
one might perform in a court or on the street in order to spark interest and frame
sentiment. In the mid-4th century supplication also seems to be a spectacle regularly
staged in the Assembly, where supplication was only one among several procedures by
which a non-Athenian could make a petition. Interestingly, supplicants (judging from
31
extant inscriptions) asked for and received only the honorific recognitions that non
supplicants frequently obtained. This raises the question o f why some would choose to
present themselves as supplicants if they could obtain the same goal without supplicating.
The answer lies not with the supplicants, but with their sponsors. Assembly supplicants
gave their sponsors the opportunity to present themselves publicly and prominently as
protectors of supplicants, a traditional and symbolically valuable role familiar to the
audience through myth, tragedy and art.
Finally, Chapter Five considers the puzzle o f slave supplicants. Fugitive slaves, it
seems, were the kind o f supplicants one was most likely to encounter in a sanctuary.
Judging from regulations that dealt with them, they were also particularly troublesome
for the sanctuaries. I will show that the practice o f “sacral manumission,” manumission
via sanctuary intermediation, is the key to understanding why slaves supplicated. Slaves,
I will argue, used supplication as a cover for the economic deals they struck with their
protectors in order to secure their support when they claimed that they were not their
master’s slaves, or not slaves at all.
I will show that supplication was a performance o f partly improvised, partly
staged “street theater” intended to educate its audience and frame social knowledge in the
contours of tradition. Ultimately, supplication created symbolic capital which could be
put to varied social uses. But economic capital had to be expended or invested in the act.
Otherwise the supplicant might as well be a beggar.
TWO
The Construction of Authority

(Telemakhos and the Beggar)
.. .the dreamlike processions that kings and

queens are made o f (Goffman 1959: 22)
I began by noting that need and performance were not enough to make a
supplicant. Beggars were never supplicants, because a supplicant always paid in
exchange for his status, and beggars were defined as people who took without giving. In
this chapter I examine a narrative in which a beggar paradoxically does become a
supplicant. Far from disproving my point, this will support it, for the supplication of this
beggar provides a dramatic solution to an intractable problem.
This chapter will support two claims I made. First, I suggested that supplication
was a dramatic performance that could structure relationships and define statuses.
Second, I suggested that people used supplication in creative ways to satisfy their
particular objectives and agendas. I will show in this chapter how Telemakhos stages a
supplication that helps him reclaim authority in his house.
2.1. Supplication in the Odyssey
From Gould onward, scholars have been impressed by the Homeric supplications.
They have found Thetis’ supplication o f Zeus and Priam’s o f Akhilles in the Iliad
especially compelling. The Odyssey’s scenes by contrast (with the exception of
Odysseus’ supplication o f Arete) have not attracted the same level o f interest. But
supplication in the Odyssey is emplotted within a broader narrative that better shows how
32
33
individual characters employed the practice for their particular aims. Here I am
especially interested in one o f the supplications that has received the least scholarly
attention: the supplication o f the beggar “Aithon” (Odysseus’ alter ego) in Odysseus’
house. I want to examine the role supplication plays in the Ithakan power struggle
between Laertids and suitors, and its relation to Telemakhos’ coming o f age.
Supplication, I suggested in Chapter One, drew its force from the accepted
illusion that only the ritual mattered, not its circumstances or its performers. The same
attitude is expressed in Homeric proverbs such as, “Beggars and supplicants come from
Zeus” (Od. 6. 207-8; 14. 57-8); “A supplicant... is like a brother to a man who is even
remotely intelligent” (Od. 8. 546-7); and “Zeus Xeinios is the sponsor [ETtiTippxcop] of
supplicants and guest-friends” (Od. 9. 270). The Litai, “goddesses of supplication,” are
described as “lame, twisted, and near-blind [xcoAcu ts puoai te ttapajSAcotTes t
6(j)0aA|jco]” (II. 9. 503); a description that marks the absence o f honor and worth
(Thornton 1984: 117). In practical terms the illusion served to universalize the
supplicant’s plight and highlight the sponsor’s piety— as if the sponsor would accept any
supplicant and not just the particular supplicant in front o f him. However, rather than
providing opportunities for Telemakhos to express his piety, I will argue that
Telemakhos’ supplicants, as abject and needy as they are, provide him the opportunity to
define the statuses o f those around him. This is an important achievement for the young
man, whose own status has come under serious attack from several angles.
34
Writers on Homeric society and authority have overlooked supplication,
relegating the topic solely to literary critics.1 Van Wees (1992), in perhaps the best study
on Homeric society, makes no mention o f it. Other prominent scholars of Homeric
power structure and society, such as Finley (1965) or Donlan (1997), likewise never
discuss supplication.2 This is surprising given the scholarly consensus that seems to be
building around the notion that Homeric authority depended on the performance o f status.
As Thalmann (1998: 269) puts it, “Members o f the Homeric elite constantly need to
‘perform’ their social identity, affirming and reaffirming their position.” This constant
self-attention ingrained in the elites a connoisseurship for the subtleties of social
performance.3 Performances of supplication in such a context, as we will see, were
occasions for the subtle operations o f authority-construction.
Other practices figured in the constitution and contestation o f authority as well,
parallel to supplication. In order to get a fuller picture we have to see what role these
played and how they were used. Two such practices that I consider are marriage and the
1For supplication in epic see especially Pedrick 1982; Thornton 1984; Crotty 1994; Giordano
1999.
2There are some (overlooked) exceptions: Engel 1899; 1904-1906; Stagakis 1975. For a recent
discussion o f the state o f the question o f “Homeric society” see Raaflaub 1997; 1998.
3This is a defining characteristic o f “court society”; see Elias 1983[1969]. W illiam Miller nicely
captures the heroic society o f the Icelandic sagas in a related perspective: “A m ong those in contention for
honor the concern about where one stood relative to others was all consuming; there were very few spaces
in which one could relax, out o f the judging eyes o f jealous and envious others. People were edgy and
sensitive; conversation hovered on the edge o f insult. A person’s honor was fragile and easily violated; its
state o f health was closely monitored by his (and even her) sense o f shame and a keen ability to discern
whether observers envied him more than he envied them” (1997: 144). Cp. Adam Smith: “[The young
nobleman’s] air, his manner, his deportment... are the arts by which he proposes to make mankind more
easily submit to his authority, and to govern their inclination according to his own pleasure: and in this he
is seldom disappointed. These arts, supported by rank and preeminence, are, upon ordinary occasions,
sufficient to govern the world” (1979[1790]: 54). Donald Lateiner’s (1995) is the seminal work in this
direction in Homer.
35
pompe, or “conveyance.” Along with supplication these provided a tradition-sanctioned
frame for the display o f personal authority. Heroes used each o f these practices as what
Erving Goffman might call “sign-vehicles;” that is, objects or persons that embodied and
conveyed another’s authority, materially as well as symbolically.4 In the Odyssey these
sign-vehicles served as focal points for the construction or contestation of authority.
Their movement in space either affirmed or contradicted power claims within a network
o f intra- and extra-communal relationships (cf. Herman 1987: 73 ff).
2.2. Definition, status, sign-vehicle
Telemakhos’ crisis is ultimately one o f definition. He cannot compel the suitors
to recognize him as the basileus, or king. The suitors are being aided by an unexpected
ally: Penelope herself. She does not want Telemakhos to assume the role and status of
king because she does not feel he is ready, and because his doing so will signal the end of
Odysseus. Eventually with the help o f a peculiar supplication Telemakhos succeeds in
confronting both forces allied against him, his mother and her suitors.
Telemakhos’ first attempt to claim authority is in Book 2, when he summons an
assembly in an effort to unite the people against the usurping suitors. The people are
surprised to be summoned, because they do not recognize him as the basileus (2. 25-34).
4“[S]ign-vehicles... may be linguistic, as when an individual makes a statement o f praise or

depreciation regarding se lf or other, and does so in a particular language and intonation; gestural, as when
the physical bearing o f an individual conveys insolence or obsequiousness; spatial, as when an individual
precedes another through the door, or sits on his right instead o f his left; task-embedded, as when an
individual accepts a task graciously and performs it in the presence o f others with aplomb and dexterity;
part o f the communication structure, as when an individual speaks more frequently than the others, or
receives more attentiveness than they do” (Goffman 1967: 55).
36
During the assembly he breaks down emotionally and, like an Akhilles (II. 1. 245-6) or a
Kassandra (A. Ag. 1265-8), hurls down the scepter in frustration (2. 80). This disrupts his
performance o f authority and thwarts his attempt to institute an assembly primed to eject
the suitors from his house. The gathering breaks up unceremoniously.
The suitors meanwhile are trying to define Telemakhos as a child. When he
returns from the assembly they greet him condescendingly, not as they would greet a
basileus. Antinoos reaches out his hand to welcome him. This is a significant gesture. It
places Antinoos in the role o f host and Telemakhos in the role o f guest (2. 301; Lateiner
1995: 144). Telemakhos’ mother is also trying to define Telemakhos as a child, but for
her own reasons, namely to postpone her remarriage as long as possible. That is why
Penelope is surprised when he speaks about men’s concerns (1. 359-61).
A basileus ’ status is defined by his constant performance o f the role. It is not a
question of office, as we might understand it, but o f status (Halverson 1986: 121). Status
is not static. “A status, a position, a social place, is not a material thing, to be possessed
and then displayed; it is a pattern o f appropriate conduct, embellished, and well
articulated” (Goffman 1959: 75, my emphasis). Status can shift. A basileus can go
through moments when he is more and less kinglike. That is perhaps why we encounter
the word in a comparative adjectival form: basileuteron, “more basileus-like” (15. 533;
II. 1. 69, 160,392).
In the Odyssey certain objects, actions, and people are more likely than others to
play a part in defining a basileus. The scepter is a well-known example, although in the
37
epics not all who wield scepters are kings and not all kings wield scepters.5 The Odyssey,
in addition, features less obvious markers o f kingship. Authority can be constituted by
means o f determinant practices, which can serve to define the king. Besides supplication,
two other such practices are marriage and conveyance (pompe), which I will discuss in
the following sections.
Homeric authority is a matter o f initiative. Simply put, whoever initiates
Penelope’s remarriage will be defined as the basileus, for while there is doubt who is to
be king, there is no doubt who the queen is. In other words, she serves as a stable point
around which the young men can construct and challenge their claims to power. Control
over conveyance is also a defining marker o f kingship. I will show that only kings can
command it.
The reason supplication, marriage, and conveyance contain such possibility as
sign-vehicles is primarily because they, like the scepter, are traditionally emblematic of
routine concerns. It is precisely when status is contested that their role as sign-vehicles
emerges most clearly. If current circumstances had not valorized and lent them added
significance, they would not be an issue. In Pylos and Sparta there is little dispute over
who is in charge, and the scepters o f Menelaos and Nestor (which they presumably do
have) are never mentioned. The scepter o f Telemakhos is given prominence, however,
precisely because he throws it to the ground when trying to assert kingly authority.
Instead of a sign-vehicle that communicates authority, it becomes symbolic of
5On the scepter see van Wees 1992: 274 ff.; Gemet 1968: 239-41; Lateiner 1995: 13; Griffin 1980:
11-2; Lincoln 1994: 34-6 is good on the link between scepters and authority. A lso Bourdieu 1991[1982]:
107 ff..
38
Telemakhos’ weakness.6 This reveals the ambiguous relation between objects and
actions that symbolize authority and the practices that comprise it. Objects and actions
do their symbolic work only when practices are doing theirs. As Redfield suggests, “In
Homeric society, authority is secured by the exercise o f authority” (1994[1975j: 95). No
tautology, this points to a fundamental problem for young Telemakhos. How can
Telemakhos be a king if he is not allowed to act like a king, to exercise the authority o f a
king? And how can he act like a king if he is allowed to act like a king, if his exercise o f
authority is conditioned by the initiative on others? This is Telemakhos’ conundrum in a
nutshell.
Menelaos’ practiced performance o f kingship unfolds without dispute. When
Telemakhos first meets him he is engaging in a conveyance, a “traffic in women” (Rubin
1975), an expected part o f kingly practice. He is sending his daughter Hermione to be
Neoptolemos’ bride, receiving a local girl to marry his son (4. 5-10). By contrast,
Telemakhos’ attempts to control his mother’s conveyance are contested, as I will show in
the following section. Because traditional sign-vehicles, such as the scepter and his
mother’s marriage, have failed him, I will suggest, Telemakhos instead finds an
unconventional new sign-vehicle: Aithon, a beggar whom Telemakhos will define as a
supplicant and compel his mother’s suitors to treat as such.
6Achilles, the other young hero o f epic, performs the same gesture in II. 1. 245, but here it is
clearly an expression o f strength rather than weakness. Agamemnon responds to Achilles with anger
(epijuis), while Telemakhos is confronted with pity (oTktos).
39
2.2.1. Penelope’s hand
An understanding of Penelope’s place is important in order to understand the
problem that the supplication of Aithon, Odysseus’ alter ego, will solve. Here I consider
Penelope’s hand in marriage as a sign-vehicle contested by Telemakhos and the suitors.
Penelope’s hand has become an object o f fierce contest primarily because her marriage
will define Telemakhos. Paradoxically, when he talks about the marriage o f his mother
Telemakhos is trying to define himself.
Why does so much depend on the choice o f a woman? That is the Penelope-
question, which has occupied scholars for some time.7 Is Penelope’s choice somehow
indicative of a social situation prevalent at the time o f Homer? Or is she simply an
artistic ploy to build tension? We can assume that Penelope wants her husband to return,
and/or her son to become basileus (Scodel 2001: 313). So her delay is directed as much
against Telemakhos as it is against the suitors. Any concession to marry on her part will
mean that she has accepted two things: (a) Odysseus is not coming back, and (b)
Telemakhos is not going to become basileus. The first claim is fairly self-evident. She
cannot have two husbands. If Odysseus returns and Penelope has remarried, the game is
lost. Her remarriage means Odysseus’ death as her husband, if not as a man (Katz 1991:
35).
The second claim needs more explaining. I do not want to argue that Penelope’s
choice is indicative o f an uxorilocal Ithakan kingship whereby her husband automatically
7See Katz 1991; Thalmann 1998: 161-5; Thomas 1988. It is telling that Katz’s work, arguably one
o f the best on the subject, should conclude that Penelope is “elusive and indecipherable, suspended in an
unknowability that is only imperfectly resolved by the words to which she gives expression” (Katz 1991:
194).
40
assumes power (Halverson 1986: 122; cf. Finkelberg 1991). All we need to note to
unsettle that notion is that Penelope is not Ithakan; she is Spartan (Katz 1991: 29 ff.). I
suggest that Penelope’s remarriage means Telemakhos will not be basileus precisely
because he let her remarry. To do so would mean to lose the initiative that a basileus, by
definition, must have. Simply put: if Telemakhos behaves in an unkingly fashion, he
cannot be king. To allow Penelope to remarry under these conditions is to behave in an
unkinglike fashion.
I agree with scholars like Thomas (1988) and Thalmann (1998: 183) who argue
that for the young aspirants to power the possession of Penelope signifies more than
marriage with an attractive female; it signifies success in a competition against their peers
for a tangible and desirable prize. But the contest in question is ultimately not who gets
to marry Penelope, I want to suggest, but who gets to authorize Penelope’s remarriage.
What matters is who initiates Penelope’s movement from her old oikos to a new one. If
she does remarry, it will mean that Telemakhos has given in to pressure, to the command
“convey!” (e.g. 2. 113). And the person to whom Telemakhos addresses the gesture of
giving will be the new basileus, the husband of Penelope. Whatever being a basileus
means in Homer, it is clear that a basileus must behave like a basileus (cf. Collins 1988:
69 ff; van Wees 1992: 78-82). If Telemakhos cannot cut such a figure, by controlling its
defining sign-vehicles, he will never be king.
Repeatedly the suitors tell Telemakhos to make his mother choose a husband (e.g.
2. 114, 195; 20. 334-5). That is all he has to do, they say, and they will leave him and his
property alone. This brings the young man to an impasse. If he denies the suitors’
command to make his mother choose, the feast will continue. But as soon as his mother
41
leaves his house, Telemakhos loses any claim to power. He loses power because his
hand has been forced. Once that happens, he loses the capacity o f future control. His
power follows Penelope out the door.
A particularly vexed interaction can be resolved if we see Penelope’s marriage
and conveyance as defmientes o f Telemakhos’ authority. In the assembly at Book 2,
Telemakhos challenges the suitors to go to Ikarios, Penelope’s father, and compete for
her like proper gentlemen, by offering bride-gifts, es5va (52-4). Scholars have pointed
out that this is paradoxically exactly what the suitors urge Telemakhos to do (114,195)!
Page found the passage nonsensical:
Who would believe, if he had any choice in the matter, that

our poet would break the most elementary laws o f his craft,
making the Suitors repeat verbatim a proposal made by
Athene to Telemachus, and then making Telemachus reject
that proposal? But this is what happens (1955: 57, original
emphases).
There is a subtle difference, however, between the proposals, which Page overlooks. The
important thing is precisely whose proposal is followed, whose command carries
authority.
If Telemakhos obeys the suitors’ command that Penelope remarry, the one she
marries will be basileus. Since the suitors started pressuring for Penelope’s hand before
Telemakhos reached a point o f plausible control (a beard perhaps?), he now cannot order
his mother’s remarriage without deposing himself. Nor can he force the suitors to stop
pressuring him since he lacks the power to do so violently, which is ultimately what it
will take to settle the matter. At the very outset o f Telemakhos’ journey Athena advised
42
him to find proof that Odysseus is dead, give his mother away, and then find a way of
killing the suitors (1. 292-6). It is not an either/or situation.
Thus, we see that the interaction that takes place in the assembly is not as non
sensical as Page thought. First the suitors tell Telemakhos to convey his mother to her
father. Telemakhos says he cannot, but suggests that they sue her father for her hand.
There is a marked difference between the two proposals (cf. Katz 1991: 38). The two
proposals may indeed amount to the same thing, Penelope being sent back to Ikarios, but
the important thing will be on whose initiative. For Penelope will bear with her on her
trip back to Sparta the authority o f the man who initiated her movement.
2.2.2. “Pomp ” and power
Control over legitimating sign-vehicles, by means o f marital practices for
example, is an important dimension o f power in the Odyssey. This form of control is
directed inward, to one’s own community. The basileus’s fellows testify to his authority
by their obedience to his definitions and directives. Another dimension, directed
outward, is the specific ability to transport oneself and others across space appropriately
and effectively— this is the pompe or “conveyance.”
Conveyance, the effecting o f physical movement, plays an important role in the
constitution and contestation o f Homeric authority. The physical movement o f bodies
across space provides physical testament to the power o f whoever was responsible for
their movement. Thus conveyance can become a point o f contestation. Since it seems to
be a somewhat overlooked topic in Homer, some discussion of what conveyance entails
is here in order. Then I will show that the supplicant and the conveyance he seeks are
43
opportunities for the expression— and subsequent contestation— o f his sponsor’s power
(cf. Katz 1991: 144).
When a guest is hosted, the final step in the process is the act of send-off (Arend
1933: 28 ff.). In the Odyssey, this issue arises first on the island o f Kalypso. At the gods’
bidding, Kalypso relents and agrees to let Odysseus go. She gives him a cloak and a
chiton; a large sail; a belt; a head-cover.
And then she planned great-hearted Odysseus’ conveyance.

She gave him a large axe that fit his hands.
’OSuaaqi pgyaAqTopi prjSsTO T r o p T n j v

K ai t o t
5coks psv oi itsAsku\; pgyav, appsvov sv traAappoi... (5.

233-4).
Significantly Kalypso cannot simply give Odysseus the conveyance he needs. All
she can do is give Odysseus the means of cutting down the wood he will use to build his
own. She makes her inability to convey explicit in the following lines:
I will not convey him anywhere, for I do not have oared

ships and companions who can convey him on the sea’s
wide back
Tr6 [ i ' | / c o 6 s p i v ou T tp s y c o y s -' ou y a p p o i T ta p a v fjss

S T r r j p s T p o i K a 'i g T a f p o i , o '( k s v p i v t t s p t t o i s v s t t supsa
v c o to 0aAaoaqs (5. 140-2).
Kalypso associates the ability to convey with material wealth (a ship) and authority
(hetairoi to row it). These material elements support the symbolism of conveyance, and
the fact o f conveyance proves their existence.
Within a group, not just anyone can command conveyance. Indeed, there is a
direct relationship between commanding conveyance and power. When Arete oversteps
her bounds in a moment of exultation by commanding the Phaiakians to convey
44
Odysseus to his home, court elder Ekheneus delicately redirects the authority over such
matters to Alkinoos, who then claims power unequivocally, making the interaction’s
point more explicit:
‘Friends, she did not speak off the mark or

unconventionally, the wise queen. Listen to her.
But this command and its fulfillment depend on Alkinoos.’
Alkinoos then spoke and said,
‘Let the command be such then— if I live
and rule over the oar-loving Phaiakians’
co 4>iAoi, o u p a v p p iv a r r o o k o t t o u o u S ’ a t t o S o a p s '
p u S s lT a i (BaoiAsia T tsp icjjpcov aAAa t t i Q s o B s .
’A A k iv o o u 5’ ek xouS’ e 'x s to c i sp y o v ts etto s te .
to u5’ c x u t ’A A k i v o o s a T t a p E i j 3 E T O ^ c d u p o E u t e -
TOUTO PEV OUTCO 5 f| EOTCU ETTOS, CO KSV EyCO yE
C,coos OaipKEaai (fuAqpExpoioiu avaaaco (11. 342-9).
Control o f conveyance is a specific, and conventional, manifestation o f royal
power.8 That is why the old courtier Ekheneus referred to the appropriateness of Arete’s
words. He reminded the court, the queen did not speak a tto Souqs', which I translated
above as “unconventionally” (cf. LfgrE 11. 224-5). Ekheneus subtly defuses the tension.
He shows us that conveyance is a proper concern for the king. Ekheneus’ redirection
allows Alkinoos to perform his authority before his peers.
The connection between conveyance and power is made most explicit by
Penelope in this passage where she tells Aithon the limitations o f her oikos ’ hospitality:
Odysseus is not coming home, and you will not get con
veyance, since there are no leaders in the house
of the sort Odysseus was among men—if he ever was— to
convey and receive proper guests
8Philodemos seems to conceive something along these lines: t t o | _ h t e u o u o i v aAX ou

(3aaiAeuouaiv (On the g o o d king acc. to Homer, X X . 15 Dorandi), to condemn the behaviour o f later-day,
MSTaysvcov, kings. That is, they have the power o f kings, the pom pe, but they are not kings.
45
o u t ’OS uoosiis oI kovsAeuosTai, outs au TropTrfj?

TSU^ri, ETTEl OU XCMOl aT)|jdvXOpSS £lo’ EVl OIKCO,
o ios ’OS uooeus soke psx’ avS paaiv, si ttox’ eY|v ys,
^ eTuous aiS oious cxttotteptteu r|5e 5sxsa0ai (19. 313-6).9
Penelope further associates conveyance with adult male authority (|i£x’ avSpaoiv; see
Katz 1991: 143). The thought that Telemakhos might have that kind of authority never
crosses her mind.10
The suitors also never considered that Telemakhos had the capacity to command
conveyance. In truth, before his journey to the Peloponnese, he did not. Athena alone
was responsible for Telemakhos’ journey to the mainland for news of his father. But the
suitors’ reaction to discovering that Telemakhos is no longer on Ithaka is significant,
because they think that Telemakhos himself was responsible for his conveyance to the
Peloponnese. Let us consider that scene.
Athena had previously arranged for Telemakhos’ passage to the Peloponnese by
disguising herself as Telemakhos and speaking authoritatively to Noemon, a local sea-
captain, requesting his ship (2. 382 ff.). Noemon later drops by Telemakhos’ house to
find out if Telemakhos has returned from Pylos. This question stuns the suitors: “They
did not think that he had gone to Neleian Pylos, but was still there in his fields, or with
the pig-herd [oi 6’ a v a 0u|_iov E0dp(3Eov ou y a p Icjiavxo es TTuAov oixsoQai NrjAqtov,
9Penelope’s word-choice, a p p c x v T o p E S , is strangely appropriate to describe conveyance as a

function o f a man who has the ability to a p p c u v E i v , “to signify.” As Eustathios notes, a p p d v T c o p usually
means “leader” (1810. 50), but it is also related to an escort role, for instance a shepherd’s (cf. II. 15. 325).
10Cf. 4. 707: “Herald, why did m y child leave? D id he need to board swift ships that are like sea
horses for m en...? [Kppu£, tittte S e poi ttcxk o’ix s ic c ; ou5s x( piv XP£C0 vftoSv cokutt6 pcov’ tti(3ocivepev,
cu 0’ aAos'iTTTroi dvSpotoiv yi'vovTca
46
aAAa ttou auTou aypcov p prjAoioi TTapsppsvai fie ouPcoTp]” (4. 638-9). They
immediately want to know:
What companions followed him? Ithakan nobles, or his

field-hands and maids? He could also have done that! And
tell me this true, so I will know it: Did he take your dark
ship from you by force, or did you give it willingly since he
commanded it?
riv es aurcS
xoupoi 8TTOVT ; ’ IGaxps EâipsToi, fj SOI auTou
Gprss te Spoofs te ; SuvaiTO xs xai to TsAfaoai.
xai poi tout ayopsuoov STpTupov, 6c|)p’ su siSco,
fj as pip cxekovtos a n p u p a vrja psAaivav,
ps EKcdv oi Scokcxs, ettei upoaTTTuâTO puGcp (4. 642-7).
Telemakhos’ conveyance to the Peloponnese represents a turning point in his rise
to power. The suitors finally take the threat he poses seriously. They take it so seriously,
they finally stop playing (659). This is something they did not do when a god visited
them (1. 103-12), or when Telemakhos outright threatened to kill them (2. 323). But they
are not playing now (cf. Scodel 2001). Telemakhos had broached the topic of
conveyance once before. At 2. 319-20 he had said he was willing to go to Pylos even as
a mere passenger if he had to, “Since I am not in command o f ship or companions.
Indeed that would be more in your interest! [ou y a p up os EurjpoAos ou5’ spETacov
y iv o p a r cos w) ttou uppiu EEiaaTO xspSiov sluai].” Indeed: the suitors would not care
at all if Telemakhos went to the port and purchased a ticket for Pylos. When Antinoos
finds out that Telemakhos has really conveyed himself to Pylos, the question that is most
important to him is, how? Was the conveyance proper? Did Noemon give his ship
willingly, or unwillingly? Was he accompanied by nobles or by slaves? The emphasis in
47
both these questions is on deference. Slaves (SrjxEs11 and SpcoE?) are obliged to do what
is demanded o f them. But “picked” men have the option o f disobeying if they do not
perceive the requester’s authority to pick them. What gets Antinoos worried is that
Telemakhos is starting to behave like a king; people are starting to recognize the basileus
in him. That is why he reacts so violently following Noemon’s visit:
His dark mind filled with great rage, his eyes

were like bright fire: ‘Alas, this journey o f Telemakhos’
has really turned into something.
We said it wouldn’t come about. When so many are
opposed, if a young child just takes off like that,
commandeering a ship and picking nobles
from the people, this is the beginning o f further trouble’
Peveo? Se p sy a <j>pEvss aptjupEAaivai

TTipTrAavT, oaoE 5 e oi trupj AapTTEXOcovxi siKxqv
cd ttottoi, fj p sy a spyov uTTEptjuaXcos eteAeoSp
TqAEpaxcq o5o? pSs- 4>oc|j£v 5 e oi ou teAesoScxi.
ei xoaacovS asKqxi veo? ttou? oi'xexcu auxco?,
vfja spuaaapEvo? Kpiva? x’ a v a 5rjpov ap iax o u ?,
apÊi kcu tTpoxIpco kokov sppsvai (4. 661-667).12
Noemon recognized Telemakhos as a legitimate leader, the basileus by birthright
(cf. 1. 387), while the suitors were trying to keep him from becoming basileus by
(literally) belittling him. It is a nice irony that the basileus Noemon thought he
recognized in Telemakhos was really Athena in disguise. The different ways Noemon
n The question o f the Homeric thetes’ status is irrelevant here. On Odyssean servitude see in
general Ramming 1973. What is important here is that the thete, like the slave, is obliged to do what the
owner/boss demands.
12Aristarkhos athetized the first two lines o f A ntinoos’ speech, supposing them to be interpolated
from //. 1. 103, and ou Ssdvrcos, not fitting the context (W est OdCom 1: 234). Perhaps he did not realize
the significance o f this moment, or the importance o f the fact that Telemakhos went o ff to Pylos on his own
initiative; or that Antinoos thinks he did. Aristarkhos did not see how a discussion o f logistics could merit
blazing eyes and rage.
48
and Antinoos refer to Telemakhos are indicative. Noemon said to the suitors, “What
would anyone do, when such a man [avqp toioutos ].. . requests something?” (648-651).
Antinoos says to the suitors, “If a young child [vsos ttcxis] can take off like that while so
many are unw illing.. ( 6 6 5 ) .
Antinoos’ scenario is a negative picture o f what constituted proper conveyance.
In his joke, Telemakhos steals a ship from Noemon and mans it with field-hands and
handmaids. To have legitimate conveyance, one receives the means for it as a gift from a
willing giver. One does not seize them by force. Second, those with authoritative
command over conveyance are accompanied by other elites, one’s hetairoi (see Donlan
1998). It matters little in the scheme o f things that Telemakhos was not really
responsible for the conveyance. Athena was behind it. To Telemakhos she appeared in
the guise of Mentor, telling him that (s)he will go and prepare a ship and a willing crew
(292: E0sAovTfjpas, an hapax) while he prepared provisions (2. 270 ff.). But to the crew
and Noemon she appeared as Telemakhos (2. 382-7). Athena was putting the prince
through the motions of kingship, even though the prince was not really there. Yet
Noemon and the crew believed that Telemakhos was capable o f kingly behavior. That is
the important point about Telemakhos’ departure from Ithaka, and why the suitors
suddenly become uncomfortable.
49
2.3. Telemakhos and his supplicants
Scholars have long read Telemakhos’ journey abroad as an education.13 In his
travels abroad Telemakhos learns how to conduct himself in Heroic Society. I suggest
here that supplication is an important part o f Telemakhos’ education. It is central to his
increasingly successful performance o f kingship, which is most effective when he
sponsors two supplicants: a prophet and a beggar. Telemakhos’ interaction with the
prophet will show to us, the audience, that he has learned how to behave like a king.
Similarly, his interaction with the beggar will prove this to the suitors.
2.3.1. Theoklymenos the prophet
What better way to express Telemakhos’ progress in his kingship-education than
by giving him his first supplicant (Lateiner 1995: 155). A fugitive prophet,
Theoklymenos, appears to Telemakhos on the beach of Pylos as he is about to set off for
home, and supplicates him for conveyance (15. 221 ff.). Theoklymenos’ supplication
thus represents a transition in the Telemakheia from Telemakhos as a guest to
Telemakhos as a host. Theoklymenos’ appearance allows us to see what the prince has
learned in his travels abroad.
The episode with Theoklymenos has been troublesome to critics for two main
reasons.14 The first reason is the genealogical attention given to a character whose role is
13This reading goes back to Philodem os’ On the g o o d king according to H om er (Fish 1999).
More recently see e.g. H. W. Clarke 1963; P. V. Jones 1988; Thalmann 1998: 206-22; Heath 2001.
14See Thornton 1970: 58-62; Austin 1975: 274-5. Fenik’s (1974: 233-4) is the best work on the
topic. He is concerned to show that the episode is completely within the realm o f possibility in terms o f
authentic epic technique.
50
at best marginal. Theoklymenos (the poet tells us) is related to the great prophet
Amphiaraos, and is the direct heir o f his prophetic gift. However, the interest in
genealogy here is not un-Homeric, as Fenik (1974: 236) has shown. Nor is it irrelevant.
It serves the purpose o f quickly illustrating the status and character o f Telemakhos’
supplicant. Theoklymenos is not only a seer from a line stretching back to Melampous,
and a scion of both Pylian and Argive aristocracies, but he is also related, through his
cousin Amphiaraos and his uncle Kleitos, to the gods.15 Such a valuable supplicant can
be protected only by a worthy host. In this sense, it is not inappropriate for the poet to
delay naming the supplicant until after he has listed his genealogy, because
Theoklymenos’ heritage is supplicating with him.
Theoklymenos meets Telemakhos as he is preparing to launch Noemon’s ship and
return home. Perhaps in keeping with his lofty heritage, Theoklymenos dispenses with
supplicant protocol (Page 1955: 86). He asks Telemakhos who he is before he reveals his
own identity. Nonetheless, Telemakhos accepts him, and they set off for Ithaka. The
second problem with Theoklymenos arises once they arrive and Telemakhos tells his
companions to go ahead without him. The interaction that ensues between Telemakhos
and Theoklymenos deserves full citation:
Godlike Theoklymenos addressed him,
15Another reason for the genealogy perhaps might be the link with Argos. Argos is notably the
one important Peloponnesian polis that Telemakhos does not tour (with Mykenai, for obvious reasons). Its
inclusion here, both genealogically (Theoklym enos’ great-grandfather Melampous m oved from Pylos to
Argos once his brother Bias married N eleus’ daughter Pyro and became king o f Pylos) and criminologicaly
(Argive kinsmen o f the man Theoklymenos slayed are after him), serves to show that Telemakhos is now
on a par with Nestor and Menelaos; the reason being that he can undertake to protect a fugitive that Argives
are after. This is a role that only someone on a par with Nestor and M enelaos, the kings o f the other two
main Homeric poleis o f the Peloponnese, should be able to perform.
51
“And I, dear child, where should I go? Should I approach

some man’s palace who is powerful in rocky Ithaka? Or
should I go straight to your and your m other’s home?”
Telemakhos cannily [ttsttvumevos]16 spoke in response, “I
would suggest [keAoimtiv] you go elsewhere rather than my
home. Not that we lack for hospitality. For you though
it might be worse, since I will be away and my mother
will not see you. Because there are suitors in the house she
does not show herself often, but upstairs weaves at her
loom. I recommend [TTKjâuaKopai] another man you might
approach fixoi]: Eurymakhos, the noble son o f skillful
Polybios, to whom the Ithakans look as if to a god. He is by
far the best man [apioxos] and most eager to marry my
mother and have the privilege [yspa?] o f Odysseus. Only
Zeus, living up high knows if he will meet a bad end before
the wedding.” An auspicious bird [5e£ios opvis] flew up
for him as he spoke: a hawk, the swift messenger of
Apollo. In his claws he was tearing at a dove and pouring
down feathers between the ship and Telemakhos.
Theoklymenos called him apart from his companions, took
hold of his hand and said, “Telemakhos, the auspicious bird
did not come without a god. I knew it was an omen the
moment I saw it. There is no kinglier family than yours
among the people of Ithaka. Yours is always the
strongest.” Telemakhos cannily [ ttettvuijevos'] responded,
“If only this comes true, stranger. Then you would know
such hospitality and gifts from me, that when people saw
you they’d consider you blessed.” Then he addressed
Peiraios, his faithful companion, “Peiraios son of Klytes,
you obeyed me before more than any other companion who
followed me to Pylos. Now take my guest to your home,
host him and honor him appropriately until I return.” Spear-
famed Peiraios responded, “Telemakhos, even if you stayed
away long, I will take care o f him. He will not lack for
hospitality.”
Why does Telemakhos suggest that Theoklymenos supplicate Eurymakhos? And when
the omen appears, why does he change his mind? Why does Theoklymenos point out the
Telemakhos’ family is the “kingliest”?
16On this word and Telemakhos’ education see Heath 2001.
52
Fenik (1974: 237-9) saw in Telemakhos’ gesture “a moment of pessimism and
dilemma.” Telemakhos knows Eurymakhos is the leading candidate for the job of
husband and basileus. “ [A]t least [Eurymakhos] will have the wealth and influence to
offer Theoklymenos the protection he seeks.” Then, once the omen appears, he considers
it reasonable that Telemakhos changes his mind, since he now realizes he has a chance
against him. Lateiner (1995: 151) interprets: “ [Telemakhos] is taking economic
advantage for once of another’s house and supplies. He intends to force hospitality duties
on one o f the company that is seizing his stores. He is dueling with hospitality.”
Hoekstra answers: “Why not? With a stranger whose only relation with the young man is
that he has been his passenger, Eurymachus has no quarrel at all, and of course he is
bound by the normal laws of hospitality” (OdCom 2: 263).
These different interpretations shares two assumptions. First, they assume that
Telemakhos is speaking in earnest. He is not. Second, they assume that he is somehow
addressing Eurymakhos. He is not. His one and only addressee is Theoklymenos himself
(cf. Lloyd 2004). What provokes Telemakhos’ suggestion that Theoklymenos supplicate
Eurymakhos is something the seer said: Ttrj y a p sycb, <]>iAs t s k v o v . Yco; tsu ScdpaG’
'iKcopai // av5pcov, oi Kpavaqv ’ IGaKpv Kaxa Koipavsouaiv; // r\ i0us oijs ppTpos tco
Kai aoio Sopoio; (15. 509-11). These words are markedly condescending, in keeping
with the uncouth manner Theoklymenos has already imposed upon Telemakhos on the
seashore (15. 260-4; Page 1955: 86). Furthermore, the question serves to present a rift
between the power on Ithaka and Telemakhos’ house: Should I go to a powerful m an’s
house? Or should I go to yours and your mother’s, dear child?
53
Telemakhos is rightly annoyed by his supplicant’s presumptuousness and
condescension. He is his sponsor and protector; Theoklymenos must understand this, and
his place. Telemakhos’ response is canny and dripping with sarcasm. He tells him to go
to Eurymakhos, the “best man on the island.” Theoklymenos can have no doubt that this
entails going over to Telemakhos’ enemy, and that is how Telemakhos will take it. He
does not need his prophetic heritage to know this. Telemakhos has told him that
Eurymakhos wants Odysseus’ geras (15. 522).
The omen that appears at Telemakhos’ wish is crystal clear, and Theoklymenos
knows what it means (and we know he knows, since we know he is the heir of
Amphiaraos’ gift). It means Telemakhos will overcome the suitors. Accordingly,
Theoklymenos does not “rush to discover a more propitious om en... to ensure his own
protection from unscrupulous hosts” (Lateiner 1995: 151). He knows what the omen
means, but he, canny as well, instead o f outright saying what we know, i.e. that
Telemakhos will be victorious, addresses the omen to the status-jockeying in which he
and Telemakhos are engaged. It means, he tells him, “There is no family more kinglier
[yevos (SccaiAsuTspov] than yours on Ithaka. Yours is always the strongest” (533-4). In
other words he is capitulating and apologizing for insulting Telemakhos, for insinuating
that he is unable to protect him. He realizes that Telemakhos is a force to be reckoned
with, and we realize that Telemakhos has learned all that he needs to learn on the
Peloponnese.
Theoklymenos is there, in brief, for two reasons: to show that Telemakhos, by
accepting a worthy supplicant, has attained the status of a king; and two, to show that
Telemakhos has learned to uphold that kingly figure. It remains for Telemakhos to prove
54
his kingship before the suitors by accepting another supplicant. Paradoxically, this
supplicant will be worthy.
2.3.2. Aithon the beggar
Athena’s disguise of Odysseus was part o f her plan to help Odysseus and
Telemakhos restore their house. She “darkened his limbs into black and bent, destroyed
the shining hair on his head, and put a rag around him, which would make a man who
saw it despise its wearer [Kapvpco pev XP°a KaXov evi yvapiTTXoioi peXsoai, £ av 0 as 5’
sk KsbaXps oXsaco x p iy a s, apcjh 5s XaTôs soaco, o kev oxuyspcnv i5cov av0pcoTros
sxovxa]” (13. 397-400; cf. 434-5). When Eumaios “handed over” this repugnant
creature as a supplicant to Telemakhos (16. 66-7), he probably did not know that the
beggar would become a focus o f competition between Telemakhos and the suitors. The
old focus, Penelope, has led to a stalemate. As I argued above, Telemakhos cannot let
her remarry but neither can he stop the suitors from pressuring him to let her remarry.
The supplicant-beggar provides an opportunity for Telemakhos to employ his own
initiative, to define what is and is not proper and compel the suitors to acquiesce (Nagy
1999: 233). By championing the beggar, Telemakhos presents him self as possessing the
kingly, but also divine, power to define the status o f others (cf. 16. 211-2).
The suitors know that a different Telemakhos has returned from his voyage.
Antinoos, who once called him a “young child” (4. 465), now calls Telemakhos a “man”
(16. 364). He also calls him “knowledgeable,” STnoxqpcov (16. 374), and is afraid that
he will gather the assembly and denounce (aTropquiosi) them— this time successfully.
Regardless, Telemakhos will employ his advantage to defeat his rivals, to deprive them
55
o f control. Their ultimate loss o f control, and their defeat, will be signaled by some of
the strangest extant lines in epic:
Pallas Athena evoked in the suitors

unquenchable laughter; she struck their wits loose.
They were now laughing with jaw s not theirs,
eating blood-drenched meat. Their eyes
filled with tears, their hearts felt lament
...pvqaxfjpai 5s TTaAAas A0qvq

aajSsoTov ysAco copos, TrapeTrAay^sv 5s voppa.
ot 5’ q'5q yvaSpoiai ysAcocov aAAoxpioiaiv,
cupocjiopuKxa 5s 5q Kpsa rjoSiov oaos 5’ a p a a<}>scov
SaKpuocjMV TTipiTAavxo, yoov 6’ cotsxo 0up6s (20. 345-
9).
This is indeed as stark an omen as the Homeric corpus has to offer. But is it here
to remind us, once again, only that the suitors are doomed? I think not. These lines
conclude a series o f three tests that Telemakhos and Odysseus, disguised as a beggar
supplicant, have to face together. They represent a crescendo in the struggle over
possession of Odysseus’ household. Fittingly, the suitors lose possession o f the
household when they lose possession o f themselves (Colakis 1986).
Before we return to these lines, we first must discuss the three tests that
Telemakhos and Odysseus undergo that lead up to the revelation. The three tests come in
the form of three insults, three hurled objects: a footstool, a stool, and a c a lf s foot.
Telemakhos must face the three insults with his father, progressively gaining more force
as their efficacy decreases.17
17See Fenik 1974: 185-186; Mumaghan 1987: 105-106; Lateiner 1995: 121.
56
The first occasion: Antinoos throws a stool, a 0pf)uus, at Odysseus and hits him
squarely on the back. Odysseus shakes his head; Telemakhos says nothing, leaving the
collective voice o f the suitors to rebuke Antinoos, since “he might be some heavenly
god.” Odysseus sits on the threshold (17. 445-491).18
The second time an object is hurled: Telemakhos has just vouchsafed his
supplicant’s safety, but not on his sole authority. “Stranger,” he has said, “don’t be afraid
o f any Akhaian, since whoever assaults you will have to deal with a crowd. I am your
host, but the princes Eurymakhos and Antinoos guarantee it, canny men that both are
[êivoSoKOs pev sycov, ETti 5’ aivETxov (SaaiArjss, E upupaxos xs Kai Avxivoos,
TTSTtvupevco ap^co] “ (18. 62-65). Telemakhos’ protection is again disregarded. One of
the “guarantors,” Eurymakhos, throws a ofytXcxs this time, which is probably a kind of
footstool (Houston 1975). This throw misses Odysseus and hits a servant (18. 394-398).
Telemakhos’ response to the suitors is more forceful:
Queer folk, you’re being crazy; you’re not holding your

food and wine. Some god is leading you astray.
You’ve eaten well— go home and sleep it off.
When your heart wills. I ’m not chasing anyone away.
5aipovioi, paiveoGs Kai oukexi ksu Gexe Gupcp

(Spcoxuv o u 5 e Ttoxrjxa- Gscdv vu x is upp’ opoGuvsi.
aAA’ eu Saiaapevoi KaxaKsiExs oikaS’ iovxes,
ottttoxe Gupos avcoys' S icokco 5’ ou xiv’ eycoyE
(18.406-409).
The force behind these ironic words lies in the awareness o f social interaction that
they convey. Telemakhos is subtly commanding the suitors, although he says explicitly
18For remarks on the symbolism o f the threshold in Odysseus’ return see Segal 1967: 337-40 and
Lateiner 1995: 122.
57
that he is not. It is not yet an explicit performance of his authority. His command is not
obeyed directly. Amphinomos, the one good suitor, speaks up and encourages his peers
to go home and leave the beggar alone. He recommends they have a last drink and call it
a night. The suitors agree and do so, but fail to notice that in doing so they are starting to
obey Telemakhos. That night Odysseus sleeps in the foyer (TtpoSopcp: 20. 1).
The third and final blow is the most ineffectual and provokes the strongest
response from Telemakhos. Its perpetrator is one Ktesippos, a man “who had full faith in
his father’s possessions,” o? 5q toi Kxsaxeoai TrstroiBcbs Ttaxpos toTo (20. 289):
Well! I too will give him a guest-gift, so that he

can give it to the bath-girl or to another
of the slaves!
aAA’ ays oi Kai eyed 5cd £eii/iov, ocjipa Kai auxo?

pa Aosxpoxocp 5cdp y epas pe xcp aAAco
Spcdcov...
He picks up an ox hoof from the basket and throws it at Odysseus. But Odysseus easily
dodges it, and the hoof hits the wall.
Ktesippos is striking at Telemakhos here. Specifically, he is striking at the fact
that Telemakhos has positioned the beggar within the palace and has given him an equal
portion of meat (20. 281-3). A beggar that is sitting inside the house and sharing the feast
is not a beggar. Ktesippos’ mock-aristocratic gift—he calls it a £e(viov—reveals that he
has sensed Telemakhos’ dual tactic of beggar ennoblement and noble embeggarment. He
is trying to disrupt it.
The suitors fall silent. Agelaos the son of Damastor tries to calm the spirits. He
tells the suitors to behave. Then, turning to Telemakhos, he takes a conciliatory stance.
He says that it is up to Telemakhos to end the occupation o f his house with one act.
58
Come on now, sit by your mother and tell her

to marry whichever man is the best and brings the most; so
you will happily control all your possessions,
eating and drinking, and she will look after another’s house
aAA’ ays ofi x a 5s ppxp'i uapsôpsvos KaxaXsôv,

yfjpao0’ os xis apiaxos avqp Kai TTXEiaxa tropriaiv,
o4>pa au psv x a iPcov TtaTpcbia travxa vepqai,
eaScov Kai Ttivcov, q 5’ aAAou 5copa Kopi^q (20. 334-
337).
This is the same pressure-tactic that Antinoos and Eurymakhos have been
employing (2. 113 ff.; 1. 450 ff). They are putting the onus on Telemakhos to tell his
mother to choose a husband; after that, they say, he can enjoy power over his possessions.
The suitors may use the same old tactic, but Telemakhos has learned new tricks and
techniques of kingship. Theoklymenos expresses the suitors’ loss o f control in his
prophetic idiom (Colakis 1986: 141). The suitors think they are laughing, but they are
really crying. They think they are eating meat well-done but it is raw [aipo<|)6puKxa].
What sets off this prophetic revelation is important: Telemakhos’ refusal to impose on his
mother to take a husband. All along, this, Penelope’s remarriage, has been the focus of
competition. Telemakhos now shows he understands what the contest was about.
Previously he referred to his unwillingness to force his mother to leave the house (2. 130-
7), but now he speaks in a very different tone:
No, Agelaos. By Zeus, and by the suffering o f my father

who far from Ithaca is either dead or wandering, I am not
delaying my mother’s marriage. I’m telling her to marry
anyone she wants. And I am offering countless gifts!
ou pa Zrjv’ ,’AysAae, Kai a'Aysa Ttaxpos spoTo,

os t t o u xfjX’ ’ IScxKris t) e'4>0ixai r] aXaXqxai,
ou xi 6iaxpi(3co pqxpos yapov, aXXa keAsuco
yqpao0’ co k’ £0eXr|, ttox'i aoTtexa Scopa 5(5copi (20.
339-342). ^
59
Slyly Agelaos tried to depose Telemakhos by telling him he could control his
property to his heart’s content if he just convinced his mother to choose a man. “You
will happily control all your possessions. Y ou’ll be in charge then, if you just do what we
say.” Not only does Telemakhos refuse this offer of puppet-power with some very
forceful words (an oath by Zeus and his father’s suffering), not only does he say he will
not make his mother choose a husband based on the proffered bride-price, but he says
that he will pay her husband dowry instead!19
The felicity of Telemakhos’ response to the third and final insult is illustrated by
one o f the most uncanny passages in the Odyssey. In this passage the reality behind the
perpetual feast is revealed and we see it in all its brute ugliness. It is a struggle for
control, and the suitors have lost.
2.4. The trick with repossession
The situation Homer presents us is extreme, but it is not without logic:
Telemakhos “outperforms” his rivals for power, and then relinquishes power to his father.
I take this to be the meaning o f the glance Odysseus throws Telemakhos that makes him
stop his attempt to string the bow, although (the poet states) he could have done it (21.
128-9; cf. Katz 1991: 152). Telemakhos’ field-trip to the Peloponnese was an education
on how power is created, challenged, and maintained. Even hospitable practices and
contexts provide a venue for the prince to become a warrior before he has even lifted a
19On the question o f bride-price versus dowry in epic see Perysinakis 1991; von Reden
2003[1995]: 50, with references.
60
sword (see van Wees 1992: 78 ff.). Telemakhos’ final claim to power is performed when
he hosts an unworthy beggar as if he were a worthy supplicant:20
Telemakhos sat Odysseus down, employing his trick,

inside the sturdy palace, by the stone threshold.
He laid down a shabby stool, and a small table.
He placed a portion o f the entrails beside, and poured wine
into a golden cup, and spoke: ‘Sit here with the men so you
can drink. Their condescensions and hands I will keep
away from you, o f any suitor. Since this here is no public
house; it’s Odysseus’. And it’s for me that he acquired it’
TqAEpaxos ’O d u aasa Ka0(5pu£, KspSea vcopcbv,

svTos suoxaGsos peyapou, Trapa Aaivov ouSov,
5(<t>pov oceikeA iov KaxaGs'is oAiyqv xs xpaTTEâv
Trap 5’ e x i Gei OTrAayxvcov poipas, ev 5’ olvov e'xbuev
ev Ssuai xpuascp, Kai piv Trpos puGov esittev
EuvxauGoi vuv fjao p e x ’ avSpacnv oiuorroxd^cov
Kspxopias 5 e x o i auxos Eyed Kai x £^Pa S acjiE^co
TTavxcov pvqaxqpcov, e t t e 'i ou x o i Sqpios e o x i u
o i k o s o5’ , aAA’ ’OSuofjos, Epoi 5’ EKxqaaxo keTu o s (20.
262-5).
The words “employing his trick [KEpSsa vcopcbv]” introduce Telemakhos’
endgame tactic (see H. M. Roisman 1994: 10 ff). Russo writes in his commentary on
this book: “ [The expression] refers to the advantage Telemachus has over the suitors in
his knowledge o f the beggar’s identity, which allows him to establish Odysseus in a
permanent place in the hall, under his personal protection, in preparation for the final
attack.... The small table and mean chair contribute to the illusion that this is merely a
harmless tramp” (OdCom 3: 120). Russo was on the right track, but Eustathios came
closer: “He is provoking the suitors against him, so that something bad might happen to
them all the quicker. That is the reason why he ministers to the guest and does not let the
20See Mumaghan 1987: 105-7; Lateiner 1995: 155; Nagy 1999: 233.
61
slaves do it” (1890. 60; cf. H. M. Roisman 1994: 20). Telemakhos, I suggest, is
provoking the suitors by figuring the beggar as a supplicant/guest.21 I suggested in the
previous chapter that a beggar could never be a supplicant. That Telemakhos now makes
a supplicant out o f a beggar is an unequivocal sign o f his newly acquired kingly power to
define. A beggar who is enjoying an equal share o f the meat,22 not o f left-overs or bread
(cf. 17. 362), who is sitting inside the dining room, drinking out o f a golden cup (on
which see Griffin 1980: 17-9), is not a beggar at all. At the same time, those who are
eating with him, are whatever he is, insofar as they are equals and in the same position.
If he is becoming a noble, they are becoming something less than noble (Lateiner 1995:
155).
Telemakhos’ words, concomitant with his gestures, are similarly potent. He
clearly intends them for the suitors, even though he addresses the beggar. Every word is
intended to unsettle his rivals, both literally and figuratively: svxau0oi vuv rjao pex’
avSpaaiv, “sit here with the men” removes the social distance between beggar and
nobles, assimilating the two. The same is true o f the position of Odysseus relative to the
suitors: inside the palace, next to the threshold.
21On the fundamental identity o f the tw o figures see Gould 1973: 92; Katz 1991: 135; Giordano
1999: 70ff..
^Strictly speaking, the Greek says he is given “portions o f entrails.” To judge from other
instances (exemplarily 3. 9, 40), the division o f the entrails was an appetizer after the sacrifice before they
divided up the rest o f the meat. For the idea o f equality o f portions=equality o f status cf. 20. 281; Rundin
1996. For feasts and power more generally see Dietler 1996; Dietler and Flayden 2001.
62
2.4.1. The inevitable bow
In the bow contest Telemakhos takes on both forces that have cast him in the
figure of a child, not a king: the suitors and his mother. He takes on his mother when she
is the first to champion the beggar’s request to try his hand at the bow. O f course the
suitors are horrified by the prospect, in case the beggar is able to do what none of them
could, string the bow and shoot (21. 285-6). Antinoos goes so far as to threaten the
beggar that he will be conveyed to Ekhetos the mutilator if he touches the bow (305-9; cf.
18. 84-87; Reece 1993: 39). Penelope mocks the suitors’ fears, “Do you think that if the
stranger strings Odysseus’ great b ow ... he will take me home and make me his w ife?...
That certainly will not happen.” (314-9). Eurymakhos takes up the argument. He says it
is not that that concerns them, but what people would say if the beggar strung the bow
and word got out. “It would be a source o f reproach [eAeyxea] against us” (329).
Penelope’s sarcastic comment, ti 5’ eAeyxsa x a u x a xi0so0s, can be translated, “Now
you’re worrying about reproach?!”
Come on, give him the well-crafted bow. Let’s see.

I speak thus and it will be so done:
If he strings it and Apollo gives him the win,
I’ll dress him in a vest and cloak, nice clothes.
And I’ll give him a sharp spear, to protect from dogs and
men. Also a sharp sword. And I’ll give him shoes for his
feet, and convey him wherever his heart and mind direct
aAA’ aye oi Sore xoôv eu^ oov, o<|)pa ’iScopev.

co5e y a p eêpeco, to 5 e Ka'i TExeAeopevov eoT ar
e’i ke piv evxavuar], 5cbr] 6e oi euyos ’A ttoAAcov,
eaaco piv yAaTvav xe x itco v a te, e'lpaxa KaAa,
Scdaco 5’ 6E,uv aKovxa, kuvcov aAKxfjpa Kai avSpcov,
Ka'i £i<t>os ap<t)r)KES' Scdaco 5’ utto troaa'i TreSiAa,
ttep^ co 5’ OTxnx] piv KpaSiq 0upos x s keAeuei (336-42).
63
These are very strong words for a woman, as Katz (1991: 151) points out. We see
this clearly if we compare them to the rupture, discussed above, which occurred on
Phaiakia when Arete overstepped the bounds o f propriety by boasting over the
accomplishments o f “her” guest, and in so doing addressed conveyance, a concern that
was not in her proper sphere (11. 336 ff). Ekheneus was there to defuse the situation by
directing the concerns into the sphere o f the proper figure: “Listen to the queen. The
word and deed derives [eysxai] from Alkinoos.” This is an association that Alkinoos
affirmed unequivocally:
Conveyance is a concern for all men,

and most of all for me. For I have the power among the
people
Tro|J7rrj 5’ avdpsooi psApasi

Ttaoi, paAiaxa 5’ spor xou yap Kpaxos sax’ evi Sppco
(11.351-2).
Similarly Penelope, by promising conveyance and weapons along with clothes and shoes,
is transgressing the limits of feminine largesse. She is treading on her son’s toes. But
Telemakhos claims unequivocal authority and so repeats Alkinoos’ words in the parallel
situation:
The bow is a concern for all men.

and most o f all for me. For I have the power in the house
xo£ov S’ avSpsoai psArjaei

Ttaai, paA iaxa 5’ s p o r xou y a p K p a x o s la x ’ svi oikco
(21. 352-3).
We have no way o f knowing how the bow contest would have proceeded had
Telemakhos not intervened. Would the beggar still have had a turn? Perhaps Penelope’s
tactic would have succeeded in shaming the suitors. The important thing was that
64
Telemakhos spoke up and claimed authority in the house before his mother, as he had
already done before the suitors. Thus, by displaying his proper role before both
disfiguring forces confronting him, Telemakhos finally stepped into himself. When the
suitors permitted the beggar to pick up the bow and take aim at the axes, it was solely on
Telemakhos’ authority. As the suitor Amphimedon recounted the contest in the afterlife:
“But when the great bow reached the hands o f Odysseus we all shouted out together not
to give the bow, even if he kept arguing. Telemakhos alone egged him on, gave the order
[aAA’ o ts X£^Pa S ikccvev ’O Suaapos peya toôv, sv0’ ripeis psv trdvxes opoKXeopsv
6TTS80 OI xo£ov pi) Sopsvai, pqS’ si pocAa ttoXX’ ayopsuoi, TqA spaxos 5e piv o!o?
ETtoTpuvcov ekeAeuoev]” (24. 172-5).
Beggars, by definition, possess no capital. Supplicants, I suggested in Chapter
One, were creatures of capital. To treat a beggar as a worthy supplicant and guest, as
Telemakhos did, can only be a serious affront against those who base their status on
wealth. By treating a beggar as a supplicant, and compelling the suitors to acquiesce,
Telemakhos was able to dramatize his power to define, and thus control, the statuses o f
those in his house; thus proving that he controlled his house.
Supplication’s ability to dramatize and define social situations and relationships
will also be a central theme in the following chapter, which deals with the use of
supplication by 5th century Athenian politicians.
THREE
The Production of Knowledge

(Spectacle and Education in Athens)
Crowds being only capable of thinking

in images are only to be impressed by
images. It is only images that terrify or
attract them and become motives for
action. For this reason theatrical
representations, in which the image is
shown in its most clearly visible shape,
always have an enormous influence on
crowds (Le Bon 1960[1895]: 68)
3.1. From epic to practice
An archaic honor for an archaic man: this was how the Spartans honored
Themistokles for masterminding the victory at Salamis over the Persians (Hdt. 8. 124. 3).
They gave him an olive wreath and the finest chariot in Sparta. 300 elite Spartiates, the
so-called Knights, then escorted him to the border with Tegea. The honors Themistokles
received at Sparta recall the honors that the Spartan king Menelaos offered Telemakhos
in the Odyssey (15. 68-85). He also offered Telemakhos a chariot and an escort. The
Spartans liked to pretend they lived Homeric lives (cf. Thuk. 1. 18. 1; Xen. Lak. Pol.
10.8; PI. Hipp. Maj. 285d; Link 2004). It would seem that their honors to Themistokles
were similarly Homeric (Jordan 1988).
“Of all the people that I know of, only him did the Spartiates honor with
conveyance [pouvov 5rj to u to v travTcov dvpOcbncov xcov ppsTs !5psv iTrapTiTjTai
uposTTsptpav].” To judge from Herodotos’ words, even for the archaizing Spartans the
practice of conveyance was obsolete by the 470s. The pompe abided in its sacral aspect
more familiar to historians of Greek religion, as a regular parade along a processional
route (cf. de Polignac 1995[1984]: 32-81; G raf 1996). The decline of conveyance as a
65
66
political practice by the early 5th century may have been what made it suitable as an
honor for an extraordinary person (cf. Paus. 8. 50. 3; Blosel 2004: 323-8). An Athenian
in Thukydides reminds the Spartans that they honored Themistokles “above all other
strangers who have come to you [auxov 6 ia xouxo upeTs exipqaaxs paA iaxa 5q
auSpa %evov xcbv cos u p a s sAOovxcov]” (1. 74. I).1
With Themistokles the Spartans also conveyed a message. Besides portraying
him as a person uniquely deserving o f heroic honor, Themistokles’ conveyance also
declared that the Spartans were the sort o f people to honor someone in this extraordinary
fashion. The fact that Themistokles’ parade went up to the Tegean border surely suggests
that the Tegeans, one o f Lakedaimon’s main rivals, were one intended audience o f this
display (cf. Hdt. 1. 65-8; 8. 26-7; Paus. 8. 48. 4-5).
Like conveyance, supplication also conveyed a message dramatically and
forcefully. But unlike the practice o f conveyance, supplication did not become obsolete.
No small factor for supplication’s survival was the fact that poets, artists and writers
continued to evoke and employ it in their projects. As Crotty notes, “In supplication, it is
not simply a matter o f a person describing a desperate need here and now for a particular
object: through their formalized gestures suppliants... align their particular demand with
a long tradition o f urgent needs” (1994: 18).
A supplication provoked what Barthes would call an “immediate pantomime”
(1972[1957]: 17). A supplicant, no less than a procession, immediately oriented the
1In the Hellenistic period, para p o m p e appears as a discrete honor referring to the safe conduct
provided to a sacred delegate (theoros) to his next destination. See Perlman 2000: 51.
67
audience’s sentiment and expectation. They knew that someone will appear and try to
seize the supplicant (the villain), and they also knew that someone else will appear to
protect him (the hero). The tripartite relationship structure (villain-victim-hero) was
useful for the tragic poets because it allowed them to develop dramatic tension
economically (see Kopperschmidt 1967; Burian 1973). A supplicant tableau oriented the
audience’s sentiment in a simple, conventional way.2
This tradition-endowed capacity of supplication was as useful for politicians as it
was for poets. Politicians used supplications to attract crowds and provoke general
interest in their cause (Aiskhin. 1. 60; And. 1. 110; A. Suppl. 480-9). When performed
under the right circumstances and in the right places, supplication provided a dramatic
narrative that informed social and political action no less than literary action. Indeed,
literature provided a model for political action (cf. V. Turner 1982: 61-88). Supplication,
accordingly, could be used iconically to vilify an enemy or to praise an ally, or simply to
present a political issue in stark moral terms. In Athens, the city that boasted o f being the
defender o f supplicants, “the final refuge o f the mightiest Hellenic refugees,” as
Thukydides described it (1. 2. 6), supplication spectacles had a particularly strong
resonance. They evoked familiar stories in which democratic kings, such as Theseus,
rally the people against a foreign enemy to defend unfairly persecuted supplicants. They
2O f course, skilled poets used supplication conventions to surprise and even shock their audience.
To name a few studies that discuss tragedians’ use and manipulation o f supplication along these lines: see
Sommerstein 1997; C. Turner 2001 on A iskhylos’ Supplicants; Flory 1978; Szlezak 1990 on Euripides’
M edea; Porter 1994: 89-93 on Orestes.
68
indexed notions o f duty, honor, piety and strength.3 They transmitted powerful messages
that circulated in the city, affecting social knowledge and sentiment. Supplication was as
useful in everyday political struggles as it was in revolutions; in every situation, that is,
where the crowd’s knowledge was the key to social and political action. Supplication’s
adaptability and usefulness guaranteed its survival from Homer to classical Athens.
The previous chapter examined how one literary character, Telemakhos, used
supplication to solve a literary problem. The following three chapters explore different
ways in which supplication was used to further specific, historically contingent, aims in
classical Athens. This chapter and the following will deal with aspects of Athenian
politicians’ use o f supplication in the 5th and 4th centuries respectively. The final chapter
will deal with slaves’ use o f the practice. Supplicants used the basic narrative frame of
the ritual (pursuer—victim—protector) in different ways and in pursuit of specific
outcomes, which, when successful, were like the final act o f an intuitively familiar play.
The uses o f supplications that will concern me in this chapter involve two
politicians, Ephialtes in the 460s and Andokides around 400. The AP, in a passage that is
too frequently dismissed as chronologically impossible, provides an account o f Ephialtes’
curious supplication in his underwear. I will first rehabilitate this source, and then show
how such a display might have been useful in Ephialtes’ campaign against the
Areopagos. Turning to Andokides, I will then discuss his use o f supplication to recast his
reputation. His involvement in the scandals o f 415 had tarred him. People knew him as a
3On the semiotic processes o f iconicity and indexicality in m ythologized politics see Flood 2002:
ch. 7.
69
coward who would not hesitate to turn on his closest friends and family to save himself.
Supplication helped him recast his audience’s memory. The supplication in question is
found in the narrative o f his defense speech, On the Mysteries; it is not an actual
spectacle. I include it in this chapter because, in political terms, the effects o f narrating a
supplication and actually staging it were functionally identical. Both the staged spectacle
o f Ephialtes and the manipulative narrative o f Andokides, I will argue, were designed to
access and influence Athens’ channels o f knowledge production and circulation. The aim
in each case was to produce knowledge and shape the crowd’s sentiment, which in the
Athenian democracy had immediate political consequences.
In order to better set the stage for these supplications it will be necessary to locate
supplication’s place in the Athenian political system more generally. I will do so by
discussing some contemporary critiques against supplication. The critiques of
supplication, I will suggest, conceal a fundamental unease with the aims o f those who
used supplication. Knowledge and sentiment, as Allen (2000a) has shown, were central
resources in the Athenian political system. The “professional” politicians (rhetores), who
dominated in the institutions by virtue o f their wealth and education, sought to promote
the institutions’ monopoly over the Athenian sentimental economy: determining when
and how the citizens “spent” their anger and pity. Supplication, and spectacles like it,
was a threat to that monopoly because they produced knowledge and evoked the crowd’s
sentiment while bypassing proper, institutional channels.4
4I use the term “public know ledge” rather than “public opinion” for three reasons. First, it is
closer to Athenian idiom. A jury was said to “know” (egnosan) a verdict. Political harmony was said to
com e about when citizens “know the same things” (t'au ta gignoskontes). Athenian “knowledge” was thus
a function o f sentimental disposition as much as collective pronouncement. The second reason I use
70
3.2. The critics o f supplication
The critics found supplications in court especially distasteful. Aristophanes, for
instance, pokes fun at “large men, six-footers [avSpes peyaAoi Kai TETparrpxîS']” who
parade their children before the jurors to supplicate for pity during their scrutinies ( Wasps
555-72; 975-8). Such spectacles were in fact common in the courts (Isok. 19. 321).5 The
so-called “Old Oligarch” complained that even respectable foreign dignitaries reached
out their hands in supplication to ordinary Athenian jurors. This made “the allies more
like the demos’ slaves [5ta xouxo ouv oi ouppaxoi SouAoi xou Sppou xcov ’ASpvaicov
KaSeaxaai paAAov],” he noted dryly ([Xen.] AP 1. 18).
Plato’s criticism of courtroom supplication is the most developed. In the Apology,
his version o f Sokrates’ defense speech, he goes to great length to criticize the (ab)use of
supplication. His Sokrates will not supplicate, though many others supplicate over trivial
charges and he is fighting for his life (34c). He presents an extended defense of this
decision. Sokrates will not supplicate because to engage in these “pitiable spectacles
[eAei va tcxutq S p d p a x a ]” (35b7) would be to demean both him self and the jurors. It
“knowledge” is because the English term, in m y view , better captures the factual claim s o f Athenian public
pronouncements. Here I am indebted to Ober’s discussions o f “democratic know ledge” (1996: 148-54;
2004), as w ell as to A llen’s treatment o f the role o f social memory and knowledge in Athenian penal
practice (2000a: 65-8 and passim ). Finally, I use “know ledge” because the term “public opinion” is
inextricably associated with the modem nation-state (see Habermas 1989[1962]: 89-101).
5Johnstone 1999: 111-25 provides a discussion o f this type o f courtroom appeal. He suggests that
the systemic effect o f such performances was to “enact democracy” by teaching their audiences the essence
o f democratic power. It is difficult to see w hy supplications would have this effect any more than normal
proceedings. A s Bdelykleon reminded his father, the same men who supplicate him in the courtroom and
make him feel like a god at the same time give him less than a tithe o f the Empire’s income (Ar. Wasps
664). Ambiguous lesson could be drawn from supplication.
71
would make him “no different than a woman [yuvaiKcov ouSeu Siacjispouaiv]” (35b2),
and it would demean the jurors because
the juror is not empanelled in order to do justice as a favor,

but to adjudge it. His oath is not to do a favor for whom he
decides, but to adjudicate according to the laws
ou y a p btt'i xouxcp KaSpxai o SiKaaxps, k m xcp

K araxapiêaSai xa SiKaia, aAA’ btt'i tco xpiveiv x a u x a -
Kai opcbpoKsv ou xapiEiaQa* bis av 5okt) auxcp, aAAa
SiKaoeiu Kaxa xous vopous (35c).
In this passage Plato puts his finger on the central problem involving supplication in the
democratic polis: it allowed people to dispense with institutional procedure. The
supplicant was not appealing to the Athenians’ laws and obligations, to their sense o f the
“rule of law.” Instead, he was appealing directly to their sentiment and sense o f personal
honor.
Sokrates (in Plato’s portrait) would rather die than corrupt the institution o f the
court by supplicating for the jurors’ favor (kharis). He has too much respect for the laws
of Athens, as he reiterates in the Kriton, to take that route. This perspective is not
confined to the philosopher. The orator Lysias points to the absurdity of magistrates’
supplicating on behalf of, or against, a private citizen in the course o f their official duties.
Officials should act out o f law-bound duty, he suggests, not personal considerations (15.
2-5). And Demosthenes reminds his audience o f their duty by counterposing the images
o f his enemy Meidias surrounded by his supplicating children and that o f him self
surrounded by the laws demanding that the jurors act out o f duty, not pity (21.186-8). A
similar rationale is surely behind a 4th century law which made it illegal to supplicate the
72
Council or Assembly over a fine imposed by either the Council, the Assembly or the
courts (D. 24. 50).
The critics protested that supplication aggrandized the juror’s sense o f personal
honor at the expense of the institution. In Aristophanes’ caricature, no small component
o f Philokleon’s addiction to jury service is the supplications o f large, wealthy men with
delicate hands. Their displays entertain him and make him feel like a god (Ar. Wasps
555-7, 571, 619-21). The critics attack only supplications in court, perhaps because
supplication’s nullifying effect was most immediately palpable in the agonistic context of
an Athenian trial. The Old Oligarch characterized foreigners supplicating the demos
outside the courtrooms as slavish (cf. PL Symp. 183a-b). Sokrates suggested that to
supplicate his jury would effeminize him. Its critics constructed supplication in the
courts as contrary to a law-regarding, duty-bound, masculine citizenship.6
Let us try to contextualize this reaction further in the Athenian political system.
In Athens, in the constant interplay between the institutions and the market, knowledge
produced in one arena had consequences in the other. It was in the class-interest of the
rhetores, the elite political experts who dominated institutional proceedings (see Ober
1989: 104-18), to support a sense of propriety regulating how knowledge and sentiment
should be produced. This was an especially pressing concern for a system with very
limited means o f enforcement. If, as Allen (2000a: 185) argues, “[ajnger and pity were
the political coin of the city,” elite political experts, by trying to limit how and when it
6On the intersection between masculinity, citizenship and the rule o f law see D. Cohen 1995a: 61-
86; Fisher 1998; R. Osborne 1998; more recently see J. Roisman 2005; Wohl 2002.
73
was spent, strived to dominate the city’s sentimental economy (cf. Allen 2000a: 151 ff.).
One pillar o f this project o f domination was the “rule of law” ideology, which insisted
that jurors discipline their sentiments in accordance with jurisprudence.7 As
Demosthenes lectures his opponent Timokrates: “The laws that rule us make [the jurors]
rulers o f everything. And they permit them, when they hear cases, to adjust their anger to
what they deem a crime: a great anger for a great crime, a small anger for a small one [oi
pev ovtes r|[iiv vopoi Kupioi toutoucji ttoiouoi Kupious aTravTcov, kcu SiSoaaiv
a u x o is aKouoacnv, onoiov av ti vopi^cooi to aSiKppa, xoiauTT] trspi tou
pSiKtiKOTOs XPO0®01 T1G °PYh> M£ya psyaXp, piKpov piKpa]” (24. 118; cf. 21. 224-5).
Laws, and institutional pronouncements more generally, were enabling
mechanisms that permitted jurors to focus their anger on lawfully defined objects. If
everyone felt angry in the right way, at whom the institutions directed, there would be
“same-mindedness” (homonoia), which was the term for sentimental equilibrium. In
homonoia “all citizens think the same th in g ,.. .their social and political differences are
submerged...” (Ober 1989: 297). Homonoia implied that all citizens “knew the same
things” (tauta gignoskontes: [D.] 13. 15), and felt the same way about them (D. 21. 2).
When the city was thus disposed every pronouncement would correspond to a single and
final enactment in harmony with precedent.8 Successive assemblies would not reverse
7For a brief summary o f the m odem debate over the question o f the “rule o f law” in Athens see
Todd 1993: 298-300. A llen 2000a: 384-5, n. 45 lists the scholars’ camps. I follow Cohen, who suggests,
“The ‘rule o f law ,’ far from appearing as a neutral term o f universally agreed significance, marks out a
contested territory intimately linked to strategies o f legitimation and domination” (D. Cohen 1995a: 36; cf.
1995b).
8The Roman version o f this ideology centered around the concept o f consensus, on which see the
interesting discussion o f Ando 2000: 131 ff.
74
each other, as notoriously happened in the case o f Mytilene (Thuk. 3. 36-50; cf. Ar.
Wasps 797-8). The real city would come to resemble the city imagined by the
institutions.
Plato’s own recipe to create the imagined city called for aligning political
sentiment and institutional action through a program o f total education. Plato’s various
social proposals would instill in all citizens an innate respect for institutional authority,
and lead to the “radical rule o f law, without force, over willing subjects [Tr|V xou vopou
ekovtcov apxpv oM ' °u Piociov TTS(|>uK\jiav]” (690c).9 In Plato’s utopia it would be
unnecessary to work at bridging pronouncement and enactment because the two would be
born as twins. Such a political system would be infinitely more manageable than the real
Athens. In Plato’s polis you would not see people condemned to death and yet “continue
to haunt the market like heroes, as if no one sees or cares [cos o u ts ^povnôvTO s oute
opcovxos ouSevos TrspivooTsT cocjttep ppcos]” (PI. Rep. 557a). You would not see
people like the politician Aristogeiton, who though condemned to pay multiple fines not
only did not pay, but also did not slink away into political exile; continuing, instead, to
parade around the market “almost as if with bells on” ([D], 25. 90). Far from being
disfranchised, we know that an unrepentant Aristogeiton even served as president o f the
Council (Dein. 2. 13; see Hunter 2000a). Demosthenes lists him as an example o f
politicians who despite being condmned and handed over to the Eleven for punishment,
“not only were not jailed but continue to make speeches in the Assembly [e’is t o
9For the Academ ics’ interest in a society founded on the “rule o f law,” as w ell as the different
social engineering methods Plato and Aristotle suggested for achieving it, see Morrow 1960: 544 ff.; D.
Cohen 1993; 1995a: 43 ff.; 1995b; Allen 2000a: 179 ff..
75
SeopcoT qpiov TrapaSoGevTes ou p ovov ouk s 5 e5 s v t o , aAAa Ka'i sS q p q y o p o u v ]” ( E p .
3. 16).10
The real Athens was too large a city to be managed. Its great size and the
multitude o f its population, Aristotle complained, led to frequent administrative
“improvisation [auToaxsdiaÊiv]” (Ar. Pol. 1326M4-22; cf. Xen. Hell. 2. 3. 24; E.
Cohen 2000: 15). As Isokrates noted,
[Athens] is so large and the crowd o f its inhabitants so

great, that the city does not present to the mind an image
easily grasped or sharply defined, but, like a turbid flood,
whatever it catches up in its course, whether men or things,
in each case it sweeps them along pell-mell
5 ta y a p peyeGos Ka'i to TrXf|0os tcov svoikouvtcov

to
ouk suouvotttos soTiv ou5’ aKpij3qs, OtXX’ COOTTSp
X eipappous, ottcos av skootov uTToAa(3ouaa xuxfi Ka'i
tcov auGpcotrcov Ka'i tgov TrpaypaTcou, outgo
KaxqveyKEV (15. 172, trans. Norlin).
The institutions attempted to channel, harness and control this “turbid flood” o f
human movement and circulation. The institutions were tradition-sanctioned public
arenas where individuals constructed and contested knowledge by means o f their
audience’s participatory validation. In the institutions’ agonistic system, the audiences
simultaneously adjudged the winner and helped bring about the enforcement o f the
winner’s claim or proposition. The knowledge produced in the institutions flowed
10Worthington 1992: 287 ff. is too skeptical o f Deinarkhos’ claim. D em osthenes’ 3rd Letter is
unequivocal. Perhaps, if Sealey 1960 is right that Aristogeiton claimed descent from the famous 6th century
tyrant-slayer, he ow ed his “teflon” status to his name. For the 4th century Aristogeiton see PA 1775; Berve
1926: v. 2, no. 122. That the descendants o f Harmodios also enjoyed privileged status is made known to us
by Deinarkhos, w ho argues that if “one o f the descendants o f Flarmodios,” i.e. Proxenos, was punished,
Demosthenes also should be punished (1. 63). For the authenticity o f D em osthenes’ letters 1-4 see
Goldstein 1968.
76
outward into the city with the audiences and circulated with them as gossip in taverns,
markets, and shops.11 It is not surprising that in Athens Rumor (Pheme) was a goddess
worshipped on the Akropolis (Aeskhin. 1. 128; 2. 145; Paus. 1. 17. 1).
Knowledge bom on mmor would flow back into the institutions, affecting
subsequent debates and decisions, and so on. In many ways the polis’ institutions were
constructed in opposition to the crowd, designed to be representations of the people’s
rationalized will. This facilitated their operation as arenas for the production of
knowledge and as conduits for its spread. Ultimately, the real work o f the democracy
took place not in the Assembly but in the Agora, where we must look to grasp the full
effect o f supplication.
3.3. The production o f knowledge in the Athenian democracy
Scholars often note that the Assembly’s decisions were “binding,” but fail to
appreciate the importance of producing and spreading knowledge in effecting its
decisions (Finley 1983: 8-9). The Athenian civic institutions functioned thanks to their
capacity to produce knowledge in the crowd. The institutions did not employ a standing
bureaucracy. They had only a very limited force with which to implement and enforce
their pronouncements (for example, the board o f the Eleven and maybe the “Scythian
Archers”), and these operated only in limited capacities and rarely independently of
individual citizens’ initiative (Hunter 1994). Individual initiative, in turn, was
u E.g. the run-up to the Sicilian invasion. According to Plutarch Alkibiades had the Athenians in
such a pitch that they w ould sit around, the young men in the wrestling houses and the old men in shops,
drawing up maps o f Sicily together and dreaming o f adventure and profit (Nik. 12.1; AIL 17.3).
77
constrained by the possibility o f reprisals against the citizen who took it upon him self to
enforce a public pronouncement, as Timokrates (D. 24. 160-8), Androtion (D. 22. 47-57),
and the unnamed speaker of Demosthenes 47 discovered. What determined whether and
how far a given pronouncement— law, decree or verdict— would be enforced was the
degree to which public knowledge and sentiment were behind it (cf. Allen 2000a: 106-7).
Or, as the “rogue” Aristogeiton might put it (according to his opponent), “In a democracy
you can say and do whatever you want, as long as you do not care what kind o f
reputation you get and no one kills you on the spot for it [oxi e^ eoxiv xai Asysiv xai
Ttoieiv psxpt TtavTos oxi civ (3ouAr|xa{ x is sv Srn-ioxpaxia, EavTtsp xou Ttdios x is
sivai 5o£si o x a u x a ttoicov oAiycoppap, xai ouSsis stt ou5evi xcov a6ixr|paxcov
euOus auxov attoxxsivEi]” ([D.] 25. 25).
In such a climate of “irregular” enforcement, institutions relied on and
simultaneously produced witnesses, knowledgeable individuals who could be called upon
to add their memory to a public act or to the enactment o f a public pronouncement.12 As
Allen shows, “In Athens, the public spectacle provided by a trial was a particularly good
occasion to ... craft social memory, not least because public spectacles produced the
greatest number o f witnesses” (2000a: 66).13 Institutional pronouncements, as a result o f
this process o f memory- or knowledge-production, had a very real impact.
Pronouncements gave the impression o f leading to immediate results, even though the
12The name for the expression o f this kind o f knowledge was thorybos in the institutions and boe
outside them (cf. Bers 1985; Allen 2000a: 170; Tacon 2001).
13See further Strauss 1985b; R. Osbom e 1994; Bers 2000. See also Hopkins 1991 for a discussion
o f the Roman institutional equivalents.
78
two, pronouncement and its enforcement, were parallel and somewhat independent
processes. A scene from Aristophanes’ Ekklesiazousai gives us a sense of the
interconnection between the two processes.
In that play, Aristophanes’ parody o f assembly procedure, the women decide that
they can manage the city better than the men. Thus they decide to infiltrate the Assembly
and pass a decree that officially turns over the government to the women. Since women
could not enter the Assembly, their first order o f business is to find suitable disguises that
will allow them to take front-row seats. From there they can support their ring-leader’s
proposal and harass those who speak against it. Thus disguised in a cloak and beard, and
supported by her fellow conspirators, Praxagora, their leader, secures the decree. Her
first official act as head o f the city is to pronounce the installation o f a communistic
regime of free food and free love.
The scene then shifts to the street, where a man busily oversees his slaves
carrying all his property to the market, in accordance with Praxagora’s decree. Someone
confronts him and asks, is he moving house or taking his property to be pledged? He
cannot conceive that someone would actually be going out o f his way to meet the
decree’s requirements. To his surprise he hears:
A: I am intending to bring these to the downtown market

according to the laws that have been passed. B: You’re
intending to bring them?! A: Certainly. B: Then you’re
insane, by Zeus the Savior! A: How? B: How? Easily. A:
What, I shouldn’t obey the laws? B: What laws, you poor
fool? A: Those that have been passed. B: “Those that have
been passed?” You’re really stupid. A: Stupid? B:
You’re the stupidest o f all, aren’t you? A: Because I do
what is commanded? B: Should the wise do what is
commanded? A: Above all others. B: The wimpiest
79
rather. A: You don’t intend to surrender your property?

B: I’m waiting to see what the crowd has in mind.
A. pa A f aAA’ aTtcxjiepeiv auT a peAAco tt) ttoAsi ss Tqv

a y o p a v K ara xous 5e5oyp svou s vopous. B. peAAeis
aTTO(j)ep8iu; A. ttccvu ye. B. KaKoSaipcov a p ’ el, up xov
A ia tov acoTppa. A. ttcos; B. ttcos; paSicos. A. xi 5’;
oux'i TTeiSapxe^v pe x o is vopoioi 5eT; B. ttoioiciv, co
Suaxpve; A. t o i s 5e6oypevois- B. 5e5oypeuoioiv; cos
a u op xos pa0’ a p a . A. a v o p x o s; B. ou y a p ;
pA iSicoxaxos pev ouu aTraâiravxcou. A. oxi xo
xaxxopeuov ttoico; B. xo xaxT opevov y a p 5eT TroieTu
xov acbbpova; A. p aA ioxa rravxcou. B. tov pev ouv
a(3eAxepov. A. au 5’ ou Kaxa0e?vai Siavoep B.
4>uAa£opai, -rrpiv av y i5co x o TrAp0os o xi (3ouAeuexai
(758-70).
The “poor fool” has internalized the institutions’ ideology o f the rule o f law. He
believes that institutional pronouncements are the final word in legislation and
adjudication. He is eager to meet the decree’s requirements. The other, the “wise guy,”
considers the crowd the true measure o f Athenian politics. He will gauge the crowd’s
sentiment and act accordingly. The scene gives us a good sense o f the dynamic hustle of
Athenian politics. The law-abider, “A,” is bringing his property because “they’re talking
about it in the streets..., they’re saying they’ll bring it, they swear [Aeyouai youv ev
Tafs bSois... Kai b a a iv oiaeiv ap ap ev o i]” (773-4). “B,” the opportunist, knows that
an institutional pronouncement is binding only if the crowd decides to make it binding,
and that decisions are not final when they are pronounced; they could be reversed (812-
29), or simply ignored. To enforce a pronouncement needed as much work as to
introduce the motion in the first place.
So much for the satyrist’s account. A historical example o f the difficult work
necessary to pass a decree and enforce it is provided by Thukydides’ account o f how a
80
group of oligarchs took over the government in 4 1 1 (8. 4 7 ff.). According to Thukydides,
the ring-leader Peisander started the process by making the rounds o f the “clubs which
existed formerly for trials and magistracies [ £ u v c o p o a t a s a 'l u s p e x u y x a v o v u p o x E p o v
sv x(j nroAsi o u o a i stt'i 5 i Kens Ka'i d p x a fs T ’ (8. 5 4 . 4 ).14 These represented focal points
o f the Athenian “knowledge networks.” He worked hard to convince them that a new
government was necessary if they wanted to secure Persian aid.
When the Assembly meeting at Kolonos voted itself out of existence, the
pronouncement had been prepared by laborious canvassing and lobbying. As Thukydides
notes, “The work, because it was performed by many intelligent men, though it was
massive, proceeded in good order [aTr’ avSpcov ttoAAcov Ka'i £uvsxcov TTpaxQeu t o
epyov ouk aTreiKOXcog Kainep p sy a ou TTpouXGoppasv]” (8 . 6 8 . 4 ). Both Thukydides
(8 . 6 7 . 2 ) and the AP (2 9 . 4 ) state that the Assembly granted broad leeway to the speakers
to raise radical, constitutional issues. Such was the climate Peisander was fostering.
Securing a decree that pronounced the change of government was not the end of
the matter. The conspirators still had to enforce the pronouncement. The 4 0 0 new
councilmen-elect did this by marching to the market, each with a dagger hidden on his
person, accompanied by 120 “young thugs” (neaniskoi), “whom they employed
whenever handiwork was needed [otg e'xPCOVTO £1 T* t 014 §eoi XEipoupysiv]” (8. 6 9 . 4).
They ordered the 5 0 0 “former” councilors to vacate the Council and receive payment for
the remainder o f their term, which they gave them as they came out. A decree still left
14Calhoun 1913 for a still-valuable survey. A lso see Sartori 1957; Connor 1971: 25-9; D avies
1981; Hansen 1991: 266-87; Rhodes 1995b; N. F. Jones 1999: 223 ff..
81
room for negotiation. It did not conclude the process, though it pretended to.15 The 400
conspirators came with money and with muscle, prepared to negotiate the Assembly’s
decree with one or the other. The public show o f force at the Council, meanwhile, would
have cowed the spectators and helped produce their acquiescence.
The moment of official pronouncement was not the first word, or the final one.
Rather, official pronouncements were interventions in a protracted political project that
had started and would finish outside the institutions. If the Assembly was, as Ober
argues, “a battleground o f speech in which words were, through felicitous speech
performances (i.e. the enactment o f decrees), transmuted into social and political
realities” (1994b: 116), this was only because in the first place substantial work had been
expended to create the conditions for a felicitous speech act to occur and resonate.16
Aiskhylos captures the feel o f enactment: “The air shuddered as the whole demos raised
their right hands and passed this proposal [ttavSqpiai y a p X£P°'1 5s£icovpois ecfipi^sv
ai0(]p tov5s KpaivovTcov Aoyov]” (Suppl.607-8). But, as we saw in Chapter One, this
particular felicitous moment, the decision to defend the Danaids against their cousins,
was far from spontaneous. Its “transmutation” into reality was labored.
To some extent, the labor itself was spontaneous, as participants in the process
automatically became witnesses and diffusers o f the institution’s acts. Husbands would
15“Within our own legal system s disputes are deemed settled follow ing the decision o f a judge.
This decision is subsequently executed by public authority. This encourages the view that settlement o f
disputes and the pronouncements o f the judiciary are one and the same thing. Yet this is often not the case”
(Rouland 1994[1988]: 72; cf. Humphreys 1985b).
16Ober further discusses his theory o f Athenian “democratic knowledge” in Ober 1994a, and more
recently in Ober 2004.
82
talk to their wives about the Assembly (Ar. Ekkl. 550-2). Masters would talk to their
slaves and field-hands about it (Theoph. Khar. 4. 6). In this way, though only male
citizens could (formally) participate as assemblymen or jurors, the entire city was
implicated in what was said in the institutions through chains o f informal talk, or
“gossip” (cf. Allen 2000a: 99 ff ; Hunter 1994: ch. 4).
Calculated political labor was equally important for the institutions’ work. Some
actions were deliberately aimed to produce knowledge in the crowd, in order to prejudice
a pronouncement or assist in an act o f enforcement, or both. Finley called attention to
this Athenian form of “lobbying” that is too frequently “taken for granted by
contemporary writers to the point o f total silence” (1983: 83). An Athenian “lobbyist”
was called logopoios. Theophrastos’ satyric portrait o f this figure is informative. His
logopoios likes to loiter in the markets spreading his views about current political events
to anyone who will listen. He presents himself as only a more informed representative of
a social process of knowledge-circulation, not as its originator: “And if anyone should
ask him, ‘Do you believe this?’ he’ll say yes, the affair is the talk o f the town and
intensifying and everyone’s reaching a consensus [Ka'i av e’lTrp n s auxcp, J.h 5e x a u x a
Triaxeueis; <j)qasi, xo Trpaypa (3oaa0ai y a p ev xq ttoAs i , Ka'i xov Aoyov ettsvxeiveiv,
Ka'i TTavxas oupbcovsTv]” (Khar. 8. 7).
Theophrastos’ logopoios enjoys spreading rumors for rum or’s sake and for
making himself the center o f attention. But the activity served practical purposes as well.
According to Aristogeiton’s prosecutor, Aristogeiton was making the rounds o f the
Agora, priming the crowd for his trial. “If you heard the outrages that he was saying
against you as he was wandering around the market, you would despise him even more.
83
He says that many are in debt to the public, and that they are all really just like him [si
xoivuv aKouoaiTS Kai x a s j3Xaacj)r]|nas a s K a ra xqv a y o p a v TTspucbv Ka0’ upcov
eXeyev, exi paXXov av auxov in aq aaix e, Kai SiKaicos. bxi0'1 Y^p troXXous o<{)eiXeiv
xcb Sppooicp, xouxous 6’ a tra v x a s opoious u u ap y siv sauxcp]” ([D.] 25. 85).
The knowledge that this kind o f lobbying created could be quite nuanced.
According to Demosthenes in his prosecution o f Timokrates for proposing an illegal
law, “They sent logopoioi around the market to claim that they were prepared to pay a
single fine but that they will not be able to pay double [rn x a xqv ay o p av
XoyoTTOious KaSisaav cos anX a pev sxoipoi x a xPhMax’ skxiveiv, 5ittXcx 5’ ou
Suvqaovxai]” (24. 15). There are other such moments in the orations, revealing that
the practice must have been quite common (And. 1. 54; Lys. 16. 11, 29. 12; Isok. 18.
9; D. 21. 104; Dein. 1. 32; see S. Lewis 1996: ch. 1). The logopoioi aimed to get their
“story” out into the public domain, to make it a part of public awareness and thus a
factor in the institutional proceedings in which they were involved.
The struggle over knowledge in the market would occasionally go beyond
gossiping and rumor-peddling. It was most immediately effective when it took the
form of theatrics. These could take many forms, but were invariably dramatic
interventions in social knowledge that tended to produce and disseminate powerful
narratives. Peisistratos’ triumphal reentry into Athens is a particularly notorious
example (Hdt. 1. 60; AP 14). On that occasion, the sixth-century politician staged his
return to Athens on a chariot alongside a particularly tall woman masquerading as the
goddess Athena, who proclaimed to the Athenians her wish that they receive
Peisistratos as their leader. Herodotos thought the event perfectly ludicrous. But, as
84
Connor (1987) has shown, the act followed a certain camivalesque logic that
associated Peisistratos’ entry to the Panathenaic procession and assimilated him to the
goddess Athena’s special ward, the hero Herakles.17
Peisistratos’ gambit is justly notorious, but there are other such instances that
allow us to see how the “politics o f the spectacle” could supplement institutional
proceedings, both helping shape the proceedings themselves and contributing to their
enforcement. According to Xenophon {Hell. 1. 7. 1-16) a well-timed spectacle turned
public sentiment against the generals who failed to retrieve the sailors drowned at
Arginousai in 406 and led to their mass execution. According to him, Theramenes felt
that public sentiment was opposed to executing the generals. So he suspended the
proceedings until the following meeting. He had something planned to shift public
sentiment in the meantime. The tribal Apatouria festival happened to coincide,
“during which the phrateres and their relatives assemble [sv o is o'l xs (jjpctxspss Ka i
oi ouyysvsTs auvsioi acjuaiv a u x o is]” (Xen. Hell. 1. 7. 8). Taking advantage o f this
family-friendly occasion, they staged an elaborate mourning procession through the
Agora with people dressed in black with shaved heads “as though they were relatives
of the deceased [cos 5f] ouyysvsis ovxss xcov aTtoAcoAoxcov].” In the following
assembly they took full advantage of the familial sentiment that their spectacle had
evoked, and proposed that since the Assembly had already heard the case at the
previous assembly they should preclude debate and hold a vote straightaway. Further
drawing on the crowd’s sentiment, they arranged that the voting be by tribe and in the
17Most recently, see Lavelle 2005: 98-107.
85
open rather than by secret ballot. This final gambit sealed the generals’ fate: the
assemblymen were too intimidated to vote to acquit before the gaze of their fellow
tribesmen, whose feelings of tribal and kin solidarity Theramenes had craftily aroused
by his staged procession.
Seeing the importance o f non-institutional venues, such as the Agora, for the
dissemination o f knowledge might also explain what few accounts of Athenian
political power take into account: our evidence itself. If the published orations were
themselves resources in the struggle for the crowd’s knowledge and sentiment, this
would account for speeches such as the Ag. Meidias, which pretends to be
Demosthenes’ speech in a case which we are told never went to trial (Aiskhin. 3.51-
2).18 Rather than being a draft that was somehow found among Demosthenes’ papers
and somehow preserved and published (as Ober 1994a: 93-4), there is a simple
alternative: Demosthenes himself published it as a pressure tactic against Meidias in
anticipation o f a trial, intending, as he did, to settle. In a time before mass media,
individuals relied on creative means to generate public knowledge.19 As Humphreys
notes, “It is often reasonable to assume that speeches were often initially put into
circulation because the speakers viewed them as part of an ongoing conflict” (1985c:
319). By publishing and circulating their orations, politicians aimed to access the
same resource that any actual trial sought to access: the crowd’s knowledge and
18This is disputed (prominently by Harris 1989) but I think the view that Aiskhines was lying is
untenable. See Dover 1968: 172-4; M acD ow ell 1990: 23-8 for different arguments as to w hy Aiskhines’
testimony is credible.
19See the interesting priamel o f Isokrates’ A ntidosis (1-8), where he states that he came up with the
idea o f a fictional charge against him in order to defend his reputation.
86
sentiment. Published speeches were tools in the contests over reputation, putting forth
the “facts” as the opposing sides saw fit to present them.
The crowd’s knowledge and sentiment were crucial for any political project.
Without them legislation was powerless. Elite critics were especially vexed by
supplication because its use challenged the institutions’ jurisprudential monopoly on
sentiment. Supplication belonged to the politics o f spectacle that were practiced in the
political “underbelly,” in the amorphous space between the civic institutions and the
market. If such spectacles that affected knowledge and sentiment directly had their place
in Athenian politics, the critics o f supplication seem to suggest, it was not in the
institutions.
In the rest o f this chapter I will discuss two specific cases that will show how
supplication was used to affect knowledge and sentiment. The practice allowed the two
politicians in question, Ephialtes and Andokides, to frame the crowd’s knowledge and
sentiment in a favorable way, with a view to securing their particular aims. The fact that
their aims were extremely different (the one wanted to undermine an institution, the other
to rehabilitate his reputation) testifies to supplication’s broad utility in Athenian politics.
3.4. Ephialtes at the altar
The procession Theramenes’ staged before the second assembly and the
oligarchs’ show of force at the Council were well-timed and well-orchestrated spectacles
that appealed directly to the crowd. Theramenes’ procession was designed to channel the
crowd’s sentiment into a particular political course o f action, compelling the
assemblymen to disregard the generals’ lawful request to be tried as individuals, and
87
leading directly to their mass execution— a course of action that the Athenians came to
regret and condemn (Xen. Hell. 1. 7. 35; PI. Apol. 32b5). The oligarchs meant their
display at the council-house to show that their government was an established fact,
thereby instituting it. We should not let oligarchic involvement in both instances lead us
to conclude that these were fundamentally atypical events, indicative o f a time when the
Athenian democracy was in decline (cp. PI. Apol. 32c3). As I have been arguing, these
acts were only extreme forms o f a normal state o f affairs. In a political system without a
dedicated bureaucracy or enforcement arm, the enforcement o f institutional proceedings
depended on individuals’ initiative. This initiative was constrained by public sentiment,
which was only indirectly a product of the proceedings themselves. The spread of
knowledge was crucial to the production o f sentiment. Spectacular acts that helped shape
and spread knowledge in the crowd were imminently useful. The most useful acts were
those that supported particular narratives that presented events and individuals as
instances of familiar types. They worked best when they evoked figures and stories that
made a point economically and dramatically.
In this context, supplication, a ritual with a long literary tradition, would have
been particularly useful. Like Theramenes’ procession, supplications were staged in the
market to influence the crowd’s sentiment, which could then be employed within an
institution to commit the city to a political action. Aiskhylos, as we saw, suggests a
critical awareness of this use o f supplication in his Supplicants o f 464/3. As he presents
it, Pelasgos stages the supplication of the Danaids in the market in order to incline the
people to commit themselves to his decision to wage war against the Aigyptiads.
Although it is difficult to recover Aiskhylos’ contemporary political agenda, looking at a
88
supplication that was staged around the same time as the play suggests that the practice
was far from unusual. Aiskhylos had some grounds for his criticism.
To recapitulate the play: the king o f Argos, Pelasgos, has personally accepted the
Danaids’ plea for protection against their cousins the Egyptiads. Plotting now how to
approach the Assembly and commit the city to his decision, he instructs their father
Danaos to transport his daughters’ supplicant branches from the extra-urban sanctuary
which they first approached to altars within the city itself,
so that all the citizens see proof o f this supplication, and

speech is not thrown against me; for the people love to
blame authority. And I suppose some will see them and
pity, and despise the arrogance of the m en’s fleet. The
demos would be kindlier toward you. Everyone is kind to
the weaker.
cos iScooi TpoS’ a<|>i£scos xsKpap rravxEs ttoA'ixai, pp6’

attoppi4>0fii Aoyos spou kcct’- apxp s y a p (JmAcutios
Aecos- Ka'i yap Tax’ av t i s o k x ia a s i5cov xa5s u(3piv
pev syOppsisv apoevos axoAou, upTv 5’ av s’ir) Sfjpos
EupevEaxEpos' xo^s poaooiv yap xras x is Euvoias cjispEi
(480-9).
He is organizing a procession around the city’s temples and altars. He orders his
men to accompany Danaos but he instructs them not to speak to anyone (487-503), thus
fostering the procession’s aura of mystery. Aiskhylos portrays the king creating and
manipulating social knowledge. By means o f this spectacle the king means to conjure up
the civic emotions of pity (oiktisas) and anger (ekthereien). These sentiments, as Allen
(2000a) has shown, were central to Athenian political psychology. The constant aim of
every politician was to arouse the crowd’s pity or anger, which served to facilitate the
spread of knowledge and make it more likely that an institutional act would be carried
and carried out. Pelasgos here would have been following the advice o f Aristotle, who
89
suggested that nothing produces pity as well as immediacy (syyus (âivopsva), and that
nothing produces immediacy as well as appropriate “gesture, voice, and garb; in brief,
performance [oxppaoi Ka'i (jxova'is Kai e o 0t ) o i Kai oAcos uTTOKpiosi]” (Rhet. 1386a29-
b7). Pelasgos uses the sentiment that this performance produced to pass a grant of
asylum and residency (metoikia) for the Danaids (609-20). Aiskhylos portrays the
Argive king as creating a stir and predisposing the assembled audience to endorse his
position. Supplication was useful for its ability to accomplish these two crucial tasks
simultaneously.
One scholar has noted the manipulation surrounding the Danaids’ supplication
and has proposed a specific historical event as the inspiration behind Aiskhylos’ plot.
Sommerstein (1997) suggests that Kimon’s support of the Spartan supplicant Perikleidas
could have been the historical occasion (Plut. Kimon 16. 9-10; Ar. Lys. 1138-44).
Perikleidas came to Athens to supplicate for military aid against the Helot rebellion at
Ithome, which the Athenians, with Kimon’s sponsorship and leadership, provided. The
expedition did not amount to much, because the Lakedaimonians grew suspicious of such
a large Athenian military presence in their territory and asked them to leave. But as a
consequence o f Kimon’s absence from Athens with a large hoplite contingent, his
enemies took the initiative to push through political reforms that undermined his power-
base and led to his ostracism (Plut. Kim. 17. 2).
Sommerstein’s suggestion that Perikleidas was the original Danaid is attractive,
but there are problems. If, as it is generally assumed, Aiskhylos sided with Themistokles
and Perikles in their rivalry against Kimon (see Davison 1966), it is difficult to see why
Aiskhylos would have wanted to criticize the event that led to Kimon’s downfall. To
90
argue for Perikleidas’ supplication as the backdrop to the Danaids’, Sommerstein has to
argue that the Supplicants was produced while Kimon was still on campaign in the
Peloponnese, at a time when it still might have seemed that Kimon’s sponsorship of
Perikleidas could lead the city to disaster; when the accusation “you honored foreigners
and destroyed the city [sTrr)Au5as Tipcou dtrcdAsoas ttoAiv]” (Suppl. 401) would have
carried weight against him. This is problematic, for it is far from certain when exactly
either one occurred. We should not assume that they were concurrent. The fragmentary
papyrus preserving the play’s archon-date seems to place it in 464/3 and the expedition
was probably launched closer to 462. Sommerstein thus needs to downdate the
Supplicants as much as possible. But once he dismisses the papyrus, there is little reason
to date the trilogy to 462 or 461 rather than return to the previously canonical pre-470s
date.20 The papyrus-fragment is a centimeter too short to give an unambiguous date for
the play’s production, but I will proceed on the speculation that 464 is as possible as any
other date. My argument, ultimately, can stand without the kind o f chronological
specificity required by Sommerstein’s.
Although Sommerstein may be wrong to argue that Perikleidas’ supplication was
behind the Supplicants, his general insight may still be right. Supplication was used on
other occasions in 5th century Athens to raise the public’s interest and channel its
sentiment toward a specific political course o f action; Perikleidas’ supplication was only
20On the orthodoxy o f the Supplicants ’ date see Garvie 1969: 162; Lesky 1954; for recent
skepticism see Scullion 2002. On the problems o f Pentecontaetian chronology see Badian 1992: 73-107.
91
one instance. Other events could have inspired Aiskhylos’ critique. One involved
Kimon’s rival, Themistokles.
According to the AP, Themistokles was about to be charged in the Areopagos
with being a Persian sympathizer (25. 3).21 Another source suggests that he was in debt
to the state (hyp. Isok. 7). Whatever the truth, the sources hint at an ideological struggle
between Themistokles and the Areopagos over the credit for the victory at Salamis.22
Themistokles thus had some motive for wanting to see that institution diminished. True
to form, he sought to further his aim by orchestrating a spectacular scene (cp. Hdt. 8. 75-
82; Plut. Them. 10. 1).
Themistokles told the Areopagites that certain people were conspiring against
them, which was in fact the case. He promised to show them the conspirators. At the
same time he informed the main conspirator Ephialtes that the Areopagos was going to
have him arrested for conspiring against it. Thus, when Ephialtes saw the Areopagite
delegation approaching with Themistokles leading the way,
He sat on the altar with only his underwear on. Everyone

was stunned by this event. After this, when the Council
was assembled Ephialtes and Themistokles accused the
Areopagites, and again in the Assembly similarly, until
they stripped away their power.
o 5” E(}mc<Attis cos KaxatTAayEis, kcxGiêi

povoxiTcov stt'i xov (Scopov. Gaupaaavxcov 5s uauxcov
xo y sy o v o s, kcc'i pExa x a u x a ouvaGpoiaGsiaqs' Tqs
(3ouAf|s tcov TTEVxaKooicov, Kaxqyopouv xcbv
’ApsoTrayixcbv o x’ ’EbiaAxps Ka't o ©spioxoKAqs, Kal
21See the discussion, with bibliography, in Piccirilli 1983: 174-5.
22Plut. Them. 10. 4; A P 23. 1; Arist. Pol. 1304al7-24; Kleidem os FrG rH 323 F 21; see Rhodes
1993: 287-9.
92
traXiv ev xcp Sripco xov auxov xpoTtov, scos

TTepisiXovTO auxcov xr]v Suvapiv (AP 25. 4).
Nearly all scholars have discounted this somewhat comical episode as
chronologically impossible (e.g. Wallace 1989; de Bruyn 1995). There is good reason to
do so. We know that Ephialtes carried out his reforms in the archonship of Konon, in
462/1. According to the AP, Ephialtes “subtracted from the [Areopagos] council all its
accrued powers involving the protection o f the state; Themistokles was also responsible
[xfjs (3ouX% stt'i Kovcovos apx o v x o s a tta v x a TtepisiXe x a erriSexa 5i’ gov rjv rj xrjs
TToXixsias (])uXaKfj‘ a u v a m o u ysvopsvou xou ©epiaxoKXsous]” (25. 2). Historians
consider this impossible because Themistokles was not in Athens in 462.
The date of Themistokles’ ostracism is one o f the most notorious problems o f 5th
century chronology. The latest any scholar places it is in 465, well before Ephialtes’
reforms of 462.23 Even if the ten-year period o f ostracism had expired at the time of
Ephialtes’ reforms the only source that says Themistokles returned to Athens after his
ostracism expired is Cicero (E p .fa m . 5. 12. 5). More credibly, Thukydides (1. 135-8)
reports that he stayed in Persia until his death. Wilamowitz (1985[1893]: 1. 140)
accordingly seems justified in calling Ephialtes’ supplication a “cute story” and a “fable”
with little historical utility.
However, recently one scholar has pointed out what should have been obvious all
along: there is no reason to assume that Ephialtes carried out his reforms entirely in the
^ S ee e.g. Rhodes 1970; Podlecki 1975: 37-44; Lenardon 1978: 108-53.
93
archonship o f Konon, in 462/1 (R. G. Lewis 1997). The language of the major source
bears this out. “At first,” the AP explicitly states,
Ephialtes took down many Areopagites, charging them in

their official capacity. Later, under the archonship of
Konon, he stripped away all the council’s additional
powers through which it was the guardian o f the
government
Kai Trpcoxov (jsv aveiAsv ttoAAou? XCOV ’ApSOTTayiTCOV,

aycbvas STTKjispcov Trsp't xcov S icoktimsvcov etteixo xrj?
(3ouA% s tx 'i Kovcovos apxovxos arravxa TrepisTAs xa
Eiri0sxa 5 f cbv rjv xfjs noA ixsias <[)uAaKf) (25. 2).
The language implies a prolonged struggle in which Ephialtes used every venue
available, both the dikasteria against individual Areopagites (ay co v as STTiêpcou) and
the Council and Assembly against the institution as a whole (25. 4-5: pexa x au x a
auvapSpE(aris x % (3ouAfj? xcov irEvxaKooicov... Ka'i rrdAiv ev xcoi Srjpcoi xov auxov
xporrov). The archonship of Konon in 462/1 would have marked the successful
culmination of this struggle, the publication date of whatever decree or decrees
proclaimed the Areopagos’ curtailment. From this perspective, it is not chronologically
impossible that Them istokles was involved with Ephialtes in the initial phase of the
assault on the Areopagos. Ephialtes’ staged supplication could have taken place at any
time prior to Themistokles’ ostracism, and at any rate before the Supplicants ’ production
in 464 (if that is the right date). Even the most prominent critics concede that the story o f
Ephialtes’ supplication sounds genuine even if it is not true. Wilamowitz (1985 [1893]: 1.
149) for example suggests that Ephialtes’ enemies circulated the story in 462 to suggest
that he was merely a pawn of Themistokles’. Rhodes (1993: 319) also concedes that the
story is original.
94
We are not in a position to know which, if either, of the two supplications,
Ephialtes’ or Perikleidas’, was Aiskhylos’ ultimate inspiration. Nor can we know if the
poet intended his Supplicants to rile up the audience in preparation for Kimon’s ostracism
or to help Ephialtes in his campaign against the Areopagos. Either supplication could
have inspired him, or neither. What comes across clearest from his treatment o f the
subject in the play as whole is a critique o f politicians who use the ritual to stir up the
crowd and obscure their intentions behind a veil o f religiosity (cf. Pelling 1997a: 217-8).
Pelasgos tells the demos about the disaster that Zeus will send to them if they do not
accept the Danaids’ supplication, and says nothing about the war that he knows will
follow (609-20; cp. 342, 438). In all likelihood Aiskhylos was criticizing those who
preferred the politics of spectacle to the politics o f debate. The supplications o f both
Ephialtes and Perikleidas were instances o f the former.
To return to Ephialtes’ supplication: It is fairly clear how Kimon would have
used Perikleidas’ supplication. According to Aristophanes Perikleidas “sat on the altar as
a supplicant, pale and dressed in purple [iKExqs KaOsêxo ett'i xoiai (Bcopois coxpos sv
<}>o iv ik i 5 i ]” (Lys. 1 1 3 9 -4 0 ). This sorry spectacle would have sparked interest and
predisposed the Athenians to back the expedition with Kimon at the helm.24 But how
would Ephialtes’ supplication have helped him? According to the AP (2 3 . 1) the
council’s authority after the Persian Wars was based on prestige. We should view
24Sommerstein (1997: 76-7) suggests that Kimon and Perikleidas might have had a previous
relationship. Besides being the Lakedaimonian proxenos (Theopompos F rG rH 115 F 88; And. 3. 3),
Kimon had a son named Lakedaimonios (Thuk. 1. 45. 2; Plut. Kim. 16. 1). Just so, Perikleidas had a son
named Athenaios (Thuk. 4. 119. 1).
95
Ephialtes’ supplication as the opening gambit o f a long-term campaign to undermine the
Areopagos’ authority. The conspirators would have been trying to accomplish two things
with Ephialtes’ supplication. The curious detail that Ephialtes was in his underwear
[povoy i t c o v ] is relevant to both aims. First and most importantly they would have
wanted to draw as much attention as possible to their cause. In this they succeeded:
“everyone was stunned by this event, “ the AP notes. Second, by portraying the
Areopagos as the aggressor against a supplicant, the conspirators were striking at its
claim to be the guardian o f ancestral tradition, and therefore at the basis o f its prestige.
They also were portraying it as fundamentally undemocratic, for, according to AP,
Ephialtes was the foremost pro-demos politician o f the day (25. 1: xou Srjpou
TTpOOTOCTri? ).25
Literary scholars have noticed that supplication in tragedy tends to produce a
tripartite dramatic structure (Kopperschmidt 1967). When a supplicant appears at an
altar, audiences expect to see someone to try to forcibly remove the supplicant, and
someone else to protect the supplicant. Ephialtes was taking advantage o f an “immediate
pantomime” to present him self as the victim o f the Areopagos’ aggression. As Barthes
would say o f a similar spectacle, “As soon as the adversaries are in the ring, the public is
overwhelmed with the obviousness o f the roles” (1972[1957j: 17). Barthes was
discussing Franco-American wrestling, but the same sort o f ethopoesis (the villain and
25For another example o f how supplication served to paint Ephialtes in a favorable light, see Val.
Max. 3.8.ext 4, in which a handsome boy, for whom Ephialtes had personal feelings, supplicates wrapped
around his knees, begging him in vain not to prosecute his father. But Ephialtes, like a good magistrate,
ignores the pleas and, heavy-hearted, does his public duty. I thank Hans-Friedrich M ueller for calling my
attention to this passage.
96
the hero are immediately recognizable by their costumes, postures and gestures) was also
operative in Athenian supplication spectacles. In Ephialtes’ drama it is likely that
Themistokles was in the role of the champion—-just as Kimon would have been
Perikleidas’ noble protector.26
Ephialtes’ political use of supplication was innovative but he was not innovating.
Others had used supplication similarly before him, and others would use it so again.
Undermining someone’s moral authority by accusing him o f disrespecting supplicants
was common already in the 480s, as we can infer from an ostrakon cast against one who
was himself a member o f the Areopagite class (i.e. former archon) and rival of
Themistokles’. The ostrakon found in an early 5th century context east of the Agora’s
Great Drain has been restored thus by Raubitschek (1957) in comparison to the other
ostraka among which it was found: [’A piaxsiSss A uoipdxou h o s to u ]s hiKSTa?
[airsoajev (Lang 1990: no. 44), “Aristeides Lysimakhou who expelled the supplicants.”27
Perhaps this gibe at Aristeides, the only such elaboration preserved on the shards,28 was
aimed at his reputation for piety and honor which earned him the moniker Aristeides ho
Dikaios, “the Just” (Plut. Arist. 6. 1). Similarly an Areopagos that wronged a supplicant
26Although Themistokles— fittingly!— was also leading the pursuers.
27Piccirilli (1983) suggests that these hiketai were Aiginetan partisans who were slaughtered in a
temple where they had taken refuge (Hdt. 6. 91).
280 n e can compare it to three shards against M egakles, nos. 91-3 in W illiams 1951-2; Parker
1983: 198 ffi; Giuliani 1999, with bib., that seem to associate him with the “Kylonian Pollution.” Most
unambiguously no. 91 reads “Megakles Hippokratous the son o f Kylon [MsyaKAis hiTTOKpaxo?
Ku Ao v eo s ].” 92 calls him “the damned [dAeiTEpos],” and 93 also called him that originally but
interestingly the inscriber seem s to have changed his mind and erased the epithet. But M egakles was an
Alkmaeonid, making the insult more pertinent. Possibly Aristeides was allied with them through common
enmity against Themistokles (cp. Plut. Arist. 25. 10).
97
could not possibly be “the mainstay o f the territory, savior o f the city,... untouched of
profit,... a reverent, wakeful watchtower o f the land for those who sleep [epupa t s
Xcopas Kai ttoAsco? acoTrjpiov... xspScov aSiKxou... aiSoiov... suSovtgov uttsp
sypriyopds (Jipoupqpa yfjs],” as Aiskhylos’ Athena was to remind her audience a few
years after Ephialtes’ supplication (Eum. 701-6).
Ephialtes, thus, used supplication to raise the profile of his agenda. His
supplication served as an ethical reference point for subsequent institutional actions in the
courts and the Assembly against his enemies: he was moving against an implicitly
discredited Areopagos.
3.4.1. Agoratos and the Thirty
We can better understand Ephialtes’ supplication and its political utility by
comparing it to others. His barely being dressed resembles the supplication of Pittalakos
nearly a century later (Aiskhin. 1. 60). Unlike Ephialtes Pittalakos was entirely naked
[spXtTOCi yupvos sis Tpv ayopcxv]. Like Ephialtes, Pittalakos was trying to call as
much attention as possible to him self and to his plight. “A crowd gathered, as tends to
happen [dyAou ouvSpapovTOs, oiov sicoOs yiyvsoB ai],” Aiskhines says.
The political utility o f Ephialtes’ supplication resembles a supplication that
figured in another revolution, the oligarchic coup o f 404. Our only information about this
supplication comes from a speech attacking the supplicant some years later for
involvement with the Thirty (Lys. 13). Agoratos’ gambit seems quite similar to
Ephialtes’. In his case as in Ephialtes’, a co-conspirator, we are told, came to the Council
and announced that certain people were conspiring against them and volunteered to point
98
them out (20-2). The Council sent a delegation to investigate, and came upon Agoratos
in the agora o f the Piraeus. At this point Lysias’ account becomes muddled (see M. J.
Osborne 1981-3: 2. 21; Todd 2000: 139). According to him some well-meaning but
hapless passersby intervened and guaranteed themselves for Agoratos. (These were to be
the first people Agoratos would name to the Council: 30.) Agoratos and his guarantors
went together to the altar o f the sanctuary o f Artemis Mounykhis on which they sat and
deliberated their next step (24).
Lysias wants to discount Agoratos’ supplication. The religiously charged altar-
sitting, one of the most unequivocal signs o f supplication, in Lysias’ telling becomes a
gesture of rest and deliberation. Yet it is clear that Agoratos’ supplication played an
important role in his defense: “Agoratos willingly got off the altar, though he now says he
was removed by force [sk c o v avsoTT] ’A y o p ax o s c x tto t o u (3copou- k c o x o i vuv ys (3ia
4>qo'iv aôcipsSrjvai]” (29). Perhaps he relied on this in order to present him self as an
unwilling victim, rather than an unwitting accomplice.
According to Lysias, the entire scene was staged (28). To judge from the parallel
with Ephialtes, Lysias may well have been right. Agoratos’ choice of the altar in
Mounykhia o f all places makes sense in this light, for the next meeting of the Assembly
was to be held in the theatre o f Mounykhia (Lys. 13. 32). Similarly Pittalakos, according
to Aiskhines (1. 60), staged his supplication at the altar o f the Mother of the Gods in the
prytanikon district in order to gain maximum publicity before a meeting of the Assembly
that was about to be held. Although Lysias wants it both ways, that the supplication was
staged and that it was not a supplication, Agoratos’ alleged supplication remains
99
instructive for my purposes in illustrating how individuals could use the ritual to frame
knowledge and sentiment.
Ephialtes and Agoratos were trying to gather as much publicity as possible.
Supplication was useful for them for two reasons: because it sparked interest, and
because it framed their agendas in ethical and traditional terms. In this they were taking
advantage of the ritual like the dramatists who used it to craft compelling narratives:
“immediate pantomimes,” in Barthes’ words.
Ephialtes was after the reform of the Areopagos. We cannot be certain what
Agoratos was after. Our only source, Lysias, is deliberately misleading. He wants his
audience to believe that Agoratos was responsible for everything from the rise of the
regime of the Thirty to the civil war that led to their downfall.29 He wants them to believe
that Agoratos willingly conspired to put the champions o f the demos to death to clear the
way for the Thirty, but that he was also an unwitting accomplice to Theramenes, who
played the part of Themistokles to Agoratos’ Ephialtes.30 Agoratos may have simply
been after self-preservation, by presenting himself as a victim. Or he may have
29“And so, o Athenians, these men were denounced by Agoratos and died. When the Thirty did
away with them, I believe almost all o f you know how many troubles befell the city. O f all these he is
responsible, he who killed those men [ouxoi pev xoivuv, co avSpE s’ AQpvaioi, u tt’ ’A yopctxou
a n o y p a ^ s u x s ? aTTE0a v o v . ette'i 5 e x o u x o u s ekttoScov ETTOifjaavxo ol x p ia ic o v x a , o x e 5 ov o ip a i u p a s
ETTt'axaaSai cos noX A d k o i 5 Eiva p sxa x a u x a xfj ttoAei syEVExo- cov o u x o s aTravxcov a ’ix id s e o x i v
atTOKXEivas e k e i v o u s ] “ ( 4 3 ) .
30“He knew nothing o f their plan, o judges. (For I do not suppose they were so foolish and
friendless that they invited Agoratos, a slave and bom o f slaves, as their confidant and partner for such
significant business.) Rather, he seemed to them an appropriate informer. They wanted him to appear to
inform unwillingly, so that his information would seem more credible [ o u o u v s i S d x a e k e i v o i s , c o a'vSpES
5 u < a a x a t , o u S ev (o u y a p S fjiro u ouxcos ekeTv o i a v o p x o i p a a v K a'i a 4 > i A o i c o o x e ttep ! x p A i K o u x c o v a v
T rpay p ax co v n paxxovxE s’ A y o p a x o v cos t t io x o v K a'i e u v o u v , S o u A o v K a'i ek S o u A c ov o v x a ,
T T a p E K a A E a a v ), a A A ’ eS o k ei a u x o is o u x o s ETTixrjSEios filvai privuxTis. IpouA ovxo ouv aK ov xa S o k e iv
a u x o v K a 'i p f] E K O v x a p p v u s i v , o t t c o s m a x o x E p a f) p p v u a i s < |)a (v o ix o ]” (1 8 -9 ).
100
opportunistically sought to raise his public profile at a time o f civic unrest. A similar
motive may have been behind the problematic inclusion o f his name on the stone
honoring the assassins o f the oligarchic leader Phrynikhos in 409 (IG I . 102 = M-L 85;
cp. Lys. 13. 73-6).31
If we can judge from the strength o f his arguments, Lysias had no real case
against Agoratos (M. J. Osborne 1981-3: 2. 21; Todd 2000: 139). Instead, Lysias hoped
to present Agoratos’ supplication as one o f those carefully staged, politically motivated
supplications in the market, which had a long tradition in Athens. Individuals used
supplication in the market for the sake o f political expediency to create theatrical
spectacles that supplemented and amplified the power o f the institutions. Lysias counted
on his audience to be aware of this fact in order to paint Agoratos’ supplication as pure
theater, as no doubt it was.
3.5. Andokides and the ruses o f memory
In the Athenian political system, I argued in the beginning of this chapter,
knowledge produced outside the institutions was crucial to institutional pronouncements
and their prospects for enforcement. Ephialtes’ supplication was an example o f how this
worked. The AP moves abruptly from the scene o f supplication to Ephialtes and
Themistokles’ institutional actions against the Areopagites, suggesting that the
supplication staged in the market helped them in the institutions. I argued that the
31N ote especially Eudikos’ amendment calling for an inquiry concerning allegations o f bribery
regarding the honors (11. 38 ff.)
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knowledge produced by the spectacle o f Ephialtes sitting at an altar in his underwear,
pursued by a delegation o f Areopagites, would have aided his campaign to undermine the
Areopagos by presenting him as a hapless victim o f an arrogant Areopagos that had
betrayed its heritage. Meanwhile, Agoratos was also trying to further his political agenda
by approaching the assembly through supplicating in Mounykhia.
I also suggested that the circuit o f knowledge-production and circulation operated
in both directions. Knowledge produced within the institutions had an immediate effect
on the lives o f individuals outside them, even though no formalized means of
enforcement existed. In this section I will discuss how one Athenian used supplication
within an institution to deal with a problem that had defied formal institutional
boundaries. Andokides was never condemned o f a crime, and yet he attained a degree of
notoriety that forced him to undertake a voluntary exile. Indeed, the Assembly had
granted him legal immunity. But the institutional decree proved impotent to protect his
reputation.
The case o f Andokides will allow me to speak more precisely about the effect of
knowledge in Athenian politics. Enough contemporary evidence exists for this case to
allow me to reconstruct a relatively full picture o f how knowledge was produced and
manipulated. Supplication in this case played a small but significant part in a broader
campaign o f political rehabilitation.
The year 415 was an exciting one for Athenians. They invaded Sicily and
experienced mass hysteria. According to Thukydides’ account (6. 27-9), one morning as
the expeditionary force was preparing to sail, the Athenians awoke to find most o f their
Herms vandalized. The Herms, sacred pillars with Hermes’ head and phallus, stood in
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private courtyards and sanctuaries.32 The defaced pillars o f the god o f travel were a bad
omen for the invasion. The Athenians were desperate to find the culprits. They decreed
that if anyone knew anything about this impiety he should come forth and testify under
immunity. In the process that unfolded, the Athenians also learned that private
individuals had performed parodies o f the Eleusinian Mysteries in their homes.
Reports o f a Lakedaimonian force approaching the Isthmos further fanned the
hysteria (Thuk. 6. 53. 3, 61. 2). People were convinced a conspiracy was under way,
with the support of the Lakedaimonians, to overthrow the democracy and establish an
oligarchy. In this climate the Athenians were inclined to believe anyone who offered to
shed light on the matter. “They thought it preferable to scrutinize the affair rather than let
an accused who seemed upright get away unexamined because of his accuser’s bad
reputation [xppaipcoTepou f|youpgvoi elvat [Saaaviaai to T t p a y p a K a 'i supsfv r] Sia
p pvu T ou tto v r ip ia v T iv a Ka'i x p f l0T ° v S o k o u v t o e lv a i a m a 0 sv T a avsAsyKTOv
SiaûyEiv]” (Thuk. 6. 53. 2). Unconfirmed reports were leading many reputable citizens
into jail, “and there was no end in sight; every day they gave in to greater savagery and
arrested still more [Ka'i o u k ev TTauAr) sijia iv e T O , aAAa Ka0’ ppepav EtrsSiSoaau
paA A ov i s t o a y p ic o T E p o v tb Ka'i ttA e io u s e t i £uAA ag(3a v E iv ]” (T h u k . 6 . 6 0 . 2 ; cp.
And. 2.8). In this state o f consternation,
one o f the prisoners, who seemed the most guilty, was

persuaded by one of his fellow prisoners to testify: truly or
not, one could argue either way. No one then or since has
been able to explain who did the deed. The fellow-prisoner
persuaded this man that even if he did not do it he must
32See M acDowell 1962: 4-5 n.; R. Osborne 1985c; Furley 1996: 7, n. 9.
103
accept the immunity, save him self and put a stop to this
climate o f suspicion in the polis.... And so he informed
against him self and others in the Herms Affair. The
Athenian demos was glad to receive what they thought was
the explanation.... They released the informer along with
those he had not accused. Those who had been charged
and arrested they brought to trial and executed, while those
who had escaped they sentenced to death and placed a
reward on their heads. It was unclear in this if the victims
were punished fairly. Nonetheless the rest o f the polis was
benefited immediately and perceptibly
E V T a u 0 a avccT T £ i0 S T ai s i s tcov S sS epsvcov o o trsp sS okei
a iT ic o x a T o s eI v c u , u irb tcov ^ uv S eopcotcov t iv o s s it e
a p a kcu x a o v x a ppvuaai eit e K a'i o v r stt ap cjio T sp a

y a p E iK a ^ E T a i, to 5 e o a ^ s s ou S e is ouxe to te outs
uox E p o v syei eitteI v t T s p 'i tcov S paaavxcov to spyov.

A sycov 5e e tte io e v a u T o v c o s XPh> £1 Mh K a 'i S s S p a K E V ,
au x o v te a S sia v T t o i p a a p E v o v o c b o a i K a 'i x p v t t o A i v
x p s T t a p o u o r i s U T t o ^ i a s t t a u o a i . . . K a 'i o p s v a u x o s te
K a 0’ E a u x o u K a ' i K a x aX A cov ppvuE i t o tc o v 'E p p c b v o
Se S p p o s o x co v ’A O p v a ic o v a a p E v o s X a ^ c b v , c o s c o e to ,
to o a c j i E s . . . x o v p E V p r i v u x r i v e u 0u s K a i x o u s aX X ous
p e t ’ a u x o u o o c o v p p K ax p y o p riK E i s X u o a v , t o u s 5e
K a x a iT ia 0E v x a s K p io sis T to ip o a v T E s x o u s pev
a t T E K T E i v a v , o o o i ^ u v £ X r ) 4>0r i a c x v , x c o v 5e b iab u y o v x co v
0a v a x o v K a x a y v o v x E s E T ta v E ln o v a p y u p i o v xcp
a i T O K T E l V a V T l . KCXV T O U T C O o i p s v T T a 0O V T E S c ( 6 t ] X o v r j v
s i a b i K c o s E T E T i p c b p T i v T O , p p E V T O i a X X p T t o X l S £V x c p
T ta p o v x i T ts p u jia v c b s c b ^ E X rix o (T h u k . 6 . 6 0 . 2 - 5) .
There can be no doubt that Thukydides’ unnamed informer was Andokides, a well-
known politician (cf. And. 1.48 ff; 2.15-6; [Lys.] 6.21-3; Plut. Aik. 21). The interesting
question is why the historian goes out of his way to avoid naming him.
One explanation is that both Thukydides and Andokides were in Athens at the
time o f the Histories ’ publication and Thukydides did not want to antagonize him (Furley
1996: 52). Hence he hedges: he claims he is uncertain whether the unnamed man’s
testimony was true or not, but states that overall the polis benefited. Thukydides’
104
comment that the city benefited “immediately and perceptibly,” however, is belied by his
subsequent attention to the Mysteries Affair, for which Alkibiades was held responsible.
Andokides’ testimony, according to Thukydides, rather than ending the hysteria, was
followed by further unrest as armed troops encamped in the Theseion overnight,
anticipating an imminent coup (6. 61. 2). Another way to explain Thukydides’ overstated
reticence, therefore, is as an expression o f profound contempt. Whatever his motive, the
most important point to take from Thukydides’ omission o f Andokides’ name is that he
expected his readers to infer his identity. The knowledge that Thukydides assumes in his
readers is very important for my purposes. As we shall see, the narrative that Thukydides
relates is precisely the one that Andokides had to counter.
In 415 Andokides informed “against him self and others” in exchange for
immunity (Thuk. 6. 60. 3; Plut. Aik. 21. 5). But Andokides soon found himself subject to
the Decree o f Isotimides, which in effect overturned his immunity (And. 2. 23, 27). That
decree forbade “those who committed impiety and admitted it from entering temples
[s’ipyscOai tcov ispcbv xous aas(3qaavT as Ka'i opoA oyrjoavTas]” (And. 1. 71). It
also forbade them from entering the market ([Lys.] 6. 24). There is some suggestion that
Isotimides passed this decree solely with Andokides in mind (And. 1. 89; [Lys.] 6. 9;
MacDowell 1962: 4). If his objective was to disfranchise Andokides despite his decreed
immunity, Isotimides was successful. Life in Athens became so unbearable for the
politician that although he was never charged with any crime he had to undertake a self-
imposed exile. In his own words: “I knew that the most pleasant thing would be to do
what, and live where I was least likely to be seen by you [eyvcov qbioxov eivai
TTpaxxsiv te T oiauxa kq) 5 ia ix a a 0 a i eksT, ottou qKicrra psAAoipi 6<j)0(ja£a0ai ucj)’
105
upcov]” (And. 2. 10). He attempted to return to Athens twice during various political
upheavals before he actually succeeded.
He must have managed to return at some point after 403, in the wake o f the wave
o f amnesty that swept Athens after the bloody civil conflict o f 404 (see Wolpert 2002).
So when Kephisios, a hatchet-man o f the wealthy and influential politician Kallias
Hipponikou, indicted Andokides in 400 or 399 with contravening the decree of
Isotimides, this case presented Andokides both a great risk and a great opportunity. In
this case Andokides had “not merely to secure an acquittal by fair means or foul, but to
salvage enough o f his reputation to permit him to run for public office” (Furley 1996:
6).33 Andokides had to craft an alternative narrative to the one that had been fueling his
exile from Athens and from public life. I will suggest that supplication was central to this
enterprise.
It is generally a dangerous proposition to estimate “what the Athenians knew.”
But in Andokides’ case I think the evidence supports an exception. First we have one of
the prosecution speeches, the Against Andokides preserved in the Lysianic corpus. The
views expressed there are not necessarily to be considered widely-held, but we are
fortunate to know what narrative Andokides’ opponents were presenting. More
importantly, we have Thukydides’ account of the events o f 415, discussed above. I fully
accept MacDowell’s (1962: 175-6) argument that Thukydides’ absence from Athens in
415 should make us skeptical o f his account o f those years. When it comes to the
33Andokides h im self says as much: “The most important aspect o f my case for me, gentlemen, is
to be saved and not appear base [ s p o i y a p , co a v S p ss, t o u S e t o u a y co v o s t o u t e' o t i p l y i a T o v ,
a c o S s v T i p f] 5 o k e7 v k o k c o e l v a i ] ” ( 1 . 5 6 ) .
106
question of Athenians’ knowledge in 400-399, however, which is what concerns me here,
Thukydides is much more useful. For if Thukydides based himself on hearsay prevalent
at the time o f his writing (presumably after 404), as MacDowell suggests, this should
mean that Andokides had to confront that same hearsay in his trial. Additionally, if
Thukydides intended his readers to recognize the unnamed man this should suggest that
he expected them to be familiar with the “basic facts” o f the case. Thukydides
enumerates these: Andokides was in prison; he was persuaded to testify; people died
unfairly; he and those he did not accuse went free. Interestingly it is precisely these
“facts” that Andokides erases from the audience’s memory by means o f supplication.
People knew him as an unscrupulous, cowardly informer. He will use supplication to
suggest that he informed out o f pious, familial duty.
The problem Andokides faced was one o f motive. His involvement in the
scandals had earned him an unscrupulous reputation, perhaps deserved, of one who
would turn against his friends and family to save him self (cf. [Lys.] 6. 23, 30; And. 1.19,
61-3). Andokides’ defense centers on the claim that if he did inform— which he does not
ultimately admit— it was because his friends and family supplicated him to do so.
Andokides is masterful in setting the scene. Every detail serves a purpose in his
supplicant tableau:
We were all imprisoned together and it was night and the

prison closed, and one m an’s mother came, another’s sister,
another’s children, and they were crying and pitifully
mourning and lamenting the present misfortune. Then
Kharmides (my cousin o f the same age who was raised
from a child in our house) says to me, ‘Andokides, you see
the magnitude o f our present misfortune. In the past I have
never needed to say anything to upset you, but now I am
compelled to by our present trouble. Whatever people you
107
associated or were acquainted with who [were implicated]

with the charges which are going to kill us, some of them
have already died and others are preparing to flee, thereby
condemning themselves.... If you heard something about
this affair that has taken place, say it. Save yourself first of
all, save your father, whom you should love the most, save
your brother-in-law who is married to your only sister, save
your family and relatives, so many o f whom [are here].
And save me as well: in all my life I never troubled you, I
was always ready and willing to do whatever was needed
for you and your business.’ Gentlemen, that is what
Kharmides said. And then every single one o f the others
started begging and supplicating me, and I said to myself,
‘Alas, I am fallen into most terrible misfortune! [cb
ttavTcov eycb S sivoxarq a u p ^ o p a TrepiTteocbv] Should I
look the other way as my own relatives are unfairly
destroyed, themselves killed and their fortunes confiscated,
and additionally their names inscribed as “cursed by the
gods”—they who had nothing to do with what happened?
As 300 Athenians are about to be destroyed unfairly and
the polis will be in great danger and everyone will be
suspicious of each other? Or should I tell the Athenians
what I heard from Euphiletos— the very man who did this?’
(And. 1.48-51)
Aside from the “tragic” elements o f scene and language (note his self-address)
that were key in setting the mood, his ultimate strategy here, to judge from Thukydides’
version, entails reversing the order o f events. The well-known fact of his imprisonment
weighed heavily against him. It made him seem willing to inform against his friends and
family, including (it was alleged) his own father, to save him self ([Lys.] 6. 23; And. 1.
19, 54; cf. Strauss 1993). His opponent taunted him for this reputation: “his body is
constantly in bonds [to pev ocopa cxei ev Seapois £X£11” ([Lys.] 6. 31). He thus cannot
simply deny that he was imprisoned, that he informed, and that thanks to his informing he
was released. This was common knowledge. The real problem is to explain how he
ended up in the prison in the first place. For the fact that he informed once in prison put
108
him in an impossible bind: either he was guilty o f impieties, or he was a cowardly liar.
Andokides ingeniously manages to escape this bind by suggesting that he ended up in
prison not because o f who he was, but because o f whom he was identical to!
He was not the cause o f his relatives’ imprisonment, he argues. His relatives,
rather, were put in prison thanks to another m an’s testimony, Diokleides. But
interestingly Andokides never says that he him self was among the men Diokleides
accused, for that would have framed his motive as self-preservation. As I suggested, this
was an ascription he needed to avoid. Thus, he declares that he was in prison with his
relatives because two o f the men Diokleides accused, Mantitheos and Apsipheon, had
fled. Andokides, as one o f their guarantors, “had to be held in the same [predicament] as
the people they guaranteed. And so the Council came out in secret and arrested us and
put us in the stocks [s5si <sv> t o i s auT ois evsxEoSai oioTrsp ous pyyupaavTO. r\
6e PouXf] e£eA0ouaa tv aTropppTcp auvsAa(3ev p p a s Kai sSposv sv t o i s £uAois]” (1.
45).
This absurd statement has not been entirely appreciated. MacDowell comes
close: “What exactly was secret? Not the fact that the council’s meeting came to an end;
not the arrests, which cannot have been a secret from those who were arrested” (1962:
94). We should be weary of taking Andokides at his word when he implies that he, as
guarantor, would automatically have to suffer the punishment due his guarantee. Some
legal scholars have followed this misleading statement to suggest that guarantors in
certain capital cases, such as the present one, were liable to the same penalty as their
109
guarantee who fled (Partsch 1909: 371 ff.).34 Yet guarantors in other cases suffered
nothing automatically; there was a dike engues to which they were subject in the normal
course o f Athenian litigation (cf. Lipsius 1966[1905-1915]: 713-4). Thus in Isaios’ On
Dikaiogenes ’ Inheritance the plaintiffs say, “because, gentlemen, Dikaiogenes does not
fulfill his obligations we are prosecuting Leokhares who is the guarantor of Dikaiogenes
[ettetSri, co avSpss, ou troief AiKaioysvps a cbpoAoypae, 5iKa£6pe0a Ascoxapsi
syyupxp ysvopevcp A iK aioysvous]” (Is. 5. 1). The guarantor in turn could argue that
his guarantee was void (e.g. [D.] 23. 10), or that he was never a guarantor at all (e.g. Is. 5.
19). Andokides, in other words, would not have been taken to prison automatically
simply because his guarantees fled. Unless, o f course, extraordinary circumstances
demanded extraordinary action.
All councilors took an oath prior to assuming duties: “I will not imprison any
Athenian who provides three guarantors o f the same property class as himself, unless he
is arrested for betraying the polis or conspiring to overthrow the dem os... [ou5s Spaco
’A0pvoucov ouSevcc, os av sy y u p x as xpsTs Ka0iaxp xo auxo xsAos xsAouvxas,
itApv eav x is etti trpoboaia xps ttoAscos p etti KaxaAuaEi xou Sppou auvicbv aAcb]”
34Lys. 13. 23-26 has been cited to support the claim that guarantors had to be held in the same
predicament as those they guaranteed. Yet that misrepresents the text, which as I showed above, is also
deceptive. The speaker there says is that the guarantors were w illing to flee because “i f [Agoratos] would
be taken to the council he might be compelled under torture to name the Athenians that those who were
plotting against the polis would submit to him [ei Kopio0s(r| eis rpu (3ouAf)v, (3aaavi£6|JEVos ioco?
a u a y K a a Q f i O E T a i o v o p a x a e i t t e T v ’A0tivaicov cbv dv unopaAcooiv o! (SouAopevoi k o k o v t i e v t ()
t t o A e i E pya£sa0ai]” (25). Interestingly, here too w e have a Council operating “in secret” (21).
110
(D. 24. 144).35 This oath suggests the Athenians accepted that extraordinary
circumstances called for a suspension o f citizen rights. Accordingly, Andokides’
immediate next step is to conceal his absurd statement behind pandemonium:
The Council came out in secret, arrested us and put us in

the stocks. They recalled the generals and told them to
summon the Athenians: the ones who lived in the city to
the market with their weapons, the ones who lived by the
Long Wall to the Theseion, the ones who lived in the
Piraeus in the Hippodameian Agora; to call by trumpet the
cavalry to the Anakion before nightfall; the Council to the
Akropolis to sleep there; the prytaneis to the Tholos. The
Boiotians had learned what was going on and were massing
forces on the border. And Diokleides, the man who was
responsible for all this, him they crowned and led to the
Prytaneion on horseback, and there he dined
'H 5s (3ouAp s£sA0ouoa sv aTTopppxcp auvsAa(3sv p p a s

Ka'i s5pasv sv x o is £uAois. AvaKaAsaavxss 5s xous
a x p a x p y o u s avsiTrs'iv EKsAsuaav ’A0pva(cov xous psv sv
a a x si oiKouvxas isvai si? xpv a y o p a v x a onAa
a(3ovxas, xous 5’ sv paKpcp xsiysi ei? xo 0pas7ov,
xou? 5’ sv TTsipaisT sis x p v ' iTTTToSapsiav a y o p a v , xous
6s itrtTsas sxi <Ttpo> v u k x o s apppvai xp aaA tnyyi
pKsiv sis xo ’A vaxiov, xpv 5s (SouApv s is aKpoTtoAiv
isvai KaKs) Ka0su5siv, xous 5s Trpuxavsis ev xp 0oAcp.
Boicoxoi 5s t t s t t u o m s v o i x a Ttpaypaxa e t t i x o T s o p io is
p oav s^soxpaxsupsvoi. Tov 5s xcov Kaxcbv xouxcov
a ’ixiov AioKAsiSpv cos acoxppa ovxa xp s t t o A s c o s e t t i
^suyous pyov sis xo trpuxavs'iov axs^ avcb aavxss, Kai
sSsitTVEi e k s T ( A n d . 1 . 4 5 ) .
Andokides has to respond to the public’s knowledge that he was imprisoned and
then informed to save himself. He cannot deny that he was imprisoned, he cannot deny
that he informed, but he can imply that he did not inform on the charge fo r which he was
35Wade-Gery boldly restores this oath in IG I3. 105, an inscription o f 409 concerning the
restoration o f the democracy after the coup o f the Four Hundred. This, if right, would suggest that it was in
the public discourse at the time and closely associated with the prevention o f another panic that would be
conducive to revolution (cp. D. 24. 147 ff.).
Ill
imprisoned. Again, as noted, Andokides’ task in his speech is not to win the case but to
recast his reputation. It would not do for a politically active Athenian to be known as a
cowardly informer, enjoying political existence on a technicality.
To accomplish this, Andokides manipulates his audience’s memory. Thukydides
confirms (6. 60. 2) that rumors were swirling of an army at the border, and that the
Athenians were terrified o f an invasion and coup. As if he is specifically countering
Andokides’ account, he says that the army was a Lakedaimonian one that had nothing to
do with Athens. Instead, he notes vaguely, “they were doing something with the
Boiotians [Ttpos Boicotous t i TTpdooovxEs].” He also places the report closer in time
to the recall o f Alkibiades in connection with the Mysteries Affair, well after Andokides’
testimony on the Herms.36 Andokides, it seems, was relying on the Athenians to
remember their panic, but not its exact circumstances. A heightened sense o f emergency
would explain why Andokides ended up in prison “automatically” on a tangentially
related matter.
He performs a similar legerdemain with his imprisonment. Euripides would have
been proud o f Andokides’ tragic tableau: “Alas, I am fallen into this most terrible
misfortune! [co TtavTcov eyco SsivoTaTp au|i(j)opg Trgpitteocov].” Seeing the tragic
“inspiration” behind Andokides’ tableau highlights another curious discrepancy in the
accounts: Thukydides says simply that “one o f the prisoners was persuaded;” Andokides
says Kharmides persuaded him; Plutarch names the persuader as Timaios. MacDowell
“see[s] no reason why And. should have wished to lie ... about the name of the man who
36For the chronology see M acD owell 1962: 181-5; Furley 1996: 119-130.
112
persuaded him” (1962: 175). He thus suggests that Plutarch was confused or misread his
source— which in this case was clearly not Andokides or Thukydides since they differ so
widely on the persuader’s identity. This is unlikely. It is more likely that Plutarch here
relied on an anti-Andokides source, for Plutarch and Andokides differ not only on the
name of the persuader, but their characterizations o f the supplicant are diametrically
opposed. Andokides says: “Kharmides was my cousin o f the same age as me, raised in
our house since childhood [XappiSris cov psv a v s^ io s, f|XiKicbxris 5s
Kai a u v s K T p a ^ s is sv ft] o k ia xf| f]psxspg sk ttouS o s ]” (48). Plutarch counters: “It
happened that Andokides became especially acquainted and friendly with one man
among those in prison on the same charge. The man was not as notable as him, but he
had more than enough cunning and daring, and his name was Timaios [ouvs(3q 5s xcp
’AvSoKi'Sq paA ioxa xcov xqv auxrjv a ix ia v sxovxcov sv xcp SEcpcoxripicp ysvsoSai
oqvf]0p Kai (jnAov, sv5o£ov psv ouy opoicos- sk siv c o , auvsasi 5s Kai xoApri nspixxov,
ovopa T ipaiov]” (Plut. Aik. 21. 4). Plutarch’s Timaios was not o f the same class as
Andokides, and additionally they had no prior relationship. They met and became friends
in jail. The persuader’s character in Plutarch’s account— ’’more than enough cunning and
daring”—reflects poorly on Andokides and his motives.
Andokides wants to suggest that he was supplicated correctly. His supplicant was
his cousin, raised under the same roof as himself. He was o f the same class, and he was
bound to him as to a brother. Andokides means to suggest that a supplication from a
close relation (by both class and blood) makes understandable his subsequent
information. Plutarch’s source’s identification o f the persuader as a cad and low-life with
no prior connection to Andokides reflects poorly on Andokides. Only the worthy address
113
proper, tragically dignified, supplications. That is why Andokides’ supplicant has to be
someone like Kharmides. When such people supplicate, one is obliged to act.
In his first, unsuccessful, attempt to return, in his On his Return of 409, he
described his actions as anoia, “folly” (2. 7). By the time he delivered his On the
Mysteries in 400 they had become “foresight,”pronoia (1. 56). This about-face was
possible because Andokides was able to offer the audience a persuasive alternative
narrative that supplemented their memory. The genealogist Hellanikos made Andokides
a distant descendant o f Odysseus (FrGrH 4 F 170c). Perhaps his reason for doing so had
something to do with the fact that through manipulation o f supplication, Andokides, like
his ancestor, regained his status and returned home.
Supplication was a theatrical spectacle that attracted people’s attention, and at the
same time defined social situations. Ephialtes, I suggested, used this capacity to present
the Areopagos as a predator with little regard for tradition and piety; effectively canceling
that council’s greatest claim to authority. His supplication had a political rationale. It
created the important political resources o f knowledge (because it was extraordinary) and
sentiment (because it was traditional). Ephialtes used these resources against the
Areopagos in an institutional setting to further detract it. His supplication’s
outlandishness, which caused the incident to be remembered, was due to Ephialtes’
ambitious and difficult political agenda.
Andokides also used supplication’s tradition and theatricality to his advantage.
His exile, we saw, was fueled by unofficial knowledge and rumor, which contradicted the
official pronouncements of the institutions. He should have enjoyed immunity, but his
114
opponents were able to besmirch his reputation enough to make life in Athens difficult
for him, and political life impossible. He used Kallias’ case against him as an
opportunity to recast his reputation, and did so by manipulating social knowledge. He
crafted an alternative narrative, in which he found him self in prison unwillingly, and
informed against the criminals because he was obliged to— and not because he was trying
to save himself, as his opponents alleged. Andokides took advantage o f supplication’s
tradition and theatricality to paint a tableau that made his act o f informing an act o f duty
rather than cowardice. Kharmides’ putative social capital made Andokides’ acceptance
of his supplication respectable and even obligatory, while his opponents’ casting o f the
supplicant as the low-life Timaios colored Andokides’ motives as purely selfish.
The next chapter will continue to explore the themes o f supplication’s tradition
and theatricality. It will examine the role of the supplicant’s protector more closely,
especially as it was reenacted by 4th century politicians when they staged supplication
spectacles in the Assembly.
FOUR
The Performance of Tradition

(The People’s Supplicants and their Sponsors)
T h e p o litica l leader w h o w ants to create

th e p u b lic im p ressio n that h e is a
ch a m p io n o f ju s tic e , eq u ality, and th e
gen era l g o o d is far m ore lik ely to
a c h ie v e a d eep er and m ore la stin g
im p ressio n b y sta g in g a dram atic
p resen tation o f th is im age than h e is by
sim p ly assertin g it v erb a lly (K ertzer
1 9 8 8 :4 0 )
The 5th century evidence I considered in the previous chapter seems to present
supplication as a somewhat impromptu act. Individuals staged or evoked it in various
places and guises as they deemed opportune to further their goals and ambitions. They
used supplication, I suggested, to influence the knowledge and sentiment o f the crowd.
Knowledge and sentiment were central resources in Athenian politics. Properly
channeled, they were the key to effecting political and social action. We saw how this
worked with the supplications staged by Ephialtes and Themistokles, Perikleidas and
Kimon, and in the supplication narrated by Andokides.
Supplication’s critics, such as the “Old Oligarch,” Plato, Aristophanes and
Aiskhylos, registered distaste for the practice because, I argued, they were committed to
the notion that the crowd should fall in line behind civic pronouncements, and politicians
should address the people only through institutionally appropriate channels. Supplication
was a threat to the ideology of the rule o f law because it bypassed institutional channels,
shaping the crowd’s sentiment from that hub of communal life, the marketplace.
The evidence for supplication in the 4th century is richer, allowing a fuller
reconstruction of the contexts o f supplication. In this chapter I will show that 4th century
115
116
supplications addressed to the Assembly were also not impromptu performances but
regularly staged spectacles, and that they should be understood in terms of three closely
related factors.
The first factor is that in 4th century political discourse supplication becomes
closely associated with the figure o f the “democratic king” of the tragic stage o f the 5th
century. Characters such as Theseus in Euripides’ Supplicants or Theseus’ son
Demophon in his Herakleidai were useful emblems of Athenian morality, might,
patriotism and democratic leadership at a time when Athenians looked longingly to the
past. Supplications staged in the Assembly were a way to resurrect, in Badian’s apt
phrase, “the ghost of empire” (1995).
The second factor lies in the fact that the Assembly’s jurisdiction had been
steadily eroding through the first h alf o f the 4th century. The primary beneficiary of this
jurisdictional erosion was the Areopagos, the “Rock of Ares,” considered by the
Athenians to be their oldest and m ost traditional institution. The supplication spectacles
now regularly staged in the Assembly helped that institution reinforce its own claim to be
the preeminently democratic, ancestral and authoritative body. They were a practical
way o f countering the Areopagos’ image as the mainstay o f the “ancestral constitution.”
The third factor involves the overlap between institutional and personal interest.
While the Assembly benefited by staging supplications, the politicians who sponsored
supplicants also benefited. They took advantage o f supplication’s ideology and its place
in the Assembly to orchestrate carefully staged “political dramas” (cf. Chaney 1993), in
which the sponsors cast themselves in the part o f hyper-masculine, old-fashioned
democratic leaders.
117
These spectacles provided a dramatic fusion o f aristocratic and democratic
values.1 They allowed the sponsors to present themselves “as men o f the city, but also as
special men” (Morris 1994: 81). Meanwhile, the acts o f supplication were superfluous
for the supplicants, who were unlikely to receive anything by supplicating that they could
not have also received otherwise.
4.1. Images o f the democratic king
4th century Assembly supplication spectacles are informed by the figure of the
democratic king, which can be traced back to 5th century tragedy. A common scene on
the tragic stage involves a supplicant, his pursuer and his champion. The supplicant
appears first, and obtains the support of a powerful individual. Then the pursuer appears,
whom the champion confronts. This is the common plot behind the sub-genre of tragedy
called “supplicant drama.”2 We saw in Aiskhylos’ Supplicants the Danaids pursued by
the Aigyptiads and championed by Pelasgos. In the Eumenidai Orestes is pursued by the
Erinyai and championed by Apollo; in Sophokles’ Oidipous at Kolonos Oidipous is
pursued by his son Polyneikes and championed by Theseus. In Euripides’ Supplicants
the mothers of the Seven Eleroes are pursued by Adrastos and championed by Theseus.
In his Herakleidai the children of Herakles are pursued by Eurystheus and championed
by Demophon (Theseus’ son).
The Athenian hero Theseus is the character most closely associated with tragedy’s
1On the “democratization” o f aristocratic ideology see generally Ober 1989: 259 ff..
2See Kopperschmidt 1967; Burian 1973; Rehm 1988; Mercier 1990; Legangneux 2000; Tzanetou
2005.
118
supplicants. No hero enjoyed a longer or more central existence in Athenian politics than
Theseus (see Walker 1995; S. Mills 1997). Eternally young and virile, Theseus served
the ideological needs of tyrants, democrats, and oligarchs in turn. 6th century
iconography depicts him as the civilizing hero fighting monsters at the edges o f the
world; in the 5th century he becomes the founding hero who ties together the villages of
Attica into the administrative center o f Athens. In the 4th century artists begin to adapt
his virile attributes to democratic ideology. The best illustration o f the democratic
Theseus, and the ideals he stood for, is the painting by Euphranor in the Stoa Basileios.
In the Stoa Basileios, Pausanias tells us, Euphranor painted a Theseus alongside a
personified People and Democracy (Paus. 1.3. 3 ).3 We do not know how the three
figures were positioned. Shortly after the mid-4th century documentary reliefs begin to
show the goddess Demokratia crowning Demos (Lawton 1995: 3 1).4 It is plausible to
assume that Theseus also figured in some such crowning scene (Palagia 1980: 57-63).
We do know more about the painting’s reception, enough to get a sense of the work.
Euphranor him self is said to have commented that the Theseus of his rival Parrhasios
looked like he had been raised on roses; his own Theseus like he was fed beef. Plutarch
agreed with Euphranor that Parrhasios’ Theseus was “indeed somewhat delicately drawn
[tco y a p o v ti yAatjiupcbs o TTappacnou ysypaTTTai]” (Mor. 346a). Pliny, who also
records Euphranor’s comment (N H 35. 40), personally thought that Euphranor tended to
3On the wall facing Theseus, Pausanias tells us, Euphranor had painted a very effective scene o f
the cavalry battle at Mantineia (cf. Plut. Mor. 346b; Xen. Hell. 7. 5 f f ) . Euphranor therefore probably
painted Theseus after 362.
4On the 4th century cult o f Demokratia see Raubitschek 1961.
119
make the limbs too big. Pausanias focused on the fact that Euphranor depicted Theseus
as a democrat. How can this be, he asked, when we know that at least three generations
o f kings followed him?5 Pausanias’ comment misses the point. In the mid-4th century to
portray a beef-eating, large-limbed, hyper-masculine Theseus as a democrat made perfect
sense, even though he was not, strictly speaking, the founder o f democracy. Plutarch
{Mor. 346b) tells us that someone on seeing Euphranor’s Theseus felt compelled to quote
from the Catalog o f Ships at Iliad 2. 547-8, exclaiming, “the demos o f great-hearted
Erekhtheus whom Athena nourished, the daughter o f Zeus! [Sqpov ’ EpsySqos
peyaAr]Topog, ov ttot” A0qvq Gpstjvs Atog Guyaxqp].” This was an appropriate
epigram to Euphranor’s work, which represented a fusion o f the heroic with the
democratic.6 He had painted, after all, a democratic king.
4.1.1. "You may know a city by its supplicants ”
The figure o f the democratic king came into sharpest relief when he was rallying
the people to protect supplicants from their foreign oppressor. Athenians, according to
Herodotos (9. 26-8), by the early 5th century already employed their myths o f defending
supplicants to assert collective prestige and privilege. By the early 4th century the
democratic king who personally champions the supplicants becomes more prominent.
5“Many people unfamiliar with history believe other un-truths, and they find credible what they
have been hearing since childhood in festivals and tragedies. Similarly they believe this about Theseus
[ A e y e t c u plv 5f] k c u ccAAa o u k aAr]0fj n a p a t o T s rroAAols o i a tcrropias avrjKoois o u c n kcc'i O T T oaa
e u 0 u s I k TTodScov ev TE x ° P ° > s Kcxi x p a y c o iS ia is t t i o t c x fiyoupEvots, AlyExat 5 s k o i I s t o v G p a la ].”
6For a good discussion o f these values’ coexistence in 4th century political ideology see Ober
1989: 280 ff.
120
This figure comes to be associated with Theseus above all others, and his nationalistic
and hegemonic undertones, already implicit in the tradition’s tragic treatments are
expressed more overtly.
Isokrates is the author who connects most clearly the democratic king and his
supplicants to ideals of leadership and virility. In his Panegyrikos, written between 390
and 380, Isokrates exhorts Athens to spearhead a Greek coalition against Persia (cf. 15.
57). A rhetorical challenge faced him here: how to insinuate Athens as the leader o f this
imaginary coalition without excessively diminishing Lakedaimon and the pro-
Lakedaimonian elements within Athens (cf. 73; Bringmann 1965; Gillis 1971). His
construction o f Athens’ hegemonic role is based on a multi-layered rhetorical argument.
Part of his argument has to do with the great supplicants o f Athenian “mythistory.” He
suggests that a polis’ supplicants are indicative of its character: “You may know the
character and the power o f a city from its supplications [yvoir] 5’ av x is K ai xov
tpo ttov K ai xqv pcdpr)v xf|V xrjs ttoXbcos sk xcbv'iKSxeicov]” (Isok. 4. 54). Athens’
famous supplications, those of the Herakleidai and the Epigonoi, are an unambiguous
sign of the city’s status among the other important poleis:
O f the Hellenic poleis, other than our own, Argos and

Thebes and Lakedaimon were at that time the greatest, as
they still are. And yet our ancestors were clearly so
superior that on behalf o f the defeated Argives they
dictated terms to the Thebans at the moment o f their
greatest pride, and on behalf of the sons o f Herakles they
conquered the Argives and the rest of the Peloponnesians in
battle, and delivered the founders and leaders of
Lakedaimon out of all danger from Eurystheus. Therefore,
as to who was the dynast in Hellas, I do not see how
anyone could produce more convincing evidence
xcov psv yap EXXr]viScov ttoXbcov, x ^ P 1? t %
121
fipsT spas’ A pyos k c u ©fj(3ai Kai AaKeSaipcov Kai t o t

rjaav psyioTai Kai vuv e t i SiaTsAouai. (})a(vovTai 5 ’
ppcov 01 irpoyovot t o o o u t o v ccrrctvTcov S i e v E y K O V T E s ,
coo0’ uusp pev Apysicov SuoTuxriacxvTcov ©ri(3aiois,
o t e psyiaTov E<j)p6vr]aav, e t t i t c x t t o v t e s , utTsp 5 s t c o v
uaiScov t c o v HpaKAEOus ApyEious Kai t o u s aAAous
n sA o T T O u v ria io u s p a x n K p a T r io a v T s s , ek 5e t c o v T rp o s
EupuoGsa k i v S u v c o v t o u s o i k i o t c x s Kai t o u s riyspovas
t o u s AaKESaipovicov SiaocoaavTE?. c o o t s Trspi psv t %
e v Tols'EAApai SuvaoTEias o u k o’iS’ o t t c o s av t \ s
aa(J)EOT£pov ETTiSsTâi SuvtiSeiti (4. 64-5; trans. Norlin,

modified).
The supplication myths, Isokrates argues, serve to place Athens hierarchically
over the three most powerful Greek states o f the day: Argos, Thebes and Lakedaimon.
Athens’ defense o f the Herakleidai place Athens over Lakedaimon, whose kings claimed
Herakleid descent (Tyrt. 2. 13?, 11. 1 W; Hdt. 6.51 ff.). The myth o f the Epigonoi (“the
defeated Argives,” in Isokrates’ allusion), on the other hand, places Athens over both
Thebes and Argos. In that myth the supplication of the mothers of the fallen Seven
induced Athens to compel Thebes to return the heroes’ corpses for proper burial—
something that Argos itself was unable to do. Supplication, in other words, was useful in
creating an opportunity and a justification for the assertion o f Athenian power against its
rivals.7
Isokrates elsewhere explicitly cites the tragic stage as his source for these myths:
“Who does not know or has not heard from the tragic poets in the Dionysia about what
befell Adrastos in Thebes? [t i s y a p ouk o i S sv r] ouk cxktikoe tcov
7In his mature, “more feeble” (4), Panathenaikos, published in 339, he expressed a very different,
far less bellicose, interpretation o f these myths. Thus, rather than leading to war, Adrastos’ supplication
leads the Athenians to admonish the Thebans, who are persuaded by argument to turn over the dead (168-
75).
122
xpayco5o5i5aai<aAcov Aiovucnois x a s ’A Spaorcp yevopsvas ev ©rj[3ats
aupcjiopas]” (12. 168 ff.). Nor was Isokrates the only one to make explicit the link
between supplication-myths and tragedy (cf. PI. Menex. 239b7; [D.] 60. 8-9).8 But
Isokrates drew an additional lesson from the tragoididaskaloi. The supplications o f the
tragic stage that provided a blueprint for Athenian hegemony abroad also provided
Isokrates a model for democratic leadership with Athens itself.
This model comes across clearly in his Helen, an encomium o f Helen which
quickly and unexpectedly turns into an encomium o f Theseus. Isokrates discusses the
qualities that Theseus’ supplicants gave him the opportunity and justification to display:
He displayed his manliness in those deeds when he was in

personal danger; his war skill in the battles that he fought
with the entire polis; his piety towards the gods during the
supplications of Adrastos and the children o f Herakles— the
ones he saved by defeating the Peloponnesians in battle, the
others by forcibly compelling the Thebans to hand over
those who died on the K adm eia...
xqv psv ouv avbpiav e v xouxois STtESsiâxo xoTs

epyois e v o is a u to s Ka0’ auxov e k i v S u v e u o e v , xqv 5’
Etriatfippv rjv eI x e v Trpos to v t t o A e p o v , e v xaTs p a y a is
sv a ls P £ 0 ’ oAqs t q s t t o A s g o s qycoviaaxo, xqv 5 ’
eugeêiav Tqv TTpos to u s Q e o u s e v t£ TaTs A Spaoxou
<a'i xaTs t c o v rraiScov xcbv'Hpa<XEOus 'iKEXEiais—xous
pgv y a p payt] viKqaas TTEXoTTOvvqaious S i e o c o o e v , xcp
5 e x o u s uTto xr] K aSpsia xsAsuxfiaavxas (bia © qâicov
Saipai TtapgScoKEV (10. 31).
Indeed Theseus brought such a pitch o f perfection to his rule that the citizens came to
consider him more democratic than themselves! “He made the people sovereign in the
8I thank Angeliki Tzanetou for calling m y attention to supplication’s place in panegyric. See now
Tzanetou 2005. On panegyric as the “invention o f tradition” see Loraux 1986[1981j.
123
state, and the people thought only he should rule. They deemed his monarchy more
reliable and communal than their own democracy [o psv ro v Sfjpov KaGiaxq xupiov
xqs troXiTsias, 01 5s povov auxov apxstv fîouv, pyoupsvoi tn ax o x sp av Kai
KoivoTspav sivai xqv sksivou p o vapxiav xrjs auxcov SqpoK paxias]” (Isok. 10. 36).
Manly, brave, pious: these were the virtues that characterized the democratic king. He
displayed them when he was rallying the city to help worthy supplicants. Supplicants, in
turn, helped Theseus express the city’s might, and also helped locate his right to rule in
his character.
4.2. Echoes o f the fathers
The figure o f Theseus as democratic king needs to be understood in a somewhat
broader context. If the people consented to Theseus’ leadership thanks to his virtue,
morality and patriotism, which he displayed when he was defending supplicants, it was
because the same ideals featured in a broader nostalgic discourse. They were closely
associated with the patrios politeia, or “ancestral constitution.” Much has been written
about this discourse that appears at the end o f the 5th century, precisely as the Athenian
empire was fading, and continues until the end o f the 4th (see e.g. Fuks 1953;
Ruschenbusch 1958; Finley 1971; 1975). I will not delve into it too deeply. Suffice it to
say that despite the fact that no one agreed what the ancestral constitution was, it was a
common tactic to support one’s arguments by appealing to the way of the forefathers.
In the course of the 4th century historical research became popular and
popularized. Not objective historians, writers sought to rediscover their ancestral roots to
justify or critique the present (Jacoby 1949: 76). According to the sophist Thrasymakhos,
124
politicians argued constantly about the patrios politeia, at cross-purposes with each other.
One side wanted to bring back the traditional “rule o f the best,” while the other argued
that the traditional government was profoundly democratic (DK 85 F 1. 11-7).9 As
Isokrates noted, “We sit around in the workshops and critique the current situation and
say that in democracy we have never been worse governed, but in our dealings and
thoughts we prefer it to the one that our ancestors left behind [aAA’ e tt'i psv tc o v
spyaaTppicov k c c 0 i£ o v te s KaTqyopoupsv tc o v KaSsaTcoTcov, xa'i Asyopev cos
o u S s t t o t ’ ev SqpoKpaTia k cx k io v e t t o A i t s u S i h j e v , ev 5 s t o i s Ttpaypaai Kai Tafs
S iavoiais a ls exomev paAAov auTijv dyatTcopEV T rjs utto tc o v Ttpoyovcov
KaTaAsicfiSEiaqs]” (7. 15). The oligarchic conspirators o f 411 and 404 respectively
invoked the patrios politeia to justify their actions, claiming in each case that they were
not really dissolving the government so much as reconstituting the traditional
government.10 Between the two coups the Athenians also decided to rediscover their
ancestral roots. This movement contributed to renewed scrutiny o f the laws, a return to
origins (exemplified by the appeal to the laws o f Drako and measures o f Solon: And. 1.
9“They were arguing among them selves about the constitution. Those who desired oligarchy said
that the old situation should be revived, in which a very few governed the rest. But the majority who were
desirous o f democracy preferred the constitution o f their fathers and declared that this one was an
acknowledged democracy [Trspi 5 e xfjs TroAixeias npos aAApAous SiE<t>Epovxo. oi yap xijs
o A iy a p x ia s opEyopsvot xpv naA aidv K axaaxaaiv E(j)aaav 5 e 7 v avavEouaSai, Ka0’ pv TTavxsAcbs
oAiyoi xcov oAcov TrpoEiaxf]KEtoav oi 5 e t t A e k j x o i SppoKpaxias o v x e s £TTi0upr]xai xpv xcbu
naxEpcov TroAiXEiav TTpoE(j)Epouxo, Kai xauxpv aTTE(t)riuav bpoAoyoupEvcos ouaau SppoKpaxiau]”
(D.S. 14. 3. 3).
10In 411, the conspirators formed a Council o f 400 “in accordance with ancestral practice [ r a x a
x a TTaxpta] (AP 31. 1; cf. 29. 3). In 404 Sparta demanded that the Athenian constitution be reconstituted
along the lines o f the p atrios p o liteia (AP 34. 3; cf. Xen. Hell. 2. 3. 2; D.S. 14. 3. 2).
125
83) and an attempt to rationalize the juridical system.11 Like Theseus, the patrios politeia
was used by politicians o f all stripes to further their particular projects. The patrios
politeia was not a coherent program with concrete objectives, oligarchic or democratic,
but a vague longing for the past that took wing as the empire was fading.
The institution most implicated in the patrios politeia was the Areopagos, the
council consisting solely of those citizens who had attained the highest magistracy, that
of arkhdn. It is widely considere a conservative voice in Athenian politics.12 In his
account of the Areopagos’ role in Athenian politics, Wallace (1989) shows that as far
back as we can tell the Areopagos’ power was always based on its claim o f being
ancestral. We saw in Chapter Three how Ephialtes managed to turn that strength into a
liability. In the 4th century, it seems, the Areopagos begins to press its claim with greater
force to be the truest representation o f the ancestors. Isokrates in his Areopagitikos
argues that the ancestors prospered because they gave the Areopagos complete control
over the state. He proposes that the Areopagos take over the state again. O f course, he is
careful to say that he is not advocating the overthrow o f the democracy. Just as in the
Helen passage cited above (10. 36) where Theseus’ monarchy is more democratic than
democracy, so in the Areopagitikos the rule o f the Areopagos paradoxically constitutes a
“tyranny of the demos [ t o v pev S fjp o v c o o trsp T u p a v v o v K a0 iO T a v a i]” where the
magistrates, who are the best and noblest Athenians, “oversee the state like house-slaves
11 Much has been written about this movement. See, for starters, M acD owell 1975; Ostwald 1986;
Robertson 1990; Hansen 1991: 162-5; Rhodes 1991; Carawan2002.
12The first proclamation o f all new arkhontes was that “whatever one possessed before his
magistracy, he w ill also possess and own at the end o f it [o a a x is siX£V TTP1V auTOV e’ioeABeTv ei§ xpv
ap xpv, xau x’ s'xeiv Kai Kpaxslv M£XP' “ PX% xeA ous]” (AP 56. 2).
126
[8TTiMsAeia0aiTcov k o iv c o v cbcmsp oiK ST as]” o f the demos (7. 26). The ideologized
Areopagos is not only found in Isokrates’ writings. According to the politician
Deinarkhos, the Areopagos was the one institution to which, “the demos many times gave
in trust the protection o f their bodies..., the constitution, and the democracy [Tqv tcov
ocopocTcov (jjuXaKpv o 5 f]p o s TTapaKaTa0r]Kr]v sS coksv, cp xqv ttoA it e ic x v Ka'i
SripoKpaTiav ttoAAockis eyxEXSipiKev]” (Dein. 1. 9). He states this as if it was to some
extent common knowledge.
Ideology also had a practical side. Especially after the mid-century, we observe
the Areopagos’ power steadily increasing, as Hansen has pointed out (1975: 56-7).
Isokrates’ first argument supporting the Areopagos’ authority is its close association with
ancestral forms of piety, ta peri torn theous. Because the Areopagos made sure that the
Athenians did not stray from the religion o f the ancestors, Isokrates argued, the state
prospered (7. 29-30). A decree of 352/1 names the Areopagos as the authority foremost
responsible for sanctuaries (I G II2 204. 16-23), reflecting the same notion written into
law.
The Areopagos’ authority went beyond cultic oversight. We get a feel for its
political power in the 340s when Demosthenes brought a man, Antiphon, before that
council and charged him with conspiring with Philip to set fire to the docks. The
Areopagos found Antiphon guilty and had him executed, despite the fact that the
Assembly had already acquitted him (D. 18. 132-4; cf. Dein. 1. 62-3; Plut. Dem. 14. 4).
Another clear sign o f its increasing power is found in Lykourgos’ Against Leokrates.
The orator has to ask for calm when he brings up the Areopagos’ execution o f citizens:
127
Consider, men: it is not up to you to acquit Leokrates if you

act justly. His crime has already been judged and
condemned. Because the Areopagos— do not shout now,
fo r I firm ly hold that this council was then the greatest
salvation fo r the city— arrested those who fled the city at
that time and abandoned it to the enemy, and put them to
death.
5’ co avSpss, oxi o u 6 ’ e v u|iiv saxtv

aTKx|;Ti<jM0aa0ai AscoKpaxous xouxoui, x a SiKaia
ttoiouoi. xo y a p aSiKqpa xouxo KSKpipevov soxi Kai
KaxEyvcocpEvov. q psv y a p e v ’Apt icq Ttaycp (3ouAq Kai
pqSEis poi 0opu(3qoq- xauxqv y a p uiroAan(3avGo
MEyioxqv x o x e y£VEO0ai xq x t o A e i ocoxqpiav xous
(jjuyovxas xqv u a x p iS a Kai EyKaxaAitrovxas x o x e x o 7 s
tToA£ijiots'ouAAa(3ouoa o t t e k x e i v e (52)
Lykourgos’ aside to the audience speaks volumes about the audience’s attitude towards
the Areopagos. No sooner does he mention its name than he needs to quiet the audience.
This imagined outburst has been adduced to explain why the Areopagos is singled out in
Eukrates’ law of 337 against subverting the democracy:
If the demos or the democracy o f Athens is disbanded the

Areopagos councilors are not allowed to go up to the
Areopagos or to sit in session or to deliberate about
anything whatsoever
p f| e ^ e T v o i 6 e x c o v ( S o u A s u x c o v x c S v xfjs ( 3 o u A t ) s xfjs
’Apsiou TTayou KaxaAsAupEvou xou Sqpou fj xfjs
SqpoK paxias xfjs ’A0rjvqoiv avisvai sis Apsiou TTayou
P X | 5 e ouvKa0i^£iv e v xcbi ouvEbpicoi pqSf ^ o u A e u e i v 5 e
TTEpi EVOS (SEG X II87.11-6).
Eukrates’ law was one response to the increasing power and prestige o f the Areopagos in
the latter half of the 4th century (Wallace 1989: 180-4). Another response involved
staging supplications.
128
4.2.1. Supplications on the agenda
The Areopagos’ jurisdictional gains came at the expense o f the Assembly
(Hansen 1975: 52-4). This is the clear implication of Eukrates’ law, which conceives the
Areopagos as potentially hostile to the Assembly. But it is too simplistic to assume that
the Areopagos was for that reason oligarchic. The truth o f the matter was that politicians
were taking advantage of the Areopagos’ place in the ideology o f the patrios politeia to
further their own personal agendas. Ultimately, they aggrandized and diminished the
Areopagos as it suited them best. Demosthenes, for one, played both sides. In the
aftermath of Harpalos’ arrival in 324 Demosthenes was charged with taking bribes. Part
o f his defense involved an appeal to the Areopagos akin to an oath-challenge. He
proposed a decree that authorized the Areopagos to look into the matter and condemn to
death anyone found guilty o f accepting Harpalos’ bribes (Dein. 1. 3, 8, 61). This was a
canny move. If the Areopagos found against him, as it happened, he could claim that the
Areopagos was oligarchic, as in fact he did (Dein. 1. 62). If it had acquitted him, he
would have certainly praised the Areopagos’ credentials to undermine his opponents’
position.
The Areopagos was not the only institution making inroads in the authority o f the
Assembly. The Assembly was similarly losing grounds to the courts. The important
procedure of eisangelia is an example: after 362 it was conducted exclusively in the
courts, whereas before it had been in the province of the Assembly (Hansen 1975: 51-7).
This may have been because courts were cheaper, as Hansen suggests, and the Athenian
state was in difficult financial straits after the Social War o f 354/3. Or it simply may be
because the courts proved more effective arenas for the production o f knowledge. They
129
allowed greater deliberative precision and clarity thanks to how judicial voting was
carried out (Todd 1993: 160). Jurors voted by pebble, allowing consensus to be
represented numerically for all to see. By contrast, the Assembly normally voted by a
show o f hands, relying on officials to estimate the majority (Hansen 1977). The
important thing was not only to learn whether a proposition had a majority’s support, but
to implicate a large number o f citizens in the act o f government. This is something the
courts were simply better suited to perform.
Whatever the reasons for the Assembly’s decline, we begin to see measures to
shore up its stature. Throughout the 4th century, for example, assembly pay continued to
rise, from 3 obols to 1 and 1 Vz drakhmai by the 320s, depending on the type of meeting.
By contrast jury pay remained steady at 3 obols (Markle 1985; cf. Ar. Ekkl. 183-8, 299-
304). Also, in the mid-4th century the main meeting site, the Pnyx, was enlarged and
architecturally elaborated (Rotroff and Camp 1996). All this points to an attempt to
strengthen the Assembly, the ekklesia, or, as it was more commonly known, the demos.
Another attempt to reinforce the Assembly entailed reorganizing its schedule,
which is preserved in the AP. Because this information is often treated as an eyewitness
report, I will first argue that it derives from an archived source. Second, I will suggest
that the original source dates to the mid-4th century, synchronizing it with other attempts
to reinforce the Assembly. And third, I will argue that the reorganization o f the
schedule— which we have no evidence was put into practice in the form we have it—was
conceived as a symbolic attempt to associate the assembly more closely with the
ancestral constitution. It can thus be seen as yet another response to the resurgence of the
Areopagos.
130
According to the schedule, during each of the ten tribes’ monthly tenure as
executive committee the Assembly is to hold four meetings. One meeting is to be the
main meeting, the kyria, during which the Assembly is to deal with the vital matters o f
the grain-supply, magistrate scrutiny, eisangeliai (indictments), inheritances, sycophantic
charges and public contracts. Once a year, during the sixth prytany, the Assembly is to
decide whether to hold an ostracism or not. Supplications, according to the schedule, are
the subject o f the second monthly meeting:
A second [meeting is] for supplicant-branches, in which

anyone who wishes deposits a supplicant-branch and
addresses the Assembly about anything he wishes, private
or public matter.
sTtpav 5e to u s 'iKETppiais, ev fj 0e'is o (3ouAo|jevos

iKsxripiav, uttep cov av (SouArixai, Ka'i i5icov Ka'i
Sppoaicov, 5iaAs£sxai tTpos xov Srjpov {AP A2>.6).
Scholars often assume that this information is an eyewitness account of what
actually took place in the Assembly. This assumption is unjustified, for it is fairly certain
that the writer copied it from an official archive. This is in keeping with his
methodology, which consisted o f “transposing] the law’s prescription of what is to
happen into a statement of what does happen” (Rhodes 1993: 641). Further, the
Assembly schedule is oddly placed. Whatever our writer has to say about the Assembly
comes as a tangent on the duties o f the officials responsible for the Council, the prytaneis.
Rhodes (1993: 34) accordingly makes a strong case that his division o f the material on a
procedural basis reflects a 4th century official scheme of organization.13
13See D. 24. 20; IG I3. 105; Todd 1993: 64-7. On archives in Athens see R. Thomas 1989: 34 ff.;
Shear 1995; Sickinger 1999.
131
If the schedule’s information was based not on observation but on archival
research, can we date the source? There are some features that can be independently
corroborated. We can confidently say that the schedule dates after 353. The terminus
post quem is provided by D. 24. 21, where the law on epikheirotonia ton nomon cited
suggests that there were only three monthly sessions normally scheduled at the time; the
AP schedule calls for four sessions (Hansen 1984). Furthermore, the schedule calls for
one “plenary session” per month. The term the writer uses, ekklesia kyria (43. 4), dates
back to the 5th century (IG I3 41. 37; 49. 10) but appears on documentary prescripts only
starting in the mid-330s (Rhodes 1993: 522-3; Scheidel and Taeuber 2001: 466, n.3).
The schedule should thus be subsequent to, or contempory with, that development
(Errington 1994). Notably, most extant records o f supplication (to which I will turn in
the next section) date from the same interval, 350-330.
The A P ’s Assembly schedule is not a complete account of the Assembly’s
business. It leaves out important matters with which, we know, assemblies dealt, but
includes fossils. It does not account for the appointment o f generals or for the question of
whether any laws needed to be revised. The latter matter, if we are to believe the law
cited in D. 24. 21, came before the Assembly once a year (Rhodes 1993: 523). Even
though eisangeliai at the time of the schedule’s composition were practiced solely in the
courts, the schedule flatly states that the Assembly had jurisdiction over them. Most
surpisingly, the schedule states that once a year the Assembly determined whether to hold
an ostracism. We can be fairly confident that the AP was drawing on an archive, but it is
far from clear why a regulation of the mid-4th century would dictate a yearly referendum
on ostracism, a procedure which had not been used in nearly a century before (Scheidel
132
and Taeuber 2001; Hefitner 2003).14
Scholars have begun to study ostracism as a ritual rather than a judicial procedure,
highlighting its symbolic contribution to the community’s self-performance (see
Forsdyke 2005b; Rosenbloom 2004). There were always easier ways to get rid o f an
opponent. By staging a ritual which implicated a large number o f citizens in a traditional
and patriotic act the Athenians were reenacting the time of their ancestors. A desire to
evoke these very ideals, I would suggest, lies behind the inclusion o f supplication in the
A P ’s Assembly schedule. It is uncertain if the Athenians really did vote once a year not
to ostracize, as Rhodes suggests (1993: 526). W hat is clear is that “conservative”
politicians like Androtion {FrGrH 324 F 6) and Philokhoros {FrGrH 328 F 30) showed
an historical interest in ostracism, which dovetailed with their interest in the patrios
politeia.
Whether ostracism’s obsolescence was complete or partial, for my purposes it is
important to note that in the 4th century ostracism was seen through a particular
ideological lens. This lens would have colored it as patriotic, democratic and
quintessentially Athenian. According to Theophrastos, Theseus was the inventor and
first victim o f ostracism (fr. 131W). Theophrastos’ implausible suggestion is not very
surprising since Theseus in the 4th century, as we saw, was considered the ideal Athenian
democratic leader, and would naturally be involved with ostracism somehow (Forsdyke
14 Errington (1994), whose argument I follow to this point, suggests that the Athenians anticipated
an oligarchic revolution and so decided to revive the practice o f ostracism after Khaironeia in 338 in order
to have the weapon handy. There is no evidence that the Athenians were afraid o f an oligarchic revolution.
Errington cites Eukrates’ Law (cited above), but as W allace (1989: 180-4) shows, there is little evidence to
suggest that the Areopagos was pro-Makedonian. See the further objections o f Rhodes 1995a.
133
2005b: 153).
Ostracism and supplication alike, I want to suggest, both feature on the schedule
because they were seen as important symbols o f ancestral democracy— as the
associations o f both with Theseus, the embodiment o f the ancestral democracy, make
clear. The schedule once a year put on the agenda the question o f ostracism, even though
it was never carried out again after Hyperbolos’ ostracism around 415. On the other
hand, if the schedule’s writers called for one meeting each month to be dedicated to
supplications, this was partially because these evoked the ancestors much cheaply than an
actual ostracism would, and also because they served specific purposes. Individual
politicians profited as well as the institution as a whole, when spectacles of supplication
were staged in the Assembly.
4.3. Supplicants o f the People
Inscriptions recording supplicants to the Assembly begin to appear in the mid-4th
century. I will suggest that private arrangements between supplicants and their sponsors
were behind these public acts. The supplicant gained recognition and honor, while the
sponsor gained symbolic capital by playing a significant, traditional role in public. In all
likelihood, the supplicant also gave material capital to his sponsor, who benefited doubly.
The earliest supplication inscription is I G II . 192, a fragmentary inscription
which its editors date ca. 353/2. Only the tell-tale formula is visible on the stone,
providing no further information than that it involved a supplication. The formula’s

'j
earliest meaningful attestation is in 7G II . 218, a decree which dates to 346/5 and
concerns an Abderite supplicant. The formula’s final occurrence on record is in a decree
134
o f 302/1, where the supplicant was listed as a public slave (I G II . 505). From that fifty
year-period a total o f eight supplication inscriptions are preserved.15
The formula that marks a particular petition as a supplication in Athenian civic
decrees is trsp'i cbv s5o£sv evvopa iksteusiv, “concerning which matters X was deemed
to supplicate lawfully.” The formula is remarkable and commonplace. It is remarkable
because the formula is almost unprecedented in the Greek world.16 It is commonplace
because aside from the formula the inscriptions do not differ from standard honorific
decrees.17
The bestowal o f honors and privileges was the most common business conducted
in the 4th century Assembly (Hansen 1974: 62). By Hansen’s count, more than half of all
inscribed decrees and more than a quarter o f those mentioned by literary sources involve
honors (Hansen 1987: 108-18). Where the supplication inscriptions differ from this trend
is that they appear to involve only non-citizens: IG II 211 (Olynthians?), II 218
(Abderites), II2 276 (unknown but receives xenia and isoteleia), II 2 337 (Kittians), II2
336b (unknown but received citizenship in II2 336a), II2 404 (Keans), II2 502 (a public
slave). This is somewhat surprising given the literary sources that depict Athenian
citizens engaging in this form o f petition (D. 18. 107; Aiskhin. 1. 106), and the A P ’s
15Besides the three listed above, these are: IG II2. 211 (348/7), 276 (ca. 336/5), 337 (333/2), 336b
(318/7), 404 (var.: 363/2-338/7).
161 am aware o f one exception, LSCG 123: unep cdv o ispeus Trjs ’ lo !5 o s eBeto rrju iKETTipiav
koi EyvciaQq I'vvopos siv a i. Athenian institutions had a profound impact on Samos starting around 365.
A great number o f Athenian citizens migrated there. Their influence can be seen in the “Athenizing” style
o f civic decrees thereafter. See Cargill 1995.
17For this section I draw on the research o f Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz (1998).
135
insistence that “anyone who wishes [o (BouAoiisvos]” could supplicate in the Assembly
about any matter, “public or private.” The inscriptions involve only standard bestowals
2 2
o f honor, such as crowns (IG II 276), the right to own property (IG II 337), and
exemptions from tax burdens (IG II 211?).
Protection, tax-exemption, enfranchisement, naturalization: foreigners could
receive these honors without supplicating. Why would someone supplicate if he could
obtain the same honor without supplicating? In a decree o f 344, the Delian Peisitheides
enjoys the privilege of a tragic supplicant: “If anyone kills Peisitheides, let the murderer
be considered an enemy o f Athens; and likewise any city that harbors the murderer” (IG
II2 222.31-35; cf. M. J. Osborne 1981-3: v .l, 72). Like the Danaids at Argos or Oidipous
at Kolonos, Peisitheides is to enjoy the right of absolute protection. Like a supplicant’s
his body is to be identified with that o f his protector’s, so that an insult against him
becomes an insult against his protector. Yet he is not called a supplicant. As far as the
inscription is concerned, Peisitheides was not “deemed to supplicate lawfully,” though
the protection he enjoys is more supplicant-like than the protection afforded to people
who actually supplicated. Asklepiodoros supplicated, and was granted isoteleia, i.e.
exemption from taxes which resident foreigners were normally obliged to pay (IG II
276). Dioskourides supplicated at least twice, once in the Council and once in the
Assembly, and received in return an invitation to dwell in Athens “until he returns home”
(IG II2 218.32-3).
Petitioners we would expect to be supplicants were often not. Peisitheides is an
example. Absolute protection and incorporation, unprecedented in Athenian decrees,
were honors befitting a tragic supplicant. The fugitive King Arybbas is another example.
136
His address to the Assembly is characterized not as supplication but as a simple address
[Trsp'i... cov Asyei] (IG II2 226.35), although he receives an honor similar to Peisitheides’,
namely that if anyone kills him the killer is to be treated as if he had killed an Athenian
(36-41).18
Approximately three years before Arybbas’ flight, another fugitive, Dioskourides
of Abdera, came to Athens. It is likely that he, like Arybbas, was also fleeing Philip (see
Bliquez 1981; Heskel 1988). His inscription decrees that he and his brothers are to be
taken under the protection o f the generals and city archons (18-20); he is also to be
honored with a feast in th eprytaneion (22). In addition to the Council’s honors, the
Assembly invited him and his brothers to live in the city and to be liable to eisphora and
military service. In other words, they were invited to become metics, like the Danaids in
Aiskhylos’ play (cf. Naiden 2000: 14-25; 2004).
Why did Dioskourides supplicate when Arybbas did not? I believe the answer
has to do with Dioskourides’ sponsors, their motives, and their relationship with
Dioskourides. While we do not know who sponsored Arybbas, we do have a good deal
of information about Diouskourides’ sponsors. Dioskourides’ sponsor in the Council was
Euboulides Antiphilou Halimousios (PA 5323). Euboulides was also demarkhos o f the
deme of Halimos (R. Osborne 1985a: 51). Speech 57 in the Demosthenic corpus is an
ephesis against him in that capacity. Because it airs an accusation that he sponsored
foreigners for profit, it deserves close scrutiny.
18A dispute over a similar honor for Kharidemos is the subject o f Dem osthenes 23, Against
Aristokrates. Cf. Henry 1983: 168-71
137
In the Demosthenic case a certain Euxitheos complains that Euboulides unjustly
deprived him o f his citizenship because o f a vendetta between them caused by some
previous litigation. Euxitheos corroborates the fact that Euboulides was a member o f the
Council, and that this office gave him authority among the local deme council, where
matters such as citizenship were negotiated ([D.] 57. 8). Euxitheos paints a vivid picture
of Euboulides. He implies that Euboulides was a well-off man-about-town who deserves
to be charged with the Solonic law against idleness (32). Euxitheos concedes that
Euboulides was o f noble birth, but tries to turn this to his advantage. Apparently
Euxitheos had been nominated for the priestship o f Herakles, an office that was open
only to the noblest demesmen (46). He does not hesitate to point out the irony that if he
had drawn the lot and became priest, Euboulides would have had to endure offering
sacrifice alongside a foreigner. “For I do not suppose that Euboulides would have
allowed a foreigner, a metic— as he now alleges— to hold office or draw lots with himself
[on y a p av Sijttou t o v y e ijs v o v Ka'i [ j s t o i k o v , c o s v u v cjipaiv Eu(3ouAi5ris, out
a p y o t s a p x e f v o u 0’ is p c o a u v u v K X r)poua 0 a i pE0’ e a u T o u ] ” (48).
Euboulides’ office apparently ran in the family. His father Antiphilos was also
demarkhos. He also, according to Euxitheos, had a yen for disfranchising citizens.
Pretending he lost the deme-register, the lexiarkhikon grammateion, he proceeded to
disfranchise ten o f his fellow demesmen (cf. R. Osbome 1985a: 149).
Meanwhile, the sponsor o f Dioskourides’ supplication in the Assembly,
Diopeithes Diopeithous Sphettios, was a known mid-4th century politician. Hypereides
singles him out as “the craftiest man in town [SsivoTaTO? tc o v ev Trj T toX ei]” (Hyp. 3.
29; APF 5886). This may be an exaggeration, but even indirectly it testifies to his
138
prominence. In D. 18. 70 Diopeithes is associated with a certain Euboulos. If this refers
to our Diopeithes (.APF 4328), and not a different general in the Northern Aegean (as
Whitehead 2000: 234), could this Euboulos be related to our Euboulides, given the
propensity of Athenian naming practice to pass down a name-form within a kin group
from generation to generation?19 Perhaps not, but there may yet be some truth to
Euxitheos’ allegation that Euboulides and his associates— one o f whom, I suggest, was
Diopeithes— took it upon themselves to implicate foreigners into the Athenian tribal
system for personal profit (59).
Politicians commonly accused their enemies o f “selling” citizenship and other
civic honors.20 This must have been a common occurrence, to judge from the fact that a
distinct procedure, the graphe doroxenias, aimed to expose people who became citizens
by bribing prominent individuals {AP 59. 3). Zelnick-Abramovitz accordingly has cause
to note, “ [Rjecommending privileges to foreigners and profiting by it was a widespread
phenomenon” (1998: 561).21 In such endeavors entrepreneurs like Euboulides needed the
help of associates, who would vouch for the honoree and support the necessary claims
publicly and vocally.
19By the same logic, perhaps Euxenippos and Euxitheos are also related. Euxitheos tells us there
was a long-standing feud between them on account o f his support for one Lakedaimonios against
Euboulides’ charge o f impiety (8). Though it might be no more than a coincidence, it would give a nice
connection between Euboulides and Diopeithes on the one hand, and Euxitheos and Euxenippos on the
other.
20E.g. D. 23. 185,201; 13. 24; Dein. 1. 44; Lyk. 1. 41; cf. Gauthier 1985: 184 ff.
21On bribery more generally see Davies 1981: 66 f f ; Herman 1987: 75 ff.; Strauss 1985a; M itchell
1997; Taylor 2001.
139
Now, if Diopeithes and Euboulides were indeed associates, this would be one
indication that Dioskourides’ supplication was in fact staged. We would have a stronger
indication if we had some evidence that connected Dioskourides and Euboulides. The
only evidence that hints at such a connection, as far as I am aware, is a dedication from
Delos about fifty years after Dioskourides’ supplication. It is addressed to Zeus Kynthios
and Athena Kynthia by an Athenian priest named Euboulides Dioskouridou (ID 4. 1895).
Could this man be the Abderite supplicant’s son, named after the man who turned his
father into a citizen?
We know that in the late 5th century a supplicant needed an insider’s help to bring
him to the Council’s attention. As Andokides tells it, his enemy Kallias made a clumsy
attempt to frame him with an illegal supplication. Kallias “planted” a branch on the City
Eleusinion’s altar because he believed (or wanted the Council to believe) that that was an
act punishable by death under certain circumstances. He suggested that Demeter and
Kore, the goddesses Andokides had offended, drove him to place it there because they
wanted to destroy him. Interesting to note, though the branch lay on the altar, Kallias still
had to speak out, within the Council, and bring it to the Council’s attention (1. 110-6).
Insider associates were also necessary in order to stage supplications in the Assembly.
This hypothesis is supported by the inscription honoring the metic Asklepiodoros for
bravery in battle (IG II2 276; 336/5 BCE).
We do not know who proposed the motion to the Council, but the name o f the
proposer to the Assembly is extant and well-known: Kephisophon Kallibiou Paianieus.
Kephisophon was a member of “one o f the wealthiest and most distinguished families of
democratic Athens” (APF 3773D). More interestingly, according to Aiskhines, he was,
140
“one of the friends and associates o f Khares [eis tco v (jnAcov kcx! excupcov xou
Xapr)XOs]” (2. 73), the renowned general. Khares, interestingly, was also the name of
the captain of the ship on which Asklepiodoros served (.IG II2 276.9; cf. PA 15294). If
the two Khareis are the same, Zelnick-Abramovitz rightly notes, “it is very likely that
Cephisophon’s proposal was made as a favor to his friend Chares, who wished to reward
Asclepiodorus for his service” (1998: 566). Perhaps, but this returns us to the crucial
problem. Asklepiodoros was rewarded with an ivy crown, a feast in the prytaneion, and
isoteleia. All these were rewards that he could have had without supplicating. He was a
war hero, and the inscription honors him “in order that all who fight alongside the
Athenians know that the Athenian demos honors noble men” (15-8). Was it necessary
that Asklepiodoros supplicate in order to receive this honor?
Athenian law provided “many routes” (D. 22. 26) towards a desired judicial or
administrative end (cf. R. Osbome 1985b; Carey 2004). Assembly inscriptions refer to
outsiders’ petitions as early as the mid-5th century, where the formula is likely to refer to
their request matter-of-factly: TTspi cdv S e o v x c u (7G I3 17; 21).22 In the 4th century one
had other alternatives to supplication in addressing the Assembly. One could simply
“speak”: TTEp'i cdv Asyei {IG II2 109; 226; 237; 336a; 337). Or one could “be revealed”
by one’s sponsor: Trsp'i cdv d r r o ^ c u v s i (II2 110; 343). It may not have been necessary, it
may have been one among a number o f procedures by means o f which one could attain
22The earliest occurrence is IG I3.7 (460-50), where the petitioners are not non-Athenian or non
citizen but a religious association, the Praxiergidai (on which see Parker 1996: 307-8). Presumably they
are characterized with the “outsider’s” formula because they do not have a citizen’s status to address the
Assem bly and/or their request was not motivated by a prior motion.
141
the same goal, but I suggest that supplication in the Assembly had to do less with the
supplicant, and more with the supplicants’ sponsors. It allowed them publicly and
dramatically to assume the role o f protector o f supplicants.
4.3.1. Lykourgos
Men like Euboulides, Diopeithes, Kephisophon, politicians who were jockeying
for status, encouraged foreigners to take on the role o f supplicants in order that they
might assume the corollary role o f defender of supplicants. Supplication in the Assembly
was a matter o f aristocratic pageantry and political staging, a “public drama” (cf. Chaney
1993) that reenacted righteous sovereignty and celebrated the ancestral past. The
spectacle allowed the supplicant’s sponsor to associate him self closely, dramatically, and
publicly with the figures of ancestral power familiar to the audience through tragedy and
historiography. It bestowed a patina o f “authoritative celebrity” (C. W. Mills 1956: 323)
on the politician who reenacted the part o f Theseus. By presenting himself as the sponsor
(prostates) of a worthy foreigner before the demos, the politician also made a claim to
being the leading pro-demos politician (prostates tou demon)?2
One more politician, Lykourgos, must be discussed in this connection. His case
permits me to pull the various threads o f this chapter together. An inscription records
him as sponsoring a group of supplicants; a speech of his survives which draws on
230 n this term’s political connotations see Connor 1971: 110-5. Pelasgos’ words to the Danaids
taking responsibility for their protection clearly reveal the connection between supplication and prostasia,
and its implications for democratic leadership: “I am your protector, as are all the citizens w hose vote this
is [ T t p o o r d T T i s 5’ sycd dcrroi' t e t t o c v t e s - , c o v t t e p ^Se K p a i v e t c h vpr)4>os]” (A. Suppl. 963-5). On
prostasia tou demou as a “role” in a social drama see Rosenbloom 2004: 90-3.
142
patrios politeia ideology; and an anecdote is recorded which makes the link to the
supplicant-protecting kings o f tragedy quite explicit. The anecdote also makes clear what
was at stake in the protector-supplicant relationship.
In 333/2 Lykourgos sponsored the supplication o f a group o f Cypriot merchants
who petitioned for the right to build a temple to Aphrodite (IG II2 337 = LSCG 34).24 The
Cypriots brought to bear the precedent o f the Egyptian Isideion (44). Antidotos
Apollodorou sponsored them in the Council. He is otherwise unknown to us. Their
motion to the Council was interestingly not addressed as a supplication, i.e. uspi cdv
ik s t s u o u o i v; but rather as a simple speech, T rsp i c d v Asyouci (9). The Kittians, unlike
Dioskourides, supplicated only in the Assembly for Lykourgos (34-5).
Lykourgos’ interest in cultic affairs is well-documented (see Schwenk 1985: 1OS-
26; Meinolf 1991). A Lykourgos is nicknamed “Ibis” in Aristophanes’ Birds (1296, with
scholia), and this Lykourgos tends to be identified with our Lykourgos’ grandfather (cf.
[Plut.] Vit. X. Or. 7.1). The nickname might suggest a hereditary interest in “eastern”
cults. This prior interest would make the Kitians’ citing the precedent o f the Egyptian
Isideion quite germane, if they had a prior association with Lykourgos (cf. Hintzen-
Bohlen 1997: 119-26).
Lykourgos was a figure central to the traditionalist, nationalist revival movement
o f the 350-30s (see Humphreys 1985a; Hintzen-Bohlen 1997). In his one fully surviving
oration, Against Leokrates, Lykourgos tries to make an example out o f Leokrates, who
had allegedly fled Athens before the battle o f Khaironeia. In that speech, as Allen
240 n this inscription see the discussion in Schwenk 1985: 141-6.
143
(2000b) has argued, Lykourgos used a different kind o f “voice” than that o f other
orators. Lykourgos’ voice drew its authority more from the Academy than the Agora. It
was a voice that struck notes o f nationalism, traditionalism, and patriotism, notions in
keeping with thepatriospoliteia (cf. Ag. Leok. 24 ff).
Lykourgos was engaged in an education. He was interested in “renewing
Perikles’ vision o f Athens as paideia [sic] tes Hellados, an example to the rest of Greece
in relations with the gods, cultural spectacles, and the education of her citizens”
(Humphreys 2004: 112). The three areas of paideia identified by Humphreys— religion,
culture and education— intersected in supplication. Especially when performed in a
public arena, the Assembly, an important matrix o f public knowledge, supplication
became what John Comaroff (2002: 200) would call “more or less ritualized, more or less
dramaturgical exercises in public pedagogy.” Leokrates was acquitted, barely. His brush
with fate made a big impression, at least on other orators (Aiskhin. 3. 252-3). Another
exemplary paradigm like Leokrates, I suggest, should be seen in the Kittian merchants.
The following anecdote alludes to Lykourgos’ implication in the ideology of
supplication:
One time a tax-man was seizing Xenokrates the

philosopher for failure to pay the metic-tax. Lykourgos
confronted the tax-man and brought down his staff on his
head, and released Xenokrates. And he put the tax man in
jail because he was acting improperly.... Some days later
Xenokrates met Lykourgos’ children and said, ‘Children,
quickly I paid back your father’s favor. For now he is
praised by many because he helped m e’
xeA covou 5e trox’ strijSaAovTos EevoKpaxei xcp

(j>iAoao<j)cp x a s X £^P a 5 Ka'1 tTpos xo ( j e x o ik io v auxov
aTrayovxo?, dtravxrjoas' pa{35cp xs Kaxa xijs KsâArjs
xou x eA c o v o u KCxxqvEyKE kcx'i xov psv EsvoKpaxqv
144
aTrsAuas, xov 5’ cos ou x a TtpeTtovxa S p a c av x a sis xo

Sscpcoxrjpiov KaxsKXsiaev... ps0’ rjpspas x iv as
auvxuxcov o EsvoKpaxris xoioi Traio'i xou Aukoupyou
scjorj, Tayscos ys xco Ttaxpi upcov aTteScoKa, co
TTa75£s,Triu X®PIV‘ £Traivs7xai y a p utto ttoAAcov stt'i xco
(3or|0fjoa'i poi. ([Plut.] Vit. X. Or. 842b-c).
Though supplication does not figure in this anecdote, it is clear that the interaction was
inspired by supplicant drama, which as we saw was a major source of 4th century
supplicant ideology.25 Just as in supplicant tragedies, a foreigner is beset by a nasty
herald. Then a righteous champion appears to chase off the herald, and reap honor as his
reward. The scene’s inspiration in tragedy would also explain the theatrical detail of
Lykourgos’ staff.
According to Plutarch, Lykourgos had a great interest in tragedy. In the newly
refurbished theatre of Dionysos he commissioned bronze statues o f the three canonical
tragedians, Aiskhylos, Sophokles and Euripides; and he standardized their texts (Mor.
841f; cf. Paus. 1. 21. 1-3). The supplications of the tragic stage had a distinct influence
on Lykourgos’ self-presentation. But it is not necessary to posit a direct link. Athens’
paradigmatic supplicants, as we saw from Isokrates, had already entered political
discourse 50 years before Lykourgos. Like the tragic kings who stood up against
bullying heralds threatening to drag off their supplicants, Lykourgos helped the worthy
Xenokrates and reaped honor as his reward, as Xenokrates himself remarked.
Xenokrates’ remark can be taken to imply that since Lykourgos had already been
25In Lyk. jr. 14. 1 Conomis, Lykourgos approvingly connects supplication with the progonor.
“Our ancestors are said to have placed a supplicant bough on each o f their doors for A pollo [kcc! o u tc o j ot
Trpoydvot ripcou A syovxai s k q o to s Kara xpu iS ia v 0upav S eiu ai xpv iKExppiav xco ’AtroAAcbvi].”
145
rewarded for his action by the buzz that it created, there was no need for Xenokrates to be
in his debt. He had paid him back in honor, so there was no need to pay him back at all.
On the other hand, it would not be surprising if the Kittian merchants gave Lykourgos a
material return in exchange for his help and sponsorship in the Assembly. This
arrangement, we saw, was (allegedly) a common one between foreign honorees and their
citizen sponsors. If the Kittians did “buy” Lykourgos’ support, his economic profit
would have been in addition to the symbolic profit which he would have derived from
assuming the role which the merchants gave him the pretext to play.
It was vital that the supplicant be worthy (Naiden 2004: 82-3). As I argued in
Chapter One, a worthless supplicant is a practical paradox. In a world with too few true,
high-status, supplicants, an aspiring protector must either pass them over in silence to
focus on the supplicants o f the glorious past, as Isokrates did, or he must create them, as
Lykourgos and the other politicians did. Apollodoros, who distinguished himself fighting
in the North Aegean; Dioskourides and his family, refugees from Abdera; Cypriots
supplicating on behalf of an exotic goddess: these were suitable supplicants because they
could establish difference for their sponsors. They could fuse an aristocratic ethos with
democratic values: these, we saw, were united in the figure o f Theseus and evoked by
politicians as diverse as Euboulides and Lykourgos.
To sum up: 4th century politicians used supplication in a different way than their
5th century counterparts. The tradition o f supplication in the meantime came to point
more assertively to ideals o f tradition, hegemony and leadership. In a case o f “invented
tradition” (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983), supplication spectacles in the Assembly helped
146
strengthen that institution by associating it more closely with the patrios politeia. They
helped increase the political capital of the institution as it confronted other institutions’
competing claims to legislative authority.
Supplication also allowed individual politicians to assume the role o f supplicant-
protectors, while simultaneously evoking a moral Athenian hegemony at a time when the
Athenian empire was a memory. This increased the protectors’ symbolic capital by
virtue o f their association with worthy supplicants, who, we saw, in all likelihood, also
gave material considerations to their protectors. The public arena o f the Assembly was a
suitable stage for spectacles o f supplication, which figured as ancestral procedure and as
theater.
FIVE
The Staging of Identity

(Supplication as Self-manumission)
Commodities cannot themselves go to market

and perform exchanges in their own right.
We must, therefore, have recourse to their
guardians (Marx 1976[1890]: 1. 178)
5.1. The economics o f supplication 2: Status and exchange
Money invested in supplication was not lost. Under certain circumstances the
underlying economic value could be extracted, and symbolic capital could be
(re)converted into economic capital. One literary example o f such a process is provided
by the supplicant Lykaon (11.21. 34-145), who tries to save his life by reminding Akhilles
how valuable an “investment” he is (cf. Naiden 2000: 229-33). Akhilles had captured
him once before, and “sold” (eperassen) him. Euneos “bought” him (onon edokeri) for a
large silver cup (23. 740-9), but then sold him to Lykaon’s own guest-friend Eetion for
100 oxen. Eetion finally received 300 oxen from Lykaon himself in exchange for his
freedom.1 Lykaon had a history o f enhanced returns, but the profit-motive does not
save him when he falls into Akhilles’ hands a second time.
Another literary example o f the convertibility o f the supplicant is the case of
Paktyes. Paktyes, a former governor for the Persians who had supported a failed
rebellion, first fled to Kyme, a tiny island near Rhodes. The Kymeans were unwilling to
betray Paktyes to the Persians, but were also unwilling to champion him. They solved
1N ote that, in the process, Euneos manages to unlock the value o f a heirloom without outright
selling it, which would have been dishonorable (cf. II. 18. 288-92). Lykaon helps him toe the line between
gift and commodity, that is the surest road to prestige an d wealth.
147
148
this problem by conveying (ekpempousi) Paktyes to the Mytileneans. The Mytileneans
were also unwilling to protect Paktyes, so they sent him to the Khians. The Khians
finally “gave away” (exedosan) Paktyes to his pursuers in exchange for a fertile tract of
land (Hdt. 1. 160). Paktyes’ surrender to the Persians was an act o f betrayal, a break with
the moral code o f the sphere of honorific exchange, where supplication properly
belonged. Herodotos notes that the Khians would not dare offer in sacrifice any o f the
produce of the tract they received in exchange for him. He further characterizes their
reward as a “payment” (misthos), which is what traitors or laborers receive. It seems,
they should have been satisfied with the Persian gold Paktyes had stolen (1. 153. 3-154).
The language used to describe the conveyances and transfers o f Lykaon and
Paktyes echoes the language of the slave-trade. Both acts, supplication and enslavement,
created forms of dependance that hinged on the economic value o f a person. The
supplicant, in economic terms, differed from the slave insofar as his sale was construed
negatively whereas for the slave it was a matter o f course, a consequence o f his
commodification. Supplicants, unlike slaves, could not be sold without being betrayed.
The proper uses of their value were circumscribed in the realm o f prestige, gift, “long
term” transaction, in opposition to the subsistence, commodity, “short-term” benefits that
one could easily extract from slaves.1 A supplicant was exchanged like a gift: “He came
to my hut but I will hand him over to you, do what you deem best. He declares he is your
supplicant [rjAuG’ spov trpos OTaSpov, eyco 5s toi syyuaA iây sp£ov otrcos sGsAsis'
'On the concept o f “spheres o f exchange” see Bohannan and Bohannan 1968; Appadurai 1986;
Bloch and Parry 1989. It is important to note that the spheres (whether w e divide them as gift/commodity,
prestige/subsistence, or long-term/short-term) are at all times mutually dependant and, under the right
circumstances, permeable.
149
iK Sxris §e to i sux eto i elvai],” the pious Eumaios tells Telemakhos (Od. 16. 66-7). One
could not treat a gift like a commodity, as the Khians did, without paying a “transaction
cost” (North 1990) in the form o f moral opprobrium.
Marriage was another form o f dependance that hinged on the economic value of
the person. This is why brides resembled supplicants as well as slaves. Brides, like
supplicants, could also be “given away.” For a bride, ekdosis meant betrothal, whereas
ekdosis for the supplicant meant betrayal, as with Paktyes. Bridal ekdosis figured as an
economic capitalization; it unlocked a woman’s value and constituted the marriage
agreement. Perhaps revealingly, the word ekdosis could also describe the act of
economic investment, that is, the surrender o f capital in the hopes that it will return with
profit.2 Furthermore, both brides and supplicants could also be “handed over.” The term
Eumaios uses, engualisko, echoes the engue, normally translated as “marriage contract,”
which signified the act of exchange.3
The Pythagoreans, furthermore, noted a ritual resemblance between supplicants
and brides:
Do not persecute your wife, for she is a supplicant. That is

why we lead her from the hearth and take her by the right
hand.
y u v a iK a o u 5 e i S icoksiv x p v a u x o u , i k s x is y a p - 5 i o K a i
a y o p e S a , K a ' i r\ A r y ^ i s
a<{)’ e a x i a s 5 ia S e p ia s (Iambi. VP
84, 48; Arist. Oik. 1344a8-12).
2On bridal ekdosis see Erdmann 1934: 233-42; W olff 1944: 48-51; Todd 1993: 214-5. On
financial ekdosis see Cohen, E. 1992: 157-60.
3Cf. Hdt. 6. 130. 2; Men. Perik. 1012-5; Eur. Or. 1685; Harrison 1998[1968]: v. 1, 3-9.
150
But if a bride resembled a supplicant when she left the hearth o f her father (cp. Od. 7.
167-9), when she entered the home o f her husband she resembled a new slave. New
brides and new slaves underwent the ritual of katakhysmata by the hearth, during which a
shower of figs, nuts and coins was poured over them as they sat (2 Aristoph. PI. 768; D.
45. 74)4
The similarities between supplicants, slaves and brides reveal the same economic
logic underlying marriage and supplication just as much as the slave-trade.
Economically, the main difference was that the slave belonged in the sphere o f short-term
profit (kerdos), whereas the supplicant and the bride belonged in the sphere o f long-term
gratitude and reciprocity (kharis).5 Unlike the value of a slave that was in the open and
subject to market forces, the value o f a supplicant, no less than the value of a bride, was
veiled behind moral injunctions, constraints and prohibitions.
But the veil that disguised reality could also transform it. Capital, as Finley
(1985) argued, was in antiquity geared primarily toward increasing status, not toward
reproducing itself. Rather than invest their money in business ventures, the wealthy were
more inclined to spend it in ostentatious display, or in creating social obligation whose
utility was less in economics proper than in politics. Aristocratic “gentlemen-farmers”
ostensibly spumed business though in reality the spheres were indeed mutually
dependant.6 This state-of-affairs (Finley argued) explained why the ancient economy,
4For this ritual see Deubner 1978; Mactoux 1990.
5On kharis and reciprocity see Millett 1998a; 1998b. On kerdos see C ozzo 1988; von Reden
2003[1995]: 61-7.
6See Isager and Hansen 1975[1972]: 70-4; Finley 1985: 35-61; E. Cohen 1992.
151
dynamic in its own way, did not develop sophisticated, modern forms o f “economic
integration,” such as money markets, real estate markets, and limited liability
corporations.
Finley was not interested per se in the link between exchange and status. Status,
in Finley’s eyes, was a fixed structure that conditioned and constrained exchange. One
was either free or a slave, rich or poor, a citizen or a metic. Depending on one’s status
one felt certain forms of exchange more appropriate than others. If status is ascribed by
birth and is therafter fixed, Finley’s position makes good sense, and is in keeping with
explicit ancient attitudes and prejudices. But if status is something that has to be created
and recreated through the strategic employment o f capital, this should mean that one
could use capital to transform one’s status.7
I have argued in this dissertation that status determined the supplicant’s value:
beggars were never supplicants; supplicants went out of their way to express their wealth
through displays o f luxury and assertions o f worth (axia). But if we consider status itself
as economically determined, and not fixed, this should mean that economic capital could
be converted via conversionary practices like supplication into symbolic capital even in
contradiction o f the real status o f the supplicant. Accordingly, I will argue in this
chapter, when slaves supplicated an interesting consequence was that their status became
ambiguous. It was unclear whether they were slaves, and hence commodities that one
7The best ancient example o f “social mobility” through proper expenditure and marriage is the
fascinating case o f Apollodoros, the son o f the ex-slave and banker, Pasion. N ote that his son Apollodoros
proceded to purchase a large country estate, and an advantageous marriage. See Trevett 1992.
152
could buy and sell without moral cost; or supplicants, and hence gifts, with an “inherent”
value that demanded respect.
Eumaios suggested that slavery was a form o f “social death” (cf. Patterson 1982):
“the god takes away half a m an’s worth [rjpiou y a p t ’ apETqs] the day he makes him a
slave” (Od. 17. 322-3). The life history that makes one distinctive and individual, an
entity within social networks with proper claims, obligations and rights, is taken away
when one becomes a slave. Slaves had no family names. Their given names were
frequently generic ascriptions o f racial differentia, such as Thratta, Rhodia, Lydes, or
Xanthias; ascriptions o f labor, such as Spoudias and Eumaios; or even neuter-forms, like
Phormion or Pasion.8 Perhaps the denial o f individuality is a necessary part o f the
process that turns human beings into commodities. But if the “day o f slavery” marked
the erasure of an individual’s identity, I will argue that it was possible for slaves to use
supplication in order to create a new identity.
I begin by considering the evidence for the presence o f supplicant slaves in
sanctuaries. Scholars have long recognized that temples afforded a valuable service for
slaves, providing runaways a place where they could find shelter from their abusive
masters. But, as we will see, this service was problematic for the sanctuaries.
Authorities were uneasy about the slaves’ presence, yet hesitant to expel them. Ideally,
they expected to receive something in exchange.
I then compare a better documented practice involving slaves in sanctuaries,
namely manumission. It turns out that supplicant slaves and slaves about to be
8For slaves’ names see Bechtel 1964[1917]: 550-9; Reilly 1978.
153
manumitted were in the sanctuaries for the same reason: a chance to change their
statuses. The difference was that supplicant slaves were trying to leave their masters
’without their masters’ consent.
Slaves used supplication in fundamentally the same way as the politicians whom I
discussed in Chapters Three and Four: to produce knowledge. By staging performances
that dramatized their status and identity, they could hope to change their identity and
status to make it known that they were not their master’s slaves, or even not slaves at all.
This result came about through the dramatic and public dispute o f their status between
two parties, their master and their protector {prostates). In Athens, the juridical term for
this practice was “extraction” (aphairesis).
When they took place in a sanctuary, acts of extraction evoked and resembled
tragic scenes of supplication. In these scenes, a character takes refuge at a sanctuary and
is pursued by someone who claims that the supplicant belongs to him. A champion hears
the hubbub— the boe—and confronts the pursuer with a stronger claim to the supplicant.
The tragic register renders aphairesis as rhysis (A. Suppl. 423-4; S. OK 858; E. Hkld.
163). The word means both “drag” and “rescue,” a feature that has puzzled scholars (see
Whittle 1964), but which makes sense if it equates to the practice o f aphairesis. From
one perspective aphairesis was theft, from another redemption (cf. Pritchett 1971-1991:
5. 86-116). Analogously, Delphic manumission texts call the physical seizure of a
supposed slave ephapsis (e.g. S G D I1689; 1694 etc.), which can also mean theft (cf.
Kaser 1944: 158-79; Bravo 1980: 837-40). In cases where someone is attempting to re-
enslave the manumitted slave, he who comes to the slave’s assistance is said to sylan,
“plunder,” the slave from the claimant. A slave’s rescuer is a m aster’s thief.
154
To get a sense o f how “extraction” might have operated for supplicants, let us
briefly consider a stage version o f it. In his Herakleidai Euripides presents the children
of Herakles, led by his aged companion Iolaos and his even more aged mother, Alkmene,
as supplicants at an altar in Marathon. Their pursuer, an Argive herald, appears, and
attempts to lead them away. They create a hubbub, and the chorus, representing a crowd
(cf. 122), gathers. Alerted to the fracas, the ruler, Demophon, appears. Then the two
opponents, the herald and Iolaos, present their cases to him (134-275). The herald argues
that they are Myceneans, and thus under the authority of Eurystheus, the m ler of Mycene
and their uncle. Iolaos argues that in fact, the children are Demophon’s own kin through
his grandmother Aithra, who was the granddaughter o f Pelops, who was the father of
Alkmene, the children’s grandmother. Because they are his kin, Demophon is obligated
to help them; even more so since his father, Theseus, owes their father, Herakles, his
second cousin, favor {kharis). Demophon accepts this claim publicly, thus validating the
connection. The herald accuses Demophon o f taking his “property” and storms off,
threatening war (175, 267).
This was Euripides’ version of the kinds o f status- and identity-assertions that
supplication made possible.9 If I am right that in Athens slaves used supplication to stage
9A iskhylos’ Danaids also use supplication similarly, to establish the claim that they are actually
Argive, through lo (291-324). Note that when Pelasgos asks him why they have come as supplicants, they
answer, “In order that I not be a hand-maiden to the race o f Aigyptos [cos Mh ylucopat dpcois AiyuTtxou
y sv si]” (335).
155
their claims to identity, we will need to rethink our notions about how status and identity
were constructed and how they could be exchanged.10
5.2. Slaves in the sanctuary
Evidence shows that slaves were common supplicants in sanctuaries. Herodotos
claimed to know a sanctuary o f Herakles on the banks o f the Nile to which a slave could
flee as supplicant. If he did this his master, no matter who he was, lost any claim to him
(2. 113. 2). Aristophanes compares trireme ships to slaves that threaten to flee to a
sanctuary as supplicants if the Athenians put the brute Kleon in charge o f them (Kn.
1312: Ka0fjo0ai poi S oke7 e s to © poe To v ttA e o u o c u s ). What stones are for animals,
according to Euripides, altars are for slaves, a place o f refuge: exei y a p KaTaûypv 0pp
psv TtETpav, SouAos 5 e (Scopous 0 eg 3 v (Suppl. 267-8). Aside from literary evidence,
epigraphic evidence also suggests that slaves were frequent supplicants in sanctuaries.
Sanctuaries accepted these supplicants, but not without some ambivalence. They took
measures to keep them out, or to discourage them from staying too long.
The most important evidence for this ambivalent attitude towards supplicant
slaves comes from a mid-3rd century inscription from the Samian Heraion regulating
commerce (IG XII 6, 169 = SEG XXVII 545). The inscription is itself an addendum to
an earlier act, not extant, regulating the leasing of shops (4). The extant inscription
10A lso consider Aristophanes’ multi-layered parody o f supplicant drama in his

Thesmophoriazousai (616 ff.). There M neselokhos, a man, wishes to pass for a woman, and is confronted
by a magistrate who demands to know “her” social network (619-25). When he is unable to defend “her”
identity convincingly he ends up taking sanctuary in the character o f Euripides’ Helen, as Euripides
himself, in the character o f Menelaos, approaches to identify “her” and take her home with him from
“Egypt” (846-919).
156
addresses the matter of illegitimate competition. It stipulates that only four official shops
are to be leased, to four individuals. These four individuals are expected to live in their
shops for one year, the duration o f the lease (8). Aside from these individuals no one is
allowed to conduct trade in the sanctuary.11 Then the inscription becomes more pointed
in its prohibitions. It lists four particular categories o f people who are “under no
circumstances [ou5s TrapBupsosi ou S spiai]” to conduct commerce: slaves,
mercenaries(?), the unemployed, and supplicants.
Contrary to the idea o f Greek temples as “sanctuaries” open to all in need (cf.
Sinn 1990; 1993), the Heraion inscription suggests that the authorities there were
somewhat uneasy about some o f the supplicants that flocked to it. According to
Herodotos someone once got Apollo’s attention by chasing away the birds nesting in his
temple, forcing the god to cry out, “Why are you plundering (keraizeis) my supplicants?”
(Hdt. 1.159). Nor could the god’s priests simply shoo away the supplicants they deemed
undesirable.12 But they could and did take measures to encourage them to leave on their
own (Habicht 1972: 219; Koenen 1977: 216). These measures intended to hinder them
from obtaining employment, charity or even the opportunity to buy goods.
11 If, as Habicht 1972: 218 and Koenen 1977: 212 suggest, parakapeleusis means “illegitimate
trade” rather than “subletting.” If the latter is correct, as N enci suggests, then the meaning o f the act
changes, but not in ways that affect m y argument. A prohibition against subletting is only a more specific
formulation o f a prohibition against trade. The important thing is that supplicants are being discouraged
from seeking a livelihood in the sanctuary.
l2L SA M 29 (4th cent. BCE) from Metropolis is tantalizing: [iK E T p v ] pp c x t t s A k e i v ... E t t i O T d p s v o v .
Sokolowski prints the emendation [fkopoTs]: “do not remove a supplicant who is standing by the altars.”
But, as Chaniotis (1996: 78-9) points out, the suggested emendation is tautological. The more plausible
reading is Keil and von Premerstein’s [ e ’i pf] t o u ] e t t i o t o c p e u o v : “no one is to remove a supplicant except
the magistrate.” In support o f that emendation, w e should note that “standing” by altars is an unusual
description for a supplicant, who is more normally described as “sitting” (e.g. SEG IX 72. 123-4; SEG
XXVII 545.21).
157
Nenci (1990) rightly points out that the Samian law did not target all supplicants,
only those “undesirable” supplicants who would need to support themselves while in the
sanctuary. Supplicants who could afford to support themselves, or who would be
supported by others, would not have come under this regulation’s purview. A papyrus
from the Zenon archive that is contemporary with the Samian inscription records a case
of a slave who has taken refuge at the Sarapieion in Memphis. Interestingly, we know
that his mistress was paying to support him (sitodotoumenos) during his stay.13 She made
sure that he would not be the kind o f supplicant who would trouble the Sarapieion’s
authorities.
The Samian inscription is concerned with four kinds o f people: slaves, soldiers,
the unemployed, and supplicants. This categorical division underscores the point that all
supplicants who needed employment were by definition undesirable. The figures which
the inscription singles out must have been particularly troublesome “types.” The
stratiotai could have been mercenaries, deserters (Nenci 1990) or even guards (Koenen
1977: 213).14 By the apergoi, “unemployed,” I suppose the inscribers meant the beggars
who were all too common in Greek sanctuaries (Arist. Rhet. 1401b25; Teles 41. 10
P.C air.Zen.59620; Scholl 1990: no. 79; Soverini 1990-1: 76. The fact that it is from Ptolemaic
Egypt is quite interesting. If IG XII 6, 156 is related to IG XII 6, 169, as H allof and Mileta 1997 plausibly
suggest, then w e have a direct link to Egyptian sanctuary administration, particularly involving slave
fugitives. IG XII 6, 156 mentions a letter by Ptolemy to the Samians enjoining them to deal with the
problem o f “the slaves who have fled to the sanctuary [ypacjiei unsp xcov Kaxacj)suy6vTcov eis xo
XEpsvo? acopaxcov]” (9-10). H allof and M ileta further argue that IG XII 6, 169 was one o f the ways the
Samians tried to m eet this letter’s mandate, by changing their administrative techniques to parallel more
closely those in Egypt. On asylum in the Sarapieion o f Memphis see von W oess 1923: 113 f f ; Thompson
1988: 216 ff. has a good discussion o f the Sarapieion archives, showing how people with protected status
(katokhoi) participated in temple affairs and went on with their lives. I thank Patricia Aheame-Kroll for
calling m y attention to this evidence.
14N en ci’s n a p a ja x p a x ic d x a i is unlikely. See Lupu 2005: no. 18 for a conservative text.
158
Hense).15 These were called bomolokhoi, “altar-ambushers,” for their habit o f crowding
the altars in anticipation o f a piece o f sacrificial meat (Poll. 3. 111). In that respect they
resembled the birds that Aristodikos chased away in Herodotos’ tale, for a bomolokhos
was also the smallest type o f jackdaw (Arist. HA 617b24), so-called according to
lexicographers for its penchant o f eating the sacrificial left-overs (Et. Gud. s.v.; cp. E.
Her. 974). I suppose that the inscribers added “supplicants” in order to round out the
three particular types with a general, catch-all, category.
But slaves elicit the most specific treatment. Not only are slaves prohibited from
trading, as are the unemployed and the soldiers, they are also prohibited from having any
dealings whatsoever with the legitimate traders:
[Shopkeepers] will not receive into the shops the slaves

who are sitting in the temple, nor will they employ them or
feed them or will they receive anything from them under
any circumstance or pretext
o u x u T r[ o 5 e ^ o v x a i 5 s su x o 7 s K a J ttriA s io is x o u s
K a O i^ o v T a s o iK s x a s e is to isp o v o [u 5 s T ta p s^ o u o iv
s p y a o]uxe a i x a o u 5 ’ u T ro 5 s£ o v x ai n a p ’ a u x c o v ou5ev
[x p o ttc o i ouSe tta p su p s ja si o u S sp ia i (20-3).
These slaves “sitting in the temple,” as the inscription describes them, were with little
doubt fugitive supplicants (Koenen 1977: 216). It is unclear how these differed from the
douloi already listed. Perhaps these were slaves who were stressing their claim to
supplication, whereas the other douloi were simply doing illegal business in the
sanctuary. Whatever the case, the term which the inscription uses to characterize the
latter type, “sitting in the temple,” makes it clear that they were temple supplicants, for
15In this I follow Dunst 1975.
159
sitting is the paramount gesture o f supplication.16 We also know they were not sacred
slaves (hierodouloi) because the inscription’s final line introduces a separate category of
individuals who also had no right to participate in commerce: hieroipaides (38). These
seem appended as an afterthought in an attempt to round out all the possible kinds o f
people who came to mind as ones who might be tempted to engage in commerce to the
detriment of the licensed vendors.
The Samians were not the only ones troubled by the phenomenon o f fugitive
slaves seeking asylum as supplicants. A 1st century inscription concerning the Andaman
mysteries stipulates that the temple is to be a refuge for slaves, but only the part o f it so
appointed by the priests; beyond that no one is to aid the fugitives with either charity or
employment on penalty payable to his master o f double the slave’s value plus 500 dr.
(LSCG 65. 80-2).17 The problem o f the supplicant slave is much older. Already in the 5th
century the law code o f Gortyn made provisions for the resolution o f disputes involving
slaves who had taken refuge at a sanctuary (IC IV 72 i. 39-46). In Kos slaves were
forbidden from entering the shrine during the festival of Hera and from eating sacrificial
meat (Makareus FrGrH 456 F I ) . Behind this apparently redundant prohibition (if they
could not enter, how could they eat meat?) lay a similar concern to discourage slaves
from entering the sanctuary, and from relying on it for their sustenance.
16Cf. SEG IX 72. 123-4; Latte 1920: 106; Gemet 1968: 296; Bremmer 1992: 25-6.
17L. Robert assembles further epigraphic evidence for the Hellenistic practice o f delimiting a space
as a refuge (though not necessarily for slaves) in H ellenica 6. 5.
160
The Athenians went one step beyond inscribing prohibitions. In order that
fugitives not reach the Akropolis, they built a structure to keep them out (IG I3 45, ca.
445). The builders o f this wall were concerned with runaways (drapetes) and with
burglars (lopodutes), a telling juxtaposition (cf. Kudlien 1988: 235-7). A similar
preoccupation to keep unsightly supplicants from important sanctuaries may have been
behind a law mentioned by Andokides (1. 116) forbidding anyone to supplicate in the
City Eleusinion during the celebration o f the Mysteries. The City Eleusinion was closed
at all other times of the year (Thuk. 2. 17. 1), so that took care o f that.
Though the Athenians took measures to keep fugitive slaves from supplicating in
their important sanctuaries, there was one sanctuary that slaves seemed to find
particularly receptive: the Theseion, the resting place o f the hero Theseus, who we have
already encountered as a model protector o f supplicants (cf. Plut. Thes. 36. 4). A
statement attributed to the 4th century historian Philokhoros is revealing: “Philokhoros
says that in the old days not only slaves but all sorts of supplicants sought refuge in the
Theseion [O iA o x o p o s ou p o v o v r o u s o iK sx a s to T t a X a i o v (jip o i K a T a < |) e u y s i v s i s t o
© t)o s io v a A A a K a i t o u s o t t c o a o u v i K S T e u o v T a s ] ” (FrGrH 328 F 177). Whatever value
this statement has “for the old days,” this statement makes clear that in Philokhoros’ days
only slaves supplicated in the Theseion. As seems to have been the case with the Samian
Heraion, a slave might expect a prolonged stay in the Theseion, for Aristophanes coined a
comic term for them: theseiotribeis (fr. 475 PCG), “Theseion-loiterers.”18 In contrast to
18Literary evidence suggests that supplicants could also stay at a sanctuary for a long time: a slave
o f Pausanias (Thuk. 1. 133); the Spartan Leotykhides (Hdt. 6. 72); the priestess Khrysis (Paus. 2. 17. 1;
Thuk. 4. 133); another Pausanias (Xen. Hell. 3. 5. 25; Plut. Lys. 30. 1; Paus. 3. 5. 6; FrG rH 582); similarly
161
the 2nd century slaves in the Samian Heraion, enough evidence survives to allow us to
reconstruct their aims.
Scholars assume that the slaves flocked to the Theseion in order to escape their
masters by auctioning themselves to a new master (Christensen 1984). The major
support for this assumption is a fragment o f Aristophanes: “It is best for me to run to the
Theseion, and stay there until I find a sale [apio'i K paxiO TO V as to © q o a T o v S p a p a 'iv ,
sksT 5 ’ scos civ TT paatv e u p c o p a i p a v a iv ]” (fr. 577 PCG). Pollux, who quotes this line,
also quotes from Eupolis’ Poleis and suggests that slaves could “request a sale [tT p d o iv
a ’l T s iv ] ” when their master was too abusive (cp. Plut. Mor. 166d).19 Scholars have
followed Pollux in proposing a quasi-juridical practice where priests would hear the
slaves’ complaints and decide whether the slaves should be returned to their masters or
sold to new ones (e.g. Klees 1998: 209).20 But it is difficult to imagine that the
Helen in Euripides’ play has made arrangements for a prolonged stay (Hel. 798). See further D illon 1997:
206-11.
19Pollux’ mss. record the line from Eupolis as k o c k c < t o i o c S s TTCcaxouoiv o u 5 e n p d a i v a i r c o .

M ost editors emend it to rraaxouaa pride in order to make better sense o f Pollux’ intentions. W hichever is
the preferred reading, this is not enough evidence to reconstruct, as Christensen does, a ceremony in which
the slave declared “I ask for a sale” and was subsequently sold under the auspices o f the priest.
20To support this hypothesis scholars have adduced the H ellenistic writer Nymphodoros’ tale o f
Drimakos (Ath. 6. 265d-6e = FrG rH 572 F 4; see Vogt 1973). Drimakos was a Khian slave who fled his
master and led other slaves to freedom as well. But before reaching the conclusion that Drimakos was an
early Spartacus-figure w e should note that Drimakos made peace with the Khian masters: He announced, “I
w ill examine your escaped slaves and if I deem that they suffered something irreconcilable I w ill keep them
with me. But if they have no case I w ill send them away to their masters [ t o u ? 5 ’ a r ro S iS p a a K O u x a s
upcbv S o u A o u s d v a K p iv a s Tijv a ix ia v la v p lv p oi 5 okg3 oiv avijKEaTov ti TTaBovTES' aTToSeSpaKEvcu,
e£co p e t a u x o u , la v 51 p q 5 lv A lycoai StK atov, drroTTlpîco TTpos Toils' SsaTTOTas]” (265f-6a). Yet it is
problematic to take Drim akos’ comment as evidence for the existence o f a legal process to determine which
fugitive slaves had fled justly and which deserved to be returned to their masters. The tale com es from a
Hellenistic paradoxographical tradition and for that reason alone should be treated with caution, as
Urbainczyk (2004: 481) suggests. On the contrary, Drimakos’ tale suggests that such practices were utterly
lacking, for the slave society he sets up is in rigorous opposition to “real” society. Like a founder, like
Solon (AP 10. 2), Drimakos established weights and standards, though not to regulate trade with the Khian
masters, but to regulate theft from them (265f). Unlike Solon, after his death Drimakos received cult.
162
Theseion’s priests entertained the requests o f fugitive slaves to be sold to new masters,
given the degree o f juridical self-determination such a practice would afford to the slaves.
Indeed, scholars have been inclined to believe Pollux in the absence o f supporting
evidence because such a practice is recorded in Rome. There a magistrate would hear the
complaint o f a slave who had sought refuge at the emperor’s statue (Bradley 1984b: 123-
4). Though perhaps germane to a 1st century Andaman context, this practice is
inapplicable to classical Athens. The procedure seems to come into existence only with
the rise o f the urban prefecture, and can be interpreted as an attempt by the imperial
government to intrude in the master-slave relationship. This was one way in which its
power was expanding during the early Principate.21
In Athens, however, the situation was different. There is no reason to extend the
parallel and propose that sanctuaries, or the authorities behind them, were trying to
increase their power at the expense o f slave-masters. Such a right o f sanctuary for slaves
in Athens would also be problematic from the perspective o f the sale. If the slave’s
petition won and the slave was resold, who received the price? If the sanctuary pocketed
the price, it would be as if they were selling stolen goods. Or was the former master
compelled to receive the price even if he was unwilling to sell in the first place?
Interestingly runaway slaves worshipped him for helping them escape, and masters worshipped him for
visiting them in their sleep to warn o f trouble among their slaves.
21Nippel 1995: 94-5. A good illustration o f this is in D.C. 54.23.3, the story o f Augustus and
Vedus Pollio. A slave o f Pollio’s breaks an expensive cup, and his master threatens to kill him. The slave
takes refuge at the feet o f Augustus, who asks Pollio to spare the slave’s life. Pollio refuses. Augustus
expresses solidarity with the slave by having all o f P ollio’s cups smashed.
163
The curious thing about the runaways in the Theseion is that they were not
running. They were lodging in a very public place at the foot o f the Akropolis, in a place
that was central to Athenian political organization.22 Ultimately, I believe that scholars
are right in the main: slaves in the Theseion were looking for new masters. The
challenge is to understand exactly how slaves could transfer themselves.
5.3. The cost o f manumission and the price ofpublicity
Slaves about to be manumitted and their masters were attracted to sanctuaries
because they were suitable arenas in which to produce publicity and generate public
knowledge. Manumission in sanctuaries normally involved some form of dedication, in
which the master declared that he dedicated his slave(s) to the god. This act was intended
to give the newly manumitted slave a degree o f protection.23 Those who would lay claim
to the former slave now risked committing a kind of sacrilege, as if they were stealing
sacred property. The relation between sacral manumission, involving the intermediation
of a sanctuary, and civil manumission is much disputed. Most scholars assume that the
sacral version was earlier, but the evidence is equivocal. For instance, manumissions
from Delphi show an interesting syncresis between sacred and civil elements. The master
seems to sell his slave to the god, but occasionally he also requires a contract specifying
În the Theseion magistracies were distributed (AP 62. 1). In 415 the Athenians chose the
Theseion as the place to camp overnight when they expected a revolution (And. 1. 45; Thuk. 6. 61. 2). For
collected testimonia see A gora 3.
23See Latte 1920: 106-11; Sokolowski 1954; Garlan 1988[1982]: 75-7. The most comprehensive
treatment o f the subject is Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005.
164
further obligations from the slave (e.g. S G D I1689; 1694 etc.). One thing is clear:
Manumission, whether sacral or civil, above all required publicity (Klees 1998: 308).
Manumissions were performed in sanctuaries because they were spaces, publicly
frequented and prominent, which could help the act’s performers memorialize the transfer
o f ownership. Thus Krates the Cynic raised him self on an altar and announced, “Krates
liberates Krates the Theban! [eAeuSspoi KpaTpTa ©r](3aiov Kpdxris]” (Suda q.v.).
Since Krates was not a slave, his self-manumission was more o f a social statement about
the enslaving power o f property, considering that in some o f the Suda’s other illustrations
he divests himself of all his wealth. However, he does give us a glimpse of how
manumission was performed. Krates chose the altar because the sacredness o f the space
provided the required dramatic publicity. Publicity was the primary reason
manumissions took place in sanctuaries (cf. Detienne 1988).
Other arenas could serve the purpose. According to Aiskhines, the Athenians
made a law concerning announcements of manumissions in the theatre (3.41). In the
Asklepieion at Epidauros the names o f manumitted slaves were inscribed in a shorthand
on the stadium’s walls (IG IV2 1, 353-79). Though these methods o f publication have an
appearance of improvisation, we should not assume that they were unauthorized,
impromptu acts. The names were evenly distributed across the walls, 12 on the northern
side and 13 on the southern side. This suggests that the Epidaurian authorities exercised
some oversight over the manumissions (Patrucco 1976: 99). Manumissions are similarly
inscribed on various structures’ walls in Delphi (CID 5.passim [in press]; 2nd cent.), as
they are in the theatre of the Asklepeion in Bouthrotos (Cabanes 1974; 3rd/2nd cent.); and
elsewhere (see Radle 1971). But again we should not mistake these inscriptions for
165
impromptu graffiti, just as we should not believe Aiskhines when he claims that the
Athenians passed the law because people were taking advantage o f the occasion to make
unauthorized declarations.
Sanctuary authorities knew well that there was value to be extracted by selling the
use o f the space and the registration o f the act, just as civic authorities did throughout the
Greek world (see Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 199-201). In a trilingual (Greek, Aramaic,
and Lycian) cultic foundation text from Xanthos in Lycia dating to 358 or 337 BCE, the
founder stipulates the cult’s funding sources. Among them is a small fee, two drachmai,
which manumitted slaves [aTreAeuOepoi] are to pay the god (SEG X X V II942. 18-20).24
A generic term for these fees were lytra, which was also the word for “ransom.”25
Athenians tapped the same source o f income, judging from the records of silver cup
(phialai) dedications by slaves (IG II2 1553-1578; D. M. Lewis 1959; 1968). But here, it
is crucial to note, the fee was considerably higher than in Lycia.
Approximately 375 names are recorded on these inscriptions, known as the “Lists
o f Manumission Cups.” Each dedicated a silver cup weighing 100 dr. Contemporary
liturgists also dedicated cups on the Akropolis in order to commemorate their cultural
24The text is extrem ely interesting because it appears to show an attempt to accommodate different
social structures. The Lycian text makes no mention o f “slaves,” according to Bryce (1978: 122). It
concerns a joint foundation o f a cult to Basileus Kaunios by the Xanthians and the so-called perioikoi.
Bryce suggests that the perio ik o i were actually Greeks who received the franchise and became arus, a word
only roughly approximating the Greek notion o f citizenship, referring “primarily to a person o f noble birth”
(121). Accordingly it is extrem ely interesting that the Greek-speaking inscriber introduces the notion o f
manumission at this point. The Aramaic version, as translated by Dupont-Sommer (C R A I1974: 137),
makes no mention o f any manumission/enfranchisement at all. Income there com es only from a city
contribution o f 1 'A mina (also found in the other two versions).
25For more examples and discussion see Bielman 1994: 261-4; Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 197-
203.
166
triumphs. The cups of these wealthy individuals weighed 50 dr., exactly half what the
slaves’ cups weighed (Lewis 1968; I G II2 417; SEG LI 80). Both records date between
the late 330s and 320, during which time the efficiency o f state finances improved
drastically.26 But why were the slaves’ cups twice as costly as the liturgists?27
Most scholars interpret the 100-dr. silver bowls as a publication fee (Zelnick-
Abramovitz 2005: 201, 288-9). If they are right, this would make it a surprisingly high
one. To put it into perspective: the average economic value o f an Athenian slave was
between 150-200 dr., while especially desirable ones could cost over 300 dr.28 In the
“Attic Stelai” o f 415 the prices o f slaves range between 72 dr. for a “Carian small child”
[KapiKOV uaiSiov] (IG I3 421. 46) and 360 for “Potanios the Carian goldsmith”
[TTo t c x v io s Kap xpuooxoo?] (422. 77-8), with the majority fetching in the 150-175
range. This was in keeping with the 180 dr. purchase price suggested by Xenophon in his
Poroi (4. 24, with Gauthier 1976: ad loc.).29 By contrast, in the Attic Stelai a team of
260ther notarization fees that likely contributed to this revival were levied for land sales (Lambert
1997). A lso the 4* century must have seen an improvement in the collection o f fines led by such
financially minded men as Agyrrhios (Stroud 1998: 17-24), Androtion (D. 24. 96-7), and Leptines (D. 20. 1
ffi).
27IG II2 1575 recorded phialai dedications by former slaves on one side and dedications by
liturgists on the other (see Lewis 1959: 235; 1968: 376).
28Inflation is irrelevant here, since the p h ia la i dedications were denominated in weight, 100 dr. o f
silver, not in cost. As far as the texts are preserved, the manumission cups always w eighed 100 dr. By
contrast two liturgical cups were o ff their target w eight by 1-2 dr. This might imply that the slaves had to
pay for the dedications on the spot, whereas the liturgists could bring their own bowls. If that was the case
the former slaves might have had to pay more than double what the liturgists paid.
290 f course some slaves could go for much more. Again according to Xenophon {Mem. 2. 5. 2),
“One slave is worth two mnai (200 dr.), another not even half a mna (50 dr.); yet another is worth five mnai
and another ten: Nikias Nikeratou is said to have bought a mine overseer for a talent (6,000 dr).”
According to Apollodoros Neaira’s lovers banded together to pay her owners 20 silver mnai, or 2,000 dr.,
for her freedom ([D.] 59. 32; ctr. 48. 53).
167
oxen fetched 70-100 dr. (426. 58-9), a small plot or a house 105 dr., and a plot with a
garden and house 205 dr. (430. 17-8).
In other words, slaves were expensive; as Xenophon notes: “It is clear that the
state is more able than individuals to pay the price o f slaves [T ip fju psv dvGpcdttcov
suSpAov o ti paAAov av to Sripoaiov Suuaixo r] oi iSicorai n a p a o K E u a a a a S a i]”
(Poroi 4. 18). Thus, manumission was also expensive. An Athenian slave who hoped for
manumission faced significant financial hurdles. First he had to satisfy his master,
probably by paying his “fair market value” or by promising to remain in service for a
certain time or until the master’s death (Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 208 ff); in some parts
of the Greek world these agreements were known as “the wait” (paramone).30 Some
slaves could expect to pay more than their fair market value to be manumitted (Hopkins
1978: 160; Radle 1970)— such is the law o f supply and demand.31
Furthermore the state also sought a large sum to register the manumission. They
were expected to purchase a 100-dr. silver cup. The cost of the cup is surprisingly high
relative to the price of a slave. By contrast Roman slaves upon manumission only owed
the state one twentieth o f their market value (Bradley 1984a), which in Athenian terms
should not have been more than 15 dr.
Few slaves were probably capable o f accumulating sufficient capital to purchase
their freedom outright. It is surely a significant fact that most o f the slaves listed as
30See Westermann 1948; Adams 1964.
31S G D I 1749 and 1750 thus record the case o f Kyprios, who paid 3 minai to his master for the
initial manumission agreement, and half a mina to each o f his master’s three heirs upon his death in order
to satisfy their claims on him.
168
dedicators o f silver cups were professionals: farmers, merchants, wool-workers, and the
like.32 Given the high costs of manumission, most slaves’ only hope for freedom was
their masters’ gracious consent. This could certainly happen: the Aristotelian
Oikonomikos advises masters to use manumission, along with procreation, as an
incentive.33 If the masters demanded excessive monetary compensation, they could
simply run away and hope for the best, which was clearly a road that many slaves tried
(see Kudlien 1988). According to Thukydides (7. 27. 5), when the Spartans occupied
Dekeleia, 20,000 Attic slaves were inspired to flee their masters. Slaves were always on
the lookout for invasions to help them run away; cities in crises often offered their slaves
freedom preemptively (Klees 1998: 409-31; R. Osborne 2000).
But there was another way in which a slave could become free without his
master’s consent.
32These were likely among the “apart-dwellers” (khoris oikountes): slaves active in business and
crafts, and with their own household, who paid a monthly fee to their masters. See E. Cohen 2000: ch. 5.
The relationship between the khoris oikon and his master was closer to one o f extortion than domination.
But note the suggestion o f Rosivach (1989), that the common designation “wool-worker” may be a generic
term for a female house-slave.
33“It is just and profitable to make freedom a prize. For they are w illing to toil when there is a
prize and a set time. You should also keep them hostage with procreation [S ikcciov y a p Ka'i aup(j>£pov xf|V
gXsubspiav KelaQat a6Aov. (BouAovxai y a p ttoveTv , oxav f] aQAov Kai o xpovo? copiaplvos. 5s7 5 e Kal
EôpppEUEiv x a ls XEKvorroitais] (1344M 5-8; cp. Ar. Pol. 1330b31-3). Xenophon likew ise mentions the
need for slave incentives but is interestingly silent on the question o f manumission (Oik. 5. 1 6 ;9 .5 , 11-3;
12. 9, 15; 13. 9-10). See further Pomeroy 1994: 65-6.
169
5.4. Aphairesis
The runaway supplicants in the Theseion were not really running away. They
were camped in a very public place.34 Aside from the meager sustenance of charity and
the sacrificial scraps that any poor man or bird could hope to grab, could they hope to
gain anything else by supplicating there? I think yes. I think that the slaves in the
Theseion and other sanctuaries could and did hope to leave their masters, or even to
become free. But it was not through manumission, a privilege that could be almost as
costly to publicize as it was to purchase.
Here the puzzling Athenian law o f slavery comes into play. As Gemet (1955:
151) notes, Athenian slave law is complex because Athenian slavery itself had multiple
realities. Or, as Todd puts is, “The rights and duties o f slaves at Athens are clear in
general structure but fuzzy at the edges, where the details are sometimes uncertain and
often complex” (1993: 185). For in the sources occasionally slaves appear as legal
agents, and at the same time as non-agents. Thus it is difficult to know what to make of
the dike apostasiou in which a master took his slave before the polemarch and accused
him o f fleeing, or more literally “standing apart,” aphestota (Harpokration s. v. / AP 58.2;
D. 36. 48). How could a slave, who should have had no juridical personality, be a
defendant? The “fuzzy edges” of Athenian slave law hold the key to understanding the
rationale of Athenian slaves’ supplication.
34The Theseion has not been discovered. Pausanias tells us that it was in the agora, but as
Vanderpool 1974 points out, this should probably be taken to mean the Roman agora.
170
An Athenian slave could leave his master without his master’s consent if someone
else came forth to claim that he was his own slave, or that he was not a slave at all. Such
was the Athenian regime of improvisation. Status and identity were fluid, not
permanently affixed.35 Publicity combined with a dramatic assertion o f a claim, along
with a display o f group-solidarity, could spread knowledge in the social fabric and bring
about drastic transformation, provided that one was not too well-known to begin with.36
In such a context one could be a slave one day and become free the next. The Middle
Comedy poet Anaxandrides seems to hint at this:
Luck carries all bodies (i.e. “slaves”). Many are un-free

today, but tomorrow they are Sunians, and the next day
they’re politicking (lit. “employing the market”). A spirit
turns the rudder for each o f us.
T u x p 5s T t a v x a p e T a ^ s p s i x a a o o p a x a . ttoAAo 'i 5 s vuv

p s v s l a i v o u k s A s u 0 s p o i , s i ? a u p i o v 6s l o u v i s T s , s i x ’ s i s
x p i x p v a y o p a K s x p f j v x a r x o v y a p o ’l a K a a xps(j)si
S a i p c o v e k q o x c o (fr. 4 PCG).
35Hunter 2000b provides a good discussion o f the legal aspects o f status, arguing that differences
o f status were enshrined in law, which reinforced them. It is certainly true that different penalties and
procedures were appropriate for slave, citizen and metic, but these could also serve as p o st fa c to
determinants o f status as w ell as mere symptoms. That is, if a citizen were tortured this w ould be “p ro o f’
that he was not a citizen (see Bushala 1968 for instances o f just such cases). If a metic were to pass a
scrutiny, or speak in the Assembly, or prosecute, this w ould “prove” that he was a citizen (see Ch. Four for
relevant discussion). See Ogden 1996 on the related ideology o f Perikles’ Citizenship Law, which made it
illegal for any but one bom o f two citizens to be a citizen. A s Ogden suggests, this also had the
consequence o f turning every politically active m an’s lineage into a purely Athenian one.
36In that case one would need to receive the honor o f citizenship by decree o f the demos. This
would entail a procedural intervention into public knowledge. See E. Cohen 2000: 70-8.
171
The challenge was to find someone, a protector (prostates), to stand up and
defend the slave, claim he was not a slave, or even assert he was a citizen.37 But someone
had to be willing to make the claim and be able to back it up with the necessary social
resources. If the slave could precipitate a contest in which his master’s ownership was
publicly refuted, then the slave was no longer his master’s.
The Athenian sources record just such a juridical practice: the aphairesis eis
eleutherian, or “extraction into freedom.”38 This could come about only as a direct result
o f a public confrontation and contestation. It required three parties: the slave, his master,
and a protector. The protector challenged the master by making a public claim o f the
slave’s freedom. Then a proceeding was held to adjudicate the dispute. If the protector
won, his claim was validated and the master lost his slave. We can see an example of
how this might work in Aiskhines’ prosecution o f Timarkhos. His account is valuable in
broad outline, less so for specific details.
Pittalakos, according to Aiskhines, was a wealthy public slave [Sppooios
oiKSTqs••■sutTopcov apyupiou] who met Timarkhos in a cock-fighting den (1. 53-4).
He became one of a long string of lovers Timarkhos took on and then abandoned. His
successor was Hegesander, a relatively known if minor politician (Aiskhin. 1. 55-6, 64;
APF 3621). But Pittalakos harassed the new couple. So Hegesander and Timarkhos in a
drunken rage broke into Pittalakos’ home, destroyed his gambling paraphernalia, killed
370 f course p ro sta ta i are better attested as protectors o f metics. But the principle is the same: a
citizen sponsor o f a non-citizen. See Gauthier 1972: 126-36; Whitehead 1977: 89-92; Harrison
1998[1968]: 1. 189-93; Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 248-62.
38See Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 292-300 for a review o f the evidence and its interpretations.
172
his fighting cocks, “which the poor wretch loved,” and tied him to a pillar and whipped
him. I have already discussed Pittalakos’ subsequent naked supplication in Chapter
Three: his approach to the market, his attempt to create a stir, his departure from the altar
under the persuasion o f Timarkhos. But Timarkhos did not keep to whatever promise he
made to entice him from the altar. So Pittalakos moved against them in court (62).39 And
Hegesander retaliated:
Consider Hegesander’s arrogance at the trial! A man who

had not wronged him in any way, but the opposite, one
whom he had wronged, a man who had nothing to do with
him, but a public slave o f the city, he started to lead him
into slavery claiming that he was his slave. In these dire
straits Pittalakos turns to a man, a good man: Glaukon
Kholargeus. It was he who extracted him to freedom
oxs 6’ eSiKa^sTO, OKE'I'aaSs psyaXpv pcopr)u

'H y rp d v S p o tr av0pcoTtov ou5sv auxov qSiKqKOTCx,
aAAa to svavxiov qSiKqpsvov, ou5sv trpooqKOVTa
auxcp, aAAa Sqpoaiov oiksttiv tt) s ttoAscos , qysv sis
SouAsiav cjiaaKcov sauTou slvai. sv tTavxi 6s kokou
ysvopsvos o TTixxaAaKos, TtpoattiTrxsi avSpi Kai paAa
XpTiaxcp. saxi x is TAauKcov X oA apysus' ouxos auxov
a ^ a ip s'ix a i sis sAsuSspiav (62).
The present case was settled in arbitration (63-4); we do not know what happened
to Pittalakos. What is relevant here is Aiskhines’ narrative o f the process: 1) Hegesander
seizes Pittalakos and claims he is his own slave; 2) Pittalakos turns to Glaukon; 3)
Glaukon (“a really good man”) contradicts Hegesander’s claim by performing the
aphairesis eis eleutherian. In Aikshines’ telling, the arrogant Hegesander did not hesitate
39It is possible that public slaves in 4th century Athens were in a privileged position relative to
private slaves (see M acD ow ell 1978: 83; Todd 1993: 192-4; E. Cohen 2000: 130 ff.). But A iskhines’
suggestion that Pittalakos could m ove against two citizens is nonetheless highly suspicious.
173
to pounce on Pittalakos. Pittalakos’ status and identity thus came into question and if
Glaukon had not intervened he would have become Hegesander’s slave.
Lysias’ Ag. Pankleon (23) provides another illustration o f how aphairesis might
operate. It concerns an unnamed speaker’s accusation that one Pankleon was not, as he
claimed, Plataian (which would entitle him to special privileges in Athens), but a slave.
Again, I am less interested in the truth of the speaker’s allegations than in his description
of how aphairesis functioned in a case of contested status and identity.
According to the speaker, the present case arose because he brought Pankleon
before the polemarch, “because I thought he was a metic” (2). We are not told what the
original dispute was. Pankleon responded by claiming that the polemarch was not the
appropriate venue because he was not a metic, but a Plataian, to which the speaker asked
his deme, and Pankleon responded that he was a Dekeleian. The speaker dutifully set out
to investigate this claim, but he made a surprising discovery. No Dekeleians or Plataians
knew any Pankleon as one o f their own. But one man, Nikomedes, did claim he knew a
Pankleon. The Pankleon he knew, he said, was his own runaway slave! Alerted to
Pankleon’s whereabouts Nikomedes set out to confront and reclaim him. Matters then
became more interesting. The speaker’s colorful narrative deserves to be quoted in full:
When they stopped struggling some o f those present said

that Pankleon had a brother who would extract him to
freedom [os sâiprjooixo auxov sis sAsuSepiav], So
they exchanged pledges that they would produce him
tomorrow and departed. On the next day, on account o f our
dispute and trial, I decided to be present with my own
witnesses, to see who would extract him and under what
claim fiV eiSeiqv xov t sâipqoopevov auxov Ka'i o xi
Asycov d(j)aipqaaixo]. Contrary to his pledge, neither
brother nor anyone else came, but a woman who claimed
that he was her slave! She disputed Nikomedes’ claim, and
174
refused to let him take Pankleon away. It would be a long

story to narrate all that was said. But those present and this
one here became so violent, that though Nikomedes was
willing and the woman was willing to release him
[atjiiEvai], either if someone were to extract him to
freedom [s’i xis... sis sXEU0epiav xouxov <d(j)aipoixo>]
or lead him off as his own slave [ayoi (jidoKcov Eauxou
SouAov slvai], they did neither and absconded with him
[dÊAdpEvoi cpxovTo]... It is easy to realize that even
Pankleon does not think he is Plataian, let alone free! For
anyone who was willing to be carried away by force [(3ia
a<j>aipE0Eis] and make his associates liable to assault
charges rather than be extracted to freedom according to
the laws and punish those who led him away [Kara xous
vopous eiS’ Tpv eAeu0epi' c(v £âipE0sis 5iKr|v Acx(3eTi;
tta p a xcov ayovxcov auxov], it is not hard for anyone to
realize that he knew all too well that he was a slave and
was afraid to set up sureties and contest his status [su
EiScds Eauxov ovxa 5ouAov e'Seioev Eyyupxas
K axaaxpaas Ttsp'i xou ocdpaxos aycoviaaa0ai] (9-12).
The speaker presents two “reasonable” outcomes possible in the aphairesis
confrontation: either someone extracts Pankleon to freedom by championing the claim
that he is a citizen, or else leads him away with the claim that he is his, or in this case her,
own slave. Whether the disputed person is deemed free or not, at the point of
contestation his agency is suspended and he becomes a mere object whose possession is
under dispute between two others.40
40Isaios’ fragmentary For Eumathes (frs. 15-7 Thalheim) similarly involved a dispute between
Xenokles and D ionysios over the banker Eumathes. It appears that Eumathes claimed he had been
manumitted whereas Dionysios, the son o f his former master Epigenes, claimed him as part o f his
inheritance. X enokles performed the aphairesis, interestingly, because he felt obliged to Eumathes. He
claims that w hen he was reputed to have died, Eumathes turned all the m oney he had on deposit over to his
family. This so m oved Xenokles that they became close friends. And, he claims, “I knew he had been
released by Epigenes in court [slScb? a<j)si|JEVov sv t c o SiKaoxppico u t t o ’E m y sv o u s].” It is unclear
what he means by “in court.” Perhaps Epigenes proclaimed Eumathes’ manumission in court in order to
distance him self from whatever claim Eumathes was facing. For a similar gambit see [D.] 47. 28.
175
This narrative has to be treated with caution. The speaker claims that Pankleon’s
willingness(l) to be carried away indicates he was afraid to name sureties and step into
the court, implying that he did not have the kind o f social networks that were the proof
and support o f Athenian citizenship (Humphreys 1985c). Yet this is after all supposed to
be a court case, and he has very little to say about “those who were present for him [o'l
T ra p o v T E s toutco]” (11), other than that they absconded with him from the
confrontation— as if “absconding with him,” aphelomenoi dikhonto, is somehow different
from aphairesis.
The case is illustrative o f how a dispute over one’s status might take shape,
though the speaker is presenting an account o f bungled aphairesis. Pankleon’s protector
is not a brother who proves his kinship and citizenship but a woman who claims he is her
slave. The narrative shows unequivocally that the aphairesis eis eleutherian called for a
dramatic ordeal in which participants negotiated status, identity and kinship claims
authoritatively and publicly.41
Status in general was defined through public performances that produced
witnesses (see Humphreys 1985c; Scafuro 1994). If one was able to orchestrate a public
performance that defined one’s status or identity in a certain way, this became a powerful
proof of that status.42 Thus, a slave could become someone else’s slave, free, or even a
41See the Gortyn Code’s similarly minded regulations concerning disputes over slaves and statuses
(IC 72 i 2-35). Cf. Maffi 1997; 2002; Thiir 2002; 2003. N ote that at 11. 15-8, the law instructs the judge,
when in doubt, to favor the claim that the disputed person is free.
42Compare the arguments o f Isaios 4 on the identity o f the various disputants: “Who did not cut
his hair when the two talents arrived from Ake? Who did not wear black, as if mourning [dia to penthos],
to inherit the property?” (7). That is, many people by means o f public performance tried to express their
kinship to the deceased Nikostratos in order to make a claim to his fortune. Similarly the speakers o f Isaios
176
citizen overnight, as Anaxandrides wrote. Aphairesis was a particularly dramatic practice
suitable to extreme circumstances: it required that the slave be publicly contested
between two parties. Other practices could achieve the same result.43
The dike apostasiou is a related example. Fundamentally, it differed from the
aphairesis eis eleutherian only in who initiated the dispute. It also differed in that it did
not require a physical contestation. In a case o f apostasiou a presumptive master charged
someone with being his runaway slave, his manumitted slave who has not adhered to the
conditions of his manumission, or his manumitted slave who has attached him self to a
different “protector,” or prostates (Harpokration s.v.)— as we saw, this was precisely
what the object of an aphairesis was doing. A victory in a dike apostasiou meant that the
prosecutor, depending on one’s perspective, gained or regained a slave. But if the
defendant prevailed, as Harpokration notes, he became “completely free,” because the
process had validated his identity and status.
An inscription roughly contemporary with Lysias 23 gives us a glimpse o f yet
another way in which a slave might escape his status. IG II2 1237 (396/5) is a decree o f
the phratry o f the Demotionidai regulating their Apatouria festival and proceedings. The
Apatouria was a common occasion for the performance of identity, kinship and status
(see Lambert 1993: 143 ff.). New entrants, both male and female, would be introduced
as the legitimate relations of credentialed members, and their entry into the phratry would
8 claim the estate o f Kiron because he performed sacrifices with them publicly at the Rural Dionysia, when
they were children (15-7).
43In a recent work, Edward Cohen (2000) argues that on the dem e-level it was much more
common for foreigners to becom e Athenians. Citizenship grants by the Assem bly were not very common
honors.
177
come to a vote (cf. And. 1. 126). Down the road the fact that they participated at the
Apatouria or other public kinship rituals would become a powerful argument in
inheritance or other property disputes, enabling them to summon public knowledge in
their support (cf. Is. 8. 15 ff).
These Demotionidai, coincidentally, were associated with the Dekeleians, o f
whom Pankleon claimed to be one. The inscription also corroborates that the Dekeleians
h a d a c u s t o m a r y m e e t i n g p o i n t i n t h e c it y , ottoi a v AsKsAstfjs T tp o a c ^ o ix c o a iv ev a o T S t
(63-4), as Lysias 23 also informs us (3,6). The part that especially interests me is an
amendment inserted by one Nikodemos (68 ff.), which specified that the vote o f each
candidate’s thiasos was to be counted separately from the rest o f the phrateres. The
thiasotes were to be liable to a fine if they sponsored a candidate whom the rest o f the
phratry rejected:
If the thiasotai vote that he is their phrater and the other

phrateres vote him out, the thiasotai are to owe 100 dr.
sacred to Zeus Phratrios, except those o f the thiasotai who
were accusers or showed themselves to be opposed during
the proceeding
sav 6s t c o v Siaocoxcov Ivai a u x o is

cj>pdxspa oi aAAoi c^paxspss aTTO^r](j)iacouxai,
ocj)siA6vxcov sxaxov 5 p a x p a s isp a s xcoi Ait xcoi
O paxpicoi oi Qiaacoxai, TtApv oaoi av xcov Siaocoxcov
Kaxfjyopoi rj svavxiopsvoi âivcovxai gv xfji
5ia5iK aaiai (88-94).
Clearly Nikodemos was concerned with the possibility that a few associates
would band together and admit into the phratry, and hence citizenship, undeserving
people (see N. F. Jones 1999: 195-220). We find echoes o f this concern elsewhere.
Krateros recorded a law, “If someone born of two foreigners joins a phratry, let the
178
Athenian who wishes prosecute him [sav 5e x is apcfioTu êvoiv ysyovcos <j)paxpi£ri,
S ic o k e iv slvai tco (SouAopEVcp ’ A0r]vatcov]” (F rG rH 342 F 4). Nikodemos intended to
discourage such an eventuality by additionally making liable to a fine the band of
associates on whose sponsorship the undeserving phrater relied. In the previous chapter I
argued that profit motivated some groups to support publicly a foreigner’s claims to
citizenship and other honors. Nikodemos’ amendment can be seen as a response to such
practices.
A slave in particular would have had to reward his protector and his associates
substantially if he hoped to become free, rather than another master’s slave.44 According
to Isokrates, critics o f the Athenian Empire (wrongly) compared Athens’ claims to
“liberate” the Greeks from the Persians to “people who extract other people’s slaves to
freedom only to have them slave for them [t o 7 ? Ttapa |j e v t c o v a'AAcov ro u s oiKExas
eis eAeuSepi'ov acjiaipoupsvois, acjnai 5’ a u x o is SouAsusiv avayK aôuaiv]” (12. 97).
As with manumission, the slave had little guarantee that the agreement would lead to true
release from the master’s claims (cf. Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005). Thus, aphairesis was
also similar to manumission in that it was in the slave’s interest to make it as dramatic
and public an act as possible. A public, dramatic act that sparked interest was more likely
to produce knowledge that would be absorbed into the social fabric. I suggest that the
44A puzzling law ascribed to Lykourgos might have been intended to regulate this situation: “N o
Athenian or resident in Athens is allowed to buy into slavery a free slave who has lost a proceeding,
without the consent o f his prior master [ p r ] 5 e v i E ^ s iv a f A0rjvcucov p p S e x c o v o ’ikouvtcov ’ A0pvr|aiv
EA euQ spov a c o p a T r p i a a Q a i etti S ou Aeio ek tcov a A i a K o p E v c o v a v E U x f j s tou u p o x E p o u S E a n d x o u
yvcdpris-]” (Plut. Mor. 8 4 1 f - 2 a ) . The law suggests the figure o f a slave who is free without his master’s
consent. It also entails the possibility o f the free slave’s losing a proceeding— i f that is the sense o f the
problematic a A i a K o p E v c o v (see Klees 1 9 9 8 : 334-41)— and being sold.
179
slaves at the Theseion used supplication as a means to that end. With the help of
supplication they hoped to place the act o f aphairesis in a traditional frame and obscure
the deals that might have been necessary to secure the support o f their protector and his
associates. Additionally, perhaps they hoped that the publicity would help them again, if
necessary.
Herodotos gives us an example o f aphairesis that neatly underscores its relation to
supplication. As the battle o f Plataia was winding down, a woman crossed the battlefield
with her entourage. She was a concubine of a Persian commander. “She came as a
fugitive,” Herodotos notes, using a word, automolos, which is normally reserved for
runaway slaves (cf. Ar. Kn. 21-6). She approaches Pausanias and says,
“King o f Sparta, extract me your supplicant from captive

slavery. You have already done me a favor by killing these
here who hold neither gods nor divinities sacred. I am from
Kos by birth, the daughter o f Hegetorides the son of
Antagoras. The Persian took me from Kos by force.” And
he replied, “Woman, take heart, because you are a
supplicant, and because if you are telling the truth and you
are the daughter o f Hegetorides the Koan, he is my best
guest-friend in those parts.” He spoke thus and then
entrusted her to the ephors present, and later sent her off to
Aigina, where she wanted to go.
<< O (3aaiAsu iTTapTps, p u aai ps xpv 'iketiv

aixpaA cbxou SouAoauvris' au y a p kco ss t o 5 e cbvpaas
t o u o S e aTToAsaas x o u s o u t e Saipovcov o u t e Oecov o t tiv
e' x o v t c c s . Eipi 5s y s v o s psv Kcpr), 0uyaT pp 5 e
'HyryropiSEGo t o u A vxayopEco' (3(r| 5s ps Aa(3cbv sk Kcb

Elys o TTe p o t i s -» ' 0 5 e apsi(3sTai T oiaS s- « r 6 v a i,
0apoEE- Kai cos ' i k e t i s kcxi e i 5f) rrpos t o u t c o T u y y a v s i s
aAriBsa A syouaa k c u e I s Suydxpp 'HypTopiSEco t o u
Kcpou, o s spoi êTvos p a A io x a x u y y a v s i scov xcov T rsp i
e k e i v o u s x o u s x ^ p o u ? oiKppEvcov.» T a u x a 5 e E i r r a s
TOXE p i v ETTEXpElpE XCOV E(j)6pCOV X o T d TTapEO U O l,
u a x E p o v 5 e QTTEUEpcpE e s A ’i y i v a v , ES x f]V a u x r i p'SeA e
aT T lK E O 0ai (9. 76).
180
This passage shows the practical synonymy between aphairesis and rhysis, which I
discussed at the beginning of this chapter. It also shows how supplication could be used
to camouflage these practices of “extraction.” The end result in this case, as with the
slaves’ supplications in sanctuaries, was the transmutation o f capital into a new identity.
Herodotos signals that the woman is being less than truthful. Three things give
her away. First, Herodotos comments that she knew Pausanias not through her father, as
she claimed, but instead, “she had learned his name and home beforehand because she
had heard it often [ T r p o x s p o v x s t o o u v o p a e ^ E T n a T a p e v r i kcu T p v T rd x p r)V c o o t s
TroAAaKis aKOUoaoa].” Furthermore, if she did know Pausanias she probably would not
have called him “king,” for Pausanias was not king in Sparta, only regent.45 Finally, if
these are too subtle clues of her insincerity, Herodotos also notes that she did not go back
to Kos, where she claimed she was from, but to Aigina, “where she wanted to go.”
It is also not insignificant that the woman before approaching Pausanias
“decorated herself and her maids in much gold and their best clothes [KoapriaapEvri
Xpuocp ttoAAco Kai auTp kcu < ai> apcjnTroAoi kcu so0?|ti xf| KaAAiaxri tcov
rrapeouoscov].” This incident shows the role o f capital in supplications that led to
assertions of identity. The concubine transformed her capital into a new identity— ’’the
daughter o f Hegetorides, guest-friend o f Pausanias”— by finding and supplicating an
45I thank Jonathan Hall for calling my attention to this point.
181
appropriate protector.46 “Money makes the man [x p rjp ar avrjp]” said an old Greek
proverb (Aik.fr. 360 L-P; Pind. I. 2. 11-2). Apparently, it also made the woman.
The Suda tells us that the Theseion was a refuge for slaves and also a site for
trials.47 Trials could take place at nearly any suitable venue, but I suggest the possibility
that these dikai were the ordeals that the supplicant slaves meant to incite. These ordeals
could lead to transformations o f identity and status. If the master charged the slave with
running away or with taking a new protector (prostates) in a dike apostasiou and lost the
trial, as Harpokration notes, the slave becomes free.48 The same outcome would result if
a protector performed the aphairesis eis eleutherian on the slave and, with the help of his
associates, won the case.
If Athenian slaves managed to obtain their freedom in this way, this fact might
shed some light on the “manumission cups” stelai, which I mentioned above. The
peculiarity here is that the word “manumission” does not appear anywhere on them.
Instead, they seem to be very brief records o f trials involving slaves—though none o f the
defendants are explicitly called “slaves.” Normally, each “slave” is recorded as
46She found a perfect man for the job. The passage is Herodotos’ hint o f how the hero o f Plataia
would become “an imitation o f a despot rather than a general [xu p avv(5os pciAAov... pi'ppais p
a x p a x p y ia ],” as Thukydides w ould say (1. 93; cf. 1. 130). See Kurke 2002.
47Cp. the inscription from Andania (LSCG 65. 80-4): It instructs a priest to hear the slaves’
complaints, and to return him to his master if he finds against him. If he does not turn him over the
inscription authorizes the master to take his slave by force. Interestingly the inscription does not state what
is to happen if the priest finds for the slave. Perhaps that is because at that point the slave is no longer a
slave and the proceedings becom e moot (cf. Christensen 1984: 27).
48A n o o T a a lo u : Smp t i s e o t i kotcx tc o v aTreAEU0£pco0evTcov 5e5o|_ievti toT s

aTrsA£u0Epc6accatv, ecxv cujnaxcovTcu t e a ir ’ a u x co v p ETEpov STTiypcujxovxcu TTpoaxccxpv, kcu a
keAeuouoiv o'i vopot pp ttoicooiv.k cu x o u j pev aAovxas 5e7 SouA ous eTvcu, t o u s 5e viK p aavT a?
tsA ecos p5p eAeu0epous\
182
apophygon/-ousa, “acquitted o f ’ a citizen accuser, and as dedicant o f a 100 dr.-weight
silver cup. The terse notations leave much in doubt about what they are recording. Most
accept the theory o f Tod (1901-2: 197-202) that the cases were fictitious dikai apostasiou
(cf. IG II2 1578. 1-2), in which a master pretended to charge his slave with fleeing and
then colluded to lose the case.
A fragment published by Lewis (1968) throws this into serious doubt. In lines 11-
9, under the entry o f a physician-slave the inscriber noted the date o f the trial, the court,
and named the magistrates responsible for the timer, the vote-counting; and several
others. This much information is unrealistic if the case was fictitious, or if the master
was colluding. That such great detail is recorded in this case is surely due to this slave’s
value. The only physician recorded on the stones, he would have been a tempting prize
for predatory claimants, more tempting perhaps than the numerous wool-workers and
shopkeepers who make up the majority of dedicants. The detailed record o f this
aphairesis is surely a defensive gesture.
An additional problematic feature of the stones is the grammatical variation in the
formulas. Some have the name o f the slave in the nominative, others in the accusative,
making it unclear who dedicated the phialai. Further adding to the mystery is the fact
that the formulae are consistent on each inscription, and on each side, perhaps implying
some sort o f meaningful distinction. This has lead some to propose that different
inscriptions record legal victories by the slaves and others defeat; or that some record
phialai dedicated by the slaves and others by the masters (Kahrstedt 1934: 308-9).
I suspect that Wilamowitz (1887: 110, n. 1) was on the right track when he
proposed that the much rarer formula o f master name first in nominative, slave name
183
second in accusative, record cases o f aphairesis eis eleutherian, whereas the formula of
slave first in nominative, master second in accusative, reflect cases o f dikai apostasiou,
though he did not explain how aphaireseis related to dikai apostasiou. As we saw, the
two procedures were really the same controversy seen from two perspectives. In one, the
dike apostasiou, the master challenges his slave; in the other, the slave’s protector
challenges the master. Both charges would lead to proceedings that would try to
determine the status and identity o f the slave as a function o f his placement in a social
network. Accordingly, the citizens whose names appear first may have been the slaves’
claimants/champions {prostatai), not their masters.
Whatever the circumstances of each case, it is clear that the inscriptions o f both
types were intended to memorialize assertions o f status, and as such were more durable
interventions in public knowledge than any dramatic performance at the Theseion. It is
not surprising that the state could charge a lofty premium for this service, which was
basically a cooption of the service otherwise performed by sanctuaries. Rather than
staging disputes and confrontations in sanctuaries with the hope o f influencing public
knowledge, the slaves could pay a fee to the state and be inscribed as free, or more
accurately, “having escaped.” The high fee reflected the service’s value.
To sum up. The Theseion was an impromptu second-hand slave market where
“buyers” might obtain new slaves by claiming they were theirs all along, and slaves could
hope to “buy” their way into freedom by being “extracted.” Aristophanes called this
process “finding a purchase” (prasin heuresthai), because in a manner of speaking the
slaves used supplication as a cover for the purchase o f a new identity. Identity was
184
ultimately based on kinship (cf. Pomeroy 1997: 67 ff.); but kinship was a social
relationship that could be faked, denied or purchased. This was possible because the only
firm basis of kinship was significant action, and action can be staged, as the
Demotionidai feared was taking place during their induction festival.
Slaves who staged supplications, ultimately, were more likely to become someone
else’s slave than to become free. This was the risk inherent in aphairesis. Like
Herodotos’ concubine who put on her best clothes and jewelry before supplicating, slaves
who wanted to become truly free needed to possess substantial material capital. It thus
may be no small coincidence that no house-slave appears on the phialai inscriptions; all
the slaves recorded were professionals with independent sources o f income.
Most slaves probably did not control enough capital to entice someone to support
their status- and identity-claims. And those who possessed sufficient capital to become
supplicants would probably not have needed to become supplicants in order to purchase a
free identity. Without enough capital to become free, or to become proper supplicants,
most slaves remained in the sanctuary in a perpetually liminal state, not slaves but not
quite free. Aristophanes mockingly called these theseiotribes, “Theseion-loiterers.” The
slave supplicants without the means o f supporting themselves, and the acts they wanted
to stage, troubled sanctuary authorities, as we saw at the beginning o f this chapter. They
did their best to encourage them to leave, short o f expelling them by force.
Slaves’ use of supplication shows us how versatile the practice was, and how
closely linked it was to personal value. Because supplication effected a conversion of
economic capital to symbolic capital it could also transform a slave (a commodity) into a
supplicant (a gift), in the process creating a new identity.
Conclusion
I have argued: 1) that supplication was a performance o f partly improvised, partly
staged “street theater” intended to educate its audience and frame social knowledge in the
contours of tradition; and 2) that ultimately, supplication entailed the creation of
symbolic capital which could be put to social uses. Trading on himself, the supplicant
also traded on the capital that his body signified; he became simultaneously the object
and the means o f exchange. These two features o f supplication, its theatricality and its
economics, combined, gave capital the power to act upon the social world without
revealing itself.
I take as my concluding point o f departure Demosthenes’ death as a supplicant.
Plutarch’s account o f this theatrical death illustrates the first argument, while the
circumstances that brought Demosthenes to his end bear directly on my second argument.
Supplication as theater
Demosthenes had recourse to supplication at the end o f his life (Plut. Dem. 29. 1
ff). Pursued by the Macedonians, he sought sanctuary in the temple o f Poseidon in
Kalauria. The regent, Antipater, wanted to round up all the leaders o f the various cities
whom he considered threats to Macedonian authority. Demosthenes, though now very
old, was still a threat. The man Antipater sent after him, Arkhias, was nicknamed the
Fugitive-Hunter [<j)uya6o0r]pas]. He was also an accomplished tragic actor; one o f the
best o f his day according to some.
The night before Arkhias came to persuade Demosthenes to leave the sanctuary
and follow him to Macedon, Demosthenes had a dream. He dreamt he was on stage, in
185
186
an acting competition against Arkhias. His performance won over the audience yet the
judges gave the the prize to Arkhias because he had a better costume.
The next day the scene resembled a scene from a Euripidean tragedy, such as the
Andromakhe (1-411), Herakles (1-339), Helen (1-333), or Ion (1259-1401), where a
supplicant has taken sanctuary, and someone tries to persuade him or her to relinquish the
status. Both promises and threats are extended to induce the supplicant to abandon the
supplication (see Mercier 1990: 194-251). Similarly Arkhias, the accomplished actor, at
first tried to induce Demosthenes to leave the sanctuary and follow him to Macedon.
Demosthenes had nothing to fear, he promised. But Demosthenes understood the
meaning of the dream. He realized that Arkhias was playing the herald/henchman to his
supplicant.
Though Arkhias addressed him very mildly, Demosthenes

looked up at him from where he was sitting and said,
‘Arkhias, I never believed your acting before and I do not
believe your promises now .’ Then when Arkhias started to
threaten him angrily he said, ‘Now you speak like a
Macedonian oracle. Before you were acting.’
Sio t o u ’A p x to u ttoAAcx cjnAavSpcoTra 5 iaA sx0s v x o s ,

a v a ^ A ^ a s n p o s a u x o v , cboTtep ETuyyavE KaOqpEvos,
cb ’A p x i a , eIttev, ou'0’ UTroKpivbpsvos' |je Trcbtrox’
ETTEioa?, o u t e vuv tte io e i? ETrayysAAopsvos. a p ^ a p s v o u
5’ octteiAsTv psx’ o p y q s t o u A p y io u , vuv, s'bp, Asysig
TCC EK TOU MaKESoVlKOU TpiTToSog, a p T l 5’ UTTSKpiVOU
(29. 3).
Demosthenes’ dream had warned him. He could not have known that Arkhias had
already caught other Athenian politicians and sent them to Antipater who executed
them— even cutting out Hypereides’ tongue. Arkhias had already extracted by force two
supplicants at the Aiakeion in Aigina (28. 4).
187
Demosthenes’ defiant joke meant that when Arkhias spoke threateningly he was
finally being blunt and honest (“like a Macedonian oracle”), while before he was merely
acting a part. In truth, Demosthenes was also acting a part. Demosthenes’ dream shows
as much. I hope to have shown in this dissertation that all supplicants acted a part, all
acts o f supplication were to some extent staged, “theatrical” spectacles.
The aim o f supplicants was two-fold: to call as much attention to themselves as
possible, and to frame social knowledge around the act o f supplication. Supplication’s
long tradition informed every use o f the practice. As Crotty noted, “ [Tjhrough their
formalized gestures suppliants show the perennial contours o f the current, fleeting
situation, and align their particular demand with a long tradition...” (1994: 18). We have
seen how this evocation o f tradition gave performances o f supplication the capacity to
instruct their audience. Above (p. 75, 105), I cited Barthes’ characterization o f staged,
routine spectacles as “pantomimes” with immediate sign-value. I might have also
adduced Aristotle’s remarks on the power o f signs, such as gesture and garb, to intensify
dramatic sentiment and to fix roles more securely:
They who employ gesture, voice and garb, in sum,

performance, are more pitiable (for they make disaster
more immediate, bringing it before the eyes as something
that has happened or will happen— what has just happened
or what will happen soon is more pitiable); likewise, signs,
such as the garbs o f sufferers and such things, and their acts
and their speech, and all that is characteristic o f those who
suffer, for instance o f the dead. Above all, the dignified at
such times are pitiable. All these things produce pity
through immediacy, on the grounds that the sufferer does
not deserve it, and that they manifest the suffering before
our eyes
avayKT] xous ouvatrspyaôpsvous oxppaoi kou (jicova'i?

kcu EO0r)ci kcu oAcos UTTOKpiasi sAseivoxspous elvai
188
(syyug y a p rroiouai (|>aivEa0ai to kokov , Trpo oppaxcov

tToiouvxsg rj cog peAAovxa q cos y sy o v o x a - Kai Ta
yeyovoxa apxi q psAAovxa 5ia xayscov sAesivoxepa),
<kcci> 5 ia xouxo Ka'i x a oqpETa, olov so0qxag te xcov
ttsttov06tgov Ka'i b aa x o ia u x a , Ka'i Tag Ttpa^sig Ka'i
Aoyoug Kai b oa aAAa xcov ev xcb Tra0si ovxcov, olov
rjbTi xeAeuxcbvTcov. Kai paAiaxa xo OTroubaious elvai
ev xoTs x oiou xots Kaipols- ovxa? eAeeivov a ira v x a
y a p x a u x a 5 ia t o sy y u s b a >UE° 0 a i paAAov ttoieT xov
eAeov, Kai cos avaîou ovxos Kai ev ocj)0aApoTs
(j)aivo|j£VOu to u Tra0ous (Arist. Rhet. 1386a29-b7).
The power o f performance that Aristotle identified in the theater, I would suggest, was
equally applicable to the staged, theatrical spectacles o f the street. Supplication, when
successful, “abolished all motives” (Barthes 1972[1957]: 15); it distilled a complex
reality into little more than a set o f gestures, boiling down politics to its role-playing
essence. When Pelasgos tells Danaos to take his daughters’ branches into the city so that
all the citizens see the proof o f their supplication and take the Danaids’ side, he reminds
him, “Everyone is kindly disposed toward the weaker [tois qoaoaiv yap irag Tig
suvoiag 4>epsi]” (A. Suppl. 489).
Supplicants used the sentiment that supplication produced in diverse agendas.
Some were successful, others not. All used the strategy to call attention to themselves,
frame their particular concerns in the contours o f a tradition, and ultimately to educate (in
both senses of “inform” and “guide”) their audience. To review the specific examples I
discussed:
• Odysseus’ supplication was staged in order to teach the suitors the lesson
o f Telemakhos’ authority.
• Ephialtes’ supplication was staged in order to teach the Athenians o f the
Areopagos’ impiety and transgression.
189
• Andokides, in his narrative, stages the supplication o f his family in order
to teach his audience why he informed.
• Supplications were staged in the 4th century Assembly in order to teach the
Athenians that their leaders were pious, moral and traditionalist.
• Slaves staged their supplications in sanctuaries in order to teach their
audiences that they were not who their pursuers claimed: not their slaves,
or even not slaves at all.
Supplication was a “street spectacle.” When performed under the right
circumstances by the right people, it could help create an atmosphere o f festival, which
was conducive to occasionally dramatic political and social acts and negotiations (cp.
Forsdyke 2005a). Supplication’s power was based on tradition and gossip. By re
enacting tradition, supplicants and their sponsors aimed to shape gossip and channel it
toward their individual objectives.
Supplication as exchange
Demosthenes died as a supplicant as a direct result o f his role in the supplication
o f Harpalos. It was no secret that Harpalos, the one-time confidant o f Alexander, had
come to Athens with a large sum o f his former friend’s money. What angered the
Athenians was that the sum proved to be far less than what they had been led to expect.
They were convinced that behind the shortfall were the bribes Harpalos paid to Athenian
politicians to advance his cause. One o f these was Demosthenes, who was convicted and
exiled. Let us assume that Demosthenes did endorse the protection o f Harpalos in
190
exchange for gold, as his enemies suggested.1 He would not have been alone in
endorsing a supplicant in exchange for material considerations. I argued in Chapters
Four and Five that this was a common arrangement in both the Assembly and the
Theseion, where public supplications provided a cover for private deals. Demosthenes’
enemies could call this bribery, but that is not entirely accurate. Bribery implies that
capital has flowed through illegal channels in exchange for undue influence. Bribery is
an inappropriate characterization o f the economics of supplication because, as I have
tried to show, all supplicants traded on their economic capital in order to obtain the
symbolic capital o f supplicancy. This principle is precisely what made Telemakhos’
treatment o f the beggar Aithon, discussed in Chapter Two, so provocative to the suitors.
To treat a beggar like a supplicant can only be an outrageous expression of one’s
contempt for wealth and for those who base their power-claims upon it.
Supplication produced symbolic capital, that is, honorable capital whose material
heritage is practically denied. In the 1st century CE inscriptions from Roman Jordan
discussed by Rigsby (2000), Theon appears to have paid a sizeable sum in exchange for
his status, substantially more than non-supplicant donators. All supplicants paid for their
status in one way or another. The worth they enjoyed as supplicants was not created ex
nihilo or, what the ritual’s gestures imply, out o f the performance o f the ritual itself.
A supplicant’s value was linked to social status. We thus frequently encounter
supplicants who emphasize their wealth. For example, Andokides in his narrative took
iCf. Plut. Dem. 25. 3-4; Diod. 17. 108. 4-8; Dein. 1. 112; Hyp. 1. 9 ff. On the “Harpalos Affair”
see Badian 1961; Blackwell 1999; Eder 2000.
191
care to emphasize Kharmides’ high status to make accepting his request seem honorable,
while his enemies denied that same status in order to make Andokides appear
unscrupulous and mercenary. Other supplicants might emphasize their status by means
o f costly garments or jewelry. I mentioned the supplication o f the Spartan Perikleidas,
who sat at the altar dressed in purple, an unambiguous show of wealth and status (above,
p. 94). The Persian concubine who approached Pausanias likewise made sure to put on
her jewelry and her finest clothes (above, p. 179). Like the slaves in the sanctuaries, she
used supplication to transform economic capital into symbolic capital and a new identity.
Pausanias also profited from this transaction symbolically: he protected a supplicant
damsel in distress. Knowing his historiographic reputation, we can only assume that the
historian means us to understand that Pausanias also profited materially from this
transaction.
In 4th century invective, we saw, one commonly accused one’s opponent o f
supporting foreigners’ claims to honors, such as citizenship, in exchange for money. The
sponsors of foreign supplicants in addition could have been accused o f seeking symbolic
profit. That at least is the implication o f the anecdote preserved by Plutarch about the
philosopher Xenokrates and the politician Lykourgos (above, p. 143). Xenokrates
quipped that he had paid back Lykourgos symbolically; the whole town was abuzz at
Lykourgos’ heroics for which he had been the occasion. There was thus no reason to pay
him back materially! Lykourgos, we know from the epigraphic record, sponsored at least
one group of wealthy, distinguished (and distinguishing) supplicants. Cypriot merchants,
we can assume, would have also shown gratitude to their sponsor in a material way.
192
Slaves in sanctuaries, I argued in Chapter Five, were not valuable simply because
they were supplicants. The sanctuaries tried to encourage those who could not support
themselves to leave, prohibiting them from engaging in commerce or even (in the case of
Kos) begging for sacrificial scraps. Their value as supplicants was a direct corollary of
their net worth. The Aristophanic fragment implies that an economic transaction (prasis)
took place in the Theseion (above, p. 161), as indeed was the case. Slaves used
supplication in a peculiar way, as I showed. While others used their status to add force to
their supplication, slaves used supplication to create a new status. Economic capital
underwrote the practice in both cases.
The term “bribery” is not an entirely accurate characterization for these
transactions because it implies that the same result might have been achieved without the
involvement of capital. Supplication, I have tried to show, was itself an economic
practice that turned the body into an avatar o f capital, allowing capital to assume a
rarefied, disinterested grace that made it seem unreal. The supplicant’s sanctity was in
the final analysis the sanctity o f capital.
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A Branch On The Altar. Supplication and Symbolic Capital in Ancient Greece

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A Branch On The Altar. Supplication and Symbolic Capital in Ancient Greece

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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

A BRANCH ON THE ALTAR:

SUPPLICATION AND SYMBOLIC CAPITAL IN ANCIENT GREECE

THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF

DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICAL LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES

All rights reserved.

ProQuest Information and Learning Company

All rights reserved

One Supplication without the V e il......................................................................................1

Two The Construction of Authority (Telemakhos and the B eggar)...............................32

Three The Production o f Knowledge (Spectacle and Education in A thens)................... 65

Five The Staging of Identity (Supplication as Self-manumission)..................................147

Works C ited.................................................................................................................. 193

1 Telephos at the altar with baby Orestes.......................................................................28

2 Reverse o f fig. 1: Satyr negotiating with prostitute....................................................28

been an indefatigable mentor, reading an obscene number o f drafts, prodding me gently,

helped me avoid (at least some) error and embarrassment.

Catherine Mardikes for creating it.

The dissertation breaks down as follows. Chapter One outlines my methodology

the basis of supplication.

Telemakhos’ reception o f the disguised Odysseus as a supplication. Telemakhos, I argue,

If Telemakhos had his reasons for protecting a paradoxical supplicant, historical

context o f the “politics o f spectacle,” dramatic and theatrical performances that

consequences were for those who performed the ritual.

identity for themselves behind the veil o f supplication.

This dissertation, in brief, is a study o f the performances through which capital

influences the social world without revealing itself.

Agora The American School o f Classical Studies at Athens.

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APF Davies, J. K. (1971) Athenian Propertied Families, 600-

ARC Beazley, J .D. (1963) Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd

CID Ecole frangaise d’Athenes. (1977-) Corpus des inscriptions

DK Diels, H. and W. Kranz. (1951-2) Die Fragmente der

FrGrH Jacoby, F. (1923-1952) Die Fragmente der griechischen

Gerasa Kraeling, C. H., ed. (1938) Gerasa, City o f the Decapolis.

GH1 Tod, M. N. (1946-50) A Selection o f Greek Historical

Hellenica Robert, L. (1940-) Hellenica: Recueil d'epigraphie de

IC Guarducci, M. (1935-50) Inscriptiones Creticae. 4 v.

ID Durrbach, F., P. Roussel and M. Launey. (1926-)

IG Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. (1913-

IGLS Jalabert, L. and R. Mouterde. (1929-) Inscriptions grecques

LfrgrE Snell, B., et al., ed. (1955-) Lexikon des frithgriechischen

LSAG Jeffery, L. H. (1990) The Local Scripts o f Archaic Greece.

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LSCG Sokolowski, F. (1969) Lois sacrees des cites grecques.

LSCGS Sokolowski, F. (1962) Lois sacrees des cites grecques:

LSJ Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, H. S. Jones et al. (1996) A Greek-

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PA Kirchner, J. A. (1901-3) Prosopographia Attica. 2 v.

PAA Traill, J. S., ed. (1994-) Persons o f Ancient Athens, v.

R -0 Rhodes, P. J. and R. Osborne (2003) Greek Historical

SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (1923-) v. Leiden.

SIG Dittenberger, W. (1915) Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecorum.

SGDI Bechtel, F., A. Bezzenberger, H. Collitz et al. (1884-1915)

TrGrF Snell, B. et al. (1971-2004) Tragicorum Graecorum

Supplication without the Veil

Only in imaginary experience (in the folk

Introduction: the fable o f supplication

all the eggs rolled out and broke (Aesop 3i H-H).