THE HESIODIC CATALOGUE OF WOMEN Its Nature, Structure, and Origins ae CLARENDON PRESS - OXFORD 1985Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP London, New York Toronto Ddhi Bombay Caleutta Madras Karachi Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cope Town Melbourne Auckland cand associated companies in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Mexico City Nicosia Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press Published in the United States by Oxford University Press, New York © M. L. West 1985 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retricoal system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data : West, M. L. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. 1. Catalogue of Women I. Title 88z/.01 PAgoo9.25 ISBN 0-19-819034-7 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data West, M. L, (Martin Litchfield), 1937- The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Includes indexes. 1. Hesiod, Theogony. 2. Women in literature, +g. Genealogy in literature. 4. Mythology, Greek. I. Title. PAgoog.T53W4 1985 88101 84-10086 ISBN 0-19-814034-7 Set by Eta Services (Typesetters) Ltd., Beccles, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Oxford by David Stanford Printer to the UniversityPREFACE Tus book fulfils a promise made when I was thirteen. It was nine years later that I first met the man who had made it, Reinhold Merkelbach. By then he had published his valuable annotated edition of the Hesiodic papyrus fragments (‘Die Hesiodfragmente auf Papyrus’, Archiv fir ‘Papyrusforschung 16, 1957, also published separately by Teubner), and drafted a monograph on the contents and structure of the Catalogue of Women, From.this typescript I received my first illumination in the subject, and its aims and methods are reflected in the central chapter of the present work. He had shelved it, and his planned edition of all the Hesiodic fragments, because it was known that many new Oxyrhynchus papyri were on the way. After a time he invited me to collaborate with him on the edition, and that duly appeared in 1967. We intended to produce the monograph together too. But as the years passed he found his time increasingly taken up by epigraphy; and although I long cherished the hope that he might return to work on the Catalogue, he eventually decided that he must leave it to me. It would have given me the greatest pleasure to see my name coupled again with his on the title page. He is in the book, all the same. It would not exist but for him, . M.L.W. Bedford College, London August 1984CONTENTS EXPLANATION OF ABBREVIATIONS I, THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE Il. THE STRUCTURE OF THE CATALOGUE III. THE ORIGINS OF THE CATALOGUE - GENEALOGICAL TABLES INDEX OF HESIODIC FRAGMENTS GENERAL INDEX viii Bt 125 173 183 185EXPLANATION OF ABBREVIATIONS Apld. Apollodorus, Bibliotheke. ARV? J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd ed., Oxford 1963. F fragment. FGrHist F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Berlin, Leiden 1923-58. FH R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, Fragmenta Hesiodea, Oxonii 1967. PMG D. L. Page, Poetae Melici Graeci, Oxonii 1962. Preller-Robert L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie. I. Theogonie und Gotter, 4. Aufl. bearbeitet von C. Robert, Berlin 1894. RE Pauly—Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart 1894-1980. REA Reoue des études anciennes, REG Reoue des études grecques. RFIC Rivista di filologia ¢ @istruzione classica. Robert C. Robert, Die griechische Heldensage, Berlin 1920-26. RPh Revue de philologie. Schwartz J. Schwartz, Pseudo-Hesiodeia, Leiden 1960. SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. SIFC Studi italiani di filologia classica. Toepffer J. Toepfier, Attische Genealogie, Berlin 1889. 2PE Zeitschrift fir Papyrologie und Epigraphik. The lists in Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, should resolve any obscurities in my other abbreviations for ancient authors, periodicals, etc, Hesiodic fragments are cited according to FH, or in the case of more recent discoveries the second edition of the O.C.T. Hesiod (Oxford 1983, with appendix of new fragments pp. 227-32: F 10a-d, 71A, 145A, 188A, 217A).I. THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE AFTER the Theogony and Works and Days, the poem in five books known as the Catalogue of Women or Ehoiai was, until the fourth century AD, the most widely read of the poems that anciently went under the name of Hesiod, and the one most constantly attributed to him.' Quotations and allusions provide us with a considerable number of fragments, and over the last century our knowledge of the poem has been greatly enlarged by the appearance of papyri: pieces from over fifty ancient copies are now known, and there is every likelihood that the future will bring more to light. We are already in a position to see something of the structure of the work and to come to certain conclusions about its origins. The standard title applied to it is Tuvaixdv Karddoyos, or simply Katddoyos for short.? The Suda gives a fuller form: Twvaixdv jpwivav xarddoyos év BiBacors €’. Tzetzes prefers to say +f jpwikr yeveadoyta.> The alternative title *Hofa, derived from the recurrent formula 7’ of (oimv, ofas, etc.) which often marked the beginning of a section, is used by Philodemus, Pausanias, Athenaeus, Eunapius, and a scholiast on So- phocles.* It is also presupposed in the title MeydAa ’Hoia applied to another ‘Hesiodic’ poem, for the function of the adjective peydAa: was to distinguish that work from a shorter one of similar name.* * See p. 127. 2 The plural Karddoyor is seldom used, Servius on Aen, 7.268 cites ‘Hesiadus wept ywaxéy’, while Pausanias 9.31.5, in his list of poems ascribed to Hesiod, refers to it as es yuvainas alBdueva (cl. 1.9.1 Erea 74 ds ras yuvaieas). Sch. Bern, Verg. G. 4.361 should bbe restored as ex Hesiodi gynecon . 2 F 9, 235. Citations from particular books take the form éy npdreos (Beurépux, rpirwt) KaraAdya or Karadbyuw or Karaddyou (once év of Twaixdy Karaddyws, Harpocr. 3.v. Maxpoxéfados), or simply ‘Holofos é Seurépax. Less formally, passages may be identified by their topic, as sch. Hes. Th. 142 & rat réov Acuxirm Busy xaraddyer; cf. sch. I 19.240 dbs gnaw ‘Holobos xaraAeyuv rods prqoriipas ‘EXdns. 4 Tr. 1167. Sch. Pind. Pyth. 9.6 refers to a single episode beginning with 4’ ofy as an "Hola ‘Had8ov. 2 GL, my Hesiod, Works and Days, Oxford 1978, 22 n.4. J. Schwartz (23) conjectures that KardAoyos Puvataciv was the Alexandrian title and ’Hofas the Pergamene. This is possible, but the evidence adduced is weak, Schwartz's main argument is that a fragment of the MeyéAat 'Hotas (253) was quoted by one Asclepiades, thought to be2 THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE The Catalogue was composed as a continuation of the Theogony;® but it had its own proem, which survives in fragmentary form (F 1). The poet calls upon the Muses to sing now of ‘the women ... who were the finest in those times ... and unfastened their waistbands ... in union with gods’. But these legendary unions between gods and mortal women were only a starting-point for extensive heroic genealogies. The poem could be considered as being about those celebrated women, or more broadly as being about the genealogy of heroes. In an epigram probably by Archias’ Hesiod’s output is summed up thus: paxdpww yévos Epyd re podrais ral yévos dpyaluw Eypades ahpuBeew —Theogony, Works and Days, Catalogue; whereas Lucian® repre- sents the same three poems by Oedv re yevéaes ... yuvarxav dperds, xal napawéaeis yewpyixds. Maximus of Tyre writes KaOdmep 6 ‘Holo8os, xwpls pev rd yen raw tipduw, dad yuvaxdv dpysuevos xaradéyuw sd yérn, doris e€ fs edu, xwpls 8 abrav menotnvras of Befor Adyot, x7d.® The women, of course, had their own ancestries, and the poet seems, at least in most cases, to have given an account of them, tracing each heroic line not just from the women loved by gods but from its first beginnings. In different parts of Greece different myths were current concerning the origins of the local population. The first king, sometimes an eponym of a city or tribe, might be autochthonous, sprung from the earth, like Pelasgos or Kekrops. He might be the son of a god and a nymph, like Deukalion, Phoroneus, Lakedaimon, and Aiakos. Asclepiades of Myrlea, whom he asserts to have been a member of the Pergamene school. But Asclepiades’ work ‘contained polemics against the Alexandrians as well as against the Pergamenes’ (R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship i, Oxford 1968, 27). In any case Schwartz is wrong to maintain the identity of the ’Hoia: with the MeydAat’Hoia, ‘That the ’Hoia: were identical with the Catalogue and distinct from the MeydAat *Hoias was finally established by F. Leo, Hesiodea, Gattingen 1894, 8 ff. =Ausgewablte Kleine Schriften, Rome 1960, ii.348 ff. * See p. 126. 7 AP. 9.64=Asclepiades 45 [ro18 ff.) Gow-Page.” * Dial. e. Hes. [67] 1. * 26.4 ’p. 312 Hobcin. See also the other testimonia in FH, 1-3.THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE 3 Or he might be an immigrant from a distant land, like Pelops, Danaos, and Kadmos. Many of these first kings are known to have been accommodated in the Catalogue, The poem seems in fact to have contained comprehensive genealogies covering the whole of the heroic age. As in the Theogony, the genealogies were interspersed with many narrative episodes and annotations of greater or less extent. We can sce that these narratives were often very summary; but they are there, and are an essential ingredient in the poem. A large number of the traditional myths, perhaps the greater part of those familiar to the Greeks of the classical age, were at least touched on and set in their place in the genealogical framework. Thus the poem became something approaching a compendious account of the whole story of the nation from the earliest times to the time of the Trojan War or the generation after it. We shall see when we come to study its contents more closely that its poet had a clearly defined and individual view of the heroic period as a kind of Golden Age in which the human race lived in different conditions from the present and which Zeus terminated as a matter of policy. We shall also see that he organized his material with some skill so as. to convey his sense of the unity of the period in spite of the multiplicity of genealogical ramifications. The Catalogue was not the only poem of its genre, though it certainly surpassed others in comprehensiveness and (probably because of that) in influence. There was firstly the Great Ehoiat, likewise ascribed to Hesiod, but comparatively little read. Pausanias quotes from it several times, and so do the scholia on Pindar and Apollonius Rhodius, but these sources account for nearly all of the extant fragments. There are not enough to enable us to form an idea of the plan of the poem. It seems to be quoted for out-of-the-way genealogical and mythological in- formation not duplicated in the Catalogue. Its title implies that it was longer than the Catalogue, that is, in more than five books, though no source indicates a book-number.'® Another Hesi- odic poem, the Melampodia, which told stories about famous seers and was divided into at least three books, may have been "* Not even sch. ARR. 2.178 (F 254), which contrasts what Hesiod says dy Meyddas *Holas with what he says &v rw rpfron Karaddyeot,4 THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE genealogical in structure,'' though a simple catalogue form is also conceivable. We hear of other genealogical poets besides ‘Hesiod’. The two most often quoted are Asius of Samos and Cinaethon of Lacedaemon.'? Both were available to Pausanias, who turned to them when he wanted genealogical information,'* and they were already available to fifth-century historians.'* From Asius Pausanias (7.4.1) quotes an extended genealogy which shows the poet’s interest in the history of his native island. Samos appears as a son of Ankaios and of a nymph Samia, daughter of the river Maeander. But Asius’ genealogies also took in Boeotian, Phocian, Aetolian, Attic and Peloponnesian heroes. Those of Cinaethon took in at least Crete and part of the Peloponnese. Two poets who had passed out of circulation by Pausanias’ time, but were known to him through Callippus of Corinth (FGrHist 385 F 1,2), were Chersias of Orchomenos and Hegesinous (of Salamis?).'° Chersias appears in Plutarch’s Symposium of the Seven Sages (156e), where he is represented as a contemporary of Periander and Chilon. The single preserved fragment of his work relates the birth of Aspledon, epony- mous hero of the Boeotian town near Orchomenos, from Poseidon and the likewise eponymous nymph Mideia. Hegesinous wrote an Atthis; in the only fragment Poseidon and Askra beget the Ascraean hero Oioklos. Other genealogical poems were anonymous. The Phoronis'® dealt with the Argive progenitor Phoroneus and his descend- ants. We cannot tell how much further afield it went, but it certainly took in the Phrygian Kouretes and Idaean Dactyls. The Navzaxrixd or Navwdxria érq are more often cited.'” '" P, Friedlander, Argotica, Diss. Berlin 1905, 42 1; Ingrid Laffler, Die Melampodie, Meisetheim 1963, 30, etc. The poem is discussed also by Schwartz, 210-228; G. L. Huxley, Greek Epic Poetry from Eumelos to Panyassis, London 1969, 54-9- "4 Kinkel, Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Leipzig 1877, 196, 203; Huxley, 85-98. 14 4.2.41 ‘Being very keen to find out what children Polykaon had from Messene, I read through the so-called Bhoiai and the Naupactia, and in addition all the genealogies in Ginaethon and Asius’. 4 Asius: Antiochus of Syracuse 555 F t2. Cinaethon: Hellanicus ap. sch. Eur. Tro. 822 (MeAdneos cod., em. Hermann; not in FGrHist). '2 Kinkel, 207 £; Huxley, 120. 18 Kinkel, 209, +P.Oxy. 2260 i 3 ff; Huxley, 31-4. "7 Kinkel, 198; Huxley, 68-73.THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE 5 Pausanias describes them as émea memornpéva és yuvaixas,'® and says that many people ascribed them to a Milesian, but that Charon of Lampsacus ascribed them to Carcinus of Naupac- tus.!® They seem to have told the story of the Argonauts in considerable detail, and most of the fragments come from the scholia to Apollonius. But the story was made to relate to local north-west Greek antiquity, for Jason was made to move to Corcyra after the death of Pelias, and his son Mermeros was killed while hunting on the mainland nearby. Other fragments relate to the mother of the Locrian Aias and to the resurrection of Hippolytos by Asklepios, who was then struck down by Zeus. Mention must also be made of the Korinthiaka ascribed to Eumelus.?° This poem was about the history of the Corinthian kingship from Helios at least as far as Glaukos. It contained genealogical matter;?' but the central subject was not any single family but Corinth. This interest in the prehistory of a region is often to be found in the genealogical poems, showing itself most clearly in the many eponymous heroes. Such poetry differs from the Homeric type in that it is not primarily concerned with particular heroic exploits (though these are mentioned) and that its subject matter extends over many generations instead of being the events of a few days or weeks. Even Homeric poetry, however, readily admits gene- alogies. They are introduced in connexion with the appearance of a new hero, or with a heroic exploit, just as conversely in genealogical poetry such exploits are related as the men involved in them appear in the genealogy. Short pedigrees are supplied for several of the commanders listed in the Catalogue of Ships.?? Longer ones are put in the mouths of their owners: Glaukos (Jl. 6.150 ff., six generations), and later Aineias (20.213 ff., eight generations), in each case with narratives '* Compare his way of referring to the Catalogue, above, n.2. 1 FGrHist 262 F 4 (¢.400 20). The name Naupactia ought to refer to the poem’s place of origin; compare the Gypria (ascribed to Stasinus of Cyprus among others) and the Phocais (ascribed to Thestorides of Phocaea). 2° Kinkel, 185; FGrHist 451; &. Will, Korinthiaka, Paris 1955, 124 ff; Huxley, 61-8, 14. 7 It is presumably this clement that lies behind the accusation of Clement (Strom. 6.26.7) that Eumelus and Acusilaus merely turned Hesiod into prose. Clement must have known the prose summary of the Korinthiaka also used by Pausanias 2.1.1. 7 Il, 2.512-15, 518, 566, 624, 628-9, 658 ff., 679, 705-7, 713-15, 727-8, 741 ff, 8rg-a1, 843, 847.6 THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE about some of the ancestors. In the Odyssey, Odysseus’ visit to Hades provides an opportunity for a whole series of genealogi- cal narratives about various women (11.235 ff.), which have much in common with the Hesiodic Catalogue. The arrival of “the seer Theoklymenos in 15.223 ff. is the cue for an account of his ancestry for three generations back to Melampous. Much of the earliest Greek prose literature was concerned with the legendary history of the past, and genealogy played an important part in it. Acusilaus of Argos wrote a work which comprised histories both of gods and-of men, and which was later known by the simple title Peveadoyias. Clement's rejection of it as a mere plagiaristic recasting of ‘Hesiod’ has already been mentioned, and the fragments and testimonia (FGrHist 2) show the same mixture of genealogical framework and plain narrative filling that characterizes the Catalogue. Argive tra- ditions were given a pre-eminent place, Phoroneus being represented as the first man (2 F 23a), but Acusilaus also dealt with central and north Greek families and with such heroic affairs as the Argonauts’ voyage and the Trojan War. The ten books of histories by Pherecydes of Athens (mid fifth century) must have been similar. Pherecydes is described indifferently as a foropixés and as a yeveaddyos, and the fragments justify the two names.?° Again the genealogies cover both gods and men, and the men are from all parts of Greece; again major heroic exploits were recorded at some length, the Argo’s voyage, the feats of Herakles, and the sack of Troy. There was little that would have been out of place in hexameter verse. However, whereas in verse the significance of eponyms is not usually made explicit, in Pherecydes and some other early prose writers it is, e.g. 3 F 156, Tledaoyos xai Anavelpns ylverar Auxduy. obros yapet Kuddjuqy vniba vbudny, dg’ Hs 73 Spos {1} Kuddjun} xadetras ... xad Otvwrpos, ap” o3 Olverrpor xadeovras of ev *Iradine olxéovres, nat Tevxérios, a’ of Tleuxériot xadéovras of by rut *Tovlun xédman. Parts of the history must have become more like a periegesis. The same is true of the ‘Ioropia: or Peveadoyéat or ‘Hpwodroyia of Hecataeus, written half a century earlier.?* Several of the 23 FGrHist 3; e.g. F 1a, 2, 8, 18a, 21, 27a, 64a, 66, 86, 95, ror, 1152. ¥ FGrHist 1.THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE 7 fragments come from Stephanus of Byzantium, who names Hecataeus as his source for certain towns; the sentence 4 5¢ Geproxdpy weSiov early dnd Xadioins wéxpt OepudSovros strong- ly recalls Hecataeus’ ITepioSos I'js,?* but is quoted as being from his eveaAoyias (1 F 7a). Hecataeus seems to have almost excluded the gods from his history. He was writing of what we call the mythical age, but to him it was all historical, and he was concerned that it should be rational.*® Yet he still admits such propositions as rnf Aavai picyerat Zets (1 F 21), So, nearly a century later, does Hellanicus of Mytilene, who is in general perhaps Hecataeus’ closest successor. His writings were more voluminous than those of any of his predecessors, and instead of covering the whole of Greece in one work, he produced a series of monographs — at least, this is the form in which his work circulated - ®opwvis, Aevxadwveia, ’Ardavris, ’Aownis, Tpwixd, Aiodxd, and others, many of them in more than one book. There is as yet no clear distinction between history and geography (or ethnography): genealogy unites the two. The same range of interests is reflected in the works of Damastes of Sigeum, said to have been a pupil of Hellanicus,?” in the *E6vav *Ovopacta of Hippias of Elis,2* and in many of the other writers whose fragments are collected in the first volume of Jacoby’s Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. The total mass of early Greek genealogical literature was thus very considerable. Why was it produced? What interest did it hold for those who heard or read it? To the modern mind genealogies have a very limited appeal. We do not naturally turn to them for entertainment, nor for illumination of the past. We consider that the important things to know about the past are the causes and motives, the social-and economic factors behind events. As for elementary brute facts like names, dates and family relationships of kings and noblemen, we are content for them to be stored away somewhere in reference-books. But ** Of F 207 and 299. 2 Of his treatment of the myths of the Danaids and Cerberus, F 19 and 27 (with the new fragment in P.Milan, (PRIMI) 17 ii 28 ff.). 29 PGrHist 5. Besides a Catalogue of Peoples and Towns he wrote mept yorww xat mpoyévan rav als “Toy orparevoauéraw. The latter was also attributed to Polos of Acragas (FGrHist 7 = Suda sv. ITaidos "Axpayavrivos: the Suda calls it Peveadoyla raw ent “Dov exparevodyraw ‘EXiipuv xai PapBdpur, xal mis 2xastos dm} Mage). 2" FGrHist 6; cf, especially F ro (Asia and Europe named after two nymphs, daughters of Oceanus).8 THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE peoples for whom written records play a smaller part or no part at all, and with whom the scientific study of history is undeveloped, often think very differently. They delight in factual knowledge for its own sake, especially where it relates to people and places beyond their own limits of time and space. They enjoy listening to catalogues and genealogies. This taste was not alien to the Greeks. In Plato’s Hippias Major (285b-e) Socrates asks the learned Hippias what it is that the Spartans so enjoy hearing him discourse about. Is it cosmology? No, they cannot stand that. Mathematics? Not on your life; most of them can scarcely count. Prosody, metre, music? No, no, nothing of that sort. What they enjoy hearing about is the genealogies of heroes and of men, the founding of cities, and antiquity in general. A passage in Polybius may also be cited. In the introduction to the ninth book of his Histories he apologizes for the austerity of his work, which he says is directed at one kind of listener (sic) alone, whereas most historians, by taking a broader approach, attract a wider public: the ¢iAjxoos is drawn by the genealogical manner, the wodumpdypwy xat mepirrés by the kind of history that concerns itself with colonies and foundations and kinships, and so on. Of course there is more to the development of genealogical literature than mere pleasure in strings of names. Genealogies put things in their place. Late Geometric and Archaic Greece was a loose network of aristocratic communities in which rival clans and families competed for wealth and influence. Prestige, recognition as being dpiozos or possessing dper7, depended on a combination of factors: property, honourable behaviour, sta- bility over several generations. A family’s status was not fixed once and for all by some prehistoric conferment or denial of ‘nobility. It could rise or sink with the long-term fortunes of the honse.?® Access of wealth did not immediately transform a nobody into a ‘man of quality’ (dya6és, éo0Ads), but if he could sustain it and hand it on to his sons and grandsons, they became persons of account. The system naturally led to’ tensions between the up-and-coming and the previously estab- lished houses upon whose status they were encroaching. The latter had to compensate for their decline in prosperity by insisting on their other claims to superior standing, on an dper7 24 See Hes. Op. 280-92, 312 f., with my notes on 284, 287-92, 313.THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE 9 inherent in their stock. They contrasted the celebrity of their fathers and forefathers with the humble origins of their rivals. Genealogy flourished. And in an age entranced by heroic poetry about the great kings, warriors and seers of the late Mycenaean period, it was only to be expected that some families should seek to trace themselves back to the heroic age and attach their line to some figure mentioned in that poetry. When Hesiod addresses his brother as diov yévos (Op. 299), the inference is that their father, impecunious merchant though he was, claimed descent from Zeus, presumably through some noble ancestor of the pre-colonial period. The prophecies in the Iliad (20.307 £.) and Hymn to Aphrodite (196 ff.) about Aineias’ descendants continuing to rule at Troy in later generations (in perpetuity according to the Hymn) are usually and rightly taken to imply the existence of a local dynasty of the poets’ own time which claimed to be descended from Aineias. The two royal houses of Sparta were officially descended from Herakles, at least by the time of Tyrtaeus, One version of their genealogy is recorded by Herodotus (7.204+8.131). Some other pedi- grees of similar scope appear in fifth-century sources. Hecataeus traced his lineage back through sixteen generations to a divine ancestor.°° Pherecydes gave the details of Miltiades’ descent from Aias, of the Coan Asklepiadai’s descent from Herakles, and of Homer’s and Hesiod’s descent from Orpheus.$! Plato (Tht. 175a) mentions people who trace themselves back to Herakles through 25 generations. The genealogical poets, so far as we know, limited themselves to the mythical age and did not make explicit connexions between the past and the present. But there was much in their constructions that was implicitly relevant to the present. Eumelus, a scion of the noble Bacchiad clan, donbtless considered the story of the Corinthian kingship relevant to his own family and its dominance. Other poets’ audiences might well contain persons who regarded themselves as the descend- ants of a hero and who would be keenly interested in how that hero was related to others, Or a hero might be of particular 2°: F goo—Hat. 2.143. 113 Fa (cf. ¢F 22), 59, 167 (c& 4F 5, 5F 11). The gravestone of a Chiot called Heropythos gives his genealogy for fourteen gencrations back (GDI 5656, Schuyzer 690; L.H. Jeffery, Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, Oxford 1961, 344 n0. 47; .475?). It ascends, however, not to a Greek hero but to one Eldios (a Semitic name) the Cyprian.10 THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE local interest as the recipient of a cult, or as the founder of ‘one, or as the founder of the city itself. The eponyms of cities, regions, or tribes were of especial significance, because their genealogical connexions defined the city’s, region’s or tribe’s position in the world in relation to others, its proper allegiances and sympathies, To this extent assertions about the mythical past expressed the political perceptions or aspirations of the present. For example, when the poet of the Catalogue makes Sikyon a son of Erechtheus (F 224), whereas Ibycus makes him a son of Pelops, it is not merely a difference over a detail of mythology: it is a question of whether the Sicyonians’ closest ties are with Athens or with the Argolid. When Magnes and Makedon are made the sons of a sister of Hellen (F 7), this is a declaration that the Magnetes and Macedonians to the north of Thessaly are not Hellenes, nor quite on a level with Hellenes, but akin to them. Such judgments mattered. Herodotus relates that Alexander I of Macedon desired to compete in the Olympic Games but was not accepted until he convinced the officials that he was a Hellene by presenting his genealogy, according to which he was descended from Temenos, the Herakleid king of Argos.?? Authoritative pronouncements about events of the heroic age were taken seriously as evidence of what should obtain in the present. The Athenians are said to have cited their partici- pation in the Trojan expedition to show that they had as good a title to Sigeum as the Mytilenians.** To support their claim to Salamis they quoted (and probably actually altered to suit their case) the passage from the Iliad where Aias statibned himself with the Athenian contingent.°* In the Persian Wars, if Herodotus is to be believed, they again cited Homer and other mythical traditions, firstly in arguing before Gelon that they should lead the Greeks, and later in a dispute with the Tegeates for the honour of occupying the left wing at Plataea; the Tegeates for their part related the saga of the Return of the Herakleids.°* In the Third Sacred War Philomelos pointed out 32 Hat. 5.22 with 8.137.1. Hellanicus 4 P 74 accepts Makedon as a grandson of Hellen. 33 Hat. 5.94.2. +4 I, 2.557 £; Arist. Rhet, 137530, Plut. Sol. 10.2-3, etc.; sce Erbse at sch. Il. 2.558. 14 Ht. 7.161.3; 9.26-7.THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE u that Pytho belonged to the Phocians in the Catalogue of Ships, and urged them accordingly to claim the control of the oracle from the Amphictiony, «bs ovens (ris tpooracias) warpiou ois Puxeiow.2* A genealogical poem, then, even if it confined itself strictly to the mythical age, was potentially of much interest and value both to families with pretensions to antiquity and to a wider public. It did not consist merely of a congeries of traditional data about remote periods which the poet happened to have acquired. It consisted of traditional material shaped, adjusted, combined, augmented, recomposed by him in accordance with his own conceptions. It reflected the viewpoint of his own time and place. This is one important reason why different poets and Jogographers frequently gave divergent accounts. ‘It would be superfluous for me’ says Josephus ‘to instruct those who know better than I do how often Hellanicus is in disagreement with Acusilaus about the genealogies, and how often Acusilaus corrects Hesiod.’?”? Each had his own perspective and was supplied with different material by his cultural environment. The Hesiodic Catalogue, therefore, is not to be thought of simply as a codification of what ‘the Greeks’ knew or believed about their past. It represents one particular construction made at a particular epoch from a particular vantage-point, which we shall in due course attempt to identify. This is not to say that the fragments are vibrant with Archaic Consciousness, still less that they are riddled with political propaganda. But we must be prepared to find more in them than mere antiquarianism. CONSTRUCTIVE GENEALOGY: SOME COMPARATIVE MATERIAL The Near East Interest in genealogies and their use as a medium for tracing the history of peoples are not a peculiarity of Greek literature. 2# Diod. 16.23 (355 80). Three further instances of the Catalogue of Ships being appealed to in disputes between cities are listed by sch. Il. 2.494-877 (p. 289.24 f. Erbse). On the whole subject of the political value of myth and its renovation to suit current requirements see M. P, Nilsson, Cults, Myths, Oracles, and Politics in Ancient Greece, Acta Inst. Athen. Sueciae 1951 (New York 1972), especially ch. 3 ‘Myths in Political Propaganda’, 37 Contra Apionem 1.16,12 THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE They can be paralleled in the literatures and oral traditions of many other peoples, ancient and modern. According to Herodotus (1.171.6) the Carians claimed to be descended from Kar, who was a brother of Lydos and Mysos, the eponyms of the Lydians and Mysians. The Lydians, however, made Lydos the brother of Tyrsenos, from whom the Etruscans are descended, and the son of Atys the son of Manes; Manes’ other son Kotys was the father of Asies, from whom the name of Asia comes.?® The Scythians traced the three divisons of their race back to three mythical heroes, Lipoxais, Arpoxais and Kolax- ais, sons of the first man Targitaos, who was begotten by Zeus and a daughter of the river Dnieper.?® Artificial construction to cover the prehistoric age and define historical origins in it was a feature of royal genealogies in the Near East as early as the third millennium. Only a brief reference need be made to the Sumerian king list, in which several parallel lists from different cities (kings of Kish, Uruk, Ur, Agade, etc.), some of them embodying a divine progenitor or other legendary elements, have been fitted together consecu- tively to make a single linear series, with a single kingship of all Babylonia zigzagging from one city to another according to the fortunes of war.*® The list is not presented as a genealogy, though many kings are noted as being sons of their prede- cessors. The same one-dimensional pattern is seen in two later documents, the Assyrian king list and a Babylonian invocation in which king Ammi-Saduga (1646-26 Bc according to the middle chronology) sets out his ancestry.*! The first nine to eleven names are essentially common to both lists, and must represent agreed mythology, or the adoption of Babylonian 48 Hat. 1.7.3, 94-3 £3 4.45.3. Xanthos of Sardis 765 F 16 gives Atys' sons as Lydos and Torebos, the Toreboi being a people of similar language to the Lydians. 4 Hat. 4.5£ These barbarian genealogies no doubt reached Herodotus in a somewhat Hellenized form, but I cannot share D, Fehling’s total scepticism as to their authenticity (Die Quellenangaben bei Herodot, Berlin & New York 1971, 32 {f.). 4°, Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List, Chicago 1939. The first king of Uruk is the son of the sun-god Utu; the ‘divine Gilgamesh’ appears among his successors. In the first Kish dynasty the famous shepherd Etana, elsewhere represented as the rst king of Kish or of mankind, appears preceded by a series of kings with Akkadian names, many of which are those of animals, se. tribal totems, The carlicr kings are all given reigns of fantastic length. The Flood comes after the first eight, who reign in total for 241,200 ars. +1 J.J. Finkelstein, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 20, 1966, 95-118; A. Malamat, Journal of the American Oriental Society 88, 1968, 163-73.THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE 13 myth by the Assyrian kings. They include eponyms of west Semitic tribes and places. In the Assyrian list they are part of a sequence of seventeen marked off as ‘seventeen kings who dwell in tents’. In the Babylonian list they are followed by two further tribal eponyms which serve to define the affinities of the Babylonian line more precisely, and then by ten names which look more like a genuine genealogy or chieftain-list culminating in Sumu-abum, the founder of the First Dynasty of Babylon; his successors down to Ammi-Saduqa’s father follow. In ‘the Assyrian list the ‘seventeen kings who dwell in tents’ are followed by ‘ten kings who are ancestors’, to whom are artificially affiliated a list of the kings who ruled in Asshur before Shamshi-Adad I, the founder of the West Semitic dynasty there. In other words, Shamshi-Adad’s two lines of predecessors, the previous kings of Asshur and his own ancestors, are made into a single series to fit the unilinear form which was evidently conventional. The genealogies of the Old Testament, especially the Book of Genesis, are much more closely comparable to the Hesiodic ones, both in their multilinearity and in their national and international scope. Genesis is a fabric woven together from several texts of different dates. According to what was probably the earliest, dating perhaps from the period 950-850,*? a single line descended from Cain to Lamech in five generations. Lamech’s three sons Yabal, Yabal and Tdbal-kayin are the ancestors respectively of pastoral tent-dwellers, musicians, and smiths (iv.17-24). As mankind increased, the lesser divinities (‘the sons of the gods’) were often attracted to beautiful women and begot children by them: this was the age of the huge heroes of ancient renown (vi.1-4). After the Flood the human race multiplied again from the three sons of Noah. In the story of Noah’s drunkenness told in ix.18-27 it is apparent that the sons were originally Shém, Yepheth and Canaan, though the text has been adjusted to harmonize with the following chapter where the third son is Ham. Shém in this story evidently stands for the Israelites, Canaan for the indigenous population of Canaan, and Yepheth for some other foreign people that was 42.0, Eisefeldt, The Old Testament, An Introduction, Oxford 1974, 197 £. The source is termed by him L; it is one constituent of the Jahvist tradition widely known as J.14° THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE present in the land at the same time as the Israelites, probably northerners. In another early source (¢.g25-750), used in chapter x, the eponyms of a wider range of nations of the Near East were accommodated in the family. The essential framework seems to have been as follows: Noah shem Yepheth Ham ! ‘Eber (Hebrew) Kash, Mizraim Canaan {Anatolian {Ki (Egypt) peoples?) Cassite?) Pel Yoatar oo Nimrod | South Arabian {king of Babylon, 1 tribes Uruk, Akkad; founder I of Assyrian cities) 1 Abraham | Zidon (Phoenicia) Israel’s self-esteem is reflected in the fact that Shém is the eldest son of Noah and Peleg the elder son of ‘Eber. The Priestly writer (P), who is placed in the fifth century, had a different version of the antediluvian genealogy, descend- ing from Séth instead of Cain; it included *Enésh (= Man), a doublet of Adam (v.1-32). He also enlarged the Table of Nations (x.1-32). Yepheth’s sons now included Gomer (Cim- merians), Madai (Medes, or Medes-and-Persians), and Yavan (‘Ionians’, ie. Greeks of the eastern Mediterranean). Of Yavin’s four sons, two have a good claim to be located in Cyprus, and the others are probably Tarsus and Rhodes.** A new cluster of Arabian names are attached to Kish, and to ** Kittim and Rodanim are actually plural in form, ‘Kitians’, ‘Rhodians’. On the interpretation of names in the Table sec especially J. Skinner, A Critical & Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, and ed., Edinburgh 1930, 187-223; W. Brandenstein in Sprachgeschichte und Worlbedeutung (Festschrift A. Debrunner), Bern 1954, 57-833 J- Simons, Oudlestamentische Studién 10, 1954, 155-84.THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE 15 Mizraim a list of peoples including the Kaphtorites (Cretans?), from whom the Philistines are descended, and apparently the Lydians.** The sons of Shem now include Elam, Asshiér, and Aram, whom we might have expected to go rather with Kish and Canaan. The important line, of course, is the one that eventually leads to Abraham. In due course the narrative reaches Isaac and his twin sons by an Aramaean wife, both national eponyms, Esau-Edom and Jacob-Israel (xxv.19 ff., xxxv.g ff). Jacob has twelve sons by four different wives; they are the ancestors and eponyms of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the different mothers correspond to their groupings (xxxv.23 ff, xlix). Esau has two Canaanite wives, and from them descend all the chieftains of Edom (xxxvi), Thus the whole narrative of Genesis is suspended on a framework of genealogy which is to a large extent a projection of perceived reality.*> The Arabs of the pre-Islamic age spent much of their energy in feuds and vendettas, and for relaxation favoured poems and narrations about feuds and vendettas of the past. They were divided (especially for feuding purposes) into a great number of larger and smaller groups, permeated by intense clan- consciousness, All the members of a group regarded themselves as of one blood, descended from a common ancestor. At the same time all the Northern Arabs believed themselves to be ultimately descendants of ‘Adnan or Ma‘add or Nizar (these three were said to be father, son, and grandson), while the Southern or Yemenite Arabs were the stock of Qahtan. More or less agreed genealogies were current, reflecting the various perceived tribal and sub-tribal divisions. To some extent these genealogical relationships were real, in so far as clans arose by subdivision or differentiation of existing kinship groups. But new alliances automatically created ‘brotherhood’ and the presumption of common ancestry at some remove. It is well authenticated that one major tribal group, the Qoda‘a, were at one time held to be descendants of Ma‘add but later transferred “* Possibly the writer had heard the Lydians spoken of with the Egyptians among the nations defeated by the Persians, without knowing whereabouts they lived. * Reference must also be made to the extensive genealogies in 1 Chronicles i-viii, which are in part derived from Genesis. They are concentrated, but contain some brief narrative annotations. Here, too, many of the names are toponyms or eponymous heads of clans. Cf. S. Yeivin, The Israelite Conquest of Canaan, Istanbul 1971, 11 ff.16 THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE themselves to the Yemenite stemma, because a feud arose between the Kalbites (a branch of the Qoda‘a) and the Qaisites (stock of Ma‘add), and the Kalbites became desirous of Yemenite support. Further, obscure tribes might claim kinship with more glorious ones. The genealogies were thus somewhat fluid in their upper reaches. In any case their artificial character is apparent from some of the names of the ancestors. They include divinities, toponyms, and names of plural or collective form which must have originated as names of tribes, not of individuals.*® In certain cases there was fluctuation as to the eponym’s sex: the tribe’s name was feminine in form, and the eponym was at first conceived as a woman, later as a man.*? The advent of Mohammed brought new justifications for feuding and a new focus of genealogical prestige. Each clan or tribe converted to Islam began to measure its nobility by the degree of its affinity with the Prophet and his tribe. At the same period the institution by Caliph ‘Omar I of a system of clan registers for controlling the distribution of stipends and war dividends greatly stimulated genealogical research and con- struction. Men of learning like Dagfal and Ibn Sharya set about coordinating all the scattered traditions and claims into comprehensive tables spanning 22 generations back from Mohammed’s time to ‘Adnan and over 30 generations to Qahtan. Not content with that, they attached these Arab genealogies to those of the Jewish tradition: Qahtan was identified with Yoqtan the descendant of Shém, while ‘Adnan was traced back to Ishmael and Abraham.*® The great men of other nations too, such as the Persians and the Greeks, were attached to the structure. Alexander the Great was found to descend from Isaac. Such interest was aroused by all this activity that Caliph Mu‘awiya (died ¢.679) invited Dagfal and other genealogists to his court at Damascus to teach him their “* Some are plural animal names, reflecting totem-tribes (cf. the animal names in the ‘Sumerian king list). For instance the ‘Sons of Dogs’ (j.e., according to Semitic idiom, members of the Dog tribe) are interpreted literally as descendants of a man called “Dogs. : +” Compare the fact that both Danaos and Danae appear at different points in the genealogy of the Danaci, 4# Yoqtain is already the progenitor of South Arabian tribes in Genesis; the Biblical gencalogy probably reflects something of the Arab tradition of its time._. THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE 7 science. From that time on genealogy formed an essential part of Arabic literature and historiography.*® Northern Europe. Caucasia The ancient Gauls may have had genealogical poetry; we know they had oral poetry of an instructive nature, recited and taught by the Druids,*° and we are told that these same Druids gave out traditions about the origin of the nation from a divine progenitor.>! Certainly genealogical lore is well represented in early Irish literature, both prose and verse. The ancestry of the Leinster and Munster kings is traced in poems of catalogue form thought to be of the seventh century. Extensive collections of prose genealogies are found in manuscripts. The material falls into three classes:>? origin-legends; genealogies traced downwards from a distant progenitor; and genealogies traced backwards from an individual through his male ancestors in a single line. The genealogies are interspersed with narrative material relating to particular men, and poems and verses about them. They contain an uneven mixture of sound historical tradition and, for earlier periods, blarney.** They must be taken together with the claborate pseudo-history Lebor Gabdla Erenn, ‘The Book of the Conquest of Ireland’, which is probably of eighth-century origin and survives in several later versions. It tells of a series of invasions of Ireland, starting even before the Flood, and culminating in one led by the sons of Mil of Spain and his wife Scotta. Mil, who has a genealogy going back to Noah, is made to come from Spain because Hibernia was supposed to be derived from Jberia.** Scotta is the eponym of the Scots (that is, the Goidelic Irish). Their three principal sons are Eremén (~ Eriu, Ireland), Eber (Hiber(n)us), and fr; they *® On the Arabic tradition see especially W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, and ed., London 1903, 1-39; J. Obermann in R. C, Denton (ed.), The Idea of History in the Ancient Near East, New Haven 1955, 239-310 (esp. 242-53, 290- 305). 30 Caesar, B.G. 6.14.3-6; cf. Strabo 4.4.4 Pp. 197 (Posidonius F 34 Theiler), Diod. §.31.2, Amm. Mare. 15.9.8. $1 Caesar, B.G. 6.18.1. 52 J. MacNeill, Zeitschr. f- celt. Phil. 8, 19r0/t2, 412 n.t. $3C£ T. F, O’Rahilly, Early Jrish History and Mythology, Dublin 1946, 15, 17-23, 266-9; J. V. Kelleher, Studia Hibemica 3, 1963, 113-27, and Irish Hist. Studies 16, 1968, 138-53. 34 Tsid. Elym. 14.6.6.18 THE NATURE OF THE CATALOGUE become the ancestors of nearly all the leading families of Ireland and Goidel Scotland. The deity Donn, from whom the pagans of southern Ireland claimed descent, is accommodated as another son of Mil, the eldest. The whole story served to identify the surviving pockets of pre-Goidelic Irish as the remnants of the earlier invasions and to justify their domination by the Goidels. The fact that Eremén’s descendants occupy nearly twice as much territory as all his brothers’ together reflects the supremacy of the Ui Néill dynasty at Tara at the period when the legend was created, as does the projection of a High Kingship of Tara back into prehistoric times.°* A list of the kings of the Picts, perhaps drawn up in the tenth century, is preserved in a number of manuscripts.*® The first king is Cruithne, which is the Irish name for the Picts; he reigns for a hundred years. The next seven are all sons of Cruithne, and their names correspond to seven districts ruled by the Picts. A twelfth-century topographical text, De Situ Albanie, relates how the seven divided the land among themselves, The ninth and eleventh kings are identifiable as figures who appear in the Irish genealogies among the descendants of fr. A quantity of Welsh genealogical tradition is preserved, especially in Nennius’ compilation, the Historia Brittonum (ninth century), and as an appendix to the Annales Cambriae (tenth century). Here an important part is played by a man named Cunedda who is said to have come from the north at about the end of the Roman period with his eight or nine sons, most of whom gave their names to Welsh counties or districts. Cunedda’s three immediate ancestors have Roman names; these are preceded by what may be Pictish ones; ultimately he is traced back to Beli Magnus, who is supposed to have been the Virgin Mary’s brother-in-law. This Beli also appears as the ancestor of peoples located around the Scottish borders.’’ I may also mention the genealogy for Dyfed. The family is taken back to an eponym Dimet, who is made the son of Maxim * Of O'Rahilly, 176 £, 193-9. **O’Rahilly, 358, ‘the nearest approximation to a Pictish document that we possess’; H. M. Chadwick, Early Scotland, Cambridge 1949, 1-3, 95; I. Henderson, The Picts, London 1967, 35, 162-4. 27H. M. and N. K. Chadwick, The Growth of Literature, Cambridge 1932-40, i.g08— oa