190 Miasma

attitude to gods. The inviolable meadow of a god is a fit symbolficr the chastity of a virtuous youth, as both are protected byaidds.2so Respect for the gods entails an ultimate restraint inconduct, a willingness to stick at something. Sparing an en-emy's sacred places is, like returning his dead for burial, arecognition of the minimum right to respecr enjoyed by anyhuman2st (o., at least, by any Greek; barbarians cannot abso-lutely rely on such respect). The man, by contrast, who floutsreligion despises, in Athenian eyes, 'both the gods and ourlaws'.2só If he will engage in a conspiracy to annihilate sacredimages, he is unlikely to feel scruples about subverting rhedemocracy. The superior power of the gods must be vindicatedeven in morally neutral areas like that of prophecy to keepsociety sound. Otherwise, religion will decay, and there will beno further motivation for'reverent purity in word and deed'.2s7When justice does triumph in the world, this is confirmarionthat the gods are there. The Greek who then eagerly exclaims'the gods exist' is announcing more than a fact about cate-gories.2ss

::: Eur Hipp. 73-Sl. Clf . Aesch. Ag. 3l l-2 on the rramplin e ot'dlíxtar 76ptE.2s5'l'herefbre an alleged violatio¡r ol'sacred places is mót bf relusal ol'burial,'I'huc.+.97. 2-99, while temple-robberv normally incurs this punishrnent.

2só Sec p. 170 n. l4(i.257 Soph. l)f 8(;3-9I0.lst \lcn. D1sc.639, cf . ,\esch. Ag. 1578 with Fraenkel.

6

CURSES, FAMILY CURSES, ANDTHE STRTJCTURE, OF RIGHTS

When mortals violated the sacred in the directest of the waysthat were discussed in the previous chapter, the consequencewas that 'an agos came upon them.' Agos is here a spontaneousand automatic product of transgression.r As was noted inthe introduction, however, it could also be invoked againstoffenders in curses: 'let an agls come upon those who havesworn the oath should they transgress it.'2 Though curses oftendemand simply that the offender should 'be destroyed himselfand his family', they sometimes specify familiar consequencesof pollution: crop-failure, sterility of animals, monstrous birthsof humans.3 The Amphictyonic oath contains a provision ofthiskind, and continues 'And may they never sacrifice withoutoffence to Apollo or Artemis or . . .'. It is the impossibility ofsacrificing 'without offence' that, according to Antiphon, oftenindicates the presence of a pollution, and that revealed to theSpartans that 'the wrath of 'Ialthybius had struck upon rhem'for the murder of Xerxes' heralds.a

Although the agos of sacrilege is in principle automaric, whilethat of a curse depends upon public proclamation, the distinc-tion is little more than a formal one. In cases of sacrilege, thedivine curse was often supported by a human one; in 415, afterthe profanation of the mysteries, 'the priests and priestessesstood facing west and cursed [the offenders] and shook theirpurple robes, according to the ancient custom.' (Only one

I Hdt. 6.91.1.2 'Plataea oath': see p. 7. Lines 40-6 specif,v the narure of the dyog. 'fhere may be an

invocatiorr oÍ'agos in the defxio, !Vünsch, n. 90, b 6.' Soph. OT269-72 (where the connection with pollution is explicit); Amphictyonic

oath. ap.,\eschin. 13.lll; Iiupolis, Demes 3l f., Page, GLP,p.20B: n.92 Austin Ii.I .33-'1. F-or later epigraphic e'u'idence see L. Robe rt, Etudes épigraphiques et philologiques,Paris, 19:18. 3lll with n. 3, citing.t/G3 360.55 f.,526.40-7,527.f15-90, Sc,hwyzer198.23-5.

a ,\rtt. 5.t12, Hdt. 7.13*.2: cf .lSá 16.25-7, with Sokolowski's note.

192 Miasma

gentle lady refused to take part, saying that she was 'a priestess

of prayers and not of curses'.)s It was the spoken verdict of ahuman tribunal or, through oracular consultation, of a godó

that confirmed the presence of agos, and the sacrilegious re-ceived their most lasting taint when they were 'written up onthe pillar as offenders against the gods'. And if the divine curseagainst sacrilege often had to await human confirmation inorder to become fully effective, in the many archaic Greekcommunities where the magistrates pronounced curses in ad-vance against certain categories of treacherous behaviour,T theoflender was in theory 'held in the agos' (the expression comesfrom Herodotus, in this context)E from the moment of his crimejust as securely as if he had robbed a temple. As a result of thisconvergence between curses that are automatic and those thatare proclaimed, it can be difficult in a particular case to decidewhich of the two is in question. The passer-by who covers a

corpse perfunctorily with soil 'to escape agos' may either be

avoiding the taint caused by neglecting a fundamental divinelaw, or more specifically the curse regularly pronounced againstsuch offenders at Athens by a member of the priestly family ofBouzygai.e

Between agos in its two forms there is, in fact, a deep similar-ity. Anyone Can utter a curse, but the power to curse effectivelyis normally confined to certain categories - kings, parents,priests, magistrates, and the like - who represent whatever insociety most demands reverence.to Hippolytus' 'If only mor-tals could curse the gods' is a bitter acknowledgement that thispower is, in fact, dependent upon the hierarchy of authority.tt

t (Lyt.) 6.51, Plut. Ah.22.5. Purifications, by contrast, were perfbrmed lácing east,

p.'225.o Arist. Ath. Pol.l, Diod. 16.60. l, Andoc. 1.51, above, p; 185 n.224.

Note too Chryses' prayer, Hom. 1/. 1.37-+2.7 E. Ziebarth, Hermes 30 (lt|95), 57-70; idem, in RE s.v. Fluch; Glotz, 569-76;

R. Vallois, BCH38 (1914),250-71;Latte,HRGl-88. t 6.56.e Soph. Ant. 256 with schol.; on Bouzygean curses see

-fópflbr, 139, !\'. Schulze,Kleine Schry''ten2, Góttingen, 1966, l9l.

to R. Vallois, op. cit. - an important article; cf. Douglas, 127.rr Eur. Hipp. l+I5; for the disti¡rctive construction ol'araios with dative of dis-

advantage cL Eur. Med. 608, Pl. Leg.93 I c (empowered to curse), Aesch. ,4g. 237, Soph.

fr. 399, Eur. IT 778 (working harm through a curse). ln Soph. Tr.l20l f . (Heracles toHyllus) ; ei 6E p4, pevto o' t$tü / xo,l vÉg9ev üv dpaioE eioaei papúE, the word dpaioE seems

actuallv to have become a noun, 'curse-demon'. On the word cl. \\t. H. P. Hatch, HSCPl9 (1908), 157-{J6.

Curses, Familt Curses, and the Structure o./ Rights 193

There is thus a clear similarity between the agos that seizes the

sacrilegious and the curse plonounced against those who vio-

late whltever is socially 'sacred'. To some extent social sanctity

even has supernatural forces working automatically in its

defence; the Erinyes of a wronged father will probably seek

revenge without formal invocation in a curse. For an idea ofthe pótential awesomeness of a curse invested with the fullsolemnity of public authority, we can turn to the Oedipus

Tyrannus, wheie Oedipus pronounces one against the unknownkillers of Laius. It is not the least of his torments, after the

revelation, that he has imposed so terrible a sentence upon

himself. t2

Public curses of magistrates were aimed against behaviour

that directly threatened public well-being or order. The earliest

and most famous example comes from Teos;t3 we learn from an

inscription perhaps of the early fifth, century that the magis-

trates were required, three times a year at public festivals, to

invoke destruótion upon anyone using poisons (ot magic

spells?) against the Teians, interfering with the import of corn'

résisting the authority of the magistrates(?), conducting or

condoning piracy against the Teians, betraying their territory,or 'devising any evil concerning the commonwealth of the

Teians in rispect either of the Greeks or barbarians'; magis-

trates abusing their authority were probably also included inthese curses, which extended in each case to the family of the

offender. Both in its inclusions and its omissions (theft, murder,

arson, adultery, and the like) the Teian inscription is typical ofthe institution; at Sparta' subversion of regal privilege, at

Athens seeking or supporting tyranny, treating with the Mede,betraying the city, taking bribes against the city's interest,

deceivin[ the council and people, adulterating the coinage (?)'

and expórting vital foodstuffs were subject to curses, while the

citizeni of the Tauric Chersonese bound themselves by oath(with curse sanctions) not to commit a very similar range ofoffences. ra In Athens, at least, these curses were not an assertion

t2 236-75,7441'.,l38l-2. '3 \.I/t. :10.tn Sparta: Hdt. 6.56. Athens: main text At. Thesm.332-67, cf. P.J. Rhocles' 7"á¿

AtheniánBoule,()xÍitrd, 1972,37; cursesagainstfbodexports(clearlytr()tapartol'thcregular curses belore assembly and coulrcil), Plut. Sol.24.l . 'l'auric (lhersorrcsc: .$1li'

36b. For the range ol'offences countered by curses see esp. [,atte, HR 6t]-77, witlt nrut'h

fürther evidence.

194 Miasma

of the magistrates' authority but an expression of the mood ofthe people, who 'prayed along' with the heralds who pro.nounced them.ts The sacred power whose potential anger theyexpressed was indeed, in this case, society. (It is interesting thatthe people of Athens, no less than their gods, had 'unspeakable'mysteries, aporrhdta, protected byjust these curses.16)

Part of the point was perhaps that many of these offenceswere particularly hard to guard against on a human level; butdetection was certainly not entirely impossible, and the ques-tion arises ofwhat treatment from his fellows the man consignedto divine punishment might receive. Upon the killer of Laius,Oedipus imposes a fbrm of excommunication: 'Let no onereceive him, or speak to him, or make him a partner in prayer orsacrifice to the gods, or give him lustral water, but let all thrusthim lrom them.' A story in Herodotus has the tyrant Perianderusing excommunication of this kind as a punishment, and thereare historical instances of public malefactors being subjected towhat appears at first sight to be a spontaneous social ostracism,but could be a survival of a more formal earlier institution.rT Itseems unlikely, however, that the seething public indignationwould always have been satisfied to express itself in so negativea form. The old Attic law against tyranny made the offenderatimos in the archaic sense, an outlaw to be killed with im-punity,rB and it is hard to see what objection there could be tokilling anybody against whom the curse 'let him perish' hadbeen publicly pronounced. We are dealing, in fact, withjust thekind of offence which was liable to provoke particularly violentforms of popular revenge - destruction of the house,re stoning,20

ts ,\r. Th)esm. 331, 352.to L)'r. 3l .31 , Ar. Thesm.ll{i3, cL .t/Gr 360.26.¡? Soph. OT238-41; Hdt. 3.51.2:-52.6; Hdt. 7.231, Lys. 13.79, Xen. Helt. 1.7.i5,

Dem. 25.61 (cf. Dinarchus 2.9);cf. \\'. Schulze,loc. cit. (p. 192 n.9), also Pl. teg. ttSld-e, Xen. Lac. Pol.9.4-6.

It r\rist. Alh. Pol. 16. 10, discussed mosr recently by N{. H. Hansen, Apagoge, Endeixis'and Ephegesis against Kakourgoi, Atimoi and Pheuganler, Odense, 1976, 75-80.

'e \l/L 13.9-14 (proposal to reassign lan{; murder); Hdt. 6.72.2, Thuc. 5.G3.2(Spartan kings who fáiled as generals through suspected corruption); Ar. Nzá. 1484(sacrilegious teachings); Krateros 342 FGrH fr. 17, (Plut.) X orat.834 i (Phrynichusarrd ,\rrtiphon, betrayal); Nic. Dam. 90 FGrH |i.60 (Kypselids, ryranny); Diod. I 2.7t1..5(.\rgive gene rals).

'o ..g. Hdt, 5.38 (tyrant),9.5.2 (treacherous proposals, cl. Ar. Ach.204-:16, [,vcurg.Leoc. 7l ), 'l'huc. 5.60.6 (general who fáils ro press home advantage), Xen. Anab. 5.7 .2(eerrcral who'deceives' troops),6.6.7 ('traitor'), Diod. 13.U7.5, 91.3, Pl. 8p.7|J5+d

Curses, Family Curses, and the Structure oJ Rights l 95

expulsion of the corpse unburied.2t Already in the Iliad, Hecrortells Paris that he deserves (tc have a stone tunic put on him' forthe affliction he has brought on his homeland.22 It would berash to assume that befbre the institution of'special forms ofprocedure - at Athens, eisangelia dealt with such cases23 - thecriminal was simply left to rhe gods to punish. A recenrly-published fragment of the Teian curses seems to show thatthere, at least, the curse could entail outlawry.23a

It is clear that, though an ottbnder of this krnd may formallybe 'accursed' or 'in the agos', the important fact about him is notthat he is a source ofreligious danger. The threat he poses is on asecular level - he pollutes not the gods but the conititution2a -and there is no question, as there can be in cases of murder oreven involuntary sacrilege,2s of his being avoided through un-ease about supernatural consequences even by those sym-pathetically disposed to him morally. As a possibility, beforedetection, he is certainly feared intensely, but once caught, thefeeling he provokes is indignant rage. The same distinction, aswe have seen, also applies to a milder form of social rejection;though the murderer may be debarred from the agora andsacred places to protect them from pollütion, in the case of themale prostitute or man who has 'thrown away his shield',exclusion is simply a mark of disgrace, and the only pollutionhis fellow citizens would suffer throu$h his presence is the socialone of mixing with a rogue.2ó (Offenders of this kind were inmany archaic communities subjected to humiliating punish-ments rather like the'btocks; these involved a 'taint', but it was('treacherous' generals), Plut. So/. 12. I (aspirants to tyranny); see further the scholarscited by Fehling, 63 n. 258, and fbr sroning of'leaders ibid., n. 262.

2rAbo','e, p,45n.47. 22 Hom. It.g.SGl'._

23 Hypereid,es, Euxen. 7-8,29; ct. moit recently MacDowell, Lau, 183-6; p. J.Rhodes, ff/.999 ( 1979), 103- 14.

2r^ ()hiron ll (1981),p.7fáce(b),5-9;cf.,SEGxxvi 1306.23-6(partiallyvindicatingGlotz, 465, against Latte, HR69, n. 2l).

2a Xerr. Hell. 2.3.23,26, 5l . 'I'he ve rb used is Tupaívopat,, which is referred by lexicanottoltpa(pollution) butlltp4 (outrageousinjury);thoughthisisgenerallycorrect(cl.thefgura etymologica in E,ur. Hel. 1099), it seems likely that in many contexrs Greeks willalso have heqrd 70Fa in the word (note e.g. Eur. Bacch.354, Hipp. lCf¡B, of adultery;Xen. Hell.7.5.lB, a stained reputation; and above all Ar. Eq. 1284, impure sexual ,

pleasures, also the semantic interfeience betweenlOpaandTúpq themselves, ZJ/s.vv.).Í'or the Greek's sense ol'being under threat in secular terms this is a crucial word-group.

" ..g.Soph. OC490-2, Eur. /7949-57.2ó Above, pp. 94-6.

196 Miasma

upon the victims that it fell.'z?) on the orher hand, it is probablytrue even in cases of sacrilege that the.primary public responseis one of rage rather than of fear. The forms of mob justice thatwere mentioned earlier - stoning and the like - were all appliedto sacrilege as well as treachery,2E but not, in the main, to othercategories of offence,2n and seem to testify to similar feelings inthe two cases. Stoning the sacrilegious may have been a meansof averting divine wrath,3o but no one ever cast a stone in amerely prudential spirit.

The domestic correlate to the cursing power of the king ormagistrate is, of course, that of the father. 'A parent can curse achild more effectively than anyone can do ii to anybody else,quite rightly', says Plato, and as instances of curses whicheveryone agrees to have been fulfilled he cites those of Oedipusagainst his sons, Amyntor against Phoenix, and rhesbusagainst Hippolytus.3r Such curses are, in the epic, administeredby the.Erinyes,32 who are guardians of the siructure of familyauthority (younger sons normally have no Erinyes);t, a mo.theican 'curse Erinyes' against her son, and it is as 'curses' that theydescribe themselves when formally asked their identity byAthena in Aeschylus.3o These are mythological conceptions tooelevated for everyday speech,tt at least in classical Aihens; thev¿lue to which they relate, however, is fundamental, as is clearin particula¡ from Aristophanes' portrayal of moral anarchy inthe Clouds.3ó In its defence, Plato organizes sanctions which takeus right back into the sphere of public curses and outlawry.Anyone failing to protecr a parent from assaulr by u child is

27 Above, p. 95 n. 87. 'Taint': Xen. Hell.3.l.9.. 2t Cf. p. 45 n. 47 ,p. 194 n. l9; stoning of the sacrilegious, Fehling, G3 n. 260. Same lawfbr temple-robbers and trairors, Xen. Helt. 1.7 .22.

2e House-destruction ficr murder among the Locrians (M/L 13. 13) is an exception.Tyrants and defective leade rs are often stoned; stoning ficr other categories of oflence issometimes envisaged, but 'so gut wie nie antik und historisch', Fehliñg, 63.

. 30 Alcaeus, SLG 262.tt Ltg.93lb-c.t' ..g. Hom. 1/. 9.454,566-72.31 11.15.204.3o Hom. Od. 2.135 f . (note the fear it inspires) ; Aesch. Eum. 417. It is as curses relating

1o lSfrts that they are constantly constructed with a eenitive of the wronged party: ciE. Rohde, Kleine schriften, 'I-übingen and Leipzig, l90l , ii, 233-5, n ith the qua'lificarionofDodds, 2l n.37.

rt ot' dyoeeiteql d.pó.E re wvyepdE tcal'EpwúaE,Ap. Rhod. 3.7 I 0- I .3ó l32l-450.

Curses, FamiQ Curses, and the Structure oJ'Rights

'held in a curse of Zeus of kindred', and the man convicted of-

such assault is to be banished to the countryside and excludedfrom the shrines for ever; any free man who as much as speaks tohim may not enter city, shrines or market-place without beingpurified.3? (Secondary though it appears, the contagious im-purity of the moral leper here receives from Plato characteristicbmphasis.) Plato goes to extremes, but under Attic law convic-tion for maltreatment of parents entailed atimia, a kind ofmitigated outlawry.3s Even Plato's uncomfbrtable image ofaged parents as 'living shrines' is reflected in the claim that they

should receive honours 'equal to those of the gods'.3e Disrespectto them is sacrilese, "

pollution,ao and danger attends upon it.Fear of- a parental curse is, in the epic, a real constraint uponaction, and the occurrence of one is a dire event which may leadto a drastic reaction.ar If less is heard of it, outside a mythologi-cal context, in the fifth and fi¡urth centuries, that must in large

part be because the rights of parents had received such effectiveprotection in secular law.

The curses considered so far have supported the structure ofauthority, and this is their most characteristic function. It is,

however, to rights rather than raw power that they relate, and ifthey commonly consort with authority that is because the rightsof communities and parents are in fact very extensive. Even thestrong can perhaps not curse effectively unless wronged, whilethe weak acquire the power to do so in so far as their recognizedrights are infringed. The disguised Odysseus can suggest, tenta-tively it is true, that 'beggars have Erinyes';a2 the myth of thehouse of Tantalus shows a charioteer and a yoLlnger brotherimposing effectir,'e curses, and a daughter with Erinyes;a3 'evendogs have Erinyes', the proverb says (they are, after all,members of the household).oo Euripides' Medea not merelyutters curses against Creousa, but in a more serious sense 'is' a

" Lrg. tltllb-e.3*

'\eschiu. 1.28.to Ltg. t]69b, 93 la,,\eschin. l.2tl.ao C)f ..('\eschin.) Epistle2.5.o' Ho¡n. Od.'2.135 f .;1/.9.*5+ fI.,566 fI.n2 Hom. Od. 17.+75.or ,\es<'h. Ag. 1433, cf. ibid.,237, Eur. .lled.l3ti9;on the rights Protectcd by'H'riny'es

see ll. \\'üst, RE Suppl. u. I l6 f .

na \l¿rcarius 3.54.

t97

r98 Miasma

curse against Jason, who has wronged her more deeply.as Thisis, in theory at least, the difference between the curse and thebinding spell; the former has irs own intrinsic power, while thelatter, an act of aggression unsupported by right, needsreinlorcement through magical techniques, rhe impurity of thegrave, and invocation of infernal powers. (I.r practice, nodoubt, those who believed themselves wronged often hadresource to defxion¿s as well as mere curses.a6) This power of thewronged to curse effectively relates to the more general way inwhich the world sometimes operates to redress injustice. InHerodotus, in particular, punishment often comes upon indi-viduals for violent acts that are not aflronts to the gods in anydirect sense.aT But though the possibility exisrs, it ii noticeablethat stories of the 'wronged widow's curse' type are not at allcommon in Greece. The Spartan defeat at Leuctrain3Tl gaverise to one famous instance; they lost, it was said, because of acurse imposed on them centuries before by one Skedasos ofLeuctra, whose daughters died after being raped by passingSpartan youths and who then himself committed suiciáe o.r.itheir tomb.aE In this case, however, it was obviously the exist-ence of a tomb of 'the Leuctrian maidens' at the site of the battlethat determined the form of the story. one reason for thescarcity of stories of this kind may be that they tend to besubsumed under the 'wronged suppliant' type; but the factprobably also indicates something about the general ethos ofGreek culture.

It is natural to consider, in connection with curses, the doctrineof inherited family guilt.oe Several interrelated ideas need to be

as Eur. .lled.607 L

oó see \\'ünsch, nn. 98, 102, 158 fbr the claim by,the author ofadefxio ro have beenwronged. Objects, by the same title, can try to curse those who steal or violate them(schwy'zer 272; IG XI\'865). of the tomb-curse, however, I know no explicit earlyi¡rstarrt-c(Sclrw-rzer2T2neednotbe one,L.H.Jefferr, TheLocal ScripkoJAr;haicGreccc,()xlt¡rd, l9(;1,3+8).

4? (:1.J. Ii. Powell, A l¿xicon lo Herodotus, Ciambridge, 193g, s.r.. río6.__

at Fullestversi<¡¡r (Plut.) Am.Narr.773c-TT4d,alreadyknown toXen. H¿11.6.4.7.cf.l'o¡rtenrose , l+7 l-., Burkert, SH 7+. Suicide here, as olteir. increases cursing power. Forsimilar stories see p. 107 above (the regent pausanias); plut.

euaest. Gralr. t2,2gla-r((:harila).

ae (f f . Glotz, 560-83;J.'f . Kakridis ,'Apaí,,\rhens, 192g, l4l-6g (with rhe comme¡rt<rl'R. \'allois, REA 3,t (1932), gti f .), Dodds, Ch. 2.

Curses, Family Curses, and the Structure of Rights 199

mentioned, not all of them involving Erinyes and curses, whichtend to shade into one another even though they are perhapstheoretically separable. The first and commonest is the famousdoctrine of Solon and many later moralists: sooner or later Zeuspunishes all wrongdoers, and if they escape themselves, 'theirinnocent children pay ,for their deeds, or their descendantsafterwards.'so Perjury is the offence most commonly punishedin this way, but any other might be; the moderates in theArcadian league, for irrstance, decided not to touch the sacredtreasure at Olympia 'lest we leave the gods a complaint againstour children'.5r A slightly different tone is introduced when it isspecified that the ancestral crime is one of bloodshed. The basicconception remains the same, but emphasis shifts from theimage of the slow-grinding mills of god to that of a pollutionwhich has tainted the stock.52 In a much stronger form, this ideaof the internal corruption of the family iscentral ro the myths of'the houses of Labdacus and Tantalus.s3 In contrast to thepreceding cases, it seems essential here that the crimes of'theparents are violations of the order of the family, and lead tosimilar violations on the part of their children.sa Both myrhs intheir most extended form do indeed begin with acrs of'violenceagainst outsiders,ss but both in 'their central and earliest-attested core portray a family that, through the most manifoldperversions, is gnawing out its own he?rt. The implicit logic issuggested by Pinqfar's summary of the myth of Oedipus: theErinys, seeing Oedipus slay his father, proceeded to 'slay his

50 Solon 13.25-32.In respect ofoaths cf. pp. 186 fl above, and more generally'l'heog.731-52, Aesch. Eum.934, Eur. fr.9B0, Lys. fr.53 f'halheim (5 Gernet), (Lvs.) 6.20,Isocr. B¿s. 25, Dodds, 33 f., Dover,260;speciñc insrances willfollow.

5r Xerr. Hc\\.7.4.34s2 ptatgóvov n oíryyovov/nala(ov ngayevmpóg,<ov, Eur. Hipp. 1379 f.; cf. Aesch. Szpy'.

265, nú.atov aipúttov ptóopara. F'or pollution language in reference to pasr kin-killingsee e.g. Aesch. Ag. 1460, Cho.649 f.

t3 Main texts on inherited guilt or curse: Aesch . Scpt. 653-5, 699- 701, 720-91 , Ag.1090-7, I l86-97,1309, l33B-42,t460, l46B-8g, t+97-1512,1565-76,1600-2;Soph.El. 504-15, Ant.583-603, OC 367-70, 964-5, 1299, Eur. Et. G99-74G, 1306t, /Zl86-202, 987 f., Or.8ll-lB, 985-1012, 1546-8, Phoen.379-82, 867-88, t556-9,1592-4, 16l l.

.s4 C:f. Pl. Leg.872e-73a, cf. 729c.5s Pelops and N{yrtilus: attested in Soph. E\.50+-15, but excluded in Aesch. z{.g.

I 192f. Laius and Clhrysippus: not in Aesch. Sept.742 fl. 'fhe origin of this motilis quitt:uncertain: see Lloyd-Jones, I l9-21, and against Deubner's analr.sis of'Peisander, l6FGrH f r. 10, N{. De lcourt, Oedipe ou la légendc du conquerant, [,iéee , 19.]4, xii fI.

?(x ) Miasma

sons by mutual slaughter'.s6 With this conception of the familycrime that leads automatically to fresh crime is constantlyintertwined the idea of the actual spoken curse which bringsdescendants to harm. Imprecations against their own kin wereuttered by Oedipus, Thyestes, and, in one variant, Pelops,sTand, in the extended forms of the leeends, the Tantalid andLabdacid woes went back to curses by the outsiders, Myrtilusand Pelops.tt Such a curse seems merely to express in wordswhat pollution would have achieved anyway in its own in-articulate way, and it can be difficult, though scarcely im-portant, to decide whether the alastores and Erinyes referred toin a particular passage are spontaneous products of transgres-sion, or due to a spoken curse.

Postponed punishment of the kind envisaged by Solon, seenby some as particularly 'divine', was criticized by others asmorally repugnant.se Certainly there was nothing quite like it inhuman justice, by which sons might be punished with theirfathers but not normally instead of them. The conception onwhich the tragedies are based, however, seems to be one ofgreater moral subtlety. When the smitten Heracles recalls thathis father married the daughter of a man he had killed, andcomments 'when the foundations of a house are ill laid, thedescendants are bound to suffer',6o his proposition has anobvious plausibility in terms which are not merely those ofpollution, or divine anger, waking up late to smite the innocentin the second generation. Agamemnon and Aegisthus are notinnocent victims, any more than the Polyneices and Eteocles ofSophocles; even Antigone is a savage daughter of a savagesire,6r and it is in Clytaemnestra that the curse of the Pelopidline finds embodiment. 'A godless act breeds more such after,true to its own type.' It is through human sin and folly, 'mad-ness in reasonine and an Erinys of the mind', that the house's

so ol.2.3g-42.s7 Hellanicus 4 FGrIt fi. 157. cf . Heldensage,2lT.58 Nfyrtilus: Apollod. Epit. 2.8. Pelops: Byzantiue hypothesis to Aesch. Scpt., in

Aesclryli Tra.goediae Superstites, ed. \\'. Dindorf, Oxford, l85l, vol. iii,297.5e Hdt. 7.137.2, Theog. 731-42; cf. f)odds, 33 f.óo blur. HF'1258-62.ótSoph. Ant.47 I l. For the parents'moral deficiencies reappearing in the child cf.

Eur. Hipp.337-43. For Greek views on moral inheritance (by no means uniform), seeDover, 83-95.

Curses, Famil2 Curses, and the Structure of Rights 20 I

tragic destiny is worked out, not in a series ofexternal afflictionsbesetting the innocent.62 Even when one of the agents is in fact,like Orestes, innocent, it is a compulsion created by past crimesthat drives him to his terrible act. We see here the specialcharacter of the family crime, for which remedy must be sóught'not from outside, but from themselves, through savage bloodyconflict'. In these circumstances it is not surprising to find thedoctrine of dual motivation becoming explicit. 'That you areinnocent of this murder, who will bear witness? But the demonof the race might be an accomplice.'63

It is sometimes suggested that the idea of inherited guilt, inwhatever form, is a post-Homeric development, a product ofDelphic teaching or of a creeping sense of guilt.6a f)ivine re-venge against the whole family, however, is certainly attested inHomer, just where one would expect it, in connection w'ithoaths. Zeus punishes perjury in the end, if not at once, andoffenders 'pay for it at a high cost, with their own heads, theirwives and children'.ó5 It is true that what is envisaged here is adelayed reckoning striking both the criminal and his family, notthe complete postponement of punishment to the guilty man'schildren; but it is hard to see how anyorle who acceptedthe former possibility would be cjffended by the latter. It is.

certainly, plausible that the belief in delayed punishmenthardened somewhat in the archaic age, the period that saw thedevelopment of the Orphic doctrine of inherited guilt. Where aHomeric Greek, faced by unaccountable misfortune, concluded'I must be hated by Zeus', or 'I must have c<¡nrmitted someo{fence against the gods',uo one o[the fifth century might ratherthink ofsome undefined ancestral fault: 'Such was the willof thegods; perhaps they were angrv with my family from of old.'67 Itis not clear that such a change of'emphasis is of any greatimportance. Uncomfortable though the doctrine of inheritedguilt appears to us, anxiety is not necessarily its origin. It

ó2 ;\esch. Ag.758-60, Soph. Ant.6O3.ó3 r\esch. Cho.472-4, á9. 1505-8.uo..g.Kakridis, op. cit., l4l, Dodds,36.6s Il. 4.160-2, cf. 3.300 f., Hes. Op.2S2-5 (the latter very close ro thc Sol<¡¡riarr

doctrine). For affliction of'whole families see 1/. 6. 200-5, Od.20.60-7t|; thc HornericZeus can hate a whole lamily, Od. 11.436.

óó Hom. Il. 21.83, Od. 4.377 f .; cf . still Hdt. 6. 12.3, \,Ien. Asp.'2lit.ó7 Soph. OC96+ f., cf. Eur. Hipp.B3t-3, 1379-tit.

202 Miasma

protects the belief- in divine justice against crude empiricalrefutation; for the same reason, perjury, typical cause of in-herited punishment in later rexrs, is already liable ro post-mortem punishment in Homer.ó6 Though in some contexts itappeared unjust, in others it could vindicate the gods: Croesus,deprived of his kingdom despite rich offerings to Delphi, wasmerely being asked to hand back, after a generous period ofusufruct, what his ancestor had wrongfully acquir.d.oo poetsand historians might devise ancestral offences as a kind ofexplanatory hypothesis to impose pattern on disparate events;thüs Helen and Clytaemnesrra both betrayed their husbandsbecause their father, Tyndareus, had omitted a sacrifice toAphrodite.To The doctrine was perhaps not even an importantsource of anxiety. Innocent suflbring was a fact of experiencewhich might be explained in rerms of inherited guilt, but thisneed not mean that, when not alHicted, the innocent lived infear. when the,rich Athenian is persuaded by an 'orpheus-initiator' to protect himself from the consequences of ancestralsin by sacrifice,Tr this is perhaps simply a transposition ofsacrifices he might anyway perform 'for good luck'.

The inherited guilt of towns and communities was perhaps amore serious preoccupation. Often, of course, it was the actualoccurrence of disaster that provoked the pious to look for anancestral crime to explain it; most obviously that is true, as wesaw, of the Spartan defeat at Leuctra. we do not know howseriously, before the disaster of 431, the Aeginetans had thesacrilegious deeds of the 490s or 4B0s on their minds.72 Theobligation accepted by the Locrians ro pay'maiden-tribute'fora thousand years in expiation of Ajax's crime long seemedspectacular evidence for a communal sense of guilt; it hasrecently been argued convincingly that the institutionoriginated in temple service of a familiar kind, and onlyacquired its special character by a process of secondaryreinterpretation, and perhaps mere misunderstanding by out-

6t Il. 3.278 t'.óe Hdt. 1.91.tu Stesichorus, li. 223 Page.7t Pl. Resp. !164c.72 p. I84 abovc.

Curses, Family Curses, and the Slructure of Rights 203

siders.73 On the other hand, ancestral guilt clearly influencedthe actual behaviour of the Athenians when they expelled theDelians from their island in the belief that they had been'consecrated although they were impure because of someancient offence'.74 If Thucydides accepted that Athenian moti-vation in this case was religious, it is not for us to disagree; but itis interesting to note that ancestral like other guilt is easier to see

from outside than from within.A further development in the archaic period, it has been

suggested, is the tendency to link together originally distinctmyths to form the characteristic tragic vision of a family or raceafflicted through three or firur generations.ts In the lliad'saccount of how Agamemnon received his sceptre, there is nohint of tainted stock; the Cltpri¿ first made him a Tantalid.T6 Theextension, however, of the Oedipus saga into the third genera-tion through the expedition of the Epigoni is already mentionedin the lliad,11 while the crimes of the Tantalid house involvedmonstrous and marvellous elements that Homer might wellhave preferred to keep out of sight. Even if such a developmentcould be demonstrated, it would be hard to know what conclu-sion should be drawn about the temper of the age from the factthat poets detected this pattern in'the fortunes of two mythicalhouses. Noble families continued to boast their descent from theTantalid or Labdacid line.78

Few of the ideas discussed so far would be likely to have muchinfluence on behaviour, except to the extent that individualsmight be encouraged, or discouraged, in their crimes by theprospect of the reckoning being postponed to their descendants.They do not, that is to say, isolate a recognizable category of

73 F. Gra{, ,S.SR 2 (1978), 6l-79; diflerently in details, but not implication,Fo¡rtenrose,l3l*7. Similarly in Hdt. 7.197 an ancestral sin is invoked to explain a

singular religious requirement.?a Thuc. 5.1.75 F. Wehrli, 'Typologische Richtungen der griechischen Sagendichtung', in his

Theoria und Humanilas, Zúrich, 1972,71-87; he relbrs to K. Schefbld's argument thatscenes of violent crime became popular in art in the early 6th century, 'l,IH 12 (1955),l38 f.

76 Il.2.l0l-8, Clpria, fr. ll.4 Allen. Er,en in the 5th centur)', the splendour of'thePelopids can prevail over their sullerings, Pind. O/. 1.89.

71 4,404-10.78 Alcaeus, fr. 70.6, Pind. O/. 2.35-47, Isthm.3.l7; on thc desccnt of-the Eupatrids at

Athens firom Orestes see Tópffer, 176 f .

20+ Miasma

polluted persons, sprung from criminal ancestors. At Athens,one family did notoriously find itself in this position, but itis a little surprising that no specific case besides that óf theAlcmaeonids can be quoted. A considerable number of childrenwere, however, deprived of 'honour' (i.e. in rough terms citizenrights) because of their fathers' offences. In addition to variousspecific crimes for which this penalty is said to have beenimposed,Te one text perhaps implies in general that the childreno{'men put to death by the state became atimoi.so Such heredit-ary punishments could still be imposed in the fourth century, aswas finally demonstrated by the discovery of Eucrates' lawagainst tyranny.sr But it is clear that the children's loss of rightsis a continuation in mitigated form of the earlier practice, alsowell attested, by which they shared their father's atimia in thesense of outlawry and were liable to be killed with him ifcaught.82 The main intention of-the institution is the prudentialand punitive one of destroying the public offender 'root andbranch',83 and any cathartic motivation is quite secondary. It isin connection with subversive oflbnces that the inheritedpunishment is specifically attested (aspiration to tyranny,betraying the city, accepting bribes for the harm of the people).Only by inference lrom the rather doubtful rule mentionedearlier can it be concluded that ihe children of men executed formurder or temple-robbing became atimoi; this granted, it re-mains possible that the murderer's children retained theirrights if he chose to retire into exile before the verdict.Ea In theOedipus at Colonus, Ismene reports that Eteocles and Polyneicesinitially renounced their claim to the throne of Thebes becauseof the 'corruption of their race from of old'; but though theirsubsequent change of heart was impious, the specific point thatthey were disqualified for kingship by pollution does not receiveemphasis.ss

7" \'1. H. Hansen, Apagoge, Endeixis and Epheguis against Kakourgoi, Atimoi, andPheugontes, ()dense, 1976,7 1 and 73.

8o Dem. 25.30.tt S¿'Gxii U7. cf. Harrsen, op. crit., 72.82 See Hansen, op. cit., 75-80.tr Clf . F-raenkel on .\esch. ,4g. 535 f.8a (if . ¡\¡¡t. Tetr. I p!\.85 OC 367 fI. ln 90 I-GrH fi. 45 a t,ydian kine goes into exile for 3 years to expiate a

murder committed by his fáther.

Curses, Family Curses, and the Structure of Rights 205

Whatever their legal status, there were, certainlv, socialmeans by which the children of a polluted father could be madeto feel unclean. It was open to any sacrificial community tomake its own decision as to who was acceptable as a member.Above all, the marriage prospects o[ the children and particu-larly the daughters were jeopardized: 'who will marry melher/you?' is, in these contexts, a constant refrain.só But this too is adifñculty not confined to the polluted but shared by the sociallydiscredited in general. Euripides' Helen mentions that becauseof her disgrace no one is willing to marry Hermione, and thesame problem confronts the daughter of a state debtor.87 It is

interesting that Oedipus, in his portrait of the wretched life thatawaits his polluted daughters, seems to draw colours lromAndromache's picture in Homer of'the hardships that Astya-nax will have to undergo as a mere orphan.Es In the secondgeneration, pollution may indeed be something to be heldagainst a family, but as a 'reproach'8e not sharply diftbrcnt inkind from any other damage its reputation might in<'ur. i\certain residual unease is apparent in Plato's specification thatcandidates for the priesthood should be investigated to ensttre'that they come from the purest possible lamilies; the candidatehimself'must be untainted by bloodshed and all such crimesagainst the gods, and so must both his parents.'eo Plato is irlgeneral opposed to inherited guilt e\,'en fbr the worst crimes. Of'the children and family of'the man executed for impiet,v he says:

'If they grow up diflerent fiom their father, they should be gi'u'en

due credit for their noble achievement in transforming evil intogood.'er It is therefore significant that the one hereditary dis-qualification for priesthood that Plato specifies should be thetaint of bloodshed. It is also significant, however, that thisdisqualification should be confined to the narrowly religioussphere.

Eó Soph. OT l+92- 1502, E,ur. ,\¡rdr. 97+-(i, ¿1. I 198- 1200; on thc .\k'rnaconids scc p.

l6 above.t7 llur. Hel.\133. (Dcm.) 59.t1.tt Soph. O?n l+86 fl., cf . Honr. 1/. 22.+90 fl.te Soph. OT 119+.ln Flur. Supp.'2'2O-8, .\drastus, br runtracting a ntarriagc alliant'e

with Polvneices, has 'nluddied' his 'bright' house br'('ontact rlith r¡ne that is 'trttjust'.

'sick', and'u¡rlbrtunate'('sick'i¡r relation to pollutiorr also I'lrrr. /7" (;!)3) - rcvcalirtelrvasue terms (cf . p. 2 l9 on contasious bad luc'k).

eo Leg.759c.et 85.ira. cl. 909c-cl. brrt r¡otc Uil(ic-d.

206 tlliasma

This argument invites us to consider ancestral pollution ofanunfamiliar kind. In Aristophanes, the accusation, 'I say thatyou are from the family of those who sinned against the god-de ss', is counte red by 'I say that your grandfathe r was one of thebodyguards of Hippias.'e2 The juxtaposition in Aristophanessuggests that the two forms of taint were not felt to be radicallydiflerent in kind. The same pillar on the acropolis bore in-scribed, for perpetual contumely, the names both of the sac-rilegious and of traitors.e3 Of the two taints, one was perhapseasier to efface than the other. When the Spartans brought upagainst Pericles the Alcmaeonid crime, his popular support,according to Plutarch, only increased,ea but no Peisistratidcould set foot in Athens in the fifth century. If it was throughhostility to tyrants that the Alcmaeonids incurred pollution, itwas surely their carefully nurtured reputation for the samequality that helped to cleanse it.ns One has only to read thespeeches of Lysias to discover how chronic, contagious, andhereditary, in consequence of the oligarchic revolutions, thetaint of''hatred of the people' had become. And though it maybe hard, in the strictly religious sphere, to discover instances ol'inherited innocence to set alongside inherited guilt, in civic lifethey exist in abundance. Distinctions bestowed by the Athenianpeople on foreign benefactors regularly extended to their sons.eu

The appeal to ancestral credit is one of oratory's standardthemes; as a consequence of an act of sacrilegious murderperformed by their ancestors, for purely personal motives, thcdescendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton enjoyed tax relief-and firee dinners in perpetuity.eT

b"' '\ndocides ol'his ancestors hostility to tyrann)-,

7

DISEASE, BEWITCHMEI{T AI\DPURIFIERS

A slave in Menander is critical of his master's hypochondria:

What do I suggest you do? If there had really been anything wrongwith you, then youod have had to look for a real cure. But there isn't.Find an imaginary cure for your imaginary disease and persuadeyourself that it's doing you some good. Get the women to wipe youround in a circle and fumigate you. Sprinkle yourself with waterdrawn from three springs, with salt and lentils added.t

This passage illustrates both the semi-medical use ofreligious techniques of purification, and the contempt in whichsuch methods were held by enlightened Athenians of the fourthcentury. The same contempt emerges from a fragment ofDiphilus which describes the most famous purification ofmythology, that of the daughters of Proetus by Melampus.'Cleansing the daughters of Proetus and their father Proetus theson of Abas, and the old woman to make five in all, with onetorch and one squill for all those people, and sulphur and pitchand much-resounding sea, drawn from the deep and géntle-flowing ocean.'2 Diphilus'manner, in metre (hexameter),language (Homeric expressions), and thought is that ofburlesque; he ridicules the notion that one torch and one squillcould serve to cleanse five people, and seems to have transfeiredto the legendary Melampus the healing methods of the lowestcontemporary charlatans. The great seer emerges as a pedlar ofsuperstitious mummery. It is a hostile observer again, theHippocratic author of On the sacred disease, who gives the mosrdetailed picture of such practitioners at work. These 'magi,purifiers, begging-priests, frauds' who'purify (epileptics) withblood as though they were polluted' are, he claims, merely

I Phasma50-6.2 Diphilus, fr. 126.