Athena and Telemachus

Athena and TelemachusAuthor(s): Michael MurrinSource: International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Spring, 2007), pp. 499-514Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30222174 .

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Athena and Telemachus

MICHAEL MURRIN

The argument of this article is that, once one tries to interpret the Homeric poems, major deities like Athena will invite allegorical readings and that, in fact, Athena in the Odyssey should be seen as polyvalent. A close reading of the initial discussion between Athena and Telemachus reveals three distinct functions of the goddess, which carry over into other scenes: her psychological role as prudence, especially when one considers Telemachus and his development towards manhood; her function as family daimon or goddess of the household, when one wishes to understand why she intervenes when she does; and finally the military goddess, when one realizes what her true intent had been throughout the poem. The scholiasts provide support for all three interpretations but especially stress the first. These interpretations also appear in the work of modem academics, both crit- ics and historians of religion. They show that the scholiasts, who do not show how they came to their interpretations, and modern scholars who are more explicit and certainly hold different assumptions and have different methodologies, nevertheless, have provided accounts for these same three roles of Athena in the poem. They show that the scholiasts were not erratic readers of the poem. I simply present their readings, but the claim for polyvalency is my own.

Early in the Odyssey the goddess Athena in disguise visits Telemachus, the son of Odysseus and now a person on the verge of manhood. They have a discussion about

his desperate family situation and work out a plan of action, which Telemachus immedi- ately begins to implement, once the goddess has departed. The scene seems uncompli- cated, but I hope that a careful and complete reading of it will show that the goddess makes this seemingly straightforward interchange polyvalent. Such a claim is controversial. At the end of his influential Homer, the Poetry of the Past, for example, Andrew Ford said bluntly that Homer's poetry "invited no reading, no interpretation."' Ford was drawing on theories of oral performance that have marked much American discussion of Homer since the pioneering work of Milman Parry and A. B. Lord. Since I too take seriously the argu- ments that a long period of performance preceded Homer and that he himself might have given such performances, I must, therefore, be very clear about my own procedure.

I am a historical lierary critic, that is, I take seriously what ancient interpreters had to say about this scene as well as what my own contemporaries have written. Homer's early readers, in fact, made, perhaps, the most influential reading of Homer's Athena in history, that of the goddess as prudence, a reading that often accompanied texts of Homer in the Early Modem period.2 Sometimes it came through the Pseudo-Plutarchan Essay on the Life and Poetry of Homer, sometimes through the brief statements of scholiasts. The latter

1. Ford, Homer, the Poetry of the Past, 202. 2. Robert Lamberton, "Introduction," in Pseudo-Plutarch, Essay on the Life and Poetry of Homer, 4-5.

Michael Murrin, University of Chicago, Department of English, 1050 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 USA.

International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 13, No. 4, Spring 2007, pp. 499-514.



500 International Journal of the Classical Tradition / Spring 2007

especially interest me here because they appear solely as interpreters, devoid of the theory and many of the assumptions that make such readings seem so strange to us. They show, moreover, that in the more restricted area of Homeric criticism the reading of Athena as prudence had a life of its own, detached from the interpreters whose readings survive in tracts and who often represented different theoretical approaches, from Stoic to Platonic to rhetorical.3 Furthermore, this reading of Athena still has influential modem support, though again, with different suppositions.

This reading of the goddess, however, does not account adequately for everything that happens in the scene between Athena and Telemachus. It does not answer why Athena chooses to help the youth. Nestor later is astonished that the great goddess should look after someone so young (Od. 3. 371-79).4 One scholiast suggested an answer, and in the last century the great scholar of Greek religion, Martin Nilsson, had another, though his position like that of the scholiast must now be put in historical perspective.

The double reading sketched so far still does not account for a crucial section of the divine-human conversation in Book One of the Odyssey. For it the scholiasts again provide evidence elsewhere in their comments on Homer and so do modem historians of religion. It concerns the military goddess familiar to us from the Iliad, as well as from other writers of the Archaic period and from iconography.

The three readings complement each other and, taken together, explain how the goddess makes this scene polyvalent. The readings are historical, those made by others, but the claim is my own.5

Athena as Prudence

An unknown person named Heraclitus, who composed a tract called Homeric Problems sometime in the first or second centuries of our era, read the scene between Athena and Odysseus' son psychologically, as stages of an internal monologue in Telemachus (Home- ric Problems, 62-63). In this interpretation Athena functions as phronesis or prudence, an interpretation the scholiasts share with Heraclitus.6 The E scholiast draws the moral: Telemachus alone as wise sees Athena, while the suitors are among their cups (to Od. 1.

3. One thinks of Comutus the Stoic, though he studied the gods generally and not Homer in particular, Porphyry the Neoplatonist, and Heraclitus the Allegorist, who had a rhetorical training.

4. Nestor's surprise contrasts with Athena's role as patroness of ephebes in the Archaic period. For her role with ephebes, see Anne Ley, "Athena," col. 235.

5. I do not, however, make this claim in a vacuum. Robert Lamberton claims that "the history of the interpretation of the poems begins within the poems" (Lamberton & Keaney, eds., Homer's Ancient Readers, Introduction, ix-x), and Andrew Laird suggests that allegory is "built into" epic ("Figures of Allegory," 153-54).

6. N. J. Richardson dates the Odyssey scholiasts to the first and second centuries of our era. See his discussion in "Homeric Professors in the Age of the Sophists". Since then scholarship indicates a somewhat earlier date, but the issue is very complicated, involving both the scholia themselves and two MSS. I summarize from my discussion of the Iliad scholia in The Allegorical Epic, 4, n. 3. Hartmut Erbse has edited a modem edition of the Iliad scholia, but we still await one for the Odyssey. The scholia minora or D (because they were originally attributed to the ancient scholar Didymus [first century B.C.E.]) include interpretations and stories that may date back to pre-Hellenistic times and might represent what Athenian school children learned (Erbse 1, xi & lxvii). In their present form they are later and include quotations from Apollodorus of Athens,



Murrin 501

113). The youth has been thinking how his father would return and possess his own property, and at that point Athena appears (Od. 1. 113-18). Heraclitus and the Escholiast add that Athena as phronesis urges Telemachus to take thought himself how to evict the suitors (Heraclitus 62. 5, E to Od. 1. 270). His speech to the Ithacan assembly wins sympathy, and the voyage that follows takes Telemachus away from an evil otium or inaction. And Athena as phronesis tells him where to go. He must visit Nestor for advice and Menelaus for any information about his father. (Heraclitus, Homeric Problems, 62. 6-7) The whole sequence shows how Telemachus' intelligence progressively develops. For Heraclitus allegory is dynamic, diagrams a process. Now this interpretation has its roots far back in Greek tradition, beginning with Democritus, who wrote a tract on Athena's epithet, Tri- togeneia, which he analyzed as reflection, speech, and action by rules, or in later parlance, as prudence. The scene certainly supports this reading.

In her disguise as Mentes Athena does just what she promised to do in the divine assembly that begins the Odyssey (1. 88-95). She stirs up Telemachus and gets him to act on his own. She does so with concrete practical advice. First, he must call an assembly and make public the fact that the suitors are destroying his property and demand that they leave his home. Second, he must go on a voyage to find out whether Odysseus is still alive or not. If he is dead, Telemachus should set up a memorial to him and then give his mother away in marriage. If Odysseus is alive, he can wait one more year for his father's return. Either way he will have taken the customary steps to solve his problem, exactly what one might expect a prudent person to do. Even today, if a spouse vanishes at sea, there is a problem for the surviving wife or husband, because there is no proof of death. In American law a spouse has to wait seven years till he or she can legally remarry.8 Telemachus follows through with Athena's advice and begins to act as the head of the household. Athena, therefore, has accomplished what she promised to do in the divine

assembly. She has begun to turn a boy into an adult. All this fits very well the interpretation given this scene by Heraclitus and the ancient scholiasts.

This role fits the goddess in other scenes as well, normally ones that concern Telemachus or his parents. In this respect one might say that prudence marks the whole

family. It was hardly-won for Odysseus. Athena did not look after him during most of his

wanderings,9 and in her absence Odysseus did not always act prudently. He had been

so they cannot date earlier than the late second century B.C.E. The scholia maiora or vetera, what scholars now call the exegetical scholia, explain names in fable, history, and geography, and use philosophical notions of the arts and rhetoric. They are a Byzantine collection drawn from various sources and applied to single places in Homer. The sources date back to the first century B.C.E. (Erbse, 1, xii-xiii). The two main manuscripts which have the exegetical scholia are T (Townley) and Venetus B, but they also contain the D scholia (Erbse 1, xvii, xxvii). Buffibre dates T to the tenth century (Heraclitus, Alldgories, xlviii). Venetus B is eleventh century, both its text and exegetical scholia, while a later hand added D. Since this essay concerns the Odyssey, my references will be drawn normally from Dindorf's edition of its scholia, but for the Iliad they would include Erbse and an Amsterdam edition of both poems that prints the D scholia (1656). The Scholia D in Iliadem, ed. H. van Thiel, is now available on the internet (http:// kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/volltexte/2006/1810). There is no edition that has all the scholia.

7. Etym. Orionis, 153. 5, cited by Felix Buffibre, Les Mythes d'Homere, 280-81. 8. Athena, of course, knows that Odysseus is still alive, and Telemachus has already told her that

his mother adamantly opposes a new marriage. 9. Odysseus says to Athena that he did not see or recognize her after his departure from Troy until

he arrived in Phaeacia (Od. 13.314-23). Jenny Clay has made a careful and subtle analysis of this whole scene. See especially The Wrath of Athena, 200-02.




reckless with the Cyclops, insisting on meeting him, and then he revealed to him his true name and so brought upon himself and his men the wrath of Poseidon. By the time of our story prudence has become habitual. The best example would be the probable story, the Cretan one, he will use regularly in the second part of the epic, which he first tells when he meets someone he takes to be a shepherd boy on what to him seems an unknown beach (13. 256-86), a story so different from the real one he told the Phaeacians.

The other members of his family have prudence as well. It seems almost habitual for Penelope. In the Ithacan assembly Antinous says she is valued for her craftwork, an activity associated with Athena, and for her good character, cleverness, and wisdom (2. 116- 22).10 Penelope treats sceptically the story given by Odysseus disguised as a beggar (19. 309-16) and does not believe him even after the slaughter of the suitors, testing him in the matter of the wedding bed (23.174-80). She tricks the suitors for three years, weaving and unweaving the shroud for Laertes (2. 94-110), using all the defences a woman who has no one to protect her can use in such a society. Yet one can question whether it was prudent for her to appear in public, forcing the suitors to give her gifts, despite the fact that Odysseus sees what she is doing and is pleased, and the test of the bow likewise could raise doubts." Prudence seems innate to her son, as indicated by his epithet, rTEnwvupvoc (thoughtful).12 He shows it in practice by the way he greets Mentes with all the expected social courtesies and tries to shield his guest from the suitors.

The goddess and the family fit each other. The meeting between Odysseus and Athena disguised as a shepherd boy in Book Thirteen of the Odyssey well illustrates this point, for it is a mirror scene.13 Odysseus has just told his Cretan story, when the goddess drops her disguise, smiles, and compliments his cleverness, saying:

... EiS6TEC ap4>r KEPWaI, EaTEi oCU UEiV WEoI G pOTc1V O)X( PTOc; 1 CVTcO

1ouv,a Kal pioloolov, &y&? 6' ~v 'TrI OEoi0ol

priTI TE KAEoplal KaI KEp&OIV ...

... you and I both know sharp practice, since you are far the best of all mortal men for counsel and stories, and I among all the divinities am famous for wit and sharpness ...

(Odyssey 13. 296-99)14

10. Athena, of course, was crafts goddess in the Archaic period. See Pierre Demargne, "Athena," 961b-962b. John Bennet, citing Cynthia Shelmerdine, points out that Homer transforms Bronze Age practices in the treatment of textiles into examples of shining and fragrant cloth. See "Homer and the Bronze Age," 533.

11. See the excellent discussion of her actions in Od. 18 & 19 by Sheila Murnaghan, Disguise and Recognition in the "Odyssey", 127-39.

12. Stephanie West to Od. 1. 213 in Heubeck, West, and Hainsworth, A Commentary on Homer's "Odyssey", vol. 1. Henceforth cited as Stephanie West.

13. Talking of this scene, Jenny Clay says that the bond between the goddess and Odysseus comes from a similarity in their natures (The Wrath ofAthena, 42). The whole scene, however, shows the reserved and careful way in which Odysseus treats Athena, one of Clay's points (194-202, 206).

14. All English quotations from the Odyssey are taken from the translation of Richmond Lattimore.



Murrin 503

In fact, the goddess and the family finally make such a harmony, it brings to light another function of the goddess, one not envisaged by Heraclitus and the scholiasts, who limited Athena to prudence and a set of psychological interpretations, where the emphasis went to the human being and not to the goddess. Yet she has as much existence as any character in the poem, and it is to the goddess herself that I now turn.

Athena as Family and Household Goddess

The previous discussion has shown how Athena functions psychologically and helps Homer explain how the young Telemachus begins his maturation process. When one turns to the goddess herself, however, that analysis leaves some important questions unanswered. We do not know why the goddess favors this particular family, and do not know why she intervenes when she does.

The D scholiast has an answer to the first question, though he is talking about the parallel scene in the first book of the Iliad, where Athena appears to Achilles and per- suades him not to attack Agamemnon. Though she makes herself visible in a public assembly, Achilles alone sees her. The D scholiast remarks that Achilles can see Athena because she is a family or household daimon (to II. 1. 198). By implication the others, being outside the family circle, would not, therefore, be able to see her. The scholiast makes this observation probably because the scene itself is rather awkward. Achilles suddenly turns around in the midst of a heated argument and addresses what the onlookers would think was blank air. In the Odyssey a quiet conversation with a visitor resolves this difficulty, for the suitors, who are listening to Phemius and his lyre, do not overhear the whispered conversation. At the end Telemachus knows he has met a deity but not the identity of the divine being who has visited him.

The D scholiast tacitly asssumes a Platonic viewpoint, one popular during the second century of our era. Apuleius, the author of the Metamorphoses or Golden Ass, said in another book that Athena in the Odyssey was the hero's guardian daimon, just as there was one for Socrates (De deo Socratis. 24. 178), and Maximus of Tyre, another Platonic thinker of the same century, drew the same parallel between Socrates and the Homeric heroes, again with emphasis on Athena.15

Plato himself started this line of thinking among his followers. In the Symposium, a dialogue in which a group of friends give speeches in praise of Eros or Love, Socrates repeats for them the discourse of a certain Diotima, who classified Eros not as a god but as a daimon, an intermediary spirit between the gods above and human beings below (Symposium 201a-203a). Diotima / Socrates concludes the preliminary discussion with a remark that later Platonists would develop: "There are many spirits, and many kinds of spirits, too, and Love is one of them." (Symp. 203a) For the D scholiast Homer's Athena is another. Homer indeed has Athena constantly travelling between Olympus and our earth, intervening in the affairs of human beings. In the Odyssey all these interventions, directly or indirectly, concern the family of Odyssus. She is the daimon of this family.

This analysis of Athena, while it is based on assumptions we no longer share, nevertheless provides a rationale for much of what happens in our scene and in the Odyssey as a whole. Yet it also widens considerably the analysis of the second-century Platonists,

15. See Buffibre, Les Mythes d'Hombre, 287, 525.




from one person to a family. The D scholiast does not present a rationale for this extension of Athena's function, but Martin Nilsson, the great historian of Greek religion in the last century, supplements the ancient reading effectively, though with a similar caveat. His theory of the household goddess, which had wide influence initially, now is no longer accepted as a broad generalization. I will return to this point later.

For Nilsson Athena began as a household goddess of the Bronze Age.16 Hence she continued to preside over arts and crafts in the Greek historical age.'7 She appears without armor on the Parthenon frieze and sits next to Hephaestus, her male counterpart.18 Beside her is the peplos or robe Athenian women wove and presented to her at the Pana- thenaea.19 As household goddess, however, Athena looks after not just the palace but the royal family and its possessions, hence her hatred of the suitors, whom we see initially sitting on the skins of Odysseus' cattle which they have killed (Od. 1. 108).

Book Seven of the Odyssey gives us a glimpse of Athena's wider activities in this respect. After she has insured a safe arrival for Odysseus in Scheria, she flies to Erechtheus' house in Athens (Od. 7. 78-81). According to Nilsson this is typical of the Bronze Age. Athena lives in a palace not a temple, and palaces employed craftsmen and women in great numbers, hence her patronage of arts and crafts.20 It is a small step from a role of palace goddess to that of the protector of the royal family that lives there.

Nilsson's theory then answers the second question I asked at the beginning of this section: why does Athena intervene when she does? She did not help Odysseus during most of his wanderings but intervenes now that the royal household has reached a crisis. In our scene Telemachus realizes that he faces ruin unless he takes immediate action.21

The theory also explains the ending of this scene. Nilsson argued that deities in Crete and Mycenae manifested themselves to mortals often as birds.22 This connection carries over into Homer, where the gods sometimes change themselves into birds but never into other animals. In every case the metamorphosis involves Athena, whether alone or paired with another Olympian.23 In Iliad 5. 778-79 she and Hera set out to help the Achaeans and are compared to doves in one of those similes that probably indicate an identification: they are doves. In Iliad 7. 58-62 Athena and Apollo alight on a tall oak as vultures to watch the battle. In the Odyssey Athena takes the form of a bird three times, always at crucial moments. After their conversation she leaves Telemachus suddenly, flying upwards.

16. He argued that Athena had a striking similarity to the Minoan house and palace goddess (Minoan-Mycenaean Religion [hereafter abbreviated as MMR], 491). As pre-Greek, she would then be a part of the Minoan overlay on Mycenaean Greek culture of the period.

17. Nilsson at MMR, 491, n. 19 cited D. Levi, "Gleanings from Crete," American Journal of Archaeol- ogy 49 (1945): 294-302, who argued that the real nature of Athena was associated with energy, skill, and craftsmanship. Burkert thinks she is primarily a military goddess, but, of course, accepts this other side of her activity as well (GR, 140-41).

18. Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (hereafter abbreviated as GR), 124. 19. Ibid. & also 140-41 20. In Late Helladic IIIA, the period just before the Mycenaean, palaces already included work-

shops. See Bennet, "Homer and the Bronze Age," 517. 21. Athena, of course, can also intervene because Poseidon, the enemy of Odysseus, has gone to the

Ethiopians to receive a sacrifice in his honor (Od. 1. 20-26). 22. For the full discussion, see MMR, 330-40. 23. Ibid., 491-92.



Murrin 505

The reading of 6pvc 6' cc 6 avoTraia (Od. 1. 320) has been much disputed both by ancient and modem commentators, but in all but one of those readings she takes the form of a bird.24 The suddenness of this departure leaves Telemachus with the courage and strength to carry out the instructions he has received. He thinks of his father and, astonished, recognizes the presence of a deity. It is this departure which convinces him that some god or goddess favors him, just as in the Bronze Age the bird showed the divine being to worshippers. Assured of divine protection, he can put into effect the advice he has received.

Later he will learn who that power is. At Pylos Athena, who has taken the form of Mentor and has been talking to Nestor, departs suddenly as a lammergeier (Od. 3. 371- 72). Later still she does much the same thing, appearing first as Mentor to encourage Odysseus in his battle with the suitors, and then she flies up as a swallow into the rafters (22. 239-40). Nilsson's thesis then both explains why Athena intervenes when she does in the Odyssey and why our scene ends the way it does.

Many scholars, however, no longer accept Nilsson's thesis. He had argued for a con- tinuity between the old palace goddess and the city goddess of historical times. The Mycenaean king carried on the cult of the gods in his palace. In the gradual change to a republic, the palace became the temple of the state gods, who formerly protected the king and now did the city state.25 Opponents argue that the extent of Bronze Age influence on Homer has been exaggerated,26 and that no archaeological evidence supports the notion that a Bronze Age goddess became Athena. Some of them, nevertheless, allow that Myce- nae and Athens may be exceptions. In these two places temples of Athena were indeed a continuation of the Mycenaean palaces.27 At Athens beneath the so-called old temple of the goddess are the walls of a Mycenaean palace with column bases, and Mycenaean sherds were found there during excavations.28 Accordingly, in the Catalogue of Ships Athena sets the mythical king Erechtheus down in her own rich temple at Athens (11. 2.

24. The B scholiast says she flies away like a bird, so in the shape of a bird, assuming another of those similes that point to an identification, as in II. 5. 778-79. Aristarchus read av6o"Tala and guessed it might be the name of a bird. Liddell-Scott thought the bird might be an eagle, but the problem is that the only occurrence of this word is as the name of a pass above Thermopylae. The modem commentary supports Crates' reading, that the goddess flew through an opening in the ceiling of the hall. Scholiasts E, H, Q, & R cite a variant and argue she flew through the smoke hole in the roof. They also cite Herodian, who reads dcvoraica as "unseen," a neuter plural. Pope accepts this reading for his translation. The goddess flies away so fast that she is instantly invisible (Od. 1. 413-14). Stephanie West, as I have said, opts for Crates' reading without the smoke hole, since a two-storied megaron would not have one. West concludes sensibly that, however one prints the Greek, Athena flew away as some bird.

25. MMR 487, also 563. 26. John Bennet, "Homer and the Bronze Age," 511-12. In fact, the Bronze Age is now passe for

many Homerists. There are, of course, crucial differences that separate Homer from the Bronze Age: the sophisticated palace culture with its bureaucracy contrasts with direct rule in Homer (522-23), as do burial practices (520). There is now, however, a reaction among some scholars, who wish to refocus on Bronze Age influence. See Ian Morris, "Homer and the Iron Age," 538. In a recent interpretation the contest of the bow which initiates the slaughter of the suitors is a Bronze Age memory. See Sarah Morris, "Homer and the Near East," 608 & especially 621.

27. Ann Ley, "Athena," in Brill's New Pauly, vol. 2, cols. 233-34. 28. Nilsson, The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology, 159, henceforth MOGM. See also MMR, 485.




546-49).29 Stephen Scully accordingly points out that the critique of Nilsson must ignore Homeric stories that support him.30

One could also modify Nilsson's analysis and preserve his insights that help to explain this scene in the Odyssey. Whether Athena began as a household goddess in the Bronze age or not, she certainly presided over many household activities in the Archaic and classical periods, particularly weaving and women's work. Homer shows her per- forming this function in Book Six, where the goddess interacts with Nausicaa.3' The goddess initiates the whole action, coming to Nausicaa in a dream, appearing as a friend who gives her practical advice. She tells the princess she will need clean clothes for her approaching marriage and so doing will win for herself a good reputation (Od. 6. 25-30), the same rationale she used for Telemachus (1. 95). Later she appears as the crafts goddess to Odysseus, taking on: "the shape of a woman / both beautiful and tall, and well versed in glorious handiworks." (13. 289) This function itself might account for Athena's anger at the suitors, who are destroying the economy of Odysseus' household.

So far we have accounted for much that happens in the discussion between Athena and Telemachus, but there remains a long section we have not yet mentioned, one which requires a different tack.

Athena as Military Goddess

Athena goes to Ithaca ready for battle:

EIRETO 6'daXKIOV EYXo~, dKaXpeVOV oqi XaXKC), PptiOu, p oTorapov, TC. 6pitvrai oTiXac av6p&pv ipo&ov, ToriiV TE KOTEOCETaI o ppIpoTraCTp1.

Then she caught up a powerful spear, edged with sharp bronze, heavy, huge, thick, wherewith she beats down the battalions of fighting men, against whom she of the mighty father is angered.

(Odyssey 1. 99-101)

Commentators have been uncomfortable with this passage, since Athena comes to talk with Telemachus, not to fight with the suitors.32 The scholiasts noted that it did not appear in the Massaliotic text (MT to 1. 97), and they pointed out that the reference to the spear reflects a passage in the Iliad and should be omitted here (MV to Od. 1. 99). Stephanie West, the recent modem commentator on this passage, agrees33 and suggests on papyro- logical evidence that scribes would expand the text with lines borrowed from other parts of Homer.

29. For Erechtheus see MMR, 563-64; Stephen Scully, Homer and the Sacred City, 35. See also Ley's discussion of Erichthonios in "Athena", cols. 234, 237.

30. Scully, 34 & n. 48. 31. As crafts goddess Athena was connected to young women in the Archaic period (Ley,

"Athena", cols. 235-36). 32. Interesting in this respect, however, is Susan Deacy's claim that, when Athena assumes the

form of Mentes, she takes on human vulnerability. See "Athena and Ares," 293. 33. She points out that Aristarchus is behind both criticisms but that earlier people also had doubts

(to 1. 96-101).



Murrin 507

Other scholiasts removed the difficulty by interpretation. The E scholiast explains that her spear with which the goddess dominates heroes indicates the combative power of phronesis. The wise man through speech puts down disorder (E to Od. 1. 96). This is an awkward reading, an attempt to fit recalcitrant matter into the general ancient interpretation of Athena as prudence, almost the only reading presented by Heraclitus the Alle- gorist, the Pseudo-Plutarch, and the scholiasts. There is, of course, a phronesis in war,34 and the scholiasts make that connection when battle is imminent. Before the theomachy in the Iliad they contrast Athena as prudence, who looks after the Achaeans who fight justly and prudently, to Ares, a god troubled in mind and fickle, since he has changed sides for the war at Troy.35 Similarly, for the Odyssey Heraclitus argues that Odysseus could not have defeated the suitors without guile and, therefore, needed the phronesis of Athena (Homeric Problems 75. 9). Yet guile for precisely this purpose forms part of Athena's advice to Telemachus, and battle is certainly her intent.

The passage, even if it is a pastiche, reminds us of the warrior goddess of the Iliad.36 There she sweeps through the ranks with flashing weapons, as the Achaeans rush to battle, exciting unflagging strength for struggle and war in every man (11. 2. 446-54). Not long after the Odyssey was finished, Archilochus (circa 680--circa 640) describes how Athena stood beside warriors in real battle and stirred up their courage.37 At about the same time Greek sculpture began, in which only attributes distinguished one youth or girl from another. Sculptors represented Athena armed with helmet, shield, lance, and aegis.38 Before and after the Odyssey was completed, war was Athena's major occupation.39

34. I wish to thank Stephen Scully (Department of Classical Studies, Boston University), who reminded me of this fact.

35. They assume Ares should support Hera and the Achaeans, not the Trojans (B & T to Il. 20. 33 & 60). 36. The warrior goddess goes back to the Bronze Age, in particular to the Shield Goddess of Myce-

nae. Painted from behind, only her feet, hands, and head project from the large figure-eight shield she wears. Near or in the same sanctuary excavators later found a goddess wearing a boar's tusk helmet. An Athena temple later stood in the citadel at Mycenae. See Burkert, GR, 42,140. The shield-goddess of Mycenae may not, of course, have been called Athena back in the Mycenaean period. See Ley, "Athena", col. 233. Ley does, however, allow for a Mycenaean derivation that stresses the political and military functions of the goddess in her relationship to the prince (col. 234). And it is interesting that Mylonas argues that the goddess with the figure- eight shield protected the homeland rather in the way that the Palladium (an image of Athena fallen from heaven) protected Troy in the cyclic epics. Recently archaeologists have found small temples and shrines, independent of the palace, within the circuit of some Mycenaean strong- holds. See Scully, 34 & n. 46. Meriones, the charioteer of Idomeneus, wears the same kind of helmet as the goddess in Mycenae. See Latacz, Troy and Homer, 262-63 & ns. 19 & 21. For the war goddess of the Iliad, see Ley, "Athena", col. 235.

37. Archilochus, Frag. 94, in Iambi et Elegi Graeci, ed. M. L. West, vol. 1. See also Burkert, GR, 140. Athena is also the military goddess in the Homeric Hymns. In the brief Hymn 11 she and Ares attend to the works of war and the sacking of towns. Hymn 28 stresses the story that she was born armed. These rhapsodic prooimia are difficult to date but range in general from the second half of the seventh century to the fifth or possibly later. See M. L. West's Introduction to his edition and translation of them in The Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer, 5.

38. The earlierst portrayals show Athena with helmet, spear, and lance (Ley, "Athena", cols. 238- 39). Even when the goddess does not wear armor, as on an early amphora from Eleusis, dated 675-650, she still carries a spear (Demargne, "Athena", 958a). See also Burkert, GR, 124. On her peplos the Athenian women wove the battle with the giants (141).

39. Deacy says that Athena is much more than the intelligent planning for war. She exists at its very heart, in its excitement and terror ("Athena and Ares," 286).




Consider our scene. When Athena arrives, Telemachus has been daydreaming not of legal matters or searches but of his father's return and the scattering of the suitors (Od. 1. 114-17). Athena begins her story of Odysseus expressing the same wish (1. 253-54).40 She then constructs a sinister portrait of the boy's father, of a warrior who lives at the edge or even outside of the normal warrior's code, yet the kind of person who would do just what Telemachus wants.41 Her own disguise reinforces this sense, for she appears as Mentes the Taphian. Elsewhere the poet connects Taphians to slave trading and raids.42 This Taphian begins his tale in wrath at what Telemachus had told him about the suitors (Od. 1. 252).

In the story Odysseus was seeking poison for his arrows (1. 260-64) and not for hunt- ing. The scholiasts so explain the way he will later kill the suitors with single shots (EQV to 1. 261). Now in the Iliad archers were not held in high regard, but they could be quite effective. Alexander (Paris) not Hector stopped Diomedes (II. 11. 369-400), and he did not have poison on his arrow heads. Ilus of Ephyre, fearing the gods, had already refused to give Odysseus what he wanted. Now Ilus was the grandson of Jason and Medea and would have known about poison.43 He had reason for his scruples, for poison arrows can be terrifying.

We do not know whether Athena tells Telemachus a true or false story, but it is clear that she is preparing the young man for a battle of annihilation. Stephanie West calls poison arrows an early form of chemical warfare,44 and an anecdote from later history will illustrate what she means. It comes from the Portuguese explorations of the West African coast in the days of Henry the Navigator.45 One of his principal captains, Nufio Tristao, sailed to a river in Senegambia. Two small boats with more than twenty men altogether went up stream with the tide. They were attacked by men in twelve boats with seventy or eighty bowmen, who hit everyone. A few died before the Portuguese could reach their caravel, and twenty men in all perished. The poison was so effective that only a slight wound, as long as it drew blood, was enough. They had to cut cables on the caravel itself to escape, and here two more were hit trying to raise the anchors but survived after an ill- ness of twenty days. Only seven survived on the ship, five of whom had to bring the ship home, four boys and an old sailor who did not know how to navigate. Athena gets Telemachus to think about this kind of warfare and closes her story with the wish that Odysseus would return and kill the suitors (Od. 1. 265-66).

The story of Odysseus and the Taphians introduces the practical advice Athena gives Telemachus, which we have analyzed earlier. If we look back at that for a moment, it forms a unit to itself and allows for a peaceful solution to Telemachus' problem. But Athena will not have it so. She closes her long speech with plans for a slaughter, the best way to remove the suitors from the palace forever. Meanwhile the prospective victims listen to Phemius' story of the wrath of Athena, visited upon the Achaeans as they sailed

40. Stephanie West to Od. 1. 255ff. 41. Jenny Clay points to the matters outside the Odyssey but part of the epic tradition which would

justify Athena's portrait of Odysseus (The Wrath of Athena, 187). 42. Stephanie West to Od. 1. 105. She cites Od. 14. 452, 15. 427, 16. 426 and remarks that Mentes

shows a certain lack of scruples in his speeches. 43. HT to Od. 1. 259, citing Apollodorus of Athens, and Stephanie West on the same line. The poet

refers to the Argo at 12. 90 and knows of Jason on Lemnos. See also Adrienne Mayor, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs, 56.

44. Stephanie West to Od. 1. 257ff. 45. Zurara, Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, 86. 252-57.



Murrin 509

home. The scene is very effective, particularly in the contrast between the quiet discussion, the music and song, and what in fact is happening.46

Athena closes her speech with an example. Telemachus must put away childish things and emulate Orestes, who recently killed Aegisthus and won great glory among men.47 There is no hint of furies, madness, or remorse, nor will there be here.

Telemachus shows he understands Athena perfectly, when he speaks to the Ithacan

assembly. The scholiasts point out that he makes the people witness to the later just punishment of the suitors (MQ to Od. 1. 272). He can kill the suitors and need not pay any wergeld (2. 14145). There will be death and no recompense, since the suitors refuse to leave his house. This scene like the other refers tacitly back to the public quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon in the First Book of the Iliad, in which Achilles justifies his actions ahead of time, and where recompense is an issue. There the Townley scholiast notes that Athena's arrangement with Achilles turns on this legality. The goddess knows the amount involved before Achilles arranges it, so there was obviously an established sum for such acts (T to I. 1.213). In the Odyssey with all the legal issues now clear, the two

plotters can prepare vengeance. Athena tells Telemachus to kill the suitors by guile or openly:

oTROC KE pvFlOTfipa eI pEyCpoIl TEOlOa KTEIV1C EO Soc i1 ia66Ov.

Some means by which you can kill the suitors in your household, by treachery or open attack.

(Odyssey 1. 295-96)48

Action, of course, will require both. Here the guile concerns me, well evident in this scene. Athena conceals her identity, disguising herself as another, and in an account which might itself be fictional portrays Odysseus as a man willing to use unorthodox means in battle. Guile and ambush in war, of course, can be legitimate. They took Troy, and here the palace will become a giant trap. The hall, where they are sitting and talking, has only one exit, and that will be blocked by Odysseus, Telemachus, and the loyal men of the household. The poet catches the quality of this trap by a simile. He compares the suitors to fish, caught in a net and dragged up on land (22. 384-89).49

46. The conversation between Athena and Odysseus in Book 13, which inaugurates the second part of the Odyssey, after its preliminaries follows a roughly similar pattern. The two discuss practical matters first-what to do with the treasures on the beach-and then plot the killings. Athena concludes anticipating a battle. The difference between the two scenes involves recognition. Athena reveals herself directly to Odysseus but not to Telemachus. Sheila Mumaghan remarks that failure to recognize a god can cause disaster, both in the Homeric epics and hymns. In Book One Telemachus compensates for this by his careful hospitality (Disguise and Recognition in the "Odyssey", 68 & n. 14).

47. In the divine council Zeus speaks of the event as recent (Od. 1. 40-43), and we later learn that Aegisthus ruled Mycenae seven years (3. 304-07) before Orestes killed him. Nestor adds that Orestes came home from Athens, where he had lived in exile, in Athena's city.

48. I have altered slightly Lattimore's translation. 49. The Assyrians also used the same simile. Sargon boasts that he caught the Greeks or lonians

(who live on the islands) in the sea like fish (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 284a: 7(a) ["Pav6 des Portes," No. IV]; p. 285a: 7(b), 11-15 "Annals of the Room XIV").



510 International Journal of the Classical Tradition /Spring 2007

In the scene with Telemachus, Athena does not express her real intentions. At the divine assembly in Book One of the Odyssey Athena says nothing about an attack on the suitors. Nor for that matter do Heraclitus and the scholiasts. A warrior goddess might ruin their interpretation or at least complicate it so much, it would lose its clarity.Ws Athena talks of improving Telemachus and no more than that (Od. 1. 88-95).51 And her practical advice, although it seems innocuous verbally, creates the actual crisis between Telemachus and the suitors. Already in Book Two the suitors speculate about Telemachus' possible death abroad. They would then divide up the property and give the palace to the one who marries Penelope (Od. 2. 335-36). Next they send out a ship to intercept him.52 Later Antinous will recommend that they kill him and make the same arrangement for the property that they had discussed earlier (16. 383-86). Thoughtful Telemachus had assumed a possible murder attempt already before he heard Athena's advice (1. 251). One could argue that Athena's practical advice sets in motion a sequence of events that must end in death, something foreshadowed by Phemius' song of the wrath of Athena. We can, of course, infer Athena's thinking behind this projected attack on the suitors. As family daimon and house goddess, she hates the suitors, and, as military goddess, she will see to their deaths.53

We understand Athena's exact intention only when it is realized. During the climac- tic battle in the hall, Athena appears first in the form of Mentor and urges Odysseus to put forth a greater effort so he can kill more suitors (Od. 22. 205-10, 224-38). Later in the rafters she waves the aegis, creating panic (297-309).54 The suitors stampede about the hall, and Odysseus and his men simply cut them down. The slaughter is complete. Athena wanted this, and so did Odysseus, who refused Eurymachus' offer of compensation (22. 45-64). This attitude fits Hesiod's description of the goddess in the Theogony: "dread rouser of battle-strife, unwearied leader of the host, a mistress who delights in the clam- orous cry of war and battle and slaughter." (Theog. 925-26)59

Athena's attitude to war can be amply demonstrated both inside and outside the poems. In the Iliad Priam tells Hector that the Achaeans will kill all the men and enslave

50. Stephanie West notes in her gloss to Od. 1. 293ff. that Mentes here goes beyond the program outlined in the divine assembly.

51. Zeus, however, guesses her intent, as he indicates in the second divine council (Od. 5. 23-24). 52. In Odyssey 13 Athena tells Odysseus about the suitors' plan and says it will fail (425-28), and

she also warns Telemachus about the intended intercept and how to avoid it by night sailing, when she comes to him later in a dream (15. 28-35).

53. In Book Six Athena acts in a similar fashion. She controls the action but does not inform Nau- sicaa and Odysseus of her purposes, though they are beneficent. The scene in Book Thirteen, when Athena first reveals herself to Odysseus, includes all the elements present in her first visit to Telemachus. Though she initially appears as crafts goddess, Odysseus speaks instead of her as "Athena the Spoiler," in his prayer to the Naiads of the grotto (13. 359), and then addresses her directly as war goddess and asks her to "weave the design" by which he can work vengeance on the suitors (386-88). She in turn promises to be at his side and says she looks for the "ground to be splattered by the blood and brains of the suitors" (395).

54. Deacy remarks that both Athena and Ares "operate to the same end: the generation of terror" ("Athena and Ares," 291). Homeric Hymn 28 recounts the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus. She appears armed and causes cosmic awe and terror. Deacy observes that "she brings to Zeus' order forces absolutely Other to it, and which are beyond its comprehension: even the gods are stunned by the war magic" (289).

55. Translation cited from Burkert, GR, 140.



Murrin 511

the women and children (II. 22. 58-45), and the gods take a similar view. Zeus kills all the men who ate the cattle of Helios, the sun god (Od. 12. 417-19), just as Athena sees to the annihilation of the suitors. Poseidon expresses the logic, when he upbraids Apollo during the battle of the gods. He reminds his nephew of the mistreatment they had received years ago, when they worked for a Trojan ruler, and thinks they both should cooperate and destroy Troy: its men, women, and children (Il. 21. 458-60). Agamemnon gives the most extreme expression to this viewpoint. Upset that his brother might capture rather than kill an opponent, he tells him not to let any Trojan escape death, not even the male fetus in its mother's womb. He wants all Trojans to die, "utterly blotted out and unmourned for" (Il. 6. 60)."6 If there are no survivors, there is no one to mourn. In all these cases the gods and the victors see the punishment as just.

Athena herself fits a type of military goddess, well known in the region, both in the Bronze Age and in Neo-Assyrian times.57 They were generally daughters of the sky god and had an array of functions besides their roles in war. In the earlier period there was Anat at Ugarit, a city which had close commercial ties with Mycenaean Greece.s8 Like Athena she was a virgin and could be quite deadly. In Baal and Mot, the third poem in Elimelek's Baal cycle (between 1400 & 1350),59 Anat loses her temper with Mot, the death god, seizes and splits him with her sword. She then winnows and bums the pieces, grinds them with mill-stones, and scatters them to the birds of the field and the fish of the sea (Baal and Mot 6). In the Iron Age it was Ishtar at Nineveh, who wore a beard and won wars for Ashurba- nipal.60 Even closer is the Athena of Troy, whom we know from the days of Greek settle- ment in the Troad and to whom Xerxes offered sacrifice before he invaded Greece.61

War and battle are Athena's main concern in the Odyssey as well as in the Iliad. She thus fits the period in which the poem took final shape, and, if we accept Burkert's analysis, this was her principal function in the Bronze Age as well.62

Conclusion

Athena is such an important goddess for the Homeric epics, in particular the Odyssey, that it is difficult to talk of her in one scene without glancing at her actions elsewhere. Whether one agrees with my specific interpretations or not, I hope others will agree with

56. I owe this quotation to Latacz, Troy and Homer, 175. See also his own remark on p. 207. 57. Sarah Morris claims that Homeric religion cannot be separated from that of the Near East

("Homer and the Near East", 618). See also Latacz, "Epic", cols. 1040-41. Sarah Morris also says that the gods' interaction with mortals in Homer is a characteristic shared with Near Eastern narratives ("Homer and the Near East", 616-17).

58. Emily Vermeule, Introduction to Nilsson's MOGM, xii-xiii; Burkert, GR, 140. Minoan and Mycenaean wares have been found at Ugarit, as well as a small number of Cypro-Minoan texts. See Kuhrt, Ancient Near East, vol. I, 302-03. See also Ley, "Athena", 233.

59. See J. C. L. Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends, Introduction, 1. 60. See his "Hymn to the Igtars of Nineveh and Arbela," 4-6,14-16, and his "Hymn to IHtar of Nin-

eveh," 6-8, in State Archives of Assyria, vol. III: Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea, ed. A. Liv- ingstone (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1989), Nos. 3 & 7. See also Kuhrt, Ancient Near East, vol. II, 510-11.

61. Herodotus, Historiae, 7. 43. 62. Burkert, GR, 140.




my general point. The scenes with the gods, the ones which provoked controversy in the sixth century before our era and later, are precisely the richest scenes for interpretation. Heraclitus and the ancient scholiasts caught only one aspect of Athena, though an important one, when they read the goddess as prudence.

For the other aspects of the goddess the scholiasts likewise give indications but do not stress them, particularly for the Odyssey, the way they stress prudence. I have had to supplement their statements with the observations mostly of historians of religion, whose analyses come into play once one considers a deity rather than a human being in Homer's epics. The gods had their own cults in the Iron Age and early Archaic periods, functions a poet could hardly ignore. In this case it was Athena's double function as patroness of household activities63 and her other role as war goddess. The scholiasts' stress on prudence, nevertheless, cast a long shadow on Homeric criticism, perhaps even to the present.

A way to show the limitations of such an approach is to consider what would hap- pen to the conversation between Telemachus and Athena if we consider a medieval sub- stitute for the goddess and put her in the scene.

Unlike the gods who were identified with planets, Athena had little afterlife in the earlier medieval period, once Christianity replaced the old religions of the Mediter- ranean." One could argue that she gave way to her own interpretation and became Pru- dence. Dante gives a portrait of this replacement. When the pilgrim enters the Garden of Eden on the top of Mount Purgatory, a procession of personifications brings Beatrice to him riding in a chariot. By that chariot dance the virtues. Prudence leads the cardinal virtues, wearing purple. She has three eyes so she can see the past, present, and future (Purgatorio 29. 130-32).65 If such a person came to talk to Telemachus, the scene we have studied would certainly gain greater clarity. We would no longer have to worry about Athena's motives or the possible confusions and contradictions caused by her various roles, since Prudence can have only one role. Her advice would correspond to the legal advice Athena gives the youth, which enables him to take an adult role in a difficult finan- cial and social situation.

The losses, however, would be much greater. The poet would have had to drop the anger of the household goddess and risky plan of the military goddess or possibly have at least three figures visit Telemachus. In fact, the poet could not have staged the scene at all. The suitors would have noticed a purple-clad lady with three eyes, and she could not disguise herself. Prudence is a personification and in disguise would not be prudence.

More importantly, the scene, while it would have depth, still would lose much of its profundity. Once one turns away from Telemachus, however, and looks at the goddess who has multiple roles in the poem and in cult, one discovers that the scene is not simply "allegorical" but polyvalent.66 She comes in disguise and does not explain her own motives. One has to interpret her. She resembles a multifaceted jewel, turning in the light.

63. She appears to Odysseus as the crafts goddess: "beautiful, tall, skilled in fine works" (Od. 13. 289). 64. She had a revival mostly as Minerva, beginning in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See

the references in Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, under the headings Athena, Min- erva, and Pallas in the index. He gives almost no citations prior to the fourteenth century.

65. This is the way Dante reads her in Convivio 4. 27. 5. I here draw on Singleton's commentary. See his note to Purgatorio 29. 31-32.

66. The Porphyry scholion assumes two levels of allegory existed at the end of the sixth century (Lamberton, Homer the Theologian, 32), and Lamberton himself says: "A model of poetic expression in which multiple levels of meaning are possible exists at least as early as Plato" (20).



Murrin 513

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Athena and Telemachus