Schiesaro-Aratus’ Myth of Dike (MDATC 37 [1996])

8/17/2019 Schiesaro-Aratus’ Myth of Dike (MDATC 37 [1996])

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Alessandro Schiesaro

Aratus' Myth ofDike

1. It is widely recognized that an interprétation of Dike's

katasterismosin lines 96-136 of thè Phainomena of Aratus

should be based on an exploration of thè similarities betweenthis passage and its Hesiodic antécédent1. Although I have noobjection in principle to this methodological strategy, I mustnote that it has often yielded rather mechanical results. Thereseems to be a strong tendency in most of thè récent work onthis (rather neglected) topic, to read Aratus' passage as simplyan unimaginative re-assemblage of various components of thèstylistic and ideological offerings of thè Erga, and to play downthè fact that thè katasterismos of Dike is itself an Aratean créa-

tion. A similar hazard is thè contagious inclination to considerany narrative insertion into an otherwise descriptive poem as aself-contained aitiological digression only tenuously connectedto thè agenda of thè work as a whole. This impulse is of courseespecially seductive in thè case of thè Phainomena^ where thèsmall number of thè 'digressions' in no way strengthens thèimpression that they might bear wide-ranging structural signifi-cance.

Part of thè problem lies on thè overall interprétation of thèPhainomena - a work thè cultural importance of which is

obscured, at least to our perception, by both its subject matter

I would like to thank Anthony Bulloch, Andrew Dyck, Marco Fantuzzi and Ri-chard Hunter for their help and encouragement. But they do not necessarily agreewith everything I say, and ali errors that remain are undoubtedly mine.1. I list thè main contnbutions to thè problem in chronological order: G. Kaibel,Aratea, «Hermes» 29, 1894, pp. 82 ff.; K. Schütze, Beiträge zum Verständnis derPhainomena Arats, diss. Leipzig 1935, pp. 35 ff., 43 ff.; W. Ludwig, DiePhainomena Arats als hellenistiche Dichtung, «Hermes» 91, 1963, pp. 425 ff.; F.Solmsen, Aratus on thè Maiden and the Golden Age, «Hermes» 94, 1966, 124 ff.; B.Gatz, Weltalter goldene Zeit und sinnverwandte Vorstellungen, Hildesheim 1967,

pp. 58 ff.; M. Erren, Die Phainomena des Aratos von Soloi, («Hermes» Einzels-chriften 19), Wiesbaden 1967, pp. 36 ff.; B. Effe, Dichtung und Lehre, (Zetemata69), München 1977, pp. 53 ff.; G.O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry, Oxford 1988,pp. 223-4.

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10 Alessandro Scbiesaro

and thè highly technical précision of its style. It may be possibleto obviate thè danger of telescoping Aratus between his in-fluential archaic model on thè one hand, and thè successful re-elaboration of thè Myth in Latin poetry, if we direct our atten-tion towards a functional interprétation of its intertextualdimension and thè significance of thè Myth in thè texture of thèpoem.

I would like to address first thè issue of what exactly becom-

es of thè Erga text in thè Phainomena. In particular, I will try toshow that thè currently dominant criticai view which considersthè passage as an imitation of thè Hesiodic myth of the âges2, isreductive, and limits to a considérable extent an organic under-standing of the passage in its original context. At a second stageI will address the two most significant éléments of Aratus'myth, and establish their implications in terms of the overallfonction of the passage. Finally I will attempt to establish someconnections between this interprétation of the Myth and otheraspects of the philosophical and ideological discourse of Ara-

tus' own time.

2. Aratus begins (line 97) his own 'myth of the âges' by givingpride of place to the Parthenos Dike which in thè Erga appearsin the moral section which follows thè Nightingale Tale andexplains its importance: ,

(256). This référence to the Erga cornes before theintroduction of thè Myth in line 100 (/ ) which takes after Op. 106 ( ',

) and signais more explicitly the begin-ning of the 'Hesiodic' section of the Phainomena. This inver-sion of the narrative séquence of the Erga could easily be ex-plained away as a trait of Hellenistic poetic dottrina, but Iwould like to reserve judgment on this point and entertain thepossibility that Aratus has actually attempted a more sophisti-cated project than a rather superficial, if technically admirable,patchwork. The intricate net of références and allusions thatmark the Dike passage seems consistent with the hypothesis

2. Together with some altérations, and some additions from other sections of theErga (especially the description of the Just City) and, to a lesser extent, of theTheogony. Cf. the bibliography quoted above, n. 1.




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Aratus'Myth of

Dike 1 1

that Aratus read lines 105-273 of thè Erga as an organic whole,taking thè Nightingale Tale and its immediate sequel as a de-velopment of thè myth of thè ages (thè Tale, in fact, transfersthè idea of injustice and conséquent punishment - i.e. thereason for the décadence of races - to the contemporary world).Hesiod says that the fifth âge - the iron âge in which we areunfortunately bound to live - will be destroyed (180 ff.) amidstviolence, disorder and pain: the moral lesson of the NightingaleTaie is that Justice ought to be respected in human relations.

Another significant élément of structural différence betweenthè two texts can be detected in some aspects of the narrativetechnique of Aratus' passage. The prominence of Dike as acharacter and the dramatization of her actions are new and dis-tinctive features of the Pbainomena. In the description of theGolden Age (lines 101-114) thè focus is evenly balanced be-tween Dike and the men: she accomplishes a greater number ofactions (102 - 105 - 107 - 113vs. 108 - 111 ) but a careful alternation of

lines referring to Dike and to the men reinforces the prédomi-nant image of mutuality and Community. The conflict thattakes place in the Silver Age (lines 115 ff.), on the other hand, isunderlined by the fact that ail the actions hâve Dike as subject,and that men are quoted only as receivers of her disdainful re-proach or as expressing a rather passive sorrow for her depar-ture (128 ). In the last section the emphasis is onthe negative deeds of the bronze âge men, that lead to thepermanent flight of the goddess: she is portrayed very briefly -almost in reversai of thè preceding scene - as (133),and then when she leaves (' 134)3.

The most significant Aratean innovations are to be found inrespect to the structure of the Myth of the Ages itself. In theHesiodic version there are five races, ail of them - but thefourth - named after a métal, and ail - but the first and thefourth - guilty in différent ways. The fifth - the Iron Age - isthe worst of ail, but is doomed to an even worse end since Zeuswill finally destroy it. The prophecy in lines 180 ff. portrays theterrible end of the Iron Age in an unknown but certain future.Aratus, however, retains only three races, gold, silver, and

3. Gatz cit., p. 63 tries to show a chiastic arrangement of the whole passage.




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12 Alessandro Schiesaro

bronze. There still is a prophecy, but this is uttered to thè menof thè Silver Age by Dike herself , who announces thè coming ofa worse race, thè bronze one: thè prophecy, therefore, isalready fulfilled in thè narrative, and in this context thè silverrace is only an intermediate stage where thè rejection of Dikeand thè values she embodies can be dramatized.

The prophecy contained in thè Phainomena is not onlystructurally différent from Hesiod's but also entails a différent

moral problematic. The succession of races in thè Erga is inévit-able, and there is no pause before thè demise of a given race. Inthè Pbainomena, on thè other hand, Dike explains with herown words a moral rule based on men's responsibility. Their

(121) attracts thè reproach and threats of Dike, andcauses her indignant flight towards thè mountains; when theirbehaviour becomes even worse, in thè following génération,she has no choice but to make good her threat and abandon thèEarth. Dike's explicit threats and reproaches (121:...) before she actually départs seem to sug-gest that those men could redress their behaviour and avoid afurther détérioration of their relationship with thè goddess.However implicit, this suggestion would represent another sig-nificant point of contact with thè Nightingale tale, since itwould transfer into a mythical setting thè crucial thème of thèmyth itself : that men, by their choices, can indeed affect thèpattern of décadence which Hesiod's myth of thè ages pre-sented in a completely predetermined and unalterable manner.

The élimination of thè other races, and thè transposition ofthè whole myth into thè past, together with thè structural élé-ments I hâve already noted, ail seem to point in the same direc-tion: Aratus présents to his reader a moral pattern the essenceof which is the respect or the lack of respect for Dike. WhatHesiod had elaborated in two closely connected séquences, theapparently chronological Myth of the Ages, and the Nighting-ale ainosy is transformed into a single, compact moral narrativewhich présents in clear-cut terms (and an equally perspicuoussyntactic arrangement) the contrast of two radically opposedbioi which are defined by the acceptance or the rejection ofDike.

This does not amount to saying -pace Gatz4 - that the Parth-

4. Gatz cit., p. 63.




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Aratus'Myth of

Dike 13

enos Dike épisode in Aratus «hat weder den historischenAktualitätsgehalt noch den Wahrheitsanspruch Hesiods. Vonder Gegenwart ist nicht die Rede». Quite the opposite. If weadmit that Aratus has purposely reversed the order of import-ance of the parts of Hesiod's narrative - a fact which I hope isnow clear enough - we are entitled to infer that it is precisely amoral lesson relevant to the présent that Aratus wishes to im-part to the reader, and the Myth of Dike is a parable for the

reader of the Phainomena. The Myth, as Aratus molds it, ex-plains why we can no longer enjoy the présence of gods onEarth, why we have to cope with evil and pain: something hap-pened in the past, a fault has been committed. But there is apositive side to this version of thè tale, i.e. that we can and muststill follow Dike, who is now up in the sky and looks upon usand our deeds, a source of permanent moral admonition. Ara-tus found useful hints in this direction in Hesiod when he rec-ognized the close connection between the Myth and the Tale,but he substituted for the paratactic order of the epic poet a

tightly-knit single épisode.If this generai interprétation of the main features of Aratus'

Myth is correct, we can better understand the significance ofother détails of the passage. Probably the most debated is theprésence of agriculture in Aratus' Golden Age, which is de-scribed in terms very close to a passage of thè Erga 225 ff.). ToNorden's opinion that this was the hallmark of a Stoicconception5 Wilamowitz6 retorted rather harshly that the ex-planation is simpler and implies no philosophical assumptions:the stars have always been in existence, and so the various acti-

vities in which they act as leaders of the human race must havealways existed. Recently, Solmsen7 has argued that «placing theHesiodic agricolture in the golden age...is the boldest and finalintegration of Hesiodic motifs and at the same time his (se.Aratus') most eloquent act of homage». Being a moral lessonvalid forever, the Myth of Dike must provide a realistic pattern,and the présence or absence of agriculture seems again to rein-force the sharp contrast between the two Aratean Cities, the

5. E. Norden, «Jahrb. f. class. Philol.»Suppl. 19, 1893, p.

426.6. U. v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Hellenisticbe Dichtung in der Zeit des Kalli-macbos, Berlin 1924, vol. 2, pp. 265 ff.7. Solmsen cit., p. 125.




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just one, where Dike reigns and guarantees a happy life, and thèunjust one, thè reign of hybrisy where Dike is nothing but harshpunishment.

The issue is not wheter Aratus' contemporaries were notready for thè idealization of agricolture8, but that a moral para-digm in which Justice and Injustice face each other would bedeprived of didactic utility if it did not take into account one ofthè basic éléments of human life, work, which is considered a

naturai component of human life from thè very beginning, nota punishment, but a fruitful and rewarding activity9. The li-mited importance attributed to factors that earlier and latertexts make prominent shifts thè main focus of thè story ontothè fundamental opposition between Justice and Violence.

3. The central importance assumed by Dike as a character inthè whole story makes it even more important to focus on theéléments that Aratus provides for her identification. Accordingto the Theogony (901 ff.), Dike was the daughter of Zeus and

Themis, and therefore the sister of - among others - Eunomiaand Eirene: she is not a star. AH the stars are Astraios' daugh-ters (Th. 382), and Aratus establishes the identification betweenAstraea and Dike with a référence to this common paternity.The rather elliptic tag of line 99, however, alludesto the traditional connection between Dike and Zeus, a connec-tion which, as we shall see, retains great importance in this con-text.

Both the innovation in respect to the most common versionof the myth, and the allusion to it, seem to signal relevant

strategie choices with rather complex interpretive conséqu-ences. Deprived of her lawful father, Dike loses in part her tra-ditional aspect, but acquires new characteristics, the most re-markable of which is certainly the ear of grain that she carries inher hand10. This is not a standard attribute of Dike, but, as the

8. ibidem.9. The value of work is in this respect similar to Hesiod's description of the TustCity (Op. 225 ff.).

10. Or, if we read , in both hands: M I. The singular is sup-ported by the actual form of the star, and by the texts of Germ. 97 {fulget spicamanu), Avien. 286 {protentata manu), and thè VII Century AD Aratus Latinus(manu fer entern).




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Aratus*Myth of

Dike 15

scholiast remarks11, of Demeter12. This seemingly puzzlingconnection between Dike and Demeter can be explained bytaking into account not just thè common denominators thatDike and Demeter share, but also thè spécifie characteristics ofDemeter herseif. Demeter symbolizes and protects agricoltureand prosperity , but in the account of the progress of civilizationshe is credited with the création of laws as well. The closestparallel with our passage is offered by a few Unes (18-21) of

Callimachus' Hymn to Demeter:, ,

,,

.

The most striking feature is certainly the mention of, which is considered the first explicit allusion in extantGreek literature13, to the etymology of , a rathercommon epithet of Demeter, and can be compared with Ara-

tus' (107). The connection between Dikeand Demeter has at the same time a generic force, in so far as it

'Upgrades* Dike to the rank of a major divinity14, and a more

spécifie one, that is, thè transference of some characteristics ofDemeter to Aratus' Dike. Both the emphasis on the

law-giving activity of Dike, and the possible connections be-tween her and Demeter in this and other respects hâve failed toattract the attention of modern Interpreters, while they consti-tute in fact the most original characteristics of Aratus' Dike.

Their overall importance, and their thematic significance, war-rant further investigation.

4. In the Golden Age Dike lived on Earth with men and womenalike, acted in a very friendly way towards them, and sung her

11. Cf. sch. p. 126.

12. Kaibel cit., pp. 85-6.13. Cf. Hopkinson's note on Cali. 6, 18.

14. Dike, as far as we can see, is never invoked as (112), while De-meter herself is often , either tout court or with the indication of a particulargroup: cf. C.F.H. Bruchmann, Epitheta deorum quae apud poetas Graecos legun-tur, Leipzig 1896 [Röscher Supplement], pp. 76.




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AratHs'Myth of

Dike 17

The interpolation of spécifie détails taken from thè Tale andits immediate séquence into the Myth of Dike adds to the

generic moral validity of the Aratean Myth - i.e., that justice is

superior to violence - a more spécifie connotation, which we

might well define {lato sensu), 'politicai'. Aratus fully exploitsthe Hesiodic opposition of and , using it as thè ulti-mate distinction between a just, orderly, prosperous and peace-ful

societyand a

societyoverwhelmed

by violence,sédition and

misery, while at the same time making it clear, through stylisticand Substantive features, that any possible residue of the chro-

nological pattern from the Hesiodic Myth should be replacedby a gnomic, atemporal opposition of conflicting models ofmorals and politicai life.

This is not, to be sure, so much a réfutation of Hesiod, as it isa careful reading of a crucial section of thè Erga and a more

explicit reworking of suggestions already présent in that text.Aratus

requiresof his reader an interactive

readingwith the

Hesiodic text that enriches his own new Myth with importantdétails. The gnomic force of this myth acquires a further layerof significance through the évocation of a spécifie royal audi-ence which the myth of the âges did not have, and provides af ramework for understanding some possible implications of the

story of Dike. Aratus does not limit himself to a passive évoca-tion of the Hesiodic model, but exploits its suggestions in orderto create a new moral tale whose ultimate significance I wouldnow like to explore.

5. As we move away from the analysis of textual features, and

try to investigate the overall function of the new Aratean myth,I would like to présent a few Unes of intersection between themost interesting features of the myth and two ideological and

philosophical discourses where some of Aratus' concerns (boththose explicitly stated, and those which we have retrieved by

Hesiod and His World, «Proc. Camb. Philol. Soc.» n.s. 30, 1984, pp. 84-115, and G.Zanker, The Works and Days: Hesiod's Beggar's Opera f, «Bull. Inst. Class. St.London» 33, 1986, pp. 26-36, esp. 29 ff.




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intertextual reading) seem to be echoed with a sometimes sur-

prising degree of similarity.The first of thèse connections leads us, before venturing out-

side thè text, to another prominent passage of thè Phainomena,in fact thè only other significant narrative portion of thè poem.The Myth of Dike balances and complètes thè initial Proem toZeus, whose strong Stoic overtones cannot be overlooked. The

geneaological relationshipbetween Dike and

Zeus,as we

haveremarked at thè beginning, is kept alive in thè elliptic spécifica-tion offered at line 99, but thè connections between thè two

passages run deeper. The Proem is an invocation to Zeus as asymbol of eternai Justice and order of thè Universe16. Thewhole passage can usefully be compared with thè Hymn toZeus17 by Cleanthes, thè Stoic philosopher contemporary withAratus, in which Zeus is invoked as Ruler of thè Universe, andhis identification with thè Law is repeatedly stressed18. Later inthè Phainomenay thè

storyof Dike

complètesthè Proem

byshowing that God points out to men not only thè way in whichthey should earn their living - a concept which is exposedalready in lines 5-6 - but also thè moral mie they must follow.

The connection between thè two passages, and, again, thèinvitation to read them as a diptych rather than autonomousentities, guarantees that thè search for thè philosophical im-

plications of thè Myth of Dike is encouraged by thè text itself,and not by thè modern critic's knowledge of a substantialamount of biographical information about thè author himself.

16. For a generai outline of thè Stoic theory of Justice and Law, see F. Sandbach,The Stoics, London 1975, pp. 16 ff. On thè Stoic inspiration of Aratus' proem: G.Pasquali, Das Proömium des Arat, in Friedrich Leo... dargebracht, Berlin1911, pp. 113 ff. (= Scritti filologici, I, Firenze 1976, 130 ff.); . Effe,

-Eine Stoische esiod- Interpretation in Arats Phainomena, «Rhein. Mus.» 113,1970, pp. 167 ff.; G. Luck, Aratea, «Am. Journ. of PhiloU 97, 1976 ff.; Effe cit., p.54.

17. Cf. A.W. James, The Zeus Hymns of Cleanthes and Aratus, «Antichthon» 6,1972,

pp.28 ff.

18. Cf. lines 2 31 and 35, where this idea is most evident. But it is also useful toread the last line of thè poem, where is repeated again that Zeus is himself the.




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Aratus9Myth of

Dike 19

The fundamental importance of Law and Justice in the kosmosis stressed by all the Stoic philosophers, with no great chrono-

logical différences, as Cicero clearly points out in acad. pr. 2,126 (SVF 1, 154): Zenoni et reliquis fere Stoias aether videtursummus deus, mente praeditus, qua omnia regantur. Human

are in accordance with a naturai Law, with the , and

they are therefore , an idea that is of paramount import-

ancein the évolution of Hellenistic

thoughtin

generai (D.L. 7,88 = SVF 1, 162), being the first step on which the concept of aworld-wide will eventually rest (Philo, de Joseph, p. 2,46 M. = SVF 3, 323). This theory accords the Law a centrai rolein the life of the universe: Chrysippus, author of a ,condenses its implications in the well-known statement that ó

(SVF3, 314).By investing Dike with this central and unique role in his

work,and also

by bestowingon her

manyfeatures of Demeter,

Aratus seems to rephrase key moral concerns of thè Erga interms more consistent with the Stoic view of the organizingprinciple of the world and human life19. Again, the connectionis invited in the text itself by a détail which is not paralleled insimilar passages, i.e. the explicit mention of the fact that in theGolden Age men and women alike met in the agora (102 ff.).This particular can best be explained in référence to non-

19. It is worth remembering that among the fragments of Chrysippus (280-206)we find an allegorical interprétation of Dike Parthenos, and also a detailed descrip-tion of how pictores retoresque antiquiores used to portray her, trying to expressher qualities (SVF 3, pp. 197-8 = Gell. noct. att. 14, 4). This kind of interprétationmust be connected with a more generai phenomenon that is attested for more thanone Stoic philosopher (SVF 1, 456), that is the production of exegetical works onboth Homer and Hesiod that were mainly focused on the allegorical understandingof their epic poems (on this issue see now the important article by A.A. Long,«Stoic Readings of Homer», in: R.D. Lamberton-JJ. Keaney, eds., Homer'sAncient Readers, Princeton 1992, pp. 41-66). We hâve six fragments of Zeno's

(SVF 100, 103, 104, 105, 167, 276), and we know that Perseus,the Stoic scholar who went to Pella along with Aratus, wrote something of this

kind at least on Homer (SVF 1, 456). As far as Aratus is concerned, the scbolia tothe Phainomena themselves openly déclare that we must read some parts keeping inmind the fact that

(p. 123 Martin).




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literary issues. Stoic thinkers, and especially Zeno20, stressed -

apparently for thè first time - thè idea that men and womenshould be equal members of thè politicai community. The ideaimodel presented by Aratus thus seems to include at leastanother détail which had considérable importance in contem-

porary politicai philosophy, and to point rather clearly to itsrealistic implications21.

6. At this stage I would like to explore thè possibility that cer-tain éléments in thè text intersect with a field of politicai dis-course. Once again I should stress that thè necessity to devotesome attention to this aspect of thè Myth seems to be promp-ted, indeed required, by thè text itself, namely by a détail ofAratus' Golden Age which is very surprising and very impor-tant. Aratus mentions thè existence, at that time, of, a term22 with a rather explicit politicai overtone which

mightbe fruitful to connect with some ancient

ideologicaland

philosophical reflections on thè nature of power.The four extant Vitae Arati claim that Antigonus Gonatas -

king of Macedonia - met thè poet in Athens several times, and,once settled in Pella as king in 276, invited him to his court

along with some other prominent figures of thè cultural élite,as, for example, thè philosopher Perseus. The Vitae add thatAratus composed thè Phainomena at thè king's invitation, as

20. D.L. 7,33.21. It is well known that women played a very significali role in thè Thes-mophorìa in generai. Cf. L.R. Farnell, The Cults ofthe Greek States, Oxford 1896-1909, voi. 3, pp. 175 ff.; M.P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste von religiöser Bedeutung,Leipzig 1906, pp. 313 ff.22. is a very rare adjective, so rare, in fact, that Grotius wondered, inthe apparatus of his valuable édition (Syntagma Arateorum, Lugduni Batavorum1600, p. 4 of the notes-section) whether it should not be changea into the morecommon équivalent . It appears to be used in four extant Hellenistic texts:A.R. 1, 783 and 3,606, A.P. 9,334, 3 (Perseus, IV-III b.C), and Cali. fr. 228, 70-72Pf., another famous katasterismos: [ / ... [ /

...* [] . In all the passages its social connotation is clear (cf.also Vian's interesting note on A.R. 3, 578, vol. 3 p. 76 n. 1, and p. 128). Cfr. R.Schmitt, Die Nominalbildung in den Dichtungen des Kallimachos von Kyrene,Wiesbaden 1970, p. 129 n. 5.




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tions, and in fact applicable in a rather generai fashion to severalother Hellenistic rulers. A sensé of justice and respect for thè

conquered peoples constitute for Antigonus - judging from his

politicai activity - thè essence of his royal mission: what weknow of his policy regarding thè autonomy of thè conqueredpoleisy for instance, provides a factual confirmation of thèsetheoretical models26.

Acomparative approach upholds

this connection betweenthè Myth as a whole and thèse aspects of politicai life. The ré-duction of thè number of races from five to three initiated byAratus will be carried further by Catullus, who in poem 64éliminâtes an intermediary stage and speaks of two races only.In this way he obtains a forceful and indignant opposition be-tween a Golden past - where thè theoxenia which he inheritsfrom Aratus plays a considérable rôle - and a corrupt présent27.In Catullus, to be sure, there is nothing like thè explicit Aratean

u , and thè wholepoint

seemsexactly

to be that nomoral principle enlightens any more thè life of contemporarysociety.

If Catullus and Aratus both exploit thè réduction of thè fiveHesiodic races as a means for conveying new thoughts, it isremarkable that thè latter does not resort to a simple deprecanotemporis. The pattern, as we hâve seen, continues to be placedin thè past, not simply because it is mythical, but it is meant toshow an atemporal moral (and, by implication, politicai) set ofchoices. The ideai life of society is identified with a mythicalmodel in which thè laws, inspired by thè God who guaranteestheir everlasting validity, are an act of concern and care towardsthè people, and in which Justice présides over thè organizationof life and work. The rejection of this model, by contrast, im-

plies thè fall into violence and anarchy.

26. A. Giovannini, Le Statut des cités de Macédoine sous les Antigonides, in, Thessaloniki 1973, vol. 2, pp. 465-72. Antigonus himself is

the heir of that Antigonus I Monophthalmus who, in 314, emphatically declaredthe freedom of

Greece,and stated that ail the Greeks were

, ,(Diod. 19,61,3).27. A. Pennelli, La narrazione commentata: studi suWepillio atino, Pisa 1979, pp.88 ff.




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Aratus'Myth of

Dike 23

Aratus has embodied in this passage, so evidently différentfrom the rest of the Pbainomena, the allegory of an ideai socie-

ty, in which a just king, who is respectful of divine laws, acts ina nontyrannical way and is able to give thè people he rules

peace and prosperity. Although less explicit, Aratus' strategy is

comparable to the last part of Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus,where thè King of gods is praised for his choice of kings on

earth, and great importance is given to the rôle of Justice in theactivity of the king (unes 80 ff.). Numerous Hesiodic réminisc-ences (lines 81-2, cfr. Op. 219 and 265) mark a common référ-ence to a peculiarly attractive model.

Aratus célébrâtes a mythical model of peace and prosperitythat is still présent - - to men from the sky . It is not

possible to hâve gods on Earth because of our ancestors' faults,but it is at least possible to follow their model: the king, god onEarth, must enforce in his reign the Justice that brings peaceand

prosperity.The return of Astraea will become in Latin

poetry a favourite way to express admiration and praise for aruler, as the 4th Eclogue, and even more Statius' Silvae2* show.In Aratus Dike does not return, but she symbolizes the reign of

prosperity and justice that wise kings can guarantee on earth.

7. I would like to make some final remarks concerning twoissues which I briefly mentioned at the beginning of the essay,namely, the conséquences of this interprétation of the Myth ofDike for the rest of the poem, and the importance of this text inthe later reelaboration of the Myth of Dike.

Human figures, if we except scanty références to an un-known 'you' who is supposed to be interested in the stars, are

surprisingly absent from the Phainomena. Even in Nicander'sTheriaca there is at least a brief référence to a human addressee,Hermesianax (lines 1-3). The présence of an addressee is a stan-dard feature of didactic texts, it is indeed one of the fun-damental éléments for establishing the didactic agreement be-tween author and reader. The absence of such a prominent

28. A list in Gatz cit., p. 230.




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character is conversely very evident in thè Phainomena. If thè

assumption that thè intertextual reading invited by Aratus con-nects directly thè Myth of Dike with thè Nightingale Tale andits explicit addressees, we can rescue thè poem from its isolated

position and connect it, for instance, with Callimachus' homageto Berenice or Theocritus Idyll 17, which is addressed to

Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who reigned in approximately thèsame

yearsas

AntigonusGonatas.

The implicit dedication of thè work to a ruler, displaced fromthè beginning of thè poem to an apparently digressive, but veryprominent context, gives a more complex meaning to thè whole

poem, and strengthens thè impression that thè célébration ofthè order of naturai phenomena should be read as a metaphorfor thè stable organization of human activities guaranteed by a

caring ruler.After proving, I hope, that this text is remarkably interesting

in its ownright,

I feel less hésitant to concludeby briefly

men-

tioning one aspect of its influence on later authors. From thè

vantage point of Latin Literature, Aratus' reinvention of thè

myth of Dike should be credited with at least two extremelyimportant innovations. The first one is thè explicit reshaping ofthè myth of thè âges as an atemporal moral paradigm whichentails ethical choices still largely available to modem men.This factor could hardly be overemphasized, especially sincemuch récent criticism of the Saturnian paradigm in Virgil'sGeorgics reaches debatable conclusions based on a strictly chro-

nological interprétation of the Hesiodic myth, as if Aratus (and,one might add, J.P. Vernant)29, had not existed. The secondfactor, not less important, is thè declared politicai implicationsof the myth in the context of a didactic work. In both respectsAratus' passage turns out to be a very important stage for the

interprétation of Hesiod and for the exploration of the connec-tions between traditional myths and contemporary concerns.

Princeton University

29. J.P. Vernant, «Hesiod's Myth of Races: An Essay in Structural Analysis», and«Hesiod's Myth of Races: A Reassessment», translated in Myth and TboughtAmong the Greeks, London-Boston 1983, pp. 3-32 and 33-72 respectively.




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Aratus*Myth of

Dike 25

Appendix

Some interesting parallele for thè idea that Justice and wealth - name-ly, food, i.e. grain - are associated as an encomiastic motif can befound in iconographical représentations. In Roman coins the figure ofDikaiosune/Aequitas with a balance in the right hand and an ear ortwo of grain in the left is very common. In a similar pattern, the god-dess holds in her left hand a whole cornucopia. These coins are aildated to the impérial period1, from Augustus onwards. I hâve foundno précèdent examples of exactly the same kind, although a morethorough investigation could likely be more fruitful. What I hâveactually found are a number of Macedonian coins in which the ear ofgrain is represented on one face of the coin, while the other carries theportrait of the ruling king. The number of coins dating to the reign ofAntigonus Gonatas is extremely meagre2 (and many of them are dis-putable because thè genitive ' can be also referred to Anti-gonus III Doson, king from 229 to 221), and I can give only a fewexamples of such coins minted by Macedonian kings either before orafter Antigonus Gonatas, but some of them are certainly indicativeenough3.

Once again, we see that the overall meaning of the passage is consis-tent with a certain amount of external évidence that points in a spécifiedirection, i.e., to thè politicai features of a king whose program, had itto be expressed in a ready-to-use slogan, would certainly hâve beenthe not very original 'Peace and prosperity', because the notion of

1. Cf. UMC s.v. Dikaiosune, vol. 3, pp. 386 ff.2. A generai survey of Antigonus' coinage in Seltman, cit., pp. 219 ff.

3. These are the examples I hâve been able to gather.- B.V. Head, Historia nummorum, Oxford 191 12, p. 225:(1) drachm: [obv.] head of young Herakles in lion-skin; [rev.] ,eagle on fulmen, caduceus, eagle's head, bulTs head, ear of grain.- B.V. Head, A Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the Bntish Museum. Macedonia,etc., London 1879:(2) p. 15 no. 61: [obv.] head of Zeus; [rev.] eagle, ear of grain (168-146 ca.);(3) p. 97 nos. 6 ff.: (obv.] Herakles; [rev.] grain or grape (Philip II);(4) p. 132 nos. 14-5: [obv.] Hermes; [rev.] grain, grape or rose (400-350 ca.)(5) p. 130 no. 1 : [obv.] ear of grain; [rev.] (450-400 ca.); cf., for later coins, p.49 [50 s.] Amphipolis - an Athenian colony - has the ear of grain as civic symbol:cf. Head, Catalogue cit., p. 46 nos. 19-20, and L. Anson, Numismata Graeca, Lon-

don 1912, part III, nos. 1155-6.For Demeter and grain in a coin, Head, Catalogue cit., p. 92 no. 29 (post 168).For examples from Egypt with a similar pattern, Ch. Seltman, Greek coins, London19552, pp. 242-3.




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Dike, at once opposed to and , covers much of thè concep-tual space that we divide between 'justice' and 'peace'.

Other features of thè rule of Macedonian kings are worth a briefmention. The Antigonids, who liked to be considered primi interpares, had a much more cautious attitude than other Hellenistic kingstowards divine identifications4. Nevertheless Antigonus himself, afterthè victory of Lysimachia in 277, did favour his identification withPan, as some coins show5. It is interesting, in this connection, thatAratus is reported to hâve written a Hymn to Pan designed as an act ofpraise of his patron on this same occasion6. Antigonus' father Demet-rios Poliorcetes, who reigned from 306-283, received divine honours7when he entered Athens in 291 : he was regarded as Dionysus, and hiscompanion Lanassa as Demeter*; an explicit connection between thèarrivai of Demetrios and thè goddess Demeter is established in thèithyphallic hymn that thè Athenians dedicated to thè king: ot

/ * // ' (Athen, deipn. 6, 253 d-f).

There are also Egyptian instances9 of thè identification between aqueen and Demeter, certainly for Arsinoe II and Berenice II, andprobably also for Arsinoe I, Bérénices I and Cleopatra III. The latteris also identified with Dikaiosune in papyri dated to the end of the IICentury; it is probable that this identification was eased by thè usuaiidentification of the queen with Isis, that is Demeter10: and in thescholia to Aratus there is an explicit association between Isis, Demeterand Dike11.

4. J.L. Tondriau, Demetrios Poliorcetes, Neos Theos, «Bull, de la Soc. Royaled'Arch. d'Alexandrie» 38, 1949, p. 4.5. Cf. Seltman

cit., p. 223.6. Susemihl cit., p. 289 and n. 16. Cf. Achilles p. 78 Maas and Anonymous II p.148 Maas.

7. . Scott, The Déification ofDemetrius Poliorcetes, «Am. Journ. of Philol.» 49,1928, pp. 137 ff. and 217 ff.8. Tondriau cit., p. 11.

9. J.L. Tondriau, Princesses ptolemaïques comparées ou identifiées à des déesses,(II le - 1er siècles avant J.C.), «Bull, de la Soc. Royale d'Arch. d'Alexandrie» 37,1948, pp. 12-33.10. C. Préaux, Le monde hellénistique, Paris 1978, vol. 1, pp. 211 ff. The identi-fication of Demeter with Isis is attested by Hdt. 2.59, who thinks that thè cult ofDemeter is of

Egyptian origin: cf. P.M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, vol. 1, p. 199,and notes, vol. 2, p. 335.11. In Egypt, however, the religious association of the pharaon with Maat, thegoddess of justice, truth and cosmic order, was standard (Préaux cit., ibidem).

Documents

Schiesaro-Aratus’ Myth of Dike (MDATC 37 [1996])