September 2024 – purple motes

Greek women warriors danced Pyrrhic victory for gender equality

Men historically have been burdened with fighting in wars gender-structured as violence against men. Women warriors, however, have achieved prominence in public discourse throughout history. In ancient Greek culture, the goddesses Athena and Artemis were eminent women warriors, as were the Amazons. Moreover, men in ancient Greece delighted in viewing nearly naked women performing Pyrrhic war dance. Mortal women warriors did not, however, contribute significantly to Greek military action. As thoughtful Greek military and civic leader Xenophon recognized in his story about conflict between Greek mercenaries and Paphlagonians, women Pyrrhic dancers in ancient Greece show men’s propensity to credit women imaginatively apart from women’s actual responsibility. That propensity impedes actual progress toward gender equality.

ancient Greek woman Pyrrhic dancer and aulos-player

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato argued that women should have significant military responsibility. He declared that girls as well as boys, and women as well as men, should receive military training:

We are establishing gymnasiums and all physical exercises connected with military training, including the use of the bow and all kinds of missiles, light skirmishing and heavy-armed fighting of every description, tactical deployments, company-marching, camp-formations, and all the details of cavalry training. In all these subjects there should be public instructors, paid by the State. Their pupils should be not only the boys and men in the State, but also the girls and women. The women will understand all these matters — being practiced in all military drills and fighting while still girls. When grown to womanhood, they will take part in deployments and rank-forming and the piling and shouldering of arms. They will do this, if for no other reason, at least for this reason: if ever the guards of the children and of the rest of the city should be obliged to leave the city and march out in full force, these women should be able at least to take their place. If, on the other hand — and this is quite a possible contingency — an invading army of foreigners, fierce and strong, should force a battle around the city itself, then it would be a sore disgrace to the State if its women were so badly raised as not even to be willing to do as do the mother-birds. Mother-birds fight the strongest beasts in defense of their broods. If, instead of facing all risks, even death itself, our women would run straight to the temples and crowd all the shrines and holy places, they would drown humanity in the disgrace of being the most craven of living creatures.

{ γυμνάσια γὰρ τίθεμεν καὶ τὰ περὶ τὸν πόλεμον ἅπαντα τοῖς σώμασι διαπονήματα τοξικῆς τε καὶ πάσης ῥίψεως καὶ πελταστικῆς καὶ Επάσης ὁπλομαχίας καὶ διεξόδων τακτικῶν καὶ ἁπάσης πορείας στρατοπέδων καὶ στρατοπεδεύσεων καὶ ὅσα εἰς ἱππικὴν μαθήματα συντείνει. πάντων γὰρ τούτων διδασκάλους τε εἶναι δεῖ κοινούς, ἀρνυμένους μισθὸν παρὰ τῆς πόλεως, καὶ τούτων μαθητὰς τοὺς ἐν τῇ πόλει παῖδάς τε καὶ ἄνδρας, καὶ κόρας καὶ γυναῖκας πάντων τούτων ἐπιστήμονας, κόρας μὲν οὔσας ἔτι πᾶσαν τὴν ἐν ὅπλοις ὄρχησιν καὶ μάχην μεμελετηκυίας, γυναῖκας δὲ διεξόδων καὶ τάξεων καὶ θέσεως καὶ ἀναιρέσεως ὅπλων ἡμμένας, εἰ μηδενὸς ἕνεκα ἄλλου, ἀλλ᾿ εἴ ποτε δεήσειε πανδημεὶ πάσῃ τῇ δυνάμει καταλείποντας τὴν πόλιν ἔξω στρατεύεσθαι τοὺς φυλάξαντας παῖδάς τε καὶ τὴν ἄλλην πόλιν, ἱκανοὺς εἶναι τό γε τοσοῦτον, ἢ καὶ τοὐναντίον, ὅγ᾿ οὐδὲν ἀπώμοτον, ἔξωθεν πολεμίους εἰσπεσόντας ῥώμῃ τινὶ μεγάλῃ καὶ βίᾳ, βαρβάρους εἴτε Ἕλληνας, ἀνάγκην παρασχεῖν περὶ αὐτῆς τῆς πόλεως τὴν διαμάχην γίγνεσθαι, πολλή που κακία πολιτείας οὕτως αἰσχρῶς τὰς γυναῖκας εἶναι τεθραμμένας, ὡς μηδ᾿ ὥσπερ ὄρνιθας περὶ τέκνων μαχομένας πρὸς ὁτιοῦν τῶν ἰσχυροτάτων θηρίων ἐθέλειν ἀποθνήσκειν τε καὶ πάντας κινδύνους κινδυνεύειν, ἀλλ᾿ εὐθὺς πρὸς ἱερὰ φερομένας πάντας βωμούς τε καὶ ναοὺς ἐμπιπλάναι καὶ δόξαν τοῦ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένους καταχεῖν ὡς πάντων δειλότατον φύσει θηρίων ἐστίν. }[1]

Orosius and other ancient historians recognized that women could be fierce and brutal fighters. Nonetheless, in ancient Greece, as in most other societies throughout history, boys but not girls were trained to fight in wars. Almost exclusively men fought and died on battlefields of institutionalized violence.

Despite Greek women not fighting in ancient Greek military actions, Greek men enjoyed watching naked or nearly naked women dance the Pyrrhic war dance. Pyrrhic dance consists of movements like that of a soldier engaged in close, armed fighting.[2] After 460 BGC, numerous ancient Greek vases show paintings of women doing Pyrrhic dance. The majority of these women are naked. The vases seem to be associated mainly with men’s symposia (banquets), the hiring of women dancers, or the training of women dancers. Based on surviving artifacts, vase paintings of women doing Pyrrhic dance apparently were most popular from 440 BGC to 420 BGC.[3] Like accounts of Amazon women warriors, women doing Pyrrhic dance seem to have pleased men’s erotic imagination in democratic Athens.

About half a century after ancient Greek vase paintings of women doing Pyrrhic dance were most numerous, the Athenian military and civic leader Xenophon included in his Anabasis {Ἀνάβασις} a story about a woman performing a Pyrrhic dance. The Anabasis recounts the experience of a large Greek mercenary army (the Ten Thousand) hired to help the Achaemenid prince Cyrus the Younger seize the Achaemenid throne from his brother Artaxerxes II. As the Greek mercenaries traveled back to Greece from Persia, they plundered food in Paphlagonia along the Black Sea in present-day Turkey. The Paphlagonians in turn attacked relatively vulnerable small groups of Greek soldiers. Relations between the Greeks and the Paphlagonians became very hostile:

Then Corylas, who happened at that time to be ruler of Paphlagonia, sent ambassadors to the Greeks. The ambassadors, who rode horses and wore fine clothes, carried word that Corylas was ready to do the Greeks no wrong and to suffer no wrong at their hands. The Greek generals replied that they would take counsel with the Greek army on this matter, but meanwhile they received the Paphlagonian ambassadors as their guests at dinner. The Greek generals also invited to the dinner other men in the Greek army as seemed to them best entitled to an invitation. By sacrificing some of the cattle they had captured and also other animals, the Greeks provided an adequate feast. All dined reclining upon straw mats and drank from cups made of horn found in the country.

{ ὁ δὲ Κορύλας, ὃς ἐτύγχανε τότε Παφλαγονίας ἄρχων, πέμπει παρὰ τοὺς Ἕλληνας πρέσβεις ἔχοντας ἵππους καὶ στολὰς καλάς, λέγοντας ὅτι Κορύλας ἕτοιμος εἴη τοὺς Ἕλληνας μήτε ἀδικεῖν μήτε ἀδικεῖσθαι. οἱ δὲ στρατηγοὶ ἀπεκρίναντο ὅτι περὶ μὲν τούτων σὺν τῇ στρατιᾷ βουλεύσοιντο, ἐπὶ ξένια δὲ ἐδέχοντο αὐτούς· παρεκάλεσαν δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀνδρῶν οὓς ἐδόκουν δικαιοτάτους εἶναι. θύσαντες δὲ τῶν αἰχμαλώτων βοῶν καὶ ἄλλα ἱερεῖα εὐωχίαν μὲν ἀρκοῦσαν παρεῖχον, κατακείμενοι δὲ ἐν στιβάσιν ἐδείπνουν, καὶ ἔπινον ἐκ κερατίνων ποτηρίων, οἷς ἐνετύγχανον ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ. }[4]

This banquet was in effect a diplomatic affair. It provided a hospitable context for settling peacefully the violent conflict between the Paphlagonians and the traveling Greek mercenary soldiers.

At the banquet, Greek soldiers performed war dances ostensibly for entertainment. First two Thracian men danced in full armor to flute music. After some sparring with sabers, one pretended to kill the other and despoil him of his weapons. The victor marched out singing. Other Thracian men carried out the soldier pretending to be dead. The Paphlagonians misunderstood this artful acting. They lamented the Thracian soldier’s death.

ancient Greek women Pyrrhic dancers in a banquet scene

The next dance was particularly relevant to the diplomatic occasion. This dance, which Xenophon called the “carpaea {καρπαία},” realistically represented the conflict between Paphlagonian farmers and the Greek mercenary soldiers:

The manner of the dance was this: a man who has laid aside his weapons is sowing by driving his cattle. He turns about frequently, as would a man in fear. A roving bandit approaches. As soon as the sower sees him coming, he grabs his arms, goes to meet him, and fights with him to save his yoked cattle. The two men do all this in rhythm to flute music. In the end, the roving bandit binds the man and steals the yoked cattle. Sometimes, the cattle’s master binds the roving bandit and yokes him along with the cattle. With the roving bandit’s hands tied behind him, the sower then drives on.

{ ὁ δὲ τρόπος τῆς ὀρχήσεως ἦν, ὁ μὲν παραθέμενος τὰ ὅπλα σπείρει καὶ ζευγηλατεῖ πυκνὰ μεταστρεφόμενος ὡς φοβούμενος, λῃστὴς δὲ προσέρχεται· ὁ δ᾿ ἐπὰν προΐδηται, ἀπαντᾷ ἁρπάσας τὰ ὅπλα καὶ μάχεται πρὸ τοῦ ζεύγους· καὶ οὗτοι ταῦτ᾿ ἐποίουν ἐν ῥυθμῷ πρὸς τὸν αὐλόν· καὶ τέλος ὁ λῃστὴς δήσας τὸν ἄνδρα καὶ τὸ ζεῦγος ἀπάγει· ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ ὁ ζευγηλάτης τὸν λῃστήν· εἶτα παρὰ τοὺς βοῦς ζεύξας ὀπίσω τὼ χεῖρε δεδεμένον ἐλαύνει. }[5]

Xenophon’s concluding description of alternatives destroys the mimesis. Xenophon seems to be prompting the reader to consider critically the action at a higher level of abstraction. Conflict between nomads and farmers have deep historical and mythic roots.[6] In Xenophon’s time, the dominance of sedentary civilizations wasn’t clear. The conflict between the Paphlagonians and the roving Greek mercenaries points to a more general conflict relevant to civic leaders.

Two further dances were less representational. A Mysian soldier entered and performed a dance simulating combat between two and then one enemy soldiers. He “was whirling and doing aerial somersaults while holding shields {τοτὲ δ’ ἐδινεῖτο καὶ ἐξεκυβίστα ἔχων τὰς πέλτας}.”[7] He thus danced “so as to make a fine spectacle {ὥστε ὄψιν καλὴν φαίνεσθαι}.” He then did a different, Persian war dance. Subsequently, Mantinean and Arcadian soldiers, dressed richly in arms, came forward and marched, sang, and danced as if at a festival for the gods. These dances clearly weren’t mimesis of violent conflict.

Young woman doing Pyrrhic dance as part of women's physical training.

The final dance at the diplomatic dinner was the most significant and the most influential. The presentation of exclusively war dances created a diplomatic incident:

As they watched, the Paphlagonians were horrified that all the dances were under arms. Seeing that they were astounded by this, the Mysian man persuaded one of the Arcadians who had a dancing girl to let him bring her in after first dressing her in the finest way he could and giving her a light shield. She danced the Pyrrhic with grace. That was followed with great applause, and the Paphlagonians asked whether the Greeks’ women also fought alongside their men. The Greeks replied that these very women had routed the king from his camp. So the evening ended.

{ ὁρῶντες δὲ οἱ Παφλαγόνες δεινὰ ἐποιοῦντο πάσας τὰς ὀρχήσεις ἐν ὅπλοις εἶναι. ἐπὶ τούτοις ὁρῶν ὁ Μυσὸς ἐκπεπληγμένους αὐτούς, πείσας τῶν Ἀρκάδων τινὰ πεπαμένον ὀρχηστρίδα εἰσάγει σκευάσας ὡς ἐδύνατο κάλλιστα καὶ ἀσπίδα δοὺς κούφην αὐτῇ. ἡ δὲ ὠρχήσατο πυρρίχην ἐλαφρῶς. ἐνταῦθα κρότος ἦν πολύς, καὶ οἱ Παφλαγόνες ἤροντο εἰ καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες συνεμάχοντο αὐτοῖς. οἱ δ᾿ ἔλεγον ὅτι αὗται καὶ αἱ τρεψάμεναι εἶεν βασιλέα ἐκ τοῦ στρατοπέδου. τῇ μὲν οὖν νυκτὶ ταύτῃ τοῦτο τὸ τέλος ἐγένετο. }[8]

Greek women warriors surely hadn’t routed the Paphlagonian king from his camp. Men, however, love to credit women, even if that credit has no factual basis. A beautiful woman gracefully dancing a war dance provides men with an imaginative victory over harsh reality.

young woman performing Pyrrhic dance at ancient Greek symposium

The Greeks quickly concluded the diplomatic matter. They demanded nothing from the Paphlagonian ambassadors:

On the next day, the Greeks introduced the ambassadors to the army. The Greek soldiers passed a resolution to do the Paphlagonians no wrong and to suffer no wrong at their hands.

{ Τῇ δὲ ὑστεραίᾳ προσῆγον αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ στράτευμα· καὶ ἔδοξε τοῖς στρατιώταις μήτε ἀδικεῖν Παφλαγόνας μήτε ἀδικεῖσθαι. }

The Greek soldiers thus literally accepted the terms that the Paphlagonian king Corylas had given them. Corylas has proposed “to do the Greeks no wrong and to suffer no wrong at their hands {Ἕλληνας μήτε ἀδικεῖν μήτε αὐτὸς ἀδικεῖσθαι}.” After the diplomatic dinner and all the war dances, including a Greek woman’s Pyrrhic dance, the Greeks soldiers resolved “to do the Paphlagonians no wrong and to suffer no wrong at their hands {μήτε ἀδικεῖν Παφλαγόνας μήτε ἀδικεῖσθαι}.” Emphasizing their commitment to not further pillage the Paphlagonians, the Greek army promptly sailed away from Paphlagonia. The Greeks apparently didn’t believe the asserted martial prowess of Greek women. They apparently didn’t even believe that the Paphlagonians were intimidated by the Greek display of martial dances, including a woman performing Pyrrhic dance. Within Xenophon’s story, the woman’s Pyrrhic dance and the claim about Greek women’s military success is treated as a fantasy.[9] Xenophon apparently had contempt for men’s delight in women’s Pyrrhic dancing.

Women’s Pyrrhic dance in ancient Greek served as an idle distraction from military and gender reality. Only Greek men actually were taught to fight and die in institutionalized violence against men such as the horrific and stupid Trojan War. Moreover, while women predominately danced for pleasure, men who danced for pleasure tended to be disparaged as “effeminate.” In ancient Athens, artistic representations of Pyrrhic dance shifted with the rise of democracy from showing men Pyrrhic dancers to showing women Pyrrhic dancers.[10] More extensive and more competitive public discourse seems to favor gender delusions that both men and women enjoy. Those delusions are Pyrrhic victories that impede true progress toward gender equality.

women Pyrrhic dancer and aulos-player between two young men, with temple in background

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Plato, Laws {Νόμοι} 813D-814B (Book 7), words of the Athenian stranger {Ἀθηναῖος ξένος}, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Bury (1926). The Athenian subsequently queries:

Shall we, then, lay down this law: that up to the point stated, women must not neglect military training, but all citizens, men and women alike, must pay attention to it?

{ Οὐκοῦν τιθῶμεν τὸν νόμον τοῦτον, μέχρι γε τοσούτου μὴ ἀμελεῖσθαι τὰ περὶ τὸν πόλεμον γυναιξὶ δεῖν, ἐπιμελεῖσθαι δὲ πάντας τοὺς πολίτας καὶ τὰς πολίτιδας }

Plato, Laws {Νόμοι} 814C (Book 7), sourced as previously. The Athenian’s interlocutor Cleinias {Κλεινίας} readily agrees to this proposal.

[2] Ancient Greek Pyrrhic dance (pyrrhichē {πυρρίχη}) had a “striking warlike character.” Ceccarelli (2004) p. 91. In the Iliad, Hector’s dance for Ares amid the horrific Trojan War probably was a forerunner of Pyrrhic dance. For Hector’s dance for Ares, Iliad 7.237-43. Fifth-century BGC texts and vase paintings attest to Pyrrhic dance. Plato described this war dance:

The warlike dance division, being distinct from the peaceful, one may rightly call Pyrrhic. It represents modes of eluding all kinds of blows and shots by swerving and ducking and side-leaps upward or crouching. It also represents the opposite kinds of motion, which lead to active postures of offense, when it strives to represent the movements involved in shooting with bows or darts, and blows of every description.

{ τὴν πολεμικὴν δὴ τούτων, ἄλλην οὖσαν τῆς εἰρηνικῆς, πυῤῥίχην ἄν τις ὀρθῶς προσαγορεύοι, τάς τε εὐλαβείας πασῶν πληγῶν καὶ βολῶν ἐκνεύσεσι καὶ ὑπείξει πάσῃ καὶ ἐκπηδήσεσιν ἐν ὕψει καὶ ξὺν ταπεινώσει μιμουμένην, καὶ τὰς ταύταις ἐναντίας, τὰς ἐπὶ τὰ δραστικὰ φερομένας αὖ σχήματα ἔν τε ταῖς τῶν τόξων βολαῖς καὶ ἀκοντίων καὶ πασῶν πληγῶν μιμήματα ἐπιχειροῦσαν1 μιμεῖσθαι. }

Plato, Laws {Νόμοι} 815A (Book 7), sourced as previously. Ancient Greek Pyrrhic dance was performed at contests, festivals, and temple ceremonies. It was “the most eminent martial dance.” Vickers (2016a) p. 41. On Pyrrhic dance, Ceccarelli (2004), Ceccarelli (1998), Goulaki-Voutira (1996), and Poursat (1968).

Pyrrhic dance apparent changed character from fifth-century BGC Greece to the second-century GC Roman Empire. Writing at the end of the second century GC, Athenaeus remarked:

The pyrrichê {Pyrrhic dance} of our times is rather Dionysiac in character and is more respectable than the ancient kind. For the dancers carry Bacchic wands in place of spears, they also hurl at one another fennel stalks, they carry torches, and they dance the story of Dionysus and India, as well as the story of Pentheus.

{ ἡ δὲ καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς πυρρίχη Διονυσιακή τις εἶναι δοκεῖ, ἐπιεικεστέρα οὖσα τῆς ἀρχαίας· ἔχουσι γὰρ οἱ ὀρχούμενοι θύρσους ἀντὶ δοράτων, προΐενται δὲ ἐπ᾿ ἀλλήλους νάρθηκας καὶ λαμπάδας φέρουσιν ὀρχοῦνταί τε τὰ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον καὶ | τοὺς Ἰνδούς, ἔτι τε τὰ περὶ τὸν Πενθέα. }

Athenaeus of Naucratis, The Learned Banqueters / Deipnosophistae {Δειπνοσοφισταί} 14.631ab (29), ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Olson (2006-2012).

[3] On women Pyrrhic dancers being naked in the majority of surviving paintings, Poursat (1968) p. 605 and Goulaki-Voutira (1996) p. 4. On the chronology of representations of women performing Pyrrhic dance, Osborne (2018) p. 164, Poursat (1968) p. 604. On women’s Pyrrhic dancing mainly occurring at symposia, id p. 8, Douka (2008), and Osborne (2018) pp. 186-7. On dancing at symposia more generally, Olsen (2017) and Jesus (2009). Xenophon’s Symposium describes a boy and girl dancing for the entertainment of the symposiasts. Women also did Pyrrhic dances in services for the goddesses Artemis and Athena. Poursat (1968) pp. 599-604 and Valdés Guía (2020). For a tendentious, resolutely gynocentric analysis, Delavaud-Roux (2017). Women also danced at women’s social gatherings, such as when Nausicaa and her servant-women gathered to wash clothes by the seashore. Odyssey 6.112-21.

Watching dancing was associated with the pleasures of symposia:

Let us fasten garlands
of roses on our brows
and get drunk, laughing gently.
Let a gorgeous-ankled girl
dance to the lyre, carrying
the thyrsus with its rich ivy tresses.
With her let a boy, soft-haired
and with sweet-smelling
mouth, play the lyre,
pouring forth a clear song.

{ στεφάνους μὲν κροτάφοισι
ῥοδίνους συναρμόσαντες
μεθύωμεν ἁβρὰ γελῶντες.
ὑπὸ βαρβίτῳ δὲ κούρα
κατακίσσοισι βρύοντας
πλοκάμοις φέρουσα θύρσους
χλιδανόσφυρος χορεύῃ.
ἁβροχαίτας δ᾿ ἅμα κοῦρος
στομάτων ἁδὺ πνεόντων
κατὰ πηκτίδων ἀθύρῃ
προχέων λίγειαν ὀμφάν. }

Anacreontea 43.1-11, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Campbell (1988).

[4] Xenophon of Athens, Anabasis {Ἀνάβασις} 6.1.2-4, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Brownson & Dillery (1998). Subsequent quotes above are similarly sourced from Xenophon, Anabasis 6.1.8-14. Vickers (2016b) provides a slightly modified translation of Anabasis 6.1.1-15. The Greek army of mercenaries is conventionally known as the Ten Thousand.

[5] Here “roving bandit” translates the ancient Greek λῃστής, which describes a robber, pirate, or buccaneer and comes from the Epic form ληΐς, meaning booty or spoils. Xenophon used a similar term in describing actions of some of the Greek mercenaries: “and others (of the Greek mercenary army) lived by pillaging in Paphlagonia {οἱ δὲ καὶ λῃζόμενοι ἐκ τῆς Παφλαγονίας}.” Anabasis 6.1.1.

[6] E.g. the conflict between Abel the pastoralist and Cain the farmer in Genesis 4:1-16. The Sumerian myth The debate between Winter and Summer hints of conflict between farmer and the sheep-herder. It describes a conflict between the brothers Winter (the god Enten, perhaps associated with a farmer and stored grain) and Summer (the god Emesh, perhaps associated with sheep-herders). The head god Enlil declares Enten to be a faithful farmer and superior to Emesh. Here’s the Sumerian composite text and an English translation via ETCSL. Kramer called this work Emesh and Enten: Enlil Chooses the Farmer-God and described it as “the closest extant Sumerian parallel to the Biblical Cain-Abel story.” Kramer (1972) p. 49.

Highly developed mobile societies continued to exist in central Eurasia long after the rise of cites in northern Mesopotamia and elsewhere. These mobile societies moved long distances. Mongol invasions of Eastern Europe early in the thirteenth century and the Mongol sacking of Baghdad in 1258 indicate a type of military threat that Xenophon probably recognized about 1600 years earlier.

[7] On interpreting the described bodily movements, Vickers (2016a) pp. 36-7.

[8] The reactions of the Paphlagonians to all the martial dances (Anabasis 6.1.12) is δεινὰ ἐποιοῦντο: “they thought it most strange,” Brownson & Dillery (1998); “they were indignant,” Vickers (2016a) p. 30, Vickers (2016b) handout. The Paphlagonians here are also described as “indignant/upset.” Vickers (2016a) p. 33.The ancient Greek adjective δεινός encompasses horrible, fear-inspiring, and strange. In the next sentence, the Mysian soldier observes that the Paphlagonians “were astonished {ἐκπεπληγμένους αὐτούς}.” The Paphlagonians feeling “resentment” doesn’t seem fitting here. Cf. Vickers (2016a) p. 30. Given the overall context, I’ve translated δεινὰ ἐποιοῦντο as “they were horrified.”

In “they (the Greeks) said that these very women had routed the king from his camp {οἱ δ᾿ ἔλεγον ὅτι αὗται καὶ αἱ τρεψάμεναι εἶεν βασιλέα ἐκ τοῦ στρατοπέδου}” (Anabasis 6.1.13), the referent of “king {βᾰσῐλεύς}” isn’t clear. It’s typically taken to be the Persian king Artaxerxes II. E.g. Olsen (2021) p. 189; Olsen (2017) p. 28, n. 33; Vickers (2016a) p. 30; Flower (2012) p. 185; Ma (2010) p. 512. Flower takes this claim to be an allusion to the action of the concubine from Miletus in Anabasis 1.10.2-3. Flower (2012) p. 185. However, the Paphlagonians weren’t plausibly aware of that action, nor of the Persian king of kings being in some “camp {στρᾰτόπεδον}.” Making an incomprehensible quip to the Paphlagonians isn’t conversationally reasonable. In context, “king {βᾰσῐλεύς}” makes better sense as an obviously ridiculous reference to the Paphlagonian leader Corylas, whom Xenophon previously called “ruler {ᾰ̓́ρχων}.” The Paphlagonians would recognize a reference to Corylas as “king {βᾰσῐλεύς}” to be bombastic and the alleged military action of the Greek women to be ridiculously fictitious. They would laugh along with the Greeks at it. This interpretation is consistent with Xenophon’s ending of the story, as analyzed above.

[9] At least one ancient Greek reader seems to have read in a simple, partisan way Xenophon’s story about the conflict with the Paphlagonians. Modern scholars have scarcely been more critical. A leading study of the Anabasis declared:

Whether Xenophon intended this “grim pleasantry” {the claim that Greek women routed the king} simply to be read in context as a means for the Ten Thousand to inspire fear in the Paphlagonians (you had better not mess with us when even our women can fight in pitched battles) or to serve as a timeless example of how simple it is for Greeks to defeat Persians, one can readily imagine why later Greek readers would have picked up on the latter implication.

Flower (2012) pp. 185-6, with “grim pleasantry” quoting the Hellenistic writer Demetrius, On Style 131. Id. p. 185. Neither of these two alternative interpretations provide a perceptive, sophisticated reading of Xenophon’s story.

Modern scholarly readers have projected their own fantasies onto Xenophon’s story. One scholar declared:

The dances, whatever their original context (symposiastic or festive), are used for a purpose, to entertain but also to intimidate the Paphlagonians, by giving an image of the prowess, the diversity but also the unity of the Ten Thousand: fencing, light infantry raiding and footwork, hoplitic square-bashing. (The Paphlagonians duly ask for alliance after these terrifying displays.)

Ma (2010) pp. 511-2. The Paphlagonians didn’t “ask for alliance after these terrifying displays.” After these displays, the Greeks accepted the terms that the Paphlagonian ambassadors had brought to Greeks prior to the banquet.

Modern scholars have interpreted the dance show more literally and more obtusely than the Paphlagonians probably did. One scholar declared:

The series of dances, taken together, indicates the performers’ martial, physical, and even cultural superiority.

Vickers (2016a) p. 33. The Greek mercenaries thus enacted a “cultural triumph of martial mousike.” Id. p. 35. The woman’s Pyrrhic dance was “the climax {sic} of the evening” and helped the Greek mercenary army to “convey an impression of martial strength.” Baragwanath (2019) p. 124. In a presentation entitled, “The Cultural Triumph of Martial Dance in Xenophon’s Anabasis 6.1.1-14,” Vickers declared:

I argue that the sequence of performances is purposefully crafted to create a choreographic narrative, which substitutes for actual battle; the Greek army ‘defeats’ the Paphlagonians with dance, not war.

Vickers (2016b). The fictive quality of this literary analysis becomes inescapably clear with a textual citation:

The message of the evening’s entertainment is inescapable, and the Paphlagonians duly accept peace (6.1.14). The episode and its dancing warriors indeed showcase the cultural superiority of the Ten Thousand, and their martial prowess.

Id. In Anabasis 6.1.14, the Paphlagonian ambassadors don’t speak or act. In that passage, the Greek mercenary army (the Ten Thousand) unconditionally accept the Paphlagonian king’s prior terms for peace.

Scholars seem to have idealized the Greek mercenary army in a way that Xenophon didn’t. A scholar thus perceived that the Greeks’ performance for the Paphlagonians sent the message that “the Greeks are powerful and ever-ready warriors, who use weapons skillfully even in their leisure-time pursuit of dance.” Olsen (2016) p. 176, Olsen (2021) p. 191. That interpretation is then bluntly forced upon Xenophon’s story:

When the Greeks subsequently make peace with the Paphlagonians and depart from the region (ἔδοξε τοῖς στρατιώταις μήτε ἀδικεῖν Παφλαγόνας μήτε ἀδικεῖσθαι, 6.1.14), the agreement is tinged by the prior evening’s display of Greek force and skill. Xenophon implies that the Greek army possesses the ability to defeat the Paphlagonians by force, but instead magnanimously agrees to leave them in peace.

Olsen (2016) p. 176, Olsen (2021) p. 191. Xenophon was a sophisticated rhetorician. He wrote nothing indicating that the Greek mercenaries “magnanimously” agreed to leave the Paphlagonians in peace. In contrast, the ending of his story is meaningfully jarring.

[10] Athenian pottery made before 460 BGC depicts men doing Pyrrhic dances. After that date, only women Pyrrhic dancers appear on Athenian pottery. Osborne (2018) p. 164, Poursat (1968) p. 604. Depictions of women performing Pyrrhic dance apparently were most popular from 440 BGC to 420 BGC. Depictions of Pyrrhic dance subsequently became rare. Poursat (1968) p. 604. The change from representing men Pyrrhic dancers to representing women Pyrrhic dancers is a component of a broad pattern of change in the content of paintings of everyday life on Athenian pottery. The change in the content and style of Athenian paintings seems to be linked to the rise of democratic values and greater appreciation for contemplation and collaboration. Osborne (2018). The gender structure of dance in ancient Greece illustrates the instrumentalization and devaluation of men’s lives. The importance of public deliberation in driving such a change is consistent with Georges Duby’s rise to eminence as a scholar of medieval women.

Men doing Pyrrhic dance in ancient Athens

[images] (1) Pyrrhic dancer and aulos-player. Painting by the Cassel painter on a red-figure krater (vessel for mixing wine and water). Painted in Athens about 440-430 BGC. Preserved as inventory # Cp 761; G 480 in the Louvre Museum (Paris, France), which supplied the source image.

(2) Women Pyrrhic dancers, depicted along with the winged god Eros and the young man Kallias, charged with mutilating herms. In a lower register, a young man amorously pursues a young woman. Painting by the Polygnotos group on an Attic red-figure hydria (water jug). Painted about 430 BGC in Athens. Preserved as inventory # 4014 in Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, Firenze (Florence, Italy). Source image thanks to ArchaiOptix and Wikimedia Commons. This hydria is Beazly Archive 213776. For some artistic analysis, Matheson (1995) p. 287, which catalogs it as PGU 168.

(3) Woman dancer / acrobat. Above her are beads and two tympana (drums), instruments associated with dancing. Painting by the Foundling Painter and made on a red-figure hydria. Painted about 340-330 BGC in Campania, Italy. Preserved as museum # 1814,0704.566 in the British Museum, which supplied the source image.

(4) Women Pyrrhic dancers in a banquet scene. The winged god Eros is next to the leftmost woman Pyrrhic dancer and next to the woman aulos-player. Painted about 430 BGC on a red-figure hydria made in Athens. Preserved as item # 7359 in the National Museum of Denmark (Copenhagen), which supplied the source image under a CC-BY-SA license via Osborne (2018) Plate 27. For discussion of this painting, id. pp. 164-6.

(5) Young woman doing Pyrrhic dance as part of women’s physical training. Painted by Polygnotos on a red-figure hydria in Athens c. 440 BGC. Preserved as item H3232 (Naples, inv. 81398) in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy. For additional photos of this painting and some analysis, Matheson (1995) pp. 23-5, including Plate 17. Matheson cataloged this hydria as P 67.

(6) Young woman performing Pyrrhic dance at an ancient Greek symposium. Perhaps a symposium of the gods (Dionysian feasting), with the goddess Athena doing Pyrrhic dance. Painted about 400 BGC on an Athenian red-figure krater by a painter associated with the Talos Painter. Preserved as item H 5708 in the Martin von Wagner Museum (Würzburg, Germany), also cataloged as ARV 1339 5 / Beazley Archive 217527. Source image thanks to ArchaiOptix and Wikimedia Commons. Here’s an alternate image.

(7) Women Pyrrhic dancer and aulos-player between two young men, with temple in background. Painting by the Pothos painter on red-figure krater made in Athens in the second half of the fifth century BGC. Preserved as item 732 in Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria, which supplied the source image. Also cataloged as Beazley Archive 215764.

For additional, freely available images of women performing Pyrrhic dance, Poursat (1968) and Goulaki-Voutira (1995). A painting of a woman Pyrrhic dancer running in front of men symposiasts, Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale: STG 281 (Beazley Archive 213564), attributed to the Lykaon Painter, is shown in Osborne (2018) p. 184 (Figure 7.19) and Matheson (1995) p. 94 (Plate 70).

(8) Two young men doing Pyrrhic dance. Painted on an Attic red-figure hydria by a painter similar to the Dikaios painter. Part of the Pioneer Group. Painted about 500 BGC. Preserved as accession # 21.88.2 (credit: Rogers Fund, 1921) in The Met Museum, New York, USA, which supplied the source image.

References:

Baragwanath, Emily. 2019. “Heroes and Homemakers in Xenophon.” Chapter 6 (pp. 108-129) in Thomas Biggs and Jessica Blum, eds. The Epic Journey in Greek and Roman Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Brownson, Carleton L., tans. and John Dillery, revised. 1998. Xenophon. Anabasis. Loeb Classical Library 90. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bury, R. G., ed. and trans. 1926. Plato. Laws. Volume I: Books 1-6. Volume II: Books 7-12. Loeb Classical Library 187, 192. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Alternate presentation of English translation.

Campbell, David A., ed and trans. 1988. Greek Lyric, Volume II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman. Loeb Classical Library 143. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Ceccarelli, Paola. 1998. La Pirrica nell’Antichità Greco Romana: Studi Sulla Danza Armata. Pisa: Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali. Reviews by Alexandra Goulaki-Voutira, by Jean-Jacques Maffre, by Silvia Milanezi, and by Eva Stehle.

Ceccarelli, Paola. 2004. “Dancing the Pyrrhichē in Athens.” Chapter 4 (pp. 91-118) in Penelope Murray and Peter Wilson, eds. Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousikē in the Classical Athenian City. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Delavaud-Roux, Marie-Hélène. 2017. “Danses féminines, espace de liberté ou de contraintes? L’exemple des danses initiatiques pour Artémis en Grèce antique / Danças Femininas, Espaço de Liberdade ou Restrição? O Exemplo das danças iniciáticas para Ártemis na Grécia Antiga.” Dramaturgias. Revista do Laboratório de Dramaturgia – LADI – UnB. 5: 197-210.

Douka, Stella, Vasilios Kaïmakamis, Panagiotis Papadopoulos, and Antonia Kaltsatou. 2008. “Female Pyrrhic Dancers in Ancient Greece.” Studies in Physical Culture and Tourism. 15 (2): 95-99.

Flower, Michael A. 2012. Xenophon’s Anabasis, or, the Expedition of Cyrus. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Review by John Dillery.

Goulaki-Voutira, Alexandra. 1996. “Pyrrhic Dance and Female Pyrrhic Dancers.” RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter (published by the Research Center for Music Iconography, The Graduate Center, City University of New York). 21 (1): 3–12.

Jesus, Carlos A. Martins de. 2009. “Dancing with Plutarch: dance and dance theory in Plutarch’s Table Talk.” Pp. 403-414 in José Ribeiro Ferreira, Delim Leão, Manuel Tröster, and Paula Barata Dias, eds. Symposium and Philanthropia in Plutarch. University of Coimbra: Classica Digitalia – CECH 2009 (Humanitas Supplementum).

Kramer, Samuel Noah. 1972. Sumerian Mythology: a Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C. Rev. ed. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Lane Fox, Robin, ed. 2004. The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Ma, John. 2010. “You Can’t Go Home Again: Displacement and Identity in Xenophon’s Anabasis.” Chapter 18 (pp. 502-519) in Vivienne J. Gray, ed. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Xenophon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reprinted in Lane Fox (2004) pp. 330-345.

Matheson, Susan B. 1995. Polygnotos and Vase Painting in Classical Athens. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Olsen, Sarah. 2016. Beyond Choreia: Dance in Ancient Greek Literature and Culture. Ph.D. Thesis, Classics. University of California, Berkeley. Revised into Olsen (2021).

Olsen, Sarah. 2017. “The dancing girls of Ancient Greece: Performance, agency, and entertainment.” Clio. Women, Gender, History. 2 (46): 19-42. Alternate source for version in French.

Olsen, Sarah. 2021. Solo Dance in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature: Representing the Unruly Body. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Olson, S. Douglas, ed. and trans. 2006-2012. Athenaeus of Naucratis. The Learned Banqueters {Deipnosophistae}. Loeb Classical Library vols. 204, 208, 224, 235, 274, 327, 345, 519. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Osborne, Robin. 2018. The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Reviews by John Boardman, by Barbara Graziosi, by Guy Hedreen, and by Unai Iriarte.

Poursat, Jean-Claude. 1968. “Les Représentations de Danse Armée dans la Céramique Attique.” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique. 92 (2): 550–615.

Valdés Guía, Miriam. 2020. “Pallas and a Female Pyrrhic Dance for Athena in Attica.” Mnemosyne. 74 (6): 913–34.

Vickers, Jonathan R. 2016a. The Acrobatic Body in Ancient Greek Society. Ph.D. Thesis, Classics. The University of Western Ontario.

Vickers, Jonathan. 2016b. “The Cultural Triumph of Martial Dance in Xenophon’s Anabasis 6.1.1-14.” Presentation. CAMWS: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, USA. 112th Annual Meeting. March 16-19, 2016. Williamsburg, VA. Handout: text and translation of Anabasis 6.1.1-14.

transcending violence in Acts: the genteel Ethiopian eunuch official

Castration is a starkly gendered form of violence against men. Some men historically have suffered castration to serve their own interests in becoming high-ranking officials. These eunuch officials have been widely despised for being vicious and jealous. A few years after Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, Philip the Evangelist met on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza an Ethiopian eunuch. The biblical book Acts clearly characterizes this Ethiopian eunuch, a high-ranking official, as gracious and genteel.

The Ethiopian eunuch was both a royal African official and a pious, humble man. Acts records:

A man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great power under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, the man who was in charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem to worship.

{ ἀνὴρ Αἰθίοψ εὐνοῦχος δυνάστης Κανδάκης τῆς βασιλίσσης Αἰθιόπων ὃς ἦν ἐπὶ πάσης τῆς γάζης αὐτῆς ὃς ἐληλύθει προσκυνήσων εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ }[1]

Returning from Jerusalem, the Ethiopian eunuch was sitting in his chariot, as befits a high official. He wasn’t checking for messages and sending texts to many different persons. A pious man, he was reading aloud and pondering the biblical book of Isaiah. That prophetic book concerns the destiny of Israel after the terrible suffering of its exile.

The Ethiopian eunuch with Philip in chariot stopping for baptism. From the Menologian of Basil

Philip the Evangelist ran up to the Ethiopian eunuch’s chariot. Royal bodyguards might have killed Philip as a possible assailant. Perhaps the Ethiopian eunuch restrained his bodyguards. In any case, Philip then impudently asked:

Do you even understand what you are reading?

{ ἆρά γε γινώσκεις ἃ ἀναγινώσκεις }[2]

The ancient Greek form of the question presumes that the Ethiopian eunuch, a royal official, didn’t understand what he was reading. A typical royal official might have responded angrily, e.g. she might have said, “What the hell are you doing, asking me such a question, you walking lunatic nobody?”

Despite Philip’s impudence, the Ethiopian eunuch responded graciously and humbly. He accepted Philip’s suggestion that he didn’t understand what he was reading. He sought Philip’s help with sophisticated, oblique rhetoric:

And how could I, unless someone guides me?

{ πῶς γὰρ ἂν δυναίμην ἐὰν μή τις ὁδηγήσει με }

This royal official then invited Philip to sit with him in his chariot. He asked Philip about Isaiah’s meaning in describing a man suffering under unjust treatment:

I ask you, please tell me, about whom does the prophet say this? About himself, or about someone else?

{ δέομαί σου περὶ τίνος ὁ προφήτης λέγει τοῦτο περὶ ἑαυτοῦ ἢ περὶ ἑτέρου τινός }

The Ethiopian eunuch thus imploringly petitioned Philip for an answer, as if Philip were a royal official. Philip then explained that Isaiah foretold Jesus’s coming.

While the Ethiopian eunuch acted humbly toward Philip, he retained the courtliness and authority of a royal official. When the chariot came to some water, the eunuch said:

Look, water. What prevents me from being baptized?

{ ἰδοὺ ὕδωρ τί κωλύει με βαπτισθῆναι }

The directness of “look, water {ἰδοὺ ὕδωρ}” contrasts sharply with the circumlocutory question, “what prevents me from being baptized {τί κωλύει με βαπτισθῆναι}?” That circumlocutory question is more elegant than the direct request, “baptize me,” or the direct question, “will you baptize me?” No obstacle existed to the eunuch being baptized. The eunuch thus “commanded {ἐκέλευσεν}” the chariot to stop, emphasizing his authority. Both the eunuch and Philip went down into the water. That explicit mutuality emphasizes their equal status as human beings. Philip then baptized the eunuch, and the eunuch went on his way “rejoicing {χαίρων}.”

Philip the Evangelist baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch. Painting by Rembrandt.

Not all eunuch officials are vicious, jealous, self-loathing persons. The Ethiopian eunuch as described in the biblical book Acts is one of the most admirable persons in the New Testament.[3] Despite his high royal position and Philip the Evangelist’s effrontery, the Ethiopian eunuch treated Philip graciously. Moreover, the Ethiopian eunuch spoke with cultured sophistication. He also was open to new understandings and new ways of being. Despite having suffering the sexual violence of castration, he was neither angry nor bitter. Christianity understands God to have become incarnate as a person with masculine genitals, and Christianity fully recognizes men’s seminal blessing.[4] In turning the world upside down, Acts presents the Ethiopian eunuch as an exemplary Christian.

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Acts 8:27, ancient Greek text (morphological GNT) via Blue Letter Bible, my English translation, drawing upon widely available biblical translations. Subsequent quotes above are similarly from Acts 8:26-39 (the story of the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip).

Since no later than the seventeenth century, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch was included in the Octave of Easter in the Roman Missal. The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (1979 edition) celebrates on August 27 the “Feast of Simeon Bachos, the Ethiopian Eunuch.” Neither the Bible nor Patristic sources on the Ethiopian eunuch specify his name. “Simeon Bachos” apparently arose relatively late as a name for this important Christian person.

Candace was the Greco-Roman name for the queen of the Nile valley empire called Kush. Greco-Romans referred to Kush as Ethiopia. The capital of Kush was Meroë, which is in present-day Sudan.

Acts refers to this eminent Ethiopian Christian convert as a eunuch five times. Wilson preposterously claimed that the story “marks him solely in terms of his lack of physical manhood.” Wilson (2014) p. 405. To the contrary, Acts characterizes him as pious, gracious, open-minded, wealthy, politically powerful, and happy. Cf. “the Ethiopian eunuch defies categorization…. His lack of definition is extreme.” Carson (1999) p. 145, as quoted in Burke (2013) p. 1.

The word “man {ἀνὴρ}” in Acts 8:27 is distinctively gendered male in ancient Greek. Though a eunuch, the Ethiopian was nonetheless a man. Scholars recently have tended to deny his identity as a man and deny men’s suffering from castration. E.g. Kartzow & Moxnes (2010), Burke (2013), Wilson (2014). One present-day cleric insightfully commented:

What might be his back story? He may have been taken as a young boy to become a eunuch. He had no choice in the matter, and he probably didn’t know what was happening to him. To become a eunuch his testicles were crushed to stop him producing testosterone. Because he had no testosterone, this altered his growth and changed his appearance. His voice never broke, so as an adult he still had the voice of a boy. His body had little hair, and his body grew in disproportionate ways – reduced muscles, but increased body fat in his abdomen, and he developed breasts. His bones would be weaker and more likely to break. He would also be lethargic and depressed.

Smith (2021). The Ethiopian eunuch doesn’t appear in Acts to be lethargic and depressed. He rejoices in being baptized as a Christian.

Whether the Ethiopian eunuch suffered the crushing and removal of his testicles, the amputation of his penis, or both isn’t clear. Such sexual violence has little relation to the modern ideological construction “phallus.” The “phallus” ideologically continues the brutalization of penises by displacing a physical organ with a disparaging ideological construction. Consider the tortuous effect:

Eunuchs in the Greco-Roman world were considered the ultimate “nonmen” since they lacked one of the main features — if not the main feature — of masculinity, namely, a functioning phallus. Given the increased emphasis placed on not just the phallus but the large phallus during the Roman Empire, the eunuch’s so-called deficient phallus made him an object of even more scorn during this period. … Both Jesus and the eunuch do not generate descendants by means of sexual relations and thus relativize the procreative power of the phallus. We know that Jesus has a phallus since he is circumcised in Luke 2:21, yet the generative potential of his phallus does not figure into the growth of his newly formed family of God.

Wilson (2015) pp. Men don’t experience genital mutilation to the ideological, abstract phallus. Men with any sense of interpersonal relations also do not have sex with it.

[2] Philip {Φίλιππος} the Evangelist, who isn’t the same person as Philip the Apostle, was perhaps a relatively wealthy man. He was one of seven Christians chosen to provide for poor widows in Jerusalem. Acts 6:1-6.

[3] For theological interpretations of the story of the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts, see, e.g. Aymer (2021) and Martens (2015). For an interpretation of this story “From a queer perspective, … as a drag show with implications for inclusion in early Christian communities,” Burke (c. 2024). Ebed-Melech {עֶבֶד-מֶלֶךְ}, another Ethiopian eunuch, was also an admirable, godly person. Jeremiah 38:7-13, 39:15-18,

[4] Amid diffuse problematizing and ambiguating, academics have failed to appreciate the incarnate reality of Jesus’s masculinity and the seminal blessing that men offer women. Consider, for example, the paradoxical ambiguity of the scholarly conclusion, ‘Indeed, for {the gospel of} Luke, “real” men look manifestly unmanly.’ Wilson (2015), concluding sentence of the book abstract. In elaborating on boundary-crossing and ambiguity, Wilson (2014) and Wilson (2015) remain strictly confined within the rigid boundaries of contemporary academic orthodoxy. Further demonstrating the possibility of having the word made meaningless, Wilson (2016) claims to ‘problematize how we view Jesus as a “man.”’ But who is “we”?

[images] (1) The Ethiopian eunuch with Philip in a chariot stopping for baptism. From folio 107 of the Menologian of Basil II, made about 1000 GC and preserved as Ms. Vat. gr. 1613. Source image via Wikimedia Commons. For a narrow-minded, tendentious analysis of this image, Betancourt (2020) Chapter 5. Betancourt’s bullying manipulation of reality grotesquely characterizes a central feature of contemporary intellectual life. Consider his declaration:

Whether Empress Teodora actually carried out the sexual deeds and abortions that Procopius slut-shames her for does not matter, because there were other women in the past subjected to the same — and far worse — rhetorical and physical violence as that imputed against Procopius’s literary Teodora. … To deny these realities is to be complicit with violence — both physical and rhetorical — not just in the past but also in the present.

Betancourt (2020) p. 17. Similarly, id. p. 207. Betancourt provides little historical documentation about the realities of those “other women.” He shows no concern for the vastly gender-disproportionate violence against men obvious from the Iliad to present-day mortality statistics. He trivializes gender inequality in parental knowledge and sexual oppression of men. In general, his arch concern for marginalization and oppression extends only to what’s intellectually fashionable. That makes his bullying particularly disgusting. (2) Philip the Evangelist baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch. Painting by Rembrandt c. 1626. Preserved as accession # ABM s380 in the Museum Catharijneconvent (Utrecht, Netherlands). Image via Wikimedia Commons. For analysis of this painting, Kauffman (2015). Rembrandt’s painting much less faithful translates Acts 8:26-39 than does the painting in the Menologian of Basil. Uncannily echoing Rembrandt’s ideological painting of the story, Betancourt asserts that Philip was the one “commanding the {Ethiopian eunuch’s} chariot to stop.” Betancourt (2020) p. 161.

References:

Aymer, Margaret. 2021. “Commentary on Acts 8:26-39.” Working Preacher. Posted online Apr. 25, 2021.

Betancourt, Roland. 2020. Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Introduction. Reviews by Meaghan Allen and by C. Libby.

Burke, Sean D. 2013. Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch: Strategies of Ambiguity in Acts. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Introduction. Brief review.

Burke, Sean D. c. 2024. “Ethiopian Eunuch from a Queer Perspective.” Bible Odyssey. A public outreach of the Society of Biblical Literature. Online.

Carson, Cottrel R. 1999. ‘Do You Understand What You Are Reading?’ A Reading of the Ethiopian
Eunuch Story (Acts 8.26-40) from a Site of Cultural Marronage. Ph.D. Thesis, Union Theological
Seminary.

Kartzow, Marianne B., and Halvor Moxnes. 2010. “Complex Identities: Ethnicity, Gender and Religion in the Story of the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26–40).” Religion & Theology. 17 (3-4): 184–204.

Kauffman, Ivan J. 2015. “Seeing the Light: The Ethiopian’s Baptism.” Published June 2,2105, on Academia.edu.

Martens, John W. 2015. “Is the Ethiopian eunuch the first Gentile convert in Acts?” America: The Jesuit Review. Posted online Sept. 23, 2015.

Smith, Andrew. 2021. “The backstory of the Ethiopian Eunuch.” Letters, Thoughts, News. Canberra Region Presbytery (Australia). Post online May 2, 2021.

Wilson, Brittany E. 2014. “‘Neither Male nor Female’: The Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8.26–40.” New Testament Studies. 60 (3): 403–22.

Wilson, Brittany E. 2015. Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke-Acts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Review by Alexander Nachaj.

Wilson, Brittany E. 2016. “Gender Disrupted: Jesus as a ‘Man’ in the Fourfold Gospel.” Word and World. 36: 24-35.

Hippocleides doesn’t care: great moment of men’s sexed protest

Men competing to win a woman’s love as if she were a prize much more valuable than themselves is a conventional story-line of modern romance. That’s also the plot of medieval romances such as Marie de France’s twelfth-century lay, Two Lovers {Deus Amanz}. An asymmetrically gendered love-quest occurs more than a millennium earlier in the ancient Greek myth of Princess Pallene, King Sithon, and Pallene’s suitors. The great mother of all such asymmetrically gendered love-seeking is the many suitors seeking the hand of the horrible Helen, who came to be known as Helen of Troy.[1] In contrast to the long romance history of gender inequality, the transgressive story of Hippocleides among competing suitors of Agariste, daughter of Cleisthenes, provides a great moment of men’s sexed protest.

According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, Cleisthenes, the tyrant-ruler of Sicyon, wanted his daughter Agariste to marry the best man among all Greek men. Like most fathers, Cleisthenes apparently adored his daughter and assumed that all men would want to marry her and have him as father-in-law:

Cleisthenes made a proclamation, bidding any Greek men who consider themselves worthy to be his son-in-law to come on the sixtieth day hence or earlier to Sicyon. There, said Cleisthenes, he would promise marriage in a year from that sixtieth day. All the Greek men who were swollen with pride in themselves and their native land then came to seek Agariste’s hand. Cleisthenes made a running track and wrestling arena for the suitors to compete to achieve this end.

{ ὁ Κλεισθένης κήρυγμα ἐποιήσατο, ὅστις Ἑλλήνων ἑωυτὸν ἀξιοῖ Κλεισθένεος γαμβρὸν γενέσθαι, ἥκειν ἐς ἑξηκοστὴν ἡμέρην ἢ καὶ πρότερον ἐς Σικυῶνα, ὡς κυρώσοντος Κλεισθένεος τὸν γάμον ἐν ἐνιαυτῷ, ἀπὸ τῆς ἑξηκοστῆς ἀρξαμένου ἡμέρης. ἐνθαῦτα Ἑλλήνων ὅσοι σφίσι τε αὐτοῖσι ἦσαν καὶ πάτρῃ ἐξωγκωμένοι, ἐφοίτεον μνηστῆρες: τοῖσι Κλεισθένης καὶ δρόμον καὶ παλαίστρην ποιησάμενος ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ τούτῳ εἶχε. }[2]

Herodotus cataloged these eminent Greek suitors of Agariste like the Hesiodic catalog of suitors of Helen and the Iliadic catalog of warriors coming to Troy to engage in violence against men for Helen.[3] Cleisthenes inquired about each man’s family and lineage. He tested them for a long time in various ways:

He then kept them with him for a year, testing their manliness and temper and upbringing and manner of life. He did this by consorting with them alone and in company, and putting the younger of them to contests in the gymnasium, but especially by watching their demeanor at the common meal.

{ μετὰ δὲ κατέχων ἐνιαυτὸν διεπειρᾶτο αὐτῶν τῆς τε ἀνδραγαθίης καὶ τῆς ὀργῆς καὶ παιδεύσιός τε καὶ τρόπου, καὶ ἑνὶ ἑκάστῳ ἰὼν ἐς συνουσίην καὶ συνάπασι, καὶ ἐς γυμνάσιά τε ἐξαγινέων ὅσοι ἦσαν αὐτῶν νεώτεροι, καὶ τό γε μέγιστον, ἐν τῇ συνεστίῃ διεπειρᾶτο }

Cleisthenes gradually came to favor the Athenian Hippocleides, son of Tisander, for his outstanding “manliness {ἀνδραγαθία}.”[4] That manliness included learning and cultural sophistication as well as physical strength. Hippocleides thus became the leading contestant for marriage to Agariste.

ancient Greek satyr dancing upside-down and being approached on the backside by another satyr with an erect penis

Cleisthenes planned to announce on the very day of the marriage ceremony the winning suitor, whom he undoubtedly chose in private consultation with his daughter Agariste. Cleisthenes thus hosted a great feast and invited all of Sicyon to attend. The competition between the men for the woman continued even during the marriage feast:

After the meal, the suitors vied with each other in music and dance and in public speaking for all to hear. Having sat for a long time drinking with the other suitors, Hippocleides, now far outdoing the rest, ordered a flute-player to play slow, stately dance music. The flute-player obeyed, and Hippocleides began to dance. I suppose he pleased himself with his dancing, but Cleisthenes saw the whole business with much disfavor.

{ ὡς δὲ ἀπὸ δείπνου ἐγίνοντο, οἱ μνηστῆρες ἔριν εἶχον ἀμφί τε μουσικῇ καὶ τῷ λεγομένῳ ἐς τὸ μέσον. προϊούσης δὲ τῆς πόσιος κατέχων πολλὸν τοὺς ἄλλους ὁ Ἱπποκλείδης ἐκέλευσέ οἱ τὸν αὐλητὴν αὐλῆσαι ἐμμελείην, πειθομένου δὲ τοῦ αὐλητέω ὀρχήσατο. καί κως ἑωυτῷ μὲν ἀρεστῶς ὀρχέετο, ὁ Κλεισθένης δὲ ὁρέων ὅλον τὸ πρῆγμα ὑπώπτευε. }[5]

Men should dance no matter who disfavors them doing so. Hippocleides showed himself to be a well-trained, sensational dancer:

Hippocleides then stopped for a while and ordered a table to be brought. When the table arrived, he first danced Laconian dance movements on it, and then Attic. Last of all, he rested upside-down with his head on the table and performed with his legs a dance-like form of shadow-boxing.

{ μετὰ δὲ ἐπισχὼν ὁ Ἱπποκλείδης χρόνον ἐκέλευσε τινὰ τράπεζαν ἐσενεῖκαι, ἐσελθούσης δὲ τῆς τραπέζης πρῶτα μὲν ἐπ᾽ αὐτῆς ὀρχήσατο Λακωνικὰ σχημάτια, μετὰ δὲ ἄλλα Ἀττικά, τὸ τρίτον δὲ τὴν κεφαλὴν ἐρείσας ἐπὶ τὴν τράπεζαν τοῖσι σκέλεσι ἐχειρονόμησε. }[6]

Greek men wore tunics and no underwear. Hippocleides thus culminated his performance of various dances by displaying his genitals and buttocks while dancing upside-down. In performing an upside-down shadow-boxing dance, he seems to have been taunting Cleisthenes for having men compete to marry Agariste.

Ancient Greek woman dancer dancing upside-down, or a woman tumbler doing a somersault

The conflict between Cleisthenes and Hippocleides burst into words. Both persons gave their interpretations of Hippocleides’s concluding dance:

During the first and the second dance displays, Cleisthenes could no longer accept considering Hippocleides as his son-in-law because of his dancing and his shamelessness. Nonetheless, he held his tongue, for he didn’t want to censure Hippocleides publicly. However, when he saw him performing with his legs the dance-like form of shadow-boxing, he could no longer keep silent. He said, “Son of Tisander, you indeed have so danced away your marriage.” Hippocleides said in reply, “Hippocleides doesn’t care!” So it is from this that this gets a name.

{ Κλεισθένης δὲ τὰ μὲν πρῶτα καὶ τὰ δεύτερα ὀρχεομένου, ἀποστυγέων γαμβρὸν ἄν οἱ ἔτι γενέσθαι Ἱπποκλείδεα διὰ τήν τε ὄρχησιν καὶ τὴν ἀναιδείην, κατεῖχε ἑωυτόν, οὐ βουλόμενος ἐκραγῆναι ἐς αὐτόν: ὡς δὲ εἶδε τοῖσι σκέλεσι χειρονομήσαντα, οὐκέτι κατέχειν δυνάμενος εἶπε ‘ὦ παῖ Τισάνδρου, ἀπορχήσαό γε μὲν τὸν γάμον.’ ὁ δὲ Ἱπποκλείδης ὑπολαβὼν εἶπε ‘οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ.’ ἀπὸ τούτου μὲν τοῦτο ὀνομάζεται. }[7]

Like Hippocleides, men need not accept that they must compete for the love of a woman. Defying the gender injustices that men endure, men should dance with delight in their full selves despite the authority of tyrant-rulers like Cleisthenes.

Men’s best response to gynocentric demands that they “be a man” and renounce their “toxic masculinity” is “I don’t care.” To those who attempt to teach men that they are inferior to women and that the future is female, men should say “I don’t care.” For those who show no concern other than for “what women want,” men should say “I don’t care.”

The story of Hippocleides among suitors competing to marry Agariste belongs within the transgressive tradition of men’s sexed protest. In ancient Rome, men for good reasons were reluctant to marry. Juvenal regarded his friend Postumus as insane for marrying. Valerius dared to speak the truth to Rufinus about his desire to marry. Matheolus learned too late about his fate under his wife Petra. Hippocleides’s words and bodily orientation to the tyrant-ruler Cleisthenes have most significance within a broad social context similar to that of the peasant Marcolf mooning the woman-appeasing King Solomon. Authorities who don’t recognize this resemblance have been staring for too long into elite mirrors for princes.[8]

* * * * *

Notes:

[1] Classical scholars have ignored gender asymmetry in love-seeking throughout history. The ancient Greek myth of Princess Hippodamia, King Oenamous, and Hippodamia’s suitors parallels that of Princess Pallene, King Sithon, and Pallene’s suitors.

Book 5 of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women is the earliest and most important textual account of Helen’s suitors. It describes a wide array of Greek heroes, “desiring to be beautiful-haired Helen’s husband {ἱμείρων Ἑλένης πόσις ἔμμεναι ἠυκόμοιο}.” Catalogue of Women, Book 5, ancient Greek text and English translation for fragment 154d 1 (31) from Most (2018) pp. 248-9. For an earlier, far inferior edition, see fragment 68 in Evelyn-White (1914). These foolish men offered lavish material gifts to “win” marriage to the truly horrific Helen.

Writing 800 or 900 years after Hesiod, the author known as Apollodorus (pseudo-Apollodorus) also lists suitors of Helen. Apollodorus, The Library {Bibliotheca} 3.10.18, ancient Greek text and English translation available in Frazer (1921).

Lavelle observed of Herodotus’s story of Hippocleides among the competing suitors of Agariste:

The story has been cited since Grote {in a book published in 1888} as a doublet of the mythical ‘wooing of Helen’ of Sparta.

Lavelle (2014) p. 321, footnote omitted. The outcomes of the two stories — the Trojan War’s horrific violence against men and Hippocleides’s transgressive dance and quip — differ starkly.

[2] Herodotus, Histories (Ἱστορίαι} 6.126, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified) from Godley (1920). In translating ἐξωγκωμένοι, I’ve drawn upon the insights in Kurke (2011) pp. 417-8. Subsequent quotes above are similarly sourced from Herodotus’s Histories 6.126-9. Tom Holland has provided a freely available English translation of Histories 6.126-9, apparently from Holland (2014).

The historical significance of Herodotus’s story of Hippocleides among the competing suitors of Agariste has been widely debated, except with respect to gender. Lavelle regarded the story, apart from the fact of the marriage of Agariste, to be obviously fictional:

The stunning reversal {in the story} is in fact improbable — it is as if ‘Hippokleides’ is two different persons — and raises doubts about the story, to which may be added those created by its obvious folktale elements and impossible chronologies. Notwithstanding its dubious nature, the tale has been taken as essentially factual by many scholars. … In fact, it is not history at all.

Lavelle (2014) pp. 313-4, 321.

Some scholars argue that the story derives from the ancient Indic Pāli fable “The Dancing Peacock.” See fable 32 in Davids & Fausbøll (1880) pp. 291-3. For a recent argument for “The Dancing Peacock” as Herodotus’s source, Kurke (2011) pp. 414-20. Others see Herodotus’s story as arising independently of the “The Dancing Peacock.” Nagy (2022). Overall, where the story falls between myth and history isn’t clear:

The relationship between history and myth in the case of Agariste’s betrothal could well be of a mise en abyme variety: it may belong to a type of event — and story — that flows in a somewhat systemic way out of the features of our species and cultural structures of particular societies, crossing freely between history and myth and belonging fully to neither. The permeable interface between mythical history and historical myth in Agariste’s betrothal remains invisible

Levaniouk (2022) p. 163.

[3] Homer, Iliad 2.494–759. Underscoring the dehumanization of these men-warriors, this Iliadic passage is commonly called the “Catalogue of Ships.”

[4] Cleisthenes {Κλεισθένης} of Sicyon (Kleisthenes of Sikyon) is thought to have been tyrant-ruler of Sicyon from about 600 to 560 BGC. Other than from Herodotus’s story, nothing more is known of Hippocleides / Hippokleides {Ἱπποκλείδης} than that he was highly regarded and was the Athenian Eponymous Archon in 566 BGC when the Greater Panathenaia was established. Lavelle (2013) p. 313.

[5] Flute-player here refers to a player of the ancient Greek aulos {αὐλός}, which has two pipes and a strong, driving sound like that of bagpipes. On the sound of the aulos, Lavelle (2013) pp. 326-7. Hippocleides told the aulos player to play a specific type of dance music — an emmeleia {ἐμμελεία}. That’s a slow, stately dance associated with tragic choruses.

The ancient Greek word “μουσική {arts of the Muses}” can include dance. In the context of this story, Hippocleides’s solo dancing clearly distinguishes that dance from what he and the other suitors were doing. Nonetheless, he and the other suitors may have been performing group singing and dancing like ancient Greek choruses did.

[6] For the translation of τοῖσι σκέλεσι ἐχειρονόμησε, I’ve drawn on the learned philological analysis of Olson (2018). Underscoring the importance of dance in the ancient Greek world, “the inventory of dances precisely recorded in the story is astonishing.” Lavelle (2013) pp. 327-9. On these dances, Kurke (2011) pp. 421-2.

Cleisthenes’s angry words to Hippocleides apparently include a pun on “testicles”:

Cleisthenes’ response ostensibly means “you have danced away (aporchêsao) your marriage,” but the hapax aporchêsao also puns significantly on orcheis, ‘testicles’: “You have lost your marriage by displaying your testicles,” possibly even “You have ballsed up your marriage.”

Ogden (1997) p. 117, quoted in Lavelle (2014) p. 329. Lavelle suggested that Hippocleides didn’t actually display his testicles:

While this interpretation is inventive, lively, and even witty, it is oblivious both to representations of Greek hand-stand dancing and what is humanly possible. The only way that Hippokleides could “make hand gestures with his feet” is if he was head-standing faced away from the audience regarding his dancing. … There is certainly a sense of abandon and great impropriety in Hippokleides’ dance, which, as with Douris’ satyr, highlights his buttocks and suggests that the dance has become both satyric and homoerotically suggestive: Hippokleides was apparently advertising for male penetration in the midst of what would have been his own wedding feast!

Id. pp. 330-1. Occurring on a table at a marriage feast, Hippocleides’s dance is best understood as being performed in the round. Irrespective of the primary facing of his upside-down dance-like form of shadow-boxing, his testicles and penis surely were visible to the wedding guests standing around and watching. Moreover, the form of the dance suggests his penis participating in the movement of his lower members.

When eminent and beloved classics professor Mortimer Chambers re-enacted this dance for his class, he was evidently with his (clothed) front facing the audience as he continued to tell the story. See the UCLA Classics Departments online post, “In Memoriam Mortimer Chambers.”

The precise bodily orientation of Hippocleides as he did his dance isn’t important. Lavelle commented:

The impression is of frantic movements and the gesticulations of a man with his legs, buttocks, and genitals exposed above the heads of the wedding guests, flailing away with his bride presumptive present.

Lavelle (2014) p. 329. Whatever the bodily orientation of Hippocleides, that impression is essentially accurate.

[7] For ἀπὸ τούτου μὲν τοῦτο ὀνομάζεται, I’ve used the English translation from Nagy (2015). For detailed philological analysis of the meaning of this phrase, Kazanskaya (2015).

Herodotus probably circulated his Histories about 430 BGC. That’s very close to the date of old Greek comedies that apparently referenced the phrase “Hippocleides doesn’t care! {οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ}.”

In his play Wasps {Σφῆκες / Vespae} that was performed at the Lenaea festival in Athens in 422 BGC, Aristophanes included a phrase similar in meaning and context to “Hippocleides doesn’t care! {οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ}.” In particular, in response to Myrtia {Αρτοπωλισ} threatening to bring a case against him, Lovecleon {Φιλοκλεων} sarcastically declares:

No! Just listen and see if you think I’m making sense. Once Lasus and Simonides were training rival choruses, and Lasus said, “I couldn’t care less.”

{ μὰ Δί᾿, ἀλλ᾿ ἄκουσον, ἤν τί σοι δόξω λέγειν. Λᾶσός ποτ᾿ ἀντεδίδασκε καὶ Σιμωνίδης· ἔπειθ᾿ ὁ Λᾶσος εἶπεν· “ὀλίγον μοι μέλει.” }

Wasps, vv. 1409-11, ancient Greek text and English translation from Henderson (1998). Henderson noted:

Lasus of Hermione was invited to Athens by the tyrant Hipparchus between 527 and 514, where he may have helped to establish the contests in dithyramb, his poetic specialty. Collections of his witty sayings were still read in Roman times (cf. Athenaeus 8.338).

Id. The precedential relationship between these two “don’t care” references isn’t clear. The extensive analysis of Kazanskaya (2015) doesn’t consider this reference in Aristophanes’s Wasps.

The Athenian Hermippus, “a comic poet of the generation previous to Aristophanes,” referred to “Hippocleides doesn’t care {οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ}” in his comedy Demes-men {Δημοται}. Fragment 16 in Storey (2011) pp. 288-9. The specific nature of the reference to οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ in Hermippus’s isn’t clear. Kazanskaya (2015). Hermippus’s Δημοται may have been performed before Herodotus’s Histories had been widely circulated.

The phrase “Hippocleides doesn’t care” is quoted in much later literature. About 100 GC in his essay On the Malice of Herodotus {Περι Τησ Ηροδοτου Κακοηθειασ / De Herodoti malignitate}, Plutarch wrote:

It looks to me as though, like Hippocleides standing on his head on the table and waving his legs in the air, Herodotus would “dance away the truth” and say: “Herodotus doesn’t care.”

{ δοκεῖ μοι, καθάπερ Ἱπποκλείδης ὁ τοῖς σκέλεσι χειρονομῶν ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζης, εἰπεῖν ἂν ἐξορχούμενος τὴν ἀλήθειαν· “οὐ φροντὶς Ἡροδότῳ.” }

Plutarch, Περι Τησ Ηροδοτου Κακοηθειασ 867B, ancient Greek text and English translation from Pearson & Sandbach (1965) pp. 86-7. On Plutarch’s view of Herodotus, Ford (2016).

Other writers quoted the saying consistent with its context in Herodotus’s story. Lucian of Samosata writing in the second century GC concluded his “Apology {Απολογια}” for his “The Dependent Scholar / On Salaried Posts in Great Houses {Περὶ τῶν ἐν Μισθῷ συνόντων}” with this saying. Kilburn (1959) pp. 212-3. Pausanias Grammaticus / Atticista in his second-second lexicon referred to this phrase and called it a “proverb {παροιμία}.” Kazanskaya (2015) pp. 34-5. The Roman Emperor Julian / Flavius Claudius Julianus, in an oration he made probably about 362 GC, quoted this saying. Julian, Oration 6, “Emperor Julian to the Uneducated Cynics (Dogs) {Ιουλιανου Αυτοκρατοροσ Εισ Τουσ Απαιδευτουσ Κυνασ}” 182B in Wright (1913) pp. 8-9. The pseudo-Lucian dialogue “The Patriot {Philopatris},” probably written in Byzantium about 969, also ends with this saying, and also explicitly refers to it as a “proverb {παροιμία}.” MacLeaod (1967) pp. 464-5. Nonetheless, it may not have been a proverb when Herodotus wrote his Histories. Kazanskaya (2015).

A phrase similar to “Hippocleides doesn’t care” certainly became famous in the U.S. in the twentieth century. In the 1939 film, Gone with the Wind, Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) said to Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh): “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” That film adapted this line from the final chapter (Chapter 63) of Margaret Mitchell’s 1935 novel, Gone with the Wind. Rhett Butler’s words there are more concise: “My dear, I don’t give a damn.”

[8] Nagy (2022) refers to Hippocleides as a “preening aristocrat” and characterizes him as “Sybaritic.” Cf. Agariste’s suitor Smindyrides of Sybaris, analyzed in Kurke (2011) p. 418. Nagy thinks about Herodotus’s story of Hippocleides among the competing suitors of Agariste as a simplistic fable serving as a mirror for princes:

When Hippokleides missed his chance of marrying the daughter of Kleisthenes, tyrant of Sikyon, the marriage that was lost by the Athenian aristocrat Hippokleides was now won by another Athenian aristocrat, Megakles, descended from the lineage of the Alkmaionidai, and we read all about it in the continued narration of Herodotus (6.130.2). And here we come to a most telling detail: as we read further in Herodotus (6.131.1), the son who was born to Agariste—and thus the grandson who was born to Kleisthenes the tyrant—turned out to be Kleisthenes, whom Herodotus himself describes as the originator of Athenian democracy. Also descended from the family of Megakles, as we read still further in Herodotus (6.131.2), was another paragon of democracy, Pericles.

I think, then, that the story of the failed suitor Hippokleides, as retold by Herodotus the historian, is well worth thinking about — even if Hippokleides, who had made a name for himself as a main character in his part of the story, had no inclination to think about it.

Nagy (2022). Nagy thus thinks about the story much as would the tyrant-ruler Cleisthenes. Athenaeus seems to have had a more subtle view:

Damon of Athens was accordingly quite right to say that songs and dances can only be produced when the soul is somehow set in motion. Free, beautiful souls produce songs and dances that resemble them in that respect, and vice versa. The witty remark of Cleosthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, thus shows that he had an educated intellect. It is said that when he saw one of his daughters’ suitors — specifically Hippocleides of Athens — doing a vulgar dance, Cleosthenes commented that this man had danced away his marriage, since he thought that his soul most likely matched his actions. For grace and dignity in how a person dances and carries himself are in fact attractive, whereas clumsiness and low-class behavior are embarrassing.

{ οὐ κακῶς δ᾿ ἔλεγον οἱ περὶ Δάμωνα τὸν Ἀθηναῖον ὅτι καὶ τὰς ᾠδὰς καὶ τὰς ὀρχήσεις ἀνάγκη γίνεσθαι κινουμένης πως τῆς ψυχῆς· καὶ αἱ μὲν ἐλευθέριοι καὶ καλαὶ ποιοῦσι τοιαύτας, αἱ δ᾿ ἐναντίαι τὰς ἐναντίας. ὅθεν καὶ τὸ Κλεοσθένους τοῦ Σικυωνίων τυράννου χαρίεν καὶ σημεῖον διανοίας πεπαιδευμένης· ἰδὼν γάρ, ὥς φασι, dφορτικῶς ὀρχησάμενον ἕνα τῶν τῆς θυγατρὸς | μνηστήρων (Ἱπποκλείδης δ᾿ ἦν ὁ Ἀθηναῖος) ἀπωρχῆσθαι τὸν γάμον αὐτὸν ἔφησεν, νομίζων ὡς ἔοικεν καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν τἀνδρὸς εἶναι τοιαύτην. καὶ γὰρ ἐν ὀρχήσει καὶ πορείᾳ καλὸν μὲν εὐσχημοσύνη καὶ κόσμος, αἰσχρὸν δὲ ἀταξία καὶ τὸ φορτικόν. }

Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters {Deipnosophistae} 14.628cd, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Olson (2010). Yonge’s translation (1854) is also available online. Many thoughtful readers would recognize the unwritten but well-known punchline to Athenaeus’s near-parody of wooden thinking: “Hippocleides doesn’t care {οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ}.”

Other scholars have interpreted Herodotus’s story of Hippocleides among the competing suitors of Agariste with an appropriate sense of social justice. Kurke declared:

We might imagine Cleisthenes and/or Megacles and their descendants attempting to aggrandize themselves by casting the narrative of this dynastic marriage alliance in terms that imitate epic wooing scenes and other forms of high poetic narrative. But against this attempt (if it was made), popular tradition — or Herodotus himself — responds by recasting the tale as fable, thereby valorizing and commemorating instead the irreverent Hippoclides. … here, low fable relentlessly demystifies and explodes a tyrant’s epic pretensions. … in Herodotus’s farcical version, Hippoclides is the hero, the character we admire and identify with, in his independence and aplomb in the face of self-important tyrannic authority (while we might say that both Cleisthenes and the hapless Megacles are the butts of this joke).

Kurke (2011) pp. 425, 420, 421. Men defiantly dancing for pleasure promotes social justice:

Cleisthenes rejects and represses the somatic creativity of Hippocleides. But the latter’s famous rejoinder, “Hippocleides doesn’t care” (Οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ, 6.129), exuberantly affirms his personal and political autonomy. Hippocleides does not care about the potential consequences of male solo dance – by choreographing and performing his own idiosyncratic dance, he has already succeeded in undermining Cleisthenes’ apparent authority over the bodies of suitors and subjects alike.

Olsen (2016) pp. 166-7. The elite moralist Plutarch in maligning Herodotus not surprisingly figured Herodotus as Hippocleides.

Understanding gender reality in the ancient Greek world is vitally important for appreciating Herodotus’s story of Hippocleides among the competing suitors of Agariste. The exploitation of men as social instruments for war and work and the devaluation of men in love with women give Hippocleides’s insouciance deep social relevance. Consider, in contrast, the old woman Maryllis’s upside-down dance in Niketas Eugenianos’s twelfth-century Byzantine romance Drosilla and Charikles. With her feet over her head, she farted three times. Her dance, though transgressive, isn’t social protest. Her dance highlights lack of understanding of men’s love for women. Men will do anything in love for women. That social fact is crucial gender context for Hippocleides’s astonishing act of men’s sexed protest.

[images] (1) Ancient Greek satyr dancing upside-down and being approached on the backside by another satyr with an erect penis and hand extended in a gesture of admiration. Painting about 490 BGC by Douris on red-figured psykter (wine-cooler). Made in Attica (Greece). Preserved as museum # 1868,0606.7 in the British Museum. (2) Ancient Greek woman dancer / tumbler upside-down in front of a table and behind a stool. Above her are beads and two tympana (drums), instruments associated with dancing. Painted about 340-330 BGC by the Foundling Painter on a red-figured hydria (water jar). Made in Campania, Italy. Preserved as museum # 1814,0704.566 in the British Museum. For other ancient Greek paintings suggesting upside-down dancing, Lavelle (2014) p. 330. (3) Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) telling Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) that he doesn’t give a damn in the 1939 film, Gone with the Wind. Via YouTube.

References:

Davids, T. W. Rhys, and V. Fausbøll, trans. 1880. Buddhist Birth Stories; Or, Jātaka Tales. The Oldest Collection of Folk-Lore Extant. London: Trübner & Co.

Evelyn-White, Hugh G., ed. and trans. 1914. Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica. Loeb Classical Library Volume 57. London: William Heinemann.

Ford, Laura. 2016. ‘Plutarch’s “On the Malice of Herodotus.”‘ The Kosmos Society. Online, March 15, 2016.

Frazer, James G. ed, and trans. 1921. Apollodorus. The Library, Volume II: Book 3.10-end. Epitome. Loeb Classical Library 122. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Godley, A. D., ed. and trans. 1920. Herodotus. The Persian Wars. Loeb Classical Library 117-120. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Henderson, Jeffrey, ed. and trans. 1998. Aristophanes. Clouds. Wasps. Peace. Loeb Classical Library 488. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Holland, Tom, trans. and Paul Cartledge, introduction and notes. 2014. Herodotus. The Histories. New York: Viking.

Kazanskaya, Maria. 2015. “A Ghost Proverb in Herodotus (6. 129. 4)?” Hyperboreus. 21: 33–52.

Kilburn, K., ed. and trans. 1959. Lucian. How to Write History. The Dipsads. Saturnalia. Herodotus or Aetion. Zeuxis or Antiochus. A Slip of the Tongue in Greeting. Apology for the “Salaried Posts in Great Houses.” Harmonides. A Conversation with Hesiod. The Scythian or The Consul. Hermotimus or Concerning the Sects. To One Who Said “You’re a Prometheus in Words.” The Ship or The Wishes. Loeb Classical Library 430. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kurke, Leslie. 2011. Aesopic Conversations: popular tradition, cultural dialogue, and the invention of Greek prose. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Kurke’s introduction. Reviews by Andrew Ford, by Vivienne Gray, and by Tom Hawkins.

Lavelle, Brian M. 2014. “Hippokleides, the ‘Dance’, and the Panathenaia.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 54 (3): 313–41. Alternate source for article. Related presentation.

Levaniouk, Olga. 2022. “Seeking Agariste.” Pp. 147-165 in Menelaos Christopoulos, Athina Papachrysostomou, and Andrea P. Antonopoulos, eds. Myth and History: Close Encounters. MythosEikonPoiesis 14. Berlin: De Gruyter.

MacLeod, M. D., ed. and trans. 1967. Lucian. Soloecista. Lucius or The Ass. Amores. Halcyon. Demosthenes. Podagra. Ocypus. Cyniscus. Philopatris. Charidemus. Nero. Loeb Classical Library 432. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Most, Glenn W., ed,. and trans. 2018. Hesiod. The Shield. Catalogue of Women. Other Fragments. Loeb Classical Library 503. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.

Nagy, Gregory. 2022. “The Dancing Peacock in the Buddhist Jātaka-s: a link with Herodotus?” Classical Continuum. Posted online December 5, 2022.

Ogden, Daniel. 1997. The Crooked Kings of Ancient Greece. London: Duckworth.

Olsen, Sarah. 2016. Beyond Choreia: Dance in Ancient Greek Literature and Culture. Ph.D. Thesis, Classics. University of California, Berkeley. Revised into Olsen (2021).

Olsen, Sarah. 2021. Solo Dance in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature: Representing the Unruly Body. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Olson, S. Douglas ed. and trans. 2006-2012. Athenaeus of Naucratis. The learned banqueters {Deipnosophistae}. Loeb Classical Library vols. 204, 208, 224, 235, 274, 327, 345, 519. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Olson, S. Douglas. 2018. ‘χειρονομία and the aulos: How Hippocleides “danced away” his Marriage.’ Glotta. 94 (1): 259-263.

Pearson, Lionel and F. H. Sandbach, ed. and trans. 1965. Plutarch. Moralia, Volume XI: On the Malice of Herodotus. Causes of Natural Phenomena. Loeb Classical Library 426. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Storey, Ian C., ed. and trans. 2011. Fragments of Old Comedy, Volume II: Diopeithes to Pherecrates. Loeb Classical Library 514. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.

Wright, Wilmer C., ed. and trans. 1913. Julian. Orations 6-8. Letters to Themistius, To the Senate and People of Athens, To a Priest. The Caesars. Misopogon. Loeb Classical Library 29. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.