On Heroes

“Strength and dignity are her clothing… she opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”
(Proverbs 31:25–26)

Acknowledgments

A multitude of heroes, gods, and mortals populate On Heroes and its world; likewise our work with this text over the course of several years has been assisted by many friends and scholars. Our acquaintance with On Heroes began at Harvard Divinity School, when from 1991 to 1993 a group of doctoral students from the Department of New Testament and Early Christian Studies gathered weekly, under the direction of Professor Helmut Koester, to read On Heroes together in Greek. This group included, in addition to us, Marianne Bonz, Denise Buell, Liza Burr, Cynthia Kittredge, Iain Maclean, Shelly Matthews, Barbara Rossing, James Skedros, and Christine Thomas. We are grateful to these colleagues for the hours spent together in congenial and dedicated work. Fascinated by the text and its vivid depiction of Greek heroes, we decided at that time that On Heroes needed to be made accessible in English translation so as to be useful to students and scholars alike.

Interdisciplinary conversation has proved invaluable in understanding this text. Our special thanks go to Helmut Koester for his conviction about the importance of this text for Early Christian studies and for his continual encouragement. We are also grateful for the ways he nurtured the climate of inquiry in which this volume took shape. Gregory Nagy, whose work on Homer and Greek heroes undergirds our work, has been our constant mentor, critic, and fan during the preparation of this volume. His undying enthusiasm for Philostratus's On Heroes strengthened us when our spirits flagged.

We are delighted that Casey Dué and Gregory Nagy have graced this volume with their “Preliminaries.” This essay grows out of their use of On Heroes in the course “The Concept of the Hero in Hellenic Civilization” in Harvard's Core Curriculum. Their sensitivity to the educational potential of this text thoroughly informs their essay and initiates the reader into the world of heroes.

We deeply appreciate the assistance of Jackson P. Hershbell, professor emeritus of Classics at the University of Minnesota, who read earlier drafts of our translation with care. Jack's keen eyes have caught many errors and infelicities, his thorough knowledge of the literature of the Second Sophistic has greatly stimulated our thinking about Philostratus, and his questions have enriched the notes and Glossary. Jack also sent us early ideas for the Introduction, which have formed a core of some portions of it. We thank him for his unstinting help.

Our research assistants, Laura Nasrallah, Sarah Stewart, Douglas Young, Anna Miller, and Jenna Zamesnik have provided timely and accurate help along the way, often when they had only a partial view of the entire project. Christopher P. Jones, Kimberley Patton, Jeffrey Rusten, and Timothy Whitmarsh have generously advised us on particular points or shared drafts of their own work with us. Jennifer Phillips read an earlier version of the translation. We are grateful to Catherine Playoust, Christina Salowey, and Florinda Ruiz; their careful reading of our work has saved us from many errors. Thomas J. Wells of Invisible Productions expertly created the maps in this volume. Our thanks go to all of them, as well as to the staffs of Fintel Library at Roanoke College and of the Andover-Harvard Theological Library. Research funds from Roanoke College and Harvard Divinity School have helped in making our collaboration possible on a practical level. We also thank John Herrmann from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Jody Maxmin of the Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University; Elizabeth Milleker from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Bernhard Weisser, conservator of the Münzkabinett in the Bodesmuseum, Berlin, for their assistance with the appearances of Protesilaos on coins, gems, reliefs, and statuary and for providing the plates included in this volume.

This Student Edition was preceded by the publication of our translation accompanied by the Greek text on facing pages as the first volume in the Society of Biblical Literature's new series Writings from the Greco-Roman World. We have taken this opportunity to make a few minor corrections to the Translation and Glossary. We offer our profound appreciation to the editor of this series, John Fitzgerald, for his continual support and encouragement through the process of preparing this volume and for his availability for counsel from the time we first approached him. We are also grateful to Rex Matthews, Editorial Director of the Society of Biblical Literature, for his enthusiasm for this project and his many contributions to the preparation of this volume. Yannis Haralambous, of Atelier Fluxus Virus, is responsible for the design, typesetting, and layout of the volume; we express our admiration for the care he has devoted to it.

To those who introduced us to the Greeks and instilled in us a love of things Greek—in particular the faculties of the Classics Departments at Stanford University and Harvard University—we are greatly indebted. Now we in turn take great pleasure in introducing students to this world through Philostratus's On Heroes. It is to our students, whose enthusiasm for this text has matched our own, that this volume is dedicated. And to our “friend” Protesilaos, who loves things Greek even more vigorously, a libation is no doubt in order as we participate in his literary resurrection

Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean, Salem, Virginia,
Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Abbreviations

Note on Numbering System

The numbering system used for references to On Heroes in the present volume reflects the chapter and paragraph divisions assigned by Ludo de Lannoy in his critical edition of the Greek text (Flavii Philostrati Heroicus [Leipzig: Teubner, 1977]). Advanced students should note that citations of On Heroes in LSJ refer to the chapter and paragraph numbers of Carl Ludwig Kayser's 1870 edition of the Greek text (Flavii Philostrati opera auctiora edidit C. L. Kayser; accedunt Apollonii Epistolae, Eusebius Adversus Hieroclem, Philostrati junioris Imagines, Callistrati Descriptiones [2 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1870–1871; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1964]). Kayser's numbering system, along with de Lannoy's, appears in the margins of the Greek text reproduced in our full version of Philostratus's Heroikos (SBLWGRW 1; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001).

Preliminaries to
Philostratus's On Heroes
by
Casey Dué and Gregory Nagy

The Heroes of Philostratus's On Heroes:
Fiction, Epic, and Hero-Cult

In the literature of the so-called Second Sophistic era (around 60 to 230 C.E.), as best exemplified by Philostratus's On Heroes (written toward the end of this era), ancient readers were treated to claims of a truer and more accurate account of the Trojan War—truer even than the version they were used to reading in the epic poetry of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey.[2] In the polished prose of On Heroes, such a claim was made not by the author himself, Philostratus, but by a creation of the author. This creation is a fictional character known simply as the ampelourgos, “vinedresser,” who is telling another character—a mysterious Phoenician—all about an ancient hero who fought and died at Troy. This hero, Protesilaos his eyewitness accounts about what really happened in the Trojan War and beyond. Similar claims were made by shady “authors” like Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian, offering what were described as eyewitness accounts.

What was the cause for such intense interest in trying to validate the stories of the Trojan War? For an answer, it is essential to understand the agenda underlying the stories themselves. The Trojan War was viewed by the ancients as the primary testing ground for the ancient concept of the hero. The heroes who populated the stories about the Trojan War were the primary focus of interest. These heroes were the real agenda.

In ancient Greek myth, heroes were humans, male or female, of the remote past, endowed with superhuman abilities and descended from the immortal gods themselves. The prime example is Akhilleus, more commonly known as Achilles in the English tradition. This, the greatest hero of the Homeric Iliad, was the son of Thetis, a sea-goddess known for her far-reaching cosmic powers.

There was a major problem, however, with the actual stories that told about such heroes. The classical versions of these stories had been crystallized in the epic poetry of Homer and, later on, in the dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles. As literature, the media of epic and drama could be seen as perfect expressions of classical ideals. By the time of the Second Sophistic, however, these same media were far less than perfect in expressing the essence of the ancient heroes. What seemed to be missing in the classical media? It was the older concept of the cult hero, which continued to be a vital part of the overall concept of the hero in the era of the Second Sophistic. In this era, even new fiction seemed superior to classical epic and drama in giving full expression to that older concept.

The cult hero, the object of hero cult, was a basic historical fact of Greek civilization. Hero cult was the traditional practice of worshipping heroes, and the evidence for it goes back at least as far as the “Geometric” period of the first millennium B.C.E.[3] There is broad cultural evidence indicating that hero cult in ancient Greece was not created out of epic stories like those of the Iliad and Odyssey but was in fact independent of them. The epic stories, on the other hand, were actually based on the religious practices, though not always directly.

Paradoxically, references to the practice of worshipping heroes are not obvious—at first sight—in the prime media of archaic and classical Greek literature that deal most directly with heroes. Current research on the traditions underlying the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey as well as the dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides has demonstrated the pervasive influence of hero cults in shaping the media of epic and drama, but the fact remains that most references to the actual cults of heroes are only implicit in these forms of archaic and classical Greek literature.[4] It is the historians of the classical period who give us the earliest explicit references to hero cults, and the most prominent example is the narrative of Herodotus about the cult of Protesilaos at Elaious (Hist. 7.33; 9.116–120).[5] Yet, even in the medium of classical Greek historiography, the actual meaning of such a hero cult remains something of a mystery. That mystery, as we shall see later, is intentional.

As Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and Jennifer Berenson Maclean show clearly in their detailed Introduction to Philostratus's On Heroes, the numerous references in this work to the hero cults of Protesilaos, Achilles, Ajax, and other heroes of the epic tradition reflect accurately the historical realities of hero cults as they persisted into the third century C.E. They show further that the traditionalism of Philostratus's On Heroes in its treatment of hero cults is not necessarily at odds with the literary and philosophical modernities that pervade this masterpiece of the Second Sophistic era of Hellenic civilization.

A key aspect of these modernities is the use of fiction.[6] The framing devices used by authors of the Second Sophistic of Crete strive to emphasize the truth and credibility of their accounts. As Stefan Merkle points out, Dictys of Crete presents himself as a reliable historian. Dictys is represented as referring to his own credibility as an eyewitness and claims to have questioned other eyewitnesses. He uses the rhetoric and methods of historiography to distinguish between versions and provide the most reliable account.[7] Merkle also notes that, unlike the literary game of Lucian's The Dream, or The Cock, there are no parodic features in Dictys. The unadorned style of the military diary is adopted in order to give the account the greatest weight.[8]

Philostratus's On Heroes is similar in that there are no parodic features that undermine the authority of the framing narrative. The vinedresser who tends the sacred grove of the cult hero Protesilaos engages in a dialogue with a Phoenician who seems to know nothing about Greek hero cult.[9] The vinedresser communes frequently with the hero and has heard from him a more accurate account of the Trojan War.[10] This account (as mediated through the vinedresser) not only directly contradicts Homer in many places, but it also includes narratives that are not featured in the Homeric tradition:

Phoenician: And, vinedresser, what would be the contest over the shield?[11] No poet has mentioned it, nor does it appear in any story of the Trojan War.
Vinedresser: That, my guest, you will say about many matters, because the hero tells many things about warriors as well as deeds of battles that are not yet known to most people. This is the reason. He says that, in their passion, most people, looking only at Achilles and Odysseus, neglect good and brave men, so that some are not remembered at all, and for others Homer dedicates a trireme of four verses. (Her. 14.1–2)

Philostratus, through the experiences of a worshipper of Protesilaos, claims to bring to light narratives about heroes that are not featured prominently in the panhellenic Iliad and Odyssey.

Philostratus uses the authority of a warrior hero who was reportedly present at Troy, seeking thus to authenticate narratives about the various other heroes who fought there. According to epic, Protesilaos was the first warrior to die at Troy ( could “observe the affairs of mortals” (Her. 7.3). Thus both the Dictys narrative and On Heroes make use of an authoritative heroic source who, in communication with the participants in the Trojan War, corrects and supplements the Homer-centric understanding that most people of the day would have had about the Trojan War, particularly with respect to the heroes who fought there.

The vinedresser particularly calls attention to heroes who are not mentioned in the Iliad or Odyssey or who have only a few verses devoted to them in these epics. Protesilaos himself belongs to the latter group. The cult of this particular hero in the Chersonesus is featured prominently at the end of Herodotus's Histories, and it stems from an old tradition.[12] Narratives about Protesilaos associated with that cult must have existed in classical times and possibly even earlier. It could be argued that On Heroes, far from being a playful fiction or a literary game, is a revival of those narratives, an assertion of the “truth” about that hero. It is possible that the other heroes and narratives that are featured prominently in On Heroes, such as those about Achilles on the so-called White Island, are also connected with a renewed interest in the cult of various heroes.[13]

The question must then be asked: To what extent did such writers of the Second Sophistic as Philostratus and the author behind Dictys of Crete conceive of their works as fictional? As Ewen Bowie has pointed out, a fictional frame does not suffice to make the overall work a fiction: the fictional dialogue, after all, is a common feature of Greek philosophical writings.[14] In the case of On Heroes, the presence of polemic should perhaps be our first indication that something important is at stake when Philostratus the author asserts his version of the Trojan War. In On Heroes, Philostratus indirectly attacks the credibility of Dictys's account of the Trojan War in at least two places.[15] The Journal of the Trojan War, attributed to Dictys, purports to be a journal kept by a companion of the Cretan hero Idomeneus during the Trojan War. This work is contradicted in Philostratus's On Heroes when Protesilaos is cited as saying that Idomeneus never participated in the Trojan War, thereby implicitly denying the authenticity of Dictys's eyewitness report (Her. 30.1). It is also asserted in On Heroes that the use of writing was first invented by Palamedes, a prominent figure associated with the Trojan War (Her. 33.1). This assertion, implying that writing was not yet in use at the time of the Trojan War, seems once again to challenge the framing narrative of Dictys. The narrative of Philostratus undermines the narrative of Dictys in the process of asserting the accuracy of Philostratus's own account.

Framing narratives of authentication can be found in the literature of many cultures. A less extraordinary but nevertheless comparable attempt to authenticate a new narrative of the past may be found in the Roman historian Sallust's Jugurtha (17):

But what people first inhabited Africa and what people came later or in what way they became mixed together, although my account is different from the report that most people have heard, nevertheless how I have interpreted it using Punic books which are attributed to King Hiempsal, and how the cultivators of the land themselves think that it happened, I will relate as briefly as possible.

Sallust here claims to provide a more accurate history of Africa on the basis of his access to a special source: books, written in another language, attributed to an important historical figure from Numidia.

Another notable example comes from early medieval Irish evidence. It is an anecdote, dated to the ninth century C.E.,[16] concerning the rediscovery of a supposedly lost book, the Táin Bó Cuailnge (“The Cattle Raid of Cooley”), which is a collection of “epic” narratives about Ireland's greatest heroes.[17] This anecdote is in effect a “charter myth,”[18] explaining the essence of the Táin.[19] In terms of the myth, this book of narratives, the Táin, is equivalent to an integral epic performance. The myth narrates how this book had once been lost and how the assembled poets of Ireland “could not recall it in its entirety,” since they knew only “fragments” [bloga].[20] In a quest to find the lost integral book, the poet Muirgen happens to travel past the tomb of Fergus mac Roich, one of the chief heroes featured in the narrative of the Táin. It is nighttime. Muirgen sits down at the gravestone of the tomb, and he sings an incantation to this gravestone “as though it were Fergus himself.”[21] Responding to the incantation, Fergus himself appears in all his heroic glory, and he “recited to him [ = to Muirgen] the whole Táin, how everything had happened, from start to finish.”[22] As in Philostratus's On Heroes, we see that the superhuman consciousness of the hero can take over or even possess the narration of epic.

Confronted with the idea that an oracular cult hero possesses total mastery of epic narrative, our first impression is that this idea cannot be reconciled with what we find in Homeric poetry. According to the poetics of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, it is of course the Muses who “inspire” epic narrative. At first glance then these goddesses of memory seem to be the sole source for the superhuman consciousness that informs the content of Homeric poetry and gives it the authority to tell about the gods and heroes of heroic times. This authority, however, is actually shared with the heroes who are “quoted” by Homeric performance, as a closer look at the Iliad and Odyssey reveals clearly.

In his book about the “quotations” of heroes in Homeric poetry, Richard Martin has demonstrated that the “voice” of the poet becomes traditionally identified with the “voices” of the heroes quoted by the poetic performance:

My central conclusion is that the Iliad takes shape as a poetic composition in precisely the same “speaking culture” that we see foregrounded in the stylized words of the poem's heroic speakers, especially those speeches designated as muthos, a word I redefine as “authoritative speech-act.” The poet and the hero are both “performers” in a traditional medium. The genre of muthos composing requires that its practitioners improve on previous performances and surpass them, by artfully manipulating traditional material in new combinations. In other words, within the speeches of the poem, we see that it is traditional to be spontaneous: no hero ever merely repeats; each recomposes the traditional text he performs, be it a boast, threat, command, or story, in order to project his individual personality in the most convincing manner. I suggest that the “voice” of the poet is the product of the same traditional performance technique.[23]

Recent ethnographic work on oral poetic performance traditions has provided typological parallels in support of Martin's demonstration. In the Sīrat Banī Hilāl epic singing tradition of the poets of al-Bakātūsh in contemporary Egypt, for example, Dwight Reynolds has sought—and found—an analogy for Martin's model of the interchangeable “voice” of poet and hero in epic performance:

[T]he social reality of the al-Bakātūsh poets involves a distinctly negative position for the epic singer within the greater social hierarchy; in marked contrast to the poet's marginalized status in village society, however, are the moments of centrality, power, and “voice performance. This disjunctive persona has produced not only a fascinating process of deep self-identification with the epic tradition on the part of the poets, but has clearly, over generations, shaped and indeed constituted many aspects of the content of the epic itself—an epic tradition, as I have termed it, of heroic poets and poetic heroes.[24]

There is also a plethora of ethnographic work that documents the widespread mentality of heroic “possession,” where the consciousness of the poet is “possessed” by the consciousness of the hero as soon as the poet, in performance, starts “quoting” the hero.[25] As one ethnographer puts it, there can be “a transition from a story about a spirit, to one told to a spirit, to one told by a spirit.”[26]

We may infer, then, that Philostratus's On Heroes has preserved for us the memory of oral epic traditions where heroes are being “quoted” through the supernatural consciousness of the heroes themselves. This is not to say, however, that On Heroes itself represents a direct continuation of such oral traditions. We have little doubt that the oral traditions of composition-in-performance, as still reflected in the hexameter poetry of the Iliad and Odyssey and of the Epic Cycle in general, had been dead for well over half a millennium by the time Philostratus composed On Heroes. Still, it is essential to stress that the traditions of hero cults were evidently still alive in the era of Philostratus. Moreover, the archaic mentality of seeking communion with the consciousness of cult heroes was likewise still alive. Even though the Homeric poems and the Epic Cycle were now literary rather than oral traditions, they still preserved, as traditions per se, a vital link with the rituals of hero cult. On Heroes bridges the chasm between the mythical world of epic heroes and the ritual world of cult heroes. In this masterpiece of the Second Sophistic, a continuum is still felt to exist between these two diverging worlds. The spirit of this age is captured by the following formulation of the would-be initiate Phoenician in Her. 6.3: “I dreamed I was reading aloud (anaginôskein) the epic verses (epos plural) of Homer.”

Initiation into the Mysteries of Heroes:
Ancient Greek Hero Cult and On Heroes

A telling feature of Philostratus's traditionalism is his consistent use of mystical language in referring to the cult hero Protesilaos. Throughout Philostratus's On Heroes, there is a sharp contrast being made between the special understanding of the initiated—in this case, he happens to be a local Greek “vinedresser” in the hero's sacred space—and the everyday understanding of the uninitiated—in this case, he happens to be a non-local non-Greek, from Phoenicia. This special understanding is conveyed by words that have a special meaning for the initiated but an everyday meaning for the uninitiated. The process of initiation allows the new initiate—hereafter we will refer to him as the “initiand”—to transcend the everyday meaning of words and to achieve a special understanding of their sacral meaning.

At the beginning of On Heroes, the reader learns that Protesilaos experienced not one but two resurrections in the heroic past. The first time, the hero came back to life at Phthia in Thessaly after his death at Troy, all because of his love for his bride Laodameia (anabiôiê; a second time thereafter (anabiônai; Her. 2.10). Just exactly how he came back for the second time, however, is not revealed even to the initiate, the vinedresser, who says to the initiand, the Phoenician, that Protesilaos chooses not to tell that particular “sacred secret,” that particular aporrhêton (Her. 2.11).[27]

That was then, in the heroic past. Now, however, in the everyday present, the living hero continues to come back again and again, as a sacred epiphany or apparition, much like other heroes of the heroic past who likewise “appear in epiphanies” or “show up” (phainontai; Her. 2.11). So speaks the initiated vinedresser, and the Phoenician admits that he has a hard time believing all this: “I do not believe,” he says (apisteô; Her. 3.1). In other words, the initiand is not yet an initiate. Still, he wants to be a “believer” (pisteuôn; Her. 3.1). The initiate responds by proceeding to tell the initiand all about the epiphanies of Protesilaos, describing the cult hero's interventions into the world of the everyday. Where is Protesilaos most likely to be sighted? The initiate reveals an array of places where the hero may “show up,” as it were: sometimes he is in the Chersonesus, sometimes in Phthia, sometimes in Troy—a most notable of locations for frequent sightings of heroes who died in the Trojan War—and sometimes he is back in Hades (Her. 11.7). It is in Hades that he continues to have sex with his beloved bride Laodameia (Her. 11.8).

As the narrative of the hero's epiphanies proceeds, a gentle breeze carries the sweet aroma of flowers in bloom, and the initiand is feeling refreshed (Her. 3.2–5). He remarks that the plant life literally “breathes out” (anapnei) a sweetness of its own (Her. 3.3). It is the right season, the exact time, the perfect moment: it is the hôra (Her. 3.2, 5). One can begin to sense the hero's sacred presence. Through a sort of metonymy, the breath of the hero himself animates the atmosphere, and Protesilaos is now revealing (apophainôn), the scent of the blossoms at their sweetest (Her. 11.3).[28 ] The hero's presence smells sweeter than myrtles in autumn (Her. 10.2).[29 ] The perfect moment or hôra, in all its natural beauty, becomes the ultimate epiphany of the cult hero.[30]

The secrets of the cult hero Protesilaos are clearly visible to the initiate: since these are things that are theia (“divine”) and megala (“larger than life”), they will not escape the notice of those who are “cultivated,” (kharientes; Her. 3.2). For the uninitiated, however, these same secrets are veiled in language that expresses what seems quite ordinary and everyday on the surface. About the cult hero Protesilaos, the initiate starts by saying to the uninitiated: “He lives [zêi] here, and we work the land [geôrgoumen] together” (Her. 2.8). What image in life could be more straightforward, more everyday, than life itself? When the initiand follows up by asking whether Protesilaos “lives” in the sense that he is “resurrected” (anabebiôkôs), the initiate replies: “He himself does not speak about his own experiences [pathos plural]” (Her. 2.9). This absolutizing declaration is then followed by a series of qualifications: contradicting what he has just said, the initiate now goes on to say that the hero Protesilaos does indeed speak about his own death at Troy, about his first resurrection, and about his second death—though he does not speak about his second resurrection (Her. 2.9–11).

A vital question remains: How can a cult hero like Protesilaos actually communicate with those who are initiated into his mysteries? According to the traditional mentality of hero cults, the answer is simple: whenever they come back to life, cult heroes are endowed with a superhuman consciousness. This consciousness of the hero, activated by hero cult, performs the basic function of ensuring the seasonality of nature, and it manifests itself in such specific functions as the healing of humans or animals or plants: in Her. 4.10, for example, Protesilaos is described as the iatros (“healer”) of sheep, beehives, trees.[31]

For this superhuman consciousness to be activated, the cult hero must be consulted. In the case of Philostratus's On Heroes, we see that a cult hero like Protesilaos has to be actively consulted by his worshippers: from the very beginning, in fact, the intent of the chief character, the worker in the vineyard of Protesilaos, is to make this cult hero his own personal “advisor,” (xumboulos; Her. 4.7).[32] Whenever the ritual of consultation would fail, the worshipper says that he could know for sure, since the cult hero would be silent (esiôpa; Her. 4.7). By contrast, the success of the consultation is manifested whenever the cult hero speaks.

Such consulting of oracular cult heroes concerns not only the fundamentals of nature. It concerns also the fundamental nature of the heroes themselves. Their heroic essence has two aspects, one of which is defined by epic narrative traditions like the Iliad and Odyssey, while the other is defined by hero cult. In Philostratus's On Heroes, these two aspects of the hero are treated holistically as integral parts of a single concept. Thus the process of consulting oracular heroes leads to the initiate's knowledge about their epic aspects, as well as their ritual aspects. As the initiate declares, cult heroes have their own knowledge of epic narrative because they are endowed with mantikê sophia (“the skill of a seer [mantis]”), and there is an “oracular” principle (khrêsmôdes) operating within them (Her. 7.3). That is why a hero like Protesilaos “sees all the way through” (di-horâi) the poems of Homer (Her. 7.4), knowing things that go beyond his own experiences when he, Protesilaos, had lived in the past of heroes (Her. 7.5–6); the hero even knows things about which Homer himself did not sing (Her. 7.5).

In sum, On Heroes provides a model of poetic inspiration that centers on the superhuman consciousness of the oracular hero, which has a totalizing control of epic narrative. As we have seen, this model is not an innovation but an archaism, stemming from oral poetic traditions that predate even the Homeric traditions of the Iliad and Odyssey. Philostratus's On Heroes makes it clear that heroes cannot be defined exclusively in terms of their epic dimensions, though this aspect becomes vitally important in the history of ideas about heroism, especially in view of the ultimate cultural prestige surrounding the prime medium that conveys these ideas, Homeric poetry. For Philostratus, the prestige of Homer and the Homeric hero is a given. In On Heroes, however, he goes further, far further, by reconnecting that epic prestige with the sacred charisma possessed by the hero in cult.

Continuity and Tradition in
Philostratus's On Heroes

As noted above, references to the immortalization of heroes after death and their status as cult figures are almost never explicit in the Iliad and Odyssey.[33] Implicit references to hero cult, however, are pervasive. Indeed, much of epic diction resonates with religious undertones, resulting in a superficial meaning for certain key terms, as well as a deeper, sacred meaning for those “in the know”—the initiated worshippers. Philostratus's On Heroes, although composed many centuries after our Iliad and Odyssey, helps us to connect with the mentality of hero cults that lies beneath the surface of Homeric poetry. A closer examination of a few selected passages will illustrate the continuity of hero cult narratives about the immortality of heroes that can be traced in On Heroes. These same passages can in turn enhance our understanding of archaic and classical Greek poetry.

In Iliad 23, the psukhê of Patroklos visits Achilles in a dream and entreats Achilles to bury him in a golden amphora that Thetis gave to Achilles in anticipation of his death:

“Do not bury my bones apart from yours, Achilles,
but together, as we were raised in your house…
so may the same vessel contain both our bones,
the golden amphora, which your lady mother gave you.”[34]
(Il. 23.83–84, 91–92)

This golden amphora is one of the only concrete symbols of Achilles' immortality after death in the Iliad.[35] The golden amphora signals the reassembly of Achilles' bones and his transformation into an immortalized hero after death. Elsewhere in the poem, however, only his short life and his grief while alive are emphasized. The anticipation of the finality of Achilles' death is so great that the mourning for Achilles begins while he is still alive. Similarly, Odysseus and Telemachus are lamented by Penelope repeatedly throughout the Odyssey.[36]

The religious dimension of Homeric poetry aids our interpretation of these lament-filled passages. As Nagy has argued, the funeral rituals and lamentation of the Iliad and Odyssey are a reflection of actual cult practice in the worship of heroes like Achilles and Odysseus as religious figures.[37] The songs of lament for Achilles and Odysseus within the epic are an important part of ritual lamentation for the hero on the part of the communities for whom the epics are performed.[38]

So she spoke lamenting, and the women wailed in response,
with Patroklos as their pretext, but each woman for her own cares. (Il. 19.301–302)

Briseis' song extends not only to the collective experience of the women around her who lament their fallen husbands, butto the audience of the epic as well.[39]Dué has argued that Briseis' lamentation for Patroklos is also a lament for Achilles.[40] Her lament becomes on the level of cult a communal expression of lamentation for Achilles as hero. It is not insignificant then that the final lament of the Iliad, sung by Helen (who is the cause of the war), ends not with the antiphonal wailing of the women (as at 6.499; 19.30; 22.515; and 24.746), but of the Trojan people: “So she spoke lamenting, and the people [dêmos] wailed in response” (Il. for Achilles before his death in the Iliad to the very full description of his funeral in the Odyssey:

“Happy [olbios] son of Peleus, Achilles like the gods,” answered the ghost [psukhê] of Agamemnon, “for having died at Troy far from Argos, while the best of the Trojans and the Achaeans fell around you fighting for your body. There you lay in the whirling clouds of dust, all huge and hugely, heedless now of your horsemanship. We fought the whole of the livelong day, nor should we ever have left off if Zeus tore their hair and wept bitterly round about you. Your mother, when she heard, came with her immortal nymphs from out of the sea, and the sound of heavenly wailing went forth over the waters so that the Achaeans old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest checked them saying, `Hold, Argives, flee not, sons of the Achaeans, this is his mother coming from the sea with her immortal nymphs to view the body of her son.' Thus he spoke, and the Achaeans feared no more. The daughters of the old man of the sea stood round you weeping bitterly, and clothed you in immortal raiment. The nine muses also came and lifted up their sweet voices in lament—calling and answering one another; there was not an Argive but wept for pity of the dirge they chanted. Days and nights seven and ten we mourned you, mortals and immortals, but on the eighteenth day we gave you to the flames, and many a fat sheep with many an ox did we slay in sacrifice around you. You were burnt in raiment of the gods, with rich resins and with honey, while Achaean heroes, horse and foot, clashed their armor round the pile as you were burning, with the tramp as of a great multitude. But when the flames of heaven had done their work, we gathered your white bones at daybreak and laid them in ointments and in pure wine. Your mother brought us a golden amphora to hold them—gift of Dionysos, and work of Hephaistos himself; in this we mingled your bleached bones with those of Patroklos, who had been closer to you than any other of your comrades now that Patroklos was no more. Over their bodies we the sacred army of Argive spearmen piled up a huge and perfect tomb, on a jutting headland, by the wide Hellespont, so that it may be bright from afar for men coming from the sea, both those who are now and those who will be in the future. Your mother begged prizes from the gods, and offered them to be contended for [agôn] by the noblest of the Achaeans. You must have been present at the funeral of many a hero, when the young men gird themselves and make ready to contend for prizes on the death of some great chieftain, but you never saw such prizes as silver-footed Thetis offered in your honor; for the gods loved you well. Thus even in death your kleos, Achilles, has not been lost, and your name lives evermore among all humankind.” (Od. 24.35–95)[41]

In the Odyssey tradition, the spectacular funeral, prominent tomb, and the lamentation of not only the Nereids but also the Muses themselves are a prelude to Achilles' immortality in song, his kleos.[42]

The lamentation for heroes within epic is a reflection of ritual lamentation on the part of the community outside of epic. There are clear traces we can find in the hero cults of Achilles in the classical and even postclassical periods. To cite just one example, let us consider a custom in Elis that Pausanias mentions in connection with various local athletic traditions. On an appointed day at the beginning of the Olympic Games, as the sun is sinking in the west, the women of Elis perform various rituals to worship Achilles (tou Achilleôs drôsin es timên), and the ritual that is singled out specifically is that of mourning (koptesthai; Pausanias Description of Greece 6.23.3).[43]

But whereas the mortality of the hero is emphasized in Homeric epic and in many rituals concerning heroes, it is likely that the immortalization of the hero after death played a role in the epic traditions that have come down to us as the Epic Cycle. These poems, attributed to various authors such as Arctinus of Miletus or Lesches of Mytilene, announce themselves as being more locally oriented than the Iliad or Odyssey.[44 ] Because they are more local in orientation, the poems of the Epic Cycle include relatively more romance, fantasy, folktale, and local color.[45] The poems of the Cycle survive only in fragments and in the summaries written by an ancient scholar named Proclus; our knowledge of their contents is therefore limited.[46] The summaries of Proclus poetry that was composed and performed within the same tradition as the Iliad and Odyssey.

In the Aithiopis, as it is summarized by Proclus, Thetis snatches the corpse of Achilles from his funeral pyre and transports him to the island of Leukê:

Then they hold funeral rites for Antilokhos and lay out Achilles' corpse; Thetis comes with the Muses and her sisters and makes a lament [thrênos] for her son. After that, Thetis snatches him off the pyre and carries him over to the island Leukê. But the Achaeans heap up his burial mound and hold funeral games.

Nagy has shown that the verb anarpazô (“snatch”) used here has a special meaning in connection with the death of heroes. Anarpazô is the verb most commonly used in narratives of the abduction by divinities of mortals who subsequently become immortalized.[48] Such mortals include Phaethôn and Ganymede. In the Aithiopis tradition, Achilles died and was buried, but was subsequently imagined to come back to life as an immortalized hero on the so-called White Island, the island of Leukê.

Philostratus's On Heroes represents a continuation of archaic beliefs about the death (accompanied by intense lamentation and elaborate funerals) and the subsequent immortalization of heroes. The following is the vinedresser's account of the burial and tomb of Achilles at Troy:

This hill, my guest, which you see standing in line with the headland, the Achaeans erected when they came together at the time when Achilles was mingled with Patroklos in the tomb and bequeathed to himself and that man the loveliest shroud. For this reason they who praise the marks of friendship sing of him. He was buried most spectacularly of mortals with all that Hellas offered to him. The Hellenes no longer considered it proper after Achilles' death to wear their hair long, and they piled up in mass on a funeral pyre their gold and whatever each of them had, whether he had brought it to Troy or had taken it as booty, both right then and when Neoptolemos came to Troy. For Achilles obtained glorious gifts again from both his child and the Achaeans, who were trying to show in return their gratitude to him. (Her. 51.12–13)

The vinedresser believes that the Greeks of Achilles' day began to confer a hero's honors upon Achilles immediately after his death. These honors included a spectacular burial, precious gifts, and perpetual mourning as expressed in the form of shorn hair.

The vinedresser goes on to describe in the course of the dialogue many rituals performed at the tomb of Achilles by worshippers of the vinedresser's own day, a direct continuation of those ancient rites. According to the vinedresser, moreover, Achilles continues to have an existence beyond death, much like the primary hero of the dialogue, Protesilaos. As in the Aithiopis tradition, Achilles lives on the island known as Leukê, the White Island. His companion on this island is none other than Helen. She is immortal, and so too has Achilles become immortal after death. Passing sailors can hear him singing songs, and visitors to the island can sometimes experiences frightening epiphanies by this hero.

In the preceding discussion we have already noted that Protesilaos is a cult hero who, according to the vinedresser, has died and been resurrected not once, but twice. Thus Achilles and Protesilaos are both heroes who die an unseasonably early death in epic, but live on as immortalized heroes in cult. The description of Protesilaos's tomb captures perfectly these two aspects of the hero:

Listen to such stories now, my guest. Protesilaos does not lie buried at Troy but here on the Chersonesus. This large kolônos here on the left no doubt contains him. The nymphs created these elms around the kolônos, and they made, I suppose, the following decree concerning these trees: “Those branches turned toward Ilion will blossom early and will then immediately shed their leaves and perish before their season (this was indeed the misfortune of Protesilaos), but a tree on the other side will live and prosper.” All the trees that were not set round the grave, such as these in the grove, have strength in all their branches and flourish according to their particular nature. (Her. 9.1–3)

Most noteworthy is the use here of the word kolônos, which we propose to translate as “landmark” in this context. It marks the mound, surrounded by elm trees, that “extends over” (epekhei) the body of the cult hero Protesilaos at Elaious in the Chersonesus. At Her. 51.12, this same word kolônos designates the mound that the Achaeans built (the verb here, ageirô, suggests a piling of stones) over the bodies of Achilles and Patroklos, situated on a headland overlooking the Hellespont, thus facing the mound of Protesilaos on the other side of the strait.

At Her. 53.10–11, kolônos refers again to the tomb of Achilles, and here the word is used synonymously with sêma (the “tomb” or “sign” of the hero; Her. 53.11). In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, the place-name Kolônos refers to a sacred grove (690, 889) where Oedipus's body is destined to receive an oikos, that is, an “abode” befitting a cult hero (627).[49] There is a metonymy implicit in the name: kolônos as a landmark becomes, by extension, the name of the whole sacred grove—and, by further extension, the name of the whole deme of Attica in which the grove is situated. Moreover, the landmark is associated with a stone called the Thorikios petros (1595), sacred to Poseidon, which marks the last place where Oedipus is to be seen before he is mystically engulfed into the earth. As Nagy argues elsewhere, the metonymy extends even further: the inherited imagery of the Thorikios petros as a mystical “white rock” becomes coextensive with the description of Colonus itself as a white rock shining from afar (690; argês).[50]

Such connections between classical literature and the literary world of the Second Sophistic reveal strong undercurrents of continuity in conceptualizing the cult hero. Still, the traditions of hero cult were never fully spelled out in the classical period of Greek civilization. Only in the era of the Second Sophistic do these traditions—and the charismatic heroes who populate them—become manifest. Philostratus's On Heroes, this masterpiece of Second Sophistic, is not only the best literary source for understanding the ancient concept of the cult hero in Greek civilization. It is the only work of literature where the overall concept of the ancient Greek hero—in its religious as well as literary dimensions—is given a chance to reveal itself in all its wondrous splendor. Philostratus's On Heroes is the perfect literary initiation into a full understanding of what it really is to be a hero in the ancient Greek world.

The Educational Value of On Heroes

By including On Heroes in the assigned reading for the course, we were able to address directly both of the historical dimensions of ancient Greek heroic traditions, cult as well as literature. When readers are exposed to the Iliad and Odyssey for the first time, references to the immortalization of heroes after death and their status as religious beings are most difficult to grasp, since such references are almost never explicit. With Philostratus's On Heroes as a background, the reader begins to appreciate how much of epic and dramatic language resonates with religious undertones. The surface meaning of key heroic terms can be juxtaposed with a deeper, sacred meaning intended for those “in the know,” the initiated worshippers. In the lectures on the Iliad and Odyssey as well as tragedy, the religious significance of such terms as timê and sêma were emphasized, and these key Greek terms were included in a glossary as part of the course sourcebook.[51] Reading On Heroes was the context for confronting these terms for the first time in their explicitly cultic contexts. Building on the background provided by Philostratus's On Heroes, students had the opportunity to juxtapose the implicit references to hero cult in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Greek tragedy with the explicit worship of heroes in cult. Moreover, by combining On Heroes with selections from Herodotus and Pausanias, we were able to give students a sense of the continuity of heroic traditions over the course of more than a thousand years.

Finally, the learning experience to be gained from reading On Heroes is practically unique in conveying the realities of how it must have felt for a worshipper to participate in hero cult. On Heroes conveys more than any other work of literature the emotional ties that bind hero and worshipper together. This deeply personal aspect of hero cult is perhaps the most difficult thing to learn about ancient Greek heroes if the reader relies on archaic and classical Greek literary sources alone. The relationship portrayed in Philostratus's On Heroes between the pious vinedresser and the charismatic cult hero Protesilaos illustrates most vividly the practice of hero cult as a personal experience, thereby offering students and experts alike an unparalleled insight into what was for the ancient Greeks the everyday life-sustaining practice of worshipping heroes.

Introduction

The Plot of On Heroes

On Heroes is a dialogue set in Elaious, a town on the southern tip of the Thracian Chersonesus, the peninsula that runs along the European side of the Hellespont. There are only two participants in the dialogue: the man who tends the vineyard and gardens around the tomb of the hero Protesilaos and a Phoenician merchant, whose ship awaits favorable winds. After exchanging introductory pleasantries (the Phoenician seems to sound out the vinedresser[52] as a potential business contact), the merchant is surprised to learn that the vinedresser is an intimate of Protesilaos, the first Greek warrior to die in the Trojan War (Il. not only aids the vinedresser in gardening, but discusses the Trojan War and Homer's poems, while inculcating in him a philosophic approach to life (Her. [= On Heroes] 2.6–5.5). At this opportunity to discuss heroes, the Phoenician realizes the meaning of a dream he had upon arriving at Elaious. As he had dreamed of reading the so-called catalogue of the ships (from Iliad 2), so now he must converse about the heroes in order to obtain favorable winds and be on his way (Her. 6.3–6). Although he is apparently a believer in signs, dreams, and other kinds of supernatural phenomena, the Phoenician voices skepticism about the ongoing existence of the heroes until the vinedresser offers as “proofs” of their existence the discovery of giant skeletons throughout the Greek world, but especially near Troy, which lies within sight of Protesilaos's tomb, just across the Hellespont (Her. 6.7–8.18). The rest of the dialogue is dedicated to a discussion of the heroes, but not simply as a retelling of Homer. Protesilaos is, after all, a more trustworthy witness not only of the events prior to landing at Troy (when he died), but also of those that occurred afterward, since he is “free from the body and diseases” and thus can “observe the affairs of mortals” (Her. 7.3). From this privileged vantage point, Protesilaos the hero is both reader and critic of Homer.

With the Phoenician's initial doubts about the existence of heroes overcome, the vinedresser launches into a description of Protesilaos's appearance, character, and way of life, in addition to the rituals at his sanctuary, his oracular pronouncements to athletes, and his vengeance on adulterers (Her. 9.1–17.6). Protesilaos, however, is not the only hero who continues to be involved in human affairs. Across the Hellespont at Troy, Ajax, Hektor, Palamedes, and Patroklos have recently appeared, bringing fertility and prosperity to those who are devoted to them, but exacting terrifying vengeance upon those who show them dishonor (Her. 18.1–23.1). This section concludes with a lengthy tale of Protesilaos's exploits in the battle of Mysia (Her. 23.2–30), an elaborate celebration of a hero slain too early in life and slighted by what On Heroes regards as Homer's scant praise (Il. 2.695–710; cf. Her. 14.2).

The center section of the dialogue, the catalogue of Achaean and Trojan heroes (Her. 25.18–42.4), ostensibly fulfills the Phoenician's dream. The vinedresser relates what Protesilaos knows about the heroes' physical appearance, their bravery in war, and their cleverness in speech and deed, and whether the poets have actually gotten the stories about them right. The vinedresser discusses some heroes individually and some in groups for the purpose of contrast or comparison, allotting praise and blame where due, while correcting Homer. At times the criticisms are minor, at times more significant. Perhaps the most important critique of Homer from the perspective of the dialogue is Protesilaos's praise of Palamedes over his rival Odysseus (Her. 33.1–34.7). Palamedes, who is never mentioned by Homer, stands with Protesilaos and Achilles as one of the most important heroes of the dialogue.

Framing this section are two short discussions explicitly on Homer and his portrayal of the heroes (Her. 24.1–25.17; 43.1–44.4). In general, Protesilaos has many positive things to say about Homer's talents as an epic singer (Her. 24.1–25.9). Yet, in addition to the common complaint that Homer portrays the gods poorly (Her. 25.10), he also faults Homer for his treatment of Helen (Her. 25.10–12) and Odysseus (Her. 25.13–17). Homer's credibility as a source of the events at Troy is attacked on a number of fronts: not only did he live considerably later than the war, but he also tinkered with the truth in order to enhance the poetic appeal of his composition (Her. 43.1–5). Furthermore, while Homer collected stories from the various cities of the heroes, his “inside source,” not surprisingly, was Odysseus himself, conjured from the dead. In return for telling all, Odysseus makes Homer promise to compose a song about his wisdom and bravery and to leave out any reference to his more virtuous rival Palamedes (Her. 43.11–16). The homeland of Homer, another common sophistic topos, although known to Protesilaos, is not revealed, since the Fates have decreed that Homer be “without a city” (apolis; Her. 44.1–4).

The last major section of the dialogue is devoted to the hero Achilles (Her. 44.5–57.17). As in the earlier section on Protesilaos, the life, physical appearance, character, cult, and ongoing activity of Achilles are celebrated. Achilles excelled in warfare, musical skill, and wisdom, and is portrayed as self-sufficient, suspicious of possessions, and a devoted friend. Ambushed at the sanctuary of Thymbraion while negotiating his marriage to Polyxena, he was mourned by all and entombed on the Trojan shore. The vinedresser describes in detail the yearly offerings to Achilles required of the Thessalians; the improper enactment of these rituals and their occasional neglect altogether by the Thessalians incited Achilles' implacable wrath and ultimately brought about the economic destruction of Thessaly (Her. 52.3–54.1). Achilles now inhabits Leukê in the Pontus (the Black Sea); there he and Helen dwell together, singing of Troy and their love for each other and receiving offerings from sailors who anchor at the island (Her. 54.2–55.6). Achilles' vengeance continues unabated even in this idyllic setting. The vinedresser relates two brief stories: Achilles' dismemberment of the last descendant of Priam (Her. 56.1–10) and his bloody slaughter of Amazons who invaded Leukê (Her. 56.11–57.17). After these gory stories of heroic vengeance, the dialogue abruptly ends, with a promise of further stories the next day, if the winds are still unfavorable, and an admonition to pour a libation to Protesilaos if the Phoenician should set sail.

Philostratus and On Heroes as a Sophistic Work

Flavius Philostratus[53] was born into a prominent and wealthy family at Lemnos. Although the date of his birth remains conjectural, there is little reason to doubt that he spent his youth on Lemnos (Life of Apollonius 6.27). He then studied rhetoric with Proclus in Athens as well. During the first decade of the third century C.E. he was an active sophist in Athens, at which time he held the important position of hoplite general; he thus moved among the cultural and political elite of Athens. He later practiced as a sophist in Rome and was introduced to the Severan court during the reign of Septimius Severus, probably between the middle of 203 and early 208. Philostratus's association with the court was as a member of the so-called circle of Julia Domna (Life of Apollonius 1.3).[54] Near the end of the second century, Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus and mother of Caracalla and Geta, began to gather around her intellectuals of varying interests. Certainly the empress was interested in rhetoric (Life of Apollonius 1.3; Epistles 73). Her coterie also included “geometricians and philosophers” (Lives of the Sophists 622), the former of which may be a reference to astrologers or to Pythagorean/Platonic mathematicians.[55] Julia Domna's imitation of Alexander the Great's sacrifices at Achilles' tomb (214 C.E.; Dio Cassius Roman History 78.16.7). Philostratus probably traveled with the empress's entourage until at least 217, the year of Caracalla, but at some point he returned to his career as a sophist in Athens, during which time he completed his two great works, the Lives of the Sophists and the Life of Apollonius. According to the Suda, Philostratus died during the reign of Philip the Arab (ca. 244–249).

What exactly did a career as a sophist entail? Philostratus was part of a cultural phenomenon he termed the “Second Sophistic.”[56 ] In his day the designation “sophist,” as Bowersock observes, referred to “a virtuoso rhetor with a big public reputation.”[57 ] Sophists were those skilled in forensic or public speaking who seemed to have reached the pinnacle of rhetorical skill (Sextus Empiricus Against the Professors 2.18). Their reputation was gained primarily through extemporaneous performances of their rhetorical skills either to their students or in public; skilled in improvisation (requiring tremendous versatility) and master of rhetorical exercises and techniques, the sophist spoke in an ornate style and with a vigorous delivery. As with sophists of the past, appearance was counted more highly than historical accuracy. Anderson describes the sophists as almost media hounds, whose public pronouncements caused more serious intellectuals to cringe.[58]

In addition to delivering public speeches and educating the young, sophists participated in religious festivals and acted as advisors to cities; the people of Lemnos honored Philostratus by erecting a statue of him in Olympia, perhaps for the delivery of speeches there.[59] Moreover, like Philostratus, most sophists came from wealthy families, and their reputation was also enhanced by holding public offices and acting as benefactors of their cities.[60]

The ethos of the Second Sophistic centered on the celebration and preservation of Greek culture in the context of a multicultural empire. The sophists about whom Philostratus wrote came from Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, but their culture and language were Hellenic. In the strict requirement that a sophist speak with perfect Attic diction and in the choice of historical themes treated, the Second Sophistic looked to the past to justify the prominence of the Greek educated elite in the Roman world and to maintain Greek identity through the promotion of paideia, which Flintermann defines as the “absolute familiarity with literary culture.”[61 ] This glorification of things Greek should not be seen as necessitating a subversive attitude toward the Roman empire; Greek identity was a cultural concept, not a political one. Many sophists were connected with the imperial court or held prominent positions, such as the ab epistulis or the chair of rhetoric in Athens and the development of the genre of the dialogue by writers such as Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch, Lucian, and Athenaeus. There seems little doubt that Plato's Phaedrus, a favorite among rhetoricians and sophists, influenced On Heroes. Reminiscences of the Phaedrus's setting have often been noted, for example, in the combination of pastoral scenery and a discussion which is often philosophical.[62] There is also, as in Plato's dialogues, belief in the continued existence of human psukhê (“soul's dialogues: as the mouthpiece of Protesilaos the vinedresser is the main source of information and insight (like Socrates), with the Phoenician contributing little except to ask leading questions or to exclaim at the beauty of the garden, the wisdom of the vinedresser, or the power of the heroes (not unlike many of Socrates' interlocutors). Influences of sophistic uses of the dialogue are also evident: in Lucian's Charon the discussion of the tombs of Achilles and Ajax takes place looking over the same waters, and in of the characters, and the inclusion of erotic episodes.[65] There are also characteristic sophistic exercises: correction of Homer, the description of statues, the elaboration of speeches and chreia, and “the pictorial creation of vivid and memorable scenes.”[66] Ultimately this text defies classification into a single genre, but should be seen as drawing upon various aspects of both popular and more sophisticated literature.

Many aspects of On Heroes reveal sophistic themes and concerns. First of all, the vinedresser himself is presented as a sophist, whose education, eloquence, and insight are immediately evident to the Phoenician (Her. 4.4–10). Early in the dialogue the Phoenician exclaims that the vinedresser's speeches “will fill the horn of Amaltheia” (Her. 7.7), an image that Philostratus uses elsewhere to describe the rhetorical skill of Dio Chrysostom (Lives of the Sophists 1.7). Similarly, Palamedes, whom Protesilaos rescues from obscurity (on Homer's silence on Palamedes, see below), is also portrayed as a sophist. Protesilaos focuses on his contributions to human culture and technology.[67] He is the most clever of all human beings, the inventor of every skill and science (Her. 33.1, 14–18). He is even called “sophist” (sophistês), albeit pejoratively by Odysseus in Her. 33.25, and elsewhere Philostratus affirms that Palamedes is the patron of the sophists (Life of Apollonius 3.13). Palamedes is especially good at the sophistic repartee (Her. 33.5–12, 44–46),[68 ] and sophistic arrogance is not unknown to him either: he tells the centaur Kheirôn that he does not want to learn medicine, since it has already been discovered (Her. 33.2), and having been slandered by Odysseus and now being stoned by the Achaeans, he cries out, “I have pity on you, Truth, for you have perished before me” and, as Protesilaos relates, “he held out his head to the stones as though knowing that Justice would be in his favor” (Her. 33.37; cf. ; there are elaborate descriptions of characters and fantastically painted scenes; and composed speeches are placed in the mouths of the heroes. All these reveal sophistic education and literary panache. Yet one of the central and most characteristic sophistic endeavors was the correction of Homer and his poems. Homeric criticism can be said to have its roots in the transmission of the Homeric poems, and particularly in the competition of local traditions and the emergence of the Iliad and Odyssey as panhellenic poetic performances. In the philosophical tradition, Plato's dialogues, especially the Republic and Ion, reveal Homer as the “educator of Hellas” (Republic 606e), although Socrates (or Plato) is very critical of Homer's influence on his contemporaries' minds. The questions raised about Homer from the fifth to the second centuries B.C.E. are more specifically related to the gradual process of the standardization of the Homeric text during that time.[69] By the time of the Roman empire, correction or emendation of Homer became a kind of “literary sport,”[70] particularly in mat-\break ters of myth and ritual. As we have seen, Philostratus does not\break always follow Homeric tradition in treating the heroes of the Trojan War. Following a well-established topos, Philostratus constructed On Heroes around a new and more trustworthy informant about the heroes. Lucian had corrected details of Homer's text through the help of Euphorbus, the first to wound Patroklos in the Iliad (see The Dream, or The Cock 17), and through the help of Homer himself via Charon (see Charon 7), while Dio cited a different kind of authoritative evidence when appealing to inscriptions on temple columns translated by an old Egyptian priest in Onuphis (Troikos 38; cf. Plato Timaeus 21d–24a). In true sophistic fashion, logical and chronological problems within the text of Homer are also raised (e.g., Her. 23.5–6; 25.10–13), rationalistic explanations are offered in place of the fantastic (e.g., Her. 48.11–13; 50.1–3; 51.7–11), and the traditional question of Homer's birthplace is discussed, though not resolved (Her. 44.1–4). Many of these “supplements” to Homer have a foundation in literary tradition, e.g., Stesichorus and Herodotus both report that Helen never went to Troy. Others seem to stem from local traditions, e.g., the claim that Philoktêtês was cured by the Lemnian soil (Her. 28.5) may be a local Lemnian tradition which Philostratus learned during his own youth on Lemnos.[71]

Protesilaos: Origins and Trajectories of His Story in Literature, Art, and Cult

It has been suggested that Protesilaos may have originally been a nature divinity, closely identified with Demeter and perhaps Dionysos.[72] Vestiges of these connections may remain in our text in the vinedresser's acknowledgment of Demeter's and Dionysos's ownership of the land, his cultivation of fruits and nuts at the sanctuary, the unusual behavior of the trees that surround Protesilaos frenzy that brings insight to dead souls (Her. 1.5; 2.3–4; 9.1–3; 7.3). Rather than viewing this relationship genealogically, it is better to understand it in terms of the symbiosis between a hero and a god, whereby in cult they typically share many characteristics.

Protesilaos the hero hails from Phulakê, within Phthia of Thessaly. In the Iliad he is called “warlike,” “valiant,” and “noble” (Il. might have justly inquired how Protesilaos could have proved himself in this fashion considering that “a Dardanian man had killed him as he leapt from his ship, far the first of all the Achaians” (Il. 2.701–702 [Lattimore]). Some ancient writers avoided this problem by only affirming Homer's words that Protesilaos was the first of the Greeks to land and the first to be killed, without any reference to the exact timing of his death. In fact, only Homer (and Protesilaos himself through the vinedresser; Her. 12.1–4) claims that he was killed in midstep, without even engaging the enemy. One version explicitly states that before he died he slew many Trojans (Apollodorus Epitome 3.30), and a Corinthian pyx depicts Protesilaos among the Greek contingent as they approach the Trojan forces.[73 ] The tale of the Mysian conflict (Her. 23.2–30), in which Protesilaos gained his reputation as a valiant warrior, is another solution to this Homeric puzzle. Other elaborations upon Homer's text center on the name of Protesilaos's slayer: Hektor is by far the most common one named (Cypria; Ovid Metamorphoses 12.66–68; Apollodorus Epitome 3.30; Sophocles Dialogues of the Dead 28 [23]; Quintus of Smyrna Fall of Troy 1.816–817).

Few images of Protesilaos are extant. In addition to appearing on coins from Skionê in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E.,[74 ] his image is shown on the coinage of Thessaly (early third century B.C.E.) and Elaious (in the reign of Commodus, late second century C.E.). These coins depict him in the act of disembarking or standing on the prow of a ship.[75] Similar poses are depicted on a late geometric vase,[76] an early classical intaglio,[77] and a Roman copy of a Greek bronze.[78] A late fourth-century B.C.E. relief, found in Sigeion and belonging to an Attic treaty inscription, possibly depicts Protesilaos and another heroic figure.[79]

Only two sanctuaries dedicated to Protesilaos are attested. At the sanctuary in Phulakê athletic contests were held in his honor (Her. 16.5; Pindar Isthmian 1.30, 58-59 and scholia). Better known is the sanctuary at Elaious on the Chersonesus, which provides the setting for On Heroes (Herodotus Hist. 7.33.1; 9.116–120; Thucydides Peloponnesian War 8.102.3; Strabo Geography 13.1.31; 7.frg. 51). According to Pausanias, the whole of Elaious was dedicated to Protesilaos (Herodotus Hist. 7.33.1; 9.116–120), according to the vinedresser the foundations of the sanctuary are the only remaining indications of its former greatness. The cult statue is badly worn (disfigured?) and stands apart from its original base (Her. 9.5–6).[81] Surrounding the tomb were remarkable trees that by their unusual life cycle imitated Protesilaos's fate (Her. 9.1–3; cf. Pliny Natural History 16.238; Quintus of Smyrna Fall of Troy 7.408–411). The oracle of Protesilaos to which Philostratus refers is mentioned also by Lucian (Parliament of the Gods 12; see also Aelius Aristides Orations 3.365).[82]

The tales of Protesilaos fall into two categories, both of which center on Protesilaos's return from the dead.[83] In fact, Protesilaos's resurrection was so well known in the ancient world that Christian writers were compelled to downplay its duration and even its possibility in order to highlight the uniqueness of Jesus' resurrection (Origen Against Celsus 2.55–56; Minucius Felix Octavius 11). Homer mentions the wailing of Protesilaos's wife[84] at his departure for war (Il. 2.700), and her grief was the subject of Euripides' tragedy Protesilaos. In later literature Protesilaos returns from Hades for a brief reunion with Laodameia. Lucian depicts Protesilaos to allow him to return to his wife (Dialogues of the Dead 28 [23]). More common, however, is the celebration of Laodameia's devotion to Protesilaos: the elements of the tales vary, with Laodameia molding an image of Protesilaos and “consorting” with it, praying for and achieving his restoration from Hades, and either dying in his arms or by self-immolation (Catullus 68; Apollodorus Epitome 3.30; Hyginus Fabulae 103–104; Servius Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 6.447; Ovid Heroides 13.153–157). The story of Protesilaos and Laodameia's reunion was a common iconographic theme for sarcophagi in the Roman period.[85]

Another persona of Protesilaos is Protesilaos the revenant, the frightening ghost who brings vengeance and terror. Protesilaos acts as revenant in Herodotus's story of Artayktes, which strategically appears as the final episode of the Histories (9.116–120).[86] Not only has the Persian governor offended Protesilaos personally by looting his sanctuary and having sex within its boundaries, but Protesilaos also takes revenge upon him as a representative of Xerxes, the Asian invader, for all the Persian offenses against the Greeks. The image of the revenant is illumined by the resurrection of dried fish, which leap from the fiery grill as a sign of Protesilaos's resurrection and coming vengeance.[87] This story must have been well known, since Protesilaos the avenger of Greeks against non-Greeks also appears as a commonplace in Chariton's novel (Callirhoe 5.10). Protesilaos was also recognized as the hero to whom one should sacrifice before going to war with non-Greeks. According to Arrian's Anabasis, after Alexander arrived at Elaious he sacrificed to Protesilaos with the hope that he would be luckier during his time in Asia (1.11.5). No doubt Protesilaos was invoked to aid Alexander during his campaigns.[88]

The Two Great Heroes: Protesilaos and Achilles

No doubt Homeric criticism and the retelling of the heroes' stories are prominent themes in On Heroes; their importance is emphasized by their central placement in the text (sections III–V in the Table of Contents). An important and often overlooked emphasis of the dialogue, however, is revealed by the carefully designed structure of the text. Framing these central sections are two lengthy discussions of Protesilaos and Achilles, after all, saved the Achaeans from utter defeat, and the great theme of Homer's Iliad is Achilles' wrath, whereas Protesilaos died before the conclusion of even the first battle and so receives barely a mention by Homer. Nevertheless, numerous parallels and associations between the two heroes can be found both within Homer and in later literary sources.[89]

First of all, both heroes hail from Phthia in Thessaly (Strabo Geography 9.5.14), and their friendship is hinted at in a number of ways: according to Homer, it is only when the Trojans have laid hold of Protesilaos's ships and threatened to set them on fire that Achilles agrees to allow Patroklos to enter the battle (Il. 15.704–725; more explicitly in Apollodorus Epitome 4.6), and later versions of that first engagement at Troy imply that Achilles avenged Protesilaos's death by slaying the hero Kyknos, not unlike Achilles' revenge upon Hektor for the death of Patroklos (Cypria; Ovid Metamorphoses 12.71–145; Apollodorus Epitome 3.31). Their respective deaths, though divided by the bulk of the war, share certain similarities. Homer describes Protesilaos as leaving behind “a house half-built” (Il. 2.701; see note on Her. 12.3), that is, as one who died without fully experiencing adult life, marriage, and children. Achilles, although fated to die later in the conflict, is similarly lamented as one cut off in the bloom of youth (Il. 9.410–416) and as the eternal bridegroom.[90 ] According to later authors, an oracle is said to have indicated that the first to land at Troy would be the first to die, and that both Protesilaos and Achilles were warned (Protesilaos by Laodameia; Achilles by Thetis) not to let their valor eclipse their better judgment (Apollodorus Epitome 3.29–30; Ovid Heroides 13.93–102). Protesilaos and Achilles are two of the few major Achaean heroes to die at Troy, and their tombs face each other across the Hellespont (Her. 51.12–13). Yet for neither hero was death the end of their amorous affairs: Protesilaos was well known for his return from Hades to be reunited with Laodameia (see above), while Achilles enjoyed a posthumous affair with Helen (Her. 54.2–55.6; Pausanias Description of Greece 3.19.11–13).

Both the structure and the specific details of On Heroes emphasize the parallel lives, deaths, cults, and concerns of Achilles and Protesilaos. According to Protesilaos, the two heroes were well matched in their physical prowess (Her. 13.3–4); at the battle of Mysia they fought side by side, with Protesilaos in fact outdoing Achilles (Her. 23.16, 24–25). Each hero's death is associated with his wedding: Protesilaos confirms Homer's statement that his house was “half-built” and attests that Achilles died while negotiating his marriage to Polyxena at Thymbraion (Her. 12.3; 51.1); their spouses were similarly devoted to the point of self-sacrifice, choosing death over separation from their lovers (Her. 2.10–11; 51.2–6). Likewise each hero is reunited on an ongoing basis with his lover (Her. 11.1; 54.2–55.6), although Achilles' affections have turned from Polyxena to Helen. The cults of both heroes have suffered neglect, and each has exacted vengeance upon those from whom honor was due (Her. 4.2; 9.5–7; 16.4; 52.3–54.1).

By their valor in war, the brevity and tragedy of their lives, and their ongoing existence after death Protesilaos and Achilles are typical Greek heroes. Yet a more particular characteristic of the two heroes emerges from this text: Protesilaos and Achilles are watchful defenders of all that is Greek from all that is not. Standing on the Hellespont, the symbolic division between Europe and Asia, these two heroes guard the Greeks from barbarian invaders. Protesilaos avenges himself on the former owner of his sanctuary, one tellingly named Xeinis (“stranger, foreigner”; Her. 4.2); likewise the adulterer, whose presence at the sanctuary offended Protesilaos, dies from a dog-bite (Her. 16.3–4). Protesilaos, moreover, comes to life again to exact vengeance upon Artayktes, the Persian governor who plundered and desecrated Protesilaos's sanctuary (see Her. 9.5; Herodotus Hist. 7.33.1; 9.116–120). Achilles is presented in the same fashion in On Heroes, which ends with two such tales of heroic vengeance. The first tale brings to a close Achilles' vengeance upon the house of Priam: in a fury that seems at odds with Achilles' otherwise idyllic existence on Leukê, he dismembers the Trojan maiden as her wails echo from the shore (Her. 56.1–10). The even more bloody destruction of the Amazons, who are explicitly identified as new enemies of Achilles (i.e., they were not at Troy according to Protesilaos), points again to Achilles as protector of the Greeks from the barbarians (Her. 56.11–57.17).

One result of this careful paralleling of Protesilaos and Achilles is the explicit elevation of Protesilaos's heroic status, apparent in the Iliad's compressed version of his death, through his close association with Achilles. More significant is the way in which the similarities of the heroes allow for a more precise definition of Protesilaos's mythic importance in this text. Certainly he is a devoted lover and a bringer of fertility to the land, but these themes receive relatively little attention in the text. Especially in light of the ending of the dialogue with the two stories of Achilles' vengeance, greater emphasis is laid on Protesilaos the revenant. Strategically poised at the Hellespont, Protesilaos maintains the boundary between Asia and Europe by defending Greek civilization from barbarian threats. More importantly, however, Protesilaos's vengeance against the hubris of the outsiders or foreigners in this narrative serves as a warning to Philostratus's own audience against adopting similar behavior.

On Critiquing Heroic Traditions

A central feature of On Heroes is the characterization of the hero Protesilaos as both a reader and a critic of Homer. Although Protesilaos was the first Hellenic hero to die at Troy, his continued existence, “cleansed of the body,” permits him to observe “the affairs of mortals” and thus to know what happened at Troy and thereafter (Her. 7.3). The hero is, moreover, among those who “critically examine” (dioraô) the poems of Homer (Her. 7.4); he is able to set his own definitive version of the events against what Homer reports and to correct the Homeric tradition. Through this narrative device of the hero who knows the truth, Philostratus engages in the practice of Homeric criticism which, as we have seen, is a standard sophistic endeavor, rooted in earlier poetic tradition.

It is important, however, not to dismiss the critical strategies of On Heroes as simply another example of sophistic skill. Rather, by looking at the specific ways in which the Homeric poems are critiqued, we gain insight into both the purposes of the dialogue and its attitudes toward texts, practices, and experience as authoritative. It is thus necessary to inquire how the dialogue defines the sources of what is “true,” as well as the content of that truth. What does getting the story right entail and what are the consequences of doing so? By attending to the dynamics of how authority is constituted in this text we are able to locate the dialogue in relation to the poetics of the Homeric tradition. From a perspective of the history of religions, it also becomes possible to compare the dialogue's stance toward the “canon” of Homer and variant traditions with the development of canonical texts in cognate environments, for example, in ancient Christianity is treated as a source of knowledge and instruction. He not only instructs the vinedresser about gardening and farming techniques (Her. 4.9–10), but also shares in the vinedresser's reflective, philosophical lifestyle (Her. 2.6). He is said to “excel in wisdom,” and his sanctuary to be fruitful in “divine and pure wisdom,” as well as in grapes and olives (Her. 4.10–11). The vinedresser's contemporaries treat Protesilaos's sanctuary as an oracle, going there to consult the hero about such matters as the disposition of giants' bones (Her. 8.9). Athletes visit the sanctuary regularly to receive oracular advice about how to succeed in their upcoming contests (Her. 14.4–15.10). The vinedresser sometimes appears as a mediator of the oracle, relaying information from Protesilaos to the inquirer, and he exercises this mediating role in the dialogue as he reports what Protesilaos is permitted to consult his host Protesilaos through the medium of the vinedresser (Her. 58.1–3). The vinedresser has obtained this status by his choice of the simple, agricultural life devoid of economic interchange, a choice based on his interpretation of Protesilaos's enigmatic advice to him upon his return from the city, “Change your dress” (Her. 4.8). Receiving knowledge from Protesilaos is possible for the vinedresser because of his lifestyle and his devotion to the hero. Moreover, if the vinedresser did not report correctly what Protesilaos told him, he would dishonor the hero, especially because this hero values truth as “the mother of virtue” (Her. 7.8). Thus telling the truth and accurately conveying knowledge from the hero gain religious value and are equated with giving proper honor to the hero.

The vinedresser obtains his information through direct encounter with Protesilaos who appears regularly in bodily form and talks with the vinedresser. The hero has come to life again (anabioô), although he refuses to disclose how this has happened (Her. 2.9–10; 58.2). The vinedresser has no need of a cult statue, because he spends time with the hero and sees him. Such immediate engagement with the hero contrasts with other sources of similarly authoritative knowledge, such as dreams and speaks to his worshippers thus has ultimate truth value in the dialogue. This revealed knowledge functions here as the final authority.

In addition, however, other experiences are proffered as the basis for belief or as authorities upon which to critique Homer. Philostratus invokes folk beliefs as a basis for authority; for example, there are others besides the vinedresser who have seen the heroes returned to life as phantoms, including the shepherds in the plain of Troy who hear the clattering of the warriors and see their figures covered with dust or blood (Her. 18.1–2). Both Ajax and Hektor are mentioned as appearing in vengeance to those who insult them (Her. 18.3–19.7). The case of Ajax is instructive since a Trojan shepherd insults him with the words of Homer stood firm no longer” (Il. 15.727); in reply Ajax shouts from the tomb that he did stand firm. Here the revenant himself corrects the account of Homer, just as Protesilaos does. Devout worshippers of the heroes also receive appearances, as in the case of the farmer devoted to Palamedes and the girl who falls in love with Antilokhos (Her. 21.1–22.4). The vinedresser hears about the experiences of the inhabitants of the Troad because they are his nearest neighbors (Her. 22.4). Likewise the merchants who sail the Black Sea bring back stories from Achilles' sanctuary on Leukê (Her. 56.1–4).

Certain experiences are available to all who care to look. In this regard, we may note the frequent references to cult statues of various heroes. Philostratus introduces these into the dialogue through the technique of ekphrasis, by which a visual representation is described in such detail as to make it appear before the eyes of the audience. In many cases, the vinedresser supplements discussion of a hero with Protesilaos's description of the cult statue (agalma); the depiction of Nestor is a good example (Her. 26.13). Even when a statue is not mentioned, as in the case of Palamedes, the discussion may include a similarly detailed ekphrasis of the hero (Her. 33.39–41). The heroes are thus available, through the techniques of verbal art, for the audience to see. Similarly, they may view the bones of the giants, about which the vinedresser tells the Phoenician in the process of convincing him that the marvels of myth really happened. Not only are there many reports from those who have seen the bones, but the Phoenician may go and see for himself (Her. 8.3–13). Common to reports about the bones and the appearance of the heroes is an appeal to the authority of the eyewitness and experiential knowledge. Just as the vinedresser sees and experiences the hero Protesilaos and thus receives wisdom and truth, so others see phenomena and have experiences that are not to be doubted. The audience is thus encouraged to attend to what is before their eyes.

What Protesilaos knows is similarly grounded in experience, albeit partially in the experience of a soul (psukhê) free from the body and its diseases (Her. 7.3). He can, however, relate events in the battle with the Mysians—a tale not told in Homer—because he was there: this conflict took place before his death in Troy (Her. 23.7–30). Similarly he reports what Achilles and Helen do on Leukê because he frequently visits them there, talks with Achilles, and sees for himself. Indeed, according to the vinedresser, Protesilaos visited Achilles as recently as four years ago and tried to persuade him to temper his wrath against the Thessalians (Her. 53.19).

The discussion of Homer in On Heroes is considerable and not confined to correction and emendation of Homer's account. The central section of the dialogue, which is concerned with the Hellenic and Trojan heroes, is framed by two expositions of Protesilaos and his poetic technique (Her. 24.1–25.17; 43.1–44.4). Despite the corrections of Homer's account, Protesilaos has only the highest praise for Homer's skill. Homer is the preeminent poet, outdoing Hesiod and all the other poets, expert in the widest range of subjects, and working with divine assistance (Her. 25.2–5). Sensitive to the poetic conventions which seek divine inspiration for the singing of epic and lyric poetry, the dialogue makes it clear that although Homer's poems seem divine, they were not composed by Apollo or the Muses, but by a mortal with the aid of a god (Her. 43.3–6). The dialogue wrestles with the questions of when and where Homer lived, remaining in the end equivocal on these matters (Her. 44.1–4). Clearly this text utilizes Homer as the culture hero of poetry, attributing to him the poems of the Trojan War and excellence in song.

What the dialogue regards as the “poems of Homer, although these names are not used. Philostratus, however, does not present an account of the Trojan War, but of its heroes and of various episodes of their time at Troy and elsewhere. The Phoenician and Protesilaos both “read” (anagi[g]nôskô; Her. 6.3; 7.4) the verses of Homer, but Homer is never said to “write” his poems; rather he regularly “sings” (aeidô). It is clear that Protesilaos is presented as primarily concerned with the poems of Homer (i.e., the Iliad and the Odyssey) and critiquing them, and that matters contained in the so-called Epic Cycle are not included under the umbrella of Homer's poems. Nevertheless, On Heroes contains numerous references to what “many other poets” sing (Her. 8.16; 11.2; 23.4, 10; 26.16; 33.4; 39.4; 51.2; 56.11), and frequently the stories in question are found in the Epic Cycle. Defining the relationship of On Heroes and its stories to these epics precisely is difficult due to our fragmentary knowledge of the specific details of many of the stories. For example, the death of Odysseus at the hands of his son by Circe is found in the Telegonia, but, since Proclus's summary does not specify the manner of his death, it is not clear whether Protesilaos is expressing agreement with the Telegonia or is drawing upon a variant tradition that also appears in Apollodorus (see Her. 25.15; Epitome 7.36–37). What is clear, however, is that their stories are subject to the same kind of critique as the Iliad and the Odyssey. At times Protesilaos expresses disagreement with some details of an epic's story, while agreeing with its general truth. Two examples of this will suffice: Protesilaos discusses at length the sack of Mysia, a story found in the Cypria, but disagrees with its claim that the Achaeans mistook Mysia for Troy (Her. 23.5–8). The retelling of the slaying of Antilokhos proceeds similarly: according to the hero, the Aithiopis tells this story rightly, except for the mistaken identification of this Memnôn as the son of Eos (Her. 26.16). Protesilaos also can completely repudiate a tale from the Epic Cycle (the Amazon presence in Troy is flatly denied in contrast to the Aithiopis; Her. 56.11; likewise, the story of Odysseus's feigned madness found in the Cypria; Her. 33.4), as well as introduce a story “unknown to Homer and all poets” (Her. 23.1). Of particular interest and worthy of further investigation is Protesilaos's emphasis on the tales of Palamedes (Her. 21.2–8; 33.1–34.7; 43.11–16) and Philoktêtês (Her. 28.1–14), both of whom figure prominently in the Cypria and the Little Iliad.

The dialogue also shows particular awareness of the tradition of the contest between Homer and Hesiod (Her. 25.2–7; 43.7–8), a contest that the vinedresser heard reenacted more recently at Protesilaos's sanctuary by two visiting poets (Her. 43.9–11). The comparison with Hesiod is not surprising, not only because of Hesiod's stature in antiquity, but also because there are clear affinities between the vinedresser's way of life at Elaious and the agricultural and economic ideals promoted in the Works and Days.[91] Besides Hesiod only a few other poets are named: in praising Homer Protesilaos quotes the verses of a certain Pamphôs (Her. 25.8), whom Pausanias (Description of Greece 8.37.9) knows as a pre-Homeric poet, although the extant fragments would appear to be somewhat later. On two occasions plays of Euripides are mentioned by title and author; we find reference to his Oineus (Her. 4.1) and a quotation from the Palamedes (Her. 34.7), both of which are no longer extant.

In a dialogue in which a hero appears as the chief authority on subjects taken up by epic poetry, it should come as no surprise that the heroes are themselves singers of epic and lyric. Protesilaos is said to “sing” of the Trojan events that took place after his lifetime, as well as other events in the history of the Hellenes and the Medes (Her. 7.6). Achilles, however, is the heroic poet par excellence. He is said to have learned music from his tutor, the centaur Kheirôn, and received “musical skill and mastery of poetic composition” from the muse Calliope (Her. 45.7). Lamenting the death of Palamedes, he composed the “Palamedes,” apparently a song about his heroic deeds (Her. 33.36). On Leukê, Achilles and Helen occupy themselves with epic and lyric in a symposium-like setting; Protesilaos reports that they sing the poems of Homer, as well as love songs to one another. In a reversal of roles, Achilles also sings a song in praise of Homer, which the vinedresser quotes to the Phoenician (Her. 55.3).

Philostratus here presents a brief chronology of poetic history. Epic recitation (rhapsôidia) began only with Homer and did not exist before the Trojan War. There was, nonetheless, some poetry, namely, “about prophetic matters”—the setting of oracular utterances in poetic form—and about Herakles (Her. 7.5). Herakles himself is credited with the composition of a poetic epigram in dactylic hexameter (Her. 55.5), which the vinedresser cites as evidence of the great age of poetic composition. By attributing such activities to the heroes, the dialogue implies that those who are engaged in poetic composition and in performance that remembers the deeds of the heroes are imitators of the heroes themselves. Just as the hero Protesilaos is the source of the accurate content for the performance, so too the heroes are the prototypical performers.

The primary trajectory for Protesilaos's correction of Homer lies in his assertion that Homer left Palamedes out of his account and favored Odysseus (Her. 24.2). By omitting events concerning Palamedes, Homer distorts key matters. Protesilaos maintains that the cause of Odysseus's wanderings was Poseidon's wrath, not over the blinding of his son, the Cyclops Polyphemos (whom indeed Homer invented), but over the death of Palamedes, his grandson (Her. 25.13–15). Likewise, Achilles' wrath is not the result of being deprived of Khrysêis, but because of the unjust death of Palamedes (Her. 25.15–17). In this way, Protesilaos reshapes the motives underlying the plots of both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Odysseus becomes “Homer's plaything” (Her. 25.14), promoted along with Achilles at the expense of other heroes. Moreover, to heighten appreciation of Odysseus and Achilles, Homer is accused of inventing characters such as the Cyclopes, the fabulous stories of Odysseus's wanderings, the immortality of Achilles' horses, and even Achilles' divinely wrought armor. Some of these Protesilaos regards merely as unnecessary, poetic hyperboles; the omission of Palamedes is more serious, since it perpetuates the injustice and dishonor rendered to the hero.

In Odyssey 11, Odysseus conjures up spirits of the dead by making a libation of blood at the entrance to the Underworld; in this way he learns the post-war fate of many of his companions at Troy. In On Heroes, it is Homer who makes such a libation and summons Odysseus from the dead in order to hear what really happened at Troy. Odysseus, from whom Palamedes demands justice for his murder, threatens to withhold the entire account from Homer unless Homer promises to say nothing at all about Palamedes and so erase him from the story. If Homer's account is favorable toward Odysseus and mortals come to believe that Odysseus had nothing to do with Palamedes, then the demands for Odysseus's punishment will lessen (Her. 43.12–16). In other words, Odysseus bribes Homer with the promise of revealing knowledge in return for a biased account. Protesilaos, in what he reveals to the vinedresser and hence to the audience, unmasks the deception.

Two episodes involving women leaders are notable examples of Protesilaos's correction and emendation of the poetic accounts. The first concerns Hiera, the warrior queen of the Mysians who led the Mysian women into battle with the Achaeans alongside the male warriors. Protesilaos, who fought in that battle on the Achaean side, maintains that she was the most beautiful of all women, surpassing Helen, and that to exalt Helen Homer omitted all mention of Hiera from his poems (Her. 23.28–29). Although revision of the events surrounding the presence of Helen at Troy is a common theme of Homeric criticism, the removal of Hiera from the story in connection with Homer's fondness for Helen is a surprising twist. It is tempting to suppose that Philostratus emphasizes the stature of Hiera either from an interest in the local traditions of the region surrounding the Troad or, as we shall explore below, as a model for the prominent women in the imperial family, such as Julia Domna.

The second example concerns Achilles and the Amazons. Protesilaos reports that Achilles did not fight the Amazons at Troy, and indeed the vinedresser maintains that it would not be plausible that the Amazons who earlier had been allied with the Phrygians against Priam would have come to Troy as Priam's allies (Her. 56.11). The Amazons then were never at Troy, according to this emendation. This permits Philostratus, on the supposed authority of Protesilaos, to locate Achilles' brutal encounter with the Amazons on Leukê, Achilles' home in the Black Sea, when the Amazons decide to invade the island in order to seize its wealth, Achilles' mares, and even Achilles himself. The result of this revision is to make the Amazons appear as aggressors without warrant, foreigners who threaten a focal point of Hellenic cultural identity by attempting to despoil the home and sanctuary of Achilles. Again the question of the relation between putting forward such a version of the story and the historical situation of Philostratus's work arises. We may speculate that the repelling of such an impious foreign invasion, matched by Protesilaos's reaction to similar foreigners elsewhere in the dialogue, corresponds in some fashion to the perception of threats to the Roman empire and Hellenic culture from outsiders (see below).

We may also examine Protesilaos's critique of Homer from the perspective of the relation between local tradition and panhellenism.[92] This text presents Homer's poems as the official version of events, known and accepted by all people. Homer's poems are, to this extent, canonical and panhellenic; such a presentation corresponds well to the way in which the Iliad and Odyssey were regarded in Greek and Roman culture from the second century B.C.E. onward. The dialogue also recognizes the centripetal process by which local versions of epic are gathered into a centralized account.[93] It does so by attributing that process to the figure of Homer himself, who, according to the vinedresser, traveled around Greece and collected from each city the names and deeds of their local heroes (Her. 43.11). From these, combined with what he learned from Odysseus, Homer composed his poems.

Protesilaos's apparent reliance upon and revival of stories from the Epic Cycle is an important aspect of On Heroes insofar as it represents a reassertion of the more local traditions of the Epic Cycle in contrast to the panhellenic tendencies of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Protesilaos's critiques of these local epic traditions on the basis of his own authority and on-going ritual tradition represent an even more radical localization of mythic authority. In a sense what we seem to be observing is the deconstruction of the panhellenic ideals found in the Iliad and the Odyssey and a reconstruction of a new Greek identity on the basis of local traditions, both epic and ritual. The particular local connections of the various poems of the Epic Cycle (e.g., the connection of the Aithiopis with Miletus) need further investigation in order to attempt to localize Philostratus's own cultural and political commitments.

As we have seen, the dialogue questions the authority of Homer as soon as it introduces Protesilaos as the definitive bearer of the story and compares Homer's account to what Protesilaos has to say. It also does so by recognizing that there are stories that have been forgotten or neglected because of Homer's emphasis on Achilles and Odysseus. There may also be heroes whom Homer mentions in passing but with little remembrance of their deeds. In other words, Protesilaos is presented as bringing to light forgotten stories, much as the action of the sea brings to light the buried bones of the giants (Her. 8.5–6). They are not simply stories that are exclusively accessible to Protesilaos because of his supernatural knowledge; the implication is that had Homer not shaped his composition as he did, had the process of remembering in song occurred differently, the audience would be familiar with a broader, as well as more accurate set of stories.

It is therefore important to examine how On Heroes links the alternative stories that Protesilaos recounts with the local tradition.[94] We have seen already the emphasis placed on the experience of the inhabitants of the Troad, the Chersonesus, and the Hellespont, especially around the tombs of the heroes and the giants. The vinedresser knows about the oracle of Orpheus not only from Protesilaos, but also from the inhabitants of Lesbos (Her. 28.9–10). Likewise, when he speaks about the sanctuary of Palamedes, he describes the practice of the Aeolians and the inhabitants of nearby coastal cities, including mention of their sacrifices (Her. 33.48). Remembering the exploits of Philoktêtês, the vinedresser mentions the healing powers of Lemnian soil and provides an etiology for the place name “Akesa” (Her. 28.6). The implication here is that local tradition is a source for correcting or emending the account of Homer. It is likely, moreover, that at this point and in the description of the rituals of purifying the sacred fire on Lemnos (Her. 53.5) Philostratus is drawing upon his own expertise in the Lemnian myth and ritual.[95]

Issues of regional ritual practice also arise in the lengthy discussion of the cult of Achilles at Troy, which Philostratus includes in his description of Achilles. Distinct from Achilles' sanctuary on Leukê, the site of his burial at Sigeion in the Troad possesses its own rites, decreed, according to the vinedresser, by the oracle at Dodona (Her. 53.8). At this point in the dialogue, the vinedresser appears to speak on the authority of his own knowledge; there is scant reference in this section to what he heard from Protesilaos. The cult seems, moreover, to be distinctively Thessalian; in relating the history of full observance, neglect, resurgence under Alexander the Great, and its current status of observance, the vinedresser links it at each point to Thessalian and Macedonian political history (Her. 53.14–23). The ultimate authority for the proper observance of the cult is Achilles himself, endorsed by the witness of Protesilaos.

The dialogue's focus on the figure of Protesilaos similarly draws our attention to regional concerns. In making Protesilaos the ultimate authority for getting the story right, the dialogue grounds the “right” version of myth in the witness of a hero who enjoyed particular devotion in Thessaly and the Chersonesus. We have noted above the parallel treatment of Protesilaos and Achilles throughout the text. In matters of myth and ritual, the two heroes function rhetorically in like fashion. Discussion of the cult of Achilles provides an argument for the right performance of the cult of the hero, whereas the overarching conceit of On Heroes concerns the authority of Protesilaos for the right telling of the story. It is striking, therefore, that in both aspects of the phenomenon of proper cultic observance—story and ritual—the dialogue turns not to such institutions as the canon of Homer or the panhellenic festivals, but to regional and local experiences.

If these observations are correct, then we may understand them within a context of the continued awareness of the multiformity of epic tradition, supported by the religious practices of cities and regions. If we suppose a world in which a standardized Homeric version of events, albeit of some antiquity by the early third century C.E., has obliterated variant traditions, then it becomes impossible to account for their emergence in art and literature, as well as their persistence in localized religious practice.[96] Rather when we recognize that local and regional stories and ritual practices continued alongside the poems of Homer and the panhellenic festivals and institutions, then we can understand the text as drawing upon the strength of that multiformity while seeking a different authority for adjudicating the truth. On Heroes finds that authority in the experience of immediate engagement with the heroes, made possible by giving them proper honor which includes not only observance of the cult, but also the cultivation of an ethical and truth-loving life.

We should be careful to distinguish, however, between the rhetorical claims of this text and Philostratus's compositional practices. When the dialogue, through the character of Protesilaos, claims to draw upon local stories at variance with Homer, the authenticity of this claim needs to be evaluated in each case. Indeed those variant traditions may well have been available to Philostratus in the works of other writers or his own literary creation. Nevertheless, Philostratus makes a strong argument for taking local tradition seriously as a source of truth. He is saying, in effect, that if you consult those who live on the Hellespont, in the Chersonesus and the Troad, as well as those who live near the sanctuaries of the heroes, you will obtain knowledge more accurate than that which you hear from the poets, including Homer. Moreover, if you go to the tombs of the heroes and worship properly, you will receive knowledge and insight. This is a central message of On Heroes. It does not mean necessarily, however, that Philostratus is an indubitable source of local stories about the Homeric heroes or the cult practices of his time. The fact that he makes such a rhetorical appeal, however, strongly suggests continuing tension between the canonicity of the Homeric poems, on the one hand, and stories and practices associated with local cult sites, on the other.

On Heroes raises important issues about the authority upon which stories and practices are founded. Its rhetorical strategies thus provide a useful foil against which to read the concerns central to the developing identities of early Christian communities, roughly contemporary with this text. That is, within formative Christianity of the second and third centuries C.E. we find concerns with the formation of the canon of scripture that are comparable to the interest here in telling the “right” story and that likewise reflect growing tensions among a diversity of memories about Jesus and his followers.[97] We may also compare the interest of On Heroes in proper observance of ritual with the varieties of cultic expression in early Christianity, including the proper way to perform and interpret actions such as eucharist and baptism. Similarly, we find both in On Heroes and in early Christian texts discussion of the attitude or confession of the individual, the value of immediate experience of the divine world, and the appropriate ethical and ascetic practices. Questions such as these were by no means answered uniformly within the diversity of Christian communities before the middle of the third century. We raise the comparative questions between this text and early Christianity not to ignore the several differences, but so as to illumine the particular strategies by which each text constitutes and claims authority for its tradition.[98 ] For example, whereas On Heroes presents a hero returned to life who provides the “true” version of the epic tradition and critiques Homer, the late first-century C.E. Gospel of Luke asserts that authoritative interpretation of scripture is available through association with Jesus after his resurrection, and the second-century C.E. Apocryphon of James shows the disciples receiving “sayings” from the risen Jesus tradition, the interpretation of a set of sacred texts, and enigmatic sayings. It has also been argued that although early Christians avoided veneration of Jesus as a hero, this text has “parallels” to early Christian literature and indirectly furnishes evidence for a confrontation between Christian and non-Christian beliefs about heroes.[99] Whether one agrees with such an interpretation, On Heroes may be read from a comparative perspective as a text that sheds light upon the various means of creating and promoting religious identity in antiquity.

The Aims of the Dialogue

The foregoing observations about the literary, religious, and cultural setting of On Heroes lead us necessarily to inquire into dating of this work and the purposes for which Philostratus composed it. One piece of evidence for dating[100] the text is the mention of the athlete Aurelius Helix in Her. 15.8–10. The date of Helix's competitions provides an initial terminus post quem. His second victory took place in either 213 or 217 C.E.[101] The second clue for dating On Heroes is the allusion to the Roman punishment of the Thessalians for their illegal participation in the purple trade (Her. 53.23). A revised terminus post quem would then be 222–235 C.E., since the purple trade only became a state monopoly under Alexander Severus.[102] No terminus ad quem can be established other than the death of Philostratus (244–249 C.E.), although the immediacy of the reference to Helix suggests the early years of Alexander Severus's reign.[103] Given the remaining uncertainty about the date of the dialogue and even its authorship, our proposals are tentative. We particularly recognize that this work may have had several purposes and have spoken in a multivalent fashion to various parts of its audience.

Samson Eitrem argues at length that the dialogue is an attempt to encourage belief in heroes among the educated, and to promote worship of them.[104] In this context it is often noted that Caracalla visited Achilles' tomb circa 214–215 C.E. during his expedition to the East and made an elaborate commemoration of Achilles in the Troad, and that as part of Julia Domna's entourage, Philostratus would have been present.[105] Although the emperor's devotion to Achilles probably arose from his desire to emulate Alexander the Great, Caracalla's mother Julia Domna had great interest in Apollonius of Tyana, and to satisfy this, Philostratus wrote his Life of Apollonius. Caracalla also had a temple built in honor of Apollonius. Given these historical considerations and the relationship between the Life and On Heroes, Eitrem regards On Heroes as a serious effort to promote hero worship which, unlike the official cult of the Olympian gods, still had great popularity among the ordinary populace.[106] Despite misgivings about Philostratus's intentions, Eitrem claims that the text had a “national purpose,” and by presenting ideal men, indeed “supermen” of the past, figures familiar to Greeks from their childhood, Philostratus indirectly combated anything anti-Hellenic, and thus promoted Hellenic tendencies in the text, suggesting that Philostratus was here promoting a Greek identity with ancient roots in the stories and cults of the heroes in the face of the syncretistic tendencies of the Severan dynasty.[109]

A far less positive evaluation of Philostratus's intentions is made by Graham Anderson. Contrary to the view that Philostratus is providing some kind of “propaganda for a genuine popular piety” and a “serious vindication of hero cults,”[110] Anderson observes that it is not always easy to see a “pious purpose” in Philostratus's reworking of myth. There is, however, what appears to be a sophistic penchant for the archaic and literary, and many details seem related to the repertoire of sophistic literature (see above).[111] Anderson concludes that Philostratus's commitment to the hero cults cannot be deduced from On Heroes alone and that whatever piety is found in the dialogue seems quite compatible with the paideia, or literary culture, of Philostratus and his audience.[112] Indeed Anderson argues that the interest in hero cult and Protesilaos.”[113]

Without reference to Anderson's book on Philostratus, Hans Dieter Betz, inspired by Eitrem's work, claims that although Philostratus never mentions Christianity, he knew of it. Moreover, On Heroes is to be taken seriously as evidence for non-Christian religions in the second and third centuries, and given the popularity of hero worship, the early Christians “consciously” avoided the veneration of Jesus as a hero.[114] The evidence of Origen's Against Celsus, in which Celsus is said to ask about the similarity between Jesus and the returning to life of various heroes, including Protesilaos encountered the religious and philosophical categories of hero cult. Betz finds various parallels in early Christian literature—for example, Protesilaos and Jesus both walk over water (Her. 13.3),[116] and the risen Jesus' associations with his disciples—which suggest that the Gospel writers knew “about the possibility of an existence of the risen Jesus as a hero.”[117] To be sure, Betz does not claim that early Christian writers knew On Heroes, but rather were acquainted with what it reflects about heroes and hero cults at the time Christianity was taking root.

Betz argues that one of the major themes of On Heroes is the movement from skepticism to belief on the part of the Phoenician merchant.[118] In the initial section of the dialogue, he is “unbelieving” (apisteô; Her. 3.1).[119] Under the influence of the vinedresser and his stories he gradually relinquishes his skepticism about the legends of the heroes and especially about the possibility of their appearance to mortals in his own time, until he exclaims, “By Protesilaos, I am convinced” (peithomai; Her. 16.6) and then, “Finally, I am with you, vinedresser, and no one hereafter will disbelieve such stories” (Her. 18.1). Only at this point then does the vinedresser, on the authority of Protesilaos, begin to relate the characteristics and deeds of the heroes. This reading of the dialogue's rhetoric thus supposes a correspondence between the narrative movement of the dialogue and the position to which the text seeks to persuade its audience. The vinedresser seeks to bring the Phoenician to believe that what the hero says is true and that the heroes really do appear of the heroes.

Against this interpretation and in keeping with a reading that emphasizes correction of Homer as the primary point of the text, it may be objected that the Phoenician is indeed not “skeptical” at the outset of the dialogue: he has a propensity to believe in omens and dreams, as well as a solid knowledge of Homer already. At the end of the dialogue, accordingly, he is not so much “converted” as simply pleased at listening to the vinedresser's corrections of Homer and looks forward to hearing more stories. To be sure, his initial disbelief about the appearances of Protesilaos and other Trojan heroes is overcome, but, according to this perspective, this is simply a narrative device to establish the credibility of the vinedresser and Protesilaos.

Resolving this debate depends in part upon how one assesses the rhetorical conventions of the Second Sophistic. Moreover, because we lack any information about the commissioning of the dialogue, it is difficult to be certain of the ends for which it was written. We are, however, inclined to take On Heroes with some seriousness as seeking to persuade its audience of the value of hero cults. That it reflects “mocking doubt” about ghosts, miracles, and other superstitious elements of popular belief,[120] cannot be fully demonstrated. The categories of conversion, belief, and disbelief are, however, not the most precise for understanding the dialogue.[121] Rather, we find a contrast in sources of authority, illustrated at the very beginning of the dialogue, when the vinedresser asks the Phoenician why he is “ignoring everything at his feet”; the Phoenician replies that he is seeking a sign and an omen, presumably in the sky, for fair sailing (Her. 1.2). This contrast is again illustrated in the dispute between Odysseus and Palamedes over an eclipse of the sun: Odysseus tells Palamedes that he “will be less foolish by paying attention to the earth rather than by speculating about what is in heaven.” To this Palamedes responds, “If you were clever, Odysseus, you would have understood that no one is able to say anything learned about the heavens unless he knows more about the earth” (Her. 33.6–8). Since Palamedes is presented with characteristics of the true sophist, we may recognize in Palamedes' words an attitude that the dialogue is advocating. The Phoenician in the course of the dialogue is encouraged to look at what is “at his feet,” namely, the tombs of the heroes and their appearances to mortals, and from that to learn higher truths and an enlightened way of life. The dialogue's emphasis on immediate experience and encounter is in keeping with this attitude. Thus it is possible that Philostratus was not only interested in a revitalization of hero cults, but also in a particular way of approaching the heroes as the basis of a reflective life.

Aside from situating On Heroes in connection with Caracalla's visit to the Troad in 214–215 C.E. and Julia Domna's patronage of Philostratus, discussions of the purposes of the dialogue tend to speak little of its historical and political aspects, in favor of religious and literary questions. Recognizing that the religious and political were inseparably intertwined in the early third century C.E. and that many sophists held religious and political offices, we think that it is appropriate to inquire into the political dimension. We can do no more than sketch an avenue of approach here.[122]

One of Protesilaos's most prominent appearances in Greek literature is at the end of Herodotus's Histories where he defends Greek territory against the outrages of the Persian governor Artayktes. It is important to recognize, however, that Herodotus's account of Protesilaos as revenant against the Persian governor does not convey a simplistic anti-Persian or ethnocentrically pro-Greek message. Rather the story stands as a warning for Herodotus's own Greek audience against hubris and tyranny.[123]

Looking at Philostratus's work in terms of its treatment of foreignness raises a distinct set of questions about its purpose. Throughout the dialogue, as we have seen, a parallelism is drawn between Achilles and Protesilaos, and both appear at times as avenging revenants. A wrathful Protesilaos regained his sanctuary from the possession of a man named Xeinis (“foreigner”; Her. 4.2). The dialogue ends with two stories of Achilles' brutal wrath: in the first case upon a young girl, one of the last of Priam's descendants (Her. 56.6–10); in the second upon the Amazons who invade Achilles' island in the Black Sea (Her. 56.11–57.17). These stories appear, at first reading, to be an abrupt shift from the relatively peaceful descriptions of Protesilaos's and Achilles' current lifestyles, but their position as the climax of the dialogue suggests their importance for its overall purpose. Anderson, moreover, stresses “the element of similarity between the vengeance of Achilles at the end of the Heroicus and that of Protesilaos at the end of Herodotus's Histories: both have the last blood.”[124]

It is important to notice not only the wrath of the heroes but also at whom it is directed: in each case at those who are quintessentially foreign or “other” from the Hellenic perspective. Hektor, to cite another instance, returns as revenant to avenge the insults hurled at him by the offending Assyrian youth (Her. 19.5–9). It is also worth noting that Achilles' victims are women, a point to which we shall return. Being a foreigner is also essential to the construction of character in the dialogue: we are introduced at the outset to a Phoenician merchant, from the region of Tyre and Sidon (Her. 1.1), who is realistically depicted as a “hellenized” Phoenician: he wears an Ionic style of dress, knows all about Homer, and speaks Greek. In addition to his skepticism, however, about the heroes of old, from the beginning of the dialogue the Phoenician is associated with the values of luxury and love of money (Her. 1.1–7), values which are typically understood as non-Greek, but which can also be employed to critique Hellenic behavior.[125] Throughout he is called xenos (“stranger, foreigner, guest”), and it is possible to read his passage from foreign stranger to guest, within the hospitality of the vinedresser and Protesilaos, as taking place in tandem with his growing acceptance of the matters to do with the heroes. This foreigner, moreover, ends up being a listener devoted to Protesilaos, prepared to abide by the hero's reluctance to speak of certain matters, and ready to pour a libation to Protesilaos (Her. 58.1–6). It is perhaps not going too far to say that this foreigner, unlike Artayktes and Xeinis.

The composition of On Heroes in the early third century C.E., during the later Severan period, situates it in a time when the government of the Roman empire was strongly influenced by such imperial women as Julia Domna, Julia Maesa, Julia Mamaea, and Julia Soemias, all from the Syrian religious aristocracy. Religious practices were redefined, not only by a new wave of syncretism, but also by the introduction into Rome of the Syrian sun god and Elagabalus's installation of the Black Rock of Emesa on the Palatine. One result was a heightened awareness of issues of the relationship between foreignness and what was perceived as authentically “Hellenic” or Greek. It is therefore striking that the Phoenician merchant in this text is, like Julia Domna and her family, a Syrian,[126 ] and that the Phoenician swears by Helios—a solar deity (Her. 20.3; cf. Her. 33.6). It is perhaps not coincidental that in the stories of Achilles' wrath the victims were women who broke the taboos of the sanctuary. As we have seen, the dialogue develops a contrast between two opposing stances toward the heroes of Hellenic culture, that is, between proper honor, as exemplified by the attitude of the Phoenician (Syrian) merchant by the end of the dialogue, and the extremes of dishonor exemplified by the quintessential foreigners—the Amazons, the Trojan girl, Xeinis, and the Assyrian youth. Such a contrast, therefore, may well serve to highlight attempts by the Syrian women of the Severan dynasty to present themselves as authentically “Greek” by engaging in the practices proper to the cult and culture of the Hellenic heroes. On Heroes may thus demonstrate the Hellenic piety of the emperor Alexander Severus and his highly influential mother, Julia Mamaea.

Dating the dialogue to the reign of Alexander Severus as emperor in 222, the Parthian empire was overthrown by the Sassanid ruler Ardashir I.[127] This new Sassanid emperor not only ruled formerly Parthian territory but also, during the attack on the Mesopotamian city of Hatra, declared an intent to reclaim the full extent of the Persian empire under the Achaemenids, namely, to the Aegean Sea.[128 ] Alexander Severus launched a campaign against the Persians in the early 230s, in response to their invasion of Roman Mesopotamia. In order to understand the particular valence Protesilaos may have had in this political situation, it is instructive to recall Herodotus's use of Protesilaos as the protector of Greece against the Persians. On Heroes may then have been written around the time of Alexander Severus's Persian campaign in order to promote Greek (and hence Roman) identity and piety, by recalling not only the memory of the preeminent heroes of the Trojan War but most notably that of Protesilaos.[129]

The episode of the Amazons' attack on the abode of Achilles on the island of Leukê can also be understood within this political framework. In the fifth century B.C.E., at the time of the Persian Wars, the story of the Amazons' invasion of Attica and their defeat by Theseus was added to earlier stories about the Amazons and was used as pro-Athenian propaganda against the Persian invasion.[130] Thus Philostratus may employ the literary topos of the Amazons in order to represent a contemporary foreign threat to Greek identity. Achilles' destruction of the Amazons, like their defeat by Theseus, would then communicate the certainty of Roman success against the Sassanids, so long as the heroes receive due honor.

Given this interpretation, On Heroes exhibits a strong anti-Persian perspective, which coheres well with Alexander Severus's campaign against the Sassanids. The difficulty is that we know nothing about imperial patronage for Philostratus in the period after the death of Julia Domna and during the reign of Alexander Severus. Nevertheless, the heroes' reaction to foreign threats in this dialogue means that questions of cultural identity in historical and political context must be set alongside discussion of religious and literary dimensions.

On Reading the Dialogue

To the modern reader On Heroes may appear relies upon a detailed body of assumed knowledge and experience. In the first place, the reader is expected to be intimately conversant with the poems of Homer and the numerous other traditions about the Homeric heroes. Without such “Homeric” fluency, the corrections of Homer which the vinedresser offers on the basis of what Protesilaos has told him remain incomprehensible and meaningless. The references to Homer's poems are seldom made through direct quotation, but rather by allusion to an episode, use of a key phrase, or inclusion of a recognizable epithet. Homer is referred to here not only as one who recounts stories of the Hellenic and Trojan heroes at Troy, but also as a source of practical information, such as the best way to plant trees (Her. 11.4–6). On Heroes thus demonstrates a number of the uses to which the epic traditions were put.

The dialogue assumes, in addition to such familiarity with the Iliad and Odyssey, that the audience has further knowledge about the heroic age. The heroes' ancestry and birth, the exploits of their fathers, their deeds before the Trojan War, as well as stories of their fate at the end of the war, their death and burial or their return to their homeland—all these are drawn into the dialogue, rendering it a rich resource for traditions about the heroes. Many of these traditions are attested elsewhere, in the summaries of the lost poems of the Homeric cycle, such as the Aithiopis or the Cypria, or in allusions in Pindar and Pausanias, chief among the Greek authors, frequently include information about the heroes found in On Heroes. Moreover, it is not only the heroes of the Trojan War with which the dialogue is concerned but also others, such as Herakles and the Seven Against Thebes, inasmuch as their exploits impinged upon the history of the warriors at Troy.

The dialogue displays a special concern with heroes' tombs and sanctuaries; here the reader is expected to be familiar with the burial of the heroes, the rites appropriate in each sanctuary, and the particular interests each hero has. In what way has a hero been offended, either in life or in death, that he or she might seek vengeance upon the living? In this respect, the knowledge that the audience has or acquires from the dialogue has important consequences. It is vital to know the right story about each hero, not least so that one does not offend or do violence to their memory. The consequences of ignorance and offense are great, from the perspective of the dialogue, since each hero is a revenant, still possessing the capacity to avenge injustice. The consequences of proper knowledge about the heroes and their ways are also great, with blessing and prosperity bestowed by the heroes upon those who maintain a right relationship with them. On Heroes thus assumes a certain inculturation into the basic patterns of hero cult.

On Heroes also refers at times to pieces of Greek literature other than the poems of Homer, most notably the poems of Hesiod and the dialogues of Plato. Consideration of Hesiod is included chiefly through comparison with Homer's compositional technique and skill, with the introduction of the motif of the contest between Homer and Hesiod (known as the Certamen). References to Plato are more complex and less foundational to the worldview of the text. On Heroes contains no explicit references to Plato and yet by its genre draws upon the tradition of philosophical dialogue begun by Plato (see above). Philostratus also alludes to Platonic discussions about education, the acquisition of knowledge, the relation of the body and soul, and the role of sense perception (e.g., Her. 1.2; 7.3). A thorough analysis of the relation of On Heroes to Platonic ideas and writings is not possible here, but a preliminary examination suggests that the dialogue is critical of certain Platonic perspectives (e.g., see Her. 1.2 and the discussion there).

References to contemporary events and figures are also found throughout the dialogue. The deeds of certain Olympic athletes and various events in Roman fiscal policies, although obscure and tantalizing to the modern historian, are cited in a way that assumes the ancient audience was quite familiar with them. In order to understand, for example, the full impact of Achilles' avenging wrath upon the Thessalians when they were overly casual about their sacrifices, it is necessary to be acquainted with the imperial monopoly on extraction of purple dye and the sanctions placed upon the Thessalians in the reign of Alexander Severus for their violation of the monopoly. Such references to imperial edicts suggest an interest in complimenting the imperial family, whose policies thus fulfill the wishes of the heroes; combined with discussion of contemporary athletes they render a dialogue that is otherwise about events of long ago quite up-to-date.

As one might expect in a dialogue in which a major characters is a Phoenician merchant who sails the Aegean and the Black Sea, On Heroes is replete with geographical references. Like the merchant, the audience is expected to recognize the names of cities, regions, islands, mountains, and rivers associated with the heroes, their sanctuaries, or where supernatural marvels are to be found. The majority of these are in the northern Aegean, the Hellespont, and the Troad, but the world circumscribed by the dialogue extends from India to Spain and from Ethiopia to the banks of the Danube (the ancient Istros). The dialogue conveys a strong sense of place, emphasized by the present-day appearance of the heroes in particular localities and especially the appearance of Protesilaos in his sanctuary at the tip of the Thracian Chersonesus. An underlying message of the dialogue is that part of obtaining true knowledge entails being in the right place. Moreover, as we have observed above, the role of Protesilaos on the western coast of the Hellespont, at the ancient gateway between Europe and Asia. Thus the geographic dimension of the dialogue cannot be ignored, and in many cases geography holds the key to the significance of an episode.

These observations about the knowledge that On Heroes assumes on the part of its audience locate the dialogue in an intertextual web of stories, traditions, and practices. We have already explored the relation between this dialogue and the epic traditions; here it is sufficient to say that this web should not be limited to what the audience could have obtained from written sources. Rather, as we consider how to read this text, we may suppose as a starting point that numerous stories about the heroes continued to be told alongside the poems of Homer. These stories may have been told in connection with the legends about the foundations of cities and about cult sanctuaries; they may have enjoyed local prestige, even as they contradicted or complemented the panhellenic epics of the Iliad and Odyssey. Inasmuch as these stories surface in Greek and Roman literature and art, the modern reader gains some access to them. We should emphasize, however, that references in On Heroes to such traditions need not be thought of as resulting solely from literary dependence. The same may be said of the references to cultic practice. Although descriptions of cultic activity cannot be taken simplistically as eyewitness reports, we may suppose that Philostratus was well informed about certain ritual practices and crafted them in ways that suited his aims. In other words, we suggest that On Heroes is read best if it is seen as situated within a world of performance, that is, the performances, including those in written form, of stories and ritual practices associated with the heroes of the epic traditions.

On Heroes demands a certain expertise on the part of its audience. Thus, in producing the following translation,[131] we have tried to provide the reader with what is needed to understand the text. We have, above all, attempted to produce a translation that is fairly transparent to the Greek idiom, with a minimum of paraphrase; the translation is also sensitive to word-play and aware of the technical vocabulary of Greek poetics, rhetoric, and cultic practice. Second, we have supplemented the translation with notes, an extensive glossary, and maps. The notes do not pretend to provide a full commentary on the text; they are limited to elucidating obscure points, clarifying matters of translation, and supplying references to the Iliad, the Odyssey, and other ancient literature. A few notes contain a fuller discussion of phenomena or practices mentioned in the text. We have avoided extensive citation of secondary literature in the notes, reserving discussion of scholarship on Philostratus and On Heroes for the Introduction.

The Glossary contains an entry for every proper name mentioned in the text itself. The extent of this list indicates the high degree to which the dialogue is concerned with the people and places of epic tradition and of the ancient world in general. Because of the oblique quality of many references, readers are encouraged to make use of the Glossary alongside the text. In the entries we briefly identify the person or place and discuss those portions of the mythic or historical tradition most relevant to the present work. Following Philostratus's lead, we have been particularly attentive to variant traditions about the heroes. The Glossary, however, should not be considered encyclopedic, but rather as an introductory aid to the reader of this text. This volume also contains brief topical bibliographies intended to aid student research (go to Select Bibliography).

Since most modern readers are not as familiar with the geography of the ancient Mediterranean as the Phoenician merchant, we have included two maps (unfortunately not yet appearing in this online edition). These maps show the location of all place names that occur in the text with the exception of strictly mythological locales (such as Aiaia) and the Ilissos river in Athens. One provides a general view of the Mediterranean, with indications of other, more distant sites mentioned in the text. The other map focuses on Greece and western Asia Minor, reflecting the dialogue's concern with this area.

This Student Edition of On Heroes is derived from our published translation Flavius Philostratus: Heroikos.[132] The full edition includes the Greek text, critical apparatus, index of Greek words, and a more detailed Introduction. Students interested in the manuscript history and textual variants are advised to consult the full version and de Lannoy's critical edition.[133]

Philostratus On Heroes

I. The Phoenician's Quest (1.1–8.18)

The Vinedresser and the Phoenician Meet (1.1–6.6)

Phoenician: I am a Phoenician, vinedresser, one of those who live near Sidon and Tyre.

Phoen.: Ionian Sybaris[183] held sway over all Phoenicia at once, and there, I think, one would be prosecuted for not living luxuriously.

Vinedr.: [§1.2]Where are you going so proudly and ignoring everything at your feet?[184]

Phoen.: I need a sign and an omen for good sailing,[185] vinedresser. For they say that we shall sail into the Aegean itself, and I believe the sea is dangerous and not easy to sail.[186] What's more, I am going against the wind. With this objective, Phoenicians seek omens for good sailing.

Vinedr.: [§1.3]You people are at any rate skilled[187] in nautical affairs, stranger, for you have also, I suppose, designated Cynosura[188] as a sign in the sky, and you sail by reference to it. Yet just as you are praised for your skill in sailing, so you are slandered as money-lovers and greedy rascals for your business dealings.[189]

Phoen.: [§1.4]But are you not money-loving, vinedresser, living among these vines and presumably seeking someone who will gather grapes after paying a drachma for them, and seeking someone to whom you will sell sweet new wine or wine with a fine bouquet—a wine that, I believe, you are going to say you have hidden, just as Marôn did?

Vinedr.: [§1.5]Phoenician stranger, if somewhere on the earth there are Cyclopes, whom the earth is said to nourish, though they are lazy, neither planting nor sowing anything, then things would grow unattended, even though they belong to Demeter and to Dionysos, and none of the produce of the earth would be sold.[190] Instead, everything would be by nature without price and common to all, just as in the Marketplace of Swine.[191] Wherever it is necessary, however, for one bound to the land and subject to the seasons to sow, plow, plant, and suffer one toil after another, there it is necessary to buy and sell as well. [§1.6]For money is needed for farming, and without it, you will feed neither a plowman nor a vinedresser nor a cowherd nor a goatherd, nor will you have a krater[192] from which to drink or pour a libation. In fact, the most pleasant thing in farming, namely, gathering grapes, one must contract out for hire. Otherwise, the vines will stand idle and yield no wine, as though they had been cursed.[193] [§1.7]These things, stranger, I have said about the whole crowd of farmers, but my own way is far more reasonable, since I do not associate with merchants, and I do not know what the drachma is. But I either buy or myself sell a bull for grain and a goat for wine and so forth, without much talking back and forth.

Phoen.: [§2.1]You mean a golden marketplace, vinedresser, which belongs to heroes rather than to humans.[194] Hey, what does this dog want? He keeps going all around me, whining at my feet and offering his ear gently and tamely.

Vinedr.: [§2.2]He explains my character[195] to you, stranger—and that we are so moderate and gracious to those who arrive here that we do not allow the dog to bark at them, but rather to welcome and to fawn before those who arrive.

Vinedr.: This is also allowed, since there is a surplus of figs too. And I could give you nuts, apples, and countless other good things. I plant them as snacks among the vines.

Vinedr.: Nothing other than to eat them with pleasure, to be satisfied, and to go away rejoicing.

Phoen.: [§2.7]What connection is there between you and Protesilaos, if you mean the man from Thessaly?

Vinedr.: I do mean that man, the husband of Laodameia, for he delights in hearing this epithet.

Vinedr.: He himself does not speak about his own experiences, stranger, except, of course, that he died at Troy because of Helen, but came to life again in Phthia because he loved Laodameia.

Phoen.: [§2.10]And yet he is said to have died after he came to life again and to have persuaded his wife to follow him.

Vinedr.: [§2.11]He himself also says these things. But how he returned afterwards too, he does not tell me even though I've wanted to find out for a long time. He is hiding, he says, some secret of the Fates. His fellow soldiers also, who were there in Troy, still appear on the plain, warlike in posture and shaking the crests of their helmets.

Phoen.: [§3.1]By Athena, vinedresser, I don't believe it, although I wish these things were so. But if you are not attending to the plants, nor irrigating them, tell me now about these matters and what you know about Protesilaos. Indeed, you would please the heroes if I should go away believing.

Vinedr.: [§3.2]Stranger, the plants no longer need watering at midday, since it is already late autumn and the season itself waters them. Therefore, I have leisure to relate everything in detail. Since these matters are sacred to the gods and so important, may they not escape the notice of cultivated people! It is also better for us to sit down in the beauty of this place.

Vinedr.: [§3.3]Let us enter the vineyard, Phoenician. For you may even discover in it something to cheer you.

Phoen.: Let us enter, for a scent that is, I suppose, pleasant comes from the plants.

Vinedr.: [§3.4]What do you mean? Pleasant? It is divine! The blossoms of the uncultivated trees are fragrant, as are the fruits of those cultivated. If you ever come upon a cultivated plant with fragrant blossoms, pluck rather the leaves, since the sweet scent comes from them.

Phoen.: [§3.5]How diverse is the beauty of your property, and how lush the clusters of grapes have grown! How well-arranged are all the trees, and how divine is the fragrance of the place! Indeed, I think that the walkways which you have left untilled are pleasing, but, vinedresser, you seem to me to live luxuriously since you use so much uncultivated land.

Vinedr.: [§3.6]The walkways are sacred, stranger, for the hero exercises on them.

Phoen.: [§4.1]You will discuss these things once we sit down where you are leading us. But now tell me this: do you farm your own property, or is someone else the owner, and “do you provide food for the one who feeds you,” like Oineus in Euripides' tragedy?[197]

Vinedr.: [§4.2]This one small plot of land out of many has been left to provide for me—as befits a free person. But powerful men have left me completely bereft of the other fields. Protesilaos took for himself this small piece of land, which was actually owned by Xeinis the Chersonesian. He took it for himself by projecting some kind of apparition of himself at Xeinis. The apparition so damaged Xeinis that he went away blind.

Phoen.: [§4.3]I suppose you have acquired an excellent guard over your estate, and because your friend is so alert, you do not even fear attack by any wolf.

Vinedr.: [§4.4]You speak the truth. No beast is allowed to enter the premises. No serpent, or poisonous spider, or extortionist[198] attacks us here in the field. This last beast is exceedingly shameless; it even kills in the marketplace.

Phoen.: [§4.5]Vinedresser, how were you trained in speaking? You do not seem to me to be among the uneducated.

Vinedr.: [§4.6]At first, we spent our life in a city, and we were provided with teachers and studied. But my affairs were really in a bad way because the farming was left to slaves, and they did not bring anything back to us. Hence it was necessary to take loans with the field as security and to go hungry. [§4.7]And yes, on arriving, I tried to make Protesilaos my advisor, but he remained silent, since he was justifiably angry at me because, having left him, I lived in a city. [§4.8]But when I persisted and said that I would die if neglected, he said, “Change your dress.” [§4.9]On that day, I heard this advice but did nothing; afterwards, examining it closely, I understood that he was commanding me to change my way of life. [§4.10]From that point on, after I was suitably dressed in a leather jacket, carrying a hoe, and no longer knew my way to town, Protesilaos made everything in the field grow luxuriously for me. Whenever a sheep, a beehive, or a tree became diseased, I consulted Protesilaos as a physician. Since I spend time with him and devote myself to the land, I am becoming more skilled than I used to be, because he excels in wisdom.

Phoen.: [§4.11]You are fortunate indeed with such company and land, if you not only gather olives and grapes in it, but also harvest divine and pure wisdom. I equally do an injustice to your wisdom by calling you a “vinedresser.”

Vinedr.: [§4.12]Do call me so, and indeed you would please Protesilaos by addressing me as “farmer” and “gardener” and things like these.

Phoen.: [§5.2]Because this portion of the land seems to me to be most pleasant and divine. I do not know whether anyone has ever come to life again here, but if someone were to, he would live, I suppose, most pleasantly and painlessly after coming from the throng of battle. [§5.3]These trees are very tall, since time has reared them. This water from the springs is varied in taste, and I suppose you draw it as though drinking first one vintage wine and then another. You also produce canopies by twining and fitting together the trees, as one could not even weave together a crown from an unmown meadow.[199]

Vinedr.: [§5.4]Stranger, you have not yet even heard the nightingales that sing here both when evening comes and when day begins, just as they do in Attica.[200]

Phoen.: [§5.5]I suppose that I have heard and that I agree that they do not lament, but only sing. But say something about the heroes, for I would rather hear about them. Do you want to sit down somewhere?

Vinedr.: The hero, who is a gracious host, agrees to offer us these seats of honor.

Phoen.: [§5.6]Look, I am at ease, for hospitality is pleasant for one listening to serious discourse.

Vinedr.: [§6.1]Ask whatever you wish, my guest,[201] and you will not say that you came in vain. For when Odysseus, far from his ship, was perplexed, Hermes, or one of his clever followers, had an earnest conversation with him (the subject was probably the moly[202]). And Protesilaos by means of me will fill you with information and make you more content and wise. For knowing many things is worth much.

Phoen.: [§6.2]But I am not perplexed, my good friend. By Athena! I have come under the auspices of a god, and I finally understand my dream.

Phoen.: [§6.3]This is already about the thirty-fifth day, I suppose, that I have been sailing from Egypt and Phoenicia. When the ship put in here at Elaious, I dreamed I read the verses of Homer in which he relates the catalogue of the Achaeans,[203] and I invited the Achaeans to board the ship, since it was large enough for all. [§6.4]When I awoke with a start (for a shuddering came over me), I attributed the dream to the slowness and length of the voyage, since apparitions of the dead make no impression on those who travel in haste. [§6.5]Because I wished to be advised about the meaning of the dream (for the wind has not yet allowed our sailing), I have disembarked here. [§6.6]While walking, as you know, I encountered you first, and we are now talking about Protesilaos. We shall also converse about the catalogue of the heroes, for you say that we shall do so, and “cataloguing them on the ship” would mean that those who have compiled the story about them would then embark.

The Phoenician's Doubts Overcome (6.7–8.18)

Vinedr.: [§6.7]My guest, you have truly arrived under the auspices of a god, and you have described the vision soundly. Let us then recount the story, lest you say that I have corrupted you by diverting you from it.

Phoen.: [§7.1]You know at least what I long to learn. I need to understand this association which you have with Protesilaos, what he is like, and if he knows a story about Trojan times similar to that of the poets, or one unknown to them. [§7.2]What I mean by “Trojan times” is this sort of thing: the assembling of the army at Aulis and the heroes, one by one, whether they were handsome, brave, and clever, as they are celebrated. After all, how could he narrate the war round about Troy when he did not fight to the end, since they say that he was the first of the entire Hellenic army to die, the instant he disembarked there?

Vinedr.: [§7.3]This is a foolish thing for you to say, my guest. To be cleansed of the body is the beginning of life for divine and thus blessed souls.[204] For the gods, whose attendants they are, they then know, not by worshipping statues and conjectures, but by gaining visible association with them. And free from the body and its diseases, souls observe the affairs of mortals, both when souls are filled with prophetic skill and when the oracular power sends Bacchic frenzy upon them.

[§7.4]At any rate, among those who critically examine Homer's poems, who will you say reads and has insight into them as Protesilaos does? [§7.5]Indeed, my guest, before Priam and Troy there was no epic recitation, nor had anyone sung of events that had not yet taken place. There was poetry about prophetic matters and about Herakles, son of Alkmênê, recently arranged but not yet developed fully, but Homer had not yet sung. Some say that it was when Troy was captured, others say it was a few or even eight generations later that he applied himself to poetic composition. [§7.6]Nevertheless, Protesilaos knows everything of Homer and sings of many Trojan events that took place after his own lifetime, and also of many Hellenic and Median events. He calls at any rate the campaign of Xerxes the third destruction of mortals, after what happened in the time of both Deucalion and Phaethôn, when a great many nations were destroyed.

Phoen.: [§7.7]You will fill the horn of Amaltheia, vinedresser, since your companion knows so much. I suppose you will report them correctly, even as you heard them.

Vinedr.: [§7.8]By Zeus, I would wrong the hero, who is both learned and truth-loving, if I did not honor the truth, which he is accustomed to call the “mother of virtue.”

Phoen.: [§7.9]I think that I have confessed my own experience to you from the beginning of our conversation: I am inclined to disbelieve legends. This is the reason: Until now I have not met anyone who has seen such fabulous things, but rather one person claims to have heard it from another, that other person believes it, and a third one a poet convinces. What is said about the great size of the heroes—how they were ten cubits tall[205]—I consider pleasing in storytelling, but false and unconvincing for one who observes things according to nature, for which contemporary humans provide the measure.

Phoen.: Long ago, vinedresser, while yet a young man. When I was still a child I believed such things, and my nurse cleverly amused me with these tales, singing and even weeping over some of them.[206] But when I became a young man, I did not think it necessary to accept such tales without question.

Vinedr.: [§7.11]But concerning Protesilaos, have you ever happened to hear that he appears here?

Phoen.: Vinedresser, how could I when I do not believe. When you can sufficiently accept this, you ought to demand the rest of the story about Protesilaos and whatever else you want about Trojan matters. You will disbelieve none of these things.

Vinedr.: [§8.1]Listen now, my friend. I had a grandfather who knew many of the things you do not believe. He used to say that the tomb of Ajax was destroyed by the sea near which it lies, and that bones appeared in it of a person eleven cubits tall. He also said that upon his arrival at Troy the emperor Hadrian embraced and kissed some of the bones, wrapped them up, and restored the present tomb of Ajax.[207]

Phoen.: [§8.2]Not without reason, vinedresser, am I likely to doubt such things, since you say that you have heard something from your grandfather and probably from your mother or nurse; but you report nothing on your own authority unless you would speak about Protesilaos.

Vinedr.: [§8.3]Indeed, if I were versed in legendary lore, I would describe the seven-cubit-long corpse of Orestes, which the Lacedaemonians found in Tegea,[208] as well as that corpse inside the bronze Lydian horse, which had been buried in Lydia before the time of Gyges.[209] When the earth was split by an earthquake, the marvel was observed by Lydian shepherds with whom Gyges then served. The corpse, appearing larger than human, had been laid in a hollow horse that had openings on either side. [§8.4]Even if such things can be doubted because of their antiquity, I do not know anything from our own time that you will deny. [§8.5]Not long ago, a bank of the river Orontes, when it was divided, revealed Aryadês—whom some called an Ethiopian, others an Indian—a thirty-cubit-long corpse lying in the land of Assyria.[210] [§8.6]Moreover, not more than fifty years ago, Sigeion—right over here—revealed the body of a giant on an outcropping of its promontory. Apollo himself asserts that he killed him while fighting on behalf of Troy. When sailing into Sigeion, my guest, I saw the very condition of the earth and how big the giant was. Many Hellespontians and Ionians and all the islanders and Aeolians sailed there as well. For two months the giant lay on the great promontory, giving rise to one tale after another since the oracle had not yet revealed the true story.

Phoen.: [§8.7]Would you speak further, vinedresser, about his size, the structure of his bones, and the serpents, which are said to have grown together with the giants, and which the painters sketch below the torso of Enkelados and his companions?

Vinedr.: [§8.8]If those monstrous beings existed, my guest, and if they were joined with snakes, I do not know. But the one in Sigeion was twenty-two cubits long, and it was lying in a rocky cleft with its head toward the mainland and its feet even with the promontory. But we did not see any sign of serpents around it, nor is there anything different about its bones from those of a human being. [§8.9]Furthermore, Hymnaios of Peparêthos, who is on friendly terms with me, sent one of his sons here some four years ago to consult Protesilaos through me about a similar marvel. When Hymnaios happened to dig up vines on the island of Ikos (he alone owned the island), the earth sounded somewhat hollow to those who were digging. When they opened it up, they found a twelve-cubit corpse lying there with a serpent inhabiting its skull. [§8.10]The young man then came to ask us what should be done in his honor, and Protesilaos said, “Let us cover the stranger completely,” without doubt urging those who were willing to rebury the corpse and not to leave it exposed. He also said that the giant was one of those who were hurled down by the gods. [§8.11]But the corpse that came to light on Lemnos, which Menekratês of Steiria found, was very big, and I saw it a year ago when I sailed from Imbros, only a short distance from Lemnos, however, no longer appear in their proper order: the vertebrae lie separated from each other, tossed about by earthquakes, I suppose, and the ribs are wrenched out of the vertebrae. But if one imagines the bones together as a whole, the size seems to make one shudder and is not easily described. Certainly when we poured two Cretan amphoras[211] of wine into the skull, it was not filled. [§8.12]Now, there is a headland on Imbros” facing the south, under which a spring is found that turns male animals into eunuchs, and makes females so drunk that they fall asleep. At this spot, when a piece of land was severed from the mainland, the body of a very large giant was pulled out. If you disbelieve me, let us set sail. The corpse still lies exposed, and the sea journey to Naulokhos is short.

Phoen.: [§8.13]I would gladly go beyond Okeanos, vinedresser, if I could find such a marvel. My business, however, does not allow me to stray so far. Rather, I must be bound to my ship, just like Odysseus.[212] Otherwise, as they say, the things in the bow and the things in the stern will perish.

Vinedr.: [§8.14]But do not yet regard as credible what I have said, my guest, until you sail to the island of Cos, where the bones of earthborn men lie, the first descendants of Merops, they say, and until you see the bones of Hyllos, son of Herakles, in Phrygia[213] and, by Zeus, those of the Alôadai in Thessaly, since they are really nine fathoms long and exactly as they are celebrated in song.[214] [§8.15]The Neapolitans living in Italy consider the bones of Alkyoneus a marvel. They say that many giants were thrown down there, and Mount Vesuvius smolders over them. [§8.16]Indeed in Pallênê, which the poets call “Phlegra,” the earth holds many such bodies of giants encamped there, and rainstorms and earthquakes uncover many others. Not even a shepherd ventures at midday to that place of clattering phantoms[215] which rage there. [§8.17]Disbelief in such things probably existed even at the time of Herakles. Hence, after he killed Geryon in Erytheia and was alleged to have encountered the most enormous creature, Herakles dedicated its bones at Olympia so that his contest would not be disbelieved.

Phoen.: [§8.18]I consider you fortunate for your knowledge,[216] vinedresser. I was ignorant of such great bones, and out of ignorance I disbelieved. But what about the stories of Protesilaos? It is time, I suppose, to come to those, since they are no longer unbelievable.

II. Protesilaos (9.1–23.30)

The Sanctuary of Protesilaos at Elaious (9.1–7)

Vinedr.: [§9.1]Listen to such stories now, my guest. Protesilaos does not lie buried at Troy but here on the Chersonesus. This large mound here on the left no doubt contains him. The nymphs created these elms around the mound, and they made, I suppose, the following decree concerning these trees: [§9.2]“Those branches turned toward Ilion will blossom early and will then immediately shed their leaves and perish before their season (this was indeed the misfortune of Protesilaos), but a tree on the other side will live and prosper.” [§9.3]All the trees that were not set round the grave, such as these in the grove, have strength in all their branches and flourish according to their particular nature.[217]

Phoen.: [§9.4]I see, vinedresser, and I am not surprised that I continue to marvel, because what is divine is cleverly devised.

Vinedr.: [§9.5]Consider this sanctuary, my guest, where the Mede committed a sacrilege in our forefathers' time. It was because of this they say even the preserved fish came back to life.[218] You see how little of the sanctuary is left. But back then it was lovely and not small, as can be made out from its foundations. [§9.6]This cult statue stood upon a ship, since its base has the shape of a prow, and the ship's captain dedicated it. Time has worn it away and, by Zeus, those who anoint it and seal their vows here have changed its shape. [§9.7]But this means nothing to me. For I spend time with him and see him, and no statue could be more pleasant than that man.

Protesilaos's Appearance, Character, and Way of Life (10.1–13.4)

Phoen.: [§10.1]Why don't you describe him to me and share what he looks like?

Vinedr.: [§10.2]Gladly, my guest, by Athena. He is about twenty years old at most. Because he sailed to Troy at such a young age, he has a full, splendid beard and smells sweeter than autumn myrtles. Cheerful eyebrows frame his eyes, which gives him a pleasant, friendly manner. When he exerts himself, he looks intense and determined. But if we meet him at ease, ah, how lovely and friendly his eyes appear! [§10.3]He has blond hair of moderate length. It hangs a little over his forehead rather than covering it. The shape of his nose is perfect,[219] like the statue's. His voice is more sonorous than trumpets and comes from a small mouth. [§10.4]It is most enjoyable to meet him naked, since he is well built and nimble, just like the herms set up in race courses.[220] His height is easily ten cubits, and it seems to me that he would have exceeded this had he not died in his early twenties.

Phoen.: [§10.5]I can envision the young man, vinedresser, and I admire you because of your companion. Is he armed as a soldier, or how is he attired?

Vinedr.: He is clad in a riding cloak, my guest, in Thessalian style, just like this statue. The cloak is sea-purple, of a divine luster, for the luster of purple cannot be expressed.

Vinedr.: He loves her, and he is loved by her, and they are disposed toward one another just like those hot from the bridal chambers.

Phoen.: [§11.2]Do you embrace him when he arrives, or does he escape you like smoke, as he does the poets?[221]

Vinedr.: He enjoys my embrace and allows me to kiss him and cling to his neck.

Vinedr.: I think that I converse with him four or five times a month, whenever he wishes to plant some of these plants, to gather them, or to cut flowers. When someone is garlanded, he makes the flowers even sweeter, whenever he is around them.

Vinedr.: And self-controlled, my guest. For loving laughter because of his youth, he does not act with arrogance. If I chance on a rock while digging somewhere, he often takes up a hoe and assists me with difficult jobs, and if I don't know something about farming, he corrects me. [§11.5]Because I heard from Homer about “long trees,” I used to plant them by putting into the ground less of the tree than was above, and when Protesilaos stopped me, I quoted the verses of Homer to him. He, understanding, said, “Yet Homer commanded the opposite of what you are doing. For from his skill he knew that the depths are `long' so that somewhere he called the cisterns `long' since they are deep.” He said that the trees take better root in the earth if a great part is firmly rooted and only a little bit is able to move.[222] [§11.6]Standing near me as I watered the flowers, does not need water,” presumably teaching me not to drench the flowers.

Vinedr.: He says that sometimes he lives in Hades, other times in Phthia, and even sometimes in Troy, where his companions are. And when he hunts wild boar and deer, he arrives here at midday, stretches out, and falls asleep.

Vinedr.: In Hades, my guest. He says that she fares most favorably among women, since she is numbered with such women as Alcestis, the wife of Admêtos, and Euadnê, the wife of Kapaneus, and others equally chaste and worthy.

Vinedr.: I have not yet met him when he is eating, my guest, nor have I observed him drinking. Indeed, I make a drink-offering[223] for him every evening from these Thasian vines, which he himself planted, and I dedicate seasonal sweetmeats every day at noon, whenever summer has come and fall stands at the door. When the moon becomes full in the season of early spring, I pour milk into this chilled vessel and say, “Behold, here is the flowing essence of the season for you. Drink.” When I have said this, I go away, and the things are eaten and drunk faster than the blink of an eye.

Vinedr.: My guest, Protesilaos regrets his suffering, and the daimon[224] who was against him at that time he considers unjust and malicious since, although his foot was compliant, it was not fixed firmly in Troy. As a fighter, he would not have been inferior in any way to Diomedes, Patroklos, or the lesser Ajax. [§12.2]He says that, compared with the descendants of Aiakos, he lacked military skills because of his youth, since he was in late adolescence, but Achilles was a young man and Ajax a grown man. [§12.3]He confirms Homer's verses about him,[225] although he does not confirm all of them: how, for example, Homer says that his wife's cheeks were torn on both sides, that his house was half-built,[226] that the ship upon which he sailed was under attack, and that he calls him warlike. [§12.4]He grieves that he accomplished nothing at Troy, and how he fell in a land that he had not even assaulted.[227] He is marked with a scar on his upper thigh, for he said that his wound was washed together with his body.

Phoen.: [§13.1]Vinedresser, how does he train his body, since you claimed that he also practices this activity?

Vinedr.: My guest, he practices all warlike exercises except archery, and all kinds of sports except wrestling. He considers archery for cowards and wrestling for the lazy.

Phoen.: [§13.2]How good is he at the pancratium,[228] and how well does he box?

Vinedr.: My guest, he practices these with a shadow,[229] and he throws the discus farther than a mortal can. He tosses the discus above the clouds, and he casts it more than one hundred cubits, and that, you see, with it being twice the Olympic weight! When he runs, you would not find a trace, nor does his foot leave any impression on the ground.

Phoen.: But there are huge footprints on the walkways, which suggest that the hero is ten cubits tall.

Vinedr.: [§13.3]Those prints, my guest, are from his walking or doing some other exercise; but when he runs, the earth remains unmarked because he is raised off the ground and like someone floating on the waves. He said that in Aulis, when Hellas was training for war against Troy, he outran Achilles in the competitions and that he jumped farther than Achilles. [§13.4]But in warlike exercises he yields to Achilles, as he said, except in the fight against the Mysians, for there he killed more Mysians than Achilles and carried away the rewards of valor. He also outdid Achilles in the contest over the shield.

Suppliants at Protesilaos's Sanctuary (14.1–17.6)

Phoen.: [§14.1]And, vinedresser, what would be the contest over the shield? No poet has mentioned it, nor does it appear in any story of the Trojan War.

Vinedr.: That, my guest, you will say about many matters, because the hero tells many things about warriors as well as deeds of battle that are not yet known to most people. [§14.2]This is the reason. He says that, in their passion for the poems of Homer, most people, looking only at Achilles and Odysseus, neglect good and brave men, so that some are not remembered at all, and for others Homer dedicates a trireme[230] of four verses. He says that Achilles is celebrated in song worthily but Odysseus at too great a length. [§14.3]But I shall tell you a little later whatever was left untold of Sthenelos, Palamedes, and other such men, lest you go away knowing nothing about them. In a moment we shall complete the Mysian story, into which the matter of the shield enters. [§14.4]But now, since we mentioned the pancratium, boxing, and throwing the discus, which will bring us back to the shield, hear the wonderful deeds performed by our hero for the athletes who consulted Protesilaos as advisor. For example, you have heard, I think, of the Cilician pancratic athlete, whom our fathers called “Halter,”[231] how small he was, indeed much smaller than his opponents.

Phoen.: [§15.1]I certainly am aware of him, in view of his statues, for bronze ones stand in many places.

Vinedr.: He possessed excellence in skill and courage, and harmony of body made him very strong. [§15.2]When the young man arrived at this sanctuary (he sailed directly to Delphi for the trial of strength) he asked Protesilaos how he might overcome his rivals. He said, “By being trampled upon.” [§15.3]Faintheartedness immediately seized the athlete, as if he had been struck down by the oracle. After he first discovered the heel maneuver during a contest, he later realized that the oracle ordered him not to let go of his opponent's foot. For the one who wrestles with the heel must be trampled upon repeatedly and lie under his opponent.[232] By doing so, the athlete gained an illustrious name for himself and was defeated by no one. [§15.4]Possibly you have also heard of the dexterous Ploutarkhos?

Vinedr.: [§15.5]On his way to compete in his second Olympiad, he petitioned the hero to give him an oracular response about victory. The hero ordered him to pray to Akhelôos, presider over the games.

Vinedr.: [§15.6]Ploutarkhos contended against Hermeias the Egyptian in Olympia for the crown of victory. When both were exhausted—the one from wounds, the other from thirst (for the noonday sun glared down on the boxing ring)—a cloud burst over the stadium, and the thirsty Ploutarkhos drank some water that the sheepskins around his forearms had soaked up.[233] When he reflected on the oracular response, as he said later, he screwed up his courage and gained the victory. [§15.7](You would equally marvel at the endurance of Eudaimôn the Egyptian if you had encountered him boxing somewhere.) When asked how he had not been defeated, he said, “By despising death.”

Phoen.: He does indeed trust the oracle, vinedresser, for by preparing himself in this way, he seems unconquerable and divine to the crowds.

Vinedr.: [§15.8]The athlete Helix himself has not yet sailed toward this sanctuary, having sent one of his companions to ask how often he would win at the Olympic games. And Protesilaos said, “You will win twice, if you do not want three times.”

Phoen.: [§15.9]Amazing, vinedresser! I suppose you will relate what happened at Olympia. For he had won one victory already, when as a man among boys he won the wrestling contest.[234] At the Olympiad after that he stripped himself for wrestling as well as for the pancratium.The Eleans were displeased at this and decided to exclude him from both these events by making accusations that he had violated Olympic regulations. Nevertheless, they grudgingly crowned him for the pancratium. [§15.10]And Protesilaos told him beforehand to be on his guard against this kind of envy, because he knew that Helix was a rival of choice athletes.

Vinedr.: You have made a most excellent interpretation of the oracle, my guest.

Phoen.: [§16.1]But what diseases does he heal? For you say that many pray to him.

Vinedr.: He heals all the illnesses there are, especially consumptions, edemas, diseases of the eyes, and quartan fever.[235] [§16.2]Lovers can also gain his counsel, for he sympathizes deeply with those unlucky in erotic matters, and he suggests charms and tricks with which they enchant their boy lovers. But he neither converses with adulterers nor offers them any erotic advice. He says that he dislikes them because they give love a bad name. [§16.3]An adulterer once arrived here with the very wife whom he was trying to seduce, and both of them wished to conspire against her husband who was present but did not yet realize the situation—for he was sleeping there at midday, but they already made their conspiracy while standing at the altar…

Vinedr.: [§16.4]He egged on this dog, even though you can see that it is good-natured, to attack them from behind and bite them while they were still conspiring. When he had frustrated the conspiracy in this way, Protesilaos stood near the husband and ordered him not to trouble himself about the adulterers, since their bites were incurable, but now at least to save himself as well as his own household. The gods know everything; but the heroes know less than the gods but more than humans. [§16.5]A great crowd of such ones streams in—if only I could remember them all; they include at least even those who in Phthia and Phulakê have appeared to all the inhabitants of Thessaly. For you see, Protesilaos has an active sanctuary there, and he gives many benevolent and favorable signs to the Thessalians and wrathful ones if he is neglected.[236]

Phoen.: [§16.6]By Protesilaos, I am convinced, vinedresser. It is good, I see, to swear by such a hero.

Vinedr.: [§17.1]You would be wrong to disbelieve, my guest. Since you live near the mainland of Cilicia, perhaps you know more than I do about both Amphiaraos, whom the earth is said to hold in a cleverly devised and secret shrine, and his son Amphilokhos.[237] [§17.2]But you might do injustice to Marôn, the son of Euanthês, who haunts the vines at Ismaros and, by planting and pruning them, makes them produce sweet wine, especially when farmers see Marôn handsome and splendid, exhaling a breath sweet and smelling of wine. [§17.3]You should also know something about the Thracian Rhêsos. Rhêsos, whom Diomedes killed at Troy,[238] is said to inhabit Rhodopê, where they celebrate many of his wonders in song. They say that he breeds horses, serves as a soldier, and hunts wild beasts. [§17.4]A sign that the hero is hunting is that the wild boars, deer, and all the wild beasts on the mountain come to the altar of Rhêsos by twos or threes to be sacrificed unbound and to offer themselves to the sacrificial knife.[239] [§17.5]This same hero is also said to keep the mountains free of pestilence. Rhodopê is extremely populous, and many villages surround the sanctuary. [§17.6]For this reason I think even Diomedes will cry out in defense of his fellow soldiers. If we believe this Thracian still exists (whom Diomedes killed as one who had done nothing famous at Troy nor displayed there anything worthy of mention other than his white horses[240]) and we make sacrifices to him while traveling through Rhodopê and Thrace, then we would dishonor those who have performed divine and brilliant works, believing the fame surrounding them fabulous tales and idle boasting.

Recent Appearances of Heroes at Troy (18.1–23.1)

Phoen.: [§18.1]Finally I am on your side, vinedresser, and no one hereafter will disbelieve such stories. What about those heroes on the plain at Ilion whom you said marched in warlike fashion? When have they been seen?

Vinedr.: [§18.2]They appear, I said. They still appear great and divine to herdsmen and shepherds on the plain, and they are seen whenever there is evil upon the land. If they appear covered with dust, they portend drought for the land, but if they appear full of sweat, they portend floods and heavy rains. If blood appears on them or their weapons, they send forth diseases upon Ilion. If none of these signs is perceived about their images, they immediately bring prosperous times, and then the herdsmen sacrifice to them a lamb, a bull, a colt, or whatever each one tends. [§18.3]They say that all deaths among the herds come from Ajax. I believe they say this because of the story of his madness, when Ajax is said to have fallen upon the herds and cut them to pieces as if slaying the Achaeans because of their decision.[241] No one grazes a herd near his grave for fear of the grass, since what grows there is diseased and harmful to eat. [§18.4]There is a story that Trojan shepherds once insulted Ajax because their sheep became sick. As they stood around the tomb, they called the hero an enemy of Hektor, of Troy, and of the flocks. One said that Ajax had been driven mad, another that he was in a warlike rage, but the most outrageous of the shepherds said, “Ajax stood firm no longer”[242]; up until this point he used to recite the verse against him as a coward. But shouting from his grave in a spine-tingling and shrill voice, Ajax said, “But I did stand firm.”[243] Then it is said that he even clashed his weapons together, as is usual in battle. [§18.5]There is no need to marvel at the suffering of those poor devils, if, since they were Trojans and shepherds, they were panic-stricken at Ajax's attack, and some fell, others ran, and still others fled from their pastures. But it is worthwhile to admire Ajax, since he killed none of them. Rather, he endured the drunkenness which possessed them, only showing that he was listening to them. [§18.6]I suppose, my guest, that Hektor is not acquainted with this virtue. For last year, when some youth (they say he was quite young and uneducated) offended Hektor, he rushed headlong at him and killed him on the road, blaming the deed on a river.

Phoen.: [§19.1]Vinedresser, you speak to someone who is ignorant and greatly astounded by this report, for I thought that this hero had not appeared anywhere. When you told me things having to do with the Hellenes, I grieved exceedingly for Hektor, because neither plowman nor goatherd says anything on his behalf, but he is invisible to human beings and simply lies buried. [§19.2]I do not think it worthy to hear anything about Paris, because of whom so very many great men fell. About Hektor, however, who was the bulwark of Troy and of all their allies, who kept four horses under control[244] (which no other hero could do), who attempted to burn the ships of the Achaeans to ashes, who fought them all at once while they were advancing and arrayed against him—would I not ask something about such a hero? Would I not listen gladly, so long as you do not pass over these things lightly, nor speak carelessly?

Vinedr.: [§19.3]Keep listening, since you do not consider this careless talk. The statue of Hektor in Ilion resembles a semidivine human being and reveals many delineations of his character to one inspecting it with the right perspective.[245] In fact, he appears high-spirited, fierce, radiant, and with the splendor of full health and strength, and he is beautiful. The statue is something so alive that the viewer is drawn to touch it. [§19.4]The statue was dedicated in admiration of Ilion and accomplishes many useful things both for the general public and for individuals. Therefore they pray to Hektor and hold games in his honor. The statue becomes so heated and involved during the contest that sweat flows from it. [§19.5]Now an Assyrian youth came to Ilion and kept insulting Hektor, throwing in his face the draggings that Achilles once afflicted upon him, Ajax's rock[246] with which he was struck and died soon after, how he had initially fled from Patroklos, and that not he, but others killed Patroklos.[247] He disputed the identity of Hektor's statue and claimed that it was Achilles on the basis of the hair, which Achilles had shorn for Patroklos.[248] [§19.6]After he had made these insults, he drove his chariot from Ilion, and before he had gone ten stades,[249] a stream, so insignificant that it did not even have a name in Troy, rose up to a great size. As his attendants who escaped reported, an immense, heavily armed soldier directed the river, commanding it vehemently in a foreign language to flow into the road on which the youth was driving four small horses. [§19.7]The river overtook them along with the youth just as he was crying aloud, finally aware of Hektor. The river carried him back to its usual course and destroyed him so that it did not yield his corpse for burial. It disappeared and I do not know where it went.

Phoen.: [§19.8]Vinedresser, it is not necessary to admire Ajax enduring the outrages of the shepherds or to consider Hektor a barbarian because he was not patient with those of the youth. [§19.9]While it is perhaps forgivable that the shepherds, who were Trojans, assaulted the tomb after their sheep had fared badly, what forgiveness is there for the Assyrian youth who mocked the hero of Ilion? After all, there was never any war between the Assyrians and the Trojans, nor did Hektor ravage the Assyrians' herds as Ajax did those of the Trojans.

Vinedr.: [§20.1]My guest, you seem to have a passion for Hektor, and I do not regard it worth disputing, but let us rather return to the affairs of Ajax, for there I think our digression occurred.

Vinedr.: [§20.2]Now pay attention, my guest. Once when a ship put into harbor near the sanctuary of Ajax, two of the strangers wandered in front of the tomb and began to play with gaming stones.[250] Ajax appeared and said, “By the gods, get rid of this game, for it reminds me of the deeds of Palamedes, my close and clever companion. A single enemy destroyed both him and me by bringing on us an unjust judgment.”

Phoen.: [§20.3]By Helios, I have shed tears over this, vinedresser! Both of their experiences were comparable and properly evoke goodwill. Sharing good things sometimes brings forth envy, but those who share misfortunes are fond of each other and return compassion for compassion. [§20.4]Could you say whether anyone has seen Palamedes' phantom in Troy?

Vinedr.: [§21.1]When the phantoms appear, the identity of each is not immediately clear. Many appear sometimes one way, sometimes another, interchanging outward appearance, age, and armor. I hear, nevertheless, stories about Palamedes. [§21.2]There was a farmer in Ilion, who did then what I do now. He had deep sympathy for Palamedes' suffering, and he used to sing a dirge for him when he visited the shore where it is said Palamedes was stoned by the Achaeans. And on the dust of Palamedes' grave he would place whatever people customarily bring to tombs.[251] After selecting sweet grapes for him, he gathered them in a krater and said that he drank with Palamedes when he rested from his labors. [§21.3]He also had a dog that fawned slyly, while lying in wait for people. This dog he called “Odysseus” and, in the name of Palamedes, this Odysseus was beaten, hearing in addition a thousand bad names. [§21.4]So it seemed good then to Palamedes to visit this admirer periodically and to give him something good. [§21.5]The farmer was, of course, at a certain grapevine, mending its joint, and Palamedes, standing by him, said, “Do you recognize me, farmer?” He answered, “How would I recognize you whom I have never seen?” “Then do you love him whom you do not recognize?” said the other. [§21.6]The farmer realized that it was Palamedes, and he reported that the hero's image was tall, beautiful, and brave, although he was not yet thirty years old. The farmer embraced him and said with a smile, “I love you, Palamedes, because you seem to me to be the most sensible of all and the most fair champion in deeds of skill. You have endured most pitiful ordeals at the Achaeans' hands because of Odysseus's crafty designs against you. If Odysseus's tomb had been here, I would have dug it out long ago. He is blood-stained and more evil than the dog that I keep in his honor.” [§21.7]“Let us spare Odysseus from now on,” the hero said, “because for these deeds I have exacted penalties from him in Hades. [§21.8]But you, since you love the grapevines, I suppose, tell me what you are especially afraid could happen to them.” “What else,” said the farmer, “than that the hailstones will blind and break them?” “So then,” said Palamedes, “let us fasten a leather strap to one of them, and the rest will not be hit.”[252]

Phoen.: [§21.9]The hero is ingenious, vinedresser, and always invents something good for people. What could you say about Achilles, since we consider him the most godlike of the whole Hellenic army?

Vinedr.: [§22.1]The events in the Pontus, my guest, if you have not yet sailed to it, and all those things that he is said to do on the island there I shall tell you later in a longer story about Achilles, but his deeds in Ilion are nearly equal to those of other heroes. And he converses with some people, visits regularly, and hunts wild beasts. [§22.2]They conclude that it is Achilles from the beauty of his physique as well as from the size and flash of his weapons. Behind him a windstorm whirls around, an attendant to his phantom. [§22.3]My guest, I shall lose my voice recounting such tales! For truly, they sing something even about Antilokhos, how a girl from Ilion, wandering along the Scamander, came upon the phantom of Antilokhos: falling in love with the phantom, she clung to his tomb. They also sing of how, while young herdsmen were playing dice around the altar of Achilles, one would have struck the other dead with a shepherd's crook, had not Patroklos scared them away, saying, “One shedding of blood on account of dice is enough for me.”[253] [§22.4]But it is possible to find out about these things from the cowherds or anyone living in Ilion. Since we inhabit the banks of the Hellespont's outlets, we are in close contact with each other, and, as you see, we have turned the sea into a river. [§23.1]But let us return, my guest, to the story of the shield, which Protesilaos says was unknown to Homer and all poets.

The Battle at Mysia and the Contest of the Shield (23.2–30)

Phoen.: [§23.2]Vinedresser, you tell the story to one who yearns for it. I believe I will seldom hear it.

Phoen.: Pay attention, you say? Not even the wild beasts listened as intently to Orpheus when he sang as I, listening to you, prick up my ears, rouse my mind, and gather every detail into my memory. I even consider myself to be one of those encamped at Troy, so much have I been possessed[254] by the demigods[255] about whom I speak.

Vinedr.: [§23.3]Therefore, since you are so minded, my guest, let us set out from Aulis since it is true that they assembled there. As we embark on our story, let us make offerings to Protesilaos. [§23.4]How the Achaeans before they came to Troy plundered Mysia, which was then ruled by Têlephos, and how Têlephos, fighting for his own people, was wounded by Achilles, you can also hear from poets since they have not neglected these stories.[256] [§23.5]But the belief that the Achaeans, in ignorance of the land, thought they were carrying off the spoils of Priam slanders Homer's account, which he sings about Kalkhas the prophet. If they sailed under prophetic skill and made his skill their guide, how could they have anchored there unintentionally? [§23.6]And how, once they had anchored, could they have been ignorant that they had not come to Troy, although they met many cowherds there and many shepherds? For this region extends to the sea, and it is customary, I think, for those who put into port to ask the name of a foreign country.

[§23.7]Even if they had not met any herdsmen or asked any such questions, Odysseus and Menelaos had already been to Troy, served as ambassadors, and knew the battlements of Ilion.[257] It seems unlikely to me, therefore, that they would have overlooked these matters and permitted the army to go quite so astray from the enemy's country. [§23.8]Indeed, the Achaeans plundered the Mysians deliberately, because a report had come to them that the Mysians fared best of those on the mainland. Moreover, they feared lest those who were dwelling in the vicinity of Ilion might somehow be called over as allies in the battles. [§23.9]To Herakles, an especially noble man and a leader of armed men, these matters seemed intolerable. Hence, he drew many infantry and cavalry into battle formation. [§23.10]He led troops from the part of Mysia that he controlled (he ruled, I believe, all of coastal Mysia), and fighting alongside him were those from upper Mysia, whom the poets call “Abians” and “horse shepherds” and “drinkers of milk.”[258] [§23.11]The intention of the Achaeans became clear, as they made encircling maneuvers, and Tlêpolemos sent a messenger to his kinsman[259] aboard a Rhodian merchant vessel. When he ordered him to report by word of mouth (for the alphabet had not yet been invented) how many Achaean ships he had seen at Aulis, the whole interior of the country formed an alliance, and the Mysian and Scythian peoples came in waves over the plain. [§23.12]Protesilaos says that this was the greatest contest for them, greater than both those at Troy and barbarians. [§23.13]The alliance of Têlephos was highly esteemed by both the multitude and the warriors. Just as the Achaeans celebrated in song the Aiakidai and heroes as renowned as Diomedes and Patroklos, so the Mysians sang the names of Têlephos and Haimos, son of Ares. But the most renowned names were Heloros and Aktaios, sons of the river god Istros in Scythia.

[§23.14]The Mysians prevented the Achaeans from landing by shooting arrows and hurling javelins from the shore, and the Achaeans, though unyielding, were hard pressed. The Arcadians even ran some ships aground since they were sailing for the first time and were not prepared for the sea. [§23.15]As you perhaps know, Homer says that the Arcadians were neither sailors before coming to Ilion, nor were they skilled in navigation, but Agamemnon brought them to the sea in sixty ships and himself gave vessels to those who had never sailed.[260] Hence, they provided military expertise and strength for land forces, but when sailing they were good neither as men at arms nor as rowers. [§23.16]On the contrary, they ran the ships aground because of inexperience and daring, many of them were wounded by those stationed on the rocky shore, and a few died. But Achilles and Protesilaos, fearful for the Arcadians, leapt to the shore simultaneously, as if by mutual agreement, and drove back the Mysians because these two heroes appeared to be the most heavily armed and the noblest of the Hellenic force; they even seemed quite supernatural to their most barbarian opponents. [§23.17]But when Têlephos led his army into the plain and the Achaeans sailed to the shore undisturbed, all on board except for the pilot and petty officer immediately jumped out of the ships and assembled for battle while keeping their feelings and thoughts under control. [§23.18]Protesilaos says that Homer reported this about them correctly, since he praised the manner of Hellenic warfare,[261] of which he says Ajax, son of Telamôn, was the advisor. [§23.19]For when Menestheus the Athenian, the most learned tactician among the lords, came to Troy and taught the whole army at Aulis the need for cooperation, he did not rebuke those who used the battle cry, but Ajax dissented and criticized it as effeminate and undisciplined, for he said that the battle cry expresses courage poorly. [§23.20]Protesilaos said that he and Achilles together with Patroklos were arrayed against the Mysians, while Diomedes, Palamedes, and Sthenelos faced Haimos, son of Ares; the Atreidai, the Locrian,[262] and the remaining forces were drawn up against those coming from the Istros. [§23.21]The greater Ajax considered those killing the crowds “harvesters” since they were mowing down nothing remarkable, but those who prevailed over the bravest he called “wood-cutters” and considered himself more worthy of this sort of battle. [§23.22]Accordingly, he moved quickly against the sons of the river,[263] since they did not share his heritage and were fighting from a four-horse chariot, as Hektor also fought. Walking haughtily amid the confusion of battle, Ajax clanged his shield loudly in order to spook the horses, and the horses immediately panicked and rose up on their hind legs, at which point the Scythians, distrusting their chariot, leapt from it, since it was now in disarray, and fell upon Ajax; although both Heloros and Aktaios fought in a manner worthy of fame, they died.

[§23.23]Protesilaos also remembers how great the deeds of Palamedes were when he, Diomedes, and Sthenelos killed Haimos and his companions. Palamedes did not consider himself worthy of any rewards of valor; rather he yielded them to Diomedes, since he recognized that Diomedes had done everything for the honor and glory of battle. If the Hellenes, however, had proposed a crown for intellectual skill, Palamedes would not have lost it to any other man, since from the beginning he desired wisdom and trained himself in it.

[§23.24]Protesilaos says that he himself fought Têlephos and stripped him of his shield while still alive, but that Achilles fell upon the unprotected man, wounding him at once in the thigh. And although later in Troy he healed the wound,[264] at that time Têlephos lost heart because of it and would have died if the Mysians had not together run to Têlephos and snatched him out of the battle. So many Mysians are said then to have fallen for him that the Kaikos river ran red with their blood. [§23.25]Protesilaos says that Achilles contended with him for the shield since Achilles was the one who wounded Têlephos. The Achaeans voted rather that the shield belonged to Protesilaos because Têlephos would not have been wounded had he not been stripped of the shield.

[§23.26]He says that even the Mysian women fought from horses alongside the men, just as the Amazons do, and the leader of the cavalry was Hiera, wife of Têlephos. [§23.27]Nireus is said to have killed her (for the young men of the army, who had not yet won honor, drew up for battle against the women). When she fell, the Mysian women cried out, scaring their horses, and were driven into the marshes of the Kaikos. [§23.28]This Hiera, Protesilaos says, was the tallest woman he had ever seen and the most beautiful. He does not claim that he saw Menelaos's wife Helen in Troy, but that he now sees Helen herself and does not blame her for his death.[265] When he considers Hiera, however, he says that she surpasses Helen as much as Helen. [§23.29]Not even Hiera, my guest, won the praise of Homer, who did not introduce this divine woman into his own works because he favored Helen. Even the Achaeans are said to have been afflicted with passion for Hiera when she fell in battle, and the elders commanded the young soldiers neither to despoil Hiera nor to touch her as she lay dead. [§23.30]In this battle, my guest, many Achaeans were wounded, and an oracle prescribed baths for them, namely, the hot springs in Ionia, which even today Smyrna, forty stades from the city, and the captured Mysian helmets were once hung up there.

III. Protesilaos's Opinion of Homer (24.1–25.17)

Phoen.: [§24.1]What then, vinedresser? Shall we say that Homer deliberately or accidentally omitted these events, which are so pleasing and worthy to be celebrated by poets?

Vinedr.: [§24.2]Most likely deliberately, my guest. He wanted to sing of Helen as the best of women with respect to her beauty, and to praise the Trojan battles as the greatest of those fought anywhere. But he deprived the divine Palamedes of any story because of Odysseus and attributed the most warlike deeds to Achilles alone so that he left out the other Achaeans whenever Achilles fought. He did not compose a Mysian epic nor did he make a record of this battle, in which may be found a woman more beautiful than Helen, men no less courageous than Achilles, and a most illustrious contest. Had he remembered Palamedes, he would not have found a place where he could have hidden Odysseus.

Phoen.: [§25.1]How then is Protesilaos disposed toward Homer, since you claim that he examines his poems closely?

Vinedr.: [§25.2]My guest, he says that just as Homer, in terms of musical harmonics, sang every poetic mode,[267] he also surpassed all the poets whom he encountered, each in the area of his expertise. For example, he fashioned verses more solemnly than Orpheus, excelled Hesiod in providing pleasure, and outdid other poets in other ways. [§25.3]He took the story of the Trojan War as his subject, in which fate[268] brought together the excellent deeds both of all the Hellenes and of the barbarians. Homer introduced into the story battles involving men, horses and walls, rivers, as well as gods and goddesses. Protesilaos says that Homer also included all matters pertaining to peace: choral dances, songs, erotic encounters, and feasts; he touched on agricultural tasks and the appropriate seasons for performing them. He also described sea voyages, the making of arms in the “Hephaistos,”[269] and especially men's appearances and their various characteristics. [§25.4]Protesilaos says that Homer accomplished all these things with divine power and that those who do not love him are mad. [§25.5]He also calls Homer Troy's founder because the city gained distinction from his laments over it. [§25.6]Protesilaos marvels that even when Homer found fault with those practicing the same art he did not correct them harshly, but unobtrusively. [§25.7]Homer corrected Hesiod both on other points which were not minor and, by Zeus, about the relief figures on the shields. Once when Hesiod was describing the shield of Kyknos, he sang about the Gorgon's form carelessly and not poetically; hence, correcting him, Homer sang about the Gorgon in this way:

And upon it, the grim-looking Gorgon was set as a crown
Glaring terribly, and about her were Fear and Terror.[270]

[§25.8]In many details concerning divine stories, Homer outdid Orpheus, and in oracular odes he surpassed Mousaios. Moreover, when Pamphôs insightfully regarded Zeus as the producer of all living things and the one through whom everything from the earth arises, he used this insight rather foolishly and sang despicable verses about Zeus (for these are the words of Pamphôs:

Zeus, most glorious, greatest of gods, enfolded in dung
Of sheep, horse, and mule).

Zeus, most glorious, greatest, enveloped by clouds, dwelling in the sky.[271]

While Zeus fashions the living things under the sky, he also inhabits the most pure realm. [§25.9]He says that, like Orpheus, Homer represented truly the battles between Poseidon and Apollo and between Hermes and Leto, as well as how Athena fought with Ares and Hephaistos with the river.[272] And these battles are divine and not contemptible for their terror, even as the verse goes,

Great heaven trumpeted on all sides,[273]

just as when Aidôneus leapt up from his throne, when the earth was shaken by Poseidon.[274]

[§25.10]He finds fault with the following verses of Homer.[275] First, because, after intermingling gods and mortals, Homer spoke highly about mortals, but contemptibly and basely about the gods. Next, clearly knowing that Helen was in Egypt, since she along with Paris had been carried away by the winds, Homer kept her on the wall of Ilion so that she would see the sorry events on the plain. It is likely that, if these events had taken place because of any other woman, she would have covered her face and not looked while her people were attacked.[276] [§25.11]Because Paris was not even renowned in Troy itself for the seizure of Helen, Protesilaos says that neither would the most prudent Hektor have put up with Paris's not giving her back to Menelaos, nor would Priam have allowed Paris to live in luxury when many of his other children had already perished.[278] Nor would Helen have escaped death at the hands of the Trojan women whose husbands, brothers, and sons had already fallen. She probably would have run off to Menelaos because she was hated in Troy. [§25.12]Of course, then, the contest that Homer says Paris fought with Menelaos says that Helen was in Egypt and that the Achaeans, although knowing this for a long time, said that they were eager to fight for her, but in reality they fought for the sake of Troy's wealth.[280]

[§25.13]For the following reasons also Protesilaos does not commend Homer, because though he chose the story of Troy as his subject, he then digresses from it after Hektor's death,[281] as if hastening on to another set of stories, in which he gives credit to Odysseus. While he celebrates in Dêmodokos's and Phêmios's songs the destruction of Ilion and the horse of Epeios and Athena, he discusses these apart from the story of Troy and dedicates them rather to Odysseus. For Odysseus's sake Homer invented the race of the Cyclopes—no one knows where they came from. Circe, a daimon who was clever with magic spells, and other goddesses were made to fall in love with Odysseus, even though he had already advanced to untimely old age, when he appeared even to have hyacinth-like curls,[282] which blossomed on him in Nausicaa's presence! [§25.14]Hence, Protesilaos calls Odysseus Homer's plaything. The young woman was not even in love with his reputed wisdom, for what clever thing did he either say or do towards Nausicaa? He calls him Homer's plaything in his wandering as well, since he often comes to ruin because he is asleep,[283] and he is carried off the ship of Phaeacians as though he died during a fair voyage.[284] [§25.15]Moreover, Protesilaos says that Poseidon's wrath, because of which Odysseus was left without a single ship (and his men who filled the ships perished), did not come about because of Polyphemos. He says that neither did Odysseus come into such haunts, nor, if the Cyclops had been Poseidon have ever been enraged for such a child, who used to eat human beings like a savage lion. Rather, it was because of Palamedes, who was his grandson, that Poseidon made the sea impossible for Odysseus to navigate, and, since Odysseus escaped the sufferings there, Poseidon later destroyed him in Ithaca itself, by thrusting, I think, a spear from the sea against him.[285] [§25.16]He also says that the wrath of Achilles did not fall upon the Hellenes because of the daughter of Khrysês, but that Achilles, too, was angry over Palamedes.[286] [§25.17]But let my account of Achilles' deeds be laid aside, for I shall indeed proceed through the heroes one by one, reporting what I have heard about them from Protesilaos.

IV. The Catalogue of the Heroes (25.18–42.4)

Nestor and Antilokhos (25.18–26.20)

Phoen.: [§25.18]You have come to my favorite kind of story. Already my “ears ring with the battle-crash”[287] of horses and men, and I predict that I shall hear something very good.

Vinedr.: Listen, my guest. May nothing elude me, Protesilaos, nor may I forget anything that I have heard.[288]

[§26.1]So then, Protesilaos says that Nestor, son of Neleus, was the oldest among the Hellenes when he came to Troy, trained in many wars waged in his youth, as well as by athletic contests in which he won prizes for boxing and wrestling. Of all mortals he knew infantry and cavalry tactics best, and from his youth he rose to leadership not by flattering the rank and file, by Zeus, but by chastening them. He did this at the right time and with pleasant words, so that his criticisms seemed neither coarse nor disagreeable.[289] [§26.2]And whatever has been said about him by Homer says has been spoken truthfully. [§26.3]Moreover, Protesilaos confirms as true and not fabricated what others have said about Geryon's cattle: that Neleus and his sons except for Nestor stole the cattle from Herakles. In truth, Herakles gave Messene to Nestor as a reward for his righteousness, since in the case of the cattle he did none of the wrongs that his brothers did.[290] [§26.4]Herakles is also said to have been captivated by Nestor, since he was exceedingly prudent and handsome, and to have cherished him more than Hyllas and Abdêros. For these two were just little boys and quite young, but Nestor was already an ephebe[291] and practiced in every excellence of soul and body when Herakles met him, and they therefore cherished each other.[292] [§26.5]In truth, swearing by Herakles was not yet a custom among mortals; Protesilaos says that Nestor first instituted the custom and passed it on to those at Troy.[293]

[§26.6]He also had a child named Antilokhos, who arrived in the middle of the war. [§26.7]Because Antilokhos was still young and not mature enough for war when they assembled at Aulis, his father did not agree to his wish to serve as a soldier. After the fifth year of the war, however, Antilokhos set forth on a ship; upon arrival he went to Achilles' tent, since he had heard that Achilles was very friendly with his father. He pleaded with him to intercede on his behalf with his father, lest Nestor be annoyed by his disobedience. [§26.8]Achilles, pleased at Antilokhos's maturity and admiring his eagerness, said, “You don't yet know your own father at all, my boy, if you think that you won't be praised by him for having done an ambitious and high-spirited deed.” [§26.9]Achilles spoke accurately. With pride and joy in his child, Nestor presented him to Agamemnon, who immediately called together the Achaeans. Nestor is said then to have made his best speech ever. [§26.10]They assembled, pleased to see Nestor's child (for he had had no son at Troy, neither Thrasymedes nor any other), and Antilokhos stood blushing and staring at the ground while he received no less admiration for his beauty than Achilles had. [§26.11]For Achilles' physique appeared startling and divine, but that of Antilokhos seemed to all to be pleasant and gentle. [§26.12]Protesilaos says that, although it had not otherwise utterly escaped the Achaeans' notice, what came most of all to his own mind was Antilokhos's resemblance to his own age and height. He says that tears came to the eyes of many out of pity for their tender age and that the Achaeans spoke auspicious words to Nestor, to which he responded, “They are disposed like children to a father.”

[§26.13]It is also possible to portray the statue of Nestor for you. Protesilaos describes him as always appearing cheerful, beginning to smile, and with a beard that is majestic and well-proportioned; his ears display what he went through at wrestling school, and his neck is restored to its strength. In truth, Nestor stands upright, not defeated by old age, with black eyes and without a drooping nose. And this, in old age, only those whom strength has not forsaken maintain. [§26.14]Protesilaos says that in other respects Antilokhos resembled Nestor, but that he was swifter, trim in physique, and paid no attention to his hair. [§26.15]He gave me the following details about Antilokhos: He was most fond of horses and hunting with dogs, even using times of truce in the fighting for hunting. At any rate, Antilokhos frequented Mount Ida with Achilles and the Myrmidons, and when he was on his own, he would hunt with the Pylians and Arcadians, who provided a market-place for the army because of the great number of animals caught. He was noble in battle, swift-footed, quickly moving when armed, easily understood orders, and did not lose his pleasant manner even in battle. [§26.16]He did not die at the hands of the Memnôn who had come from Ethiopia, as the multitude of poets sing.[294] Memnôn was an Ethiopian, to be sure, and ruled there during the Trojan War; it is said that a sandy burial mound was raised up for him by the Nile, and Egyptians and Ethiopians also sacrifice to him at Meroê and Memphis; whenever the sun sends out its first ray the statue breaks out with a voice by which it greets the cult attendants. [§26.17]Protesilaos says, however, that there was another Memnôn, a Trojan, the youngest of the Trojan army, who while Hektor was still alive seemed no better than the men around Deiphobos and Euphorbus, but after Hektor died this Memnôn was deemed both extremely ready for action and very brave, and Troy looked to him since it was already faring badly. [§26.18]This man, my guest, is said to have killed the handsome and valiant Antilokhos when he was covering his father Nestor with a shield.[295] Indeed, Protesilaos says that when Achilles piled up a funeral pyre for Antilokhos and sacrificed much upon it, he burned both the armor and the head of Memnôn on it. [§26.19]Protesilaos says that the custom of funeral games, which Achilles established for Patroklos {and Antilokhos[296]}, were observed above all for the best men. Therefore Protesilaos says that games for Achilles, as well as for Patroklos and Antilokhos. [§26.20]It is said for Hektor there was established a contest of running, shooting arrows, and throwing spears, but that none of the Trojans stripped for wrestling and boxing. The former sport they did not know yet, and the latter, I think, they feared.

Diomedes and Sthenelos (27.1–13)

[§27.1]Diomedes and Sthenelos were the same age; the latter was the son of Kapaneus, the former of Tydeus. Their fathers are said to have died while laying siege to the Theban walls. Tydeus died at the hands of the Thebans; Kapaneus, I think, was struck by a thunderbolt. [§27.2]While their corpses were still lying unburied, the Athenians won a contest for the bodies and buried them when they were victorious. Their children, however, when they had reached their prime, won a life or death battle on behalf of their fathers, and the strength of battle entered Diomedes and Sthenelos as men both excellent and well-matched.[297] [§27.3]But Homer does not value them equally, for he likens the former to a lion[298] and to a river sweeping away its dikes and other human constructions[299] (and so he fought), but the latter stood by like a spectator of Diomedes, advising flight and inciting fear.[300] [§27.4]Yet Protesilaos says that even there Sthenelos performed deeds that were not inferior to Diomedes'. For their bond of friendship and Patroklos, and their rivalry with each other was such that they returned from the battle despondent, each one thinking himself inferior to the other. [§27.5]And Protesilaos says that together they executed the attack against Aeneas and Pandaros: Diomedes fell upon Aeneas, the greatest of the Trojans, and Sthenelos fought with Pandaros and prevailed over him. [§27.6]But Homer assigned these deeds to Diomedes alone[301] as if he had quite forgotten what he had said to Agamemnon in the name of Sthenelos, namely,

We boast that we are better than our fathers,
We have taken even the foundations of Thebes.[302]

I suppose these deeds of Sthenelos are nearly equal to those which he performed at Ilion as well.

[§27.7]You should also know other matters about Sthenelos: that no wall was erected by the Achaeans at Troy, nor was there any protection for either the ships or the booty, but these were intended by Homer as songs of the siege,[303] because of which the wall was also constructed by him. [§27.8]At any rate, the impetus for building the wall is said to have come to Agamemnon when Achilles was raging. Sthenelos first declared his opposition to this when he said, “I, of course, am more fit for pulling down walls than for erecting them.” Diomedes also opposed building the wall and said that Achilles was being deemed worthy of great deeds “if we should then shut ourselves in while he rages!” Ajax is said to have remarked, eyeing the king like a bull, “Coward! What then are shields for?” [§27.9]Sthenelos deprecated the hollow horse as well, alleging that this was not a battle for the city walls but a theft of the battle.

[§27.10]In warlike matters, then, both men were similar and worthy of equal fear in the eyes of the Trojans. Sthenelos, however, lacked Diomedes' insight, his power of speech, and his patient endurance which belong to both soul and body. He gave way to anger, was contemptuous of the throng of battle, was savage upon being rebuked, and was prepared for a more delicate lifestyle than was needed for a military camp. [§27.11]Diomedes' conduct was just the opposite. He was modest upon rebuke, checked the eruption of his anger, and refused to insult the troops or to be disheartened. He himself considered it appropriate for an army to appear unwashed, and he commended sleeping in any opportune place; his provisions consisted of what was available, and he did not take pleasure in wine unless troubles came upon him. [§27.12]He praised Achilles, but neither was in awe of him nor did service to him, as many did. Protesilaos once cried out at those verses in which Diomedes is represented as saying,

You ought not to have supplicated the blameless son of Peleus, by offering him innumerable gifts. He is haughty even without this.[304]

He said that Homer had spoken these words like a fellow soldier, and not as a composer of fiction,[305] but as though he himself had been present with the Achaeans at Troy: for Diomedes upbraided Achilles was being extravagant before the Hellenes during his wrath. [§27.13]With respect to the appearance of the two men, Protesilaos knows that Sthenelos is of a good size and towering, gray-eyed, with an aquiline nose, fairly long-haired, ruddy, and hot-blooded. He describes Diomedes as steadfast and having eyes that are blue-gray and not black at all and a straight nose; his hair was woolly and dirty.

Philoktêtês (28.1–14)

[§28.1]Although Philoktêtês, the son of Poias, served as a soldier late in the Trojan War, he shot the arrow best among mortals, since, they say, he learned how from Herakles, the son of Alkmênê. He is said to have inherited Herakles' bow and arrows when Herakles on Mount Oitê. [§28.2]They say that Philoktêtês was abandoned on Lemnos, dishonored in the sight of the Achaeans, after a water snake darted at his foot.[306] He became ill from this bite and lay on the rocky ledge of a high peak. It was foretold to the Achaeans by an oracle that he would later come against Paris and, after he had killed him, he would thereafter capture Troy with the bow and arrows of Herakles, and he himself would be healed by the Asclepiades. [§28.3]Protesilaos says that these statements were not far from the truth: the bow and arrows of Herakles are just as they are told in song, Philoktêtês. [§28.4]But he relates the matters of the disease and of the people who healed him differently: Philoktêtês was left behind on Lemnos, assuredly not bereft of people to care for him, nor had he been rejected by the Hellenes. Many of the Meliboians stayed behind with him (he was their general), and tears came over the Achaeans because a man left them who was warlike and worth just as much as many men. [§28.5]He was healed immediately by the Lemnian soil, onto which Hephaistos is said to have fallen. It drives away diseases that cause madness and stanches bleeding, but the only snake bite it heals is that of the water snake. [§28.6]While the Achaeans spent time in Ilion, Philoktêtês helped Euneôs, son of Jason, take the small islands by driving out the Carians by whom they were held, and his recompense for the alliance was a portion of Lemnos, which Philoktêtês called “Akesa” since he had been cured at Lemnos. [§28.7]From there Diomedes and Neoptolemos brought him to Troy willingly, beseeching him on behalf of the Hellenes and reading to him the oracular utterance about the bow and the arrows, the utterance which had come, so Protesilaos.[307] [§28.8]The Achaeans customarily consulted their own oracles, both the Dodonian and the Pythian, as well as all the renowned Boeotian and Phocian oracles, but since Lesbos is not far from Ilion, the Hellenes sent to the oracle there. [§28.9]I believe that the oracle gave its answer through Orpheus, for his head, residing in Lesbos after the deed of the women, occupied a chasm on Lesbos and prophesied in the hollow earth.[308] [§28.10]Hence, both the Lesbians and all the rest of Aeolia, as well as their Ionian neighbors, request oracles there, and the pronouncements of this oracle are even sent to Babylon. [§28.11]His head sang many prophecies to the Persian king, and it is said that from there an oracle was given to Cyrus the elder: “What is mine, Cyrus, is yours.” Cyrus understood it in this way, namely, that he would occupy both Odrysai and Europe, because Orpheus, once he had become wise and powerful, had ruled over Odrysai and over as many Hellenes as were inspired in his rites of initiation. But I think that he instructed Cyrus to be persuaded by his own fate, [§28.12]for when Cyrus had advanced beyond the river Istros against the Massagetai and the Issêdonians who ruled those barbarians, and this woman cut off the head of Cyrus just as the Thracian women had done with that of Orpheus.[309] [§28.13]This much, my guest, I have heard about this oracle from both Protesilaos and the Lesbians. [§28.14]When Philoktêtês came to Troy, he was neither ill nor like one who had been ill, and although his hair was gray because of age (he was about sixty years old), he was more vigorous than many of the young men, his gaze was most fearsome among mortals, his words most brief, and he attended few of the councils.

Agamemnon, Menelaos, and Idomeneus (29.1–30.3)

[§29.1]Protesilaos says that Agamemnon and Menelaos were alike neither in appearance nor strength. [§29.2]Agamemnon was experienced in the arts of war, was inferior to none of the best in combat, and fulfilled all the duties of a king: he knew what was necessary for a ruler, was persuaded by whatever insight someone else had, and even by his very appearance was fit to lead the Hellenes. He looked majestic and magnificent and like the sort of person who offered sacrifice to the Graces.

[§29.3]But Menelaos, although he fought along with many of the Hellenes, abused his brother in every respect. And while having the goodwill and favor of Agamemnon, he nevertheless maligned him and what Agamemnon was doing for him by his desire to rule, even though he was not deemed worthy. [§29.4]Orestes, at any rate, was held in honor in Athens and among the Hellenes since he had avenged his father. But when Orestes was in danger in Argos, Menelaos would have allowed his defeat by the Argives, had Orestes not fallen upon them with his Phocian allies and put them to flight. Thus he won for himself the realm of his father and of Menelaos, although Menelaos was unwilling. [§29.5]Protesilaos says that Menelaos wore his hair boyishly long, as was the Spartan custom, and the Achaeans made allowance for him when he was visiting, since they did not mock those who came from Euboea even though their hair was ridiculously long. [§29.6]He says he conversed most easily and very concisely, mixing pleasant speech with his discourse.

[§30.1]Protesilaos did not see the Cretan Idomeneus in Ilion, but he says that when they were in Aulis an embassy arrived from Idomeneus promising the Cretan forces as allies, if he were to share the command with Agamemnon. [§30.2]Agamemnon cautiously listened to the proposal and introduced the ambassador, who proclaimed with a clear and self-confident voice, “Achaeans, a man who has command of Minos offers you a hundred cities as allies so that even playing like children we might capture Troy, and he requests that he be ranked with Agamemnon and rule you just as this man does.” [§30.3]To this Agamemnon responded, “I am prepared to cede the entire command if he should appear better than I.” Then, he says, Ajax the son of Telamôn stepped forward and gave the following speech, “Agamemnon, we have given you supreme command for the discipline of the army and so that not many would be in command. And we are fighting not because we are slaves to either you or anyone else, but for the enslavement of Troy. May we capture it, O gods, after we have accomplished illustrious and noble deeds. We are so disposed toward excellent deeds that we are able to take Troy if we give it serious attention, but we could capture Crete for sport.”

The Locrian Ajax (31.1–32.2)

[§31.1]Protesilaos says that the Locrian Ajax was as capable as Diomedes and Sthenelos in the arts of war, but appeared less intelligent and paid no heed to Agamemnon. His father, the most powerful of the Locrians, commanded a significant army, and he would never willingly serve the Atreidai or anyone else, “So long as this flashes.” He said this with his quick mind while showing the point of his spear, looking fierce, and throwing his long hair back. [§31.2]He said that the others, who gave heed to Agamemnon, had come because of Helen, but he himself had come for the sake of Europe, since it was now necessary for the Hellenes to prevail over the barbarians. [§31.3]He also had a tame snake, five cubits long, who drank with Ajax and accompanied him, either leading the way or following him like a dog. [§31.4]He dragged Cassandra away from the statue of Athena, although she was clinging to the goddess and beseeching her; assuredly he neither raped nor abused her as the stories falsely tell about him,[310] but he led her away to his own tent. And when Agamemnon saw Cassandra (for in addition to beauty she was crowned by skill), he was immediately captivated by the maiden and deprived Ajax of her. When a fight between them ensued over the division of spoils, Ajax claimed as his own whatever he had captured, but Agamemnon did not yield and said that Ajax had committed sacrilege against Athena. [§31.5]Because of Agamemnon's on-going enmity toward Ajax, Agamemnon's storytellers produced tales for the Hellenes that the goddess gave many strange signs concerning the young girl and that the army would be destroyed unless it destroyed Ajax. [§31.6]When this Ajax pondered how an unjust judgment had destroyed the other Ajax and that cleverness did not keep Palamedes from dying after being slandered, he ran away by night in a small ferryboat during a storm, and as it happened, when sailing straight for Tênos and Andros, he died at the Gyrian rock. [§31.7]When news of this disaster reached the Achaeans, few of them touched their food and all lifted up their hands in honor of a good man, and turning toward the sea, they invoked him, lamented, and were angry at Agamemnon because he accomplished the destruction of Ajax all but by his own hand. [§31.8]Ajax received offerings for the dead such as had never been offered previously or have been since for any mortal, not even for all the many men whom naval battles destroyed. [§31.9]When they had piled wood, as for a funeral pyre, on the Locrian ship that carried Ajax, they sacrificed all the black animals, and when they had equipped the ship with black sails and with many other things invented for sailing, they secured it with cables until the wind blew from the land, the wind that Mount Ida sends forth particularly at dawn. When day appeared and the wind swept down, they set fire to the hollow ship. Buoyed up on the high seas, it sailed away, and before the sun had risen, the ship was consumed, along with all that it bore for Ajax.

[§32.1]Protesilaos says that Kheirôn, who lives on Mount Pelion, “tuned” the musicians,[311] and made people just). He lived for a very long time, and Asclepius visited him as did Telamôn, Peleus, and Theseus; Herakles also often came to Kheirôn when his labors did not divert him. [§32.2]Protesilaos says that he himself shared the company of Kheirôn at the same time with Palamedes, Achilles, and Ajax.

Palamedes and Odysseus (33.1–34.7)

[§33.1]Protesilaos reports the affairs of Palamedes as follows: Palamedes arrived self-taught and already practiced in wisdom, knowing even more than Kheirôn. Before Palamedes, seasons as such did not yet exist, nor did the cycle of the months, and “year” was not yet a word for time; nor were there coins, nor weights and measures, nor numbering, and the desire for knowledge did not yet exist, because there were no letters of the alphabet yet.[312]

[§33.2]When Kheirôn wanted to teach him medicine, he said, “Kheirôn, I would gladly have discovered medicine of your skill is loathsome to both Zeus and the Fates, and I would describe the deeds of Asclepius, if he had not then been struck dead.” [§33.3]While the Achaeans were in Aulis, he invented checkers,[313] which is not a frivolous pastime, but a shrewd and serious one.

[§33.4]The story, which has been told by many poets,[314] that, when Hellas waged war on Troy and Odysseus feigned madness in Ithaca and yoked an ox together with a horse to the plow, Palamedes tested him by means of Telemachus denies that this story is sound. He says indeed that Odysseus went to Aulis most eagerly, and his reputation for cleverness had already become legendary among the Hellenes. [§33.5]Odysseus, however, disagreed with Palamedes from that time on: there was an eclipse of the sun at Troy, and the army lost courage, because they took it as a sign from Zeus for the future.[315] [§33.6]So Palamedes stepped forward and interpreted fully the very phenomenon of the sun, that, when the moon ran beneath it, it was obscured and drew down mist.[316] “If it should signify anything bad, perhaps the Trojans will be persuaded. For they began the injustices, and we have come as the injured party. It is fitting also to make a vow to Helios when he rises by sacrificing to him a foal, white and set free from labor.” [§33.7]When the Achaeans applauded these remarks (for they were won over by Palamedes' words), Odysseus stepped forward and said, “Kalkhas will say what it is necessary to sacrifice, what to vow, and to whom, for such things require prophetic skill. What is in heaven and whatever is the improper or proper position of the stars, Zeus knows, by whom these have been arranged and invented. But you, Palamedes, will be less foolish by paying attention to the earth rather than by speculating about what is in heaven.”

[§33.8]Then Palamedes replied, “If you were clever, Odysseus, you would have understood that no one is able to say anything learned about the heavens unless he knows more about the earth. That you are wanting in these matters, I have no doubt, for they say that you Ithacans have neither seasons nor land.” [§33.9]Because of these words, Odysseus departed full of anger, and Palamedes went away to prepare himself against one who had already slandered him.

[§33.10]Once when the Achaeans were in their assembly, cranes happened to fly by in their usual manner, and Odysseus, looking at Palamedes, said, “The cranes bear witness to the Achaeans that the cranes themselves have discovered the letters of the alphabet, not you.” [§33.11]Palamedes said, “I did not discover the letters, but I was discovered by them. Long ago, while lying in the house of the Muses, these letters needed such a man, and the gods reveal such letters through learned men. The cranes, then, do not lay claim to the letters, but fly, commending their orderly arrangement. They travel to Libya in order to engage in war on small humans.[317] But you, now, should not be talking about order, for you are disorderly in battles.”

[§33.12]I think this is the reason for Palamedes held that if he ever saw Hektor, Sarpêdon, or Aeneas, he would abandon his post and change his position to the easy places in the battle. [§33.13]In the opinion of the assembly he was youthful, and although older he was bested by the young Palamedes, and he used Agamemnon as his bulwark against him while he made the Achaeans opposed to Achilles.

[§33.14]He says that once more they were brought through troubles by Palamedes. When wolves descended from Mount Ida, they devoured the young pack animals and the yoked animals round about the tents. Odysseus then ordered men fitted with bows and arrows and javelins to go to Mount Ida against the wolves. But Palamedes said, “Odysseus, Apollo makes the wolves a prelude to plague, and though he then shoots them, just as he does both the mules and the dogs, he sends them beforehand among the sick, because of his goodwill toward mortals and so that they might be on guard. Let us pray therefore to both Apollo Lykios and Apollo to goats. And let us, men of Hellas, take care of ourselves. To guard against the plague we must have a light diet and vigorous exercise, but all things can be achieved by cleverness.” [§33.15]Saying this, he halted the supply of meat and ordered the army to avoid grain; instead he sustained the army on sweetmeats and wild herbs, and they trusted him and believed everything from Palamedes to be both divine and oracular. [§33.16]For indeed the plague that he foretold did strike the cities of the Hellespont, beginning, they say, from the Pontus, and it even fell upon Ilion, but it touched none of the Hellenes although they were encamped in the diseased land. [§33.17]Thus he instructed them in their diet and exercises. After launching one hundred ships, he put the army on board in turns, rowing and competing with one another either to surround the promontory, or to touch the headland, or to run before their neighbors into some harbor or shoreline, and he persuaded Agamemnon to offer them prizes for fast sailing. [§33.18]They exercised gladly then and with an understanding of health, for truly he taught them that, since the land was spoiled and was in such a state, the sea was more pleasant and safer to breathe. [§33.19]In addition to these things, Palamedes was crowned with rewards for his wisdom by the Hellenes but Odysseus planned to act dishonorably, and whatever villainy he had he turned against Palamedes.

[§33.20]In addition to these stories, Protesilaos reports the following: Achilles, who was fighting against the islands and the coastal cities, asked the Achaeans to fight along with Palamedes. [§33.21]They did fight—Palamedes nobly and wisely, but Achilles fought without restraint. His fighting spirit rose up and led him away from his post in battle, where he rejoiced at Palamedes who was fighting alongside him; Palamedes, carrying him out of the rush of battle, enjoined him how one ought to fight. And what is more, he resembled a lion tamer who calms and stirs up a well-bred lion, and he did these things without even giving way, but while hurling darts and being on guard against them, standing firm against shields, and pursuing warriors in close formation. [§33.22]Then, after saying farewell to one another, they sailed away, and both the Myrmidons and the Thessalians from Phulakê followed them. Afterwards, Protesilaos stationed his own force under Achilles, and thus all the Thessalians are called Myrmidons. [§33.23]Indeed, the cities were being captured and glorious deeds of Palamedes were reported: digging of canals through narrow passages of land, rivers diverted into the cities, pilings for harbors, forts, and a battle by night around Abydos. In this battle, when they were wounded, Achilles retreated but Palamedes did not give up, and before the middle of the night came, he conquered the place. [§33.24]Odysseus, however, was composing reports to Agamemnon in Troy, reports that were false, but convincing to whoever foolishly listened, to the effect that Achilles lusted after dominion over the Hellenes and that he was using Palamedes as a go-between.[318] [§33.25]Odysseus said to Agamemnon, “They will arrive in a little while, paying you cattle, horses, and captives, but keeping for themselves money with which they will doubtless seduce powerful Hellenes against you. Thus, it is necessary to keep away from Achilles, to be on guard against those who know him, and to kill this schemer Palamedes. I have devised a plan against him by which he will be hated by the Hellenes and killed by them.” [§33.26]Protesilaos then related how the events surrounding the Phrygian and the gold that had been received by the hand of the Phrygian had been arranged by Odysseus.[319] [§33.27]Since these things seemed to have been cleverly contrived, and since Agamemnon agreed with the plot, Odysseus said, “Come, King, keep Achilles for me around the cities where he is now, but summon Palamedes here on the pretense that he is going to lay siege to Ilion and invent engines of war. Since he will come without Achilles, he will be a captive not only to me but to anyone else who is less clever than I.” These matters seemed good, and the heralds sailed off to Lesbos.

[§33.28]The entire island, however, had not yet been captured, but Achilles blockaded it in this way. An Aeolian city, Lyrnêssos, is naturally enclosed by walls and fortified; they say Orpheus brought his lyre here and gave the rocks a certain echo, and that even now at Lyrnêssos the area around the sea resounds with the song of the rocks. [§33.29]While laying siege here until the tenth day (for it was difficult to capture the place), the heralds proclaimed the message from Agamemnon. It seemed that Achilles was persuaded to remain behind while Palamedes went, and so at once they departed from one another with tears. [§33.30]When Palamedes sailed back to the encampment and reported the events of the expedition, ascribing everything to Achilles? I believe the Aiakidai, both the son of Kapaneus and the son of Tydeus, the Locrians, and, of course, Patroklos and Ajax are excellent fighting machines. But if you also need lifeless fighting machines, believe Troy already lies within my control.”

[§33.31]But the wiles of Odysseus, which were already cleverly devised, had anticipated him. He was reputed to give in to gold and was falsely accused of being a traitor, and so with his hands twisted around behind his back, he was stoned to death, with both Peloponnesians and Ithacans throwing stones at him. The rest of Hellas had not seen these events, but were pleased with them too even though they seemed to be unjust. [§33.32]The proclamation against him was savage: neither to bury Palamedes nor to satisfy divine law by throwing earth,[320] but rather to kill the one who took him up for burial and performed funeral rites. [§33.33]After Agamemnon had announced these things, the greater Ajax cast himself on the corpse and shed many tears over it. Placing Palamedes upon himself, he burst through the crowd with his unsheathed and ready sword. Then, after performing funeral rites for him who had been denied them, as was appropriate, he did not approach the assembly of the Hellenes or participate in their council or purpose, and he did not join in the battles. [§33.34]When Achilles arrived, after the capture of the Chersonesus, both were enraged over the affair of Palamedes. [§33.35]Ajax was not enraged for long, for when he perceived that his allies were faring badly, he grieved and then changed his disposition. [§33.36]Achilles, however, prolonged his wrath; he created a song for the lyre called the “Palamedes to come to him in his sleep, by pouring out a libation for dreams from a krater out of which Hermes drinks.[321]

[§33.37]Not only to Achilles, but also to all who possessed love of strength and wisdom, this hero seemed to show himself worthy of emulation and song. Whenever we return to the remembrance of him, Protesilaos sheds floods of tears, praising the uncommon courage of the hero even in death. Indeed, he reports that Palamedes did not make supplication, either saying anything pitiable or lamenting, but after he had said, “I have pity on you, Truth, for you have perished before me,” he held out his head to the stones as though knowing that Justice would be in his favor.

Phoen.: [§33.38]Is it also possible to behold Palamedes, vinedresser, just as I beheld Nestor, Diomedes, and Sthenelos; or does Protesilaos describe nothing about his appearance?

Vinedr.: [§33.39]It is possible, my guest, just look! So then in height he was the same as the greater Ajax; in beauty, Protesilaos says, he vied with Achilles, Antilokhos, Protesilaos himself, and with the Trojan Euphorbus. His soft beard was springing up and with the promise of curls; his hair was cut close to his skin; his eyebrows were noble, straight, and came together above the nose, which was perfect as a square and stately. [§33.40]The resolve of his eyes appeared unshaken and fierce in battles, but when he was at rest their gaze was full of comradely affection and affable; he also is said to have possessed the most marvelous eyes among mortals. [§33.41]And in truth, Protesilaos, Palamedes weighed halfway between an athlete and a lithe person, and that he had a toughness about his face that was much more pleasant than the golden locks of Euphorbus. And he cultivated toughness by sleeping wherever he happened to be and by frequently encamping on top of Mount Ida during lulls in the battles, for the learned make direct observations of meteors from the highest elevations. [§33.42]He brought to Ilion neither ship nor armed men, but he sailed on a ferryboat with his brother Oiax, considering himself, they say, to be worth as much as many strong arms. [§33.43]He had no attendant nor companion[322] nor a Tekmêssa or Iphis to wash him or to make up his bed, but his life was simple and without furnishings. [§33.44]At any rate, Achilles once said to him, “Palamedes, you appear rather boorish to many people because you do not possess a servant.” He replied, “What then are these, Achilles?” stretching forth both hands. [§33.45]Once when the Achaeans gave him treasures from the spoil and urged him to enjoy the riches, he said, “I do not accept them, for I myself urge you to remain poor, but you do not obey.” [§33.46]Once when Odysseus asked him as he returned from observing the stars, “What more do you see in the sky than we do?” he said, “I perceive evil men.” It would have been better, however, had Palamedes thoroughly instructed the Achaeans in what manner the evil men would someday be revealed. They would not then have believed Odysseus, who was in this way pouring a flood of lies and villainous plots against Palamedes. [§33.47]He said that the fire alleged to have been set by Nauplios against the Achaeans in the valley of Euboea was real, and it had been done on behalf of Palamedes by the Fates and Poseidon, my guest, probably even though the ghost of Palamedes did not wish these things; indeed, being clever, he joined, I suppose, in the trick with them. [§33.48]Achilles and Ajax honored him with funeral rites on the mainland of the Aeolians that borders Troy. The Aeolians also built a very ancient sanctuary to him and set up a noble and well-armed statue of Palamedes. Those who settled the coastal cities come together and sacrifice to him. [§33.49]His sanctuary must be sought across from Methymna and Lepetumnos (this mountain appears high above Lesbos).

[§34.1]Protesilaos speaks about Odysseus in this way. He was extremely skilled in public speaking and clever, but he was a dissembler, a lover of envy, and praised malice. His eyes were always downcast, and he was the sort of person who engages in self-examination. He appeared more noble than he was in military matters; surely he was not well versed in preparing for war, in commanding naval battles and sieges, or in drawing of spear and bows. [§34.2]His deeds were many, but not worth admiration except for one, namely, the hollow horse, whose builder was Epeios, with Athena's help, but whose inventor was Odysseus. It is said that while in the horse he appeared more daring for the ambush than the rest inside.

[§34.3]Odysseus came to Ilion already past his prime and returned to Ithaca when he was an old man. He experienced a longer wandering because of the war which was waged against the Kikones when he was ravaging their lands by the sea of Ismaros.[323] [§34.4]Protesilaos does not even allow us to listen to the stories about Polyphemos, Antiphatês, Scylla, the events in Hades, and what the Sirens sang, but he permits us to smear over our ears with beeswax and to avoid these stories,[324] not because they are not full of pleasure and able to allure us, but because they are untrustworthy and fabricated.[325] [§34.5]He bids us to sail past the islands of Ôgugia and Aiaia and the stories of how the goddesses made love to him, and not to cast our anchor among fables. Odysseus, he says, was too old for amorous affairs, was somewhat flat-nosed, short, and had shifty eyes because of his schemings and insinuations. [§34.6]He was like one who was always plotting, and this gracelessness extended to his amorous affairs. Therefore, Protesilaos aptly teaches that a man like Odysseus killed a man like Palamedes, who was both more clever and more courageous than he. [§34.7]Thus he also praises the dirge in Euripides, where Euripides says in the verses from the Palamedes:

“You have killed,” he says, “yes killed,
the all-wise one, O Danaans,
the nightingale of the Muses who caused no pain.”[326]

He praised the succeeding verses even more, in which Euripides also says that they did these things in obedience to a terrible and shameless person.

The Telamônian Ajax (35.1–36.1)

[§35.1]The Achaeans called Ajax the son of Telamôn great, not because of his size, nor because the other Ajax was smaller, but because of the things he did. They considered him a good advisor for the war because of his father's deed: along with Herakles, Telamôn pursued Laomedôn, when he had tricked Herakles, and captured Troy itself. [§35.2]The Achaeans delighted in Ajax even when he was unarmed (for he was someone mighty even beyond the entire army and bore a disciplined and prudent spirit); they depended on him when he was armed, setting out proudly against the Trojans, handling his shield well even though it was so large,[327] and looking out from under his helmet with flashing eyes, like lions preparing to attack. [§35.3]He fought battles against the best men, and although he said that the Lycians, the Mysians, and the Paionians came to Troy for the sake of the sheer number,[328] he considered their leaders well worth combating and capable of giving fame to their slayer and not a disgraceful injury to the wounded. After killing an enemy, Ajax kept his hands off the weapons because killing is for a courageous man, but stripping a slain enemy of his arms is more for a clothes-stealer.

[§35.4]No one would have uttered anything undisciplined or offensive within Ajax's hearing, nor how much they were in disagreement with one another. Instead they rose from their seats out of respect for him and withdrew from his path. Not only did the hoi polloi do so, but even those whose lot in life was highly esteemed. [§35.5]He had a friendship with Achilles, and they neither wished to malign each other nor did they stick close together. As for Achilles' sorrows, even if they did not arise on account of trivial matters, he calmed them all, some as if he were a fellow sufferer, others as if he were reproving. Hellas used to pay attention to Achilles and Ajax when they were sitting or walking together, seeing in these men such as had not been since Herakles.

[§35.6]They say that Ajax was a foster-child of Herakles, and as an infant he was wrapped in the hero's lion skin. When Herakles dedicated him to Zeus, he asked that the child be invincible like the lion's skin. An eagle came to him as he prayed, bearing a name from Zeus for the child and giving approval to his prayers.[329] [§35.7]It was absolutely clear to anyone who saw him that he did not grow up without divine aid because of the beauty and strength of his physique. Hence, Protesilaos calls him the very picture of war. [§35.8]But when I said, “And certainly this one who was great and godly was always defeated by Odysseus in wrestling,” he replied, “If Cyclopes had existed and the story concerning them were true, Odysseus would have wrestled with Polyphemos rather than with Ajax.”

[§35.9]My guest, I also heard the following about this hero from Protesilaos: how he groomed himself by the river Ilissos in Athens, how the Athenians in Troy cherished him and considered him a leader, and how they did whatever he said.[330] I think he sided with the Athenians because he dwelt in Salamis, which the Athenians made a deme[331] and also because when a child was born to him, whom the Athenians called Eurusakês, he fed him with a strange food that the Athenians recommended. And when the children of Athens were crowned with flowers in the month of Anthestêrion, in the third year of his son's life, he set up kraters from there and sacrificed according to Athenian custom. Protesilaos said that he also observed these sacred festivals of Dionysos as established by Theseus.

[§35.10]The account of his death, namely, that he died by killing himself, is true, but perhaps shows pity even for Odysseus. About the things that took place in Hades—

I wish I had not been the victor in such a contest;
For the earth has covered such a head for the sake of this armor[332]—

he denies that this was said by Odysseus there (according to Protesilaos, Odysseus did not descend to Hades while still alive), but says that it was certainly said somewhere. For it is plausible, I suppose, that even Odysseus suffered somewhat and that he wished away his own victory through pity for this man who died because of it. [§35.11]Although Protesilaos commends these verses of Homer, how much more does he praise the verse in which he says,

The sons of the Trojans rendered judgment.[333]

Indeed, he took away from the Achaeans the unjust decision and appointed judges who were likely to condemn Ajax. Hatred is akin to fear, [§35.12]and after Ajax had gone mad, the Trojans feared him more than they usually did, lest by attacking the wall he break it down. They also prayed to both Poseidon and Apollo, since they labored at the wall, to stand guard before the citadel of the city and to check Ajax in case he seized the battlements. The Hellenes, however, did not cease their fondness for him, but they both publicly mourned Ajax's madness and supplicated the oracles to prophesy how he might turn himself around and come to his senses. [§35.13]When they saw him dead and lying transfixed by his sword, they so wailed aloud all at once that they did not go unheard even in Ilion. The Athenians laid out his body, and Menestheus proclaimed over it the speech by which at Athens they customarily honor those who have died in wars.[334] [§35.14]Protesilaos knows then of a highly esteemed deed of Odysseus: after Odysseus conferred the armor of Achilles upon Ajax as he lay dead and wept, he said, “Be buried with funeral rites in these arms that you loved and have the victory that comes with them, by no means falling into anger.” After the Achaeans praised Odysseus, Teukros also commended him, but deprecated this use of the arms, since it is not permitted by divine law for the instruments of death to be interred. [§35.15]They buried him by laying his body in the earth, since Kalkhas pyre. [§36.1]And consider that Teukros was a young man, but one who had size, a good physique, and might.

The Trojan Heroes (36.2–42.4)

Phoen.: [§36.2]Does Protesilaos know stories about the Trojans, vinedresser, or does he not think it fit to mention them, lest they appear worthy of great attention?

Vinedr.: [§36.3]Such is not the case with Protesilaos, my guest. His grudge is gone. In fact, he reports even stories of the Trojans with zealous resolve, for he says that even those men gained for themselves a great account of their excellence. [§36.4]I shall relate these things to you before the story of Achilles, since if they are told afterwards, they will not seem marvelous. [§37.1]So then, by praising Hektor, Protesilaos also praised Homer's report about him. He said that Homer spoke in most excellent terms about his chariotry, battles, councils, and about Troy's dependence upon him and not upon another. However much Hektor boasts in Homer's poem while threatening the Achaeans with fire on the ships, Protesilaos says it certainly befits the bearing of the hero. Protesilaos says that Hektor said many such things in battles, looked most terrifying of all mortals, and shouted loudly. [§37.2]He was smaller than the son of Telamôn, but not at all inferior in fighting, in which he displayed something even of the heat of Achilles. [§37.3]He was filled with resentment against Paris as a coward and as one who gave in to self-adornment. In truth, Hektor thought that to have long hair, even though it is treated with respect by princes and the children of princes, was despicable for himself because of that man. [§37.4]His ears were damaged, not by wrestling (for this sport, as I said, neither he nor the barbarians knew), but he fought against bulls and considered engagement with such beasts warlike. These activities also are a part of wrestling, but when he did them, he was ignorant of this sport, and for military exercise he practiced submitting to bellowing bulls, having no fear of the points of their horns, taming a bull by forcing back its neck, and not giving up, even though he was wounded by it.

[§37.5]The statue in Ilion indeed presents Hektor as young and boyish, but Protesilaos says that he was more pleasant and larger than that statue. He died probably at the age of thirty, and he surely did not flee or let his hands drop idly (for in these matters Hektor is slandered by Homer).[335] Rather he fought mightily, and he alone of the Trojans remained outside the wall of Troy to perish late in the battle. After he died, he was dragged strapped to a chariot, but his body was returned, as is said by Homer.

[§38.1]But Aeneas, although inferior to Hektor as a fighter, surpassed the Trojans in intelligence and was considered worthy of the same honors as Hektor. He knew well the intentions of the gods, which had been fated for him once Troy had been captured, but he was not struck with panic by any fear, for he had intelligence and good judgment, especially in frightening situations.[336] [§38.2]While the Achaeans called Hektor the hand of the Trojans, they called Aeneas the mind. He presented matters to them more prudently than did the madly raging Hektor. They were both of the same age and height, [§38.3]and although Aeneas's appearance seemed less radiant, he resembled Hektor more when that man had settled down, and he wore his hair long without offense. He did not adorn his hair, nor was he enslaved to it. Instead, he made virtue alone his adornment, and he looked at things so vehemently that even his glance itself was sufficient against the unruly.

[§39.1]Lycia brought forth Sarpêdon, but Troy exalted him. He was like Aeneas in battle, and he led the whole body of Lycians, along with their two best men, Glaukos and Pandaros. [§39.2]Although Glaukos, of the two, was famed for being a man at arms, Pandaros claimed that when Lycian Apollo stood near him while still in his youth, they joined together in archery, and thus he always prayed to Apollo whenever he grasped his bow for a great cause. [§39.3]Protesilaos says that with the whole army the Trojans met Sarpêdon's arrival, since besides his strength and his appearance, which was both divine and noble, he attached himself to the Trojans and to the story of their lineage. For the descendants of Aiakos, Dardanos, and Tantalos are celebrated as springing from Zeus, but to have been begotten by Zeus himself belonged to that one alone of all those who came to fight both on behalf of and against Troy. (By this same divine parentage Herakles was also made greater and more excellent among mortals.) [§39.4]But Sarpêdon died, as has been told by Homer; he was about forty years old, and there is a tomb in Lycia to which the Lycians escorted him, showing his corpse to the peoples through whom he was carried. His body was prepared with aromatic herbs, and he appeared to be sleeping; for this reason the poets say that he used Hypnos as an escort.[337]

[§40.1]Listen also to the deeds of Alexandros, unless you are exceedingly vexed with him.

Vinedr.: [§40.2]Protesilaos says that Alexandros was hated by all the Trojans, but that he was not worthless in the business of war; his appearance was most pleasing, and his voice and character were charming inasmuch as he had dealings with the Peloponnesus. He could fight in all ways and, as far as knowledge of bows is concerned, he did not fall short of Pandaros. [§40.3]Protesilaos says that at eighteen he also sailed to Hellas, when he was a guest of Menelaos and seized Helen because of her beauty, and that he was not yet thirty years old when he died. [§40.4]He delighted in his own beauty and was not only admired by others, but also admired himself. [§40.5]For this reason the hero makes sport of him most elegantly: Once when he saw this peacock (Protesilaos enjoys the brilliance and beauty of this bird) strutting, spreading out its wings, admiring and preening them—that they might appear arranged like necklaces of precious stones—he said, “Behold, Paris, son of Priam, whom we were mentioning just now!” And when I asked him, “How does the peacock resemble Paris.”[338] [§40.6]For surely that man not only inspected himself all around for the sake of his adornment, but also examined his weapons carefully. He attached panthers' skins to his shoulders, he did not allow dirt to settle on his hair, not even when he was fighting, and he polished his fingernails. He had a rather aquiline nose and white skin, his eyes were painted, and his left eyebrow rose above the eye.

[§41.1]Helenos, Deiphobos, and Polydamas went into the battles together with one another. They attained the same measure of strength and were also highly esteemed at giving counsel, but Helenos also engaged in prophecy equal to that of Kalkhas.

[§42.1]About Euphorbus, son of Panthous, and how a certain Euphorbus was in Troy and was killed by Menelaos, you have heard, I suppose, the account of Pythagoras of Samos. For indeed Pythagoras said that he had been Euphorbus and that Euphorbus had changed from a Trojan into an Ionian, from a warrior into a sage, and from one who lived luxuriously into one chastened. His hair when he was Euphorbus. [§42.2]Protesilaos thinks that Euphorbus was his own age, pities him, and agrees that after Patroklos was wounded by Euphorbus, he was handed over to Hektor.[339] Had Euphorbus come to manhood, Protesilaos says that he would have been considered no worse than Hektor. [§42.3]He says that his beauty charmed even the Achaeans, for he resembled a statue [of Apollo] whenever Apollo appears his own most lovely self with unshorn hair and grace.

[§42.4]The godly and noble hero narrates so much concerning the Trojans, my guest. It remains for us, perhaps, to conclude the story of Achilles, unless you have tired of its length.

V. On Homer and his Art (43.1–44.4)

Phoen.: [§43.1]If they who in Homer ate the lotus,[339b] vinedresser, were so readily addicted to the meadow as to forget utterly their own affairs, do not doubt that I also am addicted to the story just as to the lotus, and I would not even go away from here willingly, but would be carried off to the ship with difficulty and would be bound again to it, weeping and lamenting at not getting my fill of the story. [§43.2]For truly, you have so disposed me even toward Homer's poems that, although I thought they seemed divine and beyond the capability of a mortal, I am now amazed more not only at the epic poetry, even if some pleasure pervades Homer's poems, but to a much greater degree at the names of the heroes and their lineages, and, by Zeus, how each of them obtained the lot of killing a certain person or of dying at the hand of another. [§43.3]For I do not think it amazing that Protesilaos knows these things, since he is now a daimon, but from where does knowledge of Euphorbus come to Homer, and of such men as Helenos and Deiphobos, and, by Zeus, of the many men of the opposing army whom he mentions in the catalogue? [§43.4]Protesilaos testifies that Homer did not invent these things, but that he made a narrative of deeds that had happened and were genuine, except for a few of them, which he rather seems to transform purposefully so that his poetry appears elaborate and more pleasurable. [§43.5]Hence, that which is said by some, that Apollo, after composing these poems signed the name “Homer” to the work, seems to me to be greatly confirmed, since knowing these stories is more fitting for a god than for a mortal.

Vinedr.: [§43.6]That the gods are guides to the poets of every song, my guest, the poets themselves, I suppose, confess: some invoke Calliope to be present in their story, others all the Muses, and still others Apollo in addition to the nine Muses. Homer's poems were not uttered without the aid of a god, but surely they were not sung by Apollo or the Muses themselves.

[§43.7]For he existed, my guest, the poet Homer existed and sang twenty-four years after the Trojan War, as some say; but others say one hundred and twenty-seven years afterwards, when they colonized Ionia until the time of Homer and Hesiod, when both of them sang in Chalcis.[341] The former sang the seven epics about the two Ajaxes, how their ranks of battle were joined closely together and strong, and the latter sang songs about the affairs of his own brother, Persês, songs in which he urges Persês to engage in work and to devote himself to farming, so that he will not beg from others or go hungry.[342] [§43.8]The following events of Homer's time, my guest, are quite true since Protesilaos agrees with them. [§43.9]Once, at any rate, after two poets had recited a song in praise of him here and had gone away, the hero came and asked me for which one of them I would cast my vote. When I praised the simpler one (for he happened to have won the contest by far), Protesilaos laughed and said, “Panidês too had the same experience as you did, vinedresser. When that man was king of Chalcis on the Euripos, he voted for Hesiod over Homer, and this when his beard was longer than yours.”[343]

[§43.10]So then, my guest, the poet Homer existed, and these are the poems of a mortal. [§43.11]He used to sing their names and collect their deeds from the cities that each of them led. Homer went about Hellas after the time of the Trojan War, when it was not yet long enough for the events at Troy to have faded away. [§43.12]He also learned these things in another manner as well, a manner both supernatural and requiring the utmost skill. For they say that Homer once sailed to Ithaca because he heard that the ghost of Odysseus still breathed, and they say that Homer summoned him from the dead. [§43.13]When Odysseus came up, Homer began asking him about the events in Ilion, but Odysseus kept saying that although he knew and remembered them all, he would say nothing of the things he knew unless there would be a reward for him from Homer, songs of praise in his poetry and a song for his wisdom and bravery. [§43.14]After Homer agreed to these things and said that in his poetry he would do whatever he could to favor him, Odysseus narrated everything truthfully and just as it happened. For you see, the ghosts of the dead least of all speak falsely in the presence of blood and offering pits.[344] [§43.15]Moreover, just when Homer was leaving, Odysseus cried out and said, “Palamedes is demanding justice from me for his own murder! I know I did wrong, and I am completely persuaded of it. Those who issue judgments here are terrible, Homer, and the punishments of the Poinai are near at hand! If to mortals above the ground I do not seem to have done these things to Palamedes, the forces here will destroy me less. Do not lead Palamedes to Ilion, neither treat him as a soldier nor say that he was wise! Other poets will say these things, but because they have not been said by you, they will not seem plausible.” [§43.16]This, my guest, was the conversation between Odysseus and Homer, and in this way Homer learned the truth, but he modified many things for the expediency of the account that he composed.

Phoen.: [§44.1]Vinedresser, did you ever ask Protesilaos about Homer's homeland and from what people he came?

Vinedr.: [§44.2]Protesilaos says that he knows them. Because Homer omitted them in order that the excellent men of the cities might make him their own citizen, and perhaps also because the decree of the Fates was against Homer, he seems to be without a city. Protesilaos says that he himself would not please either the Fates or the Muses if he disclosed this secret, since it would then come around to praise for Homer. [§44.3]For all cities ally themselves with him, and all peoples, and they would also plead their case about him against one another, when they enter themselves in the public register with Homer as a citizen. [§44.4]Phoenician, let what I have said be proof to you that I would neither keep this story secret from you nor hide it if I knew it. For I think that I have ungrudgingly divulged to you as much as I know.

VI. Achilles (44.5–57.17)

Achilles' Life, Appearance, and Character (44.5–52.2)

Phoen.: [§44.5]I believe you, vinedresser. Let us agree with the reason why these matters are kept silent. It is time for you to bring Achilles to light, unless he will also strike us with panic, just as he did the Trojans, when he shone forth on them from the trench.

Vinedr.: [§45.1]Do not be afraid of Achilles, my guest, because you will meet him as a child at the beginning of the story.

Phoen.: You will bestow great gifts if you discuss him in detail from infancy, since after this we shall perhaps meet him armed and fighting.

Vinedr.: [§45.2]So shall it be, and you will say that you know everything about Achilles. I have heard the following about him. An apparition of a daimon of the sea used to visit Peleus. Because she loved him, the daimon had intercourse with Peleus, although out of shame for the crowd she did not yet speak about herself, not even from where she came. [§45.3]When the sea was calm, she happened to be frolicking seated upon dolphins and sea horses, while he, looking at these things from the summit of Mount Pelion, became aware of the goddess and feared her approach. But she made Peleus courageous by reminding him how Eos loved Tithônos, how Aphrodite was in love with Anchises, and how Selene habitually visited the sleeping Endymion. “Peleus,” she said, “I shall even give to you a child mightier than a mortal.” [§45.4]When Achilles was born, they made Kheirôn his foster-father. He fed him honeycombs and the marrow of fawns. When Achilles reached the age at which children need wagons and knucklebones, he did not prohibit such games, but accustomed him to small javelins, darts, and race courses. Achilles also had a small ashen spear hewn by Kheirôn, and he seemed to babble about military affairs.

[§45.5]When he became an ephebe, a brightness radiated from his face, and his body was beyond natural size, since he grew more easily than do trees near springs. He was celebrated much at symposia[345] and much in serious endeavors. [§45.6]When he appeared to yield to anger, Kheirôn taught him music.[346] Music was enough to tame the readiness and rising of his disposition. Without exertion, he thoroughly learned the musical modes, and he sang to the accompaniment of a lyre. He used to sing of the ancient comrades, Hyacinthus and Narcissus, and something about Adonis. And the lamentations for Hyllas and Abdêros being fresh—since, when both were ephebes, the one was carried into a spring until he disappeared, and upon the other the horses of Diomedes feasted—not without tears did he sing of these matters.

[§45.7]I also heard the following things: that he sacrificed to Calliope asking for musical skill and mastery of poetic composition, and that the goddess appeared to him in his sleep and said, “Child, I give you enough musical and poetic skill that you might make banquets more pleasant and lay sufferings to rest. But since it seems both to me and to Athena that you are skilled in war and powerful even in dangerous situations {in army camps}, the Fates command thus: practice those skills and desire them as well. There will be a poet in the future whom I shall send forth to sing your deeds.” This was prophesied to him about Homer.

[§45.8]When he became a young lad, he was not, as many say, reared in hiding on Skyros, of all things among young maidens![347] It is not likely that Peleus, who had become the best of heroes, would have sent away his son somewhere secretly, running from battles and dangers. Moreover, when Telamôn sent Ajax forth to war, Achilles would not have put up with being thrown into women's quarters, yielding to others the opportunity to be admired and highly esteemed in Troy. Clearly, the greatest ambition for honor was also found in him.

Phoen.: [§46.1]What then does Protesilaos know about these events, vinedresser?

Vinedr.: [§46.2]Things more plausible and truthful, my guest. He says that after Theseus had fled from Athens because of the curse against his son, he died in Skyros by the hand of Lykomêdês. Peleus, who had been Theseus's guest-friend and companion in the Calydonian deed, sent Achilles to Skyros to avenge Theseus. And after he set sail together with Phoenix, who by reason of old age knew only the deliberative arts, he overthrew Skyros, which was on high ground away from attack after it had been rebuilt on a rocky hill. He guarded Lykomêdês and indeed did not kill him, but asked him what possessed him to kill a man better than himself. [§46.3]When Lykomêdês said, “Because, Achilles, he came for unjust reasons and made an attempt on my dominion,” Achilles released him, since he killed Theseus justly, and said that he would speak in his defense to Peleus. [§46.4]Achilles married Dêidameia, daughter of Lykomêdês, and there was born to them Neoptolemos, who was named this because of Achilles' youth when he rushed forward into war. [§46.5]Thetis appeared to Achilles while he was living there, and she attended to her son just as mortal mothers do. When the army was assembling at Aulis, she carried him over to Phthia because of the fates spun for him when she made Peleus the child's master. [§46.6]It is said that she also made for him weapons such as no one had yet carried. When he arrived at Aulis with these, he filled the army with hope; he was in this way so esteemed as a child of a goddess that they sacrificed to Thetis on the sea and worshipped Achilles when he darted about in his armor.

[§46.7]I also asked Protesilaos about the ashen spear—what its wonder was—and he says that the length of this spear was unlike that of any other, that the wooden shaft was straight and strengthened to such an extent that it could not be broken. The point of the spear was of unbreakable metal and could penetrate anything, and the spike on the other end of the shaft had been dipped in mountain copper, so that the whole spear would strike blazing like lightning.

Vinedr.: [§47.2]Not in the way that Homer when he depicted cities, stars, wars, fields, weddings, and songs,[348] but the following is what Protesilaos says about it. [§47.3]The armor of Achilles has never been anything other than what he brought to Troy, neither was Achilles' armor ever destroyed, nor did Patroklos put it on because of Achilles' wrath. He says that Patroklos died in his own armor while distinguishing himself in battle and just grasping the wall, and the armor of Achilles remained inviolable and unassailable. [§47.4]Achilles did not even die in his armor, but thinking that he was going to his wedding says that the armor was fashioned without distinguishing marks and discreetly, and that a variety of material was blended together on it which changed sometimes into one sheen, sometimes into another, like a rainbow. For this reason, the armor is celebrated in song as seeming to be beyond the skill even of Hephaistos.

Phoen.: [§48.1]Will you portray Achilles, vinedresser, and describe him from his appearance?

Vinedr.: [§48.2]Why shouldn't I, since I have met you who are so fond of listening? Protesilaos says that Achilles' hair is thick, lovelier than gold, and becoming no matter where and how either the wind or he himself may move it. His nose is not quite aquiline, but almost so; his brow is crescent-shaped. The spirit in his eyes, which are bluish-gray, casts off a certain eagerness even when he is still; when he is rushing on, they spring out along with his purpose, and then he seems more lovely than ever to those who cherish him. [§48.3]The Achaeans were affected by him as by strong lions. For although we greet lions at rest, we are even more pleased with them whenever, after beginning to be filled with anger, they rush headlong at a boar, a bull, or one of the bellicose beasts. [§48.4]Protesilaos says Achilles' courage is evident even from his neck, since it is straight and erect.

[§48.5]By nature and through association with Kheirôn, he became the most just of the heroes. I tell you, being filled with suspicion about possessions accompanied Achilles from then on. For he was so set against them that, from the twenty-three cities that he himself captured, although he took the most prisoners of war, he was able to resist all of them except for a maiden, whom he did not even give to himself, but asked the Achaeans for her. When Nestor charged the Achaeans with injustice unless Achilles should receive the most possessions, Achilles said, “Let the greater part of the deed be mine, and let whoever wishes be greedy for possessions.”

Flavius Philostratus, On Heroes

Translated by Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean

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