Classics 353
February 23, 2021

L: Apollo & Artemis Slay the Children of Niobe, ca. 450 BCE; R: Paulus Bor, Bacchus, 1630-35

Exam #1 KEY

Group Projects: Tuesday, March 2 (Groups 1-4) and Thursday, March 4 (Groups 5-7)

GUIDELINES

Tyranny of Jupiter (cont.): the banality of evil

Thebaid 3. 253-9 (Jupiter reaffirms his commitment to destruction of both cities)
He spoke, and the orders thunder-stunned them. You'd think they had
mortal minds, the way they held their tongues and breath—hushed
as those days when the winds' extended treaty lulls
the sea, when beaches loll back in pacific slumber
as breezes die and summer's motionless heat causes
forest leaves and clouds to drowse; storm-loud lakes sink; pools
and streams, baked dry by relentless sunlight, make no sound.

Thebaid 2: double wedding in Argos; Tydeus’ embassy to Thebes

• Mecury's necromancy (inverted katabasis): ghost of Laius appears to Eteocles disguised as Tiresias, warns him about Polynices (2.89-133)
  
  
• double marriage/blushing brides: Argia ~ Polynices, Deiphyle ~ Tydeus; omen of the shield & trumpet-blast at Athena’s temple ignored by guests who glance at Adrastus (2.249ff.)
  
  
  Evelyn De Morgan, Cadmus and Harmonia, 1877
  
  
• Harmony’s necklace (created by Vulcan for daughter of Venus & Mars, wife of Cadmus) worn by Argia, previously worn by Jocasta: ekphrasis (2.268ff.)—monsters, Diseases, Discord, etc.
  

• Tydeus (exile in Argos, murder of brother; meeting with Polynices in Thebaid 1?) sent to Thebes (2.374ff.); encounter with Eteocles (“… high on his throne, hedged round with bristling spears; counter to law / and beyond his term, well into his brother’s reign, the brute / was ruling the people with iron hand. Ready for any / crime …” (2.385-7)
  
  Thebaid 2.410-14 (Eteocles' reaction to Tydeus' speech)
  He’d had his say. Though silent at first, the king could feel
  his fiery heart hiss in his breast the way, if you throw
  stones at a fierce serpent, she’ll strike—kept deep below the ground,
  Hidden away by a long drought, now wholly aroused, she calls
  all her venom up into her jaws and scaly throat …

• Eteocles’ (self-)defense of tyranny (2.428ff., e.g. "... the people are schooled / to my yoke") & the plan to ambush Tydeus (brilliant aristeia, 2.496ff.); the epic's first gore (prophet/priest of Apollo, Maeon, sent back alive to Thebes at Minerva's suggestion)
  
  Thebaid 3.99-113 (narrator praises Maeon) [Reader: Annai]
  Maeon: you outdid us all in death and resolve!
  never—and this is your due—will you suffer decay, for you
  dared scorn kings outright and make sacred a way whereby
  Freedom might come in full. With what hymn, what speech can I
  add to your virtues the fame they so richly deserve, augur
  beloved of the gods? No waste of time, the celestial lore
  you got from Apollo—you earned the laurels He gave you;
  Dodona, mother of oak groves, and Cirrha's virgin
  will dare—now your Phoebus is silent—to keep the nations
  in suspense. Well away from deepest Avernus, go!
  claim Elysian regions whose sky is close to view
  of Ogygian shades, where the guilty tyrant's wicked commands
  lack force. Bloodthirsty beasts have spared your robes and flesh;
  in death, perserved by the sad reverence of birds, by your
  leaves of laurel, you lie—intact—beneath open sky.
  
  [negative reactions of Theban people follow]
  

• Thebaid 3: delays after Mars unleased on Argos (+ Anger, Rage, Panic); Amphiaraus & omen of swans and 7 eagles (Roman augury foreshadowing of fates of Seven against Thebes, 3.537-46); prophets remain silent & frenzy for war sweeps Argos
  
  
• Capaneus the blasphemer introduced, 3.598ff. ("Courage is my God"; "The first / creator was Fear: 'Let there be gods'"); warnings from Amphiaraus (3.620ff.) rebuffed; Argia's final appeal to her father (3.678ff.), "Start the war, father"; Adrastus still hesitant
  
  Thebaid 4: three years pass, Argive forces muster for war!
  
  
  L: Atalanta wrestling Peleus, ca. 550 BCE; R: Reni, Atalanta & Hippomenes, ca. 1625

• catalogue of Argive warriors: Adrastus, Polynices, Tydeus, Hippomedon’s shield with “Danaus’ Night” (4.133ff.) engraved on it, Capeneus; Amphiaraus ("saw the dangers ahead and their dread signs ...., 4.187ff.), Parthenopaeus (“marching without your mother’s knowledge”, 4.248; Hippomenes his father, mother Atalanta’s (4.318ff.) unsuccessful attempt to keep him from battle)
  
  Thebaid 4.88-92 (departure of Polynices)
  He in his hopes and prayers already held kingdom,
  mother’s embrace, faithful sisters—and yet, he did look
  back at Argia: stricken, extending her arms and leaning
  far out from the highest turret, she drew her husband’s mind
  and eyes back and turned his heart aside from sweet Thebes.
  
  Thebaid 4.251-55 (Parthenopaeus)
  No man setting out for hazard’s grim game had face
  more fair, none was more indulged for his peerless beauty;
  nor did he lack courage, could he but reach full maturity.
  What Lady of the Groves or divinity housed in flowing streams,
  what Nymph did he fail to sweep off her feet with flaming desire?
  
  
• Thebans simultaneously mustering defense (“… rather slowly, it must be said, / and ashamed of king and cause,” 4.349-50)
  
  
  Pentheus is torn apart by Ino and Agave, ca. 450 BCE
  
  
• Eteocles summons Tiresias & Manto (necromancy/opening up of underworld); Cadmus and others from Theban past appear (4.553ff.); Tiresias concludes forlorn ghosts of Argos portend Theban victory, 4.588ff.)
  
  Thebaid 4.553-74 (Manto describes Theban ghosts summoned; cf. parade of future Romans in Aeneid 6) [Reader ?]
  "First to touch his lifeless lips to the pool of blood is
  Cadmus, and right behind her husband hovers the child of
  Cytherea: twin snakes atop their heads sip too. [Harmonia]
  Sons of Earth, their comrades, surround them, the tribe of Mars
  whose lifetime lasted a single day: each hand holds
  weapons, each grips a sword hilt; they parry, they block, they attack
  with the frenzy of livng men, nor do they care to guzzle
  from the grisly trench—they thirst to suck one another's blood! [Spartoi]
  Close by huddle Cadmus' daughters and the sons they lament:
  here we discern Autonoë bereaved; breathless Ino [Autonoë, Actaeon's mother; Ino, mother of Melicertes, harried by Juno]
  looking back at bowmen and pressing her sweet son and heir
  to her full breasts; arms outflung, Semele shielding her belly; [Semele, mother of Dionysus]
  thyrsus now shattered, her bare breast dappled with blood, God
  just now departed, the Cadmeian mother of Pentheus [Agave]
  chases him, wailing—he flees along Lethe's pathless tracts,
  even beyond the Stygian lakes, where his gentler parent,
  Echion, weeps and reassembles his dismembered corpse. [father of Pentheus, dismembered by Agave]
  Sad Lycus I know, and Aeolides, right arm crooked behind [Athamas, father of Learchus, harried by Juno]
  his back, shoulder burdoned with dangling dead. Aristaeus'
  famous son has not changed his face nor yet the rebuke [Actaeon]
  of his transformation: his brow bristling with antlers, his fist
  with lances, he flings off hounds whose jaws gape wide to wound."
  
  


Pentheus dismembered, Attic red-figure kylix, 480 BCE


Thebaid 4.636-44 (Laius’ confusing prophecy)
"War on all fronts is coming, war
with troops beyond count, as the fateful Marcher urges
Lerna's sons with his lash. Earth's portents await them, as do
divine weapons, beauteous deaths, and heinous delays
of flames for cremation. Victory for Thebes is assured, have no
fear; your ferocious brother will not gain the kingdom … but
Furies will! And twofold sin, and by wretched blades
(just my luck!) your cruel father wins." When he’s said all this,
he slipped off and left them to puzzle his knotty riddle.