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Aretaphila, of Cyrene, was not born long years ago, but in the crucial times of Mithridates; she displayed, however, a bravery and an achievement which may well rival the counsel of the heroines of olden time.
--Plutarch On the Bravery of Women 255e, trans. F. C. Babbitt
[¶3.] What was the significance of heroines for Greeks of the archaic and classical periods? We cannot hope to arrive at a single answer, since cultural meanings shift and change over time, as do the sources of available information. I have already argued that we can only hope to make sense of the category of heroine (or hero for that matter), by treating it as a distinct mythic and religious category, not reducible to any other. The phenomenon of heroic myth and cult becomes nonsense when one tries to reduce these figures to gods (faded) or mortals (elevated), yet it can only be fully understood with reference to these categories. While the remaining chapters explore several facets of relations between the heroic and the divine spheres, this chapter concerns the interaction of heroines and mortals. What did the living expect from heroines? What did they give and what did they hope to get in return? I will attempt to answer these questions by examining the ritual practices associated with heroines, the honors they were given, the names by which they were known, the myths told about them, and the representations of those myths in poetry, prose, and even on objects of daily use. All of these elements can help create a more complete picture of the cultural significance of heroines.
[¶4.] Despite the centuries that separate them, Homeric epic and Athenian tragedy each appeal to the idea of the heroine as exemplary, a standard of comparison. While the Homeric passage that comes most readily to mind emphasizes the cleverness and beauty of the heroines, the tragic examples stress extremity--the horrible crimes committed by or against them. In each case the exemplary heroine is something of a straw woman, set up only to be knocked flat by the superior virtue or the greater enormity of the object of the comparison. But there is a further twist--the figure to whom the heroines of old are compared and found wanting is herself a heroine. Let us look at some examples.
[¶5.] In the second book of the Odyssey, Antinoös rebuts Telemachos, who has just called for justice and aid against his mother's suitors, currently eating him out of house and home. This spokesman for the suitors invokes Penelope's cleverness and the trick she uses to confound their hopes:
She may rely too long on Athena's gifts--
talent in handicraft and a clever mind;
so cunning--history cannot show the like
among the ringleted ladies of Akhaia,
Mykene with her coronet, Alkmene, Tyro.
Wits like Penelope's never were before,
but this time--well, she made poor use of them.
(Odyssey 2.116-22 trans. Fitzgerald)1
[¶8.] Skill in weaving and cleverness are both properly identified as the gifts of Athena, and elsewhere (Iliad 9.389-90, e.g.) these talents cause women to be compared to goddesses, but here the comparison is to "those who were before," the heroines of old.2 And these are an illustrious company-- the eponymous heroine of the city of Agamemenon, the mother of the great Panhellenic hero Herakles, and Tyro, less well known to us, but recognizable to the epic audience as the mother of Pelias and Neleus, and whose story is told in some detail in the Catalogue of Heroines in the Underworld (Od. 11.235-59). Alkmene is also mentioned in the catalogue (266-68), but otherwise none of these heroines reappears in the Odyssey. They are part of the body of basic knowledge that a listener would bring to an epic performance. It is interesting that while Penelope is famous for her cleverness, precisely because of the weaving-trick to which Antinoös refers, the heroines held up as standards are not (as far as we know) famous for any particular cleverness. Like heroes, heroines are expected to be exceptional in wit and beauty, by definition smarter and more beautiful than ordinary women.3
[¶9.] There is a mild irony in the comparison of Penelope with "heroines of old," since for the audience of epic, as for us, she herself is certainly also a "heroine of old," even if she belongs to a later heroic generation. A second-century B.C.E. epitaph from Didyma, calling Gorgo, the deceased woman, the "Penelope of the Ionians," shows that this heroine retained her power as a model through time.4 In fact, Penelope with her un-weaving of the shroud remains a byword for cleverness throughout classical antiquity, and beyond. Antinoös' speech contains one more twist in the play of comparisons. After comparing Penelope favorably to the heroines of old for her intelligence (noemata), he undercuts this compliment, saying that this time she has misused it. While the trick of the loom is perhaps more successful in narratological terms than in practical ones, the poem itself vindicates Penelope's cleverness, suggesting that she is not only more than the equal of the heroines of old; she is the equal of the cleverest of heroes, the wily Odysseus.
[¶10.] Tragic choruses often resort to comparisons with events from the mythic past in an attempt to come to terms with the horror they see unfolding before them. In Sophocles' Antigone, when the protagonist is walled up in her tomb, the women of the chorus grope for previous examples of others so ill-treated, choosing two heroines and one hero. They recall the fates of Danae (944), Lykourgos (955), and finally Kleopatra, the cast-off first wife of Phineus who is ill-treated by his second wife (966). In a fragment from Euripides' lost Hypsipyle, the chorus responds to the eponymous heroine's apparent lament about being far from home and in reduced circumstances by calling to mind the wanderings of Europe and Io and their happy endings. She seems unwilling to be consoled and speaks in her turn of the tragic fate of Prokris, who was killed by her husband. The text is too fragmentary to make clear the exact relevance of Prokris, but the overall mood of lamentation is established.5
[¶11.] In Euripides' Medea, when the women of the chorus hear the cries of Medea's children as she kills them, they express their horror by searching for mythological precedents. Only one comes to mind:
Of one alone I have heard, one woman alone
Of those of old who laid her hands on her children,
Ino, sent mad by heaven when the wife of Zeus
Drove her out from her home and made her wander;
And because of the wicked shedding of blood
Of her own children she threw
Herself, poor wretch, into the sea and stepped away
Over the sea-cliff to die with her two children.
What horror more can be? O women's love,
So full of trouble,
How many evils have you caused already!
(1282-92 trans. Warner)6
[¶14.] As with the example from Homer, these comparisons reenact a mythic moment, placing it in relation to the heroic past in such a way as to emphasize the immediacy of the current myth.7 By referring in this way to distant heroic times, the playwright creates the illusion that what is happening on stage is contemporary, far removed from the horrible precedents of the ancient mythic past. The claim of singularity in the Medea passage, the insistence that there is "only one" precedent (a debatable claim), makes the myth presented stand out in relief.8
[¶15.] Did Greeks of the archaic period actually compare themselves to the figures of myth? Were the ancient heroines a standard of comparison for fifth-century Athenian women? There are few examples indeed, but these may serve to illustrate why there are not more. Let us take two very different uses of the figure of Helen, one from lyric poetry and the other from comedy. Sappho's fragment 16 (Lobel-Page = 16 Campbell) says that the most beautiful thing is whatever one loves, and proceeds immediately to invoke the name of Helen. Many have assumed that Sappho intended Helen as an answer to the question of "what is most beautiful," but most recent interpretors, able to see Helen not only as object but also as agent, have insisted on reading through to the end of the sentence, where it is clear that Sappho is interested in Helen not merely as an object of desire, but also as an actor following through on her own desire for Paris.9 In the second example, the protagonist of Aristophanes' Lysistrata meets general resistence to the idea of a sex-strike to end the war until the Spartan Lampito recalls that Helen was able to use her physical charms to good purpose in turning away the anger of Menelaos, who threw away his sword when he saw her bare breasts.10 This episode is very popular in Attic vase-painting, but Lampito has put her own spin on it, and one well-suited to needs of the moment. On the Attic vases, Helen is always shown fully clothed (figure 2).11
[¶17.] Figure 2: Helen and Menelaos, Attic bell krater, Persephone Painter, c. 440-430 B.C.E. (Toledo Museum of Art 67.154).
[¶18.] In these two instances, female speakers cite the myths of heroines as positive models for their own situations. But Aristophanes' women are comic creations, while Sappho is a lyric poet using mythological references to poetic effect. It is perhaps not coincidental that these references are made by a woman with considerably more autonomy than those of fifth-century Athens, and by a playwright representing, however satirically, a group of women attempting to claim greater autonomy than their society allowed. In these examples the heroine is not a passive victim of the desires of others but instead prevails on account of the desire she provokes, or else follows her own desire. More commonly the heroine is invoked as a paradigm of passive suffering, in proverbial phrases like "the sorrows of Ino" and the "sufferings of Niobe."12
[¶19.] At times, particularly in Homeric epic, a speaker will cite a heroic myth as a precedent for a particular course of action. In these examples the behavior of heroines can even be seen as an appropriate model for a Homeric hero. In the embassy to Achilles, Phoinix attempts to persuade Achilles to relent by retelling how Meleager was induced to relent from his anger by the entreaties of his wife Kleopatra (Iliad 9.590ff.). While Achilles is asked to identify with Meleager, Phoinix implicitly equates himself with Kleopatra. A more explicit example comes in the last book of the Iliad (24.602ff.), when Achilles urges Priam to eat by reminding him that even Niobe after the death of all her children paused from her mourning long enough to take nourishment. Achilles himself has only recently broken his own long fast, so the comparison to the heroine Niobe is perhaps meant for both of them and need not be seen as the imposition of a female role on an aged and vulnerable enemy.13
[¶21.] Figure 3: Heroines at Home, Attic red-figure pyxis, attributed to a follower of Douris, c. 455-445 B.C.E. (British Museum BM E 773).
[¶22.] These examples give an idea of the extent to which heroines as well as heroes are used as models for correct behavior even among heroes. Our sources do not allow us to say to what extent these models were used by ordinary people in their everyday lives, although they do show us heroic and tragic characters, acting like "ordinary people," making such connections. Another kind of evidence shows that it was possible to assimilate heroines to Athenian women in their everyday life. A pyxis in the British Museum (figure 3) shows Iphigeneia standing in a doorway, while Danae approaches with a jewel box. Inscriptions identify the other women as Helen, Klytemnestra, and Kassandra.14 In more quotidian settings, it may be easier to find examples of heroines as paradigms of negative behavior. The speaker in a fourth-century law-case calls his stepmother a "Klytemnestra" to embellish a charge that she has killed his father (Antiphon 1.17). A later literary example shows how a heroine could also provide a model to be surpassed. In a poem in the Greek Anthology, Hipparchia the Cynic compares herself to Atalante. The point of comparison is the masculine style of life they each adopted, but Hipparchia is confident that her choice of a philosophical life is more worthy of fame than a life spent hunting.15 In any case, the idea of the heroine as a standard of comparison is well documented in Greek literature.
[¶24.] If heroines could serve as models for ordinary mortals, they also played an important role in daily ritual. Not only did they receive dedications to mark moments of transition in the lives of individuals; they were also the recipients of regular sacrifices at community expense. Dedications to heroines took as many different forms as did sacrifices to heroes.16 These offerings might be animal or vegetable, burnt or unburnt. They might be personal items, statues, or other objects. They might even take the form of a performance, like the choruses dedicated to Physkoa and Hippodameia at Olympia (Paus. 5.16.66-67). Dedications were made at a place associated with the heroine, such as a tomb or other sanctuary. At times a heroine was honored in more than one place, although usually the various sanctuaries were each considered by the local inhabitants to be the true site of the tomb. In rare cases a heroine might actually have multiple sanctuaries of different character. Frequently, the heroine was honored in the sanctuary of a goddess with whom she was closely associated.
[¶25.] A heroine might also be commemorated at other sites associated with her myth, such as her thalamos (bedchamber), like Semele (Paus. 9.12.3-4) and the daughters of Minyas (Paus. 2.25.9). A road in Orchomenos was named after Niobe (IG 7.3170.6-7). Objects associated with heroines were also placed in temples. Among these were the statues dedicated by Theseus in memory of Ariadne (Paus. 9.40.3-4; Plut. Thes. 21), Hippodameia's couch (kline) at the Heraion in Olympia (Paus. 5.20.1), the cup that Zeus gave Alkmene (Athen. 11.475c), Leda's egg at the shrine of the Leukippides in Sparta (Paus. 3.16.1), and countless other objects.17 Heroines were also associated with features of the natural landscape, such as the spring into which Glauke jumped when burned by Medea's poisons (Paus. 2.3.6), the one that arose when Atalanta struck the ground with her lance (Paus. 3.24.2), or the straits of the Hellespont, where Helle drowned. In most cases, however, there is no evidence of cult-offerings at these places.18
[¶26.] Just as in some hero cults, dedications to heroines could be ruled by ritual prohibitions against certain kinds of offerings or participation by certain groups.19 The heroine or goddess Molpadia-Hemithea accepted offerings of hydromel, a mixture of water and honey, but wine was forbidden.20 The worshiper must also have had no contact with pigs. These prohibitions were explained in antiquity by the myth that Molpadia and her sister killed themselves in shame at having allowed pigs to spoil their father's wine (Diod. 5.62). Plutarch, who is very fond of these ritual prohibitions, tells us that slaves and Aitolians are forbidden to enter the sanctuary of Leukothea at Chaironeia. His explanation is based on an episode in the myth of Ino, concerning her jealousy over a slave-woman from Aitolia (Quaest. R. 16, 267d).21 When the ritual requires the sacrifice of a live victim, it is not uncommon, as in the cults of goddesses, to find that the animal is specified as female, although there does not seem to be a hard and fast rule that the gender of the victim match that of the divinity honored.22 At times a pregnant victim was required, as for Pelarge, the founder of the cult of the Kabeiroi at Thebes (Paus. 9.25.8). Similarly, women offered a pregnant sheep to the Eumenides at a shrine near Sikyon (Paus. 2.11.4).
[¶27.] Although generalizations can be made about heroic sacrifice, our sources often give particulars of highly personalized votive dedications, providing a sample that is undoubtedly weighted toward the nonperishible and the unusual. Fortunately, we are not exclusively dependent on these descriptions, since the archaeological record gives us precise knowledge of actual dedications. From Sparta alone, we have examples ranging over almost the entire period of which we speak. A bronze aryballos and sacrificial fork inscribed to Helen date to the late seventh century, while a relief dedicated to Alexandra, showing a female figure in three-quarter profile playing the kithara, is from the first century B.C.E. or later.23
[¶28.] The varied character of heroic dedications reflects in part the difference between regular yearly sacrifices on the day appointed by the sacrificial calendar, and those dedications that accompanied the passage of certain crucial transitions--rites of passage--in the life of the individual.24 Young Megarian women on the eve of marriage offered libations and a lock of hair to Iphinoe, who died before she could marry (Paus. 1.43.4).25 This is a common form of dedication, as Pausanias points out, mentioning the offerings made by the Delian maidens to Hekaerge and Opis. The same honor is promised by Artemis to Hippolytos, another figure who fails to complete the passage to maturity: "Unyoked girls will cut their hair for you before marriage."26 Childbirth, another crucial transition in women's lives, is commemorated by a dedication to Iphigeneia at Brauron:
When you have died and are buried,
they will dedicate robes as an adornment for you
the painstaking webs that women leave behind
in their houses when they die in childbirth.
(Euripides Iphigeneia among the Taurians 1464ff.)
[¶31.] In this example also, the ritual marks the failure to negotiate a transition, in this case by the dedication of the clothes of women who have died in childbirth. This time, however, the failure does not occur in the heroic sphere, but in the mortal one.27 Plutarch, in his Life of Theseus, records a version of the myth of Ariadne in which she dies in childbirth on Cyprus. A sacrifice is performed there in her honor, on the second day of the month Gorpiaios, on the occasion of which one of the young men imitates the cries of a woman in labor (20.3-4). Although Plutarch appears not to credit this story of couvade, the specific date for the ritual suggests that the Cypriots took it seriously. As with Iphinoe, a sacrifice is made in honor of a figure who fails to make the transition. In all of these cases, the sacrifice is apotropaic, and is intended to ward off the fate of the mythic figure from the one who makes the offering.
[¶32.] Helen is another heroine whose cult may be associated with female life transitions, although in this case we have only the sketchiest indication of ritual practice. A story is told by Herodotus (6.61-62) about an ugly baby girl born to a prominent Spartan family. Every day its nurse took it to the shrine at Therapne and laid it in front of the image of Helen, while praying for its ugliness to be removed. One day a woman appeared, stroked the baby's head, and said that the child would grow up to be the most beautiful woman in Sparta, which came to pass. In fact, the woman was so beautiful that her first husband lost her to the king of Sparta. Calame notes that Helen's function is to render the girl beautiful for marriage and that she succeeds almost too well.28 Offerings to Helen at the shrine at Therapne have been discussed above, but their relation to female rites of passage, if any, is not clear.
[¶33.] Other unusual observances include the fireless annual rites for Dirke, the location of whose tomb was known only to the Hipparchs at Boiotia (Plut. De gen. Socr. 5, 578b-c). To these we may contrast the daily offering to Iodama, at the temple of Athena Itonia also in Boiotia. Here, as Pausanias tells us, fire was placed on Iodama's altar by a woman who three times announced that Iodama was alive and demanded fire ('Iodàman z;athn ka‘i aîte;atin p;atur, 9.34.2). This is a rare case in which the ritual formula accompanying an offering to a heroine is preserved. It is interesting also because it suggests a figure in need of frequent appeasement. While there are numerous angry heroes who require expiatory or placating sacrifices, Iodama is the only heroine of this kind who comes to mind.29
[¶35.] As we have observed, many of the sacrifices and dedications mentioned above are performed by individuals on occasions of personal and social significance--rites of passage like marriage or childbirth. Others, such as the one to Ariadne, occur on a specific day every year. Events of this kind are part of the ritual calendar of a particular city-state or region. Several examples of these sacrificial calendars have survived, most from Attica.30
[¶36.] The calendar of the Marathonian Tetrapolis, which dates from the early fourth century, specifies sacrifices for heroes and their accompanying heroines.31 While most of the heroes are identified either by name or location, the heroines are not.32 From the same period comes the calendar of Erchia, also in Attica, which is known as the Greater Demarkhia. Here, in addition to two sacrifices "to the Heroines" (Heroinais) in the months of Metageitnion and Pyanopsion, we find an offering of a goat to Semele by a college of women, in the month of Elaphebolion.33
[¶37.] The sacrificial calendar of the Attic deme of Thorikos (400-350 B.C.E.) records a yearly sacrifice to the heroine Prokris, listed right after her husband, Kephalos (SEG 33.147 col.I.16-17). The same calendar also lists sacrifices to Thorikos and the heroines of Thorikos (18; 30), to Hyperpedios and his heroines (48-49) and Pylochos and his heroines (50-51).34 In most cases the hero receives a victim, while Prokris and the groups of unnamed heroines are each honored with a table of offerings (trapeza).35 Alkmene and Helen also receive animal sacrifices (l.37-38). That male heroes commonly received sacrifices together with their often-unnamed heroines or wives is indicated also by a notice from Pausanias (1.34.3) that the sanctuary of Amphiaraos at Oropos had an altar, part of which was dedicated to "the heroes and the wives of heroes." Pausanias also gives us another example from Elis where libations are poured to the Elean and Aitolian heroes and their wives (êrôsi kai gunaixi spendousin êrôôn, 5.15.11-12).36 The practice of honoring heroine and hero pairs with ritual meals is also commemorated in votive objects, ranging from reliefs to figurines.37 Among the earliest of these are Laconian hero reliefs dating from the seventh and sixth centuries, showing pairs tentatively identified as Agamemnon and Kassandra or Klytemnestra, and Helen and Menelaos.38
[¶38.] Heroines as well as heroes are tied into the ritual calendar by being honored as part of the festival of a god. Pausanias tells how the Phliasians look toward their tombs while calling the children of Aras, Araithyrea and her brother Aoris, to the libations that begin the mysteries of Demeter (2.12.5).
[¶39.] Occasionally, a heroine is honored by her own festival. Plutarch tells us of a group of three festivals that took place at Delphi every eight years, two of which are dedicated to heroines. The second of these festivals is called Herois. The heroine in question is Semele, and the events include mysteries that Plutarch supposes to be connected with her evocation, the "calling up" from the Underworld (Quaest. Gr. 12, 293d).39 The third of them, the Charila, is named after a young girl who is a kind of pharmakos figure. Humiliated, she hangs herself, and the festival is proclaimed by way of expiation (293d-f).40 We know also of the existence of a festival called the Ariadneia at Oïnoe in Lokris (Cert. Hom. et Hes. 234-35). Pausanias describes an annual celebration at Olympia in honor of Hippodameia:
[¶40.]
[¶41.] This passage gives the location, some indication of the rite, and a foundation myth of sorts but it is very sketchy on the details. We shall see other cases in which rites enacted by women are described in similarly sketchy terms.
[¶42.] On Crete the Inacheia, a festival in honor of Ino, is celebrated. On Samos and Teos there are festivals, the Leukothea or Leukathea, honoring her under her other name. Festivals frequently give their names to months. To choose an example from hero cult, the festival of the Hyakinthia gives its name to a month in many parts of the Greek world. The prevalence of cities with month-names like Leukatheon (Chios and Magnesia) or Leukathion (Lampsakos) suggests that a festival in honor of Leukothea was widespread throughout the islands and the coast of Asia Minor, at least in Hellenistic times.41
[¶43.] Because of the hero's inevitable mortality, many heroes and heroines are honored with ritual lamentation. The oldest known example of this may be the "Linos-song" on the shield of Achilles (Iliad 18.570).42 Some heroic festivals are made up of two parts, with a shift from lamentation to celebration, as at the Hyakinthia and the Cypriot festival of Ariadne. This phenomenon may be related to forms of worship that combine elements of divine and heroic cult, as was the case for Herakles and for Ino-Leukothea, whom the people of Elis honored as both goddess and heroine. When they consulted with Xenophanes, he told them, "If they consider her a goddess, then they should not mourn, but if human, then they should not sacrifice."43 (Xenophanes, who held unorthodox religious views, clearly did not believe in the cult of heroes.) In these examples the object of worship is honored at times as a hero, and at times as a god. Occasionally a city-state decides to change its form of worship once and for all, as did the citizens of Lampsakos, according to Plutarch: "They rendered heroic honors to Lampsake at first; later they voted to offer sacrifice to her as to a goddess, and so they continue to do."44
[¶44.] This example reminds us that heroines had an important civic role to play. While this role was usually signaled by sacrifices specified in the local calendars, heroines also received sacrifices, analogous to those marking off personal transitions, at moments of crisis or transition for the entire community. We have already discussed the invocation of the heroine Messene at the foundation of the city of Messene, which took place in 369 under the auspices of Epaminondas. This leader may have been particularly aware of the political value of such manifestations, since he is also said to have sacrificed to Skedasos and his daughters before the battle of Leuktra in 371.45 Invocations to heroines in times of war are rather rare, but the Athenian ephebes may have called on Aglauros in their oath that was made in her sanctuary (Plut. Alcib. 15.4), and an Athenian drinking song (Athen. 15.694) gives Pandrosos credit for helping bring victory over the Persians. These few examples of heroines invoked in moments of civic crisis may be compared to the numerous myths of young girls sacrificed, like Iphigeneia, on the eve of battle, or like Makaria and the Hyakinthides, to save a besieged city.
[¶45.] Other ritual forms commonly associated with heroes, such as games and oracles, are found less often in connection with heroines, but they do occur. Ino, as so often the exception, had agonistic games at Miletos, according to Conon (Narr. 33) and may also have had a share in the Isthmian games, principally dedicated to her son, Melikertes-Palaimon. She is also credited by Pausanias (3.26.1) with having an oracle, at Thalamai in Laconia, where prophecy was conducted by incubation, although other ancient sources disagree. Plutarch (Agis 9) calls the titulary of the oracle Pasiphae and provides three possible identifications for this figure, none of them compatible with Pausanias' view--Kassandra, Daphne, or a daughter of Atlas.46 Incubation is also associated with healing cults, like that of Asklepios, and in fact the techniques of oracular and healing cults have much in common. Nonetheless, heroines are not usually associated with healing, except insofar as they are associated with childbirth.47 Aside from this, the tradition discussed above, in which Helen at Therapne "cures" a baby girl's ugliness, is the nearest thing to a healing function we find for a heroine.
[¶46.] Mysteries, in general associated with divinities, also figured in the cults of heroines, as we noted in the case of the festival Herois. Once again, Ino appears to be among the heroines honored in this way. She may have a place in the mysteries of Samothrace, although the evidence is uncertain. The scholion to Apollonius of Rhodes 1.916-18 tells of Odysseus' initiation into these mysteries, which protect the initiate against shipwreck. This may be solely inspired by the passage in Odyssey 5 in which Ino's kredemnon (veil) rescues Odysseus from drowning and does not necessarily grant Ino a place among the Samothracian divinities, known as the Kabeiroi. A much later source, Libanius, writing in 362 C.E., defends his friend Aristophanes by comparing him with those who have committed real crimes: profaning the mysteries of Ino and her son, of the Kabeiroi, and of Demeter.48 It seems clear from his text that Libanius regarded these as three distinct cults.
[¶48.] As we have seen, it is not essential to know the name of a heroine before offering sacrifices to her. All the same, there are very few unnamed heroines in Greek cult, far fewer than there are unnamed heroes, and they are almost always collectivities, groups of figures, often sisters, subsumed under a single identity. Even more than for male heroes, there is a marked preference for naming those you honor or honoring those you can name.49 In poetry, moreover, the names of heroines have a certain talismanic importance, as when Kleopatra's genealogy and her mother's nickname are given great attention in Phoinix's speech in Iliad 9. When the aim of the poetry is genealogical, female figures almost always are named. For reasons I discuss below, it does not necessarily matter if the names assigned are supported by tradition. Despite this arbitrariness, the names of heroines are a rich source of information, to which we now turn.50
[¶49.] The names of heroines are for the most part made up of the same elements used to construct hero names, elements that can be interpreted as Greek nouns or adjectives and whose meaning is transparent.51 What most distinguishes them from the names of heroes is the extent to which they are both variable and repeatable. The heroines of two different myths may have the same name, while the heroine in two versions of the same myth will have a different name. On the other hand, a few of the most familiar figures have names that are significant and distinctive. This apparent contradiction reflects the two poles of the heroine's situation: to be little more than a name in a genealogy, or to be distinct, to suffer, sometimes even to achieve immortality. This tension between the generic and the specific is inherent in the paradoxical nature of female kleos and elucidates the connection between gender and the transcendence of mortality.
[¶50.] A heroine's name may seem to be the most arbitrary of signs, a mere genealogical place-holder, as for example when Apollodorus (2.4.5) identifies the mother of Amphitryon as either Astydameia, Laonome, or Hipponome. Meanwhile, Astydameia is the name of at least two other heroines. Oidipous' mother is sometimes named Iokaste and sometimes Epikaste, but here the common element suggests the possibility that we may discover some continuity of identity.
[¶51.] At times the variations become dizzying, as in the following example: there are no less than three heroines called Polykaste, one of whom, also called Periboia, is identified as the mother of Penelope by Apollodorus (3.10.6; cf. schol. Lycophr. 511). Nestor and Eurydike (also known as Anaxibia) have a daughter Polykaste who appears in the Odyssey where she bathes Telemachos (3.464ff). According to the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, this Polykaste bears Telemachos a son, Perseptolis (frg. 221 M-W), while a later tradition (Cert. Hom. et Hes. 39-40) makes her Homer's mother, also called Epikaste, who should not be confused with the mother of Oidipous, who is confused with the mother of Agamedes and Trophonios (schol. Aristoph. Clouds 508), who also sometimes goes by the name of Iokaste. And so on.
[¶52.] At other times it is the repetitiveness more than the variability of the names that makes them seem less than distinctive, an impression sometimes heightened by their transparent meaning. Kreousa and Medousa, the feminine counterparts of Kreon, "ruler," and Medon, "lord, guardian, mindful one" are commonly used as the names of kings' daughters.52 The name Eurydike (Broad Justice) belongs to so many heroines, most of them wives of kings, that it becomes generic, possibly expressing some sort of hope about the relationship between kingship and justice. Other common names are Klymene, Hippodameia, and Astyocheia, suggesting aristocratic concerns such as fame, horse-taming, and the defense of citadels--in fact, a whole Iliad in miniature.53
[¶53.] While these names are the female counterparts to hero names like Klymenos, Hippodamas, or Astyanax, what distinguishes them is the frequency with which they are recycled. This is not the case with heroes, among whom the appearance of two of the same name usually requires that they be distinguished in some way, most often by patronymic. The two heroes called Aias are by turns differentiated from, and assimilated to, one another. Aias (Ajax) the son of Telemon and Aias son of Oileus are distinguished from each other, either by patronymic or as the "greater" and "lesser." The son of Oileus is also called the Lokrian Aias, and at times they are referred to in the plural as the Aiantes.54 When heroines are identified by patronymic, it is to indicate their place in the larger heroic genealogy, not to distinguish them from other heroines. Heroines can also be identified by their husbands or even their sons. The grammarian Diomedes gives the examples of Helena Menelais and Althaia Meleagris.55
[¶54.] Unlike heroes, heroines almost invariably lose their specificity and identity when they acquire a collective name, and these collective names are not based on their own. Although there is more than one Hippodameia, we do not find references to the "Hippodameiai."56 (Admittedly, unlike heroes of the same name, they never have an occasion to act in tandem.) A plural name indicating more than one heroine denotes a collectivity, usually named after the father: Danaids, Hyakinthides, Kekropids, Minyades, or much more rarely after the mother: Niobids, Pleiades. A few groups of sisters are even known by the name of their brothers: Meleagrides, Phaethonides. As Claude Calame has noted, these forms in -id or -ad mark off a feminine collective, whether a group of mythic sisters or women who band together to serve a god, and they imply subordination as well as geographical or familial connection.57 While some groups, like the Kekropids (daughters of Kekrops) Aglauros, Pandrosos, and Herse, have distinct names and identities, often members of collectivities do not. Even the names of collectivities can be interchangeable: the Hyakinthides are the daughters of Hyakinthos, who sacrifice themselves for their city, but the name can also indicate the daughters of Erechtheus, some of whom suffer a similar fate.58
[¶55.] Not only the names themselves, but even the elements of which they are made, emphasize their interchangeability. I have already mentioned several examples of names that share an element, but in fact most heroine names are made up of two elements that can be recombined almost infinitely: Eury-dike, Eury-anassa, Iphi-anassa, Iphi-aneira, Dei-aneira, Dei-dameia, Lao-dameia, Lao-dike, and so on. Names with only one element often indicate physical beauty or connection to the natural world (Aglaia, Kallisto, Phaidra). Others are eponyms, the names of cities or other places (Amphissa, Nemea, Tanagra).59 Theophoric (god-bearing) names are rare among heroes, but even more so among heroines.60
[¶56.] As what I have called genealogical placeholders, heroines in the catalogues may not always have names, nor are their names consistently used, even when they do exist. As mothers of heroes, the rank and file of heroines have only the most contingent identity. When Zeus recites his list of conquests (Iliad 14.313-28, discussed further in Chapter 3), he identifies the women by the names of their husbands or fathers, and only occasionally by their own names, while the names of their heroic male offspring are carefully recorded: Ixion's wife, who bore Peirithoös; Danae, daughter of Akrisios, who bore Perseus; the daughter of Phoinix, who bore Minos and Rhadamanthys; Semele and Alkmene, who bore Dionysos and Herakles; Demeter and Leto. The mothers of divine offspring at least are guaranteed mention by name, but only the goddesses merit mention by name without their children.
[¶57.] The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women almost always assigns names, but they are often not distinctive. In many cases, even when the myth is familiar from other sources, the name assigned a female figure may be unique to this text. This suggests that the specificity of the name is less important than the appearance of genealogical thoroughness or the aesthetic pleasure offered by the flow of heroic-sounding names. For example, the heroine Chlidanope is, according to West, "a colourless figure with an artificial name, serving only to make a genealogical link."61 The apparent "misinformation" created by an ad hoc name is actually minimal, since descent is only rarely reckoned through the female line. Even when a family traces its lineage to the union of a mortal progenitor, usually a woman, with a god, the exact identity of her female descendants may be beside the point.62
[¶58.] In direct contradiction to this principal of generic names for generic figures, most of the best-known heroines, like most heroes, have names that are theirs alone. Ariadne, Ino, Semele, Niobe, Danae, and Iphigeneia are all names associated with one heroine only.63 Not only are these names unique, they also tend to deviate from the pattern of composition mentioned above. Instead of being made up of two transparently intelligible roots, most of these names consist of one root and are of uncertain etymology. In this way, they escape the interchangeability that is doubly determined for so many other heroines.64 These are some of the heroines whose stories we know best, and theirs are stories of disaster--rape, abandonment, and death, sometimes at the hands of the gods whose children they bore. Meanwhile, other women listed in the catalogues as bearing the offspring of the gods manage to reintegrate themselves into mortal life, afterwards bearing purely mortal children to tolerant or credulous husbands. These heroines get a line or two in the catalogue, but that is all, because they essentially have no story.65 It is this quality of having no story that saves them for a return to everyday life.66
[¶59.] Having no story, as we know from Achilles' dilemma (Iliad 9.412-16), is the trade-off for a long and happy life, although it would be misleading to suggest that these heroines actually exercised any choice in the matter. The choice offered Achilles in Iliad 9 between nostos (homecoming) and kleos (glory) is a choice no heroine is ever offered.67 But it is true, as Helen herself knows (Iliad 6.357-8), that having a story, which means suffering, also means having a name and having kleos for all time. She is undoubtedly the only heroine to exhibit a conscious relation to kleos. Without being allowed to exercise choice in anything, she does manage to have nostos as well as kleos (although the domestic scene presented in Odyssey 4 suggests that both nostos and kleos are somewhat compromised). But Helen's myth is unusual in a number of ways, and the ability to survive having a story may be only one more proof of her divinity.
[¶60.] In the Odyssey, where the equation is rather different, both nostos and kleos depend on having a name and living up to it, as George Dimock has shown. Odysseus' name is his fate, and it is only by remembering that name, and remembering to act in a way that is appropriate to it, that he is able to remember the day of his return.68 According to this code, therefore, a heroine may have a name that is in fact no name, because it is not distinctive and carries no kleos. Few heroines are allowed the scope of action necessary to achieve kleos on their own, and often they achieve it instead through the actions of others. Still, one and the same rule binds a hero like Odysseus or Achilles and the anonymous heroines of the catalogues: having no name means having no story.
[¶61.] Not only do heroines like Medea or Ariadne have a story and an identity guaranteed by names that belong to no one else, there are also heroines with no less than two distinctive names. These are the ones whose stories culminate in apotheosis, and whose transition to immortality is marked by a change of name. Ino becomes Leukothea, Semele becomes Thyone, Molpadia becomes Hemithea, and Iphigeneia becomes either Einodia, Hekate, Molpadia, or Orsiloche.69 Heroes more rarely achieve apotheosis, and when they do, they retain their original names.70
[¶62.] When Herakles is transported to Olympos and made immortal, the change is commemorated not by a change of name but of spouse. Leaving Deianeira to live up to the etymology of her name as the "man-destroyer," he marries Hebe (Youth), whose name is a transparent guarantor of his new status as athanatos (deathless) and ageraos (unaging). This is a completely different relation to naming than anything we see among the heroines. Exchanging the man-destroying wife for the goddess of endless youth, he has changed his fate by changing not his own name, but the name of his spouse. At the same time, Herakles' own name calls attention to his status as an embodiment of female kleos, but it is the kleos of a goddess (Hera-kles), quite a different matter.
[¶63.] Dionysos, the other male hero who most conspicuously achieves immortality, preserves his name, but again the change is registered among the women around him. His mother Semele, his aunt and nurse Ino, and his wife Ariadne all become divine, and the first two receive new names, as I have already mentioned. (Interestingly, Ovid, perhaps inspired by the transformations of the other heroines, gave Ariadne the new name Libera.)71
[¶64.] What conclusions can be drawn about the nature of female kleos? In thinking about the mute, inglorious heroines of the catalogues, it is tempting to recall what Thucydides tells us Perikles said about the kleos of women: it consists in their not being spoken of at all.72 But it would be anachronistic to apply this dictum to the archaic texts we have been considering. Indeed, in these texts, women both good and bad are spoken of constantly. The kleos of Penelope, for example, is a theme that dominates the second half of the Odyssey.73 But Klytemnestra, too, receives both mention and perhaps even cult.74 She and Medea are evidence for the complete amorality with which fame is generated. A heroine who keeps quiet, not complaining when raped by a god, will never become a subject of song for generations to come. Her name will be forgotten, or even worse, multiplied to the point of meaninglessness. If she does something really horrible--kills her children or husband, for example--no one will ever stop speaking of her.
[¶65.] Sometimes, however, it is enough merely to suffer something horrible in order to attain a name, a story, kleos, whatever we wish to call it. Most of our examples fit into this more passive paradigm. From this state of affairs, there arises the contradiction with which we began. Cut off from mortal or heroic spheres of action, these heroines are far less likely to achieve kleos through any action of their own but are paradoxically more likely to achieve it by making the leap to immortality.
[¶67.] Pausanias, in his description of the Akropolis of Athens, mentions two statues by Deinomenes: "Io, the daughter of Inachos, and Kallisto, the daughter of Lykaon, who have exactly the same story, to wit, love of Zeus, wrath of Hera, and metamorphosis, Io becoming a cow and Kallisto a bear." (1.25.1 adapted from Jones). These words provide an excellent point of departure, summing up as they do one of the most common patterns of myth for a heroine. In what follows we shall see to what extent Pausanias' formula fits the material, and where it needs to be expanded. No epic texts present us with the "career" of a heroine in the way that Achilles' and Odysseus' careers are the subjects of Homeric epic. Although each has in some sense a female foil, a Helen or a Penelope, these heroines are the focus of dramas of character rather than of action.
[¶68.] Various attempts have been made to summarize the life of the "standard" hero. It may be useful to review a few of them before turning to the biography of the "typical" heroine. Otto Rank, at the time very much under the influence of Freud, published The Myth of the Birth of the Hero in 1914. In a very short space he summarizes the myths of heroes and extracts a pattern which he then subjects to psychological analysis: "Summarizing the essentials of the hero myth, we find the descent from noble parents, the exposure in a river, and in a box, and the raising by lowly parents; followed in the further evolution of the story by the hero's return to his first parents, with or without punishment meted out to them. It is very evident that the two parent-couples of the myth correspond to the real and the imaginary parent-couple of the romantic fantasy."75
[¶69.] Despite the limitations of his approach, Rank identified an important heroic story-pattern, and his formulation of it has been quite influential even among those more concerned with myth than with psychology. A similar pattern as presented by Lord Raglan in 1936 has twenty-two steps, not all of which appear in the life of a single figure.76 Central to the plot he outlines is the uncertainty of the hero's birth, the ambiguity of his parentage, a period of exile, a triumphant return, and a mysterious death. Unlike Rank's account, Raglan's steps cover the entire life-cycle of the hero.77 It is easy to think of heroes who cannot be fit into the mold, but the story Raglan tells about heroic myth fits often enough to be compelling. For our purposes, it will be interesting to see which of these patterns are called into question by a study of the myths of heroines. A different approach is taken by G. S. Kirk, who instead of trying to identify the heroic story-pattern, inventories important mythic themes under two headings: "Commonest themes in Greek (mainly heroic) myths" and "Special, unusual or bizarre themes." Despite his rejection of the story-pattern approach, he illustrates his method with the Oidipous myth, one that fits particularly well into the Rank or Raglan model.78
[¶70.] A survey of typical elements of the heroine's story suggests that often it is a piece of the hero's story told from another perspective. This is the case in large part because many heroines are heroines by virtue of being mothers of heroes. For the hero, the uncertainty of his birth is a temporary setback from which he recovers. This very uncertainty may ultimately be a source of strength, or even a part of the hero's standard equipment. As Pausanias observes about the Phocian hero Parnassos, "Like the others who are called heroes, he had two fathers: one they named as the god Poseidon, the other a man called Kleopompos" (10.6.1). But the same event from the point of view of the heroine who bears him may represent the crisis of her life. As Brelich remarks, "To have a child by a god obviously creates complications in a woman's life, especially if she is a virgin [i.e., a parthenos, an unmarried woman], like Danae or Auge, but even if she is married, like Tyro; and these complications also affect the situation of the newborn hero."79 However problematic for the young hero, these conditions never result in his destruction; for the mother, however, destruction is a real possibility. Koronis and Semele do not even survive to give birth. In such myths, the heroine takes on a purely metonymic function, by which the whole woman comes to be represented exclusively by her childbearing abilities, that is to say, her womb. More frequently, the pregnancy, once it comes to light, is the occasion for harsh treatment of some kind, whether by the heroine's father, or other relatives, or by a jealous god. The attempt on the life of the infant hero (Raglan's item no. 6) is accomplished in one of two ways. Either the woman's enraged father orders the exposure of the unwanted baby hero with or without his mother, or the mother herself, fearing parental wrath, conceals her pregnancy and exposes the baby. (In Greek myth, as in actual practice, exposure is preferred to outright attempts on the baby's life.) In either case the actual or expected hostility of the baby's grandfather drives the plot. This familiar theme of generational conflict is sometimes motivated by the device of an oracle predicting disastrous consequences for the heroine's father resulting from the birth, as in the myth of Danae.80 The potential threat is made expicit in the myth of Antiope, whose father dies as soon as he learns of his daughter's union with a god.81 At other times it is the heroine's father's outraged morality that motivates the action, or the sense that paternal prerogative has been flouted.
[¶72.] Figure 4: Hermes pursues Herse, Attic red-figure Column Krater, Syracuse painter, c. 470-450 B.C.E. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, William Randolph Hearst Collection 50.8.6).
[¶73.] The heroine's part of the story may in fact begin with the conception and end with the birth of the hero. In any case, the events surrounding each make up the two crises in the myths of many heroines. These are the two moments most often depicted on Attic vases, which show either the pursuit or rape by a god (e.g., Oreithyia pursued by Boreas or Herse by Hermes--figure 4) or the expulsion of the heroine and her baby (e.g., Danae watching as the carpenter prepares the chest in which she will be put to sea--figure 5).82 The vase-paintings make visible and explicit the peculiar family dynamics hinted at in written accounts. Fathers stand by impassively while daughters are pursued or punished, and mothers, almost always absent from the texts, here make gestures of impotence and horror.83 The heroine's defenselessness may be clear, but she cannot count on paternal protection any more than the baby hero can.84 Fathers are far more likely to punish daughters for suffering rape than to protect them.85 An exception of sorts can be seen on a pyxis of about 470 (Camb. 10. 1934) on which Zeus chases Aigina while her two sisters Harpina and Korkyra run to their father Asopos for protection. Aigina, however, is on her own.
[¶75.] Figure 5: Danae and the larnax, Attic red-figure hydria, Gallatin Painter, c. 490 B.C.E. (Boston MFA 13.200). Francis Bartlett Fund. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
[¶76.] This hostility or indifference to daughters in both written and pictorial representations points to the theme of generational conflict once again, since it is through these daughters that succession occurs. Fathers, however loathe to cede their powers to the younger generation, cannot avoid doing so. Akrisios can no more prevent Danae from bearing the child who will overthrow him than the fifth-century Athenian father can (respectably) avoid giving his daughter in marriage. Meanwhile, mothers, despite their occasional appearances on the vases, are without power to protect their daughters. Even the goddess Demeter could do little to protect her divine daughter Persephone. The mother-daughter connection is very rarely addressed in heroic myth. Pindar invokes his Theban heroines as the daughters of Harmonia, and Aeschylus has Agamemnon address Klytemnestra as "Daughter of Leda," (L;aghdav gènejlon, Ag. 914) but in general the connection is weak. Moreover, the mother who looks on in horror at her daughter's rape may have suffered a similar fate. We have only to think of Leda herself and her daughter Helen, or of Oreithyia and Chione.
[¶77.] Only rarely does the unfortunate heroine receive protection or vindication from the divine lover who caused the trouble. Instead, she must often suffer any number of indignities before her own son comes of age and champions her, as Perseus does Danae. (Antiope and Tyro are rescued by pairs of sons and Aithra by her grandsons.) The solidarity of mortal son with mortal mother corresponds to a lack of solidarity between the divine lover and mortal beloved.86 For some heroines, like Semele, only posthumous vindication is possible. While the divergence of interests of the hero's parents is a fairly constant feature of Greek hero-myths, it is neglected by both Rank and Raglan, who tend to treat both the "real" parents as a unit.
[¶78.] If we work from the heroine's beginning, looking for correspondences with the hero's story, we find few indeed. Let us consider for example the items associated with the birth of the hero. In Raglan's schema these would be "4) The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and 5) He is also reputed to be the son of a god." How many myths about the births of heroines can we find? Only Helen has a distinctive (and divine) conception, and her birth from an egg is the most strikingly nonhuman among heroes' births. (See figure 1).87 Helen is the only mortal daughter of Zeus.88 Several of the other Olympians, particularly Poseidon, have mortal daughters, but they tend to be obscure.89 Instead of beginning with her own birth, the myth of the typical heroine begins with the conception of a heroic son. So completely is her story entwined with his that it is coextensive with the part of his career beginning with his birth and ending with the trials of prowess that mark his coming of age.90 The story of Herakles, the most typical of heroes, and his mother Alkmene, conforms to this model.
[¶79.] This is, however, only one type of heroine story, even if the most prevalent. Heroines whose myths do not conform to the "mother of the hero" pattern are frequently virgins who for one reason or another are prevented from embarking on adult female life. They are shown at the moment of crisis, which takes the form of parental opposition to marriage (Hippodameia, the Danaids), personal aversion to marriage (Atalante), or the need for a sacrifice of some sort which stands in for marriage, as in the cases of virgin-sacrifice in time of war (Makaria, Iphigeneia). In the tragic tradition, these sacrificed virgins are often referred to as "brides of Hades."91 In other cases the crisis in a heroine's myth is the collapse of marriage. These myths, in which the heroine is supplanted by another wife, frequently involve infanticide, as with Ino, Medea, and Prokne and Philomele.92
[¶80.] There is at least one heroine whose myth does not merely complete that of a hero but actually competes with it in scope and breadth of action. Ino is one of the few heroines to translate transgressions against her into transgressive behavior against others. The origin of her troubles, however, is not the birth of an illegitimate child, but the assumption of the role of nurse for her sister's illegitimate baby, Dionysos. (In other versions it is her husband's abandonment of her that sets the plot in motion.)
[¶81.] We have already had occasion in Chapter 1 to speak of Herakles and Ino in the same context. A point-by-point comparison will show how similar is the career of Ino to that of Herakles, the hero's hero. Ino, an exception among heroines, demonstrates that the heroine has the potential for a career reminiscent of male heroic ones. One may object that Ino, because she becomes a goddess, is already set apart from heroines. This, although undeniable, is no less true of Herakles, whose apotheosis in no way diminishes his claim to heroic status, for he continues to receive heroic cult alongside divine cult.
[¶82.] Unlike Herakles, whose many adventures have been organized into a more or less coherent narrative, Ino's myths appear to fall into several contradictory patterns, in which she is either victim or victimizer. We know that Herakles was worshiped all over the Greek world. Both the appeal of his myth and its diffusion contributed to a "rationalization" of the material. In the case of Ino-Leukothea, although she was widely worshiped, this process was never completed. Whereas the Ino-Leukothea myths seem a jumble of conflicting fragments, the Herakles myths were unified into a sort of canon at least by the mid-fifth century.93 If we look more closely, however, this difference begins to dissolve. Not only are there many similar plot elements, but even the confusions in plot resemble one another. Ino's place in the order of Athamas' wives is fluid, but then so is the order of Herakles' marriages and their relation to his labors.
[¶83.] To begin with, both figures are descended from the gods. Herakles is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, while Ino is the daughter of Kadmos, a mortal but kingly father, and Harmonia, herself the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares, and perhaps a goddess in her own right. What is more, they each have an especially close connection with another divinity, for better or worse. Herakles, as the child of one of Zeus' other loves, has the support of his father but also the enmity of Hera throughout his life. But the relationship is ambivalent, and by the time of his apotheosis, Hera is no longer hostile but gives Herakles her daughter as a wife.94 Ino, at the death of her sister, takes on the nursing of the baby Dionysos and so incurs the animosity of Hera as well.95 The theme of nursing occurs in the Herakles material as well, but there it is the ostensible enemy Hera who is tricked into giving her breast to the infant Herakles. Here is an example of the asymmetry that biology creates and custom enforces. Heroines, as women, are so consistently associated with the maternal function that the mythic material never shows them as infants in need of sustinence. The one exception, the suckling of Atalante by a bear, suggests that she is unnatural and serves to show how much she is like a male hero. She is, after all, the only woman to participate in the voyage of the Argo and the Kalydonian boar-hunt. The heroic infant is, by definition, male.96 This is replicated in vase-painting, where we find heroes in their infancy and childhood, but not heroines. The few young heroines found on vases are easily explained. Helen, always anomalous, is shown emerging from her egg, looking more like a miniature woman than a baby. The young Antigone and Ismene appear on vases illustrating Sophocles' Oidipous Tyrannos, where they represent not so much mythic figures as characters in the drama.97
[¶84.] To return to our comparison, we note then that both characters are dogged by the hostility of Hera, and on each of them it has a similar effect. Madness, at least in some versions of the Ino myth, is the reason for the murder or attempted murder of her children. Herakles' murder of his children while stricken with insanity sent by Hera is an ancient part of his story, although there is some variation in chronology.98 Ino has no ponoi (labors) to carry out but must undergo difficulties in her marital life. Each of them is forced at some point to assume the role of a social inferior. Herakles must dress as a woman and play the servant for Omphale, while Ino, banished from her own house by her divorce from Athamas, returns in the guise of a servant girl.99 Her disguise allows her to enact the revenge that may be purely an act of sexual jealousy, or a way to save her children, depending on the version in question. Either she plots to kill the second wife's children or tricks her into killing her own instead of Ino's. Herakles is driven to violence by erotic desire, in the sacking of Oichalia, and felled by the jealousy of his wife Deianeira. Each of these figures experiences and inflicts suffering because of eros, although the violence of the heroine is provoked by jealousy, while the hero uses violence as a means to satisfy his desires.
[¶85.] Finally, each of these mortal figures dies under ambiguous circumstances that lead to immortality. Herakles dies on a mountain top, and by the purging effect of fire, achieves immortality on Olympos.100 Ino plunges downward from a cliff, and through contact with water suffers a sea-change into the marine goddess Leukothea. We should not be surprised that Herakles does not get a new name, since this phenomenon is largely limited to women and children. These violent and unusual deaths lead to a diffusion of cult that is uncommon for heroes.101 From the remarks made earlier in this chapter, it should be apparent that also in cult-observance, Ino is set apart from other heroines and shares in kinds of honors usually limited to male heroes. As we have already mentioned, each was the recipient of both heroic and divine honors. Furthermore, each was in antiquity almost a byword for excessive suffering. Herakles' reputation as the suffering hero led to his later equation with Jesus as a prototypical "Man of Sorrows," while Inous ache (the sorrows of Ino) was a proverbial expression.102
[¶86.] The designation "hero" carries with it no particular moral weight. Heroes are under no obligation to behave well, and in fact they often engage in transgressive behavior. They are frequently rapists, murderers, and challengers of the gods--guilty, in short, of every kind of hybris--and their myths often culminate in criminal acts beyond the scope of ordinary mortals. They offend, like Herakles or Oidipous, against their most intimate family members, or like Lykaon or Ixion, against the gods. The typical heroine is transgressed against rather than transgressing, and that transgression usually takes the form of rape or attempted destruction of offspring.103 Like heroes, however, heroines may also commit terrifying crimes. Klytemnestra and Medea, paradigmatically evil women in Greek culture, are no less heroines for all that.
[¶87.] In conclusion let us return to the topic of transformation touched on earlier in this section. As noted above, in myths of heroines the crisis is frequently resolved by some kind of metamorphosis.104 Metamorphosis is not limited to mortals, but for the gods it is usually a manifestation of power and a deliberate strategy. Proteus and Thetis metamorphose to avoid capture. Zeus frequently changes shape to carry out his seductions. This strategy is not always effective: both Proteus and Thetis are eventually taken. When Demeter becomes a horse to escape the lust of Poseidon, he takes on the form of a stallion and rapes her. The gods, however, control metamorphosis, and so for them it is self-inflicted and temporary, while for mortals, it is almost always imposed from without.105 They may, as Io did, eventually regain human form, but usually the change is permanent, turning them into natural phenomena, wildlife or parts of the landscape. Finally, metamorphosis may be, as for Aktaion, a prelude to destruction.
[¶88.] While male figures do undergo metamorphosis, this kind of resolution is particularly common in myths of heroines. In some familiar examples, Prokne and Philomele are transformed into birds, and Kallisto into a bear. Niobe becomes a rock, Daphne a tree, the Pleiades a constellation. Analysis of the evidence presented by Forbes Irving shows that heroines undergo metamorphosis more often than heroes.106 This phenomenon may owe something to a tendency, found in many cultures, to equate the feminine with nature.107 Many of these myths focus on transitional moments such as the change from virginity to mature sexuality, a passage that for women is attended by a far greater degree of danger and physical change.108 The frequent transformations of heroines seem to reflect an awareness of the more radical physical and social transformations that occur at critical moments in the lives of women.
[¶89.] In the myths, metamorphoses are performed by the gods, to resolve a crisis or prevent a crime, or to assuage the grief of a victim. It is often unclear whether the transformation is a reward, a rescue, or a punishment.109 Most striking among these metamorphoses are the ones that turn a mortal into an immortal.110 Even this can be ambiguous, for becoming immortal may only mean being turned into a star. At times, however, the transition to immortality involves a total transformation, in which the heroine becomes a goddess and takes on a new name, as when Iphigeneia, "by the will of Artemis," becomes Hekate (Paus.1.43.1, quoting Hesiod). Investigation of the intricate relation between mortal and immortal, hinted at in this enigmatic passage and elsewhere made more explicit, forms the basis for much of what follows.
FOOTNOTES:
1 R. Fitzgerald, trans., Homer. Odyssey (Garden City: N.Y., 1963).
2 See Marylin A. Katz, Penelope's Renown: Meaning and Indeterminacy in the Odyssey (Princeton, 1991) 4-5 on this passage and on Penelope as "exemplar of her sex." Although G. Nagy, "Mythological Exemplum in Homer," in Innovations in Antiquity, ed. Hexter and Selden (New York, 1992) 311-31, prefers to speak of "exempla" rather than exemplars, his article is relevant here.
3 Jeffrey Henderson, "The Cologne Epode and the Conventions of Early Greek Erotic Poetry," Arethusa 9 (1976) 164 cites Odyssey 15.418 for the "epic ideal of feminine beauty," which includes stature. Here the ideal woman is kalê te megalê te kai aglaa erga iduia (beautiful, tall, and skillful in glorious crafts).
4 W. Peek, "Die Penelope der Ionerinnen," Athenische Mitteilungen 80 (1965) 160-69.
5 G. W. Bond, ed. Euripides. Hypsipyle (Oxford, 1963) 76, suggests that Hypsipyle envies Prokris for having someone to mourn her death, while she herself is alone. The relevant fragments are I.iii-iv. See also D. L. Page, ed., Select Papyri, vol. 3: Literary Papyri (Cambridge, 1970) 3:86-89, lines 55-98.
6 Translation by Rex Warner, Euripides I, ed. D. Grene and R. Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955).
7 For the relevance of Ino to Medea's situation, see Robert Eisner, "Euripides' Use of Myth," Arethusa 12 (1979) 158-59.
8 The myths of Prokne and Philomele, Agave, and the daughters of Minyas all provide examples of mothers who kill their children. See Appendix under the individual names.
9 See John J. Winkler, "Double Consciousness in Sappho's Lyrics," in his The Constraints of Desire (New York, 1990) 176-78; N. Austin, Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom (Ithaca, 1994) 51-68. For an overview of earlier interpretations, see G. W. Most, "Sappho Fr. 16.6-7 L-P," CQ 31 (1981) 11-17. Elsewhere, Helen is clearly marked as object of desire, rather than desiring subject, when Sappho uses her as standard of comparison for a beautiful woman: "(not even) Hermione (seems to be) like you, and to compare you to golden-haired Helen (is not unseemly)" (frg. 23 Campbell restored, with his translation).
10 `O gôn Menelaos tas `Elenas ta mala pa / gumnas paraidôn exebal', oiô, to xiphos (Lys. 155-56: "Well, you know Menelaos caught one glimpse of Helen's apples and dropped his sword.") Cf. Eur. Andr. 627-31.
11 For other representations of Helen, see LIMC s.v. "Helene," 260-277. The scene may also be depicted on a stele in the Sparta Museum (Sparta 1) c.600-570. See M. N. Tod and A.J.B. Wace, Catalogue of the Sparta Museum (Rome, 1968 [Oxford, 1906]); M. Pipili, Laconian Iconography of the Sixth Century B.C. (Oxford, 1987) 30-31, cat. no. 87.
12 For Ino, see below n. 102. For Niobe, see Apostolius 12.11 under Niobês pathê in Corpus Paroemiographicum Graecorum vol. 2, ed. E. L. Leutsch and F. G. Schneidewin (Hildesheim, 1958).
13 On the Meleager passage, see R. P. Martin, The Language of Heroes (Ithaca, 1989) 81. For Achilles and Priam, see R. Seaford, Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State (Oxford, 1994) esp. 159-60.
14 LIMC s.v. "Iphigeneia" 32 = "Helene" 380.
15 Antipater of Sidon, Anthologia Palatina 7.413, discussed in J. M. Snyder, The Woman and the Lyre (Carbondale, 1989) 107-8.
16 A classic, if dated, treatment of dedications to the gods and heroes is W.H.D. Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge, 1902). For more recent treatments, see Gifts to the Gods, ed. T. Linders and G. Nordquist (Uppsala, 1987) and J. Larson, Greek Heroine Cults (Madison, 1995).
17 Rouse (1902) 318-21, on Theseus' dedication, also 391-93; F. Pfister, Der Reliquienkult im Altertum (Giessen, 1909) 1:332ff. on relics and 1:365-68 on thalamoi.
18 Heroines who bear the names of bodies of water, like Kastalia and Ismene, are considered by some to be nymphs who infiltrated heroic genealogies. Whatever their origin, once they become part of heroic myth, they take on the characteristics of heroines. (Other figures whose names are associated with springs: Akidousa, Amymone, Arene, Arsinoe, Kleite, Makaria, Peirene, and Physadeia; with seas: Myrto, Gorge, and Hyrie; rivers: Dirke, Herkyna; lake: Bolbe.) See Pfister (1909-12) 1:328-65, on heroines' associations with natural phenomena. On the usually clear distinctions between heroines and nymphs, see Larson (1995) 18-19.
19 See J. W. Hewitt, "Major Restrictions on Access to Greek Temples," TAPA 40 (1909) 83-91; Robert Parker, Miasma (Oxford, 1983) 81-84; Susan Guettel Cole, "Gunaiki ou Themis: Gender Difference in the Greek Leges Sacrae," Helios 19 (1992) 104-22, especially 105-7.
20 A similar prohibition against wine is also specified for the Hyakinthides, daughters of Erechtheus, in fragments of Euripides' Erechtheus. See C. Austin, Nova Fragmenta Euripidea (Berlin, 1968) frg. 65.83-89 and comments by Larson (1995) 102.
21 Plutarch also tells us that flute-players were not allowed into the shrine of Tenes, nor was it permitted to mention Achilles there (Quaest. Gr. 28, 297d-f), and that women could not enter the grove of the hero Eunostos of Tanagra (Quaest. Gr. 40, 300d-301a). As with the examples of heroines, his explanations are based on details of the hero's myth.
22 See Larson (1995) 29-39. Some reflection of gender symmetry may be seen in a decree of the cult of Bendis (IG II2 1361) specifying that certain parts of female victims go to the priestess, and of male victims, to the priest. Translated in L. Bruit Zaidman and P. Schmitt Pantel, Religion in the Ancient Greek City, ed. and trans. P. Cartledge (Cambridge, 1992) 88-89.
23 For offerings to Helen, see chapter 1, n. 7. For the relief, see Tod and Wace (1968 [1906]) no. 441; G. Daux, "Chronique des Fouilles 1967: Péloponnèse," BCH 92 (1968) 817 for the dating; IG 5.1.26 for the inscription; also Georgia Salapata, "Pausanias 3.19.6: The Sanctuary of Alexandra at Amyklai" [abstract of 1990 AIA talk] AJA 95 (1991) 331 and C. Antonaccio, An Archaeology of Ancestors (Lanham, Md., 1995) 181-82.
24 See Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, trans. M. Vizedom and G. Caffee (Chicago, 1964).
25 See Ken Dowden, Death and the Maiden (London, 1989) esp. 1-3, 63, together with criticisms by Larson (1995) 73-74.
26 korai gar azuges gamôn paros / komas kerountai soi (Eur. Hipp. 1425-26.) In Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (6), Orestes makes a similar dedication to the river Inachos upon his return to Argos, and Artemis also receives locks of hair from young women at the Apatouria (Hesych. s.v. Koureôtis).
27 Christian Wolff has argued, in a paper delivered at the APA 1987 annual meeting, that Euripides distorts the actual custom, whereby women who survived childbirth dedicated their garments. Parts of that paper are quoted by Richard Hamilton, Choes and Anthesteria (Ann Arbor, 1992) 119. Wolff has returned to the topic in his article "Euripides' Iphigeneia among the Taurians: Aetiology, Ritual, and Myth" CA 11 (1992) esp. 319-24. See Chapter 1, n. 53.
28 Claude Calame, Les Choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaïque (Rome, 1977) 1:341-44, maintains that the account reflects ritual practice. Pausanias mentions the same episode (3.7.7).
29 Larson (1995) 134 observes that "the anger of the heroine is less likely to be emphasized than that of the hero." I omit treatment here of the many "bogeywomen" like Lamia or Mormo, who were believed to threaten children (or used to ensure their good behavior), because they are generally quite distinct from heroines. For these figures, see S. I. Johnston, "Penelope and the Erinyes: Odyssey 20:61-82," Helios 21 (1994) 137-59.
30 J. Mikalson, The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year (Princeton, 1975); D. Whitehead, The Demes of Attica (Princeton, 1986) 185-211. For heroines in Attic calendars, see Larson (1995) 26-42.
31 For the text, see IG II2 .1358, first published by R. B. Richardson, "A Sacrificial Calendar from the Epakria," AJA 10 s. 1 (1895) 209-26. A translation is published in Sources for the Study of Greek Religion, D. G. Rice and J. Stambaugh, eds. (Missoula, 1979) 113-15.
32 For example, at B7, line 105 we find êrôihêi ois (a sheep to the heroine). See G. M. Quinn, The Sacrificial Calendar of the Marathonian Tetrapolis, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1972, esp. 28-29, 121. Larson (1995) 29, 33 notes the lower value and status of offerings to heroines.
33 SEG 21.541. Sacrifices to the heroines: E 3-4 and A 19; to Semele: A 45. G. Daux, "La Grande Démarchie: Un Nouveau Calendrier sacrificiel d'Attique (Erchia)," BCH 87 (1963) 603-34; F. Sokolowski, Lois sacreés des cités grecques (Paris, 1969) no. 18, with commentary; Mikalson (1975); Larson (1995) 30-31.
34 In another part of the inscription, sheep are offered to the heroines of Koroneia in Boiotia. See G. Daux's publication of the inscription, "Sacrifices à Thorikos," Getty Museum Journal 17 (1984) 145-52; also his "Le Calendrier de Thorikos au musée J. Paul Getty," AC 52 (1983) 150-74.
35 E. Kearns, The Heroes of Attica (BICS Suppl. 57, 1989) 136 analyzes the patterns found in the various locations: in Marathon we find one hero and one heroine; in Thorikos, one hero and a group of heroines; in Erchia, single heroes and unrelated groups of heroines; Larson (1995) 41 emphasizes "male-female polarity" in these groupings and discusses husband-wife pairs in hero cult (78-84).
36 Richardson (1895) 219, suggests that the sacrifice to the Heroine (`Hrôinê) may refer to Hekale, in which case the hero would be Theseus (219). See comments of Larson (1995) 28.
37 For an excellent discussion of the importance of heroic couples on votive objects, see Larson (1995) 43-57, who notes that the tendency toward male-female polarity is more important than the specific relationship.
38 See Rouse (1902) 5-29; Pipili (1987) 30-31.
39 See Hesych. s.v. Semelê. See also J.-A. Hild, "Herois," in Dictionnaire des antiquités, ed. Daremberg and Saglio.
40 On Charila and her festival, see G. Nagy, Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore, 1979) 92-93. J. Fontenrose, Python: A Study of the Delphic Myth and Its Origins (Berkeley, 1959) sees her as a "spirit of drought and famine" (459) later transformed "from a demoness into a humble girl of the people" (460). I find far more persuasive the suggestion of J. Larson (1995) 15, 140-43 that scapegoats like Charila, and the sisters Auxesia and Damia, ought to be seen in connection with heroines who become sacrificial victims.
41 For Crete: Hesych. s.v. 'Inakheia; Teos: CIG 3066.25. For the Hyakinthia, see Eitrem, "Hyakinthos," RE 9.1, 8. For the month-names of Chios, Magnesia, and Lampsakos, see Eitrem, "Leukothea," RE 12.2, 2296.
42 Whether Linos is the name of the mourning song or of the one mourned is debated. See Abert, "Linos," RE 13.1 (1926) 715-17; Reinhard Häußler "linos ante Linon?" RM 117 (1974) 1-14. Other ancient traditions about Linos: Hdt. 2.79; Paus. 9.29.6-9.
43 ei men theon upolambanousi, mê thrênein, ei d' anthôpon, mê thuein. (Xenophanes 21.11.13 Diels-Kranz = Arist. Rh. 1400b5), also attributed to Lykourgos by Plutarch Apotheg. Lac. 26. 228e. See Chapter 4 for similarities in the worship of Ariadne.
44 De mul. virt. 255e, trans. F. C. Babbitt, Plutarch's Moralia (London, 1931).
45 These young women, according to local myth, had been raped by Spartans, and cursed Sparta before killing themselves in shame (Paus. 9.13.5-6). Sometimes the young women are said to be daughters of Leuktros, apparently the eponymous hero of Leuktra. See Leuktrides and Molpia in the Appendix.
46 See Appendix under Pasiphae. See also Cicero de Divinatione I.43.96. For Kassandra's identity with Pasiphae and more importantly with Alexandra, see J. Davreux, La Légende de la prophétesse Cassandre (Paris and Liège, 1942) 88-96. See also D. Lyons, "Manto and Manteia: Prophecy in the Myths and Cults of Heroines," in Sibilli e linguaggi oracolari, ed. I. Chirassi Colombo and T. Seppilli (Pisa, forthcoming).
47 See Kearns (1989) 19. See Chapter 5 for the connection of Iphigeneia and Molpadia-Hemithea with childbirth. Epione, the wife of Asklepios, and his daughters Akeso, Iaso, Hygieia, Panakeia, and Aigle seem to be honored as minor divinities. Except for Aigle, their names are derived from words for healing and they seem to be little more than deified abstractions. One heroine, Alexida (Defender), is the ancestor of the elasioi (averters), who have the power to avert epileptic attacks (Plut. Quaest. Gr. 23, 296f.).
48 Oration 14, 65. Nonetheless, he has been blamed for creating a mistaken impression that Ino had some connection with the mysteries of the Kabeiroi in Samothrace. Clearly, however, this impression, whether mistaken or not, has a much longer history, as we see from the scholiast. See also G. Nagy, "Theognis and Megara: A Poet's Vision of His City," in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, ed. Figueira and Nagy (Baltimore, 1985) 79-80.
49 For anonymous heroines, see Larson (1995) 22, 26-27. She emphasizes their numbers, but these are mostly members of groups, or the consorts of heroes, themselves often anonymous. The stand-alone, unnamed heroine seems to be a less common phenomenon.
50 On heroic names in general, see Max Sulzberger, "Onuma epônumon: Les Noms propres chez Homère et dans la mythologie grecque" REG 39 (1926) 381-447, which is more useful for its examples than for its eccentric thesis. See now C. Higbie, Heroes' Names, Homeric Identities (New York, 1995).
51 For a discussion of the meanings embedded in heroic names, see Nagy (1979) esp. 69-93, 102-15.
52 As with heroes' names, heroine names may indicate some quality of the parent, usually the father. As Pausanias says of Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus, "You understand right away when you hear it" (2.21.7). See the discussion of the name Iphigeneia in Chapter 5.
53 Nagy (1979) 102ff. discusses the epic themes in the name Patroklos and others.
54 The dual form Aiante (Aiante) has been variously interpreted. G. S. Kirk, The "Iliad": A Commentary, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1985) at Iliad 2.406 considers it ambiguous, while Richard Janko in vol. 4 (1992) at 13.46 emphasizes that it originally meant Aias and his brother Teukros. At 13.681 he refers to "Homer's pervasive and creative misunderstanding" of this term.
55 Diom. Ars grammatica 1 = Ibycus 290 Campbell. Neither of these examples is free from irony, if we consider the troubled relationships to which they refer.
56 The comedy Atalantai (Atalantas) possibly by Epicharmos, of which we know little more than the title, is the closest I have found to a counter-example. Minor divinities, on the other hand, do have a tendency to multiply, e.g., "Eileithyiai." See J. Rudhardt, Notions fondamentales de la pensée religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans la Grèce classique (Geneva, 1958) 91ff., on the fragmentation of divine identity.
57 Calame (1977) 70-71.
58 See Kearns (1989) 62-72 on these apparent patronymics, which she believes actually refer to specific qualities of the sisters so named.
59 See Chapter 1, nn. 81 and 82.
60 In this category Sulzberger (1926) 399 counts only Hera-kles, and names beginning in Dio- and Are-. Among heroines this would yield only Dia, Diogeneia, Diomedeia, and Diomeneia.
61 M. L. West, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (Oxford, 1985) 88.
62 The list in Apollodorus' Library (2.1.5) of the Danaids and their spouses-for-a-day is instructive. The need for specific names for fifty women and fifty men strains the author's resources. Several Danaids share the same name, and many names familiar from other contexts are recycled here. These include extremely common heroine names like Elektra, Kleopatra, and Eurydike, as well as less common ones like Hyperippe and Anaxibia. Another interesting feature is the pairing of women and men with matching names: the Danaids Klite, Sthenele, and Chrysippe marry Klitos, Sthenelos, and Chrysippos.
63 Occasionally an ancient mythographer or a modern scholar argues for the existence of two Ariadnes (Plut. Thes. 20 citing the view of the Naxians) or Iphigeneias (H. Lloyd-Jones, "Artemis and Iphigeneia," JHS 103 (1983) 87-102). These efforts are designed to resolve discrepancies between mourning and celebration in the cult of Ariadne or mortal and immortal elements in the myth of Iphigeneia. The "discrepancies" arise from the intrinsic tensions between mortality and immortality from which the myths derive their significance. In none of these cases is it necessary or even useful to postulate the existence of two heroines of the same name.
64 Iphigeneia is an exception here, because of the legibility of her name, and the early form Iphimede, which is itself not unique. I include her in this account because she is mostly known as Iphigeneia, a name that refers only to her. See discussion in Chapter 5.
65 G. McLeod, Virtue and Venom (Ann Arbor, 1991) 13, remarks that these heroines "play no active role in their own stories."
66 Interestingly, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar in The Madwoman in the Attic (New Haven, 1979) 25, 34, describe the distinction between monstrous villainesses and idealized selfless women in nineteenth-century English and European literature as the difference between having and not having a story. Cited in Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics (London, 1985) 58. The terms have changed only slightly in our own era. At the time of the Prince of Wales' engagement to Lady Diana Spencer, it was said of her that she had "a history but no past" (New York Times, March 22, 1981).
67 On Achilles' choice, see Nagy (1979) 102. On female kleos, see Katz (1991).
68 George E. Dimock, "The Name of Odysseus," in Essays on the "Odyssey" ed. Charles H. Taylor (Bloomington, 1963) 54-72.
69 Leukothea (Od. 5.333f.); Thyone (Hom. Hymn 1 (Dionysos) 20-22); Hemithea (Diod. 5.62-63); Einodia (Hes. frg. 23a 26 M-W); Hekate (Paus. 1.43.1= Hes. frg. 23b M-W); Orsiloche (Ant. Lib. 27).
70 Here the main exceptions are boy-heroes like Melikertes-Palaimon. I would argue, however, that child-heroes, who are almost exclusively male, have a different relationship to immortality than do adult male heroes. Their fates are most closely bound to, and most closely resemble, the fates of their mothers or other important female figures in their myths, who are givers of life and would-be givers of immortality. This complex topic deserves further treatment, and I plan to return to it in the future.
71 Fasti 3.511-12. Discussed below, Chapter 4.
72 That Perikles' remarks in the funeral oration (2.45) were based not only in ideology but also in practice is shown by D. Schaps, "The Woman Least Mentioned: Etiquette and Women's Names," CQ 27 (1977) 323-30. He shows that the orators generally named only women who were dead, of low repute, or associated with the speaker's opponents. J. Bremmer, "Plutarch and the Naming of Greek Women," AJP 102 (1981) 425-26, describes Plutarch's difficulties in recovering the names of important women in writing his Lives, concluding that "the Athenian custom of avoiding naming living respectable women had rendered even the names of the mothers of their most important statesmen into oblivion."
73 Katz (1991) explores the ambiguities inherent in the situation of even a virtuous figure like Penelope, arguing that she cannot be understood apart from her apparent opposite, Klytemnestra.
74 See above, p. 47 with n. 38.
75 The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, trans. Robbins and Jelliffe, reprinted in In Quest of the Hero, ed. Robert A. Segal (Princeton, 1990) 62. This volume also contains Lord Raglan's The Hero and a useful introduction by Segal.
76 See The Hero, in Segal (1990). The pattern is presented on p. 138 and is then worked out with reference to a number of Greek heroes and others.
77 Segal (1990) xxiv compares the two schemes.
78 G. S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (London, 1970), 187-89; 194-96; Oidipous myth, 190.
79 Angelo Brelich, Gli eroi greci (Rome, 1958) 297.
80 Danae's father Akrisios has received a prophecy of his own death at the hands of his daughter's son. A similar prophecy motivates the Oidipous myth, although here the generational conflict is more direct. This is a common folktale motif, to be found also in the Irish story of Deirdre.
81 A. Scafuro, "Discourses of Sexual Violation in Mythic Accounts and Dramatic Versions of `The Girl's Tragedy,"' differences 2.1 (1990) 131.
82 Scenes of pursuit are discussed and illustrated in S. Kaempf-Dimitriadou, Die Liebe der Götter in der attischen Kunst (Berne, 1979). See also P. Brulé, La Fille d'Athènes (Paris, 1987) 291-97 for Oreithyia and Herse; and W. R. Agard, "Boreas at Athens" CJ 61 (1966) 241-46.
83 An impassive Erechtheus watches Herse's abduction on a krater by the Syracuse painter (L.A.Cty.Mus.50.8.6), figure A, discussed by Brulé (1987) 296-97. Akrisios looks self-righteous on the hydria in Boston (figure 5).
84 As Scafuro (1990) points out, most accounts of abduction do not distinguish between coercive and consensual sex between gods and mortal woman, precisely because the woman's volition was of little interest. As a result, Greek writers tend to treat all women as guilty, with the notable exception of Euripides, particularly in the Ion.
85 The punishments, or attempts to avoid them, frequently involve getting put to sea. See Appendix under Aerope, Chione, Rhoio.
86 Larson (1995) 60 observes that "Even in the case of heroines whose sons are fathered by gods, the cult association tends to be with the son and not with the god who fathered him (Alkmene-Herakles, Semele-Dionysos, Psamathe-Linos)."
87 For Helen's egg, see Athen. 2.57f.; Bethe, "Dioskuren," RE 11.1 (1905), 1113. For additional vase paintings of the birth of Helen from the egg, see LIMC s.v. "Helene" 1-13. Klytemnestra is generally considered to be the daughter of Tyndareos. See Appendix under Leda.
88 L. Clader, Helen: The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition (Leiden, 1976) 54, observes that Helen is the only mortal called Dios kourê (an epithet she shares with Athena, Artemis, and Aphrodite), as well as being the only female heroic child of Zeus. Indeed her status is ambiguous and she is at times considered divine.
89 Some of his daughters: Aithousa, Eirene, Euadne, Lamia, Rhode. Ares is father of Alkippe, and of the Amazons Penthesilea and Antiope. Harmonia, who may be a goddess, is said to be the daughter of Ares or Zeus, as is Milye. Dionysos, the least paternal of the gods, is credited in one version with fathering Deianeira, but this is a minority opinion.
90 Although I do not fully share her views of female difference, I find helpful Carol Gilligan's aptly titled article, "Woman's Place in Man's Life-Cycle," in Feminism and Methodology, ed. Sandra Harding (Bloomington, 1987) 57-73, especially her observations on the necessary maleness of the child in the writings of psychologists (63) and the way in which women exist in men's lives as nurturers and caretakers (67). In the writings she examines, as in the heroic myths, children are assumed to be male, while women are necessarily mothers.
91 See H. J. Rose, "The Bride of Hades," CP 20 (1925) 238-42 for a brief discussion of the homology of marriage and death in Attic customs and in myth. Also, R. Seaford, "The Tragic Wedding," JHS 107 (1987) 106-30.
92 See J. Fontenrose, "The Sorrows of Ino and of Procne," TAPA 79 (1948) 125-67.
93 H. A. Shapiro, "Heros Theos: The Death and Apotheosis of Herakles," CW 77 (1983) 10 considers Sophocles' Trachiniai the first continuous account of Herakles' life (although Aristotle in the Poetics 1451a16ff. uses the life of Herakles as an example of a theme that does not form a unity). See also K. Schauenburg, "Herakles unter Göttern," Gymnasium 70 (1963) 113-33 and plates.
94 See the extended discussion of Hera and Herakles in Chapter 3.
95 For this triangulation effect, see Chapter 3. The implications of Ino's relation to Dionysos are discussed at length in Chapter 4, "Dionysiac Heroines."
96 It is interesting to compare the remarks of Gilligan (1987): "Once again it turns out to be the male child--the coming generation of men like George Bernard Shaw, William James, Martin Luther, and Mahatma Gandhi--who provide Erikson with his most vivid illustrations" (63).
97 See L. Burn, "Vase-Painting in Fifth-Century Athens," in Looking at Greek Vases, ed. Rasmussen and Spivey (Cambridge, 1991) 123 for a discussion of depictions of child heroes on vases, all of them male. See LIMC s.v. "Helene," "Antigone."
98 The madness of Herakles goes back at least to the Kypria (Proklos p. 18. Kinkel) and the murder of his children is to be found in Stesichorus (fr. 230 PMG = Paus. 9.11.1-2). See Shapiro (1983).
99 This seems to have been the plot of Euripides' Ino as recounted by Hyginus. On Herakles as "slave, woman, and madman," see Nicole Loraux, "Herakles: The Super-Male and the Feminine," trans. R. Lamberton in Before Sexuality, ed. Halperin, Winkler, and Zeitlin (Princeton, 1990) 24, reprinted in The Experiences of Tiresias (Princeton, 1995) 116-39.
100 For the purging of mortality by fire in sacrificial practice, see J.-P. Vernant, "At Man's Table: Hesiod's Foundation Myth of Sacrifice," in The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks, ed. M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant, trans. Paula Wissing (Chicago, 1989 [Paris, 1979]) esp. 21-43; W. Furley, Studies in the Use of Fire in Ancient Greek religion (New York, 1981) 5-6.
101 For extensive information on the cult of Herakles in Boiotia, see A. Schachter, Cults of Boiotia, BICS suppl. 38.2 (1986) 1-37, who concludes that his cult at Thebes remained that of a hero (see pp. 20 and 21 n.1). Worship of Herakles was, however, by no means confined to Boiotia. The mass of evidence is imposing. See O. Gruppe, "Herakles," RE suppl. 3, especially 910-1015, for the diffusion and nature of Herakles' cult. The cult of Ino-Leukothea is discussed above and in Chapter 4.
102 See G. Karl Galinsky, The Herakles Theme (Totowa, N.J., 1972) 202-5, 228n.39. Suda s.v. 'Inous akhê. See also Zenobius 4.38, Paroemiographi Graeci, ed. Thomas Gaisford (OsnabrÜck, 1972). The similar phrases akheessin 'Inou[s and 'Inous pathêma[si appear in a fragment of Ibycus with commentary (fr. 282b iii Campbell).
103 See P.M.C. Forbes Irving, Metamorphosis in Greek Myths (Oxford, 1990) 69, on women as passive victims of male lust, who are nonetheless themselves transformed. He remarks that "[i]n myth women are continually punished for being raped."
104 See F. Dupont, "Se reproduire ou se mètamorphoser," Topique: Revue freudienne 9-10 (1971) 139-60.
105 Only the heroine Mestra has the power to change shape at will. See Appendix.
106 Forbes Irving (1990) passim. Exceptions are myths found only in later authors, and in the category of insects, reptiles, and sea creatures, where males outnumber females 7:6. In the striking case of metamorphosis into plants, females outnumber males 17:2.
107 Simone de Beauvoir made this point in The Second Sex, trans. Parshley (New York, 1953). For a systematic treatment of the problem in anthropological terms, see Sherry B. Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?" in Women, Culture, and Society, ed. Rosaldo and Lamphere (Stanford, 1974) 67-87.
108 See A. Carson, "Putting Her in Her Place: Women, Dirt, and Desire," in Halperin, Winkler, and Zeitlin, eds. (1990) 135-69.
109 Forbes Irving (1990) makes it clear that this depends in part on the genre of the work and in part on the nature of the transformation. In tragedy, metamorphosis may be "a compromise with some harsh reality" (17). More often the transformation reflects "the negative side of the link between animals, women, and sex" as a punishment for sexual transgression (66), while transformation into a bird is more ambiguous (112).
110 Here Forbes Irving and I part company. He does not believe that transformation is "a narrative motif which is interchangeable with motifs such as death (or apotheosis)" (195-96).
THE NAMING OF HEROINES
THE HEROINE'S BIOGRAPHY: TRANSGRESSION AND TRANSFORMATION
