Violence in Greek Tragedy

Violence in Greek Tragedy
MAARIT KAIMIO
Violence is probably one of the most prominent characteristics which we
generally associate with Greek tragedy. The most dreadful crimes are committed
in Greek tragedies, the characters suffer acute mental and physical
pain, violent deaths abound. However, drama was a highly esteemed form
of art, produced in the established frame of theatrical competitions, which
formed a part of the political and religious life of the city state of Athens.
The relationship of the two notions mentioned in the theme of our
conference, politics and cruelty, is in this connection necessarily somewhat
different from what it is, I presume, in most of the other papers discussed
here. The plots of Greek tragedies were generally taken from mythology,
not from contemporary events, and thus Greek drama does not describe
the Greek polis in the same way as for instance the Greek historians do in
their works. We cannot read directly from the drama what kind of violence
might be encountered in the city of this time, how the people felt ab out it,
how it was coped with. On the other hand, the drama naturally refl.ects
these aspects of the contemporary life of the polis – only they appear in
tragedy in a magnified and often in a twisted form. As regards the word
„cruelty“ , it is perhaps not the best word to express the relevant notion
in drama.1 When we speak of cruelty, we generally mean that somebody
is ready to cause suffering to others, even delights in it.2 We do meet such
1 Cf. the paper presented by Andrew Lintott in this conference, p. 9 ff.
2 Cf. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., 1989}, s. v. ‚cruelty‘: „The quality of
being cruel; disposition to inflict suffering; delight in or indifference to the pain or misery
of others; mercilessness, hardheartedness; esp. as exhibited in action.“ The meaning of
such words is naturally inseparably linked with the relevant culture and society. In
Greek, the notion of hubrü comes near to this definition of cruelty – cf. Aristotle’s
definition of hubri$ in Rhet. 1378b23 ff. – but there is the difference that at least in
classical Athens the perpetrator’s wish to humiliate the victim seems to be essential ( see
N. R. E. Fisher, ‚Hybri$ and Dishonour I‘, Greece and Rome 23, 1976, 177-93}. This
28
cruelty in Greek tragedy, too, but more often this aspect is not emphasized
at all, and violence is presented as a practical and necessary means
of harming or eliminating one’s enemies, and may even be sanctioned by
religion. It is for this reason that I have chosen to use the word violence
rather than cruelty in the title of my paper. Why is violence so prominent
in Greek drama? One could ask more broadly, why is violence so prominent
in Greek literature and art in general? Greek literature begins with
the Iliad, the great epic of violence and aggression, where, however, the
traditional formulaic verses describing in technical detail the monotonous
killings of warriors are tempered by the deep humanity attested both in
many details of the story as well as in the overall composition. Greek
art loves to present wild beasts tearing their prey, gods fighting with Titans
and Giants, Centaurs attacking Lapith men. The sombre and violent
myths of Greek heroes are favourite themes of both classical dramatists
and classical painters. Why is it so, and how do the Greek artists and
authors present violence in their works – these are questions which I think
should be investigated and discussed more fully. 3
As regards violence in Greek tragedy, 4 the discussion has been mainly
aspect is missing in bia, which denotes bodily strength and often acts of force against
somebody’s will. About the meaning of the different Greek words denoting force, see
E. Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-europeennes, Paris 1969, vol. ii 72
ff.
3 The most influential discussions of violence in Greek culture have dealt with violence
within ritual: Walter Burkert, Homo Necan3: Interpretationen altgriechischer
Opferriten und Mythen, Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 32, Berlin
and New York 1972, and Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred, transl. by P. Gregory,
Baltimore and London 1977 (original: ‚La Violence et Je sacre‘ published in Paris
1972). Violence as a force in the development of the Greek city is discussed by Andrew
Lintott, Violence, Civil Strife and Evolution in the Classical City 750-330 BC, London
and Canberra 1982.
4 Recent treatments of the subject include H. Foley, Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice
in Euripides, Ithaca, NY and London 1985, Barbara E. Golf, The Noose of Words:
Readings of Desire, Violence and Language in Euripides‘ Hippolytos, Cambridge 1990
(especially pp. 55-77), Charles Segal, ‚Sacrifice and Violence in the Myth of Meleager
and Heracles: Homer, Bacchylides, Sophocles‘, Helios 17 ( 1990) 7-24. Themes in
Drama vol. 13 (1991) on the subject of ‚Violence in Drama‘, published shortly after our
conference, contains three papers on Greek tragedy: the introductory essay ‚The Uses
of Violence in Drama‘ by Thomas Gould (1-13), and the articles ‚Violence in Greek
Tragedy‘ by Simon Goldhili ( 15-33) and ‚Violence and Dramatic Structure in Euripides‘
29
focused on two aspects. One is the contradiction between what happens in
the story of the drama and what happens on the stage: violent death is the
subject of very many tragedies, but violent death is very rarely presented
in front of the spectators. The murders happen, as a rule, off stage; the
cries may be heard echoing from the palace, and afterwards, a messenger
teils what has happened, and generally the bodies are brought onto the
stage.
It has long been debated why this is so. Aristotle does not pay attention
to this in his Poetics – in fact, he seems to take it for granted that
murders could happen on stage, too; I don’t see how his statement that
deaths seen on stage ( hoi en to phanero thanatoi) introduce a pathetic element
in the drama could otherwise be understood (1452b12). Horace in a
well-known passage of his Ars Poetica (179-188) warns that murders and
miraculous metamorphoses should not be presented on stage; his objection
seems to be that they cannot be credibly presented. Modern discussion
has suggested many explanations why it is dramaturgically impossible or
impractical to present violent deaths on stage5 – because one actor would
thus become incapacitated and yet be needed soon after for other roles; because
the action of the drama is in most cases locally fixed in one place, say
in front of a royal palace, by the presence of the chorus, al?-d many deaths
and acts of violence happen somewhere else such as in distant towns or on
the seashore. Also, it is more natural to hang oneself in an inner room of
a palace, rather than by the palace door in front of spectators. One argument,
already presented in the ancient scholasts‘ remarks, has been that
such spectacles would be too repulsive for the sensibilities of the Athenian
spectators – but when one thinks of the scenes in fact presented by the
tragedians to the spectators, such as Agaue brandishing her son ’s head at
the end of a pole in Euripides‘ Bacchae, it seems that the public’s sensibilities
were not over delicate. Indeed, according to Aristotle, tragedy
Hecuba‘ by Charles Segal (35-46). I cannot discuss here the many interesting points
raised in these papers, but will instead confine myself to some references in my notes.
5 Useful discussions of the views so far presented are found in P. H. Harsh, ‚Deeds of
Violence in Greek Tragedy‘, Stanford Studies in Language and Literature 1941: Fiftieth
Anniversary of the Founding of Stanford University, ed. by H. Craig, 59-73, and
J. M. Bremer, ‚Why Messenger-speeches?‘, Miscellanea tragica in honorem J. C. Kamerbeek,
ed. by J. M. Bremer, S. L. Radt and C. J. Ruijgh, Amsterdam 1976, 29-48.
30
produces true pleasure precisely because it creates in the spectator the
emotions of pity and fear (Poet. 1449b25).
It has also been suggested that the presentation of death was a religious
taboo in the festival of Dionysus, either because the actors as participants
in a sacred festival could not murder each other6, or because death
could not be presented before the god Dionysus, who in a way was thought
to be a spectator in his festival. 7 In a modified form, this explanation has
recently attracted serious consideration. Walter Burkert, J.-P. Guepin,
and others have emphasized the significance of the primitive taboo against
killing: as it is necessary for man to kill for his survival, the violent act of
killing is concealed and justified in elaborate religious rituals and myths
connected with them.8 In the Dionysiac festivals, the killings are much
emphasized, but at the same time softened down by presenting them as
unwittingly done or done with the consent of the victim, or by not showing
them on stage, but only reporting them.9
This emphasis on a taboo is related to the other aspect which has been
very prominent lately in the discussion of the violence in tragedy, namely
its connection with the ritual of sacrifice. In this discussion, the theories
of Rene Girard have often been used. He examines the connection of
violence and the sacred,10 and argues that the violence inherent in human
nature produces an ever-repeating chain of violent reprisals, until it finally
produces a crushing catastrophe, which by its unanswerable quality puts
an end to the reciprocal chain of violence. This final blow is feit to be
something divine, and thus takes the responsibility of violent acts from
man. By the transference of violence to the divine sphere, men conceal
their own participation in the chain of violence. This concealment and
6 For this view, see R. C. Flickinger, The Greek Theater and Its Drama, 4th ed., Chicago
1936, 13Q-32.
7 See K. Kiefer, Körperlicher Schmerz und Tod auf der attischen Bühne, Heidelberg
1909, 105 f., K. Matthiessen, Elektra, Taurische lphigenie und Helena: Untersuchungen
zur Chronologie und zur dramatischen Form im Spätwerk des Euripides, Hypomnemata
4, Göttingen 1964, 144, L. di Gregorio, Le scene d’annuncio nella tragedia greca, Milano
1967, 26 n. 5. See also Harsh 62 ff., Bremer 40 ff.
8 W. Burkert, ‚Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual‘, GRBS 7 (1966) 87-121, idem,
Homo Necan3 (see note 3), J.-P. Guepin, The Tragic Paradox: Myth and Ritual in
Greek Tragedy, Amsterdam 1968.
9 A summary of these views is presented by Bremer 41 f.
10 See note 3.
31
fiction is seen by Girard to be essential in the relation of human society to
violence, and often this concealment takes the form of ritual. A surrogate
victim is expelled from the commun.ity or killed, and thus violence is kept
outside the community.1 1
The role of sacrificial ritual i n tragedy has been emphasized e . g. by
Helene Foley and Pietro PucciP There are many tragedies in which the
whole action of the play centres upon a human sacrifice, as in Euripides‘
Jphigenia in Aulis or Bacchae, and many others where sacrifice, usually
of a willing young girl or boy as the victim, is an important stage in the
plot. It usually has a beneficial effect on the commun.ity in question, and
this has been seen as a reason for the prominence of violence in tragedy.
By presenting sacrificial rituals which have a positive, healing effect in the
course of the events of the plot, tragedy emphasizes its own importance as
a ritual of the community and its own beneficial effect in that community.13
I think that there is much worth serious attention in these approaches,
but also that by concentrating on the idea of taboo and sacrificial violence
many other aspects of violence in Greek drama have remairred obscured.
When discussing why violent deaths were not shown on stage, other questions,
e. g. what kind of violence was shown on stage and how was violence
done off-stage reported, have been almost forgotten. The emphasis
on sacrificial violence has obscured the fact that the tragedians also speak
at length about other kinds of violence – the violence of war, of political
pressure and private vengeance and so on. I shall now briefl.y discuss some
of these aspects.
Although violent deaths are seldom presented on stage, there are many
other ways in which spectators are confronted by violence – through their
eyes, through their ears, and especially through their imagination. There
are many difficulties preventing us from knowing how the Greek plays
were performed by the actors on the stage – how they moved, what kind
of gestures they used, how natural or stylized was their way of acting etc.
11 See Girard eh. 2 and 4.
12 H. Foley, Ritual Irony (see note 4), P. Pucci, ‚Euripides: The Monument and the
Sacrifice‘, Arethusa 10 ( 1977) 165-195.
13 Goff ( see note 4) in her treatment of the end of Euripides‘ Hippolytu& criticizes Foley’s
and Pucci’s view that tragic violence has the same redeeming effect as violence within
ritual (122 ff. ).
32
From careful reading of the texts, however, something may be gatheredY
As regards violent actions, there seem to have been certain conventions
which were used in many plays and which would thus be familiar types of
scene to spectators; a consequence of this is also that the author can play
with the expectations of the spectators by creating variations and surprises,
which acquire their force from the very existence of such conventions.
The most usual types of convention in connection with violence were
arrest by force and threatening with violence.15 The arrest occurs in connection
with the entrance or exit of an actor: someone is escorted onto the
stage into the presence of an authority by mute attendants, or required
at the end of the scene to be taken off. The convention is the basis for
the power of some exceptions, as at the end of Euripides‘ Hippolytus (1084
ff.),16 where Hippolytus stops the attendants ordered by his father to seize
him from using force and moves away, submitting to his father’s will. The
threats of violence in tragedy mostly remain threats: the actors may raise
their swords or sticks or fists and talk with brutal words of killing, but
usually something happens or is said to prevent the realization of the violence
threatened.17 The most famous of such threatening scenes is the
confrontation of the Egyptian herald and the Danaids in Aeschylus‘ Suppliant
Maidens: the threats of the Herald are so vivid and violent, the
dread of the maidens so acute, that many of the modern commentators of
the play have actually visualized here brutal fisticuffs between the Danaids
and a group of Egyptian soldiers. Probably, however, the incident was realized
on stage as a scene of growing threat and tension, and the violence
already anticipated by the public in their imagination with the help of the
14 The problems of performance are discussed e. g. in 0. Taplin, The Stagecraft of
Aeschylus, Oxford 1977, 28-39, idem, Greek Tragedy in Action, Cambridge 1978, 58 ff.,
J. Gould, ‚Tragedy in Performance‘, The Cambridge History of Classical Literature I:
Greek Literature, ed. by P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox, Garnbridge 1985, 263 ff., S.
Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy, Cambridge 1986, 276 ff., M. Kaimio, Physical Contact
in Greek Tragedy: A Study of Stage Conventions, Annales Academiae Scientiarum
Fennicae B 244, Helsinki 1988, 6 ff.
15 See Kaimio 62 ff.
16 See Kaimio 64.
17 Cf. A. Spitzbarth, Untersuchungen zur Spieltechnik der griechischen Tragödie, Zurich
1946, 34 f.
33
vivid expressions heard from the stage was stopped just at the moment of
crisis by the Danaids‘ cry for help and the arrival of King Pelasgus.18
It was probably quite rare to see on stage two characters actually
resorting to physical violence. Consequently, it might well have had a great
effect on the public. Similarly, Sophocles uses the conventions of arrest and
apparent release from violence with great skill in his Philoctetes. When
Philoctetes has realized that he has been tricked and Odysseus intends to
take him to Troy, he tries to throw hirnself down from the cliff to escape
this fate. Odysseus orders his men to take hold of him, and he utters a long
monologue of despair and hate in their violent grip {1003 ff.). But after this
speech, Odysseus suddenly orders his men to release him, saying that he
does not need Philoctetes in order to capture Troy, but only his bow {1054
f.). This seeming release from violence is in fact an ultimate act of cruelty,
because Philoctetes is thus abandoned to die on his solitary island without
the help of his sole means of survival, the bow. A parallel to this scene
comes somewhat later, when Neoptolemus has brought Philoctetes his bow
back and promised to take him home. Philoctetes catches sight of Odysseus
and is about to shoot him with his bow, but Neoptolemus prevents this
act of violence by another act of violence, taking hold of Philoctetes‘ arm
and preventing him from shooting, until Odysseus is safely away, and thus
preparing the way for the final, peaceful solution of the play (1300 ff.).
Here we have an example of a benefi.cial act of violence shown on stage –
a rarity in itself in Greek drama.19
The most dreadful scene of violence actually shown on the Greek stage
is the beginning of the Prometheus Vinctus, where Hephaestus, on the
order of the tyrant Zeus, and with the help of the brutal Kratos (Force)
and the mute attendant Bia (Violence), chains Prometheus to the rock
with bands around his arms, body and legs and strikes an adamantine
wedge through his ehest. Whether this was performed with a huge doll,
as has been suggested, or with a real actor and less real proceedings,2° is
irrelevant here: the text with its details, the horrifi.ed pity of Hephaestus
18 See the discussion by Taplin 1977 (see note 14), 216 ff., H. Friis Jobansen and E. W.
Whittle, Aeschylus: The Suppliants, Copenhagen 1980, commentary on 11. 885-7, 905-
10, 908, Kaimio 68 f.
19 See Kaimio 71 f.
20 On this problern of the performance, see 0. Taplin 1977, 243 ff., M. Griffith, Aeschylus:
Prometheus Bound, Cambridge 1983, 31 n. 95.
34
and the brutal briskness of Kratos show that the scene was meant to
present inhuman torture. And there is an equivalent to this torture still
waiting for Prometheus, as described by Hermes at the end of the play:
the promise of Zeus‘ eagle devouring his liver. How the glaring cruelty of
the sovereign god was explained or compensated for in the other parts of
the trilogy remains problematic, as too is the author and date of this play,
which according to the growing conviction of the scholars is unlikely to be
by Aeschylus. 21
In opposition to the scenes of violence acted on stage, the crowning
violence of tragedy is usually held to be those hidden murders behind the
stage, reported later by a messenger. But how much of the violence is
actually hidden from the spectators? Take for instance Euripides‘ Medea,
where we have two pairs of murders of the classical behind-the-stage type:
first Medea sends a poisoned rohe to the Princess Creusa, which causes
both her and her father’s death, reported duly by the messenger, and
then Medea kills her children, the bodies of whom are afterwards seen
with her in her dragon chariot. The act of dying is not seen, but the
act of killing is constantly kept in the foreground of the spectator’s mind
by anticipation, by imagination, by verbal report, by the sense of hearing
and finally by the sense of sight, when the bodies are shown. First the
Nurse fears that Medea will harm somebody – she rather hopes it will be
the enemy {93 ff.) but fears it will be the children (118). Then Creon
fears that Medea will harm him, his daughter and his son-in-law (282 ff.),
and Medea actually plans to do precisely this, settling for a scheme to
poison Creon and his family (374 ff.) . The expectations of the audience
thus raised are still strengthened when Medea tells of her former success
in killing the dragon and murdering Pelias ( 480 ff.). Later she tells exactly
how she is going to cause the death of the princess and kill her children
(783 ff.) . The chorus anticipates in two choral odes what will happen (846
ff., 976 ff.} , Medea does the same in her famous monologue which gives her
final decision (1021 ff. ) . Then comes the messenger’s report of the death of
Creusa and her father (1121 ff.) , with grisly details of their suffering (1167
ff.) . After that, Medea announces her intention of immediately murdering
21 For the authenticity see C. J. Herington, The Author of the Prometheus Bound,
Austin, Texas 1970, S. Said, Sophiste et tyran ou Je problerne du Promethee enchaine,
Etudes et commentaires 95, Paris 1985, and for an opposing view M. Griffith, The
Authenticity of Prometheus Bound, Garnbridge 1977.
35
the children {1236 ff.), and after a short anticipatory ode by the chorus
(1251 ff.), the cries of the children are heard {1271 ff.). After all this
preparation, there is no need for long explanations; Jason comes, fearing
for the children’s lives {1301 ff.), hears that he is too late {1306 ff.) and
is immediately confronted by the triumphant Medea, who refuses to give
him even the bodies of his children to bury (1317 ff.).
What act of showing the stabhing the children in front of the audience
could equal this elaborately built-up sequence of violence, where the
audience is led phase by phase through all the horrors of the four murders,
compelled to experience them through the eyes and minds of all the
different parties concerned? Such a construction and such a drama is not
only the lucky result of the prescribed avoidance of a taboo – i.e. the
taboo against the presentation of murders in the theatre – but a deliberate
presentation of violence, by which the spectators are caught up in the
Aristotelian pleasure of horror and pity – and even more than that, in the
contemplation of violence.
In addition to the ways of presenting violence which I have discussed
so far – violence acted on stage, violence reported, violence intended, anticipated,
reacted upon – there is a very suggestive means used by the
dramatists, namely the imagery of violence. This is a powerful tool to engage
the emotions of the spectators, as for instance Euripides knows, when
in the beginning of Hecuba he repeatedly ßashes into the mind pictures of
Polyxena seen as a young animal violently separated from her mother –
she is compared to the calf of a deer {90 f.), to a young foal {142 f.) and
to a calf {205 ff.), and in each case the mother is linked to this animal
imagery by human references – human hands, bosom, etc.22 This kind of
characterization of violence by imagery is especially typical of Aeschylus,
the form these images take often creating associations which otherwise are
left unsaid. Thus, the violence of the Oresteia is from the beginning of
the trilogy often clothed in images which repeat themselves and develop
through the plays. 23 There is the omen of the two eagles devonring the
pregnant hare in the parodos of the Agamemnon { 1 1 4 ff.), the image of
the tarne lion cub turning into a murderous beast {717 ff. ), Iphigenia sacrificed
like a goat {231 ff.), the glaring light of crime {388 f.) and the
22 See Kaimio 80 n. 1 .
23 Cf. A . Lebeck, The Oresteia: A Study in Language and Structure, Cambridge, Mass.
1971.
36
blood of murder which rains over Clytemnestra like dewdrops (1390 ff.) –
all in;1ages which speak of the perverting force of violence and injustice,
and which are normalized and healed in the end of the trilogy in the final
song of the goddess Athene and the appeased Furies. 24
I have spoken of the ways and means of presenting violence in tragedy;
I shall now discuss some forms of violence presented in drama which, I
think, cannot be easily connected with the notion of violence as a sacrificial
ritual; there must in fact be other reasons for their prominence in drama.
Firstly, the violence and cruelty of war are often foregrounded by the
dramatists, both as a calamity bringing destruction to a whole community
and as the cause of private loss and grief. Aeschylus and Euripides in
particular paint great frescoes of war, which certainly reflect their own
bitter experiences. Aeschylus‘ Persae is full of vivid details of death and
mutilation in the messenger’s reports of the defeat of the Persians (249
ff., 302-514), in the chorus‘ reactions (548 ff.) , in Darius‘ prophecies (800
ff.), in the final lament of Xerxes (especially 950 ff.) . This cannot be
simply thought of as tales of the triumph of the Greeks: the grief and
the horror are too real for that. In the Seven Against Thebes, Aeschylus
lets the women of the chorus imagine the horr6rs of a sacked city (78
ff., 287 ff.), and in the Agamemnon, the smouldering ruins of Troy form
the background of the victory, which has been very dearly bought by the
Greeks (see especially 427 ff., 525 ff., 818 ff.) . The defeat and sack of Troy
are dealt with in two dramas of Euripides, the Trojan W omen and H ecuba.
In the former, the despairing fates of the captured women are highlighted,
but it is made clear from the beginning that the victors will derive no
happiness from their triumph, either (65 ff.) . In the latter drama, the
demoralizing effects of the overwhelming tragedies of war are presented.25
War in itself may be justified in tragedy, as it is, for example, in the defence
of the Greeks against the Persians or the Thebans against the attackers in
Aeschylus, but in many details the needless cruelty and impiousness of the
war is emphasized. With such deeds as for instance the killing of the baby
24 See e. g. S. Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: the Oresteia, Garnbridge 1984,
271 ff.
25 Segal 1991 (see note 4) points out that Hecuba’s predicted metamorphosis in the end
„is the logical culmination of the motif of inner death that runs throughout the play“
(p. 39).
37
Astyanax or the overturning of the gods‘ altars, man remains responsible,
whatever the greater issues are.
Secondly, outside the sphere of war there is also much violence or
threats of violence which is considered as cruelty and injustice by the
victims, but sheer policy of sensible precaution by the perpetrator. Thus,
the first part of Euripides‘ Herades is dominated by the threat of Lycus,
who has killed King Creon and usurped his throne and now wants to
consolidate his power by killing Creon’s daughter, her sons and, for a good
measure, her old father-in-law. „This is not an outrage, but caution,“
he argues. „I don’t want to leave them alive so that they could once
take vengeance upon me for what I have done“ (165 ff.). The same kind
of policy leads Hermione in Euripides‘ A ndromache to threaten to kill
Andromache and her son, whom she feels to be a threat to her marriage
to Neoptolemus. In both dramas, one is struck by the very simple and
straightforward langnage used about this kind of violence. „You shall die“
(Andr. 245), „I shall kill you“ (440) are the kind of words Andromache is
addressed with; nothing emotional, nothing mysterious, simply the sheer
brutal politics of power. We can see here reflections of the disillusionment
of the politics brought about by the Peloponnesian War, so powerfully
described by Thucydides.
Thirdly, there are cases of violence which are unavoidable, since they
are in some way caused by the gods. These belong to the most powerful
sequences of events presented in Greek drama, and they could be thought
to be good examples of the concealment of violence in the disguise of
religion, as Girard argues in his theory. However, they are not in fact
presented in this way in Greek drama. Take, for examples, Agamemnon’s
sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia and Orestes‘ murder of his mother in
Aeschylus‘ Oresteia, and the violence done in a fit of insanity by Ajax and
Herades in the plays of those names by Sophocles and Euripides.
Both Agamemnon’s and Orestes‘ crimes are ordered by the gods and
thus they cannot avoid the necessity of committing them. However, they
must bear the guilt and face the consequences of their deed. Agamemnon’s
deed has caused great horror and consternation among his society, which
is expressed in the choral songs (218 ff.), and has roused the wrath of his
wife (1397 f., 1417 ff.). He is also presented as ruthless and needlessly cruel
in other respects, in his behaviour in Troy (525 ff., 818 ff.), as weil as in
his homecoming ( witness his acceptance of the red carpet and his bringing
of Cassandra with him). Orestes has better moral cause to kill: it is at
38
least in search of justice when he avenges hirnself on his mother. However,
his crime is so horrible that he is very nearly destroyed. At the end of
the trilogy, harmony is attained when Orestes is acquitted by the voice
of Athene and the Ftuies are placated by her, but although this harmony
stops the chain of violence, it does not wipe away the memory of it.26
In Sophocles‘ Ajax, the hero is rendered insane by Athene and falls
upon cattle, thinking he is killing and torturing his enemies. Thus, he
should not be considered responsible for his violence, nor should it weigh
so shamefully upon him when he wakens from his fit as to cause him to
commit suicide. At the same time, however, he is responsible, because
his fury is genuine, as is his delight in his cruelty towards his enemies.
We see the same dilemma still more powerfully presented in the figure of
Euripides‘ Heracles. He, too, is rendered insane by the gods, and commits
the most dreadful crime of murdering his wife and children, whom he has
just rescued from Lycus‘ violence. But there is a strain of real, human
violence in the hero, which the poet forcefully emphasizes. His whole
preceding career has consisted of violent battles with all kinds of monsters
– albeit carried out to rescue humankind – {151 ff., 348 ff.), and when he
hears of Lycus‘ threats against his farnily, he is roused to a fury of violence,
promising to fill the rivers of Thebes with corpses and blood {565 ff.).
Thus we see that men cannot avoid the guilt of violence, even if they
must commit it because of a divine intervention or an old family curse.
This view presented by the tragedians does not fit in with the theory of
the concealment of violence in the guise of religious fiction. Tragedy does
not conceal violence, it exposes it; it tries to reconcile the violent strains in
man with the need of order in the society, but it never completely succeeds
– tragedy knows about this irreconcilable conflict and shows it.27 It draws
26 Nor does this harmony promise an unconditionally happy future for tbe city, as
Goldhili in his recent article (see note 4) points out (p. 26).
27 This is to some extent admitted by Girard: „From the very fact that it belies the
overt mythological messages, tragic drama opens a vast abyss before the poet; but
he always draws back at the last moment … “ (135), „This crisis invites us, for the
very first time, to violate the taboo that neither Heraclitus nor Euripides could quite
manage to violate, and to expose to tbe light of reason the roJe played by violence in
human society“ (318). Of tbe recent accounts of tragic violence, Goff and Goldhill,
in their different ways, both go further in admitting that religious concealment is not
the effect of Greek tragedy. Goff emphasizes that „the ending [of the Hippolytu$] holds
the positive and negative ideas of the play in a tension that is not a balance, but that
39
from violeuce some of its most powerful effects by engaging the spectators‘
emotions, Aristotle’s pity and fear, but it does still more: it forces the
audience – both the Athenians and us today – into intellectual effort, so
that we think about violence, question its validity, discard false pretexts
for it, and assume responsibility for it.
is rather a persistent oscillation … One of the beginnings posited by the ending is a
beginning to critica.l practice“ (128). Goldhill emphasizes „the extraordinary process of
the developing city setting its own developing system of thought a.t risk in the public
arena., placing its la.ngua.ge a.nd institutions open to the violence of wha.t Euripides calls
‚the strife of warring words‘ “ ( 26).
40
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON GERHARD JARITZ
SONDERBAND II
CRUDELITAS
The Politics of Cruelty
in the Ancient and Medieval World
Proceedings of the International Conference
Turku {Finland), May 1991
Edited by
Toivo Viljamaa, Asko Timonen
and Christian Krötzl
Krems 1992
Front page illustration: Martyrdom of Saint Barbara (detail),
Friedrich Pacher, Tyrolian, 1480-1490,
Neustift (Novacella), South Tyrol (Italy), Stiftsgalerie
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
– ISBN 3-90 1094 05 9
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der materiellen
Kultur des Mittelalters, Körnermarkt 13, A-3500 Krems, Österreich – Druck:
KOPITU Ges. m. b. H., Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, A-1050 Wien.
Contents
Preface 7
Andrew LINTOTT (Oxford): Cruelty in the Political Life
of the Ancient World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Maarit KAIMIO (Helsinki): Violence in Greek Tragedy 28
Toivo VILJAMAA (Thrku): „Crudelitatis odio in crudelitatem
ruitis“ . Livy’s Concept of Life and History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Katarüna MUSTAKALLIO (Helsinki): The „crimen incesti“
of the Vestal Virgins and the Prodigious Pestilence
Asko TIMONEN (Thrku): Criticism ofDefense. The Blam-
56
ing of „Crudelitas“ in the „Historia Augusta“ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Christer BRUUN (Helsinki): Water as a Cruel Element in
the Roman World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4
Luigi de ANNA (Thrku): Elogio della crudelta. Aspetti
della violenza nel mondo antico e medievale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Greti DINKOVA-BRUUN (Helsinki): Cruelty and the Medieval
Intellectual: The Case of Peter Abelard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Christian KRÖTZL (Tampere): „Crudeliter affiicta“ . Zur
Darstellung von Gewalt und Grausamkeit in mittelalterlichen
Mirakelberichten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5
Thomas LINDKVIST (Uppsala) : The Politics of Violence
and the Transition from Viking Age to Medieval Scandinavia
Alain DUCELLIER (Toulouse): Byzance, Juge Cruel dans
un Environnement Cruel? Notes sur le „Musulman cruel“
dans l’Empire byzantin entre Vlleme et XIIlerne siedes
Asko TIMONEN (Turku): Select Bibliography
6
139
148
181
Preface
The present volume is a collection of the papers read at the conference
which was held in May 1991 at the University of Turku on the theme
The Politics of Cruelty in the A ncient and Medieval World. The general
aim of the conference was to advance interdisciplinary and international
collaboration in the fields of humanistic studies and particularly to bring
together scholars who have common interests in the study of our past.
The choice of the subject of cruelty naturally resulted from different study
projects concerning the political and social history of late antiquity and
the Middle Ages – the Roman imperial propaganda, the conß.ict between
paganism and christianity, the history of the Vandals, the Byzantine empires,
the Medieval miracle stories, to name some of them. Perhaps also
contemporary events had an influence on the idea that cruelty could be
the theme which conveniently would unite those various interests. And
the idea emerged irrespective of considerations whether or not we should
search for models in the Ancient World or join those who, as it seems to
have been a fashion, insist on investigating what we have common with
the Middle Ages.
One might argue – and for a good reason indeed – that cruelty is
a subject for anthropologists and psychologists, not for philologists and
historians. Where does the student of history find reliable criteria for
defining the notion of cruelty in order to judge the men of the past and their
actions, to charge with cruelty not only individuals but also nations and
even ages („the crudelitas imperatorum“ , „the Dark Ages“ , „the violence of
the Vikings“, „the cruel Muslims“ )? Is it not so that the only possibility is
to adapt our modern sensibilities to the past and to use our own prejudices
in making judgements about others? The prejudices – yes, but this is just
what makes the theme interesting for the historian because our prejudices
– our conception of cruelty, for instance – are part of the heritage of past
centuries. The events of our own day – maybe more clearly than ever – have
demonstrated that we live in a historical world. When we investigate the
history of the concept of cruelty we, as it were, Iook ourselves at a mirror
and learn to understand ourselves better. The concept of cruelty has two
sides. It is a subjective concept used to define and describe those persons
7
and those acts that according to the user of the term are negative, harmful,
humiliating, harsh, inhumane, primitive and unnatural; in everyday life
it is associated with religious habits – with crude remnants of primitive
religion, it is associated with passion, an uncontrolled mental state, or with
violence and with the exercise of power without justice. On the other hand
the term is used to classify people by their ethical and social habits, to
accuse, to invalidate and injure others; therefore the accusation of cruelty
refers to basic features of ancient and also Medieval thought, to the fear of
anything foreign, to the aggressive curiosity to define and subsume others
simply by their otherness.
Such were the considerations wich gave inspiration for arranging the
„cruelty“ -seminar. The conference was accommodated by the Archipelago
Institute of the University of Turku, in the island Seili („Soul island“) , in
an environment of quiet beauty of the remote island and sad memories of
the centuries when people attacked by a cruel fate, lepers or mentally ill,
were banished there from the civilized community.
The conference was organized by the Department of Classics of the
University of Turku in collaboration with the Departments of Cultural
History and Italian language and culture of the same university. It is a
pleasure to us to be able to thank here all those who helped to make the
congress possible. We would like especially to express our gratitude to
Luigi de Anna and Hannu Laaksonen for their assistance in preparing and
carrying out the practical arrangements. The financial assistance given by
the Finnish Academy and by the Turku University Foundation was also
indispensable. Finally, we close by expressing our gratitude to Gerhard
Jaritz, the editor of the Medium Aevum Quotidianum for the Gesellschaft
fü r Erforschung der materiellen Kultur des Mittelalters, for his kind COoperation
and for accepting this collection of papers to be published as a
supplement to the series of the studies on the Medieval everyday life. One
of the starting-points for organizing the „cruelty“ -conference was the firm
conviction that the Graeco-Roman Antiquity did not end with the beginning
of the Middle Ages, but these two eras form a continuum in many
respects, and the continuity was felt not only in the literary culture, in the
Greek and Latin languages which were still used, but also in the political,
social and religious structures of the Middle Ages. We think that this
continuity is amply demonstrated by the studies of the present volume.
Department of Classics, University of Turku, Finland
8