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Social Memory in Athenian Public Discourse
Uses and Meanings of the Past
By Bernd Steinbock The University of Michigan Press
Copyright © 2013 University of Michigan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-472-11832-8
CHAPTER 1
Carriers of Athenian Social Memory
In the introduction, I established a methodological framework that will allow me to study both how individual Athenians made use of the past within the complex Athenian memorial framework and to what extent these shared images of the past might have influenced the decision-making process in the Athenian assembly and the law courts. Following Rosalind Thomas, I have stressed that while many general characteristics of social memory can be observed across time and space, their manifestation, transmission, and negotiation depend on each society's particular communicative framework.
The following chapters focus on the collective memory of four particular events in the history of Athenian-Theban relations. In this chapter, I explore thematically the different ways in which social memory was manifested and transmitted in fifth- and fourth-century Athens. Both the orator and his listeners participated simultaneously in different memory communities and were exposed to a variety of different carriers of information about the past. First, I will focus on polis-wide festivals and public commemoration; they were of enormous importance for the Athenians' shared image of the past, since the entire polis community participated in them. Apart from these polis-wide commemorative activities, Athenians learned about their history in their demes and tribes, within their families, and within their groups of companions at the symposium. Personal relationships with outsiders as [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] gave insight into the memorial repertoire of other poleis and were therefore invaluable for the diplomatic relations between Greek states. Material records of the past, such as monuments and inscriptions, could either reinforce a dominant version of the past or serve as cues for events that might otherwise have faded from collective historical consciousness thanks to their growing irrelevance over time.
All surviving fourth-century speeches were written by highly trained orators. These orators were familiar with and had to pay attention to the knowledge and attitudes of their audiences, which were constituted by and large orally. Yet they also had access to written records of the past, such as the Greek historians, and to exemplary speeches of other orators, and they could draw on them if the situation required it. The assembly and the law courts themselves were central venues for the constitution and transmission of Athenian social memory. With different sources for knowledge of the past at his disposal, an orator could either reassert a widely known collective memory or modify and challenge it by falling back on alternative carriers of social memory. Changing political alignments and unexpected events played a crucial role, since they often provided the occasion for the orator to bring less familiar memories back into public discourse, thus reinforcing them and securing their transmission to younger generations. These different carriers of social memory mutually influenced and sustained each other. They created a complicated and dynamic system, in which the orator participated and operated.
Festivals and Public Commemorations
First, I will look at festivals and public commemorations, such as the Athenian funeral ceremony, dramatic performances, and religious festivals that were linked to key historical events. These polis-wide commemorative activities are of paramount importance for the Athenians' view of their past, since they provided a forum for the collective self-representation and articulation of a shared image of the past that validated the principle of democratic rule. These predominant versions of the past constituted the "master narrative of Athenian history" in the fifth and fourth centuries, which Rosalind Thomas terms "the official polis tradition."
Funeral Orations
The funeral oration ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) was the culmination of the public funeral ceremony held for the Athenian war dead of each year. This custom replaced the elaborate aristocratic family burials of earlier times, and the funeral oration most likely originated soon after the Persian Wars. Judging from the few funeral orations that have come down to us, these speeches were very conventional; they had the same structure, expressed the same ideals, and extolled the same Athenian achievements. They usually begin with a short captatio benevolentiae expressing the speaker's nearly impossible task to do justice to the deeds of the fallen. The central part of the speech celebrates the manifestation of timeless Athenian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] from the origin of the city to the recent battles in which the heroes of the day have lost their lives. The topics in this Tatenkatalog typically include the autochthonous origin of the Athenian people, the repulsion of the invasions of the Amazons and Eumolpus' Thracians, Athens' aid in the restoration of the Heraclidae and the burial of the fallen Argives, and especially Athens' achievements during the Persian Wars. The speech usually ends with a consolation of the relatives and an exhortation of the entire polis community.
The role of the funeral orations in shaping the Athenians' view of themselves and of their city's past cannot be overstated. First, given the level of Athens' military activity in the classical period, this public funeral ceremony was often held every single year. Second, unlike in the assembly and the law courts, where Athenians would hear only scattered historical allusions, the funeral orations set out the city's past in narrative form and rough chronological order. Third, the praise of past and recent Athenian achievements was not an end in itself but fulfilled a didactic function: the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] displayed by the fallen and their ancestors was normative, and all Athenians were encouraged to emulate their example.
Finally, this shared image of the Athenian past was highly charged emotionally. This becomes clear when we consider this speech within its social context. The epitaphios was an integral element of the public funeral ceremony for those who had lost their lives fighting for the polis community. It was an activity of both religious and civic significance, which is clear from Thucydides' description (Thuc. 2.34). The bones of the dead were laid out for two days, so that their relatives could bring their offerings. On the day of the funeral, the bones were put in coffins, tribe by tribe, and were carried in a solemn procession to the public cemetery in the Ceramicus. Citizens and noncitizens took part in this funeral procession, and female kin came and lamented at the tomb. After the bones had been laid into the earth, a man "chosen by the city, of proven intelligence and high esteem, ma[de] the appropriate speech of praise over them" (Thuc. 2.34). The fact that the delivery of this speech was reserved for Athens' leading citizen gave it additional weight. That this celebratory version of Athenian history indeed had a profound effect on the Athenian psyche is evident from Socrates' remarks in Plato's Menexenus. Socrates claims that the epitaphios enchants his soul and makes him feel greater and nobler than before. This feeling of solemnity ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) lasts for more than three days. Only then does Socrates realize that he does not live on the Islands of the Blessed (Pl. Menex. 234c–235c). In accordance with Plato's parodistic intentions, Socrates is of course ironic and exaggerates, but Plato's choice to parody this very aspect of the epitaphios suggests that it did, at least to some extent, have this stirring effect.
It is obvious that the self-congratulatory image of Athens presented in the chauvinistic funeral oration is full of exaggerations and gross historical distortions. Yet it would be wrong simply to dismiss the epitaphios as propaganda. Rather, it provides a unique opportunity to study the processes of social memory and serves as an invaluable key to the Athenians' mentality, since, for most of them, "Athens' past history was the past they heard about in the epitaphioi." We find the same ideals, justifications, and examples elsewhere in Athenian public discourse, and there is every indication that most Athenians believed in them passionately.
The Athenian funeral oration illustrates, in an exemplary way, the complex interdependence between a community's ideology and its image of the past. On the one hand, a group's ideology originates from its historical experience. Consequently, the heroic victories over the Persians at Marathon and during Xerxes' invasion profoundly altered the Athenians' mental framework. In Athenian social memory, these events were much simplified and stripped of their immediate historical contexts; they became symbols of the national Athenian character. After the Persian Wars, the Athenians saw themselves as champions of the Greeks ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) against both barbarian invaders and Greek oppressors.
Lysias' funeral oration best exemplifies the results of this process. Athens' support for the Ionian revolt and the burning of Sardis that prompted the Persian punitive expedition of 490 are forgotten. Instead, the story begins with Persian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]: the king of Asia hubristically desires to add Europe to his dominion (Lys. 2.21). The Persians went straight to Attica, since they knew that the Athenians would help any other Greek city if they started elsewhere. At Marathon, the Athenians fight "alone on behalf of all of Greece against many myriads of barbarians" (Lys. 2.20). When Xerxes invaded, the Athenians embarked on their ships to protect the other Greeks and were victorious at Artemisium (Lys. 2.30–31). They then selflessly abandoned their city and made the greatest contribution to the fight for the freedom of the Greeks at Salamis (Lys. 2.33–43). Whereas most of the Greeks abandoned their posts at Plataea, the Spartans and Tegeans routed the barbarians, and the Athenians and Plataeans defeated the Greek medizers (Lys. 2.46–47).
Lysias provides the most detailed treatment of the Persian War experience, but the same general tenor also pervades the other extant funeral orations. It could even be more pronounced. In Demosthenes' epitaphios, the memory of the Persian Wars is completely stripped of its historical context (there is no mention of individual battles, Darius, Xerxes, or the Greek allies), and it is morphed into a symbol for Athens' role as undisputed champion of the Greeks.
Those men single-handedly twice repulsed by land and sea [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]] the army advancing from all of Asia, and at their personal risks established themselves as the authors of the common salvation for all the Greeks [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]]. (Dem. 60.10)
We see here that the symbolic meaning of Marathon — the Athenians fighting alone on behalf of all the Greeks — was extended to Xerxes' invasion as well. It is debated among scholars why Marathon, rather than Salamis (or Plataea), came to represent Athens' achievement in the Persian Wars. Some have seen political motivation as the driving force behind the special emphasis put on Marathon, a favoring of the hoplite success over the naval victory at Salamis. Rosalind Thomas, however, has convincingly rejected these political interpretations. The exceptional significance attributed to Marathon is best explained by the fact that Marathon was the first encounter with the Persians on Greek soil and the only solely Athenian victory, whereas both Salamis and Plataea were the victories of a broad alliance of Greek poleis. In a predominantly oral environment, Marathon could, therefore, epitomize the whole of the Persian Wars by telescoping the complementary events of 490 to 479 together.
The Persian War experience fundamentally altered the image the Athenians had of themselves and of the world that surrounded them. It became a "cornerstone of their identity" and had "prescriptive force for future conduct." In the eyes of the Athenians, Athens' hegemony was the natural and well-deserved result of the Persian Wars, as Lysias makes clear: thanks to their merits in defending the freedom of the Greeks, the Athenians "were considered worthy by all — both those who were sharing the risks with them and those against whom they were fighting — to become leaders [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]] of Greece" (Lys. 2.47).
A community's historical experience affects its ideology, but its ideology also, in turn, shapes its collective memory of earlier and later events, since communities tend to regard their characteristic traits as permanent and unchanging. Consequently, Athens' new hegemonic ideology was projected back into the distant past and led to the commemoration of a few selected mythical events that closely corresponded to the Athenians' self-image as defenders of Greek liberty against barbarian invaders and that could be seen as prefigurations of the Athenian victories over the Persians. The repulsion of the invasions of the man-hating Amazons and of Eumolpus' Thracian hordes thus became an integral part of the patriotic Athenian master narrative of the epitaphios.
In the eyes of the Athenians, Athens' role as champion of the Greeks ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) involved not only the defense of Greece against barbarian invaders but also the protection of the weak against the unjust oppression of overbearing Greek powers. This latter aspect lies at the heart of the mythical stories of the burial of the fallen Argives and the return of the Heraclidae. In both cases, Athens protects the rights of suppliants (Adrastus and the Heraclidae) against hubristic Greek powers (the Thebans and Eurystheus). That the protection of Greek liberty against both barbarian invaders and Greek oppressors are really two sides of the same coin is most evident in Lysias' résumé of the Athenians' achievements during their seventy-year-long naval supremacy.
And neither did triremes sail out of Asia, nor did a tyrant established himself among the Greeks, nor was any Greek polis enslaved by the barbarians. This was the level of moderation and fear that their bravery [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]] inspired among all mankind. On account of these things, they alone [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]] ought to be the champions of the Greeks [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]] and the leaders of the poleis [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]]. (Lys. 2.57)
The Athenians also believed that they alone possessed the moral qualities necessary for this position of leadership, first and foremost an innate sense of justice. This claim is linked to the autochthonous origin of the Athenian race: unlike the majority of peoples, the Athenians did not acquire their land through the unjust expulsion of an indigenous population but are sprung from the land itself ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], Lys. 2.17). Consequently, the Athenians are the only people that cannot idly stand by when an act of injustice is being committed; they have to step in and protect the victims against their oppressors. This sense of justice and altruism pervades the mythical paradigms of the Athenians' aid for Adrastus and the Heraclidae, but it is also an integral element of the Athenians' collective memory of Marathon. The Persians decided to attack Athens first, because they knew that "if they attacked any other polis, they would be fighting both with its inhabitants and with the Athenians, because the Athenians would eagerly come to the rescue of those who were being wronged [[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]]" (Lys. 2.22).
So far, I have shown how the hegemonic ideology, derived from the Athenians' experience of the Persian Wars, determined which "events" of Athens' mythical past were commemorated. The Athenian master narrative focused on a few selected myths that closely corresponded to the Athenians' self-image as selfless defenders of Greek liberty against both barbarian invaders and Greek oppressors. This idealized memory of the Persian Wars, however, influenced not only the selection but also the very shape of those collective memories.
Lysias' account of the Amazons' invasion, for instance, shows numerous parallels to the Athenians' memory of the Persian Wars. Like the Persian kings Darius and Xerxes, the Amazons ruled over many races and had reduced all their neighbors to slavery (Lys. 2.5). Driven by the unjust desire for a land that was not theirs, they gathered the most warlike tribes and marched against Athens, where they all perished under the hands of the brave Athenians (Lys. 2.5–6). We can grasp here a clear example of how earlier versions of this myth, according to which the Amazons' invasion was prompted either by Theseus' rape of Antiope (Plut. Thes. 26.1–27.2) or by her later abandonment in favor of Phaedra (Plut. Thes. 28.1), have become thoroughly "marathonized." Similar tendencies can be found in the story of Eumolpus' invasion (Isoc. 4.66; Dem. 60.8; Pl. Menex. 239b): in the funeral orations, Eumolpus, once an Eleusinian prince and the archegetes of the priestly family of the Eumolpidae, became the leader of Thracian invaders.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Social Memory in Athenian Public Discourse by Bernd Steinbock. Copyright © 2013 University of Michigan. Excerpted by permission of The University of Michigan Press.
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