by Jack Lindsay
Nemesis’ cult at Rhamnous was certainly ancient; it must have existed before the unification of Attika (linked in legend with Theseus). Otherwise the shrine would have been set at some important site like Athens, not at such an insignificant place. We thus have a strong argument for the fact that the Cypria is using a genuine and ancient Rhamnousian legend in which Zeus and the goddess mated in bird form — though it may have been the Cypria that linked this tale with Helen. In any event we see that at this early phase the connection of Helen and Leda is weak. The poet of the Cypria may have recalled the passage in the Iliad about Helen on the battlements, where the term nemesis is used as moral indignation. He wanted the begetting of Helen to fit in with the overall scheme of the Plan, and so, by making Nemesis her mother, he foreshadowed her role in the universal cataclysm.[110]
Nemesis seems to have come to the fore in Attika in the fifth century. Her reconstructed temple at Rhamnous was one of a group of four generally attributed to a single architect; the others are those of Hephaistos and Ares at Athens, and that of Poseidon at Sounion. Hers seems the latest; work on it was halted by the Peloponnesian War and never resumed, though the temple was sufficiently completed to have its cult-statue put in and to be used. Its marble was not Pentelic, but was mined from a hill at the south end of the Rhamnousian plain, near the top of a low pass leading down to a beach; the quarry was little more than a quarter of a mile from the temple, so that transport was very much easier than from Pentelikos.[111] Pausanias tells us that neither here nor in any other ancient statue of Nemesis did she have wings, ‘for not even the holiest wooden images of the Smyrnaians have them, but later artists, convinced that the goddess manifested herself most as a result of love, give wings to Nemesis as they do to Eros. I’ll now go on to describe what’s figured on the statue’s pedestal. The Greeks say that Nemesis was the mother of Helen while Leda suckled and nursed her; Helen’s father the Greeks, like everyone else, consider to be not Tyndareos but Zeus. Having heard this legend, Pheidias has depicted Helen being led to Nemesis by Leda, while Tyndareos and his children, with a man named Hippeus, stand by with a horse. There are Agamemnon and Menelaos and Pyrrhos, Achilles’ son and first husband of Helen’s daughter, Hermione. Orestes was passed over because of his crime against his mother, yet Hermione stayed at his side in everything and bore him a child.’[112]
The attribution of the statue to Pheidias is an error; the artist was Agorakritos of Paros, as we learn from Plinius and Strabon. The latter says: ‘It was a work of art which both in grandeur and in beauty is a great success and rivals the work of Pheidias.’ The date of the new inauguration seems that of the Treaty of Nikias; the relief may be taken as showing Helen as the intermediary of reconciliation between the peoples of Lakedaimon and of Attika. Tyndareos and Leda present Helen to her true mother as the betrothed of Menelaos: an image of union between the group of Atreids and the Attic goddess.
That Nemesis was Helen’s mother before Leda was assigned the role, or that at least she imposed on Leda the idea that Helen was born from an egg, is strongly suggested by the extraordinary amount of variants in the account of the birth of Helen and the Twins. We are told that Helen was the daughter of Tyndareos; that she came out of an egg with swan-Zeus as her father, while the Twins came out of another egg; that all three came from the same egg; that Helen and Klytemnaistra came from one egg, the Twins from another. At times both the Twins are the sons of Zeus, at times only Polydeukes; at times Klytemnaistra is the daughter of Leda and Tyndareos in a normal way, as were Timandra and Philonoē. We even find Nemesis made the mother of the Twins, and a late attempt to make sense of the situation asserts that Leda after death was deified as Nemesis.[113]
The Twins were called White Horses by Pindar, and White Colts of Zeus by Euripides; they were constantly associated with horses and depicted with them. Since they married two girls called White Fillies, the link with horses in their cult was certainly fundamental. A gloss of Hesychios suggests that the priestesses of the wives were two in number like the goddesses they served; and they seem to have been assisted by a boy priest or priests (? again a pair). A Lakonian inscription describes a young Marcus Aurelius Zeuxippos as ‘Priest of the Leukippides and Neatherd [? bouagor] of the Tyndarids’, the Twins. (The priest’s name is a compound of zeuxis, yoking, and hippos, horse.) We may further note that Melanippē (Black Mare), in the absence of her husband Hellēn, was raped by Poseidon, himself Hippios, a god of horses and at one time owning a horse-form. Melanippē bore twins, which a herdsman brought up; they were defended by the bull and suckled by a cow; the oxherds told the king of the portent, and he consulted Hellēn, who advised that the twins be burned. Euripides’ lost play began with the mother’s protests. Poseidon chased Demeter in Arkadia as she sought for Persephone; she turned into a mare and he took horse-form to mate with her. At Phigalia the old wooden image of Demeter showed a horse-headed woman. The sacred marriage in earlier times had clearly been imaged, in one of its forms, as the mating of mare and horse, in single or dual terms. We shall later work out how the White Colts of Zeus became attached to Helen.
How thoroughly Sparta and its region were filled with cult-reflections of the stories of Helen and her family may be seen in a passage from Pausanias, that assiduous compiler of an invaluable guide-book, the Description of Greece, in the second century AD. ‘A little further on is a small hill, on which is an ancient temple with a wooden image of Aphrodite Armed. This is the only temple I know with an upper storey built on. It is a sanctuary of Morphō [perhaps the Shapely], a surname of Aphrodite, who sits wearing a veil and with fettered feet. The tale runs that the fetters were put on her by Tyndareos, who symbolized by the bonds the fidelity of wives to their husbands. I won’t accept for a moment the other version: that he punished the goddess with fetters because he considered that Aphrodite had caused the shame of his daughters; for it was surely quite silly to think he was punishing a goddess by making a cedar figure and calling it Aphrodite. Nearby is the sanctuary of Hilaiira and Phoibe. The poet of the Cypria called them daughters of Apollo. Their priestesses are young girls, called, like the goddesses, Leukippides [daughters of Leukippos, White Horse]. One of the images was beautified by a Leukippis who served the goddesses as a priestess; she gave it a face of modern workmanship in place of the old one, but was forbidden in a dream to do up the other one as well. Here has been hung in the room an Egg tied to ribbons. They assert it is the famous egg which legend says Leda brought forth.’ (Loukian retails the belief that each of the Twins in heaven had half an egg on his head, or above it, as a token of having been hatched. The half-egg is the cap or pilens each of them wore.)[114]
It seems that the Cypria, as well as telling how the twins clashed with Idas and Lynkeus through a cattle-raid, dealt with their carrying-off the two girls to whom they were betrothed. Here again is a rape in which the ravishers are overwhelmed by the beauty of the women; and the perpetrators are close in kin to Helen. Idas and Lynkeus were killed when they tried to rescue the girls. The Cypria stressed how well the Twins entertained Paris on his arrival in Sparta; several ancient writers therefore suggested that they were accomplices in his carrying-off of their sister or at least that they and Tyndareos were not opposed to the deed.[115]
The Cypria does not seem to have known of the Oath of the Suitors, though Apollodoros in his Library, which has been thought to follow our poem, does tell of it at length. In his Epitome he mentions the Plan of Zeus: ‘so that his daughter might become famous for embroiling Europe and Asia; or as others have said, so that the race of demigods might be exalted. For one of these reasons, Strife threw an apple, as a beauty-prize to be contended for by Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite; and Zeus bade Hermes lead them to Alexandros for him to judge them. They promised gifts to Alexandros. Hera said that if she were preferred to all her sex she would give him the kingdom over all men; Athena offered victory in war; Aphrodite the bed of Helen. He decided in favour of Aphrodite and sailed for Sparta with ships built by Pherek
los. Menelaos entertained him for nine days, then on the tenth went off on a journey to Crete to perform the obsequies of his mother’s father, Katreus.’ [Alkidamos said he went to Crete to decide the question of succession for the children of Molos.] ‘Alexandros then persuaded Helen to go off with him. And she deserted Hermione, then nine years old, put most of her property on board, and set sail with him by night. But Hera sent a heavy storm that forced them put in at Sidon; and in fear of pursuit Alexandros spent much time in Phoinikia and Cypros.’[116]
One fine passage from the Cypria which survives is an account of the Toilet of Aphrodite, which must describe her preparations for the Judgement. It brings out her close relation to the daimones of natural growth and blossoming: ‘She dressed in clothes made for her by the Hours and the Graces, and dyed in the flowers of the spring, such flowers as the Hours wear, crocus and hyacinth, flourishing violet, the lovely bloom of the rose, sweet and nectareous, and ambrosial buds, flowers of narcissos and lily: at every hour in such scented clothes is Aphrodite dressed....Then Aphrodite, the lover of laughter, and her attendants wove sweet-smelling garlands of flowers of the earth, and put them on their heads, the goddess with shining headgear, the Nymphs and the Graces, and golden Aphrodite, with beautiful songs on the crest of many-fountained Ida.’ Here is the goddess who infuses Helen with her irresistible charm.[117]
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There is less interest for us in the other cyclic epics than in the Cypria. The Aithiopis told of the killing of Achilles by Paris and Apollo. Thetis arrived with her sisters and the Muses, snatched the body from the pyre, and transported it to the White Island. In the Little Iliad, Philoktētēs, healed of his wound, shot and killed Paris; only another archer, it seems, could deal with him. Menelaos outraged the dead body, but the Trojans recovered and buried it. Helen married Deiphobos. (Helen as a lonely widow was inconceivable; also if she did not marry another Trojan there was no reason why she should not have been handed back to Menelaos and the war ended.) The Wooden Horse was taken into Troy. On the neck of a vase from Mykonos, dated later seventh century, is a clay relief depicting the horse on wheels; through each of seven big windows is seen an Achaian, four of whom hand out weapons; other men have already emerged. Pausanias mentions ‘the Horse called Wooden set up in bronze’, which showed heroes peeping out, in the sanctuary of Brauronian Artemis. He himself thought the real Horse was some sort of siege-engine. He also tells how the Argives, to commemorate a victory over the Lakedaimonians, ‘sent to Delphoi a bronze horse supposed to be the Wooden Horse of Troy’.[118]
In the Little Iliad it was narrated how Aithra ‘after the taking of Ilion, stole out of the town and came to the Greek camp, where she was recognized by the sons of Theseus [her grandsons]; and Demophon asked her of Agamemnon. Agamemnon wanted to grant him this favour, but wouldn’t do it till Helen agreed. And when he sent a herald, Helen agreed.’ The episode must have occurred before the sack; and we see how courteously Agamemnon treats his errant sister-in-law and her property, though she is of the enemy camp. In the Sack, Proklos curtly tells us, ‘Menelaos finds Helen and takes her to the ships after killing Deiphobos.’ A scholiast states that the Little Iliad gave the same account as Aristophanes in the Lysistrata: ‘Menelaos at least, when he somehow caught a glimpse of the breasts of naked Helen, threw away his sword, I think.’ It seems unlikely however that Helen at this period would have been described as naked; probably the scholiast refers only to the motif of casting the sword away. Attempts have been made to carry the breast theme back in time, linking it with the legend of Helen as a ‘deep-bosomed Okeanid’ to prove that she was always famed for the beauty of her breasts. Art however gives no support to this thesis. Perhaps at most in the Little Iliad Aphrodite appeared to protect her favourite and convert Menelaos’ wrath into desire. But even this would show a change from the Homeric attitude, in which the motive of the Achaians is to regain Helen, not to take revenge on her.[119] The idea of Helen’s personal culpability was growing.
Apollodoros records a tendency to link the Trojan prince Helenos with Helen (no doubt through the likeness of the names). After Paris’ death, he and Deiphobos ‘quarrelled as to which should marry Helen; and as Deiphobos was preferred, Helenos left Troy and lived on Ida. But as Chalkas said that he knew the oracles protecting the city, Odysseus waylaid him and brought him to the camp. Helenos was forced to tell how Ilion could be taken: first if Pelops’ bones were brought to them; next if Neoptolemos [Achilles’ son] fought for them; thirdly, if the palladion, fallen from heaven, was stolen from Troy — for while it was within the walls, the city couldn’t be won.’[120]
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The Boiotian farmer, Hesiod, probably of the eighth century, a little later than Homer, shows the full impact of the struggles and the new values emerging through the mercantile expansion; he represents both a summation of the epic tradition and a break from it. In many ways he carries on the old stories and views, though adding new aspects; but he brings a different moral focus to bear. He discards the Homeric valuation of Helen and sees her as responsible for her own actions, thus looking forwards to the tragic poets. He is much interested in the root causes at work in history, in the resulting patterns; he thus has his link with the cyclic poets, but his view is broader and deeper. Myth is being transformed into history.
In Works and Days, telling how the Race of Heroes was broken, he says that some were killed in evil war at Thebes, fighting ‘for the flocks of Oidipous’, while others died at Troy ‘for the sake of Helen with the lovely hair’. The survivors dwell in the Blessed Isles at the end of the world. This account is part of his general scheme of history. The race of heroes had been preceded by the ages of gold, silver and bronze; they were followed by the iron age, which now ruled. The idea of the great heroic cycles of Thebes and Troy as holding the clue to the breakdown of civilization, has become explicit and has been linked with a considered scheme of historical stages or levels. Hesiod sees men as torn or stimulated by two kinds of strife or conflict (eris): one which turns to war, violence, and accumulation of wealth through oppression; and another which drives men on competitively to outdo their fellows as farmers or craftsmen in productive activities. (He cannot see that his two types of conflict can merge with one another, though there is a sound idea behind his formulation, which contrasts the motive of greed and power with that of constructive work.) Helen is thus for the first time judged morally and seen as a mere adulteress, a member of a family notorious for infidelity; in part she exemplifies the first kind of eris, the irresponsible release of destructive energies. ‘And laughter-loving Aphrodite was jealous when she looked at them and cast on them evil repute. Then Timandra deserted Echemos, went off, and came to Phyleus dear to the blessed gods. And so Klytemnaistra deserted godlike Agamemnon and lay with Aigisthos, choosing a far worse mate. And so Helen stained the bed of gold-haired Menelaos.’ Aphrodite is no longer the protectress and divine otherself of Helen; she is as hostile to her as to the murderess Klytemnaistra. It would seem from such a statement that Hesiod knew nothing of the Judgement of Paris, or rejected it.[121]
Aidōs and nemesis are in Homer the two moral forces that underlie social sanction: respect and reverence for one another, and the indignation roused by a transgression of accepted limits. Poseidon, seeking to arouse the worn-out Achaians, cries: ‘Weaklings, soon you’ll cause yet greater evil by this slackness. Take in your hearts, each man of you, aidōs and nemesis.’ Hesiod keeps the connection, but sees the forces as goddesses. Aidōs and Nemesis rise from the earth, ‘their sweet forms wrapped in white robes’ to join the gods above on Olympos. When they go, ‘there will be no help against evil’. This disaster will happen when Zeus wearies of the present race of men with their endless discord, their repudiation of all the bonds of kin and comradeship, their creed that ‘might is right’. But what we see in the Hesiodic concept is not a mere personification of Homer’s nemesis; it is the attribution of the deepened moral sense expressed in Homer to the goddess of the ancient Rhamn
ousian cult.[122]
A fair-sized fragment from Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women describes the wooing of Helen; a number of the suitors are listed. Unfortunately the most interesting passage is fragmentary, but runs something like this (with conjectures bracketed): ‘[Philokte]tes [sought her], a leader of spearmen...most famous of men for [shooting from a]far and with the sharp spear. [And he came to Tyndare]os’ bright city for the sake of the [Argive] girl with the form of golden Aphrodite and the flashing movements of the Graces; and the darkfaced [daughter of Ocean] very l[ovely to see, bare her when she shared the embraces of Zeus and] of King Tyndareos in the [bri]ght palace...’ Amarygmata, used of the Graces, implies a flashing and changing of colour and light, a quick glancing movement. It will be seen that there is no certainty that Zeus or Leda were introduced. Next, someone, perhaps Philoktetes, brings presents including ‘women skilled in innocent arts, each with a golden bowl in her hands. And indeed Kastor and strong Polydeukes would have made him their brother with all their might; but Agamemnon, son-in-law of Tyndareos, wooed on his brother’s behalf.’ Then other suitors are mentioned. Odysseus sends no gifts as he knows Menelaos will win since ‘he had the most property of the Achaians and kept on sending messages’ (gifts) to the Twins. The wooings are done by proxy, though Idomeneus is said to have come in person because ‘he wanted to see Argive Helen, and so that no one else should bring back for him the girl whose renown spread all over the holy earth’. The competition is wholly carried out by gift-making. Menestheus tries to outdo the others, as he owns ‘very many stored treasures, gold and cauldrons and tripods’. But Lykomedes offers the most after Menelaos. Tyndareos accepts and keeps all the gifts, then he asks the suitors to take a powerful oath, sworn with unmixed libations, that he should have the final word and that if anyone ‘should cast off nemesis and aidōs, and take Helen by force, the others should pursue him and make him pay the penalty’. All swear the oath. Then Menelaos wins ‘because he gave the greatest gifts’. Achilles was still a boy, being trained by the centaur Cheiron on wooded Mt Pelion; otherwise he would certainly have won.[123] (Here nemesis and aidōs are purely moral forces as in Homer.)