Olga Levaniouk
Note:I am very grateful to the Conference organizers, Menelaos Christopoulos, Athina Papachrysostomou, Andreas P. Antonopoulos and to the participants in the “Mythical History and Historical Myth” Conference, for giving an earlier version of this study a chance to be heard and for their many helpful comments and suggestions.
Abstract
This chapter revisits the story of Agariste’s betrothal in Book 6 of Herodotus’ Histories and its relation to the Buddhist Jataka tale of the ‘Dancing Peacock’. On the one hand, there is no reason to seek the origins of Herodotus’ story in diffusion from India or in animal fable and in fact the implicit presumption of similarity to the Jataka has led to some forced interpretations of Herodotus’ text. On the other hand, a more systematic comparison between Herodotus and the Indian tale helps clarify elements of Agariste’s betrothal, in particular the role of the three protagonists: her father, Cleisthenes of Sicyon, and the two main suitors, Hippocleides and Megacles. It is suggested that the relationship between history and myth in the case of Agariste’s betrothal is of a mis-en-abime variety. Evidence from India suggests that there is nothing impossible in Cleisthenes staging an epic-like betrothal for his daughter; such a historical event could have been both fictionalized and modeled on myth, which, in its turn, could have reflected prior historical events.
The story of Agariste’s betrothal in Book 6 of Herodotus is a long-standing puzzle. The story is reminiscent of the betrothal of Helen in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women,1 yet the protagonists are historical figures. The plot seems simple, yet the story has been remarkably difficult to analyze. Everyone agrees that Herodotus pokes fun at someone or something, but not about whom or what. And there is no consensus on the question of the story’s relation to history, or its relation to myth or folktale. Within the last five years, Simon Hornblower has argued that the story is based on an actual event, while Stephanie West has argued that it is entirely fictional.2 In the decades preceding these publications, almost every permutation of these positions has been defended.3 Rather than adding to the tally on either side, in what follows I bring in some modern evidence to re-frame the question and in the process elucidate some overlooked aspects of the story.
The tale of Agariste’s betrothal (Histories 6.126–130) is part of Herodotus’ defense of the Alcmaeonids, which also includes the story of how Alcmaeon acquired his fabulous wealth from Croesus. The story itself starts with Cleisthenes, the vainglorious tyrant of Sicyon, who finds an exceptional way to marry off his daughter. After winning a victory in Olympia, Cleisthenes announces that those who think themselves worthy to be his son-in-law should assemble in Sicyon and compete for his daughter’s hand. The suitors gather and stay for a year, feasting and demonstrating their prowess at the racing course and palaistra. The tyrant favors the two Athenians, Megacles the Alcmaeonid and Hippocleides the Philaid, and of these two Hippocleides is the front-runner because of his good looks, wealth and family connections – until the last day. At the final feast Hippocleides begins to dance. He progresses from more sedate to more exuberant dances, first on the ground and then on a table, until finally he leans his head on the table and somehow moves his legs in the air.4 Ὦ παῖ Τεισάνδρου, ἀπορχήσαό γε μὲν τὸν γάμον (Herodotus 6.129) – “Son of Teisander, you have danced away your marriage!” says the scandalized Cleisthenes, only to hear the reckless suitor respond: Οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ (Herodotus 6.129) – “Hippocleides does not care.” Megacles, the runner-up, does not have an active role in the story, but now Cleisthenes makes his announcement giving Agariste to him. Herodotus concludes by tracing the descendants of Megacles through Cleisthenes the Athenian reformer, Hippocrates, the second Megacles, and the second Agariste down to Pericles (Histories 6.131).
It seems unreasonable to doubt that Megacles really did marry Agariste: after all, we know of their famous Athenian progeny. The rest of the story, however, is fair game for various degrees of doubt. In 1912, How and Wells were categorical in their assessment: “The fact of the wedding of the daughter and heiress of Cleisthenes is doubtless historical, the details are obviously fictitious.”5 This opinion has been recently championed by Stephanie West.6 In most recent work, however, the story is seen as a complex blend of the fabulous with the probable and historical. Hornblower and Pelling write: “(T)he precious picture of life in an archaic tyrannical court is enriched, but not falsified, by elements drawn from Greek epic and even – at some unascertainable remove – from an Indian folk-tale”.7 Stein-Hölkeskamp suggests that the story is relatively realistic about the way of life of the archaic elite8 and Papakonstantinou argues that it reflects elite perceptions as they were becoming consolidated in the face of potential change in late sixth century.9 While West finds it improbable that the story has any historical validity in its details,10 Biebas-Richter argues that a wholesale invention is less probable still, since members of the Philaid and Alcmaeonid families might have been present at Herodotus’ readings in Athens.11 The family lore of these two aristocratic clans is often evoked as the source of Herodotus’ story, but there is no agreement as to which clan passed it down.12 Reading Helen’s wedding in the Hesiodic Catalogue vis-à-vis Agariste’s betrothal, Ormand remains agnostic on the historical credibility of Herodotus’ narrative.13 It is usually assumed that the Catalogue influences the betrothal, whether this means that the historical Cleisthenes models his daughter’s betrothal on that of Helen, or that a poet does, or storytellers prior to Herodotus, or Herodotus himself. By contrast, Irwin suggests that the directions of influence could be reversed, and Helen’s wedding in the Catalogue is actually modeled on Agariste’s betrothal.14
Thomas argues for seeking its origins in the popular oral traditions of Athens, stories that the other Athenians tell about their elites.15 Kurke also supposes that the story has oral origins, but of a different kind: in her view, Herodotus wittily adapts animal fable into history.16 Müller, on the contrary, is certain that Herodotus got his account from a written sixth-century novella, where it was told in longer form.17 Many think the story bears the stamp of the symposium: if the symposium is not where it originates, then perhaps it is a conduit whereby it comes to Herodotus.18
Discussing almost a century of research on Herodotus’ debt to oral storytelling, Luraghi sums it up as follows: “Herodotus, to a large extent, collected not information in the rough, but stories, with fully developed narrative structures and encoded meanings.”19 The conclusion is well justified but seems to invite the type of analysis which looks in Herodotus for signs of the story’s previous incarnations in the hopes of reconstructing the pre-Herodotean layers, using techniques reminiscent of analytical or neo-analytical methodology in Homeric research. As a thought experiment it is easy enough to analyze Herodotus’ telling of the Agariste story in a stratigraphic way, looking for traces of earlier versions. The betrothal of Agariste could easily fit into the popular milieu of Athenian storytelling,20 which shows preoccupation with the wealth and connections of certain families.21 It seems reasonable to assume that a story that makes Cleisthenes look ridiculous would have appealed to democracy-loving Athenians and to imagine that anti-tyrannical elements of the story are of Athenian origin.22 A neat picture emerges: the epic-styled parts of the story stem from sixth-century Sicyon, while the comic and fabular layers are added later in Athens, perhaps by Herodotus.23 But the tenuous nature of such reasoning is obscured by the gaps in our knowledge. What if there was in Sicyon a local tradition of comedy and what if tyrants were its stock figures?24 Arguably the sixth-century Sicyonians who actually had to live with Cleisthenes had more reason to laugh at him than the Athenians a century later. Or else, perhaps there was no Sicyonian story at all: a story about how one Athenian danced away a tyrant’s daughter and another one got her could have started in Athens. If the same element in the story could benefit the Alcmaeonids and the Philaids, if a poetic touch could exist in prose, then any stratigraphic reconstruction has to remain both limited and speculative. The problems here run deeper than any given scholar’s greater or lesser success. It is simply a questionable undertaking to compare different versions of a story when you only have one of them.
These methodological difficulties are also in evidence when it comes to perhaps the most fascinating question regarding the Agariste-logos: its relationship with an Indian fable known as the ‘Dancing peacock’, which comes from a collection called the Jatakas, or Buddhist Birth Stories, that are assumed to be folktales taken from pre-Buddhist oral tradition. This parallel was pointed out by Macan already in 1895. Here is the story in Rhys Davids’ (1880) translation:25
Long ago, in the first age of the world, the quadrupeds chose the Lion as their king, the fishes the Leviathan and the birds the Golden Goose. Now the royal Golden Goose had a daughter, a young goose most beautiful to see; and he gave her the choice of a husband. And she chose the one she liked the best. For, having given her the right to choose, he called together all the birds in the Himalaya region. And crowds of geese and other birds of various kinds, met together on a great flat piece of rock. The king sent for his daughter, saying: “Come and choose the husband you like best!” On looking over the assembly of birds, she caught sight of the peacock, with a neck as bright as gems and a many-colored tail; and she made the choice with the words, “Let this one be my husband!”
So, the assembly of birds went up to the peacock and said, “Friend Peacock! This king’s daughter having to choose her husband from amongst so many birds, has fixed her choice on you!” “Up to today you would not see my greatness,” said the peacock, so overflowing with delight that in breach of all modesty he began to spread his wings and dance in the midst of the vast assembly – and in dancing he exposed himself.
Then the royal Golden Goose was shocked! And he said, “This fellow has neither modesty in his heart nor decency in his outward behavior! I shall not give my daughter to him. He has broken loose from all sense of shame!” And he uttered this verse to all the assembly –
Pleasant is your cry, brilliant is your back,
Almost like the opal in its color is your neck,
The feathers of your tail reach about a fathom’s length,
But such a dancer I can give no daughter, sir, of mine!!
Then the king in the midst of the whole assembly bestowed his daughter on a young goose, his nephew. And the peacock was covered with shame at not getting the fair gosling and rose straight up from the place and flew away.26
Most of those who accept the connection between Herodotus and the Jataka agree with Macan that this story traveled from India to Greece and lost its animal guise along the way.27 Macan saw the wedding of Agariste as a historic event that was “obscured, or glorified” by “adventitious influences from various quarters” including “the remoter workings of oriental fable, transmitted, and transmuted, by long and subtle processes, from Hindustan to Hellas.”28 Similarly, West argues for adaptations as the story traveled westward, “with merchants and soldiers.”29
Kurke, by contrast, argues that Herodotus knew the fable in a not-so-transmuted form, as an animal fable, and that he places clues to its animal origins in his narrative for his readers to find.30 I am persuaded by Kurke’s demonstration that Herodotus’ narrative technique is in significant ways Aesopic, but the specific signs pointing to the Dancing Peacock tale are a different matter. One of these supposed signs is the use of the verb ἐξογκόω (‘to make swell’) to describe the suitors being swollen with pride (ἐξογκώμενοι, 6.126.3), in which Kurke sees a hint at the peacock puffed-up for dance. For the most part, however, the verb ἐξογκόω does not apply to fluffy birds or animals and instead occurs in contexts connected with food, wealth and pride, all of which applies in Herodotus.31 Why would anyone think of a peacock? Kurke also suggests that by naming Smindyrides of Sybaris first and emphasizing his luxurious lifestyle Herodotus hints both at the peacock (luxury) and Sybarite fables. But there could be other reasons for starting with Smindyrides and this seems much too slight a basis to argue for Herodotus’ knowledge of the Dancing Peacock in animal form. I also find unconvincing Hornblower and Pelling’s attempts to see a hint at the fable in the mention of Hippocleides’ good looks, which is ‘strictly irrelevant’ but reminiscent of the peacock.32 Yet if the Indian tale did not exist I doubt anyone would be surprised to find good looks mentioned in connection with competing for a bride.
What, then, are we to make of Herodotus’ Agariste tale and its historical and mythic qualities? What is a suitable methodology to apply to such a narrative chimaera? I think we ask too much of our analytic tools when we expect them to give us answers about the story’s origins or stages in its development. On the other hand, the Jataka tale does help in thinking about the Agariste episode of Herodotus by making visible interesting oddities about Herodotus’ text, such as the fact observed by West that Hippocleides dances before Cleisthenes pronounces him to be the winner.33 There is also something funny about the way the story ends. For many readers it no doubt ends with Hippocleides’ retort: οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ (6.129). This phrase is introduced with a version of a typical fable formula which signals a winning punchline or retort: ὑπολαβὼν εἶπε (‘rejoining, he said’).34 This expression is typically used at the end of a fable where it stops discussion, silences objections, and often introduces a built-in ‘moral message’.35 So, when Hippocleides says οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ we have an illusion of the end of the story.36 For a moment Hippocleides seems to have the last word. This is precisely how Hippocleides’ bon mot is taken, for example, by Kurke,37 who is in agreement with many when she writes that Hippocleides “is the hero, the character we admire and identify with, in his independence and aplomb in the face of self-important tyrannical authority (while we might say that both Cleisthenes and the hapless Megacles are the butts of this joke).”38 To what extent we admire and identify with Hippocleides is an open question, and, of course, much depends on who ‘we’ are, but this response has been at the center of most modern interpretations. For example, West agrees that the lesson the peacock learns in the Jataka is ‘subverted by Hippokleides’ nonchalant response’,39 and that Megacles, on the contrary, is diminished by it. Biebas-Richter sees even broader political implications in Hippocleides’ affront and interprets it as a protest against Cleisthenes’ tyrannical way of holding the contest.40
I do not want to dispute these readings: Hippocleides’ retort is a memorable part of the story and many audiences would enjoy seeing Cleisthenes taken down a notch. It is easy to imagine a telling of the story that would end with οὐ φροντίς. It would have been a story mainly about Hippocleides’ escapade, such as would have provided, as Irwin puts it, “much material around the crater.”41 It would feature a young handsome aristocrat with a devil-may-care attitude, who was never going to marry the daughter of that stuck-up pseudo-Tyndareus anyway. He easily enthralls the pompous tyrant and gets chosen as ‘the best’ only to show his contempt by dancing on the table. οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ would be a fitting line to cap such a story, and it would be in its proper place, at the end. Perhaps such a tale was told in Athens ‘around the crater’.
It is not quite the story that Herodotus tells. In the Histories, as in the Jataka tale, the father of the bride has the last word. Hippocleides delivers his insult, but the story goes on: Cleisthenes gives a speech to the suitors saying that he approves of them all and, of course, gives Agariste to Megacles (Histories 6.130–131). Herodotus then concludes with a reference to the Alcmaeonids’ fame. All of this blunts the effect of Hippocleides’ jibe. Is this ending one of the supposedly tell-tale inconsistencies caused by Herodotus’ adapting a ‘timeless fable’ into an episode of archaic Greek history?42
One way of gaining some perspective on this matter is to broaden the comparison beyond Herodotus and the Jataka. To do so I now turn to some additional parallels from India, which come not from the mists of history but rather from the recent news. Although the stories that follow are from India and it is possible that some degree of complicated historical continuity is responsible for the similarities between them and the Jataka, no such continuity is necessary for my argument and indeed similar stories from another culture could have served my purpose just as well. My aim is not to establish connections but rather to find additional comparison points in an attempt to elucidate the typology of the Agariste tale, a typology that can then be used to counter-balance the subjectivity and ad hoc nature of the tale’s modern interpretations. I hope that this admittedly unusual move will help also with the question of mythical history, or historical myth, in Herodotus. Consider the 2016 wedding of Brahmani Reddy, daughter of Janardhan Reddy, a rich industrialist and politician. The Times of India headline reads: “The wedding of Gali Janardhan Reddy’s daughter, rumoured to cost around Rs 550 crore, could well be strategized as a launch pad to return to power to cleanse the humiliating stain of his jail conviction.”43 Three factors are of interest here: first, that this wedding is part of a political strategy; second, its lavishness (550 crore is about 77 million dollars); and third, the element of recreation of the fabulous in this wedding. Here is how the Hindustan Times describes the set-up:
Reddy has rented about 36 acres of land at the sprawling Bengaluru Palace for this week’s extravaganza … . A massive set has been erected to resemble a cinematic rural paradise filled with quaint villages, temples, markets and homes. Set designer and art director Shashidhar Adapa, known for his work in Kannada cinema, has been working on this set with his team for several weeks. “The whole focus is on making everything look aesthetic,” he says. “There are no vulgar elements on display here … This is tastefully done, and of course at a scale to match the wedding.”
A replica of the Vijayanagar kingdom has also been erected over many acres and Reddy has roped in an impressive lineup of top Bollywood, Tollywood and Kannada artistes, along with scores of musicians and dancers, to perform at the venue. Is all this not over the top? “Why would you think so?” asks a former media expert who was closely associated with the state BJP unit. “He is spending based on his prowess. It may look inappropriate, but it is not wrong”.
News Minute of Tuesday, November 15, 2016 adds an interesting detail regarding the replica of the Vijayanagar kingdom:
Janardhana Reddy, who reportedly believes he’s the reincarnation of the 14th-century Vijayanagara King Krishnadevaraya, has recreated the Vijayanagara empire on 36 acres of land at Palace Grounds in Bengaluru. No faux-royal wedding is complete without a palace. Janardhana Reddy’s money will be spent on building King Krishnadevaraya’s palace, Lotus Mahal and Mahanavami Dibba, all painstakingly reconstructed by some of Bollywood’s biggest art directors and around 100 labourers.44
The example of Janardhan Reddy underscores the possibility that not all the fabulous details of Agariste’s betrothal need be fictional. Herodotus’ story should not be seen as implausible on the grounds that no hard-headed tyrant would go to such trouble45 or that the real-life Cleisthenes would be seeking practical advantages rather than some abstract quasi-epic glory.46 When Murray argues that Cleisthenes really did stage an epic-like event because “everything that is known of the life style of the aristocracy suggests that it is true,” he might be claiming more certainty than is justified, but he has a point.47
One thing that is distinctive about Reddy’s excesses is his decision to re-create what might be thought of as a mythological precedent from the past. If Cleisthenes did style his daughter’s betrothal after that of Helen, perhaps he had a similar idea. Even though Krishnadevaraya is a historical figure, and even if we assume that Tyndareus was a historical figure for Cleisthenes, these are figures that belong to a grander-than-now past. Yet Reddy did not baulk at it. Direct emulation or competition with such a legendary past is a treacherous undertaking: this kind of grandiosity is so excessive as to balance on the verge of being grotesque. The glorious pageant can easily tip into comedy and, indeed, much of the media coverage of the Brahmani Reddy’s wedding was somewhat derisive. The comic elements of Herodotus’ narrative, then, are not incompatible with a historical grand betrothal in Sicyon, nor do the excesses Herodotus describes necessarily conceal some sensible real-life event.
If the grandeur of Agariste’s betrothal finds parallels in modern India, so does the mishap with Hippocleides. There is a variety of stories in the Indian news about weddings falling apart at the last moment. Since many marriages are arranged and bride and groom often do not know each other until the wedding, last-minute revelations do happen and disasters do strike. According to a story from The Independent (18 February 2015), a bride swapped her groom for a wedding guest mid-ceremony after he had an epileptic seizure:
“Jugal Kishore, 25, reportedly fell to the ground during the traditional exchange of ‘varmala’ flower garlands in the northern town of Rampur. His illness was a shock to his wife-to-be, 23-year-old Indira, who was apparently furious that she and her family had not been told of Mr. Kishore’s epilepsy. Instead of calling the wedding off, she quickly chose wedding guest Harpal Singh, her sister’s brother-in-law, to replace him. Casually dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, he accepted.”48
In this story, something disqualifying in the eyes of the bride and her family is discovered about the groom and so at the last moment it all falls through, a situation reminiscent of the Dancing Peacock and also of Agariste’s betrothal. Also reminiscent of the Dancing Peacock is the fact that the bride immediately chooses another option, and a safe one. The successful groom is a relative of hers, her sister’s brother-in-law. In the Jataka tale the golden gosling’s father also turns to a relative once the peacock is disqualified – his nephew, a young golden goose, is chosen without competition.
Finally, there is one more item from the Indian news to consider. This one has to do with a dance and specifically with the so-called ‘nagin’ (that is, snake) dance, which a few years ago was popular at Indian weddings. The leader of the dance impersonates a snake, swaying and making undulating movements and sometimes slithering on the floor. It is this dance that proved to be the undoing of one unlucky groom. Here is the article from The Times of India of 30 June 2017:
Priyanka Tripathi, 23, was all set to marry Anubhav Mishra. Both families belonged to the same community in Shahjahanpur city and knew each other. They had exchanged gifts and performed all the pre-wedding rituals, waiting just for the big day. And then Mishra did the dance. Just before he was to be formally welcomed by the bride’s family, the groom’s attention was drawn to a ‘nagin song’ being played by the DJ. He began to sway and dance as his friends showered currency notes on him. The bride’s family, meanwhile, watched in stunned shock. At that moment, Priyanka decided that the drunk man was not suitable for her. Neither persuasion nor threats by the groom’s family and friends moved her. Finally, the marriage was called off.49
This bride, like the one in the preceding examples, did not remain unmarried: “A day later, the girl tied the knot with a more sober mate,” reports The Times of India.50 This groom really did dance away his marriage, and in this case, as in the previous example and also in the Dancing Peacock, a guest steps into the groom’s place.
These news items suggest a number of questions. First of all, I wonder what the scholarly reaction would be if instead of The Independent and The Times of India, these stories were found in Herodotus. Would we think that this last story, the one about the nagin dance, is based on the Dancing Peacock fable? Would we take the mention of the snake as a sign that the author knew the fable in its animal form? The similarities between the Agariste tale and the Dancing Peacock may seem more indicative than they really are, simply because we have so little evidence and so few examples. This is not to say that the fable of the Dancing Peacock could not have traveled to Greece, only that it did not have to. Herodotus’ account of Agariste’s betrothal could have come into being without the Jataka and we have no good reason to assume that it is based on the Dancing Peacock tale, in animal form or not. On the plus side, none of this precludes comparison between the two tales. Sometimes it is impossible to know what kind of comparison one is making (common inheritance? similar cultural circumstances? diffusion?) and yet be able to derive some interpretive benefit from it. In the concluding part of this article, I offer two examples.
First of all, the Indian news items may help with the question of whether or not Hippocleides exposes himself when he dances leaning his head on the table. I say ‘question’ even though most modern interpretations simply make this assumption, and usually, spoken or unspoken, the influence of the Golden Peacock is evident. Hornblower and Pelling note in their commentary that “Greek males wore no underwear, and so there may be a pun on ὄρχις = testicle. That would square with the dancing peacock.”51 Attempting to render the supposed pun into English, Ogden translates Ὦ παῖ Τεισάνδρου, ἀπορχήσαό γε μὲν τὸν γάμον (Histories 6.129) as “You have ballsed up your marriage.”52 In the Jataka tale the exposure is indeed the decisive factor and it is explicit. The pithy statement that the peacock exposed himself is followed by a short sentence in which the Golden Goose annuls his daughter’s choice. In her summary of Herodotus’ narrative, Kurke makes it sound exactly like the Golden Goose: “(I)n the Greek version, Hippocleides also exposes himself when he stands on his head and waves his legs in the air – and it is this shocking breach of decorum that causes Cleisthenes finally to snap.”
It is impossible to prove that Hippocleides does not expose himself in Herodotus’ story. Yet if nakedness is as important there as it is in the Dancing Peacock, if it is what causes Cleisthenes to snap, the decisive moment of the story, then it is very puzzling that Herodotus does not actually mention it. Did he somehow miss his own punchline? Of course, one can choose to see the hint in ἀπορχήσαο, but there seems to be no obvious reason for such indirectness, especially in a farcical story and especially since elsewhere Herodotus is not prissy about nakedness.
The modern stories show that you can dance away your marriage fully clothed. No doubt undressing while drunk could serve as the nail in the coffin of a marriage arrangement, but it does not have to be present. In the Histories, Hippocleides leans (ἐρείδω) his head on the table, but that is not the same as doing a headstand and exposing his genitals. The reason a headstand is usually envisaged is presumably the verb χειρονομέω. If we assume that it indicates ‘gesturing with one’s feet as if they were hands’ then a headstand seems unavoidable.53 But the verb does not actually mean ‘to gesticulate’ in fifth- and fourth-century usage: it refers to shadow boxing or similar movement, essentially a rhythmic alternation of hands, one forward, one back.54 It does not imply that Hippocleides performs some elaborate hand-gestures with his feet while in a headstand, which is not easy to do, especially προϊούσης τῆς πόσιος (‘as the drinking went on’).55 Herodotus does not tell us how long Hippocleides keeps his feet in the air, nor whether he lifts them off the ground just once or repeatedly. Perhaps, as Murray implies in his translation (“and finally standing his head on the table he began beating time with his legs”) Hippocleides simply kicks up with his feet, alternating them as one would alternate hands in shadow boxing: one on the ground, one in the air.56 In this case, the risk of exposure is slight. Herodotus does not describe Hippocleides in a headstand with his private parts hanging down for all to see and it is foolhardy to rely on the Dancing Peacock to impute this picture into the story.
The progression of Herodotus’ narrative also does not support the modern fixation on Hippocleides’ genitals. Herodotus makes it clear that Cleisthenes is unhappy with the dancing from the beginning. When Hippocleides begins to dance on the table (right side up), Cleisthenes restrains himself from shouting but he has already soured at the prospect of marrying Agariste to this Athenian: ἀποστυγέων γαμβρὸν δή οἱ ἔτι γενέσθαι Ἱπποκλείδεα διὰ τήν τε ὄρχησιν καὶ τὴν ἀναιδείην (‘abhorring the thought that Hippocleides might still become his son-in-law because of the dance and the shamelessness’) (Histories 6.129). Herodotus uses the word ἀναιδείη (‘shamelessness’) to describe what Cleisthenes thinks of his potential son-in-law before Hippocleides does anything to expose his genitals. Cleisthenes finally snaps when he sees the Athenian kicking with his legs (σκέλεσι χειρονομήσαντα). The movement of the legs is given prominence, while the effect this movement is supposed to cause – Hippocleides’ nakedness – is passed over in silence. It seems that Hippocleides starts with relatively stately dancing, but at this point he is not really dancing at all any more, just kicking (wildly and drunkenly, it seems likely), like Charmides in Xenophon’s Symposium, who does not know how to dance, but comes as close as he can by doing the action he describes as χειρονομέω.57 For Hippocleides, as for Anubhav Mishra, drunk, undignified and embarrassing dancing turns out to be one step too far even without undressing and in this sense the modern news story may be closer to Herodotus’ account than the Jataka.
Hippocleides is a complex figure. His display maybe disruptive and Aesopic but none of that fits easily with his own status. Hippocleides is himself rich and not free of grandiose pretentions. Can we be sure that his role in Agariste’s tale was universally seen as an example of ‘independence and aplomb’, as Kurke suggests,58 and not of foolishness on the part of a spoilt golden youth? It could also be a bit of both.59 Of course, Cleisthenes is also an object of laughter and Hippocleides’ retort does puncture his pretentions. But it is possible to laugh at both of them.
The notion that Hippocleides makes a mistake has not been popular. Biebas-Richter, for example, dismisses the possibility that Hippocleides overplays his hand, arguing that after a year-long stay in Sicyon he would have known how to behave there and therefore his actions are intentional.60 But a young man intoxicated by drink and zeal of victory is not a rare occurrence and being carried away is exactly what does happen to the Dancing Peacock in the Jataka tale. It is also what really did happen to the nagin-dancing groom, Anubhav Mishra, who presumably knew how to behave in his own community, yet went too far and danced away his marriage.
For my second example, I focus on a curious feature in two of the Indian news items and in the Dancing Peacock fable, namely the ease with which another groom is substituted for the disqualified one. Indira of Rampur substituted her sister’s brother-in-law for her epileptic groom. Priyanka Tripathi found a substitute on the next day. At the end of the Jataka tale the Golden Goose gives his daughter to his nephew. Something similar happens in the Agariste story. On the one hand, Megacles is Cleisthenes’ second favorite and so it is no surprise that the bride ultimately goes to him. On the other hand, Megacles’ role in the narrative is so minor that his triumph at the end is unexpected. His slight narrative presence has been seen as an indication of inferiority (Kurke describes him as ‘hapless’ while West thinks he is diminished by being chosen ‘only by default’)61 or a way of undermining the Alcmaeonids,62 but should we assume that Herodotus’ audiences would have had the same reaction? The Indian press does not ridicule or pity the substitute grooms; it is those who lose their brides that are gawked at.
The possibility of marrying a bystander made evident by the Indian news stories sheds light on some of the mechanics of Agariste’s tale and the Dancing Peacock. These stories underscore the fact that every one of the contenders is suitable, or assumed to be so, unless and until there are indications to the contrary. Each contestant offers his peculiar advantages, but they are all ‘the best’ because of their default belonging to an aristocratic elite. This belonging is assumed and not explicitly questioned, but in certain circumstances this can change. It is essential for every suitor to verify his belonging to this group of suitable boys and to do nothing that could cast doubt on his credentials. From this point of view, the fact that the Golden Goose selects his nephew, or a bride selects her sister’s brother-in-law seems logical. In each case, the replacement groom is already part of the family and is therefore a known quantity. We do not hear anything about the nephew of the Golden Goose earlier in the fable, but we do not need to: he is a safe bet. Arguably it is not only the peacock but also the Golden Goose himself who learns a lesson in the Jataka tale: if you search for the best it is easy to miscalculate or go too far. Impressed by the peacock’s shining feathers, the princess-goose almost causes her father to contract a marriage with an embarrassing character. Chastened by his narrow escape, the Golden Goose sees that his own nephew, a familiar figure who perhaps seemed underwhelming before, is actually the perfect choice.
The same can be said about Megacles. Megacles is a suitable candidate, but Hippocleides seems to offer something extra because of his beauty, wealth, and connections – until, that is, he undermines his standing.63 Those extra qualities of Hippocleides are not essential and everything that is essential is still available in Megacles. Megacles finds few fans among modern readers but nothing disparaging is said about him in the tale and the ease with which a substitute groom is found in the Indian tales suggests that there are circumstances when being chosen ‘by default’ is not so diminishing. After all, Megacles gets the prize – he turns out to be the safe bet, the real thing, the young golden goose, and he does, through his marriage with Agariste, bring fame and wealth to his family, while Cleisthenes’ infatuation with Hippocleides is exposed as misguided.
Revisiting Herodotus’ story in light of the Indian news, we cannot resolve the ambiguities of Herodotus’ narrative, but we can see them differently. Hippocleides may be both an appealingly devil-may-care aristocrat and an empty-headed golden youth who dances away Agariste. Is he also a proud Athenian standing up to a tyrant? Perhaps. Megacles is not simply a nonentity, but an unimpeachable candidate for marriage who is also lucky. His marriage to Agariste might complicate Herodotus’ defense of the Alcmaeonids, but Megacles himself is hardly mocked.
Does all of this shed any light on the question I started with, the question whether Herodotus’ story is historically based or fictional? Although it may seem that answering ‘both’ is tantamount to giving up, I think it represents a recognition of the fact that an ‘either/or’ question is not applicable to the evidence. On the one hand, there is no reason to doubt a priori that Cleisthenes staged an epic-like betrothal for Agariste. On the other hand, we have no reason to seek the origins of Herodotus’ story in a Jataka tale. That tale is a precious comparison point, but we do not have to assume that it was actually diffused into Greece, in animal form or otherwise. The relationship between history and myth in the case of Agariste’s betrothal could well be of a mise en abyme variety: it may belong to a type of event – and story – that flows in a somewhat systemic way out of the features of our species and cultural structures of particular societies, crossing freely between history and myth and belonging fully to neither. The permeable interface between mythical history and historical myth in Agariste’s betrothal remains invisible, like Agariste, who never appears in action and yet it is also essential: without it, just as without her, there would be no story.
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Notes
1
See especially Ormand (2014) 226–235.
2
Hornblower (2014); West (2015).
3
See e.g. Macan (1895); How and Wells (1912); Aly (1921); McGregor (1941); Stein-Hölkeskamp (1989); Biebas-Richer (2016); Hornblower and Pelling (2017).
4
Hdt. 6.129. For more on Hippocleides’ dancing see below.
5
How and Wells (1912) ad 6.130.
6
West (2015).
7
Hornblower and Pelling (2017) 275. See further below on the Indian folktale.
8
Stein-Hölkeskamp (1989) 119.
9
Papakonstantinou (2010).
10
West (2015) 8. West seems to base her assessment on her feeling that what Herodotus describes (“a house-party bringing together for many months a group of wealthy young men thus freed from the constraints of familiar routines”) would be a terrible idea.
11
Biebas-Richter (2016) 283.
12
For the debate see Thomas (1989) 238–282; Papakonstantinou (2010) 71–93; Lavelle (2014) 331–336.
13
Ormand (2014) 235.
14
Irwin (2005) 66.
15
Thomas (1989) 271–282.
16
Kurke (2011) 398–431. Ormand (2014) 227 seems to accept Kurke’s analysis, or at any rate the notion that the episode is “based on an ancient eastern folktale.”
17
Müller (2006) 225–276. In my opinion, Müller’s analysis claims more certainty about Herodotus’ sources than is possible. He suggests, for example, that the ‘Agariste-logos’ is the only part of the Alcmaeonid excursus that derives from a prosaic literary source dating to the late sixth century (because it is not as paratactic and associative as an oral narrative is expected to be) and that Herodotus included this ‘logos’ because it was a ‘most favorite’ story, in spite of the fact that it fits badly into the Histories and contradicts Herodotus’ purpose of defending the Alcmaeonids. The question of Herodotus’ purpose, however, is not so easily answered, while the quality of ‘fit’ is entirely subjective.
18
On the symposium connection see in particular Papakonstantinou (2010) 77–88; Irwin (2005) 65–73.
19
Luraghi (2013) 10.
20
Thomas (1989) 266–277.
21
Thomas (1989) 267–268. Cf. the story of Callias’ daughters (Hdt. 6.121.1), on which see Georgiou (2002) 98.
22
Fowler (2003) 313–314 writes: “This story would have gone down a storm in democratic Athens.” See also Thomas (1989) 269; Kurke (2011) 426; Strasburger (2013) 311; West (2015) 22–23; Biebas-Richter (2016).
23
The epic coloring is universally recognized but does not have an obvious explanation: it could be the work of the storytellers but also the result of Cleisthenes styling his daughter’s betrothal after epic models (Griffith [2006] 136; Murray [1993] 212–213).
24
See Ogden (1997) 117–118 (with reference to Ath. 621–622) and Cohn (2016) (with reference to AP 11.32) for farcical and comic performance at Sicyon.
25
Rhys Davids (1880) 291–294.
26
Rhys Davids (1880) 292–293.
27
Warren (1894) 477; Kurke (2011) 417; West (2015) 26–28; Hornblower and Pelling (2017) 275–276.
28
Macan (1895) 310.
29
West (2015) 27–28.
30
Kurke (2011) 417–420.
31
Το the best of my knowledge, ἐξογκόω is not used about birds (or other animals) puffing themselves up, at least not in Herodotus’ time and a few centuries after. It is used of full stomachs (e.g Aesop. 24.3 and 47.3), or wealth and possessions (Eur. IA 921) or things heaped up (compresses in Hp. Art 14, a tomb in E. Or. 402) or of being proud and full of oneself (Eur. And. 703 and Hipp. 938, Hdt. 6.126). Some usages, such as Eur. Supp. 864, combine several connotations: here, the verb refers to a wealthy man who is proud of his wealth, which is visualized as food (τραπέζαις ὅστις ἐξογκοῖτ’ ἄγαν). Given these connotations, nothing suggests that Herodotus’ readers or listeners would think of a peacock when they heard ἐξογκόω.
32
Hornblower and Pelling (2017) 276.
33
West (2015) 30.
34
Karadagli (1981) 127–128 discusses ὑποτυχών / -οῦσα εἶπε / ἔφη as a fabular formula and Kurke (2011) 129–130 suggests that this post-classical phrase is a lexical replacement of an earlier formula with ὑπολαμβάνω in place of ὑποτυγχάνω.
35
Kurke (2011) 128–130.
36
It is followed by Herodotus’ mysterious ἀπὸ τούτου μὲν τοῦτο ὀνομάζεται. For the proverbial quality of οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ and a possible explanation for the puzzling use of ὀνομάζεται here, see Kazanskaya (2015).
37
Kurke (2011) 421.
38
Kurke (2011) 421.
39
West (2015) 28–29.
40
Biebas-Richter (2016) 289.
41
Irwin (2005) 64.
42
West (2015) 30.
43
Hindustan Times, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/janardhan-reddy-s-spending-on-daughter-s-wedding-is-as-strategic-as-extravagant/story-fTwwpHGEGsQ5T1MJWkalSO.html (accessed 16.11.2016).
44
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/cash-king-janardhana-reddy-builds-model-palace-daughters-500-crore-wedding-52914 (accessed 16.11.2016).
45
West (2015) 8.
46
Lavelle (2014) 321.
47
Murray (1993) 213.
48
Times of India: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bareilly/Groom-unwell-bride-weds-guest-in-fit-of-rage/articleshow/46277810.cms (accessed 16.11.2016).
The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indian-bride-marries-wedding-guest-after-husband-has-epileptic-seizure-during-ceremony-10053824.html (accessed 16.11.2016).
49
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/bride-calls-off-wedding-after-grooms-nagin-dance/articleshow/59379083.cms (accessed 30.06.2017).
50
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/bride-calls-off-wedding-after-grooms-nagin-dance/articleshow/59379083.cms (accessed 30.06.2017).
51
Hornblower and Pelling (2017) 284 ad 6.129.4.
52
Ogden (1997) 117.
53
Lavelle (2014) 329 translates the verb in Herodotus as “made his legs gesture like hands,” referring to Athenaeus 631c and 22a, where the noun χειρονομία is used to indicate pantomime. Both examples are nearly seven hundred years later than Herodotus.
54
E.g. Thrasym. 85 B 4 D–K, where Timocreon shadowboxes after a match to show how many blows he still has left in him; Pl. Leg. 830 c, where χειρονομέω describes a type of boxing training without a bag. The meaning ‘gesticulate’ does emerge, but half a millennium later, in the second and third centuries CE (D.C. 36.30, Ael. VH 14.22). See Olson (2018) for a detailed discussion.
55
Some vase illustrations used in discussions of Hippocleides’ dance do not show a headstand, but rather a handstand (e.g. Attic red-figure psykter signed by Douris (ca. 500–470 BCE) British Museum 1868,0606.7 or red-figure hydria from Campania (ca. 340–330 BCE) British Museum 1814,0704.566.) It is much easier to move one’s feet in a handstand than in a headstand. This is not to say that the latter is impossible – it is done in yoga and breakdancing – but it certainly takes training. Lavelle (2014) 330, while noting that the vases mentioned above do not depicted headstands, nevertheless claims that they offer “proof positive” regarding the posture necessary to “make hand-gestures with his feet”, namely that Hippocleides was “head-standing faced away from the audience regarding his dancing”. Lavelle (2014) 330 thus argues that Hippocleides’ buttocks rather than his genitals would have been visible to the audience, making the dance “satyric and homoerotically suggestive.” The only example of a headstand with moving feet that I could find on vases is on a Cup from Todi (Museo Civico 471), illustrated in Dasen (1993) pl. 53.2. Here, two completely naked dwarfs dance on a table, one of them on his head. Dasen discusses similar vases and points out that the dwarfs are always naked and usually in pairs (Dasen [1993] 232). It is not clear who they are. There is, however, a fragment of a stamnos with a depiction of a dwarf (right side up, probably dancing on a table) who is actually named Hippocleides (stamnos from Erlangen, University I 707, illustrated in Dasen [1993] pl. 47.1). Dasen hypothesizes that this might be a particular entertainer who could have taken ‘Hippocleides’ as a pseudonym “since his celebrity was due to an insolent celebration of the pleasure of dancing.” She notes also that the dwarf might not be a historical person at all.
56
Murray (1993) 213.
57
Xen. Smp. 2.19.
58
Kurke (2011) 421.
59
Perhaps the saying was used in a positive way in Hermippus’ lost Demotai. Unfortunately, Pausanias Atticista, who mentions Hermippus’ use of the saying, does not explain how it was used, but rather summarizes Herodotus (Pausanias Atticista, Ἀττικῶν ὀνομάτων συναγωγή 42.1).
60
Biebas-Richer (2016) 295–298.
61
Kurke (2011) 421; West (2015) 32.
62
E.g. Thomas (1989) 269; Griffith (2001) 168. For a different view see Papakonstantinou (2010) 74; Lavelle (2014) 332–333; McGregor (1941) 269. See Baragwanath (2008) 27–34 for a discussion of Herodotus’ narrative strategies reflecting his sense of the elusiveness of historical truth regarding the Alcmaeonids.
63
I am in general agreement on this point with Lavelle (2014) 331, though I do not think that µαλακία specifically is at issue here.