Efimia D. Karakantza
Note: My heartfelt thanks go to Menelaos Christopoulos, Athina Papachrysostomou and Andreas P. Antonopoulos, who meticulously organized yet another International Conference at the University of Patras; this time on the intersection of Myth and History. For ‘necropolitics’, the theoretical background for the treatment of the burial in Antigone, which I now adopt, I am indebted to Osman Balkan of the Department of Political Science at Swarthmore College PA, who kindly sent me his contribution to Bargu (2019) (ed.) titled: “The Cemetery of Traitors”, after we had discussed the issue of the burial of Polyneices as part of the Lauder Europe Regional Program of the University of Pennsylvania, which he directs, in Summer of 2019. I am also indebted to PhD candidate of our Department, Alexandros Velaoras, with whom we have organized (as well as with Marion Meyer, University of Vienna) a panel on ‘Ancient Necropolitics’ at the International Conference in Classics and Ancient History at Coimbra, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, 22–25 of June 2021.
Abstract
‘Necropolitics’ is a fairly recent term denoting the maltreatment and violence exerted upon the bodies of the slain enemy, while aiming at disciplining and dishonouring the living. I place my reading of Sophocles’ Antigone against the background of two historical cases of necropolitical violence in fifth-century Greece drawn from Thucydides and Douris of Samos: the oligarchic coup of 411 BCE with the condemnation of three of the leaders of the 400 BCE; and the execution of the Samian trierarches and marines following the failed revolt in Samos in 438 BCE. In both events we have dishonouring of the dead and/or prohibition of burial – it is highly probably that Sophocles played a certain role in both. Moving now to Sophocles’ Antigone, we should note Sophocles’ exceptional treatment of the myth of the Labdacids and especially the introduction of the prohibition of the burial of Polyneices, not attested in any earlier version of the myth. The end of Euripides’ Phoenician Women and the Aeschylean Seven are now thought to be later interpolations attributed to the influence of the Sophoclean play. Thus, what was the intention of Sophocles revisiting the ‘hot’ issue of the prohibition of burial, which he had opened up a few years earlier with Ajax, and favouring burial contrary to the widespread political practice? Was he suggesting that the body politic change or modify the practice? To these, among other, questions, I will attempt to answer in the present chapter.
For all of us, who are immersed in the works of the imaginary of the ancient Greeks, namely epic and dramatic poetry, the question of the burial of the war dead seems to have a simple answer in the end: the dead must be buried, regardless of their actions, their origin and ideology; burial is sanctioned by the gods, so any deviation from this practice might infringe divine or natural laws (causing pollution to befall the community). Of course, we all know that things are much more complicated in the context of each narrative that conveys one of these iconic cases: Achilles defiling and not burying the body of Hector in the Iliad; Ajax’ body becoming a matter of hot debate between the Atreidae, Odysseus and Teucer in Sophocles’ Ajax; the women of Argos supplicating for the retrieval of their husbands’/sons’ bodies, which were lying unburied after the end of the War of the Seven against Thebes in Euripides’ Suppliant Women; and finally, the case of Polyneices, whose body has become the celebrated locus of abiding debate about the division between human and divine laws and the right of the family over that of the state.
To complicate things ever further, any study of the contemporary political reality of the fifth century BCE bears witness to a common practice according to which traitors of the city-state were not allowed burial after their execution, while their bodies were subjected to further dishonouring. In some cases, the bodies of the fallen enemies were used as a means of pressure to negotiate a more favourable treaty. Violence exerted against the bodies of the slain following a political upheaval or juridical decision was a common practice of the polis of Athens. In our contemporary political and social sciences this violence is termed ‘necropolitical’ following the term ‘necropolitics’ coined by the postcolonial theorist Achille Mbembe in 2003.1 Mbembe’s focus of interest was vast populations who were reduced to the status of ‘living dead’ as in the historical examples of colonies and plantations, and more recently, concentration and extermination camps of WWII, contemporary forms of land occupation (Palestine) and the apartheid regime in South Africa. Elaborating on this necropolitical principle, scholars have come to describe as ‘necropolitical violence’ the dishonourable treatment of the dead as a result of a political crisis (ethnic wars, civil war, resistance against oppressive regimes), as well as all the practices accompanying it comprising the following:
mutilation, dismemberment, denuding, desecration, dragging, and public display, the destruction of local cemeteries and other sacred spaces that are designated for communication with and commemoration of the dead, the delay, interruption, or suspension of the conduct of funerary rituals, the imposition of mass or anonymous internment, the pressure for clandestine internment, and the repression and dispersion of funeral processions for the newly dead.2
Thus, a transposition has been made from the reduction of vast populations to the status of ‘living dead’, to the “dishonoring, disciplining, and punishment of the living through the utilization of the dead as postmortem objects and sites of violence”.3 The narrative of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, as well as the works of the dramatic poets of classical Athens, bears ample witness to this political ‘utilization’ of the dead to discipline the living, resulting in what one can term ‘politicizing death and the dead bodies’ of the slain enemy.
The Athenians were very familiar with this necropolitical situation: they had discussed similar cases in the Assembly (such is the case, for instance, of the debates about the punishment of dissident city-states of the hegemony of Athens); they had also tried cases of high treason as members of the courts of Heliaia; and of course, they were aware of the fortunes of the condemned to death as traitors by reading the decrees erected in the agora and other public places. So, if the citizens of Athens were so familiar with the prohibition of burial and the dishonouring after death, why were they so impressed when Antigone was staged, probably in 442 BCE,4 that the play became an instant success, the poet was granted the first prize, and was possibly elected general the following year?
In the present chapter I shall examine the case of Polyneices and the complicated issues raised by its treatment by Sophocles, while using as a backdrop the necropolitical reality of the time regarding similar historical cases. The result of the parallel examination will bring into stark relief the subtlety and sophistication of the Sophoclean interpretation, making clear that the poet prioritizes the appeasement of the traumatized body politic in the aftermath of a civil war.
I will begin with the harsh necropolitical reality of the time by referring to two cases in which Sophocles was also (or possibly) involved: the Samian dead of the revolt in 438 BCE, and the trial and consequent execution of two of the leaders of the Four Hundred in the aftermath of the collapse of their regime (in 410 BCE). I shall begin with the latter.
In 411 BCE there was the oligarchic coup following the distress of the failure of the Sicilian expedition. The Athenians experienced acute political and financial problems, among which the capture of the outpost of Deceleia by the Spartans, the revolt of a great number of slaves from the silver mines of Lavrion and the widespread destruction of the land of Attica. The wealthy Athenians were left without income, while they were called to pay for an expensive war and the average small land owners were left without means to support themselves, while living as refugees within the walls of their city.5 In the Athenian fleet at Samos, an oligarchic conspiracy was taking shape, the leading figure of which was Peisander.
Peisander travelled to Athens to further organize the oligarchic coup by convincing the demos to entrust the ten Probouloi and twenty more selected citizens of oligarchic beliefs with the task to present to the Assembly political reforms to save the day. The meeting of the Assembly on that particular day was held not in Pnyx, but in Colonus, at the precinct of Hippios Poseidon, and the heavy presence of armed supporters of the conspirators prevented the democrats from gathering in large numbers. In this Assembly a decision was taken to reduce the body politic to 5000 citizens chosen from the wealthier classes; thetes were totally excluded. A body of 400 formed the ‘temporary’ government of the city-state. Α few days after their election, these 400 – with the help of armed young supporters who had already assassinated democrats the previous days – dissolved the Boule (end of May 411 BCE). The four months that followed were marked by acts of pure terrorism: executions, assassinations, banishment, confiscations of property of democrats who were thought to be dangerous for the regime.6 Although not actively involved in the later stage of the atrocious government of the 400, Sophocles was (most likely) one of the ten Probouloi who designed and implemented the annulment of laws that would protect basic democratic procedures in that infamous Assembly in May 411 BCE.7 As a member of the Committee of the Ten, the poet had a part in the setting up of the 400. In a much-cited passage from Aristotle’s Rhetoric the leader of the 400, Peisander, asks Sophocles why he assisted the establishment of the 400 since it was an evil thing to, to which Sophocles allegedly replied: “there was nothing better to be done”.8
In the same place where the oligarchic coup started, that is the fleet at Samos, the democratic counter-revolt began to materialize and soon spread in Athens under the leadership of Alcibiades. Under the moderate intermediate regime (before the restoration of democracy) the trials of three of the 400 took place: Antiphon (the leader of the extreme fraction of the 400), Archeptolemus and Onomacles. We are fortunate to have the text of the condemnation of Antiphon and Archeptolemus; Onomacles escaped death and reappeared as one of the Thirty tyrants. However, the official charge was not the establishment of the 400, but treason (προδοσία) on the Embassy sent by the 400 to Sparta;9 of course, that was a political tactical move, for they were tried under the moderate oligarchic regime whose members were equally involved in the 400.10
The text of the condemnation is illustrative of the expected penalty for high treason:11 both Antiphon and Archeptolemus were condemned to death; their bodies were not allowed to be buried in Attica, nor in any Athenian territory; their houses were demolished, their property confiscated; their money would be given to the city; and finally, the condemned, as well as their children – legitimate or bastard – were deprived of their political rights. The above would be inscribed on a bronze stele and erected in public place; an interesting clause of the condemnation text specified that marks would be erected in the plot of the demolished houses to remind forever that ‘these belonged to the traitors’.
The other interesting case is that of Phrynichus, one of the 400 and a member of the Embassy to Sparta, who was assassinated on his return.12 He was brought to trial posthumously and his body was charged also with high treason. He was found guilty and consequently his bones were exhumated and cast beyond the borders of Attica. No traitors were ever allowed to be buried in Attica, even after their death.13
I shall move now to the case of the Samian trierarches and marines who were executed in the Samian War of 438 BCE. Our single source for the event is Douris of Samos, recorded by Plutarch in the Life of Pericles (28.2 = FGrH 76 F 67). After an eight-month siege of the island, which followed an obstinate revolt of the Samians against the Athenians, the city surrendered. Pericles tore down the walls of the city, destroyed the fleet, laid a heavy fine upon them and took some hostages. Douris of Samos reported that Pericles had them crucified in the market of Miletus and, finally, clubbed them to death; their bodies were left unburied for ten days.14 In this case, as Robin Osborne observes: “the actions of revolting allies could be equated to treachery”.15 It has been suggested by Lewis16 that the production of Antigone is related to this Samian War, when Sophocles as a general alongside Pericles, witnessed the atrocious condemnation of the leaders of the revolt. If Antigone, following this argument, was a direct comment on this action, we shall never know; nor can we be certain about the accuracy of the information on the execution reported by Douris (contested already by Plutarch himself who recorded it). My argument is not based on whether Sophocles witnessed or not the execution, but rather that Sophocles, as well as his Athenian contemporaries, were very much aware of similar practices. A traitor, or somebody who is equated to a traitor, is executed and not allowed burial; if he is already dead at the time of the trial for treason, his body is not allowed burial either.
So (to go back to my original questions), why does Sophocles build up such a strong case on the prohibition of burial for Polyneices, when such a prohibition was a regular Athenian practice? Why – leaving aside its artistic merit as a work – did the play (a play that places as its central subject the non-burial of Polyneices, which was probably Sophocles’ own invention)17 become an instant success with the audience? The denouement of the play favours the burial; to paraphrase Teiresias own words: “you, Creon, leave a dead body in the world of the living, while burying a living body in the world of the dead, causing divine anger.” If this is the case, then, we have to believe that indeed the burial is ordained by the gods, while the man-made decree of Creon can be disobeyed if it violates the divine laws.
Now, with this last sentence, we have touched upon a thorny issue of the interpretation and the reception of the play, the famous division between human and divine laws. Are they indeed separated and in conflict with each other? If this is true, then in all the cases that the Athenians have decided differently, that is prohibiting the burial, they broke divine laws. We should bear in mind, however, that our certainty that Creon breaks divine laws comes mainly from the reception of the play in modernity, namely from its Hegelian reading which consolidates the division between the laws, between the family and the state, and of course, between the political male authority and the pre-political female subject.
A strong evidence towards the desirable unity of the laws (or against the ‘division’ of the laws) comes from Sophocles himself in this very tragedy. In the second choral song (the famous first stasimon, Ant. 332–375), just before the third scene, where the issue of the non-burial will be raised and debated for, the chorus sings about the resourcefulness and intelligence of men. Human beings have invented nearly everything: navigation and agriculture, hunting and fishing, and by taming wild beasts they have become the lords of nature. Also, they have invented language, rational thought, urban-planning and house-building, and law-abiding cities. Such an awe-inspiring creature (deinotaton, 333) tends to be either good or evil: he is supreme in his polis when he respects the laws of the land and the justice of gods; whoever disobeys them, because of reckless and arrogant disposition, becomes an outcast of his polis, an apolis (370).18
This basic conception of the unity of the laws runs through the entire work of Sophocles. To sustain the polis, the ultimate human creation, men need both: human and divine laws in a harmonious entity. And since nothing stands in men’s way – only death – death becomes the token upon which Sophocles builds his argument. By manipulating death and the treatment of the dead, the playwright raises succinctly his point: who is to remain in a well governed, law abiding city and who is not, who is hypsipolis and who is apolis.19 Thus, our first thought is that the playwright would not have discredited the human provenance of the laws after praising men as awe-inspiring, formidable and wonderful creatures. Their inventiveness, resourcefulness and wide range of abilities ensure culture while erasing savagery, transforming wilderness into law-abiding poleis. Laws are man’s own inventions.
Moreover, one of my favourite contemporary Greek philosophers, Cornelius Castoriadis, has extensively argued about the mechanisms of the Athenian society as a self-instituting society, where laws are uniquely man-made products which are debated and voted for in the Assembly of the citizens. “Nothing” in this radically democratic system “is enforced as inviolable law by a higher authority, a god, an emperor, or a religious or political elite”;20 Athens is an autonomous, rather than a heteronomous, society. In such a society, dramatic performances function as a correcting mechanism to question and readjust civic ideology, where issues of identity, kinship, political loyalty, religious sanctions, ethics, etc. are fiercely debated among the protagonists faced with extreme situations and dilemmas within a society of peers; the same body politic will later debate issues in ‘real’ political life in the Assembly. Of course, laws need to be sanctioned by gods who represent a higher notion of justice. But they are not in conflict; divine laws could not have been disregarded when the Athenians debated and voted for the punishment of the traitors. As for the stance which Creon and Antigone take in relation to the burial of Polyneices, both are apolides, that is they do not belong to the polis, for they rationalize their pathos: the former for her brother, the latter for political power.21
In order to better understand the interplay between the world of the imaginary and the historical reality of any time I suggest to turn to the concept of a human institution argued lucidly by Castoriadis in his classic book The Imaginary Institution of Society.22 An institution, according to the philosopher, is a socially sanctioned symbolic network comprising two components: the functional and the imaginary.23 The latter is responsible for creating the collective social significations that permeate all activities in the public sphere of ‘real’ life: laws, institutions, established ‘canonical’ behaviour, tangible political decisions and actions – all are made possible because they were imagined first on the imaginary level (to which literature and poetry belong). The action of imagining must not only happen prior to but is also an essential prerequisite to the change; any reform/modification of an institution on the functional level presupposes the action of imagining it.24 In the social imaginary, human beings pose and answer questions that in time become seminal questions of philosophy. Castoriadis says:
Man is an unconsciously philosophical animal posing the questions of philosophy concerning things long before philosophy existed as an explicit reflection; and he is a poetic animal that gave in imaginary the answers to those questions.25
In poetry philosophical reflection had been firmly formulated; and answers were given to those questions. This was – I argue – what happened in the case of the non-burial of Polyneices as opposed to the laws governing the non-burial of the traitors of Athens.
The complex interplay between the imaginary and reality of the non-burial is further reinforced by what has been widely accepted in scholarship: that in the treatment of the war dead, the decision to honour them by a public burial and a prestigious funeral oration, as well as its mirror image, that is the dishonouring of the dead, lies with the polis and not the family.26 In this spirit, Creon correctly decides to honour Eteocles, and dishonour Polyneices, for the first is the defender of Athens, the second a traitor. The famous lines of the political credo of Creon at the beginning of the first epeisodion are so ‘politically correct’ that Demosthenes, a century later, still quotes them as a truly patriotic statement (Ant. 175–190 ≈ Dem. 19.247).27 I quote the Greek text in Lloyd-Jones’ and Wilson’s edition (1990) and H.D.F. Kitto’s translation:
ἀμήχανον δὲ παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἐκμαθεῖν 175
ψυχήν τε καὶ φρόνημα καὶ γνώμην, πρὶν ἂν
ἀρχαῖς τε καὶ νόμοισιν ἐντριβὴς φανῇ.
ἐμοὶ γὰρ ὅστις πᾶσαν εὐθύνων πόλιν
μὴ τῶν ἀρίστων ἅπτεται βουλευμάτων,
ἀλλ’ ἐκ φόβου του γλῶσσαν ἐγκλῄσας ἔχει, 180
κάκιστος εἶναι νῦν τε καὶ πάλαι δοκεῖ·
καὶ μείζον᾽ ὅστις ἀντὶ τῆς αὑτοῦ πάτρας
φίλον νομίζει, τοῦτον οὐδαμοῦ λέγω.
ἐγὼ γάρ, ἴστω Ζεὺς ὁ πάνθ᾽ ὁρῶν ἀεί,
οὔτ᾽ ἂν σιωπήσαιμι τὴν ἄτην ὁρῶν 185
στείχουσαν ἀστοῖς ἀντὶ τῆς σωτηρίας,
οὔτ᾽ ἂν φίλον ποτ᾽ ἄνδρα δυσμενῆ χθονὸς
θείμην ἐμαυτῷ …
There is no art that teaches us to know 175
The temper, mind or spirit of any man
Until he has been proved by government
And lawgiving. A man who rules a state
And will not ever steer the wisest course,
But is afraid, and says not what he thinks, 180
That man is worthless, and if any holds
A member of his family [φίλον]28 of more account than his own city,
I scorn him; for if I should see destruction
Threatening the safety of my citizens,
I would not hold my peace, nor would I count 185
That man my friend [φίλον] who was my country’s foe,
Zeus be my witness.
I shall not refer here to the tyrannical characteristics that Creon develops gradually and steadily in the course of the action of the play, which spoil the ‘righteousness’ of his cause and justify his downfall, for my focus lies elsewhere. What I would like to stress here is that Creon, as a political leader, had the right to decide on the burial in the aftermath of the attack of the Seven. Moreover, as the only male surviving member related to the family of Oedipus he was again in charge of the anairesis of the dead.29 Of course, as we all know, the favourable light of the playwright falls upon Antigone and not Creon, making her cause the ‘right’ one; yet, in a highly debatable manner, as it has been argued elsewhere.30
To conclude: In real-life harsh necropolitical policies await a traitor of the city as is attested in our historical sources. The treatment of the dead body becomes highly politicized targeting the living with the aim to dishonour and discipline them. It is not surprising that the debate about the burial of a dead traitor (Polyneices) is explored in one of the most political plays of Sophocles, Antigone, in which a seemingly familial matter becomes an issue of prime political importance. Even in modernity and postmodernity Antigone has been received as the political work of Antiquity par excellence fuelling the debate about the righteousness of political practices for well over two centuries.
The Athenians were very much aware of the necropolitical practices of their time. So, what is the intention of Sophocles revisiting the issue of the prohibition of burial, which he opened up few years earlier with Ajax, and favouring burial contrary to the widespread political practice? Does he suggest that the body politic change or modify the practice? I am not suggesting such a straightforward attitude. What I am suggesting, however, is that the playwright calls for deliberation on an institutionalized political action that touches upon issues capable of profoundly traumatizing the Athenians, for they normally follow civil strife and political upheaval. In this treatment, the playwright introduces into the story of Antigone complex matters related to family ethics and divine justice, together with notions of personal honour and pride. He thus makes the complexities of these issues part of the public discourse considering the large audiences attending the theatre at Great Dionysia. I will conclude this chapter by borrowing an argument from my recent work on Sophocles: “The denouement of the [play], in characteristic Sophoclean manner, refrains from offering any unequivocal solution. Of course, the disrupted social order should be re-established, but the intense tragic feeling of the end eats into the very essence of this order; the restoration always comes at a high price.”31
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Notes
1
The term and Mbembe’s theory on the ultimate expression of sovereignty as “the power and capacity to dictate who may live and who must die” (2003) 11, are informed by the notion of ‘biopolitics’ of Michel Foucault, found in his lectures at the Collège de France in 1975–1976 (published in 1997) and in the first volume of his History of Sexuality (1976), as well as the notion of ‘thanatopolitics’ elaborated by the philosopher Giorgio Agamben in his Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, who notes that when in a modern state “the decision on life becomes a decision on death” then ‘biopolitics’ turn into ‘thanatopolitics’ (1998) 122.
2
Bargu (2016) 3 of the electronic source.
3
Bargu (2016) ibid.
4
I will not discuss here the question of the date of the production of Antigone. I will refer, however, further down this article to an alternative suggestion as to its date, which coincides with one of the historical events I am examining, namely the Samian revolt of 438 BCE.
5
Σακελλαρίου (1999) 111–112; see also Buckley (20102) 399–400; Osborne (2010) 273; Sebastiani (2018) 493–494.
6
Σακελλαρίου (1999) 112–114; Buckley (20102) 401–402; Pomeroy, Donlan, Roberts and Burstein (20082) 342–345.
7
There were laws that needed to be annulled in order that the new proposals, suggested by the ten Probouloi and the twenty members of the oligarchic body (called collectively συγγραφεῖς), could be passed, and the setting up of the government of the 400 with the reduction of the body politic to 5000 could be implemented, despite the blatant violation of democratic procedures. The συγγραφεῖς could have been indicted later on charges of abolishing democracy and establishing tyranny leading to the annulment of the proposals and the severe punishment of the initiators; including that of high treason. Thus, it needed first to annul the laws regarding the γραφὴ παρανόμων and then to pass the new legislation. This is why the meeting of the Assembly was held in Hippios Colonus and not in Pnyx under the heavy terrorism of armed guards. It goes without saying that “the new empowered body [sc. the Probouloi] falsified democracy and the citizens who were elected Probouloi seriously undermined it” (Σακελλαρίου [1999] 111; see also Farrar [2007] 176–177).
8
The celebrated passage (Arist. Rh. 1419a26–31) runs as follows: οἷον Σοφοκλῆς, ἐρωτώμενος ὑπὸ Πεισάνδρου εἰ ἔδοξεν αὐτῷ, ὥσπερ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις προβούλοις, καταστῆσαι τοὺς τετρακοσίους, ἔφη “τί δέ; οὐ πονηρά σοι ταῦτα ἐδόκει εἶναι;” ἔφη. “οὐκοῦν σὺ ταῦτα ἔπραξας τὰ πονηρά;” “ναὶ”, ἔφη, “οὐ γὰρ ἦν ἄλλα βελτίω” (“for instance, Sophocles being asked by Pisander whether he, like the rest of the Committee of Ten, had approved the setting up of the Four Hundred, he admitted it. ‘What then?’ asked Pisander, ‘did not this appear to you to be a wicked thing?’ Sophocles admitted it. ‘So then you did what was wicked?’ ‘Yes, for there was nothing better to be done’” (transl. by Freese). On the debate whether Sophocles the poet was indeed the Proboulos to whom Aristotle refers, Jameson’s position is that “he is the most likely candidate.” Jameson claims that it is “our modern reluctance to trust the artist in politics that makes us hesitate to admit to this possibility” (1971) 546. I personally incline to believe that it is indeed Sophocles whom Aristotle means; for one, Aristotle refers to the poet by name several times without feeling the need to specify his identity further. Especially here, the reference to that Sophocles follows one a few lines earlier (1418b32), where it is absolutely clear that it is the poet whom he refers. Of course, there is not unanimity of opinions on this matter; see for example Avery (1973); Karavites (1976); Wilson (2009); Sommerstein (2017). In the two last papers the tendency is to admit that Sophocles was indeed one of the ten Probouloi with the negative implications incurred by his participation. Five interesting works see Electra and Philoctetes as ‘apologetic’ plays for the poet’s involvement in this political critical situation: Post (1953) and Konstan (2008) for Electra; Jameson (1956), Calder III (1971) and King (2019) for Philoctetes.
9
Jameson (1971) 551. For the Embassy to Sparta, see Thuc. 8.90.2–91.1.
10
Jameson (1971) 551. For a holistic assessment of the regime of the Four Hundred, see Heftner (2001) and Shear (2011).
11
[Plut.] X orat., 834.a.2-b.5: Τούτῳ ὑπογέγραπται τῷ δόγματι ἡ καταδίκη. ‘προδοσίας ὦφλον Ἀρχεπτόλεμος Ἱπποδάμου Ἀγρύληθεν παρών, Ἀντιφῶν Σοφίλου Ῥαμνούσιος παρών· τούτοιν ἐτιμήθη τοῖς ἕνδεκα παραδοθῆναι καὶ τὰ χρήματα δημόσια εἶναι καὶ τῆς θεοῦ τὸ ἐπιδέκατον, καὶ τὼ οἰκία κατασκάψαι αὐτῶν καὶ ὅρους θεῖναι < ἐπὶ > τοῖν οἰκοπέδοιν, ἐπιγράψαντας ΑΡΧΕΠΤΟΛΕΜΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΤΙΦΩΝΤΟΣ ΤΟΙΝ ΠΡΟΔΟΤΑΙΝ. τὼ δὲ δημάρχω ἀποφῆναι τὴν οὐσίαν αὐτοῖν καὶ μὴ ἐξεῖναι θάψαι Ἀρχεπτόλεμον καὶ Ἀντιφῶντα Ἀθήνησι, μηδ’ ὅσης Ἀθηναῖοι κρατοῦσι· καὶ ἄτιμον εἶναι Ἀρχεπτόλεμον καὶ Ἀντιφῶντα καὶ γένος τὸ ἐκ τούτοιν, καὶ νόθους καὶ γνησίους· καὶ ἐάν < τις > ποιήσηταί τινα τῶν ἐξ Ἀρχεπτολέμου καὶ Ἀντιφῶντος, ἄτιμος ἔστω ὁ ποιησάμενος. ταῦτα δὲ γράψαι ἐν στήλῃ χαλκῇ· < καὶ > ᾗπερ ἀν < ά > κ < ειτ > αι τὰ ψηφίσματα τὰ περὶ Φρυνίχου, καὶ τοῦτο θέσθαι’.
12
Thuc. 8.92; Lys. 13.71.
13
Laws and customs about the burial or non-burial in Greek antiquity, which I have consulted: Cerri (1979); Rosivach (1983); Sourvinou-Inwood (1989); Sourvinou-Inwood (1990); Parker (1996); Harris (2004); Patterson (2006a); Patterson (2006b); Shapiro (2006); Gagarin (2008); Osborne (2008); Harris (2015).
14
Parker claims that one anomaly of Creon’s treatment of the body of Polyneices is the “prolonged public exposure of the corpse”, which “was not the practice of any Greek state, and when mentioned is treated as shocking” (1996) 47. However, the case of the executed Samian trierarches and marines is a counter example, their bodies having being exposed for at least 20 days (10 days of crucifixion, plus 10 days of exposure). Parker also refers to two other historical cases (Plut. Nic. 28.5 and Phylarchus FGrH 81 F 45 ap. Ath. 12.521d) thus making the prolonged exposure of the bodies rather typical in historical reality (contra his argument).
15
Osborne (2015) 274.
16
Lewis (1988).
17
A survey of the available sources and evidence in the Theban cycle shows that it was Sophocles who invented the prohibition (Griffith [1999] 6–12). In Pindar (Ol. 6.15; Nem. 9.24) there are seven pyres for the seven Argive chieftains in front of the seven gates of the city of Thebes. Pausanias (9.18.3) reports a single pyre for the two brothers where the flames refused to mingle (reflecting perhaps an earlier tradition). Even in the two plays (Aesch. Sept. and Eur. Phoen.) referring to the prohibition, the relevant passages are now thought to be later interpolations under the influence of the Sophoclean version that became canonical.
18
The passage runs as follows (Ant. 268–371): νόμους παρείρων χθονὸς / θεῶν τ’ ἔνορκον δίκαν / ὑψίπολις· ἄπολις ὅτῳ τὸ μὴ καλὸν / ξύνεστι τόλμας χάριν· (“when he applies the laws of the earth and the justice the gods have sworn to upohold he is high in his city; outcast from the city is he with whom the ignoble consorts because of his recklessness”, transl. by Lloyd-Jones).
19
The antithesis as a module of the Sophoclean thought about the polis, and his protagonists’ position in it, are discussed at length in Karakantza (2011) and Karakantza (2020) esp. ch. 3 ‘The Self in the Polis’, 25–38.
20
Karakantza (2020) 2, 7.
21
Castoriadis (1995) 204–206.
22
Original publication in French: L’institution imaginaire de la société in 1975 in Paris. The English translation appeared in 1987; the paperback edition I am using is published in 1997.
23
Castoriadis (1997) 132.
24
Karakantza (2020) 10–12.
25
Castoriadis (1997) 147, my emphasis.
26
A seminal formulation of this idea is found in the classic book by Nicole Loraux The Invention of Athens. The Funeral Oration in the Classical City, originally published in French in 1981 in Paris. Ever since, of course, various scholars have elaborated the issue from various perspectives: religion/ritual, social anthropology, feminist criticism/gender studies, etc. C. Sourvinou-Inwood’s application of the idea on Antigone to show how we project our modern assumptions to the interpretation of the play is exemplary (see the telling titles: “Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning. Reading Sophocles’ Antigone” (1989) and “Antigone as a Bad Woman” (1990)).
27
Griffith (1999) ad 162–210.
28
I retain here the original meaning of the word philos in Greek (= a member of the family), for it shows better the political integrity of Creon in not treating favourably Polyneices, despite being his nephew.
29
On the burial customs and the role of women, limited to washing and laying the body, once the body is at home, as well as lamenting the dead, see Sourvinou-Inwood (1989); Sourvinou-Inwood (1990); Patterson (2006b); Hame (2008); Goff (2004) 31–34, 261–264; and, of course, the classic book by Alexiou (1974).
30
Karakantza (2011) 40–44.
31
Karakantza (2020) 20.