bremmer skins of pherekydes and epimenides

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234 MISCELLANEA

sentence, without denying the reality of the sentence. That end of verse or stanza in poetry often do not coincide with sense pause or end of period in no way diminishes the reality of either. One should not expect poets to let their seams show.

6) For examples of symmetry around a center which has special significance and often shows contrast or keys a reversal, see R. Schmiel, The Amazon Queen: Quintus of Smyrna. Book 1, Phoenix 40 (1986), 188 f., note 2. Add: J.W. Welch (ed.), Chiasmus in Antiquity. Structures, Analyses, Exegesis (Hildesheim 1981); D. Lohmann, Die Komposition der Reden in der Ilias (Berlin 1970); J.D. Niles, Patterning in the Wanderings of Odysseus, Ramus 7 (1978), 46-60; T.V. Buttrey, Accident and Design in Euripides' Medea. AJP 79 (1958), 1-17; R. Schmiel, Callimachus' Hymn to Delos: Structure and Theme, Mnemosyne 40 (1987), 45-55; G. Blangez, La composition mesodique et l'ode d'Horace, REL 42 (1964), 262-272; ?. Otis, A Reading of the Cleopatra Ode, Arethusa 1 (1968), 47-61; V. P?schl, Die Kleopatraode des Horaz (c. 1, 37), in: H. Krefeld, (ed.), Interpretationen lateinischer Schulautoren mit didaktischen Vorbemerkungen, (Frankfurt 1968), 106-137; A. Wlosok, Die dritte Cynthia-Elegie des Properz (Prop. I. 3), Hermes 95 (1967), 330-352. This list gives only some of the more noteworthy examples.

7) Since the depiction of girls picking flowers, usually in a meadow, has erotic implications (J.M. Bremer, The Meadow of Love and Two Passages in Euripides' Hip- polytus. Mnem. 28 [1975], 268-280), the reader is at first encouraged to feel optimistic about Polyphemus' chances with Galateia.

8) Both Goldhill and Hutchinson emphasize the "divergences between song and introduction" (Hutchinson, op. cit., 180), and Goldhill in particular emphasizes the frame as "the source and site of the poem's most interesting com- plexities" (op. cit., 251) against those who naively read the frame as guaranteeing the meaning of the poem: song is the only cure for love. If the frame cannot be regarded "simply as an explanatory preface" and "somehow outside the poem proper" (Goldhill, op. cit., 260) as regards its functions of setting up an "ironic tension" with the song (257), an analysis of the poem's structure based on related concepts and verbal repetitions, which reveals the carefully managed rise to a climax and falling back to self-deception over the whole poem, frame and song alike, indicates that Theocritus composed the poem as a unit, an entity, despite the apparent separation of frame from song.

9) J.D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (Oxford 1950), 13 f.; H.W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (Cambridge, Mass. 1959), 2784 c.

10) A similar rise to and falling back from a climax at the center has recently been observed in Theocritus' Idyll 2 by Margaretha Bannert, Zum Aufbau der Beschw?rungsszene in Theokrits Pharmakeutria (Id. 2, 17-63), WS 101 (1988), 69-83.

11) Op. cit., 35.

THE SKINS OF PHEREKYDES AND EPIMENIDES

Before the Battle of Leuctra (371) Pelopidas* Theban seers and com- manders told him of a series of sacrifices which had ensured military victory1). This was in order to persuade him to sacrifice a girl, as he had been ordered to do by a dream. Plutarch cites an example: 'Pherekydes the Wise was killed by the Spartans and his skin preserved by the kings

Mnemosyne, Vol. XLVI, Fase. 2 (1993)



MISCELLANEA 235

according to some oracle.' In the course of his recent, valuable study of Pherekydes, H. Schibli deals with this testimony2). He suggests that "the preservation of Pherekydes' skin by the Spartan kings .., may be seen as a remnant of a sacrificial ritual that once had its source in primitive hunting cultures: the stretching out of the slain animal's skin was an attempt to ensure forgiveness for the slaughter and at the same time served as an act of reparation." In addition, "by putting on the skin ... one became identified with the victim and imbued with its particular strength" (p. 7, n. 15). This explanation, which implies that Pherekydes was sacrificed by the Spartans, confuses two completely different (f)acts.

On the one hand, hunting cultures preserved the skins and bones of their game in order to guarantee its rebirth, as the late Karl Meuli has abundantly demonstrated3). On the other hand, early Greek heroes wore skins of ferocious animals in order to acquire their strength, Heracles with his lion-skin perhaps being the best-known example4). It was this custom which most likely induced the mythological imagination to represent the warrior Athena with the skin of Asteros (P. K?ln III. 126), of the monstrous Gorgo (Eur. Ion 987-97; Diod. Sic. 3.70.5 ? Dionysios Skytobrachion FGrH 32 F 8) or (a seemingly late myth) with the skin of her father Pallas, who had tried to rape her (Apollod. 1.6.2; Clem. Alex. Pr. 2.28; Firm. Mat. En. 16.2; Tzetzes on Lye. 355).

Subsequently, Schibli notes that "the benefit brought about by the flaying of Pherekydes undoubtedly pertains to the fighting of the Spartans, though it remains uncertain why Pherekydes in particular should have been so valuable" (p. 7, n. 15). Despite Schibli's confident assertion there remains room for doubt. First, it is hard to think of the Spartans killing Pherekydes for ritual reasons, as the historical Greeks did not practise human sacrifice5); in fact, Pherekydes hardly belongs in Plutarch's list at all, as he is nowhere connected with any Spartan battle. Secondly, the Greeks, unlike the Persians6), were not in the habit of flaying their opponents. Thirdly, we never hear of the Spartan kings employing the skin in battle. And, last but not least, it is totally improbable that the Spartans ever had the skin of Pherekydes; Schibli himself reasonably con- cludes in a discussion of the various reports of Pherekydes' death, that the philosopher most likely died on the island of Delos7).

How, then, can we explain Plutarch's report? Schibli himself indicates the way by pointing out that "another famous visitor to Sparta whose skin was preserved (with writing thereon) was Epimenides" (p. 7, n. 15). Unfortunately, though, he is wrong again. We know indeed that Epimenides was buried in Sparta in the official building of the ephors, but there is no tradition extant that he was flayed before burial8). The expres- sion 'the skin of Epimenides', which the Suda and a collection of proverbs connect with Sparta, strongly suggests that the ephors had made use of a leather scroll with oracles, the so-called diphtherai, which is also men- tioned elsewhere in Greece. Considering the competition in Sparta between kings and ephors, the latter had probably created this source of



236 MISCELLANEA

authority in order to be independent of the kings, who were entitled to consult the oracle of Delphi, not only in political matters but also in ques- tions affecting relations with the gods9).

The story about Pherekydes' skin, then, seems to have been a bricolage of two traditions. First, Pherekydes' skin was the subject of anecdotes. When Pythagoras came to visit him and asked him about his health, he stuck his finger?from which all the flesh had been stripped?through the door and said: 'It's clear by the skin' (???? d??a), an answer which in time became proverbial10). Second, the Spartan tradition about a 'skin' of Epimenides. How and when these traditions came together to produce Plutarch's report we are no longer able to discover11).

9722 JN Groningen, Troelstralaan 78 Jan N. Bremmer

1) Plut. Pel. 21.3. For a recent discussion of these sacrifices see D.D. Hughes, Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece (London 1991), 110 f., 117 f.

2) H. Schibli, Pherecydes of Syros (Oxford 1990), 7. 3) K. Meuli, Gesammelte Schriften II (Basel 1975), 970, 991 f. On Meuli's impor-

tant contributions to the study of Greek religion see now especially the chapters by W. Burkert and A. Henrichs in F. Graf (ed.), Klassische Antike und neue Wege der Kulturwissenschaften, Symposium Karl Meuli (Basel 1992).

4) Note also the lion-skin of Agamemnon (//. 10.23) and the leopard-skins of Paris (//. 3.17), Menelaus (//. 10.29) and Jason (Pind. P. 4.81).

5) See now Hughes, Human Sacrifice. 6) Plut. Artax. 17.7; Amm. Marc. 23.6.80, 82; Zos. 2.27.1; Procop. Pers. 1.5;

Mir. Theclae 33.53 Dagron; P. Bedjan, Acta martyrum et sanctorum II (Leipzig 1891), 507 ff.

7) Schibli, 9 f.; similarly, Hughes, Human Sacrifice, 117 f. 8) Epimenides FGrH 457 ? 5 (and Addendum) with F. Jacoby ad loc. ; Sosibius

FGrH 595 F 15; Paus. 3.11.11. 9) 'Skin': Suda s.v. Epimenides; Diogenian. 8.28. Oracle scrolls: Eur. fr. 627;

Schol. //. 1.175; Diogenian. 3.2; Zen. 4.11; W. Burkert, Die orientalisierende Epoche in der griechischen Religion und Literatur (Heidelberg 1984), 33-5. Diphtherai: O. Panagl, Griechisch diphthera, in W. Meid and H. Schmeja (ed.), Philologie und Sprachwissenschaft (Innsbruck 1983), 185-94; Burkert, ibidem. Curiously, the word still survives in modern Turkish as defter ('document'), cf. G.L. Huxley, Proc. Royal Irish Ac. 81, C, no. 13 (1981), 338 f.

10) Cf. Heracl. Lembus 32 Dilts; Greg. Cypr. 3.100; Ap?stol. 18.35. 11)1 am grateful to Richard Whitaker for the helpful correction of my English.



bremmer skins of pherekydes and epimenides

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