Literature and Arts c-14

sôphrôn balanced, with equilirium, moderate; sôphrosunê: being sôphrôn

Especially in tragedy we see that being sôphrôn is a virtue. In Euripides’ Hippolytos, Hippolytos is accused of lacking sôphrosunê in his unilateral devotion to Artemis. In theBacchae, the true worshippers of Dionysos are sôphrôn, but the Theban women and Pentheus are not. Dionysos in this play states (Bacchae 641): A sophos man must practice good temper that is moderate [sôphrôn]. Thus, having a tue understand requires the sort of equilibrium that a correct worship of Dionysos brings.

sôtêr savior (either ‘bringing to safety’ or, mystically, ‘bringing back to life’); sôtêriâ safety, salvation; sôzô (verb) save, be a sôtêr (for someone)
To be a sôtêr is a role that a hero has in his cult powers after death. Through his cult, the hero has the power to bring fertility and prosperity to a community and to protect it from its enemies. A cult hero also has the power to punish the unjust. These are the sorts of things Oedipus promises the citizens of Colonus in Oedipus at Colonus that he will do after his death when he asks them to help him life (OC 457-465):
Oedipus: For if you, xenoi, with the help of the dread goddesses who reign in your deme, are willing to defend me, you will obtain a great savior [sôtêr] for this polis, and trouble [ponoi] for my enemies.

Chorus: You are worthy of compassion, Oedipus, both you and these maidens. And since to this plea you append your power to be sôtêr of our land, I wish to advise you for your advantage.

Oedipus: Most philoi, be my patrons [pro-xenoi], and I will bring everything to fulfillment [telos].
In the tragedy Alcestis, Alcestis is often said to have ‘saved’ (sôzô) her husband, and in this example, because she died so that he would not have to, we can see the mystical meaning of bringing someone back to life.
sophos skilled, skilled in understanding special language; sophiâ: being sophos

This word is often translated either ‘wise’ or ‘clever’ and Greek poetry can play with the two meanings. In either case, the word has a connection to understanding or using language in a skilful way. Being sophos is one of the requirements for understanding coded speech such as an ainos (see entry).

stasis division in a group; strife; division [=part of an organization, like a chorus]

In its most negative sense, stasis refers especially to civil war or factionalism within the polis. Such division within the city-state made it particularly vulnerable, as we see from the prologue to Euripides Herakles (31-34), in which it is related that Lykos, a foreigner, was able to get power in the city due to its internal strife:

His son, who bears his father’s name,

(no Theban, but coming from Euboea),

killed Kreon, and having killed him now rules the land,

having fallen on this city when it was sick with strife [stasis].

The internal strife or factions were a particular concern to the Athenian democracy, since it had seen how this could lead the rise of a tyrant (compare the story of how Peisistratos became tyrant in Athens, Herodotus, book 1, paragraphs 59 and following).
telos ‘coming full circle, rounding out, fulfillment, completion, ending, end; successfully passing through an ordeal; ritual, rite’
If telos is thought of in a linear way, it means ‘end’. If it is thought of in a circular way, it means ‘coming full circle’, coming back to the point of origin. At times it can seems to mean both simultaneously. A common notion in Greek literature is that you cannot judge a person’s life until it has been completely lived--that is, until it has reached telos, as we see in Solon’s judgement of who is most olbios (Herodotus, book 1) and in these lines of the Chorus in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (928-29): “Only when man’s life comes full circle [telos] in prosperity dare we pronounce him blessed [olbios].”
telos also means passing through an ordeal, or an initiation, rite or ritual. This sort of initiation changes the status of the person who has undergone them, and are an initiation into mysteries that are not shared with the un-initiated. Compare Pausanias’ description of the cult of the hero Trophonios and his own personal experience with inititiation.
thûmos designates realm of consciousness, of rational and emotional functions

See also menos, phrên.

The thûmos is a person’s center of thought and feeling; thus it is translated by various English words, such as ‘heart’, ‘mind’, ‘will’, etc. A god has a thûmos as well as a mortal: Anchises says to Aphrodite once he has discovered that she is a goddess: “And I wish that you in turn may have a kindly-disposed thûmos towards me” (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, 102). It can also be used to mean an excessive emotion, especially anger, as when Theseus says to Oedipus (Oedipus at Colonus, 592): “Foolish man, anger [thûmos] amidst woes is not suitable.”
themis, plural themistes, something divinely ordained

themis is “divine law,” or the rule of the divine apparatus plus the sky and celestial forces plus nature and natural forces. In a nominal phrase, “it is themis,” you affirm that all the universe and nature are working. Negatively, the nominal phrase “it is not themis” means that something is wrong, and that means that a cosmic or a social sanction needs to be triggered. If society can’t solve the problem, then the cosmos will. That is what mênis is all about--a osmis anger that will right what is happening that is not themis. By contrast with themis, nomos is a matter of human customs, and therefore customary law, except in Athens, where it also becomes the word for legislated law.  
Themis can be personified as a goddess. A goddess by this name is pictured (London 1971.11-1.1; http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/image?lookup=1990.14.0031) attending the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, a goddess and a mortal man, who become the parents of Achilles.
therapôn, pl. therapontes ‘attendant, minister; ritual substitute’

Like many of the words in this glossary, therapôn has both a superficial meaning (“attendant”) and a deeper meaning (“ritual substitute”).

In the Iliad, Patroklos is both Achilles’ attendant and ritual substitute. Patroklos is Achilles’ therapôn, a word which has been shown to convey a relationship of ritual substitution. This relationship becomes fulfilled when Patroklos leads the Myrmidons into battle in place of Achilles, wearing Achilles’ armor. Patroklos’ subsequent death previews in exact detail the way that Achilles will die. Achilles’ death does not take place within the narrative confines of the Iliad itself, but it is nonetheless enacted in the sacrificial death of Patroklos.
Just as the ritual sacrifice of Patroklos substitutes for the death of Achilles in the Iliad, so the funeral rites for Patroklos substitute for and actually enact the funeral rites for Achilles. As Gregory Nagy notes: “the Iliadic tradition requires Achilles to prefigure his dead self by staying alive, and the real ritual of a real funeral is reserved by the narrative for his surrogate Patroklos.” (See Best of the Achaeans [Baltimore, 1979], p. 113.) Nagy goes on to argue that only retrospectively can we witness the actual wake of Achilles, in the form of a flashback in the Odyssey. But we do get a preview of that wake in the form of Briseis’ lament for Patroklos, Achilles’ ritual substitute.
In the Iliad Greek warriors who die in battle are said to be “substitutes for Ares” (Ares is the god of war). This helps to clarify the relationship between heroes, who are defined by their mortality, and gods, who cannot die. Instead mortals die in their place. We may also connect the idea of ritual substitution to the Alcestis of Euripides, in which Alcestis takes the place of her husband Admetus in death, thereby prolonging his life.
timê, pl. tîmai ‘honor; honor paid to a supernatural force by way of cult’

Tîmai are the honors paid to gods and heroes in cult. Tîmai can take the form of various rituals, including sacrifice and athletic festivals. At the end of the Herakles of Euripides, Theseus, the king of Athens, describes the honors that Herakles will receive if he comes to live in Athens. The language that Theseus uses and the relationship between the Athenian people and Herakles that Theseus describes evoke the relationship between a hero, his worshippers, and the land that the hero protects.
Euripides’ Herakles 1328-1337

Through all the land to me

are hallowed fields allotted; these, for the rest of your life,

shall be called after your name by mortals; 1330

and when you die, going to the halls of Hades

With solemn rites and stately monuments

the whole Athenian city [polis] will honor you.

This beautiful crown of good fame [kleos] will my citizens win

from the Greeks, that they helped a noble [esthlos] man. 1335

And I will return this favor [kharis] to you for that

of my salvation [sôtêria]; for now you have need of friends [philoi]
The city of Athens will worship Herakles after he dies: the city will thus “bring him back” (an-agô) every time they sacrifice to him, making him a recipient of timê ‘honor’ (that is, cult-honor). The background of the tragic / epic hero as a cult hero becomes visible here.
The Iliad is another text in which the language of hero cult brings to the poem a profound religious significance. From the standpoint of the song culture in which the Iliad was composed and performed, the dispute over Briseis between Agamemnon and Achilles in Iliad 1 is about life or death. And even more importantly, it is about immortality, after death, through cult. Achilles’ choice as he formulates it in Iliad 9 is between a homecoming with a long life and kleos - that is, immortality through poetry and cult. The poetic and religious significance of Achilles’ choice is in fact first articulated in connection with Briseis. For in her role as prize, Briseis (along with Helen and Chryseis) is equated in Iliad 1 with timê. Tîmê, generally translated as “honor,” means (in religious contexts) specifically cult honor. If we are to understand the full significance of Briseis’ role as a prize in Iliad 1, we must consider this religious aspect of the word in context.
When Achilles gives his own reasons for fighting at Troy, timê is his chief concern:
I came to make war here not because the Trojans are responsible [aitioi] for any wrong committed against me. I have no quarrel with them. They have not raided my cattle nor my horses, [155] nor cut down my harvests on the fertile plains of Phthia; for between me and them there is a great space, both mountain and sounding sea. We have followed you, Sir Insolence! for your pleasure, not ours - to gain satisfaction [timê] from the Trojans for your shameless self and for Menelaos. [160] You forget this, and threaten to rob me of the prize for which I have toiled, and which the sons of the Achaeans have given me. Never when the Achaeans sack any rich city of the Trojans do I receive so good a prize as you do, [165] though it is my hands that do the better part of the fighting. When the sharing comes, your share is far the largest, and I, indeed, must go back to my ships, take what I can get and be thankful, when my labor of fighting is done. Now, therefore, I shall go back to Phthia; it will be much better [170] for me to return home with my ships, for I will not stay here dishonored to gather gold and substance for you.
On one level Achilles the warrior seems to be saying that he fights solely for the material possessions that are awarded to him. But a closer look reveals that the acquisition of a prize is closely associated with timê. When Agamemnon takes away Achilles’ prize, his geras, Achilles becomes dis-honored (a-tîmos Iliad 1.171). The loss of material honor in the narrative of the Iliad threatens Achilles’ status as a recipient of cult honors in Greek religious practice.

When the Achaeans fight at Troy for the restoration of Helen they are winning timê for Menelaus (159). Likewise when Achilles refers to his prize (geras) - the loss of which causes him to be without honor (a-tîmos) - he means Briseis. Briseis and Helen and Chryseis are prizes on the level of narrative, but on the level of poetry and cult nothing less than immortality is at stake. In Iliad 1, an argument over a woman who is a prize becomes a struggle between two epic figures for timê. Agamemnon responds to Achilles’ threat to return home by saying that others, including Zeus, will honor him, even if Achilles leaves (timêsousi 174). Achilles then asks for his mother’s help in securing punishment for Agamemnon, because he did not show him any timê (Iliad 1.412). Thetis supplicates Zeus at Achilles’ request, and asks repeatedly for timê:

Father Zeus, if ever I helped you among the immortals, either in word or deed, fulfill for me this wish: Honor [verb from timê] my son, who is the most short-lived of all others. Since as it now stands the lord of men Agamemnon has deceived him. For he took his prize and keeps her, he himself having taken her away. But do you honor [verb from timê] him, wise Olympian Zeus. Give power to the Trojans until the Achaeans honor my son and strengthen him with honor [timê]. (Iliad 1.503-510)
When Agamemnon insists on taking Briseis he attempts to take timê away from Achilles and secure it for himself. But Thetis’ entreaty makes it clear that neither character can win time without Zeus. Here the religious dimension of the word becomes most apparent.
As Nagy has shown, the loss and restoration of timê are fundamentally connected with the grief (akhos 1.188) and cosmic mênis of Achilles. We may compare the wrath of Achilles with the pattern of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter:
The ákhos of Demeter is instantaneous with the abduction of the Kore (H.Dem. 40, 90-91). Her resulting mênis (H.Dem. 350) causes devastation in the form of cosmic infertility (351 ff.). The timaí ‘honors’ of the Olympians are this threatened (353-354), and it is only with the restoration of Kore that Demeter’s mênis ceases (410), as her ákhos abates (éx°vn: 436). Demeter thereupon gets her appropriate timaí (461), and her anger (468) is replaced with fertility (469, 471 ff.). [G. Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans, p. 80]
Achilles, like Demeter, conceives instantaneous akhos when Agamemnon threatens to take Briseis (1.188). But for Achilles, as Nagy goes on to show, the restoration of timê and the cessation of mênis in connection with the abduction and return of Briseis do not bring an end to akhos; the intervening death of Patroklos brings about permanent akhos.
These three cosmic themes mênis, timê, and akhos are crucial to the plot of the Iliad and the character of Achilles. A similar interplay between the three can be seen in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, the final play of the Oresteia trilogy. At the end of the play Athena acquits Orestes of murder, but placates the Furies by transforming them into protective deities and instituting cult honors for them. The Furies are at first outraged that Orestes has been acquitted and feel that they have been deprived of timê. In the following choral ode they sing of their grief and anger. In alternating stanzas Athena tries to persuade them that in fact they will have even greater timê than they had before. At the end of the passage Athena warns them not to conceive mênis and harm the city, in the same pattern of Achilles and Demeter.
Chorus: Younger gods, you have ridden down the ancient laws [nomoi] and snatched them from my hands! 780 And I, wretched, deeply angry, and without timê in this land, alas, I will let venom fly from my heart, venom that brings sorrow [penthos] in return for penthos, drops of venom that the land cannot endure. 785 A blight will come from the venom that destroys leaves and destroys children, a blight that speeds over the plain and casts pollution on the land to destroy mortals. O Dikê, Dikê! I groan. What shall I do? I am the laughing-stock of the citizens. 790 I have suffered [paskhô] unbearably. Ah, unfortunate daughters of Night, you have the sorrow [penthos] of a great blight on your timê!

Athena: Be persuaded by me not to bear the decision with heavy grief. 795 For you are not defeated; the trial [dikê] resulted in an equal vote, which is in truth [alêtheia] no blight on your timê, since clear testimony from Zeus was available, and the one who spoke the oracle gave evidence proving that Orestes should not suffer harm, despite his actions. 800 Do not be angry, do not hurl your heavy rage on this land, do not make the land fruitless, letting loose your heart’s poison with its fierce sharpness that eats away the seeds. For I do promise you with all dikê 805 that you shall have sanctuaries and sacred hollows in this land of dikê, where you will sit on bright thrones at your hearths, worshipped with timê by the citizens here.

Chorus: Younger gods, you have ridden down the ancient laws [nomoi] and have snatched them from my hands! 810 And I wretched, deeply angry, and without timê in this land, alas, I will let venom fly from my heart, venom that brings penthos in return for penthos, drops of venom that the land cannot endure. 815 A blight will come from the venom that destroys leaves and destroys children, a blight that speeds over the plain and casts pollution on the land to destroy mortals. O Dikê, Dikê! I groan. What shall I do? I am the laughing-stock of the citizens. 820 I have suffered [paskhô] unbearably. Ah, unfortunate daughters of Night, you have the sorrow [penthos] of a great blight on your timê!

Athena: You are not without timê, goddesses, so do not be moved by your excessive rage 825 to make the land cursed for mortals. I also rely on Zeus - what need is there to mention that? - and I alone of the gods know the keys to the house where his thunderbolt is kept safe. But there is no need of it. So be obedient to me 830 and do not make empty threats against the land; do not threaten that all things bearing fruit will not prosper. Calm the dark waves of your bitter passion, now that you are honored with reverence and abide [oikeô] together with me; when you have the first-fruits of this great land 835 as burnt sacrifices on behalf of children and of conjugal rites [telos pl.], you will approve [ep-aineô] my words forever.

Chorus: That I should suffer [paskhô] this, alas! That I, who have ancient phrenes, should live beneath the earth, alas, bereft of timê and unclean! 840 I am breathing menos and all possible rage. Oh, alas, earth! What is coming over me, what anguish steals into my heart! Hear my heart, mother night, 845 for the deceptions of the gods are hard to fight, and they have nearly deprived me of my ancient tîmai.

Athena: I will indulge your anger since you are older, and in that respect you are surely more sophê than I; 850 yet Zeus has also granted me good phrenes. But as for you, if you go to a foreign land, you will come to love this land - I forewarn you. For as time flows on, the years will be full of timê for these citizens. And you, if you have a seat of timê 855 at the house of Erechtheus, will be honored by a multitude of men and women and you will have more honor than you would ever have from other mortals. So do not set on my land whetstones that hone my peoples’ desire for bloodshed, harmful to young hearts, 860 crazed with passions not of wine; and do not make my people like fighting-cocks so that they kill each other in bold, internecine war. Let there be war from abroad, and without stint, 865 wars that bring a fierce desire for good kleos; but I say there will be no bird-fights in my abode [oikos]. I make it possible for you to choose to do good and to be treated [paskhô] well and with good timê, to share in this land that is most philê to the gods.

Chorus: 870 That I should suffer [paskhô] this, alas! That I, who have ancient phrenes, should live beneath the earth, alas, bereft of timê and unclean! I am breathing menos and all possible rage. Oh, alas, earth! 875 What is coming over me, what anguish steals into my heart! Hear my heart, mother night, for the deceptions of the gods are hard to fight, 880 and they have nearly deprived me of my ancient tîmai.

Athena: No, I will grow tired of telling you about these - you’ll never be able to say that you, an ancient goddess, went away deprived of your timê because of me, a younger goddess, and by the mortal inhabitants of this polis, and that you were bereft of xeniâ in this land. 885 But if you give holy reverence to Persuasion and the honey of my speech is sweet, then you will surely remain here. But if you do not want to stay, it would be contrary to dikê for you to inflict mênis or rage or harm on the people in this city. 890 For it is possible for you to have a share of the land with dikê and with full timê.
turannos (also transliterated tyrannos), plural turannoi (Lydian word for ‘king’): king (from the viewpoint of most Greek dynasties); unconstitutional ruler (from the viewpoint of Greek democracy).
This is the Greek word from whch English gets ‘tyrant’, adopting the point of view of Greek democracy. But that is what is known as the ‘marked’ meaning of the word: the default meaning is ‘king’, as it was in the language from which Greek adopted it. Only in a democracy does it come to mean a usurper of power or anything close to the English meaning of ‘tyrant’.

Sophocles’ play is known as Oedipus Tyrannos and a much debated question is under what terms is Oedipus a turranos. Since he is by birth the son of the king, he would have been in line to ascend to power in Thebes. So inside the play he is a king who gained his position by savoing the city rather than by birth, and this fact could account for the title. But from the democratic audience’s point of view, can we consider Oedipus a turannos under its democratic meaning? A key to the question is the line of a choral song within the play that proclaims “Hubris breeds the turannos.” (See entry for hubris.) This song also deals with questions about proper worship of the gods.

xenos, plural xenoi: stranger who should be treated like a guest by a host, or like a host by a guest; xeniâ: reciprocal relationship between xenoi; when the rules of xeniâ do not work, a xenos results defaulting to the status of simply a ‘stranger’
The relationship between a guest and a host was a very important one in ancient Greek society. It was protected by Zeus himself, under the cult name Zeus Xenios ‘Zeus who protects xenoi’. The respect shown for such a relationship is seen in the confrontation between Diomedes and Glaukos in Iliad 6 (see especially lines 215-236). Although on opposite sides of the war, the xeniâ between their fathers means that they will not fight each other, and instead exchange gifts as a token of and means of reaffirming that relationship.
The treatment of xenoi who appear at one’s house is a central theme in the Odyssey. The obligations of feeding and treating respectfully anyone who comes to your home before even asking them who they are and where they are from are demonstarted by Telemachus in his reception of Athena disguised as Mentês and both Eumaios and penelope in their reception of the disguised Odysseus. The suitors and Polyphemos the Cyclops are examples of bad guests and hosts in the Odyssey.
Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos plays with the concept of xenos as Oedipus comes to Thebes as a seeming ‘stranger’ while really being a member of the royal family by birth. In the Oedipus at Colonus the proper reception and treatment of Oedipus by Theseus at Athens ensures that Athens will enjoy his powers as a cult hero after death.
In Euripides’ Alcestis Admetos is very concerned with meeting his obligations of xeniâ with his guest Herakles, even though his wife has just died. The chorus asks him how he can entertain Herakles with his wife having just died, and Admetos explains the reciprocal natue of this relationship (Alcestis 551-560):