A sampling of comments on Pausanias: 1.2.2–1.3.1

2017.11.09 | By Gregory Nagy

My comments here continue from where I left off in Classical Inquiries 2017.10.18. Among the many points of interest noted by Pausanias in this stretch of text is his reference at 1.3.1 to a myth about the abduction of the beautiful young hero Kephalos by Eos, goddess of the Dawn.

Eos carrying away young Kephalos (named); kalos inscription (here unseen). Belly of an Attic red-figure lekythos, ca. 470–460 BC. Oionokles Painter. Image via Wikimedia Commons. — Eos carrying away young Kephalos (named); kalos inscription (here unseen). Belly of an Attic red-figure lekythos, ca. 470–460 BCE. Oionokles Painter. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

{1.2.3} translation by Jones 1918, modified by GN 2017.11.06:

I say-this-because [gar], even in his time [= the era of Euripides] poets [poiētai] could live in the company of kings, as earlier still Anacreon resided in the company of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos; also, Aeschylus and Simonides were sent to Hieron at Syracuse. Residing in the company of Dionysius, tyrant in Sicily at a later period, was Philoxenos, and, residing in the company of Antigonos,[1] ruler of Macedonia, were Antagoras of Rhodes and Aratos of Soloi. As for Hesiod and Homer, they either did not have the good fortune of residing in the company of kings or else purposely neglected doing so, Hesiod because of his countryside ways [agroikiā] and reluctance to travel, while Homer, having traveled very far and wide, considered the aid provided by the powerful in the acquisition of wealth to be less important than his fame [doxa] among the hoi polloi. And yet Homer, too, in what he composed [poieîn], makes Demodokos live in the company of Alkinoos, and [he makes] Agamemnon leave behind [when the king departed for Troy] a poet [poiētēs] to attend his wife. Not far from the gates is a tomb [taphos], on which is positioned a soldier [stratiōtēs] standing by a horse. Who it is I do not know, but both horse and soldier were carved by Praxiteles.

{1.2.3} subject heading(s): court poets and their patrons

{1.2.3} As an example of the relationship between court poets and their patrons, Pausanias here at 1.2.2 refers to a Homeric passage at O.03.267–271. The generic aoidos ‘singer’, as represented by the anonymous figure who is mentioned there, has the power to supervise the deeds of men and women by way of praising what is good and blaming what is bad. The aoidos that Agamemnon left behind to supervise Clytemnestra cannot be neutralized by way of removal from the scene. The aoidos does not need to see bad deeds in order to tell about them, since he can hear about them from the Muses. [[GN 2017.03.29 via BA 37–38, 2§13n5; PH 392.]]

{1.3.1} translation by Jones 1918, modified by GN 2017.11.06:

The locale [khōrion] known as the Kerameikos has its name from the hero Keramos, and they say that he too was son of Dionysus and Ariadne. First on the right is what is called the Royal Portico [Stoā Basileios], where is seated the archon-king [arkhōn basileus] when holding the yearly rulership [arkhē] that is named after the arkhōn basileus. On the tiling [keramos] of this portico [stoā] are statues [agalmata] made of terracotta, Theseus throwing Skiron into the sea and Day [Hēmerā] carrying away Kephalos, who they say was most beautiful and was abducted [harpazein] by Day, who conceived-a-passion [erasthēnai] for him. His son was Phaethon, afterwards abducted [harpazein] by Aphrodite) […] and he was made a guardian [phulax] of her temple [nāos]. That is what is said by Hesiod, among others, in his verses [epos plural] having to do with women.

{1.3.1} subject heading(s): harpazein ‘abduct’; Eos; Kephalos; Phaethon; Aphrodite

{1.3.1} On the myth about the abduction of Kephalos by Eos, see the commentary at O.15.250–251 as presented in https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6718.On the myth about the abduction of Phaethon by Aphrodite, as narrated in Hesiod Theogony 986–991 and as mentioned here in Pausanias 1.3.1, see again the commentary at O.15.250–251.