George W.M. Harrison The Semiotics of Plutarch's Συγκρίσεις : The Hellenistic Lives of Demetrius-Antony and Agesiaus-Pompey In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 73 fasc. 1, 1995. Antiquité - Oudheid. pp. 91-104. Citer ce document / Cite this document : Harrison George W.M. The Semiotics of Plutarch's Συγκρίσεις : The Hellenistic Lives of Demetrius-Antony and Agesiaus- Pompey. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 73 fasc. 1, 1995. Antiquité - Oudheid. pp. 91-104. doi : 10.3406/rbph.1995.4005 http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rbph_0035-0818_1995_num_73_1_4005 The Semiotics of Plutarch's Συγκρίσεις: The Hellenistic Lives of Demetrius- Antony and Agesilaus-Pompey George W.M. HARRISON The recent publication of the first Plutarch volume in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (II. 33. 6) (') has greatly advanced Plutarchan studies. Two studies especially, that of Brenk on the 'Life of Antony' Agesilaus' (4347-4469; 4895-4915) and that of Hamilton on the 'Life of (4201-21), have distinguished themselves by the acuity of their observations on the nature and purpose of Plutarch's characterizations. They have amply demonstrated the truth, too often over-looked, that if Plutarch's 'Lives' were written to a format as part of an over-all preconceived plan, they were not nevertheless churned out to some semi-automated, facile formula. The amount of variety of patterns, details, and selectivity (2) shows just how very much Plutarch was the master of his material. As for the synkriseis (3), one can argue persuasively for a thesis that, just as there is no one pattern for the Lives, each synkrisis is shaped by two fac tors : first, the contribution a synkrisis is expected to make to an understan dinof ga pair of Lives and, second, the ethical position each pair of Lives holds in the interconnected over-all plan of the Lives, a plan which never- (1) Ed. Wolfgang Haase (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992). A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 1991 Annual Meetings of the American Philological Associa tioinn C hicago. I should also wish to thank Rebekah McComb for her advice and suggest ions. Greek quotations and translations are adapted from the Loeb series. The Alexander-Caesar, Agesilaus-Pompey, and Demetrius-Antony pairs were all translated by Bernadotte Perrin. (2) On Plutarchan selectivity, see two articles by David H. Larmour, "Plutarch's Comp ositional Methods in the Theseus and Romulus", ΤΑΡΑ 118 (1988) 366-68, 371-72 and "Making Parallels: Synkrisis and Plutarch's 'Themistocles and Camillus'", ANRWll. 33. 6 (1992) 4162-74. (3) For an overview and discussion of the scholarship on the synkriseis, see Larmour (1992) 4154-74. 92 G. W.M. HARRISON theless developed as the Lives were written (4). Each synkrisis, as the summat ionof each pair of Lives, illustrates and weighs, among other things, one preeminent virtue, which might loosely be termed its 'moral focus'. If for the Pericles-Fabius Maximus book that virtue is πραότης ('even tempered') (5), for Demetrius-Antony it is άγκράτεια ('self-control') (6) and for Agesilaus- Pompey it is πιθανότης ('political acumen'). A possible extrapolation from such a proposal is the recognition of two nodes in the Lives to which all the others are fastened and against which all of the other pairs are weighed. Städter Ç) has already noted that the Pericles- Fabius Maximus pair provides an anchor for the other fifth century Greek Lives. It would seem equally just to assert the centrality of the Alexander- Caesar pair for the post-Classical Lives. The truth of this observation is not lessened by the knowledge that the Pericles-Fabius Maximus book was the tenth written and that the Alexander-Caesar pair was among the last to have been composed (8). Nor is it lessened by apparent connections between individual lives in different nodes. Thus the charge that Demetrius Poliorcetes slept with the wives of citizens on the Acropolis (Synk. 4. 2-3) is clearly meant to echo 'Pericles' 13. 9-10 where Phidias arranged amorous rendez-vous for Pericles on the Acropolis (9). In a sense all figures after Pericles but before Alexander and Caesar can be viewed as somehow leading up to their lives and all figures chronologically later are compared, implicitly as well as explicitly, to the standards they established. Their res gestae, thus, are loom- (4) For the continual development of Plutarch's thought, see S. Swain, "Plutarch: Chance, Providence and History", AJP 110 (1989) 272-302. Just as one can see develop menbte tween the Quaestiones Platonicae and Plutarch's Symposium, so one infers that the connections among the paired Lives (necessarily excluding the 'Aratus', 'Artaxerxes', 'Galba', and 'Otho') was not predetermined from the start but manifested itself later. (5) See P. Städter, A Commentary on Plutarch's 'Pericles' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), xxx-xxxi. Φρόνημα is given as much credit as πρςιότης in enduring the stupidity of the mob in Stadter's earlier article, "Plutarch's Comparison of Pericles and Fabius Maximus", GRBS 16 (1975) 85. (6) The self-control is specifically placing business before pleasure; cp. Synk. 3. 1-2, and Plato Rep. 390b. Greek, however, does not have an equivalent for Latin officium ('duty'), just as it does not have word for word synonyms for dignitas and auctoritas; cp. C.B.R. Pelling, "Plutarch and Roman Politics", in I. Moxon et al. (edd.), Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1986), 177. (7) Implicit in his remarks in A Commentary on Plutarch's 'Pericles', xxix (§1. 3) and xxix-xxx (§2. 1). (8) The order of composition of the Lives is uncertain. A statement in 'Theseus' 1. 1 makes it clear, however, that the fifth and fourth century Lives were written before the earlier ones; cp. CP. Jones, "Towards a Chronology of Plutarch's Works", JRS 56 (1966) 68-73. For the date of the Alexander-Caesar pair, see P. Städter, "The Proems of Plutarch's Lives", ICS 13 (1988) 277. (9) Cp. P. Städter, "Pericles among the Intellectuals", ICS 16 (1991) 119. THE SEMIOTICS OF PLUTARCH'S Συγκρίσεις 93 ing presences throughout all of the post-Classical Lives: the majority of references in these Lives to other leaders are to Alexander and to Caesar. Similarly, Alexander is by far the figure most often at hand in the Moralia, followed distantly, but nonetheless followed, by Caesar. In establishing a web of interconnectedness for the Lives one could do far worse than postulate that this pair is the centripetal hub from which all of the other later Lives radiate and to which parts of the Moralia spin in ellip tical orbit (10). Put in another way, the Demetrius-Antony pair, as the Agesilaus-Pompey pair, provides a riposte and a frame of reference to Alex ander and to Caesar. It is in this regard that the application of semiotics to the œuvre of Plutarch is most inriguing and offers an exceptional opportunity for further enlightenment. One can, for exemple, generalize Brenk's observat iona,pp lied solely to the 'Antony', that a life must have literary and cultural components (u) in addition to a moral position and color. The color he used to characterize the Demetrius- Antony pair is 'baroque', a term which he essent ially derived from definitions of Hellenistic art in Pollitt and Charbon- neaux (12). Such a descriptive label should be taken to imply that Plutarch's plan for the 'Life of Antony' intended to suggest that Antony in many ways was very representative of Hellenistic exuberance, theatricality, flamboyance and the endless posturing of his Greek analogues, such as Pyrrhus, Demetrius Poliorcetes and Aratus. 'Antonios Dionysos', as he was known in the Greek East, at once represented a continuation of Greek traditions dating back to Alexander and the further importation of such practices into Roman society, ones which received their first significant prompting with the deification of Julius Caesar (13). That is to say, if the life of Antony is baroque it is not baroque independently and of its own accord, but is purposely so for the contrast it provides to Alexander-Caesar and thus takes its tone from the function it serves to the over-all plan. There are very many parallels between the Alexander roman and the puffery of several later Roman figures, who hoped by aping his mann erisms to reproduce his genius (14). Not surprisingly most of the parallels (10) The assumption that the Lives are more important than the Moralia and were intended to be so is a subjective one, and datable at its earliest to the Renaissance; cp. Brenk ANR W II. 33. 6 (1992) 4457. All of the citations of Plutarch from antiquity come from the Moralia. (1 1) Ibid., 4426. 'Moral position' is used rather than 'moral point' since Plutarch seems to have fixed his subjects on a scale, similar to Plato's column of light (Rep. 616b-619b), or perhaps (less probably) how far each had emerged from the cave (Rep. 516c-521b). (12) Much of what follows although foreshadowed in Brenk's ANRW article was discussed in detail at the 1991 Annual Meetings of the American Philological Association in Chicago. (13) It is relevant here that Augustus once quipped that Caesar would have adopted Antony if only he had not claimed divine descent for himself from Herakles. (14) See D.R. Cunningham, The Influence of the Alexander Legend on Some Roman Political Figures, diss. University of Washington, 1971. The Romans were Scipio, Pompey, Caesar, Antony, and Octavian. 94 G. W.M. HARRISON between Alexander and his détériores come from the Lives and there is a con siderable cluster around Antony. Plutarch himself stated that he intended the Demetrius-Antony pair to be a negative contrast when he wrote in his preface to the 'Life of Demetrius': ούτω μοι δοκοΰμεν και ημείς προθυμότεροι των βελτιόνων εσεσθαι και θεαταί και μιμηταί βίων ει μηδέ των φαύλων και ψεγομένων άνιστσρήτως εχοιμεν. So, I think, we also shall be more eager to observe and imitate the better lives if we are not left without narratives of the blameworthy and the bad. Indeed, one might posit that Plutarch's prefaces and his synkriseis give a code for how he wished a particular life, or pair, to be interpreted. They would thus also perforce lend a balanced closure to a pair of lives, a closure which nevertheless need not be symmetrical since proems most often highlight con gruences while the synkriseis tend to stress differences (15). Consistency with similar statements or moral investigations in the Moralia supplies confirmation of the code at which point one can be assured that their interpretation is the one Plutarch intended and is not idiosyncratic. Negative evidence can be confirming on this point : if Plutarch within the context of the collection of the Parallel Lives merely wished to have recorded the lives and deeds of the twenty-two most famous or important Romans, Augustus surely could not have been left off the list (16). But the twenty-two best known Romans was not his purpose; rather, he seems to have wanted to investigate a series of lives which moved towards the incredible career of Alex ander or was later to be lived in thrall to it. In fact, it is in the single paragraph preamble to the 'Life of Alexander 'that Plutarch most cogently set out his purpose: οΰτε γαρ ιστορίας γράφομεν, αλλά βίους ... ούτως ήμΐν δοτέον εις τα της ψυχής σημεία μάλλον ένδύεσθαι και δια τούτων ειδοποιεΐν τον εκάστου βίον. (15) Cp. Stadter (1975, 77). This pattern may in part have developed since the proems generally justify the choice of men paired while the synkriseis assess them; cp. C.B.R. PelL· ING, Plutarch: 'Life of Antony' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 18-19. (16) A Life of Augustus is listed in the Lamprias Catalogue but was part of a collection of the Lives of the Emperors and not part of the Parallel Lives. There is no indication that the Lives of the Emperors had a comparative or parallel structure or that different imperial lives were intended to illustrate different virtues/vices. THE SEMIOTICS OF PLUTARCH'S Συγκρίσεις 95 We are not writing history, but biography ... thus it becomes incum bentu pon us to flesh out ('^ the signs of the soul and through these to form a facsimile of the life of each. When Plutarch examined these 'signs of the soul' within the context of an individual life, it is surprising how often it is done by an overt comparison to Alexander or Caesar. The illustrations which follow are drawn from the Agesilaus-Pompey and Demetrius-Antony pairs; the other post-Classical Lives would reveal the same pattern. For Demetrius and for Antony, for example, it would appear that the main question for Plutarch was why Demetrius failed to be another Alexander and why Antony did not become like Caesar. In the Life of Demetrius Poliorcetes all of the mentions of Alexander the Great are used in apostrophes to demonstrate how very petty were the reigns of his successors and how their quarrels diminished all of Hellas. The first notice can be taken as indicative of all (18). When discussing an incident in which it was counted as remarkable that the young Demetrius appeared in the presence of Antigonos with a hunting spear in his hand, Plutarch opined (3. 3): ώστε άγάλλεσθαι τον μέγιστον των 'Αλεξάνδρου διαδόχων και πρεσβύτατον οτι μη φοβείται τον υίόν ... Thus [as a result] the greatest and oldest of the successors of Alexan degrlo ried in the fact that he need not fear his son ... The climatic moment of the life of Demetrius (29. 1) came when Alexander appeared to him in a dream before the battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C. Alexander asked Demetrius what the watchword was to be to which Demetrius replied «Δία και Νίκην», at which words Alexander went over to the other side, presumably taking his Τυχή with him (19). (17) Ενδύω literally means 'to put on [ clothing J'; a transformed sense is 'to enter into' as in 'penetrate'. Xenophon, Cyr. 8.1.13, and Plato, Rep. 620c, use the middle to indicate intellectual penetration of one's soul. 'Flesh out' would seem to be the best inadequate transla tionof the complexity of this term. (18) Cp. also 5. 1, 5. 2, 10. 3, 14. 2, 25. 3, 27. 3, 29. 1, 37. 2, 41. 3, 44. 1, and 44. 4. These mentions fall into three distinct clusters: (1) those dealing with the beginning of the career of Demetrius under the tutelage of his father; (2) those viewing Demetrius at the height of his power; and (3) those delineating the forces of Alexander's successors who coordinated their attacks against Demetrius. (19) A striking parallel is found in the 'Life of Antony' 75. 3-4) when the θίασος of Dionysus abandoned Antony on the midnight before the battle of Alexandria. In many ways Dionysus stood in the same relationship to Antony as Alexander did to Demetrius. A similar relationship is to be found between Theseus and Herakles; cp. Larmour (1988) 363. 96 G. W.M. HARRISON One final example is especially illustrative since it contains themes domi nant in the life of Demetrius (41. 3-4): και πολλοίς έπήει λέγειν των Μακεδόνων ως εν μόνω τούτω [i.e. Πύρρω] των Βασιλέων εΐδωλον ένορωτο της 'Αλεξάνδρου τόλμης, οΐ δε άλλοι, και μάλιστα Δημήτριος, ώς έπι σκηνής το βάρος ύποκρίνοιντο και τον ογκον του ανδρός [i.e. 'Αλεξάνδρου]. And to many it came into their minds to say that in this one only of the Macedonian kings did one see the image of the daring of Alexander, but all the others, and especially Demetrius, rehearsed as on a stage the gravitas and majesty of Alexander. It is facet of the baroque that one self-consciously views oneself as continually on stage (20). In section 28 Plutarch noted, again just before the battle of Ipsus, that he (Plutarch) in a rare intrusion as an external narrator had to go from the comic to the tragic stage. Most significantly, Plutarch's final words of the life make clear his feeling that it was all but a play : Διηγωνισμένου δε τοϋ Μακεδόνικου δράματος, ώρα το 'Ρωμαικον έπεισαγαγεΐν. Having narrated the Macedonian drama, it is time to turn to the Roman one. The opening of the 'Life of Antony 'shows him to have been a character drawn from the stage. Like a miles gloriosus (2. 5) : κομπώδη και φρυαγματίαν δντα και κενού γαυριάματος και φιλοτιμίας ανωμάλου μεστόν. He was boastful and arrogant, full of empty exultation and self- contradictory ambitions. In order to make sure that his readers understand that his own assessment of Antony was the contemporary one, Plutarch quoted a mot of the Alexan- (20) To this extent the subject (i.e. actor) of each life serves also as a narrator, thereby affording the reader two views of each action upon which the reader can choose to make an interpretation; cp. E. Block, "Narrative Judgement and Audience Response in Homer and Vergil", Arethusa 19 (1986) 155-67. THE SEMIOTICS OF PLUTARCH'S Συγκρίσεις 97 drians that "Antony wore his tragic mask with the Romans, but his comic mask with them" (29. 2). Theatricality entered even his relations with Cleopatra. One particular public audience (54. 3) in which he distributed kingdoms to his children by Cleopatra and to Caesanon was termed «τραγικήν και ύπερήφανον» (theatrical and arrogant). The end of Antony is recounted in section 77, but the life does not end for another ten sections. Like a tragedy there is an exodos in which one sees Caligula, Claudius, and Nero in the wings, more satyr play than tragedy, but a reminder that the later Julio-Claudians were more closely related to Antony than to Augustus (21). Comparisons with Alexander and Caesar abound everywhere, both implicit and explicit ones (22). Τυχή is often cited in the proems (23) and Plutarch is not able to think of fortune independently of Alexander, even if he is not ment ioned overtly. One of the longest essays in the Moralia is on the 'Fortune of Alexander', and Alexander's τυχή is the canvas upon which everyone else's is painted. Further, the point of Antony's presumed descent from Hercules, for example, was not just the contrast to similar Julian claims in regard to Venus, but also to the statue of Herakles Epitrapezios which travelled with Antony' Alexander (24) . More of the comparisons in the 'Life of naturally are with Caesar. Antony's mother was a Julia, and Antony was in fact as closely related to Caesar as was Octavian. Plutarch's study of Antony was in part a search for the reasons why Antony did not become Caesar's successor. Antony's association with Cleopatra is a simplistic answer and was more effect than cause, as Plutarch himself was surely aware since he called her Antony's δεινή συμφορά (36. 1). The 'Life of Caesar' 6. 3-6 encapsulates neatly Plutarch's assessment of both Caesar and Antony: (21) Here, however, Brenk's view (ANRWll. 33. 6 [1992] 4348-75) that Plutarch was projecting back his own distaste for the reign and personality of Nero into its ancestor, Antony, is less than compelling. It was surely not Tacitus's opinion and even Lucan (so Pharsalia 7) thought to apply the tragic curse no further back than Domitius Ahenobarbus. For retrojection in Plutarch, see T.P. Hillman, "The Alleged Inimicitiae of Pompeius and Lucullus: 78-74 [B.C.]", CP 86 (1991) 316. Surely Peiling (1988, 16-18) is right that the point of the closing chapters is the revelation of Cleopatra's real love for Antony and refusal, after a lifetime of intrigue, to come to a political accommodation with Augustus. (22) One has a further sense of closure since Antony could justly be termed the last, great Hellenistic figure. His life is chronologically the latest of the paired lives. (23) Cp. Städter (1988) 285-86; see also, in general, S. Swain, "de fortuna Roma- norum", CQ 39 (1989) 504-16. (24) Further one of his sons was named Alexander Helis (36. 3) and Antony made his capital Alexandria, the last of Alexander's foundations (80. 1). 98 G. W.M. HARRISON ήγε δε αυτόν επί πάντας ανθρώπους α και πρότερον 'Αλέξαν- δρον και πάλαι Κϋρον, έρως απαρηγόρητος αρχής και περιμανής επιθυμία του πρώτον είναι και μέγιστον ... οΐ φίλοι διέβαλλον, ών 'Αντώνιος άπ' εξουσίας μεγίστης άμαρτάνειν μέγιστα δόξας την πλείστην αιτίαν ελαβεν. An uncontrollable love of dominion and raving mad desire to be first and greatest led him against all men as it had Alexander and Cyrus long ago ... his friends brought him down, of whom Antony received the greatest blame being thought to cause the most trouble since he had the greatest authority. Antony, who had been so unlike Caesar in his fortune, resembled him more closely in adversity, for Antony's pronouncement upon himself (69. 4-70. 1) contains echoes of Plutarch's judgement of Caesar : τον Τίμόωμνοοιςα ' αγκααπιά νγ κααρι ζαήύλτοουςν βαίοδνι κφηαθσεκίεςν , ύώπςο δηφ ίπλεωπνο νθκώαςι άχαριστηθείς, δια τοΰτο και πάσιν άνθρώποις άπιστεϊν και δυσχεραίνειν. He said that he was drawn to and sought to imitate the life of Timon, since they had both suffered similarly: he likewise had suffe redin justice from his friends and had been unappreciated, as a result of which he was not trusted and was held in disgust by all men. It is incredible how many of the pronouncements made upon Antony are com parative and ones in which he is deemed lesser than the comparand. The reader had been conditioned to look for these themes and for threads common to Antony and Demetrios Poliorcetes from the preface (1. 7-8) to the "Life of Demetrius' Q5). The controlling word is ομοίως — they were very much alike: (25) For topics of proems and which Lives have them, see Städter (1988) 275-76, 284. THE SEMIOTICS OF PLUTARCH'S Συγκρίσεις 99 DEMETRIOS POLIORCETES ANTONY ομοίως Traits ερωτικοί amorous ποτικοί bibulous στρατιωτικοί warlike μεγαλόδωροι munificent πολυτελείς extravagant ύβρισταί insolent Actions μεγάλα μεν κατορθοΰντες great successes μεγάλα δε σθαλλόμενοι great reverses πλείστων δε επικρατούντες innumerable conquests πλείστα δε άποβάλλοντες innumerable losses άπροσδοκήτως δε πταίοντες unexpected falls άνελπίστως δέ πάλιν αναφερόντες unhoped for advancements The synkrisis to these lives, therefore, since an outline had already been furnished of how they were to be interpreted and what the major Leitmotifs were to be, merely recapitulates, but also serves to highlight a few important differences, such as the disparity in their origins and prominence of their families during their adolescences. There were, thus, some discrepancies among their apparent similarities. The synkrisis of the Agesiluas-Pompey pair fulfills its normal function of supplying the standards against which these men's lives could be measured, and compared. For this pair, Plutarch envisioned the contrasts in αρετή they illumed. Διαφορά is in the very first sentence: Έκκειμένων ούν των βίων έπιδράμωμεν τω λόγω ταχέως τά ποιουντα τάς διαφοράς, παρ' άλληλα συνάγοντες. Having strewn their lives, let us run quickly through the things that made them different, bringing them next to one another. One assumes because of the last phrase that Plutarch had some kind of outline before him and that the synkrisis existed in nebulous form before the life was written and was filled out later. The point is an important one, and one not yet resolved : it makes a very great difference in how the reader is to approach a pair of lives whether the proems and synkriseis are structural underpinn-