Seducing a Misanthrope: Timon the Philogynist in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata Tom Hawkins N ARISTOPHANES’ Lysistrata, the female half-chorus cast I Timon, the most famous of all ancient misanthropes, as their unlikely ideological ally in their bid to take over the Acropolis and impose peace on war-ridden Athens. While the male half-chorus’ song of “Melanion the misogynist” is under- mined by traditional erotic associations with Atalanta, the women’s song of “Timon the philogynist,” on the other hand, gains power from the crafty redirection of his misanthropy against the men by means of a verbal game. This short choral interaction highlights two important patterns which pervade the entire play. First, female characters in the play consistently employ to their advantage more sophisticated discursive strategies than their male opponents. Second, even at moments of the strictest and most antagonistic gender separation, the aggressive rhetoric of both male and female characters contains the seeds of an eventual resolution.1 Melanion the misogynist and Timon the philogynist The choral sparring takes place mid-way through the play, when the women have already settled upon the sex strike, but 1Important contributions to the study of women in comedy have been made by D. M. Bain, “Female Speech in Menander,” Antichthon 18 (1984) 24–42; R. Finnegan, “Women in Aristophanic Comedy,” Platon 42 (1990) 100–106; J. Henderson, “Older Women in Attic Comedy,” TAPA 117 (1987) 105–129; L. Taaffe, Aristophanes and Women (London 1993); and L. McClure, Spoken Like a Woman (Princeton 1999) 205–259. For Lysistrata in particular, see also H. Foley, “The ‘Female Intruder’ Reconsidered: Women in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Ecclesiazusae,” CP 77 (1982) 1–22, and M. Rosellini “Lysistrata: Une Mise en scène de la féminité,” Les Cahiers de Fontenay 17 (1979) 11–32. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 42 (2001) 143–162 © 2002 GRBS 144 SEDUCING A MISANTHROPE the men do not yet know this. The confrontation between the two half-choruses, therefore, is staged as a bid for control of the Acropolis. The men begin by singing of Melanion, a youth who flees society in order to avoid marriage and never goes homeward (o‡kade) again on account of his hatred of women (781ff).2 The women reply with a song about Timon (805ff), who spitefully curses men but, surprisingly, likes women. If we look at Melanion’s character in detail, we see that Ari- stophanes distorts Melanion’s mythical biography by ignoring his well-known amorous associations with Atalanta in order to make the male chorus vulnerable to the women’s counterattack:3 mËyon boÊlomai l°jai tin' Ím›n, ˜n pot' ≥kous' aÈtÚw ¶ti pa›w vÖn. oÏtvw ∑n nean¤skow Melan¤vn tiw, ˜w feÊ- gvn gãmon éf¤ket' §w §rhm¤an, kén to›w ˆresin ’kei: küt' §lagoyÆrei plejãmenow êrkuw ka‹ kÊna tin' e‰xen koÈk°ti kat∞lye pãlin o‡kad' ÍpÚ m¤souw. 2For the idea of the o‰kow in Athenian drama as the center of the female, domestic world, see S. Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1986) 69ff. 3It may be suggested that the misogynistic Melanion described in these lines is a different figure from the lover of Atalanta (especially given the complexities of the Atalanta myths, cf. n.7 infra), but I am not able to find any support for this thesis. In his note on line 785, the scholiast writes: mÆpote parå tØn flstor¤an e‡rhken. oÈ gér Meilan¤vn ¶feuge mçllon, éll' ≤ ÉAtalãnth. §p¤thdew d¢ toËto ı t«n éndr«n xorÚw flstore›. Van Leeuwen, Aristophanis Lysistrata (Leiden 1903) 112 ad 785, suggested that Melanion only hated mortal women: “Quod autem Atalantem in matrimonium accepit cursu victam et Parthenopaeum ex ea genuit, ea fabula huc non pertinet: qui feminas terrestres cultumque mortalium spreverat, hunc dea—nam vera dea primitus fuit Atalanta—dignata cubili est.” Wilamowitz, Aristophanes Lysistrate (Berlin 1927) 169 ad 781, is less dismissive of Aristophanes’ deliberate manipulation of Melanion’s character: “Es ist natürlich Erfindung der Greise, daß Melanion aus Weiberhaß in die Einsamkeit floh.” Wilamowitz, however, attributes this flexibility in Melanion’s dossier to the mythical style (“es war einmal”), rather than to specific poetic workings of Lysistrata. J. Henderson, Aristophanes Lysistrata (Oxford 1987) 170, claims that the men simply “ignore his connection with Atalante.” TOM HAWKINS 145 oÏtv tåw guna›kaw §bdelÊxyh 'ke›now, ≤me›w d' oÈd¢n ∏tton toË Melan¤vnow, ofl s≈fronew. I want to tell you a story which I heard when I was still a boy. There once was a lad named Melanion, who fled marriage and went off into the wilds and lived in the hills. And with his woven nets, he hunted rabbits with his dog, and he never went homeward again out of spite. Melanion was revolted by women, and we are no less chaste than he (781–796).4 Misogynistic figures like Melanion have been seen before on the tragic stage, such as Hippolytus and Pentheus (though Eurip- ides’ Bacchae was produced several years after Aristophanes’ Lysistrata of 411), and they always meet with a frightful end.5 Despite Melanion’s modern reputation for being “a renowned… misogynist,”6 he is regularly portrayed as the lover of Atalanta; among classical Greek sources, only these lines in Lysistrata attest to his misogyny. The two are associated both in the famous race, in which the victor won the hand of the beautiful maid and the loser was summarily executed, and in the Calydonian boar hunt (Apollod. Bibl. 3.9.2). In these stories, the young man is variously identified as Hippomenes or Meleager, 4For the paired use of mËyow in lines 781 and 805 as a verbal weapons, see G. Zanetto, “Iambic Patterns in Aristophanic Comedy,” in E. Carvarzere et al., edd., Iambic Ideas (Lanham 2001) 68, which compares the semantic effect of mËyoi to a‰noi. R. Rosen, Old Comedy and the Iambographic Tradition (Atlanta 1988) 31, has shown that the a‰now functioned as a “vehicle for abuse” in iambos. On the general theme of lyric abuse in Aristophanes, see Carroll Moulton, Aristophanic Poetry (Göttingen 1982) 18–47. 5Hesiod Th. 603–604 warns of the dangers of avoiding marriage: ˜w ke gãmon feÊgvn ka‹ m°rmera ¶rga gunaik«n / mØ g∞mai §y°lh, ÙloÚn d' §p‹ g∞raw ·koito. If the description of Melanion as gãmon feÊgvn recalled this Hesiodic line for the audience, then the men’s misogyny is already partially undermined. 6John Boardman, “Meilanion,” LIMC VI (1992) 404, who offers no support for this comment. This passage from Lysistrata is cited as proof of Melanion’s misogyny (rather than a unique Aristophanic innovation) by both M. Detienne, “The Perfumed Panther,” in Dionysos Slain, transl. M. and L. Muellner (Baltimore 1979) 41, and P. Vidal-Naquet, “The Black Hunter and the Origin of the Athenian Ephebia,” in The Black Hunter, transl. A. Szegedy- Maszak (Baltimore 1986) 119–120. 146 SEDUCING A MISANTHROPE but also as Melanion. Details surrounding the girl and the three heroes are somewhat obscure, and Timothy Gantz suggests that there are actually two distinct individuals named Atalanta: one is a chaste Boiotian who races against her suitors; the other is an Arcadian who takes part in the Calydonian boar hunt.7 Hip- pomenes is the standard racer in the early literary sources, and Meleager is almost always named as the main boar hunter, but by the fifth century Melanion seems to have a role of his own as a hunter and the devoted lover of Arcadian Atalanta—a far cry from his misogynistic depiction in Lysistrata.8 The earliest literary evidence all supports this portrayal of Melanion as Atalanta’s lover. Hellanicus, the first author to mention Melanion, lists him and Atalanta as the parents of Parthenopaios (FGrHist 4 F 99). Xenophon and Palaephatus, rough contemporaries of Aristophanes, though almost certainly writing some years after the performance of Lysistrata, both mention that Melanion had to work to win the affections of Atalanta.9 Neither author makes any suggestion that the young hero had misogynistic tendencies. In art the situation is the same. On the François Krater, a black-figure vase dating from about 570 B.C., named figures of Melanion and Atalanta are pictured together at the hunt.10 A black figure dinos from about the same time pairs Atalanta with 7T. Gantz, Early Greek Myth (Johns Hopkins 1993) 337. This argument was known in antiquity as well: schol. Theocr. 3.40d, schol. Eur. Phoen. 150. 8In the earliest mention of the race, Hesiod identifies the male runner as Hippomenes: frr.72–76 M./W. 9Xen. (Cyn. 1.7.1) says that Melanion succeeded through filopon¤a. (He also mentions Melanion at 1.2.3 in a list of some of the great hunters of myth.) Palae- phatus 13.4 says that Melanion convinced (énape¤yei) Atalanta to marry him. Compare with these Propertius 1.1.9–10 and Ovid Ars Am. 2.185–192 where Melanion appears as the devoted and ardent lover. For more on Melanion in Latin literature, see P. Fedeli, Sesto Properzio: Il primo libro delle Elegie (Florence 1980) 71–72 ad 1.1.9. 10J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford 1956) 76.1, 682 = Florence 4209. TOM HAWKINS 147 a figure who is almost certainly Melanion.11 Sometimes he ap- pears without Atalanta while taking part in standard male heroic activities, but these images never suggest an antipathy toward women.12 Pausanias, in his description of the Chest of Cypselus on which he claims to have seen Atalanta and Melanion portrayed together (5.19.2), attests that these traditional associations between the two figures persisted. It is highly unlikely that this theme of Melanion’s love for Atalanta, which appears in both literature and art, would not have been known at the time of the production of Lysistrata in 411.13 Furthermore, there is no early evidence (aside from these lines of Aristophanes) to suggest that Melanion was known as a misogynist in other tales. The much more likely explanation is that Aristophanes is distorting Melanion’s mythical biography for comic effect. By invoking a figure with traditional erotic connections with a mythical huntress, rather than citing a true misogynist, such as Hippolytus, the chorus of old men lay themselves open to humorous attack. The female chorus’ use of Timon would, at first, seem to be similarly inappropriate, since Timon is never described as being a friend to women, and a similar interpretive problem arises in 11Beazley (supra n.10) 23 = Athens Agora P334. Boardman (supra n.6) argues that the figure standing next to Atalanta (of whose name only the letters ME are legible) is most probably Melanion given his other associations with Atalanta in the sixth century. 12E.g. the Archikles/Glaukytes cup (Beazley [supra n.10] 163.2, 160.2 = Munich 2243) and a Tyrrhenian amphora (96.18 = Tübingen S/12 2452). 13The only way in which such evidence could be discounted would be through the meager remains of recent dramatic productions involving these characters which could have altered their public images. Unfortunately, so little is known about, for example, Aeschylus’ Atalanta (TrGF III T 78.3) that such a line of argument would be very difficult to support. Furthermore, given the confusion surrounding male attendants of Atalanta, it is quite possible that Aeschylus’ play focused on her relationship with Meleager as plays by Sopho- cles (TrFG IV frr.400–406) and Euripides (frr.515–539 N.2), each titled Mel- eagros, apparently did. 148 SEDUCING A MISANTHROPE trying to explain their attempt to appropriate the famous mis- anthrope:14 kég∆ boÊlomai mËyÒn tin' Ím›n éntil°jai t“ Melan¤vni. T¤mvn ∑n é¤drutÒw tiw, ébãtoisin §n sk≈- loisi tå prÒsvpa perieirgm°now, ÉErinÊvn éporr≈j. otow oÔn ı T¤mvn ’xey' ÍpÚ m¤souw <– – –> pollå katarasãmenow éndrãsi ponhro›w. oÏtv 'ke›now ≤m›n éntem¤sei toÁw ponhroÁw êndraw ée¤, ta›si d¢ gunaij‹n ∑n f¤ltatow. And I want to tell you a story in reply to your Melanion. There was a skulker named Timon, walled off his face in unapproach- able prickles, a shard of the Furies. This Timon, then, out of hatred went <– – – > having vehemently cursed wretched men. So he, just like us, always hated wretched men, but he was very dear to the ladies (805–820). Unfortunately, one line is missing from this description, leaving a lacuna regarding Timon’s movements. It would appear, how- ever, that while Melanion’s hatred of women drives him away from the inhabited world, Timon’s friendly relations with them would likely have kept him closer to society.15 14N. Loraux, “L’Acropole Comique,” AncSoc 11/12 (1980–81) 129, suggests that the female chorus were expected to sing of Atalanta as a response to the male song of Melanion. Given the misogynistic portrayal of Melanion, however, a song about Atalanta’s erotic connections with Melanion would hardly be applicable to this aggressive context. Wilamowitz (supra n.3) 171 justifies the portrayal of Timon by analogy: “Daß er den Haß auf die Frauen nicht übertrug, natürlich Erfindung für diese Antithese.” 15Henderson (supra n.3) 173 mentions Coulon’s suggestion that the missing line said something like “into the mountains.” This is very convenient, but it is also pure conjecture. The male chorus’ Melanion does live in the mountains and the two songs closely parallel one another, but this does not make Coulon’s proposal conclusive. Henderson tries to support it by claiming that in Lucian “Timon wandered in the mountains.” This would be slim support even if true, but Lucian’s Timon is a sedentary farmer who lives by himself on a farm in the TOM HAWKINS 149 No evidence before or after Lysistrata shows Timon as an enemy of men while befriending women.16 In fact, at the Dionysia of 414, the comic poet Phrynichus produced his Monotropos, which explicitly casts Timon as a typical mis- anthrope who rejects all social interaction including marriage.17 As the title character introduces himself, he announces: ˆnoma d¢ moÈst‹ MonÒtropow … z« d¢ T¤mvnow b¤on êgamon, êdoulon, ÙjÊyumon, éprÒsodon, ég°laston, édiãlekton, fidiogn≈mona. My name is Monotropos … I live the life of Timon—unmarried, slaveless, sharp-tempered, unapproachable, unlaughing, un- conversing, and keeping my own council (fr.19 K.-A.). This character sounds much like Menander’s grumpy Cnemon of Dyscolus, and his claim to being unmarried, just like Timon, works against the idea that Timon was a friend to women.18 The two descriptions, however, do agree on Timon’s unap- proachable personality. Timon could also be portrayed as a figure who defies strict categorical oppositions. This aspect of his character can be ——— hills. Aristophanes’ Timon is not so isolated as to avoid contact with women or frequent tirades against men. If Melanion, thus, avoids women by refusing to go homeward, and Timon has relations with women, then Timon must not run off to the hills like Melanion. 16Lucian seems to make reference to Timon becoming engaged (Tim. 47). The issue hinges on the word pro›ka. In post-Homeric usage, pro›ka typically means “bride-gift” or “dowry,” but in the accusative it can also be used adverbially to mean “freely given.” This distinction, however, matters very little since the story of Lucian’s Timon is that, in the words of Alciphron, §k filanyr≈pou mis- ãnyrvpow §g°neto (Alciph. 2.32). Whether a true engagement or not, it is ir- relevant to the present discussion since the sentence refers to Timon’s life prior to his transformation into a misanthrope. 17The first hypothesis of Aristophanes’ Birds gives the reference about Phrynichus’ play, including the fact that it was awarded third prize. See N. Dunbar, Aristophanes Birds (Oxford 1995) 55. 18There are several other known appearances of inveterate grouches on the comic stage in addition to Timon, Cnemon, and Monotropos: the chorus of grumpy old men in Pherecrates’ Agrioi (described at Pl. Prt. 327D), Antiphanes’ Timon, and Anaxilas’ Monotropos. 150 SEDUCING A MISANTHROPE clearly seen in Aristophanes’ Birds, produced in the same year as Phrynichus’ Monotropos. Aristophanes makes a brief mention of Timon which likens him to Prometheus: Pr.: ée¤ pot' ényr≈poiw går eÎnouw e‡m' §g≈. Pi.: mÒnon ye«n går diå s' épanyrak¤zomen. Pr.: mis« d' ëpantaw toÁw yeoÊw, …w o‰sya sÊ. Pi.: nØ tÚn D¤' ée‹ d∞ta yeomisØw ¶fuw, T¤mvn kayarÒw. Prometheus: I have always been a friend to men. Pisthetaerus: I know. It is because of you, alone of the all gods, that we have our cook-outs. Prometheus: And I hate every one of the gods, as you well know. Pisthetaerus: By Zeus, I do. You’ve always been a god-forsaken sort. A regular Timon! (Av. 1545–1549)19 Prometheus has just risked Zeus’ wrath by descending to earth in order to advise mortals on how to bargain with the gods, and he makes sure that Pisthetaerus understands his motivation by referring to his well-known fondness for mankind (cf. Hes. Th. 562–569, Aesch. PV 11, 28). This example is more interesting than the fragment of Phrynichus, because it likens Timon to Prometheus, who is clearly cast as a character who hates his own kind but favors a group to which he does not belong. Of course, Prometheus is a Titan and a second- (rather than third-) generation god, but the text emphasizes his defection from the unified camp of heaven rather than any factionalism among the gods. In Birds, Timon thus becomes an example of one who blurs the lines between categories that might otherwise be assumed to be in strict, exclusive opposition to one another.20 This role is equally important in Lysistrata. Several later sources follow Aristophanes’ description of 19I here follow Dunbar’s (supra n.17) line assignment, though the question of who speaks the first half of line 1549 does not affect my argument. 20In his comments on these lines from Birds, Dunbar (supra n.17: 707–709) is obviously aware that the point of connection between Prometheus and Timon is their opposition to their own group, though he gives equal emphasis to the incongruity of comparing a Titan to an Athenian mortal. TOM HAWKINS 151 Timon not just as a misanthrope, but as a hater of his own kind who could enjoy the company of others. Plutarch claims that Timon was very fond of Alcibiades because he happily anticipated the havoc which Alcibiades would one day wreak on Athens (Ant. 69–70, Alc. 16). This connection between Timon and Alcibiades may be much earlier than Plutarch, however. The scholiast to Plato’s Symposium comments that Alcibiades makes a quip to Agathon about learning through suffering which was particularly apt for Timon, who reviled his former friends only after they had spent all his wealth (222B). The pairing of Alcibiades and Timon in Plutarch and the scholiast may be part of a traditional conception of Timon’s social behavior, rather than a mere coincidence. Olympiodorus, writing in the sixth century, relates that Plato was the only man in Athens with whom Timon would consort (in Alc. 2.147).21 While these sources are too late to be understood as reflecting classical Athenian views of Timon, they do show that later writers conceived of him as making exceptions to his generally misanthropic views for certain types of people. Whether this pattern derives from Aristophanes’ portrayal of Timon in Birds and Lysistrata or whether it pre-dates Aristophanes is un- important for the present argument.22 All this evidence suggests that, while Timon was always known to be at odds with society at large, he could also form alliances with those who opposed his enemies. Although none of the passages hint at a fondness for women (and the fragment of Phrynichus expressly mentions that Timon was unmarried), Lysistrata may have provided a suitable ally for Timon in the 21P.5 Westerink. Olympiodorus’ point may be connected to the fact that a tower in the vicinity of Plato’s Academy was commonly known as Timon’s Tower (Paus. 1.30.4). 22In “Timon of Athens—A Legendary Figure?” G&R 34 (1987) 7–11, A. M. Armstrong surveys the evidence and concludes that Timon was a historical per- son. Armstrong relies particularly on the first-ever mentions of Timon in the comedies of Aristophanes and Phrynichus in 414 B.C. and the Suda’s (s.v. §sxh- matism°now) record of an oration by Lysias titled Against Timon. 152 SEDUCING A MISANTHROPE form of the chorus of women. Like Timon, the women rebel against the established order in Athens and, in behaving like an army of Amazons trying to conquer the Acropolis (albeit in order to put an end to the war), the chorus of women may be thought of as earning Timon’s affection for the same reasons that Alcibiades did.23 Seducing a misanthrope and other tricks of female rhetoric Edward Cohen has recently argued that the participation of women in Athenian life was much less restricted than modern scholarship has recognized, which calls into question the historical reality of a uniquely feminine rhetoric.24 Even if Cohen’s thesis is correct, however, a particularly feminine mode of verbal communication, characterized by crafty and persua- sive speech, exists on the dramatic stage.25 In Lysistrata, female characters are consistently shown as capable of understanding and manipulating not only this particularly feminine discursive strategy but also the more direct mode of speech typical of male characters. Female characters use this rhetorical flexibility to their advantage and their male counterparts’ disadvantage in 23The idea of the parallel between the women in Lysistrata and the Amazons is heightened by the presence of images of Theseus’ amazonomachy on the Par- thenon (Paus. 1.15–17). The role of Amazons in Athenian imagery is discussed by W. B. Tyrrell, Amazons (Baltimore 1984) 40–63; Vidal-Naquet (supra n.6) 205–223, “Slavery and the Rule of Women in Tradition, Myth and Utopia”; and P. DuBois, Centaurs and Amazons (Ann Arbor 1982) 34–42. 24E. Cohen, The Athenian Nation (Princeton 2000) 38. Cohen argues (9) that the study of Athens has been biased by an “obsession with the male ‘citizen.’” An example of the position against which Cohen argues may be found in P. Cartledge, “Deep Plays: Theatre as Process in Greek Civic Life,” in P. E. Easter- ling, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1997) 27–28. 25McClure (supra n.1) 24ff. McClure suggests that this portrayal of women in Athenian drama stems from the fact that only a woman truly knows who the father of her children is. This knowledge gives women power over truth and falsehood. According to R. Martin, “Fire on the Mountain: Lysistrata and the Lemnian Women,” CA 6 (1987) 77–105, the male chorus attest to the fact that “the potential threat from powerful females was a psychic reality to Athenian males” (84).