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Hybris and Dishonour: I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

N. R. E. Fisher
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Extract

Professor D. M. MacDowell's article continues a recent and welcome tendency to question the common interpretation of hybris by study of the actual instances of the concept throughout Greek literature. MacDowell's definition ‘having energy or power and misusing it self-indulgently’ is fairly broad, and he supports it by five further points:

i) that hybris is always bad,

ii) that it is always voluntary,

iii) that it is frequently, but not always, produced by such things as youth, wealth, and excess of food and drink,

iv) that it is not usually religious, and

v) that it often involves a victim, and is more serious when it does.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , October 1976, pp. 177 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1976

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References

NOTES

1. G&R 23 (1976), 14 ff.

2. Lattimore, R., Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy (London, 1964), pp. 22–8Google Scholar; Vickers, B., Towards Greek Tragedy (London, 1973), pp. 29–32Google Scholar; Rosenmeyer, T. G. in Hubris, Man and Education.Google Scholar Papers delivered at the inauguration of J. L. Jarrett, Bellingham, Washington, 1959 (whose view is not far removed from MacDowell's). Of earlier work the thesis of Gernet, L., Recherches sur le développement de la pensée juridique et morale en Grèce (Paris, 1917)Google Scholar, most deserves mention. On the derivation of ῠβρις see now Szemerényi, O., JHS 94 (1974), 154.Google Scholar

3. e.g. much of the work of A. W. H. Adkins, especially BICS 7 (1960), 23 ff.; Finley, M. I., The World of Odysseus (London, 1956)Google Scholar; Walcot, P., Greek Peasants, Ancient and Modern (Manchester, 1970)Google Scholar, Ch. IV; Dover, K. J., Greek Popular Morality (Oxford, 1975), pp. 226–42.Google Scholar

4. I am most grateful to Professor MacDowell and to the editors for allowing me to see the former's article before publication. These articles form a preliminary statement of my work on hybris and on related concepts which I hope to publish more fully elsewhere. For much advice and encouragement, over a long period of time, and during the preparation of this article, it gives me great pleasure to thank Dr. J. K. Davies, Professor John Gould, Mr. D. K. Hill, Professor P. Walcot, and my wife.

5. e.g. Andrewes, A., Greek Society (Harmondsworth, 1971), p. 235.Google ScholarLattimore, Even, op. cit., p. 25Google Scholar, regards the legal use as in some sense ‘technical’, meaning ‘violence’.

6. I agree wholeheartedly with MacDowell's rejection of K. Ruschenbusch's late date and bizarre interpretation of the graphe bybreos (ZSSR 82 (1965), 302–9), and see little reason in this case to doubt the traditional attribution to Solon (cf. Aesch. 1. 15–17; Dem. 21. 42–9).

7. Cf. also the brief definition of Ps.-Plato, Definitions, 415 e 12: ὕβρις ⋯δικία ε⋯ς ⋯τ⋯αν φ⋯ρουσα.

8. Cf. Fortenbaugh, W. W., Aristotle on Emotion (London, 1975).Google Scholar

9. Cf. also 1373b 38–74a 4; E.E 1121b 1–26.

10. Cf. also H.N. 1149a 32–b 23, de virt. et vit. 1251a 30–b 25, Rhet. 1379a 30–4.

11. Cf. the use of Homeric examples to elucidate the anger felt at an act of hybris at Rhet. 1378b 31–4, quoted above. Agamemnon's act, in taking Achilles'geras in order to dishonour him, and show that he himself was the supreme commander (Il. 1. 185–7), is felt by Achilles and his supporters as hybris (Il. 1. 203 and 214; 9. 368).

12. This does not exclude the possibility of ‘metaphorical’ or attenuated uses of hybris applied to less than human subjects, or in less serious contexts (cf. p. 189).

13. Such an interpretation of the force of the grapbe hybreos is offered by, among others, Cope, E. M., Commentary on Aristotle's Rhetoric (Cambridge, 1877), Vol. ii, p. 17Google Scholar; Lipsius, J. H., Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfahren (repr. Darmstadt, 1966), pp. 421 ff.Google Scholar; Harrison, A. R. W., The Law of Athens (Oxford, 1968), Vol. i, p. 172.Google Scholar

14. Dem. 45. 3 ff.; cf. 36. 30: Gernet, , op. cit., pp. 299Google Scholar, n. 302, and Davies, J. K., Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford, 1971), p. 435.Google Scholar

15. Cf. also Isaeus 8. 41, where achieving a citizen's disenfranchisement (atimia) apparently gave rise to a graphe hybreos: the evidence of a separate Isaean speech ‘against Diocles for hybris’ (fr. 6 Budé) suggests that the case did at least come to court. Cf. Davies, , op. cit., pp. 313–14 and Wyse on Is. 8. 41.Google Scholar

16. Rhet. 1370b 32–71a 10; cf. E.N. 1124b9–15.

17. Since wit (eutrapelia) is generally a good thing in Aristotle, ‘educated hybris’ is here virtually not hybris at all: the offensiveness of the verbal insult is removed and the cleverness and humour is what counts. Cf. Fortenbaugh, W. W., TAPhA 99 (1968), 203 ff., esp. 217–20.Google Scholar

18. Cf. Nilsson, M. P., Gesch. der griech. Rel. 3 (Munich, 1967) i. 739 ff.Google Scholar, who cites this passage (along with many others that do not contain the word) as evidence of the ‘common view’ that hybris is simply the feeling of being given great good fortune.

19. Thuc. 3. 45. 4 and Dem. 21. 182.

20. In addition to those quoted from the Politics, cf. Hesiod, Op. 214–16; Solon. 4. 8 (West, IEG); Theognis, 39–40; Hdt. 1. 106 and 3. 80–2; Xen. Anab. 5. 8, Cyr. 5. 2. 22, Hell. 2. 4. 17; Pl. Laws 761 e.

21. Dem. 53. 16 is clear: to beat an intruder into one's rose-garden might be permissible if he were a slave, hybris if a son of a citizen (cf. Dem. 21. 183). Athenian law none the less prohibited hybris against a slave; cf. Dem. 21. 45–8, Aesch. 1. 17, and cf. also Pl.Laws 777 d.

22. Slaves: Ar. Frogs 21; Eur. Andr. 434; women: Ar. Lys. 399–400 and 425; Democritus B 1 1 1 DK; Pl. Laws 774 c; children: Pl. Laws 808 e; Soph. El. 613; Eur.Al. 679 ff.

23. Pol. 1269b 10.

24. Solon 6. 3 (IEG); Hdt. 3. 118 and 126–7, 4. 146; Xen. Hiero 8. 9. and 10. 2; Isocr. Nic. 16.

25. Hdt. 7. 5; Thuc. 3. 39. 4–5; Xen. Cyr. 3. 1. 21 ff.

26. Thuc. 1. 38. 5, 1. 84. 2, 2. 65. 9, 4. 18. 2; Hdt. 7. 16. a2.

27. Lys. 21. 12; Eur. Cycl. 665, Ion 810, Bacch. 779; Dem. 9. 60, 23. 81 and 121, 15.6.

28. Xen. Mem. 2. 1. 5; Gorg. B6 DK; Aes. Sept. 406, in all of which the action is in retaliation for an act of hybris, and the victim is duly humiliated in return. At Eur. Bacch. 616 Dionysus boasts of humiliating Pentheus; disapproval of his hybris may be felt by the audience. Weaker Argument in Clouds goes furthest in justifying hybris (1068), in a sexual context where it means violent sex-play; like many male chauvinists he argues that all women like that.

29. Ar. Ach. 479 and 1117, Peace 1264; Hdt. 7. 160; Dem. 21. 71; Soph. Ajax 961; Pind. Ol. 13. 10.

30. Hes. fr. 30. 17 (Merkelbach-West); Eur. Rhes. 917; Soph. El. 790; Aes. Ag. 1612.

31. Cf.MacDowell, , p. 18; add Hes.Google ScholarOp. 146; Hdt. 1. 114; Ar. Clouds 1298; Lys. 3. 23 and 40, 20. 3; Dem. 22. 54, 47. 41.

32. Homer Il. 11. 695; Dem. 43. 84, 45. 83; cf. MacDowell, , p. 19.Google Scholar

33. Dem. 27. 65, 35. 24, 45. 80, 43. 75 and 77, 57. 5, 24. 121. Or of unjust acts generally: Hes. Op. 134, 191, 212–18; Paus. 1. 285.

34. Hom. Od. 16. 418 ff.; Soph. Trach. 280, Ajax 1092 and 1385; Eur. Phoen. 1743; Dem. 43. 71.

35. Thuc. 4. 98. 5; Aes. Pers. 808 and 825; Eur. Suppl. 633.

36. Hdt. 3. 49, 5. 77, 6. 84; Xen. Hell. 3. 4. 5, 3. 5. 24; Dem. 1. 27, 3. 14; Isocr. Arch. 36, 108; Thuc. 1.68.2.

37. Pind. Pyth. 1. 71; Hdt. 8. 77; Xen. Hell. 2. 2. 10; Pl. Tim. 24e.

38. Hdt. 7. 16. a2; Thuc. 2. 65. 9; Xen. Hell. 5. 2. 38.

39. e.g. in his instances of hybris as fighting on p. 18, and as verbal abuse on p. 20.

40. Insults or violence are evident in Ant. 4 passim; Ar. Eccl. 664, and likely in Anacreon 356 (Page); cf. also Ar. Wasps 1313 ff.; Lys. 3. 6–7 and 12–20; Dem. 54. 4. Xenophanes 1. 17 is probably more general; see West, M. L., Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (Berlin, 1974), p. 189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In Thuc. 8. 45. 2 the hybrizontes refers to the soldiers' indiscipline exhibited either in debauchery or in desertion, not just in drinking.

41. Cf. Gould, J. P., JHS 93 (1973), 91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. e.g. 4. 321, 16. 86, 17. 582 and 588, 20. 170, 23. 64.

43. MacDowell at this point derives the traditional assocation between hybris and koros (having too much) from a connection between too much food and drink and hybris. But koros is applied to all good things, and to prosperity generally, as early as Homer ( Il. 13. 656 ff. ) and Hesiod ( Op. 33, Theog. 593 ), and all the extant statements linking koros and hybris operate on that more general level. Mutatis mutandis, however, MacDowell's explanation of the varied genealogical relations of koros and hybris by the notion of a vicious circle seems correct: acquiring too much wealth both involves and leads to unjust and humiliating acts.

44. Rape: Hdt. 6. 137. 3; Eur. Hipp. 1073, El. 947; Ar. Thesm. 64; and add Hdt. 9. 73.2; Bacch. 17. 44; Lys. 12. 98, 14. 26; Dem. 23. 141. Seduction: probably Archilochus 295 (f) (IEG) with the new epode, Page SEG S478, though there may have been rapes as well; cf. above all Lysias 1 passim. Forced marriage: Aes. Suppl. passim (that, not ‘lust’ and certainly not ‘incest’, seems to me to be the ground of the Danaids' complaint): Eur. Hel. 785. Unequal marriage: Eur. El. 58.

45. Dem. 22. 58; Aesch. 1. 15; Arist. E.N. 1148b 30.

46. Aesch. 1 passim; cf. Dover, , op. cit., pp. 215 f.Google Scholar

47. Ar. Clouds 1068; Dem. 49. 33–7.

48. Cf. Aristotle, E.N. 1149b 30–6. Of plants hybrizein means ‘bloom wildly’ (Arist.Gen. An. 725b 35; Theophrastus Caus. Plant. 2. 16. 8), and the metaphor is as great and as intelligible as in our own ‘a riot of colour’.

49. Cf. Krappe, A. H., CPh 42 (1947), 223 ff.Google Scholar and Köhnken, A., Die Funktion des Mythos bei Pindar (Berlin, 1971), pp. 61 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50. Hes. fr. 204, 129 ff., Theog. 306 and 514; Hymn to Ap. 278; Pind. Nem. 1. 50; Eur. Bacch. 743; Hom. Od. 9. 175; Theognis 541–2; Soph. Trach. 1096; Eur. Her. 181; Arch. 177 (IEG); Hdt. 1. 189; PMG 1005; Aes. Prom. 717.