¹ B 240. Height 37.2 cm. CVA British Museum 4 pl. 58 (203) 4a.

² Strab. 8.6.2 (C 368).

³ Life of Apollonios of Tyana iv 16. In his Heroikos (195) Philostratos takes this idea to an absurd extreme, suggesting that Odysseus made it a condition of his confiding to Homer the true story of the Trojan war that Homer would suppress all mention of Palamedes. (Anderson, G., Philostratos (London 1986) 245 gives a translation of the crucial passage.Google Scholar) See also Jouan, F., Euripide et les légendes des chants cypriens (Paris 1966) 354–56.Google Scholar

⁴ There was also a tragedy called Palamedes by Astydamas the Younger, and tragedies on related themes (Odysseus Mainomenos, Nauplios Pyrcaeus and Nauplios Katapleon) by Sophokles. Gorgias composed a Defence of Palamedes.

⁵ Sutton, D.F., Two lost plays of Euripides (New York 1987) 111–51Google Scholar (esp. 111–13, 129, and 153) argues that Euripides' Palamedes was intended to allude to the achievements and fate of Protagoras. He claims that ‘In the dramatic and rhetorical literature of the fifth century BC Palamedes was firmly established as a mythological archetype of the the creative intellectual …’ 112.

⁶ Paus, x 31.1.

⁷ Xen. Ap. 26.

⁸ Pl. Ap. 41 b.

⁹ His cultural contributions in many instances overlap those attributed to Prometheus (and occasionally others, e.g. Kadmos in the invention of writing) cf. Wüst, E., RE xviii² (xxxvi¹) 1942Google Scholar, Palamedes, s.v. 2511–2512. Stanford, W.B., The Ulysses theme (Oxford 1968) 257Google Scholar, n. 8 remarks that he seems to be ‘a superfluous Prometheus in inventiveness and a superfluous Odysseus in his prudent counsel.’

¹⁰ In his summary of the Cypria, Procl. Chrest, also refers to the death of Palamedes.

¹¹ Hyg. Fab. 95; Lucian de domo 30; Apollod. Epit. iii 7; Serv. Schol. Aen. ii 81.

¹² Hyg. Fab. 95 and Plin. HN xxxv 129 specify an ox and a horse.

¹³ Stanford (supra, n. 9) 83.

¹⁴ Either by seizing the infant from his mother's arms and threatening him with a sword, as in Apollod. Epit. iii 7, Plin. HN xxxv 129 and Lucian de domo 30 or by placing him in the way of the plough as in Hyg. Fab. 95 and Serv. Aen. ii 81.

¹⁵ Palamedes' contributions to civilised life seem to be chiefly of an intellectual nature and many appear to deal with establishing an order or system, e.g. ordering letters, numbers, hours, seasons, meal-times, weights and measures and armies, and systematising the mixing of wine and water, the rotation of guards and the recording of laws. Other contributions have to do with astronomy, rhetoric, music, fire signals and the invention of money, writing, board games and dice. The totality is something of a hodge-podge elaborated in the course of time. Lewy ML Palamedes, s.v. 1268–1271 and Wüst (supra n. 9Google Scholar) 2505–2509, give a good compendium with sources; see also Jouan (supra n. 3) 346. As early as Gorgias' Defence of Palamedes, the sophist has Palamedes claim that he invented letters, the writing down of laws, numbers, weights and measures, military equipment, beacons and the game of draughts. (Fragment 11a, [30] Sprague, R.K. (ed.), The older Sophists (Columbia, SC 1972) 61Google Scholar, trans. G. Kennedy). Palamedes was also reputed to have alleviated one or more of the famines that beset the troops (see Pearson, A.C., The fragments of Sophocles ii (Cambridge 1917) 133–134Google Scholar).

¹⁶ So it is agreed in antiquity by all but Dares (28) who says he was killed in battle.

¹⁷ Paus, x 31.2–3.

¹⁸ According to Jouan (supra n. 3) p. 357, Robert, C., Griechische Heldensage iii (Zurich 1967) 1130Google Scholar and Wüst (supra n. 9) 2505 this may have been a sign of famine, as Homeric heroes would not normally eat fish. Odysseus' resentment of Palamedes may have been exacerbated by Palamedes' success in ending a famine after Odysseus had tried and failed (Serv. Aen ii 81).

¹⁹ Hyg. Fab. 105.

²⁰ Schol. Eur. Or. 432.

²¹ Pseudo-Alcidamas (text in Blass, F., Antiphon (Leipzig 1881Google Scholar), see Scodel, R., The Trojan trilogy of Euripides (Göttingen 1980) 46–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²² Hyg. Fab. 105.

²³ Cf. Pearson (supra n. 15) 132 and Robert (supra n. 18) 1133, n. 2. On the scholars' debate as to which version was used by which poet, see most recently Scodel (supra n. 21) 43–63, with bibliography.

²⁴ On Palamedes' invention of writing see Jouan (supra n. 3) 249–250. The tradition goes back at least as far as Stesichoros, see PMG 213 (from Stesichoros' Oresteia infra n. 60).

²⁵ Dictys ii 15.

²⁶ Nauplios was generally believed to be his father, cf., for instance, Apollod. Epit. vi 8 and Bibl. ii 1.5; Hyg. Fab. 116, 277; Ov. Met. xiii 34–62; Ap. Rhod. Argon, i 133–138 distinguishes an earlier Nauplios from a later one. His mother was generally believed to be Clymene, but according to the authors of the Nostoi she was Philyra and according to Kerkops, Hesione (Apollod. Bibl. ii 1.5).

²⁷ Nauplios went to the Greek camp at Troy to complain about the murder of his son according to Apollod. Epit. vi 8–11 and Schol. Eur. Or. 432. On the basis of fr. 181 Radt Aesch. is generally thought to have invented (or, at least, dramatised) this incident, see Scodel (supra n. 21) 52; Pearson (supra n. 15) 133.

²⁸ Hyg. Fab. 116; Apollod. Epit. vi 7–11; Quint. Smyrn. xiv 611–628. For the Nostoi, see Procl. Choest.

²⁹ Severyns, A., Le cycle épique (Liège/Paris 1928) 374–76Google Scholar suggests that the tradition of Nauplios setting false beacons goes back to the Nostoi. The tradition certainly goes back as far as the fifth century, cf. Eur. Hel. 765–771 and 1126–1131 and was probably old by then. Dale, A.M., Euripides: Helen (Oxford 1967) 139Google Scholar neatly observes: ‘The later use of a lighthouse to warn off from a dangerous coast is liable to confuse our picture here; to a Greek such a shore beacon meant a harbour. Apparently in this version Nauplius rowed out alone (the distances are formidable) and when he saw the Greek ships approaching lit his prepared beacon on the rocky headland of S. Euboea.’

³⁰ See Severyns (supra n. 29) pp. 373–76 and Apollod. Epit. vi 9–11; Hyg. Fab. 117 and Dictys vi 2 credit Palamedes' brother Oiax with stirring up the heroes' wives, especially Klytaimnestra.

³¹ Thus, according to Schol. Eur. Or. 432, he ‘heard about it’ (akousas) and according to Apollod. Epit. vi 8, he ‘learned of it’ (mathōn), and Hyg. Fab 116 suggests he ‘heard’ (audivit).

³² Ar. Thesm. 768–784 and Schol. Ar. Thesm. 777. Robert, C. (supra n. 18) 1134Google Scholar suggests that this was an invention of Eur.'s that was created to explain how Nauplios heard of his son's murder and so knew to come to Troy—an effort to correct a point that was left obscure (or not properly addressed) by Aesch. Aesch. did, however, address the problem of communi cation at the beginning of the Ag.

³³ For example, re Achilles: black figure skyphos, Athens, Nat. Mus. 433 (CC 809) Beazley ABV 120,5 and re Patroklos: black figure hydria, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 63.473; Para 164,31 bis; Schefold, K., Götter- und Heldensagen der Griechen in der spätarchaischen Kunst (Munich 1978) 233, fig. 312Google Scholar; LIMC i s.v. Achilleus no. 586 (illustrated) and black figure lekythos, Naples, Museo Nazionale 2746, Beazley ABV 378, 258, Martens, D., Le vase grec (Brussels 1992) 80, fig. 28.Google Scholar

³⁴ Siebert, G., ‘Eidola’, Méthodologie iconographique (Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg) (1981) 65–6.Google Scholar

³⁵ Peifer, E., Eidola (Frankfurt am Main 1989) 109–12. PeiferGoogle Scholar 109–15 collects and discusses all extant examples of such isolated ‘eidolon’ images in Attic vase painting that he could find, entering them in his catalogue as numbers 48–51. Their very rarity makes them difficult to interpret. I am grateful to Jasper Gaunt for having drawn my attention to this book.

³⁶ Calyx krater, New York, Metropolitan Museum 1972.11.10. Schefold (supra n. 33) 225 fig. 303.

³⁷ Walters, H.B., Catalogue of Greek and Etruscan vases in the British Museum ii (London 1893) 153Google Scholar, no. B 240 suggested that it represented ‘The shade of Patroklos or Achilles passing over the ships’ and in CVA (British Museum iv), pl. 58 (203) 4a suggested, like Schefold (supra n. 33) 250 and Kemp-Lindemann, D., Darstellungen des Achilleus in griechischen und römischen Kunst (Bern/Frankfurt am Main 1975) 229, ‘Achilles transported to (or flying to) the islands of the Blest.’Google Scholar

³⁸ See for instance, the black figure neck amphora. New York, Metropolitan Museum 56.171.25 (Haspels, C., Attic blackfigure lekythoi (Paris 1936) 239, 137Google Scholar; Beazley ABV 509,137 Para 248, Weiss, C., LIMC iii s.v. ‘Eos’ 329Google Scholar; Peifer (supra n. 35) 194–95, pl.8, fig. 17) on which a winged armed eidolon emerges from the mouth of a stripped corpse carried by two warriors. The nonsense inscriptions do not help to identify the dead man, though the presence of Eos on the other side of the vase suggested to Weiss that he is intended to be Memnon, while Haspels considers the iconography more appropriate for Sarpedon. In a similar representation on another neck amphora (Louvre F 388) also by the Diosphos Painter (Haspels 238, 133), the eidolon appears to be flying toward, rather than away from the dead man (Shapiro, H.A., Personifications in Greek Art (Kilchberg/Zürich 1993) 136Google Scholar, fig. 89, cat. no. 71). A black-figure lekythos, Delos B 6137 546, ABV 378.257, Schefold (supra n. 33) 234, fig. 313, LIMC s. v. Achilleus no. 588 (illustrated) actually shows two winged armed eidola, only one of which could be intended to represent the ghost of Patroklos. Perhaps the second one is meant to be the ghost of Hektor. Consequently there is no compelling reason why the ghostly warrior on the British Museum amphora should be identified as Achilles (or Patroklos). Nor is there any compelling reason why this warrior's destination should be identified as the Isles of the Blest since no guide to the Isles of the Blest is necessary, and were one needed, the god Hermes would certainly be more appropriate than a ship. Furthermore, the Isles of the Blest being rather an élite place, it is unlikely that a whole shipload of people would be taken there. The ship is hardly necessary just to indicate that the ghost is flying over the sea, since that is, in any case, adequately indicated by the swimming fish and wavy lines.

³⁹ Pouilloux, J. and Roux, G., Énigmes à Delphes (Paris 1963) 116–18Google Scholar, pl. 22 take suitable account of the ship in their interpretation that the vase shows the great leap of Achilles from ship-board to Troy, but do not take the wings of the figure sufficiently into account, dismissing them as inconsequential for their interpretation. C. Robert (supra n. 18) 1278 suggested that the shade of Achilles was shown appearing to the ships departing from Troy after its sack in order to turn them back and satisfy his demand that Polyxena be sacrificed to him, but if this were the case it would seem more likely that Achilles would be shown flying toward the bow of the ship in order to turn it back.

⁴⁰ Pollard, J., Birds in Greek life and myth (London 1977) 127Google Scholar remarks that ravens were regarded as highly ominous birds. In his fig. 2, he identifies this bird as a raven. Birds (particularly ravens) often appear sitting on the fountain-house behind which Achilles lurks, preparing to ambush Troilos (cf. LIMC i s.v. Achilleus nos. 224–226, 234, 235, 244, 246, 247, 261, 264, 266 among others).

⁴¹ Procl. Chrest, (summary of Cypria).

⁴² Procl. Chrest, (summary of Nostoi). Severyns, A. (supra n. 29) 376 observes that the story of Palamedes makes a connection between the Cypria and the Nostoi.Google Scholar

⁴³ Procl, only mentions the death of Palamedes, but Pausanias x 31.2–3 says explicitly that from reading the Cypria he learned the details of Palamedes' death through drowning.

⁴⁴ See supra n. 29 and Pearson (supra n. 15) 80 suggests that the story was probably included in both the cyclic Nostoi and Stesichoros' Nostoi and also discusses later sources.

⁴⁵ Louvre E 609, painted about 570 BC, see Amyx, D.A., Corinthian vase-painting of the archaic period (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1988) 569–70Google Scholar, no. 57, pl. 110,2; Payne, H., Necrocorinthia (Oxford 1931) 135Google Scholar no. 8, 164 no. 27, 322 no. 1296; Lorber, F., Inschriften auf Korinthischen Vasen (Berlin 1979) no. 83Google Scholar with fig. 46 and pl. 18.

⁴⁶ Amyx (supra n. 45) 570.

⁴⁷ Metropolitan Museum of Art 08.258.21, by the Nekyia Painter: Beazley ARV ¹ 1086,1; Para 449; Carpenter, T.H., Beazley Addenda ¹ (Oxford 1989) 327Google Scholar; Jacobsthal, P., ‘The Nekyia krater in New York’, Metropolitan Museum Studies v (1934–6) 117–45, esp. 128–32Google Scholar, figs. 6, 9. Palamedes' name is here inscribed as ‘Talamedes’—a fairly usual variant, see infra, note 60.

⁴⁸ Jacobsthal (supra n. 47) 132 thinks that this impressive image of Palamedes must be a reflection of a figure in a major painting created by an artist who was more inspired and more gifted than the mediocre painter of the vase.

⁴⁹ Paus, x 31.1–2.

⁵⁰ Mor. 18 a (de aud. poet. 3).

⁵¹ Pliny HN xxxv 129.

⁵² de domo 30.

⁵³ Italian, first century BC in a private collection in Scotland. Overbeck, J., Die Bildwerke zum Thebischen und Troischen Heldenkreis (Stuttgart 1857) pl. 13Google Scholar, 4 and Furtwängler, A., Antike Gemmen iii (Leipzig and Berlin 1900) 232Google Scholar; Palagia, O., Euphranor (Leiden 1980) 64.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Epit. iii 7.

⁵⁵ Fab. 95.

⁵⁶ Phot. Bibl i 146b.

⁵⁷ Chit. 8, 396 (Leone 1968).

⁵⁸ Despite Gonnelli's, C. apparent certainty (EAA v s.v. Palamede8481Google Scholar) that it was the stoning that was depicted.

⁵⁹ Attic rf lekythos, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 1977.713. LIMC i s. v. Aigisthos 372–373 no. 6a, with drawing; Prag, A.J.N.W., The Oresteia (Warminster 1985) 138 no. C 12, pl. 10a.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ For instance, on the New York Nekyia vase (see supra n. 49), he is inscribed ‘Talamedes’ and the Etruscan form of his name is ‘Talmithe’, see Beazley, J.D., Etruscan vase painting (Oxford 1947) 127Google Scholar, note 1. Wüst (supra n. 9) col. 2501 suggests that originally his name was ‘Ptalamedes’ which would account for these variations.

⁶¹ Stesichoros PMG 213 indicates that Stesichoros mentioned Palamedes in the second book of his Oresteia in connection with the invention of the alphabet. The context could, of course, have been part of a wider discussion of Palamedes, his beneficial inventions, his unjust fate, and the vengeance sought by his family for his murder.

⁶² Epit. vi 8–11.

⁶³ Fab. 117.

⁶⁴ Paus i 22.6.

⁶⁵ Cahn, H., Mum Auktion li (1975) 62–63 no. 150.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Palamedes' family's loyalty to Aigisthos is clear from the painting described by Paus. i 22.6. Oiax's loyalty to Klytaimnestra was shown by his taking part in the prosecution of Orestes for the murder of his mother, according to Diktys (FGrH 49 F 2). I am grateful to Professor A.H. Sommerstein for this reference. Oiax's hatred of the Atreidai because of their role in the murder of Palamedes also explains his efforts to have Orestes expelled from Argos, Eur. Or. 432–433.

⁶⁷ Despinis, G., ‘Zur Deutung des sogennanten Protesilaos in New York’, Kanon (Festschrift Berger) Antike Kunst (Beiheft xv) 1988, 87–90.Google Scholar The statue in question is a Roman copy of a Greek original of 440–430 BC, New York, MMA 25.116. Despinis 87, n. I gives earlier literature and illustrations can be found in Boardman, J., Greek sculpture: the classical period (London 1985) fig. 237Google Scholar and Ridgway, B.S., Fifth century styles in Greek sculpture (Princeton 1981) figs. 119–122.Google Scholar I am grateful to Olga Palagia for drawing my attention to Despinis' article and for many helpful suggestions.

⁶⁸ Despinis argues that what looks like a fish carved in the waves on the support of the copy of the same figure in the British Museum (no. 1538) and the pose of the figure suggest that this is Palamedes being killed while fishing. On close inspection, however, I was quite unable to find the fish that Despinis alludes to.

⁶⁹ Paus, x 31.1–2.

⁷⁰ Karusu, S., ‘Der Erfinder des Würfels’, AM lxxxviii (1973) 55–69.Google Scholar One of the other faces of the die has a horse's head, while the rest have purely decorative designs.

⁷¹ Zazoff, P., Etruskische Skarabäen (Mainz 1968) 190, nos. 1148–1150.Google Scholar

⁷² F. Brommer, Denkmälerlisten iii - Übrige Helden (Marburg 1976) 350–51.

⁷³ Walters, H.B., Catalogue of engraved gems and cameos in the British Museum (London 1926) no. 630.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ lines 193–99.

⁷⁵ Woodford, S., ‘Ajax and Achilles playing a game on an olpe in Oxford’, JHS cii (1982) 173–85.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Furtwängler, A., Antike Gemmen 2 (Leipzig/Berlin 1900) 84–85, pl. 17,50.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ For instance, Schauenburg, K., Jdl lxxxv (1970) 68Google Scholar, fig. 35 which shows Troilos, Athena, Menelaos and Palamedes; or the following mirrors illustrated in Gerhard, E., Etruskische Spiegel i (Berlin 1840) pl. 196Google Scholar: Talmithe (Palamedes) with [E]linai (Helen), Tiumithe (Diomedes) and others (Euturpe, Acuip …, …naele); ii (Berlin 1863) pl. 275 A 2: Thalmithe (Palamedes) with Ite (Idas), Purich and Chais and iv (Berlin 1867) pl. 382, 2: Talmithe (Palamedes) with Menle (Menelaos), Clutmsta (Klytaimnestra) and Uthste (Odysseus ?). For a full discussion of the appearances and meaning of Palamedes in Etruscan art, see Krauskopf, I., LIMC vii (forthcoming) s.v. ‘Palamedes’ nos. 13–24 and commentary.Google Scholar