Can ancient Greek myths provide us with the tools to resist tyranny? That is A.'s claim in this follow-up to her 2018 Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths. This second book repeats the same formula, using retellings of literary versions of Greek myths to provoke discussion of contemporary political and social issues. Its core is a sustained and complete retelling and analysis of the Odyssey, preceded by the opening books of the Iliad, and followed by Athenian tragedy in the shape of Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Sophocles’ Antigone.
H. Blumenberg established that ‘work on myth’ was a continuing process and that the myths of classical Greece resonated in different ways through subsequent eras and communities. The idea that Greek myth is good for thinking through social and political problems has sparked a wide range of projects. Ancient tragedies and dramatic reworkings of epics have proven cathartic for contemporary audiences and readers, perhaps through their vivid portrayal of human reactions to extreme circumstances. The use of classical tragedy in prison education programmes in the USA, for example, has shown that ‘work on myth’ can be a powerful experience for those experiencing the injustices of the carceral state. Other voices resist such uses and readings. As A. notes in the introduction, ‘ancient Greece has become a pawn in the culture wars of the twenty-first century’ (p. 6). She hopes that the texts she has chosen should ‘equip us to recognize and reject corrupt and incompetent leadership, to oppose the tyranny of the majority, and to resist the increasing use of violence and intimidation in the political process’ (p. 13).
Each chapter begins with a summary retelling of the text under consideration, heavily sprinkled with authorial pointers to discussion topics along the way. Retellings are printed in a sans-serif font and authorial comment in italics, which lends a dialogic air and might invite further classroom discussion. A peculiar feature of the author's asides is that they are framed in the second person, for example ‘You believe her …’, even when they supply additional information or do not simply anticipate a reader response. Occasionally it feels as though the reader is being directed to respond in a particular way and to share specific concerns, such as with the background of incest to the Antigone, while being presumed to lack any pre-existing knowledge of the myth.
Readers are also invited to imagine themselves participating in the classical past, watching a tragedy or listening to a performance of epic poetry: ‘Imagine yourself again in a world long before smartphones. You are enjoying another big feast’ (p. 35). The project of understanding our present world becomes conflated with one of experiencing the past. The book's treatment of democracy involves a collapse of chronology, reading Homer proleptically from the perspective of Athenian democracy.
The privileging of the Athenian perspective discounts the pre-existing history of the theme of bad leadership in other cultures of the ancient Near East. An important image of good leadership in ancient epic, that of the shepherd tending his flock, has a long history before it appears in Homer, one that reaches far beyond the Greek world. Negotiations between kings and communities are a feature of the documentary record and literature of other ancient societies, some of which preceded the Greeks, and Classicists should remember that the Greeks’ self-presentation as social innovators might, like Odysseus’ story of his adventures, deserve a critical interpretation.
A. starts with Iliad 1 and 2, a good choice for considering issues of leadership and engagement with the tensions between leaders and the divide between leaders and led evident through the depiction of assemblies and debate. Her suggestion is that the ancient audience, hearing performances of the Iliad, would have responded in certain ways and recognised similar talking points to those she finds. It is certainly true that Homer's portrayal of Agamemnon in these books invites a critical response, as his actions provoke Achilles first to anger and then to withdrawal from the Achaean forces. But would an ancient audience have sympathised with Thersites or with Odysseus? I am less certain than A. that listeners, even those with an Athenian experience of participatory democracy, would have drawn the same conclusions as a modern one might do. In a sense A. has to portray the ancient audience anachronistically to align their experience with that which modern readers might bring to the texts.
The bulk of this book examines the Odyssey, divided into four sections. In some ways, the Odyssey is not the most obvious choice for considering how to resist tyranny. While there is plenty within the work that critiques bad leadership, it seems anachronistic to suggest that the text itself is promoting anything resembling democracy as an alternative. The various heroic and royal courts visited by Telemachus and Odysseus offer visions of ordered societies under the guidance of more-or-less benevolent monarchical leadership. A vision of ideal rule, in tune with the order of the cosmos, permeates the work, most notably in Odysseus’ likening of Penelope to an ideal king, under whom cosmic order prevails to the extent that golden-age life is restored (Od. 19.107–14).
The key to A.'s argument is her reading of Odysseus’ account of his adventures, in which she argues that ‘The Odyssey constantly tests and cultivates our ability to evaluate and learn from stories’ (p. 88). She argues that it gives us practice in assessing the narratives presented to us by political leaders and discriminating between their truth and falsity. When Odysseus tells his story to the court, its fantastical elements – from the gods and monsters to his own culpability in the loss of his men and the delays to his return – are woven together, and we might learn from teasing them apart, or even wonder whether his persuasive skills are a positive asset for a leader. A.'s first aside in the retelling of Odysseus’ story responds to King Alcinous’ observation that it is credible: ‘You wonder whether this is true. Do you believe Odysseus?’ (p. 98). She shows how many of the societies depicted in the Odyssey offer alluring visions of unreal social arrangements. The Phaeacians, for example, live in a kind of golden age, free from physical want and from conflict, with their benevolent queen resolving disputes, so that they do not need political skills of their own. The Odyssey perhaps also warns us against escapism and, as A. suggests, in the violent final episodes of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, provides an exercise in assessing the limits of a ‘traditional’ view of justice as retribution.
Tragedy, originating in democratic Athens, provides an excellent source for A.'s discussion and demonstrates responses to Homeric epic. Aeschylus’ Agamemnon offers a further angle on the assessment of leadership and the risks to society when leaders fail. Sophocles’ Antigone already has its own long reception history in the analysis of political conflict; A. relegates discussion of that history, and pre-existing scholarship on it, to detailed endnotes. She also claims that ‘we have no personal or partisan stake in the conflict between Creon and Antigone’ (p. 209); this might be more true of an imagined audience of Athenian citizens than of a modern audience or a modern retelling, which might be expected to sympathise with Antigone.
While one might wish that A. had encouraged readers to turn to translations of her source texts or included the full text of key passages such as the Antigone's choral ‘Ode to Man’, there are many interesting points raised that should be useful to teachers embarking on similar classroom journeys of their own.
