Text and form

The Praxillean text numbered fr. 748 is transmitted, along with a verse of Corinna (fr. 657 PMG), in a passage of the epitome of Hephaestion’s Enchiridion (2.3, p. 9 Consbruch). The two lines are cited as hexametric examples of the prosodic phenomenon of synecphonesis, which occurs when a group of two or more vowels is counted as a single syllable: in Praxilla’s case, the synecphonesis affects the adjective τεόν. The fragment is accompanied by the important specification that the line is drawn from a dithyramb entitled Achilles (transl. Campbell [Reference Campbell1992]):

This (scil. the synecphonesis) occurs even in a hexameter, as in Corinna in Book 5 […] (fr. 657 P.) and in Praxilla in her Dithyrambs, in a song entitled Achilles:

The Praxillean hexameter redeploys a well-known Homeric iunctura: see, for instance, Hom. Il. 9.587 ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς τοῦ θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἔπειθον, Od. 7.258 ἀλλ’ ἐμὸν οὔ ποτε θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἔπειθεν, and 23.337 ἀλλὰ τοῦ οὔ ποτε θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἔπειθεν. These and other epic parallels have been collected and analysed by van der Mije, who compares them with other Iliadic and Odyssean instances of the expression πείθειν φρένας.Footnote ⁵ The scholar argues for small but significant differences in meaning between the two set phrases: if persuading φρένας ‘involves the rational faculty, one’s ability to recognize and act upon what is right and/or advantageous’, and does not imply ‘an emotional predisposition in the addressee’ (450), persuading θυμόν ‘presupposes an existing emotional state or disposition’ (451), because it addresses a person ‘who is emotionally “occupied” and therefore not open to rational arguments’ (453). Praxilla’s line is, from a compositional point of view, strikingly close to the passages considered above, and may plausibly be understood as an instance of epic reuse.Footnote ⁶ What distinguishes Praxilla’s verse from its Homeric precedents is its use of τεόν, in which the synecphonesis is attested.

Other learned sources transmit the variant ἔπειθεν with notable consistency.Footnote ⁷ Yet, since neither the text nor the metrical doctrine preserved by these sources appears to be genuinely independent of Hephaestion’s passage, it is plausible that they reflect an error introduced in the transmission of Hephaestion’s text.Footnote ⁸ This error, however, seems to have arisen at a relatively secondary stage of the tradition, since the manuscripts of Hephaestion themselves preserve no trace of the reading ἔπειθεν. If we regard these learned sources as secondary witnesses in terms of textual tradition, the form ἔπειθον remains the preferable reading. Although the verb may be interpreted as an ‘idiomatic imperfect’,Footnote ⁹ it is not easy to determine whether the form represents a first-person singular, as is commonly assumed,Footnote ¹⁰ or a third-person plural.Footnote ¹¹ It is worth recalling, however, that, among the epic parallels for this phrase pattern, the first person never occurs:Footnote ¹² in view of the close connection of the fragment with the epic model, to which we shall return below, it therefore seems safer to assume that the same may have happened in the present case.

The content: dithyramb and heroes

Dithyramb frequently dealt with epic heroes,Footnote ¹³ and the son of Peleus does not appear to have been entirely absent from the genre either. We know very little about Simonides’ Memnon (fr. 539 PMG: see note 13), but the poet certainly dealt with the place of Memnon’s burial (in Syria), and it is not unlikely that he also referred to Achilles, the slayer of Memnon and his foremost opponent.Footnote ¹⁴ In a Pindaric fragment, namely Dith. 4 (fr. 70d(a).3ff. Snell-Maehler), the figure of Achilles as Hector’s opponent may have been evoked, although this is not the only possible scenario.Footnote ¹⁵ Even less clear, but more interesting, is the case of Cinesias, known as a dithyrambist: from Athenaeus we know that the vocative form Φθιῶτα (‘Phthian’) was repeatedly used by Cinesias (fr. 775 PMG apud Athen. διὰ τὸ ἐν τῇ αὑτοῦ ποιήσει συνεχῶς τὸ Φθιῶτα λέγειν),Footnote ¹⁶ and that the comic poet Strattis mocked Cinesias on account of his physical appearance by addressing him with the expression Φθιῶτ᾽ Ἀχιλλεῦ, ‘Phthian Achilles’ (fr. 17 PCG), with a pun on the term φθίσις, ‘consumption’. If the addressee of Cinesias’ composition – most probably a dithyramb – was indeed Achilles, the fragment would provide a useful parallel for Praxilla’s line: in both cases, the hero would be addressed in the second person within a dithyrambic context.Footnote ¹⁷ Furthermore, Melanippides has Zeus fathering Achilles and then entrusting the pregnant Thetis to Peleus because he was afraid that his child would dethrone him, as Prometheus or Themis had prophesied (fr. 765 PMG = 10 Ercoles). The narrative framework of the episode remains unclear, but Melanippides’ poem was probably a dithyramb.Footnote ¹⁸

Literary context

The identification of the speaker and addressee of fr. 748 is uncertain. All that can be inferred is that the latter’s θυμός is described as unpersuadable. If, however, the title of the dithyramb is taken as a clue, and the epic tenor of the line is maintained, Achilles emerges as the most plausible addressee. In Homer, the son of Peleus is the hero whose θυμός is most prominently marked: great (Il. 9.496), haughty (24.42), animal-like (24.164–75), loving (9.343), and sorrowful (9.321), but above all dramatically adamantine, persistently unalterable, inexorably inflexible from the moment when Agamemnon takes possession of Briseis and refuses to recognise the honours due to the hero. As one of the central psychological forces of his wrath,Footnote ¹⁹ Achilles’ θυμός may thus be seen as one of the key thematic and narrative nuclei of the Iliad.Footnote ²⁰

It therefore seems most economical to regard Achilles as the addressee of Praxilla’s verse: this interpretation may, at least for present purposes, be safely retained as a working hypothesis. Neue pointed out the resemblance between this line and two Homeric passages from book 9 of the Iliad – focused, as is well known, on the embassy to Achilles – in which the hero displays his inflexible θυμός, ll. 315 οὔτ᾽ ἐμέ γ᾽ Ἀτρεΐδην Ἀγαμέμνονα πεισέμεν οἴω (‘Nor do I think that Atreus’ son, Agamemnon, will persuade me’) and 386 οὐδέ κεν ὧς ἔτι θυμὸν ἐμὸν πείσει᾽ Ἀγαμέμνων (‘Not even so, then, will Agamemnon persuade my heart’).Footnote ²¹ The comparison suggested by the scholar is appropriate: book 9, together with books 15–17, contains the highest number of occurrences of the term θυμός (28), and Achilles is referred to in approximately half of these. Yet the same book offers another parallel, hitherto largely overlooked, which does not involve Achilles but is nonetheless worth bringing into the discussion, namely line 587 ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὧς τοῦ θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἔπειθον (‘Yet even then, they could not persuade the heart in his breast’). In compositional terms, this line offers one of the closest parallels to Praxilla’s verse: its content refers, of course, to Meleager, yet it may legitimately be brought to bear on Achilles too, since Meleager is famously conceived as the paradigmatic ‘alter ego’ of the Iliadic hero. If the identification of Achilles as the addressee of fr. 748 PMG is correct, the connection with these Homeric passages may shed further light on the fragment’s content, since it seems to suggest that Praxilla’s poem (or part of it) could have focused on the inconclusive embassy to the hero.Footnote ²² A further point, however, may be added: the past tense conveyed by ἔπειθον – probably a third-person plural (see above) – seems to indicate that the fragment is not set at the narrative moment of the embassy itself, but rather at a subsequent stage. The line may belong either to an exchange between two characters within a narrative or dialogic setting, or to an address delivered by the ego loquens from outside the events, perhaps in the context of an invocation. On this reading, Praxilla may well have referred to the embassy to Achilles, but only retrospectively, as an event already completed.

Even assuming that Achilles was the addressee of Praxilla’s verse, it remains difficult to determine the literary context in which it was situated. The use of the second-person singular, which seems comparable with the aforementioned fragment of Cinesias (fr. 775 PMG Φθιῶτα, on which see above), may help us here. One possibility is that the line formed part of an invocation in Du-Stil, well attested in dithyramb.Footnote ²³ An alternative and more intriguing possibility is that the Praxillean line formed part of direct speech, possibly a dialogue, a feature also found within the dithyrambic genre.Footnote ²⁴ As for the specific narrative context of fr. 748 PMG, we can only propose conjectures, but some scenarios seem more plausible than others. What we can infer is that the line was uttered on an occasion following the embassy episode, perhaps in a moment of reflection on past events. There are a handful of possible parallels for this type of situation. First, there are the nostalgic verses of another Praxillean fragment (fr. 747 PMG), focused on earthly and heavenly pleasures, and uttered in Hades by Adonis: as far as we can tell, this group of lines was spoken in response to a question posed by the inhabitants of the Underworld (οἱ τῶν κάτω), and thus seems to presuppose a verbal exchange.Footnote ²⁵ A second parallel could be provided by the encounter in Hades between Heracles and the soul of Meleager in Bacchylides’ Epinikion 5, in which an extensive passage in direct speech is devoted to the hero’s past (ll. 94–154). The Pindaric version of the same episode in Dithyramb 2, already cited (see note 24), may represent a third, and much closer, parallel to our fragment (since both belong to the same genre), but we have no secure information about the actual presence of a dialogue in that composition.Footnote ²⁶

All these parallels share a common element, namely the Underworld setting.Footnote ²⁷ A comparable atmosphere in Praxilla’s fragment is, on balance, an attractive possibility. Such a setting often provides the opportunity for dead characters to indulge, with melancholy and regret, in retrospection. Moreover, the death of Achilles has, since Homer, been connected to some extent with Dionysus, the god of dithyramb: the golden urn containing the remains of both the hero and Patroclus was crafted by Hephaestus, but offered by Dionysus to Thetis.Footnote ²⁸ Therefore, unless Praxilla’s fragment relates to the final part of Achilles’ life, particularly the phase following his return to battle – for instance, the conciliatory exchange with Agamemnon (Homer, Iliad 19.137–53) or the confrontation with Hector (Iliad 22), Memnon, or Penthesilea (in the cyclic poem Aethiopis) – a fitting moment of reflection on the hero’s past (i.e. the embassy) may be found in his afterlife. The encounter between Odysseus and the shade of Achilles in Hom. Od. 11.467–540 may serve as a potentially useful parallel. This dialogue not only contains some memories of the past (e.g. ll. 499–500, in which Achilles states that he would intervene on his father’s behalf, just as he once defended the Argives at Troy), but also exhibits an affinity with the episode of the embassy, since the contemptuous attitude of Achilles towards the compensatory gifts offered by Agamemnon (Iliad 9.406–9) parallels the disdain he shows in Hades towards his alleged royal honours praised by Odysseus (Odyssey 11.484–91). In Praxilla’s fragment, however, the character delivering the line cannot be Odysseus for obvious reasons: as is well known, he was part of the embassy, and the use, in Praxilla, of the verb ἔπειθον (if taken as a third-person plural: see above) presupposes a group of people that does not include the speaker. To attribute this line to Odysseus would therefore be to exclude him from the embassy, unless Praxilla portrayed an embassy (or, rather, a memory of this episode) without the hero, which can hardly be proved. Alternatively, one might consider another exchange in the Underworld, that between Achilles and Agamemnon in the second Nekyia (Hom. Od. 24.15–97), where the death and the majestic funeral rites of the former are extensively described by the Argive king. It would be tempting to imagine, in Praxilla, a scene in which Agamemnon recalls, before Achilles, the unsuccessful outcome of the embassy he had sent to him. This proposal, however, remains rather speculative.

In conclusion, in her dithyramb Achilles, Praxilla may have placed the line of fr. 748 PMG within a context in which she ‘directly’ addressed Achilles, while alluding to the troubling and ultimately unsuccessful episode of the embassy, that is, the attempt to persuade him to return to battle. Alternatively, and more probably, Praxilla may have represented, within an Underworld setting, a dialogue between two figures, one of whom was Achilles. In the course of this exchange, the hero’s interlocutor would have referred retrospectively to the embassy episode, laying particular emphasis on Achilles’ uncompromising rejection of his comrades-in-arms’ appeal.