From dlupher@ups.edu Sun May 23 00:56:40 1999 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id AAA30832 for ; Sun, 23 May 1999 00:56:40 -0700 Received: from mail.ups.edu (mail.ups.edu [192.124.98.111]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id AAA28362 for ; Sun, 23 May 1999 00:56:39 -0700 Received: from [192.220.223.68] (aestivus.ups.edu [192.220.223.68]) by mail.ups.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id BAA12124 for ; Sun, 23 May 1999 01:01:17 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: dlupher@mail.ups.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 23 May 1999 00:58:47 -0800 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: dlupher@ups.edu (David Lupher) Subject: Re: Sophocles & Asklepios Elias J. Theodoracopoulos points out that >Plut. Num. 4 uses epixenoomai (pass.), which, if LSJ s.v. is to be >trusted, means "to be entertained as a guest", "dwell abroad", "to be on >a visit"; + dat. pers. "to be entertained by one, A. R. 2. 764, Plut. 2. >250a, [quotation] Plut. Num. 4; [etc.]. Why is it more consistent with a >supernatural visitation than a cultic reception? For those tuning in late, it was Andrew Connolly in JHS (1997), 6-10, who argued that the passages in Plutarch suggest that Sophocles experienced a private epiphany of Asklepios rather than a formal cultic house-visit by the god in preparation for his installation in a permanent shrine in Athens. Elias has reminded me that I had vaguely sensed that this was a weak spot in Connolly's contention that the "reception logos" is Byzantine. (Plutarch is, of course, pretty late evidence, but not *that* late.) At Numa 4 Plutarch does say that the story (logos) is that Asklepios "epixenwthhnai" by Sophocles, and Connolly doesn't really deal with the implication of the verb head-on, it seems to me. Rather, he draws our attention away to Plutarch's main point of comparison here: Numa's sharing a bed with the nymph Egeria was a mark of divine favor comparable to Asklepios' visit to Sophocles. Connolly argues that Plutarch is trying to find plausible parallels for the nymph's "miraculous display of divine affection," and a formal visit to Sophocles by a cultic statue or snake "would not have been a very apposite parallel." Sophocles as host to Asklepios would lack the requisite supernatural pizzazz to match Numa's getting it on with Egeria. It is also true that at "Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum" 1102F-1103B, the verb Plutarch employs for Sophocles' dealings with Asklepios is "xenizein." Connolly again sidesteps the problem of the natural meaning of the verb and again resorts to the nature of the story with which Plutarch closely compares the Sophocles- Asklepios interaction. This time, it is Phormio's reception of the Diokouroi, a story which we know only from Pausanias 3.16.2-3. This story records the return of the disguised Twins to the house in Sparta they had inhabited in life. The current owner, Phormio, quite unaware of who they are, takes them in and offers to let them sleep where they wish. They naturally want their own old bedroom. "No can do," Phormio regretfully replies, "That's my daughter's room." So the boys bunk down elsehwere, but next morning, guess what: they're gone, but so is Phormio's daughter. In her room are now "statues of the Dioskouroi and a table with silphium on it." Connolly's point is that this story of a miraculous visit by divinities does not square with a supposed official cultic lodging of Asklepios (statue or snake) in Sophocles' house as part of a formal and public installation of the god in Athens, but it would fit well enough with an private epiphany of the god to Sophocles. I will leave it to others to determine how accurately I am paraphrasing these pages of Connolly's article (pp. 6-10, "V. The Reception in Plutarch") and, above all, how plausible they find Connolly's arguments here. At the moment, I do find his fudging of the verb in these Plutarchan passages problematic. And that's *good news*, for I really don't relish pulling the chain on this grand old story. I am worried that by the time I retire I will have no authentic pieces of classical trivia to pass on to my classes. Certainly, the more I read, the less I know. I see that in a subsequent posting Elias writes (inter alia): >Even if we discount the veracity of the EM entry entirely, underlying the >fiction is a very public form of worship. Yes, and in fact even if we are reduced to what Connolly wants to leave us with ---a private epiphany of Asklepios to Sophocles---there is still a very public aftermath: Sophocles' composition of the paean recording that event, a public performance and record which, according to Connolly, formed part of the basis of the later "misunderstanding." Even "private" epiphanies could and often did leave public residues. David Lupher Classics Dept. Univ. of Puget Sound .