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The Song of Hybrias
Chapter 2: By the Wine Dark Sea
© 2015 James LaFond
FEB/2/15
Extant Verse 750-596 B.C.
“The ancient Greek word for ‘truth’ meant literally ‘not forgetting.’”
-Paul Cartledge
Keeping Professor Cartledge’s reminder in focus, one looks to the poets, who practiced a mnemonic art, and see them as the ancient keepers of the truth. In the 7th Century B.C. the majority of Hellenes were illiterate, as perhaps were some of the poets, who were the keepers of the memories of earliest antiquity. It is even said of Homer that he was blind. Perhaps this was a statement of literal truth, or perhaps a way of pointing to the Hellenic ideal of truth, of not forgetting the spoken word.
Barbarism in general means to be an outsider. However the understanding of the Hellenic idea of the barbarian is key to understanding their mentality. We moderns conceive of barbarism as a state of living in subpar material and social arrangements. The Greeks referred to themselves as Hellenes, after the female object of the Trojan War. They were the people who spoke the same language as Helen, metaphorically the children of War, of a warred over land. In this light Helen of Troy, the wife of King Menaleaus of Sparta who was taken by Paris of Troy, may best be understood as the idea of being of the true community, the community of the mind that extended so far as the truth was spoken. Every serious conversation among a pious ancient Hellene carried the moral gravity of a hymn sung in a Christian church.
As a novelist and amateur historian poking into the subtext of ancient life I am most comfortable with visualizing the Trojan War—which, though 600 years gone, was regarded as the foundation of Hellenic life—as more of a cultural origins story, than an actual war fought by the individuals portrayed in the poem.
Orpheus of Thrace, Uncertain Date
Orpheus, or ‘best-voice’ was a mystical poet that became heroized as one of the Argonauts in later legend. Since he was not mentioned in Homer and Hesoid it is possible that he lived later—or was a contemporary, or had not yet been heroized. The cave of his oracle was present on the isle of Lesbos, a location where many of the characters of this period frequented. It was said in some quarters that he was a misogynistic figure, having been torn to pieces by savage women at an orgy for taking only male lovers. He was also credited with providing the excuse perennially used by Thracian men who beat their wives, that they were merely avenging Orpheus. He was also said to be a sorcerer trained in Egypt. In terms of fiction I like Orpheus as the later—and still causing mischief, or as the heroized poet with a cave-based oracle and possibly some disciples wondering about in his wake.
Homer: 750-7:20 B.C., The Iliad, The Odyssey
Any work of fiction set around 620 B.C. should feature quotes from either one of the epic works credited to Homer. The Odyssey would be a favorite of female oracles and was rumored to have been the work of a woman composing in Homer’s name. Quotes from the Odyssey used in invocations and funerary rituals—of especially in attempts to communicate with the dead of the gods—should come from the Odyssey.
The Iliad was the bible of ancient Hellas—indeed their ‘Old Testament.’ The ethics according to which leading men should behave are laid out in this bloody epic. Poets and advisors would often use allegorical quotes from the Iliad. In any case where the will of Man and gods, Man and nature, the aspirations of Man and the cruelty of Dread Fate [Moros—a bitter woman, of course] seem to be opposed, the Iliad—and the central figure of Achilles—could be evoked to good effect. In any passage when the concept of Man is advanced, it would be incumbent upon a man advising a leader or hero to quote from the Iliad.
Hesoid: 7:20 B.C., Works and Days, Theogony
"...sweet forms wrapped in white robes,
will go from the white-pathed earth and forsake mankind to join the deathless gods:
And bitter sorrows will be left for mortal men, and there will be no help against evil."
-Hesoid, Works and Days
If Homer told tales and elevated concepts that were the counterpoints to the 20th Century American icon of the hero in epic Western movies such as The Searchers, and The Magnificent Seven [which can actually trace its lineage to Seven Against Thebes] then Hesoid was the equivalent of the screen writers for Father Knows Best and the Waltons TV shows. When dealing with priests and other civic leaders, then Hesoid’s admonitions about honoring the cosmos through toil and harmony should serve as the basis for the community view of the minor hero, a description which would accurately characterize any video game, role playing game, of historical novel protagonist.
Arkhilokhus: 690 B.C.
The lyric poems of Archilochus are irreverent, misogynistic and blasphemous. I personally like the idea of a criminal character who models himself on Archilochus—who bragged about throwing his shield away in order to escape the enemy, and immortalized his excoriation of at least one former lover, in what was the counterpart of modern gangster rap music.
Tyrtaeus: 680 B.C., Warsongs
Tyrtaeus was to Sparta what Mohamed was to the Arabic peoples; the man that composed their collective warsongs; who called to action the men of a people to impose their will on the greater world. Below is one piece of his work:
“Now it is noble for a brave man to die…
Not yet has Thunder-chief withdrawn his favor from you.
Neither dread you, nor be frightened by a host of men,
But let Menander hold his shield right against the foremost fighter;
Having counted life hostile, and the dark fates of death dear as the rays of the sun…
Yet sympathy attends the brave man’s bier;
Sees on each wound the balmy grief bestowed;
And, as in death the universal tear
Through life inspires a homily of truth.
While a million hail, with fond, adoring eyes,
The deeds of many a hero meet as one!”
The Spartans were not a lot of run.
Peisander of Kamirus
As the rich lazy nobles that ruled for centuries as the descendents of dark age war-chiefs were pushed aside by the hard-working farmer-soldier, the image of the war-chief was resurrected in the world of metaphor; in 648 B.C. the pankration was instituted at Olympia, and in 645 B.C. the age-old poem The Labors of Herakles was committed to writing by Peisander of Kamirus. I suspect that this was part of the same reactionary movement against the farming class on the part of faltering hereditary rulers. By 620 fighting like Herakles in the pankration was a craze among the warrior elite. Pankration champions were community leaders: ambassadors, combat commanders, and the bodyguards of kings.
Peisander himself would have been an old man by 620, if he still lived. He probably composed his labors at about age 40 from a body of dispirit sources gathered over the course of long journeying.
Sappho & Alkaeus
Sapho and her odes and the fragments of Alkaeus, as well as the Parthenia of Alkman would not yet be well known, and certainly would not have made their way into the civic and panHellenic canons. However, the poets themselves might take part in your story as characters.
The Poetic Setting
Do not forget the reverence for, and prominence of, poetry in ancient Hellas. Poetry comprised the art form that, in and of itself, encompassed most of the thought, reverence, affection, and occupied time in the mind of the ancient Hellene that the modern arts of music, literature, TV, movies, radio and much of the internet does in the mind of the postmodern American. To write authentically in an ancient Hellenic setting you must infuse the life of the world and its inhabitants with a poetic sense.
Do recall that the word ‘museum’, which is our name for a place where the relics of the dead past are stored and viewed in a semi-sacred precinct, comes from the Greek ‘muse-house’; or should we say ‘word-house’ where the sacred spoken truth was expected to echo in a forever-living ritual intended to expand the human consciousness. This existential worldview was as much about being immersed in life as about escaping the bonds of the flesh. The gift of the poets was ultimately vested in the notion that they might also speak to the gods, and perhaps one day do so with more success than Orpheus had with the Ruler of the Underworld.
As a writer consider the ancient Hellenic world as a place where the spoken word was a sacred thing, and that bonds of honor were formed whenever a person spoke to a listener, rather than the modern notion—which the Greeks would certainly consider barbaric—that a word is only true if prefaced by an oath. To the ancient Hellenes oaths were meant for the gods—usually Zeus—and bond the speaker in extra measure before the divine. This is not to say that every ancient Hellene put heart and soul behind every word, but rather that there was a standard of truth, and a value attached to speech that derives from a sentiment that must seem alien to us, who live our lives on the edge of the legalistic lie, of the politically spun half-truth, of the politically correct counter-truth. If you find yourself writing a story set beside the ancient Wine Dark Sea, consider that it was not a world where a military organization would even consider changing its name from ‘The War Department’ to ‘The Department of Defense. A person conversing on the shore of the Agean would have no need for a term such as ‘it is what it is.’
The ancient Hellenes were a forever warring and bickering people, and acknowledged this fact in their foundation myth of the Trojan War. However, life lived according to the artful lie and the dissembled word was against their common and oft fought over sense of ethics.
The Song of Hybrias
The song of Hybrias, a Cretan poem, was composed a hundred years after this period, but indicative of the ethos of this period on the mainland, as the Cretans were considered hopelessly backward.
“My spear and sword and fine shield, which guards my skin,
are my fortune. For I plough with this, reap with this, I tread
the sweet wine from the vine with this, I am master of the slave-farmers
with this. But those who dare not hold the spear and sword and that
fine shield, to guard their skin, all fall and kiss my knee, calling me
master and great lord.”
-The Song of Hybrias, Cretan lyric poem c.500 B.C.*
Image a world where the local lord sat and drank wine as his poet plucked a lyre and sang what amounted to his civic manifesto. A democratic Athens was far off, and the cabals of rich oligarchs where only coming into power recently, at the expense of the faltering lineages of Dark Age lords. Kings still abounded, and tyrants rose and fell according to the dark whims of Moros.
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