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MISCELLANEA

234

sentence, without denying the reality of the sentence. That end of verse or stanza
in poetry often do not coincide with sense pause or end of period in no way
diminishes the reality of either. One should not expect poets to let their seams
show.
6) For examples of symmetry around a center which has special significance
and often shows contrast or keys a reversal, see R. Schmiel, The Amazon Queen:
Quintus of Smyrna. Book 1, Phoenix 40 (1986), 188 f., note 2. Add: J.W. Welch
(ed.), Chiasmus in Antiquity. Structures, Analyses, Exegesis (Hildesheim 1981); D.
Lohmann, Die Kompositionder Reden in der Ilias (Berlin 1970); J.D. Niles, Patterning
in the Wanderingsof Odysseus, Ramus 7 (1978), 46-60; T.V. Buttrey, Accident and
Design in Euripides' Medea. AJP 79 (1958), 1-17; R. Schmiel, Callimachus' Hymn to
Delos: Structureand Theme, Mnemosyne 40 (1987), 45-55; G. Blangez, La composition
mesodique et l'ode d'Horace, REL 42 (1964), 262-272; ?. Otis, A Reading of the
Cleopatra Ode, Arethusa 1 (1968), 47-61; V. P?schl, Die Kleopatraodedes Horaz (c.
1, 37), in: H. Krefeld, (ed.), InterpretationenlateinischerSchulautorenmit didaktischen
Vorbemerkungen,
(Frankfurt 1968), 106-137; A. Wlosok, Die dritte Cynthia-Elegiedes
Properz (Prop. I. 3), Hermes 95 (1967), 330-352. This list gives only some of the
more noteworthy examples.
7) Since the depiction of girls picking flowers, usually in a meadow, has erotic
implications (J.M. Bremer, The Meadow of Love and Two Passages in Euripides' Hippolytus. Mnem. 28 [1975], 268-280), the reader is at first encouraged to feel
optimistic about Polyphemus' chances with Galateia.
8) Both Goldhill and Hutchinson emphasize the "divergences between song
and introduction" (Hutchinson, op. cit., 180), and Goldhill in particular
emphasizes the frame as "the source and site of the poem's most interesting complexities" (op. cit., 251) against those who naively read the frame as guaranteeing
the meaning of the poem: song is the only cure for love. If the frame cannot be
regarded "simply as an explanatory preface" and "somehow outside the poem
proper" (Goldhill, op. cit., 260) as regards its functions of setting up an "ironic
tension" with the song (257), an analysis of the poem's structure based on related
concepts and verbal repetitions, which reveals the carefully managed rise to a
climax and falling back to self-deception over the whole poem, frame and song
alike, indicates that Theocritus composed the poem as a unit, an entity, despite
the apparent separation of frame from song.
9) J.D. Denniston, The GreekParticles(Oxford 1950), 13 f.; H.W. Smyth, Greek
Grammar(Cambridge, Mass. 1959), 2784 c.
10) A similar rise to and falling back from a climax at the center has recently
been observed in Theocritus' Idyll 2 by Margaretha Bannert, Zum Aufbau der
Beschw?rungsszenein TheokritsPharmakeutria(Id. 2, 17-63), WS 101 (1988), 69-83.
11) Op. cit., 35.

THE

SKINS

Before the Battle

manders told him
victory1). This was
been ordered to do
the Wise was killed

OF

PHEREKYDES

AND

EPIMENIDES

of Leuctra (371) Pelopidas* Theban seers and comof a series of sacrifices which had ensured military
in order to persuade him to sacrifice a girl, as he had
by a dream. Plutarch cites an example: 'Pherekydes
by the Spartans and his skin preserved by the kings
Mnemosyne, Vol. XLVI,

Fase. 2 (1993)

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MISCELLANEA

235

according to some oracle.' In the course of his recent, valuable study of

He suggests that "the
Pherekydes, H. Schibli deals with this testimony2).
of
skin
the
Spartan kings .., may be seen as
by
Pherekydes'
preservation
a remnant of a sacrificial ritual that once had its source in primitive hunting cultures: the stretching out of the slain animal's skin was an attempt
to ensure forgiveness for the slaughter and at the same time served as an
act of reparation."
In addition, "by putting on the skin ... one became
identified with the victim and imbued with its particular strength" (p. 7,
n. 15). This explanation,
which implies that Pherekydes was sacrificed by
the Spartans, confuses two completely different (f)acts.
On the one hand, hunting cultures preserved the skins and bones of
their game in order to guarantee its rebirth, as the late Karl Meuli has
On the other hand, early Greek heroes wore
abundantly demonstrated3).
skins of ferocious animals in order to acquire their strength, Heracles with
his lion-skin perhaps being the best-known example4). It was this custom
which most likely induced the mythological
to represent the
imagination
warrior Athena with the skin of Asteros (P. K?ln III. 126), of the
monstrous
Diod.
Sic. 3.70.5 ? Dionysios
Gorgo
(Eur. Ion 987-97;
FGrH 32 F 8) or (a seemingly late myth) with the skin of
Skytobrachion
her father Pallas, who had tried to rape her (Apollod. 1.6.2; Clem. Alex.
Pr. 2.28; Firm. Mat. En. 16.2; Tzetzes on Lye. 355).
Schibli notes that "the benefit brought about by the flaySubsequently,
ing of Pherekydes undoubtedly
pertains to the fighting of the Spartans,
in particular should have
though it remains uncertain why Pherekydes
been so valuable" (p. 7, n. 15). Despite Schibli's confident assertion there
remains room for doubt. First, it is hard to think of the Spartans killing
for ritual reasons, as the historical Greeks did not practise
Pherekydes
human sacrifice5); in fact, Pherekydes hardly belongs in Plutarch's list at
all, as he is nowhere connected with any Spartan battle. Secondly, the
were not in the habit of flaying their
Greeks, unlike the Persians6),
the
opponents.
Thirdly, we never hear of the Spartan kings employing
skin in battle. And, last but not least, it is totally improbable
that the
Spartans ever had the skin of Pherekydes; Schibli himself reasonably concludes in a discussion of the various reports of Pherekydes' death, that the
most likely died on the island of Delos7).
philosopher
How, then, can we explain Plutarch's report? Schibli himself indicates
the way by pointing out that "another famous visitor to Sparta whose skin
was preserved (with writing thereon) was Epimenides"
(p. 7, n. 15).
he is wrong again. We know indeed
that
Unfortunately,
though,
Epimenides was buried in Sparta in the official building of the ephors, but
there is no tradition extant that he was flayed before burial8). The expression 'the skin of Epimenides',
which the Suda and a collection of proverbs
connect with Sparta, strongly suggests that the ephors had made use of
a leather scroll with oracles, the so-called diphtherai, which is also mentioned elsewhere
in Greece.
the competition
in Sparta
Considering
between kings and ephors, the latter had probably created this source of

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MISCELLANEA

236

of the kings, who were entitled to

authority in order to be independent
consult the oracle of Delphi, not only in political matters but also in questions affecting relations with the gods9).
The story about Pherekydes' skin, then, seems to have been a bricolage
of two traditions.
skin was the subject of anecdotes.
First, Pherekydes'
When Pythagoras came to visit him and asked him about his health, he
the
which all the flesh had been stripped?through
stuck his finger?from
door and said: 'It's clear by the skin' (???? d??a), an answer which in time
became proverbial10).
Second, the Spartan tradition about a 'skin' of
How and when these traditions came together to produce
Epimenides.
Plutarch's report we are no longer able to discover11).
9722 JN Groningen,

Troelstralaan

78

Jan N. Bremmer

1) Plut. Pel. 21.3. For a recent discussion of these sacrifices see D.D. Hughes,
Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece(London 1991), 110 f., 117 f.
2) H. Schibli, Pherecydesof Syros (Oxford 1990), 7.
3) K. Meuli, GesammelteSchriftenII (Basel 1975), 970, 991 f. On Meuli's important contributions to the study of Greek religion see now especially the chapters
by W. Burkert and A. Henrichs in F. Graf (ed.), Klassische Antike und neue Wege
der Kulturwissenschaften,Symposium Karl Meuli (Basel 1992).
4) Note also the lion-skin of Agamemnon (//. 10.23) and the leopard-skins of
Paris (//. 3.17), Menelaus (//. 10.29) and Jason (Pind. P. 4.81).
5) See now Hughes, Human Sacrifice.
6) Plut. Artax. 17.7; Amm. Marc. 23.6.80, 82; Zos. 2.27.1; Procop. Pers. 1.5;
Mir. Theclae33.53 Dagron; P. Bedjan, Acta martyrumet sanctorumII (Leipzig 1891),
507 ff.
7) Schibli, 9 f.; similarly, Hughes, Human Sacrifice, 117 f.
8) Epimenides FGrH 457 ? 5 (and Addendum) with F. Jacoby ad loc. ; Sosibius
FGrH 595 F 15; Paus. 3.11.11.
9) 'Skin': Suda s.v. Epimenides; Diogenian. 8.28. Oracle scrolls: Eur. fr. 627;
Schol. //. 1.175; Diogenian. 3.2; Zen. 4.11; W. Burkert, Die orientalisierende
Epoche
in der griechischen Religion und Literatur (Heidelberg 1984), 33-5. Diphtherai: O.
Panagl, Griechischdiphthera, in W. Meid and H. Schmeja (ed.), Philologie und
Sprachwissenschaft(Innsbruck 1983), 185-94; Burkert, ibidem. Curiously, the word
still survives in modern Turkish as defter ('document'), cf. G.L. Huxley, Proc.
Royal Irish Ac. 81, C, no. 13 (1981), 338 f.
10) Cf. Heracl. Lembus 32 Dilts; Greg. Cypr. 3.100; Ap?stol. 18.35.
11)1 am grateful to Richard Whitaker for the helpful correction of my English.

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