How Personification Shaped Greek Thought

Personification as a Mode of Greek Thought
Author(s): T. B. L. Webster
Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 17, No. 1/2 (1954), pp. 10-21
Published by: The Warburg Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750130
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PERSONIFICATION AS A MODE OF GREEK THOUGHT
By T. B. L. Webster
M y thesis ininthis
was a way whichpaper is that
the early Greekspersonification
looked at the world, (in
and awhich
sense that I shall define)
affected their thought on all subjects, and that the peculiar achievement of
the Greeks in thought can be seen as a continuous battle between the tendency
to personify and the opposite tendency to schematize. Space will preclude
the quotation of many examples, and I do not claim that my collection of
personifications in literature and art from the late eighth to the early third
century B.C. is in any way complete; excluding local personifications, personi-
fications of things, and neuter personifications I count rather fewer than 300
personifications and have examined about 2,000 instances in which they
occur; I hope therefore that my collection may be representative.
I do not restrict the meaning of personification to the conscious creation
of artificial human figures in which neither the creator nor anyone else believes.
I include all cases in which something not a human being is described as if it
had a quality or qualities normally associated with human beings. The obvious
qualities associated with human beings are (a) physical life and movement,
(b) mental powers and feelings, (c) bodily appearance as a man or woman.
In any particular case of personification only one of these need be present;
but I have refrained from subdividing personification into, e.g., activization,
animization, anthropomorphization, because such terms would mean nothing
to an ancient Greek and they obscure the unity which this way of thinking
had in early times: it must be remembered that the gods whom Homer
describes so vividly were often worshipped in the form of aniconic stones1-
Aphrodite at Paphos, Eros at Thespiai, Charites at Orchomenos-and that
when Hera goes to visit Okeanos who has quarrelled with his wife Tethys, she
says, "I will go and see the boundaries of the earth, Ocean the origin of gods
and mother Tethys":2 the physical fluid Ocean and the anthropomorphic
Okeanos are combined in the same sentence. Okeanos is both water and
person just as Aphrodite is both stone and person. It is therefore safer
the single word personification to cover all the phenomena which for
subject, but it will be found useful later to classify personifications
according to their strength and according to their function.
In an earlier paper3 I wrote: "the range of personification in Hom
cludes inanimate things, such as the 'ruthless stone' and the spears that 'y
to taste flesh,' natural phenomena (the heavens and the heavenly bod
seasons, the winds, the earth, and the body), invisible forces which
either the human body (such as death, sleep, youth, strength, or exha
or the human mind (the mind and the heart, love, fear, infatuation, p
justice, rumour), or human life generally such as fate and Nemesis. H
man is surrounded by things physical, animate, and invisible which
sufficiently understood. Personification is a means of taking hold of
1 Tacitus, Hist., II, 3; Pausanias IX,ing 27,land,

1; Pylos tablet, En 03.
38, I. 3 Manchester Memoirs, 94, 1953, I0.
2 Iliad, XIV, 200; cf. Demeter =corn-grow-
IO
PERSONIFICATION AS A MODE OF GREEK THOUGHT 11
which suddenly appear startlingly uncontrollable

rolling stone, the blaze of the sunrise, the incurable
desire, or the rule by which men conduct their poli
seem to have some kind of life and so are in some wa
This view of the world is much older than Home
account of its origin but we can see certain things w
certain things that we must not say. The Olympians
a great act of systematization and personification: He
Homeric Eros still retain the traces in their names,
gested that one, if not the only, starting-point for an
divine man, the king who also represents the god, wh
individual personality and impersonal functions; the
because they survive the individual holder of them,
in a divine being whose myth they form. If this is co
use of personification as a means to 'form a general n
instances. We must not, however, say that general no
like this, or that behind every abstract noun lies an earl
or even of personification; all the personified nouns
impersonally and we are guessing when we try to sa
we may, however, say that personification of a gener
a people who are accustomed to take this personal vie
Two other sources of personification may be menti
ture and art. It can now be regarded as established that
of divine rulers in Hesiod's Theogony but also the cos
begins is derived from Oriental sources, and that Ori
responsible for Homer's calling Ocean the origin of a
choosing water as his original element. But in all th
not borrowing personification as a method of think
detailed applications of personification. There is, I th
some of Homer's personifications such as Eris and Ph
the terrifying figures on Oriental works of art whic
to Greeks in the latter part of the eighth century
occurred earlier in Minoan/Mycenaean art). A somew
be suggested for the personification of Infatuation
ninth book of the Iliad,3 where Infatuation is a strong r
are wrinkled, squinting, lame old women. The patter
less beautiful chorus, is well known, e.g., Nausikaa an
and her nymphs, in the sixth Odyssey ;4 there may hav
ugly leader and less ugly chorus. A gorgon-faced
Rhodian plate of the early sixth century B.C.,5 an
cotta masks of wrinkled old women have been fou
Artemis Orthia at Sparta;6 other cross-links are known
of Artemis in the Peloponnese and in Asia Minor.
1 Principium Sapientiae 237, 257.
1933, 76, no. 18; Rylands Bulletin,
2 Cf. Porzig, Namen fir Satzinhalte,
p. 577 f. 277.
3 Iliad, IX, 502. 6 E.g. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, etc.,
4 Odyssey, VI, 102 f. fig. 19.
5 British Museum A 748; Rumpf, Jb., 48,
12 T. B. L. WEBSTER
modelled his Infatuation an

by a gorgon-headed Artem
For these personifications
be regarded as one of the f
The artist and the dramatis
thing immaterial instead of
visible things. Force and St
papyrus has added Dike), Ma
abstracts such as Health, H
on red-figure vases of the en
My point here is not to dis
part of the atmosphere in w
make it natural for him to
to their gender) if he wish
Besides the artistic and dr
have tended to keep person
dokles and Parmenides in t
goes back through Solon to
in Hesiod, partly to expres
powerful independent thin
control of their master; th
Unjust Argument of Arist
personification of the Law
much weakened instance
(logos) the protagonist in tra
The large number of local
grows out of the very ancien
who could easily become city
But in this last use we see
keeps it alive: for a numbe
When Herodotos3 says that
tions of men, the city is p
generation of its citizens, b
mourns for the Persians who
people who inhabit the lan
the late fourth century, whi
theme of Marathon, Hellas
countries as of the people
common personification of t
to substitute artists or tech
in the Gorgias6 that "Medicin
for," he means by Medicin
Another way of making a
1 Plato,
Crito, 50a.
5 Naples 3253, Fu
2 88.
Aristotle,
Poetics, 1449a 17.
3 Herodotus, V, 28.
6 Plato, Gorgias, 5
4 Aeschylus, Persae, 548.
known legend. A clear and interesting case is the chariot drive of t
Plato's Phaedrus.1 The soul is personified as a charioteer of a winged
drawn by a good horse and a bad horse; with great difficulty the
perceive in its drive the Platonic Ideas dwelling in their place beyon
Here three allusions would not escape Plato's audience. Parmen
already described himself as driving to heaven to receive a revelat
Plato has shifted the emphasis to point out the difficulty of philosophy
ordinary man. Secondly, the audiences of Parmenides and Plato wo
the legend of Herakles' drive to heaven which is common in art, pa
in the late fifth and early fourth century. Thirdly, the audience
when they heard of the Ideas in their place beyond heaven, would
the pictures of Herakles with the Hesperides, among whom the personi
stract Hygieia is once included. This legend was allegorized by Her
a contemporary of Sokrates, who made the lion-skin courage and
philosophy, the serpent passion and the three apples virtue. The a
both re-interpreted old stories and invented new stories. In the Phaedr
Plato's process is similar but different: certain elements from the
Herakles are applied anonymously to the soul and thus make the pe
tion of the soul convincing.
An example of a rather different kind where new life is given t
personification is the personification of the star Arcturus as the prolog
of Plautus Rudens, derived from a play written by Diphilos in the latte
of the fourth century. The belief that stars were persons or gods is
Homer, and both Homer and Hesiod show traces of their acting as r
angels; but from the time of late Plato and early Aristotle the stars
complicated movements had become especially interesting, and the
the Platonic Epinomis made them recording angels like the Ar
Diphilos. Here the astronomical advances of the fourth century ad
life and a sanction to a long-established personification.
In all these ways Greek personifications might still be alive and vivi
the personal view of the world was no longer the normal view. Nev
they can be arranged in a scale of decreasing vividness; and alth
sections of this scale run into one another, the scale can usefully b
into deification, strong personification, weak personification, and
terms. In general it is probably true to say that with a few excepti
as Themis, Nike, and Hygieia personifications of abstracts do not often
with the same kind of permanent and developing individualit
Olympian gods, but are deified at moments of great and compelling
Homer makes Ate the eldest daughter of Zeus when Agamemnon ap
and Hesiod makes Dike a daughter of Zeus because the Boeotian
is corrupt. The position of the deified elemental powers is rather d
in Homer (like Okeanos) the sun and the winds are both natural ph
and gods who have a legendary life outside the natural phenomeno
they represent; for Helios in the legend of the Odyssey any other minor
who owned cattle might have been substituted. The heavenly bodi
in legend and in worship, and science, as we have just seen, may re
divinity. Legend naturally does not grow round the deified elemen
1 Plato, Phaedrus, 246 ff.
14 T. B. L. WEBSTER
philosophers (to which I shall ret

had, at least in the intention of th
For personifications of abstracts,
phenomena), momentary deificati
think we may note very briefly th
and ideals. A good example of dev
in the Homeric epigram' if they
nected with mishaps which occur to
firing, bad kneading of the clay,
be found in the names of satyrs
mean especially the personification
of great emotion such as the swe
Iliad2 summons besides Zeus the S
which he swears before the duel of Menelaos and Paris. Thus also much later
Sophocles' Philoctetes3 calls on harbours, headlands, meeting-places of birds,
and precipices to witness the treachery of Neoptolemos, and later still the
orator Lycurgus4 cries that the land and the trees, the harbours, the docks
and the wells, the temples and the shrines beg the jury for help. In the
Homeric passage natural phenomena are equated with Zeus as divine
witnesses; in the later passages elements of the landscape are given momentary
strong personification rather than divinity, but it would be unrealistic to
separate them from the Homeric passage. The third kind of deification which
should be mentioned is the giving of a hymn or cult to abstract ideas which
are felt to be of extreme importance at some particular moment. Thus
Pheme (rumour) was given an altar in 467 B.c. because the news of the victory
at Eurymedon reached Athens so quickly;5 Eirene (peace) was given yearly
sacrifices and a statue a little before 370 B.C., the famous statue by Kephiso-
dotos of Peace holding the infant Wealth-in the early fourth century the
Athenians desperately needed peace and prosperity, as is clear from con-
temporary comedy; 6 similarly a great personal emotion moved Aristotle to
write an epigram for an altar of Friendship which was erected to honour
Plato and a hymn to Virtue in memory of his dead friend Hermias. In
Euripides particularly any important idea can be called god to stress its
momentary importance, not only Hope, Tyranny, and Equality but also
"recognizing friends."
Deification is a strong form of personification, but personification can be
strong without deification. The boundary between strong and weak personi-
fication is hard to define. In art the problem does not arise except in so far
as it may be convenient to distinguish between figures such as Himeros (desire)
and Lyssa (madness), whose attitudes show that they are participating in the
action, and figures such as Health and Happiness on vases of the late fifth
century, which give the atmosphere of the scene but are indistinguishable
from each other except by the inscriptions giving their names. In literature,
however, a distinction can be drawn between personifications in which the
1 Homeri vita Herodotea, 446 f.; R. M. Cook,
4 In Leocratem, 150.
CR, lxii, 55. 5 Scholiast to Aeschines, I, I28.
2 Iliad, III, 277. 6 Theopompus, fr. 7K, ID.
3 Sophocles, Philoctetes, 936.
human qualities are clearly seen and personifications in which a sin

suggests that the abstract idea is conceived personally or is given so
independent reality. Many ethical personifications are of the for
Obvious instances are Infatuation and the Prayers in the ninth bo
Iliad and Virtue and Vice in Prodikos' Choice of Herakles. This is found also
in the orators, e.g., Aeschines in the speech against Timarchos:1 "Do n
think that the impious as in tragedies are driven by Furies who punish the
with flaming torches. But the violent pleasures of the body and the refusa
to be content-these fill the pirate ships, these man the privateers, these ar
each man's Poine, these summon them to slaughter citizens, serve tyrants, and
conspire against democracy." The pleasures are Furies, persons who summon
slaughter, and conspire. So also Physis (human nature) is a person when in
the well-known fragment of Euripides' Auge2 she "willed it, having no car
for laws." Strong personification is by no means confined to ethical ideas
I have already quoted from Plato's Gorgias the personification of medicine
"having thought out the nature of what it is caring for and the reason for the
care, and being able to give an account of each of these things." This person
fication is helped by the possibility of substituting good doctors for medicine,
but no such substitution is possible when Aristotle3 says that "tragedy gre
little by little . . . and finally stopped when she had attained her nature"
here the chronological sequence of Attic tragedies is viewed as a growth fro
youth to maturity of a human being.
When, however, Aristotle4 says that "as the early thinkers advanced, th
event itself made a road for them and compelled them to research" the per
sonification seems less strong but still "the event itself" is given some sort
special status by this phrasing; Plato's personification of his argument m
be compared:5 it may shout encouragement or laugh to scorn, sneak away
with covered head, or die and rise again. One particular kind of weak person
fication survives through the whole period from Homer, the personification of
emotions as victors, capturers, holders, or destroyers. I think there is littl
doubt that this use is in origin personal, and that although the metaphor i
probably dead by the fifth century, yet the emotions are still believed to have
some real existence apart from the person who feels; at any time emotion
may be fully personified again, as we shall see when we speak of persuasiv
personification.
At the bottom of the scale comes what I have called technical terminology.
I mean by technical terminology here terminology which correctly describ
a given thing, quality, or action and implies no personification but derive
from the old personal view of the universe. I need only note briefly such
phrases as the head or foot of the mountain, the foot of the couch, the lip
the cup. Such terms are based on a visible likeness and/or a functiona
analogy but come into being because the mountain is felt as a person, the
"leg" of the couch may be a caryatid, the cup may be given eyes and if it
has an inscription will speak in the first person. Things are personified i
Homer because they seem capable of independent action. The spears "year
1 Aeschines, I, 90o. 4 Met. 984a 18.
2 Euripides, fr. 920N. 5 Plato, Laches 194a; Rep. 503a; Phaedo 89b;
3 Poetics, I449a 9, 20. Lysis 213e.
2
16 T. B. L. WEBSTER
to taste flesh"; the wheeled

the gods of their own will."
when he writes of the air "
by water and speaks of the
upon the bitter." Empedokl
sonal and sometimes impers
'we have technical terminolo
of the idea of ruling is inte
temporary of Empedokles,
cold, etc., and sickness as a
therefore in political/persona
elements with the addition o
round," which may reasona
the treatise on Ancient Med
unable to rule food" and "so
is an enemy of cheese." Here
terminology for assimilatio
unprofitable to decide exact
and technical terminology. E
in Theophrastos' botany6 "pl
to be planted near olives . .
technical terminology or sh
belief in oikeiotes, "closenes
tended to disregard the dist
again we find a belief which
instances are more and som
technical terminology of act
tion and the like derives fr
some of its flavour.
Homeric man, as I have said, was surrounded by things physical, animate,
and invisible which were insufficiently understood. They all seemed to have
some kind of life and so to be in some way human. We can, I think, distin-
guish three attitudes, as long as we remember that no sharp boundary divided
them. The early Greek might assume them to be persons; or he might per-
suade himself or other people of their importance (perhaps at some particular
moment) by treating them as persons; or he might explain them by describing
them as persons. I want now to say something about these three attitudes.
Two assumptions seem to be practically universal in Greek thought, that
the world is in some sense personal and that the human mind is a person.
I propose here only to speak of the former assumption. The two passages in
Homer where he speaks of Ocean as the "origin of the gods" and as "the
origin of all" probably show his acquaintance with Oriental cosmogonies, but
this was undoubtedly an acceptable explanation as soon as the Greeks wanted
to explain cosmogony. No difficulty is felt in the three different aspects of
1 Iliad, XI, 574; XVIII, 376. 4 D.-K., B 17, 27 f.
2 Diels-Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6 Ancient Medicine, ch. 14, 20.
B xoo/i8; B go. 8 Caus. Plant., III, x, 4.
3 D.-K., B4.
Ocean-to be a character in legend, to be a distant sea, to be

all things. In Hesiod the cosmogony is given in greater detail:
comes into being and then earth; the children of Chaos are Ereb
ness under the earth) and Night who lives there; Erebos and Nig
produce the Upper Air (Aither) and Day who lives there. Lastly
Heaven, the tall mountains and the sea. Then Hesiod proceeds t
proper, and feels no more difficulty in putting a completely anthr
god like Zeus in the same pedigree as the tall Mountains and neu
such as Lies, than Homer feels in giving the same name to Ocean
different functions. In the cosmogony itself the only personal q
persons concerned is their power of reproduction.
The assumption of a world being continues in two different
In the prose cosmogonies of Pherekydes of Syros, Akousilaos of Ar
Orphics, the anthropomorphism of the gods is fundamental, so i
Zeus is also Zas, the principle of life, and Kronos is also Chr
Earth is given as a present to Cthonie (the goddess of the und
the other elements are formed out of the seed of Chronos. Earth and Ocean
are embroidered on a cloak which Zeus gives to Cthonie and his marriag
with Cthonie is the prototype of human marriages. The main purpose may
fairly be described as a desire to provide an account of the growth of the
universe which shall form a background to a moral and religious life.
The cosmogonies of the philosophers are much more interesting because
they show the tendency to modify the old assumption to fit the observed facts
It seems a fair guess that Thales conceived of all things as arising from a
divine water by a process of generation as in Homer; but Thales modified
the assumption by substituting the less personal Water for Okeanos. Anaxi-
mander1 went a stage further by substituting the Boundless for Water; but
his Boundless still has the divine attributes of immortality and indestructibility
and apparently not only surrounded everything but "steered everything."
From it the elements were "born" but again Anaximander seems to hav
generalized the elements as "the hot," "the cold," "the dry," "the wet." But
he speaks of them as appearing out of the mass like Homeric champions and
makes them pay for their aggression like criminals in the law-court. Hi
successor Anaximenes identified the original element with air, which was go
and the origin of gods and of all things that exist, and for the first time th
assumption of a world being is justified by an argument, "air surrounds the
whole kosmos just as our soul being air holds us together."2 Moreover this
argument attributes a new property to the world being, consciousness; it is
no longer simply a generator. Therefore, Anaximenes' contemporary Xeno
phanes can put the world being into a line with anthropomorphic gods and
men as "greatest among gods and men, in no way like mortals in structur
or thought," "the whole of him sees and appreciates and hears," "without
toil he makes all things vibrate by the power of his mind."3
As Cornford4 says, this last fragment does not suggest a designing intelli
gence planning the order of the world or providentially controlling events;
1 Particularly A 15-16, B I. Cf. now U.3 Xenophanes, B 23-5-
Holscher, Hermes, 8 1, 1953, P- 385 f. * Principium Sapientiae, 147.
2 Anaximenes, B 2.
18 T. B. L. WEBSTER
nor did Anaxagoras take t

only in the personal attribu
in hymn style as eternal an
ledge and control. The fur
equated air with mind and
of the human body to the f
the world has become a m
of this way of thinking sur
universe is displayed as the
external model, and altho
special sense in which Plat
central notion of a planner
is difficult to discover the
tell of him to everybody .
Plato is in fact arguing fro
the divine planner, but this
is merely an explanation of
of generation itself survive
well as a craftsman. The pl
become Nature, in name at
When he justifies the study
man provides unspeakable
who are truly philosophe
planner: Nature does the b
man each thing to him wh
of Aristotle's unmoved mover3 and the universe moves for love of him. So
difficult is it to banish a personal world being.
The second attitude which I mentioned is to treat certain ideas as perso
in order to persuade oneself or others of their importance. Of this I need onl
give a few clear instances. I have already said in another context that wh
Phoinix is pleading with Achilles to listen to the Greek envoys, he personifies
Infatuation as a strong runner and Prayers as lame, wrinkled, squinting o
women who come after her: Agamemnon has been infatuated but is n
praying Achilles to listen to him; if Achilles refuses he will in turn be infatuat
and meet with the disaster that attends infatuation. Hesiod goes further t
Homer in personifying ideas such as Justice, Good Order, Efficiency (Are
etc., which he regards as of supreme importance for the community: Are
lives at the end of a steep path but though she is difficult at first she is e
when she has been reached. On the chest of Kypselos (a Corinthian work
marquetry of the late seventh or early sixth century B.c.) Dike was a beautifu
woman dragging along an ugly woman Adikia by the neck, beating her w
the other hand; a similar scene appears on a red-figure vase of about 530 B
Adikia is a hideous spotted woman and Dike attacks her with a hammer.
In Aeschylus such persuasive personifications are extremely common: "t
anvil of Dike is set. Fate forges her sword. The deep-hearted Fury bring
1 Timaeus, 28c, 29c. 4 Nicosthenic amphora in Vienna, Beazley,
2 Aristotle, de part. anim., 645a 3. Attic Redfigure Vasepainters, I3.
3 Aristotle, Met. Io072b 15.
child home."' In the late fifth century Prodikos2 described Herakles' m
with Virtue and Vice: "Virtue is a beautiful girl of noble birth, her skin
her eyes bashful, her gait modest, her dress white; Vice is plump an
her skin painted to be redder and whiter than nature; she holds her
that she seems taller than she is; her eyes are wide open; her dress is
to show her charms to the best advantage." In Plato's Apology3 Vice
runner who catches Sokrates' accusers, and in the Phaedo4 Pleasure
nail in her hand to nail the soul to the body. Demosthenes5 says:
decision of every one of you jurors love of mankind is ranged against jea
justice against vice, and all that is good against all that is bad." The
were particularly fond of ethical personifications of this kind and
fittingly end this series with the dialogue first between Courage and Cow
and then between Continence and Incontinence, which is probably r
ascribed to Demetrius of Alexandria.6 I have only mentioned ethical p
fications but many others including political personifications could b
and persuasive personifications overlap with explanatory personificat
cause the idea to be explained is felt to be so important that other
must be persuaded of its truth.
Explanatory personification is obviously a useful shorthand for the
If he wants to say that Alkibiades has won a victory at the Olympia
Pythian games, he paints him being crowned by Pythias and Oly
personifications of the festival period.' If he wants to say that a you
(like many heroes of New Comedy) fell in love with a girl in a proces
paints him with Aphrodite, Eros, and Pompe, the personification
procession.8 He can indicate time by adding figures of Sun, Moon, or
and place by the nymph of the locality. Lysippos can sculpt Kairos, th
moment, or Apelles can paint Diabole, slander. But all these personifi
occur in literature as well as art and most of them in prose as well as
In particular here I want to notice the use of personification to ex
relationship between ideas, which are thereby isolated and fixed. A ge
is the commonest way of relating personifications to one another bu
forms of human relationship also occur: thus in Homer the war-god A
a sister Eris (strife) and a son Phobos (panic); Phobos and Deimos (fe
Ares' grooms; and Phobos has a companion Phyza (flight).9 The
group explains that all these ideas are related to war. In the Odysseyxo th
has two daughters by Neaira called Lampetie and Phaethousa; mot
daughters are aspects of the sun's light which are thereby fixed and
and shown in their relation to him. Similarly Agamemnon's three da
in the Iliad,11 Chrysothemis, Laodike, and Iphianassa are aspects of his
1 Aeschylus, Cho., 646 f. Bcazley, op. cit., 838, no. 46, about 4Io B.C. ;
2 Xenophon, Mem., II, i, 21. Oenochoe in New York, 25. 19o, Schlefold,
3 Apology, 39b. Kertscher Vasen, pl. I o.
4 Phaedo, 83d. 9 Iliad, IV, 440; XIII, 299; XV', I19;
6 Demosthenes, XX, 165. Ix, I.
6 Apud Stobaeum, VIII, 20. 10 Od., XII, 132; cf. XXIII, 246, where
7 Overbeck, Schriftquellen, no. x132. Cf. Lampos and Phlaethon are horses of Eos.
Panathenaic amphora in Harvard 1925, 30, '1 Iliad, IX, I45; cf. Diiring, Eranos, XLI,
CVA, pl. 6. 94-
8 Squat lekythos in New York, I I. 213. 2,
20 T. B. L. WEBSTER
Hesiod used these patterns

disparate things in afamily
as the daughters of Ocean a
very different meaning an
advantage: Chaos is the ult
tion, and Infatuation; Earth
of the Seasons, Justice,
Themis, the right which ru
Justice, Good Order, and
achieve; they are also equ
be as important as the seas
point of contact here is P
prosperity and could easi
fourth century, Plato mad
essential elements in the lo
to Zeus Epiteleios Philios a
Success is the result of frien
Two early fifth-century in
difficult new ideas. Pindar
sun, Theia of many names,
to other things; because of
and chariot-horses in swif
thus the source of light and
in sport precious to men. P
herited from Hesiod, to co
phrases the opposite abstra
as pairs of deities who rece
Strife and charming Har
Truth and black-haired Ob
ing, Movement and Rest,
Speech." Of these Harmoni
logical figures in quite diff
cations are grouped. So, to
century Aphrodite and Dio
the Graces and Seasons b
Procession, Tragedy, and C
with Aphrodite or Dionyso
or Ecstasy. The artists rep
guise Plato imagined his Id
he banished her from the
when he speaks of her "gro
she has attained her nature."6
I have said that the development of Greek thought may be seen as
struggle between the tendency to personify and the tendency to schematize
1 Symposium, 203b. Dichtung u. Philosophie, 618 f.
2 Marble relief in Copenhagen, Nilsson,4 D.-K., B 122-3.
Gesch., I, 765, pl. 38, 2. 6 Republic, X, 607e.
3 Cf. Wilamowitz, Pindaros, 200; Frankel,
6 Poetics, I449a 9; 20.
It is a losing struggle in so far as the mythical view of

yields to a rational view of the world; but, as we have
rationalized something of the old assumption of a person
remains in Aristotle's conception of Physis. We have not
why personification stayed alive and vivid; the most impor
the natural feeling that something deeply moving is in som
if the emotion is strong enough a god. But if the usual
personification is to persuade to virtue or dissuade from
remembered that personification has two intellectual use
in the explanatory personifications just discussed. A gen
isolated from its particulars, and put into relationship with
as child or parent or companion. Thus personification m
of rational thought; and in the fifth century when large
nouns came into use in every kind of thinking, their si
relationships were expressed by personification, weak or
had its own dangers because personified ideas seeme
stantive reality. Aristotle saw the danger when he depri
of their independent status. But must we not say that
assumptions and mistakes and dangers personification,
a vaguely apprehended general idea clear and discussabl
for the thinker?

How Personification Shaped Greek Thought

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Personification as a Mode of Greek Thought

1 Tacitus, Hist., II, 3; Pausanias IX,ing 27,land,

which suddenly appear startlingly uncontrollable

modelled his Infatuation an

philosophers (to which I shall ret

human qualities are clearly seen and personifications in which a sin

to taste flesh"; the wheeled

Ocean-to be a character in legend, to be a distant sea, to be

nor did Anaxagoras take t

Hesiod used these patterns

It is a losing struggle in so far as the mythical view of

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