'Hybris' and Dishonour: I

Author(s): N. R. E. Fisher
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Oct., 1976), pp. 177-193
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/642226 .
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 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I

By N. R. E. FISHER
Professor D. M. MacDowell's article' continues a recent and welcome
tendency2 to question the common interpretation of bybris by
study of the actual instances of the concept throughout Greek
literature. MacDowell's definition 'having energy or power and
misusing it self-indulgently' is fairly broad, and he supports it by
five further points:
i) that bybris is always bad,
ii) that it is always voluntary,
iii) that it is frequently, but not always, produced by such things
as youth, wealth, and excess of food and drink,
iv) that it is not usually religious,
and
v) that it often involves a victim, and is more serious when it
does.
The major weight in his account is thus placed on the presence in
the man committing bybris of a 'state of mind', a willingness to
give rein to certain desires and pleasures. The effect that such a
state of mind may have, or be intended to have, on others is not
defined by MacDowell at all precisely. I wish to offer an account
that focuses attention jointly on the effect produced by the action
on its victim, and on the mentality of the agent who wishes to
produce that effect. My account is closely related to that of
Aristotle, and finds the core of the concept in 'behaviour intended
to produce dishonour or shame to others, on the part of those who
derive pleasure from such behaviour';variations, few in number,
from that basic sense are to be explained as intelligible develop-
ments or modifications of that basic idea. The most important
aspect of my account, the basic point about bybris that I believe
has not received nearly enough attention, is that the concept is
essentially linked to the ideas of honour and shame. Much of the
best of recent work on Greek social and moral values has been
concerned with revealing and delineating the importance of such
ideas,3 and I wish to suggest that bybris too is to be seen in that
general context.
In this article, I can do no more than to set out in outline this
account of bybris, provide support for it with evidence drawn from
Homer to Aristotle, and show where it agrees and where it disagrees
178 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I

with MacDowell's account. In a subsequent article, I hope to suggest

further how hybris is to be related to other moral and social con-
cepts, including those with which it has frequently been confused.4
I should start by emphasizing that there is a good deal in
MacDowell's article with which I agree. Two points may be made
at the outset. He insists that hybris is the same thing in literature
and in law (pp. 24 ff.). It was surely a great weakness, though one
usually unnoticed, of the previous accountss of hybris that they
created a largely unexplained distinction between 'religious' hybris,
pride or overconfidence that offended the gods, and the 'legal'
hybris, taken to be 'violence', 'assault'; this distinction seems
particularly implausible in view of the fact that Solon, the man who
was most probably responsible for introducing the legal action
called the graphe hybreos,6 was also the author of poems in which
modern scholars frequently find the 'religious' sense of the word.
I shall argue in fact that it is possible to go further than MacDowell
does in eliminating the distinction.
Secondly I agree that hybris is never to be seen as essentially a
religious term, in the way that words like asebeia or hosiotes are.
It is in fact part of an enormous vocabulary of words used in
general moral, social, or even political contexts (such as adikia,
sophrosyne, or time), which may have religious connections if a
writer or speaker wishes explicitly to include the gods or some
other religious concept in his judgement. I agree with MacDowell
that in the case of hybris the gods tend to get involved either if
they are themselves seen as the direct victims (or the perpetrators)
of hybristic behaviour, or if they are supposed to object to such
behaviour in their roles as general defenders of human morality.
In the majority of cases where hybristic behaviour is mentioned,
the fact or likelihood of divine concern makes no appearance.
My account is based in the first instance on the definition and
discussion of bybris found in Aristotle's Rhetoric,' and I start by
setting this out at some length. Much of Book 2 is devoted to an
analysis of emotions; Aristotle's recognition that the importance of
emotional appeal in oratory needed and could be given a systematic
and philosophical basis through an analysis of various emotions
was one of his major contributions to the subject.8 Chapter 2 con-
erns anger (orge), which is defined as 'a desire for revenge ac-
companied by pain, because of an apparent and improper slight
(oligoria) to oneself or to one's own'. Slighting, defined as 'an
actualization of an opinion of something's worthlessness', is said
to be of three kinds, contempt (kataphronesis), spitefulness
 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I 179

(epereasmos), and hybris: hybris, evidently the most serious, is

defined as follows (1378b 23-35):
Kai b pi?p v56~ -o- yap
t iO3pptrd X7ydewv
7TpdrCTEV Kai ' oi
aT T bhXywmpet"
7T n
T7 abrc 7 t a&X'
aiouxvr •dXOVrt, p 'ia ~yU)yTrat diaho 7i 6'Ctyvero,
6iw u
i7a0017oi Y•dp aVTr7TotOVreTo OpXL3piovUatv ad 1rtpwpoOVrat. a. rtov &U
Tr77 Tro-cbf3piovUtv,07t oL'OVratKaKwC 6pPVTrelaCbroibTrepgXetv pdlMov
758oviC
(65t oi vuot Kai oi rnWo6ototb30ptrai- birepgXetvwyap otov-ratb[3piLov-rec). ip3peme
6 artplia, b 6' artpLa OV rod &tov ob6epiav eXet Ttp?7V,
bXtCywpet- ypP p775evod
oiTrehyaOo? oirE KaKo 5t66dXyet bpytld6pevocb 'AxtXXCvK
Ccv y ap eXet yepa( avTro(
T77-rLPT7Uve
Kat

(• t'TrL
TVaipT77roV
1pravETdrUTv,
cZ 5t& raura bpytl6pevoc.
The hybrizon too slights: for hybris is doing and saying things at which the
victim incurs shame, not in order that one may achieve anything other than
what is done, but simply to get pleasure from it. For those who act in return
for something do not hybrizein, they avenge themselves. Cause of the pleasure
for the hybrizontes is that by harming people they think that they themselves
are the more superior. That is why the young and the rich are hybristai; they
think they are superior when hybrizontes. Dishonour is characteristic of hybris,
and he who dishonours slights, since what has no worth has no honour, either
for good or bad. That is why Achilles says when angry
'He dishonoured me; for he has himself taken my prize and keeps it' [Iliad
1. 3561
and
'he treatedme as if I were a wandererwithout honour' [Iliad9. 648 = 17. 59]
being angryfor those reasons.
This definitionhas a good claimfor seriousattention,since it
representsAristotle'sconsideredand consistentopinion.Not only
does it fit adequatelythe use of hybristhroughouthis work;the
elementsof the definitionarerepeatedor echoed a numberof
times elsewhere.In some passagesAristotleclearlyhas the legal
action of the graphehybreosand possibleforensicargumentsvery
much in mind.The best exampleis Rhet. 1. 13, wherethe argument
is that in a numberof legalcases,such as theft andhybris,the
presenceof a particularintention(prohairesis)is built into the
meaningof the term, in additionto the performanceof a particular
act: 'if a man strikesanother,he does not in everycasehybrizein,
but only if he does it for a particularreason,such as dishonouring
him, or pleasinghimself'(1374a 11-15)." In other casesthe con-
texts are those of generalmoralor politicalargument,and the legal
180 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I
action is not in view; for example, at E.N. 4. 3 those who possess
external goods without arete (unlike the megalopsychos who is
being discussed) are said to become arrogant and bybristai: 'with-
out arete it is not easy to bear gracefully good fortune; unable to
bear it and thinking themselves superior to other people, they
despise them and do themselves whatever they like' (1124a 26-
24b 1).1o There seems no reason to doubt, then, that Aristotle's
definition of bybris is intended to serve as an adequate, if brief,
account of the word's behaviour alike in ordinary language, in
literature," and in law, and that he saw no essential difference in
use between the legal and any other uses.12 I should now like to
discuss more fully various aspects of his account.
The first, crucial, yet obvious point is that Aristotle places
hybris firmly inside a nexus of concepts essentially concerned with
honour and shame. Hybris is the most serious form of slighting,
oligoria, the assertion to another that one does not value or honour
him; it causes dishonour and shame; it arouses in him anger, which
is a desire for revenge (timoria-the recovery of one's own honour
(time) by punishing one's offender). Accordingly, one would expect
to find implicit in almost all instances of bybris the notion of
injured honour; and that is in fact what I believe one does find.
Secondly it is worth again emphasizing that Aristotle has no
doubt that the legal offence of hybris was not interpreted as
simply violence or assault, as has frequently been asserted by
modern scholars. As is made clear in Rhetoric 1. 13 and elsewhere,
it is the element of positive and gratuitous pleasure in insulting
others that makes an act of assault hybris. This interpretation does
in fact fit perfectly the accounts of bybris, both as a general
phenomenon and as an offence worthy of prosecution, that we find
in the orators. MacDowell mentions the most important passages
(Dem. 21 passim, especially 70-6; 54. 8-9 and passim; Isocr. 20
passim); he perceives that it is a 'state of mind' that distinguishes
bybris from other unlawful acts, but he fails to bring out fully what
that state of mind is-the presence of an intention to insult and
exult over another. Most revealing of all is Demosthenes 21. 71 ff.,
which brings together most of the elements in the Aristotelian dis-
cussion. Demosthenes wishes to forestall any suggestion that because
he did not retaliate against Meidias he is now exaggerating the extent
of his humiliation. He alludes to comparable, but fatal, instances,
and goes on, speaking initially of the second of these:
It was not the blow that inspired his anger (orge), it was the dishonour (atimia);
it is not being beaten that is terriblefor frec men, terriblethough it is, it is being
 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I 181

beaten in hybris (To C4' i3ppet). A man beating another may do many things,
Athenians,some of which the victim could not reportto another, in his stance,
his look, his voice, showingthat he is hybrizeinhim, that he is his enemy,
hitting him with the fist, on the cheek. These are the things that rouse men,
make men beside themselves,if they are unused to being humiliated.
Indeed, not all the cases that we hear of where a graphe hybreos
was held to be at least prima facie admissible involved physical
violence. It is reasonably clear that what was necessary was to
demonstrate that one had suffered a deliberate and wilful attempt
to inflict serious humiliation and dishonour.'3 The most unusual
case we hear of is the graphe hybreos that Apollodoros, the son of
Pasion, started to bring against his step-father Phormion for marrying
his mother, Pasion's widow, under an allegedly false will: the main
point of the charge must have been that Phormion brought great
dishonour to Apollodoros by marrying his mother against his will,
especially since Phormion had been a slave until recently, and was
now only a metoikos. It is likely that Apollodoros brought this
graphe only because the courts were prevented at the time from
hearing dikai, and what he really wanted was to put pressure on
Phormion to grant him control over his share of the estate:14 but
that he could even start to bring a graphe hybreos is revealing
enough.15
Aristotle has much of interest to say too on that sense of superi-
ority that is the cause of pleasure to the man of hybris, and on the
types of people that experience it. A desire for superiority, for
victory, and for honour is regardedby Aristotle as a natural and
proper thing for all men;16 but equally he recognizes that inability
to control good fortune or position of superiority is likely to make
one a hybristes (E.N. 1124a 26-b 1). Classes of people particularly
prone to hybris are said to be the young and the rich, as stated in
the definition in Rhetoric 2. 2; and his reasons, given in the chapters
devoted to these classes later in Book 2 of the Rhetoric, seem to me
more precise and illuminating than those of modern scholars,
including MacDowell. In Chapter 12 the desire for superiority, and
hence for honour and for victory, is a primary characteristic of the
young. It follows from this that they will react very strongly when
slighted, because of their concern for their honour (philotimia); it
follows too that when they do go wrong their offences are those
of bybris, not those of crime for gain (kakourgia: cf. Pol. 1295b 9-
11), and also that they are fond of wit, since 'wit is educated hybris'
(1389a 9-14, and 1389b 7-8 and 10-12).17 It is, I think, a help-
ful and important observation that those who are most likely to
182 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I
defend themselves energetically against attacks on their honour are
those also most likely to be tempted to attack the honour of others.
In Chapter 16 hybris appears to be even more embedded in the
behaviour of the rich than it was in that of the young. Their wealth
is said to make them hybristai and arrogant;and their unjust acts,
such as assault (aikeia) and adultery, like those of the young, are
caused not by crime (kakourgia) but partly by hybris and partly by
akrasia. What makes the rich especially hybristic is partly the feeling
of security from harm given them by their wealth: 'they judge every-
thing by wealth and think that everything can be bought' (1390b 31-
91a 2 and 1391a 17-19). This means, I take it, that the rich treat
people just as they like because they think that they are the most
important people in existence, and that if anyone objects they will
be able to buy off trouble, by compensation or by bribery of
officials (cf. Dem. 21 passim and Ar. Wasps1256 ff.). Over-
confidence as a characteristic of those blessed by good fortune
appears again in conjunction with hybris in the chapter on pity
(Rhet. 2. 8). One class of people unable to feel pity, because they
cannot envisage anything comparable happening to themselves, are
those who think themselves exceptionally fortunate: 'they do not
feel pity, but rather hybrizein' (1385b 21-3). Hybrizein cannot
here mean simply 'be over-confident', let alone 'be successful'.'8
It must indicate the actual attitude too successful people take up
to those in distress, and indicate an attitude far removed from pity;
i.e. so far from pitying them, they take pleasure in insulting them,
or in laughing at them (cf. Eur. fr. 130 and Suppl. 463-4).
Hybris, then, in Aristotle is insulting and damaging behaviour;
behaviour characteristic of the immature and thoughtless young, of
the rich, dazzled by the power of their wealth, and of the over-
successful and over-confident, all indulging their desires to be
thought superior to others. Such behaviour is clearly likely to bring
them into danger, since those they maltreat are going to try to
retaliate, since others may well be morally offended themselves,
and since they are quite likely to have miscalculated their own,
and their victim's, powers. Such considerations as these enable one
better to understand the force of traditional or proverbial relations
of hybris to other concepts: why it is a contrary of self-control
(sophrosyne), why it is so closely associated with wealth, koros,
and youth, why it arouses anger or resentment, and why it leads
rapidly to disaster (ate etc.). How and why hybris leads to disaster
can yet again be best seen by looking at an Aristotelian work, the
Politics. Here again his realistic social and psychological observations
 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I 183

are more helpful and precise than the vaguer generalizations of

lyric or tragic poetry. The seriousness and wide-rangingscope of
hybris is best revealed when Aristotle splits injustices into two
types, those caused by kakourgia, crime, committed largely by the
poor, weak, and dishonoured, and those caused by hybris, the work
of those distinguished by beauty, strength, birth, or wealth; the
conclusion is that it is best to be middle-class (1295b 6-25).19 The
consequences are revealed above all in Book 5, the discussion of
the causes and prevention of stasis; hybris is a major cause of coups
d'etat and civil wars, and means, as the numerous examples make
inescapably clear, humiliating and insulting treatment meted out
by those in power to their subjects (1302b 2-10; cf. 1304a 2,
1307a 20, 1309a 22, and 1297b 6-10). The danger of bybris is
greatest for those in supreme power, and most discussion and
examples concern the fatal acts of bybris of the tyrant. Examples
include many sexual outrages, rapes, seductions, crude insults or
humiliations offered to boy friends, and a variety of violet humili-
ations, beatings, clubbings, and scourgings;and Aristotle advises
would-be moderate tyrants to avoid hybris of all types, especially
rapes, bodily punishments, and any against the young and others
likely to be most concerned for their honour (1311a 22-b 32 and
1314b 23-1315a 31).
Aristotle's definition includes the notion of 'superiority', and the
examples of hybrizontes so far discussed have been people who are,
or claim to be, in a position of superiority over others. This is
indeed the norm, but it would be a mistake to think of this as an
invariablerule, or to suppose that Aristotle did. Hybris involves a
breach of status, an insult or dishonour to another; but what con-
stitutes insult in any situation will depend on the existing status-
relationship between the parties. Most cases operate within a
relationship of equality when one party's claim to be superior and
to treat the other as an inferior is naturally resented. Frequent also
are cases where there is already some acknowledged difference of
status, and the hybrizon is superior;for example the hybris of rulers,
officials, and tyrants mentioned just above. Here, to be hybristic,
the misbehaviour will need to be more serious than in the case of
equals. Kings and officials may be entitled to some obedience and
privileges, but excessive maltreatment, contempt, or punishment
will go beyond what is acceptable.2 The point is yet clearer in the
case of the master-slaverelationship; free men may command and
beat slaves, but still excessively brutal or contemptuous treatment
of slaves, whether one's own or those of others, may be called
184 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I

hybris.21Conversely, people in an inferior position are often accused

of hybris if they attempt merely to assert a position of equality, or
reduce the status-gap;verbal freedom ('cheek', 'insolence'), or
disobedience on the part of slaves, women, or children,22unrest or
revolts on the part of organized slaves or helots,' disobedience or
revolts of citizens against their magistrates or rulers,4 or of subject
cities or countries against imperial powers,25 are all regularly described
as hybris.
A fairly complex, but still a coherent picture should now be
emerging. Hybris is indeed a complex notion, for a number of reasons.
In the first place it combines two diverse elements, a psychological
state of mind (the desire for a particularsort of pleasure) and an
activity that both satisfies that desire and has a definite effect on
other people; and uses of hybris may vary quite strongly one from
another in the emphasis they place on the various elements in the
concept. Occasionally the emphasis appears more on the state of
mind, of over-confidence after success and of delight in insulting or
triumphing over others.26More commonly the emphasis is very
much on the effects of shame and horror produced, with less con-
cern for the supposed state of mind of the agent. Frequently the
word is used to indicate the outraged feelings of the victims, for
whom the effects are real, and for whom the actual intentions of
agents are of less relevance;27more rarely the actions may even be
judged in context as actually justifiable, or at least morally neutral.'
Secondly the contexts, and circumstances and degrees of moral
or religious seriousness vary enormously, according to the interplay
of a number of variables. I give only a few further examples to show
more fully the range of possibilities. Verbal hybris may be the mild
jesting and point-scoring between friendly equals, where the very
use of the term hybris is itself a joke (P1.Sym. 175 e and Meno 76 a);
may be a slave's insolence (Ar. Frogs 21; cf. Soph. Ajax 1258); may
be cruel and biting insults and taunting that may on occasions
provoke a fight or worse;" may be an insult to a god or to the dead
that may possibly produce divine indignation or retaliation." Hybris
displayed in actions is perhaps most commonly physical maltreat-
ment, hitting, whipping, wounding, killing, etc. ;31 it may also be
deprivation of property, when that involves dishonour to the victim
and/or an attitude of contempt and over-confidence in the agent;32
hybris may be used to condemn virtually any form of illegal
behaviour (fraud, damage, adultery, injury to parents, children,
epikleroi, etc., sacrilege, theft, bribery, sykophantia, proposing
illegal decrees, etc.) when the point is the criminals' aim to humiliate
 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I 185

and show their contempt of the victims, whether individuals or the

community and political system as a whole;"33 it may be outrage
offered to guests or hosts, to the dead (such as denial of burial),3
to a shrine;35 it may be a hostile act by one state against another,36
the invasion by one country of another in an attempt to 'enslave'
it,37 or more generally the impulse in a people to increase its
empire." The range of specific activities is large; that is precisely
what one would expect from the account of the word here offered.
The range of activities is in fact virtually co-extensive with that of
the concepts to which it is linked, those of honour (time), shame,
etc.; areas where there is strong obligation on men to treat others
with respect, to honour people, laws, moral codes, or gods, these
are the areas where flagrant breaches of the norms are frequently
labelled hybris.
That is the general account of the concept I would offer at this
stage; and it can be confidently asserted that the vast majority of
uses of hybris-words in all classical authors fits without any strain
into this account. There are still some problematic passages, where
somewhat different interpretations have been proposed. I should
like to consider now those passages mentioned by MacDowell which,
at first sight, seem to fit his interpretation better than mine.
Many of the 'manifestations' of hybris discussed by MacDowell,
of course, offer no problem; and in many of the individual passages
the presence in the hybris-word of deliberately insulting or dis-
honouring behaviour is a good deal clearer than he reveals.39Dis-
agreement arises when MacDowell claims as manifestations of hybris
eating and drinking too much, too much sex, larking about, etc.;
the issue is essentially whether hybris in these contexts can mean
simply having fun and indulging one's pleasures, even though no one
else is affected. There are two passages on which he lays particular
stress in his argument that hybris need not involve a victim: the
young explorers of Herodotus 2. 32. 3 and the suicide of Deianeira
at Trachiniae, 888. Finally, there are the uses of hybris applied to
animals and to natural forces. I shall argue that in all these cases a
full interpretation of the passages removes the difficulties.
In relation to hybris, food should be distinguished from drink.
There is a clear and obvious connection between drink and hybris,
on my view of the term: drunk men enjoy beating others up and
insulting them gratuitously. Greek has a specific term (paroinia) for
the state of being unpleasantly and aggressivelydrunk; it is often
associated with hybris, and the behaviour is perfectly familiar, and
clearly involves insulting others. Most of MacDowell's examples
186 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I
under this heading make the insulting element perfectly plain, and
many others could be added."
His first passage, however, is worth a little more discussion.
MacDowell concludes from Athene/Mentes' questions to Telemachus
at Odyssey 1. 224-9 that the suitor's offensiveness ('they seem to
be feasting hybrizontes, and arrogantly (hyperphialos) throughout
the house') can only be 'eating and drinking in an excessive or dis-
orderly manner', for that is all Mentes has so far seen them do. But
Mentes has in fact seen and learnt much more than that about the
suitors in the course of this most carefully composed and themati-
cally significant scene. He knows that this is Odysseus' house, and
that they are consuming Odysseus' food and drink while he is away;
he saw that when he arrivednot one of them paid him the slightest
attention, nor did they at any time assist or keep quiet for Telemachus
when he was doing his best shamefacedly to entertain the guest in
a semblance of the proper manner; he has heard Telemachus' own
views on these people who seem to have taken over his own house
(158-165).41 Mentes' questions show clearly that their behaviour
fits no normal or acceptable social occasion; their behaviour here,
as throughout the Odyssey, violates all the rules of hospitality.
Hybris is applied to the suitors nineteen times in the poem, and it
forms a significant part in the indictment against them; it indicates
clearly the enjoyment they take in refusing to pay the proper
respect and honour to any one they come into contact with, and
in particularin destroying the wealth and the honour of the house
of Odysseus.42This first instance of the term refers to a lot more
than mere over-eating or drinking.43
As we have already seen, sexual acts often have elements of
hybris; there are a number of variations here, but in all the essential
element of humiliating or aggressivebehaviour is present in addition
to or instead of 'lust'. The commonest usage is probably of sexual
acts committed against women, girls, or boys, where the point is
that act brings shame and dishonour on the victim, and on the
whole family and particularly on the kyrios. The act may be rape,
seduction, forced marriage,or marriagebetween those of unequal
status. The use of hybris indicates that the act has produced, and
probably was intended to produce, dishonour or humiliation as well
as, or instead of, sexual pleasure. Most of MacDowell's examples fall
into this category.44 But hybris may also derive its force from some
quality of the sexual act itself. In particularbybris is sometimes
used of the effect of homosexual acts on the boy, the passive
partner, where the point is not only that the lover is deliberately
 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I 187

shaming or humiliating the boy (or his family) but also that frequent
submission to such acts is in itself degradingand shameful, and
damaging to his masculine and moral character:45 that belief, after
all, is the reason why boys of citizen birth at Athens who prostituted
themselves could be deprived of citizen rights (atimia).46But any
particularly humiliating sex act, even inflicted on those without
much reputation, may be hybris: beating, roughing up, or a 'gang-
bang'.47
MacDowell's few passages supposed to show hybris as 'larking
about', expending energy uselessly, should be interpreted quite
differently. First, Odyssey 4. 625-7: by the fourth book we have
seen a good deal of the suitors, and heard them condemned by a
number of right-thinking people on Ithaca and elsewhere; we know
that their very presence in Odysseus' house and their use of their
leisure to consume his possessions is hybristic, because it is dis-
honouring his oikos and the laws of hospitality sanctioned by the
gods. We have just returned from the model of guest-host behaviour
presented by Menelaus and Telemachus in Sparta to find the suitors
'enjoying themselves throwing discuses and javelins on a levelled
ground, as before, displaying hybris'. The hybris is not just their
javelin-throwing, but that they are doing it there; more generally it
serves to remind us of the suitors' moral offensiveness, functioning
as a commonly repeated phrase to show us how to react to all that
they do.
Antiphon 3. b 3 is rather different; that both passages involve
javelin-throwing should not deceive. The father says that his son
'did not throw the javelin out of hybris nor out of akolasia, but
while practising with his contemporaries in the gymnasium': he
makes it clear that the javelin fell within the target area, and that
the boy who was hit was running into its path. What precisely is
being excluded is not that clear: possibilities might be criminal
intention to hit the boy, culpable negligence, inability to throw
the javelin straight, careless disobedience. But it surely is unlikely
that hybris merely means here 'larking about uselessly', since larking
about with a javelin in a crowded gym itself necessarily involves
culpable negligence, a contempt for the interests of others. What-
ever the force of hybris and akolasia here, they surely imply serious
moral faults, with harmful consequences for others.
There are other passages where some action is asserted not to be
done out of hybris but for another reason, and where the idea 'for
fun' is perhaps an element of what is being excluded; but it is
nowhere, I think, the whole point. At Lysias 7. 13 the rich man
188 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I

accused of uprooting a sacred olive stump on his land asserts that

people do not uproot olive stumps out of hybris, but for gain. What
is excluded here is 'fun' of a sort, but the fun is derived from con-
tempt for what others, including perhaps the gods, hold worthy of
honour, the sacredness of the Athenian olive tree (cf. Dem. 43. 71).
At Demosthenes 21. 182 a man who served on a jury when dis-
qualified was executed though he did it through 'want, not hybris':
for a man so to act without the 'compulsion' of poverty again
implies a sense of 'fun' nourished by contemptuous disregardof
the laws and the values of the society, and of those citizens who
observe them. Similarly, I would argue, a boy throwing his javelin
about wildly does so in contemptuous and criminal disregardof all
others in the gym; and that is the hybris.
Herodotus 2. 32. 3 needs careful attention. MacDowell offers
part-translation,part-paraphraseof the passage, and in so doing
obscures the structure and argument of the sentence. When the
Nasamones were asked what they knew about the desert, 'they said
that there had been among them some sons of the chieftains, hybristai
boys, who when they grew up devised various excessive activities,
and in particular picked five of their number to explore the Libyan
desert to see if they could see more than those who had gone furthest
before.' Clearly the argument of the sentence demands some
connection between these people's hybris, and their exploring, but
the relation is not as close as MacDowell assumes. There is a clear
contrast between their behaviour when boys and that when they
had become men. There is every reason, then, why hybristai can
carry its usual meaning when applied to adolescents born to positions
of power: that is, they used their positions to insult and humiliate
others less fortunate. The connection between this, and their adult
behaviour can best be seen by recalling the picture of young men in
Aristotle's Rhetoric 2. 12; their dominant desire for superiority and
honour might produce both bybris and active striving for fame and
victory. So with these youths; when adult they continued to do
many things which marked them out from the rest and, what is
relevant in the present context, they sought to explore further than
anyone before them. The connection is the desire for superiority and
honour; it is not necessarily suggested that exploring is hybristic.
Trachiniae, 888, where the chorus ask the Nurse, on hearing that
Deianeira killed herself with a sword, 'did you see, feeble woman,
this hybris?', is not easy on any account of bybris known to me.
MacDowell himself seems uneasy: first (p. 19) he treats it as an act
of violence which her friends wish she had not committed, and
 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I 189

stresses the passage's negative value, showing that bybris does not
necessarily involve pride or a desire to disgrace another person:
later (p. 22) he returns to it, and sees in the hybris the fact that
Deianeira exercised considerable energy, was irrational, and did not
take account of other people's wishes. My own feelings about this
passage is that the hybris expresses the chorus's horror at the event
and its effect on the house of Heracles; they do not imply that
Deianeira did it with the intention of causing shame to her philoi,
still less for the pleasure in such an act; but that is the effect the
act has. It is an 'outrageous' act that brings shame on the whole
family including Deianeira herself.
Finally, there is the use of hybris of animals and natural forces.
For MacDowell 'hybris in animals is an aggressivespirit as well as
the noise that goes with it' (p. 15). In the first place it seems prima
facie a little odd to give as much prominence as MacDowell does to
hybris in animals. On any view hybris is a complex and essentially
human moral phenomenon, relating to human intentions, and their
moral control over their desires; to some extent application of such
a term to animals, or to natural forces or plants, is likely to be meta-
phorical, or to be employing a somewhat attenuated sense.48This
does not, of course, reduce the need to explain the use or the
metaphor intelligibly and plausibly. It is also worth saying that uses
of the word applied to animals, plants, and natural forces are not
very numerous; I have not found more than twenty or so in all.
It seems helpful to divide animal hybris into two broad categories,
one concerned with domesticated animals, where the idea is essentially
of their disobedience and insubordination towards human masters,
and the other with wild animals, where the word indicates wild,
uncontrolled, disorderly destruction of humans and their works.
Some passages of Xenophon best illuminate the first category: at
Cyropaedia 7. 5. 62 Cyrus uses examples from animal husbandry to
support the use of eunuchs as personal bodyguards; 'bybristai horses
when castrated cease to bite and bybrizein, but are no less warlike,
bulls castrated give up thinking big (mega pbronein) and disobeying,
but are not deprived of their strength and ability to work, and dogs
similarly cease to leave their masters if castrated but are no less good
at keeping guard and for the hunt: so too men become more docile
if deprived of this desire, but pay no less heed to their orders, are no
less good horsemen or javelin-throwers, and are no less ambitious.'
All the qualities that castration removes clearly involve disobedience
and insolence directed against masters by their servants;the hybris
of the horse is evidently the behaviour of a high-spirited horse that
190 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I

turns against and tries to hurt its master. At Hiero 10. 2 the hybris
of humans failing to stick to their subordinate position is again
compared to that of a horse; here the point made is that human
subjects and horses become hybristic the more their material needs
are supplied, and that they need some element of fear to keep them
under control. It is, then, I think, plausible to interpret the hybris
of Cyrus' white horse at the river Gyndes (Herodotus 1. 184. 1) in
a similar way; it charged ahead into the river, disobeying its rider
in reckless high spirits.
Donkeys are indeed, as MacDowell says, particularly notorious
for their hybris; but not just because they eat too much. When
Xenophon had to defend himself against the allegation that he had
treated some of his soldiers hybristically during the most difficult
section of the march to the Black Sea (Anabasis 5. 8), he asserts
with a rough joke that if he had committed hybris at such a desper-
ate time he would admit to being more hybristic than donkeys
'who, they say, never weary of hybris'. It is surely easiest to explain
this primarily by reference to the fact that of all animals donkeys
are notoriously stubborn and disobedient (cf. Sem. 7. 43 ff. (IEG)).
Thus the Persian donkeys who disturb the Scythian horses hybri-
zontes are displaying disobedience and self-will by braying suddenly
(Hdt. 4. 129. 2). At Pindar,Pyth. 10. 36, where Apollo is amused
by the "Oppt bpOiaof the donkeys being sacrificed by the Hyperboreans,
it may either be loud braying, or over-active sexual organs, that
disturb the calm of the ceremony and constitute (not very serious)
hybris.49Aristophanes, Wasps1303-25 is slightly more complicated:
Philocleon's behaviour at the party is certainly drunken and hybristic;
and it is in fact quite clear here, as it is in the passagesmentioned
above, that the hybris in him is not just his drunken exuberance,
but essentially his persistent and sometimes violent insults offered
indiscriminately to all the guests and to any one he meets on the
way home (cf. esp. 1319-23; and the subsequent prosecution for
hybris he ends up facing). But his hybris and paroinia have a par-
ticularly vulgar and rustic nature in comparison with his aristocratic
fellow-guests; that contrast is the basic joke of the last third of the
play. Thus the two comparisons to 'a donkey feasted on barley-
grains' and to 'a donkey that's run off to a bran-heap'mock and
insult the vulgarity and coarseness of his attacks: it is not so much
that a well-fed donkey seems to be a 'standard example of hybris'
(MacDowell, p. 15); rather that a disobedient donkey exulting in
his greed and wickedness is like a low-class man getting drunk and
crudely insulting his betters.
 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I 191
In the second category the uses are more or less 'metaphorical'.
The uniting concepts here are violence, aggressiveness,and destruc-
tiveness; and the extent to which the agents can be seen as possessing
a human-like intention to damage (and hence a moral responsibility)
varies, and in some cases is hard to determine. Examples in these
categories include mythical monsters famed for hostility to men,
gods, and moral codes; angry bulls or snakes that attack men;
Cyclopes and Centaurs, whose rapes and breaches of hospitality
presumably carry virtually fully human responsibility, as does, I sup-
pose, Archilochus' eagle in the fable; and less animate agents, who
have least 'intention' to damage, storms and rivers in flood.50
I believe, accordingly, that my account will survive a close in-
spection of these texts more easily than will MacDowell's. I do not
claim to have presented a complete account of bybris. There is
much more to be said on the relations between bybris and other
moral and social terms, and there are many passages, above all in
tragedy, in Thucydides, and in Plato, that need careful interpretation.
A second article will make a start with some of these problems. I do
hope, however, that this article has gone some way towards con-
firming Aristotle's belief that bybris necessarily involves behaviour
that causes shame and dishonour.

NOTES
1. G&R 23 (1976), 14 ff.
2. R. Lattimore, Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy (London, 1964), pp. 22-8;
B. Vickers, Towards Greek Tragedy (London, 1973), pp. 29-32; T. G. Rosenmeyer in
Hubris, Man and Education. Papers delivered at the inauguration of J. L. Jarrett,
Bellingham, Washington, 1959 (whose view is not far removed from MacDowell's). Of
earlier work the thesis of L. Gernet, Recherches sur le ddveloppement de la pensde juridique
et morale en Grace (Paris, 1917), most deserves mention. On the derivation of i3ptpLsee
now O. Szemerenyi, JHS 94 (1974), 154.
3. e.g. much of the work of A. W. H. Adkins, especially BICS 7 (1960), 23 ff.; M. I.
Finley, The World of Odysseus (London, 1956); P. Walcot, Greek Peasants, Ancient and
Modern (Manchester, 1970), Ch. IV; K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality (Oxford, 1975),
pp. 226-42.
4. I am most grateful to Professor MacDowell and to the editors for allowing me to see
the former's article before publication. These articles form a preliminary statement of my
work on bybris and on related concepts which I hope to publish more fully elsewhere.
For much advice and encouragement, over a long period of time, and during the pre-
paration of this article, it gives me great pleasure to thank Dr. J. K. Davies, Professor John
Could, Mr. D. E. Hill, Professor P. Walcot, and my wife.
5. e.g. A. Andrewes, (;reek Society (HIarmondsworth, 1971), p. 235. Even Lattimore,
op. cit., p. 25, regards the legal use as in some sense 'technical', meaning 'violence'.
6. I agree wholcheartedly with MacDowell's rejection of F. Ruschenbusch's late date
and bizarre interpretation of the graphe bybreos (ZSSR 82 (1965), 302-9), and see little
reason in this case to doubt the traditional attribution to Solon (cf. Aesch. 1. 15-17;
Dem. 21. 42-9).
7. Cf. also the brief definition of Ps.-Plato, I)efinitions, 415 e 12: &8 la e-i
6ippl•"
192 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: I

d&Llav /)cpovaa.
8. Cf. W. W. Fortenbaugh, Aristotle on E'motion (London, 1975).
9. Cf. also 1373b 1121b 1-26.
38-74a4;.h.E. 23, de virt. et vit. 1251a
10. Cf. also E.N. 1149a 32-b 30-b 25, Rhet. 1379a 30-4.
11. Cf. the use of Homeric examples to elucidate the anger felt at an act of hybris at
Rhet. 1378b 31-4, quoted above. Agamemnon's act, in taking Achilles' geras in order
to dishonour him, and show that he himself was the supreme commander (II. 1. 185-7),
is felt by Achilles and his supporters as hybris (II. 1. 203 and 214; 9. 368).
12. This does not exclude the possibility of 'metaphorical' or attenuated uses of hybris
applied to less than human subjects, or in less serious contexts (cf. p. 189).
13. Such an interpretation of the force of the graphe hybreos is offered by, among
others, E. M. Cope, Commentary on Aristotle's Rhetoric (Cambridge, 1877), Vol. ii,
p. 17; J. H. Lipsius, Das attische Recht und Rechtsverfabren (repr. Darmstadt, 1966),
pp. 421 ff.; A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens (Oxford, 1968), Vol. i, p. 172.
14. Dem. 45. 3 ff.; cf. 36. 30: Gernet, op. cit., pp. 299, n. 302, and J. K. Davies,
Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford, 1971), p. 435.
15. Cf. also Isaeus 8. 41, where achieving a citizen's disenfranchisement (atimia)
apparently gave rise to a graphe hybreos: the evidence of a separate Isaean speech 'against
Diocles for hybris' (fr. 6 Buds) suggests that the case did at least come to court. Cf.
Davies, op. cit., pg. 313-14 and Wyse on Is. 8. 41.
16. Rhet. 32-71a 10; cf. E.N. 1124b 9-15.
1370'
17. Since wit (eutrapelia) is generally a good thing in Aristotle, 'educated hybris' is here
virtually not hybris at all: the offensiveness of the verbal insult is removed and the clever-
ness and humour is what counts. Cf. W. W. Fortenbaugh, TAPhA 99 (1968), 203 ff.,
esp. 217-20.
18. Cf. M. P. Nilsson, Gesch. der griech. Rel.3 (Munich, 1967) i. 739 ff., who cites this
passage (along with many others that do not contain the word) as evidence of the
'common view' that hybris is simply the feeling of being given great good fortune.
19. Thuc. 3. 45. 4 and Dem. 21. 182.
20. In addition to those quoted from the Politics, cf. Hesiod, Op. 214-16; Solon. 4. 8
(West, IEG); Theognis, 39-40; Hdt. 1. 106 and 3. 80-2; Xen. Anab. 5. 8, Cyr. 5. 2. 22,
Hell. 2. 4. 17; P1. Laws 761 e.
21. Dem. 53. 16 is clear: to beat an intruder into one's rose-garden might be permissible
if he were a slave, hybris if a son of a citizen (cf. Dem. 21. 183). Athenian law none the
less prohibited hybris against a slave; cf. Dem. 21. 45-8, Aesch. 1. 17, and cf. also P1.
Laws 777 d.
22. Slaves: Ar. Frogs 21; Eur. Andr. 434; women: Ar. Lys. 399-400 and 425;
Democritus Bill DK; Pl. Laws 774 c; children: Pl. Laws 808 e; Soph. El. 613; Eur.
Al. 679 ff.
23. Pol. 1269b 10.
24. Solon 6. 3 (lEG); Hdt. 3. 118 and 126-7, 4. 146; Xen. Hiero 8. 9. and 10. 2;
Isocr. Nic. 16.
25. Hdt. 7. 5; Thuc. 3. 39. 4-5; Xen. Cyr. 3. 1. 21 ff.
26. Thuc. 1. 38.5, 1.84.2, 2.65.9, 4. 18.2; Hdt. 7. 16. a2.
27. Lys. 21. 12; Eur. Cycl. 665, Ion 810, Bacch. 779; Dem. 9. 60, 23. 81 and 121,
15. 6.
28. Xen. Mem. 2. 1. 5; Gorg. B6 DK; Aes. Sept. 406, in all of which the action is in
retaliation for an act of hybris, and the victim is duly humiliated in return. At Eur. Bacch.
616 Dionysus boasts of humiliating Pentheus; disapproval of his hybris may be felt by
the audience. Weaker Argument in Clouds goes furthest in justifying hybris (1068), in a
sexual context where it means violent sex-play; like many male chauvinists he argues that
all women like that.
29. Ar. Ach. 479 and 1117, Peace 1264; Hdt. 7. 160; Dem. 21. 71; Soph. Ajax 961;
Pind. 01. 13. 10.
30. Hes. fr. 30. 17 (Merkelbach-West);Eur. Rhes. 917; Soph. El. 790; Aes. Ag. 1612.
31. Cf. MacDowell, p. 18; add Hes. Op. 146; Hdt. 1. 114; Ar. Clouds 1298; Lys. 3. 23
 HYBRIS AND DISHONOUR: 1 193

and 40, 20. 3; Dem. 22. 54, 47. 41.

32. Homer II. 11. 695; Dem. 43. 84, 45. 83; cf. MacDowell, p. 19.
33. Dem. 27. 65, 35. 24, 45. 80, 43. 75 and 77, 57. 5, 24. 121. Or of unjust acts
generally: Hes. Op. 134, 191, 212-18; Paus. 1. 285.
34. Hom. Od. 16. 418 ff.; Soph. Trach. 280, Ajax 1092 and 1385; Eur. Phoen. 1743;
Dem. 43. 71.
35. Thuc. 4. 98. 5; Aes. Pers. 808 and 825; Eur. Suppl. 633.
36. Hdt. 3. 49, 5. 77, 6. 84; Xen. Hell. 3. 4. 5, 3. 5. 24; Dem. 1. 27, 3. 14; Isocr. Arch.
36, 108; Thuc. 1. 68. 2.
37. Pind. Pyth. 1. 71; Hdt. 8. 77; Xen. Hell. 2. 2. 10; Pl. Tim. 24e.
38. Hdt. 7. 16. a2; Thuc. 2. 65. 9; Xen. Hell. 5. 2. 38.
39. e.g. in his instances of bybris as fighting on p. 18, and as verbal abuse on p. 20.
40. Insults or violence are evident in Ant. 4 passim; Ar. Eccl. 664, and likely in
Anacreon 356 (Page); cf. also Ar. Wasps 1313 ff.; Lys. 3. 6-7 and 12-20; Dem. 54. 4.
Xenophanes 1. 17 is probably more general; see M. L. West, Studies in Greek Elegy and
Iambus (Berlin, 1974), p. 189. In Thuc. 8. 45. 2 the hybrizontes refers to the soldiers'
indiscipline exhibited either in debauchery or in desertion, not just in drinking.
41. Cf. J. P. Gould, JHS 93 (1973), 91.
42. e.g. 4. 321, 16. 86, 17. 582 and 588, 20. 170, 23. 64.
43. MacDowell at this point derives the traditional assocation between bybris and
koros (having too much) from a connection between too much food and drink and bybris.
But koros is applied to all good things, and to prosperity generally, as early as Homer
(II. 13. 656 ff.) and Hesiod (Op. 33, Theog. 593), and all the extant statements linking
koros and bybris operate on that more general level. Mutatis mutandis, however,
MacDowell's explanation of the varied genealogical relations of koros and bybris by the
notion of a vicious circle seems correct: acquiring too much wealth both involves and
leads to unjust and humiliating acts.
44. Rape: Hdt. 6. 137. 3; Eur. Hipp. 1073, El. 947; Ar. Thesm. 64; and add Hdt. 9. 73.
2; Bacch. 17. 44; Lys. 12. 98, 14. 26; Dem. 23. 141. Seduction: probably Archilochus
295 (f) (IEG) with the new epode, Page SEG S478, though there may have been rapes as
well; cf. above all Lysias 1 passim. Forced marriage: Aes. Suppl. passim (that, not 'lust'
and certainly not 'incest', seems to me to be the ground of the Danaids' complaint):
Eur. Hel. 785. Unequal marriage: Eur. El. 58.
45. Dem. 22. 58; Aesch. 1. 15; Arist. E.N. 1148b 30.
46. Aesch. 1 passim; cf. Dover, op. cit., pp. 215 f.
47. Ar. Clouds 1068; Dem. 49. 33-7.
48. Cf. Aristotle, E.N. 1149b 30-6. Of plants bybrizein means 'bloom wildly' (Arist.
Gen. An. 725b 35; Theophrastus Caus. Plant. 2. 16. 8), and the metaphor is as great and
as intelligible as in our own 'a riot of colour'.
49. Cf. A. H. Krappe, CPh 42 (1947), 223 ff. and A. Kohnken, Die Funktion des
Mythos bei Pindar (Berlin, 1971), pp. 61 ff.
50. Hes. fr. 204, 129 ff., Theog. 306 and 514; Hymn to Ap. 278; Pind. Nem. 1. 50;
Eur. Bacch. 743; Hom. Od. 9. 175; Theognis 541-2; Soph. Trach. 1096; Eur. Her. 181;
Arch. 177 (IEG); Hdt. 1. 189; PMG 1005; Aes. Prom. 717.