The Autobiography of Phoenix: Iliad 9.

444-95
Author(s): Ruth Scodel
Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 103, No. 2 (Summer, 1982), pp. 128-136
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/294243
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 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHOENIX: ILIAD 9.444-95

Although the long speech of Phoenix in the ninth bo

Iliad (434-605) has received a large share of scholarly atte
important section of a central scene of the poem, and as
statement, a relatively small share of critical scrutiny has b
its opening section, in which Phoenix describes how he c
in a quasi-paternal relationship to Achilles. The allegory o
which follows the autobiography, and the concluding exe
Meleager have tended to usurp the interest of scholars.' I
recognized that the story of Phoenix' departure from his h
on the same motifs of anger and supplication as the main
Iliad and the Meleager example.2 Interpretations of this r
however, have been few and unconvincing.3
Such a narrative digression within a speech should
further the rhetorical purpose of the speech, and the fir
explaining such a piece of subordinate narrative must ther

11 have been unable to see one of the few scholarly discussions of t

raphy, P. Wiesmann, Die Phoenix-Novelle. Interpretation von Ilias IX, 4
zum Schulprogramm der Bundner Kantonschule (Chur 1948). A. Lesky,
schung in der Gegenwart (Vienna 1952) 40, comments on it very briefly
durch die Geschichte Phoinix Gewicht und Nahe zu Achill zu geben, w
gezeigt ... Leider verlieren sich Teile der Schrift in Tiefendeutungen di
spaltung und Inzestpsychologie arbeiten." Much of the work on the em
concerned with such issues as the duals and the original role of Phoe
Meleager epic as the possible source of the Iliad, and hence this section
short shrift, even in discussion of Phoenix; M. Noe, Phoinix, Ilias und H
schriften der furstlich jablonowskischen Gesellschaft 56 (Leipzig 1940),
seven pages (25-32), which are largely devoted to the problem of "Hella
biography; D. Motzkus, Untersuchungen zum 9. Buch der Ilias unter beso
sichtigung der Phoinixgestalt (Diss. Hamburg 1964), scarcely mention
2 A full discussion of the parallels is given by J. Rosner, "The Speec
Iliad 9.434-605," Phoenix 30 (1976) 314-27; cf. D. Lohmann, Die Komp
Reden in der Ilias (Berlin 1970) 268-69.
3The communis opinio sees this section of the speech as serving
emotional ties between Phoenix and Achilles; see Wiesmann and Lesky (
A. Boskos, MeXEaypog-'AxiXXleu Kai (>olTvi (Nicosia 1974) 11. This is cle
tant function of this first part of the speech, but it does not require th
raphy or explain its similarities with Achilles' or Meleager's situation
American Journal of Philology Vol. 103 Pp. 128-136
0002-9475/82/1032-0128 $01.00 ? 1982 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHOENIX 129

specify the aim of the speech in which it stands as precise

Here, most Unitarians would agree on the basic structure
and on its place within the Iliad.4 The embassy has th
Odysseus presents the official offer of Agamemnon, Pho
sition of heroic, traditional ethics, Ajax the simple claim
ship. Yet the poet has given himself a peculiar probl
response to Odysseus' speech is an announcement that A
return to Phthia on the next day. Nothing could more v
express his rejection of the gifts. But clearly, the plot d
Achilles remain; moreover, the poet wishes to show Achil
somewhat moved by the other speakers, particularly by A
Achilles' final statement that he will fight to defend his
concession, it is a concession to Ajax, whose appeal is str
and personal. Yet Achilles' decision to fight only at this
based on the example of Meleager, who fought only when
missiles struck his own chamber and his wife begged
example is thus crucial for Achilles, but it could not be p
speech, whose force comes from its brevity; if, moreov
adoption of Meleager as a positive example directly follo
use of Meleager as a negative one, the failure of the exa
overshadow what Phoenix does achieve by his speech
Achilles' resolve to return to Phthia. So Achilles responds

4 The clearest statement of the view taken here is that of C. H. Wh

and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge, Ma., 1957) 190-91. Some Anal
Phoenix as a late interpolation into the embassy, and his speech as
possibility of organic relation to the rest of the scene, have hunted ou
inconsistencies with the rest of the Iliad. Cf. D. Page, History and t
(Berkeley and Los Angeles 1956) 312-13, where it is argued that since Achi
receive gifts, though he refuses the embassy, the example of Meleager
man to whom it does not apply." But most Unitarians and many Analy
with the analysis of W. Schadewaldt, Iliasstudien3 (Darmstadt 1966) 14
difference between paradigm and narrative an example of the "Ungen
ciple. Much confusion has resulted from a failure clearly to distinguis
model for what Phoenix wants Achilles to do and not do as a model fo
even if, as was first suggested by E. Howald, "Meleager und Achill
405-25, Cleopatra of the paradigm is a deliberate echo of Patroclus, Patr
battle in Achilles' place turns the story in a new direction and
correspondence.
5 This does not mean that the Iliad was modeled on a Meleagris,
particularly forcibly by J. Kakridis, Homeric Researches (Lund 1949) 1
likely that the traditions about Meleager were reworked to provide an e
M. Wilcock, "Mythological Paradeigma in the Iliad," CQ 14 (1964)

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130 RUTH SCODEL

tional appeals of both Phoenix and Ajax, while his use

Phoenix offers is delayed until after Ajax' speech.
The way Achilles' gradual change of mind is distrib
speeches of Phoenix and Ajax obscures the pivotal nat
speech. At its beginning, the issue is evidently wheth
leave Troy (434-45). At its conclusion, on the other ha
presented with only two alternatives (601-5). Eithe
immediately, and thus receive gifts and honor, or he w
is too late, and will have less honor, because he will re
For any heroic warrior but Achilles, the argument as
would be irresistible. The speech shows a shift in tho
this is caused by confusion or by a deliberate rhetori
At the speech's opening, Phoenix directly confr
threat to leave as it affects himself. He could not leave Ac
even if he were to be made young again (444-46).6 The
ostensibly is told in order to demonstrate his closeness
clearly functions, at least in part, as a captatio benevol
was young when he left Hellas. He fled from his home
quarreled with his father, Amyntor, who had taken a concubine.
Phoenix' mother, thus dishonored, persuaded her son to seduce the
young girl, so that she would be disgusted with the older man.7 When
Amyntor learned of his son's action, he cursed him with childlessness.8
If 458-61 are genuine, Phoenix then would have killed his father, had
not a god intervened (the parallel to II. 1 is striking).9 In any case, he
desired to leave home, but was prevented for nine days by relatives,
who beseiged him in his chamber, entreating him and guarding him
day and night as they feasted on Amyntor's meat and wine (466-70).

6A similar rejuvenation-motif introduces Nestor's paradigmatic stories of his

youth at 7.157, 11.669, and 23.432.
7 The Sch. A on 452 may well be right in glossing npolpiyrval as npo TOU na-TpO
plylvai; this interpretation is, of course, somewhat more favorable to Phoenix than the
alternative, that the preposition does not change the meaning.
8 Impotence is probably implied; cf. G. Devereux, "The Self-Blinding of Oidipous
in Sophocles: Oidipous Tyrannos," JHS 93 (1973) 36-49, esp. 43-44, where it is convinc-
ingly argued that blinding and castration are regular alternative punishments for sexual
transgressions in Greek mythology.
9 The lines, which do not appear in any ms., are quoted by Plutarch, de aud. poet.
8, where they are said to have been removed by Aristarchus. They include the only
reference in the passage to Phoenix' X6ooq, but his anger is strongly implied not only by
his actions, but by OUKETI TndIunaV EprtTU?ET' EV qpeoi Oup6o (462); similar language is used
of anger at 1.192, and of the feeling of a man whose relative has been killed, but who
accepts a recompense at 9.635.

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 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHOENIX 131

On the tenth night, Phoenix broke the doors and leapt ov

getting past the men who guarded him and the slave
Fleeing, he came to Phthia, where he was treated as a so
and effectively adopted Achilles, since he could have no so
The similarities between this tale and the stories of Achilles and
Meleager are striking. All three share the theme of refused entre
Both the Iliad and the Phoenix story involve a dispute over a con
bine. The Meleager example also has the curse, the quarrel wit
parent, and the emphasis on the a6Xapuoq as the place where the a
hero sulks. The similarities are unlikely to be the result of coincid
especially since both the Phoenix and Meleager stories have attes
variants whose resemblance is far less notable.10 The story seems lo
than is required if its sole purpose is to stress the relationship bet
Achilles and Phoenix. It should have an examplary function whic
assists the aims of the speech as a whole.
One interpretation of the passage is that of the bT scholium
449, according to which the analogy is essentially between Achille
Peleus. Although Phoenix had wronged his father very much as
memnon wronged Achilles, he was "forgiven" by Peleus: so Achil
should forgive the man who has wronged him." This reading imp
to Phoenix a remorse of which he shows no sign, and ignores the c
elements linking all three stories, the hero's anger and the suppl
tions made to him. It is also a feeble argument: the paradigm wo
have force only if Amyntor forgave Phoenix. A complex series of
tions has also been suggested.12 While essentially Amyntor repres
Agamemnon, and Phoenix Achilles, the paradigm implies that
responsibility for the quarrel is shared between Achilles and
memnon, since it was Phoenix who first interfered with another's
property. When Phoenix is cherished and protected by a substitute
father, who loves him like a son, and is given many gifts by this

'0 For Meleager, there is not only the log familiar from Bacchyl. 5, but a death
directly at the hands of Apollo (Paus. 10.31.3; Hesiod. frs. 25, 280 M-W). Phoenix was
blinded in Euripides' tragedy, and miraculously healed by Chiron (fr. 86 N2; Ar. Ach.
421; ps.-Apollodorus 3.3.8, 3; Tzetzes on Lyc. 421). It might, perhaps, be argued that the
Iliad in each case presents the least fantastic version, in accordance with Homer's habit-
a tendency shown by J. Griffin, "The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer," JHS 97
(1977) 39-42-but the curses which motivate the hero's anger in each paradigm are
unparalleled, so that something other than a general tendency seems to be at work.
1 R. Schlunk, "The Theme of the Suppliant-Exile in the Iliad, " AJP 97 (1976)
204-5.
12 Rosner, cited n. 2 above.

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132 RUTH SCODEL

"father," Peleus, the intention is to cast the "father-fi

light: Agamemnon, the hostile father of the first part of
the second part represented by the welcoming "father"
should imitate Phoenix by accepting the proferred gif
This scheme seems too complicated. A single f
memnon, is divided into two. Moreover, Agamemnon,
older than Achilles, is scarcely a father-figure to h
taken by Phoenix himself. The gifts of the example bea
the injury, the figure of reconciliation is not the same
Phoenix had been angry; the main point of Phoenix' s
rect response of a hero to supplication, is ignored. If
tance of Peleus' gifts is to be taken as a positive exampl
would implicitly urge the very course it most seeks to disc
would imply that the solution for an unendurable situ
and recourse to that generous paragon and gift-giver,
has already reminded his hearers that he could simply
wealth (400). For Phoenix to stress the value of any wea
a mark of TlPn would be a serious mistake.
The fundamental issues are anger, response to supplication, and
honor, and it is in these terms that the narrative must function. Seen
from this perspective, its similarities to the other two stories are
accompanied by a striking difference in tone. While Achilles' quarrel
with Agamemnon concerns a girl who is both a prize of honor and a
woman Achilles claims to love (335-43), the dispute between Phoenix
and his father arises over a woman Phoenix seduced merely to please
his mother. While Meleager's mother has cursed him with death, so
that his doom resembles the fate which awaits Achilles if he remains at
Troy, Phoenix is cursed with a sterility which, despite its pathos, in
the heroic context cannot but seem slightly ridiculous. While Meleager
is visited by embassies of priests, his father, mother and sisters, and
companions, and Achilles is in this scene graciously entertaining his
guests and the heralds who constitute the embassy, Phoenix is
entreated by 'Era and dveiloi whose prayers seem to be accompanied by
constant revels (466-69):
noXXda e' Y4ia pfiQa KaI eiXino6aSq XI1KaC; 3ou;S
Koiaaov, noXXoi 65 o6ueq aXEOovTE6 dAXoi(f
euopevoI TaVUOVTO 5l6a (XoyoS 'Hcaiorolo,
rno\XXv 6' ?K KepdpCWV pe9OU niVETO TOTO yEpOVTOq.

The spectacle is more reminiscent of Penelope's suitors than of the

courtesy and desperation of the other embassies. And Phoenix is not

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 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHOENIX 133

only being begged to leave a self-imposed retirement, a

father, but imprisoned, to prevent him from escaping (
When he emerges, it is not to enter battle, but to flee by
fence (477), Xa0Cev ouXaKaqc T'av6pac 61pqxi Te yuvaiK
story is as close to the sordid and ignominious as the e
permit a heroic character to descend.13
The tone, then, of the Phoenix story is far from mag
specific content shows precisely the action Phoenix seek
in Achilles. Phoenix was involved in a veTKoq, and his re
do what Achilles has threatened to do: to ignore the pleas
and to depart. This alternative is presented in a way that
obviously impossible. Achilles has invited the Achaeans
sail away along the Hellespont (359-61), and Phoenix' answer is to
describe himself, gallantly evading a crowd of slave women. Phoenix
does not repent his actions, for there is no trace of remorse in what he
says, but they could not be the actions of an Achilles. He has had a
long life, and he has been rich. In fact, his situation is not unlike what
Achilles' would be if he returned to Phthia. But what Achilles has
presented in purely negative terms, as an absence of glory, i)X?TO6
KXfOc EoOX6v (415), is joined with what is almost a parody of
heroic quarrel, with a central character who is not doomed, but ster
This section of Phoenix' speech, therefore, corresponds to the
shift in alternatives the speech as a whole presents. By suggesting t
departure is an appropriate event in a story touched by the ridicul
it effectively dismisses it as a truly possible choice. This dismissa
surely not accidental, and the shift of direction within the speech
evidently deliberate. Phoenix' narrative is a device for invisi
changing the terms of discussion. The transition is subtle and is c
cealed, for the excellent reason that it could not be made openly. If

13 One of the few critics who has commented on the tone of Phoenix' autobio
raphy is S. E. Bassett, The Poetry of Homer (Berkeley 1938) 199: "Phoenix is ethical
low-grade character. He tells quite frankly how he debauched the concubine of
father, and how, when his father cursed him, he entertained thoughts of parricid
This is doubtless an exaggeration, for at 497-511 Phoenix' ethics have been condem
as too "advanced" to be truly Homeric; only this episode is sordid. D. Lohmann, Ko
position der Reden, cited n. 2 above, has drawn attention to the parallel anaphor
rnoXX6 and 463 and 581 ff., but does not remark on this difference in substance: in
second passage, from the Meleager example, it is the supplications that are repeate
while in the autobiography, though again the anaphora appears in a scene of suppl
tions, the emphasis is on the many and repeated feasts of Phoenix' beseigers. Noth
could better point to the almost parodic quality of this narrative. What is shown he
not "repentence," but simply a pattern of action which, though not morally condemne
cannot appeal to Achilles.

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134 RUTH SCODEL

issue of Achilles' returning home were ignored, the lat

speech might well fall on deaf ears, but the issue cannot
openly confronted, because the choice Achilles seems
fully valid within its own terms. If Achilles prefers long l
death with glory, no more can easily be said. No ratio
available. Clearly, however, Achilles is not really insensible to the
claims of honor, if these can be put in a form which can slip past his
resistance.
The method of the speech is successful. Achilles' reply is not
what Phoenix would have wished, nor is it entirely logical. Appar-
ently, Achilles has weakened only to the extent of declaring that he and
Phoenix will decide on the following morning whether to go or stay
(618-19). He rejects Phoenix' stress on gifts as the external form of Tl1in
(and will show little interest when he receives them in bk. 19), and will
show that he has received Meleager as a positive rather than a negative
example. Yet, despite his insistence that a return home is still a
possibility-an insistence required by the structure of the scene-he
has accepted T1pfl as a criterion (607-10):
"~OTVIS, OTTa yepatl, l6OTpe(|eg, OU Ti pi TaPUTE C
XpEW Tlprtq' (poV?EW 6e TETIpjioQn Alog acYon,
1 p' eE tr napa vquol KopWoviov, eiqg K' UiTpr
ev rOTqr?OOi pEvn Kai pol Q(iXa yo6vaT' 6pT)pn.

Though this reply rejects Phoenix' definition of honor, it is not the

answer of one who prefers life to honor, and it implies that Achilles
will remain.'4 The recognition that honor is to be found only by
staying is there, though Achilles himself may not be fully conscious of
it.

'4There are difficulties in 609-10. The antecedent of fr is doubtful, as is the

meaning of e~i; but trickiest is the allusion to the ships. At 618-19 Achilles is still
considering a return to Phthia, but here it seems he will be by the ships as long as he
lives, whether honor (or Zeus' allotment) is understood to be keeping him there (as
opposed to going home), restraining him by the ships (as opposed to sending him into
battle), or possessing him in the sense of being his portion in life. The first alternative
presents too violent a self-contradiction, but either of the other two is possible: in his
rejection of Phoenix' notion of honor Achilles shows that he cannot talk about the kind
of TIln he believes he has except in the context of the ships. The third sense, though
vaguest, is perhaps best (the idiom would be analagous to that of KXoqg 'XEI TlVa) since
even Achilles is unlikely to say that he will not fight as long as he lives. The lines cannot
be athetised, as W. Leaf would like to do in his commentary ad loc. (London 1900, rpt.
Amsterdam 1971): Achilles must make some reply to Phoenix' main argument, the point
of honor, before he turns to the personal tie between Phoenix and himself, and finally to
the original issue, his departure (he thus answers Phoenix' points in reverse order).

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 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHOENIX 135

This use of an example to replace direct argument w

cannot be defended logically is perhaps unusual, but a
approximate parallel appears in the Homeric Hymn to Ve
Aphrodite is trying to mitigate her embarrassment at her
mortal, and so has recalled how close in beauty the race o
to the gods (200-1). As an example, she has cited Ganym
beauty was such that Zeus snatched him away (202-17). T
however, is a further source of embarrassment, for Anchises
taken away to Olympus. But a second anecdote both cont
theme of the beauty of the family and allows Aphrodite t
this difficulty. She describes how Eos snatched away Tith
Zeus to make him immortal, but forgot to ask also that h
Therefore old age overcame him, and when he became to
move his limbs, Eos laid him away in a bedchamber and
doors. Aphrodite concludes with a kind a moral (239-
OUK aV Eytb YE oG TOIOV EV aOavaTOIOlV iXoipqv
adOvaTOV T' eivai Kai (WEIV tpaCTa ndVTa.
adX' Ei pEV TOlOUTOCg EWV ei1oC TE 6Epacg TE
W(oli, rpETEpO6 T?E n6TTO KEKXfqpEVOC E'Tc;,
OuK av ETneTa i' PaXoS nUKIVac (pEivaCg daIp(KaXuTol.

No actual reason is given why, if Aphrodite would like An

eternally as her husband, she could not obtain this favor
taking care to avoid the error of Eos. This, however, is not what
happens in this story. Yet no real explanation can be given; Aphrodite
does not even say, for instance, that this is not Anchises' poipa. Instead
an example is offered of a kind of immortality which Aphrodite can
reject for her lover, secure that he would not desire it, and this rejection
replaces a reason why he could not be made immortal. In some ways,
this example of the technique is even more striking than that of Iliad 9,
since the issue evaded is one the speaker has raised herself, and since
the moral is explicitly drawn, which leaves the logical flaw glaringly
apparent. When a god argues such a case, however, persuasion does
not really matter, for Anchises has no choice to make, while for Phoe-
nix the need to convince Achilles is a matter of life and death.
Phoenix does not direct his audience to his moral, because to do
so effectively he would have to debase himself publicly. He cannot
prove that his choice is not the correct choice for Achilles if Achilles
will not accept his premisses, and, even worse, he cannot directly com-
pare the situations without declaring himself a negative paradigm,
and such an act would be in the worst of taste and would undermine

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 136 RUTH SCODEL

the moral authority on which t

leaving the argument veiled ent
presenting his message far mo
Odysseus. With Achilles, the re
that the hero cannot leave the
make his story a vulgar comed
reject, if it were put to him d
directed at a level suitable to the audience. At the same time, an
example which, if given as a negative paradigm, would embarrass the
teller, is placed within his assertion of his special claim on his hearer's
respect. It is not logical, but a rhetoric which in skill and discretion is
more effective than the reasonable arguments the last portion of the
speech employs.

RUTH SCODEL
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

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