Detienne, M. Athena and the Mastery of the Horse

Athena and the Mastery of the HorseAuthor(s): M. Detienne and A. B. WerthSource: History of Religions, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Nov., 1971), pp. 161-184Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1061920 .

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M. Detienne ATHENA AND THE

[Translated from the M A S T E R Y O F T H E French by A. B. Werth] H O R S E

The first step, when setting out to define the gods in their recip- rocal relationships and situate them with respect to one another, might be to take the various complementary features which two divine powers have in common and the differences which set them apart on the triple plane of cultic practices, mythic traditions, and figured representations.' In the Greek case-as in others-conditions are most favorable to this type of analysis when there exists a close relation between two powers within the confines of a single field of action.2 But here, as elsewhere, structural analysis only

The analyses herein were set forth initially in a paper presented to the Associa- tion des etudes grecques at a meeting held on Monday, December 4, 1967. I subsequently developed them at greater length in my seminar at the Ecole pra- tique des hautes etudes.

1 As G. Dumezil's interpretation of Indo-European pantheons develops and deepens, multiple models for the structural analysis of the powers of a pantheon emerge. Between 1966 and 1969, at least three works have proved the efficacy of a method which the adversaries of Dumezil persist in confusing with the "theory" of the three functions: La religion romaine archaique (Paris, 1966); Mythe et epopee (Paris, 1968), vol. 1; Idees romaines (Paris, 1969). Among analyses which have long demonstrated, as Dumezil does, the value of a structural definition of the divine powers in ancient religions, mention should be made of: Louis Dumont, "Definition structurale d'un dieu populaire tamoul: Aiyanar, le Maitre," Journal asiatique (1953), pp. 255-70 (developed in Une sous-caste de l'Inde du sud [Paris, 1957], pp. 396 ff.); and Jean-Pierre Vernant, "Hestia-Hermes: sur l'expression religieuse de l'espace et du mouvement chez les grecs," L'homme III (1963): 12- 50 (reprinted in Mythe et pensee chez les grecs: etudes de psychologie historique [Paris, 1965], pp. 97-143).

2 For example, apropos Hermes only, his collusion with Apollo in the practice of soothsaying, his complicity with Aphrodite in marriage ritual, his association with Hestia in the domestic sphere, etc.

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Athena and the Mastery of the Horse

attains its end by defining each term-in this instance, each divine power-in relation to the system of compatibilities and incompati- bilities characterizing it. To understand what Athena, Poseidon, or Hermes signify in the system of Greek religious thought necessarily involves considering each power of the pantheon in all the positions it can occupy, in all the contexts which lend it significance.3 A structural analysis limited to defining two powers in their relation to one and the same concrete object can, in no case, claim to disclose the structural definition of each of these divinities, especially since both are complex and polyvalent figures. With our premise, we shall be unable to do more than outline a structural definition of Athena. Yet partial and incomplete though it is, this analysis is the first essential step in the direction of a complete definition, which can only be attained by making an exhaustive study of the same texts, with special reference to all situations germane to the powers to be described.

Like most polyhedral divinities, Athena is characterized by a plurality of functions and diversity of aspects. In the face of this polyvalence, the traditional form of analysis, which proceeds from etymology and seeks to define a god by his essence, would seem to have a choice between two solutions only, both of them equally undemonstrable: to postulate, initially, either a warrior divinity or a fertility power whose traits are progressively modi- fied; or to admit, from the outset, the existence of two distinct but complementary Athenas, the combination of which must account for the most important functions of this power.4 All these genetic interpretations not only make the mistake of seeking to define Athena as a power apart from the other gods, but they err, equally, in failing to distinguish the fields of activity proper to Athena and the modes of action utilized by this divinity. One example selected from the myths of Athena will show the import of the distinction drawn by G. Dumezil when he wrote that a god's mode of action is more significant than the list of the places or occasions of his activities or services.5 In a study of the origins

3 Cf. Claude Levi-Strauss, "La structure et la forme: reflexions sur un ouvrage de Vladimir Propp," Cahiers de l'Institut de science economique appliquee, no. 99 (March 1960), pp. 26 ff.

4 Two examples will suffice, although one is more important than the other: R. Luyster, "Symbolic Elements in the Cult of Athena," History of Religions V (1965): 133-63; and W. Potscher, "Athene," Gymnasium 70 (1963): 394-418, 527-44.

5 Dumezil, La religion romaine, pp. 179 and 229. This distinction is very clearly illustrated by the analysis made by Dumezil in the same book (pp. 208-45) of the god Mars in Rome. As opposed to those whlo expound on Mars as an agrarian

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of the Athenian Bouphonia6 (sacrificial ceremonies), U. Pestalozza has endeavored to demonstrate that a mother-goddess, with the

swing plough as her attribute and tilling as her primary activity, lies hidden behind Athena the virgin and warrior. Now, one of the

principal arguments advanced by the Italian scholar in support of his theory is a myth transmitted by Servius in his commentary on the Aeneid.7

There lived once in Attica a young girl called Myrmix. Athena held her in great esteem both because she was a virgin and because she was clever with her hands. One day this fondness gave way to hatred. Here is why: Athena had seen Demeter invent wheat, and she wanted to show the inhabitants of Attica how to obtain the wheat from the earth more rapidly. Athena therefore invented the swing plough. But Milyrmix, who knew of Athena's invention, had the audacity to steal the handle of the instrument and bring it to men herself, declaring to all who would listen to her that the gift of Demeter would only bear fruit if men had recourse to her invention, alone capable of turning the earth and facilitating the groNwth of the wheat.

Let us pass over Athena's anger and the punishment of Myrmix, transformed into an ant and condemned to stealing a few grains of wheat in order to live. What does this myth mean? Incontestably, Athena here figures as a divine power concerned with the work of the soil or, more precisely, with ploughing and its fecundating action. But is she, therefore, a mother-goddess, as Pestalozza affirms, a power of fertility and fecundity ? On the contrary, the whole of this mythic tale offers evidence that, though Demeter and Athena share the same field of activity here, their respective means of action, their modes of intervention, are radically different.

In the Attic land which first received the gift of Demeter, Athena intervenes as a power endowed with sollertia, manual dexterity and practical intelligence: she makes the instrument, the technical means for rapid harvesting of Demeter's wheat. As opposed to Demeter, who symbolizes the cultivated and fertile earth, Athena represents the artifice and technical invention which serves to complement the activity proper to the corn goddess. There is, of course, no question of a hard-and-fast or per- manent division of labor. In certain mythic traditions, Demeter herself brings, along with cereal plenty, the instruments which

power, Dumezil has shown conclusively that Mars was never a power of fecundity, even when he intervened in the domain of agriculture and breeding; his modes of action, even in a rural context, designate him as a combatant ever ready to destroy the enemy, a god whose vocation is decisively martial.

6 U. Pestalozza, "Le origini delle Buphonia Ateniensi," Rendiconti dell'Istituto Lombardo, classe di lettere, scienze morali e storiche 89-90 (1956): 433-54.

7 Servius, in Vcrg. Aen. IV. 402, Thilo ed., 1:536. 163




facilitate agriculture and permit the consumption of the cultivated plants: she gives man both the plough and the mill.8 But these instruments, revealed to man by Demeter herself, are in this case but important adjuncts of agricultural life, for which this divine power is responsible. In her aspect as the great divinity patroniz- ing agricultural life, Demeter can represent all the aspects of grain cultivation, including those which are purely technological. How- ever, whatever the extension of her domain, Demeter's mode of activity always remains the same: it is fertile and fecundating and never specifically technical. Athena, on the contrary, is a technical power who is capable of intervening in the agricultural domain. Her mode of action is not of the fecundating type, but of an essentially technical nature. Whether it be a matter of construc- ting the chariot, the plough, or the boat, Athena intervenes in the different phases of working the wood: in the choice of species, the felling of the trunks, and the burnishing of the planks, as well as in the fitting of the various pieces of the framework.9 In showing Athena as the inventor of the instrument of tilling, the Latin myth of Servius stands directly in the line of archaic Greek myth: in the Works of Hesiod, it is the "servant of Athena" who alone is competent to make the peasant's swing plough, to "dovetail" the piece of curved wood (yi's) to the end which bears the plough- share, and, finally, to fix it in place and adjust it to the beam.10

* * *

For the analysis of Athena, we shall take as our point of depar- ture a mythic discourse centered around two divine powers, Athena and Poseidon, who share the same sphere of activity-

8 Demeter and tillage: Orph. Hymn. 40, Verse 8, Quandt ed., and the texts cited by A. G. Drachmann, s.v. "Pflug," Real-Encyclopddie der Altertumswissen- schaft, R. (1938), col. 1471. Demleter and grinding: Polemon ap. Athenee, 109A, and 416B, with the comments of A. Delatte, "Le cyc6on, breuvage rituel des mysteres d'Eleusis," Bulletin de la classe des lettres de l'Academie royale de Belgique, s6r. 5, XL (1954): 698.

9 The Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes provides a basis for a definition of the different modes of intervention of Athena in the construction of a ship: I. 18-19, 226, 526-27, 551, 723-24; II. 1187-89. These passages tally exactly with the indications given in the Iliad and the Odyssey. I hope to have given proof of this in a study devoted to the mode of action of Athena in the domain of navigation, to her skill in the construction and guidance of ships. Cf. my "Le navire d'Athena," Revue de l'histoire des religions CLXXVIII, no. 4 (1970): 133-77. 10 See Hesiod Works 430 ff., P. Mazon ed. (Paris, 1914), 106 ff., for the commentary. Other arguments could be developed. There is, in particular, the dual quality of Athena in Boeotia and in Thessaly, where she is called Boudeia and Boarmia (Schol. in Lycophron, Alex. 359 and 520, Scheer ed.). In emphasizing the part played by phronesis, by prudence in the ancient sense in the art of squaring and binding, Tzetzes is indisputably right as against Pestalozza, who puts this evidence to the record of the "Mediterranean" Athena (Pestalozza, p. 444).

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namely, the use of the horse, harnessed or mounted, for drawing chariots or for riding. What differences can be discerned in the resemblance between the cultic and mythic image of Athena Hippia and that of Poseidon Hippios ? Of all the places where a cult common to Athena Hippia and Poseidon of the horse exists,ll Corinth is the most striking. While visiting the city in the second century A.D., Pausanias noted the presence, not far from the tomb of the children of Medea, of a sanctuary dedicated to Athena Chalinitis, "of the bit." The Periegesis [Description of Greece] gives this brief commentary: "Athena was, it is said, the divinity who offered Bellerophon the most active assistance, more par- ticularly in delivering Pegasus to him after having, with her own hand, tamed and subjugated him to the bit [cheirosamene... entheisa aute toi hipp5i chalinon]."12 The myth to which Pausanias alludes in this fashion is perfectly familiar to us through the detailed account which Pindar gives of it in one of his Olympian Odes, the thirteenth written in 464 to celebrate the double victory, in the stadium and at the pentathlon, of a famous Corinthian:

At one time, Bellerophon, near the spring, was striving in vain, in his burning desire to tame Pegasus, the son of the Gorgon crowned with ser- pents, until Pallas brought him the bit, like a golden diadem. In a flash, his dream became reality; the daughter of Zeus spoke to him, saying: "You are asleep, royal son of Aeolus; come, receive this instrument which will charm your horse [philtron ... hippeion]; go then and present it to your father, the Tamer of Horses, Damaios, offering him the sacrifice of a white bull." This is what Bellerophon dreamed he heard from the lips of Athena of somber aegis in the night of his sleep. He sprang up, seized the marvelous object [teras] which he found near him, and, in his joy, went to visit the local seer, the son of Coiranos, to show him the result of his adventure; and recount how, according to his words, he had gone to sleep for the night on the altar of the goddess and how the daughter of Zeus, the God armed with lightning, had given him the gold which subdues wild force [damasiphron]. The seer enjoined him to obey this dream without delay, and, after having sacrificed the powerful quadruped to the god who supports the earth, to erect an altar to Athena Hippia ... Then the warrior Bellerophon impetuously seized the winged horse, applying to his jaw the instrument which rendered his mount docile [pharmakon prau].

The general significance of the myth is explicitly stated by Pindar: it is to eulogize the metis (wisdom, cunning) of the ancient Corinthians as well as their warlike virtues.13 As Henri Jeanmaire has already indicated14 and as Jean-Pierre Vernant and myself

11 See the list prepared by E. Will, Korinthiaka (Paris, 1955), pp. 135-36, n. 4. 12 Pausanias II. 4, 1, G. Roux ed. 13 Pindar Olymp. XIII. 49 ff. 14 H. Jeanmaire, "La naissance d'Athena et la royaute magique de Zeus,"

Revue archeologique XLVIII (1956): 12-39. On pp. 25-27 of the same article, Jeanmarie has given information which we have noted on the thirteentli Olympian ode.

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have shown in a series of studies,15 metis is a form of intelligence which comes into play in areas as widely diverse as hunting and rhetoric and including war, medicine, and games; but it is one in which the accent is always placed upon practical efficacy and the striving for success in the given domain of activity. A series of indications, interspersed in the form of allusions throughout the accounts, enable us to describe the nature of the cunning intelligence, the metis of the Corinthians. First, there is the enumera- tion of a series of technical inventions which establish the glory of Corinth.16 Then there is the evocation of Sisyphus, the highly astute (puknotatos palamais), and of Medea, the magician.17 And there is finally, at the core of the myth, the presence of Athena. Daughter of Metis and Zeus, described as polymetisl8 and sometimes even called Metis, as in Sparta, where the epithet for Athena is "the bronze sanctuary" (chalkioikos),19 Athena is eminently endowed with a form of practical and cunning intelligence which is applied in great part to the world of technology, with its particular type of objects and modes of action. From the outset, the praise of the metis of the Corinthians and their in- genious inventions, sophismata, seems to tally with the mythic account of Athena's discovery of an instrument capable of taming the horse and subjugating him to his rider. It is this same form of intelligence which explains the reference to two mythic figures, Sisyphus and Medea, the two heroes of Corinthian mythology

15 Among studies produced by the research carried out in close collaboration on the subject of metis, it is necessary to cite: "La metis d'Antiloque," Revue des etudes grecques LXXX (1967): 68-83, and "La metis du renard et du poulpe," ibid. LXXXII (1969): 291-317. Apart from this, each of us has published inde- pendently certain results of research on different forms of reitis: J.-P. Vernant, "Th6tis et le poeme cosmogonique d'Alcman," Melanges Marie Delcourt (Brussels, 1970), pp. 38-69; and M. Detienne, "La prudence d'Ath6na," La parola del passato (1965), pp. 443-50; "Le phoque, le crabe et le forgeron," Melanges Marie Delcourt (Brussels, 1970), pp. 219-33; "Le navire d'Ath6na" (see n. 9 above). For this analysis of Athena, contained in a detailed study of deities characterized by metis, I benefited from the collaboration of Jean-Pierre Vernant at different stages of the survey. Since I first put before him the general plan of this analysis of Athena, I have benefited constantly from his suggestions and his remarks, indeed to such an extent that I owe him an incalculable debt.

16 Pind. Olyimp. XIII. 18-22. Pindar's expression, sophismzata, is significant. Sophisma is part of the vocabulary of mletis. It is, for example, the crafty device which permits Prometheus to extricate himself from his unfortunate situation (Aesch. Prom. 470). It is also inventions due to the metis of this same Prometheus (Prom. 459). The expression ao'raoa tjL juXavdaOat (Hdt. III. 85) designates the artifice which Oibares invents to have Darius named as king of the Persians. The same text indicates that Oibares is clear sighted, sophos, and that he disposes of "philters," a'pjCLaKa. 17 Pind. Olymp. XIII. 52-54.

18 Polymetis: Horn. Hymrn. Athe,(at I ff.; polyboulos: Il. V. 260: Od. XVI. 282. 19 Metis: Hymn. Orph. 32. 10. For Sparta, the indication is given by Ox.

Pap. 1802, 54 in XV (1922), p. 158.

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possessing the highest degree of metis. By his wiliness, his verbal wit, his art of glossing over his promises as well as changing the form and color of herds stolen from his neighbors, Sisyphus,20 the Death-Dodger, underlines the share of malice that enters into cunning. As for Medea,21 first in a line of women experts in poisons, love potions, and violent magic, in pharmaka metioenta,22 she indicates the importance of a more somber side, a magical component, as it were, in technical intelligence.

It is in this context of metis, cunning of a technical and magical character, that the invention of the bit and its victory over Pega- sus must be viewed. According to Hesiod,23 the horse which resists Bellerophon is a marvelous animal: Pegasus is the son of the Gorgon. Arising from the beheaded neck of Medusa on the frontier of the night, in an oceanic landscape where the waters of hell gush forth, Pegasus is a creature of Poseidon,24 whose mythic image appears in a series of archaic representations extending from the Gorgon with the horse's head to Demeter Erinys of Thelpousa.25 In the bound which carries him from the depths of hell to the celes- tial vault, which he penetrates as the lightning and thunder bearer of Zeus, Pegasus displays the complete spectrum of representations of the horse established in the analysis of F. Schacher- meyr. His analysis summarizes the essential traits of Poseidon Hippos and Hippios:26 the horse as a chthonian power,27 representing the infernal world and the forces of fecundity concealed in calm waters and gushing springs; the thundering horse associated

20 Sisyphus, aiolometis (Hes. fr. 10, verse 2, West-Merkelbach ed.), is celebrated for his adventure with Mestra, Autolycos, and Death (cf. J. Schwartz, "Pseudo- Hesiodeia" [thesis, Paris, 1960], pp. 276 ff., 309 ff., 442 ff., 559 ff.; and A. Severyns, Le cycle epique dans l'ecole d'Aristarque [Liege and Paris, 1928], pp. 391-93).

21 H. Usener, Gotternamen (1895), pp. 160 ff. (3d ed., 1948), clearly indicates the relation of Medea with the blond Agamedes, Perimedes, Polymedes, and other similar names. In Phyth. IV. 233, Medea is described as polypharmakos.

22 Od. IV. 227. 23 Hes. Theog. 280-83, M. L. West ed. ("Comment," p. 247). 24 F. Schachermeyr, Poseidon und die Entstehung des griechischen Gotter-

glaubens (Munich, 1950), pp. 31-32, 174-88; Will, pp. 145 ff. and pp. 407 ff. 25 The factual data are assembled in B. C. Dietrich, Death, Fate and the Gods

(London: University of London, 1965), pp. 124 ff., the interpretations of which are highly contestable (cf. my summary in Revue des etudes grecques [1967], pp. 578-83). Cf. R. Stiglitz, "Die grossen Gottinnen Arkadiens: der Kultname 'Melainai Theai' und seine Grundlagen," Oesterreichisch Archdologisch Institut, Sonderschriften 15 (Vienna, 1967).

26 In addition to Schachermeyr's work, it is necessary to mention the analyses of Will, pp. 204 ff., and the resume he gives of them in "Points de vue corinthiens sur la prehistoire du culte de Pos6idon," Bulletin de la Faculte des lettres de Strasbourg (1954-55), p. 326.

27 This problem has recently been taken up again by J. M. Blasquez, "El caballo en las Creencias griegas y en las de otros pueblos circummediterraneos," Revue Belge de philologie et d'histoire XLV (1967): 48-80.

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with the winds, clouds, and storms; the bellicose horse, the military force. Apart from these Poseidonian attributes of the horse Pega- sus, the reference to the Gorgon28 might remind the spectator or the reader of Pindar of yet other images which indicate a model for the horse of archaic times. In his treatise on the Equestrian Art,29 composed at a time when hippology constituted a purely technical science, Xenophon used the epithet gorgos for a nervous and impetuous courser-that is, terrible, disquieting. In this equestrian context, it is wholly unambiguous. As one lexicographer notes,30 an eyeful of fire, blemma gorgon, is one of the qualities of the racehorse. But the same adjective also has other connota- tions,31 such as the flash of arms,32 the dazzling virtuosity of the athlete,33 and the warrior's fury, which transforms a human face.34 Gorgos is the image of a Gorgon's look, which reveals the domain of demonic forces and discloses what Xenophon, in the same treatise,35 calls a ti daimonion, indicating that it is herein that the risk in equestrian art resides.

All this suggests that the Gorgon expresses an essential aspect of the horse in Greek thought. In every aspect of his behavior-his nervousness, his neighing, his fits of frenzy, his uncertain temper, his unpredictable reactions, the froth at his mouth, the sweating of his coat-the horse appears as a mysterious, disquieting animal, a demonic force. In religious thought, there are very marked affinities between the horse full of furor, the Gorgon, and the possessed-as Jeanmaire36 has already noted. The possessed per- son is straddled by a mysterious power which "unbridles" him (anaseirazei);37 the inarticulate sounds emitted by certain epileptics are reminiscent of neighing, the demonic laughter of the horse, and their convulsed faces seem to bear evidence of the Gorgon's mask. As Xenophon writes, "the possessed manifest the monstrous expressions of the Gorgon, a terrifying voice, a super-

28 In his Dionysos (Paris, 1951), pp. 281-85, Jeanmaire gives information on the demonic symbolism of the horse, from which I have drawn in making the comments which follow.

29 Xen. Equestrian Art X. 17, F. Delebecque ed. 30 Pollux I. 192, E. Bethe ed. 31 P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque (Paris, 1968),

p. 233, s.v. "yopydq." 32 Eur. Andromaque 458. 33 L. Robert, Collection Froehner. I. Inscriptions grecques (Paris, 1936), no. 4;

cf. Robert's Noms indigenes dans l'Asie mineure greco-romaine (Paris, 1963), I:159, n. 6.

34 Eur. Suppl. 328. 35 Xen. Equestrian Art XI. 13. 36 Dionysos, p. 284. 37 Eur. Hippol. 237-38.

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human strength."38 When Orestes feels menaced by the obscure presence of the Erinnyes, sisters of the Gorgons, he speaks of himself as being swept away by fiery horses: "It is as if my horses, at the turn of the road, suddenly swerved aside."39 This time, the text notes more than a simple relation between people possessed and the frenzied horse. In the double indication of a driver losing control of his horses and a team that misses the turn and flies off the track, how can we fail to recognize the man named Taraxippos, the Frightener of Horses, who represents a fundamental aspect of Poseidon Hippios ?40 It is indeed at the turning point where the disturbing power of the demon to whom charioteers made sacri- fices before the start of a race in the Olympic games is exercised. Around Taraxippos, Pausanias41 assembled a series of legendary traditions bearing on two distinct but complementary themes. On the one hand, there are those which emphasize the magical character of the fear which Taraxippos evokes in horses. Taraxippos is likened to a flame-colored stone (chroan purras), whose dazzling light throws the horses into panic.42 Others speak of a charm, buried here by Pelops, destined to frighten the horses of Oino- maos. These images of panic recur in several mythic tales, all containing the image of a coachman killed along with his team, or of a driver overturned by his horses. The landmark of the Fright- ener of Horses was thought to be the tomb of one Dameon, killed with his horse in a warrior expedition. The same tomb was thought by others to be the burial place of Alkathos, a victim of Oinomaos, who, in revenge, had become the evil eye, baskanos, for

38 Xen. Sympos. I. 10. It is thus that one must understand yopyoTepov. Charn- traine (p. 234) has clearly indicated the presence of the Gorgon behind the adjective gorges. On the contrary, Robert, Noo,s8 indigetes. (p. 159), writes that "the root [of gorgos] implies suppleness and agile vigor."

39 Aeschylus Choephor. 1022-23.. 40 Cf. Will, Korinthiaka, pp. 136, 138 ff., 189, 191. According to some, there are

two pieces of pictorial evidence showing Taraxippos. The first was published by K. F. Johansen in Acta Archaeologica VI, no. 3 (1935): 167-213: a fragment of a sarcophagus of Clazomenes representing a little personage installed on the shaft of a chariot. But C. Picard, in the Revue archeologique (1937), pp. 245-47, maintains that this represents not the Terrifier of Horses, but Zeuxippos, the harness- master. The second piece of evidence has been analyzed by E. Pernice, "Ein korinthischer Pinax," in Festschrift Benndorf (1898), pp. 78 ff.: it is a Penteskou- phia slab representing an ithyphallic gnome perched on the tail of a horse. In his Korinthiaka, pp. 189-90, n. 7, Will has refused to regard this as a representation of Taraxippos, on the pretext that the latter is too "Poseidon-like" to show himself in such banal guise. The traditions which Pausanias has assembled about Taraxippos tend to indicate that Pernice is correct in his interpretation of the Corinthian slab.

41 Paus. VI. 20, 15-19. 42 Tzetzes, Schol. in Lycophr. Alex. 42, Scheer ed., p. 34, I ff., reports a similar

tradition: a laurel planted upon a grave the leafage of which, through its rattling and its shadows, is supposed to strike horses with terror.

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all teams of horses. Still others claimed that Taraxippos was the name borne by Glaucos, son of Sisyphus, who was killed by his horses in the Isthmian games, held by Acastos in honor of his father. But this Corinthian Glaucos43 appears to be the double of a Boeotian Glaucos who died a tragic death, having been devoured alive by wild horses that he himself had fed with human flesh.44

The image of a horse devouring and crushing the flesh of its master between its teeth represents the culmination of a series of representations indicating the disquieting aspect of the horse and showing it to be in league with the infernal powers. These aspects of the horse are further emphasized by two other myths: that of Hippomenes and Leimone and that of the mares of Diomedes. In the first myth,45 the horse is the instrument for the punishment in- flicted by one of the Codrides on his daughter, guilty of allowing herself to be seduced. Hippomenes had shut her up within the four walls of an isolated house in the company of a stallion wild with hunger. A strange punishment, but one which appears less so when we remember the insulting epithet that the Greeks applied to lascivious and profligate women: hippomanes, mare in heat, wan- ton female.46 Leimone is condemned to being devoured by the animal, which is the symbol of her seducer but which also signifies all the horror of the powers of the beyond. The second myth tells the story of the horses possessed by Diomedes the Thracian, son of Ares. Born on the banks of the river Kossinites, whose waters make the horses which drink of them full of savage fury, these mares were devourers of human flesh. They were captured by Heracles in one of his labors, and, before their escape and flight into the mountains near Olympus, where they were cut into pieces by carnivorous animals,47 they were subjugated to the yoke in order to be handed back to Eurystheus.

In all these myths, which, as it were, proclaim the monstrous

43 Cf. Will, Korinthiaka, pp. 188 ff. 44 Aeschylus, fr. 439 ff., H. J. Mette ed., and the texts cited by Weicker, s.v.

"Glaukos," Real-Encyclopddie der Altertumnswissenschaft, R. (1910), cols. 1412-13. 45 Eitrem, s.v. "Hippomenes," Real-Encyclopddie der Altertumswissenschaft, R. (1913), col. 1888.

46 Aristotle Hist. Anim. 571b. The magical values of hippomanes are analyzed by Stadler, s.v. "Hippomanes," Real-Encyclopddie der Altertumswissenschaft, R. (1913), cols. 1879-82.

47 Aelian H.A. XV. 25; Apollodorus II. 5. 8 (with the notes of Frazer in his edition). Cf. O. Gruppe, s.v. "Herakles," Real-Encyclopddie der Altertumswissen- schaft, R., Supplementband III (1918), col. 1053. For the image of the horse ready to bite and without bit, representing a destructive force, see the remarks on Siculo-Punic coins in J. Bayet, Melanges de litterature latine (Rome, 1967), pp. 255-80.

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character of a domestic animal for which man naturally feels confi- dence and friendship, we have concentrated on that aspect of the horse that most requires taming. In Pindar's myth, this is precisely what resists the efforts of Bellerophon. Thus, it is no mere accident that, in reference to the horses of Diomedes, Euripedes expressly indicates that they have not known the bit, that they are acha- linoi.4s Man-eating horses are the precise opposite of harnessed horses. Similarly, the action of the bit imposed on the horse's mouth is directed against the savage force of this animal, the mysterious violence that relates it to the possessed and the Gorgon. A whole series of terms taken from the thirteenth Olym- pian Ode define the mode of action of the bit: philtron (verse 68); pharmakon (verse 85); teras (verse 73), qualified by the epithet damasiphron (verse 78); and the notion of metra (verse 20). Teras49 conveys the idea of something exceptional and mysterious and, at the same time, indicates that there is some mysterious force or supernatural efficacity concentrated in the bit. Philtron and pharmakon specify this essential trait of magic power. The rope bit worn by all harnessed or mounted horses appears as the equivalent of the magic potions, drugs, and mysterious prepara- tions used so skillfully by Medea-evoked immediately after an allusion to the metis of the Corinthians-in order to give Jason mastery over the bulls in the ploughing test, or to enable him to subjugate the monstrous serpent guarding the golden fleece night and day. On the one hand, the chalinos is a product of metallurgy. Son of flame, purigenes50 or purigenetes,51 it is a living being who never sleeps, agrupnos,52 a metallic object fabricated and ani- mated by the power of the smith, by the metis of Hephaistos. On the other hand, the bit placed in the horse's mouth acts on him like a magic hold. It is a shackle, a hindrance to his violence.53 Pindar

48 Euripides Heracles 382. Cf. Alcestis 492 ff. These horses without bits are opposed to philenioi horses, harness-broken, of Aesch. Prom. 465.

49 Cf. L. Gernet, Anthropologie de la Grece antique (Paris, 1968), pp. 131-32, based on the study by Osthoff, "Etymologische Beitrige zur Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, 2. rreXAwp und repas," Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft (1905), pp. 52 ff.

50 Euripides Hippolytus 1222-23. 51 Aeschylus Sept. 203 ff. Cf. Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus 1.067: the bit emits

lightning flashes (a&uTpdrrrTe Xatvo's). 52 Ibid. 206. This reading of MSS fvtrvos is defended by D. van Nes in Die

maritime Bildersprache des Aischylus (Groningen, 1963), pp. 105-8. 53 In the same manner as the halter, called desmos in II. VI. 507; XV. 264. In

another connection, we know that the expression "fixing the bit" to a horse, ETmaLTOlLEtV, can signify "verbally mastering an opponent" (J. Taillardat, Les images d'Aristophane [Paris, 1965], p. 279).

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describes the bit as damasiphron54 that subdues fire, as praus,55 which tames, and, metaphorically, as metra, an instrument of measure and moderation. Sophocles has recourse to the same image in calling the bit akester,56 "whose function is to calm,"57 to act like a drug or medicine.58 The same link between the bit and magic seems to characterize the Thessalonian tradition of the Lapithae of the Pelethronion.59 In that part of Mount Pelion, the first horse sprung from the earth was thought to have been tamed by a Lapith whose name, Pelethronius, is identical to that of a mira- culous plant sprung from the same earth and possessing all kinds of medicinal and magic virtues. All this shows clearly that, in order to act upon the horse, to curb its disquieting power, the bit must in some sense be of the same nature as the horse: it must itself possess a mysterious force.

One last piece of evidence is worth adding to the preceding- not only because it confirms the magical aspect of the horse, but also because it defines this aspect in relation to Athena. This is a potter's song contained in a biography of Homer attributed to Herodotus.60 The poem begins with a prayer to Athena requesting that she stretch out her hand over the kiln in order that the vessels may be baked to perfection, be covered with a beautiful black glaze, and bring a good price when sold.61 Following this first part

54 Poseidon and Damasippos, just like Athena (Schol. Arist. Nuees 967). 55 Cf. the remarks of N. Yalouris, "Athena, als Herrin der Pferde," Museum, Helveticum VII (1950): 30-46.

56 Oedipus at Colonus 714, with the comments of Jebb in his edition (1899, reprinted in 1965 [Amsterdam], p. 121).

57 Meaning is given by Chantraine, s.v. "aKos," p. 49. 58 The scholiast who comments on Oedipus at Colonus, 714, glosses 'iKea?Trpa by

owapovtarrjs and notes that the bit acts after the fashion of the remedy which calms the ,Iavaixes voaoot, the disorder of madness.

59 Virgil Georg. III. 115 (and Servius); Lucanus VI. 396 ff.; Hyginus, Fab. CCLXXIV, 2, H. J. Rose ed.; Val. Flaccus Argon. VII. 603-4. Cf. J. Krischan, Real-Encyclopddie der Altertumswissenschaft, R. (1937), s.v. "Pelethronios," cols. 270-71.

60 Homeri opera, Thomas W. Allen ed. (1912), 5:212. The poem is reprinted in the West-Merkelbach edition of Fragmenta hesiodea (Oxford, 1967), fr. 302.

61 Two remarks are to be made on the subject of the goddess Athena, who stretches her hand out over the kiln. First, on this craftsman-like hand: Athena the technician is no mere artisan (fdvvavoso); she is always a foreman (Xctpcdva), the artisan who possesses mastery. When one wishes to speak of Athena's intelligence and technical skill, it is her hand that one praises (Anthologie palatine, vol. V, 70, verse 3; 94, verse 1). This hand stretched out over the kiln is the sign of the mastery which Athena exercises over the kairos, the moment of the opportunity to be seized; the good potter must recognize the moment when the pottery is baked to perfection-neither too little nor too much. The second remark relates to the intervention of Athena in the work of pottery. There is an archaeological document that corresponds to these verses of the potter's song: a slab of Pente- skouphia, shown by Pernice, pp. 75-80. It represents, on the one hand, a kiln and, on the other, a gnome holding his phallus in his two hands and exercising an

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of the poem, there is a second section in which the author of the

song, Homer, envisages what would happen if potters did not pay him for his trouble. He then invokes a whole series of kiln demons: the Breaker, Syntrips; the Cracker, Smaragos; the Inextinguish- able, Asbestos; and the one who causes pots to fly into pieces, Sabaktes.62 As the names of their functions clearly indicate, they will cause the pots to be smashed to smithereens. The menace is made even more precise in the following image: "hos gnathos hippeie brukei, brukoi de kaminos"63 [let the kiln send forth the noise of the horse's jaw]." And an additional series of images reinforce the first: the magic of Circe with her violent poisons and the raging beasts known as the Centaurs.64 The whole of the poem is constructed upon a dual struggle: on the concrete level, between pottery baked to perfection and broken pots; and on the

religious level, between Athena and the kiln demons. On the latter level, an equivalence is established among the demons bent on

destroying, the raging fire that causes the pots to be broken, the

poisons of Circe, the irruption of the Centaurs, and the disquieting noise made by the horse's jaw. Although it is not central to the

poem, an opposition is implied between the figure of Athena, assisting the potter to master the disturbing power of fire, and that of the horse in its state of unbridled fury and turmoil. This uproar and fury of the horse are evoked by Aeschylus on two successive occasions as an image of death and destruction. When the Seven Chiefs encircle the city of Thebes, "between the horses' jaws, the bits sound the knell of massacre."65 And further on, "Fear grew in

hearing the clatter of chariots, the creaking of the axles, and the noise of the bit, born of fire, ceaselessly moving in the horses' mouths."66 Surely, this description of a voracious and devouring horse whose angry mouth spews forth the noise of the jangling of the bit, a bit imbued with the disquieting images of the fire which

evident fascination over a man shown opposite him, most likely the potter. These are not simply two different forms of the baskania, but the depiction of the opposition, marked by the potter's song, between Athena, protectress of the kiln, symbolized by her owl, and the pottery demons, represented by the symbol of the evil eye along with all the misfortunes it brings in its wake.

62 The poem has recently received the attention of a historian of ceramic techniques who has given a commentary on it with a translation (Joseph Veach Noble, The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery [London and New York, 1965], appendix III, pp. 102-13).

63 Verse 13. 64 Verses 15-20. 65 Aeschylus Sept. 121-22. 66 Ibid., 203-8.

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gave it birth, constitutes an inverse image of the horse subjugated to the bridle by the will of Athena.67

Through the ambiguous relations between the horse and the bit, we acquire a definite picture of the technical object, the instrument which subdues the horse; and at the same time, we reach a pre- liminary definition of the intelligence applied by Athena in her influence on this animal. We can now endeavor to define how the two divine powers, presented to us by Pindar's myth, are situated with respect to one another in their common relation to the horse. In the Pegasus myth, the respective roles of Athena and Poseidon are distinctly outlined and their means of action clearly distinguished. The myth is wholly dominated by the Athena "of the horse," Athena Hippia, who is defined, by her insertion in the cultic sphere of Corinth, as an Athena "of the bit," Athena Chalinitis. Thereby, the hippic Athena takes her place wholly on the side of the bridle, the chalinos. We owe our knowledge of this subject in part to an excellent study showing that the Corinthian legend of the invention of the bit recounts a precise occurrence in the history of technology. Taking up a hypothesis initiated by Wilamowitz68 associating pharmakon prau with the invention of a less primitive bit, N. Yalouris69 has shown that, whereas in documents prior to the sixth century the bit and harness are crudely depicted in the rest of Greece, in Corinth these same elements are designed with the greatest care, while the coins of this city demonstrate the existence of a cult of Athena Chalinitis from the seventh century onward. The image of Athena Hippia in Corinth seems, then, to be intimately related to the invention of a more effective bit and the development of hippological lore. Athena "of the bit" makes her appearance in a society dominated by the Bacchiades, a landed aristocracy, of the same nature as the Hippeis and the Hippobotai of other cities of the seventh cen-

67 The war-horse, evoked by Aeschylus, is not completely identical with this boisterous horse of which the potter's song speaks, for the former is ambiguous in character. For the cavalier who rides him, he is a tame horse who responds to orders. For the enemy, whom this rider is striving to terrorize, the same horse is an animal whose disturbing strength and whose gestures of impatience and nervousness serve to reinforce the martial power of the armed man astride him. The myth of Pindar lays equal stress upon this latter aspect. As soon as Bellerophon, qualified by karteros, strong and valorous, has received the bit from the hands of Athena, he leaps upon the horse Pegasus and, clad in his armor of bronze, makes him execute a war step (evodrrXa iralewv), a kind of pyrrhic dance, the martial dance invented by Athena and danced by her both before and after combat. Trained as it is, the horse of Bellerophon adds his own animal power to the martial strength of his rider.

68 Wilamowitz, Pindaros (Berlin, 1922), p. 372, n. 4. 69 Yalouris, pp. 19-101.

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tury.70 The cult of Athena is established in a social group of "masters of the horse," "cavaliers" for whom the creature of Poseidon is at once an instrument of war, an economic asset, and a sign of social prestige and political authority. Certain customs prevailing in this milieu of nobility help to confirm the pre- eminence of a divinity "of the bit:" on two successive occasions in the epic of the Argonauts, Jason offers a Thessalonian horse bit as a gift to his host71-a bit that, on the eve of the battle of Salamis, Cimon of Athens comes to lay on the altar of Athena.72

In this technical sense, that of chalinitis, the action of Athena is the more clearly defined through contrast with that proper to Hephaistos. Indeed, the bit, born of flame, is a masterpiece of smithery, which Hephaistos might well claim as the fruit of his metis. Pindar, however, leaves no doubt on this point: the bit that Athena gives to Bellerophon is not a product of metallurgy, one of those masterpieces that Hephaistos imbues with his demiurgic power, but a technical object which permits the domination of an animal of unpredictable reactions. The key to the mode of intervention peculiar to Athena lies in the mythical representation of this instrument; she is the divinity who confers upon men, in the form of an instrument, a power at once technical and magical over the creature of Poseidon. Thus, the role of the latter is clearly defined. The horse is a creature of Poseidon, thanks to all the qualities we have noted in Pegasus: his appearance of infernal power, his bellicose strength, his fiery spirit, and all that which, in a certain sense, calls for the use of the bit. In the face of this master of horses, the role of Athena seems doubly "artificial:" first, because she is a power oriented toward artifice-both guile and technical skill-and, second, because she acts from the outside, and momentarily, on a concrete object which does not belong to her, because she always operates alongside both Bellerophon and Poseidon Hippios.

It is perhaps essential at this stage to dispose of an interpretation which might otherwise prevail in view of the fact that Athena chalinitis can be linked with certain facts in the history of technology-that Athena signifies the culture which domesticates the

70 Cf. Will, pp. 316-19 (esp. p. 317, n. 2). Three recent works throw light on the subject: J. K. Anderson, Ancient Greek Horsemanship (Berkeley, Calif., 1961); P. Vigneron, Le cheval dans l'antiquite greco-romaine (Nancy, 1968), vols. I and II; and J. Wiesner, "Fahren und Reiten," in Archeologica Holnerica (Gottingen, 1968), I, F.

71 Valerius Flaccus Argon. III. 13-14; V. 513-14. 72 Plutarchl Cinmon V. 1.

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horse, as opposed to the attributes of Poseidon expressed through the horse. This interpretation neglects certain important aspects of Poseidon-on the mythic as well as the cultic level-including the fact that the horse-drawn chariot belongs as much to Poseidon as to Athena. In the Iliad,73 it is Poseidon who is presented as having schooled Antilochus in the art of using horses and chariots (hippo- sune).74 Further, when this same hero is invited to pronounce a solemn oath, with Poseidon as witness, one of his hands is placed on the horses, but the other firmly holds the coachman's whip.75 And finally, it is in homage to this same god that horses in full harness (kekosmemenoi chalinois) are hurled into the waters of the Dine, in the Argolis.76 It would be equally erroneous to relate Athena and Poseidon to different stages in the history of the horse, one with the chariotry characteristic of the Mycenaean world, the other with the development of horsemanship, which extended throughout Greece at the beginning of the first millenium through the intermediary of peoples versed in the art of horsemanship.77 Even if it is proven that the bit is an instrument which was per- fected in the training phase characterizing the use of the horse as a saddle animal,78 Athena's action cannot be confined to her connection with the bridle of the riding horse,79 for her competence extends equally to the chariot and the racing team. Religious tradition does not connect Poseidon and Athena with successive stages of technical development.

* * *

Several of the mythic representations, legendary traditions, and cultic notions relating to Athena, Poseidon, and the horse present

73 II. XXIII. 307. More precisely, this refers to Zeus and Poseidon. 74 E. Delebecque, Le cheval dans l'Iliade (Paris, 1951), pp. 66-68. 75 II. XXIII. 581-84. 76 Paus. VIII. 7. 2. On Poseidon and the bit, cf. Schachermeyr, pp. 50-60 and

passim. On the sacrifice of horses, cf. W. Koppers, "Pferdeopfer und Pferdekult der Indogermanen," Wiener Beitrdge IV (1936): 279-409.

77 Wiesner, pp. 110-35. 78 In a study entitled "Homophonies radicales en Indo-Europeen," Bulletin de

la Societe linguistique 51 (1955): 22-28, E. Benveniste shows that the appearance in the Homeric vocabulary of a second meaning of damao, "to tame an animal," deriving from a primary meaning of the same word in Indo-European, "to subdue through violence," should make it possible to pinpoint the genesis of the taming of the horse and the beginnings of horsemanship. On the archaeological plane, it is without doubt essential to accord great importance to these representations of a man placed between two horses, either held by a bridle or touched with the hand. Cf., for example, P. Courbin, La ceramique geonetrique de l'Argolide (Paris, 1966), pp. 485 ff. and 492 ff.

79 Delebecque, p. 62, has found only one mention of the bit in the Iliad, in XIX. 393.

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a series of situations with which to test the definition of the means of action peculiar to each of these divine powers. Of these, we shall quote three examples: the ritual of Onchestos, the legend of Areion, and the tale of the race between Erechtheus and Skelmis.

The first example will enable us to define more clearly the modes of intervention proper to Poseidon Hippios, for the strange Boeotian ritual introduces a clear-cut distinction between the team as a group of horses and the coachman in his role as driver. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo describes the race in enigmatic terms :80

Forging ahead from there, Archer Apollo, you have reached Onlchestos, the splendid domain of Poseidon. It is there that the colt, newly tamed [neodmes polos], takes breath again, though still charged with the weight of the chariot. Skillful though he is, the driver leaps to the ground, and continues on foot. Once they are no longer held in check, the horses make the empty chariot rattle. If the chariot is broken in this wood thick with trees, the drivers only tend the horses, and, having tilted it up, leave the chariot [ta de klinantes eosin]. Such was permitted to men by divine law from the beginning [hos gar ta prdtisth' hosie geneth']. The Lord is invoked, and it is then for the god to protect the chariot [diphron de theou tote moira phulassein].

The analysis of Roux, in particular, has elucidated the meaning of the test to which newly trained horses were submitted in this land of horse breeders. Upon entering the sacred wood of Posei- don, situated on high ground, the charioteer climbs down, no matter how skilled a driver he is, and lets the young horses free under the trees. Two outcomes are possible, of which only the second is explicitly described, though it postulates the existence of the first.81 Left to its own devices, the horse in spite of the noise of the vehicle and the absence of its driver may retain its calm, traverse the sacred wood without mishap, and bring the chariot safely home. Or else, bewildered by its freedom and crazed by the din of the empty chariot, the horse may take the bit in its teeth and smash the vehicle against the trees. In the first case, the horse proves that it is sufficiently trained to bear the noise of the chariot and continue on his own without being held in check; in the second, that he is insufficiently trained and is nervous and capricious. It is for this latter, the easily frightened horse, that

80 Ho,n. Hymnn to Apollo 229-38. The translation we give is derived wholly from the interpretation given by G. Roux, "8uri deux passages de l'Hymne homerique a Apollon, " Revue des etudes grecqucs LXXVII (1964): 6-22. How- ever, for the translation of verse 237 and the notion of hosie, we have adopted the meaning given by E. Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-europeennes (Paris, 1969), II:202 ff.

81 Roux, p. 15.

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Poseidon is invoked: the chariot-not just the vehicle but the horse as well-is placed under his protection.

In this Onchestos ritual, Poseidon's field of action has three important aspects. In the first place, everything happens outside the driver's control. The coachman abandons the vehicle, and there is a team bereft of everything represented by a man stand- ing upright in the chariot. In the second place, the trial occurs in a terrifying place where the horse may well be struck with panicky fright: the coachman abandons the chariot the moment the horse enters Poseidon's grove. Finally, what Poseidon is explicitly asked to do is not to lead the vehicle correctly or to give the harnessed horse the strength and speed which will permit him to outdistance other teams. The action of Poseidon is much more limited: the god of Onchestos has to protect the team, phulassein.82 Poseidon is invoked to guard the vehicle against a danger the threat of which we have already noted in the image of Taraxippos, the Frightener of Horses, that is to say, another facet of this same Poseidon Hippios.

It is, indeed, with the cult of Taraxippos83 that the Onchestos ritual presents the closest affinity. The sacred grove of Poseidon is a place of the same nature as the bend of the dromos. At Olympia and Onchestos alike, the trial is the same: either the horse remains calm, taking the bend without panic, or else the deima strikes him, and he topples his driver or breaks the body of the chariot. Poseidon of Onchestos and Taraxippos of Olympia are cast in the same mold. It behooves us, however, to point out certain differences between the two: at Olympia we have chariots mounted by charioteers, while at Onchestos the vehicle is bereft of its driver. At Olympia, moreover, Taraxippos is invoked before the chariot race, while at Onchestos, the chariot is placed under the protection of Poseidon after the trial. However insignificant it may appear, this last difference reveals an essential aspect of Poseidon's role. The structure of the two rituals is similar, and the time factor, far from differentiating them, renders them closely complementary. The cult of Taraxippos and the ritual of Onchestos may be considered as the before and after of the same rite. In the one, sacrifice is made to Taraxippos, that is to say, Poseidon, before the race to request him to take the team under his protection. In the

82 Roux, p. 18, has proposed correcting vXAdaaeL to VvAdaacLv, the infinitive de- pending on tfo pa.

83 Cf. Roux, p. 21, who notes, in connection with Poseidon Hippos and Tara- xippos: "capable of spreading panic among them [horses], but also of keeping them from it."

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other, Poseidon is invoked after the trial, to take care of the team which has ceded to panic.

The field of action of Poseidon "of the horse" is thus denoted in two ways. There is first the fact that there is an alternative underlying both tests: either the horse remains calm or he takes the bit in his teeth. Poseidon's field of action is then made more specific by the time factor which enters into the two tests. Invoked before or after the race, and not during its progress, Poseidon seems to have an essentially negative role. For, if he agrees not to frighten the team, not to make his creature manifest his disquieting power, Poseidon still does not confer mastery over the horse and chariot. Invoked before or after, he remains outside the field of action that Athena appears to represent, that is, all that assures mastery of the horse.

The second example, referring to Areion, indicates how Athena's means of action and those of Poseidon, respectively, are defined. This may appear at first glance disconcerting, for is not Areion a unique horse, without equal, and a riding horse ? As to his lineage, he resembles Pegasus like a brother. Like Pegasus, Areion is a creature of Poseidon: he is born of the embraces of Poseidon Hippos and Demeter Erinys, of the equine head.84 An extra- ordinary horse and "astonishing spectacle for men," in the words of Antimachus,85 Areion plays an important role in one episode of the Theban epic. He is the horse of Adrastos, whom he brings back alive after the defeat of the Greeks before Thebes.86 There is evidence in the Iliad to show that the horse Areion belonged to Poseidon: the Antilochus episode in song 23. The horses of Antilochus are not so swift as those of his rival, but, thanks to the metis taught him by the old Nestor, he is bound to be victorious in the chariot race. If, profiting from a narrowing of the track, he succeeds in "cutting off" the horse immediately behind him and thus being the first to take the turn, then, Nestor promises him, his horses, though slower, will be able to outstrip the fastest of coursers: "No one, from then on, will any longer be capable of passing and defeating you, even if they set Areion of divine origin, the rapid horse of Adrastos, to pursue you."87 There is a clear contrast here between the horses of Antilochus, guided by the

84 Paus. VIII. 25. 4-10. Cf. Dieterich, pp. 108 ff. and 126 ff. 85 Antimachus of Colophon, fr. 32. 5. Wyss, cited by Paus. VIII. 25. 9. 86 Cf. L. Legras, Les legendes thebaines dals l'epopee et la tragedie grecques (Paris,

1905), pp. 79-80. 87 Verses 345-47.

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driver's metis and Areion-horse of power, fast as the wind, Areion, the purely Poseidonian horse.

In the epic cycle as a whole and in the Homeric epic, Adrastos appears as a horseman, mounted on Areion.88 But in other, seem- ingly later, traditions, we find Adrastos as a charioteer, a simple epic hero. The Thebaid of Antimachus of Colophon contains a description of Adrastos's team. It is composed of two horses: the first named Areion, the second Kairos,89 which might be translated as rapid-instant, fleeting-occasion. To the excellence of Areion, to the power of the Poseidonian animal, is added the maneuverability of the second, that art, so essential in racing, of seizing the kairos, of bounding forward at the decisive moment :90 in brief, all the qualities designated by metis, that metis which defines the coachman's art, his skill as a driver.91 In this coach to which Areion and Kairos are harnessed under the same yoke, we recognize the two aspects of the horse represented by the power of the god Poseidon and the metis of the goddess Athena. A tradition of the Etymologicum magnum92 seems to confirm this interpretation. There was at Colonus a celebrated place called Colonos Hippios, where there was both an altar common to Poseidon Hippios and Athena Hippia and a heroon consecrated to Adrastos in the company of Theseus, Pirithous, and Oedipus. It was said that it was at this place that Adrastos, fleeing death, had solemnly called to his aid the two hippic powers, Poseidon and Athena Hippioi. Both were invoked no doubt because their divine complicity naturally corresponded to the link between the two horses, Areion and Kairos. The antithesis between Athena and Poseidon, which emerges in the story of Pegasus, the horse of Poseidon, tamed by Athena's bit, is thus made more explicit in the story of Adrastos with the two types of horses. However, this difference in formulation is paralleled in the different usages of the horses involved: Pegasus is a riding horse, while Areion and Kairos are harnessed to a chariot.

How, in relation to the chariot, a context in which Poseidon appears to play a more sovereign role, is a distinction drawn

88 Wiesner, pp. 111 and 113. 89 Fr. 32. Wyss, cited by Paus. VIII. 25. 9. 90 Cf. J.-P. Vernant and M. Detienne, "La metis d'Antiloque," Revue des

etudes grecques LXXX (1967): 72-77 (esp. pp. 73-74); Detienne, La prudence d'Athena, pp. 443-50.

91 Pind. Isthm. VII. 9: Iolaos, the most skillful of the charioteers, may be qualified as hippometis.

92 Etymologicum magnum, s.v. "'Inrtia"; Anecdota graeca, Bekker ed., 1:350, s.v. "'AOfiva 'I7rrla"; Paus. I. 30. 4.

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between what belongs to Poseidon and what to Athena ? Besides the answer indicated by the representation of Adrastos's coach another broader and doubtless more general distinction has been indicated by a historian of the second century B.C., Mnaseas of Patara.93 Speaking of the chariotry which the inhabitants of Libya said they had invented, Mnaseas writes that the Libyans further claimed to have learned from Poseidon the art of harnes- sing the chariot, harma zeuksai, and from Athena the art of guiding the team, heniochein. The division is clear-cut: the teamed chariot belongs to Poseidon, who is just as much hippodromios94 as zugios,95 and the art of guiding the chariot and horses belongs to Athena.

What is the precise meaning of the action heniochein ? In chariotry, it is no longer the bit which gives control of the vehicle; it is less important here than in guiding the mounted horse. It is not merely the rein (henia), as a technical object, which is indicated by the verb heniochein. The role of Athena is wider and more important. It covers the whole system of controls which the chariot driver must exercise: he needs sharp eyes and quick reflexes and must keep a careful lookout for the horse's unpredictable movements, for bumps on the ground and all obstacles which might alter the course of the vehicle, but which a prudent coachman, a hippometis, would know how to utilize to his advantage.

There various situations in which Athena and Poseidon appear in opposition in regard to horses are indicative of the different way used by religious traditions to denote the differences and similari- ties between two powers intervening in the same domain, but with different means of action. We have dealt thus far with three cases: when a riding horse is involved, the animal belongs to Poseidon, the bit to Athena; in the case of a team of horses, either each power is represented by a horse or the team is placed under the aegis of Poseidon, while the coachman is under that of Athena. This third formula serves to throw light on the image of the Onchestos ritual, in which the power of Poseidon over the team is denoted by the with- drawal of the coachman. The remaining case to be examined here will show us a fourth way of delimiting the respective spheres of the two powers in regard to their action on a single concrete object.

In the lengthy epic in forty-eight books, composed to the glory of Dionysos by Nonnos of Pannopolis at the beginning of the fifth

93 Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, fr. 40, Miller ed., 111:156. 94 Pind. Isthm. I. 54. 95 Hesychius, s.v. "brcacs."

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century A.D., book XXXVII describes the funeral games which took place after the death of Opheltes, felled by the blows of Deriad, king of the Indies. The chariot race presents two rivals who are to dominate the whole scene: Erechtheus and Skelmis. The first, driving a team composed of Xanthos and Podarke, is a protege of Athena; the second is a descendant of Poseidon, whose chariot he drives over the sea. Skelmis is out in front in the home stretch, his horses being the swiftest. Erechtheus is hard on his heels. Each invokes his protective power: Skelmis appeals to Poseidon, master of all hippic science, hipposunes kubernetera ;96 Erechtheus calls to his aid Athena hipposoos, who thrusts the horse forward.97 The race becomes a contest of ruse against strength. Erechtheus, who is full of crafty skill, aiolometis,98 plans an underhanded maneuver99 to triumph over a team swifter than his own. With a lash of his whip, he drives his horses forward until they are on a level with Skelmis's chariot. Then, with his left hand, he gives a sharp pull on his rival's reins while inciting his own horses forward with great lashes of his whip. Finally, taking advantage of his slight advance, Erechtheus slides his chariot in front of that of Skelmis; he thus cuts him off, and his metis wins the race. Athena's team triumphs over the horses of Poseidon. The whole episode demonstrates the superiority of the team whose driver, without relying upon the strength of his beasts, knows how to profit to the maximum from his adversary's errors and the vicissitudes of the race. Two lines in the poem sum up the contest between Athena and Poseidon: "the intelligence of a driver full of metis is the veritable rudder that guides the chariot, pedalion diphroio."100 In using a new formula-two chariots brought face to face rather than two horses running side by side in the same team-this last example fully confirms the difference between the modes of action used by Athena and Poseidon in dealing with horses.101

* * *

96 Nonnos. Dionys. XXXVII. 310, ed. R. Keydell. 97 Ibid., 311-12. In lines 320 ff. the team of Erechtheus is designated by the

expression "horse of Marathon," which appears to refer to an ancient cult of Athena at Marathon. Cf. Yalouris, p. 62, and Will, Korinthiaka, pp. 135 ff.

98 Verse 622. 99 Verse 316. This maneuver, like the entire account of the race, is directly

inspired by book XXIII of the Iliad. From our point of view, this makes it all the more interesting: the opposition described in the Iliad between the horse Areion and the team of Antilochus is matched by the antagonism between the two teams, the one belonging to Poseidon and the other to Athena.

100 Verses 221-22. 101 There is one text which seems strongly to contradict the interpretation I

have just given. This is the chorus of Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles, lines 669- 182




Seen in relation to each other, through the mediation of a concrete object, the harnessed or mounted horse, Athena and Posei- don, far from being confused vaguely in the status of Master of Horses,l02 which they are said to have in common, are clearly distinguished by their respective modes of intervention in the same field of activity. All the facts about Athena Hippia show us that her attribute is mastery: mastery over the horse by means of an instrument endowed with efficacy, mastery in driving the chariot -whether it be a matter of keeping it straight without deviating

715, which present, over against Athena, the protectress of olive trees, a Poseidon who is the inventor of the horse's bit. Two factors permit us to account for this "anomaly" and to explain why, in this context, Athena is not connected with the bit of the horse. The first is that this part of the chorus of Oedipus at Colonrus is based on references to a mythical account of the origins of Athens. Athena and Poseidon are here depicted as the founding powers of the city of Athens, confront- ing each other in a contest with which we are familiar not only from the texts, but also through several pieces of iconographic evidence, such as the famous hydria from the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad and the pelike of Policoro. On the first, Athena and Poseidon, drawn up opposite each other, manifest their powers in turn: Poseidon makes the first horse spring from the earth, while Athena causes the first olive tree to sprout (cf. H. Metzger, Les representations dans la ceramique attique du IV-enie siecle [Paris, 1951], pp. 324-26). On the second of these pieces of evidence discovered in the excavations of the ancient Heraclea (cf. N. Degrassi, "Meisterwerke frihitaliotischer Vasenmalerei aus einem Grab in Policoro," in Herakleiastudien, ed. B. Ncutsch [Mitteilungen des Deutscher archdologischen Institut, Rdmische Abteiluyg, Ergdnzungsheft XI (Heidel- berg, 1967), pp. 217-21, tables 66-67]), the two divine powers are depicted arriving together on the field of combat: Poseidon is mounted on a horse; he is armed with the trident and flanked by Hermes on horseback. Athena stands on a quadriga; she is wearing a breastplate and is accompanied by Iris, who serves her as her driver. Slightly lower and to the side of Athena is an olive sapling. In this mythic setting, Athena, the inventor of the olive tree and life based on cultivation, is opposed to Poseidon, who represents the power of horses as well as the power of the sea. For the Athenians, the horse is first of all the animal of Poseidon. The whole effect of this mythical model of the origins of the city is to push Athena over to the side of the olive tree.

The second reason that one can advance in order to justify this division of functions is that it would be impossible to claim the invention of the bit for the Athenians if it was attributed to Athena. The existence in the Corinthian tradition of an Athena chalinitis invited the Athenians to put forward as their candidate Poseidon, clearly better situated to confound the ambitions of the Corinthians.

It should be added that the chorus of Oedipus at Colonus cannot be detached from the lines which follow and, in particular, from lines 1067-68, which depict the Athenian horsemen: "From all sides came the flashing of horses' bits, the charging of the horsemen to worship Athena Hippia and the god of the sea who supports the earth, the beloved son of Rhea." The horsemen of Athens, here again, come under the patronage of Athena on horseback. It is as though Athena, separated from the olive tree, resumed her place as mistress of the horse, by the side of Poseidon.

In conclusion, Poseidon can certainly delight in the galloping and whinnying of horses. But when he poses as the inventor of the bit, he is engaging in imperialism, as all the great powers of the pantheon are liable to do.

102 In his book Poseidon, pp. 152-53, Schachermeyr points out, very rightly, that Athena Hippia cannot be confused with a god like Poseidon Hippios and indicates, rapidly but pertinently, that the part played by Athena in the hippic domain is characterized by ingenuity and the technological principle.

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from the route, taking advantage of a favorable moment, or seizing the kairos. All these are aspects which, in this context, indicate the role of Athena's metis, her intelligence at once crafty, technical, and magical. As opposed to this power, which confers mastery over the horse and chariot, Poseidon is shown as Master of Horses; but his sovereignty stops, in principle, where artifice begins-that of the bit or that of the coachman. Lord of the Horse, Poseidon disciplines the fire or liberates the violence of his creature at will. But, always, he appears as an owner, jealous of his rights. Though he may sometimes concede his privileges of his own free will, care must be taken not to usurp them. An incident in the Pegasus myth serves to show that Athena is familiar with this trait of Poseidon's character: when she invents the instrument which permits Bellerophon to master his mount, Athena reminds her protege that he must render homage to Poseidon Damaios103 by presenting the harnessed horse-fitted with his bit-to the god and by sacrificing a white bull to him.104 With perfect correct- ness, Athena renders unto Poseidon that which belongs to Posei- don. Whether the two powers collaborate or whether they clash, their modes of action, when they confront each other, always remain distinct.

103 Pindar 01. XIII. 68 ff. 104 This calls for comparison with another, similar sacrifice in a parallel domain,

that of navigation, where Poseidon and Athena also intervene side by side. This is the sacrifice offered by Jason to Poseidon, the sea god, at the moment when the first ship, constructed by Athena or with her aid, is about to set off across the ocean (cf. Valerius Flaccus Argon. I. 196-98). Cf. Detierme, "Le navire d'Athena" (see n. 9 above).

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Detienne, M. Athena and the Mastery of the Horse

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