THE OFFICES OF OLYMPUS

Victor Castellani (University of Denver)

Complementing Jenny Clay’s major analysis Politics of Olympus (1989), a modest supplement would isolate titles and corollary functions that are ascribed to several major and a few minor deities of the Zeus regime in the shorter “Homeric” Hymns, otherwise explicit neither in the more famous longer ones nor in Iliad or Odyssey. These may be assigned to more than the expected divine practitioner, or else not stated to be such-and-such a god’s province until later in antiquity if at all. They explain events and details in epic and subsequent literature.

Some instances are unhelpful. An undecoded epithet of Dionysus εἰραφιώτης, thrice in fragmentary Hymn No. 1, seems almost a teasing joke with the number three.

Others are more informative. For example, although the rest of No. 18 adds nothing we do not know from the grander No. 4, in its final verse Hermes is χαριδώτης. This does not seem mere redundancy with the familiar epic expression δώτηρ [or –ωρ]ἑάων, “grantor of good things,” but rather refers to the gratification that his gifts bestow. He is thus source of emotional, not just practical benefit, which allies his work with that esthetic “joy” which ἀγλαὰ ἔργα of Athena’s or Hephaestus’ art excite in a viewer. That Maia’s son is a connoisseur of pleasing sights we know from a moment in Odyssey 5 (63-76) when he stops and stares at the beautiful scene on Calypso’s isle, and he himself is “most pleasing” to see when he appears as a young man in Iliad 24 and—recognizable to Odysseus—in Odyssey 10. (No. 19 gives us news about a jurisdictional division between its non-epic addressee Pan and his father Hermes.)

This accretion of information begins with the very first of the minor or secondary hymns. No. 6, to Aphrodite like the sublime No. 5, giving the sex-goddess a series of hapax epithets χρυρσοστέφανος, ἑλικοβλέφαρος, and γλυκυμείλιχος of which middle one is the most interesting. The first, “golden-crown,” fits the conventional goldenness of the goddess as well as that of her and her attendant Seasons’ accessories as this poem describes them; and the third simply combines two ideas of pleasurable sensation, roughly “sweet” plus “soothing.” The “turned-eyebrow” compound, however, refers to a physiognomic phenomenon that seems to be her seductive look, rather than reaction in a viewer. It adds detail to her lower facial expression, her notorious coy smiles. Eye contact is more important a bilateral interpersonal event than a smile, in fact, since a stunningly beautiful person can smile for everyone yet at no one, whereas a batted eye meeting a lover’s gaze is already inchoate intercourse. The Iliad-poet remarked lovers’ sweet talk; but this epithet spots erotic glance and gaze. Brief No. 10, “To Aphrodite” too, thus situates the seat and/or source of “desire” in the upper face: ἐφ᾿ ἱμερτῷ …προσώπῳ.

Equally notable are several collaborations in “art” that the shorter hymns celebrate; e.g., overlapping or joint function in music between Apollo and the Muses (No. 25), among both of Leto’s children and the Muses (No. 27 to Artemis). Although the swan is Phoebus’ (No. 21), as in Plato’s Apollonian Phaedo, Dionysus owns laurel in addition to his more familiar ivy in No. 26. No. 9, to Artemis, gives her a normal share in brother Phoebus’ archery, but also makes her a charioteer, what her brother really is not. He is no help at all to his friend Admetus’ son Eumelus in a chariot race against Athena’s darling Diomedes in Iliad 23; in Sophocles his protégé Orestes even uses a fatal chariot accident in a plausible lie! Artemis’ friend, tragic Hippolytus, on the other hand, is a fine charioteer until the horse-god Poseidon intervenes.

Athena and Hephaestus, whom a simile in the Odyssey pairs as co-inspirers of χαρίεντα … ἔργα in gilt silver (Books 6 and 23), share not just technique and artistry, but also μῆτις. Hephaestus bears the epithet κλυτόμητις as well as epic κλυτοτέχνης (No. 20). In No. 11 Athena collegially shares warfare with Ares, whom in the Iliad she treats with relentless spite.