Greek Literature

Abstract

In Cosmology and the Polis Richard Seaford carries forward the trajectory of Reciprocity and Ritual (1994) and Money and the Early Greek Mind (2004), extending his analytical resources with (not exactly Bakhtinian) chronotopes – socially constructed cognitive models, in which space and time are congruently conceived (i.e. as ‘the same’ in certain respects: 22, 39). He distinguishes three chronotopes: reciprocal, as found in Homer; aetiological, related to ritual and the emergent polis (and containing an ‘antideterminate’ sub-chronotope, which expresses the space–time from which the aetiological transition is made); and monetized (4–5). ‘In the genesis of drama at the City Dionysia the reciprocal chronotope has been replaced by the aetiological’ (75). Monetization then contributes to tragedy's content by isolating powerful individuals from the collective: ‘tragedy frequently ends with the demise of the powerful individual(s)’ (113), and ‘tragic isolation derives in part from the self-sufficiency imposed on the individual by the new phenomenon of monetisation’ (169). Monetization ‘contributes also to its form’, since ‘the establishment of the second actor…may have arisen out of tension – between Dionysos and autocrat at Athens’ (111). The slide from indicative (‘contributes’) to hypothetical (‘may have’), with its long train of speculative attendants (‘it is tempting…hypothesise…seems likely…it is possible…may well have…’, 111) is, despite the desperately optimistic adverb, an index of the fragility of the construction. What is the exegetical pay-off? Seaford is capable, it must be said, of pure fantasy. He detects an allusion to incest in Aristotle's use of the phrase ‘currency from currency’ in Pol. 1258b1–8 (333). Aristotle objects to profit from purely financial transactions, not because it resembles incest (which would be silly), but because it has become disconnected from the real economy. In any case, ‘X from X’ has nothing to do with incest. The formula sums up an obvious feature of the natural course of reproduction (horses come from horses, and so on: Ph. 191b20–21, 193b8, 12; Gen. Corr. 333b7–8; Metaph. 1034b2, 1049b25–6; Pol. 1255b1–2; Pr. 878a27), and is applied to currency in a parenthetic explanation of the metaphorical use of tokos for interest. Aristotle is not the only victim of exegetical extravagance. The gold-changer to whom Aeschylus compares Ares (Ag. 438–9) exchanges gold dust for goods; Seaford knows this (200 n. 43, 247) but still assimilates the passage to currency exchange and monetized commercial transactions (200). Though his claims for the unique powers of monetization ought to make the importance of the distinction salient to him, mentions of silver are treated indiscriminately as references to money (201, on Aesch. Ag. 949, 959). Similarly, it is Seaford who associates insatiable prosperity with monetization (201), not Aeschylus’ text (Ag. 1331–42); and when Antigone speaks of death as kerdos (Soph. Ant. 461–4), it is Seaford who insists that Creon's single mention of coined silver (296) makes ‘the association of kerdos with monetary gain…inevitable’ (328). Why should our understanding of Antigone's patently non-monetized gain be determined by Creon's ‘obsession’? If it is an obsession, what marks it as such is its irrelevance: his grounds for complaint would be just as strong if a guard were suborned by non-monetary incentives. No other character has reason to share Creon's irrationality; nor has the audience; nor have we. This is a dazzlingly clever book; but its foundations are unstable, and its superstructure fragile.