Argyriou, Antiopi. "The discourse of arete: Spoken words, written texts, and public images in the Hellenistic and early Imperial periods." CHS Research Bulletin 12 (2024). https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HLNC.ESSAY:105071908.
(Center for Hellenic Studies Harvard University Summer Fellowship 2024-2025)
Arete is a core concept in the Greek culture, as W. Jaeger early stressed. [2] My research project focuses on the discourse of arete in an honorific context. By “discourse of arete” I understand the oral, written, and visual representation of arete and the interactive communication of the message that somebody is praised and honoured publicly as a reward for his services to a community and on account of his virtues, thus promulgated as an exemplum, a paradeigma of arete, a role model. This discourse is articulated through three different media, which correspond to three distinct genres: 1) spoken words, i.e. oral speeches in the assembly, rhetorical practice (the proposal for honour), 2) written texts, i.e. decrees inscribed on stone, epigraphy (the decision and granting of honour), and 3) public images, i.e. honorific portraits and statues (the publicization of honour). It aims to explore through some case studies the interconnection between these media of representation, circulation, and communication of the praise and honour, with a view to understanding also the impact they might have had on their audiences’ responses. The combination of oral speeches, inscribed texts, and images constitutes the complex dynamics of a discourse of virtue.
Since there is no preserved literary evidence of oratorical speeches from the Hellenistic period, it is by exploring the honorific decrees themselves as our main evidence that we may trace elements of what was actually spoken in the assemblies of various poleis concerning the granting of honours to an individual or a community, and thus infer to what extent it might have influenced the reception of honours by their audiences in several public spaces (in the assemblies, where the oral speeches were delivered, or in the agora, the theatre, the gymnasion, and elsewhere, where the inscribed decrees and the honorific stelai and portraits were erected). We may only get glimpses of how people received these honours, what mattered most to their decision, which medium affected them the most in their civic lives, since the honorands were promulgated as civic paradeigmata of arete, worthy of emulation. The question about the audience’s responses is important, also because it marks a shift of the balance from the polis or decree-issuing body and from the honorand as a prominent figure to the listener, reader, or spectator of the honours.
The main research questions to be addressed in this study are as follows:
What information can be extracted from the honorific decrees about the rhetorical practice in the Hellenistic and early Imperial period concerning the proposal, decision, and granting of civic honours, and how far is this compatible with what we know about oratory from the late Classical and early Imperial oratorical treatises?
Is it possible to reconstruct the contemporary audiences’ responses to honours through the language of the honorific decrees?
How far did the representation through statues of the honorands as the living embodiments of arete serve as a means of an idealised visualisation of contemporary civic values, or was it shaped by artistic convention?
Other complementary questions which I shall touch upon concern such issues as the importance of public space, collective identities, shared values and language, and cultural memory.
In sum, my CHS research project aims to fill a gap concerning, on the one hand, Hellenistic oratory, by extracting evidence of rhetorical practice from the honorific decrees, and on the other, contemporary audiences’ responses to oral, written, and visual honours, again relying mostly on the language of the decrees. There has been an upsurge of modern scholarly interest in the institution of euergetism, honorific cultures, practices, and discourses. [3] However, less attention has been devoted to the interplay and interconnection of each of the three aspects of honorific culture as outlined here. It is my aim to investigate whether these different media of bestowing honours were complementary or formulated around a different rhetoric, thus articulating a whole discourse of arete. [4]
Introduction
Angelos Chaniotis in his discussion about Hellenistic decrees and oratory concludes with the following remark: “In order to understand Hellenistic oratory we need to cross the borders of genres and look at unassuming pieces of evidence, such as decrees of peripheral cities.” [5] In my CHS research project, I attempt to identify the cross-fertilization of different genres, i.e. oratory, epigraphy, and portrait sculpture, with a view to identifying the elements that articulated the discourse of arete in the honorific contexts of the Hellenistic and early Imperial periods. This research offers the unique opportunity to work with a very wide range of evidence (literary, epigraphical, and archaeological), its aim being to illuminate aspects of the oral, written and visual rhetoric of praise and vocabulary of honour, all culminating to a discourse of virtue.
The research undertaken as a CHS Summer Fellow (11th June to 23rd July 2024) has focused on the first stage of this project, i.e. the evidence offered by honorific decrees about the rhetorical practice and the discourse of virtue in the Hellenistic period, from which there is no preserved oratory. The lack of available oratorical evidence from the Hellenistic period can be palliated by turning to the contemporary epigraphical evidence, and this is the first question that my study seeks to address.
Here, I shall present only a few examples of honorific decrees, in order to give an idea of how they could be read as evidence for a) Hellenistic oratory, b) for the audiences’ responses, and c) for the impact of honorific statues. Honorific decrees may offer glimpses of the actual words spoken in the assemblies in the various stages of rhetorical practice in an honorific context. They could also help us illuminate the audiences’ responses to honours, an aspect which constitutes an integral part of the interactive communication within the honorific context. Finally, they offer important information about the impact of honorific portraits and statues, thus complementing the discussion about the discourse of arete. Not every inscribed decree provides information for all three aspects. But their parallel examination with other decrees from different regions across the Greek world conveys that they might have been compatible with already known rhetorical strategies and techniques, which formulated the discourse about the honorand’s actions and virtues as paradeigmata of arete.
1. Honorific decrees and rhetorical practice
The epigraphical evidence of the Hellenistic period conveys the centrality and thriving continuation of oratory: either in decrees passed in honour of orators for their rhetorical performances, [6] or in which orators are mentioned for their contributions to the education of the youth in a gymnasion context, [7] and in inscriptions that record rhetorical contests, [8] orators are visible in diplomatic, educational, and rhetorical performative contexts.
There is ample evidence for oral performances on different levels and stages of the honorific process: Within the polis assembly for the proposal of honours to citizens and foreigners, and within the assemblies of communicating poleis, i.e., either when there was an official request by envoys for the granting of privileges, e.g. asylia, and the recognition of festivals, or in the case where the honours granted for a non-citizen were announced to the honorand’s polis by dispatch of envoys abroad. [9]
In the cases of communicating poleis and the diplomatic exchange of decrees, the echoes between the honorific and the response decree – sometimes reproducing verbatim the honorific decree – are resonant. As Lene Rubinstein has argued,
… precisely because the active participation by envoys in this type of inter-polis engagement was an optional rather than mandatory component, the grant of an oral performance in celebration of the honorand by the polis’ own representatives should itself be regarded as an additional privilege, which a polis could choose to add to the bundle of honours awarded to a non-citizen benefactor. [10]
An inscription of the mid-190s BC from Priene offers a concise example of the various stages of the rhetorical practice in an honorific context and the oral representation of arete. The inscription preserves two decrees: one of Iasos honouring the demos of Priene, a Prienian judge and the secretary of the foreign judge, and the response decree of Priene. This inscription is one of the many cases of diplomatic exchange between Hellenistic Greek poleis about the dispatch of foreign judges to resolve internal disputes. At the beginning of the Iasian decree, there is an explicit statement of the actual proposal for honours. [11] The two proposers, Proteas and Hekataios, came forward to speak (ἐπῆλθον), so that the Council and the Assembly should decide upon the bestowal of honours. In fact, the language of the decree makes clear that the polis of Iasos should decide on the issue of which particular honours should be conferred (ἵνα ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος βουλεύσηται, τίσιν δεῖ τιμαῖς τιμηθῆναι) to the demos of Priene, the foreign judge and the secretary. The use of indirect speech echoes the direct speech that must have been delivered within the Assembly: “By which specific honours should we, the Iasians, honour the Prienians?”, [12] i.e. the debate was not about the bestowal of honours or not in the first place, but about the appropriate honours per se. The narration of the dikastic services is followed by the official decision of the demos to ‘praise and honour’. [13] This phrase, so common in the language of honorific decrees, constitutes a speech act, i.e. a performative utterance. This not a mere statement, it implies also the action entailed in it and the public performance of the award of honours (through crowning, erection of a stele etc.). Elected envoys would be dispatched to Priene in order to hand over the decree (a copy of it). The envoys’ mission includes the oral presentation of the content of the decree before the Prienians, so that they (the Prienians) continue to have the same dispositions towards the Iasians. In addition to that, the Iasian envoys will present orally their request for obtaining permission for the proclamation of honours in the theatre during the Dionysiac festivals and the erection of a stele with the inscribed honours in a shrine of their choice: [14] In this way, as was often the case with foreign honorands, the polis who conferred the honours decided to announce them, using both oral proclamation and written documents, [15] to the honorand’s polis. By this means the two communicating poleis were not only exchanging diplomatic conventions; they were also sharing communal values and ideas, and were communicating on the basis of a common code of virtues which justified the honours and made the audiences (comprising officials and ordinary people, citizens and foreigners) in both poleis to be convinced and approve of the honours granted. That this was not just formulaic language but had a concrete meaning of request and approval is also evident from the specific provisions made for the proclamation of honours and the erection of the inscribed stele during a specific time and at a specified place too.
It is noteworthy that one of the envoys elected for this mission, Hekataios of Posidippus, was in fact one of the two proposers of the decree. [16] The double role of Hekataios should be considered as a proof of his rhetorical training. Both as a proposer and as an envoy he would certainly need to perform orally displaying his rhetorical skill, in order to persuade his audiences, both in the assembly of Iasos towards a domestic audience (as a proposer of the decree) and in the assembly of Priene towards a foreign audience (as an envoy sent to announce the honours granted to Prienian citizens). [17] His diplomatic mission was thus linked to his awareness of rhetorical strategies and techniques. The response decree of Priene echoes the phrasing and structure of the decree of Iasos, [18] thus indicating their shared language and rhetorical strategies and the recognition of similar (or identical) values.
A decree of the Delphic Amphictyony preserves even more elaborate phrasing about the articulation of the oral discourse of arete. The decree recognized asylia of the city of Antioch of Chrysaoreans, honouring its citizens and granting crowns to its envoys too. The vocabulary used to describe the oral presentations of one of the envoys (πρεσβεύσας), Pausimachos, is indicative of the various aspects and topics of his speeches: ποτελθὼν ποτὶ τὸ συνέδριον ἁμῶν, περί τε τᾶς ἰδίας πατρίδος πολλὰ κατευφάμηκε, ἐμφανίζων τὰν εὐσέβειαν αὐτᾶς καὶ τὰν ἀρετάν, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ περὶ βασιλέος Ἀντιόχου τοῦ εὐεργέτα Ἀντιοχέων εὐλόγηκε. [19] “After he presented himself before our synedrion, he extolled extensively his own city in many ways, by displaying its eusebeia and arete, and he equally eulogized King Antiochos, the benefactor of the people of Antioch.” [20] The terms εὐλογία/εὐλογέω are not very common in the honorific context of a decree. [21] The rare epigraphical attestation, in the Delphic decree, of the verb εὐλόγηκε, deployed in the context of interaction of an envoy with a community, explicitly refers to the oral speech of praise, a true encomium of the ruler, that he had delivered in person, and after the encomium of the city. Gengler has argued that
…by recognising the soundness of the petition of the Antiochians, the Amphictions also endorsed the argumentation of Pausimachos based on the eulogies of the city and the king, and honoured them accordingly. The eulogies given by Pausimachos, summarised in the decree, gave the motivation for the honouring and are therefore referred to in the justification of the praise and crowning. [22]
This example shows clearly that “the debate before the passing of a decree contains praising elements which’s endorsement by the decision-making body constitutes the official praise of the city.” [23]
Apart from the little details about oral speeches that the honorific decrees allow us to grasp, there is still more to learn about the rhetorical strategies deployed in the decrees, if we look more closely to the main rhetorical treatises that are preserved before the Roman Imperial period, i.e. Aristotle’s Rhetoric and the Rhetoric to Alexander, attributed to Anaximenes of Lampsacus, both dating from the fourth century BC. By looking at these treatises, though they are not contemporary of the Hellenistic period, but still the closest literary evidence, from those known to us, that Hellenistic orators would have known, it is possible to identify several rhetorical strategies that were deployed by proposers and envoys in the context of honorific decrees. Aristotle in his Rhetoric as well as in his ethical treatises associates virtuous actions with virtuous men [24] , and defines praise as “the language that sets forth greatness of virtue” (ἔστιν δ᾽ ἔπαινος λόγος ἐμφανίζων μέγεθος ἀρετῆς). [25] Hence, Aristotle explains, it is necessary to show that a man’s actions are virtuous. In Aristotle’s discussion about rhetoric and epideictic oratory in particular, arete is specifically associated with civic benefactions, and with “doing good to the community.” [26]
Many scholars have underlined that the structure and content of an honorific decree resemble the main features of epideictic oratory, i.e. the oratory of praise, especially encomia, although elements of deliberative oratory may have also been relevant: [27] the narration of the honorand’s services and benefactions, sometimes elaborated in long biographical decrees which include accounts of his past and ancestral deeds, [28] forms the justification of honour and is based on a “grammar of praise,” as Pernot has put it. [29] Although in the Aristotelian Rhetoric, the epideictic oratory is associated mostly with the present (the deliberative with the future, and the forensic species with the past), however, he argues, in epideictic oratory sometimes speakers use also reminders of the past and provisions for the future, [30] thus blending the oratorical genres. We can easily trace these different layers of time also in the language of Hellenistic honorific decrees: past benefactions form the motivation for present honours and the expectation for future emulation.
Moreover, honorific decrees stress the honorand’s virtues including statements about his own character (individual ethos), about the polis that conferred the honours (collective ethos) and, in the case of foreign honorands, of the polis they came from, thus contributing to the construction of identities [31] through a rhetoric of arete. Several rhetorical devices, which are described in the Classical Athenian treatises, are used in the language of honorific decrees. To mention a few only: the praise of the polis who confers the honours in moral terms, resembles the encomium of cities, and the use of moral examples for the power of emulation. [32] By exploiting the strategies of epideictic oratory, as it may have been exercised in the Assembly by citizens as well as by envoys from other poleis, the honorific decrees created a community of shared civic values and contributed to the affirmation and dissemination of the same paradeigmata of arete in a complex network of Greek poleis in the Hellenistic world.
Through the narrations of the honorands’ actions and past benefactions, the promotion of historical arguments [33] and moral lessons, the Hellenistic honorific decrees may be seen as blending epideictic (praise) with deliberative (uses of the past, power of examples) and even forensic (court speeches of foreign judges abroad) genres of oratory. The assemblies comprised a mass of male adult citizens that was anything but homogeneous, and different strategies and rhetorical devices would appeal to different people, thus making a combination of oratorical genres not just possible but also necessary. If we consider as an additional effect the visual aspect of those speakers’ performances before their audiences (style, tone of voice, gestures, clothes, body language), then we encounter a whole set of rhetorical devices, imitating theatrical strategies too, and deployed in order to make their speeches more effective. [34] The venues of these oratorical performances were big places of civic importance (gymnasion, theatre, sanctuary, agora), thus these performances must have deployed techniques that would be effective to mass audiences. Rhetorical practice, theatrical performance, civic education through living role models, were all intertwined in the honorific context of various Greek poleis. The oratorical performances in this context were not only meant to include extolment of the honorand’s actions and virtues, thus raising enthusiasm, consent, or envy and mistrust. They were a blend of praise and persuasion, thus combining epideictic with deliberative purposes. The oral representation of arete forms an essential part of the complex issue of the discourse of arete.
2. Honorific decrees and audience’s responses
As part of the discourse of arete, the audience’s responses are important to examine, in so far as they may have influenced the rhetorical strategies deployed in the interaction between the speaker and the listener, between the inscribed decree and the reader, or the spectator of a statue, or indeed in the full-sensual experience of the actual proclamation of honours in a public space. It is very difficult to identify what people in the assemblies thought, what they might have said, how they might have felt or reacted towards the proposals and awards of honours. These audiences were anything but homogenous; they comprised elite and lower-status people, educated and illiterate, and sometimes attending on the fringes non-citizens too. Different strategies would appeal to different audiences.
A decree of the aleiphomenoi (i.e. those anointed with oil, the frequenters at the gymnasion) of Thera for Baton the gymnasiarch is an illuminating example. He had been appointed a gymnasiarchos for five consecutive years, and his past benefactions are recorded in the decree as a reminder (hypomnema). [35] After the enumeration of honours already bestowed on him over a number of years, he is requested by the demos to remain in office for one more year, as “by doing this he will be acceptable by all the aleiphomenoi” (διότι τοῦτο πράξας ἔσται πᾶσι τοῖς ἀλειφομένοις κεχαρισμένος). [36] Such statements were not rare in honorific decrees, and they attest to the positive audience’s responses to the honorand’s services and offices. [37]
The decrees from Chersonesos in the North Black Sea region for T. Aurelius Calpunianus Apollonidas and his wife describe vividly the oral proclamation of honours and the enthusiastic responses of the audience: κ]αὶ ἀναβοᾶσαι [38] μεν αὐτ[ὸν ἐς τὰν] ἀγορὰν κεχαρμένᾳ τᾷ φωνᾷ, ἀθρόο[υς δὲ ἀν]ευφαμῆσαι πολίταν ἔμμεν. [39] In the agora and in joyful voice, the honorand received the general applaud of the honour of citizenship by the whole populace with auspicious cries. Such public performances were very appealing and attractive to Hellenistic and early Imperial audiences, since they contained theatrical elements and aroused massive expressions of emotional reaction of the communities involved, as A. Chaniotis has repeatedly pointed out. [40] The vocabulary of the inscribed text of the decree incorporated the enthusiastic oral proclamations and response to honours, not just about the honorand himself and the officials issuing the decree, but of the whole community who witnessed the spectacle of honours. However, it is reasonable to assume that such enthusiastic responses on the part of the audience may have not been always the case. The bestowal of civic honours might have aroused negative sentiments, like envy or suspicion, whereas the decrees’ exhortation for emulation might have equally put the audiences under fear, stress, or hope.
There are several ways to identify responses of the audiences to the bestowal of honours through the language of the decrees. To summarize a few: a) riders, i.e. amendments about supplementary suggestions, added to the proposals of the decrees by people who would disapprove or would think of necessary changes (e.g., τὰ μὲν ἄλλα καθάπερ), [41] b) sequence of multiple decrees for the same person in an array of honours (e.g., πρὸς ταῖς προγεγενημέναις τιμαῖ̣ς), [42] c) award of multiple honorific portraits and in different places, [43] d) decrees inscribed together (e.g. request and response decrees) or next to another decree of some literal or symbolic association, [44] e) praiseworthy references to the foreign honorands’ good and irreproachable conduct (e.g., ἐνδημίαν εὔτακτόν τε καὶ εὐσχήμ[ονα) during their interactions with the foreign populations, [45] f) public funerals and processions for civic benefactors, [46] and g) emphasis on massive applaud and unanimous reactions, in the cases of benefactions that had a direct impact on the whole community and a material as well as a psychological effect on people’s everyday lives, such as the provisions for food in times of shortage, or the alleviation of pain and stress in times of natural disasters, war, attack or disease (e.g., πανδημεὶ, πάντων ὁμοθυμαδόν). [47] Or, it could be read otherwise: i.e. that the decrees were issued within a conflict context (perhaps a conflict of interests), which might explain the emphasis on “all-encountering” positive reactions to honours.
3. The impact of honorific images
As John Ma has argued about the honorific statue habit in the Hellenistic period, “the phenomenon was a complex social transaction between individual and community, between present and past, between action and representation, between event and symbolic requital.” [48] In his extensive study of Hellenistic honorific statues and their rhetoric within civic culture, he argued that “text did not exist in the abstract […] but as inscription too, and is carved on the same stone that could be used for statues, by the same iron tools that made statues. Inscription had materiality and spatiality – two dimensions which interacted with text and with image, to constitute the monument and create meanings.” [49]
The decrees offer invaluable evidence about the detailed provisions for the erection of honorific portraits and statues in conspicuous places, thus transforming urban landscapes: [50] Details about their material (most often bronze, marble or painted, but also silver and gold), specific depiction of the honorand (image, or statue), and provisions for multiple statues and in different places.
Images were powerful means of communicating the message of virtue, and for constructing collective memory and identity. An Imperial inscription from Chios for Leucius records detailed provisions for the protection and maintenance under law of the statues of his likeness and of those of his sons that are to be erected, “so that both the demos’ gratitude and the commemoration of the men are eternally maintained” (συντηρῆται δὲ εἰς τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον ἥ τε τοῦ δήμου χάρις καὶ ἡ μ̣ν̣ήμη̣ τῶν ἀνδρῶν). [51] Images and statues combined together were more powerful, and expressed massive enthusiastic audience responses too, as in the case of Agreophon, a gymnasiarch in Kaunos, Caria, who was posthumously honoured by a public funeral, and by images and statues, following the unanimous applaud of the demos and the boule, as the decree explicitly states (ὁ δῆμος μετὰ τῆς βουλῆς ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἐπεβοήσατο καὶ ἐτείμησεν αὐτὸν ταφῇ δημοσίᾳ καὶ εἰκόνων ἀνάθεσεσιν καὶ ἀνδριάντων ἀνα<σ>τάσεσιν καὶ ταῖς ἄλλαις ταῖς ὀφειλομέναις καὶ πρεπούσαις τῇ ἀξίᾳ αὐτοῦ τειμαῖς). [52]
The impact of these images, especially of the material of which they were made, is well-known from the Imperial Period. As is explained in one of the letters, preserved on stone, that M. Aurelius together with Commodus sent to the Athenian Gerousia about the statues of the Emperors, the Roman Emperor declined statues of precious metals (gold and silver) for him and his family members, and expressed a preference for bronze, and only busts instead of full-length statues, apparently following the ‘Augustan formula’, not only for practical reasons, but also because the most precious and big statues could express divine honours, and thus evoke the phthonos of the gods. [53]
Statues contributed to the visual representation of the honorands’ virtues, sometimes also in the form of the same portrait type. An example is that of Publius Vedius Antoninus and his wife, who were honoured for their dedication of a bath-gymnasion to Ephesos. Sheila Dillon, who has studied the various portraits of the benefactors of the most prominent family of Ephesos in the 2nd c. AD, argued that the multiplicity of images reinforces the family’s power and prestige, is a visual reminder of the benefactions, whereas the use of the same portrait type facilitates the recognition of the same person, thus strengthening the message. [54]
S. Dillon, “The portraits of a civic benefactor of 2nd c. Ephesos,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 9 (1996), 261-274.
As a final example of the impact of public images, I have chosen the case of a poet from Aphrodisias. In the Hellenistic and early Imperial honorific decrees, the honorands are presented as the living embodiments of arete, sometimes compared to the models that they acquired from “old books.” An early Imperial decree of Halicarnassus for G.I. Longianos, a poet from Aphrodisias, vividly conveys this idea: “Through his various poetic performances, he entertained the old and benefited the young” (ποιημάτων παντοδαπῶν ἐπιδείξεις ποικίλας ἐποιήσατο δι’ ὧν καὶ τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους εὔφρανεν καὶ τοὺς νεωτέρους ὠφέλησεν), on which “the demos rejoiced” (ἡσθεὶς ὁ δῆμος). [55] His honours comprised the megistai timai, i.e. citizenship and bronze statues. About these statues, the decree specifies that they were to be put “also in other conspicuous places of the city, and in the shrine of the Muses and in the gymnasion of the ephebes, next to the old statue of Herodotus.” [56] There is an additional, quite unusual honour attributed to him: not only statues would be erected to honour him, but also “his books would be publicly displayed in the libraries” (ll. 14-16: καὶ τοῖς βυβλίοις αὐτοῦ δημοσίαν ἀνάθεσιν ἔν τε βυβλιοθήκαι[ς] ταῖς παρ’ ἡμεῖν). The purpose of this particular provision is, according to the hortatory clause of the decree, “so that by this means the young educate themselves in a way similar to that of the old books” (ll. 16-18: ἵνα καὶ ἐν τούτοις οἱ νέοι παιδεύωνται τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον ὃν καὶ ἐν τοῖς τῶν παλαιῶν συ[ν]γράμμασιν). [57] This decree is an example of how people reacted and felt towards honours. It is also a rare attestation of the impact that not only honorific statues, but also the honorand’s own books would have on the audience of his honours, i.e. the young ephebes at the gymnasion.
URL: https://philipharland.com/greco-roman-associations/honorary-decree-for-the-poet-longianos-by-the-synod-of-dionysos-127-ce/.
Conclusion and some thoughts
The epigraphical evidence of Hellenistic and early Imperial honorific decrees offers invaluable insights into the discourse of arete, as articulated through oral, written, and visual representations of the honorand’s virtue. The attempt of this study to trace elements of the oral discourse, for a period where no literary evidence is preserved, illuminates a significant aspect of this discourse, an essential part of which were also the responses of the audiences to the bestowal of honour. The honorific monuments, comprising an inscribed decree on a statue-base (sometimes accompanied also by a verse-inscription, i.e. an epigram) and a statue (ἀνδριάς) or an image (εἰκών) in the honorand’s likeness, made these honours visible and formed a vehicle of communicating the message of the bestowed honours as worthy of emulation. Thus, spoken words, written texts, and public images constituted a complex interactive dialogue about honours and virtues in a civic context.
As explained earlier, the CHS Summer Fellowship in Hellenic Studies has allowed me to clarify my research questions and to produce a preliminary chapter about the first aspect of the discourse of arete, i.e. the oral representation of virtue and the rhetorical practice in the Hellenistic period. In the following steps of my research, I intend to examine the two remaining aspects, concerning the written and visual representation of arete, in order to understand their interplay and cross-fertilization within the honorific context of this discourse.
My residence at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC has offered me an additional advantage, that of the intellectual incentive and stimulus for this endeavour. W. Jaeger – whom I quoted at the beginning of my report – whose bust decorates the Common Room of the CHS and whose photograph is in the ground-floor library, have reminded me of his seminal studies on Greek paideia and arete.
(Photos of the Author)
The several statues outside the foreign embassies in the long Embassy Row of Massachusetts’ Avenue have shown to me how statues and public images interact with their spectators, and with each other too (e.g., W. Churchill facing N. Mandela, or El. Venizelos facing Kemal Ataturk). (Photos of the Author)
And the books of the CHS Library, not just put in display – as in the case of the Aphrodisian poet – but also for use, along with the old Harvard Professors’ photographs have recalled that these served as real models and inspiring figures.
(Photos of the Author)
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Footnotes
[ back ] 1. I am grateful to my PhD supervisor Prof. Lene Rubinstein for our discussions about the CHS research topic, to my MPhil supervisor Prof. Paul Cartledge for correcting my English in earlier drafts of this paper, and to my PhD thesis examiner, Prof. Angelos Chaniotis for instilling and encouraging the idea of working on this project. Special thanks are owed to all three of them for supporting my CHS Fellowship application with their references.
[ back ] 3. Since Veyne’s 1976 and Gauthier’s 1985 seminal works on benefactors, and L. Robert’s several books and articles on honorific decrees (OMS), many scholars have explored the institution of euergetism (Ma 2013 a-b, Gygax 2016, Gygax-Zuiderhoek 2021, Liddell 2021), and honorific culture and practices (Newby and Leader-Newby 2007, Dillon-Baltes 2013, Biard 2017, Heller-van Nijf 2017, Keesling 2017, Grzesik 2021), whereas research on Hellenistic oratory, and the function of epideictic oratory in particular has also attracted much scholarly attention (Wooten 2001, Smith-Covino 2010, Kremmydas-Tempest 2013, Rubinstein 2013 and forthcoming, Pernot 2015 and 1993, Filonik et alii 2019, Kennedy 1963). The most recent publications of Ma 2024 and Esu 2024 convey the renewed attention to the study of institutions and ideology, not as mere theoretical forms and rules, but rather as values and ideals with normative as well as discursive aspects.
[ back ] 4. The topic of my CHS research project about the discourse of arete derives from my PhD thesis (Royal Holloway University of London 2022) on “The concept of arete in Hellenistic honorific decrees.” It was, in fact, after following both my PhD supervisor.s, Prof. Lene Rubinstein, and my external examiner’s, Prof. Angelos Chaniotis, advice to make a step forward, that I have chosen to pursue the study of the language of honorific decrees in order to fill the gap about Hellenistic oratory and rhetorical practice in an honorific context. My own interest in art and the need to contextualise the available evidence concerning honorific discourses, could not but include also in my study the portrait sculpture of the honorands’ images. Thus, a fruitful combination of my research interest in arete with major teachers’ advice, and “a strive for a goal further” – as arete itself is usually described in these decrees – have been the main incentives for my current research project, which was conducted at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC (11th June to 23rd July 2024) and facilitated by my CHS Harvard University Summer Fellowship in Hellenic Studies 2024-2025. I am deeply grateful to all those who have contributed to the inspiration and realisation of this ongoing research. The conference paper “The image of the historian in Polybius and beyond” for the 15th Celtic Conference in Classics, University of Cardiff (July, 12th 2024), which I presented online during my CHS residence, also exploited three different genres, i.e. literary (historiography, and literary epigrams), epigraphical (inscribed decrees and epigrams), and iconographic (statues and images) evidence, thus being an appropriate exercise for my CHS research project too.
[ back ] 5. Chaniotis 2013a, 216. Cf. Ma 2024; Esu 2024.
[ back ] 6. E.g. Corinth 8,3 226; Corinth 8,3 268; IG VII 106; I.Ephesos 3057. Cf. IG II2 3669, ll. 6-7, for Dexippus of Athens: Δέξιππον Πτολεμαίου Ἕρμειον τὸν ῥήτορα καὶ συνγραφέα ἀρετῆς ἕνεκα οἱ παῖδ[ες]. See Argyriou (forthcoming).
[ back ] 7. E.g. IG II2 1042 (Attica, c. 41/0 BC.), frg. C, ll. 7-8: ταῖς τε τῶν φιλοσόφων καὶ ῥητόρων καὶ γραμματικῶν [σχολαῖς καὶ ταῖς ὑπὸ τῶν λοιπῶν ἀεὶ γει]νομέναις ἀκροάσεσιν παρατυγχάνοντε̣ς. Cf. IG XII,9 234 (Eretria, 100 BC), ll. 8-12: καὶ παρέσχεν ἐκ τοῦ ἰδίου ῥήτορά τε καὶ ὁπλομάχον, οἵτινες ἐσχόλαζον ἐν τῶι γυμνασίωι τοῖς τε παισὶν καὶ ἐφήβοις καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις τοῖς βουλομένοις τὴν ἀπὸ τῶν τοιούτων ὠφελίαν ἐπιδέχεσθαι. There are early Imperial honorific inscriptions about rhetors who held the office of gymnasiarchia, e.g. Attouda 23*6 (Caria). Cf. I.Ephesos 3062 for a whole family of rhetors who held other offices too.
The proposer of an honorific decree is usually identified by the verb εἶπεν, already in the Classical Athenian decrees. Other verbs used for proposers of honours include ἐμφανίζει (= displays, presents), ἀπελογίσατο (= gave an account), or εἰσηγήσατο (= made a proposal).
[ back ] 12. The formula ‘τίσιν δεῖ τιμαῖς τιμηθῆναι’ appears in other decrees for foreign judges sent to Iasos: I.Iasos 76 ( two Rhodian judges and a secretary), I.Iasos 77 (judges from Mylasa?), and IK Priene 109 (Prienian judge and secretary).
[ back ] 13. IK Priene 108, ll. 16-17: ὁ δῆμος τοὺς καλοὺς καὶ ἀγαθοὺς τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἐπαινεῖ τε καὶ τιμᾶι. According to Gengler 2017, 38 “the vote performs the praise of the city.” It is through the vote itself that the citizens endorsed the validity of the proposal and recognised the honourability of the honorand. Cf. idem 2017, 33 that the voting constitutes the official acknowledgement implied by the word ἐπαινέσαι.
[ back ] 15. See Argyriou 2024a on the written testimonies and the oral witness of the honorand’s virtues and actions.
[ back ] 16. IK Priene 108, l. 2 and l. 37. We cannot tell if Hekataios had any particular personal interest in this mission and the initial proposal for honours, as may have been often the case with proposers of honorific decrees.
[ back ] 17. See Chaniotis 2016a for the distinction between the speaker who was member or not of the decision-making body. Rubinstein 2013 has pointed out that the envoy was speaking as a mouth-piece of the community that sent him out. The foreign listeners were likely to relate both to the personality that he projected in his speech, and to the perceived character of the community that he represented. Proxenoi or celebrities such as philosophers, actors, and poets could be sent out as envoys, as shown by numerous honorific decrees from many Greek poleis. See Argyriou 2024b for professionals sent as envoys.
[ back ] 18. The dispatch of envoys who gave oral accounts of the content of the honorific decree is mentioned in the motivation clause: ψήφισμα καὶ πρεσβευτὰ]ς̣ ἀ̣ποστεί[λα]ντες Ἑκ[αταῖο]ν Πο̣σ̣[ειδ]ίππου[καὶ Μενέξενον Κυδίου ἐμφανίζουσιν (ll. 39-40). The Iasian envoys appeared before the assembly of Priene and presented orally the content of the written decree: ἐπελθόντες δὲ καὶ οἱ πρεσβευταὶ ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν διελέγησαν ἀκολούθως τοῖς ἐν τῶι ψηφίσματι γεγραμμένοις.
[ back ] 19. FD III 4:163 (c. 200 BC), ll. 15-20. The decree is discussed by Pounder 1978 and Gengler 2017, 38-40.
[ back ] 21. These terms appear quite often in funerary inscriptions already from Classical Athens, an idea which goes back to the epideictic funerary orations known from the Attic orators. The only other attestations – outside the funerary context – of the terms εὐλογία/εὐλογέω are relevant to the work of poets or are attributed to gods: See e.g. IG XII,4 1:18 for the poet Ion of Chios, or I.Didyma 118 for Artemis.
[ back ] 23. Gengler 2017, 38, before describing the main steps of the honouring procedure, has noted: “Few direct or indirect evidences at our disposal give us an insight into the usual procedure for delivering honours in 3rd and 2nd cent. BC Athens, which was not essentially different for the highest honours than for less exceptional gratifications. Reduced to its fundamental principle, the procedure, which was probably the same in most of the Greek cities, may be summarized as follows.”
[ back ] 24. Colmo 2021, 442 argued that the capacity of virtue for benevolence is not mentioned in the NicomacheanEthics. The virtues as described in Rhetoric complement those of NE and show an active concern for the varied audiences of the rhetor, not as a morally neutral presentation, but so that the knowledge of virtues allow rhetors to speak persuasively to others. Idem, 443: “Perhaps, the Rhetoric emphasizes benevolence to entice the goodwill of the audience, which would attract them to virtue.”
[ back ] 26. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1.9.3: ἀγαθὸν γὰρ ὂν ἐπαινετόν ἐστιν. Cf. ibid, 1.9.17: καὶ τὰ ἁπλῶς ἀγαθά, ὅσα ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος τις ἐποίησε, παριδὼν τὸ αὑτοῦ (= things absolutely good, which a man has done for the sake of his country, while neglecting his own interests). The notion of doing good things for the sake of one’s polis, and not for his own sake, is particularly stressed in Hellenistic honorific decrees: see e.g., I.Erythrai 23, ll. 10-12: προθύμως δὲ ἑα[υ]τοὺς ἐπιδιδόντ<ε>ς εἰς τὸ καὶ λέγειν καὶ πράττειν τὰ τῆι πόλ[ει] συμφέροντα. Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1.9.4-5. Actions are signs of moral attitude. And arete is defined as “a faculty of providing and preserving good things, a faculty productive of many and great benefits, in fact, of all things in all cases […] The greatest virtues are necessarily those that are most useful to others, if virtue is the faculty of conferring benefits” (ἀρετὴ δ᾿ ἐστὶ μὲν δύναμις, ὡς δοκεῖ, ποριστικὴ ἀγαθῶν καὶ φυλακτική, καὶ δύναμις εὐεργετικὴ πολλῶν καὶ μεγάλων, καὶ πάντων |περὶ πάντα […] ἀνάγκη δὲ μεγίστας εἶναι ἀρετὰς τὰς τοῖς ἄλλοις χρησιμωτάτας, εἴπερ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀρετὴ δύναμις εὐεργετική).
[ back ] 27. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1.9.35: ἔχει δὲ κοινὸν εἶδος ὁ ἔπαινος καὶ αἱ συμβουλαί. ἃ γὰρ ἐν τῷ συμβουλεύειν ὑπόθοιο ἄν, ταῦτα μετατεθέντα τῇ λέξει ἐγκώμια γίγνεται (= praise and counsels have a common aspect; for what you might suggest in counselling becomes encomium by a change in the phrase). Cf. Rhetoric to Alexander 3.1: Συλλήβδην μὲν οὖν ἐστιν ἐγκωμιαστικὸν εἶδος προαιρέσεων καὶ πράξεων καὶ λόγων ἐνδόξων αὔξησις καὶ μὴ προσόντων συνοικείωσις (= In short, the species of praise is an amplification of reputable choices, acts, and words and an appropriation of those that are not present).Cf. Pernot 2015, 210: “The encomium is particularly effective in setting forth models. […] Its function was to reaffirm and constantly to recreate the consensus of prevailing values.” It was under the Second Sophistic that treatises exclusively devoted to the encomium appeared for the first time. The Imperial period also witnessed the development of encomiastic competitions (see Pernot 2015, 14-15). However, both deliberative and forensic speeches may have epideictic elements. See Aristotle’s Rhetoric 1.2.22 for the three forms of rhetoric corresponding to three kinds of listeners. Cf. Rhetoric to Alexander 17.1 for the three genres of speeches, i.e. δημηγορικόν, ἐπιδεικτικόν, δικανικόν. Kremmydas 2013, 148-149 rightly pointed out that “as in the oratory of the Classical period, the extant evidence for oratory in the Hellenistic period suggests that the boundaries separating the oratorical speeches were not watertight.” Aristotle’s tripartite categorisation should only be taken as a rough guide to the different performative occasions where skills of persuasion are called for and the diverse oratorical conventions employed in different contexts. Kremmydas 2013, 149 criticizes Wooten’s (1972, 2) suggestion that e.g. epideictic oratory established itself in the East, in Rhodes, and in Asia Minor as: “rather restrictive and seems to be making arbitrary distinctions along geographical lines.” Rubinstein 2013, 174 through her examination of the epigraphical evidence of envoys’ speeches, has argued that some of their speeches were of a symbouleutic nature, i.e. based on rational argumentation, but it cannot be ruled out that their oratory had functioned merely as “epideictic icing on a cake of real negotiations that had already taken place backstage, and thus that the speeches should be interpreted by us more as part of an important ritual in interstate relations than as actual contributions to the political debate in the assemblies.” Rubinstein (forthcoming), 13 argues that the type of speech that we find reflected in honorific decrees is “a cross between at least two genres and very likely all three of them.”
[ back ] 28. For the topos of origin (homeland, family, ancestors), see Pernot 2015, 32. The long “biographical” decrees are “syncopated orations,” according to Chaniotis 2016a, 132.
[ back ] 31. See Filonik et alii 2020 for the making of identities in Athenian oratory.
[ back ] 32. See Rubinstein 2013, 197 for the topos in the Classical oratory that the example to be emulated is not just that of neighbours and rivals, but that of past generations.
[ back ] 34. Chaniotis 2013a has noted that the Hellenistic decrees convey “a cross-pollination of oratory, drama, and historiography, and between politics and theatre.”
[ back ] 37. E.g., SEG 32:1243, ll. 10-12. Cf. MDAI(A) 32 (1907), 278, 11 (Pergamon, late 2nd c. BC., for Straton the gymnasiarch), l. 14: ἀε̣ίμνηστος ὑπὸ τῶν εὐπαθόντων ἔπαι[νος.
[ back ] 38. The term is very unusual in the epigraphical evidence. It is attested in a decree of Stratonikeia concerning a miracle of Zeus Panamaros at the time of attack of the Parthians: I.Stratonikeia 10 + II 2 p.35, l. 13: ἀναβοών[των] μεγάλῃ τῇ φωνῇ Μέγαν εἶναι Δία Πανάμαρον. But there are variants. See e.g. I.Kaunos 30, l.4 (ὁ δῆμος μετὰ τῆς βουλῆς ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἐπεβοήσατο); Aphrodisias 15, l.5 (τοῦ δήμου ἐπεβόησαν [πάντες); TAM II 905, ll. 19-20: (βουλὴ ἐπεβοήσατο τὸ ψήφισμα δι̣α̣γ̣ραφῆναι ὑπὲρ Ὀπραμόα).
[ back ] 47. E.g. IG VII 2712: πανδημ[ε]ὶ [ἀ]πήντησαν οἱ [πο]λεῖται πᾶσαν φιλοτειμίαν καὶ εὐχαριστίαν ἐνδει[κ]νύμενοι; Meletemata 11 K2: τὴν ἑστίασιν καὶ εὐωχίαν μεγαλομερῆ παρέσχετο καὶ λαϊ̣κῶς πανδημεὶ δειπνίζων; EKM 1. Beroia 114: τὸν γυμνασίαρχον ἀλείψαντα καὶ λούσαντα δι’ ὅλης ἡμέρας πανδημεί; IG XII,7 35: {καὶ π[α]ρήνγειλεν} <πορεύεσθαι> εἰς τὴν ἑορτὴν Ἀρκεσινεῖς πάντας καὶ ξένους τοὺς παρεπιδημοῦντας, καὶ ἐλθόντων εἰς τὴν ἑορτὴν ἑξακοσίων, φιλότιμος γεγέν[ητ]α[ι] καὶ [εἱ]στίασεν[λ]αμπρῶς ἡμέρας ἕξ, παρέχων παρ’ αὑτο[ῦ] [πά]ντα; IG V,1 1432: καὶ ἐμφανιζόντων πάντων ὁμοθυμαδόν, ὅτι δεῖ δοθῆμεν Ἀριστοκλεῖ διὰ τὰ προγεγραμμένα πάντα τὰς καταξίους τιμάς, οἱ πολῖται πάντες ἐπηνέχθησαν δοθῆμεν αὐτῶι τιμὰν ἀνδριάντα καὶ εἰκόνας γραπτὰς δύο. Ma 2024, 454-455 comments that “Polis ideology is fraught with contradictions, in spite of the robustness with which it is professed and performed. Decision-making institutions are set up for deliberation, indeed conflictual debate, but the goal is the presentation of decision as consensual and universally accepted. Decrees, at least in their published, permanent form, present motivations that are unitary and claim simple, universally accepted truths, and move on to decisions and procedures; disagreement or adversaries are unnamed, appearing as τινές, ‘some people’.”
