Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus' Eumenides 778-891

Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus's Eumenides 778–891 Allannah Karas Rhetorica, Volume 41, Number 1, Winter 2023, pp. 1-30 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/rht.2023.0000 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/885553 [ Access provided at 17 Apr 2023 20:54 GMT from University of Miami ] A llAnnAh K ArAs Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 Abstract: In early Greek theoretical descriptions of rhetoric peithō and logos both emerge as crucial elements. However, historical scholarship on rhetoric has generally focused on logos at the cost of any sufficient understanding of peithō. This essay examines peithō within a text that predates the descriptions of rhetoric formulated by Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle—Aeschylus’s Ores­ teia. I argue that, throughout the speeches of Athena at Eumenides 778–891, Aeschylus displays highly sophisticated argumentative techniques (forms of logos) that anticipate principles outlined in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. At the same time, Aeschylus highlights peithō as an essential characteristic of Athena’s rhetorical effectiveness. In so doing, Aeschylus prepares the way (in practice) for what Greek sophists and philosophers will later articulate (in theory): that logos and peithō are inseparable and equally important components of effective rhetoric. Keywords: peithō, logos, Aeschylus, Eumenides, Aristotle, Gorgias, Plato I ntroductIon espite their differences, Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle all describe rhetoric (understood here as the ideas and underlying principles of a prose discourse used in the late fifth and early fourth century bce for civic speech) in terms of logos (speech, argument, rational discourse) and peithō (persuasive force, inducement, conviction).1 Gorgias speaks of “the inducement (ἡ πειθώ) D 1 I would like to acknowledge the feedback I received from participants at the Society for Classical Studies, the International Society for the History of Rhetoric, and the Rhetorica 41.1 (1–30). © 2023 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. ISSN: 0734-8584, E-ISSN: 1533-8541. 2 RHETORICA belonging to speech (τῷ λόγῳ),” (Gorgias, Encomium of Helen, 13).2 In Plato, rhētorikē is explicitly defined as “the ability to convince (πείθειν) with speeches (τοῖς λόγοις),” (Plato, Gorgias 452e1), or as “the producer of conviction (πειθοῦς),” (Pl. Grg. 453a1).3 Aristotle also defines rhetoric as the ability to identify arguments (the pisteis, forms of logos) that can effect peithō, that is “the available means of persuasion,” (τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον πιθανόν, Aristotle, Rhetoric 1355b25–26).4 Thus, both peithō and logos emerge as essential elements of early Greek theoretical descriptions of rhetoric. While the term logos has received ample attention in modern scholarship (as in work by Enos, Timmerman, Schiappa, Kennedy, Reames, and others),5 peithō has not been sufficiently incorporated into the history of ancient Greek rhetoric. The understudied nature Classical Association of the Atlantic States, where I presented various versions of these ideas. Many thanks also to Dee Clayman, Joel Lidov, Lawrence Kowerski, and Victor Bers for their support of this project in its earliest stages, and to the reviewers and editors of Rhetorica for help towards its completion. 2 Text ed. and trans. André Laks and Glenn W. Most, Early Greek Philosophy, vol. 8, Loeb Classical Library 531 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). Translations of Gorgias are my own unless otherwise noted. 3 Plato, Gorgias 452e1: τὸ πείθειν . . . οἷόν τ᾽εἶναι τοῖς λόγοις. Also, Grg. 453a1–2: εἴ τι ἐγὼ συνίημι, λέγεις ὅτι πειθοῦς δημιουργός ἐστιν ἡ ῥητορική, καὶ ἡ πραγματεία αὐτῆς ἅπασα καὶ τὸ κεφάλαιον εἰς τοῦτο τελευτᾷ (“If I at all take your meaning, you say that rhetoric is a producer of persuasion, and has therein its whole business and main consummation,” text ed. Martinus Schanz in Platonis Gorgias, Meno, Platonis opera quae feruntur omnia, vol. 8 [Leipzig, DE, Taushnitz, 1881], trans. Walter R. M. Lamb in Plato, Lysis, Syposium, Gorgias, Loeb Classical Library 166 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932]). On this first extant definition of rhētorikē and its historical importance, see Edward Schiappa, The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 14–29; also, David M. Timmerman and Edward Schiappa, Classical Greek Rhetori­ cal Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 9–10. 4 Rhetoric 1355b25–26: δύναμις περὶ ἕκαστον τοῦ θεωρῆσαι τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον πιθανόν (“the ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion,” text ed. William D. Ross in Aristotelis ars rhetorica [Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press, 1964], trans. George Kennedy in Aristotle: On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse [New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007]). Unless otherwise noted, all translations of Aristotle are from Kennedy. 5 See Richard L. Enos, Greek Rhetoric before Aristotle (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1993); Timmerman and Schiappa, Greek Rhetorical Theory; George A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); and Robin Reames, ed. and intro., and Edward Schiappa, afterword, Logos without Rhetoric: The Arts of Language before Plato (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2017). Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 3 of peithō may mirror apparent linguistic preferences made by late fifth century and fourth century sophists and philosophers, who more frequently discuss logos and rhētorikē. Or it may be rooted in peithō’s elusive qualities from her magical, erotic heritage as a lesser daughter of Aphrodite, or from the rather simplistic but common translation of peithō as “persuasion.” Yet, none of these reasons warrant neglect of peithō within the conceptual development of rhetoric in ancient Greece. This paper, then, examines peithō within a text that predates the descriptions of rhetoric formulated by Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle: Aeschylus’s Oresteia, which was first performed in 458 bce. In particular, I analyze what may be considered the last “act” of the drama, where, during a heated agonistic exchange, peithō works to seal the effectiveness of Athena’s argument upon her interlocutors, the Erinyes. I argue that, throughout the speeches of Athena at Eumenides 778–891, Aeschylus displays highly sophisticated argumentative techniques (forms of logos) that anticipate principles outlined in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. At the same time, Aeschylus highlights peithō as the sine qua non of Athena’s rhetorical effectiveness. In so doing, I argue, Aeschylus prepares the way (in practice) for what Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle will later articulate (in theory): that logos and peithō are inseparable and equally important components of effective rhetoric. At the same time, this paper provides a platform for further study of Aeschylean drama and peithō within the early developments of rhetoric in ancient Greece. While this scene of Aeschylus’s Eumenides has been culled for rhetorical and political relevance by many others, scholarly discussions have largely focused on the significance of Athena’s establishment of the democratic court of law or on the justice of her approach to the Erinyes, given her use of speech rather than physical violence.6 Few, if any, have situated Athena’s argumentative The following analyze this scene in depth, but without reference to later definitions of rhetoric: R. G. A. Buxton, Persuasion in Greek Tragedy: A Study of Peitho (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 109–114; Pietro Pucci, “Πειθώ nell’ Or­ estea di Eschilo,” Museum Criticum 26 (1994): 75–138; Rebecca Futo Kennedy, “Justice, Geography and Empire in Aeschylus’ ‘Eumenides,’” Classical Antiquity 25, no.1 (2006): 64–65, https://doi.org/10.1525/ca.2006.25.1.35; Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Athena’s Jus­ tice: Athena, Athens and the Concept of Justice in Greek Tragedy (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2009), 36–37; and, Nicholas Rynearson, “Courting the Erinyes: Persuasion, Sacrifice, and Seduction in Aeschylus’s ‘Eumenides,’” Transactions of the American Phil­ ological Association 143, no.1 (2013): 1–22, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43830250. 6 4 RHETORICA process within the conceptual development of rhetoric given the dual presence of peithō and astute pre-Aristotelian argumentation (logos).7 This, however, is precisely what this paper sets out to do. The correspondence between Aeschylus and Aristotle at Eumenides 778–891 underscores the dramatist’s facility with what Aristotle will later call pisteis (the modes of persuasion), and in doing so, contributes to scholarship on the existence of pre-disciplinary rhetorical technique.8 At the same time, as shall be seen, peithō frames this entire argumentative process (logos) and seems to be a primary agent behind Athena’s success. In this way, for one of the first times in an ancient Greek text, peithō’s presence and power is explicit, noticeable, and directly involved with well-crafted logos; and, as Timmerman and Schiappa write: “the introduction of terms of art within a given community of language users is an important development warranting the attention of historians.”9 Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891, I argue, foreshadows and perhaps contributes to the gradual evolution of peithō into a “term of art,” that is, part of the “metalinguistic vocabulary”10 that will appear together with 7 These scholars, for example, make reference to the scene, but without emphasizing the dual presence of logos and peithō: George A. Kennedy, The Art of Persua­ sion in Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 6, 28, 41–43; Viktor Jarcho, “Aischylos bei den Anfängen der griechischen Rhetorik,” Eikasmos 3 (1992): 69–73; Thomas Cole, The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 101; Stephen Usher, Greek Oratory: Tradition and Originality (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999), 16–17; Laurent Pernot, Rhetoric in Antiquity (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 8–9; Kennedy, A New History, 14–15; and David Sansone, Greek Drama and the Inven­ tion of Rhetoric (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2012), 119–146. 8 On the pre-history of rhetoric in earlier literature and drama with analyses that refer to Aristotle and others, see Octave Navarre, Essai sur la rhétorique grecque avant Aristotle (Paris, FR: Hachette, 1900); Neil O’Sullivan, Alcidamas, Aristophanes, and the Beginnings of Greek Stylistic Theory, Hermes. Einzelschriften, Heft 60 (Stuttgart, DE: F. Steiner, 1992), 1–20; Christoph Riedweg, “Der Tragödiendichter als Rhetor? Redestrategien in Euripides’ Hekabe und ihr Verhältnis zur zeitgenössischen Rhetoriktheorie,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Neue Folge, 143, no. 1 (2000): 1–32, https:// www.jstor.org/stable/41234441; Jacques A. Bromberg, “Tragic Persuasion and Early Greek Rhetoric,” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2009); Wilfred E. Major, The Court of Comedy: Aristophanes, Rhetoric, and Democracy in Fifth-Century Athens (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2013); and, Rachel A. Knudsen, Homeric Speech and the Origins of Rhetoric (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2014), 1–14, 40–42. 9 Timmerman and Schiappa, Greek Rhetorical Theory, 8. 10 Many scholars ascribe to the so-called nominalist approach which emphasizes the emergence of “terms of art” within the conceptual development of ancient Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 5 logos in the early theories of rhētorikē. As such, the nuanced nature of Athena’s logos and the magic of peithō in this scene are deserving of closer consideration. I begin with a brief survey of scholarship on the history of rhetoric, its preference for logos-based accounts, and recent movements towards incorporating peithō more firmly within this historiography. I also situate this article within earlier studies of peithō in the Oresteia, and particularly at the end of Eumenides. I then briefly contextualize my study through a brief survey of peithō’s mythopoetic tradition and her presence in the Oresteia, particularly throughout the interaction between Athena and the Erinyes at the end. Through a close analysis of Eumenides 778–891, I demonstrate how Athena’s speeches look forward to categories of deliberative argument and modes of persuasion articulated much later by Aristotle. Also, due to its irresistible and magical nature, peithō emerges as the force that ultimately brings Athena success. By staging the power of peithō working through, and rendering effective, carefully crafted proto-Aristotelian logos, Aeschylus thus lays the groundwork for the incorporation of both terms into early definitions of rhētorikē. A pproAchIng r hetorIc : P eithō, L ogos, A eschylus, And A rIstotle In this section I give a brief overview of possible causes, both ancient and modern, behind the neglect of peithō within the history of ancient Greek rhetoric. At the same time, I point towards Greek rhetoric. For example, Reames, “Introduction” in Reames and Schiappa, Logos without Rhetoric, 6, describes “terms of art” as: “the specific terminology that was not only prioritized and prominent prior to the prioritization of the term rhētorikē, but also indispensable for the full-fledged development of rhetorical theory proper.” Similarly, Timmerman and Schiappa, Greek Rhetorical Theory, 15, write that “a theory of X becomes explicit when definitive statements of the form ‘X is Y,’ ‘X does Y,’ and so on can be identified.” On “metalinguistic vocabulary,” see Edward Schiappa, “Afterword: Persistent Questions in the Historiography of Early Greek Rhetorical Theory,” in Reames and Schiappa, Logos without Rhetoric, 138. While Aeschylus may not be seeking to classify or teach, this series of speeches could definitely be provoking further conceptualization, which in turn contributes to the development of thoughts and ideas around rhetoric. 6 RHETORICA scholarship that has invited further investigation into this term, and scholarship which also examines peithō within the Oresteia. I build on this previous work in my examination of Aeschylus’s Eumenides in order to mark out a singular path towards further investigation of peithō as a power separate from, and yet operating in tandem with, logos. The tendency to privilege logos over peithō in the history of rhetoric may find its roots in antiquity. During the fifth century, words relating to love and passion (particularly erōs, but also peithō), were used to describe both the larger social bond and the relationship between political orators and their audience.11 As a result, as Karadimas notes, “[e]ros becames an indispensable and central constituent of a sound rhetorical theory.”12 The popularity of erotic terminology would also have been beneficial for fostering connections between peithō and the art of civic speech. Yet, when this popularity waned around the time of the fourth century, so also would have that of peithō.13 The gradual disuse of peithō in discussions on the art of 11 For an extensive study of erotic dynamics between Pericles and the Athenian people, see Victoria Wohl, Love among the Ruins: The Erotics of Democracy in Classical Athens (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 30–72. See also Paul W. Ludwig, Eros and Polis: Desire and Community in Greek Political Theory (Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 141–153. For more on erōs within fifth century Athenian politics and rhetoric, see James Fredal, Rhetorical Action in Ancient Athens: Persuasive Artistry from Solon to Demosthenes (Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), 57–62, and Dimitrios Karadimas, Eros and Rhetoric: From Gorgias to Plato, Scripta minora Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis; 2007–2008:2 (Lund, SE: Kungliga Humanistiska vetenskapssamfundet, 2008), 7–57. 12 Karadimas, Eros and Rhetoric, 56. For more on peithō’s evolution towards rhetoric due to her association with erōs, see Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, The Route of Parmenides: A Study of Word, Image and Argument in the Fragments (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970), 139; and Robert Wardy, The Birth of Rhetoric: Gor­ gias, Plato, and Their Successors (New York, NY: Routledge, 1996). 13 On the attempted separation of erotic magic from rhetoric, see Jacqueline de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece, Carl Newell Jackson Lectures, 1974 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 47–66, as well as Ludwig, Eros and Polis, 151, and Karadimas, Eros and Rhetoric, 26–27. Regardless of the reason, after the fifth century BCE, the term peithō seems to become replaced by (or, at least, used much less frequently than) logos and rhētorikē. For example, in Plato’s Phaedrus the word λόγος is used 164 times, ῥητορική (14), and πειθώ, only 4 times; in Isocrates’s Against the Sophists the words under consideration occur as follows: λόγος (15), ῥητορεία—not ῥητορική—(1), and πειθώ (0); and in Aristotle’s Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 7 persuasive political speech in antiquity very likely explains the modern scholarly neglect as well. Additionally, the common English translation of peithō as “persuasion” implies a drawn-out process involving speech: implications that the noun peithō, in Greek, does not necessarily possess. Peithō is perhaps better understood to mean “agreeable compulsion” or “inducement.” Merely referring to peithō as “persuasion,” then, not only clouds the meaning of the term but may also lie behind the hesitancy to discuss peithō and logos as separate entities. It is likely that, due to this conflation, studies of peithō became absorbed by logos-centric approaches to the history of rhetoric.14 As a result, even historians of rhetoric who acknowledge more nuanced translations of peithō tend to refer to the term briefly in their introductions, but without further elaboration. For example, Kennedy writes: “Before the word ‘rhetoric’ came into use in Greek, its closest equivalent was peithō, ‘persuasion,’ the power in logos.”15 Nonetheless, aside from a brief additional reference to peithō and rhētorikē in Plato’s Gorgias, he does not address the term any further.16 This limited analysis seems relatively typical in histories of rhetoric, whether they be “thematic” (such as Kennedy’s), “author/ text-centered” (such as Ballif and Moran’s), or “concept driven” Rhetoric: λόγος (15), ῥητορική (about 30), and πειθώ only once, within a quotation (Rh. 1406a4). 14 For examples of translations of peithō that seem to conflate peithō and logos, see Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion, 7; George A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric & Its Christian & Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times, 2nd ed. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 1–2; Edward P. J. Corbett and Robert J. Connors, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, 4th ed. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), 490; Michelle Ballif and Michael. G. Moran, Clas­ sical Rhetorics and Rhetoricians: Critical Studies and Sources (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005), 5–6; Jonathan Pratt, “On the Threshold of Rhetoric: Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen,” Classical Antiquity 34, no. 1 (2015): 163–182, https://doi.org/10.1525/ca. 2015.34.1.163. 15 Kennedy, A New History, 12. 16 Similarly, in Thomas O. Sloane, Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press, 2001), peithō is only referred to once (s.v. “Classical Rhetoric” [94, col. 1]). Pernot, Rhetoric in Antiquity, 8, by contrast, refers to the importance of the peithō, but primarily as it personifies or symbolizes a certain human or supernatural power and not more than that. See also Laurent Pernot, “The Rhetoric of Religion,” in New Chapters in the History of Rhetoric, ed. Laurent Pernot and Craig Kallendorf (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2009), 337–338. 8 RHETORICA (such as Sloane’s).17 The term logos, by contrast, often takes center stage in such studies.18 Despite these trends, however, some scholars have emphasized the need to return to peithō in order to better understand the conceptual development of ancient Greek rhetoric. Kennerly and Woods, for instance, argue for the “generative” value of thinking of the discipline of rhetoric in terms of the goddess Peithō rather than with the iconography of Rhetorica.19 Also, Wright calls for the need to look at peithō (and other personifications) precisely “to better understand the contributions of early theorists of lo­ gos.”20 Yet, ironically, few if any studies on peithō done by classicists and art historians aim at ensconcing the term within the history of rhetoric.21 Along with Wright, Kennerly, Woods, and others, however, I believe that we must return to a study of peithō itself, but also in conjunction with logos, considering both as separate powers that nonetheless work in concert and, indeed, end up 17 This categorization of different types of rhetorical histories comes from Timmerman and Schiappa, Greek Rhetorical Theory, 2–3. 18 Other logos-centric approaches include John Poulakos, Sophistical Rhetoric in Classical Greece, Studies in Rhetoric/Communication (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1993), 53–73; and James J. Murphy, Richard A. Katula, Forbes I. Hill, and Donovan J. Ochs, A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric, 3rd ed., revised (Mahwah, NJ: Hermagoras, 2003). 19 Michele Kennerly and Carly S. Woods, “Moving Rhetorica,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 48, no. 1 (2017): 22; https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2017.1315445. This important work, however, limits itself to arguing for the goddess Peithō’s symbolic importance to feminist rhetoric and rhetoric journals. Fredal, Rhetorical Action,152–154, also highlights the importance of peithō to the development of rhetoric, but only briefly. He also primarily notes the opposition between this concept and the traditional logos-centered understanding of civil rhetoric rather than tracing any possible confluence between them. 20 Mark H. Wright, “Greek Mythic Conceptions of Persuasion,” Rosenberg Quarterly: The Magazine, ISSA Proceedings 1998, https://rozenbergquarterly.com/ ?s=Greek+Mythic+Conceptions+of+Persuasion. 21 As examples of such studies, see Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, “Le culte de la persuasion: Peithô en Grèce ancienne,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 208, no. 4 (octobre-décembre 1991): 395–413, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23671132; Harvey Allen Shapiro, Personifications in Greek Art: The Representation of Abstract Concepts, 600–400 B.C. (Zürich, CH: Akanthus, 1993); Noëlle Icard-Gianolio, “Commentaire on the Entry ‘Peitho,’” in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, (Zurich, DE: Artemis-Verlag, 1994): 7: 242–250; Emma J. Stafford, Worshipping Virtues: Personifi­ cation and the Divine in Ancient Greece (Oakville, CT: Duckworth, 2000) 111–145; and Amy C. Smith, Polis and Personification in Classical Athenian Art, Monumenta Graeca et Romana 19 (London, GB: Brill, 2011), 55–60. Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 9 equally indispensable to effective rhetoric.22 This approach more readily lends itself to a deeper understanding of theoretical descriptions articulated by Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle, and, thus provides more generative results for further studies in the history of rhetoric. I focus my work through the Oresteia of Aeschylus because, while many scholars have commented extensively on the prominence of peithō throughout the Oresteia (and particularly at the end of the Eumenides), their work typically remains in the realm of literary interpretation or political analysis.23 A few analyses of peithō in the Oresteia, however, have laid the foundation for this article and for future work such as that of Buxton, Persuasion in Greek Tragedy, and Pucci, “Πειθώ nell’ Orestea di Eschilo,” who also look closely at Eumenides 778–891.24 They, however, do not discuss the history of rhetoric or combine their assessments with a thorough rhetorical analysis of Athena’s speeches. Rynearson’s article, “Courting the Erinyes: Persuasion, Sacrifice, and Seduction in Aeschylus’s Eumenides,” perhaps aligns most closely with mine, given the way in which he examines evidence for amatory rhetoric in the last scenes of Aeschylus’s Eumenides. Yet, while he mentions peithō a few times, he also does not enter into conversation with others regarding these speeches and the history of rhetoric. I expand upon these studies by not only looking at the history of 22 P. Christopher Smith, “Poetic Πείθω as Original Speech,” in Logos and Muthos: Philosophical Essays in Greek Literature, ed. William Robert Wians, SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2009), 199, makes a clear distinction between the peithō of Greek tragedy and logical inference/ true causal argumentation, but focuses primarily on unpacking the nature of peithō from a philosophical perspective. 23 Examples of such analyses include: Stanley K. Bailey, “Recurrent Themes and Imagery in Aeschylus, with Special Reference to Peitho and Bia” (PhD diss., Kings College London, 1962); George M. Pepe, “Studies in Peitho” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1967); Anne Lebeck, The Oresteia: A Study in Language and Structure (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 1971), 20–21, 40–41; Nancy S. Rabinowitz, “From Force to Persuasion: Aeschylus’ Oresteia as Cosmogonic Myth,” Ramus 10, no. 2 (1981): 159–191, https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/ielapa.820910821; Bella Zweig, “Personifications in the ‘Oresteia’: Motivating Agents for the Dramatic Action” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1982); Francis I. Kane, “Peitho and the Polis,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 19, no. 2 (1986): 100–117, https://www. jstor.org/stable/40237469; Kennedy, Justice, Geography and Empire, 64–65 and Athe­ na’s Justice, 36–37. 24 See Buxton, Persuasion in Greek Tragedy, 105–114, and Pucci, “Πειθώ nell’ Or­ estea di Eschilo,” 75–138. 10 RHETORICA rhetoric, but by examining Eumenides 778–891 from the perspective of both Athena’s oratorical expertise and the powerful effects of peithō. My study of peithō and logos also includes reference to speech structures and modes of persuasion (pisteis) outlined later, in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Other scholars interested in the development of ancient Greek rhetoric have similarly brought Aristotle into their analyses of speeches in drama and poetic texts.25 Aristotle’s Rheto­ ric, while not representative of all ancient understandings of rhetoric, presents one of the earliest theoretical frameworks on the topic. As a collection of scholarly notes composed between 350–336 BCE, the Rhetoric explicates or compiles his theories based on practices of dramatists and sophists; he gives underlying principles for the techniques found in the texts and model speech handbooks of his predecessors. Aristotle compiled his Rhetoric from his knowledge of these older sources: the sophists, court speeches, and most extensively, tragic dialogue. Thus, even though Aristotle does not make any reference to the Oresteia (he quotes Aeschylus only once26), due to its comprehensive and clear categorizations, the Rhetoric offers a unique retrospective lens through which we can better appreciate the complex and innovative qualities of Athena’s speech in the last scenes of Eumenides. All this being said, as far as I am aware, no one has yet examined Eumenides 778–891 through the lens of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. My analysis thus responds to the call for a renewed study of peithō within the history of rhetoric, and approaches this study in innovative ways. In the first place, I focus my study on the series of speeches staged at the climactic moment of Aeschylus’s Eumenides. As I shall explain, both peithō and logos are present and working within in this scene: peithō, literally, and logos, in the form of Athena’s astute proto-Aristotelian argumentation. Furthermore, it is by analyzing how peithō and logos operate (and cooperate) throughout 25 See, for example, Knudsen, Homeric Speech, 1–16, 40–42. See also, Bromberg, “Tragic Persuasion,” 195–237. 26 On Aristotle’s reference to Aeschylus in the Rhetoric, see Dana L. Munteanu, “Aristotle’s Reception of Aeschylus: Reserved without Malice,” in Brill’s Com­ panion to the Reception of Aeschylus, ed. Rebecca Futo Kennedy (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2019), 102–103. On Aristotle’s preference for Sophocles over Aeschylus in the Rhet­ oric, see John T. Kirby, “Aristotle on Sophocles,” in A Companion to Sophocles, ed. Kirk Ormand (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2012), 411–423; yet, Kirby, reminds us that, in the Poetics, Aristotle gives credit to Aeschylus for increasing “the importance of spoken dialogue” (417). Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 11 this scene, that I begin to trace a line between the developing ideas and practice of rhetoric in Aeschylus and the theories about the art itself articulated later by sophists and philosophers. P eithō’s p resence And AthenA’s s peeches the c ontext of It is a curious fact that no extant Greek text before Aeschylus’s Eumenides provides a clear example of the abstract noun or goddess Peithō being invoked in connection with civic oratory or a process of logical argumentation, although later orators such as Demosthenes, Aeschines, and others will do so.27 From pre-Aeschylean vase paintings, poetic texts, and evidence for cult worship, peithō can be identified as a not entirely forceful, but nearly irresistible, pre-rational power indispensable to the act of winning over another, whether in private erotic situations or civic engagement. As a daughter or attendant of Aphrodite (Sappho frag. 23),28 Peithō’s main function involved the nurturing or embodiment of some sort of inherently lovable quality that dwells within a young individual and virtually guarantees them success in their erotic endeavors.29 Yet, at the same time, the power of peithō (as also with erōs) functioned within Greek poetry and cult practice as a vitally important component to private relationships and social cohesion.30 Peithō was even worshiped as civic deity (along with Aphrodite) at a sanctuary near the civic center of Athens.31 And, earlier in the Oresteia, Aeschylus depicts 27 Homer, for instance, depicts many scenes of persuasion, and refers to the verbal form of peithō several times, but not once to the abstract noun or personified goddess. Before the Oresteia, Aeschylus does stage a scene in the Suppliants where King Pelasgus asks Peithō’s intercession just before going to speak publicly to his people (Aeschylus, Suppliants 523), but the content or persuasive process of his speech is not displayed on stage. Later evidence for invocations and references to Peithō with regard to civic speeches include Demosthenes (Prooem. 54), Isocrates (Antid. 249.1–6), and Aeschines (In Ctes. 256). 28 Sappho frag. 23, in Sappho et Alcaeus. Fragmenta, ed. Eva-Maria Voigt. Amsterdam, NL: Polak & van Gennep, 1971. Hereafter, quotations and citations to fragments of Sappho refer to the Voigt edition. 29 See Hesiod, Works and Days 73–74; Ibycus frag. 288, in Poetarum melicorum Graecorum fragmenta, ed. Malcolm Davies (Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press, 1992). 30 For a very comprehensive discussion of Peithō as a civic personification, see Stafford, Worshipping Virtues, 127–129, and also Smith, Polis and Personification, 55–58. 31 On material evidence and other documentation for this cult, see Stafford, Worshipping Virtues, 127–129; Rachel Rosenzweig, Worshipping Aphrodite: Art and Cult 12 RHETORICA peithō directly involved in moments of effective winning over accomplished by Clytemnestra over her husband Agamemnon (Ag. 385, 943) and Orestes over his mother Clytemnestra (Cho. 726–729). Yet, even these passages do not stage the extended32 and masterful piece of civic oratory that Aeschylus presents at Eumenides 778–891. This scene, then, is noteworthy given its important theatrical moment and the presence of peithō throughout. At this point in the Oresteia, the Erinyes have been lamenting the injustice of Orestes’s acquittal during the trial in the new Athenian court of law. The Erinyes consider the decision a personal offense and threaten to retaliate by obliterating the city. At stake in Athena’s speeches, then, are the preservation of Athens, a peaceful pact between variant generations of gods, and, apparently, the ultimate resolution of the trilogy as a whole. Athena must not only get the Erinyes to submit to the court decision and relent from their anger, but to acquiesce to a new role within the world involving complete submission to the jurisdiction of Zeus. It is here, into this complex civic situation, that peithō acts within and upon the civic speech of Athena. Something special is happening at Eumenides 778–891: words related to peithō appear multiple times throughout Athena’s process of winning over the Erinyes. In the first line of her first speech to the Erinyes, Athena says (Eum. 794): “Be persuaded (πίθεσθε) by me to not bear it with heavy groaning.”33 Early on in her next speech (Eum. 826), she again utters the verbal form, urging the Erinyes to “trust” (πέποιθα)—as she does—in Zeus, and therefore in her as well. Athena implicitly repeats this request three lines later (Eum. 829) when she suggests that the Erinyes be “obedient” (εὐπιθής) in this matter. Athena finishes all of her work with a gracious invocation and song of thanksgiving to the goddess Peithō herself. First, she asks in Classical Athens (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004), 14–19; and Smith, Polis and Personification, 55–56. 32 On the comparative length of Athena’s speeches to the Erinyes (over a hundred lines in full speeches or songs averaging about thirteen or fourteen lines each) and how this distinguishes Eumenides 778–891 from other persuasive moments in the drama (e.g., Ag. 931–974 and Cho. 892–929), see Oliver Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy (Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press, 1977), 407–410. 33 Aeschylus Eumenides 794: ἐμοὶ πίθεσθε μὴ βαρυστόνως φέρειν. Texts of Aeschylus are taken from Aeschyli septem quae supersunt tragoedias, ed. Denys Page, Scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca Oxoniensis (Oxford, GB: Clarendon Press, 1972). All translations of Aeschylus are my own unless otherwise indicated. Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 13 the Erinyes to revere the goddess Peithō and acquiesce to her power (Eum. 885–887). And after winning the Erinyes over, Athena confirms her debt to Peithō in a lyric stanza where she sings (Eum. 970– 972): “I am grateful to the eyes of Peithō, that her glance kept watch over my tongue and mouth when I encountered their [the Erinyes’] fierce refusal.”34 In sum, Athena makes a conscious effort to harness the power of peithō throughout her work. Given peithō’s pervasive (and potentially unprecedented) presence within a set of astute civic speeches in a Greek text, and given the multilayered significance of this moment in the Oresteia, this scene, Athena’s persuasion, and all the details of logos and peithō within it present themselves as worthy of close re-examination. It is to Athena’s process of argumentation (logos) to which we turn next. A eschyleAn L ogos: A ntIcIpAtIng A rIstotle Many have noted the importance of the speeches at Eumenides 778–891 to the history of rhetoric due to their setting on the Acropolis just after Athena’s establishment of the Athenian court of law. Yet, as I will demonstrate in this section, Athena’s speeches in this scene reveal such mastery and craft that they also anticipate later articulated principles of deliberative speech and the modes of persuasion (pisteis) of Aristotle’s Rhetoric. As such they can be understood as a highly developed example of logos that, when combined with peithō, present, in practice, a blueprint for later theoretical descriptions of the art of rhētorikē. Certain principles of the Rhetoric are particularly relevant to my examination of Athena’s argument, among them Aristotle’s descriptions of deliberative speech, the basics of speech structure, and the three modes of persuasion. Aristotle names three different types of speech, deliberative, judicial, and epideictic (Arist., Rh. 1358b7–8), categorized according to the different speech situations, audiences, time, manner, and ultimate end or purpose. Aristotle also presents the pisteis or modes of persuasion, as core to all rhetorical speech. The extrinsic means of persuasion come from pre-existing external evidence such as laws, witnesses, contracts, torture, or oaths (Rh. 1355b35–37). The so-called “internal” or “artistic” pisteis are the 34 Eum. 970–972: στέργω δ᾽ ὄμματα Πειθοῦς, / ὅτι μοι γλῶσσαν καὶ στόμ᾽ ἐπωπᾷ / πρὸς τάσδ᾽ ἀγρίως ἀπανηναμένας. 14 RHETORICA familiar modes of persuasion and argument through ēthos, pathos, and logos (Rh. 1355b37–39). Aristotle also discusses the most necessary parts of a speech: the proemium, refutation, narration, the proof, interrogation, and the epilogue (Rh. 1414b1–13). All of these components of good argument, what I am calling logos here, can be found throughout the speeches of Eumenides 778–891. In the analysis that follows, I will first examine Athena’s work as anticipating Aristotle’s category of deliberative speech and then analyze the modes of persuasion at work throughout each section of her persuasive project. From the beginning, Athena must convince the Erinyes to calm down, start thinking, and engage in fruitful dialogue about what will be the most advantageous course of action. In terms of “time,” Athena’s concerns are for the future (Rh. 1358b14): she presents the Erinyes with future goods and promises in order to win them over. Her approach, moreover, consists both of exhortation and dissuasion (Rh. 1358b15), and her ultimate goal lies in convincing the Erinyes of what will be truly advantageous for them (Rh. 1358b22): namely, remaining in the city as beneficent deities.35 Also, as with Aristotelian deliberative argument (Rh. 1359b19–23), Athena structures her persuasion around both political and ethical topics. Athena, the jurors and even the audience all share a concern for the city of Athens, whose fate the Erinyes threaten. As such, a central topic of Athena’s speech is precisely the defense of this city. She constantly rebukes the Erinyes’ desire to ruin Athens and its citizens but, on the other hand, promises that the Athenian people will welcome and love them if they acquiesce. In her argumentation, Athena also proposes to the Erinyes what will bring them happiness, and what will therefore be perceived as the most advantageous. This, according to Aristotle, is an ethical topic in deliberative argumentation.36 Aristotle says, further, that for some people, happiness consists in “the pleasantest life accompanied with security.”37 This is precisely what Athena promises them (Eum. 868–869). And throughout, as Aristotle also will suggest, 35 In order to further build up “the advantageous,” Athena presents the good that will result to the Erinyes and avoids discussing the justice of the court’s decision about Orestes. Aristotle notes that by making other factors merely “incidental” or perhaps by not even mentioning them at all, the speaker can make “the advantageous” that much more effective (Rh. 1358b24–25). 36 For a summary of these topics, see Kennedy, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, 56. 37 Arist., Rh. 1360b15: ὁ βίος ὁ μετὰ ἀσφαλείας ἥδιστος. Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 15 Athena appeals to the Erinyes’ desire for possessions, reputation, honor, and friendship, respectively.38 Aristotle further defines happiness in terms of what people value, namely: καὶ τὰ ἴδια . . . καὶ τὰ ἁρμόττοντα αὐτοῖς· τοιαῦτα δὲ τά τε προσήκοντα κατὰ γένος καὶ δύναμιν, καὶ ὧν ἐλλείπειν οἴονται καὶ ἂν μικρὰ ᾖ· . . . καὶ πρὸς ἃ εὐφυεῖς εἰσιν καὶ ἔμπειροι· . . . καὶ μάλιστα ἕκαστοι πρὸς ἃ φιλοτοίουτοι (Rh. 1363a26, 27–29, 34–35, 38–1363b1). . . . things that are peculiarly their own . . . and things that are suited to them: and such things as are befitting their family and power, and things they think they are lacking in, even if small; . . . and what they are naturally good at and experienced in; . . . And, most of all, each category of people [values as a good] that to which their character is disposed. Long before Aristotle, Aeschylus presents Athena tailoring her arguments to the Erinyes’ values in these very same ways. At Eum. 833 and 855, for instance, Athena offers the Erinyes something particularly their own: to be her special companion and to live near the halls of Erectheus. Athena also promises to give the Erinyes, “in justice, the underground thrones of this land,” (ἕδρας τε καὶ κευθμῶνας ἐνδίκου χθονός, Eum. 805). With the word ἐνδίκου, Athena emphasizes that these things would be—as Aristotle puts it—both fitting and just (τὰ ἴδια . . . καὶ τὰ ἁρμόττοντα αὐτοῖς).39 Similarly, Athena offers the Erinyes the thing which they think they have lost (ὧν ἐλλείπειν οἴονται): their honor. Finally, she extends to them a role which fits well with their character, experience and original realm and choice of action (πρὸς ἃ εὐφυεῖς εἰσιν καὶ ἔμπειροι . . . πρὸς ἃ φιλοτοίουτοι): they are to watch over marriage, childbearing, and child birth in the land, and will be honored accordingly.40 In short, the content of Athena’s speeches, her topics, her approach, and several other characteristics of her work all point towards Aristotle’s later categories of deliberative rhetoric. 38 Possessions or wealth: Arist., Rh. 1361a13–24 and Aesch., Eum. 834, 869, 890; good reputation: Rh. 1361a25–27 and Eum. 853; 868–869; honor: Rh. 1361a27–1361b1 and Eum. 807, 854–857, 868, 891; friendship: Rh. 1361b35–38 and Eum. 833, 855. 39 Sommerstein, however, thinks ἐνδίκου is corrupt since it comes so soon after the word πανδίκως in line 804, which, since it contains “-δίκ-,” could “suggest the idea that the honors being offered to the Erinyes are honours to which they are justly entitled (cf. 891)”; see Aeschylus, Eumenides, ed. Alan H. Sommerstein (Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 244. 40 See Eum. 834–836, 890–891. 16 RHETORICA Athena’s deliberative persuasion, likewise, is remarkably well crafted, complete with a prooemium, refutation, a brief narration, and an epilogue. She also uses internal arguments throughout; in each section of her speech, Athena modulates her technique from ēthos, pathos, and logos modes of persuasion in order to finally reach the Erinyes and achieve some form of reconciliation. To begin with, at Eum. 794–807, Athena responds to the Erinyes’ angry threats and laments over the outcome of Orestes’ trial, with what Aristotle would categorize as a prooemium, a refutation, a quasi-narration, and a careful use of persuasion through the mode of persuasion through logos (reasonable enthymemes and examples, Rh. 1356b6–8). She tells them that the point of her comments will be, before all else, to facilitate discussion about choosing advantageous options for their future. Aristotle later affirms this as the primary function of the prooemium, namely, “to make clear what is the purpose for which the speech [is being given].”41 Athena next urges them to shift from groaning and try to understand her perspective on the trial with more even-tempered openness. Athena begins with a refutation. With the first γάρ at line 795, Athena denies the truth of other complaints: “For, you have not been conquered, but the trial came out in truth with an equal vote, not with any dishonor for you.”42 Finally, as if to clinch her refutation with ring-composition, she reaffirms their honored status by ending her speech with the word τιμαλφουμένας (“being honored,” Eum. 807). Throughout Eum. 795–796, Athena also uses internal argumentation through logos, which Aristotle describes as persuasion “through proving or appearing to prove something.”43 Athena proposes a sort of enthymeme on the premise that a trial which ends with a tie does not bring dishonor to either the prosecutor or the defendant. She notes that the trial was conducted properly and Orestes was fairly acquitted by vote.44 With this “cause and effect” argument (Rh. 1400a30–32), Athena claims that the Erinyes have 41 Arist., Rh. 1415a12–13: ἵνα προειδῶσι περὶ οὗ [ᾖ] ὁ λόγος. Aesch., Eum. 795–796: οὐ γὰρ νενίκησθ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ ἰσόψηφος δίκη / ἐξῆλθ᾽ ἀληθῶς οὐκ ἀτιμίᾳ σέθεν. 43 Arist., Rh. 1356a35–36: διὰ τοῦ δεικνύναι ἢ φαίνεσθαι δεικνύναι. 44 On the debate about the vote of Athena and the issue of the number of jurors, see the scholarly summary of Jacqueline Long, “Gender, Democracy, and the Justice of Athena’s Vote to Acquit Orestes,” in Text and Presentation, ed. Graley Herren, Comparative Drama Conference Series 12 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016), 59–62. 42 Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 17 insufficient grounds for assuming they have been dishonored. The cause of their dishonor, in Athena’s view, is simply not present. With the logic of this argument, Athena seeks, at the very least, to assuage the deep sense of injustice which the Erinyes still nurse. She then proceeds, with the second γάρ (Eum. 797), to argue, as Aristotle would describe it, “from authority” (Rh. 1398b21–26). She appeals to Zeus’ testimony and to Apollo’s role as witness. This argument also seems to be a sort of truncated narration: a glance back at the recent happenings in the trial of Orestes. Yet soon afterward, Athena apparently remembers that the authority of these younger gods will not carry much weight with the elder Erinyes. Instead of continuing with another attempt at an enthymeme, she again attacks the Erinyes’ insensate anger, urges their reasonable cooperation, and finally ends her speech with promises of a favorable and reasonable alternative (Eum. 804–807). Since the Erinyes’ response to logic is hardly encouraging (Eum. 808–822), Athena shifts her approach in the next speech (Eum. 824– 836) to persuasion through pathos or emotion. According to Aristotle, this is precisely the kind of internal argument which helps the speaker prompt a different type of judgment in the hearer. He writes: “The emotions [pathē] are those things through which, by undergoing change, people come to differ in their judgments . . . and which are accompanied by pain and pleasure, for example, anger, pity, fear, and other such things and their opposites.”45 Athena first provokes the emotion of shame in the Erinyes.46 She says: “You are not without honor, and in your great wrath, goddesses, do not make the land troubled with disease for mortals,” (οὐκ ἔστ᾽ ἄτιμοι, μηδ᾽ ὑπερθύμως ἄγαν / θεαὶ βροτῶν κτίσητε δύσκηλον χθόνα. Eum. 824–825). In the second of these lines, Athena emphasizes the Erinyes’ role as goddesses by placing the word θεαί (“goddesses”) in the first position of the line. While everyone knows they are superhuman, Athena emphasizes their divine status and immediately juxtaposes the word βροτῶν (“mortals”), thereby hinting that the Erinyes have been threatening to treat mortals in a way that is beneath 45 Rh. 1378a19–22: ἔστι δὲ τὰ πάθη δι› ὅσα μεταβάλλοντες διαφέρουσι πρὸς τὰς κρίσεις οἷς ἕπεται λύπη καὶ ἡδονή, οἷον ὀργὴ ἔλεος φόβος καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τοιαῦτα, καὶ τὰ τούτοις ἐναντία. 46 On shame, Aristotle writes: “Let shame [aiskhynē] be [defined as] a sort of pain and agitation concerning the class of evils . . . that seem to bring a person into disrespect,” (ἔστω δὴ αἰσχύνη λύπη τις ἢ ταραχὴ περὶ τὰ εἰς ἀδοξίαν φαινόμενα φέρειν τῶν κακῶν, Rh. 1383b12–14). 18 RHETORICA the dignity to which they are entitled.47 Most likely, Aristotle in his Rhetoric would affirm Athena’s choice of argument here, for he himself writes that persons are often ashamed when faced with their misdeeds, vice, cowardice, or injustice (Rh. 1383b18–22). Athena also tries to induce fear in the Erinyes through threats. Aristotle considers this technique particularly appropriate for deliberative speech since “fear makes people inclined to deliberation.”48 Athena begins forcefully: “I also have trust . . . in Zeus . . . and why should I mention it?” (κἀγὼ πέποιθα Ζηνί, καὶ τί δεῖ λέγειν; Eum. 826). Instead of completing the line, Athena breaks off and finishes with a rhetorical question.49 Athena tries to draw out from the Erinyes a fear and respect for the awesomeness of Zeus which accords with her own. She continues with a more explicit threat, saying: “I alone of the gods also know the keys of the chamber in which his thunderbolt has been sealed. But there is no need of it.” (καὶ κλῇδας οἶδα δώματος μόνη θεῶν / ἐν ᾧ κεραυνός ἐστιν ἐσφραγισμένος. / ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲν αὐτοῦ δεῖ., Eum. 827–829). Athena hints at her power, but, again, brushes it aside;50 this rhetorical technique likely startles the Aristotle writes that words can be positioned in this way in order to make an implicit argument. Such a style is pleasing because “opposites are most knowable and more knowable when put beside each other and because they are like a syllogism, for refutation [elenkos] is a bringing together of contraries,” (ἡδεῖα δὲ ἐστὶν ἡ τοιαύτη λέξις, ὅτι τἀναντία γνωριμώτατα καὶ παρ› ἄλληλα μᾶλλον γνώριμα, καὶ ὅτι ἔοικεν συλλογισμῷ· ὁ γὰρ ἔλεγχος συναγωγὴ τῶν ἀντικειμένων ἐστίν. Rh. 1410a21–23). John Heath, The Talking Greeks: Speech, Animals, and the Other in Homer, Aeschylus, and Plato (Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 243, suggests that the juxtaposition makes us “focus on their separated and elevated status, as well as to suggest the new responsibilities to mortals that come with this promised role.” 48 Rh. 1383a 6–7: ὁ γὰρ φόβος βουλευτικοὺς ποιεῖ. 49 Donald J. Mastronarde, Contact and Discontinuity: Some Conventions of Speech and Action on the Greek Tragic Stage, University of California Publications Classical Studies 21 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979), 7–8, observes that this kind of rhetorical question is often used to elicit “silent agreement or assent.” 50 Marianne McDonald, “Rhetoric and Tragedy: Weapons of Mass Persuasion,” in A Companion to Greek Rhetoric, ed. Ian Worthington (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 476, also considers this an example of praeteritio. The “thunderbolt threat” and the role it plays in Athena’s success, has been much discussed in Aeschylean scholarship. See for example, Michael Gagarin, Aeschylean Drama (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976), 83; Pietro Pucci, “Human Sacrifices in the Oresteia,” in Ralph J. Hexter and Daniel L. Selden, eds., Innovations of Antiquity (New York, NY: Routledge, 1992): 522; David H. Porter, “Aeschylus’ Eumenides: Some Contrapuntal Lines,” American Journal of Philology 126, no. 3 (Fall 2005): 324–325; and Rynearson, “Courting the Erinyes,” 2. 47 Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 19 Erinyes or perhaps provokes the cries of pain which we will hear in their ensuing response (Eum. 843). Athena concludes by switching suddenly to the second person singular “σύ” as her mode of address. Although it was common in tragedy to use the singular in addressing the Chorus or chorus leader, here it is a startling change since Athena had previously been using the plural.51 In this way, she calls them to account: as it were, grabbing their leader by the collar, glaring into her eyes, and demanding that she be obedient (εὐπιθής, Eum. 829). Athena’s approach has become fearsome and threatening. But Athena next transforms into a benefactress, intending (as Aristotle might explain it) to arouse philia, friendly feelings, within the Erinyes. Aristotle will define this attitude as “wanting for someone what one thinks are good things for him, not what one thinks benefits oneself.”52 With this approach, Athena shifts to addressing the Erinyes with the delicacy needed for persons whom Aristotle might class as people affected by power, ambitious for honor, solicitous for their responsibilities, and willing to commit wrong on a large scale (Rh. 1391a20–29). Thus, Athena concludes this speech by expanding upon benefits and sacrifices appropriate to their status which the Erinyes will receive if they comply. She even promises them a certain equality with herself, as one can see from the word ξυνοικήτωρ (“housemate,” Eum. 833). Athena also reiterates words and concepts central to the concerns which the Erinyes articulated in their twice-repeated, distraught speech (Eum. 778–792, 808–822). For instance, Athena’s mention of fruit (καρπόν, Eum. 831) references the Erinyes’ threat to destroy growing things (ἄφυλλος, Eum. 815). Instead of directly contradicting the Erinyes’ complaint about dishonor (ἄτιμος, Eum. 810; ἀτιμοπενθεῖς, Eum. 828) as she had earlier, Athena here uses the word σεμνότιμος (Eum. 833) to emphasize the great reverence they will receive if they comply. Finally, Athena promises them a respected position in her country (χώρας, Eum. 834) if they will only forbear from wreaking destruction upon it as they had threatened (χώρᾳ, Eum. 817). In doing this, Athena carefully addresses points of concern to the Erinyes and completes her attempt at cultivating philia with the goddesses. Through shaming, threatening, cajoling, and offering friendship, Athena seeks to evoke some emotional response, which could open the Erinyes to negotiation. 51 52 Sommerstein, Eumenides, 247. Rh. 1380b35–36: τὸ βούλεσθαί τινι ἃ οἴεται ἀγαθά, ἐκείνου ἕνεκα ἀλλὰ μὴ αὑτοῦ. 20 RHETORICA Given the Erinyes’ third response to Athena, which, while slightly different than before is hardly encouraging, Athena constructs her third speech (Eum. 848–869)53 using argumentation through ēthos. Aristotle writes: “[there is persuasion] through character whenever the speech is spoken in such a way as to make the speaker worthy of credence.”54 Thus, Athena tries to convince the Erinyes to trust her. More particularly, Athena highlights three trustworthy character traits in herself, defined later by Aristotle as “practical wisdom [phronēsis] and virtue [aretē] and good will [eu­ noia],” Rh. 1378a8). At Eum. 848–850, for example, Athena says: “I will bear with you in your anger; for you are older, and by this your age—on the one hand—you are very much wiser than I, but Zeus has also granted that I have good understanding,” (ὀργὰς ξυνοίσω σοι· γεραιτέρα γὰρ εἶ, / καὶ τῷ μὲν εἶ σὺ κάρτ᾽ ἐμοῦ σοφωτέρα, / φρονεῖν δὲ κἀμοὶ Ζεὺς ἔδωκεν οὐ κακῶς.). In this, Athena demonstrates her personal virtue (aretē), specifically her patience and respect for her elders; yet, she also highlights the wisdom and understanding (phronēsis) which she herself possesses. Later in the speech too, Athena will demonstrate her good will (eunoia) by expressing her desire to prevent the Erinyes from choosing a course of action which they will later regret. With seemingly genuine concern, she says: “But if you go to a foreign place, you will long for this land,” (ὑμεῖς δ᾽ ἐς ἀλλόφυλον ἐλθοῦσαι χθόνα / γῆς τῆσδ᾽ ἐρασθήσεσθε., Eum. 851–852). Finally, Athena strengthens her image by emphasizing the honor which she will procure for the Erinyes: an eternal share in her own honors by those who come to worship at her shrine on the Acropolis. Notice the eloquent tricolon asyndeton: εὖ δρῶσαν, εὖ πάσχουσαν, εὖ τιμωμένην (“doing well, faring well, and well-honored,” Eum. 868).55 Athena also offers a share in her land (Eum. 869) and a sanctuary of their own (Eum. 854–855), something which the Erinyes will come back to after soon they have been quieted (Eum. 892). And, in the 53 Even though I use Page’s edition for my Greek text, I agree with Taplin, Stagecraft of Aeschylus, 407n1, and Sommerstein, Eumenides, 251–252, that the middle portion of this speech (Eum. 858–866) seems to be an overlong and peculiar interpolation. Hence, while I reference it in the line numbers here, I omit it from my commentary. 54 Rh. 1356a4–6: διὰ μὲν οὖν τοῦ ἤθους, ὅταν οὕτω λεχθῇ ὁ λόγος ὥστε ἀξιόπιστον ποιῆσαι τὸν λέγοντα. 55 In his section of the Rhetoric on style, Aristotle calls this tricolon crescendo asyndeton, a technique quite suitable to oral delivery (Rh. 1413b19–21) and even more effective towards the end of a speech (Rh. 1420a6–8). Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 21 process, she presents herself as a magnanimous benefactress: virtuous, wise, well-meaning, respectful towards her elders and desiring only their good. In doing so, moreover, she presents an excellent picture of Aristotle’s mode of persuasion through ēthos.56 Undaunted by the Erinyes’ stubbornly distraught replies (Eum. 870–880), Athena ends her work of persuasion (Eum. 881–891) with an epilogue that, as Aristotle will describe, disposes the hearer favorably toward the speaker, amplifies and minimizes, moves the hearer into emotional responses, and gives a reminder of the chief points of the argument (Rh. 1419b10–13). In this last speech, moreover, Athena again proceeds through each of the modes of persuasion. In the first few lines of this last speech, for instance, she leads with a strong (ēthos) argument for her own trustworthiness: emphasizing her indefatigable patience and respect. She asserts (Eum. 881– 884): “Indeed I shall not tire of telling you of these good things, so that you may never say that by me, the younger, and by city-dwelling mortals, that you, an ancient goddess, wandered dishonored and forced away from this land.”57 In this passage, Athena juxtaposes her youth with the Erinyes’ age in order to flatter them. She then puts aside her commanding tone and makes a last offer, an appeal to their trust, insinuating with the word ἀπόξενος (“forced away”) that the real dishonor for them would be to leave banished against their will.58 She implies that they actually want to stay, even if they are not aware or refuse to admit it. In this way, Athena hints that she knows their deepest desires and so can take the best care of them if they remain under her protection. Athena next shifts to argument through emotion (pathos). In the next colon, Athena refers to the goddess Peithō (Eum. 885) and to “the soothing charm and enchantment of [her] tongue” (γλώσσης ἐμῆς μείλιγμα καὶ θελκτήριον, Eum. 886). But after this call for respect and 56 It must be noted that the distinction between the pathetic and ethical modes is often not very clear-cut: Athena has earlier “offered good things” in a section which I identified as the mode of persuasion based on pathos. One could also argue that Athena has already touched upon ēthos in her first speeches, but here it is most clearly used. For more on this, Christopher Carey, “Rhetorical Means of Persuasion,” in Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action, ed. Ian Worthington (New York, NY: Routledge, 1994), 35. 57 Eum. 881–884: οὕτοι καμοῦμαί σοι λέγουσα τἀγαγά, / ὡς μήποτ᾿ εἵπῃς πρὸς νεωτέρας ἐμοῦ / θεὸς παλαιὰ καὶ πολισσούχων βροτῶν / ἅτιμος ἕρρειν τοῦδ᾿ ἀπόξενος πέδου. 58 On this, Sommerstein, Eumenides, 254, comments that Athena “presupposes the propositions that she wishes to persuade them to accept.” 22 RHETORICA reverence, she breaks off with δ᾽ οὖν to a polite potential optative encouraging them to stay in Athens with her (Eum. 887).59 In this way, Sommerstein explains, Athena starts off with an “eloquent appeal, couched in high-flown language,” but, lest she aggravate the Erinyes, she moderates her approach and ends with a gentle, “‘well, all that really matters is: please do stay.’”60 Athena ends with a very strong logical argument, seeking to arouse the Erinyes’ sense of justice when she continues (Eum. 887– 891): “But if you do not wish to remain, you could not justly let fall upon this city any rage or any vengeance or harm to the people; for you have the power to be a land-holder of this place, justly, and altogether honored.”61 One could abstract the argument as follows: We are offering you honor and a position in this land and it is right to respect those who offer you good things. Therefore, even if you leave, you should respect us and our offer. You cannot justly harm us, your benefactors.62 According to Aristotle this would be a sort of refutative enthymeme (τὸ ἐλεγκτικόν, Rh. 1396b26) of the type which comes “from [turning] what has been said against oneself upon the one who said it,” and is used effectively “for discrediting the accuser; for the accuser always wants to be morally superior to the defendant.”63 After having once more gone through the modes of persuasion based on ēthos and pathos, Athena concludes with a final appeal to reason through her logic. And in the end, she succeeds. The Erinyes’ response to this last speech is not a frenetic wail, but a fully engaged question (Eum. 892).64 59 Eum. 887: σὺ δ᾽ οὖν μένοις ἄν· This technique of praeteritio has also been seen in her second speech to prompt the emotion of fear (Eum. 826, 829). 60 Sommerstein, Eumenides, 255. See also Victor Bers, Greek Poetic Syntax in the Classical Age (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), 135–136. 61 Eum. 887–891: εἰ δὲ μὴ θέλεις μένειν, / οὔ τἂν δικαίως τῇδ᾽ ἐπιρρέποις πόλει / μῆνίν τιν᾽ ἢ κότον τιν᾽ ἢ βλάβην στρατῷ· / ἔξεστι γάρ σοι τῆσδε γαμόρῳ χθονὸς / εἶναι δικαίως ἐς τὸ πᾶν τιμωμένῃ. 62 Sommerstein, Eumenides, 254–255, and Haruo Konishi, Aeschylus’ Oresteia: A Literary Commentary (Amsterdam, NL: Hakkert, 1990), 254, for example, think that it is this last appeal to principle and justice which wins them over. 63 Rh. 1398a2: ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων καθ› αὑτοῦ πρὸς τὸν εἰπόντα; and 1398a10–11: εἴπειεν ἄλλος πρὸς ἀπιστίαν τοῦ κατηγόρου· ὅλως γὰρ βούλεται ὁ κατηγορῶν βελτίων εἶναι τοῦ φεύγοντος. 64 On the new tone and form of their response, Richard B. Rutherford, Greek Tragic Style: Form, Language, and Interpretation (Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 256, comments: “Athena has persuaded them to abandon song for speech.” See also Rabinowitz, “From Force to Persuasion,” 183, and Laura McClure, “Logos Gunaikos: Speech, Gender and Spectatorship in the Oresteia (Aeschylus),” He­ lios 24, no. 2 (1997): 132–133. Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 23 Fruitful dialogue commences: Athena succeeds in addressing the Erinyes’ concerns, mollifying them, and ensconcing them permanently beneath Athens as metic deities who agree to protect rather than destroy. And, as has been demonstrated, these speeches are so cleverly crafted that they anticipate techniques of rhetoric as outlined over a century later by Aristotle. Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 thereby emerges as an astute example of carefully crafted logos which, as shall be seen, receives full completion and even its ultimate effectiveness through peithō. the e ffects of P eithō, the e ffectIveness of L ogos Aside from the fact these speeches are undeniably well composed and argued, scholars have debated at length about the reasons for Athena’s success, or from a different angle, the precise motivation for the Erinyes’ acquiescence. Some claim that it was a gradual process over the course of the various speeches;65 others highlight the convincing quality of Athena’s arguments about justice and the specific honors the Erinyes would receive.66 Still others suggest that the Erinyes caved specifically after Athena’s thunderbolt threat.67 In these and other analyses, moreover, most scholars, focus on larger movements in the drama, and analyze peithō accordingly. For example, those who believe that the Erinyes submission is a salutary and just resolution to the Oresteia, tend to describe peithō as just one of 65 See, as an example, observations on how the Erinyes change after Athena’s second speech in D. J. Conacher, Aeschylus’ Oresteia: A Literary Commentary (Toronto, CA: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 171; Sommerstein, Eumenides, 248, and Konishi, Aeschylus’ Oresteia: A Literary Commentary, 252. Pearl C. Wilson, “Note on Eumenides 881–891,” Classical Philology 42, no. 2 (Apr. 1947): 122–123, https://doi. org/10.1086/363015, considers it a moral victory rooted in Athena’s constant patience. 66 For example, Kennedy, Athena’s Justice, 37, writes: “In the end, justice persuades the Erinyes (888; 891). The mention of the thunderbolt points out how far justice has progressed. Even though the option of violence still exists, Athena and the Athenians have no need of it since they have their courts and persuasion.” See also Sommerstein, Eumenides, 254–255, and Konishi, Aeschylus’ Oresteia: A Literary Commentary, 254. 67 Victors Bers, “Tragedy and Rhetoric,” in Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action, ed. Ian Worthington, (New York, NY: Routledge, 1994), 185, asserts that Athena’s victory “both had to be, and still might have been allowed to fail, for Athena holds bolts of lightning in reserve.” See also Konishi, Aeschylus’ Oresteia: A Literary Com­ mentary, 250; Pucci, “Human Sacrifices in the Oresteia,” 522; and, Porter, “Aeschylus’ Eumenides: Some Contrapuntal Lines,” 324–325. 24 RHETORICA the powers working towards that end, and therefore, as a benign, gentle, purified force that in effect plays a redemptive role as the opposite of force and tyranny.68 Those who view the ending of the Oresteia differently, however, tend to describe peithō differently as well.69 In general, however, I see peithō as neither good nor evil, just nor unjust. Instead, from her mythopoetic tradition and throughout the entire Oresteia as well, peithō is, by nature, erotically irresistible and magically forceful. For these reasons, it is only logical that she not only appears at the end of Eumenides, but through her powers, becomes a crucial player in Athena’s success. These dynamics of peithō and how they manifest at the end of Athena’s persuasion of the Erinyes are the subject of this last section of the paper. Although peithō is present to Athena and working throughout her speeches (Eum. 794, 826, 829), her influence emerges with particular clarity at two climactic moments: during Athena’s last full 68 Buxton, Persuasion in Greek Tragedy, 113, for example, calls the peithō of the Eumenides the “healing” peithō, by contrast with the peithō at work in the Agamemnon and Libation Bearers; Kennedy, “Justice, Geography and Empire,” 64, calls this peithō a “necessary element in Athena’s new justice” and the opposite of force and tyranny. Similarly, Rynearson, “Courting the Erinyes,” 19, describes peithō as “gentle” and now put at the service of the community. For more on a “good” peithō at the end of Eu­ menides, see Rabinowitz, “From Force to Persuasion,” 183; Reginald P. WinningtonIngram, Studies in Aeschylus (Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 169; and Laura McClure, “Clytemnestra’s Binding Spell (Ag. 958–974),” Classical Journal 92, no. 2 (Dec. 1996-Jan. 1997): 140, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3298354. 69 Many scholars emphasize peithō’s violent and potentially sinister qualities even at the end of Eumenides. On peithō as a cover for Athena’s violent rhetoric and Aeschylus’s deception also of his audience, see Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, The Art of Aeschylus (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982), 352–353, and Pucci, “Πειθώ nell’ Orestea di Eschilo,” 131–135. Stefan Dolgert, “Sacrificing Justice: Suffering Animals, the Oresteia, and the Masks of Consent,” Political Theory 40, no. 3 (2012): 276–277, https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591712439302, writes that “interpreting this as a story about the efficacy of ‘civilization’ triumphing through Athena’s peitho misses something important. Why? We know (1) that Athena’s peitho is hardly innocent of violence, since she openly marks her access to Zeus’ thunderbolt (Eu. 836–38); (2) that it partakes of a trance-inducing ‘white magic’ no less than the Furies’ song; (3) that peitho is a part of the sacrificial ritual’s comedy of innocence in which the animal consents.” On the ambivalence of peithō within the context of the transformation or, rather, sublimation (Aufhebung) of the Erinyes from a Hegelian point of view, see Georg Rechenauer, “Der tragische Konflikt und seine Lösung in der ‘Orestie’ des Aischylos,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 68, no. 2 (2001): 89–92, https://doi.org/10.2307/20546682. For relatively moderate views of both the ending of Eumenides and peithō’s work within it, see Heath, The Talking Greeks, 251–252, and Elizabeth Markovits, “Birthrights: Freedom, Responsibility, and Democratic Comportment in Aeschylus’ Oresteia,” American Political Science Review 103, no. 3 (August 2009): 438–439, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055409990013. Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 25 speech to the Erinyes (Eum. 881–891), and as part of her hymn of thanksgiving (Eum. 968–975). In the last section of her last speech, Athena explicitly demands that the Erinyes pay their respects to Peithō, and it is only after these words that the Erinyes capitulate: ἀλλ᾽ εἰ μὲν ἁγνόν ἐστί σοι Πειθοῦς σέβας, γλώσσης ἐμῆς μείλιγμα καὶ θελκτήριον, σὺ δ᾽ οὖν μένοις ἄν· . . . (Eum. 885–887) But if you have holy reverence for Peithō regarding the soothing charm and enchantment of my tongue, then you certainly might remain. The response of the Erinyes, a few lines after this request, is telling. They are, of course, quite interested in the honors that Athena promises them,70 but they do not discuss any of the extensive arguments which Athena put forth in her meticulously crafted speeches. Instead, at the end of their stichomythic exchange, they admit defeat before the magical powers, the μείλιγμα (“soothing charm”)71 and θελκτήριον (“enchantment”),72 bestowed on Athena’s speech by Peithō. They say to Athena (Eum. 900): “It seems likely that you will charm (θέλξειν) me, and I am shifting from my wrath.”73 It is Peithō’s presence at Eum. 885–887 that marks the key turning point for Athena’s victory.74 70 Their questions center around interest in the seat (τίνα . . . ἕδραν; Eum. 892), their honor (τίς . . . τιμή; Eum. 894), and Athena’s guarantee on these promises (Eum. 896, 898). For more on this, see Robin Mitchell-Boyask, Aeschylus: Eumenides (New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2009), 92–93. 71 Words with the root μελιγ/χ- denote soothing gentleness and a wheedling quality aimed at appeasement. For more on this term in Eum. 887 and the propitiatory nature of Athena’s rhetoric, see Rynearson, “Courting the Erinyes,” 9–13. 72 On terms related to θελγ/ξ/κτ- (which can refer to either soothing offerings to the gods or to the beguiling power of desire, or general charms) and their relationship to both peithō and love magic, see Ilaria Rizzini, “Gli occhi di Persuasione e la persuasione atraverso gli occhi,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 62, no. 2 (1999): 87–97, https://doi.org/10.2307/20546589. Carl W. Conrad, “The Role of Persuasion in Solving Tragic Conflict in Aeschylus” (master’s thesis, Tulane University, 1956), 13, points out that Peithō’s most frequent epithets in vases contain the θελγ/ξ/ κτ- root. For more on this term in general see Hugh Parry, Thelxis: Magic and Imag­ ination in Greek Myth and Poetry (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992), 34. For a discussion of the term within this passage, see Rynearson, “Courting the Erinyes,” 9–10. 73 Eum. 900: θέλξειν μ᾽ ἔοικας, καὶ μεθίσταμαι κότου. 74 Scholars who agree with this turning point include Wilson, “Note on Eu­ menides,” 122; Rabinowitz, “From Force to Persuasion,” 183; and Buxton, Persuasion in Greek Tragedy, 111. 26 RHETORICA After all, from her mythopoetic tradition, peithō possessed potentially violent and seemingly irresistible erotic powers. Most poetic texts and vase paintings before Aeschylus depict her operating with less than equitable means and hardly ever with open, rational argument, but with a coerciveness barely distinguishable from bia (“physical force”) and instantaneous magic (e.g., spells, keys, charms, and even whips). Ever associated with Aphrodite, enchantment, and love spells,75 in lyric poetry the goddess Peithō nurtures children, beautifies youths, and aids lovers at times by giving them magical weapons. According to an ancient tradition referenced in the Suda, Peithō’s daughter was supposedly Iynx, a nymph associated with the love charm of the same name.76 As such, in Pindar, Aphrodite helps Jason win the love of Medea by using this “bird of madness” (μαινάδ᾿ ὄρνιν, Pyth. 4.216) together with Peithō’s “whip” (μάστιγι Πειθοῦς, Pyth. 4.219).77 Peithō also appears in a passage of Sappho (frag. 1.18–24) that closely resembles a formulaic love spell; in it, Peithō works with Aphrodite to win over Sappho’s beloved “even against her will” (κωὐκ ἐθέλοισα, frag. 1.24).78 And, in Aeschylus’s Suppliants, Peithō is described as both “charming” (θέλκτορι Πειθοῖ, Suppl. 1039) and irresistible: “she to whom nothing is denied” (ᾇ τ᾽ οὐδὲν ἄπαρνον / τελέθει, Suppl. 1039–40). As a result, Pucci goes so far as to call peithō and bia a pair of twins.79 Similarly, but from an etymological point of view, Parry describes the term as a “a synonym of compulsion.”80 It is this power, then, coming forth through 75 For Aphrodite’s long-term association with magic and love spells even before the time of Aeschylus, see Christopher A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 133–141. 76 See the scholiast on Theocritus 2.17, Diogenes Laertius 6.75, and Pepe “Studies in Peitho,” 153n8. 77 Text from Pindari Carmina cum fragmentis, 2 vols., ed. Herwig Maehler post Bruno Snell, Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig: Teubner, 1987–1989). For more on the meaning of the iynx in this passage, see Barbara M. Breitenberger, Aphrodite and Eros: The Development of Erotic Mythology in Early Greek Poetry and Cult (New York, NY: Routledge, 2007), 128–131. For the connection between this passage and Greek agōgē love spells, see Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 56–64. 78 John C. B. Petropoulos, “Sappho the Sorceress: Another Look at frag. 1 (LP),” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 97 (1993): 48, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20171905, discusses the irresistible and magical nature of peithō in Sappho and other texts. He also links fragment 1 of Sappho with love spells, given its “antithetical arrangement, . . . repetition, alliteration and assonance” (46). 79 Pucci, “Πειθώ nell’ Orestea di Eschilo,” 94. 80 Parry, Thelxis, 272. See also Pucci, “Human Sacrifices in the Oresteia,” 528. For more on the precise meaning of peithō, see Buxton, Persuasion in Greek Tragedy, 49, and Mourelatos, Route of Parmenides, 136–139. Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 27 Peithō at Eum. 885–887, that finalizes and seals the fate of the Erinyes. Peithō’s irresistible force works—through Athena’s words—like a spell or enchantment upon them. And, after Peithō has helped win them over, Athena sings a hymn of thanksgiving which includes another acknowledgement of Peithō’s involvement in her success. She sings: . . . στέργω δ᾽ ὄμματα Πειθοῦς, ὅτι μοι γλῶσσαν καὶ στόμ᾽ ἐπωπᾷ πρὸς τάσδ᾽ ἀγρίως ἀπανηναμένας. (Eum. 970–972) I am grateful to the eyes of Peithō, that her glance kept watch over my tongue and mouth, when I encountered their fierce refusal. The eyes of Peithō, while originally involved with beautification and seduction, here lend effectiveness to Athena’s speech.81 According to Parry, the success of a spell is guaranteed if gifted with the direct intervention of Aphrodite or her special devices, one of which is the eyes.82 The presence and action of Peithō watching over and working within the logos of Athena ultimately works just such magic on her interlocutors, the Erinyes. Through peithō, Athena casts a spell on the Erinyes that binds them to herself and to Athens. As has been discussed, Athena wields a peithō-word in almost every speech she makes throughout Eum. 778–891, and, at the climax of Athena’s argumentation, she calls directly upon the goddess Peithō herself, a goddess steeped in the world of magic, seduction, and spell-binding powers. And, peithō grants Athena success. The entire scene thus affirms that clever argument alone cannot convince. Indeed, as Aeschylus may be suggesting, logos demands the presence of peithō in order 81 Ibycus refers to Peithō as “gentle-eyed” (ἀγανοβλέφαρος, frag. 288, in Davies, Poetarum melicorum Graecorum fragmenta); see also Pindar frag. 123, in Maehler post Snell, Pindari Carmina cum fragmentis. For more on the eyes of Peithō, see Buxton, Persuasion in Greek Tragedy, 112–113, and Rizzini, Gli occhi di Persuasione, 93–95). J. Kambitsis,“Ὄμματα Πειθοῦς,” Ελληνικά: Φιλολογικό, Ιστορικό Και Λαογραφικό Περιοδικό Σύγγραμμα 26 (1973): 11–16, comments on the sweet and healing nature of the eyes of Peithō, who enable the Erinyes to switch from abhorrence of Aphrodite to acceptance of this goddess, marriage, and the social cohesion that represents. Wohl, Love among the Ruins, 58–62, analyzes the metaphor of eye movement and gazing as important to the erotic relationship between orator and audience in fifth century Athens. 82 Parry, Thelxis, 265. Parry also connects Athena’s traditional epithets such as “grey-eyed” or “shining-eyed” with the magic power of the Evil Eye (72). 28 RHETORICA to accomplish its ends. This seems to be verified later by Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle in their theoretical descriptions and definitions of the art of rhētorikē. from A eschylus to g orgIAs, p lAto, And A rIstotle As has been argued in this paper, at Eumenides 778–891, peithō works in and through Athena’s speeches to the Erinyes, which, as a remarkable species of logos in themselves, anticipate principles of deliberative speech and the modes of persuasion (pisteis) from Aristotle’s Rhetoric. It is the alliance between this logos and the irresistible power of peithō, however, that lies at the heart of Athena’s success. Thus, in this last “act” of his Oresteia, Aeschylus presents the persuasion of the Erinyes as a project involving both peithō and logos, and in so-doing points towards the theories and definitions of rhetoric (as an art demanding both logos and peithō) by Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle. What occurs between Aeschylus and these thinkers is worth some consideration, and opens doors to future avenues of research. Other dramatists will continue to associate peithō with processes of argument (often precisely with the term logos) in a variety of situations.83 For example, a Euripides fragment states: “there is no shrine of Peithō (Πειθοῦς) other than speech (λόγος).”84 Similarly, in Aristophanes’s Clouds the Chorus at one point says: “It is your business, you author and up-heaver of new words / to seek some peithō (πειθώ τινα ζητεῖν), so that you shall seem to speak justly (λέγειν δίκαια).”85 Prose writers and those who start crafting definitions of rhētorikē pick up on this trend in their discussions as well. For 83 For example, the playwright Eupolis, frag. 94.5–7 (Theodor Kock, ed., Anti­ quae comoediae fragmenta, Vol. 1 of Comicorum Atticorum fragmenta [Leipzig, DE: Teubner, 1880], 281) describes a magical Peithō helping the famous orator Pericles excel in civic speech by “perching upon his lips,” as it were, and “leaving a sting in his audience” (Πειθώ τις ἐπεκάθιζεν ἐπὶ τοῖς χείλεσιν· / οὕτως ἐκήλει καὶ μόνος τῶν ῥητόρων / τὸ κέντρον ἐγκατέλειπε τοῖς ἀκροωμένοις). 84 Eur., frag. 170 (August Nauck, ed., Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta, 2nd ed. [Leipzig: Teubner, 1889], 408): οὐκ ἔστι Πειθοῦς ἱερὸν ἄλλο πλὴν λόγος. 85 Ar., Nub. 1397–1398 (lightly adapted from William J. Hickie, trans., Clouds, by Aristophanes, in The Comedies of Aristophanes, vol. 1, The Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, Wasps, Peace, and Birds, Bohn’s Classical Library [London, GB: Bohn, 1853]): σὸν ἔργον, ὦ καινῶν ἐπῶν κινητὰ καὶ μοχλευτά / πειθώ τινα ζητεῖν, ὅπως δόξεις λέγειν δίκαια. Peithō and Logos in Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 29 example, in his Encomium, Gorgias, describing the seduction and abduction of Helen, writes “the peithō (ἡ πειθώ) belonging to speech (τῷ λόγῳ) hammered out (her) soul however it wished.”86 And, in Plato’s Gorgias and Phaedrus, not only does rhētorikē get defined precisely in terms of logos and peithō,87 but Plato spends the greater part of both dialogues on the issue of “persuasive force” (in essence, peithō).88 Aristotle also, although using a derivative word (πιθανόν) in his definition of rhetoric, still discusses the art as a something that Dow describes as, “in its essence, a skill in offering proper grounds for conviction.”89 While Aristotle’s Rhetoric may have been received as logos-centric, his conceptualization of the art, nonetheless, is focalized through peithō. In a unique way, then, the speeches of Aeschylus’s Eumenides 778–891 begin in practice what will later be developed in the theory: the dual importance of both peithō and logos as central forces at work within effective rhētorikē. As such, additional investigations into other dramatic or poetic texts where peithō and logos appear as separate entities and yet working side by side could provide fruitful area for future research. Another area 86 Gorg., Hel. 13: ἡ πειθὼ προσιοῦσα τῷ λόγῳ καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐτυπώσατο ὅπως ἐβούλετο. Commenting on this passage, Wohl, Love among the Ruins, 81–82, writes: “Speech, force, and desire are collapsed. Logos is violent and sexual at once; it compels by arousing desire. In its implication with eros and bia, persuasion becomes virtual rape (Encomium 12).” Gorgias also puts peithō in a list with other ineluctable and divine forces which act upon persons without their willing it (Hel. 6) and describes peithō as a vile force that exerts influence through black magic and noxious drugs (Hel. 14, 10). For more on the irresistibility of peithō and logos in Gorgias, see Conrad, “Role of Persuasion,” 86; D. Futter, “Gorgias and the Psychology of Persuasion,” Akroterion 56, no. 1 (Jan 2011): 3–20, https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC20644; and Charles P. Segal, “Gorgias and the Psychology of the Logos,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 66 (1962), 121–123, https://doi.org/10.2307/310738. 87 Plato, Gorgias 452e1 and 453a1–2. In Plato’s Phaedrus, a rhetor is one who tries “to make or instill conviction in the soul of the interlocutor,” (πειθὼ . . . ἐν τούτῳ ποιεῖν ἐπιχειρεῖ, Phdr. 271a2, text ed. George Long and A. S. Macleane, The Phaedrus of Plato, with English notes and Dissertations by W. H. Thompson [London, GB: Whittaker & Co, 1868]). 88 On peithō understood as “persuasive force” in Plato, see Tushar Irani, Plato on the Value of Philosophy: The Art of Argument in the “Gorgias” and “Phaedrus” (Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 35, 32–38. On Plato’s desire to differentiate himself from the forceful aspects of peithō, see Christopher Bobonich, “Persuasion, Compulsion and Freedom in Plato’s Laws,” Classical Quarterly 41, no. 2 (December 1991): 366–367, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800004547. 89 Jamie Dow, Passions and Persuasion in Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press, 2015), 88; see also 85–91. 30 RHETORICA could include a deeper investigation into the psychological power and operations of peithō itself, a force which stands as an enduring reminder of the illusive, ambiguous, and seductive roots of rhetorical speech—no matter how logically argued—from ancient Greece to the present day.