SEEING SLAVES IN AESCHYLEAN SATYR DRAMA

Abstract

This article explores the thematization of the satyrs’ proverbial slave status with specific reference to Aeschylean satyr play. A survey of the extant fragments reveals only one explicit mention of the satyrs’ slavery, suggesting a stark contrast with the relatively frequent references in the satyr plays of Sophocles and Euripides. Situating Aeschylus’ often enigmatic satyr fragments within the broader historical framework of fifth-century Athenian slavery, it is possible to see that the chorus’ servitude is nonetheless obliquely figured in many of our extant passages. At the same time, Aeschylus’ reticence around the subject of slavery in his satyric works is shown to continue a disposition already in evidence in his tragic compositions, which manifest a similarly muted discourse around lower-class enslavement.

One could hardly ask for a clearer demonstration of the confounding, yet critical, role that slavery plays in fifth-century Athenian satyr drama than the chorus’ final celebratory (?) exclamation in Euripides’ Cyclops. With Polyphemus blinded, the satyrs have been freed from their forced servitude on his island. They will sail with Odysseus and rejoin their beloved god Dionysus (Cyc. 708–09): ἡμεῖς δὲ συνναῦταί γε τοῦδ’ Ὀδυσσέως | ὄντες τὸ λοιπὸν Βακχίωι δουλεύσομεν (‘And as shipmates to Odysseus over here, we will be enslaved to Bacchus ever more’).¹ The satyrs’ liberation from the cruel Polyphemus does not yield freedom, but rather results in a return to their ‘proper’ state of enslavement under the god Dionysus. Scholars tend to rationalize the cognitive dissonance of these final lines. Enslavement to a god is not, as Voelke observes, the same as enslavement to a human master and the satyrs seem to enjoy an ‘intimacy’ with Dionysus that is characterized by ‘trust and mutual affection’.² Yet the satyrs’ emphatic declaration that they will be slaves (δουλεύσομεν) of the god cannot be entirely defused by claims of religious import. The condition of servitude to which the satyrs of Cyclops look forward at the close of the play may be different from their bondage to Polyphemus, an ordeal made particularly odious by the prohibition of Dionysiac ritual.³ But the satyrs’ service under Dionysus is, nevertheless, presented as a form of slavery and thus cannot be entirely divorced from the degradations inherent in the ownership of other human beings.⁴

The loaded lines with which Euripides concludes his Cyclops illustrate two points that are fundamental to my discussion here. First, the bondage of theatrical satyrs was presented in a variety of forms, not all of which conform to modern scholarly assumptions about ancient slavery, but which—as we will soon see—do correspond to the broad spectrum of our historical evidence. Second, modern scholars often seek to diminish the negative character of the satyrs’ slavery, situating the enslavement of the mythical chorus within the world of fantasy and ritual rather than that of historical institutions.⁵ I shall address the second point briefly now, while the first will occupy the remainder of this article.

The relationship between satyr drama and the historical institution of slavery in fifth-century Athens is something of a paradox, particularly for modern scholars. As Mark Griffith aptly observes, satyr drama may well represent ‘the most revealing reflection of Athenian fantasies and prejudices about the natural differences and capabilities of slaves and masters’, but it is also, undeniably, one of the Athenians’ ‘most effective mechanisms for reassuring themselves of the benevolent and harmless character of slavery itself as an institution’.⁶ In other words, satyr drama, much like the nineteenth- and twentieth-century American blackface to which Griffith compares it, seeks to repackage an inherently inequitable and cruel social practice in the light-hearted frame of comedic performance.⁷ Scholars have tended to focus, whether consciously or otherwise, on the latter of Griffith’s two claims, treating the enslavement of the chorus as a harmless, even endearing characteristic of the naïve and foolhardy satyrs. By way of counterbalance, I focus here on the ways in which satyr play reflects the brutality of human bondage in classical Athens. What follows is, in other words, not simply a literary analysis of Aeschylus’ satyr drama but a provocation to think once more about how to situate this particular form of drama within a history of Athenian slavery. Drawing on significant recent advances by historians of ancient slavery, I offer an analysis of the surviving fragments of Aeschylus’ satyric work that reflects our increasingly sophisticated understanding of the scope and importance of slavery in fifth-century Athens. Like the historical scholarship on which it is based, this literary endeavour is characterized first and foremost by vast gaps and frustrating uncertainties. The analysis of this fragmentary corpus is, as we shall soon see, rendered even more uncertain by Aeschylus’ general reticence when it comes to the topic of slavery. The partial and provisional conclusions drawn here are thus not only expressions of the ‘combination of imagination and caution’ that, as Matthew Wright has argued, should guide those interested in ‘fragmentology’,⁸ but also of the challenges that attend all facets of our understanding of Athenian slavery. These readings can, therefore, be seen as a prompt to consider both the distinctive interpretive challenges that Athenian slavery can pose to the modern scholar and the kinds of knowledge that a fragmentary corpus can convey.

Seeing slave bodies

The relative absence of slaves from much modern scholarship on Athenian tragedy and satyr drama may stem, as Page duBois has argued, from an unwillingness to confront the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade,⁹ but this academic phenomenon also has roots in the distinctive form(s) that slavery took in classical Athens. The binary opposition of slave and free permeated Athenian thinking in the classical period to an astonishing degree. Yet it is also true that the sheer variety of forms slavery took in the city meant that the boundary between these states was often difficult to discern in practice.¹⁰ Not only was there a broad spectrum of statuses between abject chattel slavery and the freedom and political privileges of full, male Athenian citizenship,¹¹ there were also many different ways of being a slave in fifth-century Athens.

Visual representations epitomize the practical difficulty of distinguishing slave bodies from free in classical Athens. Although it was possible to denote servitude in the plastic arts, whether by rendering slave bodies smaller in size relative to free, or by depicting distinctive items of dress, Robin Osborne observes that visual artists regularly chose to forego such coded communication, leaving the line between slave and free unmarked.¹² The iconographic practice of blurring the line between slave and free corresponds, albeit imperfectly, to the lived reality of classical Athens, where slaves served in a wide variety of roles within the multifaceted economy of the empire. Slaves performed the brutal manual labour that ensured the city’s critical silver supply from Laurion; they represented the majority of the city’s prostitutes; and they were ubiquitous throughout Attica as unremunerated household servants and caregivers.¹³ But they also worked as bankers, supervisors, and skilled craftsmen, whether in their own master’s shop or as hired labourers in the shops of others, as well as in positions of considerable importance within the city’s governmental structures.¹⁴ Some, doubtless an exceedingly small but nonetheless influential minority, ran households and amassed wealth (and even slaves) in their own right.¹⁵ These men remained the property of others, unable to determine the course of their own lives in critical respects, but in many other ways their lives superficially resembled those of their free neighbours. I say this not by way of apology for Athenian slavery, but rather to underscore why it might be that in practice, in contrast to theory or legal statute, slaves cannot always be readily distinguished from free.¹⁶ There was a vast range of things a man could be in classical Athens while also being a slave. It is commonly only through explicit declaration, whether through the visual codes of vase painters or an orator’s verbal identification of a doulos or oiketes, that the conditions of bondage are made apparent.¹⁷ Modern scholars, in other words, are perilously dependent on ancient sources to identify slave bodies for us. All too often, our sources do not oblige.

Satyr drama tends to lend itself to generalizations, a disposition due in equal measure to the fragmentary nature of our evidence and the marked recurrence of thematic motifs that allow us to interpret individual plays within a broader structural framework.¹⁸ The slave status of the satyr chorus is often assumed as a structural motif without specific reference to the particular ways in which our texts convey, or fail to convey, the nature of this bondage. As we have already seen with the concluding lines of Cyclops, the dramatic designation of ‘slave’ can mean a great many things for a satyr chorus. Our limited evidence suggests that theatrical satyrs performed enslavement along a broad continuum, with the plays’ distinctive chorus appearing in a wide variety of roles that by turns emphasized and downplayed their state of bondage. The satyrs’ constantly reimagined servitude is of a piece with what Rebecca Lämmle has called the ‘serial poetics’ of a hyperbolically familiar theatrical chorus who nevertheless find ways to reinvent themselves at each new appearance.¹⁹ When it comes to slavery, the theatrical satyrs’ characteristic versatility is also a valuable mirror of the complex and multifaceted historical institution that was performed every day in the world outside the theatre of Dionysus.

Athenian playwrights took noticeably different approaches to including and identifying slaves in their work. Before turning to an analysis of Aeschylus’ treatment of slavery in his fragmentary satyr plays, it will be helpful to have a sense of how he approached this topic in his extant tragedies. Amongst the three major tragedians, Aeschylus is by far the least eager to identify slaves within his (extant) tragedies.²⁰ Although he grants some attention to the forcible enslavement (potential or actual) of nobly born women, most prominently in the figure of Cassandra in Agamemnon,²¹ and to a lesser degree through the eponymous choruses of Libation Bearers and Suppliants,²² Aeschylus focuses the bulk of his attention on the women’s loss of patrician status with relatively little consideration for the conditions of slavery itself.²³ More significantly for our present purposes, Aeschylus shows relatively little interest in the enslavement of those who do not claim noble birth and who (we are left to assume) were born into bondage or came into the state from an already low social status. Non-noble slaves are not excluded from Aeschylus’ extant tragedies, although they are far fewer in number than in either Sophocles or Euripides. Furthermore, when Aeschylus identifies lower-class figures as slaves, it tends to be by means of a passing remark rather than, as is common in Sophocles and Euripides, as a pointed declaration of, or reflection on, the conditions of the character’s bondage. Given the great overlap in mythical material between the three playwrights, and the many continuities between Aeschylus’ work and that of his successors in so many other respects, it is difficult to explain this divergence as a result of circumstantial factors alone.

Aeschylus’ noncommittal approach to slavery is nicely encapsulated by the watchman scene at the start of Agamemnon. Spotting the beacon that signals the Greek victory in Troy, the watchman declares that he will have a share in the good fortune of his masters (τὰ δεσποτῶν γὰρ εὖ πεσόντα, 32). The language suggests that he is a slave in the house of the Atreidai,²⁴ yet he draws no link between his enslavement and the rooftop toil from which he prays for release (θεοὺς μὲν αἰτῶ τῶνδ’ ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων, 1). The opening passage hardly masks the boundary between high- and low-born, but its primary concern rests, as Griffith has shown, with the noble family at the heart of the play.²⁵ The watchman’s slavery, if slavery it is, is little more than an afterthought. An aversion to explicit discussion of slavery is also on display in Libation Bearers, where the nurse Cilissa draws no connection between her (presumably) slave status and her hostility towards Clytemnestra, despite the fact that her bondage is twice obliquely mentioned in contexts that would seem to invite such a link. In the first, Cilissa herself lambasts Clytemnestra’s performance of false mourning in front of the household slaves (737–40), a group in which she presumably, though never explicitly, includes herself.²⁶ Yet she makes no further mention of servitude as she goes on to recount her many labours over the infant Orestes (742–65).²⁷ Later, the chorus persuade Cilissa to aid their cause by appealing to her hatred of her master (δεσπότου στύγει, 770), but, in the absence of any specification as to the source of this enmity, Cilissa’s perspective is easily (if not seamlessly) assimilated into the grievances so emphatically asserted by the play’s aristocratic protagonist.²⁸

It is certainly possible, even advisable, for a modern scholar²⁹ or fifth-century Athenian³⁰ to connect the dots in both these cases, seeing the institution of slavery at work just below the surface of these lower-class portraits. But Aeschylus, for whatever reason, opts against bringing these characters’ enslavement into sharp focus. Elsewhere, lower-class ‘barbarian’ figures, like the messenger of Persians or the Egyptian herald of Suppliants, who might well have been cast as royal slaves, are never identified as such. It may be that slavery amongst ‘barbarians’ was imagined to be so comprehensive as to neutralize any individualized identification, or, conversely, that contemplation of the administrative slaves owned by eastern potentates cut too close to home for an Athenian audience accustomed to the multitude of similarly employed state-owned slaves in their own democratic polis.³¹ On the basis of this brief, and necessarily provisional, survey, it appears that, although Aeschylus is undoubtedly fascinated by the conceptual discourse of slavery³² and grants some degree of attention to the enslavement (literal or metaphorical) of nobly born characters, non-elite slaves only enter his tragedies tangentially, if at all.

In the light of the relative exclusion of lower-class slaves from Aeschylus’ tragedies, it is perhaps unsurprising that slavery rarely finds explicit thematization in what remains to us of the playwright’s satyr dramas. Indeed, compared with references to slavery found in the surviving works of other authors,³³ Aeschylus’ treatment of the topic is characterized by its striking absence from our extant fragments. There is only one instance in our (admittedly scant) surviving fragments that seems to identify the satyrs as slaves. The remark in question, ὡς δ]ο̣ῦ̣λον ἢ τρίδουλ[ον (fr. 78c.41), is situated within the frustratingly lacunose central section of the Theoroi papyrus and much about it remains obscure. Nevertheless, this line, and the speech of which it is part, represent our most substantive evidence for assessing Aeschylus’ treatment of slavery in satyr drama. In the next section I attempt to glean what insight is possible from this passage, despite its manifold interpretive challenges.

Naked athletes and invisible fetters

Aeschylus’ Theoroi, as far as we understand its plot, is concerned with a curious interlude in which the satyrs abandon their service to Dionysus in order to compete as athletes at the Isthmian games.³⁴ Having made ritual dedications at the temple of Poseidon, the satyrs’ plans, whatever they may have been,³⁵ are interrupted by the arrival of a figure from their past, generally identified as Dionysus himself,³⁶ who has followed them to Corinth and insults their new athletic pursuits (fr. 78c.29–38).³⁷ In response to this rebuke, the chorus (or perhaps Silenus) invoke slavery in a speech that, as printed by Henry and Nünlist, runs as follows (fr. 78c.41–46):

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ὡς δ]ο̣ῦ̣λον ἢ τρίδουλ[ον ἄν]αξ δ̣ικαι[..(.)].[.]θενα[….]μ̣[..].. κακ]ῶι τε κο̣ί̣[τ]ω̣ι̣ καὶ κακαῖς δ[υσ]αυ̣λ̣ί̣αις αἰ]ει παλαίοντ᾽ ο̣ὐ̣δ̣ὲν οἰκτ{ε}ί̣ρ̣ε̣[ις ἐμ]έ. ἐγ]ὼ̣ δὲ τ̣[α]ύ̣[τ]ας π̣ο̣λυπ̣[ό]νο̣υ̣[ς ὁμιλί]α̣ς̣ φ]εύγων […]..[.]α̣τ̣ο̣νδ’ [.].[

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ὡς δ]ο̣ῦ̣λον ἢ τρίδουλ[ον ἄν]αξ δ̣ικαι[..(.)].[.]θενα[….]μ̣[..].. κακ]ῶι τε κο̣ί̣[τ]ω̣ι̣ καὶ κακαῖς δ[υσ]αυ̣λ̣ί̣αις αἰ]ει παλαίοντ᾽ ο̣ὐ̣δ̣ὲν οἰκτ{ε}ί̣ρ̣ε̣[ις ἐμ]έ. ἐγ]ὼ̣ δὲ τ̣[α]ύ̣[τ]ας π̣ο̣λυπ̣[ό]νο̣υ̣[ς ὁμιλί]α̣ς̣ φ]εύγων […]..[.]α̣τ̣ο̣νδ’ [.].[

45

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ὡς δ]ο̣ῦ̣λον ἢ τρίδουλ[ον ἄν]αξ δ̣ικαι[..(.)].[.]θενα[….]μ̣[..].. κακ]ῶι τε κο̣ί̣[τ]ω̣ι̣ καὶ κακαῖς δ[υσ]αυ̣λ̣ί̣αις αἰ]ει παλαίοντ᾽ ο̣ὐ̣δ̣ὲν οἰκτ{ε}ί̣ρ̣ε̣[ις ἐμ]έ. ἐγ]ὼ̣ δὲ τ̣[α]ύ̣[τ]ας π̣ο̣λυπ̣[ό]νο̣υ̣[ς ὁμιλί]α̣ς̣ φ]εύγων […]..[.]α̣τ̣ο̣νδ’ [.].[

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ὡς δ]ο̣ῦ̣λον ἢ τρίδουλ[ον ἄν]αξ δ̣ικαι[..(.)].[.]θενα[….]μ̣[..].. κακ]ῶι τε κο̣ί̣[τ]ω̣ι̣ καὶ κακαῖς δ[υσ]αυ̣λ̣ί̣αις αἰ]ει παλαίοντ᾽ ο̣ὐ̣δ̣ὲν οἰκτ{ε}ί̣ρ̣ε̣[ις ἐμ]έ. ἐγ]ὼ̣ δὲ τ̣[α]ύ̣[τ]ας π̣ο̣λυπ̣[ό]νο̣υ̣[ς ὁμιλί]α̣ς̣ φ]εύγων […]..[.]α̣τ̣ο̣νδ’ [.].[

45

?…. ?….. as a ]slave or three times a slav[e …. lo]rd just[.. … you do not pity [me] always wrestling in a terrible bed and terrible lodgings. But, escaping these laborious [intercourses, I …

It is hard to determine exactly how slavery functions within this speech. Three crucial points remain unconfirmed and, on present evidence, unconfirmable. First, does the reference to slavery refer to the satyrs/Silenus or to some other, unidentified figure? It seems probable that the former is the case and I work on this assumption in what follows, but it is well to admit that even this basic detail cannot be unequivocally established. Second, is/was the bondage an actual condition experienced by the satyrs or, as the alternatives δ]οῦλον ἢ τρίδουλ[ον may imply, is slavery invoked as a metaphor or analogue to the sufferings from which they can/must escape (π̣ο̣λυπ̣[ό]νο̣υ[ς ὁμιλί]α̣ς̣, φ]εύγων)? These two options are hardly incompatible,³⁸ a fact that becomes particularly salient when we consider that the satyrs’ lamentation, with its descriptions of wrestling in terrible beds and toilsome (intercourses), suggests labours of a sexual nature.³⁹ Scholars have made much of the idea that the satyrs of Theoroi have spent their time cavorting in brothels,⁴⁰ but it is always assumed that they do so as patrons. Yet the conjunction of a (sexual) bed (κο̣ί̣[τ]ω̣ι̣) and unwanted labour (π̣ο̣λυπ̣[ό]νο̣υ̣[ς) in these lines suggests quite a different scenario, particularly if we accept the reading of ὁμιλί]α̣ς̣̣ at 45. Is it not possible to flip the script here and to imagine the satyrs serving as sex workers offering their services to randy festival-goers? Sexual exploitation was a critical facet of fifth-century Athenian discourse and practice around slave bodies,⁴¹ but sex work also represented an important area in which boundaries between free and slave could be blurred.⁴² Thus the rendering of sexual labour as ‘akin to’ slavery may, in fact, be a subtle means of suggesting that that analogy is little more than a pretence. What the satyrs describe as ‘something like’ slavery is, in fact, slavery; or, rather, when it comes to sex work, the distinction between slavery and ‘something like’ slavery can prove elusive.

The third uncertainty of this passage, at least with regards to the discussion at hand, concerns the temporal context of the slavery (whether literal or metaphorical) under discussion. Specifically, does the slavery referred to here designate the satyrs’ past position as the ritual chorus of Dionysus, or their new role as athletic competitors (as perhaps hinted by παλαίο̣ν̣τ᾽)? As implausible as it might seem that the satyrs’ slavery in Theoroi, if slavery it was, would bear principally on their athletic endeavours rather than their service to Dionysus, it is nevertheless helpful to consider how their ‘new’ role as competitors at the Isthmian games might fit into a broader discourse of human bondage as developed in this speech and in the play as a whole. In contrast to the plethora of professions that were open to slave and free alike in classical Athens, competitive athletics were the preserve of free (if not necessarily elite) men.⁴³ Like service in the assembly or dithyrambic performance at the Great Dionysia, participation in many Athenian athletic contests was organized by tribe and represented an important facet of the city’s performative construction of citizenship.⁴⁴ Although the Corinthian setting of Theoroi allows for some deviation from the Athenian institutional frame, the satyrs’ athletic pursuits conspicuously distance the group from slaves and align them with male Athenian citizens. As is often noted, athletic endeavours represent a common motif in satyr drama, with a striking number of plays devoted to sport in one form or another.⁴⁵ Whatever the broader implications of sport in satyr drama,⁴⁶ Aeschylus’ treatment of the theme in Theoroi appears exceptional insofar as he situates the action at a Panhellenic festival rather than under the auspices of a powerful king or tyrant such as Cercyon, in Aeschylus’ play of the same name (fr. 102), or the eponymous rulers of Sophocles’ Amycus (fr. 112) and Oeneus (∗∗fr. 1130).⁴⁷ By presenting athletic competition as a collective religious institution, as opposed to a tool of despotic power, Theoroi permits the satyrs’ naked sportsmanship (ἐγυμνάζ[ου κα]λῶς, 31) to be more readily assimilated to, if not overtly situated within, the popular discourse that identified the nude male athlete as the paragon of Athenian citizenship.⁴⁸ Of course, the satyrs’ nudity would differ from that of the gymnasium in its reliance on theatrical costuming and the visible presence of their perizomata would form a visual link to other ‘outsiders’, such as women and foreigners, who adopted similar dress when participating in Greek athletic competition.⁴⁹ Even so, the festival context of Theoroi makes a radical, perhaps unparalleled, departure from the norm by inviting its audience to contemplate the satyr chorus in a role that, almost by definition, would seem to preclude a slave identity.

It is Dionysus, not the satyrs or Silenus, who draws our attention to the satyrs’ athletic nudity. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, his speeches both before and after the satyrs’ (or Silenus’) explicit mention of slavery offer little clarification as to the chorus’ slave status. In fact, Dionysus’ complicated engagement with the chorus further compounds our uncertainty about the relationship between the god and his erstwhile celebrants. The uncertainty is neatly encapsulated in Dionysus’ initial greeting of the satyrs with the vocative ὠγαθο[ί, 23.⁵⁰ The common term would seem to suggest friendship, but it can also be used in a sarcastic fashion, as in Menander, to denote the dominant position of the speaker vis-à-vis an addressee.⁵¹ The term is even once applied to a slave by a freeman (Men. Aspis 174), though it is not, significantly, a master addressing his human property but rather someone seeking to curry favour with an addressee who happens to be a slave. The ambiguous vocative is paradigmatic of Dionysus’ speech as whole, which skirts any overt articulation of the relationship between speaker and addressee. The absence of clear diagnostic language is felt most pointedly in Dionysus’ complaint that the satyrs’ new athletic activities are impinging on his own economic wellbeing (fr. 78c.34–36):

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σὺ δ’ ἰσθμ̣ιάζεις καὶ τρόπους και[νοὺς μ]α̣θὼν̣ βραχί̣ο̣[ν’ ἀ]σ̣κ̣εῖς, χρήματα φθείρων ἐμὰ κτεα[8–9 litt.]ε ταῦτ’ ἐπηράνωι πονων̣

35

σὺ δ’ ἰσθμ̣ιάζεις καὶ τρόπους και[νοὺς μ]α̣θὼν̣ βραχί̣ο̣[ν’ ἀ]σ̣κ̣εῖς, χρήματα φθείρων ἐμὰ κτεα[8–9 litt.]ε ταῦτ’ ἐπηράνωι πονων̣

35

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σὺ δ’ ἰσθμ̣ιάζεις καὶ τρόπους και[νοὺς μ]α̣θὼν̣ βραχί̣ο̣[ν’ ἀ]σ̣κ̣εῖς, χρήματα φθείρων ἐμὰ κτεα[8–9 litt.]ε ταῦτ’ ἐπηράνωι πονων̣

35

σὺ δ’ ἰσθμ̣ιάζεις καὶ τρόπους και[νοὺς μ]α̣θὼν̣ βραχί̣ο̣[ν’ ἀ]σ̣κ̣εῖς, χρήματα φθείρων ἐμὰ κτεα[8–9 litt.]ε ταῦτ’ ἐπηράνωι πονων̣

35

However, you are competing at the Isthmian games and, having learnt new ways, you train your arm, wasting my property/money (χρήματα) […] them to the helper of your labours.

The degree to which the satyrs’ enslavement plays into this passage hinges on the precise nature of the χρήματα about which Dionysus is concerned (probably synonymous with the κτέα[να (following Cantarella) of the following line). It may well be that the term refers to the costumes and accoutrements of Dionysus’ ritual worship: ivy crowns (cf. 76), wine cups, and thyrsοi that lie mouldering as the satyrs take up new pursuits. It may even be the case, as Slenders suggests, that Dionysus is here lamenting the satyrs’ wanton spending on prostitutes, the cost of which is presumably underwritten by the god himself.⁵² However, if, as Sommerstein has persuasively suggested, Dionysus’ possessions are the very bodies that the satyrs now turn to athletic pursuits,⁵³ then the passage constitutes a significant reference to chattel slavery. Such a discourse, which exploits the inherent ambiguity of the term χρῆμα to reflect on the way slavery turns human bodies into monetized objects—‘living tools’, in duBois’ shrewd quotation of Aristotle⁵⁴—is developed to powerful effect in Sophocles’ Ichneutai.⁵⁵ One might well suspect a similar thematization at work in Theoroi, a play in which the chorus are quite literally rendered as material objects in the form of their ‘inhuman images’ (εἰκοὺ[ς] οὐ κατ’ ἀνθρώπους, 1)—crafted replicas of the satyrs’ bodies that, inter alia, render in all too literal fashion the objectification of living beings under the yoke of slavery.⁵⁶

The alienability of the satyrs’ bodies is more clearly foregrounded in Dionysus’ second speech, in which the god’s renewed complaint about the satyrs’ athletic pursuits is paired with an explicit threat of bodily harm (75–78):

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σὺ δ’ ἰσθμιάζεις καὶ πίτυος ἐστ[εμμένος κλάδοισι̣ κισσοῦ̣ δ’ ο̣ὐ̣δ[α]μοῦ τιμη[ ταῦτ’ οὖν δακρύσεις οὐ κ̣απνῶ[ι παρόντα δ’ ἐγγὺς οὐχ ὁρᾶ̣ι̣ς τα[

75

σὺ δ’ ἰσθμιάζεις καὶ πίτυος ἐστ[εμμένος κλάδοισι̣ κισσοῦ̣ δ’ ο̣ὐ̣δ[α]μοῦ τιμη[ ταῦτ’ οὖν δακρύσεις οὐ κ̣απνῶ[ι παρόντα δ’ ἐγγὺς οὐχ ὁρᾶ̣ι̣ς τα[

75

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σὺ δ’ ἰσθμιάζεις καὶ πίτυος ἐστ[εμμένος κλάδοισι̣ κισσοῦ̣ δ’ ο̣ὐ̣δ[α]μοῦ τιμη[ ταῦτ’ οὖν δακρύσεις οὐ κ̣απνῶ[ι παρόντα δ’ ἐγγὺς οὐχ ὁρᾶ̣ι̣ς τα[

75

σὺ δ’ ἰσθμιάζεις καὶ πίτυος ἐστ[εμμένος κλάδοισι̣ κισσοῦ̣ δ’ ο̣ὐ̣δ[α]μοῦ τιμη[ ταῦτ’ οὖν δακρύσεις οὐ κ̣απνῶ[ι παρόντα δ’ ἐγγὺς οὐχ ὁρᾶ̣ι̣ς τα[

75

But you are competing at the Isthmian games and are cr[owned] with sprigs of pine, [giving] no honour at all to those of ivy. You’ll certainly cry for this, and not from smoke (sc. in your eyes). Do you not see the […] near at hand?

Dionysus’ threat against the satyrs’ bodies (δακρύσεις) certainly evokes a master/slave relationship in which the escaped chattel will be subjected to torture—a punishment ‘constitutive of being a slave’⁵⁷—once returned to their previous state of bondage.⁵⁸ Yet, as is so often the case with Theoroi, the modern critic’s inability to identify the items toward which the god gestures (παρόντα δ’ ἐγγύς) frustrates any certain claims in this regard. The objects of line 78 are generally thought to be identical to the νεοχμὰ ἀθύρματα̣ (‘new playthings’) of line 86. However, the form and purpose of these latter devices, despite being named in our extant text, are no less apparent than those of line 78, aside from the specification that they were fashioned with adze and anvil (ἀπὸ [σκε]πάρνου κἄκμ[ονος ν]εόκτ[ιτα, 87).⁵⁹

Scholars have identified the ‘playthings’ with any number of articles, from menacing instruments of torture to frivolous equipment of athletic or choral spectacle, or a mixture of all three.⁶⁰ However, even as conjectures about the material realia of the play seek to impose stark definitions, the illusion of any single definitive answer to this textual crux is undercut by our inability conclusively to answer, despite what seems to be ample discussion within the fragment, the seemingly straightforward question of whether the satyrs are to be physically abused or not. Without a clear articulation of their purpose within the play, the objects are caught in what Franco Ferrari has called an interpretive ‘vicious circle’.⁶¹ There is good reason to suspect that a resolution of the lacuna at line 78 would bring us no closer to understanding how Dionysus planned for the objects to act upon/with the bodies of his satyr chorus. The question remains whether this aporia is the product of historical accident or an inherent feature of Aeschylus’ play.⁶² In other words, is Ferrari correct in his speculation that ‘the interpretive fog might clear if we knew what (kind of) objects we were dealing with’,⁶³ or was the jarring tension between violence and jocular fun already inscribed in the objects as they appeared in the fifth-century theatre? The scene may be taken as an intimation of the crueller side of Dionysus’ ownership of the satyrs, or it can appear as a lighter-hearted reflection on the chorus’ characteristic cowardly inconstancy.⁶⁴ In the absence of a ready resolution, I am inclined to suggest that, as with Cilissa and the watchman of Agamemnon, although there may be slave bodies to be seen in Theoroi, Aeschylus has ensured they do not intrude on the vision of those who wish not to see.

Seeing slaves without a name

If the satyrs’ slavery is such a challenge to discern within the relatively overt discourse of Theoroi, the remainder of the Aeschylean corpus would seem to present even slimmer prospects. There is, as we have already established, no definitive identification of the satyrs as slaves within these other fragments of Aeschylus’ satyric compositions. But it is, I believe, still possible to glimpse some traces of what may have been a thematization of the satyrs’ enslavement. What follows is an attempt to read these fragments with an eye attuned to the subjugated bodies so readily written out of the civic reality of classical Athens by modern critics and ancient authors alike. The interpretations are not meant to be definitive, but to suggest a possible, if often overlooked, way of engaging with this fragmentary corpus.

The majority of the fragments offer only fleeting suggestions. I begin with the theme of sexual subjugation as invoked by a two-word fragment of Amymone, θρώισκων κνώδαλα (fr. 15). It is difficult to know how to construe the satyrs’ role in this fragment (that is, if the satyrs are, as seems plausible though by no means certain, the ‘beasts’ referred to in the passage).⁶⁵ The obscene sense of the verb θρώισκω would seem to refer to the sexual act of the ‘dominant’ partner (i.e., penetration), following from its non-vulgar meaning ‘to leap upon’ or ‘assault’.⁶⁶ Taking the verb in this way, I translate fr. 15 as ‘mounting beasts’.⁶⁷ The sexual language might well be thought to reflect the satyrs’ outsized sexual appetites,⁶⁸ but the satyrs’ subordinate role in the sexual relationship suggests that the chorus may be physically vulnerable to the desires of others, specifically the unidentified subject of θρώισκων. Although the play is normally thought to showcase the satyrs as libidinous adventurers threatening the maidenhood of the young Danaid⁶⁹—‘ithyphallic males behaving badly’, in the oft-quoted phrase of Edith Hall⁷⁰—the sexually mounted beasts of this fragment invite us to imagine the Amymone chorus as targets of sexual violence alongside, albeit differently to, the young virgin.⁷¹ The play’s interest in the proper relationship between ‘dominant’ and ‘submissive’ partners is underscored in the more readily intelligible fr. 13 σοὶ μὲν γαμεῖσθαι μόρσιμον, γαμεῖν δ’ ἐμοί (‘it is your fate to be married, and mine to do the marrying’), although it is generally assumed that this line was directed at Amymone alone and not the satyrs. We have already seen some intimation of the satyrs’ vulnerability to erotic assaults in Theoroi’s lacunose reference to terrible beddings and laborious intercourses (43–45). Before dismissing these oblique suggestions that randy satyrs could be rendered as sexual victims, it is well to recall that Euripides makes good on the threat of sexual violence in Cyclops when Polyphemus takes an unwilling Silenus into his cave to serve as his ‘Ganymede’ (585–89).⁷² That violence is, properly speaking, directed at Silenus, whose function in the play is somewhat different to that of his offspring.⁷³ But the satyrs, too, are subjected to Polyphemus’ leering gaze and only escape the rape visited on their father because Polyphemus finds them too feminine, preferring Silenus’ more masculine form to the satyrs’ ‘Graces’ (581–83).

Another tantalizingly suggestive fragment from Lycurgus may reflect a thematization of physical violence akin to that discussed earlier with reference to Theoroi. The lines in question seem to contain a description of the grotesque cruelty of the play’s eponymous ruler (fr. 124): κἀκ τῶνδ’ ἔπινε βρῦτον ἰσχναίνων χρόνωι | κἀσεμνοκόμτει τοῦτ’ ἐν ἀνδρείαι τιθείς (‘And giving them time to dry, he drank from them and boasted of this as (one of his) manly deeds’). There is much that remains uncertain about the fragment. However, if, as often conjectured, these lines refer to the severed heads from which Nonnus claims Lycurgus was accustomed to drink (Dion. 20.149–81), it suggests that Aeschylus presented the satyrs’ captivity in Thrace as characterized by (threats of) physical violence.⁷⁴ Where the satyrs of Theoroi carried their manufactured doublets to be affixed to Poseidon’s temple, here the very bodies of slaves would be transformed into crafted objects, tools to facilitate (and emblems of) the monstrous consumption of their master. Control over bodies continues to be thematized in the two other extant fragments from the play, one of which consists of a reference to ‘these muzzles for a mouth’ (καὶ τούσδε κημοὺς στόματος <– × – ⏑ –?>, fr. 125) and the other of a command to ‘listen, and prick up (your) ear’ (ἄκουε δ’ ἀν’ οὖς ἔχων, fr. 126).⁷⁵ The threat of muzzles (κημούς) undoubtedly implies a greater degree of force than the instruction, albeit a gruff one, to listen. Nor is it certain that these, or the previous fragment, refer specifically to the satyrs. However, all three expressions seem to be formed along the same continuum of bodily coercion, of which the murderous conversion of living bodies into tools of fr. 124 is the limit-case.⁷⁶ It is not implausible to understand this common perspective as emerging from the perverse logic by which the slave’s body becomes the possession of someone else.⁷⁷

Elsewhere, the professional identity of the satyr chorus, whether as nurses (Trophoi), Heralds (Kerykes), or builders (Thalamopoioi, if satyric),⁷⁸ may suggest slave status.⁷⁹ The satyrs’ position as oiketai to Sisyphus, in Aeschylus’ play of that name, is perhaps at work in the rather supercilious instruction preserved in fr. 225: καὶ νίπτρα δὴ χρὴ θεοφόρων ποδῶν φέρειν. | λεοντοβάμων ποῦ σκάφη χαλκήλατος; (‘And it is necessary to bring out the water for washing (his?) divine feet. Where is the bronze basin with the lion feet?’). The tone of the fragment seems to accord with similar orders given in contexts in which the satyrs’ bondage is made overt, as in Euripides’ Cyclops or Ion’s Omphale.⁸⁰ In the absence of further evidence, any claims about these plays are necessarily speculative and there is no way to determine whether or not Aeschylus sought to downplay the satyrs’ bondage, as he does elsewhere. It may be that Aeschylus adopted a different perspective on the satyrs’ enslavement in these plays, one that cast the chorus in an inherently subordinate role. Unlike the athletic competitors of Theoroi, it is unlikely that these choruses adopted conspicuous markers of freedom. However, as discussed above, there was ample grey area for a labourer, such as a herald or a builder, to avoid ready identification as either free or slave.

The equivocation is exemplified by the catalogue of labourers summoned in our first fragment of Diktyoulkoi to help haul up the [δ]ῶ̣ρον θαλάσσης (fr. 46a.18–21):

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]π̣άντες γεωργοὶ δεῦτε | κ̣ἀμπελοσκάφοι   ]ε ποιμήν τ’ εἴ τίς ἐστ|[’ ἐ]γχώριος   ]ο̣ι τε κα̣ὶ̣ μ̣α̣|[ρ]{ε̣}[ιλ]ε̣υτῶν ἔθνο̣ς̣ [                             |] ἐνα̣ντιωτάτης

20

]π̣άντες γεωργοὶ δεῦτε | κ̣ἀμπελοσκάφοι   ]ε ποιμήν τ’ εἴ τίς ἐστ|[’ ἐ]γχώριος   ]ο̣ι τε κα̣ὶ̣ μ̣α̣|[ρ]{ε̣}[ιλ]ε̣υτῶν ἔθνο̣ς̣ [                             |] ἐνα̣ντιωτάτης

20

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]π̣άντες γεωργοὶ δεῦτε | κ̣ἀμπελοσκάφοι   ]ε ποιμήν τ’ εἴ τίς ἐστ|[’ ἐ]γχώριος   ]ο̣ι τε κα̣ὶ̣ μ̣α̣|[ρ]{ε̣}[ιλ]ε̣υτῶν ἔθνο̣ς̣ [                             |] ἐνα̣ντιωτάτης

20

]π̣άντες γεωργοὶ δεῦτε | κ̣ἀμπελοσκάφοι   ]ε ποιμήν τ’ εἴ τίς ἐστ|[’ ἐ]γχώριος   ]ο̣ι τε κα̣ὶ̣ μ̣α̣|[ρ]{ε̣}[ιλ]ε̣υτῶν ἔθνο̣ς̣ [                             |] ἐνα̣ντιωτάτης

20

Come here, all farmers and vintners and if there is any local shepherd […] and the race of charcoal burners […] of the opposite

The call for aid, issued by an unidentified speaker (possibly Silenus himself), enumerates a series of rural professions—farmer, vintner, shepherd, charcoal burner—which are the sole province of neither slave nor free.⁸¹ As is often noted, Apollo gives voice to a similar list at the beginning of Sophocles’ Ichneutai, calling for shepherds or charcoal burners to aid him in the recovery of his stolen cattle (Ich. 39–40). It is difficult to assess the relationship of these two superficially similar lists since both contain significant lacunae and the Diktyoulkoi fragment breaks off immediately following the lines quoted above. Nonetheless, it is perhaps telling that where the god seems to include the satyrs as a separate category in his list ([……]είων νυμφογεννή[τ Ichn. 41), the speaker of Diktyoulkoi does not (as far as we are able to determine) make a special designation for the satyrs. Whatever their profession, the slave status of the satyrs in Sophocles’ play seems to be made apparent soon after Silenus’ appearance on stage (ἐλεύθερος συ[….….….…..]ων, Ichn. 63) and the topic is repeatedly invoked over the course of our lengthy portion of the play (75, 162–64, 457). In Diktyoulkoi, by contrast, the (admittedly much shorter) extant passages never specify whether the satyrs’ rural labours are undertaken in bondage or not.

Importantly, the satyrs are not the only figures who invite us to think about slavery in Diktyoulkoi. Alongside the traditionally exploited chorus is the high-born Danae, who makes a quite explicit claim to have been taken as a captive (αἰχ]μά̣λ̣ωτος), i.e., slave,⁸² by the satyrs (fr. 47a.773–77):

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<ΔΑ.>   ] … κ̣α̣ὶ̣ γενέθλιοι θεοί̣ ]..α̣ς τά̣σδε μοι πόνων τιθεις   ]ο̣ι̣σ̣δε̣ κνωδ̣άλοις με δώσετε   ]…γ̣οισι λυμανθήσομαι αἰχ]μά̣λ̣ωτος ο̣.σ̣α̣.ω κακά

775

<ΔΑ.>   ] … κ̣α̣ὶ̣ γενέθλιοι θεοί̣ ]..α̣ς τά̣σδε μοι πόνων τιθεις   ]ο̣ι̣σ̣δε̣ κνωδ̣άλοις με δώσετε   ]…γ̣οισι λυμανθήσομαι αἰχ]μά̣λ̣ωτος ο̣.σ̣α̣.ω κακά

775

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<ΔΑ.>   ] … κ̣α̣ὶ̣ γενέθλιοι θεοί̣ ]..α̣ς τά̣σδε μοι πόνων τιθεις   ]ο̣ι̣σ̣δε̣ κνωδ̣άλοις με δώσετε   ]…γ̣οισι λυμανθήσομαι αἰχ]μά̣λ̣ωτος ο̣.σ̣α̣.ω κακά

775

<ΔΑ.>   ] … κ̣α̣ὶ̣ γενέθλιοι θεοί̣ ]..α̣ς τά̣σδε μοι πόνων τιθεις   ]ο̣ι̣σ̣δε̣ κνωδ̣άλοις με δώσετε   ]…γ̣οισι λυμανθήσομαι αἰχ]μά̣λ̣ωτος ο̣.σ̣α̣.ω κακά

775

<Danae:> […] and gods of kindred blood […] setting for me these […] of toil you will give me over to (th)ese beasts […] I will suffer outrages, a captive […] evils.

Here we find the aristocratic bias of Aeschylus’ tragic works adapted to the constraints of satyr drama. The nobly born woman, daughter of the king of Argos and consort of Zeus himself, has found herself brought low, subjected to the control (or so it seems) of the vulgar band of satyrs. Voelke has observed that the satyrs often experience bondage alongside a heroic figure, most often Heracles.⁸³ However, the situation here does not follow this pattern. Danae’s subjugation stands in contrast to the relative power of the satyrs, who have taken possession—albeit temporarily—of the young castaway fished from the sea.⁸⁴ With the tables reversed in this way, are we to understand the satyrs as free from their customary servitude?

Many of the details that emerge about the satyrs in Diktyoulkoi convey a rather attractive, almost aristocratic lifestyle. Silenus casts himself as the ‘sponsor’ and ‘protector’ of Danae and her son (πρόξενόν θ’ ἅμ̣α | [ ]..ου με καὶ προπράκτορα, fr. 47a.768–69), adopting the formal terminology used to designate Athenian citizen-sponsors of foreign migrants.⁸⁵ Later, Silenus promises that Perseus will join in hunting with his foster relations, the satyrs (fr. 47a.816–20). Hunting in the forest is an activity in keeping with the satyrs’ rustic character, but may also suggest the pastime of a distinctly aristocratic leisured class.

Seemingly in keeping with this comparatively independent, possibly free, status, Silenus envisions his marriage to Danae as a traditional pairing of bride (νύμφην, fr. 47a.824) and bridegroom (νυμφ[ί]ο̣ν, fr. 47a.831),⁸⁶ who will serve together as parents (μητρὶ [καὶ π]ατρὶ τῷδε, fr. 47a.811) to Danae’s young child.⁸⁷ Yet, even within such normative language, Silenus’ impulse to share in the rearing of Perseus suggests a caregiver role closer to that traditionally occupied by slaves.⁸⁸ Even as he imagines himself the ‘daddy’ (ὁ πάπα[ς, fr. 47a.812) of the house, he offers himself ‘as a nanny’ (μαῖαν ὡς, fr. 47a.770), a bondwoman who cares for the children of her master. The gender inversion—not only a slave, but a female one to boot—serves to underline the subjugated status that Silenus, in some sense, always inhabits. Likewise, the emphasis on Silenus’ ‘child-rearing hands’ (παιδοτρόφους ἐμά[ς, | ὦ φίλος, χέρας, fr. 47a.806–07) and his concern for Perseus’ nourishment (τροφὰς ἀνόσ̣ους, fr. 47a.814) represent his imagined fatherhood as servile in nature, more closely resembling the behaviour of a paidagogos or trophos than that of a true pater. Silenus’ unmanly interest in caring for the infant Perseus transforms his phallus into a child’s plaything (π̣οσθοφιλὴς ὁ νεοσσός, fr. 47a.795).⁸⁹ The language tempers Silenus’ sexual interest in Danae, his outsized libido re-contextualized by the subtle, yet unmistakable, reminder that his body, however virile, is meant to labour on behalf of a master.

The satyr chorus of Diktyoulkoi do not come as fully into view through our fragments as does their father. However, insofar as they appear as the sons (παῖδας, fr. 47a.805) of Silenus, they would seem to participate in the same irregular discourse as their father, with claims of elevated status undercut by intimations of servitude. It is not insignificant that their presence is marked in our fragments by the loaded term pais, a label that denotes both child and slave.⁹⁰ The word is emblematic of the satyrs themselves, whose childish nature is, as Griffith has explored, inseparable from their slavery.⁹¹ However, pais also stands as a token of the challenges these fragments pose to modern interpreters, who so often must actively choose to see the slave bodies that can be hidden in plain sight by the institutional camouflage of classical Athens.

As the readings advanced here demonstrate, there are ample ways for modern scholars to see Athenian slavery, as long as we do not limit our vision to those rare instances in which its indisputable presence demands our acknowledgement. The slavery of satyrs may be proverbial, but the range of forms that the historical practice of human bondage could take in classical Athens invites us to consider the very versatility of these mythical hybrids, whether in the theatre or in visual representations, as an expression of their enslavement. Just like their human counterparts, the satyr choruses of classical Athens could transform themselves into any number of roles while still retaining their basic identity as slaves. Satyrs may have offered a mirror for the Athenian citizen ideal, but they also offer the modern critic a window onto the range of ways that men and women experienced bondage at every level of Athenian society. Though Aeschylus may be the least eager of our extant playwrights to draw attention to the experience of slaves, this reticence stands as a critical reminder of the profound significance of Athens’ own form of the ‘peculiar institution’.

Footnotes