The Swan of Sparta: A New Reading of the Epitaph for Alcman by Leonidas of Tarentum (Anth. Pal. 7.19 = 57 G.-P.)

Τὸν χαρίεντ’ Ἀλκμᾶνα, τὸν ὑμνητῆρ’ ὑμεναίων

κύκνον, τὸν Μουσέων ἄξια μελψάμενον,

τύμβος ἔχει, Σπάρτας μεγάλαν χάριν †εἴθ’ ὅ γε λύσθος†

ἄχθος ἀπορρίψας οἴχεται εἰς Ἀίδαν.^[1]

Graceful Alcman, the swan-singer of spousal songs,

who composed things worthy of the Muses,

this tomb holds, the great delight of Sparta, ...

having thrown off his burden, he set off to Hades.

Anth. Pal. 7.19 Pl^A [PPl] Λεωνίδου; Suda s.vv. ὑμεναίων [1–2], κύκνος [2], λοῖσθος [3

εἴθ’ –4] 2 Μουσέων Meineke: -σῶν PPl Suda

3 λύσθος C, λοῖσθος P Suda, Λυδός Pl post h.v. lacunam Geffcken

4 οἴχεαι P Ἀίδην Pl

This epigram is a praise of the poet Alcman in the guise of a fictitious epitaph, belonging to a series of ‘poems on poets’ of which Hellenistic epigrammatists were very fond. These usually take the form of praise without a specific context or occasion, or alternatively purport to be epitaphs on the tombs of these poets, as in this case.^[2] Such compositions employ different poetic strategies to pay homage to their ideal addressee, ranging from the re-employment of poetic words used by the deceased poet to references to their life or specific works.^[3]

Though short, the poem has posed various interpretative problems. The present article will focus on the contested interpretation of the second and last couplet, which affects the interpretation of the whole epigram.^[4] The interpretation of the couplet ultimately depends on how one reads and interprets the word ἄχθος and the corrupted words that precede it. As Gow and Page put it, “opinion is divided whether the ἄχθος refers to the burden of life or that of slavery”.^[5] There was a tradition (which sparked debate already in antiquity) according to which Alcman might have been a Lydian slave by origin, who had gained freedom in Sparta and then became a Spartan citizen.^[6] Antipater of Thessalonica, in an epigram that precedes Leonidas’ epigram in the Anthology (Anth. Pal. 7.18 = 12 G.-P.) and was probably inspired by our poem, openly alludes to this very controversy:

ἀνέρα μὴ πέτρῃ τεκμαίρεο· λιτὸς ὁ τύμβος

ὀφθῆναι μεγάλου δ’ ὁστέα φωτὸς ἔχει.

εἰδήσεις Ἀλκμᾶνα λύρης ἐλατῆρα Λακαίνης,

ἔξοχον ὃν Μουσέων ἐννέ’ ἀριθμὸς ἔχει.

κεῖται δ’ ἠπείροις διδύμαις ἔρις, εἴθ’ ὅ γε Λυδός

εἴτε Λάκων. πολλαὶ μητέρες ὑμνοπόλων.

Do not judge the man by the stone. The tomb may be simple

to look upon, but it holds the bones of a great mortal.

You will know Alcman, the striker of the Laconian lyre,

whom the nine Muses as a whole hold as excellent:

here he lies, object of contention between the two lands [scil. Asia and Europe],

whether he be Lydian or Laconian: many are the mothers of poets.^[7]

In line 3 of Leonidas’ epigram, Planudes read εἴθ’ ὅ γε Λυδός, which, as editors reasonably suspected, may have been taken from l. 5 of Antipater’s epigram, and editors have generally not been inclined to accept this reading.^[8] However, even without accepting the reading of Planudes, and therefore admitting an explicit textual reference to a Lydian origin in the epigram, some scholars still believe ἄχθος should refer to the burden of slavery. Carrington, in a textual note on the epigram, thought that the last distich also referred to the controversy on the birthplace of Alcman, that is, to say “a great ornament to Sparta, or perhaps at last he threw off his burden and went to Hades” is equivalent to saying “whether he was born at Sparta or not, he came there as a slave and cast off the burden of slavery (and died) there”. The scholar’s conclusion is that “Leonidas seems to think that if Alcman was a Lydian he retained till death some portion of slavery”.^[9] Gow and Page too, though suspicious of Planudes’ reading, think that of the two interpretations the one pertaining to slavery might need to be preferred.^[10]

What I will propose is that not only is the other interpretation to be preferred, i. e. ἄχθος actually being the burden of life (albeit in a more nuanced way), but also that one can read the epigram in this sense by retaining the transmitted text with minimal emendations. This reading will be corroborated both by some elements from Alcman’s extant poetry and by more general considerations on Greek poetic imagery.

Let us start with the text. Firstly, the reading εἴθ’ of the manuscripts is much less poignant on its own, without another correlative εἴτε, and it will therefore be convenient to accept Jacobs’ emendation ἔνθ’, the sense being that Alcman died in Sparta, which does not cause any problems.^[11] The adjective λοῖσθος, then, could be retained^[12] and taken predicatively, as Paton apparently already did,^[13] though admittedly there are few compelling parallels for this use;^[14] or, perhaps more conveniently, it could be emended to λοῖσθον, to be taken with ἄχθος, “having thrown off his last burden” (the mistake could easily be explained with an eye to the ending of ἄχθος). Lexicographical sources, when commenting on Il. 23.536 (λοῖσθος ἀνὴρ ὤριστος ἐλαύνει μώνυχας ἵππους, the only occurrence of the word in Homer) gloss the adjective as ἔσχατος.^[15] The fact that the Suda repeats this explanation (s.v. λοῖσθος = λ 763 Adler), quotes the line from our epigram, and then adds περὶ Ἀλκμᾶνος ὁ λόγος troubled Gow and Page as “the choice of these words as illustration seems odd, for λοῖσθος is not a rare adj.”:^[16] I contend that the adjective is not, however, common. Beyond the above-mentioned Homeric passage, it is found twice in Hesiod (Theog. 921, F 23 a.27 M.-W.), and once in Sophocles (F 698 Radt ὁ θάνατος λοῖσθος ἰατρὸς κακῶν), while Euripides uses the distinct identical word meaning “beam”;^[17] the occurrences in Lykophron (cf. fn. 14) could be Homeric affectation, and certainly Euphorion F 57.13 is linked to the Homeric passage.^[18] It would therefore not be striking if a lexicographer commented that the word is found in Alcman. However, the actual meaning of the phrase in the Suda is probably just “this refers to Alcman” (λόγος not referring to the word λοῖσθος, but meaning “this is referring to”).^[19] The derivative form λοίσθιος, which is much more common, is used in an equivalent way, including adverbially.^[20] There is no apparent reason, then, not to read the word λοῖσθος or λοῖσθον here.

I propose to read the text as follows:

Τὸν χαρίεντ’ Ἀλκμᾶνα, τὸν ὑμνητῆρ’ ὑμεναίων

κύκνον, τὸν Μουσέων ἄξια μελψάμενον,

τύμβος ἔχει, Σπάρτας μεγάλαν χάριν· ἔνθ’ ὅ γε λοῖσθον

ἄχθος ἀπορρίψας οἴχεται εἰς Ἀίδαν.^[21]

Graceful Alcman, the swan-singer of spousal songs,

who composed things worthy of the Muses,

this tomb holds, the great delight of Sparta; there,

having thrown off his last burden

[or: where, at last, having thrown off his burden], he set off to Hades.

Now that we are satisfied with the text, let us move on the meaning of ἄχθος. As mentioned, I propose that it should refer to the burden of life,^[22] or, more precisely, old age wearied by a heavy body. The idea of the body (not necessarily old) as a burden to the earth has a long tradition in Greek thought and literature, starting already with Achilles at Il. 18.104, who feels like an ἐτώσιον ἄχθος ἀρούρης.^[23] However, it is especially old age which is treated in Greek thought as a heavy burden. A famous instance is found in Euripides’ Heracles, in which the chorus contrasts, in more than one passage, the old age of its members with the youth of Heracles and at ll. 637–640 says: ἁ νεότας μοι φίλον· ἄ/χθος τὸ δὲ γῆρας αἰεὶ / βαρύτερον Αἴτνας σκοπέλων / ἐπὶ κρατὶ κεῖται ... (which probably influenced Callim. Aet. 1.35, where old age is a βάρος of which the poet-cicada wishes to rid himself);^[24] I will return to this passage below.^[25] Posidippus goes as far as coining the term βαρύγηρως (in epigram 60 A.-B., l. 5, where it is contrasted with κοῦφος ἀνήρ in l. 6). In our epigram, then, Alcman is getting rid of the burden of his old body, i. e. dying, in Sparta.

That this must be the case, however, is also further corroborated by what follows, which leads to a new interpretation of the whole epigram, for which the image of the swan must be considered more at length. That Leonidas calls Alcman a swan is no surprise, as the swan was customarily associated with poets, with Apollo, and the Muses.^[26] The animal was celebrated for its musicality and for its proverbial ‘swan song’, which the bird was believed to sing when approaching old age or death, attested since Aesch. Ag. 1444 and then widely throughout antiquity.^[27] Apart from its song, the bird was also associated with old age more generally, which plays especially on the connotation of the swan as white bird par excellence^[28] and the whiteness of old men’s hair. This association is especially attested for old men (e. g. Zenon, ὁ σοφὸς κύκνος in Posidippus Ep. 123 A.-B. = 1 G.-P., l. 3) and poets, presumably as a result of a combination of all the above-mentioned associations.^[29] In the same context of the above-mentioned passage from Euripides’ Heracles, the chorus insists that despite its old age it will have the power to sing: παιᾶνας δ’ ἐπὶ σοῖς μελά/θροις κύκνος ὣς γέρων ἀοι/δὸς πολιᾶν ἐκ γενύων / κελαδήσω· τὸ γὰρ εὖ / τοῖς ὕμνοισιν ὑπάρχει (ll. 690–694). It might also not be a coincidence that in Callim. Ia. 2 the swan asks the gods to take old age away from him (Dieg. VI 284 22–26, μέχρι κατὰ λύσιν γήρως ἐπρέσβευσεν ὁ κύκνος πρὸς τοὺς θεούς ...).

To this, one should add a further association, albeit not exclusively concerning swans, which has been highlighted by Jacobson (2009) regarding Hor. Carm. 2.20, a poem in which Horace celebrates his transfiguration into a swan and the metaphorical flight of his immortal poetic fame across the known world; the scholar has drawn attention to a series of passages which show the Greek conceptualisation of the soul as a bird, either through verbs related to flying or with more explicit associations with specific birds (e. g. the soul of Aristeas as a raven, that of Alexander as an eagle, that of Orpheus as a swan in the myth of Er).^[30] Jacobson connects these testimonies to the idea of the imperishable fame of the poet which, after the soul has left his old body, can soar widely across the land. This point might also be relevant for our epigram, especially when one bears in mind the Greek precedents, cf. the locus classicus Thgn. 237–246.^[31] This leads me to consider a passage of Alcman in light of all the things discussed.

A famous hexameter fragment of Alcman, PMGF 26 = fr. 90 Calame, is concerned with birds, namely the kerylos:^[32]

οὔ μ’ ἔτι, παρσενικαὶ μελιγάρυες ἱαρόφωνοι,

γυῖα φέρην δύναται· βάλε δὴ βάλε κηρύλος εἴην,

ὅς τ’ ἐπὶ κύματος ἄνθος ἅμ’ ἀλκυόνεσσι ποτήται

νηλεὲς ἦτορ ἔχων, ἁλιπόρφυρος ἱαρὸς ὄρνις.

No longer, honey-toned, strong-voiced girls, can my limbs carry me. If only, if only I were a cerylus, who flies along with the halcyons over the flower of the wave with resolute heart, strong, sea-blue bird.^[33]

The exact interpretation of the fragment, including whether it should be understood as spoken by the voice of the poet himself, has been much debated, but it is clear that the weariness of old age is involved. This is also suggested by the context of quotation, [Antig. Car.] Mir. 23 (= Antig. Car. fr. 54 b Dorandi) where it is introduced with the words: φησὶν γὰρ ἀσθενὴς ὢν [scil. Alcman] διὰ τὸ γῆρας καὶ τοῖς χοροῖς οὐ δυνάμενος συμπεριφέρεσθαι οὐδὲ τῇ τῶν παρθένων ὀρχήσει.^[34] On this basis, G. Vestrheim has provided a suggestive hypothesis, according to which the fragment should be read as a wish for fame: “Alcman’s wish is a wish for himself to be carried by the maidens as the old cerylus is carried by the halcyons, and metaphorically for his fame to be carried by their song”,^[35] and this is carried out by the voice of the chorus of maidens-halcyons (the context of this fragment would be a prooimion).^[36] This would be corroborated by passages in Archaic and Classical Greek lyric in which fame is depicted as soaring far and wide.^[37]

I propose, then, that in his epitaph Leonidas is alluding to this passage, which we know was well-known in antiquity,^[38] and paying homage to Alcman’s poetry more broadly, which contains many references to birds. The swan features in Alcman PMGF 1, ll. 100–101 = fr. 3, ll. 100‒101 Calame, φθέγγεται ... κύκνο̣ς, and in P.Oxy. 2737 fr. 1, col. I, ll. 19–27 = fr. 6 S.L.G., v. Ar. fr. 590 K.-A., κύκνος ὑπὸ πτερύγων τοιόνδε [τι] = S2 PMGF Alcman S2, Alcman F12b Campbell; birds more generally also feature in his poetry, and twice with poetical associations, i. e. the songs of Alcman arranged in imitation of the sound of partridges in PMGF 39 = fr. 91 Calame, ϝέπη τἀδε καὶ μέλος Ἀλκμὰν / εὗρε γεγλωσσαμέναν / κακκαβίδων ὄπα συνθέμενος, and probably the sound of birds in PMGF 40 = fr. 140 Calame, ϝοῖδα δ’ ὀρνίχων νόμως / παντῶν (besides the above-discussed PMGF 26).^[39]

When reading the text as established above and bearing in mind all the connections discussed above, then, one is finally able to give a more satisfactory reading of Leonidas’ epigram. The Alcman-swan was a great delight to Sparta, where he got rid of the burden of his (probably old) body, meaning both that from a literal point of view he died in Sparta (where his tomb became a landmark) and that he achieved poetic immortality, symbolised by the swan finally soaring towards Hades. The latter image, based on well-established poetological associations of the swan, will have gained additional value when one bears in mind the significance of birds in Alcman and the kerylos-fragment, and Leonidas thus produced a sophisticated homage to this poet.