Sparse Spartan Verse: Filling Gaps in the Thermopylae Epigram

‫ۧ۩ۡٷې‬ ‫ۓیې‪ۛҖ‬ۦۣ‪ۘۛۙғ‬۝ۦۖۡٷۗ‪۠ۧғ‬ٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞‪ҖҖ‬ۃۤۨۨۜ‬ ‫‪ẬẸỀẾ‬ڷۦۣۚڷۧۙۗ۝۪ۦۙۧڷ۠ٷۣۢ۝ۨ۝ۘۘۆ‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃۧۨۦۙ۠ٷڷ۠۝ٷۡٮ‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃۣۧۢ۝ۨۤ۝ۦۗۧۖ۩ۑ‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃۧۨۢ۝ۦۤۙۦڷ۠ٷ۝ۗۦۣۙۡۡ‪Ө‬‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃڷۙۧ۩ڷۣۚڷۧۡۦۙے‬ ‫‪І‬ٲڷۑێۆٰڷٰ‪І‬ٲۋۋٲٯڷۃٮۑېٮ۔ڷ‪І‬ۆےېۆێۑڷٮۑېۆێۑ‬ ‫یۆېٰٲێٮڷٮۆۋﯦێۍیېٮٱےڷٮٱے‬ ‫ۧٷۣۛ۝ﯧڷۧ۝ۢۢٷۣٲ‬ ‫ڿڿڽڷ‪Ғ‬ڷ‪Ң‬ڽڽڷۤۤڷۃۀڽڼھڷۦۙۖۡۙۗۙ‪ө‬ڷ‪Җ‬ڷھڼڷۙ۩ۧۧٲڷ‪Җ‬ڷڿۀڷۙۡ۩ۣ۠۔ڷ‪Җ‬ڷۧ۩ۡٷې‬ ‫ۀڽڼھڷۦۙۖۡۙۗۙ‪ө‬ڷڿڽڷۃۙۢ۝ۣ۠ۢڷۘۙۜۧ۝۠ۖ۩ێڷۃڼڽ‪ғ‬ۀڽڼھ‪ۡ۩ғ‬ۦ‪Җ‬ۀڽڼڽ‪ғ‬ڼڽڷۃٲۍ‪ө‬‬ ‫ڽڼڽڼڼڼۀڽﯥڽۀڿہۀڼڼۑٵۨۗٷۦۨۧۖٷ‪ۛҖ‬ۦۣ‪ۘۛۙғ‬۝ۦۖۡٷۗ‪۠ۧғ‬ٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞‪ҖҖ‬ۃۤۨۨۜڷۃۙ۠ۗ۝ۨۦٷڷۧ۝ۜۨڷۣۨڷ۟ۢ۝ۋ‬ ‫ۃۙ۠ۗ۝ۨۦٷڷۧ۝ۜۨڷۙۨ۝ۗڷۣۨڷۣ۫ٱ‬ ‫ٮٱےڷ‪І‬ٲڷۑێۆٰڷٰ‪І‬ٲۋۋٲٯڷۃٮۑېٮ۔ڷ‪І‬ۆےېۆێۑڷٮۑېۆێۑڷ‪ғ‬ۀۀڽڼھڿڷۧٷۣۛ۝ﯧڷۧ۝ۢۢٷۣٲ‬ ‫ڼڽ‪ғ‬ۀڽڼھ‪ۡ۩ғ‬ۦ‪Җ‬ۀڽڼڽ‪ғ‬ڼڽۃ۝ۣۘڷڿڿڽ‪ҢҒ‬ڽڽڷۤۤڷۃڿۀڷۃۧ۩ۡٷېڷ‪ғ‬یۆېٰٲێٮڷٮۆۋﯦێۍیېٮٱے‬ ‫ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۝۠‪Ө‬ڷۃڷۣۧۢ۝ۧۧ۝ۡۦۙێڷۨۧۙ۩ۥۙې‬ ‫ۀڽڼھڷۗۙ‪ө‬ڷۀڽڷۣۢڷڿڼڽ‪ғ‬ۀھڽ‪ғ‬ڿڼھ‪ғ‬ڼ‪Ң‬ڽڷۃۧۧۙۦۘۘٷڷێٲڷۃۓیې‪ۛҖ‬ۦۣ‪ۘۛۙғ‬۝ۦۖۡٷۗ‪۠ۧғ‬ٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞‪ҖҖ‬ۃۤۨۨۜڷۣۡۦۚڷۘۙۘٷۣۣ۠ۢ۫‪ө‬‬ Ramus 43 (2) p.115–133 © Aureal Publications 2014. doi:10.1017/rmu.2014.10 SPARSE SPARTAN VERSE: FILLING GAPS IN THE THERMOPYLAE EPIGRAM Ioannis Ziogas In the Apophthegmata Laconica, a collection of witty exchanges that highlight the shrewdness of Laconian brevity, we read the following story. An Argive once taunted a Spartan by pointing out the multitude of Spartan tombs in Argive ter- ritory. The Spartan retorted that, by contrast, not a single Argive tomb could be found in Sparta. The author of the Plutarchan tale comments that the Spartan insinuated that, while his people had repeatedly invaded Argos, the Argives had never set foot on Sparta (Mor. 233c; cf. Vit. Ages. 31.6). Besides attesting to the sharp wit of Laconian concision, the story is a good example of how easily a soldier’s tomb can serve different national agendas. While the pres- ence of Spartan dead in Argos is a source of pride for the Argives, from another point of view it can be read as a sign of Spartan military prowess.1 The Greek word σῆμα (‘tomb’) speaks for the crucial role of semiotics in interpreting the semantics of military monuments.2 The tomb is a sign that needs to be decoded; only more often than not there is more than one way of deciphering it. The Spartan practice of burying the war-dead at the site of the battle contri- butes to the polysemy of monuments since a grave in a foreign territory is more open to appropriation. The Spartan monument in the Athenian Kerameikos is a case in point. Polly Low has aptly discussed the radically different symbolism of the monument for the Athenians and the Spartans.3 For the Spartans, the monu- ment occupies a crucial position in a hostile territory upon which the Spartan army inflicted a crushing defeat. Yet in Lysias’ Epitaphios (2.63) the monument is disassociated from Spartan military victory and transformed into a symbol of Athenian military and moral ἀρετή. The monument at Thermopylae with its brief inscription commemorating the death of the Three Hundred is undoubtedly the most famous Spartan memorial. An earlier version of this article was presented in Sydney in January 2013 (at the annual conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies) and I would like to thank the members of the audience who asked questions and offered suggestions. I am particularly grateful to Matthew Sears, David Pritchard, Peter Londey and Doug Kelly. Erica Bexley read several drafts of this essay and gave me extremely useful feedback. The anonymous readers of this journal offered detailed, perceptive and challenging comments on both the argument and structure of my article. I would also like to thank the editor of Ramus, Helen Morales, and the associate editor, John Penwill. 1. Low (2004), 93, briefly discusses the tale along similar lines. 2. Nagy (1983), 35, starts his article on the interconnection between σῆμα and νόησις by pointing out that the words semiotic and semantic may be perceived in a new light if we look at their Greek origin. For Nagy, the intelligence required to decode the semiotics of tombs in archaic Greek epic is inscribed in the meaning and etymology of σῆμα. 3. See Low (2004), 98f. 115  IOANNIS ZIOGAS Buried in foreign territory, the dead Spartans rely on the viewpoint of a stran- ger (ξεῖνος) for sending their message to their fatherland. By nature and pos- ition this well-known funerary inscription can be substantiated only through the unexpected perspective of a stranger. Given the exceptional appeal of the epigram to different cultures and eras, we would expect a plethora of various and contradictory readings. Yet there seems to be a surprisingly uniform reading of the inscription’s semiotics from Cicero and Schiller to Nazi Germany and Frank Miller’s 300.4 The communis opinio seems to be that the Thermopylae epitaph glorifies the freeborn spirit of the Spartan heroes and their obedience to the laws of their fatherland. This article questions this one-dimensional way of reading the inscription and suggests that the remark- ably short and simple Thermopylae epigram is much more ambiguous and open to appropriation than is usually assumed. The established reading of the epigram can easily conceal some fascinating aspects of the distich. Thus, my first task is to defamiliarise this well-known poem and point out alternative angles for approaching it. Focusing on the epigram’s message can be the starting point of defamiliarising it, so let us have a look at it: ὦ ξεῖν’, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.5 Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, trusting their words.6 Understatement is the very force of the inscription. Befitting not only the para- meters of the genre but also the reputation of the Spartans, the epigram is signifi- cantly laconic. The dead address a stranger and ask him to bring a simple message to Lacedaemon: that they lie dead here (i.e., at Thermopylae) after heeding the words of the Lacedaemonians. This is all the epigram tells us. The rest is left to the reader to construct or reconstruct. Inviting the reader to fill in the gaps is a salient feature of funerary inscriptions. In his analysis of the epigram’s 4. On Cicero, see my discussion below. Schiller translates the epigram in his elegy Der Spazier- gang; see Baumbach (2000), 17-20. On the epigram’s reception and the role of the Spartan Mirage in Nazi Germany, see Rebenich (2002), 328-32; Roche (2012). The graphic novel and movie 300 incorp- orate the epigram in their program of glorifying the free spirit of the Spartans at Thermopylae. On the positive portrayal of Sparta in modern fiction with an emphasis on 300, see Fotheringham (2012). See also Levene (2007), on Maté’s 1962 film The 300 Spartans; Bridges (2007), on Pressfield’s novel Gates of Fire. On the Spartan tradition in European thought, see Rawson (1969). 5. The epigram is first attested in Herodotus 7.228. The authorship of the epigram is debated, but does not affect my argument. I focus on the voice of the dead soldiers and the reception of their words, not on the author of the epigram. Herodotus does not mention its author, but later the Greek Anthology attributes it to Simonides. Page (1981), 231-34, argues that the epigram was not written by Simonides. Erbse (1998) argues that Simonides is the author of the epigram. On the ancient tradition according to which Simonides was the poet of epigrams on the Persian Wars, see Higbie (2010). 6. All translations are mine. 116  SPARSE SPARTAN VERSE reception, Manuel Baumbach argues that the epigram invites the reader to fill in the gaps which are deliberately left open for his imagination.7 What is more, the Thermopylae epigram, by asking the passer-by to take a message somewhere else, invites decontextualisation and recontextualisation. Baumbach calls this process ‘delapidarisation’ (Entlapidarisierung); the message leaves the stone monument and enters the world of various readers’ readings.8 Thus, subjective constructions of the epigram’s meaning are its modus operandi. It should also be noted that lapidary brevity and apparent simplicity encourage more interpretation, not less.9 In particular, Spartan βραχυλογία was notoriously ambiguous and associated with duplicity rather than simplicity.10 In Aristo- phanes’ Lysistrata, an Athenian delegate confesses that, coming from Sparta, each ambassador brings different reports of the same words (ἀγγέλλομεν δ’ οὐ ταὐτὰ τῶν αὐτῶν πέρι, Lys. 1235). Inevitably, different strangers will deliver (ἀγγέλλειν) different messages of the same epigram since its Laconian brevity opens many gaps that can trigger a plethora of interpretations. The traditional reading of the epigram takes the voice of the dead soldiers as a voice of pride. The heroes are proud of dying on the battlefield, obeying Spartan military law. In a recent chapter on Thermopylae in the Western imagination, the author plainly states that the famous epigram for the Three Hundred ‘stresses the Spartans’ discipline and obedience to their laws’.11 Yet this view, often presented as undisputed truth, is nothing more than a tendentious reading. The epigram can be easily read as critique of a military code that led to the futile death of three hundred men.12 If we take Herodotus’ version into account, it is possible to interpret the voice of the dead soldiers as accusing their countrymen for their death.13 According to Herodotus, Leonidas sought reinforcements that never came. The Spartan king sent heralds to Greek cities asking for military support, but the observation of the feast of the Karneia delayed auxiliary troops which the Spartans were 7. Baumbach (2000) calls the process of filling in the gaps Leerstellen; cf. Baumbach, Petrovic and Petrovic (2010), 16. On the genre’s strategy of forcing the reader to fill in details missing from the epigram, see Bing (1995); Bruss (2005), 118f. 8. Baumbach (2000), 8f. 9. Eco (1979), 8f., makes a similar point about comics and advertisements. He remarks that ‘texts that obsessively aim at arousing a precise response on the part of more or less precise empirical readers...are in fact open to any possible “aberrant” decoding’: Eco (1979), 8. 10. On the mostly Athenian stereotype of the duplicitous Spartan, see Bradford (1994). On βραχυλογία and Spartan duplicity, see also Bayliss (2009). 11. Clough (2004), 363. 12. The reason for the sacrifice of the Three Hundred is strategically unclear and attempts to explain its practical value are unconvincing. The Persians were delayed just for a few days and, in my view, the military advantage of Thermopylae was insignificant. On this issue, see Grant (1961); Lazenby (1979), 134; Burn (1984), 407; Green (1996), 109-20; Clarke (2002), 68-72. 13. It makes sense to begin by contextualising the reader of the epigram in Herodotus’ version, given that this is the earliest source. Whether the tradition recorded in Herodotus was reliable or not is a different issue. This article does not focus on historical accuracy but tries to situate the Therm- opylae epigram in different contexts in order to show how these contexts affect its meaning. 117  IOANNIS ZIOGAS intending to dispatch (Herodotus 7.206). The Spartans promised to march out with all their troops, leaving just one garrison at home, after the end of the festi- val. Leonidas was left alone at Thermopylae with his men and some military support from the Thespians and the unwilling Thebans, and it is not unlikely that the Greeks died while hoping that reinforcements would eventually arrive from Sparta. Michael Tueller makes the intriguing observation that the Thermo- pylae epigram, which is to be delivered to the Spartans, implies that their pro- mised reinforcements never arrived.14 If we read the epigram this way, then the dead Spartans do not say that they fell in battle obeying orders, but that they died because they trusted their countrymen who promised to support them but ultimately let them down. The focus shifts from the sacrifice of the warriors to the responsibility of the Spartans who stayed at home. Given that the epigram’s target audience are the Spartans who did not die at Thermopylae, the issue of their accountability for the death of the Three Hundred is likely to be in play. If we read τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι as referring to unfulfilled promises coming from home, then the voice of the dead warriors does not celebrate a heroic deed of self-sac- rifice and patriotic loyalty, but blames the Spartans for the death of their fellow countrymen. The warriors died while holding their position in anticipation of pro- mised military support from home. Of course, this reading contrasts sharply with the interpretation of τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι as referring to obedience to military commands. But even if we accept the common interpretation, we do not have to accept the laudatory tone of the inscription. What is more, it is far from clear that the Three Hundred died because they followed Spartan military code. Herodotus seems to record a trad- ition according to which their death was due to sheer folly and madness. The Spartans go to meet certain death at Thermopylae in a state of self-destructive madness (παραχρεώμενοί τε καὶ ἀτέοντες, Herodotus 7.224). Nicole Loraux notes that ‘the Spartans are obviously in a state of λύσσα, the very λύσσα that ten years later the city will not pardon in Aristodamos’.15 It can be argued that the self-destructive fight of the Three Hundred not only does not follow but in fact clashes with the Spartan military code of honour. In this context, the voice of the dead soldiers sounds defensive rather than confident. The only thing they achieved was a death that was due not to an insane desire to show off their heroism, but resulted from following Spartan precepts to the extreme.16 14. Tueller (2010), 58. 15. Loraux (1995), 72. Despite his extraordinary valour at Platea, Aristodamos is not honoured because his deeds were attributed to a desire to be killed (Herodotus 9.71). For an excellent analysis of ἄτη in Herodotus 7.224, see Clarke (2002). 16. Clarke (2002), 76f., concludes his perceptive chapter on Spartan ἄτη at Thermopylae by briefly suggesting that the epigram may allow one to hear a note of reproach. He further notes that the grave of the Three Hundred was neither marked by their names nor commemorated by such honours as were given to those who laid down their lives in pursuit of victory. 118  SPARSE SPARTAN VERSE What triggers diverse interpretations of our distich is the very absence of any mention of ἀρετή or any reference to a freeborn spirit that resists slavery. There is not a single word about the glory of the dead heroes; nothing about their renown, their κλέος. Catherine Trümpy points out that the mention of ἀρετή of the defunct plays an important role in funerary epigrams of this period.17 Funerary epigrams often echo the code of heroic epic poetry; lines such as ἀνδρõν τõνδ’ ἀρετε̃[ς ? ἔσται κλέ]⸤ος ἄϕθι⸥[τον] αἰεί (‘the renown of these men’s virtue will be forever imperishable’, CEG 2)18 and ⸤χαίρετε ἀριστε̃ες, πολέμο μέγα⸥ κ̣ ῦδο⸤ς ἔχοντες⸥ (‘greetings, best men, who acquired great glory in war’, CEG 4) are typical.19 In the Thermopylae epigram, however, there is not a single word about glory which is conveyed upon heroes dying on the battlefield. Equally unconventional is the silence about the patriotic ideal for which the heroes died. Usually, there is mention of the soldiers dying for freedom, so that they will never ‘see the day of slavery’ (δούλιο⸤ν μαρ ἰδε̃ν⸥, CEG 2), or in order to defend their fatherland: cf. ⸤hοί ποτε καλλιχόρο περὶ πατ⸥ρίδος ὀ⸤λέσατε hέβεν⸥ (‘who once lost your youth for your fatherland of fair-dancing floors’, CEG 4). By contrast, the dead at Thermopylae have nothing to say about a freeborn spirit for which they defended their fatherland and met a noble death. Heroic understatement and Spartan brevity can explain the epitaph’s uncon- ventional absence of salient motifs of funerary war inscriptions. What is more, Gjert Vestrheim has recently argued that the reason why the Thermopylae epigram does not explicitly praise the dead Spartans is because the dead speak in propria persona.20 Yet a comparison with epigrams that are inspired by the Thermopylae inscription shows that motifs such as the glory of the deceased and the defence of one’s country are not absent from first person epitaphs. The following epigram, which is contemporaneous with the Thermopylae inscription, is a case in point: ⸤ὀ͂ ξ〈εῖ〉νε, εὔhυδρ⸥όν ποκ’ ἐναίομες ἄστυ ϙορίνθο, ⎪ ⸤νῦν δὲ hα〈μὲ〉 Αἴα⸥ν̣τος ⸤νᾶσος ἔχει Σαλαμίς⸥. ⎪ ⸤ἐνθάδε Φοινίσσας ν〈ᾶ〉ας καὶ Πέρσας hελόντες⸥ ⎪ ⸤καὶ Μέδος hι〈α〉ρὰν hελλάδα ῥυ〈σά〉μεθα⸥. (CEG 131) 17. Trümpy (2010), 173f. 18. CEG = Hansen (1983–1989). All quotations of CEG texts follow Hansen’s orthography and diacritical/epigraphical marks. 19. On κλέος and glory in sepulchral epigrams, see Ecker (1990), 189-217; cf. Trümpy (2010), 173f. 20. Vestrheim (2010), 74, points out that ‘it seems more proper for the dead to speak of their acts than to praise their own virtues, and so these epigrams [in which the dead speak in the first person] tend to be even more restrained than their second- and third-person counterparts’. Besides the Thermo- pylae epigram, he mentions GVI 8, 9 and 28 (GVI = Peek [1955]), and CEG 131. Then he modifies his claim for GVI 28 (ibid. 74 n.25) and CEG 131 (ibid. 74). My discussion of CEG 131 and CEG 476 shows that Vestrheim’s claim is hardly convincing. 119  IOANNIS ZIOGAS Stranger, once we inhabited well-watered Corinth, but now Salamis, Ajax’s island, holds us. Here we destroyed Phoenician ships, Persians, and Medes, and saved holy Greece. ‘Saving holy Greece’ is certainly not an objective understatement. By contrast, the holiness of Greece is nowhere to be found in the inscription for the Three Hundred and the purpose of their death is left open to interpretation and thus problematised. It is far from clear that the Three Hundred fell in order to rescue Greece or Sparta. All the epigram tells us is that they are dead because of what they were told. Dying on the battlefield in order to rescue Greece is both typical of first-person epigrams for the Persian Wars and conspicuously absent from the Thermopylae inscription. Plutarch attests a two-line epigram from a cenotaph on the Isthmus: ἀκμᾶς ἑστακυῖαν ἐπὶ ξυροῦ Ἑλλάδα πᾶσαν ταῖς αὑτῶν ψυχαῖς κείμεθα ῥυσάμενοι.21 (De Her. mal. 39 870E-F) We lie [here] after rescuing all Greece, which was balanced on a razor’s edge, with our own lives. The boast of the dead Corinthians is remarkable since they claim that the army of a single city rescued the whole of Greece. Obviously, the first person does not restrain the laudatory tone of the epitaph. The inscription for the dead in Chaeronea imitates the Thermopylae epigram more closely but also fills in the gaps that are deliberately left open in the epitaph for the Three Hundred: ⸤ὦ Χρόν⸥ε, παντοίων θνητο⸤ῖς πανεπίσκοπε δαῖμον⸥, ⎪ ⸤ἄγγελ⸥ος ἡμετέρων πᾶσ⸤ι γενοῦ παθέων⸥, ⎪ ⸤ὡς ἱερὰν σώιζειν πε⸥ι̣⸤ρώμενοι Ἑλλάδα χώρ〈α〉ν⸥ ⎪ ⸤Βοιωτῶν κλεινοῖς θνήισκομεν ἐν δαπέδοις⸥. (CEG 467) Time, thoroughly overseeing deity of all sorts of things over mortals, be a messenger of our sufferings to all people, that in our attempt to save the holy Greek land we died in the renowned plains of the Boeotians. 21. A longer version quoted by Aristides (28.66) elaborates on the epitaph, adding that the dead Corinthians rescued Greece from slavery (δουλοσύνης), and has the deceased boast of their public service (εὐεργεσίης). On Aristides’ version, see Higbie (2010), 192f. 120  SPARSE SPARTAN VERSE The holiness of Greece and the glory of the battlefield (cf. κλεινοῖς...δαπέδοις) are spelled out in this first-person epitaph. The sacred reason why the men died is also clear: the defence of holy Greece. It is also important to note that the Chaer- onea epigram substitutes divine Time for the anonymous stranger. The apostro- phe to the ξεῖνος in the Thermopylae epigram suggests that the soldiers died in a foreign country.22 The inscription assigns a single task to the foreign passer-by: to go to Sparta and report the news of the death of the Three Hundred. While such an understatement restricts the spread of the message to Sparta, the epigram, by asking each passer-by to carry the news to Sparta, commits its message to the memory of every passer-by. By contrast, the Chaeronea epigram is less subtle since it asks all-encompassing Time, addressed as a personified abstraction, to make known their patriotic sacrifice to all people (πᾶσι). The dead soldiers demand eternal and universal commemoration of their death for their attempt to defend the holy land of Greece. Such an appeal is in line with the epic promise of imperishable fame that covers the whole earth and the war heroes of Chaeronea expect nothing less. This reworking of the Thermopylae inscription is politically charged since it implies that Philip of Macedon is a barbaric enemy, not unlike Xerxes, who aims at enslaving Greece. The epitaph draws on the Thermopylae inscription in order to present the battle of Chaeronea as a struggle between allied Greeks and barbaric invaders. Just like the Three Hundred, the heroes of Chaeronea lost the battle, but their glory will live forever. A parallel between the war heroes who lost the battle and their lives in Chaeronea with the already legendary Three Hundred boosts the heroic profile of the deceased. While the Chaeronea epigram seems to indicate that the Thermopylae inscrip- tion was already being seen as a successful template for patriotic commemora- tions of war dead, it further emphasises the sharp contrast between the Spartan understatement of the Thermopylae epitaph and its gloriously patriotic appropri- ation. And even though the dead Spartans do not tell us that they died fighting for freedom, this line has become the default choice for filling the gaps of this pithy distich. Still, the Three Hundred give us the reason for their death. The present participle πειρώμενοι in the Chaeronea epitaph echoes πειθόμενοι from the Thermopylae inscription. The reason why the Spartan warriors died is, according to the epigram, that they obeyed and are still obeying the words of their country- men (τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι). Translating πειθόμενοι as ‘obeying’ or ‘obedient to’ seems to be the default choice of most translators of the epi- gram.23 However convenient the translation of the middle voice πείθομαι as 22. On ξένος and its substitutes in epigrams, see Tueller (2010), 51-59; cf. Bruss (2005), 38-57, on the roadside monument in inscribed epigrams. 23. E.g. Page (1981), 233; Tueller (2010), 57. Note that the present tense of πειθόμενοι is inter- esting. It can be interpreted as referring to a general Spartan ethos that is being perpetuated by the monument. We could, however, read a tone of ironic reproach into it; the Three Hundred are still relying on unfulfilled promises that led to their death. 121  IOANNIS ZIOGAS ‘I obey’ is, it is problematic. It is essential to note that the verb πείθομαι connotes persuasion, a notion that is hardly relevant to the English ‘obey’. The dead at Thermopylae may want to tell us that they trusted or were convinced by what the Spartans told them, not just that they followed their orders. The translation of πειθόμενοι as ‘obeying’ depends on the interpretation of ῥήμασι as ‘laws’ (presumably referring to Lycurgus’ laws) or ‘orders’. This is the majority view.24 Such an interpretation is as well-established as it is ground- less, so that Andrej Petrovic has to clarify the obvious when he comments that ῥήματα means neither ‘laws’ nor ‘orders’.25 But once we realise that ῥήματα simply means ‘words’, then the translation of πειθόμενοι as ‘obeying’ seems less accurate. The phrase τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι can refer to the Three Hundred’s reliance on messages of support coming from home.26 Later authors quoting the epigram change ῥήμασι to νομίμοις and are forced to adjust the word order to fit the metre. This stark tampering with the inscription attests that ῥήμασι was indeed perceived as a pretty weak word for extolling the Spartans’ astonishing sense of patriotic duty and self-sacrifice. In the imagin- ation of readers eager to fill in the epigram’s gaps with heroic ideals, it made more sense to make the Three Hundred obey the law. Lycurgus (Leocr. 109), Diodorus (11.33.2) and Strabo (9.4.16, C 429) quote the following version: ὦ ξεῖν’, ἄγγειλον Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων πειθόμενοι νομίμοις. Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their laws. There is little doubt that this is a later, and pretty clumsy, version of the original inscription.27 In my view, it is peculiar that the dead Spartans would refer to the established laws and customs of their fatherland as ‘their laws’, i.e., ‘the laws of the Lacedaemonians’, instead of ‘our laws’.28 The pronoun κείνων not only 24. Baumbach (2000), for instance, follows this line, while Heinze (1969), 54, asserts that ‘[ῥ]ήματα sind die Worte, und wer einem Worte gehorcht, faßt es als Befehl’. On an interpretation along those lines, see also Philipp (1968), 44. Svenbro (1993), 124, speculates that ῥῆμα is probably synonymous with ῥήτρα, which is the Laconian word for ‘law’. Cf. Loraux (1995), 67, 275f. On Spartan law, see MacDowell (1986). 25. Petrovic (2007), 249: ‘ῥήματα bezeichnen keine Gesetze und keine Befehle, wie dies in Über- setzungen des öfteren zu finden ist; die Bedeutung ist schlicht „die Worte‟ bzw. „das Gesagte‟.’ 26. Note that there is no evidence that the Three Hundred kept their post and died at Thermopylae because they obeyed orders from home; it is far from clear that orders from Sparta forced Leonidas to sacrifice himself and his men. 27. Reitzenstein (1893), 112, already noted that ῥήμασι is a lectio difficilior and most likely the original version. 28. Page (1981), 233f., argues that νομίμοις is intrinsically much superior to ῥήμασι. He is certain- ly right to point out that ῥήματα are merely ‘words’, but his view that the meaning ‘words’ is weak in the context is entirely subjective. The problem is that Page takes it for granted that πειθόμενοι means ‘obedient to’ and thus finds the phrase ‘obedient to their words’ weak. He says nothing about the awk- wardness of κείνων, if we read νομίμοις. 122  SPARSE SPARTAN VERSE emphasises the distanced perspective of the Spartans at home but also forges a distinction between the legal code of the Lacedaemonians on the one hand and that of the Three Hundred on the other. Commenting on ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι, Andrej Petrovic notes that it is surprising that the inscription reads κείνων instead of ἡμῶν.29 In my view, κείνων ῥήμασι is not peculiar, but highly signifi- cant; it should refer to what the Lacedaemonians who stayed at home told the Three Hundred. The third person κείνων becomes problematic only if it is con- strued with νομίμοις. And that is one of the reasons why νομίμοις is an awkward variant.30 That the third person plural pronoun is actually awkward for reading ‘laws’ in the original epigram can be shown by translations of scholars who follow the traditional interpretation. Examples are numerous, but a couple will suffice. Jesper Svenbro simply omits κείνων, translating ‘through obedience to the laws’.31 Nicole Loraux changes the Lacedaemonians to Lacedaemon and trans- lates as follows: ‘Stranger, go tell Lacedaemon that we lie here in obedience to her laws’ (my emphasis).32 Interestingly, Loraux translates the epigram along the lines of Cicero’s rendition: dic hospes Spartae, nos te hic uidisse iacentes dum sanctis patriae legibus obsequimur. (Cic. Tusc. 1.42.101) Stranger, tell Sparta that you saw us lying here since we followed the sacred laws of the fatherland. Cicero clearly reads νομίμοις, which he translates as legibus. He seems to have realised the aforementioned incongruity created by κείνων and radically revises the original epigram. Not unlike Loraux, Cicero has Sparta instead of the Lacedaemonians and then refers to the sacred laws of the fatherland. The message to the citizens has been replaced by the name of the city and their 29. Petrovic (2007), 249: ‘Es verwundert jedoch, daß die bestatteten Helden, die ῥήματα nicht als die ἡμῶν empfinden.’ 30. There are other problems with νομίμοις. Spartan military code, as far as we know, did not require a commander to maintain his position when sound strategy dictated a withdrawal: cf. Grant (1961), 15. There was no Spartan law or custom that forced Leonidas and his men to defend a hopeless position. The only ‘law’ that may apply here is the prohibition against breaking rank. But this is hardly a distinctly Spartan military code—it rather applies to any disciplined army. If the Spartans had with- drawn in an orderly fashion in order to occupy stronger ground, no laws would technically have been broken. The Spartans were quite prepared to abandon Salamis, for instance, in order to hide behind the blockade at the Isthmus. 31. Svenbro (1993), 124; ‘par obéissance aux lois’ in the original French (Svenbro [1988], 138). Similarly, Schiller glosses over the pronoun in his translation (Schiller [1804], lines 97f.): ‘Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta, verkündige dorten, du habest / Uns hier liegen gesehn, wie das Gesetz es befahl.’ 32. Loraux (1995), 67. The original French reads: ‘Étranger, va dire à Lacédémone que nous gisons ici par obéissance à ses lois’. Loraux (1977), 109. 123  IOANNIS ZIOGAS words have been translated into the holiness of state laws. In Cicero’s version, the Spartans do not seem to have asked Leonidas and his men to obey their laws—the Three Hundred did their duty to Sparta, their fatherland, without any further prompting from home. Cicero’s translation is an excellent example of how tendentious the process of filling in the epigram’s gaps can be. The powerful subtlety of the Thermopylae inscription with its openness to reception and appropriation has disappeared in Cicero’s rendition. If dum...obsequimur is a justifiable translation of πειθόμενοι, and legibus a contested though attested variant, sanctis and patriae are nowhere to be found in the Thermopylae epitaph—they are simply Cicero’s additions. The shift from trusting ‘words’ (ῥήμασι) to obeying ‘sacred laws’ (sanctis legibus) is, by all means, quite striking. To be sure, even though Cicero takes liberties in his translation, he is faithful to the spirit of archaic and classical Greek epigram. The holiness of the heroes’ mission and the defence of the fatherland are recurring motifs of epitaphs. The epitaph for the Corinthian warriors and the inscription for the battle of Chaeronea, two epigrams which imitate the Thermopylae inscription, mention the holiness of Greece: ⸤hι〈α〉ρὰν hελλάδα ῥυ〈σά〉μεθα⸥ (‘we rescued holy Greece’, CEG 131); ⸤ἱερὰν σώιζειν πε⸥ι̣⸤ρώμενοι Ἑλλάδα χώρ〈α〉ν⸥ (‘trying to save the holy Greek land’, CEG 467). Cicero’s sanctis patriae legibus follows exactly this trad- ition: cf. also ἤρκεσαν ἀργαλέην πατρίδι δουλοσύνην (‘they warded off griev- ous slavery from the fatherland’, Simonides 18 [Page]).33 This tradition is not only related to literary conventions of funerary epigram, but also points to the necessity that readers felt to fill in the gaps of the Thermopylae inscription. The second couplet of the epitaph for the Corinthians is most likely a later add- ition. Likewise, Cicero’s translation of the Thermopylae epigram is an interpret- ation that follows a long tradition of adding a patriotic and heroic tone to the voice of the dead Spartans. However established this tradition may be, it should neither be taken for granted nor is it the only way of reading the deliberately subtle Thermopylae epigram. An alternative interpretation is to read the voice of the dead soldiers as blaming their countrymen for their death. The Lacedaemonians, safe at home, failed the Three Hundred in a time of need. To be sure, this is a markedly subjective interpretation but not an unlikely one—it is just a different way of filling the gaps the epigram leaves open. I should emphasise that I do not claim that the traditional interpretation, exemplified in Cicero’s translation, is wrong. It is essential to bear in mind that the epigram as a genre invites its readers to construct and reconstruct meaning. Different readers may come up with radically different interpreta- tions. As Sourvinou-Inwood argues in her discussion of archaic epigrams, 33. Page (1981), 217f. Πατρίς is repeatedly found in Greek epigrams (see CEG 4, 6, 10.13, 11, 77, 80, 82, 101, 104, 143.5, 171.2, 386, 430). Baumbach (2000), 10, argues that patria in Cicero’s trans- lation is to be associated with the Roman res publica. 124  SPARSE SPARTAN VERSE the reader’s ideological bias determines his perception of the text’s ideological structures.34 This is a distinctive aspect of funerary inscriptions. The voice of the dead comes to life vicariously since it presupposes the voice of a reader. Probably more than in any other literary genre, meaning is created at the moment of reception, not at the moment of composition. Since this genre invites active and dynamic participation of its readers, subtlety is a marker of any epigram’s success. In the case of the Thermopylae epigram, the diction is both plain and intricate, and the success of the distich is, to some extent, due to the interpretive potential it affords to the readers. In fact, the eagerness of readers to fill in the gaps with legal obligations, patriotic spirit and heroic sacrifice makes the existence of these gaps all the more patent, high- lighting the fact that the epigram has nothing to say about any of these ideals. I would further add that both the inscription, with its careful restraint, and its patriotic reception, with its glorifying supplements, trigger an anti-heroic reading. Any statement that invites reconstruction simultaneously provokes deconstruction. The voice of the Spartan warriors is incorporated into the generic dynamics of archaic war epitaphs. Within this framework, the Spartan background of the deceased interacts with the structural, verbal and thematic profile of commemora- tive inscriptions. Such an interaction puts the Three Hundred in the context of a genre which draws on the heroic code of epic poetry. This combination is particu- larly dynamic; the Spartan Mirage is partly based on the tradition of an ethos quite unlike that of Homeric heroes since the Spartans do not seek individual excel- lence or loot and are essentially different from Homer’s heroes in the crucial per- formative area of speech.35 The appropriation of Spartan discourse in a genre that constantly reproduces epic motifs can be traced in epigrams modelled on the Thermopylae inscription, as we have seen above.36 The Homeric dimension of the Three Hundred is also a salient feature of Her- odotus’ narrative.37 Nicole Loraux points out that the fight over Leonidas’ corpse clearly recalls the Homeric mêlée over Patroclus’ body.38 Interestingly, the most notable Homeric echo in Herodotus’ Thermopylae narrative refers to the suicidal blindness (ἄτη), which, for instance, drove Aeneas to challenge Achilles and for 34. Sourvinou-Inwood (1995), 366. 35. See Loraux (1995), 65, for a concise description of the differences between the glory of Homeric warriors and Spartan hoplites. Yet the Spartans thought of Homer as a poet particularly appropriate for their militaristic society. In Apophthegmata Laconica 223a, we read that king Cleo- menes said that Homer was the poet of the Lacedaemonians because he taught fighting, while Hesiod was the poet of Helots because he taught farming. The story is also attested in Aelian, Varia Historia 13.19. 36. Simonides describes the fame of the Three Hundred in epic terms in fr. 531 PMG (= Page [1962]). The death of the heroes is ‘a glorious fortune’ (εὐκλεὴς μὲν ἁ τύχα), which all-conquering time will not obscure (οὔθ’ ὁ πανδαμάτωρ ἀμαυρώσει χρόνος). 37. For the Homeric tone of Herodotus’ narrative of the battle at Thermopylae, see Loraux (1995), 72; Clarke (2002). 38. Loraux (1995), 72. Compare Herodotus 7.225 with Iliad 17.274-761. 125  IOANNIS ZIOGAS which the Trojan hero is rebuked by Poseidon (Iliad 20.332-34).39 Instead of simply glorifying the death of the Three Hundred, Herodotus’ Homeric touches cast doubt on the heroic value of their sacrifice. The epic background to the Thermopylae epigram, which often serves as the basis for filling the gaps of Laconian brevity, is not as straightforward as is usually assumed. The heroic ideal of dying on the battlefield is problematised even in the Homeric epics. When Odysseus meets the ghost of Achilles in the Underworld, the best of the Achaeans seems to have second thoughts about choosing between an inglorious life and a glorious death. The hero’s ghost is not to be consoled for his death and, surprisingly, says that he would rather live as the hired farmer of a lowly man than be the king of the dead (Odyssey 11.487-91). It seems that the voice of a dead hero is more likely to lament the bitter loss of life than glorify the eternal praise of afterlife. Achilles has famously to choose between an inglorious life at home and a glorious death at Troy (see Iliad 9.412-16); it is either renown (κλέος) without return (νόστος) or return without renown. In the Odyssey, an epic which belongs in the tradition of the Nostoi, Odysseus’ story about his encounter with the ghost of Achilles casts a heavy shadow on the Iliadic value system. Such an intriguing tension between κλέος and νόστος may be in play in the Thermopylae epigram. By asking the passer-by to bring the news just from Thermopylae to Sparta, the Three Hundred seem indifferent to the prospect of eternal glory. The spatially and temporally restricted request not only clashes with the Iliadic ideal of imperishable glory, but also points to a return trip the dead soldiers will never make. From this perspective, the address to a ξεῖνος is particularly pointed; a stranger is asked to go to Sparta since the dead Spartans will never go home. They can wish that only their words will reach their father- land since death deprived them of homecoming. By restricting the dissemination of the news to an itinerary that suggests the unfulfilled return trip of the dead war- riors, the Thermopylae epigram exemplifies the epic tension between eternal glory and safe homecoming—a juxtaposition between life and death. The construction of the inscription’s meaning is a process far more dynamic than the epigram’s monolithic reception would suggest. The epitaph’s inherent feature of shifting its message from petrified stability to literary malleability makes it a sign whose substantiation is performed through constant decontextualisations and recon- textualisations. But are there any examples that challenge the straightforwardly pat- riotic reading of the inscription? They are exceptions, but they do exist. In the last part of my article, I briefly discuss three modern English poems which suggest that the Thermopylae inscription can be read as creating tension between the dead soldiers and their fellow citizens who stayed at home. In her book on classical receptions in British poetry of the Great War, Eliza- beth Vandiver offers two intriguing interpretations of a lesser known poem; H.W. 39. See Clarke (2002), 66f. 126  SPARSE SPARTAN VERSE Garrod’s ‘Neuve Chapelle’.40 The dead of the battle of Neuve Chapelle unmis- takably echo the Three Hundred: Tell them at home, there’s nothing here to hide; We took our orders, asked no questions, died. (Garrod [1919]) It is hard not to read a tone of bitterness in the voice of the dead. Written in 1919, the poem probably expresses disillusionment about the glory of dying on the battlefield after the horrendous death toll of the First World War. Vandiver offers this reading only to reject it.41 She argues instead that Garrod does not question the heroism of the soldiers and their patriotic pride, but that their bitter- ness is aimed at the civilians and war-workers at home, who stayed away from the front and lived (note that Garrod was himself one of those civil servants). Whether we read the poem as a comment on the soldiers’ alienation from a sense of heroic glory or as an attack on those who did not fight, the tone of bit- terness is what matters.42 Garrod activates the possibility of receiving the voice of the Three Hundred as expressing bitter complaint rather than glorious pride. The alienating gap between the dead soldiers abroad and their living countrymen at home is not Garrod’s subversion of the Thermopylae epigram, but a possible reading of the inscription. Kipling’s ‘Common Form’, a more famous reworking of the Thermopylae epitaph, has also been interpreted as reflecting survivor’s guilt. The poem was written after Kipling’s young son died in the war: If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied. (Kipling [1919]) It is tempting to read the poem and listen to the voice of Kipling’s dead son blaming his father, who was a staunch supporter of the war. Scholars, however, have drawn attention to the fact that Kipling did not repudiate his support of the war and argue that the poem’s target, ‘the fathers’, are ‘the pre- war Liberal government and its supporters who had tried to restrain the arms race’.43 Instead of being an indictment of the war, the poem chastises the lack of adequate military preparations. Following this line, Elizabeth Vandiver 40. Vandiver (2010), 10-14. 41. She is concerned with authorial intentions rather than the context of various readers’ interpreta- tions. My analysis, by contrast, is not positivist, but focuses on a reader response approach to the poem. Instead of dismissing what readers bring to the meaning of the poem, I consider any reader’s background a necessary platform for the poem’s realisation. 42. I think both readings are possible and make sense in the context of reactions to casualties in the Great War. 43. See Hibberd (1986), 109f. 127  IOANNIS ZIOGAS argues that the target of ‘Common Form’ is ‘the politicians who had not done enough to support the cause of war’.44 This reading comes close to the interpret- ation of τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι which I suggested above. The dead soldiers com- plain that they died because they did not have enough support from home and that what they were told were either unfulfilled promises or simply lies. Not only Kipling’s poem but also the Thermopylae inscription can be read as accus- ing those who sent deceptive messages but no actual military forces and thus caused the death of their men. If Garrod’s and Kipling’s poems, despite their bitter ironies, can still be read as validating the heroism of the deceased, A.D. Hope’s reworking of the Thermopy- lae inscription is clearly anti-heroic: Inscription for a War Stranger, go tell the Spartans we died here obedient to their commands. Inscription at Thermopylae Linger not, stranger; shed no tear; Go back to those who sent us here. We are the young they drafted out To wars their folly brought about. Go tell those old men, safe in bed, We took their orders and are dead. (Hope [1981]) Written by a poet known for his obsession with tradition and criticism of modern- ity, ‘Inscription for a War’ offers a markedly unconventional reading of the inscription at Thermopylae.45 Hope’s reworking of the Thermopylae epitaph is particularly fascinating since his reading cannot be reduced to an anachronisti- cally modernist disillusionment about war. Hope is a poet who would sit uneasily in the company of poets belonging to the post-Gallipoli tradition. His ‘Inscription for a War’ was actually composed in the context of protests against the Vietnam War. Interestingly, Hope refused to participate in political demonstrations against the war and stayed away from political debates. His conservative leaning and reluctance publicly to commit himself against the Vietnam War angered many. He finally appeased resentment by participating in a big reading organised by 44. Vandiver (2010), 19 (her emphasis). 45. On Hope’s valorisation of traditional forms and criticism of modernity and modernism, see Hart (1992), 35-61. 128  SPARSE SPARTAN VERSE those who opposed Australia’s involvement in Vietnam. In this context, he read ‘Inscription for a War’.46 Even though Hope tries to remain politically neutral by denouncing war in general and not the Vietnam War in particular, his participation in the specific anti-Vietnam reading was enough to make his short poem emblematic of poetry written against the Vietnam situation.47 Hope’s translation, adaptation and recitation of the Thermopylae epigram at an anti-war gathering shows that classical texts ‘are pliable and sticky artifacts gripped, molded, and stamped with new meanings’ by different readers in different contexts.48 It is remarkable that the famous Thermopylae epigram could be successfully reworked and received in the context of anti-Vietnam protests.49 Coming from a poet who was a dedicated supporter of classical tradition, such a reading of the archaic epitaph can hardly be seen as a rejection of traditional forms and their content, but should rather be perceived as a re-evaluation of classical referentiality. Hope stresses the unconventional aspects of the Thermopylae epigram. In the first line of his poem, he points to what the Thermopylae epigram does not ask from its readers; it does not ask the passer-by to linger or to lament. Yet this is what one would expect from a grave inscription for dead soldiers.50 Thomas Schmitz compares the authors of the inscriptions with the designers of today’s billboards; against stiff competition (there were hundreds of monuments), they had to secure the public’s attention—and they frequently asked the passer-by to stand in attention: cf. στε̃θι ⎪ καὶ οἴκτιρον (‘Stand and take pity’, CEG 28).51 Against the background of this tradition, the Thermopylae epigram stands out since it urges the passer-by to move on and, instead of drawing atten- tion to the monument, it directs the reader to the country where the deceased were born and lived. Hope emphasises exactly this markedly unconventional turn in the Thermopylae inscription. The focus shifts from the war monument to the people who sent the young men to their death. Tradition has the Three Hundred as fathers of sons, so not particu- larly young, but Hope’s addition is in tune with the conventions of archaic and classical sepulchral epigrams. The youth of the deceased is repeatedly 46. For more details on Hope’s reluctance to join voices opposing the Vietnam War and his reading of ‘Inscription for a War’, see McCulloch (2010), 18f. 47. The poem was subsequently chosen as the title for an anthology of writing by people objecting to the Vietnam War; see McCulloch (2010), 19. 48. Gaisser (2002), 387. Gaisser’s exemplary work on the reception of Catullus in the Renaissance shows a deep appreciation of the fact that classical texts are not only moving but changing targets. See Gaisser (1993). 49. The Thermopylae epigram appears in a recent anthology that ‘gathers the most startling poems against war ever written’; see Hollis and Keegan (2003), 3. 50. Cf. στε̃θι : καὶ οἴκτιρον : Κροίσο ⎪ παρὰ σε̃μα θανόντος : / hόν ⎪ ποτ’ ἐνὶ προμάχοις : ὄλεσε ⎪ θõρος : Ἄρες (‘Stand and take pity by the tomb of the deceased Croesus whom once mighty Ares killed among the foremost fighters’, CEG 27). 51. Schmitz (2010), 35. Cf. Tueller (2010), 35 and 43-49, for the motif of stopping at the marker and mourning for the dead. See also Ecker (1990), 168-73. 129  IOANNIS ZIOGAS emphasised in grave inscriptions and in particular in epigrams for young men who lost their lives in battle: cf. ⸤hοί ποτε καλλιχόρο περὶ πατ⸥ρίδος ὀ ⸤λέσατε hέβεν⸥ (‘who once lost your youth for your fatherland of fair-dancing floors’, CEG 4.3); ἐν πολέμοι ⎪ ϕθίμενον, νεαρὰν hέβεν ὀλέσαν⎪τα (‘who died at war, losing the prime of his youth’, CEG 13.3).52 Joseph Day argues that the pathetic combination of youth and death itself carries an encomiastic force.53 The death of young men has a powerful effect on the readers: on the one hand it moves them to pity, while on the other it praises the heroes. But Hope replaces praise and lamentation with indignation, and the mention of the dead soldiers’ premature death adds to this effect. What is more, Hope’s poem contrasts the youth of the dead warriors with the old age of those responsible for the soldiers’ death. The poem ends by nicely and bitterly juxtaposing the old men lying safely in their beds at home with the young men lying dead in a tomb abroad. Hope renders ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι as ‘obedient to their commands’; it is not the general idea of Spartan laws and customs that led to the death of the Three Hundred, but specific orders. What is remarkable in his poem, however, is that the soldiers’ obedience to commands from home is not heard as a voice of nation- al pride, but as a bitter complaint, as a voice that blames the authorities for the folly of wars that cost the lives of young men. To be sure, this is a tendentious reading of the Thermopylae epigram, but I do not think it subverts the words of the original. Even though the force of Hope’s poem partly depends on challen- ging the mainstream reception of the inscription, his version reveals the possibil- ity of an anti-heroic reading of the original epitaph. In his ground-breaking book on the anthropology of reading in ancient Greece, Jesper Svenbro focuses on Greek inscriptions and examines the importance of reading them aloud.54 For Svenbro, without the voice of the reader, the inscrip- tion remains incomplete, without sound, without sense. The reader’s voice is the eternally renewable referent thanks to which the inscription finds full realisa- tion.55 While Svenbro’s focus on the reader instead of the text offers a long overdue analysis on the dynamics of reading Greek inscriptions, his identification of the reader as a vocal instrument used by the written word in order to give the text a sonorous reality leaves something to be desired about the active role of the reader in construing the meaning of an inscription.56 The written word may use the reader as a vocal instrument, but, more importantly, a vocal instrument can use the written word as a means to various ends. 52. For the motif of premature death in Greek funerary inscriptions, see Griessmair (1966); Page (1981), 191. The young age of the deceased war heroes is also mentioned in CEG 6, 82, 136, 155. 53. Day (1989), 18. 54. Svenbro (1993). 55. Svenbro (1993), 62. 56. Svenbro (1993), 3. 130  SPARSE SPARTAN VERSE Such an approach is particularly important if we take into account the practice of reading an inscription aloud, which Svenbro astutely analyses in his book. Joseph Day argues that the reading of an epigram was comparable to the perform- ance of a poem, reactivating a kind of ritual or ceremonial occasion.57 Be that as it may, the performative aspect of reading an epigram makes it open to appropri- ation. When the lines are read aloud, a lot depends on tone and enunciation. Ana- lysing reception of texts as an essentially performative act, Charles Martindale notes: ‘A set of signs becomes a poem when it is realised by a reader, who thus acts as a “performer”. She will have to decide innumerable details of phras- ing, rhythm, sound, tone, syntax and so on, and in that sense we cannot draw a firm distinction between reading a poem and offering a (critical) reading of it. Every reading is different from every other reading; once again there is no text-in-itself, but only a series (potentially endless?) of competing (or comple- mentary) readings.’58 This theoretical approach is particularly relevant to the reception of archaic funerary inscriptions. What is more, the simpler the message is, the more important the role of the reader in interpreting it. In a well-known experiment, the Russian theatre director Stanislavski asked an actor to perform the simple phrase segodnya vecherom (сегодня вечером, ‘today, in the evening’) in forty different ways, and his audi- ence was able to identify the forty different meanings. The Thermopylae epigram, with its plain diction, can be subject to a similar variety of performative interpre- tations. A reader, ancient or modern, could choose to embody the voice of the deceased, in order to haunt those responsible for the death of their men. Australian National University [email protected] Bibliography Baumbach, M. (2000), ‘„Wanderer, kommst du nach Sparta…‟: zur Rezeption eines Simonides-Epigramms’, Poetica 32, 1-22. , A. Petrovic and I. Petrovic (eds.) (2010), Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram (Cambridge). , A. Petrovic and I. Petrovic (2010), ‘Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram: An Introduction’, in Baumbach et al. (2010), 1-19. Bayliss, A.J. (2009), ‘Using Few Words Wisely? “Laconic Swearing” and Spartan Dupli- city’, in S. Hodkinson (ed.), Sparta: Comparative Approaches (Swansea), 231-60. Bing, P. (1995), ‘Ergänzungsspiel in the Epigrams of Callimachus’, A&A 41, 115-31. 57. Day (2000), which focuses on dedicatory epigrams. The performative aspect of reading an epigram can also be applied to funerary inscriptions. 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