This text is identified as my own by the name placed above it, which seems sensible enough. Marking ownership was one of the earliest uses to which the ancient Greeks put their alphabet—which was to spawn among others the alphabet in which this text is written—but they had a strikingly different way of doing so. ‘I am the kylix of Korax’, declares an eighth-century BCE wine-drinking cup from Rhodes; ‘I am the lekythos of Tataie—whosoever steals me will go blind’, threatens a seventh-century oil flask from Cumae; ‘I am the remembrance of Ergotimos’, announces a shelf of Attic rock from the sixth century. This practice of personifying objects for the purpose of identifying humans closely associated with them was, remarkably, a pervasive feature of early Greek writing. But why would Greek writers employ this practice and, more pointedly: why would readers take these ‘speaking objects’ at their word?

As a novel technology of communication, the use of the first person in writing had the advantage of simulating the most basic communicative model in an oral society, that of conversation. In thus bridging the distance between writers and their readers, speaking objects in effect served as messengers. It is no coincidence that contemporary epic poets and historians presented themselves in much the same way. Homer fashioned himself as a mouthpiece of the Muse (‘Sing, Goddess, of the wrath…’), whereas historians designed their works as missives to be read by messengers, as in the introduction to Hecataeus’ Genealogies: ‘Hecataeus the Milesian speaks thus: I write what follows as seems to me to be true…’.

But if the use of the first person can account for the motivation to personify objects, it cannot explain why they would be believed. Indeed, as a yet unestablished protocol of communication in an oral society, the authority of written language was a problem; in contemporary literature written texts were frequently likened to helpless children. One way of overcoming the difficulties stemming from the separation of the text from its author was to present her or him as removed from the text’s audience not only concretely (spatially), but also in a more abstract sense. Such ‘language of distance’ can be found, for instance, in early Greek law, which typically uses impersonal verbs in order to introduce the polis as its source, as in this seventh-century law from Dreros, Crete:

“The following has been decided by the polis: when one has been kosmos for ten years the same man shall not be kosmos. If he does become kosmos …”

There is no use here of the first or second person, nor any third-person references to specific individuals. As it represented itself through the language it used, the polis did not speak as a person, or a collective of people, though it easily could—far more naturally than a kylix. It is thus clear why it would have been disadvantageous for Korax to write ‘Korax says: this is my kylix’. Making what amounted to a legal claim, Korax’s claim to ownership would be stronger for appearing impartial.

And yet, Korax could not simply write ‘this is Korax’s kylix’, for some source of authority was necessary. Improbably, his kylix was superbly suited to fill this role. It was precisely its im-personality, not to mention its object-ivity, which allowed it to make use of the language of distance. It was, moreover, not merely the medium of Korax’s claim but also its subject, and thereby an author-ity on it. As the protagonist of Fight Club might say, I am Teddy’s text.

Read the associated article, out now via FirstView in The Classical Quarterly.

Image: Tataie’s Lekythos, © The Trustees of the British Museum.