Aelius Aristides, the second-century ce writer and orator, is best known for his Hieroi logoi (Sacred Discourses), which, along with his prose hymns, are considered of ‘major importance’.Footnote 1 While his Panathenaic Oration and Reply to Plato have also received recent attention (for example, with Trapp's 2017 Loeb translation), his lesser speeches remain largely untouched by interpreters. This is especially the case for his Embassy Speech to Achilles (Πρεσβευτικὸς πρὸς Ἀχιλλέα [Or. 52; XVI Lenz]), in which an unnamed speaker attempts to persuade Achilles in a pastiche of Iliad 9.Footnote 2 Recent advances in the study of rhetoric and the Homeric tradition should prompt a reappraisal of Aristides’ Homeric speech. The common thread of these studies is their shared focus on formal rhetorical terms and figures as tools in the interpretation of Homer and his reception by later rhetoricians. As Porter has shown, POxy. 410 provides evidence that technical interpretations of Homer as rhetoric, particularly according to megaloprepeia (‘high-mindedness’), date back at least to the fifth century bce.Footnote 3 Nünlist likewise argues that the commentaries of the Byzantine rhetorician, teacher, and bishop Eustathius ‘regularly instruct the reader and would-be orator in very practical terms’.Footnote 4 Using formal, Aristotelian categories of rhetoric such as enthymeme and topoi, Knudsen demonstrates how the Iliad itself welcomes rhetorical interpretation.Footnote 5 As a mimetic showpiece of learned argumentation, Aristides’ Embassy rewards reappraisal according to its use of embedded rhetorical figures and terms in a Homeric context.Footnote 6
In this article, I assess Aristides’ Embassy Speech and its creative reuse of Homer through particular attention to one adjective, atopos (‘strange, out of place’).Footnote 7 I show how Aristides imbues the adjective with a figurative sense in order to highlight what is, in fact, ‘strange’: Achilles acts like either an illogical rhêtôr or, more ironically, a bad student of Homer. In the Embassy, Aristides’ speaker barrages Achilles with relentless arguments as to why he should return to battle. The themes of these arguments range from the harms of extreme anger to the compulsions of duty, ethnocentric reasoning, inevitability of war, and others.Footnote 8
Atopos occurs six times at key points in the speech where the speaker accuses Achilles of inconsistency.Footnote 9 Behr translates atopos as ‘strange’ or ‘extraordinary’.Footnote 10 Within the twin contexts of rhetoric and the Iliad, I propose that atopos also obtains two figurative valences. First, it carries a rhetorical meaning as ‘not topological’: that is, illogical according to rhetorical topoi.Footnote 11 Through this connotation, Aristides recasts Homer's embassy to Achilles as a rhetorical showpiece adorned with the technical terminology and style of rhetorical argumentation (e.g. ἐνθυμήθητι [‘infer’], Embassy 430.6).Footnote 12 Second, Aristides uses atopos to mean ‘out of place in the text’: that is, inconsistent with the text of Homer.Footnote 13 In the oration, Aristides references famous scenes, lines, and arguments not only from Iliad 9 but also from elsewhere in the Iliad and Homeric tradition.Footnote 14 In this intertextual context, atopos can signal moments of variation from the Homeric text, either when the speaker adduces a scene extrinsic to the Iliad or when Achilles appears to contradict something he has done or said in the Iliad itself. By tracking the two figurative uses of atopos in the Embassy Speech, we better recognize Aristides’ engagement with both the rhetorical and the Homeric traditions.
Scholars have previously recognized Aristides’ affinity for ‘figurative speech’ and oblique language. For example, in his fourth oration he uses the verb σχηματίζεσθαι to mean ‘figured speech’: ‘Even in the necessary points clearly I did not argue brusquely, but with restraint and in a decorous way’ (ἐγὼ μὲν γὰρ ἐφαινόμην οὐδ᾽ ἐν αὐτοῖς τοῖς ἀναγκαίοις ἀποτόμως τῷ λόγῳ χρώμενος, ἀλλὰ πεφεισμένως καὶ σχηματιζόμενος τὰ πρέποντα, Or. 4.33, emphasis added).Footnote 15 Within the Embassy Speech, the figurative senses of atopos emerge primarily from its educational context, a context that should compel us to interpret the speech as both rhetorical protreptic and Homeric instruction. While he did not lead a school, Aristides did tutor privately (see Or. 30, Birthday Speech to Apellas) and, as Cribiore argues, ‘considered his declamations models for instruction and occasionally met some young men to correct their rhetorical imperfections’.Footnote 16 The Embassy rhetoricizes Homer in a way similar to the progymnasmata, the rhetorical training manuals of the second to fifth century ce, which instructed students to compose speeches according to Homeric topics.Footnote 17 I contend that the figurative meanings of atopos as both ‘unrhetorical’ and ‘un-Homeric’ derive from the instructional intent of the Embassy Speech, though in different proportions as the text progresses. I begin with the first three instances of atopos (425.10, 428.3, 428.22), which are more rhetorically topological, before continuing to the final three (430.6, 432.24, 433.7), which are more intertextual.
Homeric rhetoric and the topoi of atopos (Embassy 425.10, 428.3, 428.22)
After a formal address and some contextualization, the speech opens with an atopos-statement (Embassy 425.1–11):
Ἄριστε Ἀχιλλεῦ, τὸ μὲν θυμοῦσθαί σε καὶ χαλεπαίνειν ἐφ’ οἷς ὑβρίσθης οὐδὲν ἀπεικὸς, οὐκοῦν ἄχρι τούτου γε. ἐγὼ δ’, εἰ μὲν ἢ τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης ἔτι καὶ νῦν Ἀγαμέμνων εἴχετο, ἢ περὶ ὧν ἥμαρτεν ἔξαρνος ἦν, οὐκ ἂν παρῃτούμην, ἀλλ’ εἴων ὅπως ποτέ σοι δοκεῖ ποιεῖν⋅ ἐπεὶ δὲ (5) ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ τούτου καὶ δεήσεις ποιεῖται καὶ δῶρα τὰ μὲν δίδωσι, τὰ δ’ ἐπαγγέλλεται, τί ἄν τις ἐξελέγχοι τόν γε ὁμολογοῦντα; ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνός σοι συγχωρεῖ δίκαια λέγειν, οὕτω καὶ σὺ πείθου παραιτουμένῳ⋅ εἰ δὲ μὴ, πῶς οὐκ ἄτοπον πρῶτον μὲν τὴν αὐτὴν γνώμην ἔχειν [10] ἥνπερ πρὸ τοῦ πρὸς τὸν οὐκέτι τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχοντα;
O my very good Achilles, your rage and anger over the wrongs which you suffered is not unreasonable. At least up to now. And if Agamemnon was still of the same mind or denied his faults, I would not plead for him, but would let you act as you wish. But when he appeals to you on this very matter, and gives you some gifts and promises others, why should one refute the faults of a man who confesses them? But just as he concedes to you that your claim is just, so do you also heed his plea. But if not, is it not first of all atopos to feel the same as before against one who no longer feels the same?Footnote 18
The speaker argues that Achilles should forgo his grudge against Agamemnon because the leader of the Achaians has changed his attitude towards Achilles.
Aristides’ oration imitates different Homeric speakers from Iliad 9 and elsewhere at different times; the beginning of the Embassy follows a passage from the speech of Phoinix (9.515–19):
The two passages share numerous similarities in language: compare χαλεπαίνειν (425.1) with χαλεπαίνοι (Il. 9.516, the only occurrence of the word in Il. 9); ἔτι καὶ νῦν (425.3, the only instance of the phrase in the Embassy) with νῦν δ’ ἅμα τ’ αὐτίκα (Il. 9.519);Footnote 19 the adverbial phrase ἐφ’ οἷς ὑβρίσθης (425.2) with ἐπιζαφελῶς (Il. 9.516); and τὰ μὲν δίδωσι, τὰ δ’ ἐπαγγέλλεται (425.6–7) with δῶρα φέροι τὰ δ’ ὄπισθ’ ὀνομάζοι…πολλὰ διδοῖ τὰ δ’ ὄπισθεν ὑπέστη (Il. 9.515, 19). Aristides, however, tersely compresses Phoenix's speech. When introducing Agamemnon's offer of gifts, Phoenix begins with a negative hypothetical (‘since, were he not bringing gifts and naming still more hereafter…’, 9.515), before repeating the same idea with similar formulae four lines later (‘But see now, / he offers you much straightway, and has promised you more hereafter’, 9.519). Aristides, conversely, condenses this sentiment into a single parallel construction: ‘[he] gives you some gifts and promises others’ (τὰ μὲν δίδωσι, τὰ δ’ ἐπαγγέλλεται, 425.6–7). Aristides’ version simplifies the parallelism and drastically reduces the number of syllables (thirteen to Homer's twenty-eight).
Aristides also engages with the same rhetorical topos used by Phoinix, namely, topic number 18 ‘from contrasting choices’ (Arist. Rhet. 1399b.15–19):
ἄλλος ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ταὐτὸ ἀεὶ αἱρεῖσθαι ὕστερον καὶ πρότερον, [15] ἀλλ’ ἀνάπαλιν, οἷον τόδε τὸ ἐνθύμημα, ‘ἦ φεύγοντες μὲν ἐμαχόμεθα ὅπως κατέλθωμεν, κατελθόντες δὲ φευξόμεθα ὅπως μὴ μαχώμεθα;’ ὁτὲ μὲν γὰρ τὸ μένειν ἀντὶ τοῦ μάχεσθαι ᾑροῦντο, ὁτὲ δὲ τὸ μὴ μάχεσθαι ἀντὶ τοῦ μὴ μένειν.
another is from not always choosing the same things before or after [an event], but the reverse; for example, this enthymeme: ‘[It would be terrible] if when in exile we fought to come home, but having come home we shall go into exile in order not to fight.’ Sometimes people have chosen to be at home at the cost of fighting, sometime not to fight at the cost of not remaining at home.Footnote 20
Just like Phoinix in Homer, Aristides makes the argument that the same man (Achilles) chooses the same thing (maintaining his anger) even after a mitigating circumstance (Agamemnon's change of heart). While Homer weaves the topos into the fabric of Phoinix's speech through repetition and elaboration, Aristides contains it in a single sentence: ‘Is it not first of all atopos to feel the same as before against one who no longer feels the same?’ (πῶς οὐκ ἄτοπον πρῶτον μὲν τὴν αὐτὴν γνώμην ἔχειν ἥνπερ πρὸ τοῦ πρὸς τὸν οὐκέτι τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχοντα; 425.10–11). Aristides’ speaker articulates the change in temporal circumstance (πρὸ τοῦ…οὐκέτι) and Agamemnon's disposition (τὴν αὐτὴν γνώμην…τὴν αὐτὴν). More importantly, he rephrases Homer in the generalized language of rhetorical topoi. Although the context remains, the sentence is stripped of specific references to either Achilles or Agamemnon; instead, they are replaced by an unnamed ‘one’ (τὸν…ἔχοντα). Conversely, Aristides includes oblique references to the technical language of rhetoric, such as atopos and gnômê (‘generalized truth’).Footnote 21 By sacrificing the specificity of Phoinix's original speech and including rhetorical terminology, he emphasizes the rhetorical content of the speech.
Aristides models this atopos-statement on the language of rhetorical topoi. As described by Aristotle, the topoi of rhetorical treatises are written in general language that is applicable to ‘all’ (περὶ ἁπάντων) (Rhet. 1396b.28–1397a.4):
σχεδὸν μὲν οὖν ἡμῖν περὶ ἕκαστον τῶν εἰδῶν τῶν χρησίμων καὶ ἀναγκαίων ἔχονται οἱ τόποι⋅ ἐξειλεγμέναι γὰρ αἱ προτάσεις περὶ ἕκαστόν εἰσιν, ὥστε ἐξ ὧν δεῖ φέρειν τὰ ἐνθυμήματα τόπων περὶ ἀγαθοῦ ἢ κακοῦ, ἢ καλοῦ ἢ αἰσχροῦ, ἢ δικαίου ἢ ἀδίκου, καὶ περὶ τῶν ἠθῶν καὶ παθημάτων καὶ ἕξεων ὡσαύτως, εἰλημμένοι ἡμῖν ὑπάρχουσι πρότερον οἱ τόποι. ἔτι δὲ ἄλλον τρόπον καθόλου περὶ ἁπάντων λάβωμεν, καὶ λέγωμεν παρασημαινόμενοι τοὺς ἐλεγκτικοὺς καὶ τοὺς ἀποδεικτικούς, καὶ τοὺς τῶν φαινομένων ἐνθυμημάτων, οὐκ ὄντων δὲ ἐνθυμημάτων…
Now the topics [topoi] concerned with each of the species [of rhetoric] that are useful and necessary are more or less understood by us; for the propositions concerned with each have been collected and as a result the [specific] topics that are sources of enthymemes about good or evil, or honorable or shameful, or just or unjust [are known], and topics concerned with characters and emotions and moral habits, having been collected in a similar way, are already at hand. But in what follows let us take up the subject as a whole in a different way, considering [those topics that apply to] all [species of rhetoric], and let us discuss it while taking note of refutative and demonstrative [enthymemes] and those of apparent enthymemes, which are not [actually] enthymemes…Footnote 22
At this point in the Embassy, Aristides again adopts the more generalized language of topoi for his accusations of atopos. By doing so, he changes the warrant of Phoenix's original argument. As in Homer, the thrust of the speaker's accusation in Aristides is that Achilles is acting irrationally. Yet it is not according to the rationale of, for example, a heroic code or shame culture.Footnote 23 Rather, it is according to the logic of rhetoric that Achilles acts irrationally. If Achilles refuses to change his mind, he contradicts the rationale of a rhetorical topos, something that no student of Greek rhetoric – Aristides’ supposed audience – should do. Aristides leads up to this accusation of atopos through close engagement with the text of Homer. He departs from Homer by generalizing the language of the atopos-statement and amplifying its rhetorical valence.
The rhetorical thrust of atopos has clear value to Aristides’ pedagogy and external audience. By investing atopos with a rhetorical valence as ‘non-topological’, he directs the attention of his second-century audience towards rhetorical topoi. However, the emphasis on rhetorical logic also works within the imagined interaction between the speaker and Achilles. The Iliadic background of the text suggests as much. Phoenix, in an appeal to êthos, recalls his tutelage of Achilles, in which he taught him to become ‘a speaker of words and a doer of deeds’ (μύθων τε ῥητῆρ᾽ ἔμεναι πρηκτῆρά τε ἔργων, Il. 9.443, emphasis added). In the oration, Aristides’ speaker regularly quotes Achilles, implying that Achilles has already had his turn to display his rhetorical prowess. Both the Iliad and Aristides imagine Achilles as a type of rhetorician. The rhetorical meaning of atopos thus not only points Aristides’ external audience towards technical argumentation but also challenges ‘Achilles’, the internal audience of the speech. Unless Achilles alters his gnômê, he runs the risk of being a poor ‘speaker of words’.
Aristides also invokes atopos when he engages the aition (‘cause’) for the Homeric narrative (428.3–13):
Οὐκοῦν ἄτοπον ὑπὲρ ὧν ἵνα σωθῶσι τότε ἤρω τὴν ἔχθραν, τούτους νῦν διὰ τῆς ἔχθρας διαφθεῖραι, καὶ τὰς μὲν παρὰ τῆς τύχης συμφορὰς ἀξιοῦν ἐπανορθοῦσθαι, [5] αὐτὸν δ’ ἐξεπίτηδες πράττειν ἐξ ὧν ἀπολούμεθα καὶ περὶ ὧν τότε ηὔχου τοῖς θεοῖς, περὶ τούτων νῦν οὐ βούλεσθαι διαλεχθῆναι σεαυτῷ⋅ καὶ ὑπὲρ μὲν τοῦ ἱερέως τοῦ βαρβάρου τὸν θεὸν ἀξιοῦν αἰδεῖσθαι, ὑπὲρ δὲ τῶν ὁμοφύλων τοσούτων τὸ πλῆθος μήτε θεοὺς τοὺς κοινοὺς μήτε ὁσίαν [10] μήτε σπονδὰς ἐθέλειν αἰσχυνθῆναι⋅ καὶ τότε μὲν προέσθαι τὴν σαυτοῦ γνωρίμην, ἵνα σωθῇ τὰ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν, νῦν δὲ ἀντὶ ταύτης αὖ πανστρατιᾷ τοὺς Ἀχαιοὺς ἐκτρῖψαι.
Is it not atopos now because of the quarrel to destroy those men for the sake of whose safety then you undertook the quarrel, and to think that you should remedy the misfortunes of chance, but intentionally yourself to cause our destruction? And to be unwilling to reflect on the content of your prayer at that time to the gods? And to think that respect should be shown to the god for the sake of a barbarian priest, but to wish to feel no shame either for our common gods or piety, or our libations, for the sake of so many of your fellow countrymen? And then to be willing to give up your own girlfriend for the safety of the Achaeans, but now because of her destroy the whole Achaean army?
Atopos structures the series of arguments. These arguments focus on the reason for the ‘quarrel’ (ἔχθρα) between Achilles and Agamemnon presented in the proem of the Iliad (1.1–8). In the passage, Aristides echoes both the language (compare ἀπολούμεθα [428.6] with οὐλαμένην [Il. 1.2]; τοῖς θεοῖς [428.7] with θεῶν [1.8]) and the concern of the epic's beginning. Homer employs divine motivation as the cause (‘for who of the gods cast them together in strife to fight?’, τίς γάρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι; 1.8). Aristides, while acknowledging the divine (see 428.7), uses a more prosaic series of subordinate clauses (ὑπὲρ, 428.3, 8, 9), focalized verbs (ἀξιοῦν [428.5, 9]) and choice adjectives (ἐξεπίτηδες [428.6]). His speaker also pivots on several antitheses concerning intentionality (παρὰ τῆς τύχης…ἐξεπίτηδες), agency (τοῖς θεοῖς…σεαυτῷ), and ethnicity (ὑπὲρ μὲν τοῦ ἱερέως τοῦ βαρβάρου…ὑπὲρ δὲ τῶν ὁμοφύλων).
Aristides, however, makes a topos of the Iliad's concern for causes and motivation. The instance of atopos at 428.3 was preceded by two statements concerning the ‘cause’ (αἰτία) for Achilles’ anger (τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς διαφορᾶς αὐτῆς, 427.21; τὸν αἴτιον, 428.1). The atopos-statement topologizes the aitia similar to Aristotle's topic number 24 (‘from cause and effect’ [ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰτίου], Arist. Rhet. 1400a30–6):
ἄλλος ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰτίου, ἄν τε ὑπάρχῃ, ὅτι ἔστι, κἂν μὴ ὑπάρχῃ, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν⋅ ἅμα γὰρ τὸ αἴτιον καὶ οὗ αἴτιον, καὶ ἄνευ αἰτίου οὐθὲν ἔστιν, οἷον Λεωδάμας ἀπολογούμενος ἔλεγε, κατηγορήσαντος Θρασυβούλου ὅτι ἦν στηλίτης γεγονὼς ἐν τῇ ἀκροπόλει, ἀλλ’ ἐκκέκοπται ἐπὶ τῶν τριάκοντα⋅ οὐκ ἐνδέχεσθαι ἔφη⋅ μᾶλλον γὰρ ἂν πιστεύειν αὑτῷ τοὺς τριάκοντα ἐγγεγραμμένης τῆς ἔχθρας πρὸς τὸν δῆμον.
if the cause exists, so does the effect; if it does not, there is no effect. The cause and that of which it is the cause go together, and without cause there is nothing. For example, when Leodamas was defending himself against Thrasybulus’ charge that his name had been cut out [from some inscription] in the time of the Thirty [Tyrants], he said it was not possible; for the Thirty would have trusted him more if his hatred of the democracy had remained inscribed.Footnote 24
According to the topos, if there is no cause, there is no effect; the converse is equally true. Aristides’ speaker argues the same. Because the Achaeans are still in danger (the supposed result desired by Achilles), their safety could not have been the cause of Achilles’ actions (see 428.3–4). While the arguments certainly engage with the Homeric story, atopos has a more rhetorical meaning. Within the narrative frame of the speech, the speaker reminds Achilles to act consistently with the origin of their quarrel (ἔχθρα); for the second-century ce audience of the Embassy, Aristides prompts them to recall the topos of apo tou aitiou.
The third instance of atopos conforms even more to the language of rhetorical topoi (428.23–5):
καὶ πῶς οὐκ ἄτοπον συμφορὰν μὲν ἐπίστασθαι συμφορᾶς ἀνταλλάξασθαι, ἄμφω δὲ ἐξὸν ἔχειν ἄνευ ζημίας, εἶτα ἀμφοῖν δέξασθαι στέρεσθαι; οὐ γὰρ μόνων τῶν Ἀτρειδῶν ἦν τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας φιλεῖν. τίς δ’ ἂν εἴποι ταῦτα; [25]
And how is it not atopos to know how to exchange one misfortune for another, but when it is possible to have both without loss, next to accept the deprivation of both? For the sons of Atreus were not the only ones who love their wives. Who would say so?
Prior to the atopos-statement, the speaker argues that Achilles would have eagerly chosen the well-being of the army over Briseis but now refuses to save the army in addition to retrieving Briseis. In the atopos-statement, the speaker asserts the logic of Achilles’ decision in strictly non-Homeric terms. Instead of the army or Briseis, he focuses on ‘knowledge’ (ἐπίστασθαι), ‘the exchanging of misfortune’ (συμφορὰν…συμφορᾶς ἀνταλλάξασθαι), ‘loss’ (ζημίας), and ‘deprivation’ (στέρεσθαι). Note that the pronoun ‘both’ (ἀμφοῖν) notably refers to ‘misfortune’ (συμφορά), not Briseis or the army.
As with the first instance of atopos (425.10), the third atopos-statement most closely resembles Aristotle's topic number 18, ‘from contrasting choices’ (ek tou anapalin hairesthai, Rhet. 1399b.15–19). Aristides’ speaker thematizes Achilles’ capacity of ‘choice’ (αἵρεσις, 428.14; αἱρήσει, 428.20–1). He does so by contrasting Achilles’ prior choice between the safety of either Briseis or the Achaians with the present choice of saving both Briseis and the army or neither; Achilles’ choice is no longer ‘either/or’, but ‘both/neither’. The topos ‘from contrasting choices’ presents a similar structure (cf. Rhet. 1399b.15–19). Like Aristides’ speaker, it emphasizes the choice (αἱρεῖσθαι, ᾑροῦντο) before and after an event. By implying that Achilles would certainly have chosen before (πρότερον) to save both Briseis and the army if given the opportunity, the speaker attempts to hold Achilles to that same choice now (ὕστερον).
Aristides’ speaker, however, isolates the topical language of the atopos-statement by quoting directly from Achilles immediately after: compare οὐ γὰρ μόνων τῶν Ἀτρειδῶν ἦν τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας φιλεῖν (‘for it is not the case that only the Atreides love their own wives’, 428.24–5) with ἦ μοῦνοι φιλέουσ’ ἀλόχους μερόπων ἀνθρώπων / Ἀτρεΐδαι; (‘is it that of mortal men the Atreides alone love their wives?’, Il. 9.340–1). Aristides translates Achilles’ hexameters into prose with similar language and captures his point as well. As Hainsworth puts it, Achilles argues ‘that Agamemnon has indulged his lust at another man's expense’.Footnote 25 Achilles’ original argument is not faultless, however, as Agamemnon's lust is not for his wife but for geras, his prize of honour.Footnote 26 The speaker gets close to Homer's language only to dismiss it flippantly: ‘who would say so?’ (τίς δ’ ἂν εἴποι ταῦτα;). In fact, Achilles did say so in Iliad 9, and with Homer as background the dismissal feels pedantic in a way that reinforces the topological language of the preceding atopos-statement: it is ‘strange’ that Achilles would propose such a weak argument.
The first three instances of atopos occur in sentences with a notably topological character. They not only present arguments in enthymemes, but they do so with generalized language. The effect is manifestly rhetorical. The ‘strangeness’ asserted by the speaker depends on the logic of rhetorical topoi. The environment surrounding the accusations of atopos certainly engages with the Homeric text, and at times it does so extensively. This Homeric environment contrasts with the rhetorical language of the atopos-statements themselves, and, by doing so, sets them in relief as focal points of attention for the student of rhetoric. This foregrounding of rhetorical topoi changes, however, as the instances of atopos continue in the speech. As we will see, what is ‘strange’ refers increasingly to Homer's text.
‘Out of place’ in Homer: atopos and intertext (Embassy 430.6, 432.24, 433.7)
As the speaker's arguments accumulate, the immediate context of atopos changes. Instead of the more generalized language of topoi, the speaker confronts Achilles with more specific references and interactions with the Homeric text. As a result, the figurative valence of atopos also shifts. Instead of suggesting rhetoric – that is, ‘illogical according to rhetorical topoi’ – atopos marks Achilles’ actions as ‘inconsistent with the Homeric text’. In these instances, Homer becomes the leading authority. This begins with a clever variatio of Odysseus’ speech from Iliad 9. Aristides’ speaker accuses Achilles of acting inconsistently with his previous behaviour (430.5–14):
Καὶ μὴν εἰ δεῖ καὶ τούτων μνημονεύειν, ἐκεῖνο ἐνθυμήθητι⋅ [5] τῶν ἀτόπων ἐστὶ συλλεγομένης μὲν τότε τῆς στρατιᾶς οὕτω προθύμως ἔχειν σε πρὸς τὸ μετασχεῖν τῶν πραγμάτων, ὥστ’ ἐπειδὴ τάχιστα εἶδες τὰ ὅπλα ὁρμῆσαι πρὸς αὐτὰ καὶ μὴ κατασχεῖν σεαυτὸν, καὶ ταῦτα ὄντα παῖδα κἀν ταῖς κόραις κρυπτόμενον, νῦν δ’ ἐπειδὴ τηλικόσδ’ [10] εἶ καὶ παῖδα ἔχεις ὡραῖον ὡς συνεῖναι καὶ στρατεύεσθαι, καὶ δόξαν τὴν πρώτην ἐν ἅπασιν εἴληφας, βούλεσθαι μὴ χρῆσθαι τοῖς ὅπλοις τοῖς σαυτοῦ, ἀλλὰ ζητεῖν προφάσεις δι’ ἃς προήσει πάντα.
Indeed, if it necessary to mention this too, consider the following point. It is an atopos thing that when the army was being assembled you were so eager to participate in the expedition that as soon as you saw the weapons you rushed at them and did not restrain yourself, and at that while you were a boy and hidden among the maidens, but that now when you are so old and have a son who is adult enough to join you [to campaign] and have got the highest reputation among all men, you do not wish to make use of your weapons, but you seek excuses to throw them away.
In contrast to prior instances of atopos, the statement here contains more specific information about Achilles’ past. The scenario referred to by the speaker is the famous episode (i.e. topos) of Achilles on Skyros. Achilles is hidden on the island by his mother in order to avoid the Trojan War, but he betrays his identity when Odysseus displays weapons (ὅπλα), and he jumps at the chance to fight. The speaker prefaces the atopos-statement with technical language (ἐνθυμήθητι, 430.5), and formally it resembles Aristotle's topic number 5 (‘From looking at the time [a fortiori]’; [ek tou ton khronon skopein]). That said, what follows atopos is an extensive narration in oratio obliqua of Achilles’ past and biography.
Readers of the Iliad know that the story of Achilles on Skyros does not originate in Homer but rather from elsewhere in the myths of the Trojan War.Footnote 27 Following the assertion of atopos (τῶν ἀτόπων), the speaker narrates this extra-Homeric story concerning Achilles to Achilles himself. I suggest that Aristides may have been inspired to do so by a persuasive strategy employed by Odysseus at Iliad 9.252–9. There, before listing the gifts promised by Agamemnon, Odysseus ventriloquizes Peleus, Achilles’ father, in oratio recta in an appeal to Peleus’ authority (êthos).Footnote 28 Although Aristides does not import another voice, he refers analeptically to the same time, which leads to Achilles’ embarking for Troy. Likewise, both Aristides’ speaker and Odysseus’ speaker (i.e. Peleus) draw on aspects of Achilles’ character, be it love of war or inclination to anger, in order to persuade him.Footnote 29 Traditionally, Odysseus was present at Skyros, which puts him at the scene in both Aristides (Skyros) and Homer (Phthia). Aristides thus maintains the reference time, appeal to êthos, and witness of Odysseus (indirectly) from Homer.
Yet Aristides noticeably changes the story of Peleus’ envoi at Phthia to the literary topos of Achilles at Skyros, an episode not included in Homer and one that could aptly be described as atopos in the strict sense of the speech context from Iliad 9. In this instance, atopos becomes metatextual: by selecting a story outside the Homeric corpus, Aristides plays a mythopoeic game of variatio with the text of the Iliad and draws attention to this play with the claim of atopos. The construction of the phrase reinforces this sense. It is a genitive plural substantive phrase (τῶν ἀτόπων) – the only formulation of atopos in this way in the speech and, indeed, in the Aristidean corpus – and thus could indicate the source of the following story as originating from stories ‘outside’ the Homeric corpus.
The speaker then argues that, because Achilles once fought to enrich the army, he should now fight for their safety, which is more important. The structure of the argument resembles topic number 4 (‘from the more and the less’), but the sense of atopos is more intertextual, as it occurs within direct quotation from Homer (432.24–31):
πῶς γὰρ οὐκ ἄτοπον καὶ ὑπερφυὲς, εἰ πρότερον μὲν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν τούτων ἡγούμενος [25] δώδεκα μὲν πόλεις κατὰ θάλατταν, ἕνδεκα δ’ εἷλες κατ’ ἤπειρον οὐδὲν τῶν ἰδίων ὑπολογιζόμενος, οὐ πόνον, οὐ κίνδυνον, οὐκ ἀσχολίαν, οὐχ ἣν φιλτάτην εἶναι φῂς σαυτῷ ψυχὴν εἰ προήσει, καὶ τοσούτων εὐποριῶν καὶ τοσαύτης εὐδαιμονίας ἀπέδειξας κυρίους⋅ νῦν δ’ οὐδ’ εἰς αὐτὴν τὴν [30] σωτηρίαν αὐτοῖς ἐπαρκέσαι τολμήσεις.
For how is it not atopos and extraordinary if formerly when you led these Achaeans you took twelve cities by sea and eleven by land, without consideration of any private inconvenience, neither toil, nor danger, nor work, nor if you shall lose your life, which you say is dearest to you, and you made them masters of such wealth and felicity? But now you shall not even dare to help them for their very safety.
Compare Achilles’ words from Iliad 9.328–9: ‘But I say that I have stormed from my ships twelve cities / of men, and by land eleven more through the generous Troad’ (δώδεκα δὴ σὺν νηυσὶ πόλεις ἀλάπαξ’ ἀνθρώπων, / πεζὸς δ’ ἕνδεκά φημι κατὰ Τροίην ἐρίβωλον). Aristides also quotes from later in Achilles’ speech, signalling the reference with φημί: compare οὐ γὰρ ἐμοὶ ψυχῆς ἀντάξιον οὐδ’ ὅσα φασὶν Ἴλιον ἐκτῆσθαι (‘for not / worth the value of my life are all the possessions they fable / were won from Ilion’, Il. 9.401–2) with οὐχ ἣν φιλτάτην εἶναι φῂς σαυτῷ ψυχὴν εἰ προήσει (Embassy 432.28–9). The speaker likewise names the Achaians, who, in Homer, are only implied. In this way, we see Aristides combine two Homeric quotes with more specific language within the atopos-statement than had been previously used in the speech.
This is not to say that the whole statement is quotation. Aristides noticeably elaborates Achilles’ magnanimity with a series of private hardships (τῶν ἰδίων) that he endured to bring wealth to the Achaians, namely ‘toil’ (πόνος), ‘danger’ (κίνδυνος), and ‘work’ (ἀσχολία). Πόνος is certainly a Homeric word, but the other two are not, and none of them are found in Iliad 9.Footnote 30 That said, Aristides elaborates Homeric quotes and layers them with rhetoric. In this way, atopos is layered as well. For Achilles, his inconsistency comes directly from his own words. Achilles gained wealth for the Achaians but later claimed that life was more important than wealth. Aristides combines the two and presents Achilles with a cento of his own speech as a challenge to return to battle. If he refuses, he will contradict himself and be atopos in relation to his own speech in Homer.
The intertextual significance of atopos culminates in its final instance in the Embassy (433.7–15):
ἁπάντων δὲ ἀτοπώτατον, εἰ ὁ μὲν Χρύσης τὴν θυγατέρα ἀπολαμβάνων οὐ προήχθη περαιτέρω εὔξασθαι ὡς πολεμίοις, ἀλλ’ ἐπέπαυτο τῆς ὀργῆς, ἄνθρωπος βάρβαρος καὶ φύσει πολέμιος καὶ συγκινδυνεύσας [10] καὶ περὶ τῆς σωτηρίας αὐτῆς, σὺ δ’ αὐτήν τε ἀπολαμβάνων τὴν ἄνθρωπον καὶ πρὸς ἐκείνῃ τοσαύτας λαμβάνων, καὶ πρὸς ταῖς γυναιξὶ χρήματα, πόλεις, χώραν, συγγένειαν, ἃ θαυμάζειν δέον οὐκ ἐῶ, μέμψασθαι δ’ οὐκ ἔχεις, εἰσαεὶ μενεῖς ἐπὶ τοῦ παροξυσμοῦ
But it is the most atopos of all if Chryses, once he got back his daughter, was not impelled to pray further [to us as enemies], but his anger ceased, although he was a barbarian, a natural enemy, whose very life was equally in danger. Yet shall you, once you get the girl back and so many others beside her, and in addition to the women, money, cities, land, and a marriage alliance – things which I omit since they do not deserve admiration, but you cannot blame them, – shall you ever remain wrathful?
Strangeness peaks here where the speaker reasons that Achilles should act as Chryses did once his original grievance had been satisfied. The form corresponds to topic number 4a (‘from analogy or precedent’), by which Achilles’ complaint is deemed analogous to that of Chryses, with the result that Achilles should act as Chryses did under similar circumstances. Here, the ‘most atopos thing’ (ἁπάντων δὲ ἀτοπώτατον) appropriates several moments in the Homeric text. In his translation, Behr notes three Homeric passages – the highest amount of any atopos-statement in the speech: Iliad 1.446 (Chryses receiving Chryseis with gratitude), 1.26 (Agamemnon's threat to Chryses that he should not return), and 9.164 (Nestor claiming that ‘none should scorn’ the gifts of Agamemnon). The ‘strangeness’ of Achilles’ inaction emanates from the Homeric text. Achilles famously brokers the original reconciliation between Chryses and Agamemnon (the context of the first two references); his ignorance of the analogy and its implications is ‘strange’. Homer, more than rhetorical topoi, models for Achilles a suitable response through Chryses’ willingness to put aside his grievances. Of all things, Achilles should know how his own story goes and act in a reasonable way – reasonable, that is, according to Homer.
Conclusion
In the above analysis of atopos in the Embassy Speech, I have attempted to demonstrate how Aristides uses atopos figuratively to mean both ‘illogical according to rhetorical topoi’ and ‘inconsistent with the text of Homer’. As the speech progresses, we see the valence of atopos shift from predominantly rhetorical to more Homeric. This change serves an important function. By engaging more closely with the Homeric text without strict adherence to the generic language of topoi, Aristides moves from simply a skilled orator to a creative participant in the tradition of Homeric scholarship. In a sense, the speech teaches by pastiche, where imitation, along with figurative language, sets in relief the rhetoric and the text of the original. In Aristides, the strangeness of Achilles’ refusal thus emerges not only from the logic of rhetoric but also from the Homeric text. The speech depicts Aristides as orator-cum-Homeric scholar in a far more engaging manner than has previously been investigated. Furthermore, we see the adjective atopos gain a versatility as figured speech in ways that could inform future research into the creative adaptation of language in the rhetoric of the Second Sophistic.
