I. Introduction
The sixth-century writer Pherecydes of Syros (fl. ca. 544 BCE) has been repeatedly hailed as the founder of the allegorical tradition.Footnote 1 Thus, he is often credited as being (one of) the first to have allegorically interpreted the ancient poets and/or to have allegorically expressed his original views.
The former honour will not concern us here. While quite a few scholars have suggested that Pherecydes practised allegoresis of Homer,Footnote 2 the only testimony regarding this matter does not ascribe to him any reading of the poet that could be categorized as allegorical: Origen makes it clear (C. Cels. 6.42 = DK 7 B5) that Celsus interpreted the binding of Hera (Il. 15.18–24) and the expulsion of Hephaestus (Il. 1.590–91) as elaborate allegories of the ordering of matter and the chastising of daimones,Footnote 3 but his direct quotation from Pherecydes contains no huponoia (cf. S F83 and LM 4 D13/R27a).Footnote 4 Obviously, we cannot rule out the possibility that Pherecydes put forward allegorical interpretations of Homer and/or Hesiod in the lost parts of his book, but as things stand not much more can be said on the topic of his allegoresis of poetry.Footnote 5 Hence, the focus of the present paper will be on the issue of the Pherecydean allegory (that is, the mode of speaking rather than reading).
The authors of Late Antiquity regularly labelled Pherecydes ‘enigmatic’.Footnote 6 Isidore in Clement of Alexandria captures this common conviction nicely when he asserts that Pherecydes ‘theologized allegorically’ (ἀλληγορήσας ἐθϵολόγησϵν, Strom. 6.6.53.5 = DK 7 B2 = S F76 = LM 4 R28), and Origen similarly counts Pherecydes among those who intentionally composed their works to be ‘interpreted figuratively and allegorically’ (τροπολογῆσαι καὶ ἀλληγορῆσαι, C. Cels. 1.18).Footnote 7 Undoubtedly, it is such ancient assessments that have made numerous modern scholars view various Pherecydean images as carefully crafted allegories.Footnote 8 Laudably, there are scholars who refrain from characterizing Pherecydes’ images as ‘allegorical’ but, less felicitously, opt for other equally anachronistic terms. In his ground-breaking study, Hermann S. Schibli, for instance, deliberately abstains from employing the term ‘allegory’,Footnote 9 though occasionally using ‘metaphor’,Footnote 10 whereas other scholars choose to speak of the Pherecydean ‘symbols’.Footnote 11
Of course, all these scholars who attribute an allegorical (metaphorical, symbolical) mode of thought to Pherecydes do not mean exactly the same thing. While the highly nebulous concepts of allegory, metaphor and symbol have been understood very differently, this paper will suggest that none of them does justice to the specificity of the Pherecydean images. First, it is advisable to note what the three concepts have in common. Most generally, metaphor, symbol and allegory represent one thing in terms of something else, which is why they are frequently taken to shade into one another along the continuum of figurative modes of thought.Footnote 12 Secondly, they are usually assumed to be the product of the author’s uoluntas, that is, they are viewed as intended by the speaker to convey the other meaning.Footnote 13 Thirdly and most importantly, theoretical considerations of metaphor, allegory and symbol are much later than Pherecydes, since they presuppose an awareness of the figurative that Pherecydes did not yet have. Let us briefly clarify the issue.
Aristotle famously defines metaphor as the ‘application of a foreign name’ (ὀνόματος ἀλλοτρίου ἐπιφορά, Poet. 1457b6–7) and explains the trope as a development from ‘simile’ or ‘likeness’ (ϵἰκών, Rhet. 3, 1406b20–24).Footnote 14 Crucially, though, his account of metaphor as a transfer of meaning arising from the comparison between two things is only a later rational explanation of what earlier consciousness perceived as equivalence: at the time of Pherecydes, ‘he is a lion’ used with reference to a man signified that the warrior assumed the nature of this animal.Footnote 15 Thus, while the Aristotelian view of metaphor points to two distinct, easily identifiable fields between which the semantic transfer occurs, there is no awareness of such a contrast in Pherecydes. It is, then, anachronistic and retrospective to apply the term ‘metaphor’ to his images, for Pherecydes operates neither with the distinction between a ‘proper’ (literal) and an ‘alien’ (figurative) use of a word, nor with the concept of simile as an expanded form of metaphor (in which the postulated likeness is signalled explicitly). The same applies to the other two terms. ‘Allegory’ first appears in the Hellenistic period and is regularly defined in quantitative terms as an extended or sustained metaphor (for example, Cic. Orat. 94 or Quint. Inst. 9.2.46).Footnote 16 ‘Symbol’, on the other hand, is not primarily linguistic, has the longest attested history and therefore emerges as the most polysemous of the three concepts, but one should stress that it is also only in the Hellenistic period that Chrysippus employs sumbolon with reference to the hidden meaning of Hesiod’s narrative about Athena’s birth from the head of Zeus (SVF 2.908–09).Footnote 17 While after the Stoics sumbolon and allēgoria are repeatedly used synonymously in various interpretive contexts (for example, Heraclitus the Allegorist, Quaestiones homericae 24), it is, again, anachronistic and retrospective to characterize Pherecydes’ images as ‘allegorical’ or ‘symbolical’ for, to reiterate, this sixth-century BCE thinker did not consciously differentiate between the literal and figurative senses of his semantic inventions.
Accordingly, the aim of the present paper will be to question the frequent claim that Pherecydes deliberately composed his treatise to be read figuratively. It will be argued that mythopoeic images from the sixth century BCE ought to be distinguished from Classical and Hellenistic allegories lest the idiosyncrasies of archaic thought be entirely obliterated.Footnote 18 After all, if an Archaic-period account is classified as ‘allegorical’ or ‘symbolic’, how are we to categorize later figurative accounts? Just as we clearly differentiate Pherecydes’ nascent philosophical reflection from Plato’s full-blown philosophia, so we should distinguish the former’s mythopoeic images from the latter’s carefully constructed eikones employed in the service of his self-conscious muthopoiia.Footnote 19 This should be fairly uncontroversial, but let us quote here two recent studies on the development of allegory. Dirk Obbink stresses that in the early period we do not find allegory as a ‘self-conscious or distinct literary procedure’,Footnote 20 and Glenn Most similarly emphasizes that until the Hellenistic age the technique is ‘philosophically marginal’.Footnote 21 Thus, in what follows, it will be suggested that the Pherecydean ‘enigmacity’ ought to be distinguished from later allegories.
Crucially, this was already sensed by Proclus, who, in his discussion of the Atlantis story, acutely diagnoses that ‘Plato’s teaching is not enigmatic in the same way as Pherecydes’ is’ (ἡ Πλάτωνος παράδοσις οὐκ ἔστι τοιαύτη αἰνιγματώδης οἵα ἡ Φϵρϵκύδου, In Ti. 1.129.15–16 = DK 7 A12 = S F89 = LM 4 R19).Footnote 22 While the point here is that the Platonic doctrines do not require the great deal of hermeneutical deciphering necessary in the case of the Pherecydean riddles, this appraisal can be taken as a useful point of departure for probing the difference between the enigmatic images of Pherecydes and later figurative concepts. As will be discussed, Plato’s use of metaphors is quite explicit and regularly yields an allegory in the Hellenistic sense (see above). In Pherecydes, by contrast, mythopoeic images enter philosophical discourse as abstract concepts but their figurativeness is not yet overt: one could say that the Pherecydean images hint at the emergent figurative meaning (‘embroidery = demiurgy’), but at the same time one should not ascribe to Pherecydes the same awareness of the figurative that Classical and Hellenistic philosophers display, in order to avoid anachronistically projecting later categories and distinctions onto an Archaic-period thinker. Let us briefly consider one such distortion.
When comparing Pherecydes’ cosmology with modern Big Bang theories, Michael Chase proposes that ‘Pherecydes didn’t mean his mythical accounts to be taken literally’, since ‘They were, in all likelihood, intended, not as allegories but as symbols.’Footnote 23 Although from our contemporary perspective it may seem natural to thus differentiate between allegory and symbol, this modern distinction was completely alien to the ancient Greeks. This aesthetic opposition was only created by the Romantics, who championed the superiority of symbol over allegory.Footnote 24 Yet no ancient thinker ever attempted to distinguish systematically between allegory and symbol, let alone oppose them. Consequently, when one embraces the Romantic contrast between symbol and allegory, and retrospectively interprets archaic texts through the prism of this modern dichotomy, one risks doing violence to the thought one strives to reconstruct. Of course, no one can impugn the advantages of reading archaic authors in such a manner that some light is shed not only on their works but also on various contemporary issues. At the same time, however, one should be extremely cautious about explicating archaic cultures in modern terms, for imposing modern concepts onto archaic views frequently results in moulding the object of interpretation in accordance with some preconceived picture of it. Indeed, Chase’s use of the Romantic distinction between symbols and allegories in his discussion of Pherecydes shows that when modern categories are applied to analysing an archaic thinker, the latter may easily end up crammed into the self-imposed confines of a foreign framework. After all, the Romantic denouncement of allegory was a reaction to the Medieval and Renaissance traditions of allegory as a primarily religious mode: in light of the Enlightenment’s challenge to the authority of theology, the Romantics elevated symbol to the position of an attractive alternative to the religious orthodoxy associated with allegory. Hence, when one suggests that Pherecydes intended his mythical accounts as symbols rather than allegories, one assumes that he not only consciously distinguished between the various modes of the figurative (favouring symbol over allegory), but also that he was critical of the theological tradition (much in the spirit of secular modernism). As neither is the case, this paper will approach Pherecydes from a different perspective.
II. Methodological framework
The archaic thought of Pherecydes will be read here through the lens of the framework developed by the eminent classicist and theoretician Olga Freidenberg (1890–1955), whose work has only recently been disseminated to the English-speaking scholarly community,Footnote 25 and fruitfully applied to the study of Pindar’s poetry.Footnote 26 Thus, this paper will suggest that Freidenberg’s insights into the complex process of metaphorization can cast interesting light on the unique and innovative ways in which Pherecydes makes use of traditional mythology, and on his contribution to the emergence of the allegorical tradition. This will also make it possible to avoid the unfortunate ‘developmentalism’ which evaluates the Pherecydean images from the standpoint of the progress from the ‘non-philosophical’ muthos to the ‘philosophical’ logos.Footnote 27
More specifically, Pherecydes’ mythopoeic images will be shown to illustrate how philosophical vocabulary arises in the process of metaphorization, that is, at a stage ‘when the image takes on the function of a concept for the first time’.Footnote 28 This highly compressed statement requires some unpacking. The term ‘image’ refers here to the basic understanding of the world which does not allow any reflection on the abstract or figurative, since it is unable to make sophisticated generalizations and conscious transfers from one genus or species to another. Freidenberg characterizes this early way of perceiving the world as ‘concrete sense-thinking’ and associates its mode with what later Greeks called to aisthēton or to horaton.Footnote 29 The term ‘concept’, by contrast, refers to the more abstract and refined way of grasping reality that is capable of making analytical distinctions between the particular or literal, on the one hand, and the general or metaphorical, on the other. This ‘conceptual thinking’ has overcome the sensual concreteness of the image and its mode is associated with what later Greeks called to noēton.Footnote 30 Finally, a mythopoeic image is a middle stage between the imagistic and the conceptual, since the concrete and the abstract coexist here.Footnote 31 Crucially, this stage is still marked by an incapacity to distinguish consciously between the ‘old’ (concrete, particular, literal) and ‘new’ (abstract, general, figurative) forms. To take one of Freidenberg’s examples, the concrete image of ‘throes of childbirth’ (ὠδῖνϵς) is gradually employed to indicate ‘suffering’ and ‘anguish’ in a more abstract sense: thus, for instance, the ‘bitter pangs’ in Homer (Il. 11.271) can become ‘bitter pain’ in Sophocles (Trach. 41–42). This illustrates how an image from daily life is transformed into a more abstract concept, while retaining its concreteness.Footnote 32 Hence, metaphorization is a process in which concrete meanings increasingly take on figurative meanings, albeit the resulting mythopoeic images do not yet become what only later will be referred to as metaphors, allegories, symbols, etc.
As English-speaking scholars are less familiar with Freidenberg’s framework, it may be helpful to point out here that Geoffrey Lloyd has made highly comparable observations in his discussion of the emergence of the concept of metaphor. He likewise stresses that the use of what would later be recognized as figurative expressions predates the development of the nomenclature to label them as such, which is why he introduces the concept of ‘semantic stretch’ to bypass the need to choose between ‘literal’ and ‘metaphorical’ applications of terms by ancient authors.Footnote 33 Similarly to Freidenberg’s framework, Lloyd’s concept is useful for historians because it allows us to approach cautiously the delicate problem of how sixth-century BCE thinkers viewed their descriptions and how explicitly they recognized issues related to the meanings of the terms they employed. Since Pherecydes operated before the literal/figurative dichotomy was available, the concept of semantic stretch offers an enticing alternative to these anachronistic and retrospective interpretations which all too hastily classify the Pherecydean images as ‘allegorical’, ‘symbolical’ or ‘metaphorical’.
Freidenberg focuses primarily on the origins of Greek lyric, but Pherecydes’ account, which straddles mythical and philosophical thought, similarly shows how mythopoeic images are used to fill conceptual gaps in abstract discourse.Footnote 34 In the process, there are as yet no clearly discernible figurative meanings, let alone elaborate allegories. The gaps are spanned spontaneously, as Pherecydes operates before (Aristotelian) metaphor. Notwithstanding this, Pherecydes’ cosmology significantly contributes to the laborious transition from concrete images to more abstract and figurative concepts which are subsequently utilized in philosophical allegories.Footnote 35
III. The embroidered robe and the winged oak
It is useful to start with this part of Pherecydes’ account not only because it is most frequently cited as an example of the Pherecydean allegory,Footnote 36 but also because we are dealing here with the longest surviving excerpt from his book. As will be shown, Pherecydes’ innovative use of the images of the embroidered robe and the winged oak was conducive to the emergence of concepts that would become a staple of the later metaphysical curriculum.
According to the Grenfell-Hunt papyrus, Pherecydes presented Zas’ demiurgic activity in terms of his making a ‘robe’ (φᾶρος), ‘great and beautiful’ (μέ|γα τϵ καὶ καλόν), on which the god ‘embroiders Earth, Ogenos and the houses of Ogenos’ (π̣ο̣ι̣κ̣[ίλλϵι Γῆν | καὶ ᾿Ωγη[νὸν καὶ τὰ ᾿Ω|γηνοῦ [δώματα], 2.11 = DK 7 B2 = S F68 = LM 4 D9). While Zas and Ogenos must be conscious mutations on Pherecydes’ part, there can hardly be any doubt that they are Zeus and Oceanus, respectively. Naturally, scholars have put forward a plethora of divergent etymologies for these peculiar names.Footnote 37 Yet for the purpose of the present discussion the crucial point is that such deliberate modifications indubitably testify to Pherecydes’ desire to offer a novel account of the cosmos and to signal his departure from the traditional models. Of course, Pherecydes draws heavily on various Homeric motifs,Footnote 38 but, most importantly, his portrayal of the world as a product of a craftsman god has now been recognized as apparently the first Hellenic articulation of the view that the cosmos is a divinely designed artefact.Footnote 39
On the third day of the wedding, Zas bestows the embroidered garment upon Chthonie, which provides an aition for the first ‘festival of unveiling’ (ἀν̣[α|καλυπτήρια) established as a ‘custom’ (νόμος) for both gods and men. While Diogenes Laertius reports further that Chthonie became Ge when Zas gave her the earth as a ‘gift of honour’ (γέρας, 1.119 = DK 7 B1 = S F14 = LM 4 D5), his report is consistent with what the Grenfell papyrus relates: as he presents the goddess with the vestment, Zas says to her: ‘I honour you with this’ (τούτωι σϵ τιμ̣[έω, col. 2).Footnote 40 This means that the reception of the gift of the embroidered robe marks the bride’s transformation from an obscure, barren, subterranean structure (cf. χθόνιος) into the visible, fertile and inhabitable surface that we live on. As Chthonie is honoured with the woven cloth, she changes not only her name but also her status, since now the Earth and Oceanus become her domain of influence. Hence, the demiurgic weaving of the terrestrial garment represents the formation of the world as we know it. Zas is the cosmic artisan, whose embroidering results in the emergence of Ge and Ogenos: the former is the primal mother earth responsible for all generation and regeneration of life (who also presides over the institution of marriage), whereas the latter is the great river encircling the earth and supplying water to springs, rivers and seas. Is this an allegory?
Those who answer affirmatively to this question often rely on Clement of Alexandria, who also quotes the part of Pherecydes’ account that appears in the first column of the Grenfell papyrus (Strom. 6.2.9.4 = DK 7 B2 = S F69). Having stressed the antiquity and ubiquity of ‘the symbolical form’ (τὸ συμβολικὸν ϵἶδος, 6.2.4.2), Clement proceeds to demonstrate how the Hellenes plagiarized not just the prophets but also other Greeks (6.2.4.3–4). It is in this context that he then compares Homer’s description of Achilles’ intricately wrought shield (Il. 18.483, 607) with Pherecydes’ depiction of Ge’s splendidly embroidered robe (Strom. 6.2.9.3–4). As this motif was a commonplace in the allegorical tradition,Footnote 41 many modern scholars followed the ancient allegorists of Homer and assumed that Pherecydes intended his image to be interpreted allegorically.Footnote 42
Nevertheless, it is more accurate to view the robe woven by Zeus and given to his bride as a mythopoeic description that seeks to illustrate more abstract concepts. Thus, the concreteness of the Pherecydean images should not be rashly allegorized away.Footnote 43 It is precisely the specific image of weaving the beautiful mantle that conveys the less tangible idea that the world is a rational work: the meticulously embroidered robe implies that the earth is a purposefully arranged creation. It is not that ‘weaving’ and ‘robe’ are used here metaphorically rather than literally. Instead, the everyday, familiar uses of the terms are extended or, as Lloyd puts it, ‘stretched’ to unfamiliar applications which nonetheless retain sufficient affinity with and similarity to the familiar ones. That is how the mythopoeic image of weaving a cosmic robe can be employed in an informative and even explanatory way. Likewise, the image of donning the garment ornamented with earth and ocean accounts for the emergence of (the surface of) the earth familiar to us: as Chthonie drapes herself in the adorned vestment, she turns into Ge (i.e. our visible world rather than its hidden foundation). Hence, Chthonie wraps the robe around herself as humans do in their everyday life. That is why the cosmological dimension (the generation of the terrestrial surface) is here coalesced with the aetiological one (the establishment of the social institution of marriage). The image of the hieros gamos is invoked to clarify Chthonie’s metamorphosis into Ge and to derive the human wedding rite from the first divine nuptial ceremony (which becomes the confirming model for all anakaluptēria).
As Pherecydes employs his mythopoeic image to articulate the abstract concept of divine intentionality, he also stresses the erotic impulse driving the demiurgy. Proclus relates that Pherecydes had his Zeus transmogrify into Eros when the god was about to ‘create’ (δημιουργϵῖν, In Ti. 2.54.28–30 = DK 7 B3 = S F72 = LM 4 D8). This is confirmed by Maximus of Tyre, who likewise speaks of Eros between Zeus and Chthonie (Dissertationes 4.4.5 = DK 7 A11 = S F73 = LM 4 D3). Hence, the formation of the physical and social order is explained in terms of love and the ensuing sexual act: the world is a divinely arranged creation, whose rational design, however, originates from a passionate act of procreation. Marriage leads to consummation and Zas, accordingly, performs the demiurgic role of Eros, whom Hesiod similarly elevates to the position of a sexual, life-giving and creative power (Theog. 120–22). The abstract concept of a demiurgic force is here conveyed by a concrete character performing specific actions which require both figures to undergo substantial transformations: Zeus metamorphoses into Eros when he produces the cosmos, and Chthonie metamorphoses into Ge when the earth is arranged by divine plan.
Pherecydes’ imagistic dichotomy between Zas (the artisan) and his robe (the artefact) clearly presents the cosmos as the work of divine artistry. Yet although the image of the deity embroidering the robe harbingers the metaphysical concept of demiurgic design, one must be cautious with respect to Pherecydes’ awareness of the status of his mythopoeic image. Plato’s reservations provide an illuminating contrast. In the Timaeus, for instance, the celebrated account of the demiurge begins with a strong emphasis on the ‘impossibility’ (ἀδύνατον) of expounding the maker of the universe to everyone (28c3–5), and concludes with the telling plea that in matters regarding the gods and the generation of the universe one must make do with a ‘probable myth’ (ϵἰκὸς μῦθος, 29c4–d3).Footnote 44 Thus, the eponymous character of the dialogue states in no uncertain terms that he cannot guarantee the veracity of his account and that the best he can come up with is a likely approximation to the truth. The same self-awareness is on full display in the Politicus, where the elaborate discussion of the demiurge is repeatedly characterized as a myth (268d9, 268e4, 272d5, 274e1, 275b1), which, however, the Younger Socrates finds to be ‘very probable’ (μάλα ϵἰκότως, 270b1), and which the Eleatic Stranger initially introduces for ‘amusement’ (παιδιά, 268d8–9), but ultimately hails as ‘useful’ (χρήσιμος, 274e1–4) for identifying the errors perpetrated in the search for the statesman.Footnote 45 By contrast, Pherecydes never offers such disclaimers. His cosmology represents a stage of thinking in which there are yet no deliberate semantic transfers from genera or species but rather straightforward identifications of such things as ‘figurative’ and ‘literal’ weaving, clothing, etc. That is why the Pherecydean Zeus ‘non-metaphorically’ makes the robe of the universe, as he embroiders the exterior surface of the earth, whereas Chthonie ‘non-metaphorically’ puts the terrestrial garment on, as she becomes the earth we know. The same applies to the other image that apparently was closely related to the decorated vestment: that of the winged tree.
Maximus of Tyre only mentions a tree and a peplos (Dissertationes 4.4.5 = DK 7 A11 = S F73 = LM 4 D3), but Isidore in Clement of Alexandria specifies that the tree was a ‘winged oak’ (ὑπόπτϵρος δρῦς) with the ‘embroidered robe upon it’ (ἐπ’ αὐτῇ πϵποικιλμένον φᾶρος, Strom. 6.6.53.5 = DK 7 B2 = S F76 = LM 4 D10). As both authors report on the tree in connection with the adorned garment that turns Chthonie into Ge, the oak must have played an important and conspicuous part in Pherecydes’ description of the formation of our cosmos. Unfortunately, scholars have been unable to agree on what that role was.Footnote 46
While some only gestured at Anaximander and other early Greek thinkers,Footnote 47 Hermann Diels argued that Pherecydes crafted his image as a deliberate allegory of Anaximander’s earth: given that the latter reportedly considered the earth to be (i) ‘cylindrical in shape’ (Ps.-Plut. Strom. 2 = DK 12 A10 = LM 6 D8) and (ii) similar to a ‘stone column’ (Hippol. Haer. 1.6.3 = DK 12 A11 = LM 6 D7), Diels boldly concluded that Pherecydes ‘poured new wine into old wineskins’, that is, he expressed the new physics under the guise of old cosmology.Footnote 48 Diels’ argument was furthered by Kurt von FritzFootnote 49 and, most recently, embraced by Gerard Naddaf.Footnote 50 Nevertheless, this interpretation was vigorously contested by Geoffrey Kirk, who raised doubts as to whether hupopteros ‘is to be given an abstract connotation at all’,Footnote 51 and offered criticisms which made many scholars wary of the interpretations of Diels and von Fritz.Footnote 52 Adopting a middle position, Schibli refused to characterize Pherecydes’ winged tree as a ‘conscious allegorization of Anaximander’s cylindrical earth’,Footnote 53 but at the same time followed the German tradition (Diels, Zeller, von Fritz, Jaeger) in assuming that the fluttering wings of Pherecydes’ tree express ‘in a mythopoeic manner’ what Anaximander presented as the earth suspended in space.Footnote 54 While other scholars have come up with less convincing interpretations of the Pherecydean image of the winged oak,Footnote 55 few have astutely observed that we do not know how literally or how figuratively it was meant to be taken.Footnote 56 This may provide a useful starting point for analysing Pherecydes’ cryptic phrase.
When, for instance, Pindar promises to deliver his message ‘faster than a winged ship’ (θᾶσσον … ναὸς ὑποπτέρου, Ol. 9.24), modern scholarship is unsurprisingly divided as to whether the ‘wings’ denote here sails or oars.Footnote 57 Thus, one could also ponder which part of the Pherecydean tree was to carry the oak as wings: given the prefix hupo- one could try to make the case for the roots.Footnote 58 Yet the prime question is to what extent Pherecydes spoke figuratively of these arboreal wings. The problem is analogous to that of the Hesiodic ‘roots of the earth’. It has long been recognized that Hesiod’s rhizai (Theog. 728, Op. 19) can still be heard in Xenophanes’ errhizōsthai (Arist. Cael. 2, 294a23 = DK 21 A47 = LM 8 R13).Footnote 59 This mythopoeic image of ‘being connected’ by ‘being rooted’ is thoroughly metaphorical to a modern reader, but for these archaic thinkers and their audiences it was probably quite unmarked. Presumably, Pherecydes’ image of ‘being winged’ was no different: the world tree has wings because it glides through space or swings freely in it without any support.
Consequently, it is tantalizing to view the Pherecydean tree as an ingenious contribution to contemporary discussion of the world’s foundation, albeit (i) without insisting on Anaximander’s direct influence and (ii) without attributing to Pherecydes the intention of presenting an allegorical exposition of Anaximander’s theory. With these caveats in mind, one may cautiously juxtapose the Pherecydean image of arboreal wings with Anaximander’s well-known correction of Thales: if the latter maintained that the earth floats on water (see DK 11 A12 = LM 5 D3 or DK 11 A14 = LM 5 D7), then the former claimed it to be suspended rather than supported by anything (see DK 12 A11 = LM 6 D7 or DK 12 A26 = LM 6 D30).Footnote 60 Placed in this context, Pherecydes’ mythopoeic image of arboreal wings can be regarded as representing one of the many steps in the process of metaphorization, where individual thinkers put forward specific, concrete images whose interactions gradually yield more abstract, philosophical concepts. It is therefore not far-fetched to imagine that Pherecydes endowed his world tree with wings so that it could support itself in space: the Pherecydean oak would then be hupopteros, because our cosmos stays aloft without any underpinning substratum. This flying world tree connects the distinct levels of the Pherecydean universe (heaven and underworld), while being wrapped in the embroidered vestment with Ge and Oceanus. Zeus, to whom the oak was sacred (see Hom. Od. 14.328), hangs the robe of the universe on the tree, and Chthonie transforms into Ge when she puts on the woven garment.
IV. The timeless trinity and the battle against Ophioneus
The Pherecydean trinity is also frequently classified as ‘allegorical’.Footnote 61 However, in line with the perspective espoused here, it would be preferable to say that Pherecydes employs his mythopoeic images of ‘gods’ (θϵοί) to articulate what later philosophers will convey with the more abstract concept of ‘principles’ (ἀρχαί). That is why his deities are both personal (concrete divine figures) and impersonal (abstract divine forces).
When Aristotle famously praises Pherecydes’ account for not being entirely mythical, he commends him and other ‘mixed’ (μϵμιγμένοι) theologians (the Magi, Empedocles, Anaxagoras) for positing their first originating principles as being the ‘best’ (ἄριστον) and remaining so (Metaph. 14, 1091b8–12 = DK 7 A7 = S F81 = LM 4 R3).Footnote 62 While he places Pherecydes at the crossroads of Eastern and Greek traditions, these theologoi are lauded for not becoming entangled in interminable debates about the origin and fate of their imperishable principles, because their archai are not created, dethroned or supplanted in any way. Unfortunately, Aristotle does not specify the Pherecydean principle(s), but we know from Diogenes Laertius that at the very beginning of his tract Pherecydes established the reality of three eternal deities: Zas, Chronos and Chthonie, who, as he put it, ‘were always’ (ἦσαν ἀϵί, 1.119 = DK 7 B1 = S F14 = LM 4 D5). Thus, these primeval beings are clearly differentiated from the gods of popular belief, since the latter arose in time. It therefore emerges that in Pherecydes all three pre-existing unbegotten gods perform a function analogous to that of the later archai.Footnote 63 Indeed, this sits well with Aristotle’s emphasis on the ‘eternity’ (ἀΐδιον) of the first principle (Metaph. 14, 1091b16).Footnote 64
Pherecydes’ insistence on the perpetual existence of his divine triad is commonly recognized as a rectification of Hesiod’s Chaos, which ‘came into being’ (γένϵτ[ο], Theog. 116).Footnote 65 What is less frequently emphasized is the persistent concreteness of the Pherecydean image. Conceptually, Pherecydes does not yet have the ‘principles’ but merely Zeuses and Chronoses who have to substitute for the later archai. That is why he clothes his timeless forces in the images of particular deities, while revisiting and recasting the theogonic tradition. Consequently, the Pherecydean divinities are both specific gods and more abstract powers.Footnote 66 Pherecydes modifies the names of his deities to indicate their novel cosmological functions (connected with time, the underworld, etc.). These appellations refer to concrete divine persons who exert causal influence of particular sorts on the world and therefore can be used to explain the world. The altered names signal such philosophically important improvements as the eternity of the deities or their direct involvement in the formation of the cosmos. These improvements are not conscious allegories, but they allow us to appreciate Pherecydes as a pioneering thinker: the issues of uncreated entities that fashion the world and engage intimately in it will become a stock problem in later philosophical reflection.
Aristotle applauds Pherecydes’ eternal trinity, since his first three gods are not derived from anything that precedes them: the Pherecydean account of the origin of the world begins with that which is best (the primordial deities who have existed always) rather than something inferior (for example, the castration and removal of an evil divinity). While Aristotle’s admiration is due to the fact that Pherecydes’ trinity is not dependent on anything else, the account of the battle between Kronos and Ophioneus may seem somewhat astonishing, as it appears to be at variance with Aristotle’s praise that Pherecydes’ cosmology was not completely mythical.Footnote 67 After all, theomachies are common in mythology. Since they are also regularly interpreted allegorically by the apologists of the poets,Footnote 68 the Pherecydean battle of Kronos and Ophioneus has likewise often been assumed to have been composed allegorically.Footnote 69 As will be shown, however, Pherecydes subjects the traditional image of a theomachy to a new, but non-metaphorical use.
Again, Maximus of Tyre only mentions the birth of Ophioneus and the ensuing battle of the gods (Dissertationes 4.4.5 = DK 7 A11 = S F73 = LM 4 D3), but Celsus in Origen reports extensively that Pherecydes ‘constructed a myth’ (μυθοποιϵῖν) of two hostile armies arrayed against each other: Kronos was the ‘commander’ (ἡγϵμών) of one and Ophioneus of the other, the opposing sides had to face various ‘challenges’ (προκλήσϵις) and ‘contests’ (ἅμιλλαι), while the specific ‘terms’ (συνθῆκαι) of the battle were that those who fell into Ogenos would be vanquished and those who defeated them would possess the heavens (C. Cels. 6.42 = DK 7 B4 = S F78 = LM 4 D11). Is this an allegory?
Those who answer in the affirmative often adduce Eudemus in Damascius, who supposes that Pherecydes’ ‘five-nook’ (πϵντέμυχος) generation of gods is ‘probably’ (ἴσως) to be understood as the ‘five world’ (πϵντέκοσμος) generation (De principiis 124b = DK 7 A8 = S F60 = LM 4 R23). Accordingly, the Pherecydean ‘nooks’ (μυχοί) are equated with ‘portions’ (μοῖραι),Footnote 70 Clement’s comparison of Homer’s shield to Pherecydes’ robe (6.2.9.3–4) is invoked as a common ground (both have earth and ocean), and the battle against Ophioneus is seen as leading to the division of the world into five regions (see Hom. Il. 15.187–93). While this interpretation is also typically buttressed by Plutarch (see De def. or. 23.422E–423B and De E apud Delphos 11.389F–390A), the resulting reconstructions of the Pherecydean universe are not only highly conjectural,Footnote 71 they also build on various assumptions of the fully developed tradition of allegoresis (Plutarch, Clement, Origen, Damascius, etc.). As such, they have no textual basis.
It seems, therefore, safer to say that the Pherecydean theomachy is a mythopoeic comparison between a divine battle and a human one: the image establishes the cosmogonic war between the two mighty sovereigns as a precedent and model for all conflicts of immortals and mortals. Given that the wedding of Zas and Chthonie provides an aition for the first festival of unveiling (see above), it is tempting to assume that the battle of Kronos and Ophioneus was similarly intended to provide an aition for the first ‘wearing of a wreath’ (στϵφανηφορία). This may be surmised on the basis of the testimony provided by Tertullian, who, when discussing the origin of the crown, relates that according to Pherecydes Saturn was crowned ‘before everyone’ (ante omnes, De corona militis 7.4 = DK 7 B4 = S F82 = LM 4 D12). Thus, one may hypothesize that it was the victory over Ophioneus that earned Kronos the first wreath, upon which wearing this garland of triumph became the custom for both gods and men (as was the case with the first anakaluptēria).Footnote 72
Once again, the fighting deities are not abstract entities but concrete characters who struggle for power. Kronos is a warrior and protector, whereas Ophioneus incarnates the forces of evil which must be subdued lest the world order fall into a state of anarchy and disorder. The implication seems to be that the preservation of an orderly cosmos requires the subjugation of the forces of chaos embodied in the figure of the monstrous snake.Footnote 73 Pherecydes’ mythopoeic image is deeply rooted in the preceding tradition: his Ophioneus, for instance, is very much like the Hesiodic Typhoeus (see Theog. 821–68).Footnote 74 Yet Pherecydes also creatively reworks the conventional myths: the Pherecydean theomachy does not result in any dethronement (no god is overthrown or superseded), there is no divine succession (the three primeval deities have existed from eternity), there is a rearrangement of the Kronos–Zeus relationship (the divinities are not father and son fighting each other for power), and so on. Hence, what Pherecydes offers is a revolutionary ‘mythology cum theology’ that is conceptually richer, because it represents, as Freidenberg would say, a crucial development in the process of metaphorization.
V. Conclusion
Pherecydes was undoubtedly an exceptional thinker whose outstanding prominence is abundantly reflected in the extant testimonies. Two of these are particularly important for the closing of this discussion. Pherecydes is reported to have been the first to have written ‘about nature and gods’ (Diog. Laert. 1.116 = DK 7 A1 = S F1 = LM 4 D2), and the first to have composed a treatise ‘in prose narrative’ (Suda s.v. Φϵρϵκύδης = DK 7 A2 = S F2 = LM 4 R5a). His actual priority in both matters may be doubted.Footnote 75 Yet the ultimately insoluble question of precedence is not as relevant as is the originality with which the above testimonies credit him: what and how Pherecydes wrote about the issues that many a poet also dealt with distinguished him sufficiently to be awarded the honour of being the first prose theologian.
Of course, scholars will inevitably continue to debate the level of abstraction that Pherecydes can be credited with. This article has argued that Freidenberg’s insights into the complex process of metaphorization can throw light on the ways in which Pherecydes avails himself of traditional mythology and on his role in the development of the allegorical tradition. As has been shown, the Pherecydean images oscillate between the concrete and mythical, on the one hand, and the abstract and conceptual, on the other. Thus, these archaic forms ‘continue to remain concrete, even though their contents are already abstract’.Footnote 76 As such, they definitely pave the way for the allegorical tradition. At the same time, however, one should refrain from assigning to Pherecydes the same awareness of the figurative that the Classical and Hellenistic philosophers exhibit: his mythopoeic images ought to be differentiated from later philosophical metaphors and allegories.
Supplementary material
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to JHS’s editor, Lin Foxhall, and the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments, helpful suggestions and inspiring criticisms. An earlier version of this paper was presented in May 2022 at the Conference on Pherecydes of Syros held at the Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City. I would like to thank David Lévystone for his kind invitation to the event.
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