SPEAKING OBJECTS AND THE EARLY GREEK CONCEPTION OF WRITING

Abstract One of the most remarkable features of the language of early Greek writing is a pervasive rhetorical strategy which consists in personifying objects for the purpose of identifying humans closely associated with them. Such ‘speaking objects’ have no Semitic parallel; how, then, is their conventional status in the Archaic Age to be explained? This article first considers the formulaic language of speaking objects, which is no straightforward transcription of speech, and seeks to explain where it comes from. It then turns to the question of why writers employed the curious strategy of personification by setting it in the broader context of early Greek writing and literature. Variously analogous to herms, slaves and skytalai, speaking objects are shown to have been conceived as messengers acting on behalf of their senders by not speaking in their name.

such objects as agents. 9Though he forcefully objects to 'reading' speaking objects, rejecting approaches indebted to the superseded 'linguistic turn' and insisting on writing as a primarily material practice, Whitley cannot but rely on their language in his argument. 10This language repays more sustained attention.
I begin by building on the work of Wachter, who has suggested that the speech of speaking objects-votive epigrams in particular-is rooted in ritual oral language. 11n the first part of this article, in an attempt to explain where the standardized speech of speaking objects comes from, I extend the discussion to other genres and seek to provide some evidence for his hypothesis.I then turn in the second part to the question why writers employed the strategy of personification, setting it in the broader context of early Greek writing and literature.

ORALITY
Speaking objects present themselves as engaging in speech, but their language does not represent a straightforward transcription: it is not easy to imagine a situation in which one would have exclaimed, for instance, 'I am the kylix of Korax'. 12Where, then, does it come from?To Korax's kylix, Mantiklos' statue and Glaucus' memorial let us add as a representative sample another statue, an aryballos, a lekythos and a shelf of rock, respectively: Νικανδρη μ' ανεθεκεν hεκηβολοι ιοχεαιρηι (Naxos, c.650) 13 Nikandrê dedicated me to the far-shooting goddess who rains arrows Πυρος μ' επιοε̄σεν Αγασιλε̄Ϝο (Eretria?, c.650) 14 Pyrrhos the son of Agasileos made me.ταταιε̄ς ε̄μι λε̄ϙυθος hος δ' αν με κλεφσει θυφλος εσται (Cumae, 675-650) 15 I am the lekythos of Tataie; whosoever steals me will go blind.
The language of these objects was not composed ad hoc.Their speech is evidently governed by rules: a first-person enclitic occupies the second place in the sentence, conforming to Wackernagel's Law; the first-person accusative pronoun is preceded by the nominative and is followed by a verb (NOM.με V.), while the first-person singular 9 Whitley (n.1), 73 goes so far as to argue that writing was developed in order to allow objects to speak (Whitley [n.2], 280: 'the alphabet was invented to personify things, to endow them with agency', italics original).
10 E.g.Whitley (n.1), 84: 'if a pot-a humble lekythos-can invoke divine agency, it must also possess agency itself.'The linguistic and literary analysis presented here is by no means necessarily incompatible with materialist approaches.See n. 67 below.
11 Wachter (n. 5).See Christian (n.5), 39 n. 49 for some criticism. 12Noted by e.g.Svenbro (n.3), 28, 30; Wachter (n.5), 251. 13The first verse of three at CEG 403. 14LSAG 88(22). 15IG xiv 865; LSAG 240(3). 16M.K. Langdon, 'Herders' graffiti', in A.P. Matthaiou and N. Papazarkadas (edd.),ΑΞΩΝ: Studies in Honor of Ronald S. Stroud (Athens, 2015), 49-58, §3.present of εἶναι is preceded by the genitive and is followed by the nominative (GEN.εἰμί NOM.).The first formula is frequently used to identify the object's donor, or the artisan who crafted it. 17The second (sometimes [GEN.εἰμί]) is typical of inscriptions concerned with ownership, which can include epitaphs, and also votives. 18Other formulas employed by speaking objects, such as [NOM.εἰμί GEN.] or with a prepositional phrase replacing the initial genitive, are manifestly related to them. 19Set against the geographic spread and orthographic variety of these objects so early in the Archaic period, their standardized diction-in verse as well as in prose, on sympotic objects as well as on herders' graffiti 20 -requires explanation, no less than the formulaic language of hexameter verse.Greeks had at their disposal ample resources to announce a donation or claim ownership in a variety of lexical, syntactic and other ways. 21How are we to explain these formulas?
It has been argued that the language of early Greek writings, particularly epitaphs and votives, was indebted to the formulas of Phoenician inscriptions. 22But it is enough to consider the Mantiklos and Nikandrê inscriptions to realize that the debt is at best limited.While the syntax of the openings ([donor] ἀνέθηκε [god]) may be originally Semitic, their metre and diction (the epithets ἑκηβόλος and ἀργυρότοξος) are firmly rooted in the traditional language of Greek hexameter verse. 23ike hexameter verse, the language of votives is grounded in oral practices.Though they did not necessarily feature transcriptions of actual Kultsprache ('language of cult'), they nevertheless represented a Kunstsprache ('artificial language') which evoked the occasion of the original dedication by drawing on ritual language, in particular divine epithets, prayers, as well as the proclamation of the donor's name. 24Indeed, they were performative utterances. 25Wachter has attempted to reconstruct the actual Kultsprache, suggesting a number of possible hexametric verses which the donor would have uttered, referring to him-or herself in the third person, and perhaps using the second in reference to the object. 26In Wachter's reconstruction, writing will have led to the standardization of such formulas as well as to the use of the first person for the object.While Wachter's reconstruction is hypothetical, evidence for the transformation of an oral formula into the personified written formula can be found, I submit, when we turn to the ownership formula [GEN.εἰμί NOM.].It too is paralleled in hexameter poetry.In Iliad Book 6, Hector imagines the speech of a passer-by who, long after the Greeks have captured Troy, comes upon his wife Andromache, now enslaved (459-62): καί ποτέ τις εἴπῃσιν ἰδὼν κατὰ δάκρυ χέουσαν· " Ἕκτορος ἧδε γυνή, ὃς ἀριστεύεσκε μάχεσθαι Τρώων ἱπποδάμων, ὅτε Ἴλιον ἀμφεμάχοντο."ὥς ποτέ τις ἐρέει … And someone will say, seeing you shedding tears: 'This is the wife of Hector, who was superior in war to all Trojan horse-tamers, when they fought around Ilios.'So someone will say … The same construction, with the possessor's name in the genitive, followed by a proximal demonstrative pronoun and the nominative possessee, can be found in Iliad Book 7. 27 It is again Hector, yet again imagining what has been called tis-speech (86-91): 28 καί ποτέ τις εἴπῃσι καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἀνθρώπων, νηὶ πολυκλήιδι πλέων ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον· "ἀνδρὸς μὲν τόδε σῆμα πάλαι κατατεθνηῶτος, ὅν ποτ᾿ ἀριστεύοντα κατέκτανε φαίδιμος Ἕκτωρ."ὥς ποτέ τις ἐρέει· τὸ δ᾿ ἐμὸν κλέος οὔ ποτ᾿ ὀλεῖται.
And someone to be born later, as he sails over the wine-dark sea in a many-benched ship, will say: 'This is the mound of a man who died long ago, whom glorious Hector slew though he was once excellent.'So someone will say, and my fame will not perish.
The use of this construction in tis-speech is not limited to Hector, nor to epic.A particularly famous variation of it is used by Theognis, who shortly after announcing the sealing of his verses with the proximal demonstrative (τοῖσδ᾿ ἔπεσιν) boasts (22-3): 29 ὧδε δὲ πᾶς τις ἐρεῖ· "Θεόγνιδός ἐστιν ἔπη τοῦ Μεγαρέως· πάντας δὲ κατ᾿ ἀνθρώπους ὀνομαστός" So everyone will say: 'The verses are Theognis of Megara's, and he is famous among all people.'These utterances were not composed lackadaisically either.They are marked by hyperbaton as well as by ring composition. 30Indeed, Hector expects his rival's supposed epitaph to earn him undying kleos, which is also what Theognis promises Cyrnus (245). 31Scholiasts accordingly characterized Hector's tis-speeches as 'epigrammatic', and modern scholars have associated them-and recently Theognis' tis-speech too-with epitaphs, some even claiming that they attest to Homer's awareness of writing. 32s with votives, the language of epitaphs was not a transcription of ritual funerary language, but it was none the less related to it, and its formulaic diction suggests an affinity with oral traditions. 33The use of this construction, moreover, as we can see, 29 Note that in the seals of Phocylides (1-5 Diehl), Demodocus (2 IEG 2 ) and also Hipparchus ([Pl.]Hipparch.229a-b)-discussed below-the nominative precedes the genitive. 30Ring composition: Θεόγνιδός … τοῦ Μεγαρέως; ἀνδρὸς … κατατεθνηῶτος; Ἕκτορος … ὃς (as in Pyrrhos and Glaucus' inscriptions above, also Langdon [n.16], § §4-6, 10, etc.).For the hyperbaton, see again the syntactic analysis presented in note 29 above.If we prefer to construe all three possessive constructions as predicative rather than adnominal, there will be no hyperbaton, but they will be marked by initial focus, which in ancient Greek typically follows the topic.See M.C.Benvenuto and F. Pompeo, 'Verbal semantics in ancient Greek possessive constructions with eînai', Journal of Greek Linguistics 15 (2015), 3-33, at 22-30, on the information structure of the predicative construction. 31 was not restricted to epitaphs, and would appear to have been appropriated by their authors rather than to have originated with them.But it is not necessary to argue that the third-person ownership formula was originally oral, for the three tis-speeches present it being used orally, and independently of written texts.In all three cases the hypothetical speakers are indeed speaking (εἴπῃσι or ἐρέει, or both), and though their speech is inextricably connected to material bodies-sealed epê, a mound, a perhaps statuesque woman-it is only as a metaphor that they can be said to be 'reading'. 34here is a close, rich relationship between the literary material bodies and the inscribed speaking objects.Whereas the literary bodies are mute but provoke speech in the form of third-person ownership statements, 35 speaking objects prompt first-person ownership statements by third parties.We can thus say that it is only when objects are literally read that they speak; when they bear no written message others speak for them, but when they are inscribed they appropriate the speech of their readers as their own. 36he literary bodies and speaking objects are also related with regard to their function.In the third-person epigrams ownership is declared not by the owner but precisely in and because of his absence: Theognis seals his song in anticipation of its flight, not to mention the threat of theft (238, 19-20, respectively), and for Hector and his rival their respective tis-utterances function as quasi-epitaphs.It is no coincidence that a variation on this construction served speaking objects in identifying their own absent owners; it would appear that it was for this purpose that it prominently served.In fact, the lone difference between the first-person and third-person formulas attests to their kinship: like eimi, the proximal demonstrative also expresses the speaker's perspective, and in verse can even refer to the speaker, accompanying egô. 37vent of Literacy (Leiden, 2001), ch. 2, on their diction at 86-91; and J.W. Day, 'Rituals in stone: early Greek grave epigrams and monuments', JHS 109 (1989), 16-28, especially 22-8, on their mimetic relation to funerary rites more broadly.Epitaphs are catalogued according to formulas in GVI.R.F.Thomas, 'Melodious tears: sepulchral epigram and generic mobility', in M.A. Harder, R.F.Regtuit, G.C. Wakker (edd.),Genre in Hellenistic Poetry (Groningen, 1998), 205-23, at 207: 'before the Hellenistic period metrical, sepulchral inscriptions have the look more of quotation and excerption'. 34Obviously, in the case of Andromache (for Andromache as monument, Scodel [n.18], 64-5).With regard to the mound of Hector's victim, Scodel (n.18), 59: 'this fantasy can only be other than completely ridiculous because although writing may be evoked, it is not actually there' (cf.Clay [n.32], 192-4).Theognis' epê are conceived orally, as song (see 4, 13, 28-39, etc.), and most scholars take sphrêgis as a metaphor (e.g.E.J. Bakker, 'Trust and fame: the seal of Theognis', in E.J. Bakker [ed.],Authorship and Greek Song: Authority, Authenticity and Performance [Leiden, 2017], 99-121, at 105-7 with references).Cf. also its use as an oral formula to denote 'ownership' of incantations (C.A. Faraone, 'Taking the "Nestor's cup inscription" seriously: erotic magic and conditional curses in the earliest inscribed hexameters', ClAnt 15 [1996], 77-112, at 98-105, 111). 35Theognis' epê could be said to speak, but in this case, like Andromache, they do not; others speak about them.Compare the Homeric 'entextualized' objects discussed in J.L. Ready, 'Performance, oral texts, and entextualization in Homeric epic', in J.L. Ready and C. Tsagalis (edd.),Homer in Performance (Austin, 2018), 320-50, at 345-6; and in Herodotus, H.I. Flower, 'Herodotus and Delphic traditions about Croesus', in M.A. Flower and M. Toher (edd.),Georgica: Greek Studies presented to G.L. Cawkwell (London, 1991), 57-77, at 68-70 with more general references. 36 I therefore propose that Hector and Theognis' imaginary epigrams provide evidence for an oral formula used to declare ownership, which in some cases was transcribed, but in others underwent personification in the process of being written down. 38This formula could have been of use in a range of ritual contexts, as the curse immediately following it on Tataie's lekythos suggests. 39One particularly attractive context for some of these objects-following Giovanni Colonna's intriguing interpretation of speaking objects in pre-Roman Italy-is exchange, or the presentation of gifts, which in Homer typically involves formulaic narratives regarding the history of their ownership. 40his reconstruction of the oral origins of the personified ownership formula has three advantages to recommend it.First, tracing the origins of the written formula to an established oral formula accounts for the linguistic uniformity of so many speaking objects throughout the Greek world.Second, its derivation from such an oral formula explains the motivation to make use of it: the claim to ownership would acquire authority by virtue of being expressed in an already-established idiom of ownership.Third, it fits well with the broader continuity between orality and literacy and the tendency to make use of early writing within pre-existing semiotic systems, not as a means of breaking out of them but rather as a supplement to current practices: with the advent of writing, the oral texts which material bodies provoked could be inscribed on them in adapted form. 41hat remains to be explained is this peculiar adaptation, namely the strategy of personification.Why not stick with the third-person 'this is Korax's kylix'?Or why did Korax not inscribe 'Korax says this is his kylix', or in direct speech 'Korax declares: this is my kylix'?Given its diffusion, it is hard to believe that personification was simply an experiment that went well.For it to flourish throughout the Greek world, it had to sprout from fertile soil.We therefore turn to the broader context of early Greek writing.
39 Faraone (n.34), 111 has argued that the formula's use in the 'Philinna Papyrus' and related texts attests to 'an oral tradition of mnemonic devices designed to organize large bodies of information and to help recall types of oral incantations'.M. Węcowski, The Rise of the Greek Aristocratic Banquet (Oxford, 2014), 135-6 argues for sympotic use.As noted above, Wachter (n.5), 252 suggests that it would have been employed by a slave, or even a freeborn, to introduce themselves via their owner or father (compare the formula of introduction found in other Iliadic epigrams-houtos + patronymic + epithet + proper name + expansion-described in Elmer [n.32], 7).

WRITING
Among discussions of early Greek conceptions of writing, Svenbro's stands out for his attention to speaking objects.On the basis of their 'egocentrism', he argued that 'Greek writing was first and foremost a machine for producing sounds.' 42Bakker has well criticized this view, observing that such inscriptions are not 'egocentric' but 'reader-oriented', that rather than engaging in monologue they are in fact involved in dialogue, answering questions which are frequently-but not always-implicit, as in the following fifth-century inscription (CEG 286): 43 πᾶσιν ἴσ᾽ ἀνθρόποις hυποκρίνομαι hόστις ἐ[ροτ]ᾶι hός μ᾽ ἀνέθεκ᾽ ἀνδρο ν· ᾿Aντιφάνες δεκάτεν To all people I answer the same, whoever asks which man dedicated me: Antiphanes, as a tithe.
It would therefore seem that the purpose of speaking objects was not so much to attract the reader's attention to the object as to bridge the distance between author and reader and facilitate communication between them, on the most basic model of communication in an oral society, that of conversation. 44This should not be taken for granted: though a long line of thinkers, starting with Plato (Phdr.276a8-9) and Aristotle (Int.16a) and extending through Rousseau and de Saussure, saw writing as speech transcribed, in effect as a copy of speech, a comparative perspective undermines the immediate association of writing with speech. 45In the case of archaic Greek culture, however, speaking objects-especially in the light of their widespread distributionindeed suggest the conception of writing as a means of representing speech. 46et, as we have seen, the speech which speaking objects represent is not a transcript, and the communication they facilitate does not consist of ordinary language but rather of marked language which is at home, for instance, in the Kunstsprache of hexameter verse.The Romanist Oesterreicher has stressed the importance of distinguishing between orality as a medium, opposed to writing, and orality as a conception, an informal style contrasted with a more formal one.This distinction allows us to recognize more complicated linguistic forms such as written informal language, as one finds in personal written communication, as well as oral formal language of the kind one hears in a lecture.While the medial distinction is dichotomous, the conceptual distinction lies on a continuum: Oesterreicher characterizes its informal pole as a language of immediacy, most appropriate for personal contact, in contrast with a language of distance which is better suited to impersonal interaction. 47Building on Oesterreicher's work, we can say that early Greek writing typically draws on language which was oral in terms of its medium but not in terms of its conception.
Such language of distance was, for example, the vehicle of the epic tradition, which employed a Kunstsprache not spoken by any Greek, and whose practitioners presented their authority as deriving not from themselves but from the Muses.The most famous among them, Homer, was a man almost without qualities, allowing numerous Greek poleis to claim him as their own. 48Just as Homer was constructed as a distant figure who gains in authority by virtue of his impartiality, the oral ownership formula was designed to avoid the appearance of prejudice: it was not the owner who laid claim to an object out of self-interest, the claim was rather made impersonally. 49In this it shares an affinity with the language of early Greek law, whose formulaic constitution necessarily points to oral precursors. 50Early Greek legal language consistently introduces the polis as its source, as in the following law inscribed during the second half of the seventh century on the eastern wall of the temple of Apollo Delphinios in Dreros, Crete: ἇδ' ἔϜαδε πόλι ἐπεί κα κοσμήσει δέκα Ϝετίον τὸν ἀ-Ϝτὸν μὴ κόσμεν αἰ δὲ κοσμησίε ὁ[π]ε δίκακσιε ἀϜτὸν ὀπῆλεν διπλεῖ … 51 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, whatever judgements he gives, he shall owe double … Here, as elsewhere, the verbs used to attribute legal language to the polis are impersonal (ἔϜαδε, ἔδοξε); it does not speak as a person, or as a collective of people, though it easily could-far more naturally than a kylix.There is also no use 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 was not composed of individuals and did not interact with individuals.Early Greek laws were in fact attributed to various legendary figures, but these legendary nomothetai came from afar-notionally (from outside the establishment), if not geographically-and the survival of their nomoi depended on their distancing themselves from their compositions.In Svenbro's words, nomos had to be autonomous. 52he authority of written language in archaic and classical Greek societies was a real concern, and the language of distance offered one way to overcome the difficulties stemming from the separation of the enunciation from its enunciator. 53Establishing abstract distance thus curiously partnered with the attempt to overcome concrete distance in forming the early Greek conception of writing as an instrument for enacting oral communication at a distance. 54Epistolography, exceptionally, had little use for the language of abstract distance-intended for a limited and specified group of addressees rather than for an indeterminate audience, it typically was not concerned with establishing authority 55 -but early letters serve as a paradigm for the way in which archaic Greek writing sought to bridge concrete distance.
The earliest extant Greek letter is a lead sheet from Berezan on the Black Sea, dating from the second half of the sixth century.Its rolled-up outside surface makes use of the traditional ownership formula: Ἀχιλλοδώρō τὸ μολίβδιον παρὰ τὸμ παῖδα κἀναξαγόρην.
Achillodorus' piece of lead, to his son and Anaxagoras. 52Svenbro (n.3), 135.Solon, for instance, had to go into exile, Charondas and Lycurgus had to die in order to secure their laws, and Draco also met a bizarre death abroad.Their premature deaths ensured that they could not abuse the power they had won, or compromise their laws.Cf. A. Szegedy-Maszak, 'Legends of the Greek lawgivers', GRBS 19 (1978), 199-209, at 208, noting that the lawgiver's departure is an integral part of the lawgiver's legend: 'the hidden hero of the legends is codified law itself; once the code is self-sustaining, the legislator becomes superfluous'.On lawgivers as outsiders, see M. Gagarin, Early Greek Law (Berkeley, 1986), 58-60.
53 For the lack of authority in law, R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge, 1989), 35-6; Steiner (n.41), 171; M. Gagarin, Writing Greek Law (Cambridge, 2008), 197-205.For the suspicion of writing in Athenian oratory, J. Schloemann, 'Entertainment and democratic distrust: the audience's attitude toward oral and written oratory in classical Athens', in I. Worthington and J.M. Foley (edd.),Epea and Grammata: Oral and Written Communication in Ancient Greece (Leiden, 2002), 133-46, at 134-41.Symptomatic of the anxiety over the dependence of written texts was their representation as helpless children in Ar.Nub.528-32 and Pl.Phdr.275e; for the written text as defenceless, see Isocr.To Philip 25-7, Panath.247, Epistle 1.3 (with Y.L. Too, The Rhetoric of Identity in Isocrates: Text, Power, Pedagogy [Cambridge, 1995], 119-21).For the authority of inscriptions, and speaking objects in particular, see n. 71 below on Herodotus. 54Cf.Meyer (n.7), chs.1-2.Wirbelauer (n.38) argues that Greek writing was originally intended to traverse spatial rather than temporal distance; for our purposes the distinction is immaterial. 55Ceccarelli (n.18), 99, also 265-6 with references, considers epistolography in the Archaic period 'marginal'.At 265-7, she is sceptical of how much official correspondence there would have been, in which one would expect more abstract distance, before the fourth century.See Ceccarelli (n.18), ch. 1 for a survey of the remains of archaic and classical epistolography.
In spelling the accusative singular article with a partially assimilating mu instead of nu, in addition to the crasis of καί, the writer is evidently transcribing what he would usually hear. 56The beginning of the message, however, inscribed inside the rolled-up sheet, is manifestly not a transcription of Achillodorus' own words: 57 Achillodorus' letter is not simulating communication between himself and his addressees, but rather between a messenger and an addressee, with direct speech converted to indirect. 58ther letters adopt a different model, shifting to the first person after a third-person introduction, as in Apatourius' early letter from Olbia: 59 Λήνακτι Ἀπατούριος⋅ : τὰ χρήματα σισύλημαι ὐπ᾽ Ἠρακλείδεω … To Leanax, Apatourius: my goods have been seized by Herakleides … The third-person introduction facilitates the transition to the first person, framing the message as direct speech of which he is the source.What both letters conversely share is the use of the second person.Early Greek letters are thus based on one of two models: Achillodorus' letter represents a message delivered by a messenger, while Apatourius' is delivered in person.
Hecataeus the Milesian speaks thus: I write what follows as seems to me to be true; for the tales of the Greeks, as they seem to me, are many and laughable.
Similarly Herodotus, whose opening inverts the demonstrative and the nominative noun phrase of the traditional ownership formula: 61 The two models could also mix, with a messenger speaking in the first person, embedding the epistolary introduction in the text.Archaic song was, in fact-as noted abovetypically presented as speech conveyed by intermediaries. 62At times poets explicitly identified as messengers: Theognis presents himself as an attendant and messenger of the Muses (therapôn kai angelos, 769), Pindar as their herald (kêrux, Dith.2.23-5) or interpreter ( prophêtês, Pae.6.6), or simply a messenger (angelos, Nem.6.57). 63olon adopts the pose of a herald from Salamis (1.1 IEG 2 ), but the act of assuming a persona-rendering the performer an intermediary-was itself characteristic of archaic song. 64 61 But Aristotle quotes the opening with the demonstrative preceding the nominative noun phrase (Ἡροδότου Θουρίου ἥδ' ἱστορίης ἀπόδειξις, Rhet.1409a28): J. Dillery, 'Herodotus' proem and Aristotle, Rhetorica 1409a', CQ 42 (1992), 525-8. 62Again, Calame (n.48), 77; cf.D.T. Steiner, 'Pindar's "oggetti parlanti"', HSPh 95 (1993), 159-80, at 179-80 on objects which speak-in the weak sense-in Pindar, and E. Stehle, Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece (Princeton, 1997), 311-18, comparing the rhetoric of distance in Sappho with that of inscriptions, including some speaking objects.For the comparison between lyric poetry and epigrams, see also Vestrheim (n.49), 75-8; Schmitz (n.49), 40-1; Christian (n.5), 40. 63For the poet as prophêtês, see also Pind.fr. 150 S-M; Bacchyl.9.3; Pl.Phdr.262d; as hermêneus, Pl.Ion 534e; as angelos, Pind.Ol. 6.90 differently (and cf.Thgn.543-6 and 805-10) and see also Pyth.4.279.The poet as messenger is implicit in invocations, or descriptions of song as a gift from the Muses which is to be shared with the audience (Hes.Theog.93-103, also 31-2; Archil. 1 IEG 2 with Thgn.772 on the obligation of sharing; Solon 13.51-2 IEG 2 ; Pind.Ol. 7.7).R.J. Mondi, 'The function and social position of the kêrux in early Greece' (Diss., Harvard University, 1978) considers the kêrux to originally be 'the embodiment of verbal skill' (14).J. Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilization (New York, 2011), 7: 'the original setting of the text is the institution of the messenger'. 64The persona could be legendary as in the case of the carpenter Charon (Archil.19 IEG 2 , with Arist.Rhet.1418b26-30); or it could be that of a poet, as in the case of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (and cf.Pl.Ion 535e-536 on rhapsoidoi as intermediaries for poiêtai who are intermediaries This is precisely the model which speaking objects follow, as messengers speaking in the first person.Their role as intermediaries is attested by the use of the ownership formula to introduce speech, as in Theognis' seal, the 'Philinna Papyrus' and on Hipparchus' herms. 65We might indeed compare speaking objects with herms, inscribed bodies which are personified as messengers by iconographic rather than linguistic means; just as herms turned their arrested viewers into statues, 66 speaking objects transformed their readers into objects.This shift, from the personification of inanimate belongings to the objectification of persons as property, further suggests the slave in his role as messenger as an analogue: like speaking objects, wavering between personality and impersonality, subjectivity and objectivity, slaves were perceived as bodies of liminal status. 67In Herodotus one such slave, sent from Susa to Miletus with a message branded onto his head (τὸν ἐστιγμένον τὴν κεφαλήν, 5.35), is in fact rendered a walking inscription.
One more analogue for speaking objects as messengers: the inscrutable skytalê ('message stick').If taken in Archilochus 185 IEG 2 as nominative, the stick delivering the fable of the monkey and the fox is a speaking object in the strict sense: ἐρέω τιν᾿ ὕμιν αἶνον, ὦ Κηρυκίδη, ἀχνυμένη σκυτάλη … A grieving/speaking message stick, I will tell you a fable, Kerukides … Even if construed as vocative or dative, Archilochus' audience may still have recognized it as an object personified through its speech on the basis of the secondary meaning of ἀχέω [ᾰ], 'speak' or 'utter'. 68In Ol. 6.90-1, Pindar, in calling upon Aeneas to 'urge' his companions to praise Hera, addresses him as a skytala of the Muses. 69Far from their later cryptographic use, these skytalai are not objects randomly portrayed as speaking; their function is rather to authorize the speech of a messenger in the absence of its author: Aeneas is a 'straight messenger' (ἄγγελος ὀρθός, 90), while Archilochus' speaker is in competition with Kerykides, literally 'the son of a messenger'. 70s the skytalê authorized the speech of an absent author, so speaking objects were uniquely qualified to speak for their owners.The difference is that speaking objects, in contrast with the archaic singer, do not identify their senders as such.The reason for this is not far to seek, for, as we recall, the identity of the author of the ownership formula was opaque by design.Because impersonality was integral to its authority, Korax could not follow Achillodorus' model and inscribe 'Korax says: this is his kylix', or even that of Apatourius, 'Korax says: this is my kylix'. 71This is true for speaking objects generally.Appending authorial prefaces would not only undermine their impersonal authority but also hinder their efficacy as speech acts.This is particularly clear in the case of votive inscriptions: 'Mantiklos says that he dedicated this …' would no longer be performative.
But because speaking objects were concerned with performing speech acts, the author also could not simply be dispensed with.Speech acts require authority and, if in archaic culture it was customary for performers to 'project' their '"I" onto a higher authority', 72 some such authority was needed.Speaking objects, by providing a foil onto which readers qua performers would project their 'I', thus had an advantage over the third-person formulation 'this is Korax's kylix'.This role was not thrust upon them by default; they were superbly suited to it.By virtue of their im-personality, or object-ivity, they augmented the authority inherent in the oral language of distance which they committed to writing.Unlike Achillodorus' lead letter, which was merely the medium of his message, they were truly its subject (or object), and thus an author-ity on it.Moreover, as Plato would famously complain (Phdr.275d-e), they could, or perhaps would, not answer,73 which-in the manner of the legal language discussed above-discouraged their addressees from answering them.Their impersonality thus served to enhance their distance.They were not compensating for the author's absence but rather taking advantage of it. 74he result is most remarkable: personified beings whose authority lies in their impersonality, material bodies which profess their subjectivity while stressing their objectivity, messengers disavowing their senders.Extraordinary as they are, however, this broader perspective of early Greek writing shows that they can be understood in relation to its conception as enacting oral communication at a distance, concrete but also abstract.