'Comedy and the Pompe'

Cambridge Books Online

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Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres

Edited by Emmanuela Bakola, Lucia Prauscello, Mario Telò

Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601

Online ISBN: 9781139519601

Hardback ISBN: 9781107033313

Chapter

2 - Comedy and the Pompe pp. 40-80

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.005

Cambridge University Press

chapter 2

Comedy and the PompeDionysian genre-crossing

Eric Csapo

This chapter presents some new and some neglected evidence for thephallic processions of the Dionysian Pompe (Parade). The phallic chorusesperformed on the first official day of the Dionysia at Athens, only one or, atmost, two days before the comic contests. If for no other reason, their placein this volume is justified by Aristotle’s notorious claim that: ‘comedy arosefrom those who led off the phallic rites’ (Poet. a–). But it is notjust the diachronic relationship between these genres that interests me here.The new evidence I present is iconographic and, unlike the iconographicmaterial normally adduced to support or contest the theory that comedyevolved from phallic choruses, this iconographic material is contemporarywith comedy. My series of vase-paintings extends from the time of theformal introduction of comedy at the Athenian Dionysia to a date wellwithin Aristotle’s lifetime. This permits me at least to pose the question ofa synchronic relationship between phallic choruses and comedy.

Aristotle may of course have been guessing and he may have beenwrong. Neither of these possibilities really supports the claim of Pickard-Cambridge and others that this ‘unhappily robs his statements of all histor-ical value’. I should at once confess that I have trouble in understandingwhat ‘arose from’ and the like might mean, since comedy as we know it

I thank E. Bakola, L. Prauscello and M. Telo for inviting me to contribute this chapter. For assistanceand advice I would like to thank J. R. Green, A. Hartwig, I. McPhee, M. C. Miller, S. Nervegna,E. G. D. Robinson, J. Rusten, P. Wilson and The Centre for Classical and Near Eastern Studiesof Australia. For the provision of photographs and permissions I owe special thanks to E. Bakola,A. Christopoulou and the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, E. Kalinovskaya, V. Matveyevand the Hermitage Museum, A. Koronakis and � C Ephoria, F. Lissarrague, S. Paspalas and theAustralian Archaeological Institute at Athens and K. Schauenburg. This paper was prepared withthe generous assistance of an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant. Further thanks to J. R.Green, who recently brought Masseria to my attention, but unfortunately too late for me toinclude it here in my discussion of the Pistoxenos Painter’s cup in Orvieto.

On Aristotle’s claim and its historical and cultural value, see also Rosen in this volume. Pickard-Cambridge : –; cf. Scullion : .

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Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing

shows affinities with many genres (iambos, dithyramb, hymn, tragedy andsatyr-play, to name just a few) and has manifestly absorbed the influence ofall of them by the time we catch sight of it. Genres are not like biologicalforms, with only two parents, let alone like single-cell protozoa with onlyone, and they are rarely ‘born’ at any discrete or determinable moment.

The historical value of Aristotle’s testimony lies elsewhere. It lies in thefact that a perceptive and intelligent eyewitness readily believed that comicand phallic choruses had something important in common and that thissomething probably included elements of spectacle as Aristotle’s statementis notably based on autopsy (that is why to his statement that ‘comedyarose from those who led off the phallic rites’ he adds ‘that even now theycontinue as a custom in many of our cities’). One can still doubt, ofcourse, whether Aristotle’s belief was a good one, but one should not doubtthat it was at least based on close knowledge of the genres and rationalreflection. Cultural history, unlike biology, needs to account for beliefs,true or false. So Aristotle’s statement does have historical value even if wereject the literal truth of the statement.

The material I present has implications for both diachronic and syn-chronic history of comedy’s relationship with a sub-literary and (despiteAristotle) generally overlooked performance genre. Considerations ofspace, however, dictate that the focus must be on the presentation andinterpretation of a group of nine vase-paintings. I need to establish theclaim that they do in fact relate to the phallic entertainments of theDionysian Pompe: the few people who know these vase-paintings attributethem directly to comedy or to non-Greek cults. The first three sections ofthis chapter examine the iconographic evidence for phallic performers inthe fifth century; the fourth clears away some misconceptions about thePompe; it is only in the fifth that I can begin very briefly to sketch out howthe phallic performances influenced the comic genre and in the sixth to askhow the comic genre impacted on the form of phallic performances. Thetreatment will be very far from exhaustive. It aims to open new territory:in it one will find underdeveloped and empty spaces.

For the influence of biology on Aristotle’s evolutionary theories, see in the first instance Depew . There is no question therefore of a ‘contradiction’ with Aristotle’s later statement that the early

history of comedy is unknown (Poet. b). Despite Aristotle’s assurances, even as careful a scholaras Rusten (b: , ) writes that phallic processions ‘ceased with the introduction of comediesto the Dionysia’ and that comedy simply ‘replaced’ them.

The possibility that Aristotle had historical evidence should not, however, be dismissed, and especiallynot in the case of dithyramb: see Csapo and Miller b: ; Depew : .

See also Storey : –.



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Figure . Attic red-figure fragments by the Berlin Painter, c. bc

phallic choruses in fifth-century attic vase-painting

Two small fragments of a water jar or wine jug were unearthed in thenineteenth-century excavations of the Athenian acropolis (Figure .).

Attic red-figure (hereafter rf ) fragments, Berlin Painter, c. bc, Athens, NM Acropolis CollectionG , .; Beazley, ARV 2 .. The fragments were found in September and October of .The upper fragment measures . m., the lower . m. in height.




The jar was manufactured close to the traditional date of the introductionof a competition for comedy at the Athenian Dionysia, bc. Thefragments are by the Berlin Painter -– the Michelangelo of red figure. Yet,despite the artistry, and despite preserving tantalizing bits of one of themost extraordinary scenes in all Greek art, these particular fragments havenever received more than a few rare and passing glances – and glances fromscholars in various subdisciplines (iconography, religion, theatre history)that have lost contact over the years. The subject is not an easy one. Eventhe great John Beazley threw up his hands in genuine perplexity asking:‘Who can this be?’

Beazley rarely missed a detail, but he did here. He should have asked‘Who can these be?’ There are certainly two figures, not the single figureimplied by Beazley’s question or the manner in which the fragments arejoined and displayed in the National Museum in Athens. The upper frag-ment from the shoulder of the vase preserves the head of a man describedas ‘ugly’ and ‘middle-aged’ in the literature. It is the unusual costumethat is mainly responsible for the impression of deformity or dereliction.Most particularly, it is the large phallos that emerges from his forehead. Theeffect is reinforced by another phallos attached to his nose (only the stumpis preserved – but what else could it have been?). A third phallos sits atop alost stick, which he once carried in his lost right hand. Phallos-sticks of thissort characterize the entertainers who are the subject of this essay. Theirhand-held phallos-sticks regularly descend to ground level. Since no traceof the stick appears on the lower fragment we can be sure that the survivingfragments were not originally in vertical alignment and that the restorationis wrong. Graef and Langlotz correctly assigned the lower fragment to asecond man.

The Berlin Painter, therefore, showed at least two men in shin-lengthtunics of an identical ivy-leaf pattern, a costume so unusual – to say nothingof the phalloi – that it permits no doubt that the artist intended to showpart of a costumed chorus. We can guess that the second man wore a crownof ivy leaves like the first, perhaps also phalloi. He may even have carrieda phallos-stick, but if so, he held it in a different position. The costume

Suda s.v. Chionides. The date receives some rough confirmation from restorations of the DionysianVictors’ Lists (IG ii ) but it is certainly not beyond dispute. See most recently Olson :–.

Beazley : no. , pl. .. Cf. the drawing in Hoffmann : fig. , or Frontisi-Ducroux : . Graef and Langlotz : ; Beazley : . Graef and Langlotz : no. and pl. . Cf. Herter : ; Herter a: –.



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is completed by the boots we find on the lower fragment. These bootsare a recurrent feature among the phallos-stick bearers: they are lacelessand unadorned except for a vertical seam that appears on the side. Someexamples show that the upper boot can be turned down to form a cuff.Most scholars identify this boot with a type that writers of the fifth centurybc called kothornoi: notoriously loose and formless (the same boot could beworn on either foot). Interestingly kothornoi later became the hallmark oftragic actors, but these later kothornoi look very different. In the first half ofthe fifth century we find boots of this type on contemporary symposiastsand on tragic choreuts. Kothornoi appear already to have developed strongDionysian associations, even if not exclusively so.

Possibly earlier in date than the Berlin Painter’s phallos-bearers is a solitaryand generally obliterated figure from a cup attributed to the AntiphonGroup (Figure .). No phallic protrusions emerge from the head. Wesee only a ribbon. The figure also carries a phallos-stick. The phallos-stickis covered with dots. Many of these dots when viewed closely have a heartshape or at least a triangular shape. We are evidently to think of the stick asentwined in ivy. Like the Berlin Painter’s phallos-bearers, this phallos-beareralso wears a long shin-length garment, but this one is fringed. One canmake out a few dots above the fringe. On his feet the phallos-bearer wearsthe boots we have identified as kothornoi. They have the same vertical seamrunning up from the ankle as the Berlin Painter’s pair, but apparently withan added piece to reinforce the heel. A horizontal line just under the fringeof his garment shows that his boot is folded over into a cuff.

A cup by the Pistoxenos Painter in Orvieto shows phallos-stick bearersof a similar stamp (Figure .). It is a decade or so later than the BerlinPainter’s chorus. Two men in the tondo (a) and four men on the side(b) sport kothornoi and shin-to-ankle-length garments with fringes. Longgarments of this sort are mostly worn by women. The garments are belted.Belts too are almost exclusively used by women: these are particularly

Pickard-Cambridge : –; E. Simon : –. Genre scenes with tragic choreuts have the same simple undecorated form, unlaced, either cuffless

or cuffed, and usually showing a vertical seam and narrow pointed toes, sometimes markedly curvedup at the ends (see our Figures .–.): 1. Attic rf oinochoe fragments, Near Hermonax, c. bc,Agora P , MTS2 AV , Moore : no. ; Froning : fig. . 2. Attic rf bell krater,– bc, Ferrara T C, MTS2 AV and pl. a; Pickard-Cambridge : fig. . 3. Attic rfpelike, Phiale Painter, c. bc, Boston MFA .–, MTS2 AV , Pickard-Cambridge :fig. . Dionysus himself prefers the Thracian style embades: Carpenter : –, .

Attic rf cup fragments, Antiphon Group, – bc, Louvre C; ARV 2 , . The fragmentshave never been published. F. Lissarrague very generously photographed the fragments at my request.

Attic rf cup, Pistoxenos Painter, c. bc, Orvieto, Faina ; ARV 2 ., ; Addend.2 . Thecup was excavated in the s from a cemetery just North of Orvieto: see G. Korte .




Figure . Attic red-figure cup fragments, Antiphon Group, – bc

emphasized by overfolds with fringes at the waist. Two of the men arepipers and they wear a type of hat elsewhere associated with rustics. Thepipers also have sleeves. The other four men are evidently members of thechorus. Their heads are bald and tied with ribbons. All sport scruffy beards.Their garments are spotted. Even in the drawing, which was executed witha very different interpretation in mind, the spots frequently reveal thedistinctive heart shape of ivy leaves. A crown of ivy leaves is very clear onthe hat of the piper in the tondo (a). The phallos-sticks held by four of

See Pipili : –.



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A

B

Figure .a and b Attic red-figure cup, Pistoxenos Painter, c. bc

the men are also very clearly meant to be seen as wrapped in ivy. The ivytheme is picked up by the decoration under the handles. Sadly none ofthese chorusmen has phalloi emerging from his head, but the phallic themeis nonetheless very prominent: the phallic tip of the sticks is emphasized




A

B

Figure .a and b Attic red-figure cup, Sabouroff Painter, c. bc.

with added red and the artist has been very careful to outline the distinctiveeye-spots that often characterize Greek phalloi.

A cup by the Sabouroff Painter shows a chorus in much the samecostume as the Pistoxenos Painter’s chorus (Figure .). It is accompaniedby the phallos-stick on the less well-preserved side (far right of b, before

Attic rf cup, Sabouroff Painter, c. bc, Malibu .AE.; ARV 2 , ; Kavvadias : –, no. , pls. –.



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handle). The stick has the characteristic eye and is decorated not withivy but with a ribbon. The chorus have nearly bald heads bound with redribbons and shaggy beards like those of the Pistoxenos Painter (Figure .).The choreuts also have long tresses dangling from the sides and back oftheir heads. In this case, the details of the relative size of the heads, thewide staring eyes, stiff gaping mouths and a general similarity of featuressuggest the possibility of a uniform mask. The chorus wear ankle-lengthgarments with effeminate overfolds, like the Pistoxenos Painter’s chorus,but this time the garments are still more effeminate, with overfolds underthe breasts and with the addition of elaborate pleats. The choreuts wearkothornoi, like the Pistoxenos Painter’s chorus, but this time with the morestylishly upturned toes, which may underscore their effeminacy. They aremore obviously dancing than any of their colleagues. Only the absence ofivy in the costume makes this chorus unlike other phallos-stick bearers, butivy at least is present on the pot: ivy-leaf decoration appears prominentlyabove the handles.

Probably related to our phallos-stick bearers is a figure on a lekythosin Athens who marches with a vigorous step (Figure .). His garmentis sleeved like those of the Pistoxenos Painter’s chorus and covered withtadpole-like blobs with descending tails: a few of them attain the heartshapes of ivy leaves that were evidently intended, even if quickly andcarelessly applied. One can make out the horizontal lines above the figure’ship to show that his garment has a belt or possibly a hem. This is femalefashion if not quite the feminine overfolds of the Pistoxenos and SabouroffPainters’ choruses. He wears boots. This is clear from the folded cuffvisible on the right below his knee. His head suggests a mask (or at least theelaborate disguise) of a wild man. The nose is pointy and his ears are satyr-like. He also has a very large extra eye on his forehead. If he is supposed tobe a Cyclops, his eye is far off centre. Nothing impels us to determine hisspecies: he is a creature of fantasy, not nature. The stringy hair reinforcesthe general impression that whatever he is meant to be, it is of a low orderof civilization. In his right hand he holds a large knife in a very aggressive

This less well-preserved side, generally ‘B’, was probably intended as the principal decoration: seeKavvadias : .

See Simon : . There is a suggestion of curvature of this sort on the boots of Figures . and. but nothing explicit as here and on the choral genre scenes.

Attic rf lekythos, c. bc, found in Athens in and currently in the storerooms of GammaEphoria (inv. no. A). The vase was found in ‘Grave VIII’ excavated near Veikou and AglaurouStreets in Koukaki (south of Philopappos Hill). See Alexandri : and pl. �. J. R. Green firstbrought this vase to my attention.




Figure . Attic red-figure lekythos, c. bc

posture. The shape of the knife and the way he holds it is unparalleled.The painter clearly wished to emphasize the superfluous extension of the

Two curving lines rise up from the back and appear to extend beyond the neckline. They do notappear to be part of the knife.



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handle beyond the grip, because he interrupts the otherwise fairly tidyupper frieze in order to show it. The handle curves abruptly upwards.It appears likely that a phallos is intended. In his left hand he holds theremnant of a torch (one can see a vertical line separating two bits of woodand horizontal lines binding them together). It curves slightly to the rightabove the point where he grasps it (not visible in the photograph). The topis lost. One should perhaps infer that the painter means to incorporate thetorch in the wildman’s gesture of menace towards his imaginary victim.

phallic choruses and the dionysia

So who are these men? The Pistoxenos Painter’s cup is the only one thathas received much comment. The Beazley Archive calls this group ‘beardedbarbarians’, ‘Northerners’ and ‘Agathyrsoi’. The line of interpretation goesback to nineteenth-century German scholarship and its conviction thatGreeks do not dress or behave in this way. Gustav Korte thought themAsiatic and probably Lydian. Friedrich Hauser seized upon Herodotus’description of the Argippaioi, a tribe of Scythian mountain dwellers, who,he says, ‘from birth are all bald, snub-nosed and long-bearded, both malesand females’. From this promising beginning Hauser gleaned passagesfrom Herodotus’ description of completely different tribes and races ofpeople, concluding that our dancers wore beaver-pelts fringed with humanscalps, and deciding with curious precision that the Pistoxenos Painter haddrawn Agathyrsoi, a people about whom the only relevant informationwe have is Herodotus’ claim that they ‘live in luxury and wear lots ofgold’. Some of these ornaments are visible, he thought, on the pot andhighlighted in added red. They were obviously difficult to interpret: theman right of centre on Figure .b is said to wear a phiale around his neck.Hauser thought the phiale an obscure allusion to Heracles’ visit to Scythia.Near the beginning of his account of Scythia, Herodotus records that thePontic Greeks claimed that Heracles came to Scythia, had intercourse withthe mistress of the country, who was half-woman and half-snake, and lefther pregnant with triplets, giving instructions that any son of his whoproved able to string his bow and put on his belt remain in Scythia andthat any who could not should be banished. Only the youngest, named

The prevailing assumption at the time was that Dionysus himself was foreign and Asiatic: seeIsler-Kerenyi : –.

G. Korte : . Hauser in Hartwig : – quoting Hdt. .. Hdt. .. On the Scythian snake-goddess, see Ustinova .




Scythes, succeeded. He and his line became the kings of Scythia, ‘and tothis day Scythians carry bowls (phialai) hanging from their belts’.

Even in the matter of the gold ornaments Hauser manhandles his onlywitness. The myth does not explain why the Agathyrsoi wear phialai butclearly indicates that they do not. The banished sons of Heracles arecalled Agathyrsos and Gelonos. It is a misrepresentation to call Scythes,Agathyrsos and Gelonos ‘die drei Stammvater der Skythen’, as does Hauser,let alone ‘die drei Stammesvater der Agathyrsen’ as Bulle calls them. Thetale clearly marks Scythes alone as the ancestor of the Scythians. It functionsto establish the Scythians’ exclusive right to their territory. For the purposeof the tale Agathyrsos and Gelonos serve as the ancestors of non-Scythians:they are as Corcella describes them ‘eponyms of other peoples of theregion’; indeed most modern scholars are inclined to regard the Agathyrsoias Thracians (Herodotus himself says that ‘their ways most resemble theThracians’).

But it would be a mistake to give the impression that the value ofthe analysis depends on the precise designation of the tribe to which ourchorus of ‘Scythians’ belong. Although archaeology offers no confirmationthat Scythians decorated their persons with bowls, the testimony may wellbe true. But Hauser’s evidence is irrelevant no matter which Scythiansyou choose. Herodotus reports that Scythians wear phialai ‘hanging fromtheir belts’ (zosteres is used of girdles that go around the waist), not strungaround their necks as we see them on Figure .b. Far more disturbing isthe fact that not a single item of clothing in any way resembles anythingthat archaeology or iconography can show was ever worn by an ancientScythian or Thracian.

Despite the fact that it had very little going for it, Hauser’s theory wasaccepted as ‘schlagend’ and ‘geistvoll’ by Bulle and as ‘very probable’ byBeazley, who extended the barbarian label to our other dancers by the BerlinPainter, the Sabouroff Painter and the painter belonging to the AntiphonGroup; current iconographers still treat the connection with Agathyrsoi as

Hdt. .–. Hauser in Hartwig : ; Bulle : . Hdt. .. Corcella : , . See Corcella : on Hdt. ... The standard modern treatments are Tsiafakis and Raeck . Hauser’s methodology required

no real knowledge of Scythian material culture. He was happy to draw upon a generic stereotype ofthe savage, in what would now seem a parody of the more outrageous trends in nineteenth-centurycomparative anthropology: the fringes on the garments of the chorus from Orvieto, Hauser admits,are too string-like for furs or beaver pelts, so he did not hesitate to argue from the customs of NorthAmerican Indians that they must be human scalps: ‘die Angabe, dass die Kahlkopfe ihren besiegtenFeinden das Fell vom Kopfe ziehen, [hat] eine innere Warscheinlichkeit fur sich’ (Hauser in Hartwig: ).



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established fact. For Hauser and Bulle the only real question was how thepainter came to acquire ‘such a detailed knowledge of Scythian costumeand customs’: Hauser thought he must have been a Scythian slave trainedas an artist in Athens; Bulle thought that the requisite knowledge for aportrait of ‘such ethnographic precision’ could ‘scarcely be credited to anartisan of the Athenian potters’ quarter’ and must therefore have beencopied from a drama based on the antics of the Agathyrsoi (as if we mightnot just as easily ask how a poet came to portray a distant central Asiantribe with ‘such ethnographic precision’). Hauser’s far-fetched theory maynot deserve a formal refutation. In light of its reception, unfortunately, arefutation is required.

If not to advertise their barbarism, why would choruses prance aboutin unusual costumes, carrying phallos-sticks and wearing masks or other-wise distorting their facial features through the application of extraneouspenises? Had it not been for Hauser, the answer would have been obvious.They do this to advertise their connection with Dionysus.

Ironically, the Dionysian context is most urged by the very features thatled Hauser to conclude that the Pistoxenos painter drew Scythians. Hausertook the spots on the garments of the dancers in Orvieto as indicationsof shagginess and – with the help of Herodotus on Scythians – decidedthat they wore beaver fur. On closer inspection the spots indicate varyingdegrees of care in attempts to render the shape of ivy leaves. Ivy is in fact verymuch on the menu. Some of our performers wear ivy wreaths (Figures .,.), others red ribbons. Ivy is entwined around most of the phallos-sticks(Figures .–.). And ivy leaves appear in the marginal decoration of thescenes (Figures .–.). All of this should have indicated that the imageshave nothing to do with Scythia and everything to do with Dionysianart and cult. Ivy is of course ubiquitous almost anywhere where Dionysusis present. It is especially worn at the Dionysia. Sacred law required allinhabitants of Attica to garland their heads during the Dionysia. Thiswas true even outside Athens: a Euboean decree of / bc, for example,requires everyone to wear ivy garlands during the Pompe of the Dionysia,with a free distribution to all residents and a mandatory rental fee forvisitors.

The pendants around the necks of the Orvieto entertainers are veryunlikely to be phialai. On Hartwig’s line drawing, Figure .b, the ghostlyhalf-circle around the neck of the second dancer from the right, with its

Bulle : – (quotation ); Beazley at ARV 2 p. (‘Addenda I’); Kavvadias : –. Hauser in Hartwig : ; Bulle : . Blech : –; Bierl : . Sacred laws in Dem. Meid. –; Philoch. FGrH F . IG xii , .




phiale-like central knob and the suggestion of metalware lobes, is a prettyclear instance in which Hauser’s interpretation guided Hartwig’s handin rendering what was obviously a faint and much-damaged image (nophotograph of the side of the cup has ever been published). Originally,the neck ornament probably resembled that of the man at the lower leftof Figure .b, which does not at all resemble the shape of a phiale. Bothornaments are coloured with added red, not because they represent thegold frippery of the decadent Agathyrsoi, but because the colour and shapeof the ornaments echo the phalloi on the tips of the choruses’ phallos-sticks(which are also marked with added red). The phalloi emerging from thehead and nose of the Berlin Painter’s entertainer may be iconographicallyunique, but ancient sources, albeit late, consistently mention the neck, inaddition to the loins, as a common place to tie on a phallos to celebratethe Dionysia. Dionysian processions were rife with phallic imagery: someeven came to be known by the term periphallia meaning something like‘phalloi all over the place’.

Finally, the bald heads and long beards have a simpler explanation thanthe putative effects of inbreeding in the remote mountain communitiesof Central Asia. Baldness and long beards not only are a familiar featureof comic ugliness but follow a pattern well known from the depiction ofphallic and Dionysian creatures. Baldness and shaggy beards are above allcharacteristic of satyrs. The many minor phallic deities who came to beconnected with Dionysus are also, according to Herter, characterized bybaldness and wedge beards. The reasons require no explanation. Ancientphysiognomists, who habitually deduce human character on the analogyof natural forms (in this case assimilating heads and genitals), consis-tently identify baldness and shaggy beards as signs of lewdness and erotichyperactivity.

The proof that our choruses are connected to Dionysus, however, istheir use of phallos-sticks. In Greek art such phallos-sticks otherwise appearonly in the hands of the mythical counterparts of our Dionysiac dancers:

Suda s.v. -�� (- ), cf. Suda s.v. .!2-�� ( ); Etym. magn. p. Kallierges; [Nonnus],Or. . and .; Apostol. .. See further Herter : and nn. – below on the martyrdomof Saint Timotheus. I am not convinced that the Attic black-figure (hereafter bf ) fragment, found atSegesta and attributed to Sophilos, shows a man wearing a hat with phalloi (Fuchs and Tusa :

fig. ; cf. Blech : n. ; Bierl : n. ). Hesych. s.v. ��-�� (� ); Herter a: ; Herter : . Herter : , cf. . Arist. Hist. an. a–b, Gen. an. b; Comm. in Arist. Graeca .. (Johannes Philoponus); Della

Corte : . Baldness and wedge-beards become the distinguishing characteristics of pimpsin New Comedy (who also have phallic names and display phallic behaviour): Poll. .; MNC 3

vol. i.–.



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komasts, satyrs and at least once Dionysus himself. Some of the satyrssporting phallos-sticks have already been closely associated with Dionysianprocessions, in particular a red-figured amphora by the Flying AngelPainter: on one side we see a satyr holding a phallos-stick and on theother a satyr father holds his son up on his shoulder as if to watch theparade (whence the name ‘Flying Angel’). Otherwise satyrs consistentlyuse phallos-sticks as a weapon, either in the hunt or in battle. Thoughessentially mythical fantasy, we will see (below) that the visual simile thatturns the phallos-stick into an aggressive weapon is also very much rootedin ritual. The link between phallos-sticks of this sort and Dionysus and hisretinue is in Greek iconography virtually exclusive. It was the presence ofthe phallos-stick that urged Bulle to suppose that we must have a Dionysianscene, but he contented himself with the observation that the Agathyrsoimust also have worshipped Dionysus and that the image was in any casemediated by drama.

Since Bulle’s time, more judicious scholars have interpreted theDionysian quality of our phallic choruses in one of two ways: as performersin comedy and as choral entertainers belonging to Dionysian processions.

Lissarrague : : ‘It should be noted that the phallos as weapon is the specific attribute of satyrs.The maenads of course do not have such weapons, nor does Dionysus.’ Dionysus: he does appearonce with the phallos-stick on a now largely forgotten fragment of a late bf hydria, once RhusopoulosCollection, Athens. The fragment known only from a murky drawing in Vorberg : may be aprocessional scene (there are curving lines that hint at the Dionysian ship-cart). Komast: Corinthianfragment of unknown vessel shape, early sixth century bc?, Corinth (KP ); Seeberg :

no. bis; Stillwell and Benson : no. , pl. . For the interpretation of the fragment, cf.the Middle Corinthian phiale, Athens NM , illustrated in Smith : fig. , at twelve o’clock.Satyrs: Attic rf cup from Vulci, Painter of Berlin , once Rome market, ARV 2, ; Attic rfvolute krater, Nikosthenes Painter, c. bc, Munich , ARV 2 , ; Attic rf amphora, FlyingAngel Painter, Boston MFA ., ARV 2 , , Addenda2 ; Attic rf skyphos, Brygos Painter,c. bc, Thebes Museum, ARV 2 , ; fragmentary rf cup, Foundry Painter, ARV 2 , ; Atticrf cup-skyphos from Capua, Near the Painter of Bologna , – bc, Brussels, BibliothequeRoyale , ARV 2 . The phallos-sticks used by satyrs resemble those used by phallic dancers exceptin so far as the bottom end of the stick is consistently shaped like testicles. A rf pelike fragment(Louvre G , Pan Painter, ARV 2 , ) shows a phallos-stick beside a man catching a boar or pig.The man is bald on top with shaggy sides and beard and, though the ears are not obviously those ofa satyr, his appearance and primitive hunting techniques make it likely that assimilation to a satyris intended (the other side shows a young man catching a deer with his bare hands): see Peirce :. Another possible exception is the phallos-stick held by Pothos in the sculpture in Samothraceby Scopas, if the reconstruction by Bulle is correct. But the trefoil-shaped appendages on eitherend of the ‘phallos-stick’ on the gem in Berlin, upon which the reconstruction ultimately depends,make it unlike any other. The trefoil shape brings it much closer to sceptre iconography, though itwould still be unusual for a sceptre to have trefoil-like tips on both ends.

See Herter a: and esp. Hedreen : . The amphora by the Flying Angel Painter (seeprevious note) was produced c. bc.

This is true of the Corinthian komast as well: for the link with Dionysus, see esp. Csapo and Millerb: –.

Bulle : .




Erika Simon first ascribed the Sabouroff Painter’s chorus (Figure .a–b) toa comedy with a chorus of old men dressed up as women, citing for exam-ple Cratinus’ Effeminates (Malthakoi). Of all the phallos-stick bearers wehave examined, the Sabouroff Painter’s chorus have the best credentials forillustrating a comic chorus: they may indeed wear masks (as may our wild-man in Figure .), and if the old men are disguised as women, there maybe a reason for de-emphasizing the typical comic somation with its paddedbellies and buttocks, and its bodytights. Transvestism could also excuse theshin-length garments and boots that would otherwise be unexpected andunparalleled for comic choreuts (and rare for comic actors). Three prob-lems remain, however, for any identification of the Sabouroff Painter’s vaseas a comic chorus. In the iconography comic choruses otherwise dance witha uniform step and this must have been standard practice in the theatreas well. Moreover, a comic chorus of transvestites has no obvious reasonto dance with a phallos-stick unless they are cultic transvestites (but if theyare, then what is left to support the notion that they are also comic?). Mostimportantly the closest parallels in time, style, costume and movement arethe choruses of the Berlin Painter, Antiphon Group and Pistoxenos Painter(Figures .–.). None of these appears to wear a mask. Two (Figures .–.) are certainly not transvestites and so have no excuse for not wearingor de-emphasizing normal comic padding. Most importantly, even thoughthe jury is still out on whether comic choreuts normally wear the phallos,these choruses do, and do so in a way that no comic actor or choreutever does: they wear them only in unnatural places and they wear themerect, quite unlike the standard limp and unimaginatively located phalloiof comedy.

The unique costumes and above all the phallos-sticks (and other phal-lic paraphernalia) were rightly perceived by a tiny minority of scholars tobe key to the identity of two of the vase-paintings of our group. Herterfirst recognized that the Berlin Painter’s chorus (Figure .) are entertain-ers at a Dionysiac procession: he specifically identified them as a kind ofentertainer called ‘ithyphalloi’. Green first recognized that the effeminate

E. Simon : . Kavvadias’ suggestion that the chorus might belong to satyr-play arises from themistaken belief that satyr-play could have other than a satyr chorus (: ). For other examplesof effeminate choruses in comedy, see Bakola : –.

Which is why Green excluded this vase from his list of early comic choruses (: n. ). Herter a: –; Herter : ; cf. Blech : n. , who compares their headgear with

Semos’ description of phallophoroi; and Hoffmann : , who refers them to the Anthesteria.Although Herter cited the Pistoxenos Painter’s vase in this context, he nonetheless accepted theiridentification as ‘Agathyrsoi’ (a: ).



eric csapo

chorus of the Sabouroff Painter had much in common with the descrip-tion of the costume of the ithyphalloi described by Semos of Delos (c. bc). Semos evidently contextualized his work On Paeans with ageneral discussion of processional choruses, among them choruses fromDionysian parades. The description of the ithyphalloi is the fullest exam-ple. The ithyphalloi ‘wear the masks of drunken men, are garlanded andhave flowery [or “ornate”] sleeves. They wear whitish chitons and girdthem with a tarantinon that reaches down to their ankles.’ The effect ofeffeminacy is in this case evidently desired: the Suda adds that the ithy-phalloi ‘are guardians of Dionysus and accompany the phallos, wearingwomen’s clothing’; from Synesius we learn that the ithyphalloi also woretheir hair in tresses. The descriptions of the figures on our vase-paintingsare by no means precise, but they come interestingly close in the case ofthe Pistoxenos and Sabouroff Painters’ choruses. Both choruses seem towear girded effeminate ankle-length robes and one of them (the SabouroffPainter’s) certainly gives a strong suggestion of masks. More problematic isthe fact that both choruses wear ribbons rather than garlands, that only theSabouroff Painter’s choreuts have tresses, that only the Pistoxenos Painter’sauletes wears sleeves, and that these sleeves are not exactly ‘flowery’, buthave ivy patterns. Semos’ description of the costume of the ithyphalloiactually coincides with only half the details we see in the Pistoxenos andSabouroff Painters’ choreuts. Against these inaccuracies we must reckonthat Semos lived some two hundred and fifty years after the production ofour vases and in an age when literary science displayed a compulsion forover-nice and often arbitrary genre-distinctions. More important is the factthat, from Semos’ description of the ithyphalloi’s song, it is clear that thechorus carried a phallos or phalloi of some sort. In the archaic and classicalperiods genres were still embedded in specific performance occasions andpractices and it is to these that we must look if we are to understand theidentity and function of the phallic dancers depicted in late archaic andearly classical vase-paintings.

Green : n. . Semos FGrH F (Athen. a); Suda s.vv. -��-�� (� ), .!2-�� ( ), 8�� (�

); Phot. Lexicon s.v. .!2-�� ( .); Hesych. s.v. .!2-�� ( ); Syn. Calvitii encomium. (= Suda s.v. /��2#� (/ )). Thorough discussion of Semos’ fragment in Bierl :–.

We do not know what a tarantinon is. It is also worn by the Spartan dancers called Gypones (Poll..), where the material is described as ‘diaphanous’. See Bierl : n. , with furtherliterature.

Semos FGrH F : ‘Make way, open wide for the god. He wishes to march through your midstupright and bursting.’




ithyphalloi, phallophoroi and others

In Attica phallic choruses are only attested, whether in literary or epigraphicsources, for the Pompe of the Dionysia in the city or in the demes. Wehear from our Hellenistic sources, principally Semos of Delos, of variouskinds of phallic performers (autokabdaloi, phallophoroi, ithyphalloi andphalloidoi), but classical sources only certainly attest the ithyphalloi as adistinct genre or subgenre of phallic performers. It is, however, likelythat classical Athenians would have recognized at least two types of phallicchorus, even if they did not have distinct labels. I infer this not fromdifferent elements of costume (I doubt very much that costumes were everas regular as Semos implies), but from the two very different types of phalloithat were processed at the Dionysia and the very different kinds of choralperformance they presuppose.

The Pompe of the Dionysia included very large phallic ‘floats’ that hadto be carried by choruses of men or carried on wagons. Inscriptions andiconography make it clear that Athenian colonies (and subject states) wereobliged to contribute gigantic phalloi of this sort, doubtless along with

Herter a: –; Pickard-Cambridge : , –, , ; R. Parker : –. The oneapparent exception is ithyphalloi singing a hymn for Demetrius the Besieger in or bc onthe occasion of his ‘epiphany’ in Athens at the time of the procession to Eleusis (Democh. FGrH F ; Duris FGrH F ). But this is probably only an apparent exception. The ithyphalloiwere incorporated into the Eleusinian procession for this particular occasion in order to honourDemetrius (who identified himself with Dionysus and because he identified himself with Dionysus).See Csapo : – citing earlier literature.

Knowledge of performers known as ‘ithyphalloi’ is indicated by Cratin. fr. from his Archilochusesproduced sometime between and bc (Luppe ). Youth gangs named after the phallicperformers are attested by Dem. In Conon. , , , which cannot be precisely dated but wasmost likely delivered in the s (Carey : ). Ithyphalloi are certainly described by Hyp.fr. Jensen. ‘Phallophoroi’ may, however, also be pre-Hellenistic: see below, n. . Rotstein deniesthat the autokabdaloi are phallic on the grounds that both Semos and Sosibius list various forms ofentertainers in order to draw strict distinctions and infers that, because phallophoroi and ithyphalloidid, autokabdaloi and iamboi ‘wore no mask, mocked no one in the audience, carried no phalloi ’(: ). The lists of Semos and Sosibios represent varieties of Dionysian entertainers, often onlyregional variants, and invite one to see them as overlapping, not mutually exclusive categories.

The principal evidence is the cup in Florence, below with n. . Note also the intriguing [D��5��]��2�� at line of the lamentably fragmentary inscription IG ii which deals withthe Pompe of the Dionysia including the phallic procession (�� -��[�� ] at line is aninevitable supplement). See Cole : and Wilson : . There are a few non-Attic parallelsor near parallels to the phallic float: a rf calyx krater argued to be from Boeotia (Brommer ;Auffarth : , figs. –); the bf ‘Clazomenian’ amphora fragments in the Ashmolean museum,Oxford . (Boardman ; Csapo : –, details pl. ). As reconstructed by Boardmanit is a Dionysiac ship with phallic attributes rather than a phallos. It would, however, be easy toreconstruct the image as a phallos with naval attributes. It is carried in the same manner as thecontemporary phallic ‘floats’ on the Florence cup. The giant phallus in Ptolemy’s parade was carriedon a wagon (Kallixeinos in Athen. e). Other evidence for phallos-wagons from Hellenistic Delosand Edessa in Csapo : .



eric csapo

choruses of men to carry them, to the Pompe of the Athenian Dionysia.

Images of this kind of gigantic phallos survive on an Athenian black-figuredcup of about bc, now in Florence. On the cup we see two choruses ofsix and seven men (probably meant to represent pairs, one man on eitherside of a phallos, so twelve to fourteen men), visibly bending under theweight of enormous phallos-poles (in fact they are complex double polesridden by sculpted satyrs and komasts). Carrying floats of this size is heavywork and allows little freedom of movement – certainly no independentmovement – and little breath for more than a periodic refrain. Indeed thechoreuts need close co-ordination if the phallos-pole is to remain upright.It is for this reason that they are furnished with a leader, or exarchos, whodirects their movements and takes up the principal burden of the song.

In the miniature phallic procession staged in Aristophanes’ Acharnians, apair of slaves carry the phallos-pole (presumably a simplified and muchsmaller version of the sort of thing we see on the cup in Florence). Theirexarchos, Dicaeopolis, does most of the singing: the slaves’ task is limitedto singing refrains of ‘O Phales, Phales’ and to holding the phallos upright.On the Florence cup the phallos-bearers appear to be unmasked and, exceptfor erect phalloi tied to their loins, naked, as we might expect of Greekmen involved in very demanding physical exertion. It is these performerswhom Aristotle thinks of when inferring an origin for comedy: it is theseparation of, and interactivity between, exarchos and chorus that strikeshim as the minimally necessary combination of fission, and fusion, totrigger the evolutionary process that led to Old Comedy with its entirelyseparate but integrally linked components of chorus and actors. Aristotlerefers to these ritual choruses only with vague descriptive periphrasis ‘thosewho led off the phallika’ (Poet. a). If we are justified in giving aname to these performers we should probably think of the men on theFlorence cup as phallophoroi. ‘Phallophoroi’ may not have been a technicalterm for this genre of performance until much later.

IG i .–; SEG p. ; IG ii ; Accame : –; Krentz : –; Dreher : ,–; Rhodes and R. Osborne : – no. ; Dio Chrys. .; Cole ; Csapo .

Attic bf cup, Florence ; see most recently Iozzo , with further literature. Csapo –: –. Ar. Ach. indicates that two slaves carry the phallos (not one as suggested by R. Parker : )

so it is apparently something larger than a phallos-stick that they carry. Philomnestos, a historian of unknown date (FGrH F ), refers to an Antheas of Lindos who

composed ‘comedies’ which he ‘led off for his phallophoroi’ (? �5��#� �� !’ ��( -��9-�(�). Sourvinou-Inwood : would place Antheas in the sixth century bc (contraPickard-Cambridge : n. ‘a poet of late but unknown date’): that Philomnestos thinksof Antheas as early should surely be inferred from Philomnestos’ report that ‘he first invented theuse of compound nouns in poetry which technique was later used by the Phliasian Asopodoros




Phallos-sticks are very different from these huge phalloi. Our ancient textsalso connect them exclusively with Dionysian processions, and most oftenwith Dionysian processions in Athens. The scholiast to Aristophanes’Acharnians a describes them as: ‘a long piece of wood fitted with aleather penis at the end’. ‘Long’ of course is relative, but the detail ‘fittedwith a leather penis at the end’ shows that the scholion does not refer tothe gigantic phallic floats such as we see on the Florence cup, which areevidently entirely of wood, each phallos-pole carved from a single timber,and which would more accurately have been described as ‘representinglarge penises’ rather than ‘fitted’ with them. In the case of phallos-sticks,the division between wooden stick and leather phallos is emphasized by theuse of added red for the phallic tip of the sticks by the Pistoxenos Painter(Figure .). Moreover, the scholiast informs us that Athenians furnishedthemselves with both ‘public and private’ phalloi. The large floats providedby City or deme and colonies and subjects are clearly beyond the means ofmost private citizens.

Unlike the phallos-bearers we see on the Florentine cup, our phallos-stick-bearing choruses are highly mobile and active. Although there issome evidence to suggest that phallos-stick bearers could also make useof an exarchos (see on Figure ., below, pp. –), the exarchos is in thiscase a far less necessary role. Certainly the vase-paintings we have studiedshow groups of men without obvious leaders and with little co-ordinationin their movements. Far from appearing regimented and measured, theirmovements in Figures .–. are lively and wild, with all the choreutsequally engaged in song and dance. The phallos-stick itself, like a baton,appears to serve both the spectacle and the music. In the Sabouroff Painter’scup (Figure .b) it appears to move (autonomously?) with the movementof the dance. In the other cases it seems to be held more or less vertically

[also undatable] in chanted iambics’. Crusius (: –) suspected that later antiquity acquiredthis information through the peripatetic literary historian Lobon of Argos (late fourth or early thirdcentury bc, see Garulli : –): Crusius and other nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarscharacterize Lobon as a forger or hoaxer, but this has been discredited as a philological conspiracytheory: Farinelli . The term ‘phallophoroi’ is otherwise first attested by Sosibius c. bc

(FGrH F ). A late lexicographer perhaps guesses (from the name) that men who tie phalloi totheir loins are ‘ithyphalloi’: [Nonnus], Or. .., ...

The phallos-stick (as opposed to other forms of phalloi) is described by 8 Ar. Ach. ; 8 Clem. Al.Protr. . p. , – St.; Suda s.v. -�� (E ); Atil. Fort. p. , – K.; Terent. Maur. (Keil,Gramm. Lat., vol. vi) –.

8 Ar. Ach. . The images listed in n. and n. indicate a single timber for the large ‘floats’ or ‘phallos-poles’

and this is explicitly attested for the phallos at Delos: Vallois : . Possibly we are to think of it as fixed in the ground: see Suda and Phot. s.v. ithyphalloi ( ,

.).



eric csapo

like a walking stick, but even so it surely served as more than just an idleprop: Terentianus Maurus implies that the ithyphalloi beat the ground withthem in rhythmic accompaniment to their song. Indeed, two out of thethree sources that connect phallos-sticks with any particular genre, connectthem with ithyphalloi. Lively dance, song and aggressive behaviour arecertainly more consistent with what we know of this genre of performer.

the character of the pompe or why do phalloi

have sticks?

In a recent book Kenneth Rothwell describes the Pompe of the AthenianDionysia as a ‘formal and dignified’ ritual, stressing its religious and sacrifi-cial function and contrasting it with the free, wild and creative aristocratickomos in which he seeks the origin of comedy. Was the Pompe really‘formal and dignified’?

Surely the costume and processional accoutrements of the choruses thatparticipated in the Dionysian Pompe are not easily reconcilable with formaldignity. Apologists have for centuries excused the phalloi as religious andfertility symbols, tolerated, we are encouraged to believe, by the piety of anotherwise mortified populace. Piety certainly licenses the phalloi. But ourarchaic and early classical images of drunken men on the march bristlingwith erect phalloi tied to heads and necks, or with them fixed like spear-points on wooden sticks, are at best indifferent symbols of piety, and poorerstill, if they are meant to represent love and fertility. Surely the images, likethe sticks themselves, express the Pompe’s carnival mood of playful trans-gression and aggression. This is why phallos-sticks consistently appear asweapons in the hand of satyrs in Athenian vase-imagery. And surely thephallic knife poised in the hands of the Dionysian clown on the red-figured lekythos signifies ritually licensed aggression (Figure .), as doesthe rhinoceros-like placement of phalloi on forehead and nose on the face ofthe entertainers captured (or imagined) by the Berlin Painter (Figure .).Even the large phallic floats are not just passive dolmens. The phallophoroi,according to Semos, frequently rushed forward thrusting the phallos into

Terent. Maur. (Keil, Gramm. Lat., vol. vi) –: ithyphallica porro citarunt musici poetae, | quiludicra carmina Baccho versibus petulcis | Graio cum cortice phello tres dabant trochaeos, | utnomine fit sonus ipso, Bacche Bacche Bacche.

Mar. Plot. p. , ff. K.; Terent. Maur., previous note. The exception, Atil. Fort. p. , ff. K.,connects them with phallophoroi and phalloidoi.

Song and dance: Hyp. fr. Jensen; Democh. FGrH F . Aggression: see below. Rothwell : . Cf. Sourvinou-Inwood : , who claims that the Pompe of the Dionysia

‘involved a certain solemnity’.




the watching crowd and then paused (or ‘performed a stationary dance’)while mocking the spectators. Semos’ ithyphalloi advertised the invasivequality of their eponymous props: ‘make way, open up wide for the god,because, upright and bursting, he wants to march through your midst’.

The name ‘ithyphalloi’ became popular among disaffected, vandalisticallyminded aristocratic Athenian youth gangs, not because the ritual perform-ers were famously ‘formal and dignified’, but surely because they came tosymbolize the physically aggressive and transgressive behaviour to whichthese alienated and arrogant youths aspired. You do not put on a maskand phallos in order to look like a satyr, but to act like one!

Verbal aggression is well attested for the Pompe (as it is for otherDionysian processions in Athens) – this is why the word pompeia came todenote aggressive abuse. On Semos’ testimony, verbal abuse formed partof the performance of the phallophoroi and it should probably be inferredfrom his report that the autokabdaloi were also later called iamboi. Buta certain amount of physical aggression was also tolerated and expected.Demosthenes tells us of one Ctesicles who thought it fitting to participatein the Athenian Pompe carrying a leather strap. Unfortunately he hap-pened upon a personal enemy and thrashed him with it. The revealingthing is that Ctesicles pleaded not guilty to violent assault due to ‘theinfluence of the Pompe and drunkenness’ and would have been excused theassault had it not been for the history of enmity between Ctesicles and hisvictim, which made the violence look more like premeditation than the

Semos FGrH F (On Paians): ‘then charging forward [the phallophoroi] would mock whomeverthey chose’. ‘Clearly an aggressive gesture’, notes C. G. Brown : . For the connection betweenphallic entertainers and ritual abuse: see Brown : –; Bierl : – ( for the inter-pretation of ��); Hedreen : . In addition to the passages on pompeia, below n. , seealso 8 Dem. De falsa legatione a (Dilts).

Semos FGrH F . For the sexual innuendo, see Csapo : . Dem. .–, , , . For the other youth gangs with phallic names, see Herter : –;

Bierl : . On masks at the Pompe: Dem. De fals. leg. with scholion; 8 Dem. Meid. (Dilts); Frontisi-

Ducroux . Cf. the expressions ��>�� and �2�� -�� (Pl. Phdr. b; Platon.Diff. Char. . Kost.; Ioh. Chrys. MPG .., .., .., .., .., etc.).Sourvinou-Inwood : is wrong to suppose that the words komos and komazein are technicallylimited to the night procession of the Eisagoge: Halliwell : –.

Men. Perinthia fr. Arnott; 8 Dem. De cor. b (Dilts); Harp. s.v. �� >��; Phot.Lex. s.v. �� >�� (� .); Phot. Lex. s.v. �� (� ,); Suda s.v. �� >�� (� ). The term ‘from the wagons’, usually referred by modern scholars to theAnthesteria and Lenaia because of Phot. Lex. s.v. �� @� 7��5@� (� .) and Suda s.v. �� @� 7��5@� ��$�� (� ), is likely to be common to all the main Dionysian processions atAthens. See Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. ..; 8 Lucian, Iupp. trag. .a–b (Rabe); 8 Lucian, Eun.. (Rabe); Halliwell : – with further literature.

See above, n. ; cf. Sosib. FGrH F . See C. G. Brown : . Rotstein : disagrees. Dem. Meid. .



eric csapo

sort of random outburst one might expect on this occasion. A scholiast toDemosthenes says that in the Pompe, men wore felt caps underneath masksto muffle the impact of blows to the head acquired when they abused oneanother. Unruliness was not only licensed but expected. For this reasonAeschines could demonstrate the habitually good behaviour of Epicratesby claiming he showed perfect control even at the Pompe of the Dionysia.

Decrees honouring ephebes make specific reference to their orderly con-duct at the Dionysia. Decorum and good order from any semi-organizedgroup of young men was so far from being expected that the Athenianscreated boards of ‘Wardens (epimeletai) of the Pompe’, who appear also tohave been called ‘Wardens of Good Conduct in the Theatres’ and ‘Wardensof the Choruses’. Their task was ‘to make sure that choruses did not losecontrol’ – not likely to refer to the circular, tragic or comic choruses, whichcould hardly be expected to riot in the middle of their performance, but tothe many choruses of men at the Pompe, who paraded about armed withphallos-sticks and very drunk.

The Christian polemicists clearly recognized the primarily aggressiveand transgressive character of phallos-sticks and phallic processions. Theancient martyrology, Deeds of Saint Timothy, gives the most sensationalaccount. At the Katagogia for Dionysus at Ephesus on January, ad

, the participants are said to have ‘tied on indecent adornments, andeven hidden their faces with masks so as not to be recognized, and carriedsticks and images of idols’. Here the ‘indecent adornments’ can only bephalloi and ‘sticks and images of idols’ seems to refer to phallos-sticks, orphallos-sticks and thyrsoi (only the phallos-sticks could be called ‘images ofidols’). Timothy, outraged and disgusted by ‘the indecent ornaments theyhad put about themselves’, blocked the processional route and demandedthat the Ephesians give up their idolatry. Instead they advanced uponhim with the weapons at hand and we are told that he achieved a grizzly,

8 Dem. . (Dilts). Felt bands or caps are also seen on the heads of tragic and comic actors. Thissuggests that the caps are worn for comfort rather than protection. It is the cultural assumptionsbehind the scholiast’s claim that are of interest. Felt bands or caps: Attic rf pelike, Phiale Painter,c. bc, Boston MFA .–, ARV 2 , ; Attic rf chous, c. bc, Hermitage . ��(Figure .). Cf. second figure from right on the first-century ad mosaic from the Casa del PoetaTragico in Pompei, Naples NM .

Aeschin. De falsa leg. . The inscriptions are all second–first century bc: IG ii , ll. –; IG ii , ll. , ; IG ii

, ll. –; IG ii , ll. –; IG ii , l. ; IG ii , l. . See the discussion in Csapo and Wilson : . Usener . The event may well be historical: see Keil ; Herter b: . On the ‘indecent ornaments’, see Herter a: ; Herter b: ; and Herter : and

n. .




if poetic martyrdom, beaten to death by the phallos-sticks of the paganfaithful, a martyrdom so delightfully Dionysian, that one would soonerbe tempted to shelve Timothy with Orpheus and Pentheus than withLawrence and Anthony. A second episode of phallic transgression isknown from Antioch in ad : a heathen ran into church brandishingphalloi and shouting abuse at the Christian faithful before (as BishopAthanasius reassures us) the wrath of God struck him blind. These arethe last two recorded uses of the Dionysian phallos.

It is easy to dismiss any diachronic or even synchronic connectionbetween drama and Dionysian ritual if we think of the Dionysian Pompeas a formal and dignified procession of civic officials, priests and sacrifi-ciants. Our sources suggest that for most Athenians the Pompe, not thedramatic competition, was the climax of the festival. It was a playful, cre-ative and transgressive ritual that involved costume, role-playing, dance,music, obscenity, abuse, mock aggression, laughter and direct, universalparticipation.

Rothwell’s interpretation of the Pompe conforms to a broader trend inscholarship since the s that identifies the aristocratic symposium as themainspring of (especially archaic) Greek cultural achievement. It is truethat much of our ‘lyric’ poetry seems to assume a sympotic setting and alsotrue that imagery related to music and dance is found mainly on vesselsdesigned for the symposium. Many poetic and musical genres grew up inthe elite symposium. But most such genres were also only seconded to theelite symposium from popular festival entertainments and others were neverabsorbed into elite culture, even if they are found on sympotic vessels. Eliteswere not as isolated from the public religious and festival activities of the

The phallos-sticks used at the Katagogia are uncomprehendingly referred to as rhopala in the Greekversion and pali in the Latin.

Athanasius, Hist. Arianorum . (Opitz) with Herter : . It is very tempting to connect the Berlin Painter’s phallic nose (Figure .) with the false noses

or long-nosed masks used in medieval and modern carnival, as does Hoffmann (: ). TheBerlin Painter’s phallic costume is, however, creative costuming beyond the Dionysian norm. Farmore tempting is to derive from phallos-sticks the plastic clubs that gangs of young celebrants useto beat each other over the head at carnival processions in Athens today (also ��, see above,n. ). Despite its transformation, the carnival hardware would show a gratifying continuity in bothspirit and function.

Symposium and lyric poetry: Rosler : ; Pellizer : ; Stehle : –. Symposiumand komast vases: Fehr ; Isler-Kerenyi ; Seeberg ; Smith ; Steinhart : –

(although Steinhart does not distinguish regularly between public banquet and private symposium);Smith , passim. Symposium and komos vases: Steinhart (above); Rothwell . Withoutdenying the importance of the elite symposium, much of the more recent literature takes a softerstand on its exclusivity or even its primacy in the development of music/poetry: see Budelmannb: –; Carey : –; and on iambos, especially Rotstein : –. See for komastand komos vases, Csapo and Miller b: –, –.



eric csapo

polis as the lingering adherents of the polarized ‘alterity’ theories spawnedduring the Cold War would have us believe. This is particularly true of theDionysian entertainments that developed in Athens and elsewhere: theywere certainly colourful, creative and transgressive enough to appeal to thearistocrat in his cups, even if they did derive from the common culture ofthe masses.

what comedy owes to the phallika

‘Discourse of genres’ implies a primarily synchronic relationship. If so,it is nonetheless necessary to outline a theory of the diachronic relation-ship between Athenian comedy and the choruses that participated in theDionysian Pompe: first because received wisdom is that Attic comedy beganmuch earlier than reliable evidence allows; secondly because a belief in com-edy’s lineal or collateral descent from choruses of the Pompe appears to haveinfluenced the character and performance of many comic choruses in thefifth century bc. In what follows I traverse some heavily trodden groundbut aspire to more concision and more strictly evidence-based conclusionsthan is usual in discussions of comedy’s origins.

Attic vase-painting gives a clear indication of the impact that the cre-ation (or revival) of the Athenian Dionysia had upon popular conscious-ness. Dionysian imagery first appears in Attic black figure from about bc onwards, at first derived from and imitating Corinthian themes.But Dionysian imagery becomes rampant only around bc, when Atticart also introduces many new subjects, and in particular subjects relatedto Dionysian processions. Hedreen has shown that the treatment ofDionysian myth, especially in depictions of the Return of Hephaestus,is directly informed by the spirit and spectacle of the Dionysian Pompe.

Even satyrs after bc begin to show a previously unknown and uncharac-teristic discipline in their dance, moving in procession or with orchestratedmovements. It is from about bc that we can date the beginning ofa series of over twenty Attic vases that show elaborately costumed cho-ruses, depicting animal riders, beasts or transvestites. These are indeedkomoi, but hardly the spontaneous aristocratic entertainments hypothe-sized by Rothwell. They perform a processional dance that is more lavishly

Carpenter ; Shapiro : –; Hedreen ; Csapo and Miller b: –; Smith :.

Hedreen . Hedreen . Green : –; Rothwell : –; Csapo and Miller b: –.




equipped, better choreographed and more practised than any known per-formance before them.

This new interest in Dionysian processional imagery begins early inthe time of Peisistratus’ tyranny and its sudden efflorescence at this dateis hard to explain except in relation to Peisistratus’ creation of the GreatDionysia (or its reorganization on a grand scale). Iconography confirmsthe general view that Peisistratus attempted to eclipse the many localfestivals of Dionysus by creating a far more elaborate festival, centred inAthens, and centred ultimately on the person of the tyrant himself.

The iconographic evidence (we have little else) thus suggests the fol-lowing scenario for the early history of the City Dionysia. It was created(or greatly expanded) about bc. The primary event was a parade thatincluded choruses of various types. That some of these choruses were per-ceived as dithyrambic, or actually performed hymns called dithyrambs,seems probable: the komos (‘animal rider’) vases and some satyr chorusesare likely candidates. Other choruses were, from the very beginning,phallic. Both phallic and ‘dithyrambic’ types have several Dionysian fea-tures in common: they might have leaders (exarchoi), they wear costumes,and the costumes are by nature bestial or grotesque – indeed the phallicand bestial imagery freely crosses the boundary, if such it can be called(I doubt that the archaic Pompe recognized the boundaries or genres dis-tinguished by later Greeks). Despite the fact that the name ‘dithyramb’was certainly in use and meaningful at this time, our evidence suggeststhat both species of Dionysian processional choruses were still thought of,generically, as komoi: that is why the men’s choruses (popularly also called‘circular chorus’ or ‘dithyramb’) that were later held in the theatre mightbe referred to by this archaizing term and why also comedy literally means‘song of the komos’. We should probably think of a generic Dionysian

Csapo and Miller b: . The control and development of Dionysian cult was a conscious policyof archaic tyrants, notably Periander of Corinth, Cleisthenes of Sicyon and Pheidon of Argos: thesubject is profoundly treated in the recent work of Seaford, especially: Seaford b; Seaford ;and Seaford .

The Peisistratan creation of the City Dionysia was challenged by Connor but reconfirmed bySourvinou-Inwood ; cf. R. Parker : –.

For the ‘dithyrambic’ imagery of the komos vases, see Csapo , esp. –; Rusten b: –;Hedreen : –, –; Seaford : .

See above, nn. –. For the iconographic representation of the exarchos, see Csapo – (to which add Athens NM

: see Smith : pl. a). Pickard-Cambridge : –; Csapo and Miller b: (citing other literature). The inter-

pretation of komos is disputed both in the Fasti and in the Law of Euegoros. I hope to address theproblem elsewhere. Note that Kourebion/Epikrates is said to ��1�� in the Pompe of the Dionysia(Dem. De fals. leg. ; Aeschin. De fals. leg. ).



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choral form, ‘komos’, of two main varieties, dithyrambic choruses and phal-lika, each with subvarieties: animal-rider (or beast) choruses and satyrs forthe former; phallophoroi and ithyphalloi for the latter.

The vase-paintings of animal-rider (or beast) choruses from the Pompeshow both processional and circular song and dance. Even in the classicalperiod the Pompe moved slowly, probably from the Dipylon gate, stoppingto perform sacrifice and hymns at altars, and especially at the Altar of theTwelve Gods in the Athenian agora. The existence of important stationsalong the processional route of course explains why our komos vases depictdancing both in a linear (processional) and in a circular formation (circlingaltars). The part of the agora adjacent to the Altar of the Twelve Gods wasknown as the ‘orchestra’ or dancing place and later became a book marketoutside the festival season. But during the festival season (both Dionysiaand Panathenaea), wooden stands (ikria) were set up for those who wishedto sit and watch the succession of choral performances around the altar.

We appear still to have the text of at least one dithyramb performed at theAltar of the Twelve Gods, written by Pindar (fr. M).

Things changed when a theatre was built north of the Sanctuary ofDionysus: the archaeological remains suggest a date for the building ofthe theatre at the very end of the sixth century bc. With the buildingof the theatre, a much larger audience could gather at the end-point ofthe procession and this probably encouraged a far greater elaboration ofchoral set pieces than did the smaller ‘stations’ along the processional route.Possibly prizes previously existed for komoi; we have no way of telling. Butwith the building of the theatre there was an unprecedented opportunity for

Csapo : –. Xen. Eq. Mag. .. The altar, which dates back to the time of the Pisistratids, was doubtless

a station on the processional route even before the classical agora was built. The archaic routeprobably moved on from the Altar of the Twelve Gods, along the Street of the Tripods, through thearchaic agora, to stop again at the large plateia in front of the Old Prytaneon, before finally movingon to the Sanctuary of Dionysus: Schmalz . It is possible, but I think unlikely, that Xenophonis referring to performances connected to the procession of the Eisagoge (or a connected ‘komos’)which took place the night before the Pompe, as Sourvinou-Inwood argued (: –; cf.R. Parker : ): in this case it would have nothing to do with the phallic choruses (which areuniquely attached to the Pompe), but would have something to do with dithyrambs.

Wycherley : – nos. , –. Wycherley : nos. –, ; Camp : – fig. ; Camp : and pl. .

Zimmermann : –; Wilson : . It is interesting that tradition placed the transfer of entertainment from the agora to the newly

built theatre in / bc after the wooden stands (ikria) collapsed: Suda s.v. Pratinas (� )cf. Phot. Lex. s.v. ikria ( .) (the collection of evidence by Hammond : – conflates twotraditions: one that there were performances in the agora before the theatron, meaning ‘theatre’,was built; second that there was a poplar or poplars above the ikria of the Theatre of Dionysusbefore the theatron, meaning ‘[‘Lycurgan’] auditorium’, was built; see Roselli : –. The logicis presumably that benchwork built onto the natural slope of the acropolis above the theatre wouldnot need to be so elaborate and so a collapse of ikria there would be less catastrophic).




establishing a contest that a large audience might witness, and it is probablyno coincidence that Athenian civic records of the competition stretchedback no earlier than the last decade of the sixth century. It is from c. bc

that the Fasti (as usually reconstructed) record winners of tragic and men’sand boys’ choruses. That men’s and boys’ choruses soon came to be knownas ‘circular’ suggests that an effective separation was soon made between theprocessional and the theatrical entertainments. Some such development isindicated by the ancient testimony that Lasos of Hermione ‘introducedthe contest for dithyrambs’ as well as Pindar’s testimony that Lasos firstconverted the dithyramb from a linear to a circular form. In officialspeech, however, men’s and boys’ choruses are never called dithyrambs,presumably because true dithyrambs were perceived to be processional andcultic.

The building of the theatre may have prompted another set of changesin the iconographic record. The most important shows a shift in focusfrom the procession to the theatre. Within a decade or two of the building,the komos vases with beast choruses, animal riders and transvestites cometo an end. At the same time two new subjects, based on the theatricalcompetitions, appear: we have the first appearance in Attic vase-paintingof choregic tripods (and other imagery related to the men’s and boys’lyric choruses) and the first depictions of tragic choruses. Paradoxically,perhaps, the Pompe continues to be a topic of interest, but with a newsubject. It is in about bc that we get the first depictions of the chorusesof ithyphalloi that are the subject of this chapter. The ithyphalloi doubtlessemerge as a subject because of new interest stimulated by the expansionof the City Dionysia; but unlike the new genres they are not theatrical.(By this date ‘theatrical genres’ could have included comedy, added to theDionysia around bc.) Depictions of comedy in vase-painting appearonly much later, and they focused for the most part on actors. Might itbe that early comedy was so close in form and spirit to the phallic chorusesthat the former sparked the vase-painters’ interest in the latter? (This is agenuine question, not a disguised proposition.)

The building of the theatre doubtless had some impact on the perfor-mance of the phallic choruses. In late classical and Hellenistic times thetheatre could be the site of a prolonged and climactic performance by phal-lic choruses: Hyperides mentions the ithyphalloi dancing in the orchestra

Suda s.v. Lasos (� ); Pind. fr. b M (with D’Angour ; D’Angour’s theory is criticized andmodified, unsuccessfully in my view, by Porter ).

Csapo and Miller b: –. Choregic imagery: Csapo b. Tragic choruses and choreuts: Csapo a: –. Csapo a: –.



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and Semos’ account of both ithyphalloi and phallophoroi focuses on themoment that the choruses enter the theatre. But ithyphalloi remainedprimarily processional and non-theatrical, as is clear from Demochares’account of the ithyphallic procession to greet Demetrius the Besieger.

Not much later we have evidence that the actors’ union, the Artists ofDionysus, who in Hellenistic times assumed much of the responsibility fororganizing the Dionysian Pompe, also provided the choruses of ithyphalloi,at least at the Soteria in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus.

It is impossible to say in what sense comedy existed in Athens as aseparate genre before around bc, when it was officially adopted as acompetitive genre at the City Dionysia. Before this date there is no traceof Attic comedy apart from the rather desperate efforts of later scholars(ancient and modern) to invent a tradition older than the Doric. Butcomedy did already exist certainly in Sicily and possibly in Megara andelsewhere in the Peloponnese. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that afterthe building of the theatre the phallic choruses expanded their normalprocessional repertoire to include a finale in the theatre with more plotand narrative structure and that this gradually grew into a fully theatricalevent. Even if this was the case, we would still have to believe that themain models for the creation of Attic comedy were the already evolvednarrative and theatrical genres of tragedy, satyr-play, circular chorus andDorian comedy, not to mention evolved literary genres such as iambicpoetry (despite the cultic obscenity and abuse already practised in phallicprocessions). By the time we can measure its pulse, Attic comedy issui generis and multigeneric. The one most striking feature that comedyinherits from its carnival matrix is an unrestricted freedom in appropriatingthe form and contents of other genres, and for this reason it has fairly beencalled a ‘carnival of genres’.

Hyp. fr. Jensen; Semos FGrH F (PMG a; Bierl : –); cf. the prominence of thetheatre in a third-century ad phallic performance in Euboea (SEG no. , no. ; Csapo: ).

Democh. FGrH F ; Duris FGrH F . Ath. c (Powell : ); Lightfoot : ; Bierl : n. . See also n. below. The efforts of later scholars to defend the theory of the genre’s Attic origins have left us only the

(dubiously formed) name Sousarion, a fragment that is clearly a later forgery, and biographicaldetails of the poet which indicate that, if he existed, he may have been Megarian and composediambic poetry (rather than real comedy). Rusten b is surely right to cast doubt on both thename and the tradition.

For a possible original coalescence of iambos, dithyramb and phallic procession, see Csapo andMiller b: .

I refer to the Bakhtinian reading of Aristophanes by Platter . Bakhtin took a particularinterest in Greek Old Comedy, ‘a polyglot genre’ (: ), in developing his carnival theory andhis approach has had broad resonance in recent work on Old Comedy: see esp. Carriere ,Mollendorff .




What ancient Athenians thought, even if questionable or untrue, is,nonetheless, important for understanding later developments in comedy.We cannot be sure if phallic choruses were supposed to be the origin ofcomedy by anyone earlier than Aristotle, but the connection is an easyone: in addition to sharing a mixture of choral and individual delivery, bothgenres were scurrilous, obscene, potentially aggressive and abusive; bothemployed costume which emphasized the phallos, physical distortion ofthe body and potentially masks. Aristotle does, however, mention a debate,possibly much older than his day, in which pro-Dorians supported theirclaim to have invented comedy by disputing the derivation of ‘komoidia’from ‘komos’. There can be no doubt that ‘komoidia’ really did meanthe ‘song of the komos’ and it is very likely that all the various genresof processional chorus (including but not limited to the phallic varieties)that appeared in Dionysian parades were closely associated in the popularmind with comedy. A large percentage of the earliest known titles ofcomedy, not only from Athens, but even from Sicily, appeal to choraltypes that are either known from the archaic Pompe or part of a broaderDionysian matrix of processional choral forms: titles such as Epicharmus’Komastai (alternatively called Hephaestus and reportedly about the Returnof Hephaestus), Dionysoi, Bacchae and Harpagai (apparently about Kotyto,whose choral forms were assimilated to Dionysian komoi) – this is all themore surprising if, as many believe, Sicilian comedy had no chorus. Fromthe first fifty years of comedy in Athens we have a very high density ofbeast choruses: Magnes’ Birds, Gall-Flies, Frogs, Crates’ Beasts, Ecphantides’Satyrs, Callias’ Satyrs (relevant too no doubt are the plays entitled Dionysusby Magnes, Crates and Ecphantides). And, as we will see in a moment,such choruses continue to be popular.

The synchronic influence of the komos is most palpable in the secondand third generation of Attic comedy. Recent studies of Cratinus makeit very clear that he cultivated a public image of himself as a poetic reac-tionary: Emmanuela Bakola in particular has convincingly shown thatCratinus presented himself as a champion of traditional ‘Dionysiac poet-ics’ in opposition to the comic poets of his day, who, he felt, had strayed toofar from their roots, particularly, it seems, in their emulation of tragedy.

It is not just for his revival of the spirit of Archilochus that Aristophanesspoke of ‘the initiates in the Bacchic rites of the bull-eating tongue of

Philomnestos, who seems to presuppose such a connection, is undatable (see above, n. ). Arist. Poet. a–b. Kerkhof : , –; Jameson, Jordan and Kotansky : –. Bakola : – and passim. Bakola picks up from the important studies of Cratinus and iambos

of Rosen and Biles , who however speak more narrowly of an ‘Archilochean poetics’.



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Cratinus’ (Ran. ). Cratinus claimed to draw his creative inspirationdirectly from Dionysus, writing only when drunk and reviving the ‘tra-ditional’ Dionysian spirit of comedy. Cratinus’ choruses frequently havea Dionysian or closely paradionysian persona: he wrote a Boukoloi (not‘Cowherds’ but a term referring to worshippers who process with Diony-sus in the form of a bull), a Euneidae (named after the clan of musicians andpriests of Dionysus Melpomene who also organized Dionysian parades),Thracians (probably Thracian women processing for the cult of Bendis, anorgiastic cult with dance and music broadly assimilated to that of Diony-sus), one or two choruses of transvestite men (Malthakoi and Drapetides),and at least two satyr choruses (Dionysalexandros and Satyroi), and a beastchorus (Cheirones), not to mention a play called Dionysoi, whose choruswas presumably composed of the god’s worshippers. About some of theseplays we know enough to be sure that Cratinus imitated cultic choruses:in Boukoloi (as in Euripides’ Bacchae) the parodos imitates a processionaldithyramb; in Dionysalexandros both the parodos and the exodos seemto have imitated cultic processions. Even in Archilochoi the fragmentssuggest that iambic poetry was conceived to be a performative rather thana literary genre and possibly in a komos setting: the fragments refer to anannual festival and notably to ithyphalloi (frr. and ). In presentinghimself as an authentic Dionysian poet, Cratinus draws liberally upon allthe choral types associated with either Dionysus’ mythic retinue (satyrs,bacchants) or his festival retinue composed of the typical choral groups thatperform in the Pompe: satyrs, beasts, transvestites, iambists and ithyphalloi.But he does this without privileging any single choral type: like the Pompe,Cratinus’ comedy is both generically inclusive and transgressive.

Cratinus probably marks the high point of the Pompe’s influence uponcomedy, but the influence continues to be felt until well into the fourthcentury and the era associated with ‘Middle Comedy’. Beast choruses con-tinue to appear in comedy until – bc. Satyr choruses in comedyhave their main burst of popularity in the s and s bc and are after-wards only revived by the archaizing Timocles as late as the s bc. Atleast one classical comedy had a chorus whose persona was drawn directlyfrom the Pompe, Ephippus’ Obeliaphoroi, although we may suspect therespective Komastai of Ameipsias (or Phrynichus) and Timocles’ Dionysi-azousai. Other choruses definitely had a mystic or Dionysian characterand are likely to have incorporated motifs common to the choruses of

Bakola : –, –. The exodos in which the satyrs escort Dionysus to the Greek shipsalludes to a Dionysian Pompe even without the scapegoat overtones argued by Bakola.

See the thorough study by Rothwell : –. Storey .




the Pompe: Eupolis’ Baptai (with a chorus of transvestite worshippers ofthe orgiastic goddess Kotyto), Autocrates’ Tympanistai (see fr. ), Phryn-ichus’ Mystai, Antiphanes’ Carians (a transvestite or effeminate chorus oforgiastic worshippers of Cybele) and of course the respective Bacchae ofAntiphanes, Diocles and Lysippus. The beast choruses of Aristophanesare well known; Babylonians may have had a chorus of Asiatics introducingDionysus; Seasons appears to have been about the rites of Sabazius; thechorus of Lemnian Women introduced the cult of Bendis. It should beremembered that Acharnians (–) directly incorporated a representa-tion of the Pompe.

what the phallika owe to comedy: phallic choruses in

fourth-century vase-painting

Whatever comedy owed to phallic choruses, it is clear from vase-paintingthat from about bc at the latest comedy dominated the intergenericexchange. Four Attic vase-paintings from the first half of the fourth centuryshow that the costume and character of phallic dancers underwent someassimilation to those of comic choreuts and actors.

The latest surviving wielder of a phallos-stick is indeed embedded in ascene that is otherwise entirely concerned with comedy. Hitherto unno-ticed, the phallos-stick appears on a well-known chous in St Petersburgdated to about bc (Figure .). The chous shows five children play-ing the roles of Dionysian entertainers (a recurrent motif in choes). Eachof the children is in costume and each is associated with a comic actor’smask. All of the figures wear the protective band used by actors to shieldthe sides and (in some cases) top of the head against the hard edges of themask (and doubtless also to secure the fit). And yet the figures on the far

Storey a: –. This list of choruses that draw upon komos types familiar from the Pompe would be much longer

if it could be shown that choruses of ‘foreigners’ appeared on the series of Attic komos vases, as isfrequently claimed (e.g. Seeberg : –; Rothwell : –), but this seems to me the samekind of misreading of general Dionysian costume and imagery as led to the initial identification ofour phallic performers as Lydians and Scythians. Play titles such as the Lydians of Magnes or theCretans of Nicochares are likely to be relevant as choruses of worshippers introducing an orgiasticcult (either that of Dionysus or the various deities that are regularly conflated with Dionysian cultin ancient drama), but not qua foreigners.

Norwood : –, –. Attic rf chous, c. bc, Hermitage . ��. Rusten (forthcoming) demonstrates the impor-

tance of this vase to the history of comedy. If Bulle is right that Scopas’ Pothos carried a phallos-stick,then the gem, mentioned in n. above, is later. But see the doubts expressed in the same note.

See Csapo a: –. Rusten (forthcoming) shows that the masks are accurate representations of known types. See above, n. .



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Figure . Attic red-figure chous, c. bc




Figure . Attic red-figure bell krater, Hare-Hunt Painter, c. – bc

right and left of the scene are certainly not dressed as actors: one wears thecostume of a choregos and the other appears to be dressed as a piper. Thereis therefore a certain blurring of comic actor imagery with other personnelinvolved in Dionysian entertainment.

The three boys in the centre of the visual field all wear the actor’sbodytights and the comic somation (padded body with enlarged stomach,buttocks, breasts and phallos). It is the ‘actor’ on the left who is of particularinterest to our investigation. He carries the mask of a comic king (it hasa little crown and is the usual mask for Zeus in western Greek comicvase-paintings). Unlike the other two ‘actors’ he also wears a himation,though possibly only as a mark of his superior social status. In place of asceptre, however, the figure carries a phallos-stick. We do not actually havean image of a phallic entertainer, but rather an image in which the culticsymbol of one Dionysian entertainer is confused with, or appropriated tothe use of, another. The readiness with which the attribute of a phallicdancer is transferred to a comic actor is of particular interest as the firstsign of a process of assimilation, at least in vase imagery, of the performersin the Pompe to the performers in the theatre.

Although phallos-sticks are missing from three fourth-century vase-paintings of choral entertainers, the entertainers have enough points incommon with their fifth-century counterparts to make it likely that theytoo are to be thought of as choruses at the Pompe. One is known only froma drawing made in (Figure .): the Attic red-figured bell krater upon

Rusten (forthcoming).



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which it is based has never been photographed and I infer that it is in poorshape. Nonetheless, we can see ivy-wreathed men wearing spotty body-suits moving in procession; one appears to carry a cake. These costumeslook something more like comic actors’ costumes, since they include theusual form of actor’s phallos and a suggestion of padding. But the figures arenot likely to be comic actors or a comic chorus. The padding is slight andthe bodysuit worn in comic costume, since it represents stage-nakedness, isnever decorated and never belted as this is. Moreover the facial features aredifferentiated and not distorted: even if the faces are meant to be seen asmasked, the masks are not uniform and the beardlessness of the figure onthe left shows that the chorus is of mixed age. Comic choruses never showthis diversity. One should note too that the toes of the piper are articulatedbut none of the toes of the choreuts, suggesting that they are wearing boots.Possibly Gerhard could not make out (or did not recognize) the ivy spotsthat are here rendered as Xs and Os. He also could make nothing of thestick in the hand of the rightmost dancer. It is too long and crooked tobe a torch. It may be a walking stick, but a walking stick is an odd prop fora chorus especially of men in their prime. It is likely that Gerhard wouldhave misrecognized a phallos-stick if he saw it.

The vase indicates a processional movement: the feet of the four leftmostfigures are all directed to the right and their bodies appear to describe astylized march rather than what we would call a dance. The rightmost figurefaces the group and has one arm raised in what might appear to be a speakinggesture (Gerhard apparently took him to be holding something small in hisright hand, but this is unlikely). His configuration conforms to a standardschema for showing a lead singer, or exarchos. Even without the detail ofa phallos-stick, we would have to conclude from the processional nature ofthe image, the details of costume (including the ‘comic’ phalloi), the ivycrowns as well as the ‘ivy spots’ on the costume, and of course the presenceof the cake, that the vase is meant to depict a chorus from a Dionysiacprocession. The phalloi indicate a connection with the Dionysian Pompai,the only processions at Athens for which phallic choruses are attested.

An image on a recently published Athenian bell krater of – bc

shows a chorus which is certainly meant to be interpreted as a group

Attic rf bell krater, Hare-Hunt Painter, c. – bc, S. Agata de’ Goti, formerly collectionMustilli, ARV 2 , MMC 3 , AV . Gerhard a: pl. and Gerhard b: . Gerhard’sdrawing is reproduced in Wieseler : pl. ix, ; Bieber : fig. .

Gerhard b: . Even the chorus of old men on the bf skyphos, Thebes BE ., carry torches not sticks: see

Green : fig. a. Csapo –.




Figure . Attic red-figure bell krater, – bc

of performers from the Pompe of the Dionysia (Figure .). The bellkrater shows a group of four men in procession against a background ofdecorative ivy leaves. The first man on the right is bald, front and top,like the Sabouroff Painter’s group, and prances in what appears to be amincing effeminate manner (krotalos-players sometimes adopt this stance).The second and third men have several days’ growth of beard on theside of their faces like the Berlin Painter’s choreuts. All the men wear ivygarlands (the berries are emphasized with added white), spotty bodytightsand large ‘looped’ phalloi. The phalloi are certainly of the type worn bycomic actors (and possibly comic choreuts). So are the bodytights, but onlyin form: comic tights are never decorated but are designed to representnaked flesh. And there is no suggestion of comic padding. Three of themen wear the familiar kothornoi highlighted in added white paint. Thereis enough similarity in costume with the early classical phallic choruses ofFigures .–. to suggest that the spots on the costume are intended tosuggest ivy. We are probably to recognize the men as masked: Ian McPheetells me that the line of the chin continues up to the ear, contrary to

Attic rf bell krater, Telos Group (Schauenburg) or Telos Painter (McPhee), – bc, Naples,private collection. Schauenburg : pl. .–; Green : . I thank Dick Green for bringingthis vase to my attention.



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the normal practice of the Telos Painter and other painters of the fourthcentury. In any case the faces are different and suggest men of differentages: they are certainly no comic chorus. Threatening, probably, is the waythe figure on the left holds his stick or torch. The middle figures are engagedin transporting important contributions to the feast that will follow thesacrifice at the end of the procession.

I do not know the identity of the prominent object emphasized byadded white paint in the hand of the man second in the procession: Greenvery plausibly suggests a Mediterranean white radish. Unmistakable,however, is the large object, also emphasized by added white that the manwith the radish(?) carries on a pole together with the man behind him. Itis not a cake, but something equally suited to the sacrificial procession ofan Athenian festival, indeed one uniquely attested for the Pompe of theDionysia. It is a kind of bread baked on a stick called ‘obel bread’.

The exclusively Dionysian quality of obel bread seems to have elicitedan aetiological myth that Dionysus invented the bread while on militarycampaign: no doubt so that it could be carried by his creatures while ‘onthe march’. That obel-bread carriers, obeliaphoroi, were no less colourful

I. McPhee per litteras; Schauenburg : ; Green : : Green sees ‘jutting chins’, but addsthat ‘it is hard to say if the painter omitted to fill in their beards, or if the intention was simply tomake them grotesque’.

Green : , but it is not primarily, I suspect, ‘festive food’, as Green suggests (the mostcommon use of the radish in Greek literature, if not in Greek culture, is to provide an emetic). Theassociations of the radish in this context are at least as likely to be symbolic as alimentary, and toallude to the phallic nature and function of the vegetable: Ar. Nub. (with scholia ad loc. anda, d, a); 8 Ar. Plut. ; Lucian, De mort. Peregr. . (with scholia ad loc.); Hesych. s.v.=�-��!��; Suda s.vv. �� (� ) and =�-�� (� ); Carey .

The obel bread said to be found on choes (van Hoorn : figs. –, ; Crosby : ) isin fact streptos cakes: see Hamilton : . Choes are not in any case restricted to themes relatedto the Anthesteria; they have a broad (and not exclusive) preference for Dionysian themes.

Ath. b; Poll. .; Paus. Attic. �� 1; Phot. Lex. s.v. obelias artos( .). See also Kassel and Austin on Ar. fr. . Schauenburg : – considers but ultimatelyrejects the notion that the object is meant to represent meat. A Boeotian bf lekanis lid, c. bc

(Adolphseck Schloß Fasanerie ; van Straten , V, fig. ; cf. Schauenburg : ) showsmeat being stacked over most of the length of a long spit (the one possible Attic equivalent, a cupby Makron, ARV 2 /, Para. , Addend. , is described by van Straten : as ‘mantaking dough (?) from lebes on tripod stand’). Schauenburg, however, notes the difference in shape(the object here is in fact ‘stomach shaped’, exactly as Photius describes obel bread). But one shouldalso note that the Boeotian lekanis is careful to articulate the divisions between slices of meat.Moreover, the Telos Painter and the painter of the agora polychrome oinochoe (see below) paintthe bread white (it is uncooked or semi-cooked dough which is meant to be baked at the sacrificein the sanctuary), even though the agora polychrome has seven different colours, including pink,at his disposal. Moreover, one never sees men carrying meat in this way, nor is one likely to (Atticscenes of men carrying meat are very different: see van Straten : ): the meat is butcheredand cooked at the place of sacrifice. Only live animals appear in sacrificial processions. If food iscarried it is almost invariably cakes or bread (for the radish, see above, n. ).

Ath. b drawing on the Epikleseis of Socrates.




characters than phallic entertainers, if they were indeed distinguishable,is suggested by the attested use of ‘obeliaphoroi’ as a derogatory term forworkers and rustics. Obeliaphoroi were interesting enough to Ephippusfor him to give their name to one of his comedies (and evidently thereforeto the chorus). Depictions of obel bread appear twice elsewhere: onceon an Attic polychrome oinochoe, and once on an Apulian bell krater.

Only in the case of the Apulian krater do the obeliaphoroi clearly wear fullcomic costume. Indeed the comification of the subject is so complete thatthe figures are drawn on top of a stage. The Attic oinochoe, though it isfrequently referred to comedy, is far more likely to belong to our small(but growing) repertoire of images of entertainers from the DionysianPompe. Although the details of costume have not survived in any clearform, enough remains to show that both figures share features with ourphallic choruses: they have long beards and one is depicted in kothornoiand the same kind of rustic hat we find drawn by the Pistoxenos Painter(Figure .).

Yet another chorus of Dionysian performers appear on an Attic red-figured bell krater excavated from an ancient cemetery in Castulo, nearLinares in Southern Spain (Figure .). This is a far more doubtfulcase. The costumes look comic: lines at the four visible ankles and thethree visible wrists indicate the use of the bodytights worn by actors andchoreuts. The use of the comic bodysuit (somation) is indicated by thelarge bellies, buttocks and phalloi. Even the piper (second from left) wearsa comic body: the lines on his upper thigh make this especially clear. Thereare, however, good reasons to think this is not comedy. The one Attic vase-painting and the two Attic reliefs that do certainly show comic chorusesshow uniform masks, costumes and movements, only the piper excepted(the pipers wear the same formal costume that we find in scenes of tragedy).Here, however, the costumes are distinguished, even if all appear comic

Phot. Lex. s.v. obelias artos ( .). Ephipp. frr. –. Attic polychrome oinochoe, c. bc, Agora P , MMC 3 AV ; Apulian bell krater, Near to

the Painter of Copenhagen , – bc, St Petersburg (W. ), PhV 2 . The claim that all of the polychrome oinochoai in the group published by Crosby are somehow

related to comedy cannot be sustained. In fact Agora P , identified by Webster in Pickard-Cambridge : fig. as an ‘effeminate reveller’ is very likely to be another phallic entertainerfrom the Pompe: he wears the cuffed kothornoi and carries a staff that, judging from the photographof the pot, is intended to be a phallos-stick. Unfortunately the poor quality of the painting and theeven more lamentable state of its preservation allow no firm ground for argument.

Attic rf bell krater, – bc, Castulo ; Blazquez : – fig. , pls. –; McPhee: ; Domınguez and Sanchez : no. , fig. ; Green : .

The published photograph makes clear, as the drawing does not, that there are lines at the wristsof the rightmost figure.



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Figure . Fragments of an Attic red-figure bell krater, – bc

(including the costume of the piper). Only the figure on the right looksmasked, or at least has a grotesque face, but not those on either side of thepiper. It is possible that the figures that flank the piper are wearing roughlythe same costume (the one on the right does not have the himation wornby the one on the left). If this is a scene from comedy it must show animage of two choreuts, a piper and a comic actor. But if this is so, the vaseis truly unique: there is virtually no representation in Greek art that showschoreuts and actors together in performance. But the choreuts are notshown making uniform movements or even movements that might strikethe viewer as belonging to the same pattern. It is very hard to see how thepainter could have expected anyone to recognize that these two figures aremeant to represent a comic chorus. Their incoherent, vaguely processionalmovements (a procession seems indicated by the presence of torches) seemrather to suggest the iconography of entertainers at the Pompe. But if so,they share nothing more with the genre than this vaguely processional andnon-uniform movement and the ivy garlands whose traces are visible onthe heads of the rightmost figures. The fragment from Castulo remainsproblematic no matter what genre we refer it to.

The small figure adjacent a tragic chorus on an Attic rf krater in Basel (BS ) is a notableexception, if this is an actor.




conclusion

From about bc Athenian art takes a minor interest in the choralgroups that performed in the Dionysian Pompe. From about to bc

we have several vase-paintings of choral groups who wear costumes typifiedby sleeved, belted and ankle length (sometimes fringed) garments, ivyspots, kothornoi, ivy garlands and sometimes masks. They move and dancein procession to pipe music and are associated with such Pompe-specificprops as phallos-sticks, phallic adornments and obel bread. They are notcomic but they have a lot in common with comedy. They may not beprecisely the subgenre of phallic chorus that Aristotle was visualizing whenhe derived comedy from ‘those who led off the phallika’, but they weresurely included within his general purview when he linked comedy andphallika. Even if the diachronic relationship between phallika and comedyis wrong (at the very least it is simplistic), the remains of Old Comedyattest to a general belief that a special relationship existed between them.Athenian comic poets frequently model their choruses after choral varieties(including phallic choruses) known from the Pompe, and this is especiallytrue of self-styled Dionysian traditionalists and archaizers, such as Cratinusand (much later) Timocles. By about bc, however, we have strongevidence that the main influence flowed from comedy to phallika: thecostume of phallic performers remains clearly distinct from comedy butundergoes a high degree of assimilation nonetheless: one wonders if the‘voluntary’ performers were already being replaced by professional actorsin the fourth century Pompe: this appears to have been standard practicein Hellenistic times.

The vase-paintings also show that our phallic performers belong to abroad community of Dionysian choral performers with whom they sharemany motifs, and with whom they share the same occasion (the Pompe)and purpose (carnival, sacrifice). The patterns that differentiate our phallicperformers from other phallic performers and other komoi are variable,relatively vague and easily transgressed. This is a characteristic of Dionysianchoruses and of Dionysus himself, who transgresses all norms and barriers.But this transient and permeable quality is something that comedy also

See n. above. For the artists organizing and/or participating in processions generally: Aneziri: , –, –, ; Lightfoot : . Already in the Euboean decree of c. bc (IGxii , , – supplements) it appears that pipers and perhaps other artists who were hiredfor the theatrical competitions were also required to participate in the Pompe (in IG xii , ,ll. –, – all contest performers are required to take part in the procession for the Artemisia).Cf. Aneziri : .



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inherits to a far greater degree than tragedy or even satyr-play. For thisreason comedy can fairly be called a ‘genre of genres’ and in this respecttoo it resembles its cultic Dionysian matrix. Old Comedy draws freelyupon all musical and speech genres, but Old Comedy mostly draws itsform and contents from the cognate Dionysian genres of tragedy, satyr-play, dithyramb, iambos and the sub-literary choral komoi of the Pompe. Inthis sense, Aristotle is both deeply insightful and surely wrong, or at leastoverstating the case, when he derives comedy specifically from the phallika.



'Comedy and the Pompe'

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