Mystery Solved?
An Epithet fit for an Amazon Queen.
These past few weeks, I’ve been attempting to summarize, or synopsize, Martin West’s monumental work, The Making of the Iliad (2011). It’s a bit daunting (more than a bit, actually). Trying to distill some key points without too drastically oversimplifying (oversimplifying is obviously a given), or worse misrepresenting, his discussion is a slow process, but I believe it will prove a rewarding one. I plan to have the first installment ready soon.
But if my progress with West has been slow, I think perhaps I can claim a win in another area. For years now, I’ve been puzzling over a single word in the Iliad. It occurs in Iliad 2.814:
Now there is a high mound before the city, rising by itself upon the plain. Men call it Batieia, [Bramble Hill], but the gods know that it is the tomb [sêma] of lithe Myrrhine. (perseus.tufts.edu.)
The mystery is the phrase translated above as “lithe Myrrhine”; in Greek, πολυσκάρθμοιο Μυρίνης: polyskárthmoio Myrrhine (Myrine). More specifically, my question was how to translate the word “polyskárthmoio”; perseus.tufts.edu gives “much-springing, bounding,” and all the translations of the Iliad I’ve found follow this, more or less: “light of step,” A.T. Murray; “agile,” Fagles; “leaping,” Wilson; “skipping,” Powell; and “far-dancing,” Alexander. Relating her epithet to “dancing” appears in other translations as well, referring to Myrine as “the dancer” or the “peerless dancer.” (Two translations simply leave the word out, apparently not wanting to venture a guess as to what it means.)
What’s interesting is the Myrine was an Amazon queen, although the Iliad does not specifically say this (some translators, including Alexander, add the word for clarification). In the ancient world, Myrine was a well-known figure: her legends (which we know from later sources) credit her with conquering a number of cities in Anatolia, establishing and naming others, including Mytilene (named for her sister), and visiting the island of Samothrace and setting up alters there. (See Adrienne Mayor, 2014.) Her mention in the Iliad indicates Homer and his audience knew these legends and they were important enough to include.
But why would a famous warrior queen be described as agile, leaping, lithe, skipping[?!], or a “peerless dancer”? One possible explanation is the Amazons were known for their war dances. An Athenian red-figure oil flask, dated 475-425 BC, depicts an armed Amazon war dancer with the inscription “Zephyria the Beautiful” (Mayor 2104:141).
Xenophon also reports a rather surprising incident during his “march upcountry” from Persia to Pontus on the Black Sea, said to be the Amazon homeland. His army acquired many “tall and beautiful” local women during their campaign, initially as captives, but later as companions whom his men treated essentially as equals, sharing the dangers and fighting together in crucial moments. During a feast to entertain some local chieftains in order to get safe passage through their territory, Xenophon had some of his men perform their traditional pyrrhic war dances, which were done in full armor with shields and weapons. This display of athleticism and martial prowess was designed to impress his hosts, but what was not planned was a woman taking up the men’s armor, shield and weapons, and performing her own war dance “with grace.” The local chiefs were amazed and asked the Greeks if these women fought alongside them. “Yes!” the Greeks boasted; these were the fabled Amazons, their companions in “love and war!” (Mayor 2014:141). Cynically, we might be tempted to dismiss this as a bit of theater (which worked), but I think we should guard against such modern tendencies. This episode, combined with the rest of Xenophon’s account (he was no “feminist”), does show the regard the Greek soldiers had developed for their companions as well as the tradition of Amazon war dances.
In this light, Alexander’s translation intrigued me. Was “far-dancing” a poetic allusion to Myrine “dancing” her way all across Anatolia or, I suppose I might say, “war-dancing” her way across Anatolia? That was an inviting interpretation but not satisfying, especially in view of the other translations. Yet for a long time I was stymied.
Last week, given a spur by Eric Luttrell, I was able to track down the only other occurrence of the word polyskárthmoio in Classical literature outside the Iliad (from perseus.tufts.edu): Strabo’s Geography. Strabo quotes the line from the Iliad and says it means “much-bounding” which comports with the conventional translation, but he goes on to explain: “for they say that horses are called ‘well-bounding’ because of their speed, and that Myrine, therefore, was called ‘much-bounding’ because of the speed with which she drove her chariot.” (Loeb Classical Library, 1917.)
The source of the confusion now became clear: polyskárthmoio in this context is an idiomatic word for fast horses that are “well-bounding” or “much-bounding” and it is this connection with “bounding” that has been confusing translators for approximately ever. Strabo relates it to chariots, which makes sense from his perspective, but as the Amazons were cavalry, I contend that “swift-riding” is the better translation. It certainly seems to make more sense than “agile”, “lithe”, “leaping”, “skipping”, “peerless dancer” or the other modern translations I’ve encountered: tactical speed – which Strabo implies – is a much more fitting characteristic to apply to an Amazon queen than her dancing ability.
Thus, I submit the proper translation of Iliad 2.814 is:
Now there is a steep mound before the city, rising above the plain with open space all around. Men call it Batieia, but the immortal gods know it as the tomb of swift-riding Myrine.
I await any challenge from scholars more versed in ancient Greek than me, but for right now, I’m calling this a win. 😊
I also want to point out that the Iliad mentions Amazons three times, and this new understanding of polyskárthmoio has a some interesting implications for both history and legend, but I’ll leave that for another day.
Lastly, I’ll mention my other win last week: I discovered that the legend, Seven against Thebes (from one of our very few accepted fragments), begins by saying the heroes left from Argos. The book I found this in (Barker et al, 2020) describes it as “puzzling,” but as I noted previously, in 1350 BC the king of Mycenae deposed the royal family of Thebes and put a puppet king from Argos on the throne. The legend seems to retain that fact. This is further evidence the Greek legends retain more history than people often give them credit for.
I’m going to tuck these two wins under my belt and get back to work on West’s The Making of the Iliad. Stay tuned…
Works Cited
Barker, Elton T. E. and Christensen, Joel P. Homer’s Thebes: Epic Rivalries and the Appropriation of Mythical Pasts. Hellenic Studies, 84. Harvard University Press, 2020. https://www.academia.edu/49040921/Homer_s_Thebes_Epic_Rivalries_and_the_Appropriation_of_Mythical_Pasts
Mayor, Adrienne. The Amazons. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.
Strabo. Geography, books 1-17 in 8 volumes (Loeb Classical Library). Horace Leonard Jones Free Download Borrow and Streaming Internet Archive.
I’m posting the two relevant pages below at the suggestion of an astute reader, in case the translation offered might be subject variant interpretations.
