[In the following essay, Solmsen discusses Aratus's depiction of Dike, the maiden goddess of justice, and his vision of the Golden Age in the Phaenomena.]

Walther Ludwig's illuminating article¹ has shown how ingeniously and with how gentle a hand Aratus appropriates Hesiodic motifs and phrases. Availing myself of Ludwig's insights, I offer a few additional observations bearing on the section about the Παθένοs (vv. 96-136).

In the opening lines of this section Aratus professes to leave his readers a choice between three opinions about the origin or identity of the Maiden, but the second of these opinions is stated in so indefinite a form (εἴτε τευ ἄλλου scil. γενεή, v. 99, which means: or whether she has a father other than Astraeus²) that the choice practically narrows down to two possibilities. We may either regard the Maiden as a daughter of ‘ancient’ Astraeus or identify her with Dike, who in the early days dwelt among men on Earth. Astraeus is in the Theogony (vv. 376. 378-382), the father of all stars; Dike's experience with mortals is described in the Works and Days (vv. 217ff. 256-262). Evidently we are set for a journey across Hesiodic territory. Throughout the section Dike remains in the center and it gradually becomes clear that Aratus has decided to relate all that he has to say about her to the Hesiodic scheme of mankind's progressive decline from the condition of the golden age. For his purpose the first three γενεαί of Hesiod's five suffice (very understandably he stops at the point where the race of the heroes interrupts the downward trend). In the details of his account Aratus allows himself the utmost liberty; there is more inventio than imitatio, and if we look for verbal echoes we must content ourselves with a relatively small harvest. φῦλα γυναιaῶν (v. 103) is a Hesiodic ‘tag’³. With v. 104, where Dike takes her seat in the midst of mortals, Maass and Treu have compared the passage at the beginning (as we now know) of the Katalogoi about the aοινοὶ θόωaοι of gods and men⁴. V. 126, ἔσσεται ἀνθώποισι, aαaὸν δ' ἐπιaείσσεται ἄλγοs has now by Ludwig⁵ on ‘rhythmic’ and other grounds been linked to Op. 201 θνητοῖs ἀνθώποισι^. aαaοῦ δ' οὐa ἔσσεται ἀλaή, and I would suggest that there is a similar relationship between v. 110 χαλεπὴ δ' ἀπἔaειτο θάλασσα and Op. 151 μἔλαs δ' ἀπἔaειτο σσίδηοs (ἀπἔaειτο, not οὐa ἔσaε was obviously the reading which Aratus here found)⁶. ποθἔουσα παλαιῶν ἤθεα λαῶν (v. 116) recalls the description of the similarly—and for similar reasons—dismayed Dike in Op. 222⁷. Other echoes, limited to single words and not in every case beyond question, need not be listed. But on the content of the section something may still be said.

Wilamowitz⁸ pointed out that Aratus transfers to Dike what Hesiod had said of Aidos and Nemesis (Op. 197 ff.); as they leave the Earth when injustice and hybris are rampant, so Dike ἔπταθ' ὑπουανίη (v. 134) because she hated the increasing wickedness of man. That Dike was present among the golden race could be inferred from the word ἥσυχοι which Hesiod uses of it (v. 119) and perhaps even more confidently from his description of hybris as originating in the silver race (vv. 134f.). However Hesiod, as is well known, develops the opposition of Dike and injustice not in the myth of the ages but in the section subsequent to this myth. Here he draws the contrasting pictures of the just city which prospers and the unjust which is visited by Zeus' wrath and punishment. From the observations made by several scholars and now synthesized by Ludwig⁹ (who adds some of his own) it is evident that Aratus has introduced into his account of the golden age (vv. 100-114) motifs of Hesiod's just city. These motifs include—besides the central idea of the honored presence of Dike—the peaceful life unfamiliar with strife and war and the absence of navigation: χαλεπὴ δ' ἀπἔaειτο θάλασσα / aαὶ βίον οὔπω νῆεs ἀπόποθεν ἠγίνεσaον (vv. 110f.). These lines correspond to the clause οὐδ' ἐπὶ νηῶν νίσονται (Op. 236).

Even the modern reader of the Erga is likely to feel a certain similarity of tone and outlook between the description of the golden age and that of the just city¹⁰. But we are in the habit of ‘analyzing’ the poem and of dividing it into sections. Aratus, even if he could think in terms of parts or sections, would not hesitate to fuse conceptions that Hesiod had elaborated in different connections. My reason for making this rather obvious point¹¹ is that as soon as we recognize this ‘method’ of Aratus' procedure we may arrive at a new, and I hope better understanding of vv. 112f., where the interpreters have found a problem whose solution has so far eluded them.

Grammatically vv. 112f. are the continuation of the statement (just quoted) about the absence of navigation in the golden age; logically they are its complement: ἀλλὰ βόεs aαὶ ἄsοτsα aαὶ αὐτή, πότνια λαῶν, / μυία πάντα παεῖχε Δίaη, δώτεια διaαίων¹². The comment, made more than once, that oxen and ploughs have no place in the traditional account of the golden age is entirely correct. In Hesiod and ever after him it had been the prime boon of this paradisical condition that aαπὸν δ' ἔφεεν ζείδωοs ἄουα / αὐτομάτη πολλόν τε aαὶ ἄφθονον (Op. 117f.). Norden¹³ who may have been the first to notice Aratus' unorthodox departure thought that it should be attributed to Stoic influences. Wilamowitz protested¹⁴ when Norden's view had been taken up by others: »Ich traue dem Versuche nicht, aus Arat + Poseidonios eine altstoische Kulturgeschichte zu konstruieren; wer weiß denn, daß es überhaupt eine gegeben hat?« His own explanation was that since the stars, as Aratus states in the proem, have been created by Zeus to guide men in their work on the fields they must have served this purpose in every age, including the first; therefore even the golden race must have practised agriculture. I am not sure that Aratus had reasoned out matters so closely but, whether or not he had, the mention of oxen and ploughs in these Hesiodic surroundings has a significance which is independent of such explanations. Oxen and ploughs (or ploughing) bring the agricultural section of the Erga to mind¹⁵. Hardly any other words or motifs could ‘represent’ this central part of Hesiod's epic so effectively. When Aratus refers to the oxen a second time in his account of the ages (v. 132), he provides them with their Hesiodic epithet: βοῶν ἀοτήων (cf. Op. 405: βοῦν τ' ἀοτῆα), combining once more the βόεs- and the ἄοτα motif and confirming for his educated readers that in v. 112 Hesiod had been in his mind. Having previously fused the Hesiodic vision of the just city with that of the golden age, he goes in vv. 112f. a step farther, placing Hesiodic agriculture in the golden age and identifying the condition of life in which Justice was present and powerful as that of the peasant. This is his boldest and final integration of Hesiodic motifs and at the same time his most eloquent act of homage. The tribute paid to Hesiod is obvious but unobtrusive. We are not far from Vergil's aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat¹⁶. Whether Aratus' own contemporaries were ready for this ‘idealization’ of rural life is a question not easy to answer—Theocritus' ‘bucolic’ poetry seems to be conceived in a different spirit. The possibility that Aratus had recent authorities to bear out his departure need not be completely ruled out; if we were in a position to substantiate this hypothesis¹⁷ it would provide a welcome subsidiary explanation. It remains to mention Wilamowitz's observation that Hesiod's Δίaη has turned into Διaαιοσύνη; her θἔμιστεs (v. 107) are not enforcements of the law, verdicts, or punishments, but ordinances. Antigonos Gonatas, himself a δημοτιaὸs βασιλεύs, may have been pleased when reading of δημοτἔαs θἔμισταs¹⁸ (although the temptation is strong, I refrain from suggesting that Aratus chose these words to please his royal patron).

As Ludwig well says¹⁹, the Stoic poet Aratus could look upon Hesiod as a »Vorläufer seines Glaubens« concerning Zeus' providential care for man. The echoes—both of the Theogony and of the Erga—that have been noticed in the proem of the Phainomena are meant to acknowledge this kinship of outlook. Op. 398 ἔγα τά τ' ἀνθώποισι θεοὶ διετεaμήαντο is a line which must have impressed itself strongly upon Aratus' mind, all the more as τεaμαίεσθαι is one of his own favorite verbs and as he could find in Hesiod ample evidence that the divine (δια)τεaμαίεσθαι materializes through the constellations. In the proem of the Phainomena it is no longer the good Eris but Zeus himself who ἐπὶ ἔγον ἐγείει; he reminds men of their βίοτοs (here and elsewhere Aratus seems to correct Hesiod's aύψαντεs γὰ ἔχουσι θεοὶ βίον ἀνθώποισι)²⁰. The ἔγον of man is, as we may expect, defined in agricultural terms. In speaking of it Aratus uses a vocabulary which is partly but by no means entirely or even predominantly Hesiodic. His emphasis on the oαι, while appropriate to his own argument, is bἔound to remind us of Hesiod's persistent concern about oαι, ὡαῖα, ὥια ἔγα etc., and of the familiar fact that throughout his agricultural section Hesiod proceeds from season to season until the course of the year is completed²¹. In vv. 10-13 Aratus, stating and at the same time justifying the topic of his poem, becomes more specific about the manner in which Zeus has organized man's activities: αὐτὸs γὰ τά γε σήματ' ἐν οὐανo ἐστήιξεν … In the Theogony too, as Kurt Schütze has pertinently observed, Zeus στήιξε a σῆμα, namely the stone which Kronos had received from Rhea and swallowed: τὸν μὲν Zεὺs στήιξε aατὰ χθονὸs εὐυοδείηs … σῆμ' ἔμεν ἐξοπίσω²². But the σήματα in Heaven are much more in keeping with Zeus' august majesty, as a Stoic poet would conceive it, than the σῆμα on Earth. Grouped in constellations, they indicate to men the τετυγμἔνα ὡάων, ὄφ' ἔμπεδα πάντα φύωνται (vv. 12f.)²³. Thus one more reference to the oαι and one more to farming round off Aratus' definition of his subject which is to be the order that lies behind Hesiod's order. Later passages where Aratus while describing the constellations looks from the perspective of the Heaven upon the farmer's work answer as it were the verses of the Erga in which Hesiod turns from the farmer's occupations on Earth to the sky to find the constellation indicative of the right season²⁴. Zeus is αἴτιοs that the Pleiads announce the beginning (ἀχομνου) of winter and summer ἐπεχομἔνου τ' ἀότοιο (vv. 265ff.; cf. Op. 384 ἄχεσθ' … ἀότοιο)²⁵.

Notes

1. Die Phainomena Arats als hellenistische Dichtung, Hermes 91, 1963, 425ff., esp. 438ff.

2. The phrase leaves open the possibility of Zeus' paternity; for Zeus as father of Dike see Theog. 902, Op. 256. Cf. Ernst Maass, Aratea (Berlin, 1892) 277 and Jean Martin in his edition of Aratus (Florence, 1957) ad loc.

3. See Theog. 591 and for approximations in the Catalogues Theog. 1021 and Scutum 4 (both of them in truth Catalogue passages).

4. Pap. Oxyrh.2354,6f. = frg. 82 Rzach; see also R. Merkelbach, Die Hesiodfragmente auf Papyri (Leipzig, 1957) A 6f. Cf. Maass in his edition ad loc. and Aratea 275. Max Treu, Rh. Mus. 100, 1957, 169f.

5. loc. cit. 441.

6. ἀπἔaειτο is not an obvious word to use of the sea. In Op. 151 no manuscript but only Philostratus' quotation (v. Ap. 6,2) has preserved this reading which Wilamowitz in his edition of the Erga (Berlin 1927) does not even mention. Aratus' testimony alters the balance of probability for the text of Op. 151.

7. Cf. Maass, Aratea 276. With Phaen. 103 ἠνήνατο φῦλα cf. now Pap. Oxyrh. 2488 B 4 ἀ]παναίνετο φῦλον.

8. Hellenist. Dichtung (Berlin 1924) II 265. Cf. also Kaibel, Hermes 29, 1894, 85.

9. esp. 440.

10. See e.g. Wilamowitz's comments (in his edition p. 69) on Op. 231.

11. See again Ludwig 240f. and also his comments 241f. on the gain in depth and perspective achieved through these combinations.

12. It is considerably bolder to describe Dike as πότνια λαῶν (cf. Wilamowitz, Hell. Dichtg. II 269) than to call her δώτεια διaαίων with a variation of the phrase δωτῆεs ἐάων which Hesiod and the Odyssey use of the gods in general. I assume that παεῖχε has three subjects among which Δίaη is given prominence. Wilamowitz' alternative interpretation (ibid.) has, however, its attractions.

13. Jahrb. f. class. Phil. Suppl. 19, 1893, 426. Cf. also Kaibel, loc. cit. 83 and on Stoic sources e.g. Pasquali, Charites, Friedrich Leo … dargebracht (Berlin, 1911) 119f. (now also Herter, Maia n. s. 4, 1963, 477 n. 58). It should be mentioned that even in Hesiod the men of the golden race ἔγ' ἐνἐμοντο (Op. 119); cf. on this somewhat puzzling phrase the discussion in Entretiens sur l'antiq. class. 7, 1960, 199ff. Norden observed that Germanicus in his ‘version’ of the Phaenomena reintroduces the traditional αὐτόματον motif (v. 117 sponte sua).

14. op. cit. II 266.

15. ploughing: vv. 384, 405, 429ff., 432ff., 450, 458ff., 467 etc.; oxen: (46) 405 (406), 429, 434, 436ff., 452, 453, etc.

16. georg. 2,538; see now Ludwig 427 n. 1.

17. Theophrastus, according to whom the first men had a life of »troubles and tears« (cf. Porph. de abstin. 2,5f., esp. 135,9ff. Nauck), and Dicaearchus (frg. 49 Wehrli) are entirely on the side of the αὐτόματον tradition. The case for an early Stoic theory is, as we have seen, precarious. Wilamowitz (op. cit. II 266) says with regard to vv. 105ff. that Aratus' golden age has even »eine Art von Staat und Regierung«. This seems a slight overstatement. The idea of Dike's presence at that stage has (unlike that of oxen and ploughs) certain antecedents; see esp. Plato, Legg. 4,713 c—e, where after a reference to the αὐτόματον motif the Hesiodic ἀφθονία aαπῶν is turned into an ἀφθονία Δίaηs (cf. Entretiens, cited in p. 126 note 4, 191).

18. v. 107. The scholiast (p. 358 Maass) explains δημοτἔαs as παείαs aαὶ οὐ τυαννιaάs. Cf. Aelian, v. h. 2,20 (where Antigonos' remark about kingship as an ἔνδοξοs δουλεία is reported): 'Αντίγονόν φασι … δημοτιaὸν aαὶ πaον γενἔσθαι. See W. W. Tarn, Antigonos Gonatas (Oxford, 1913) 255f.

19. loc. cit. 442.

20. Phaen. 6f. (Hes. op. 20.42ff.). Cf. Kaibel, loc. cit. 83f., esp. 84 n. 2. for the valuable comments on Phaen. 768—772: Zeus reveals things to man, and there may even be a »progressive revelation.« See Pasquali loc. cit. (p. 126, n. 4) 121.

21. Op. 383-617; see e.g. vv. 422, 450, 494, 575 (but the ὥιον motif dominates also the precepts on navigation, v. 630, 642, 665 and occurs in later sections as well, vv. 695, 697).

22. Theog. 498 ff. Cf. Kurt Schütze, Beiträge zum Verständnis der Phainomena Arats (Diss., Leipzig, 1935) 29 n. 2. Theog. 779, which Maass cites in his edition ad loc., may also have been present to Aratus' mind yet seems less close to our passage.

23. In spite of Martin's learned note ad loc. I should regard the genitive as depending on τετυγμένα (in the sense of ‘ordered’). Martin rightly resists Wilamowitz's attempt of drawing ὡάων into the construction of the ὄφα clause.

24. Phaen. 264-267, 741-743; Op. 383-387, 565f., 598, 609f., 614f. (619f.).

25. Cf. Schütze's perceptive comments, op. cit. 22f.