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(300)

Brill’s New Jacoby, Second Edition

Theogenes (300)
(4,793 words)

This entry was prepared by Paola Ceccarelli and published

on 1 October 2017. Article Table Of Contents

About this Historian Biographical Essay

Bibliography

Historian: Theogenes
Jacoby number: 300
Attested works: On Aigina: F 1a, F 1b, F 2
Historian's date: uncertain
Historical focus: III. History of Cities and Peoples ( Horography and
Ethnography) | B. Authors on Single Cities and Regions | II.
Aegina
Place of origin: unknown

BNJ 300 F 1a

Source: Scholiast on Pindar, Nemean 3.21 (cf. Tzetzes on

Lykophron 176; Tzetzes, Chiliades 7.302-317)
Work mentioned: On Aigina
Source date: uncertain
1
 Source language: Greek
Source genre: Commentaries - Library of Congress
Fragment subject: Aetiology - Library of Congress
Textual base: Jacoby

Μυρµιδόνες ἵνα πρότεροι ὤικησαν] περὶ τῶν Μυρµιδόνων Η ̔ σίοδος µὲν οὕτω φησίν· <<ἣ δ'
ὑποκυσαµένη τέκεν Αἰακὸν ἱππιοχάρµην. | αὐτὰρ ἐπεί ῥ' ἥβης πολυηράτου ἵκετο µέτρον, | µοῦνος
ἐὼν ἤσχαλλε· πατὴρ δ' ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε, | ὅσσοι ἔσαν µύρµηκες ἐπηράτου ἔνδοθι νήσου, | τοὺς
ἄνδρας ποίησε βαθυζώνους τε γυναῖκας. | οἳ δή τοι πρῶτοι ζεῦξαν νέας ἀµφιελίσσας, | πρῶτοι δ'
ἱστί' ἔθεν νηὸς πτερὰ ποντοπόροιο>>. Θεογένης δὲ ἐν τῷ Περὶ Αἰγίνης οὕτω γράφει· Ἄλλοι δέ
τινες πιθανώτερον ἐξηγοῦνται περὶ τούτων. Ὀλιγανθρωπούσης γὰρ τῆς νήσου φασὶ τοὺς
ἐνοικοῦντας αὐτὴν ἐν σπηλαίοις καταγείοις διαιτᾶσθαι παντελῶς ἀκατασκεύους ὄντας, καὶ τοὺς
µὲν γινοµένους καρποὺς εἰς ταῦτα καταφέρειν, τὴν δὲ ἐκ τούτων ὀρυττοµένην γῆν ἐπὶ τὰ γεώργια
ἀναφέρειν, οὔσης ἐπιεικῶς ὑπάντρου καὶ ὑποπέτρου τῆς νήσου, µάλιστα δὲ τῶν πεδινῶν τόπων
αὐτῆς. Διόπερ ἀφοµοιούντων αὐτοὺς, ὡς εἶδον ταῦτα πράττοντας, τῶν ἔξωθεν ἐρχοµένων µύρµηξι,
Μυρµιδόνας κληθῆναι· µεθ' ὧν συνοικίσαντα τὸν Αἰακὸν τοὺς ἐκ Πελοποννήσου µεθ' ἑαυτοῦ
παραγινοµένους ἐξηµερῶσαί τε καὶ νόµους δοῦναι καὶ σύνταξιν πολιτικὴν, ᾗ χρησαµένους αὐτοὺς
παντελῶς δοκεῖν ἐκ µυρµήκων γενέσθαι ἀνθρώπους.

Where first the Myrmidons lived]: concerning the Myrmidons Hesiod (Hesiodos) speaks
thus: ‘And she conceived and bore Aiakos, delighting in horses. But when he came to the
full measure of very lovely youth, he chafed at being alone; and the father of men and gods
made all the ants that were in the lovely island into men and wide-girdled women. These
were the first who built ships with curved sides, and the first who used sails, the wings of a
sea-going ship’. But Theogenes in his On Aigina writes thus: ‘Others explain this situation
in a more credible way. They say that the island being sparsely populated, those who
inhabited her used to live in underground caves, leading a completely uncivilised
existence. They would bring the fruits of the earth there, and they would spread over the
fields the earth taken out of those caves, since the island is fairly cavernous and rocky,
especially in its flat parts. And for this reason, as those who came from outside, when they
saw them doing this, compared them to ants, they took the name of Myrmidons. And later,
when Aiakos had established there those who had come from the Peloponnesos with him,
he civilised them and gave them laws and a political organisation, and it definitely seemed
that they, making use of these rules, had become men from ants’. [a close rendition of
Theogenes’ text is also given by Tzetzes in his Commentary on Lykophron, 176, and in his
Chiliades 7.302-317].

BNJ 300 F 1b
2
 Source: Tzetzes, Exegesis in Homeri Iliadem 1.97-609, ad 180,
scholion 72
Work mentioned: On Aigina
Source date: uncertain
Source language: Greek
Source genre: Commentaries - Library of Congress
Fragment subject: Aetiology - Library of Congress
Textual base: A. Lolos, Der Unbekannte Teil der Ilias-Exegesis des
Iohannes Tzetzes (A 97-609), Königstein /Ts 1981

ὀλιγανδρούσης1 τῆς Αἰγίνης τὸ πρότερον, ὡς ἐν τῷ περὶ Αἰγίνης Θεαγένης φησί, οἱ ἐν αὐτῇ

ἄνθρωποι φόβῳ τῶν περιοίκων καὶ πειρατῶν ὑπὸ γῆν ἐποιοῦντο τὴν οἴκησιν καὶ ἐν σπηλαίοις
κατῴκουν, ἀνορύσσοντες δὲ τὴν γῆν τὸ ἐκφορούµενον χοῦν ταῖς γεωργίαις ὑπέφερον, Αἰακὸς δὲ
αὐτοῖς ἐξ Ἄργους ἐπελθὼν καὶ βασιλεύσας τῆς χώρας ἔδειξεν αὐτοῖς ἐµπορίαν καὶ πανηγύρεις καὶ
συνελεύσεις ποιεῖν καὶ πάντα ἁπλῶς ὅσοις ἀτικοὶ2 ἄνθρωποι χρῶνται· ὅθεν εἰρήκεσαν ὡς ἐκ
µυρµήκων αὐτοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐποίησεν. Τὸ δ᾿ ἀληθέστερον πάντων, οὕτως ἔχον ἐστί· Ζεύς τις
βασιλεὺς ἐξ Εὐρυµεδούσης τῆς Ἀχελῴου θυγατρός, Μυρµιδόνα γεννᾷ ἐν εἴδει µύρµηκος αὐτῇ
συµµιγεὶς τούτεστιν ἐν σπηλαίῳ, ὥσπερ µύρµηξ αὐτῇ συµµιγείς· ἐκ γοῦν τοῦ Μυρµιδόνος αὐτοῦ,
ὡς ἔφην, Μυρµιδόνες καλοῦνται.

And since in the beginning Aigina was sparsely populated, as Theagenes says in his On Aigina,
its inhabitants for fear of neighbours and pirates had their residences under the earth and
inhabited caves, and digging the earth they spread the excavated soil on their fields. But when
Aiakos came to them from Argos and became their king, he showed them how to conduct long-
distance commerce and festivals and assemblies and in fact everything which the Attic men do;
and from this they took their name, as if he had made them men out of ants. But the version
that is closest than all to the truth is the following: a king bearing the name of Zeus generates
Myrmidon from Eurymedousa, the daughter of Acheloos, having united himself to her in the
guise of an ant, that is, having had sex with her in a cave, as an ant; and from this Myrmidon, as
I said, they are called Myrmidons.

Apparatus Criticus
1
ὀλιγανδρούσης until ἀνθρώπους ἐποίησεν : This part has also been edited by Papathomopoulos
(1980), 67.
2
ἀττικοί ms., Lolos and Papathomoulos; ἀστικοί Koniaris AJPh 103 (1982) 114, possibly rightly.

3
 Commentary on the text

In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, F205 M.-W., the Myrmidons derived their name from that
of the ants (myrmekes), who were changed by Zeus into men out of pity for the loneliness of
Aiakos, his son by the nymph Aigina. Aside from this mythical explanation, there is a ‘rational’
explanation, attested in Strabo 8.6.16, 375C and in Theogenes, which derived the name from the
peculiar habits of these first inhabitants. For thematic links between the ants and the character
of the Aiginetans, as they are described in the rationalised explanations of the name, see J.
Carnes, 'The Aiginetan Genesis of the Myrmidons: A Note on Nemean 3.13-16', CW 84 (1990),
41-4.

Theogenes’ interpretation is attested by a passage from the ancient commentaries on Pindar,

and by three passages of Tzetzes; the story told is very much the same, and there are numerous
lexical and syntactical coincidences, as well as some interesting differences. In all versions there
is a clear passage from uncivilised to civilised habits; but in the Scholia on Pindar no mention is
made of military qualities, nor of ships and seafaring (surprisingly, since the Scholiast to Pindar
begins by citing a passage of Hesiod (Hesiodos), which closes with the construction of the first
ships), and the accent is put on the giving of laws and of political institutions. As for Tzetzes, in
his commentary on Lykophron (176), the teaching of τὰ πρὸς πόλεµον (‘the arts of war’) is the
only example of the civilizing factors introduced by Aiakos. On the other hand, piracy as a
negative condition and emporia, implying commerce, as a positive asset, feature importantly
both in Tzetzes’ Exegesis of the Iliad and in his Chiliades. Even before the publication of the
Exegesis, T.J. Figueira Aigina. Society and Politics (Salem, NH 1981), 16, had affirmed that if the
account of Chiliades 7.307-17 did indeed go back to Theogenes, then, since Tzetzes gave a large
part to naval matters (ignorance of seafaring v. 310, and building of ships v. 313), Theogenes
must have also spoken of the construction of ships as a follow-up to the civilizing elements
introduced by Aiakos. Seafaring was the most important characteristic of Aigina, for sea-power
and thalassocracy are in the tradition constantly linked to archaic Aigina (cf. Strabo 8.6.16,
Pausanias 2.29.5). Correspondingly, Theogenes seems to have attributed a highly positive value
to emporia and long-distance trade (cf. in part F1b; note also that the ὁλκάδας of Chiliades 7.310
and 313 are merchant ships).

A peculiar feature of F1b is the assimilation of civilised men to Attic men: this is not necessarily
a political claim, but may be interpreted in relation to the cultural influence of Athens over the
Greek world (so M. Papathomopoulos, Nouveaux fragments d’auteurs anciens (Ioannina 1980),
68-9, who refers to the Thucydidean and Isokratean tradition). Curiously Ovid, after stressing
repeatedly the close links between Aigina and Athens (Metamorphoses 485-6 and 507-10),
offers a version of the origin of the Myrmidons in which a pest, modelled on the famous
Athenian one, plays a role, inasmuch as it destroys the previous population of the island
(Metamorphoses 7.523-657): on this and on the possible Hellenistic antecedents, see F. Bömer,
P. Ovidius Naso. Metamorphosen, Buch VI-VII (Heidelberg 1976), 331-3. For an early association of
Aigina and Athens see however D. Fearn, Bacchylides. Politics, Performance, Poetic Tradition
(Oxford 2007), 90-93, with details on the Attic appropriation of Aiakos; G. Nagy, ‘Asopos and his
4 Multiple Daughters: Traces of Preclassical Epic in the Aeginetan Odes of Pindar’, in D. Fearn
 (ed.), Aegina: Contexts for Lyric Poetry (Oxford 2010), 45-78; and I. Polinskaya, A Local History of
Greek Polytheism: Gods, People, and the Land of Aigina, 800-400 BCE (Leiden - Boston 2013),
473-479, none of whom refer in this context to Theogenes. The reference to Attic men (ἀττικοί)
is also accepted by P. Janiszewski, The Missing Link. Greek Pagan Historiography in the second
half of the third century and in the fourth century AD (Warsaw 2006), 173 (but his translation is
imprecise). However, Koniaris (review of Papathomopoulos’ book, AJPh 103 (1982) 114)) may
well be right in thinking that ἀττικοί (Αttic men) should be corrected to ἀστικοί (civilised men) -
such a correction certainly yields a simpler and sensible meaning. In this case, speculations on
Theogenes’ reference to an Athenian cultural or political influence should be abandoned.

Another peculiar feature of F1b is that Aiakos is given an Argive origin. The Aiginetans
themselves may have favoured the Argive claim (so T.J. Figueira, ‘Aeginetan Independence’, CJ
79 (1983), 16 and n. 29, now reprinted with additions in: T.J. Figueira, Excursions in Epichoric
History: Aiginetan Essays (Lanham, MD, 1993), 19 and nn. 29 and 29a – but not all the texts he
quotes to this effect are pertinent), but there were rival traditions as to the origins of the
Aiginetans: in Herodotos 8.46.1 the Aiginetans are Dorians from Epidauros; in Scholia on
Pindar, Olympian 8.39b, they are Argives of Dorian race (so also Scholia on Pindar, Pythian
8.29a), but they come after the death of Aiakos under the guidance of Triakon. For Pausanias
2.29.5, they are Argives from Epidauros, led by Deiphontes some time after the death of Aiakos.
Strabo 8.6.16 (375C), in his rationalised history of the colonization of the island, mentions as
epoikoi Argives, Kretans, Epidaurians and Dorians. In two other versions of Theogenes’ text,
those preserved by Scholia on Pindar, Nemean 3.21 (F1a) and Tzetzes, On Lykophron 176, Aiakos
is connected to the arrival of people from the Peloponnesos. There might be a problem here in
mythical chronology since the arrival of the Dorians from the Peloponnesos is usually in the
ancient sources linked to the return of the Heraklidai, while Aiakos belongs to an earlier time
(A. Zunker, Untersuchungen zur Aiakidensage auf Aigina (St. Ottilien 1988), 63-4; I.L. Pfeijffer ,
Three Aiginetan Odes of Pindar. A Commentary on Nemean V, Nemean III and Pythian VIII
(Leiden 1999), 246-7); Polinskaya, A Local History of Greek Polytheism, 141-142, 226-227:
Theogenes’ version, in which Aiakos is the leader of settlers from the Peloponnese, ‘only
exposes a poorly patched up rift between the alternative traditions’). But nowhere in
Theogenes’ text are Aiakos or the Peloponnesians who come with him defined as Dorians: the
chronological inconsistency is avoided. More generally, it is unclear to what extent Theogenes
can be trusted to have preserved an ancient local tradition: he may have been not so much
interested in an exact exposition of ancient myths, as in their rationalisation (so Jacoby, FGrH
3b, Kommentar, 8).

The assessment of the character of Theogenes’ work is in part connected with the problem of
the extent of the quotation in F1b. A. Lolos, Der Unbekannte Teil der Ilias-Exegesis des Iohannes
Tzetzes (A 97-609) 1 (Königstein 1981), 180, Scholion 72, seems to assume that all of the
information goes back to Theogenes, while Papathomopoulos, Nouveaux fragments, 67
(followed by H.J. Mette, ‘Die “Kleinen” griechischen Historiker heute (Ergänzungen zu Lustrum
21, 5-43 bis zum Jahre 1984)’, Lustrum 27 (1985), 37, who did not know of Lolos’ edition) leaves
out the last sentence, on the union of Zeus and Eurymedousa. The ὡς ἔφην (‘as I have said’)
5 clearly harks back to the words with which Tzetzes had introduced the digression on the
 Myrmidons (Ταῦτα µέν εἰσι τὰ µυθικὰ ληρωδήµατα, ‘these are the mythical fables’, had been
Tzetzes’ commentary on Pythainetos ( BNJ 299 F2c = Exegesis in Hom. Iliad 1.180, Scholion 72),
taken up again after the citation from Hesiod (Hesiodos) with καὶ ταῦτα µέν, ὡς ἔφην, τὰ µυθικά·
τὸ δ᾿ἀληθὲς οὕτως ἔχει·, ‘and this, as I have said, is the mythical story; the reality is as follows’,
which served to introduce Theogenes’ interpretation). Tzetzes is thus closing his discussion.
This however does not necessarily mean that what we have here cannot be part of the material
transmitted by Theogenes: Tzetzes must have found this information somewhere, and his two
main sources on Aigina seem to be Pythainetos (whom he dismisses as an unreliable
mythographer) and Theogenes. Theogenes himself explicitly referred (at the beginning of F1a)
to a group of authors, which he esteemed ‘more credible’ (πιθανώτερον, which may be compared
to the ἀληθέστερον, ‘closer to the truth’, used here). Theogenes’ text may thus have contained
various rationalising accounts; notwithstanding Tzetzes’ enthusiasm for the second explanation
(τὸ δ᾿ ἀληθέστερον πάντων, ‘the version of all closer to the truth’), the first, deriving the name of
the Myrmidons from the initial poor conditions of life, and giving a much more complex
account of the development of civilisation on the island, will have had more weight with
Theogenes, as it is the better attested under his name.

As for the information given in the last sentence, it appears in a slightly different version in
Clemens of Alexandria, Protrepticus 2.39.6 (‘And what of the Thessalians? It is said that they
worship ants, since they consider that Zeus having taken the shape of an ant united himself to
Eurymedousa the daughter of Kletor and gave birth to Myrmidon’), in the Scholia to the
Protrepticus, p. 309 Stählin (where the rationalising tendency takes the shape of the
Amphitryon story: ὁ Μύρµηξ ὄνοµα κύριον ἀνθρώπου, ᾧ ὁµοιωθεὶς ὁ Ζεὺς µίσγεται Εὐρυµεδούσῃ, τῇ
Κλήτορος θυγατρί, γεννᾷ δὲ Μυρµιδόνα ἐξ αὐτῆς, ‘Myrmex was the name of a man; Zeus took his
aspect and united himself to Eurymedousa, the daughter of Kletor, and generated with her
Myrmidon’; interestingly, Scholion b Homer, Iliad A 180 preserve a unique variant of the Aigina
story, in which Zeus transforms himself into one of the girl’s relations, φασὶν Αἰγίνης τῆς Ἀ σωποῦ
ἐρασθῆναι τὸν Δία καί τῳ τῶν φίλων ἀπεικασθῆναι,‘they say that Zeus fell in love with Aigina
daughter of Asopos and took the aspect of one of her relations’: a transfer of the same motif on
two closely related stories?), and in Arnobius, Case against the Pagans 4.26. Closer to Tzetzes’
account are Ps.Clemens, Homilies 5.13 and Rufinus’ version of Ps.Clemens, Recognitions 10.22: In
both cases, Acheloos (and not Kletor) is the father of the nymph. These stories can ultimately
be traced back to the work of Eratosthenes of Cyrene (F89 Bernhardy), who is cited as authority
by both Isidorus of Sevilla (Isidorus Etymologies 9.76, Eratostenes autem dicit dictos Mirmidones
a Mirmidone duce, Iovis et Eurimedosae filio, ‘but Eratosthenes says that they were called
Myrmidons because of their leader Myrmidon, the son of Juppiter and Eurymedosa’) and
Servius auct. in Verg. Aeneid 2.7; the latter opposes Eratosthenes’ account to the traditional
fabula of the transformation of the ants into men upon Aeacus’ prayer to Juppiter (cf. A.
Cameron, Greek mythography in the Roman world (Oxford 2004), 191). Servius and Tzetzes are
the only authors in which Eurymedousa is mentioned in connection with the island Aigina; the
passages of Ps.-Clemens and Rufinus simply list transformations of Zeus, without geographical
indications. Clemens, Arnobius, and Isidorus (who mentions ants, but in connection with yet
another rationalistic interpretation), linked the story to the origin of the Thessalian Myrmidons.
6
 This is interesting because the Myrmidons were originally at home in Thessaly: see Jacoby,
FGrH 3b, Noten, 2, whose notion that the problem of the Myrmidons was not touched upon in
the Catalogue is probably wrong: see F. Prinz, Gründungsmythen und Sagenchronologie
(München 1979), 37-8, M.L. West, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Its Nature, Structure, and
Origins (Oxford 1985), 162-4; more generally, Zunker Untersuchungen, 61-2, 89, 230-1; A.P.
Burnett, Pindar’s Songs for Young Athletes of Aigina (Oxford 2005), 17-28; G. Nagy, ‘Asopos and
his Multiple Daughters’, in D. Fearn (ed.), Aegina: Contexts for Lyric Poetry (Oxford 2010) 52-62;
and commentary on Pythainetos BNJ 299 F2 and F5. We should thus assume an initial
Thessalian locale for the story of Eurymedousa and Zeus; whether the rapprochement with
Aigina was already operating in Eratosthenes is difficult to tell (the juxtaposition with Aiakos’
prayer may have been due to some later commentator). The presence in Tzetzes, Ps. Clemens
and Rufinus of Acheloos in the role of father of the nymph again points to links with Thessaly:
this Acheloos must be identified with the river close to the city of Lamia, in Thessaly,
mentioned by Strabo 9.5.10, 434C. One more variant is offered in another passage of Tzetzes,
Exegesis in Iliad 1.327, Scholion 85: in a short comment on the word Myrmidons, Tzetzes refers
to his previous discussion, but chooses to highlight only the version which made of Myrmidon
the son of Zeus and Eurymedousa or Arethousa: Μυρµιδόνες λέγονται, ἀπὸ Μυρµιδόνος τοῦ Διὸς
υἱοῦ καὶ Εὐρυµεδούσης ἢ Ἀρεθούσης τῆς Ἀχελῴου θυγατρός, καθὼς καὶ πρότερον πλειότερον ἔγραψα,
‘they are called Myrmidons from Myrmidon the son of Zeus and Eurymedousa or Arethousa,
daughter of Acheloos, as I explained in more detail’. It would have been interesting, in view of
the oscillation of the parentage of Eurymedousa between Kletor (an Arcadian hero, eponymous
of a city, as well as an Arcadian river) and the Thessalian river Acheloos, to know Eratosthenes’
opinion on the matter. The intrusion in Aiginetan mythology of a nymph Eurymedousa, mother
by Zeus of Myrmidon, may be explained as one of the many attempts at unifying Thessalian
and Aiginetan traditions on the origins of the Myrmidons. One such attempt was made in
Pindar’s Paean 6, which might allude to – or might have formed the basis of – the story of
Eurymedousa. In the first part of the paean, at 106-7, it is affirmed that Neoptolemos, after
having destroyed Ilion, did not see again the horses of the Myrmidons in the ancestral
(Thessalian) fields; Myrmidons appear however again in the last triad of the poem, at an earlier
chronological level, in connection with Aigina. At 123-5 the island is addressed with ‘you are
famous in name, island ruling (medeoisa) the Dorian sea’ (ὀνοµακλύτα γάρ ἐσσι Δωριεῖ µ[ε]δέοισα
[πό]ντῳ νᾶσος); the story of the union between Aigina and Zeus (ll.134-40) follows, and at l.143
the restoration Μυρ[µιδο-] (‘Myrmidon - ’) is commonly accepted. Thessalian and Aiginetan
Myrmidons are thus juxtaposed. The last triad however circulated also independently, as a
Prosodion for the Aiginetans in honour of Aiakos: G.B. D’Alessio, ‘Pindar’s Prosodia and the
classification of Pindaric Papyrus Fragments’, ZPE 118 (1997), 27, 56-9, I. Rutherford, ‘For the
Aeginetans to Aiakos a Prosodion: An Unnoticed Title at Pindar, Paean 6, 123 and its
significance for the Poem’, ZPE 118 (1997), 1-21, and now I. Rutherford, Pindar’s Paeans. A Reading
of the Fragments with a Survey of the Genre (Oxford 2001), 301-38. The island is strikingly
characterised with the participle medeoisa: Pindar’s Paean 6 might thus reflect the poet’s
knowledge of a version in which Zeus united himself with Aigina/Eurymedousa, or conversely,
such a story might have developed out of interpretations of this famous poem. But whether the
version featuring Eurymedousa and Zeus was narrated in the work of Theogenes (and whether
7
 he took it from Eratosthenes) or whether Tzetzes found it elsewhere is impossible to tell.

Commentary on F 1a and b

Theogenes’ fragment 1a is preserved as a decontextualized entry in the scholia to Pindar’s

Nemeans. These scholia have ‘an impressive pedigree’, as they preserve material that goes back
to Aristarchos of Alexandria and his successors; they are ‘virtually free of late interpolations’ (E.
Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship (Oxford 2007), 39). The information dovetails neatly with that
preserved by Tzetzes in three different works of his. Where Tzetzes found his information we
cannot know, nor is it entirely clear whether all of the information in F 1b goes back to
Theogenes (see Commentary on the text).

BNJ 300 F 2

Source: Scholia on Plato, Apologia 19C 421 Greene (= Vita

Aristophanis Koster XXXI 14-15)
Work mentioned: On Aigina
Source date: after 895
Source language: Greek
Source genre: Commentaries - Library of Congress
Fragment subject: Politics, National History - Library of Congress
Textual base: Jacoby

κατεκλήρωσε (scil. Ἀριστοφάνης ὁ κωµωιδιοποιός) δὲ καὶ τὴν Αἴγιναν, ὡς Θεογένης ἐν τῶι Περὶ
Αἰγίνης.

and Aristophanes apportioned Aigina, as Theogenes says in his work On Aigina.

Commentary on the Text

The information contained in this text has been reviewed more than once in connection with
another much discussed passage from Aristophanes, and with the information contained in the
Vita Aristophanis (Koster 28.22-25) and the Scholia on Aristophanes, Acharnians 654b1, 654b2
(the texts are all collected in Kassel-Austin, PCG 3.2 Aristophanes (Berlin 1984), test. 1, 3, 10). In
the parabasis of Aristophanes’ Acharnians , 652-4, the chorus-leader affirms that the
Lakedaimonians are trying to recover Aigina not because of the island itself but in order to rob
the Athenians of their playwright. This proves the existence of some kind of relationship
8
between Aristophanes and Aigina (the notion that the chorus might be referring to Kallistratos,
 the producer of the play, put forward by Scholia on Aristophanes, Acharnians 654b2, has
nothing to recommend it). To define this relationship is extremely difficult. The various
possibilities are synthetically laid out by S.D. Olson, Aristophanes. Acharnians (Oxford 2002),
241-2: either one branch of Aristophanes’ family was of Aiginetan origin, or Aristophanes’ father
received land in Aigina as a cleruch in 431, or Aristophanes himself resided there for some other
reason. For ample discussion, see T.J. Figueira, Athens and Aigina in the Age of Imperial
Colonization (Baltimore, MD, 1991), 80-8, who revives the thesis according to which
Aristophanes was an Aiginetan, descendant of one of those families who came to Athens as
refugees and settled around Sounion in 480 (Herodotos 6.90), and then went back to the island
when it was settled by Athens; see also E.K. Borthwick, ‘Aristophanes and the Trial of
Thucydides Son of Melesias (Acharnians 717)’, Phoenix 54 (2000), 204-5; O. Imperio, Parabasi di
Aristofane. Acarnesi, Cavalieri, Vespe, Uccelli (Bari 2004), 135-7; K. Sidwell, Aristophanes the
Democrat. The Politics of Satyrical Comedy during the Peloponnesian War (Cambridge 2009),
111-112.

As for our fragment, Jacoby, FGrH 3b, Kommentar, 8, assumed that Theogenes derived his
information from a source such as Scholia on Aristophanes, Acharnians 654b1 (the poet as εἷς
τῶν ἐν τῇ νήσῳ κληρουχησάντων, ‘one of those who came as cleruchs to the island’), and that
consequently he gave no credit – not even out of local patriotism – to the tradition which made
of the poet an Aiginetan. Against Jacoby’s skepticism, Figueira, Athens and Aigina, 56-7, has
pointed out that the rare form κατεκλήρωσε used by Theogenes cannot be considered to mean
‘to get an allotment, to inherit’, as in the middle voice, nor is it an equivalent of κατακληρουχέω;
the use of the active would imply that Aristophanes participated in the apportionment of
Aigina as an agent and not simply as a beneficiary while the settlement should not be
necessarily considered as a cleruchy. Theogenes would thus in fact here distance himself from
the tradition preserved in Scholia on Aristophanes, Acharnians 654b1, even if what he meant
affirming that Aristophanes ‘allotted Aigina’ remains unclear (Figueira, Athens and Aigina, 101).
Note however that Henderson, in his recent edition of Aristophanes, translates this passage
with ‘he owned land on Aigina’ (J. Henderson, Aristophanes. Fragments (Cambridge, Mass.
2008), 15). Making Aristophanes an Aiginetan would at any rate fit the patriotic interests of a
local historian (Figueira, Athens and Aigina, 87; see also T.J. Figueira, ‘Autonomoi kata tas
spondas (Thucydides 1.67.2)’, BICS 37 (1990), 81-2, now reprinted in T.J. Figueira, Excursions in
Epichoric History: Aiginetan Essays (Lanham, MD, 1993), 278-9: ‘That an Aiginetan celebrated
even a famous Athenian usurper or dispossessor is unlikely... Aristophanes may have been both
descended from the refugees of the 480s and a settler on Aigina in 431’).

Commentary on F 2

F 2 comes from a commentary by the byzantine bishop Arethas on Plato’s Apology. it is

impossible to know where Arethas found this piece of information.

Biographical Essay

Nothing is known of Theogenes; not even his name is certain, for the manuscript tradition
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 oscillates between Theogenes (Scholia on Pindar, Nemean 3.21 (cod. B), Tzetzes On Lykophron
176 (a: Parisinus 2723), Scholia on Plato 421 Greene) and Theagenes (Scholia on Pindar, Nemean
3.21 (codd. DP), Tzetzes Chiliades 7.308, Tzetzes On Lykophron 176 (codd. bc), Tzetzes Exegesis in
Homer, Iliad 1.180). Jacoby chose Theogenes as the better attested form, but on the basis of the
new evidence this can be disputed: see M. Papathomopoulos, Nouveaux fragments d’auteurs
anciens (Ioannina 1980), 67 and H.J. Mette, ‘Die “Kleinen” griechischen Historiker heute
(Ergänzungen zu Lustrum 21, 5-43 bis zum Jahre 1984)’, Lustrum 27 (1985), 37. P. Janiszewski, The
Missing Link. Greek Pagan Historiography in the second half of the third century and in the fourth
century AD (Warsaw 2006), 171-176, starting from the premise that it is most likely that the name
of the author of the On Aigina was actually Theagenes, makes a case for his identification with
the Theagenes (BNJ 774) known for having written Makedonika and Karika, and dates this
author to the second or third century AD, leaving open the possibility of an even later date.

However, it seems to me that independently of whether we choose to name the author of the
On Aigina Theogenes or Theagenes, Jacoby’s warning (FGrH 3b, Kommentar, 7) against the
identification of the two (BNJ 774 T 1) stands: both the character of the fragments and the
sources which have preserved them speak against the identification. The fragments of
Theagenes’ Makedonika tend to concern mythical aetiologies, and come all from Stephanos of
Byzantium , as does the one from the Karika, while the work On Aigina seems to have been less
concerned with myth than with rationalistic explanation and history, and is preserved by the
ancient commentators on Pindar, on Plato and on Aristophanes, and by Tzetzes: two totally
different sets of interests and authorities.

Theogenes’ period of activity can be dated on the basis of the characteristics of the one long
fragment of his we possess (F 1). In it, Theogenes pursues what could be termed an
euhemeristic, rationalizing approach (in Chiliades 7.307-8, Tzetzes explicitly opposes the
version of Theogenes to τὰ µυθικά). There are no strong arguments for dating his activity.
Papathomopoulos, Nouveaux fragments, 68 and n. 1, puts him in the third century BC (the
fragment ‘présente un thème assez banal d’historien évhémeriste du IIIe siècle avant J.-C.’).
Similarly, I. Polinskaya, A Local History of Greek Polytheism: Gods, Peole, and the Land of Aegina,
800-400 BCE (Leiden - Boston 2013), 426 dates him to the 4th/3rd century BC, with a question
mark; elsewhere in the book she defines him a ‘third-century epichoric historian’ (396). On the
other hand, the similarity with the way in which Strabo (8.6.16, 375C) interprets the myth of the
origins of the Myrmidons agrees with Jacoby’s proposal (FGrH 3b, Kommentar, 4) to date him to
the Roman period, all the more so since we do not have necessarily to see Theogenes in the φασί
(‘they say’) of Strabo, while Theogenes himself in F1a mentions an unknown number of
predecessors. E. Bux, ‘Theogenes (9)’, RE 5A2 (1934), cols. 1970-71, points out that Theogenes’
text is transmitted in the Scholia as embedded in a nest of citations, and he seems to be the last
one. F2 shows that his work (in one book?) went from the most ancient times to at least the
fifth century.

Bibliography
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 E. Bux, ‛Theogenes (9)’ , RE 5A2 ( 1934 ) , cols. 1970-1

P. Janiszewski, The Missing Link. Greek Pagan Historiography in the second half of the third
century and in the fourth century AD (Warsaw, 2006) , 171-76

M. Papathomopoulos, Nouveaux fragments d’auteurs anciens (Ioannina, 1980) , 67-70

Ceccarelli, Paola (University College London)

Cite this page

Ceccarelli, Paola, “Theogenes (300)”, in: Brill’s New Jacoby, Second Edition, General Editor: Ian Worthington (University of Missouri). Consulted online
on 22 November 2017 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1873-5363_bnj2_a300>

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