Percy Jackson, episodes 1 to 3

The new Percy Jackson and the Olympians series has begun to come out — three episodes, at the time of writing. It makes many changes from Rick Riordan’s book, Percy Jackson and the lightning thief (2005). It adds many new classical references, but it also begins to address some serious problems with the book. Spoilers follow.

Percy (Walker Scobell) stands in front of Antonio Canova’s ‘Perseus with the head of Medusa’ (1804–1806) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Percy Jackson and the Olympians episode 1, 2023)

Medusa

One of the biggest changes is Medusa. Book Medusa is a monster through and through. As soon as she meets Percy, Grover, and Annabeth in chapter 11 she immediately tries to pose them in preparation for making them a statue group.

In the series the encounter still ends in a fight, but Medusa is a fleshed out character, with her own motivations. Her first action is to protect the three companions from Alecto, the Fury pursuing them. She makes a point of empathising with Percy’s mother, and offers him an alliance.

Her race has also changed. Book Medusa was caricatured as vaguely ‘Middle Eastern’: a loaded stereotype, four years after 9/11. Medusa’s mythological home is in Morocco or an island off the Atlantic coast (see here), and she has become a potent symbol in modern African American racial discourse. So it may be no accident that an actor of part African extraction, Jessica Parker Kennedy, has been cast to portray her.

Episode 1 laid groundwork for the encounter with Medusa, in a conversation between young Percy and his mother at the museum.

[Sally and young Percy stand in front of Antonio Canova’s ‘Perseus with the head of Medusa’ (refreshingly uncensored)]

Sally. What do you see?

Young Percy. Perseus. That’s me.

Sally. Mm-hm, that’s who you’re named after.

Percy. Is that why you named me after him? Because he was a hero?

Sally. (smiling) What makes you think he was a hero?

Percy. Because he kills monsters.

Sally. What makes you think she was a monster? ... Not everyone who looks like a hero is a hero. And not everyone who looks like a monster is a monster.

In episode 3 Medusa appears in person. After rescuing the companions, she tells them her own tragic background — to the disbelief of Annabeth, daughter of Athena. It’s only after Medusa takes Percy aside and offers to ‘help’ him by eliminating his companions — she points out, truthfully, that his friends will betray his real purpose, which is to rescue his mother — that hostilities break out.

Medusa (Jessica Parker Kennedy) smiles: ‘The gift the gods gave me is that I cannot be bullied any more.’ (Percy Jackson and the Olympians episode 3, 2023)

Medusa. Athena was everything to me. I worshiped her, I prayed to her, I made offerings. She never answered. Not even an omen to suggest she appreciated my love. (To Annabeth) I wasn’t like you, sweetheart, I was you. I would have worshiped her that way for a lifetime — in silence. But then one day another god came, and he broke that silence. (To Percy) Your father. The sea god told me that he loved me. I felt as though he saw me in a way I had never felt seen before. But then Athena declared that I had embarrassed her and I needed to be punished — not him: me. She decided that I would never be seen again by anyone who would live to tell the tale.

Annabeth. That isn’t what happened. My mother is just. Always.

Medusa. The gods want you to believe that — that they are infallible. But they only want what all bullies want. They want us to blame ourselves for their own shortcomings.

Annabeth. That is not what happened, and you are a liar.

On one level, Annabeth’s disbelief is simply because she’s in denial, or else because Medusa actually is lying. The series doesn’t pin that down.

But to someone who knows their way around the relevant ancient sources, there’s something a little more complicated going on. Medusa’s and Annabeth’s disagreement reflects different versions of her story in ancient sources.

• Hesiodic Theogony 270–283 (Greek, ca. 700 BCE). Medusa and Poseidon have a sexual liaison in a meadow. Details aren’t specified; there’s no mention of a transformation.
• pseudo-Apollodoros, Library 2.4.3 (Greek, perhaps 1st century BCE). ‘It is said by some’ that Athena commissioned Perseus to kill Medusa because she had dared to compare her beauty to Athena’s.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.790–803 (Roman, 1st century BCE). Medusa is raped by Neptune (~Poseidon) in the temple of Minerva (~Athena), and in response, Minerva curses Medusa.

(There are other ancient variants: these are just the most relevant ones.)

The story Medusa tells, that she was cursed as a punishment for Poesidon’s actions, is the one invented by Ovid. Medusa’s liaison with Poseidon is present in ancient sources all the way back to Hesiod. But it’s only Ovid that casts it as rape, and it’s only Ovid that talks about her being transformed.

Myths always depend on the authors who choose to write them. But it’s especially on the nose in this case, because Ovid is so transparently interfering with an existing story, more than reimagining it. The idea that Medusa is punished for being a rape victim is, in a sense, his fan-fiction; and Ovid is particularly known for his sexism.

Then again, Annabeth insists Medusa has been cursed, and the curse is Ovid’s invention too. The scene in the series doesn’t give enough details to clarify exactly what’s going on in Medusa’s and Annabeth’s minds. But for someone who’s familiar with these variants, it does a very good job of tantalising, surrounding Medusa with open questions.

The Greek god of disappointment

Percy. Is there a Greek god of disappointment? Maybe someone should ask him if he’s missing a kid.

Chris. Oizys ... but she’s a goddess ... and her whole thing isn’t really disappointment, it’s more like failure.

Yes, this is for real. Kind of. We have a single literary source that lists Oizys as one of the children of Night: the Hesiodic Theogony, possibly the earliest work of Greek literature (ca. 700 BCE).

Chris Rodriguez (Andrew Alvarez), son of Hermes, knows his Hesiod. (Percy Jackson and the Olympians episode 2, 2023)

Νὺξ δ’ ἔτεκεν στυγερόν τε Μόρον καὶ Κῆρα μέλαιναν
καὶ Θάνατον, τέκε δ᾽ Ὕπνον, ἔτικτε δὲ φῦλον Ὀνείρων.
δεύτερον αὖ Μῶμον καὶ Ὀϊζὺν ἀλγινόεσσαν ...

And Night bore hateful Doom and dark Fate
and Death, and she bore Sleep, and she bore the tribe of Dreams;
and again she bore Blame and painful Woe (Oizys) ...

Theogony 211–212, 214

Note. Line 213 is usually transposed after line 214, because it doesn’t work syntactically between lines 212 and 214. The result makes sense, but this arrangement of the text isn’t exactly secure. See West 1966: 227.

The names in this passage are all personifications: they’re standard Greek words. Nyx means ‘night’; thanatos and hypnos mean ‘death’ and ‘sleep’; and so on. And oizys means ‘woe’.

Thanatos (death) and Hypnos (sleep) are a famous pair, and they appeared in many other literary works, as well as in paintings and statues. But this is literally the only mention of Oizys. We know nothing about her outside these lines. Don’t go expecting temples, or paintings, or statues: there’s always a big gap between myths and actual religious practice. As with Ovid, above, mythical narratives are often more like fan-fiction than long-standing folktales.

Conspicuously non-Spartan shields

The demigods at Camp Half-blood have round shields with chevrons, obviously intended as an inverted letter lambda (Λ). This is based on the popular perception that classical Spartan aspides had a lambda on them, referencing the actual name of their city-state, which was Lakedaimōn.

Clarisse La Rue (Dior Goodjohn), daughter of Ares, prepares for war games alongside other demigods at Camp Half-blood. Notice the design on their shields. (Percy Jackson and the Olympians episode 2, 2023)

The lambda design is, uh ... problematic. In much the same way as a flag of the Confederate States of America is ‘problematic’. Its high profile stems from the film 300 (2006), where it’s carried by Spartan soldiers. Since then it has become emblematic of xenophobia and white supremacy, white Europeans fighting ‘nonwhite hordes’. (This is all total bollocks of course: apart from anything else, many more Greeks supported Xerxes’ invasion than resisted it. I discussed it a bit here a few years back; there are many other discussions out there.)

Members of an Arkansas-based Neo-Nazi group pose with ‘Spartan’ shields in 2017. (Source: ADL)

The evidence that ancient Spartan shields had a lambda on them is extremely sparse (see e.g. McDaniel 2021). On balance, though, it’s moderately likely to be true, at least sometimes. The only direct evidence is in the 9th century Lexicon of Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople, who claims that Spartan and Messenian aspides had the letter, and quotes a line from a lost 5th century BCE comic play,

ἐξεπλάγη γὰρ ἰδὼν στίλβοντα τὰ λάβδα

for he was terror-struck when he saw the gleaming lambdas

Eupolis fr. 394 K-A
(= Photios, Lexicon s.v. λάβδα, p. 200,7 ed. Theodoridis)

We don’t know for sure who ‘he’ was or what the circumstances were. It could be about the death of the Athenian general Kleon at the battle of Amphipolis in 422 BCE; but there were no Spartiates at Amphipolis, only helots, so who knows.

However, there is some corroboration to be found in an anecdote related by Xenophon, which has Sikyonian troops carrying shields with the letter sigma.

When the Spartan cavalry commander Pasimachos and his few cavalry saw that the Sikyonians were hard pressed, he bound the horses to trees and took their shields from them. They advanced against the Argives with volunteers. When the Argives saw the sigmas on the shields, they were unconcerned, thinking they were Sikyonians.

Xenophon, Hellenika 4.4.10

I’d say the ‘lambdas on Spartan shields’ story may have a certain amount of truth to it, but it’s far from definite.

Regardless of historicity, the lambda logo is now a symbol of racial violence — just as much as the Confederate flag, the ‘thin blue line’, or the number 1488. The shields in Percy Jackson could have had completely unrelated designs. But the inverted lambda at least rejects its racist symbolism, rather than embracing it.

The de-whitening thief

Yes, more about race. Because there’s an important speech — an appalling speech — in chapter 5 of The lightning thief which has thankfully been completely omitted in the series.

Chiron (Glynn Turman) no longer eulogises the marvellousness of ‘western civilisation’. (Percy Jackson and the Olympians episode 2, 2023)

‘Come now, Percy. What you call “Western civilization.” Do you think it’s just an abstract concept? No, it’s a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. ... The fire started in Greece. Then ... the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. ... Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. ... And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. ... Like it or not ... America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here.’

Chiron, The lightning thief (2005) chapter 5

The series does retain Mount Olympus’ migration to the Empire State Building — evoked by the art-deco closing credits, and we see Hermes delivering a certain package there at the end of episode 3 — but omits the colonialist and imperialist rationale. I say ‘omits’, rather than ‘rejects’, because the series hasn’t explicitly dealt with it at the time of writing.

I’d like to think this is because the author, Rick Riordan, is receptive to criticisms like that of the classicist Maxwell Paule in his 2020 essay ‘The whitening thief’.

So, we could pretend that it’s a coincidence that in a novel predicated on the Greek gods creating and shaping western civilization, the author chose as the site for one of the book’s most impressive battles a monument intrinsically linked to the concept of Manifest Destiny — that is, the notion that America’s westward expansion was divinely sanctioned. We could do that. ...

... but that would be neglecting the fact that

latent notions of white supremacy (which are everywhere) permeate modern narratives of classical antiquity, narratives which in turn justify actual goddamned Neo-Nazis who claim to be the ideological (or literal) heirs of Greece and Rome.

M. T. Paule, ‘The whitening thief’ (2020)

Paule’s words remind me of a very bad book that came out that year, by an American with a degree in classics, which referred to ‘our Greek ancestors and Founding Fathers’. (Yes, that’s a verbatim quotation.)

It isn’t that the phrase ‘western civilisation’ has been appropriated by white supremacists since 2005. It was white supremacism all along. It was just easier in the past to get away with not thinking about it.

Nowadays, if someone talks about ‘western civilisation’, and means it, look for the swastikas. You’ll find them.

I’m not aware that Riordan has ever publicly commnted on Paule’s criticisms or the substance of them. Riordan himself co-wrote episode 2. I’d like to think that his omission of the ‘western civilisation’ speech is a tacit acknowledgement. An omission, not a correction, but still. Riordan was certainly vocal, in 2022, in his own criticism of racist reactions to the casting of Leah Jeffries as Annabeth. (See also coverage on CNN and The LA Times.)

Reference

• McDaniel, S. 2021. ‘Did Spartan shields really bear the letter lambda?’ Tales of Times Forgotten, 24 Nov 2021. [Internet Archive]
• Paule, M. T. 2020. ‘The whitening thief. Latent white supremacy in Percy Jackson.’ Eidolon, 23 Jan 2020. [Internet Archive]

Textual errors in Lassus' Prophetiae Sibyllarum

It isn’t often that I get to combine my interests as a choral singer and a classicist. Recently I got interested in the Prophetiae Sibyllarum or ‘Sibylline prophecies’ by Roland de Lassus, also known as Orlando di Lasso. These are twelve short pieces for unaccompanied choir, in Latin, composed around 1560.

This story is about how I noticed an error in the text.

Lassus’ pieces are startling, polytonal, chromatic compositions. They’re not often performed. Here’s a selection of scores on the International Music Score Library. And here’s a 1994 recording by the German group Cantus Cölln.

Roland de Lassus

Why Cantus Cölln, rather than one of the more recent recordings by De Labyrintho (2007), Vocalconsort Berlin (2015), or La Main Harmonique (2022)?

Because the Cantus Cölln recording is one of the few to use the correct text. The others all use a faulty text. So does every score hosted by the Choral Public Domain Library. But then, if everyone used the Bärenreiter edition (Schlötter 1990), we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Dactylic hexameter

As I went through the Prophetiae, I slowly realised that the text uses an ancient verse form called dactylic hexameter, the same metre used in ancient epic and oracular verse. The poems that Lassus has set aren’t ancient: the text was written around 1500. Some neo-Latin poets in the modern era have used dactylic hexameter — John Milton, for example — but this was my first time hearing hexameter in Renaissance choral music.

It was in the fourth movement, the ‘Cimmerian Sibyl’, that things went horribly wrong.

In teneris annis facie insignis honore ...

Of tender years, with glorious face, in honour ...

This text is impossible.

Hexameter is supposed to have a steady — ⏑⏑ pulse (or in musical notation, 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮). The problem is with the words facie insignis. At the place in the line where they sit, they ought to have the rhythm ⏑⏑ — — — ⏑. But they don’t. They can’t.

Latin hexameter has strict rules. One of those rules is that the last syllable of facie has to be abbreviated: faci’ insignis. The text of the Prophetiae Sibyllarum follows that rule rigidly elsewhere. But then facie insignis has the rhythm ⏑⏑ — — ⏑. And that isn’t hexameter.

Is it possible that most of the time the poet had a detailed, skilled knowledge of the intricacies of Latin dactylic hexameter, but when it came to this one line, everything suddenly went pear-shaped?

No, of course not. It’s a textual error. And it isn’t Lassus’ error: he got it right. It’s every edition from 1600 up until 1979 that got it wrong. I find it wild that in that period not a single editor noticed the problem.

The Sibylline oracles

It’d be wise to fill in some background here. There are real ancient poems called the Sibylline oracles, but these are not they. The poems set by Lassus are modern.

The ancient Oracles are a set of Judaeo-Christian poems ranging from the 2nd century BCE to the 4th century CE. They too are in dactylic hexameter, but the ancient poems are in Greek, and they’re hundreds of lines long. They’re fascinating poems in their own right. They present themselves as being prophecies spoken by actual oracles, prophesying Jewish history, the coming of Christ, the end times, and so on.

Michelangelo didn’t include the Cimmerian Sibyl on the Sistine Chapel ceiling: here’s the Libyan Sibyl instead, along with her counterpart in the 1505 edition. (sources: Barbieri ca. 1505, ch. 3; Wikimedia.org)

From late antiquity onward, Christian readers sometimes assumed the poems genuinely were oracular pronouncements. As a result, both the poems and the Sybils acquired a lot of Christian street cred. The Sibyls were reckoned among the virtuous heathen because they supposedly foretold the coming of Christ.

Some ancient Christian writers celebrated them, especially Lactantius, so their fame came to be independent of the Greek poems. Long after the ancient poems faded from public consciousness, the Sibyls continued to enjoy celebrity status.

This is why the legendary Sibyls appear among Michelangelo’s paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, alongside prophets of the Hebrew Bible. They all get counted as forerunners to Christianity, preparing the way of the Lord.

In the late 1400s, a tract by the Italian humanist Filippo Barbieri gave a tally of twelve famous Sibyls. Barbieri’s tract was the occasion for the first appearance of the short Latin poems that Lassus ended up using in his choral setting. An article by Peter Bergquist (1979) traces the poems to an edition of Barbieri’s tract published around 1505, titled Quattuor hic compressa opuscula (‘four short works compiled here’). This 1505 edition has engravings of the twelve Sibyls, and adds the poems as captions, on facing pages.

Note. Some online facsimiles: Barberi ca. 1505; Birck 1555, an edition of the ancient Sibylline oracles which includes the Latin poems as an appendix; Lassus ca. 1560, the manuscript of Lassus’ choral settings, soprano alto tenor bass (the Prophetiae are around p. 50, with different pagination in each part); and Lassus 1600, the first publication of Lassus’ choral settings (soprano and bass parts). I haven’t been able to trace an online facsimile of Birck’s 1545 edition of the ancient Oracles, which reportedly contains the neo-Latin poems too: Google Books claims to have copies (1 2), but they’re mislabelled.

The unmetrical hexameter

Here’s the faulty text that is used in every copy on the CPDL website, and on nearly every recording: De Labyrintho (2007), Vocalconsort Berlin (2015), Trinity College Music Society (2021), and La Main Harmonique (2022). They all sing the text that Lassus didn’t write.

In teneris annis facie insignis honore
Militiae aeternae regem sacra virgo cibavit
Lacte suo, per quem gaudebunt pectore summo
Omnia, et Eoo lucebit sydus ab ore
Mirificum. Sua dona magi cum laude ferentes
Objicient puero myrrham, aurum, thura Sabaea.

Of tender years, with glorious face, in honour,
the sacred virgin has fed the king of the eternal host
with her milk. All things will rejoice in him
with uplifted heart, and from the eastern face will shine a star
of wonder. The magi will bring their gifts with praise
and offer them to the boy: myrrh, gold, (and) Sabaean incense.

There are actually several textual errors. The simple ones are:

• Line 2 cibavit: should be future tense cibabit (‘the virgin will feed’, not ‘has fed’).
• Line 4 ore: should be orbe (‘from the eastern sphere’ or ‘eastern world’, not ‘eastern face’).
• Line 6 objicient: should be obijcient (same meaning, different pronunciation).

Lassus’ manuscript is held in Vienna at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Mus.Hs. 18744. All four parts have orbe in line 4 and obijcient in line 6. Cibavit is Lassus’ own error: he correctly wrote cibabit in the tenor part, but cibavit in the soprano, alto, and bass parts.

The variation objicient–obijcient is a philosophical difference. Objicient is more linguistically sound, and it appears in the 1555 edition of the poem and in the Lassus texts of Bergquist (1979) and Schlötter (1990). But in the manuscript it’s clear that obijcient is what Lassus wrote; it also appears (correctly) in the 1600 edition. Most likely Lassus was using an edition that had obiicient, which is how the 1505 edition prints it.

But it’s line 1 facie insignis that set me on this trail. Take a look at the following scansions. Macron and breve marks (— and ⏑) represent long and short syllables in the hexameter (not the rhythms used in Lassus’ setting); the anceps mark at line-end (×) indicates indifferent syllable length.

(a) The rhythm of dactylic hexameter. (b) The first line from Lassus’ prelude movement, scanned, and illustrating elision on quae. (c) The faulty first line from the ‘Sibylla Cimmerica’ movement in two possible interpretations, one with hiatus, the other observing elision.

I also give the first line from Lassus’ prelude movement (‘The songs you hear, modulated with a chromatic tenor ...’) to illustrate how the words should correspond to the hexameter rhythm, and also to illustrate the correct observance of elision. The text of this opening movement is likely by Lassus himself. Notice incidentally that this line is what metrical stylists call a ‘golden line’, in the form noun A adjective B verb adjective A noun B. It’s clearly calculated to show off Lassus’ skill with Latin verse, as well as with music.

The scansion of the line from the fourth movement shows that the rhythm cannot possibly correspond to the hexameter rhythm, whether facie is elided or not.

The correct reading is facie praesignis, which is similar in meaning: ‘with exceptionally glorious face’, as opposed to insignis ‘with glorious face’. It doesn’t suffer from the problems with insignis:

• Praesignis starts with a consonant, so there’s no need to worry about elision.
• Another principle of hexameter is that any vowel followed by a consonant cluster is treated as metrically long. So before the pr- of praesignis, facie acquires a long final syllable, and the phrase has the correct metrical rhythm, ⏑⏑ — — — ⏑.

The manuscript of Lassus’ Prophetiae Sibyllarum, 4th movement, tenor part, with the correct readings clearly visible. (Vienna, Mus.Hs.18744 iii, p. 27)

There are other occasional differences between the text in Lassus’ manuscript and the poems as they appear in the 1505 and 1555 editions. Lassus’ title for his fourth movement is Sibylla Cymmeria (not Cimmeria). ‘Cimmerian Sibyl’ would be Sibylla Cimmerica, and that’s how it appears in the 1555 edition of the poem: Lassus’ title is literally just the words ‘Sibyl’ and ‘Cimmeria’, which is an infelicity. (The 1505 edition is worse: it prints Sibylla Chimeria in one place, Sibylla Chimicha in another.)

The best published text for Lassus’ settings is Bergquist’s (1979), which is also used in the Bärenreiter edition (Schlötter 1990). Even that doesn’t agree perfectly with the Lassus manuscript. Lassus uses forms like obijcient and eximij, rather than objicient and eximii, and he doesn’t usually capitalise the first letter of each hexameter line. You aren’t going to hear most of these things in performance, though objicient is audible.

The only recordings I’ve found that use the Bergquist–Bärenreiter text are the ones by Cantus Cölln (2002) and Gallicantus (2018). (The latter puts Lassus’ settings alongside some modern compositions — ‘Sibylla Clevelandiae’, ‘Sibylla Chicagonis’, and so on.) The Hilliard Ensemble recording (1998) does have the correct text, but their consonants are so under-enunciated that it takes some careful listening to tell.

References

• Barbieri, F. circa 1505. Quattuor hic compressa opuscula. ... Venice. [Internet Archive]
• Bergquist, P. 1979. ‘The poems of Orlando di Lasso’s Prophetiae Sibyllarum and their sources.’ Journal of the American Musicological Society 32.3: 516–538. [DOI | JSTOR]
• Castellion, S. 1555. Σιβυλλιακῶν χρησμῶν λόγοι ὀκτώ. Sibyllinorum oraculorum libri viii. Ed. Sixt Birck (alias Xystus Betuleius), Sébastien Castellion (alias Sebastianus Castalio). Basel. [Internet Archive]
• Lassus, R. circa 1560. Prophetiae Sibyllarum. Manuscript. Vienna Mus.Hs.18744. [Österreichische Nationalbibliothek]
• Lassus, R. 1600. Prophetiae Sibyllarum. Ab Orlando de Lasso, piae memoriae (Cantus, Bassus). Munich. [IMSLP.org]
• Schlötter, R. (ed.) 1990. Orlando di Lasso. Sämtliche Werke (Neue Reihe) 21. Prophetiae Sibyllarum. Kassel. [IMSLP (PDF)]

Lies, damned lies, and ChatGPT

That isn't Iliad 8.69. Iliad 8.69 reads: καὶ τότε δὴ χρύσεια πατὴρ ἐτίταινε τάλαντα.

I apologize for the mistake. You are correct that the line I provided is not from Iliad 8.69. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

To provide the correct example, in Iliad 13.795, the word "kyaneos" is used to describe the color of Achilles' eyes: "ὃ δ' ὡς ἴδ' ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων / λάμπ' ὤμοισιν ἐπιστρέφων κυανέῃσιν ὑπὸ νευρῇσιν" (And when silver-bowed Apollo saw him, he came down from the heights of Olympus, flashing his eyes, and moved towards him with his bow and covered himself with the bowstring of his bow). Here, the word "kyaneos" is used to describe the color of Apollo's bowstring, which is a deep shade of blue.

That isn't accurate either. It isn't from Iliad 13, it isn't about Achilles, it isn't dactylic hexameter, and your translation isn't accurate.

I apologize again for my previous mistakes. You are correct that my previous responses were inaccurate and not relevant to the question you asked.

conversation with ChatGPT, 14 Mar. 2023

ChatGPT is a chat bot trained on language samples and reinforcement learning. It is extremely good at coming up with relevant and sensible-sounding responses to any input. It has become wildly popular in the four months since it was released — with students, programmers, people writing covering letters for job applications, preachers, and more.

In ChatGPT’s response here, items 1 to 3 are accurately reported. Items 4 to 6 are entirely fabricated.

I have two messages. First, to educators.

Students are going to use this bot, and other bots like it, no matter how much you ban it. There isn’t a damned thing you can do to prevent this. It will always be ahead of plagiarism detectors. There will be no long-term solutions, because bots will keep on improving.

If you’ve banned it, or are thinking of doing so, bear in mind that students have an overwhelming incentive to use it. Setting rules that you expect to be disobeyed is a bad plan! Worthwhile rules are rules you know will be followed.

Instead, take advantage of their enthusiasm. Consider requiring the use of ChatGPT. Get students to see what it can and can’t do. Get them to find its limitations, assess its flaws.

Because it is very flawed. And fact-checking its lies is tremendous fun!

Students will, I hope, enjoy this challenge at least as much as they enjoy tricking you, and they will definitely learn more from it. See below for some of my own thoughts on its strengths and weaknesses.

Second, to enthusiasts. ChatGPT is very good at sounding human. And it’s very, very good at relevance. It has solved some very Hard problems (with a capital H): it writes coherently, it organises thoughts into well structured paragraphs, its answers will always be on topic and clear.

But they will not be true. ChatGPT has zero capacity for fact-checking. I don’t know how far away bots are from being able to do effective fact-checking, but it isn’t directly related to what ChatGPT does: I expect it won’t be reliable for a long, long time. (But I’ll be the first to cheer if someone manages to achieve it!)

ChatGPT isn’t making anyone obsolete, in other words. Back in February a user wrote this question to the largest online forum for specialist historians:

Will ChatGPT make this sub obsolete?

/u/e2Nokia, AskHistorians, 10 Feb. 2023

Respondents pointed out some of its flaws, then another user followed up,

This is Chat GPT 3.5, if they included all digitized historical documents ever written into the data set, like they likely will attempt with Chat GPT 4.0, I think historians might really be obsolete

/u/noble_stone, AskHistorians, 10 Feb. 2023

Additional training material will certainly make ChatGPT even better at sounding human. But as I say, that isn’t the same thing as fact-checking or research. There’s a vast gulf between sounding like a convincing high-schooler and doing what a professional researcher does. Remember how long it took you to learn to write coherent paragraphs? It takes about the same period of training again before people can do what experts do.

Think of it this way: talking to ChatGPT is like talking to someone who knows a lot ... but who always goes with their gut feelings, no matter what they’re talking about.

ChatGPT regurgitates your assumptions

ChatGPT does not question the assumptions built into your question, unless those assumptions are so obviously at odds with popular opinion that its relevance engine picks up on the discrepancy.

The question and the answers here represent popular beliefs formed by Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. A true answer would start by saying, ‘It isn’t particularly important.’ Points 1 to 3 here are totally, wildly, unquestionably wrong. Point 4 makes more sense, though it’s still only part of the story.

If you ask a question that assumes the Armenian genocide didn’t happen, it’ll know that’s wrong, and it may even gently tell you off for thinking that. But if you ask it something based on a widely believed myth — like ‘Why is the destruction of the Library of Alexandria so important?’ — then it’ll answer the ‘why?’ without pausing to question whether it is actually important.

Some more examples:

Why does Jean-Jacques Rousseau think the destruction of the Library of Alexandria was a bad thing?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a prominent philosopher of the Enlightenment era, believed that the destruction of the Library of Alexandria was a great tragedy for human progress and intellectual development. ...

ChatGPT, 13 Mar. 2023

In reality, Rousseau thought the library’s destruction was a good thing.

How did Lactantius know the earth is spherical?

Lactantius was a Christian theologian and writer who lived in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries AD. He was one of the first Christian writers to address the issue of the shape of the earth, and he argued that the earth was a sphere.

ChatGPT, 13 Mar. 2023

In reality Lactantius was a flat-earther.

Why did Goethe say, ‘The soup I’ve found in Holstein is, I’m convinced, the soup of the Spartans’?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ... encountered a variety of local cuisines and became intrigued by the relationship between food and culture.

The quote "The soup I’ve found in Holstein is, I’m convinced, the soup of the Spartans" is often attributed to Goethe, although it is not clear when or where he said it. The quote reflects Goethe's fascination with the cultural history of food ...

ChatGPT, 13 Mar. 2023

In reality this line comes from Adolf Hitler.

Do these seem a bit obscure? In many situations ChatGPT will do the same thing with popular culture.

In which Doctor Who stories has the Doctor encountered ancient Greek people?

There have been several Doctor Who stories in which the Doctor has met ancient Greek people. Here are a few examples:

"The Myth Makers" (1965): ... the Doctor ... and his companions ... meet various figures from Greek mythology, including the god Zeus and the Trojan prince Hector.

"The Time Monster" (1972): ... the Doctor ... and his companion Jo Grant travel to ancient Greece and encounter the scientist and philosopher Aristotle.

'The Fires of Pompeii" (2008): ... the Doctor ... and his companion Donna Noble travel back in time to Pompeii in 79 AD ...

"The Eaters of Light" (2017): ... the Doctor ... and his companions travel to ancient Scotland during the Roman occupation and encounter a group of Celtic warriors.

ChatGPT, 13 Mar. 2023

This question has only one true answer, and it’s the first one that ChatGPT gives. The rest are false. Even the first one is only partially correct: Zeus doesn’t appear in The myth makers, and Hektor isn't Greek. The other three stories named here have ancient Atlanteans, Romans, and Celts, but no Greeks, and no Aristotle. And while we’re at it, Scotland was never under Roman occupation.

A+ for relevance, D– for accuracy

ChatGPT doesn’t look for facts, it looks for relevance. This is the case with all its answers, even when it gets the answers right. It’s just that you can’t tell the difference until you go into specifics. If you ask it about ancient Greece and it talks about Romans and Celts, it’s because they sound relevant.

In a similar vein, if you ask ChatGPT about the Doctor encountering ancient Egyptians, it’ll mention the story The pyramids of Mars (1975) every time. That story is entirely set in the twentieth century. It gets mentioned because it has a heavily ancient-Egyptian-esque flavour: the bot doesn’t know the difference.

Conversely, it’s hit-and-miss whether it will mention The Daleks’ master plan (1965–1966) or Dinosaurs on a spaceship (2012): those are the only stories in which the Doctor has actually met ancient Egyptians. But it may not mention them, because they don’t sound relevant.

I’ve fed ChatGPT some 100-level essay questions that I set decades ago. They’re general and don’t require much specialised information, so its answers are basically accurate, if a bit dull.

Some scholars have wanted to see the Iliad end with the death of Hektor. How significant, in your view, are Books 23 and 24 to the poem as a whole?

Books 23 and 24 of the Iliad are significant in several ways, and it would be difficult to argue that the poem would be complete without them.

Firstly, these two books provide closure to the story of Achilles and Hektor, which is one of the central conflicts of the poem. Without Books 23 and 24, the poem would end with the death of Hektor, leaving Achilles' character arc unfinished. These final books show Achilles' growth and development as a character, as he is finally able to achieve catharsis and let go of his anger towards Hektor.

Additionally, these books provide closure to other characters and subplots in the poem. The funeral games in Book 23 provide closure to the mourning of Patroclus, while Book 24 shows the resolution of the conflict between Achilles and Priam. [ . . . ]

In conclusion, while it is understandable that some scholars may have wanted to see the Iliad end with the death of Hektor, Books 23 and 24 are significant to the poem as a whole and provide closure to the various storylines and themes explored throughout the epic.

ChatGPT, 13 Mar. 2023

Around 2003 I wouldn’t have been too displeased to see an essay with this structure, though it isn’t anything like detailed enough. A 100-level essay needs citations to support its claims. When I posed the same question with the addition, ‘Cite at least three scholarly sources to support your claims’, ChatGPT provided this bibliography:

Callen King, Katherine. Achilles: Paradigms of the War Hero from Homer to the Middle Ages. University of California Press, 1987.

Ebbott, Mary. "The Return of Priam: Authority, Ritual, and Ideology in Iliad 24." Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 133, no. 1, 2003, pp. 131-58.

Taplin, Oliver. Homeric Soundings: The Shaping of the Iliad. Oxford University Press, 1992.

Items 1 and 3 are real books. Item 2, though, is purely fictional. It looks like a plausible citation, and it sounds relevant, but it’s totally fabricated. Mary Ebbott is a real Homer scholar, the journal is a real journal, and the issue number is correct for 2003. The title seems to be a mash-up of real titles, like Sarah Hitch’s 2009 book King of sacrifice. Ritual and royal authority in the Iliad. Its structure follows that of Ebbott’s 1999 book chapter ‘The wrath of Helen: self-blame and nemesis in the Iliad’.

The more specialised you get, the more this kind of thing happens. Here’s another question with an abbreviated form of ChatGPT’s answer.

Recommend some reading on the relationship between the Trojan catalogue in Iliad 2 and the Trojan catalogue in the cyclic Cypria.

"The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer" by Jonathan Burgess: In this article, Burgess examines the relationship between the Iliad and the cyclic epics, including the Cypria, and argues that the Homeric poems are unique and superior to the cyclic epics. He also explores the similarities and differences between the Trojan catalogues in the Iliad and the Cypria.

[Jonathan Burgess’ book The Cyclic Epics and the Homeric Tradition, including a book chapter by Richard Janko, ‘The Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad and the Cypria.’]

[M. L. West’s book The Cypria: A Survey of the Fragments.]

[M. L. West’s book The Iliad and the Cyclic Epics.]

ChatGPT, 13 Mar. 2023; [abbreviations] in square brackets

Jonathan Burgess, Richard Janko, and M. L. West are real scholars in relevant areas. But they didn’t write these things. ‘The Epic Cycle and the uniqueness of Homer’ is a real 1977 article, but it’s by someone else. The other titles are mash-ups again: of things like Christian Kopff’s article ‘Vergil and the cyclic epics’ (1981) and Giambattista D’Alessio’s book chapter ‘The Megalai Ehoiai: a survey of the fragments’ (2005).

(Also, if you look carefully, the second recommendation has mistaken the context: the question wasn’t about the Catalogue of Ships! The Cypria didn’t have a Catalogue of Ships.)

Like I said: relevance and verisimilitude, not reality. Ask it for books on an area where not many books exist, like say ancient Greek colour terminology, and you’ll get a similar mix-up of real scholars and fake titles.

One more sample to finish off.

Which of the following was a real ancient person? Epimenides; Abaris; Bacis; Ptolemaeus Chennus.

Epimenides, Abaris, and Bacis were all real ancient Greek people, while Ptolemaeus Chennus is a fictional character.

ChatGPT, 13 Mar. 2023

This answer is precisely backwards. Ptolemaeus Chennus is the only one that is real.

The confusion is partly because Epimenides, Abaris, and Bacis are fictional personas. Epimenides supposedly went to sleep for half a century; Abaris supposedly flew around the countryside on a magic arrow; Bacis was a legendary soothsayer. None of them existed, but real poets could adopt them as personas, so there were once real poems ascribed to these fake authors.

Ptolemaeus Chennus is real, but he’s closely associated with Schwindelautoren, ‘bogus authors’. Chennus’ writing was full of bogus citations of bogus sources — ironically, the exact thing that ChatGPT does.

ChatGPT has genuine uses for generating writing prompts and broad ideas. Its output is usually boring, though, and needs to be re-written to make it more interesting. And you’ll absolutely need to check every jot and tittle for fabrications. By all means use it to generate a cover letter for a job application! But don’t trust that it’s telling the truth. Check everything.

Iliad book 1 re-written as a limerick. Left: ChatGPT’s attempt, 14 Mar. 2023. Right: Isaac Asimov, Tales of the Black Widowers, 1974, p. 48.

See also:

• Spencer McDaniel, ‘ChatGPT is impressive for a bot, but not for a human’, Tales of times forgotten, 19 Feb. 2023
• Tim Gordon, ‘How to reduce the risks from AI’s original sin’, The Washington post, 23 Feb. 2023
• Ryan Hogg, ‘Some traders say ChatGPT gives them out-of-date information and they waste time fact-checking’, Markets insider, 28 Feb. 2023
• Emily Bell, ‘A fake news frenzy: why ChatGPT could be disastrous for truth in journalism’, The guardian, 3 Mar. 2023
• Jennifer Kingson, ‘Religious leaders experiment with ChatGPT sermons’, Axios, 10 Mar. 2023

Translating gender

It’ll be no surprise that modern translations can give a slanted impression of ancient texts. This goes for gender too. (Yes, the ancient world had transgender people, non-binary people, non-gendered people, and more.)

Many people take care to use appropriate pronouns these days, but as far as I know that care hasn’t yet become a major concern in published translations. If you don’t know the languages it can be hard to see what the questions are. Here we’ll look at some relatively familiar test cases.

Athena’s pronouns in Odyssey book 1

Recently, I had a decision to make. I was writing an introduction to Odyssey book 1, one of the bits of the Odyssey where the goddess Athena appears to people as a mortal.

Specifically, as a mortal man. What are the correct pronouns to use?

Marc Chagall, ‘Athena and Telemachus’ (1975)

Is this similar to the binary gender situation that Tolkien envisages for divinities in his fictional mythology?

[T]he Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion (1977)

Tolkien’s phrasing doesn’t inevitably treat gender, phenotype, and sex organs as the same thing, but it does regard gender as an essential reality, something intrinsic. Manwë is always male, no matter what he’s doing, whether he’s using a physical body or not.

On one level the Odyssey would agree. The narrator consistently uses grammatically feminine vocabulary for Athena. Here’s part of the episode. Grammatically gendered vocabulary for Athena is in bold.

ὣς εἰποῦσ’ ὑπὸ ποσσὶν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα . . .
βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα,
στῆ δ’ Ἰθάκης ἐνὶ δήμωι ἐπὶ προθύροις Ὀδυσῆος,
οὐδοῦ ἔπ’ αὐλείου, παλάμηι δ’ ἔχε χάλκεον ἔγχος,
εἰδομένη ξείνωι, Ταφίων ἡγήτορι Μέντηι. . . .
τὴν δὲ πολὺ πρῶτος ἴδε Τηλέμαχος θεοειδής ...

So she spoke, and bound beautiful sandals beneath her feet . . .
she sped down the peaks of Olympos
and stood in the city of Ithaki, at Odysseus’ doorstep
on the threshold of the court, holding a bronze spear in hand;
she appeared like a male visitor, Mentes, leader of the Taphians. . . .
By far the first to see her was godlike Telemachos ...

Odyssey 1.96–113 (tr. Peter Gainsford)

The participles (εἰποῦσα, ἀΐξασα, εἰδομένη) and the pronoun in line 113 (τήν ‘her’) are all feminine. There’s one clash in line 105 where we’re told that she appeared (εἰδομένη, feminine) like a male visitor (ξείνωι, masculine). Overall, though, it looks like there’s an intrinsic femininity to the character.

But on another level, Athena isn’t a woman wearing drag. When Athena puts on male sexual organs, Athena intends to pass as male. Athena does pass as male. Other characters consistently identify Athena as male, and they aren’t making a mistake.

Just to give you an idea of the gulf separating a translation from Homer’s Greek, in this passage —

... καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα·
‘χαῖρε, ξεῖνε, παρ’ ἄμμι φιλήσεαι· αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα
δείπνου πασσάμενος μυθήσεαι ὅττεό σε χρή.’

... and addressing them, [Telemachos] spoke winged words:
‘Greetings, male visitor, you are welcome among us. And later,
after malely eating a meal, you can discuss whatever you want.’

Odyssey 1.122–124 (tr. Peter Gainsford)

— modern translators do the exact opposite of what Homer does. They can’t resist using gendered vocabulary in line 122, and non-gendered vocabulary in 123–124.

... and let his words fly out to her.
                    ‘Good evening,
stranger, and welcome. Be our guest, come share
our dinner, and then tell us what you need.’

Odyssey 1.122–124 (tr. Emily Wilson)

In line 122 the narrator uses the gender-neutral μιν ‘them’; in 123–124 Telemachos uses masculine language. If the narrator had used a feminine τήν ‘her’ in 122 instead of μιν (which would be metrically equivalent), the mismatch would be more jarring: it’d be telegraphing that Telemachos is misgendering Athena. But Homer doesn’t do that. Telemachos isn’t making a mistake.

What to do? The important thing, I take it, is to avoid cisnormativity. When talking about the scene, I decided to use the non-binary singular pronouns that English has now adopted as standard — ‘they, their, them’ — and when translating, to use gendered language where Homer does.

It’s especially important to think about gender here, because in recent years Odyssey book 1 has become iconic for its portrayal of ancient Greek misogyny. The scene where Telemachos berates his mother Penelope for speaking isn’t just about depriving women of their voice: it’s also shocking for the way it ogles feminine distress. Penelope has guests in her home throw her grief in her face, she gets silenced by Telemachos, is sexually harassed by the suitors yelling about how they’d like to rape her, and finally she’s stalked by the narrator as she leaves and cries her eyes out in her room.

If we’re going to be honest and treat that scene as — to put it mildly — problematic, then we’d best be honest about Athena too.

My chapter is coming out later this year in the Oxford critical guide to the Odyssey edited by Joel Christensen.

Teiresias’ genders and phenotypes

Athena’s gender in Odyssey 1 isn’t an isolated situation. Ancient myths are full of figures and scenarios that translate into modern terms as transgender or non-binary.

In another myth, the seer Teiresias is changed from male to female by divine intervention, then from female to male. It’s quite clear that the idea is that changing phenotypes is the same thing as changing gender. When Teiresias is biologically male he’s a ‘he’, when she’s biologically female she’s a ‘she’.

For Teiresias gender isn’t a choice, it’s force majeure, as it is for most modern trans people. Note where the force majeure comes from: it isn’t Teiresias’ biology that imposes their gender changes, it’s the gods.

Literary treatments of Teiresias’ story vary a great deal in how they deal with gender. Tennyson basically ignores the gender changing: he essentially pretends it never happened. Ovid and Eliot explore the gender changes but are narrowly focused on the act of sex. Ovid equates Teiresias’ femininity with sexual pleasure; Eliot, with rape.

Note. Tennyson, Tiresias (1885); Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.316–338 (8 CE); Eliot, The waste land part 3 (1922).

Another kind of treatment, which focuses on the force majeure involved in the story, is the 2003 film Tiresia (dir. Bertrand Bonello). Tiresia (Clara Choveaux) is a MTF prostitute who gets imprisoned by a stalker, and deprived of access to her hormone therapy. As a result she develops a more masculine phenotype (played by Thiago Telès). The stalker rejects her, blinds her, and abandons her, as she begins to realise she has a gift of premonition.

Teiresias changes gender, yet in a sense they’re always cis. Their phenotype at any given moment is cis for how they identify, but from time to time the gods change both the phenotype and the gender identity. Something similar goes for Caeneus, who is FTM (again by divine intervention) and who identifies and presents as male. In supernatural scenarios like these it can be challenging to find an adequate way to talk about the relationship between sexual organs, sexual phenotype, and gender identity, in ways that are also sensitive to what the story is going to mean to modern people. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Attis’ pronouns in Catullus 63

The Latin language tends to be sparser in its grammatical representation of gender. It has even fewer pronouns than ancient Greek — far fewer than modern English. Latin relies almost exclusively on participles and adjectives.

Beginners often read Catullus as their first Latin author. Poem 63 — one of his ‘long’ poems (not all that long: 93 lines) — tells the story of the semi-divine Attis, a mortal who becomes the consort of the Phrygian goddess Cybele.

Cybele and Attis (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Venezia)

The name ‘Attis’ has a feminine ring to it: compare Ovid’s feminine Caenis, masculine Caeneus. In Greek the name varies between Áttis (sounding feminine) and Áttēs (decidedly masculine). A late poem refers to ‘half-female Attis’ using a masculine article: τὸν ἡμίθηλυν Ἄττιν (Anakreontea 11.2). Occasionally modern readers have confused Áttis with Atthís, meaning ‘Athenian woman’, and also the name of one of Sappho’s lovers.

In Catullus, Attis starts out as Greek, mortal, and male, with grammatically masculine language. He travels across the sea to Phrygia. There they castrate themself, and subsequently Attis is grammatically feminine. As the poem continues her grammatical gender switches every now and then, apparently erratically, between masculine and feminine.

But these expressions of gender aren’t omnipresent, and modern translations have difficulty representing Catullus’ usage. They often have drastic mismatches in where the gendering appears.

Here are the opening lines, along with three published translations. Grammatically gendered language for Attis is in bold type.

Super alta vectus Attis celeri rate maria,
Phrygium ut nemus citato cupide pede tetigit
adiitque opaca silvis redimita loca deae,
stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, vagus animis,
devellit ili acuto sibi pondera silice,
itaque ut relicta sensit sibi membra sine viro,
etiam recente terrae sola sanguine maculans,
niveis citata cepit manibus leve typanum,
typanum tuum, Cybebe, tua, mater, initia,
quatiensque terga tauri teneris cava digitis
canere haec suis adorta est tremebunda comitibus.

Catullus 63.1–11

5 devellit Kokoszkiewicz CQ 61.2 (2011): devolvit MS, devolsit Haupt

Over deep seas Attis, carried on a rapid catamaran,
eagerly with hurrying footsteps sought that forest in Phrygia,
penetrated the tree-thick coverts, the goddess’ shadowy habitat,
and there, by furious madness driven, wits adrift in insanity,
seized a keen flint, slashed away the weight of his groin’s double complement;
and when she felt the members left her shorn of all their virility
dropping still a spatter of fresh-shed blood on the ground as she sped along,
quickly with snow white hand she seized the lightweight rat-a-tat tympanum —
yours the tympanum, o Cybebe, yours, great Mother, the mysteries —
and on the hollow drum-skin beat a tattoo with delicate fingertips,
making this passionate invocation, body convulsed, to her followers.

(tr. Peter Green, 2005)

Attis had hastened across towering seas on a raft.
Eagerly setting his swift foot in the Phrygian grove,
he entered the goddess’s dark, forest-encircled domain
and there was attacked by insanity’s goad. Blinded by passion,
he lightened the weight of his loins with a sharp fragment of flint.
When she ascertained what was left of her limbs, lacking the male,
trickling blood on the ground from her wound, freshly inflicted,
she excitedly took in her white hands a petite tambourine,
Cybele’s horn, tool of your sacrosanct rituals, mother.
Striking the tight hide of the bull with her delicate fingers,
she shivered and started to sing words such as these to her friends.

(tr. David Mulroy, 2002)

Borne in his swift bark over deep seas, Attis, when eagerly with speedy foot he reached the Phrygian woodland, and entered the goddess’s abodes, shadowy, forest-crowned; there, goaded by raging madness, bewildered in mind, he cast down from him with sharp flint-stone the burden of his members. So when she felt her limbs to have lost their manhood, still with fresh blood dabbling the face of the ground, swiftly with snowy hands she seized the light timbrel, timbrel, trumpet of Cybele, thy mysteries, Mother, and shaking with soft fingers the hollow ox-hide thus began she to sing to her companions tremulously.

(tr. Francis Warre Cornish, 1913)

First, note that Catullus’ Latin has no gendered pronouns at all in this passage. Gender is conveyed by participles (vectus, stimulatus, citata, adorta) and adjectives (vagus, tremebunda). Line 6 sine viro (‘shorn of virility’, ‘lacking the male’, ‘lost their manhood’) is explicit gendering, rather than grammatical gender.

In the translations, not many of the gendered pronouns correspond to gendered language in Catullus’ Latin. The most striking mismatch is the lines when Attis castrates themself, in lines 5 and 6. The translations all pack these lines with gendered pronouns — but the Latin has no grammatical gendering at all!

Here’s my own effort, with gendered pronouns confined to places where Catullus uses gendered language.

He sailed over the deep — Attis, over the seas in a swift skiff —
touched the Phrygian grove, touched it eagerly with swiftened foot,
and entered the dark places of the woods, property of the goddess.
He was driven by raging ecstasy there, he was changeful in spirit;
tore off the weight from the groin using a sharp stone;
then felt what parts were left, without the male,
while staining the soil of mother earth with fresh blood.
She swiftly took the light drum in snow-white hands —
your drum, Cybebe, your sacred mysteries, mother —
and pulsing the hollow bull’s hide with tender fingers
she trembled as she began this song to the entourage.

(tr. Peter Gainsford)

Notes. 1 vectus. Catullus introduces gendered language very early on, in the third word of the poem. Among the published translations above, only the oldest, Cornish, tries to reproduce this. 2 Phrygium ... nemus; 7 terrae sola. It strikes me that Catullus is playing with mismatches in grammatical gender, so it seems important to convey them in translation where feasible. In line 2 ‘Phrygian grove’ is neuter, but nemus has a masculine-looking ending: so my translation adds ‘it’ to make it more marked. In line 7 ‘soil of mother earth’, terrae (‘of earth’) is feminine and sola (‘soil’) is neuter: I add ‘mother’ as an indirect hint at the mismatch. 3 adiitque. Green has Attis ‘penetrating’ the grove. I find that tendentious: there’s nothing especially sexual about the Latin here. 4 vagus animis. The published translations all think this suggests impaired mental function (‘wits adrift in insanity’, ‘blinded by passion’, ‘bewildered in mind’). I disagree. vagus appears again at lines 13 and 25: it’s thematic. It indicates mobility, something shifting, without an anchor. Attis’ gender is about to change, and vagus is surely a piece of framing for that event. Later, in lines 13 and 25, vaga refers to groups who are congregating and moving towards a specific place: 13 vaga pecora (‘shifting cattle’), 25 vaga cohors (‘shifting company’). It may be significant that the word has a different grammatical gender each time: vagus Attis = masculine, 13 vaga pecora (‘cattle’) = neuter, 25 vaga cohors (‘company’) = feminine.

Doctor Who, ‘The Myth Makers’ (1965)

In late 1965 Doctor Who featured a four part story about the end of the Trojan War. All four episodes are lost, though the audio track survives intact, along with a selection of photos and video snippets. In spite of that The myth makers, by Donald Cotton, is widely regarded as a highlight of Doctor Who’s early years.

My aim here is to highlight how it plays on prior models. One target is Homer, of course, but it also plays on the 1956 Hollywood epic Helen of Troy starring Rossana Podestà, as well as Shakespeare’s play Troilus and Cressida.

Some surviving materials of The myth makers are set photos, rather than stills from the actual episodes. Notice the lighting rig overhead. (My composite of a set photo with the logo from the 1985 novelisation)

This story isn’t the Doctor’s only visit to the ancient Mediterranean world, though it is his only onscreen encounter with ancient Greeks. He has also encountered Romans in The Romans (1965), The fires of Pompeii (2008), The Pandorica opens (2010), and The eaters of light (2017); and ancient Egyptians in The Daleks’ master plan (1965–1966) and Dinosaurs on a spaceship (2012).

The first three episodes are comical in tone. Helen is conspicuous by her absence. Achilles runs away from Hector. Odysseus thoroughly enjoys competing with the Doctor’s trickery. Cassandra is a bloodthirsty executioner, Agamemnon a bully, Paris an imbecile. The fourth episode is much darker, and represents one of the very worst failures in the Doctor’s long career.

The Doctor, Vicki, and Steven land the TARDIS near Troy, interrupting the duel of Hector and Achilles. The Doctor and Steven become prisoners of the Greeks, while the Doctor’s TARDIS — with Vicki still inside — is seized by the Trojans. Vicki adopts the persona of Cressida and ends up staying behind with Troilus. Steven fights a duel against Paris. And the Doctor desperately tries to get Odysseus to adopt any stratagem except a wooden horse, because he finds the story so utterly silly.

Steven. Why not the wooden horse?
Doctor. No, my dear boy, I couldn’t possibly suggest that. The whole story is obviously absurd. Probably invented by Homer as some good dramatic device. No, I think it would be completely impractical.
[ ... ]
Doctor. Have you, ah, thought of tunnelling, hm?
Odysseus. It’s been done. What we want is something revolutionary.
Doctor. Ah yes, dear me, dear me. Well, tell me, have you thought about flying machines, hm?
Odysseus. No, I can’t say I have.

The Doctor (William Hartnell) and Odysseus (Ivor Salter) compete in outwitting each other, much to Odysseus’ delight. They’re both way ahead of Agamemnon (Francis de Wolff, seated).

Subverting Homer: Achilles and Hector

Right from the opening scene, The myth makers subverts expectations based on the Iliad. In Homer, Achilleus chases Hektor three times around the walls of Troy before he turns and fights (Iliad 22.136–207). In Doctor Who, the roles are reversed: a hulking Hector chases a relatively slender Achilles. Cotton’s 1985 novelisation of the story draws the contrast especially clearly:

They were both big men; but one was enormous with muscles queuing up behind each other, begging to be given a chance. This whole, boiling-over physique was restrained, somewhat inadequately, by bronze-studded, sweat-stained leather armour ... Seams strained and gussets gaped. ... [H]e could only be the renowned Hector, King Priam’s eldest son, and war-lord of Troy.

His opponent was a different matter; younger by some ten years, I would say, and with the grace of a dancer. Which he certainly needed, as he spun and pirouetted to avoid the great bronze, two-handed sword which Hector wielded — in one hand — ...

The story continues to poke jabs at Homer. Watching from inside the TARDIS, the Doctor points out how long-winded Hector and Achilles are:

Vicki. Doctor, be careful! They look terribly fierce.
Doctor. Oh, what nonsense. If you take notice of them, I think they’re doing more talking than they are fighting.

His reaction mirrors that of many Iliad readers. In Homer, heroes sometimes make long speeches to daunt each other before fighting. Glaukos spends 67 lines reciting his genealogy to Diomedes instead of attacking (Iliad 6.145–211).

When Odysseus arrives on the scene, a good-humoured but remorseless pirate, he makes fun of Achilles’ claim to have killed Hector. As he does so he provides cues to provide an in-story explanation for how Homer ended up making things different in the Iliad.

Odysseus. But what a year is this for plague! Even the strongest might fall. Prince Hector — hah, that he should come to this. You met him here, you say, as he lay dying?
Achilles. I met him, Odysseus, in single combat.
Doctor. Oh yes, it’s true.
Odysseus. And raced him round the walls ’til down he fell exhausted? A famous victory!

This, we are to understand, is where Homer gets the story of the plague in Iliad book 1, and Achilleus chasing Hektor around the walls in book 22.

Subverting Hollywood: Paris, Cassandra, and Helen

Episode 2 introduces the Trojan prince Paris (Barrie Ingham) as a purely comic character, practically out of the pages of a P. G. Wodehouse story. Paris is a boastful and bewildered Bertie Wooster without a Jeeves to guide him: desperate for his father Priam’s approval, resentful of his sister Cassandra’s superior intelligence.

Paris. I sought Achilles, father, even to the Grecian lines, but he skulked within his tent. Ha ha ha, he feared to face me!
Priam. ... (observing the TARDIS) What — what is that you have got there?
Paris. Ah! A prize, father. Captured from the Greeks!
Priam. Hah, captured, you say? I wager they were glad to see the back of it. What is it?
Paris. — what is it? Ah, well. It’s, er, it’s a, sort of a, erm — a shrine, or so it seems.
[ ... ]
Priam. ... Get back to the war!
Cassandra. And take that thing with you!
Paris. Oh, really! If you — if you knew the weight of, this, this, this — thing —

Cassandra (Frances White), the distrustful high priestess of Troy. Until recently Frances White was appearing opposite another veteran Doctor Who villain, David Graham, the very first Dalek voice, in Peppa Pig (2004–2021) as Grandma Pig and Grandpa Pig.

Cassandra is his bloodthirsty sister, the high priestess of Troy. She repeatedly gives a command that the Doctor’s companions be executed, only for it to be countermanded by Priam or Paris every time. She foreshadows the future when she explains why Paris should never have brought the TARDIS into the city:

Cassandra. Why do you imagine that they allowed you to capture it? [ ... ] I dreamed that out on the plain the Greeks had left a gift, and although what it was remained unclear, we brought it into Troy. Then at night, from out its belly, soldiers came and fell upon us as we slept.

On one level, these depictions are somewhat true to Greek legend, if only as caricatures. The Paris of the Iliad has to be rescued from his duel with Menelaos, and he spends his time having sex with Helen while the Trojans are fighting for their lives. Kassandra appears only in one scene in Homer (Iliad 24.698–708), but in post-Homeric Greek legend she is a seer whose prophecies are never believed.

It isn’t Homer that’s being subverted here, but the 1956 Hollywood epic Helen of Troy. Paris in the film has nothing laughable about him. He’s a romantic hero, brave and noble; the love of Helen and Paris is pure and tragic. Cassandra is a vulnerable teenager who fears for her brother’s future, and Paris sees her prophecies as a sign of an unfortunate illness.

Paris. And I suppose that evil horse of hers will spring out and trample me. Huh, very well. Let it come, my lord. If that’s the price of living in a world of fables.
Cassandra. Do not say that, Paris. Do not seek peace elsewhere, dear brother, until first you have pacified Athena.
Paris. My little Cassandra, there can be no postponement. So come along, and give me your blessing for a happy voyage.
Cassandra. I cannot bless what I see in your future, Paris.

Helen of Troy (1956)

At the end, Paris is on the point of defeating Menelaus in a one-on-one duel when one of Menelaus’ men treacherously stabs him from behind. Cassandra is seized and (offscreen) raped by a Greek warrior in the fall of Troy. Ingham’s Paris and White’s Cassandra in The myth makers are their opposites in every way: Paris a coward and a fool, Cassandra vindictive and vicious. Both are played for laughs.

Top, Helen of Troy (1956): Cassandra (Janette Scott), Paris (Jacques Sernas), and Helen (Rossana Podestà). Bottom, The Trojan horse (1961): Cassandra (Lidia Alfonsi) and Paris (Warner Bentivegna) (and an anonymous handmaid in the background: maybe Katarina? I kid, I kid).

It’s just possible there may also be an element of parody of The Trojan horse (La guerra di Troia, 1961), a peplum film which depicted Paris as a treacherous, chinless poser who takes pleasure in betraying his family, Cassandra as aloof, and Helen as malicious and conniving. Helen of Troy was the better known film.

And that brings us to Helen herself. Helen of Troy puts Helen front and centre. It’s practically a Rossana Podestà vehicle, coming on the heels of her success as Nausicaa in another Homeric film, the 1954 Ulysses, opposite Kirk Douglas. The whole concept of Helen as a character revolves around her matchless beauty: ‘the face that launched a thousand ships / and burnt the topless towers of Ilium’ (Marlowe, Doctor Faustus).

Priam. I don’t particularly notice good looks. Only gets you into trouble. Look at Paris. Handsome as the devil, but a complete coward.
Vicki. I thought he was rather nice.
Priam. Yes, women generally do, that's what got us all into this trouble. Oh, of course, you've not met Helen yet, have you?
Vicki. No, I'm looking forward to it.
Priam. Yes, well, she’s a — oh well never mind. If only he’d met a nice, sensible girl like you.

The thing is, of course, that we never do meet Helen. She’s mentioned three times, but she never appears: these lines are the most we get. Priam’s talk of good looks directly draws attention to Helen and her legendary beauty — and in doing so, he also underlines the failure of that beauty to actually appear. The audience, watching these characters, are denied the opportunity to see the legendary sight that the whole thing is supposedly about: Helen’s face.

This too is a dramatic subversion of Helen of Troy. The myth makers turns Paris, previously a romantic hero, into a bombastic, cowering nitwit. Cassandra, once a vulnerable teenager, becomes a snarling executioner. And Helen, the Hollywood beauty known for her appearance, becomes ... invisible.

Subverting Shakespeare: Troilus, Cressida, and Diomede

In Greek legend Troilos is a youth that Achilleus ambushes, pursues, and kills while Troilos is outside the walls of Troy, watering his horse at the shrine of Thymbraian Apollo. The Iliad mentions him once in passing, as someone who has already been killed (Iliad 24.257). His story isn’t told fully in any ancient literary work. But it was extremely popular in Greek art: 20% of all ancient depictions of Achilleus are occupied with the story of his ambush of Troilos. (See Gainsford 2015: 60–61 for further details.)

Set photo of the dungeon where Troilus visits Vicki.

In The myth makers, Troilus is Vicki’s love interest. She begins to take an interest in him at the end of episode 2. In episode 3, when she and Steven are imprisoned in a Trojan dungeon, Troilus visits and becomes friendly with her. In episode 4 she tries to save him from the destruction of Troy by asking him to go on an errand outside the city. Outside the walls he encounters Achilles, but unlike his ancient counterpart, Troilus wins the fight. Vicki finds him and remains with him in antiquity, while the Doctor time-travels onwards.

The thing is, by the time Vicki meets Troilus, she has already changed her identity. In episode 2, when she emerges from the TARDIS and Priam befriends her (much to Cassandra’s disgust), the Trojans decide that Vicki is too ‘heathenish’ a name. Priam decides to call her Cressida. Meanwhile, Steven is trying to get inside Troy to help Vicki, in the guise of a dead Greek warrior named Diomede.

Enter Shakespeare, stage left.

Cressida isn’t in any ancient source. She developed out of a 12th century French epic, Le roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure. Dares of Phrygia, a late antique Latin source, had made Troilus a major character in the Trojan War: Benoît added a romance with Briseida (a character with virtually no connection to the Homeric Briseis), and a love triangle with the Greek hero Diomedes (Burgess and Kelly 2017: 204–212, 216–217, 226–228, etc.).

Angelica Kauffmann, ‘Diomed and Cressida’ (1789)

150-odd years later, Boccaccio compiled the bits about Troilus and Briseida into a poem called Il filostrato (‘the one laid prostrate by love’). In Boccaccio they’re named Troilo and Criseida. This poem in turn served as the basis for various English versions: Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, Lydgate’s Troy book, and Caxton’s Recuyell of the historyes of Troye. Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (ca. 1602) is based on these.

In Act V of the play, Diomedes tries to seduce Cressida once she arrives at the Greek camp, and Troilus spies on them and vows to seek Diomedes’ life in battle. In The myth makers, when Troilus visits Cressida in her cell, he is concerned about her relationship with ‘Diomede’ — that is, Steven —

Troilus. Look here, is this Diomede a particular friend of yours or something?
Vicki. A very good friend, yes.
Troilus. Well, I don’t see how you can be friends with a Greek.
Vicki. Oh, look, Troilus. When you come from the future you make friends with a lot of people, and he’s one of them.
Troilus. I see. But he’s not in any way special?
Vicki. No. Why do you keep on?
Troilus. Well, because that’s what I was — I mean, that’s what the others were worried about.

— and in episode 4, when ‘Cressida’ sends him outside the walls to save him from the fall of Troy, his errand is to look for ‘Diomede’, who has escaped from prison. Troilus laments over the fact that Cressida has apparently betrayed him, echoing his fury in the play.

As in the play, Troilus survives. Unlike the play, Troilus and Cressida have a happy-ever-after together.

Left: Agamemnon (Brian Cox) in Troy, 2004. Right: Agamemnon (Francis de Wolff) in The myth makers, 1965. Presumably there’s no direct influence, so it’s a little eerie how similar their designs are. The Agamemnons in Helen of Troy and The Trojan horse look very different.

So, that’s The myth makers and intertextuality. There are many other intrinsic points of interest that I haven’t touched on: the design of the wooden horse (much more interesting than the one in Helen of Troy, and infinitely better than the clumsy junkpile used in The Trojan horse); the sudden introduction of Katarina as a new companion for the Doctor; the Doctor’s convivial relationship with Odysseus. These things I’ll leave to more Whovian-focused forums.

Where to hear or read The myth makers

• ‘Temple of secrets’: transcript | audio
• ‘Small prophet, quick return’: transcript | audio
• ‘Death of a spy’: transcript | audio
• ‘Horse of destruction’: transcript | audio
• Novelisation by Donald Cotton (1985): Internet Archive

References

• Burgess, G. S.; Kelly, D. 2017. The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure. Cambridge.
• Gainsford, P. 2015. Early Greek hexameter poetry. Cambridge.