Journal Phasis - Greek and Roman Studies

Khintibidze, Zaza

Phasis 15-16, 2012-2013 
 
Zaza Khintibidze (Tbilisi) 
Towards the Interpretation 
of Aristotle’s Poetics (XXIV, 1460a5-11) 
From the outset, the passage XXIV, 1460a5-11 from Aristotle’s Poetics 
attracted the attention of translators and commentators of the treatise. As 
is well known, the given part of Poetics presents Aristotle's unambiguous 
opinion about the nature of Homeric characters, in particular, on how 
Homer individualizes his characters, i. e. by means of their speeches – mo-
nologues and dialogues [cf. 1, 114-115]. According to Aristotle: [9] ... ὁ δὲ 
ὀλίγια [10] φροιμιασάμενος εὐθὺς εἰσάγει ἄνδρα ἢ γυναῑκα ἢ ἂλλο τι [11] 
ἦθος, καὶ οὐδὲν' ἀήθη ἀλλ' ἔχοντα ἦθος [9]. “But he (i. e. Homer) after a 
brief [10] preface immediately brings in a man or a woman or any other 
[11] character and no one without character, but [only] with character.” 
However, these are only the end-lines of the passage in question, 
specifically, the ending of line 9 and lines 10 and 11, unlike which the 
beginning of the same passage, lines 5-9, invite substantially different 
interpretations and has long been commented upon. 
     The first interpretation ensues from S. H. Butcher’s (1895, 1898) and W. 
H. Fyfe’s (1932) translations, while the second one results from I. Bywater’s 
translation, published in 1909, G. F. Else’s translation with comments, 
published in 1957 and D. W. Lucas’ comment on Poetics, first published in 
1968 and later in 1972 and 1978. Below I will try to show how the 
mentioned interpretations differ and which of them is more accurate, in 
my view. 
According to Aristotle: [5] Ὅμηρος δὲ ἄλλα τε πολλὰ ἄξιος ἐπαινεῖσθαι 
καὶ/Homer deserves praise for many other [reasons], but [6] δὴ καὶ ὅτι μόνος 
τῶν ποιητῶν οὐκ ἀγνοεῖ ὃ δεῖ ποιεῖν αὐτόν/also because alone among other 
[epic] poets he knows what to do. 
Towards the Interpretation of Aristotle’s Poetics 143 
     Nothing is disputable in the quoted lines 5 and 6 and thus their sense is 
clear; however, Aristotle’s words – μόνος τῶν ποιητῶν/alone among poets 
– must be interpreted as “alone among epic poets” and not as “alone 
among poets in general” – that is, among epic poets, dramatists and lyric 
poets. This is how the passage in question is translated by I. Bywater: “He 
alone among epic poets” (2, 83). On the other hand, D. W. Lucas 
emphasizes notes that this passage differs from the rest of Chapter 24 of 
the Poetics and therefore, does not refer to parallels and differences 
between epos and tragedy (3, 226). G. F. Else too provides a similar 
interpretation of this passage of the Poetics. Specifically, he reconstructs in 
brackets the word “epic” – (epic) poets (4, 619). Nevetheless, other transla-
tors and commentators, including those of our times, believe that in this 
passage Aristotle compares Homer not with other epic poets but with 
poets in general, i. e. epic poets as well as dramatists. Thus, I believe that 
the inaccurate interpretation stems from S. H. Butcher’s and W. H. Fyfe’s 
above-mentioned translations (5; 6), in which the words – μό-
νος τῶν ποιητῶν – are translated into English as “the only poet” and “alo-
ne of all poets” respectively. 
    In the following three lines of the passage, lines 7, 8 and the first part of 
line 9, Aristotle continues his reasoning in the following way: [7] 
αὐτὸν γὰρ δεῖ τὸν ποιητὴν ἐλάχιστα λέγειν: οὐ γάρ ἐστι/and the poet him-
self should speak very little because [he] is not [8] κατὰ ταῦτα μιμητής. 
οἱ μὲν οὖν ἄλλοι αὐτοὶ μὲν δι᾽ ὅλου/an imitator (i. e. a poet) owing to it. 
Others (i. e. other epic poets), in fact, always (i. e. throughout the whole 
poem) [9] ἀγωνίζονται, μιμοῦνται δὲ ὀλίγα καὶ ὀλιγάκις/take part themsel-
ves (αὐτοὶ), but imitate little and insignificantly. 
      The interpretation of given passage is complicated by the circumstance 
that Aristotle's words – αὐτὸν γὰρ δεῖ τὸν ποιητὴν ἐλάχιστα λέγειν [1460a7], 
i. e. “the poet himself should speak very little” – can be interpreted in two 
ways: 1. a poet should speak very little in the first person; 2. a poet should 
speak very little both, in the first and third persons.  
     The first interpretation is stemmed from Butcher’s and Fyfe’s above-
mentioned translations and are unambiguously conveyed in the 
comments on the translation. For example, Butcher’s mentioned passage 
has the following comment: “Aristotle points out that the poet should take 
as little part as possible in the actual story of an epic – meaning limited 
first-person narration, and no personal appearances in scenes if possible” 
(5), while according to the comment on Fyfe’s translation of the passage, 
“when Aristotle says “the poet speaks himself” and “plays a part himself” 
he refers not to narrative, of which there is a great deal in Homer, but to 
Zaza Khintibidze 144 
the “preludes” (cf. φροιμιασάμενος...) in which the poet, invoking the 
Muse, speaks in his own person. Ridgeway points out that in the whole of 
the Iliad and Odyssey Homer thus “speaks himself” only 24 lines (6).  
     As mentioned above, a different, and in my opinion, the most accurate, 
interpetation of the passage is provided by Else and Lucas. In particular, 
according to G. F. Else, “... to Aristotle’s mind Homer is not really so much 
a narrator as a dramatist. He is just that epic poet who narrates least and 
dramatizes most” (4, 620), “... Homer, then, is the only epic poet who 
understood the poet’s duty: that is, to imitate (mimeistai = poiein), not 
merely to talk (legein)” (4, 621). 
    Lucas offers an even more detailed analysis and draws parallels with 
Chapter 3 of the Poetics, after which he concludes: “Apparently, A[ristotle] 
does not distinguish between passages in which poets narrate (i. e. speak 
themselves in the III person, – Z. Kh.) and those in which they speak 
personally (i. e. in the I person, – Z. Kh.) as in invoking the Muse or 
commenting on their story, e. g. Il., 23. 176” (3, 67, cf. 226). According to 
Lucas, Aristotle considers Homer the only epic poet who “speaks little”, 
whether in the first or in the third person. This is narrated part of the 
poem and is expressed by a word ἀγωνίζονται (1460a9). Hence, Homeric 
narrative is more often presented from the characters’ perspective, that is, 
through impersonation, which, according to Lucas, is expressed in the 
passage as μιμοῦνται (1460a9). This exactly marks his superiority over 
other epic poets. Finally, Lucas sums up his reasoning over the distinction 
between ἀγωνίζονται and μιμοῦνται in the following way: “anyway the 
distinction is between narration [ἀγωνίζονται: in place of λέγουσι] and 
impersonation, the meaning of μιμοῦνται here” (3, 226-227).  
     Thus, taking into consideration Else’s and especially Lucas’ comments, 
I comprehend the given passage (XXIV, 1460a5-11) of Poetics in the 
following way: [5] “Homer deserves praise for many other [reasons], but 
also [6] because alone among other [epic] poets he knows what to do, [7] 
and the poet himself should speak very little [as a narrator] because [he] is 
not [8] an imitator (i. e. a poet) owing to it. Others (i. e. other epic poets), in 
fact, always (i. e. throughout the whole poem) narrate themselves [9], but 
imitate (i. e. impersonate) little and insignificantly. But he (Homer) after a 
brief [10] preface immediately brings in a man or a woman or any other 
[11] character and no one without character, but [only] with character” (i. 
e. in contrast to other epic poets, Homer individualizes his characters 
through their speeches, or dialogic – and not narrated – parts of the text). 
Finally, I would like to focus attention on one more point: the above 
interpretation of passage XXIV, 1460a5-11 of Poetics, in my view, makes it 
Towards the Interpretation of Aristotle’s Poetics 145 
possible to analyze the question of the individualization of Homeric 
characters and at the same time, provides an opportunity to study the 
problem of the genesis of the Iliad and the Odyssey in an innovative way. I 
mean the fact that, according to Aristotle, Homer exceeds other epic poets 
in the large number of dialogic parts of his poems. I think, that the double 
innovation of the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey – his successful 
aspiration to the compositionally organized monumentality, or to an 
extensive and at the same time, structurally united composition, as well as 
to the large number of dialogic parts of the text – can be logically 
connected to each other. However, Homeric researchers, as far as I know, 
have never taken such an opportunity. But this is the subject of further 
discussion (7). 
REFERENCES: 
› (1) Gordeziani R., The Greek Literature, I, Tbilisi 2002 (in Georgian). 
› (2) On The Art Of Poetry by Aristotle, translated by I. Bywater, with a preface by 
G. Murray, Oxford 1920. 
› (3) Lucas D. W., Aristotle, Poetics, Introduction, Commentary and Appendixes, 
Clarendon Press, Oxford 1978. 
› (4) Else G. F., Aristotele's Poetics: The Argument, Leiden 1957. 
› (5) http://www.gradesaver.com/aristotles-poetics/study-guide/section6/  
       (Summary and Analysis of Chapt., 21-24).  
› (6) Aristotle in 23 vls., v. 23, translated by W. H. Fyfe, Cambridge, MA, Harvard 
University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1932.  
 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.
0056%3Asection%3D1460a. 
› (7) Khintibidze Z., Aristotle About Homeric Innovation and Book 9 of the Iliad: 
Oral and Written Stages of Enlargment, Electronic Bilingual Scholarly Peer-
Reviewed Journal Spekali of the Faculty of Humanities at Ivane Javakhishvili 
Tbilisi State University, 5, 2012. 
        http://www.spekali.tsu.ge  
 


English

Towards the Interpretation of Aristotle’s "Poetics" (XXIV, 1460a5-11)

Egetashvili, Nestan

An Attempt to Remove the Asia-Europe Opposition

Attanasi, Euphemia

Ο ελληνισμός των αποικιών της νότιας Ιταλίας

Zhorzholiani, Ana

Phasis 13-14, 2010-2011 
 
 
Ana Zhorzholiani (Tbilisi) 
SOME ASPECTS OF THE MANIPULATION OF PUBLIC 
RELATIONS IN ANCIENT GREECE AND CONTEMPORANEITY 
Manipulation is a necessary element of individual and social life. 
Manipulation means to mislead the other person, group of persons, the 
public with a definite purpose. The goal may be personal or political. 
Manipulator knows what the truth is and proceeding from his (her) own 
political and selfish interests, distorts the truth consciously. 
History shows that manipulation is a necessary element of social and 
political life. Human activity or political activity requires necessarily the 
multiplicity of supporters and neutralization of opponents. In Antiquity 
manipulation or to win over a neutral position man to own side was the 
main sign of demagogues, sophists. It is widely distributed in the society 
in which the main means of implementing of power is a word.  
Manipulation is a characteristic of political life of distorted form of 
democracy. One form of image manipulation is an image, or revealing a 
politician's best side, or in such a way as public sentiment requires. With 
the difference of manipulation an image is a different form of 
manipulation. Antiquity rather used to create a positive image of practice, 
than a political means of manipulation. With the difference of Antiquity, 
today manipulation is one of the main elements of political process. But 
today there is no manipulation in a rough form. It combines image, public 
relations, political advertisements.  
Today the manipulation takes the form of the one single time action, 
but it is a necessary element of the policy and permanent process. The 
ratings, the election campaigns make this. The manipulation may be 
where the imperfect democracy and is not a transparency of political 
process. 
Some Aspects of the Manipulation of Public Relations in... 
 
443 
As soon as the first society had been created there appeared the desire 
of working with it. The creative product of the earliest period of the 
mankind spiritual culture – even the myth, fulfilled the formation function 
the same way as it does the contemporary theoretical, social, political or 
scientific myth. 
Regis Debrei, in his book Course de mediologie generale tries to formulate 
a definite system of exchange of opinions and means of interrelations. 
According to his theory, after appearance of a written language in the 
public relations three spheres of relations have changed each-other: a 
logosphere, a graph sphere (where the written word dominated) and a 
video sphere (when the printing practice is changed by audiovisual one). 
Of course, Debrei considered the development of these spheres in 
diachronic section, which did not exclude their synchronic coexistence. We 
can nominate the contemporary epoch as the best sample of active use of 
all three spheres. The development of technologies and communications 
has created the so called fourth power – media, which, according to 
Debrei‟s theory is the most effective mean of formation of public opinion 
through the tandem of logo, graph and video spheres and through 
manipulation with it. 
We‟ve put the question, whether it was possible that in the first 
democratic city-state – Athena there were a synchronic like logo, graph 
and video spheres?! It is true that the 21st century and the antique epoch 
are too far from each other for giving a possibility to make direct parallels, 
but there are the principle and systematic relations, resemblance of which 
should give a rather interesting picture in the context of a dialogue of 
cultures between the epochs. 
It might be said that in the Greek world there has not been left any of 
the non-mastered resource, which gave possibility of manipulation with 
public relations and public opinion. 
In nearly all polices of Antique Greece, despite the fact was it 
democratic as Athena or oligarchic as Sparta, by all means there existed 
two most important spaces of public relations – agora and theatre which 
gave the most effective results in the issue of formation of public opinion. 
Agora, as a political, and the theatre, as the spaces of cultural relations, 
in Athena were in service of common state purposes (or the authorities). 
You should know that theatrical festival was not able to be the host none 
of the plays and the dramatist who would not be “given a green light” 
(permitted by) from Archonta. And on Agora where numerous people 
were crowded, at the People‟s meeting the state, public or private issues 
Ana Zhorzholiani 
 
444 
have been discussed, such a censorship could not be worked. Instead of it 
here worked well the Institute of sycophants or professional informers. 
It is clear that the verbal side occupied a leading position in Antique 
Greece, but nearby there existed a great experience as well. Using the term 
of Debrei the tradition of execution the monumental epigraphic 
inscriptions have appeared rather interesting among the graph-sphere, 
which achieves the highest stage of development in the classical epoch. 
The epigraphic inscriptions which help us in restoration of historical 
reality in its time, of course, have been prepared with the quite other aim. 
The content and, correspondingly, the destination, as well, of epigraphic 
inscriptions are of various types. A special interest provokes the 
epigraphic inscription of different contents created in the name of the 
state. Already by the 7th-6th cc. BC in many polices of Greece it has become 
habitual a tendency to bring to the society a Constitution, Decrees and 
various texts of state significance. These inscriptions which have been 
executed on the stone stelas have been allocated on the most noticeable 
places of public gathering, by which they appear as the archaisms of the 
contemporary billboards. The rather interesting systematic relativities 
should be indicated between the billboards and the epigraphic inscription. 
As you know, the word “billboard” means an advertizing, poster 
board which is located in the central, crowded street or road of the city. 
The image of modern great cities is unbelievable without the advertizing 
information containing the different dazziling information. Its purpose is 
to create an instant and indelible impression, accordingly, to have an 
influence on the conception and action of a man. It is the truth that the 
billboard are mainly of commercial destination, because of which it has 
not been thought of among the media types but in some cases it plays 
much more important role in spreading of information of noncommercial 
purposes and in the issue of influence of one and the same message 
simultaneously through transferring to a wide group of various 
individuals. Consequently, an attempt of effecting the informational 
influence might be considered as one of the most important common signs 
among the modern billboard and epigraphic inscriptions.  
It should be indicated that there are available the definite marketing 
accounts concerning to what kind and forms of inscriptions must be 
performed on the billboards for providing the best results. As a rule, the 
advertising billboards are adorned with a slogan constituted of several 
words which are distinguished by bold print and bright/sharp colors. 
It should be noted that the definite rules of fulfilling the inscription 
existed in the Antique Greece. E. g., The resolutions of the People‟s 
Some Aspects of the Manipulation of Public Relations in... 
 
445 
Meeting have been written in strictly established form. It is possible that 
the resolution, as a juridical document is not the best example, but we 
can‟t avoid the formula with which the text, as a rule, had been initiated: 
“It has been resolved by the Meeting and the People.” The indicated 
formula was followed by the information about the membership of the 
Committee of Five hundreds‟ Board, secretary of the meeting, chairman of 
the People‟s Meeting and the personality of Archont-Eponimos, and only 
after this it was written the text of the resolution itself. 
Besides the resolutions the epigraphs contained the information on 
various great constructions, names of officials, names of the winners of the 
championships and those perished in the fights, Decrees of religious 
societies, etc. All these served to propagate the state interests, underline its 
powerfulness, both from the political and economical points of view. 
The contemporary advertising signboards of noncommercial content 
are decorated by the slogans and photos of the persons or association 
participating in this or that elections, the religious appeals, images of 
famous sportsmen and artists which aim at popularization of various 
public activities. The memorial plaques and monuments of soldiers 
perished in battles have been erected which are not only the indicators of 
respect to the heroically perished, but aims as well at the propagation of 
national policy.  
Number of inscriptions in Athena has been sharply increased after 460 
years when finally had been formed a Democratic Slave-owning state. 
According to the existing rule in Athena the State Treasury stipulated 
the special expenses for inscriptions. The cost for inscription depended not 
only on the number of lines and letter-marks, on the quality of an 
inscription, size of symbols, but on those materials as well on which the 
inscription should be executed. In Athena, fulfilling the 100 line 
inscription on the marble tile, where in each line there would be several 
decades of marks in the IV c. cost 60 Drachma. 
It is worth-mentioning that in accord to the form and material, both the 
billboard and the epigraphic monuments have been distinguished by 
diversity. If in Antiquity they used the stone, cliff, wall of the building, 
memorial plaque, pillars and stelas for execution of monumental 
inscription, the contemporary billboards are prepared of metal 
constructions on which the digital, painted and other advertising banners. 
As well there are widely used the walls of the buildings. In spite of multi-
century distance between the epochs, it is still arranged to search out even 
one resembling sample. For example, in the city of Milett for the 
inscriptions on the agora there were available the special wooden plaques 
Ana Zhorzholiani 
 
446 
– kirbs of prism form, on which the laws or decrees have been written in 
paints. The indicated kirbs, were rotating, for more clearness, around own 
axis. I think that you‟ve not a single time the advertising billboard of like 
construction. 
For epigraphic texts of special importance a rocky cover was widely 
used. As an example we can state the inscription of Gortin available on the 
isle Creta which otherwise is called the first constitution of Europe. The 
resolutions of the People‟s Meeting on establishment of a democratic 
system in the cities of Erifra, Colophon, Millet. It is especially interesting a 
resolution received about the city of Erifra which determines a new 
system of city management. 
This tradition of stamping on the rock was widely spread not only in 
Antique Greece but in the Near East as well. E. g. in Iran, on the way from 
Baghdadi to Teheran, between the cities of Kermanshah and Hamadan 
there was the cliff of Behistoon on which is curved an inscription fulfilled 
by the order of Darios I. The inscription has been located on the height of 
152 meters from the surface of the ground, on the territory of Old Midii 
and it was well seen from the way which once had communicated once 
upon a time Babylon and Ekbatan. Sizes of the inscription constitute 7 
meters in height and 22 meters in width. Here has been depicted as well a 
bas-relief on which in front of the king Darrios there are standing 9 kings 
whose hands a necks are chained And on the tenth king stands Darios by 
foot. This inscription which has been performed in Persian, Babylonian 
and Newelamic languages is some kind of manifest of the King of Persia, 
Darios the First. Imprinting on high rock of an inscription and bas-relief 
for it were visible for everybody, demonstrates us clearly the purpose – to 
consolidate over the society the influence, confidence, fear and respect. 
All the above mentioned can be summarized in the following way: the 
question which concerns the synchronization of the logo, the grapho and 
the video spheres, obviously coexisted in the ancient world (in different 
forms, but not within a single institution). 
The similarities of the so-colled Out-door Media and epigraphic 
inscriptions, which are shown by the visualizations and the usage of 
technical means for achieving the above mentioned effects, once again 
reminds us that everything new is well forgotten old and proves that 
notwithstanding the distance between Antiquity and other epochs, it‟s 
influence and connection can be found in any sphere of human activities. 
 
 
 


Some Aspects of the Manipulation of Public Relations in Ancient Greece and Contemporaneity

Jugeli, Victoria

The Georgian "Life of Julian-Saba" (cod. "Sin. Georg." 6) and its Greek and Syriac Sources ("Historia Philothea" by Theodoret of Cyrus)

Dolidze, Tina

Christliches und Hellenisches in der Epistemologie des Origenes

Gordeziani, Rismag

The Colchians in the Adriatic – Poetic Imagination or a Historical Fact

Nadareishvili, Ketevan

Ketevan Nadareishvili 
 
326 
 
Ketevan Nadareishvili (Tbilisi) 
MEDEA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EAST/WEST RELATIONSHIPS 
It is universally acknowledged that Medea has developed to be one of the 
most important and complex figures of the Greek mythology, being one of 
the most popular artistic images from the dawn of the European literature 
till modern era – XXI century at the same time. One of the secrets to 
Medea‟s tremendous popularity and her fascination throughout the 
centuries seems to be her complexity, the irreconsible traits of her 
personality, the fact that she defies simple description – she is 
simultaneously a betrayed wife and a mother-murderer, a figure having 
superhuman facets and a women overwhelmed with human passions, a 
lovelorn maiden and a manipulative witch. Among the contradictions of 
Medea‟s figure, one of the most interesting is the relationship/contra-
diction of the two worlds – two value systems, that of the East and the 
West, or as it is called sometimes in the modern scholarship, the problem 
of “self and “other”. Medea is not just the simple member of the 
dichotomy – Greek/barbarian. The complexity of her figure consists in the 
fact that to certain extent this dichotomy is encapsulated within her 
mythic figure, as she veers between Greek and foreigner.37 This 
phenomenon is unusual, but it is still the reality when regarding Medea. 
Lets recall Euripides‟ Medea. Initially, Medea seemed to have been tamed 
by Jason and seemed to be a woman incorporated into Greek life38. 
However, her barbarian blood comes to the front later on. We can encoun-
                                                 
37  Medea, Essays on Medea in Myth, Philosophy and Art, ed. by Claus J.; Johnston S., 
Princeton 1997, 8.  
38  Such treatment of Medea we see in Hesiod‟s Theogony, where she is depicted as ”a 
subject to Jason, shepard of the people” (Hes., Theog., 992-1002).  
Medea in the Context of the East/West Relationships 
 
327 
ter in her iconographic images the tendency of veering between the East 
and the West. The traditional Greek clothing, which according to some 
scholars served to present her as a more-or-less normal Greek woman 
from the end of the V BC changed into the oriental costume, signaling her 
abandonment of Greek world and her alignment with the foreign, the 
other and the barbarian one.39 Step by step Medea is transformed into 
cultural stranger in the land of Greece.  
Therefore, the question can be asked here: Is this relationship of 
East/West (or confrontation between them in the later period) in Medea‟s 
mythic figure just accidental, or it reflects some very old historical 
realities? To answer this question we should first look through her 
genealogy. Even the brief overview of these data presents a very 
interesting picture to us: Medea is a granddaughter of Helios. Helios, or 
Sun, is the mediator between the members of the binary opposition 
between the East and the West, as he starts his journey from the East to the 
West (not from the South to the North) and then circulating returns back. 
In Gordeziani‟s opinion, the land of his son – Aeetes is also related with 
the movement of Helios40. A certain Greek tradition existed where the 
“Swift Helios shines in golden strength in the city of Aeetes at the edge of 
the Ocean” (Mimn., 11/11aW). It is important to note, that in the ancient 
mythology Helios‟ descendants move in accordance to the sun‟s journey. 
The dwelling of Aeetes‟ sister Circe in Homer‟s poem is in the East (Od., 
XI, 3-4), but Hesiod places Circe in the West. According to the Theogony 
the sons of Odysseus and Circe rule in the midst of the isles over the 
famous Tirsenians.41 Apollonius of Rhodes goes further as he speaks not 
only about Circe‟s present dwelling, but also tells how Circe was brought 
by her father‟s chariot to Italy, though he doesn‟t mention the name of the 
starting point of the journey (Ap. Rh., III, 309-310). Still if we take into the 
consideration the trajectory of sun‟s movement – the movement from the 
East to the West, we can conclude that Apollonius of Rhodes suggested 
Circe‟s former dwelling to be in the East. Circe‟s removal from the East to 
the West is attested in the works of the later writers (Diod., IV, 45, 2-5; Val. 
Flac., VII, 217-219). Aeetes second sister – Pasiphae also dwells in the 
West. Her settling is on the island of Crete, where she is the wife of Crete‟s 
                                                 
39  Sourvinou-Inwood C., Medea at a Shifting Distance: Images and Euripidean Tragedy, 
in: Medea, 1997, 8. 
40  Gordeziani R., The Greek Factor in the Context of the Opposition – Europe/Asia, 
Phasis. Greek and Roman Studies, 13-14, 2010-2011. 
41  It means that Hesiod places Circe‟s land in the country of Etruscans. 
Ketevan Nadareishvili 
 
328 
legendary king – Minos. According to one source, her mother is the epo-
nym of the island itself – Crete. Aeetes brother Perses is the ruler of 
Taurians and lives on the west-north coast of the Black Sea. According to 
Diodoros, Perses‟ daughter is Hecate, who after poisoning her father 
becomes the ruler of Taurians and marries Aeetes (Diod., IV, 45). 
According to Tinatin Kaukhishvili, the marriage of Aeetes and Hecate 
suggests uniting of the land of the Colchians and the Taurians, i. e. the 
East and the West in this context.42 In the framework of the East-West 
relationship, the son of Aeetes is to be mentioned as (the source – doesn‟t 
give his name) the one who founded Pantikapeon at the north coast of the 
Black Sea (Eus. ad Dion. Perieg.). And Aeetes grandson Thetallos (Medea‟s 
son) is suggested to be the eponymous hero of Thessally.  
On the other hand, the sources also attest the withdrawals of Helios‟ 
descendants in the opposite direction – from the West to the East. Helios 
divided his land among his sons in the poem of the early period that of 
Eumelos of Corinth (VIII BC). The one part that was bound by the river 
Asopos, he gave to Aloeus, while the other part – Ephyra (the late Corinth) 
he gave to Aeetes. Aeetes voluntarily entrusted the land to Bounos to 
guard, until he himself might come, or some other member of his line, 
whether a son or a grandson. He himself arrived at the land of Colchis 
(Eum., fr. 2K = Schol. Pind., Ol., XIII, 74a). And indeed the situation turns 
out in such a way, that his descendant, his granddaughter Medea became 
the ruler of Corinth. According to the same Eumelos, the inhabitants of 
Corinth invited Medea, who had come from Colchis to Iolcus, to rule upon 
them. Jason becomes king as her husband, through her (Eum., fr. 
3K=Paus.II, 3, 10). Simonides also calls Jason the co-ruler of Medea (Sim., 
fr. 31PMG). There exists the other version of Medea‟s life in Corinth. 
Medea lives in Corinth and saves Corinthians from the hunger. Zeus falls 
in love with her. But Medea, who wants to avoid Hera‟s wrath, refuses 
Zeus‟s love. Grateful to Medea, Hera promises her that she will 
immortalize her children, but fails and the children die. Corinthians start 
to worship Medea‟s dead children (Eum., fr.2 = Schol. Pind., Ol., XIII, 74). 
According to the variant version, Medea herself hides the children in the 
temenos of Hera in order to make them immortal. However, the children 
die. Jason becomes angry over this and returns to Iolcus. Medea too leaves 
Corinth and gives the throne over to Sisyphus (Eum. fr. 3K=Paus, II, 3, 11). 
These facts provide us with a possibility to conclude that Medea‟s 
                                                 
42  Kaukhchishvili T., The Ancient Greek Sources of the Georgian History, Tbilisi 1976, 
118. 
Medea in the Context of the East/West Relationships 
 
329 
connection with Corinth is very close and is based on an early tradition 
that connects Medea with Corinth through her genealogy, independently 
of her being Jason‟s wife. Medea‟s close ties to Corinth are testified by the 
existence of the cult of Medea‟s dead children to whom Corinthians serve 
yearly sacrifices. Some sources name Medea the introducer of Here 
Acraia‟s cult and her annually celebrated festival. The ritual services on 
one hand and the mythological evidences about her connections with 
Corinth on the other made scholars suggest that Corinthian Medea was 
originally a goddess, whose cult was displaced later by that of Pan-
Hellenic goddess Hera.43 It seems to us, that this tradition played the 
major role in connecting Medea with the western world and therefore 
encapsulating the opposition Greek/barbarian within the heroine‟s soul in 
the early artistic interpretations of Medea. 
In connection with this ambiguous interpretation of Medea‟s 
eastern/western relations, Pindar‟s Pythian IV deserves an attention. 
Pindar‟s version also places Medea within a context of earlier movement 
between the East and the West44. Here, for Jason to accomplish the hard 
tasks given by Aeetes, he has to rob Medea of a„dèj (“shame”) for her 
parents and interestingly enough, he must flare up a passion for Hellas in 
Medea‟s heart. It is remarkable that the poet puts the stress here on the 
passion towards Hellas, rather than for Jason himself. As O‟Higgins notes, 
one can hardly overstate the importance of the passion that made Hellas 
so irresistible to Medea.45 This movement from the East to the West in the 
symbolic word of the poem can be regarded as a desire of the East to come 
close to the western world seen from the viewpoint of a western poet. 
In the period of Greek-Persian wars, (VI-V cc. BC) the tension between 
the East and the West sharpens intensely. The change of the political 
vectors greatly influenced the cultural context, where the dichotomy 
between the self and the other, Greek and barbarian, acquires quite a 
distinct character. Herodotus already discusses the reasons for the conflict 
between Europe and Asia. Ascribing the arguments concerning the rise of 
this conflict to the Persian historian, Herodotus writes that there were two 
stages in this conflict. The conflict was confined to the abduction of 
women by both sides at the first stage. Medea appears here among the 
women who traverse the space between Greece and the East in a vengeful 
interchange: Io, removed from Greece by Phoenicians, Europa removed 
                                                 
43  Johnston S., Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia, 44-71 in: Medea, 1997, 46. 
44  O‟Higgins, Medea as Muse: Pythian IV, 103-127 in: Medea, 1997, 119. 
45  O‟Higgins, 121, in: Medea, 1997. 
Ketevan Nadareishvili 
 
330 
from the Phoenician town of Tyre by Greeks, Medea, removed from 
Colchis by the Greek ship and Helen captured by barbarian Paris. The last 
act entailed not a countertheft, but a great military expedition – the Trojan 
War (Her., I, 1, 3), which was already the second stage of the conflict 
between the East and the West.  
Medea‟s artistic representations in this period present a very 
interesting picture of the drastic changes taking place in the 
interpretations of this popular heroine. Nonetheless, this is the theme of a 
separate article.46 We can just briefly note the following here: Medea 
gradually becomes the cultural “other”, a paradigmatic outsider in Greek 
context. Now lets return to Medea‟s further withdrawals, namely her 
moving back from the West to the East this time. After Corinth, where the 
most tragic events of her story had developed, Medea first flees to Athens 
and then to the East. Where does she go? The different versions of her 
myth name the different places of her withdrawal. From these various 
versions the most popular one is the story according to which Medea 
arrives to the land of Arians, who change their name and start calling 
themselves Medeans/Medes after her settling. This account was first 
attested in Herodotus (Her., VII, 22). Pausanias follows Herodotus in 
naming Medea as the eponymous hero of the Medes, but adds a son, 
Medus by Aegeus. Some authors credit the son, rather than mother with 
the naming, but in their accounts Medea is either also presented or has 
some connections with the Medes (Apoll., I, 9, 28, also Eus. Chron., Ip. 61; 
Step. Byz. s.v. M»dia; Tzetz. Lycoph., 175, 1443; Prob. Georg., II, 126). 
According to Strabo, the eponyms of the Medians are both – Medea as 
well as Medos (Strab., XI, 13, 10). According to Dionysus Scytobrachion, 
on the other hand, after her long journey, Medea arrives first to the land of 
Phoenicians and then travels upward to the Asian countries. She marries 
some Asian king there and bears to him a son Medos, who names the 
people after himself (Diod., IV, 55). 
In another version, Medea arrives at Perses‟ kingdom and falsely 
claims to be a priestess of Diana. After some time her son Medus arrives 
there as well. After much peripeteia, when the mother and the son 
recognize one another, Medea asks him to kill Perses. Medus kills Perses, 
gains his grandfather‟s kingdom and calls the country Media (Hyg., 
XXVII). 
                                                 
46  This material was presented in our paper “Changing the Political Vectors in Euro-
pe/Asia Relationship and its Influence on Artistic Icons: Development of Medea‟s Im-
age” delivered at the annual conference of ACLA 2012 held at Brown University. 
Medea in the Context of the East/West Relationships 
 
331 
A seperate question arises on whether Medos can be considered an 
eponym of the Medes. It is generally accepted in the modern scholarship 
that the last part of the Theogony (1001), where Medeios is mentioned, as 
well as the change from M©do» to MÁdoi in Ionic-Attic, need not be older 
then II half of the VI c. BC. Neither two are the Medes mentioned in the 
Greek sources before Ibycus. Outcoming from these arguments the 
scholars mostly suggest that Medos/Medeios can hardly be the eponym of 
the Medes.47 But what is more important for us here is the fact that the 
Greek way of looking at the world demanded that the Medes must have 
an eponymous hero and this eponymous hero in turn must have a 
genealogy. According to Graf, Medea was obvious candidate for the role 
because of her name, of her genealogy and of her home country, which 
was roughly in the same part of the world.48  
Other sources narrate about Medea‟s removal from Greece to the East, 
this time to Colchis. In Apollodorus Medea secretly arrives to Colchis and 
when she learns that Aeetes was deprived from the throne, she kills Perses 
herself and returns the throne to Aeetes (I, 9, 28). According to Valerius 
Flacus, Medus participates in returning the power to Aeetes (681 ff.). 
Hyginus also mentions the killing of Perses by Medus (244). In Iustinus‟ 
story, Medea also comes back to Colchis, but together with Jason and 
Medus here. Jason returns the throne to Aeetes and afterwards conquers 
the neighboring lands. When Jason dies, Medus founds the city called 
Media in honor of his mother and establishes the Median kingdom (Ius. 
Epit., XLIII, 2). Tacitus also narrates the arrival of the couple in Colchis 
(Tac. Ann., VI, 34). All of Medea‟s journeys back to Colchis need an 
explanation as they contradict the logic of her story at a first glance. 
Logically speaking, Medea has no way back due to the evil she has 
committed to her motherland and her family. She knows this very well 
too. Indeed, in all versions of the myth, Aeetes‟ daughter desperately 
blames Jason in betraying her and especially marks out that the things she 
had done were for his sake and as a result she had forever cut all her ties 
with her family and country. 
An interesting story exists in Medea‟s mythic biography. After her 
earthly life, as some ancient authors (Ibycus and Simonides) write, Medea 
becomes the wife of the prominent Greek hero Achilles and as the dis-
tinguished soul settles in the Elyseian Islands (fr. 291PMG; fr. 558PMG). 
                                                 
47  West M. L., Hesiod: Theogony, Oxford 1966, 430. 
48  Graf F., Medea, The Enchantress From Afar, 21-44 in: Medea, 1997, 38. 
Ketevan Nadareishvili 
 
332 
After studying the evidence concerning the relationship between the 
East and the West in Medea‟s figure, we will try to answer the question we 
had put in the beginning of our paper, namely if this relationship reflects 
some very old historical realities about the connections that existed 
between the East and the West. Before discussing this problem we would 
like to emphasize the following: the settlings chosen by the descendants of 
Helios after their removal from the East to the West do indeed coincide 
with the regions of the dwellings of the Kartvelian tribes in the Me-
diterranean area: Aeetes is connected with one of the main regions of the 
diffusion of the protogreeek tribes, namely with Ephyra, Circe with the 
region of the settling of these tribes, namely with the land of the Etruscs, 
Pasipae lives on the island of Crete – in the main region of the Protogreek 
culture. As Gordeziani states in his major study on this topic, the 
migration of one part of the Kartvelian tribes from Caucasus to the Aegean 
area towards the end of the third millennium seems to be quite acceptible 
in the modern scholarship. This migration became the basis of emerging of 
the Pelasgian ethnos. One part of this ethnos moved afterwards to Crete, 
another – to Italy. 
On the other hand, the process of new migration begins approximately 
in 1200 BC in the Anatolian region. The moving away from the Aegean 
area splits into two directions: a) to the East and the North-East including 
the Caucasian region; b) to the West. The possibility of the migration of 
the East Mediterranean tribes to the Caucasus is attested in the written 
sources, in the linguistic data and in the archeological material. It is 
noteworthy that the Medians (Madai of the Ancient East sources) appear 
indeed on the historical area towards the end of the II millennium BC. It 
seems possible that during their settling in the East, they had certain 
relationship with the Caucasian tribes. We see Muschks (Moskhs) and 
Kashks (considered to be Kartvelian in origin by some scholars) at the 
sources of the river Tigris in XII BC. The possibility that the above 
discussed data about the return of Medea and her son Medos in the 
Caucasus reflect the activization of the migration process of the Aegean 
tribes (one part of them) back to the Caucasus cannot be excluded.49  
Therefore our study aimed to show, that the multidimensional 
reletionships of the East and the West revealed in Medea‟s image, namely: 
a) Medea‟s close connections with Corinth; b) Medea‟s affection towards 
Hellas (Pind., Pyth., IV); c) Medea‟s withdrawals from Colchis to the West 
                                                 
49  Gordeziani R., Mediterranea-Kartvelica, Tbilisi 2007, 23; 431 ff; The Argonauts, Story 
and Commentaries by Gordeziani R., Tbilisi 1999,130.  
Medea in the Context of the East/West Relationships 
 
333 
and from the West to the East; d) Medea‟s being the eponymous hero of 
the Medes should not have been accidental. 
Naturally, we do not affirm that these withdrawals of Medea and her 
relatives from the East to the West and backwards were the direct 
responses to the Kartvelian tribes‟ migration first (towards the end of III 
millenium) from the Caucasus to the Aegean area and afterwards 
responses to the withdrawal of one part the Aegean tribes back to the 
Caucasus (towards the end of II millenium). Though we must not exlude 
the possibility that the above migration processes to a certain extent were 
reflected in the myths of Medea and her geneology, presenting the 
complex interrelation of the East and the West in the ancient world.  
 


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