¹ Gentili, B., ‘Intellectual Activity and Socio-Economic Situation.’ published as ch. 7 in id., Poetry and Its Public in Ancient Greece (Baltimore and London, 1988), pp. 155–76Google Scholar; esp. p. 166.

² Gregory, C., ‘Kula Gift Exchange and Capitalist Economy Exchange.’ In Leach, J. W. and Leach, E. (eds.), The Kula. New Perspectives in Massim Exchange (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 103–20Google Scholar, p. 104.

³ In recent anthropological discussions there is a tendency to give priority to concepts of value rather than to modes of production when looking at the emergence of commodity exchange. Whereas Marx denned commodities by their dependence of the capitalist mode of production —i.e. by their production for market exchange—Appadurai argues that any object can enter a ‘commodity phase’ when it is totally ‘objectified’—i.e. acquires a value attached to itself rather than in relation to a person. SeeAppadurai, A. (ed.), The Social Life of Things (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also in the same volume: Kopytoff, I., ‘The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditisation as Process’, pp. 64–91Google Scholar. I have discussed this problem in more detail in Exchange in Ancient Greece, London, 1995Google Scholar.

⁴ Svenbro, J., Laparol et le marbre. Lund 1976Google Scholar; Havelock, E. A., The Literate Revolution and Its Cultural Consequences (Princeton, NJ, 1982)Google Scholar; Detienne, M., Maîtres de la vérité dans la Grece archaïque. (Paris, 1973), pp. 9–27Google Scholar.

⁵ Svenbro (1976), pp. 175–85.

⁶ As Gentili alsoBowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford, 1961), pp. 308ffGoogle Scholar. Lesky, A., Geschichte der Griechischen Literatur (Bern, 1963), pp. 210ffGoogle Scholar. Gzella, S., ‘The Problem of the Fee in Greek Choral Lyric’. Eos 59/1971, pp. 189–202Google Scholar.

⁷ Havelock (1982), p. 290. See also Gentili (1988), pp. 39f.

⁸ Detienne (1973), p. 110 with Marm. Par. 70; cf. Christ, G., Simonidesstudien (Freiburg, 1941), pp. 75ffGoogle Scholar.

⁹ In the following I shall use ‘text’ for both spoken and written representations. As Thomas has argued convincingly, there is no such thing as a strict distinction between orality and literacy; thus many texts that were written down were nevertheless produced for oral performance; seeThomas, R., Oral Memory and Written Record (Cambridge, 1990)Google Scholar, Introduction. For my discussion of poetry, rhetoric and knowledge below the distinction is indeed irrelevant. Gentili, following Havelock, , in his chapter on ‘Modes and Forms of Communication’ (1988, pp. 32–48)Google Scholar overstates the consequences of literacy when explaining Plato's attitude to poetry above all by the advent of the written text as the medium for a philosophical argument.

¹⁰ Barthes, R., S/Z (Paris, 1970), esp. p. 95f.Google Scholar, 220f.

¹¹ In the story of Balsac's Sarrasine, which underlies Barthes' argument, the young woman offers her body in return for the story of Adonis, from which she hopes to gain knowledge of his body. See Barthes (1970), p. 93.

¹² Barthes (1970), p. 10.

¹³ The effects of judgement on the production of tragedy have been discussed byGoldhill, S., ‘The Great Dionysia and Civic Ideology’. In Winkler, J. J. and Zeitlin, F. (eds.), Nothing to do with Dionysios? (Princeton, 1989), pp. 98–129Google Scholar; and in greater detail in his Language, Sexuality and Narrative (Cambridge, 1984)Google Scholar. Similar work has been done on choral poetry by Kurke, L., The Traffic in Praise (Ithaca and London, 1991)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Kurke (1991), p. 248.

¹⁵ Goldhill (1990), pp. 104ff.

¹⁶ As Gentili observes, yet only for archaic (that is, oral) poetry, poetry put audience and poet in a single emotional state created by the reciprocity of poetic performance and the audiences' emotional response. Gentili (1988), pp. 44 and 55.

¹⁷ See Detienne (1973), Walsh, G. B., The Varieties of Enchantment. Early Greek Views of the Nature of Poetry (Chapel Hill and London, 1984), pp. 3–22Google Scholar; Pratt, L. H., Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar. Falsehood and Deception in Archaic Greek Poetics (Ann Arbor, 1993)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Pratt (1993), esp. ch. 2, has argued against Detienne (1973) and others that truth (i.e. veracity) was not the only quality valued in poetry. Conveying generalised truths or ideals by means of fictive stories as well as causing pleasure were equally, if not sometimes more, highly valued functions of poetic performance.

¹⁹ Pratt (1993) distinguishes two models of archaic narrative the one being important for their commemorative function, the other for their beauty (pp. 12–17 and ll. 2.484–7 and Od. 8.487–91). Both these models fall into this first category as they are both gifts of the Muse. To what extent this distinction is useful will be discussed below.

²⁰ SeeGoldhill, S., The Poet's Voice (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar, ch. 1; cf. Pratt (1993), ch. 2.

²¹ In Sarrasine, too, the meaning of money in Parisian society is related to the wider problem of signification. The belief of the Parisians in the value of money is said to be the origin of the indifference with which they look at the origin of the wealth of the Lantys; this corresponds with their ignorance of the unnatural status of the castrate and therefore indicates their general indifference about metaphysical distinctions (such as gender). ‘L'indifférence parisienne à l'origine de l'argent vaut symboliquement pour l'inorigine de l'argent; un argent sans odeur est un argent soustrait à l'ordre fondamental de l'indice, à la consécration de l'origine: cet argent est vide comme la castrature: à l'impossibilité physiologique de procréer, correspond, pour 1'Or parisien, l'impossibilité d'avoir une origine, une hérédité morale: les signes (monétaires, sexuels) sont fous…’ Barthes (1970), p. 47.

²² There is a fourth type of exchange which seems to be represented as the inversion of a pattern: Nestor and Menelaos tell stories about Odysseus to the wandering Telemachus. These exchanges appear as the very transgression of a contract, since Telemachus gains both information and hospitality for giving nothing in return. This does not, however, contradict the model I am proposing, since the Telemachy as a whole has been interpreted as a n episode of transgressive behaviour necessary for Telemachus' initiation into adulthood. For this see W. Eckart, ‘Initiatory Motives in the Story of Telemachus.’ CJ 59/1963, pp. £49–57.

²³ Od. 11.363–8; 14.166–70; 17.514–20; cf. 21.405–7; see alsoGoldhill, S., The Poet's Voice (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 56–68Google Scholar.

²⁴ Walsh, G. B., The Varieties of Enchantment. Early Greek Views of the Nature and Function of Poetry (Chapel Hill and London, 1984), pp. 3–22Google Scholar.

²⁵ Od. 1.345–50; 8.74 etc.

²⁶ Thelgein/thelgesthai is not only used for the enchantment caused by poetry but also refers to the enchantment which gods cause in humans in order to control their wits and to any kind of seduction between the sexes (cf. Od. 18.282, 3.264, cf. ll. 276). It has clearly magical connotations (cf. Od. 10.291, referring to Circe's drug) and in any case implies that a strong relationship is created which cannot easily be broken up. See for an overview of all occurrences of the term in the epics Scully (1981), p. 76; also Detienne (1977), pp. 13, 63ff.; Goldhill (1991), pp. 60ff. andSegal, C., ‘Eros and Incantation: Sappho and Oral Poetry’. Arethusa 7/1974, pp. 139–60Google Scholar.

²⁷ Od. 17.514–20.

²⁸ We can see a striking continuity between the function of bardic performance and the ethical function of later poetry and prose philosophy. Thus Euripides condemns the poetry of the past that it was not able to lighten human suffering (Med. 190SF.) As Gentili (1988, p. 41) comments, this was not yet denying to the poets the role of masters of truth and wisdom, but criticizing past poets for not having fulfilled their principal function.

²⁹ Od. 1.337–44. See also 8.90–93.

³⁰ Pratt (1993), pp. 46–7, and Od. 1.337–46; 8.536–43.

³¹ Od. 8.487–91.

³² Od. 11.363–8.

³³ Od. 14.508–9.

³⁴ Od. 12.39ff.; 184–191. AsWalsh, comments, ‘in this formulation, the listener's pleasure seems almost to merge, as if in hendiadys, with the knowledge he acquires’. Walsh (1984), p. 6Google Scholar.

³⁵ So, for example, Hesiod dedicated the tripod he had won for his song ‘to the Muses of Helicon, in the place where they first taught me clear song’. Hes. W&D 654–9.

³⁶ No individual rights of property are attached to gifts, which makes them structurally more similar to a loan than to a possession. This comes out most clearly in Sahlins's description of the gift in hisStone Age Economics (London, 1972), pp. 185ffGoogle Scholar.; cf. Mauss, M., The Gift (trans. Hall, H. D., London, 1990), pp. 12Google Scholar and 47f. See also Strathern, M., ‘Subject or Object: Women, and the Circulation of Valuables in Highlands New Guinea.’ In Hirschon, R. (ed.), Women and Property. Women as Property (London and Canberra, 1984), pp. 158–75Google Scholar.

³⁷ It is worth mentioning the episode of the bard as the guardian of Clytemnestra in this context. In Od. 3.263ff. it is told that Aigisthus before seducing Clytemnestra in the absence of Agamemnon exiled the bard that was left in the house as her guard. It seems that by this act the adulterer tried to avoid that the song of his deed could be sung – without success however. Scully comments on this passage: ‘In the removal of the singer, the usurpers do their best to erase a recording of their deed. Society has not only lost his voice to recall normalcy in social conduct, but also its ability to record for present and future generation contemporary reality.’ S. Scully, ‘The Bard as Custodian of Homeric Society: Odyssey 3.263–72.' JHS 8/1981, pp. 67–83Google Scholar; p. 82.

³⁸ Od. 8.470ff.

³⁹ A mockery of this reciprocity is presented in 17.416–18. Here Odysseus takes on the role of a bard promising to Antinous who had given him a rather inadequate portion of food that f he will celebrate (kleiô) his generosity on the limitless earth.

⁴⁰ The gift is therefore only a return for the story about Troy, not for the one about Ares and Aphrodite hearing which Odysseus terpet … kai aloi Phaiekes (368f.).

⁴¹ I tried to argue elsewhere (Exchange in Ancient Greece (1995)) that gifts in epic narrative have the function to explain the offerings to heroes in 8th century hero cult. See alsoNagy, G., ‘On the Death of Sarpedon’, in Rubino, C. A. and Shermaldine, C. W. (eds.), Approaches to Homer (Texas, 1985), pp. 189–217Google Scholar with Coldstream, J. N., Geometric Greece (London, 1977), pp. 346ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴² The motif appears also elsewhere in the Odyssey. So, for example, Penelope likening herself to Odysseus gains gifts from the suitors by trickery. Odysseus rejoices when watching his wife ‘as she extracts gifts from them and charmed (thelge) their hearts with soothing speeches (melichiois epeessi), but her mind devised other sings’ (Od. 18.282–4). Further examples are discussed in von Reden (1995), ch. 1.

⁴³ Pratt (1993), pp. 91 and esp. Od. 19.203.

⁴⁴ Telemachus, too, will learn about Odysseus's return after a journey. Detienne (1973), pp. 29–55 with further examples. Pratt (1993), pp. 17–22, argues against Detienne's proposition that aletheia was regarded as necessarily non-fictive truth, i.e. as the memory of things as they had really happened.

⁴⁵ Od. 14.121–32.

⁴⁶ Goldhill (1991), p. 38; see also 14.379ff. where Eumaeu s tells that he had been deceived by the words (exepaphe mutho) of an Aitolian ‘who had killed a man, roamed about and thus came to my hut.

⁴⁷ The reproach that people who are supposed to give information tell lies in order to please their audience and then gain a gift is not only associated with poor beggars. Eurymachus taunts Halithersis that he would not babble false augury if he did no t hope for gift. See Od. 2.184.

⁴⁸ Eumaeus perceives the trick: since he had once been cheated by a murderer telling lies about Odysseus, he n o longer gives bioton (sustenance) for nothing in return (nêpoinon, 377).

⁴⁹ Od. 14.151–5.

⁵⁰ Od. 14.166–72.

⁵¹ The exchange is explicitly called an agreement (rhêtrê, 393).

⁵² This distinction again fits Pratt's model. As Eumaeus feels a greater distance to the events depicted in Odysseus' Cretan story, less strong demands to accuracy are made. The story is pleasing and therefore valid; cf. Pratt (1993), 46–7.

⁵³ Edwards, A., Achilles in the Odyssey, Königstein 1985Google Scholar, has argued convincingly that Odysseus's strategy of killing the suitors is an image of ambush warfare. Within this imagery the hut (and the disguise) stand for the ambush where the warrior hides before launching an attack. Also, as in Odysseus's song it would mean death if Odysseus did not get the mantle. Being the test of a friendship, which he needs to kill the suitors, it is indispensable for his return.

⁵⁴ Od. 14.509–17.

⁵⁵ Od. 14.462–6.

⁵⁶ Ep. Horn. 14.1; undated but certainly before the end of the 5th century.

⁵⁷ For the two functions of money as a means of exchange in commerce and a means of social retribution in society and politics see esp. Will, E., ‘De l'aspect éthique des origine de la monnaie.’ RH 212/1954, pp. 209–31Google Scholar; id. ‘Fonctions de la monnaie dans les cités grecques de l'epoque classique.’ In Dentzer, M., Gauthier, Ph., Hackens, T. (eds.), Numismatique Antique. Problèmes et méthodes (Nancy, 1975), pp. 233–46Google Scholar. For money as reward for public service see also Price, M., ‘Thoughts on the beginnings of coinage.’ In Brooke, C. et al. (eds.), Studies in Numismatic Method Presented to Philip Grierson (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 1–10Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Kurke (1991), ch. 8 with reference to earlier literature.

⁵⁹ Kurke (1991), p. 248 with Pind. Isthm. II. 32f. see alsoWoodbury, L., ‘Pindar and the Mercenary Muse:Isth. 2.1–13’. TAPA 99/1968, pp. 527–42Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ See esp. Pind. Nem. 6.11ff. 3.24ff.; Ol. 12.1ff. 3.43ff. Isth. 4.11–13, 1.18ff. Cf. Kurke (1991), pp. 20–33, 191–3 for further examples and discussion. The image of travelling is in Pindar not only connected with the origin of truth but with all the most important values epinikian aims to convey: the athlete must leave the house to gain victory and fame, and fame is more valuable the further it travels. The wealth of an oikos, furthermore, is the result of the journeys of his master, the strength of a city depends on its outgoing fame, and the value of the poet's voice which spreads the glory of people, houses and cities rests on its ability to travel.

⁶¹ Find. Pyth. 2.62ff., trans, based on Bowra.

⁶² Cf. 77. 23.741ff. 6.288ff.; Od. 4.612ff. Negative image of Phoenician traders Od. 14.288ff.; 15.415ff.

⁶³ Pind. Nem. 5.1–5, trans. Bowra.

⁶⁴ If Pyth. II dates to 483 B.C., as it is generally assumed but not certain, Aigina was still an important trading centre at the time of its composition.

⁶⁵ Theog. 246–54; Gentili (1988); cf. Goldhill (1991), p. 110.

⁶⁶ As Goldhill (1991, pp. 11 If.) points out this passage is both informed by, and different from, the Homeric relationship between poet, kleos and song. While in Homer, the poet travels with his song to the audience, here the subject of song travels as song independently of the poet. This separation of the subject from the poet may be regarded as symptomatic of the increasing separability of the person of the poet and his craft, a development that scholars have usually regarded as typical of choral poetry and resulting from the new conditions under which it was produced. This example from sympotic lyric is a striking counter example aainst the hypothesis that the self-definition of poets and poetry changed under changing social and economic conditions of poetic production.

⁶⁷ As Gernet has suggested, notions of value in myth are closely linked to images of travelling in general and sea travelling in particular. Agalmata typically have their origin in, or are captured from, the sea, and the more they have travelled, or have been passed around, the more their value increases (Gernet, L., ‘Value in Greek Myth’. In Gordon, R., Myth, Religion and Society [Cambridge, 1981], pp. 111–46.)Google Scholar It need hardly be pointed out that this makes the mythical notion of value similar to concepts of value attached to gifts in many working gift exchange systems. The Kula, in particular, derives its dynamic from the fact that travelling is regarded as a condition of value. For reference see Leach, J. R. and Leach, E. R. (eds.), The Kula: New Perspectives in Massim Exchange (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar, Introduction.

⁶⁸ An ‘index’ has an origin in something else than itself, while a ‘sign’ has not. Thus gold may be an index of status if it is regarded as having intrinsic value. Money having is usually regarded as a value by convention, that is has no metaphysical origin. See Gernet (1981), p. 112, with different terminology though.

⁶⁹ Gentili (1988), pp. 165ff. see above.

⁷⁰ Detienne (1973), pp. 109–25.

⁷¹ Cartledge, C., ‘Fowl Play: A Curious Lawsuit in Classical Athens (Antiphon XIV, frr. 57–9 Thalheim)’. In Cartledge, P., Millett, P., Todd, S., Nomos (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 41–61Google Scholar, esp. 49–51. See also Ostwald, M., From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (Berkeley, 1986), pp. 360–65Google Scholar.

⁷² Phil.Life of the Sophists 1.15, sec. 499; cf. Ostwald (1986), p. 361.

⁷³ Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, 1971), Vol. III, p. 286Google Scholar. Moulton, C., ‘Antiphon the Sophist On Truth: TAPA 103/1972, pp. 329–66Google Scholar; cf. Ostwald (1986), p. 363.

⁷⁴ It is not sure whether Gorgias developed a systematic ontology. One of his early works was entitled Peri tou mê ontos (D-K 82 B 3) which might be identical with Peri phuseôs (D-K 82 B 2). Yet more importantly, behind his technical works on rhetoric lie a number of theoretical assumptions about the problems of being, existence and communication. From these works some fundamental differences from the thought of Plato can be derived. See for this and the followingSegal, C., ‘Gorgias and the Psychology of Logos’. HSCP 66/1962, pp. 99–155Google Scholar. See also Havelock, E. A., Preface to Plato (Oxford, 1963), pp. 152ffGoogle Scholar., and Gentili, B., ‘The poetics of mimêsis’ in (1988), pp. 50–60Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ B 3 (D-K), cf. Segal (1962), pp. 101–9.

⁷⁴ B 11 10ff.; cf. Gentili (1988), pp. 54f. whose translation I have used here.

⁷⁷ For Gorgias's association of poetic thelgein with his own rhetoric in prose see Segal (1962), pp. 115f.

⁷⁸ It should be mentioned here that there are some problems in the relationship of emotion and rationality in Gorgias's theory of persuasion. In the Helen (B 11) Gorgias concentrates on the former while in the Palamedes (B 11 A) he takes a more rationalistic approach. It seems that they were not mutually exclusive, as they were for Plato, but interdependent ways of influencing the psyche. See Segal (1962), pp. 119ff.

⁷⁹ 82 B 23 (D-K).

⁸⁰ As Havelock points out, the terms technê and sophos in the sense o f ‘skilful’ occur as such or in derivatives ten times in the short introductory passage to the contest and are key terms of the scene. Havelock, E. A., The Literate Revolution and its Cultural Consequences (Princeton, 1982), p. 269Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Havelock (1982), p. 290.

⁸² Detienne (1973), p. 121; for a brief but useful analysis of the Clouds and Frogs in relation to the intellectual problems of Athenian politics seeCartledge, P., Aristophanes and the Theatre of the Absurd (Bristol, 1990), pp. 129ffGoogle Scholar.

⁸³ Michell, H., The Economic of Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 1940), p. 326Google Scholar. There is, however, no numismatic evidence of this coinage.

⁸⁴ Frogs 717–33. Note that for Aristophanes, too, money is not a bad value as such, but I ambivalent as is it can be made a representative of a value which it does not embody itself.

⁸⁵ See esp. Plat. Prot. 349a, 310d; Hipp. I 281b; 300d; Hipp. II 364d; Crat. 391b; Men. 91d; Theaet. 161d; 167c; 178e.

⁸⁶ Plat. Apol. 20a, 19d, 33b.

⁸⁷ Plat. Apol. 26d.

⁸⁸ B 11, 9 and 18; cf. Segal (1962), p. 124.

⁸⁹ Plat. Rep. 599dff.

⁹⁰ Plat. Rep. 392c-394b. See further, Annas, J., Plato's Republic (Oxford, 1981), pp. 94–101Google Scholar, 336–44; Urmson, J. O., ‘Plato and the Poets’. In Moravcsik, J. and Temko, P. (eds.), Plato on Beauty, Wisdom and the Arts (New Jersey, 1982), pp. 125–36Google Scholar; Guthrie, W. K. C., Plato: The Man and his Dialogues. Earlier Period. History of Philosophy Vol. IV (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 545–54Google Scholar.

⁹¹ Plat. Rep. 397e–398b; cf. 585bc.

⁹² In the Ion Plato separates the art of the poet (who is entheos, literally ‘full of divine gifts’) from epistêmê and technê with the argument that the audience clings to it like the last element of a chain to a magnet. Poet, rhapsode and audience are all under one force (that is, the divine enchantment/inspiration/enthusiasm (enthusiazô/entheos) from which they cannot escape. In Phaidr. 244a poetry is described as a divine intoxication (mania). Poets and rhapsodes were so closely linked and both so dependent on the inspiration by the Muse that no formal distinction needed to be made between the influence of the poets and that of rhapsodes.

⁹³ Plat. Ion 535e.

⁹⁴ Plat. Rep. 416e–417a.

⁹⁵ Phaedr. 267c; cf. Segal (1962), pp. 116f. noting some similarities of the work of Thrasymachus and Gorgias.

⁹⁶ Rep. 33a–34b; cf. 474b–480a for the distinction between knowledge and belief; see also Annas (1981), pp. 193ff.

⁹⁷ I wish to thank Rosalind Thomas, Helmuth Schneider and the referee for CQ who made helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.