P.'s subject is, first, the relationship between reciprocity, truth and gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (taken separately) and, secondly, the ‘complementarity’ that emerges from the comparison between them – how each poet's configuration of these interlocking themes is structurally distinct but evidence of their ‘shared poetic culture’ (p. 4). This is an original and ambitious approach that aims to combine the study of related themes in a single author or genre (such as V. Wohl, Intimate Commerce: Exchange, Gender and Subjectivity in Greek Tragedy [1998]) and the comparison of authors on a single theme (A. Uhlig, Theatrical Reenactment in Pindar and Aeschylus [2019]). The perspective that emerges raises interesting questions about gendered inflections of credibility, persuasion, perception and knowledge as well as alētheia as an articulation of cosmology. P. largely focuses on bolstering key claims about the patterns that she has found, so that the comparative method does not bring out the granular complexity of the ways in which her themes interact in the texts. Nevertheless, the individual analyses are highly thought-provoking and suggest that multi-thematic comparisons may be a fruitful way forward.
P.'s key claims are as follows: reciprocity is ‘true’ in that reward and punishment (and exchange) are driven by a ‘cosmic system of reciprocity’ (p. 42); in Pindar reciprocity is immediate, whether this involves mutual benefit among xenoi or reward or punishment for (mis)deeds, while in Aeschylus it plays out over longer periods of time; in Pindar women disrupt reciprocal relations between men, while in Aeschylus they articulate reciprocity as truth. These claims are set out in the prologue and Chapter 1, which I shall discuss in conclusion. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on Pindar, while Chapters 4, 5 and 6 concern Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, Suppliants and Oresteia respectively.
Chapter 2 convincingly shows how Pindar constructs a peculiarly epinician truthfulness arising from the poet–patron relationship, in contradistinction to Homer and Odysseus as epic storytellers. This builds on P.'s published work (‘Truth and Genre’, CQ 63 [2013]), while also bringing out the parity or symmetry that signal reciprocal ideals. In this and other chapters an analysis of the terms that define parity – of value (monetary, reputational etc.) – and potential asymmetries – such as money for immortality in song – might have had enlightening results. This chapter makes an important contribution to our understanding of envy in Pindar, since P. elucidates the relationship between properly reciprocal, unbegrudging relationships and truthful praise.
Chapter 3 argues that Pindar's female figures disrupt male relationships and thus serve as negative foils for the poet. The link between disruptive women and poetic activity is not always convincing, though there is a clear association between female characters and deception. Ixion in Pythian 2 does not seem to fit the pattern, being a deceptive transgressor (vv. 32–3), but P. argues that he is not deceptive at all: Zeus initiates deception by making a cloud to look like Hera, severing his reciprocal relationship with Ixion (pp. 78–9). Pursuing the reciprocity of male deception might have worked better here. The idea that, like women exchanged in marriage, the Hera-cloud has ‘passive agency’ over the story promises a nuanced discussion of gender and metapoetics, but P. concludes simply that the ‘Hera-cloud reflects what poetic creation can do when devoid of the reciprocity concerns that govern Pindar's poetic activity’ (p. 106).
In the remaining three chapters (which I shall discuss thematically) we see structurally distinct but closely related configurations of the same ideas in Aeschylus. Women articulate the link between reciprocity and truth over time: they explicitly reflect on the consequences of the past for the present and future and interpret unfolding events as parts of inevitable patterns of cosmic responsion. In the case of Seven against Thebes and Suppliants the women constitute the chorus, who might be expected to offer interpretative narratives no matter what the gender of the chorus members is, but P. points out that Clytemnestra and Cassandra of Agamemnon show similar foresight and are disbelieved by the (male) chorus, whose knowledge is confined to the past (pp. 180–1, 185; this thesis was formulated by F. Zeitlin in: M. Griffith and D.J. Mastronarde [edd.], Cabinet of the Muses [1990], quoted on p. 132). While Seven against Thebes features a male seer, Amphiaraus, his prophecy encourages Eteocles’ blindness, whereas the chorus warn of mutual fratricide and further ramifications (p. 132).
The discussion of gendered patterns of knowledge and credibility in the Aeschylean plays is stimulating. For Seven against Thebes this involves the gendered inflections of seeing and interpretation, not only of shield iconography but also of sights reported or distantly perceived: the eyewitness accounts of scouts are given more credit than the women's alarm at the dust rising on the horizon. The chorus of Agamemnon interpret Clytemnestra's words within the context of male and female persuasion in turn, with strikingly divergent results (vv. 351–4, 475–87). As P. notes, this is not the first time that Clytemnestra's gender has been complicated in the play. The overall analytical frame, however, seems less flexible than is required for the ambiguity of gender as a social and relational phenomenon that tragedy continually re-examines and redefines. Similarly, the use of semantic terms – denote, connote – for truth-words forecloses the contestation of meaning that is surely at play in both genres (e.g. ‘[t]ruth, for both poets, denotes the power of reciprocity’, p. 12).
The Danaid suppliants ‘present the past as a catalyst of obligations that should and will shape the future’ (p. 169). P. could have fruitfully explored the tension between that ‘should and will’ further. This is hindered, however, by her metatheatrical argument that women have privileged access to the playwright (as a ‘mouthpiece’, pp. 139, 186, 201, cf. 110, 184; for dissenting scholars, see pp. 197–8 n. 76). This view limits the exploration of women as interpreting and interpreted participants in the drama. A ‘should/will’ distinction emerges in the final chapter, on the Oresteia, as the truths expressed by women in Agamemnon become obsolete and actions are evaluated without recourse to retributive causation. P.'s argument implies that this shift in terminology represents not just the construction of forensic process but the destruction of the link between cosmic inevitability and justice. Surprisingly, she does not engage with R. Gagné's Ancestral Fault (2013), which would have helped place this observation in the context of intergenerational causation at the intersection of the human and the divine.
P. does not always position herself clearly within the scholarship. On the number of meanings of alētheia, for example, she appears to endorse both A. Komornicka – at least eight – and W. Race – just one (pp. 17–19). Readers may also find P.'s use of pace to introduce scholars she contradicts confusing (e.g. p. 101 n. 88, citing P. Ahlert, Mädchen und Frauen [1942], p. 86, who does not argue for ambiguity in the phrase χειρῶν ὕπο κρατερᾶν at P. 11.18). This perhaps reflects a reluctance to allow her arguments to speak critically and directly to broader debates, or indeed very specific ones, such as textual difficulties in Suppliants (e.g. pp. 159–60 on Suppl. 282–3). Chapters 4 and 6 are clearer in this regard, but we are not left with a precise idea of P.'s views on the scholarship about her three core themes; nor is there sufficiently incisive methodological analysis to clarify what the complementarity of Pindar and Aeschylus amounts to and thereby to interpret the patterns she finds.
P.'s conclusions might have had more explanatory power if divinity had been afforded a central place in the analysis. In her discussions of male and female prophecy, cosmic and institutional dikē and the ‘authorial’ powers of prophetesses and tragic choruses, gods and goddesses intervene where they should be integral. Nevertheless, the patterns that emerge from this innovative approach to authors and themes stimulate reconsideration of important issues and promise exciting avenues for further study. While the general claims that run through the book sometimes occlude these avenues rather than opening them up, it will reward careful study of its many valuable insights.
