Maschalismos in Ancient Greece and beyond
Julia Doroszewska and Janek Kucharski
Kittredge, the author of the first dedicated study of maschalismos, described it as the ancient Greek equivalent of driving a wooden stake through the vampire’s chest (1885, p. 166). The analogy may be a bit far-fetched, but not too much: the ancient (and Byzantine) tradition does indeed present us with a bizarre rite, apparently performed to forestall the anger of a murder victim from beyond the grave, one which consisted in cutting off his extremities and stringing them together around the neck and armpits (maschalai). With only a handful of exceptions, modern scholars have been content to accept this, and have seen in the maschalismos a strange ritual practice, a glimpse into the religious imagination of the ancient Greeks – the contemporaries of Aeschylus and Sophocles – populated by demons and revenants, and full of gruesome sympathetic magic. In more recent scholarship, however (Dunn 2017, pp. 11–12; Muller 2011, p. 296), a radical reappraisal of this custom is under way, one which seeks to strip it of its magical component, as well as of its strangeness and essential otherness: these, we are told, were nothing more than the products of the fanciful musings of ancient grammarians. The purpose of this chapter is therefore not only to reassess the evidence for the original meaning and significance of maschalismos, but also to look into the later scholarly accretions, into its ‘afterlife,’ which will help us better understand how it took the uncanny form we are now presented with and how much of it was a product of – sometimes ingenious – misunderstanding.
Our sources on maschalismos can roughly be divided into two groups: the literary and the scholiastic or lexicographic. The chief difference between them is that the former seem to describe an authentic and more or less contemporary practice, while the latter desperately try to explain what is no longer intelligible. The crucial problem is that of the four literary sources, two refer to maschalismos explicitly, but provide almost no details of it at all, while the other two seem to describe it, but never refer to it as such. The former two come from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Sophocles’ Electra, the latter two from Euripides’ Hecuba and Apollonius’ Argonautica. Let us examine them in greater detail.
The Aeschylean and Sophoclean instances are both related to the death of Agamemnon, slain by Clytemnestra and subject to maschalismos:
ἐμασχαλίσθη δέ γ᾿, ὡς τόδ᾿ εἰδῆις, | ἔπρασσε δ᾿ ἅπέρ νιν ὧδε θάπτει, | μόρον κτίσαι μωμένα | ἄφερτον αἰῶνι σῶι | κλύεις πατρώιους δύας ἀτίμους
He was subject to maschalismos, so that you know: she did it, she who buried him in this way, seeking thus (mōmena) to make his death unbearable (apherton) to your life. Do you hear of your father’s miserable disgraces (atimous)?
Aeschylus, Choephori, 439–443
σκέψαι γὰρ εἴ σοι προσφιλῶς αὐτῆι δοκεῖ | γέρα τάδ᾿ οὑν τάφοισι δέσεσθαι νέκυς | ὑφ᾿ ἧς θανὼν ἄτιμος ὥστε δυσμενὴς | ἐμασχαλίσθη κἀπὶ λουτροῖσιν κάραι | κηλῖδας ἐξέμαξεν
Consider now: do you think the dead man in the tomb will be kindly disposed to her in receiving these gifts? By her hand, after his disgraceful (atimos) death, he was subject to maschalismos, as if an enemy (dysmenēs), and in his head she wiped the pollution (kēlidas) for the sake of cleansing (epi loutroisin).
Sophocles, Electra, 442–446
The little information one gathers from these two passages is that maschalismos is performed after the killing, and that it is an outrage – meant to elicit indignation in the addressees of both these utterances – as well as a dishonor to the dead (atimos). Sophocles tells us also that such treatment was reserved for ‘enemies’ (dysmenēs) – and so it is all the more abhorrent within the family – and adds to it the wiping of the blood (from the sword – this rather obvious remark is supplied by the scholiast) on the head of the victim, yet another rite, one explicitly described as a cathartic measure (epi loutroisin).
Apollonius provides us with some more details, but never mentions maschalismos explicitly; the association of this passage with the custom is based on the scholiastic and lexicographic tradition,1 as well as on a revealing sacrificial parallel from Homer (see below, p. 162):
Ἥρως δ᾿ Αἰσονίδης ἐξάργματα τάμνε θανόντος, | τρὶς δ᾿ ἀπέλειξε φόνου, τρὶς δ᾿ ἐξ ἄγος ἔπτυσ᾿ ὀδόντων | ἣ θέμις αὐθέντηισι δολοκτασίας ἱλάεσθαι
Aesonid, the hero, cut (tamne) the first offerings (exargmata) of the dead. He licked the gore (phonou) three times and three times he spat out the pollution (agos) from his mouth. By this custom (themis) killers propitiate (hilaesthai) for murder (doloktasias).
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4.477–479
The abundance of detail may be misleading here. In fact, it is uncertain whether we are dealing here with one or two customary actions (as in Sophocles’ Electra) – one consisting in mutilating the victim, described in sacrificial terms as cutting off the first offerings (exargmata), and another, in licking and spitting out the gore (phonos). The latter is most likely the case, which in turn begs the question whether the epexegetic remark about atoning (hilaesthai) for murder is related to both or only to the second one (Ceulemans 2007, p. 104–105). This is a question of no small importance, one might add, as it has considerable bearing on our understanding of the purpose of maschalismos.
By contrast, the death of Polydorus in Euripides’ Hecuba is never explicitly linked with this custom (neither in the text itself, nor in any external testimony), and the only rationale for considering it as one such case lies in the description itself:
ὦ κατάρατ᾿ ἀνδρῶν, ὡς διεμοιράσω | χρόα, σιδαρέωι τεμὼν φασγάνωι | μέλεα τοῦδε παιδὸς οὐδ᾿ ὤικτισας
Cursed man! Had you no pity on this child, when you dismembered (diemoirasō) his body, cutting (temōn) with an iron sword his limbs (melea)?’
Euripides, Hecuba 718–720.
The treatment of the victim’s corpse here is usually attributed to the savagery of the murderer, a ‘barbaric’ Thracian king, and yet, one can hardly overlook the similarities between this description and – as we shall see – the scholiastic tradition on maschalismos.2 The body of Polydorus, treacherously murdered, is mutilated, with his limbs, that is extremities, most likely cut off. Finally, one might also point to a brief fragment from Sophocles’ lost Troilus which says: ‘full of maschalismata;’3 the context of this, however, is lost entirely. We cannot even tell whether it belongs to a description of mutilation – as suggested by Sommerstein (2006, pp. 205, 211 and 240) – or an actual sacrificial ritual (see below, p. 161, on the relationship between these two), let alone gather from it any additional evidence regarding the former.
One remarkable phenomenon is that after Sophocles, neither the noun maschalismos, nor the verb maschalizein are ever mentioned again other than as a lemma to be explained. In other words, the terms seem to have fallen out of use, and apparently were no longer understood.4 What appears to be a closely related notion, maschalismata, is found in an Attic epigraphic record from the first half of the III century BC, as part of sacrificial vocabulary (see below, p. 162), but later on in the same century it also required scholarly elucidation, and came to be identified with maschalismos itself. This is precisely the point at which we find the earliest of such scholarly definitions, attributed to Aristophanes of Byzantium, and preserved only in a quotation by later lexicographers, first (probably) Pausanias and then Photius and the Suda, both under the lemma maschalismata:
μασχαλίσματα· Ἀριστοφάνης παρὰ Σοφοκλεῖ ἐν Ἠλέκτρα κεῖσθαι τὴν λέξιν, ἔθος σημαίνουσαν. οἱ γὰρ φονεύσαντες ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς τινας ὑπὲρ τοῦ τὴν μῆνιν ἐκκλίνειν ἀκρωτηριάσαντες μόρια τούτου καὶ ὁρμαθίσαντες ἐξεκρέμασαν τοῦ τραχήλου διὰ τῶν μασχαλῶν διείραντες, καὶ μασχαλίσματα προσηγόρευσαν. σημαίνει δὲ ἡ λέξις καὶ τὰ τοῖς μηροῖς ἐπιτιθέμενα ἀπὸ τῶν ὤμων κρέα ἐν ταῖς τῶν θεῶν θυσίαις.
Maschalismata: Aristophanes points out that the term is found in Sophocles’ Electra and denotes a custom (ethos). For those who murdered (phoneusantes) someone by treachery (ex epiboulēs), in order to turn away the anger (tēn mēnin ekklinein), after hacking off his extremities (akrōtēriasantes) and stringing them together (hormathisantes), hung it from the neck and passed it through the armpits: these they called maschalismata. The term also denotes pieces of meat taken from the shoulders (apo tōn ōmōn) and placed on the thighbones in sacrifices to the gods.
This definition provides us with four important pieces of information: (a) maschalismos concerned ‘treacherous’ murder (ex epiboulēs), which perhaps may be extended to all cases of premeditated killing, as opposed to, for example, that carried out in the heat of the moment, or during warfare; (b) it was an apotropaic ritual (ethos), and its objective was to ‘turn away’ (ekklinein) the victim’s anger (mēnis) from beyond the grave; (c) it involved the amputation of the victim’s extremities, which are not specified here; and (d) these extremities were subsequently strung together (hormathisantes) and hung in a curious fashion (on which, see below, p. 160) from the neck and then under the armpits.
Now the circumstances of maschalismos, and the fact that it involved amputations, can be confirmed from the above-discussed literary passages. Apollonius obliquely hints at removing the victim’s extremities in a sacrificial metaphor of ‘cutting off his first offerings’ (exargmata); Euripides is much more explicit in this respect, though of course his testimony can only be taken as ancillary evidence, at the risk of a circular argument. Quite obviously, all four literary sources involve killing, and at least three of them – Aeschylus, Sophocles and Apollonius – a deceitful one. As we shall see, however, Aristophanes’ insistence on deceit may be a case of necessary periphrasis, one which conveys the English concept of ‘murder’, as opposed to other qualifications of killing, such as accidental or justified, also denoted with term phonos and its cognates.
The purpose (b) of maschalismos, however, as well as the bizarre pattern of stringing the severed limbs (d), have no explicit grounding whatsoever in the available literary texts. And yet they did enjoy a complex afterlife in the subsequent scholarly tradition of antiquity and Byzantium. In the surviving sources, this tradition comprises thirteen more or less distinct definitions (and a handful of verbatim copies of some of them)5 given by subsequent generations of scholiasts and lexicographers. These are: four different definitions given in three ancient (445a1, 445a2, 445a3) and one Byzantine scholion to Sophocles’ Electra6; three provided by Photius (s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη and μασχαλισθῆναι)7 – in fact, four counting in the above-quoted account of Aristophanes’ explanation (s.v. μασχαλίσματα);8 two in Hesychius’ lexicon (s.v. μασχαλίσματα and μασχαλισθῆναι); two others in the Etymologicum Magnum (s.v. μασχαλίζω);9 and one in the Etymologicum Genuinum (s.v. ἀπάργματα). To this list we should also add the ancient scholion to Apollonius’ Argonautica 477–479 (Wendel, 1935), which provides an unambiguous description of maschalismos, but, like Apollonius himself, does not mention the term explicitly.
Let us begin, however, with the less contentious aspects – that is, the circumstances of the ritual and the amputations, as they are presented in the scholiastic tradition. First, there is no disagreement that maschalismos did involve cutting off extremities. Almost all ancient and Byzantine definitions use the verb akrōtēriazein and its cognates (literally: ‘to cut off extremities’), and those which do not, employ a synonymous expression (akra temnein).10 The extremities, however, are not specified: one of the Sophoclean scholia (445a1) says that they come ‘from every part of the body’ (ek pantos merous tou sōmatos), and only Hesychius gives as an example ‘ears and noses’ (hoion ōtōn, rhinōn). When it comes to the circumstances, Aristophanes’ ‘killing by treachery’ (phoneusantes ex epiboulēs) emerges again with only minor changes in two later definitions (Hesychius s.v. μασχαλίσματα; Photius s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη)11 while two others (Etymologicum Genuinum and the scholion to Apollonius Rhodius, both closely related) use the more succinct verb dolophonein,12 which may hearken to Apollonius’ doloktasia, but already in post-classical Greek came to denote ordinary murder – with or without deceit. In one of the ancient scholia to the Electra (445a1) however, the problem is approached from a different angle: one resorted to maschalismos in cases of killing within the family (emphylios phonos).13 There is no way of telling if this represents an entirely different tradition or was tailored ad hoc to the situation presented in Sophocles’ tragedy which the scholiasts sought to explain. Finally in Photius (s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι) and the Etymologicum Magnum there are two puzzling references to ‘civil war’ (emphylios polemos),14 which most likely stem from a corruption of the previously mentioned ‘killing within the family’ (emphylios phonos), as the definitions in question are almost exact copies of the scholion to Electra (and obviously civil war has no support whatsoever in the available literary sources).
On the question of what was to be achieved through maschalismos, we are on much less secure ground. According to Aristophanes of Byzantium the objective was to ‘turn away the anger’ (tēn mēnin ekklinein). Whose anger? Most likely the victim’s, from beyond the grave – but since the term mēnis is given no possessive qualification, it may also have referred to some other angry agent, human or divine, as noted already by Kittredge (1885, p. 156, n. 1).15 In any case the wording itself clearly suggests an apotropaic ritual.16 This line of thought has been substantially expanded in the ancient scholia to the Electra (445a1, 445a2) and the two other definitions clearly derived from them (Photius s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι; Etymologicum Magnum s.v. μασχαλίζω). This time we are told that maschalismos rendered the murder victim ‘devoid of strength’ (asthenēs), or took away his ‘power’ (dynamis),17 and therefore prevented any harm coming from him, and in particular his revenge (antitisasthai) from beyond the grave. The Byzantine scholion to Electra takes up this reasoning, adding to it a detail that is not negligible; what was crippled through maschalismos was the victim’s power to send Erinyes against the murderer.18
In one of the ancient Sophoclean scholia (445a2), we also come across a curious and brief remark that maschalismos was performed ‘for the sake of purification’ (epi tais katharsesi). It is, quite predictably, carried over verbatim to some of the derivative definitions (Photius s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι), while others (Photius s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη and Etymologicum Genuinum) seem to point to the same idea with the term ‘cleansing’ (aphosioumenois).19 The ritual, in other words, is here described as a cathartic one. This tradition is sometimes traced to Apollonius Rhodius (and his scholiast), where a description of maschalismos is followed by an epexegetic comment about propitiation (hilaesthai) for murder,20 while the mutilation itself is described through the language of sacrifice (exargmata). As a propitiatory sacrifice, therefore, maschalismos is undertaken in order to achieve ritual purification for the murder. As already noted, however, the connection between atonement and maschalismos in the Argonautica is far from certain, since the remark about propitiation is far more likely to refer only to the custom of licking and spitting out the victim’s blood. The sacrificial language used to describe it, on the other hand, need not necessarily suggest an actual religious practice, but may represent an instance of ritual metaphor.21
Finally the most bizarre aspect of maschalismos: stringing the severed body parts and hanging them under the armpits. While the stringing stage was picked up rather easily in the scholiastic tradition,22 the precise pattern of subsequently hanging them from the neck and through the armpits is followed in only a handful of definitions.23 The scholion to the Argonautica mentions only the neck, which seems to be the more intelligible option, but its author could afford such liberty since he was not explaining the term maschalismos itself (as it does not occur in his definition) and therefore could dispense with the armpits (maschalai) altogether.24 Other scholiasts and lexicographers did not enjoy this luxury; clearly at a loss as to what to make of the curious pattern of binding bequeathed on them by Aristophanes, they chose the armpits alone, claiming that the body parts were hung from,25 worn26 or simply placed under them.27
There is also the question of who exactly was adorned in this way. Aristophanes does not specify this (perhaps to him the issue was too obvious) and therefore some scholiasts and lexicographers seem to have got lost on this point as well. Some definitions cautiously retain Aristophanes’ vagueness,28 others specify the victim, i.e. the corpse, and his armpits (or neck).29 Three of them, however, point to the killer, who apparently wore the body-part necklace himself.30 The latter, despite some ingenuous ethnographic parallels produced to support it (Pettazzoni 1925, 1926; Kittredge 1885, pp. 163–164), seems in its elaborate convolutedness a much less likely possibility (especially if the murderer wished to remain unknown).31 A much more likely one by contrast, would be a simple case of pronominal confusion: ‘on themselves’ (heautois or hautois) instead of ‘on them’ (autois).32 Needless to add, that none of this has any support in the extant literary sources.
From this general overview it is apparent that some of the points made by Aristophanes of Byzantium in his definition were substantially expanded, or changed altogether in later texts. Much of what is found in the subsequent tradition accounts for the modern conundrum regarding the maschalismos, and therefore explaining the vagaries of its Nachleben in the ancient and Byzantine scholarship against the backdrop of modern debates may bring us closer to an understanding of the nature and significance of this ritual in classical Greece.
That maschalismos involved mutilation was never a contentious issue. This is, however, roughly the extent of the contemporary consensus, which seems to break down when it comes to the details (which are not given in the available sources). Most scholars agree on the amputations of the hands and feet, some add to this list the ears and nose (on the questionable authority of Hesychius) and the genitals, the latter most likely drawn from the tempting parallel to the execution-cum-mutilation of Melanthios in the Odyssey (despite the fact that maschalismos is unanimously seen as a form of post mortem mutilation, and not execution).33 It has been also suggested that it is precisely from the act of amputating that the term maschalismos itself is derived: not from placing the severed limbs under the armpits, as Aristophanes suggests, but from tearing the arms away at the armpit level (which was gradually extended to cover the other extremities as well).34 The evidence for such a form of mutilation is, however, too slim (one image of Etruscan provenance) to corroborate this otherwise attractive etymological connection.
Mutilation in general – both of the living and of the dead – was a practice not unknown in the classical Greek world, though rather infrequent in historical reality. Medical amputations are almost absent from the Hippocratic corpus,35 even though Plato casually mentions one such case (Symposium 205e). Punitive mutilation is attested in classical Athens in one never-enacted decree which stipulated cutting off the hand of the prisoners of war.36 In another contemporary source (Aeschines 3.244) we find a casual remark about ritual amputation: it was customary to cut off the hand of a suicide, and bury it apart from the body. These instances seem to exhaust the classical Greek evidence for this phenomenon. Even such widespread practice as execution through beheading was carefully avoided in Athens, and regarded as ‘barbarian,’37 while mutilations of any kind belonged chiefly to the imaginary domain of ‘otherness,’ be it ethnic or ‘ethical’ (the figure of the tyrant).38
The severing of body parts, however, was indeed part of everyday experience in Athens, and that in a domain which had a defining influence on both literature and thought: animal sacrifice. In the standard thysia type of ritual, after the kill itself, the animal was first opened up, its entrails removed, and its head and hind legs with the pelvic part of the corpse, were cut off (Bremmer 2007, p. 137; van Straten 1995, pp. 115–153). At this point the gods were given their share in the sacrifice, and afterwards what remained of the victim (its best edible parts!) was cut up, divided among the participants and roasted. The part offered to the gods were the thighbones, cut out, wrapped in fat, and adorned with extra bits of meat; Homer in his celebrated descriptions of sacrifice refers to this last part as ‘placing raw [meat]’ (ōmothetein).39 Aristophanes of Byzantium, in his second definition quoted by Photius and the Suda (see above, p. 158), calls these bits of meat maschalismata, and his nomenclature is corroborated by an Attic sacred law from the third century BCE.40 According to Aristophanes, maschalismata were bits of flesh taken ‘from the shoulders’ (apo tōn ōmōn), which may be a corruption for ‘from pieces of raw [meat]’ (spelled the same, but with a different accent).41 Whatever the case here, the term seems to have been firmly rooted in the language of ancient Greek sacrifice. Furthermore, its Homeric synonym ōmothetein is epexegetically described as ‘offering the first fruit from every limb’ (pantōn archomenos meleōn).42 Not only does this produce a pattern surprisingly similar to that attributed to ritual mutilation, but the wording itself (archomenos) also provides an unmistakable connection with Apollonius’ description of maschal ismos as ‘cutting the first offerings of the dead’ (exargmata tamne thanontos).43
The connection between maschalismos and sacrificial maschalismata seems therefore too close to be simply glossed over in silence. And as observed by Parker (1984), the direction of influence must have been from sacrifice to mutilation, and not the other way around.44 In other words, the mutilation of the corpse could have received its name from the praxis of ritual slaughter; perhaps even the terms maschalizein were deployed in Aeschylus and Sophocles as a case of sacrificial metaphor, a phenomenon abundant in tragedy, and in particular in Aeschylus’ Oresteia.45 This is not to say, of course, that the mutilation of Agamemnon involved cutting bits and pieces from his corpse. The idea of snipping sacrificial maschalismata from each limb could have been for instance extended to simply hacking them off altogether, as suggested by Dunn (2017, pp. 11–12; cf. Muller 2011, p. 295). Thus, Agamemnon’s post-mortem mutilation would be assimilated to the dismemberment of a sacrificial victim, just like his death – to that of the sacrificial kill.
This otherwise attractive hypothesis, however, runs counter to Aristophanes of Byzantium (as well as all the sources derived from him) and his explicit statement that maschalismos drew its name from the pattern of stringing the severed limbs under the armpits. While it is tempting to dismiss this as the fanciful musing of a learned antiquarian (Dunn 2017, p. 12; cf. Muller 2011, p. 295), merely stating that he was wrong amounts to little more than an arbitrary rejection of firm evidence in favour of an otherwise attractive hypothesis.
When it comes to the goal of maschalismos, the scholiasts and lexicographers seem to vacillate between two approaches, considering it either an apotropaic ritual or a cathartic one. Some of them were even content to lump these two objectives together in one definition,46 but in modern scholarship they are usually taken as mutually exclusive.47 Simply speaking, one does not atone or propitiate for murder by adding insult to injury (the additional propitiatory element is usually derived from Apollonius Rhodius).48 Such inconsistencies, and the almost complete silence of classical sources, has understandably led scholars to question the validity of these approaches altogether, and to deny maschalismos any relevance to Greek beliefs about the afterlife.
On closer inspection, however, one finds that the ‘apotropaic’ and ‘cathartic’ functions ascribed to maschalismos are hardly mutually exclusive.49 The ancient Greeks of the classical period firmly believed in the power of the dead to avenge their violent death. Their ‘wrath’ (mēnis, mēnima) is frequently said to fall on the murderer, or those who failed to properly avenge their death. It worked its way directly, with the victim seeking satisfaction as a revenant,50 or through the agency of avenging spirits: most importantly the Erinyes, but also other, more vaguely defined demons (alastores, alitērioi, palamnaioi).51 Most revealingly however, both their presence, and even its source, the victim’s wrath, are quite explicitly equated with pollution, as in two examples from Antiphon’s Tetralogies:
οὗτός τε ἀνοσίως διαφθαρεὶς διπλάσιον καθίστησι τὸ μίασμα τῶν ἀλιτηρίων τοῖς ἀποκτείνασιν αὐτόν.
and he, impiously destroyed, will bring double the pollution (miasma) of the vengeful demons (alitēriōn) against those who killed him.
τῶι τούτου φόνωι τὸ μήνιμα τῶν ἀλιτηρίων ἀκεσαμένους πᾶσαν τὴν πόλιν καθαρὰν τοῦ μιάσματος καταστῆσαι
having satiated the wrath (mēnima) of the vengeful demons (alitēriōn) with his death, to render the entire city purified (katharan) of pollution (miasmatos).
Antiphon, Tetralogies, 4.4.10; 4.3.7
Antiphon, of course, speaks of death through securing the murderer’s conviction in court. In the more violent tragedy we see such purification achieved either by simply killing the murderer in return or driving him or her into exile.52 But if indeed one were to avert the victim’s anger by other, non-standard methods – for instance by hacking off his or her extremities – the end result would arguably be the same.
Much more troubling than such apparent inconsistencies is the almost complete silence of classical sources on the purpose of maschalismos. Apollonius indeed speaks of ‘atonement’ for murder, but that, most likely, in relation to licking and spitting out the victim’s blood, and not hacking off his limbs (see above, p. 157). The only unambiguous piece of information given in these texts is that it amounted to disgracing the victim, and by extension his descendants and heirs.53 Was this indeed its objective? The chorus of Aeschylus’ Choephori seems to suggest an affirmative answer: Clytemnestra attempted (mōmena) to make Agamemnon’s death unbearable (apherton) to Orestes (see above, p. 156). This openly partisan statement however, one with a clear agenda of goading Orestes into revenge, is contradicted by Clytemnestra’s own words and actions. In the conclusion of the Agamemnon she openly seeks a ‘pact’ with the demon of vengeance, to divert his wrath elsewhere, and expressly wishes ‘no further evils’ done; she reveres the Erinyes and regularly offers them (propitiatory?) sacrifices.54 In other words, she strives to avoid further vindictive violence, and mutilating the dead Agamemnon only to disgrace him, and thus stir his son and heir to revenge, does not sit well with such precautions (cf. Gotsmich 1955, p. 351). The insult is no doubt there, but, we would argue, rather as a corollary than the main objective. The latter must be sought elsewhere.
Simple post-mortem humiliation certainly was not the reason behind the abovementioned (p. 161) cutting off the hand of a suicide: this form of mutilation must have been firmly rooted in the religious thought of the ancient Greeks.55 Furthermore, since revenge is symbolically associated in our sources with both hands and feet,56 then perhaps amputating them from a murder victim could indeed be constructed as means of enfeebling his vindictive wrath – if, indeed, these were the body parts affected by maschalismos.
Quite like their modern counterparts, the scholiasts and lexicographers of antiquity and Byzantium clearly had no idea what to do with Aristophanes’ curious description of the binding stage. While they did not seem to have any problems with the concept of stringing the amputated extremities together, they are completely at a loss as to what was done with them later: whether to hang them from the neck, from the armpit, or both; to adorn the victim with them, or the murderer himself. Modern scholars by an overwhelming majority follow Aristophanes, in the absence of a better alternative.57 The most detailed, and perhaps most influential, elaboration of the learned Alexandrian’s otherwise difficult pattern is that given by Rohde (1925, p. 583):
The murderer hung the limbs, strung together on a rope, round the neck of his victim and then drew the rope under the armpits . . . then crossed the ends of the rope over the breast of the victim and after drawing them under the armpits fastened them behind his back.
The procedure is not impossible, said Rohde, encouraging those in doubt to try it out themselves.
As already noted, however, there are very few parallels to such a practice attested in Greek or Roman culture. In only a handful of mythical or historical accounts we are told of tying the severed body parts around the necks of the living victims:58 since no mention of armpits is given (let alone of any particular reason for these embellishments), any similarities between these incidents and maschalismos (as described by the scholiasts) are bound to appear incidental.59 A more promising direction might be found in ancient magic. Both legs and hands of the victim are frequently shown to be twisted in a curious manner in various ‘voodoo’ figurines,60 whereas Greek binding spells (defixiones) also tend to focus on these body parts.61 The missing link here though is amputation: while the preoccupation with hands and feet does not exclude drawing general parallels as to the symbolic value of these extremities (and their more or less symbolic binding), the particular relationship of those magical practices to maschalismos will always be speculative at best.
One cannot help but wonder therefore: how exactly did the ancient scholiasts and lexicographers – or more precisely the prōtos heuretēs – come up with such a strange explanation? At first sight it is so far removed from ‘common sense’ and everyday experience, so out of place, so bizarre that it has to be true. However, one very interesting parallel, which was not extraordinary in the Greek world, has so far remained unexplored, perhaps because it comes not from the domain of magic, spiritualism or the anthropology of revenge, but from fashion.
Hanging body parts strung together from the neck, with a curious twist down under the armpits, closely resembles the manner in which one particular everyday garment was worn; the so-called shoulder cord or shoulder strap. It was used by men and women alike, usually the more active, and therefore is frequently seen on artistic representations of children and young people. Its purpose was to hold together the upper part of the dress or tunic. Regrettably, there is no exact description of how it was fastened, but from the available iconographic evidence it seems that it was laid on the nape of the neck, passed forward above the shoulders and then back under the armpits; both ends crossed at the back and were pulled again, now around the chest, to the front where they were tied.62 A variant may have consisted of two loops crossing at the back, as if resembling the number eight.63 In any case, the neck-armpit64 pattern remains its distinctive characteristic, and resembles Aristophanes’ idiosyncratic description of the binding of the severed body parts. Most importantly, however, there are good reasons to believe that this shoulder strap is precisely what is referred to in some of the Greek sources as maschalistēr (Herodotus 1.215; [Aeschylus], Prometheus 71 and scholion; Pollux, Onomasticon 5.100).65 Unfortunately there are only a handful of instances of this term (in many of them it appears in its secondary meaning: a horse girth, one apparently used in manner parallel to the shoulder strap),66 and no precise definition of how a maschalistēr was actually worn. Both the etymology, and the fact that it is specifically described as a form of girdle,67 one worn in the upper torso around the chest,68 leave little room for doubt that the term does indeed denote the shoulder strap.69
This is most likely where the idea of binding the severed body parts in a curious fashion under the victim’s armpits and hanging them from his neck originates. As already noted, after the classical period the terms maschalismos and maschalizein fell out of everyday usage, and their meanings were most likely lost. This however, was not the case for maschalistēr: while the word does not occur very frequently, is used consistently and in a matter-of-fact manner both in early and later authors alike (e.g. Strabo, Geographica 11.8.6; Pollux, Onomasticon 4.116). It is therefore very likely that Aristophanes of Byzantium – our earliest source explaining the maschalismos – having a vague idea that it involved cutting off the members of a victim’s corpse (which was also most likely known to his older colleague, Apollonius Rhodius), but at a loss as to how to relate this information to the notion itself and its etymology, conflated it with what he knew about the maschalistēr, a very similar noun, one closely (if only coincidentally) related, but most importantly, readily intelligible, commonly employed in the contemporary language of everyday garments and fashion. Thus he arrived at the curious (and improvised) pattern of stringing the severed body parts together and tying them from the neck and under the armpits.
It is doubtful whether Aeschylus or Sophocles would recognize the ritual they alluded to in the definitions provided by the later tradition. Briefly, what we are dealing with here may be called a manipulation of mutilation, one obviously based on a single misunderstanding resulting from a false etymology, which thereafter begun to live its own life – or rather, afterlife. Even more startling is that this Nachleben of maschalismos has not yet ended; its strangeness is not only endorsed by modern scholars, but also creatively developed. The thread of tradition, lost at some point after the classical period, taken up again by Aristophanes of Byzantium, continues on. As we have shown, this thread, or rather a cord, is called maschalistēr. Conflating its use with cases of post-mortem mutilations in tragedy marked the point at which a ritual of the afterlife evolved into the afterlife of a ritual.
1 The scholion to Sophocles’ Electra and (most likely) the Etymologicum Genuinum (s.v. μασχαλίζω) cross-reference the Argonautica; also the scholion to the Argonautica, explains the passage in question and clearly describes maschalismos though it does not use the word itself.
2 Thus Schlesier (1988, pp. 118 n. 21), vacillating between maschalismos and diasparagmos (the latter a much less plausible alternative); cf. however, the misgivings of Matthiesen (2010, p. 345) are related more to diasparagmos than maschalismos; the diasparagmos theory is also criticized by Gregory (1999, p. 131), who does not mention maschalismos at all.
3 πλήρη μασχαλισμάτων; fragment 623 Radt (quoted by Photius and Suda s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη – an entry discussed below).
4 Suggested by Wilamowitz (1896, p. 201); cf. Gotsmich (1955, p. 352); Ceulemans (2007, pp. 100–101) and most recently Dunn (2017, p. 13), who quotes Wilamowitz (at n. 25).
5 Such as Pseudo-Zonaras (s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη) in the Lexicon Sabbaiticum (s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη) and by Michael Apostolius (s.v. μασχαλισθήσηι ποτέ) who repeat verbatim the definition of Photius (s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη); Photius’ definitions are also repeated in the Suda (see below).
6 For the numeration of the ancient scholia see the edition of Xenis (2010); for the Byzantine scholion recentius see Brunck (1810); the texts of the scholia, as well as the lexicographic definitions discussed below, are also provided by Muller, with French translations (2011, pp. 272–273).
7 The entry μασχαλισθῆναι contains two alternative definitions.
8 All four of Photius’ definitions are repeated verbatim in the Suda under the same lemmata: ἐμασχαλίσθη, μασχαλισθῆναι and μασχαλίσματα.
9 The entry contains two alternative definitions.
10 ἄκρα τέμνειν: ancient scholion to the Electra (445a2) and Photius (and Suda) s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι (2nd definition); ἀκρωτηριάζειν: all other definitions.
11 <οἱ> φονεύσαντες ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς τινας (Hesychius s.v. μασχαλίσματα – a verbatim quotation); ὁπότε φονεύσειαν ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς τινα (Photius s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη).
12 οἱ δολοφονοῦντες (Scholion to Argonautica 477–479); τοῖς δολοφονήσασιν (Etymologicum Genuinum s.v. ἀπάργματα.
13 εἰώθεσαν οἱ δρῶντες ἐμφύλιον φόνον ἀκρωτηριάζειν. . . (scholion to Electra 445a1).
14 οἱ δρῶντες ἐμφύλιον πόλεμον ἠκρωτηρίαζον. . . (Photius s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι; 2nd definition); οἱ δρῶντες ἐμφύλιον πόλεμον εἴωθαν ἀκρωτηριάζειν. . . (Etymologicum Magnum s.v. μασχαλίζω; 1st definition).
15 Kittredge rightly observes, however, that no qualification suggests the most obvious qualification: the wrath of the murder victim, mentioned only a moment earlier in the definition.
16 Aristophanes’ definition is on this repeated almost verbatim by Hesychius: ὑπὲρ τοῦ τὴν μῆνιν ἐκκλῖναι (s.v. μασχαλίσματα).
17 τὴν δύναμιν ἐκείνων ἀφαιρούμενοι διὰ τὸ μὴ παθεῖν εἰς ὕστερόν τι δεινὸν (scholion to Electra 445a1; repeated almost verbatim in Photius s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι and the Etymologicum Magnum s.v. μασχαλίζω); ἵνα ἀσθενὴς γένοιτο πρὸς τὸ ἀντιτίσασθαι (445a2).
18 ἵνα ἀνίσχυρον αὐτὸν ἐργάζωνται (. . .) πρὸς τὴν αὐτῶν ἄμυναν, ἣν οἱ νεκροὶ τοὺς ζῶντας ἀμύνονται, Ἐριννῦς αὐτοῖς ἐπιπέμποντες (scholion recentius to Electra 445).
19 τὸ ἔργον ἀφοσιουμένοις (Photius s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη); ἀφοσιῶσαι τὸν φόνον (Etymologicum Genuinum s.v. ἀπάργματα).
20 πρὸς τὸ ἐξιλάσασθαι τὴν δολοφονίαν (scholion to Argonautica 477–479).
21 Underscored by the fact that just a moment earlier Jason is referred to – in a clear case of sacrificial metaphor – with the technical term βουτύπος; cf. Ceulemans (2007, p. 106–107).
22 The only definitions which do not mention it are: scholion to Electra 445a3 (otherwise very brief) and the scholion recentius to Electra 445.
23 διείραντες ἐκρέμνων ἐκ τοῦ τραχήλου διὰ τῶν μασχαλῶν (Hesychius s.v. μασχαλίσματα); καὶ τῶν μορίων ὁρμαθὸν ποιήσαντας κρημνάναι κατὰ τοῦ τραχήλου, κατὰ τῶν μασχαλῶν διείροντας (Photius s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη); τὰ δὲ ἀκρωτήρια εἴροντες καὶ συρράπτοντες διὰ τῶν τοῦ νεκροῦ μασχαλῶν καὶ τοῦ τραχήλου περιετίθεσαν τῷ νεκρῷ (Etymologicum Genuinum s.v. ἀπάργματα).
24 καὶ ταῦτα λαβόντες ἐξήρτων τοῦ τραχήλου αὐτοῦ (scholion to Argonautica 477–479).
25 περὶ τὴν μασχάλην αὐτοῦ ἐκρέμαζον (scholion to Electra 445a2, quoted almost verbatim in Photius’s first definition s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι, and the second one in Etymologicum Magnum s.v. μασχαλίζω); ἀνηρτῆσθαι ἐκ τῶν μασχαλῶν (Hesychius s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι).
26 ἐφόρουν δὲ εἰς τὰς μασχάλας τὰ ἄκρα (scholion to Electra 445a1, quoted almost verbatim in Photius’ second definition s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι, and the first one in Etymologicum Magnum s.v. μασχαλίζω).
27 ὑπὸ τὰς μασχάλας ἔλαβεν τὰ ἄκρα (scholion to Electra 445a3); ὑπὸ τῆς μασχάλης ταῦτα τιθέναι (scholion recentius to Electra 445).
28 Hesychius (quoted above, n. 23); Photius (quoted above, n. 23); scholion recentius to Electra (καὶ ὑπὸ τῆς μασχάλης ταῦτα τιθέναι).
29 Scholion to Electra 445a2 and the derivative definitions of Photius and Etymologicum Magnum (quoted above, n. 25); Etymologicum Genuinum (quoted above, n. 23).
30 περιάπτειν ἑαυτοῖς τὰ ἄκρα . . . ἐφόρουν δὲ εἰς τὰς μασχάλας τὰ ἄκρα (scholion to Electra 445a1, quoted almost verbatim in Photius’ second definition s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι, and the first one in Etymologicum Magnum s.v. μασχαλίζω).
31 Among those who take it seriously are Gotsmich (1955, pp. 352–354); Garland (1985, p. 94); cf. also Garvie (1986, p. 163).
32 Since the wording of the definitions in question is almost the same, it is highly probable that Photius (and the Suda) and the Etymologicum Magnum are simply reproducing the error commited by the ancient scholiast to Sophocles; cf. Muller (2011, p. 284).
33 Genitals: Vermeule (1979/81, p. 222, n. 18; p. 236, n. 30); Bardel (2002, p. 57); Untersteiner (2002, p. 306); ears and nose: Nilsson (1955, p. 99); noses, ears, and genitals: Ogden (2001, p. 109).
34 Benndorf (1895, p. 132, n. 1); Wilamowitz (1896, p. 201); Kaibel (1911, p. 141); Boehm (1930, 2061–2062); cf. also Nilsson (19552, p. 99, n. 2); Slater (1986, p. 162); contra: Parker (1984).
35 The amputations mentioned in On Fractures 33, On Joints 68–69 and Prognostic 9 are most likely a passive matter and concern the removal or even falling off a limb which is already necrotic; cf. Rose (2003, p. 20).
36 Mentioned by Xenophon, Hellenica 2.1.31 and Plutarch Lysander 9.5 (only thumb); the decree was related to the campaign which ended in the battle of Aegospotamii (404 BC), which the Athenians lost (hence it was never enacted); Cicero, De Officiis 2.11 and Aelianus, Varia Historia 2.9 relate this decree (again concerning only the thumb) to Athens’ struggle with Aegina, which most likely stems from a confusion with the Aegospotamii decree (as such an event concerning Aegina is never mentioned by Thucydides or Herodotus); cf. Kendrick Pritchett (1991) 236–237.
37 Cf. Todd (2000, p. 35); see also Aeschylus, Eumenides 186–190 (also on other mutilations); Herodotus 9.79 (mutilation un-Greek); cf. Hall (1989, p. 25–27 and 205), on beheading, and other mutilations.
38 See e.g. Aristotle fragment 611.21 Rose (the tyrant Pantoleon – castration); Diodorus Siculus 20.71.2–3 (Agathocles – various mutilations and tortures); cf. Herodotus 3.48 (Periander – commissioning castration).
39 μηρούς τ' ἐξέταμον κατά τε κνίσῃ ἐκάλυψαν | δίπτυχα ποιήσαντες, ἐπ' αὐτῶν δ' ὠμοθέτησαν: Iliad 1.460–61; 2.423–4; Odyssey 12.358–9; cf. also 3.457–9.
40 SEG 35.113.15–17 (300–250 BCE); cf. Lupu (2005, p. 166–7).
41 ἀπὸ τῶν ὤμων (from the shoulders) and ἀπὸ τῶν ὠμῶν (from raw meat); the later (i.e. the emended text) is preferred by Rohde (1925, p. 584); see also Van Straten (1995, p. 127, n. 38); contra: Boehm (1930, p. 2061); Lupu (2005, p. 167); Muller (2011, p. 275, n. 25); a controversy going back to Eustathius’ Commentary on the Iliad (1.206 van der Valk) and his remarks on ὠμοθετεῖν in Iliad 1.461.
42 ὁ δ' ὠμοθετεῖτο συβώτης, | πάντων ἀρχόμενος μελέων (Odyssey 14.427–8); cf. Muller (2011, p. 288–9 and n. 84) who points out the parallels, despite his insistence on ἀπὸ τῶν ὤμων in Aristophanes.
43 Cf. Ceulemans (2007, p. 106); Aigner (2012, p. 115).
44 ‘[M]urder is often described in poetry as perverted sacrifice. But for a word originally applied to a brutal form of mutilation to enter the formal sacrificial vocabulary would be rather striking, given the euphemism that normally surrounds sacrifice’ (Parker 1984).
45 Parker (1984); Aigner (2012, p. 117–18); Dunn (2017, p. 6–7, 12); cf. also Gotsmich (1955, p. 353); for ritual irony in general see also Foley, 1985.
46 Thus Sch. El. 445a2; Photius (and Suda) s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι also mention both, this time however as alternatives.
47 Ceulemans (2007, p. 101, 103); cf. also Nilsson (19552, p. 99); Garvie (1986, p. 163); Geisser (2002, p. 188); OCD4 s.v. maschalismos.
48 Ceulemans (2007, p. 105); cf. also Harrison (1908, p. 70); Garland (1985, p. 94); Ogden (2001, p. 110).
49 Already noted by Glotz (1904, p. 64); see also Rohde (1925, p. 585; followed e.g. by Untersteiner 2002, p. 305) – who, however, sees in the maschalismos a form of propitiatory sacrifice, an interpretation suggested by the sacrificial overtone of exargmata in Apollonius’ Argonautica 477 (on which see below).
50 Cf. Antiphon, Tetralogies 2.3.10; 3.4.9; the relevant term is προστρόπαιος, which elsewhere used of the vengeful demons sent by the victim (Antiphon, Tetralogies 4.1.4), and even used for the polluted killer himself (as in Aeschylus Eumenides 41); cf. also Plato, Laws 866b.
51 Cf. Aeschylus Choephori 269–96, 924–5; Antiphon, Tetralogies 4.1.3; 4.2.8; 4.3.7; Xenophon Cyropaedia 8.7.18; see also Parker (1983, p. 105–11); Johnston (1999, p. 142–8); Geisser (2002, p. 132–73).
52 Cf. Sophocles, Oedipus Rex 95–101; Euripides, Orestes 512–15; Antiphon, Tetralogies 2.3.10.
53 See above: Aeschylus, Choephori 439–443; Sophocles, Electra 442–446.
54 Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1568–76, 1654–61; Eumenides 107–9.
55 Just like the custom of removing inanimate objects, which were the cause of someone’s death, outside of Athens, mentioned by Aeschines on the same breath (3.244); cf. Rohde (1925, p. 187, n. 33); see also Aigner (2012, p. 115).
56 E.g. the amphyctionic oath: ‘they would take vengeance (τιμωρήσειν) on him with hand and foot (καὶ χειρὶ καὶ ποδί) and voice and all their power’ (Aeschines 2.115; tr. C. Carey, modified); cf. the ‘many-handed’ (πολύχειρ) and ‘many-footed’ (πολύπους) Erinys in Sophocles Electra 488–490.
57 With the exception of Benndorf et al. (above n. 58); cf. also Lawson (1910, p. 435); Nilsson (19552, p. 99 n. 2); most recently Dunn (2017).
58 These are: Heracles mutilating the (living) heralds of his enemy and tying the body parts around their necks (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Library 2.4.11); Intaphernes doing the same to Darius’ servants (Herodotus 3.118); Diegylus of Thrace killing children by mutilation (hands, feet and heads), and tying the body parts around their parents’ necks (Diodorus Siculus 33.14.3).
59 Cf. Dunn (2017, p. 5); contra: Bardel (2002, p. 65).
60 Cf. Johnston (1999, p. 157); Ogden (2002, p. 245); see also Faraone (1991, pp. 180–88).
61 Cf. Θεοδ‹ό›την καταδῶ καὶ α‹ὐ›τ‹ὴ›ν κα[ὶ] τὴν γλ[ῶ]τ(τ)αν καὶ χ‹εῖ›ρας καὶ πόδας (Defixionum Tabellae Atticae 90) ‘. . . Theodote I bind both her and her tongue and hands and feet . . . (tr. Collins 2008, p. 79)’; Μικίωνα | ἐγὼ ἔλαβον | καὶ ἔδησα | τὴν γλῶσσαν | καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν | καὶ τὰς χεῖρας | καὶ τοὺς πόδ-|ας καὶ ε[ἴ] τι μέλ-|λει ὐπὲρ Φίλω-|νος φθέγγεσθαι | ῥῆμα πονηρόν, | ἡ γλῶσσ᾿ αὐτοῦ μόλυβδος γένοι-το (Defixionum Tabellae Atticae 96); ‘Mikion I took and I bound his tongue, and soul, and hands, and feet, and if he is about to say something wiced about Philon, may his tongue become lead. (tr. Collins 2008, p. 80).’
62 Cf. Bieber (1928, p. 20; Alden 2003, p. 8); good examples are the grave steles of Melisto (Pedley 1965, p. 260) and Demainete (Grossman 2001, p. 69).
63 Cf. Barker (1922, p. 415); Harrison (1977, p. 155); Pekridou-Gorecki (1989, p. 97); Grossman (2003, p. 97); Schophoff (2009, p. 16); the best known example is the Charioteer of Delphi (Chamoux, 1955, p. 54); another one is Themis of Rhamnous (Harrison 1977; but see below n. 72).
64 The neck is explicitly mentioned in definitions where μασχαλιστήρ is understood as a horse-girth: οἱ ὐποτραχήλιοι ἱμάντες, οἱ μασχαλιστῆρες (scholion to Iliad 19.393).
65 For quotations see below, n. 70 and 71; cf. Barker (1922, p. 415, 423–4); Alden (2003, p. 8) – both referring to it as anamaschalister; Schophoff 2009: 16; see also Losfeld (1991, p. 110); contra: Harrison (1977, p. 156), who suggests strophion, a breast-band (the Greek counterpart of modern bra), but see Stafford (2005, p. 110 n. 36) for a refutation of this.
66 ὁ διὰ τῶν μασχαλῶν δεσμὸς τοῦ ὑποζυγίου (Hesychius, s.v. μασχαλιστήρ); οἱ ὑποτραχήλιοι ἱμάντες, οἱ μασχαλιστῆρες (Scholion to Iliad 19.393).
67 καὶ ζωστῆρας καὶ μασχαλιστῆρας (Herodotus 1.215); μασχαλιστῆρας, διαζωστῆρας; μασχαλίσματα· διαζώσματα (scholion to Prometheus 71).
68 ἀμφὶ πλευραῖς μαχαλιστῆρας βάλε ([Aeschylus], Prometheus 71) – most likely used figuratively; περὶ δὲ τοῖς στέρνοις αἰγίδας καὶ μασχαλιστῆρας (Pollux, Onomasticon 5.100)
69 Some modern scholars have suggested that maschalistēr was indeed the string used in maschalismos to bind the severed body parts (Paley 18794, p. 525; Lawson 1910, p. 435); there is, however, no evidence in our sources to support this claim, which in turn must appear as nothing more but yet another unwarranted attempt (after Aristophanes of Byzantium, see below) of tying up the loose ends of etymology.
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