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As with other disabilities, blindness seems to be ambiguous in Archaic Greece and later, both a disease and an advantage. Blind people are known in myths as very respected and honored persons: most often they are poets (aoidoi) or soothsayers, and their blindness seems to have been given them as a quid pro quo for their gift, in formulas typical of an exchange rather than punishment. These professions might have been their specialties, as is still seen in countries such as Africa.

We will start with a formal analysis of the vocabulary and the formulas, this will lead to an analysis of some characters and myths, so that we might expect some results not found in other works on the same subject (Buxton 1980, Bernidaki-Aldous 1990; for a more anthropological and more general approach, Barasch 2001). Our research owes much to these earlier works as well as to extensive use of the TLG online. Buxton’s article (1980) is particularly relevant to our study, quoting extensively, as it does, from Greek literature and critical works. We hope that beginning with the formulas will be useful. Since Buxton’s publication (1980) and others’¹ have dealt in detail with Greek tragedy and especially Sophokles, we’ll concentrate on archaic texts and mythical accounts, sometimes more recent. S. Constantinidou’s articles (1993, 1994) appeared extremely relevant to our perspective on formulas.

FORMULAIC ANALYSIS

To ‘see the light of the sun’ is in Greek, from Homeric poetry and thereafter, an equivalent of ‘to be living’ and, conversely, ‘not to see the light’ an equivalent to death.² Thus blindness is a weaker expression for death, rather than for castration, as has sometimes been suggested in a psychanalytical context.³ The formulas and even the formulaic system⁴ in Homer show this clearly enough: among 18 examples of φάοc ἠελίοιο, always as a verse-ending in the same order, 7 refer to the declining light of the sun and the end of the day,⁵ while all the other examples refer to death.⁶ Let us note in passing that the sun’s light here is neither a metaphor nor a weakened expression⁷: it is rather the way death was represented at the time, as well as how one imagined the soul of a dead warrior leaving the body for its journey to the Underworld.⁸ In the second group, the closeness of the forms of the verb “to live,” ζώειν, in the same verse is striking, as well as the presence of τέθνηκε in the following verse (Od. 20.207-8):

To see the light (of the sun) is thus rather one of the anthropological characteristics that oppose life and death: in the same formulaic language, when somebody dies, his pupils are taken by darkness, σκότος.¹⁰ So it is a testimony to the way life and death were thought of rather than a poetic way of speaking. This remark does not imply that light as a metaphor is unknown in Homer : in the Odyssey, Telemakhos is twice called γλυκερὸν φάος as a welcome greeting formula, as remarked S. Constantinidou (1994, 62–64): Od. 16.23, by Eumaeus, 17.41 by Penelope. Light is actually here an affective metaphor, without any link to the expressions for life and death.

Let us also remark that in Greek poetry of the classical period, ‘to see the light’ still means ‘to be living’ (and above all in the Tragic corpus), but φάοc ἠελίοιο is most often replaced by the sole word φῶc and ὁρᾶν / λείπειν by forms of βλέπω, with frequent variations in word-order, showing how deep this link stands in Greek thinking, not only in traditional phrases fixed in poetry by metric constraints. The expression may be ‘modernized,’ the thought is still the same. See for example Eur. Hec. 668, δέcποιν᾿, ὄλωλαc κοὐκέτ᾿ εἶ, βλέπουcα φῶc; Hel. 60 ἕωc μὲν οὖν φῶc ἡλίου τόδ᾿ ἔβλεπεν /Πρωτεύc; I.A 1218–1219 . . . ἡδὺ γὰρ τὸ φῶc βλέπειν; Ibid. 1250 τὸ φῶc τόδ᾿ ἀνθρώποιcιν ἥδιcτον βλέπειν. See also ̓Αλλ̓ ὁπόταν ψυχὴ προλίπηι φάοc ἠελίοιο in Radcliff Edmond’s corpus, and Ar. ἀνήγαγεν εἰc φῶc quoted by Menelaos Christopoulos, both in the present volume.

A tendency to ‘formulaic’ association may even be observed in classical prose: notice for instance the frequent association of blindness with other kinds of disabilities, mostly τυφλόc with κωφόc or with χωλόc, sometimes πηρόc with τυφλόc or κολοβοῦ καὶ τυφλοῦ. The word is used in numerous proverbial phrases in classical Greek and later on.

ΤυφλόC, A HOMERIC HAPAX

The main word one thinks of is, of course, tuphl- and its family, particularly the adjective τυφλόc. We looked for it in the whole corpus of the TLG. It may seem surprising that τυφλ-is met only once in Homer, in Iliad 6, about the mythical Lycurgus¹¹: let us briefly reiterate the context.

Diomedes sees Glaukos advancing out in front of the battle line with hostile intent, seeking single combat with him. Given Diomedes’ greater strength, this challenge seems foolish, and Diomedes first supposes his adversary could be a god (v. 128–9). Then, once he understands Glaukos to be a man, Diomedes alludes to a ‘mythological paradeigma’¹² for such a foolish behavior, that of Lycurgus, who dared to pursue young Dionysos’ nurses on the holy mountain of Nyseion (probably a popular etymology for the god’s name). The young god escaped by diving into the sea down to Thetis’ cave, whereas the Nymphs used their goads (βουπλῆγι) against Lycurgus. The text does not specify if this very weapon deprived Lycurgus of his sight, but his blindness is due to Zeus, as was his later death. The gods detested him, blindness and death are clearly punishments or the result of this hatred (138 ὠδύσαντο, 140 ἀπήχθετο). The myth becomes a paradigm demonstrating to Glaukos that his behavior is out of place.

But the same word τυφλὸc also occurs in a very famous Archaic passage, the end of the Delian part of the Hymn to Apollo, alluding clearly to the best of the poets (169 ἤδιστον ἀοιδῶν, 173 ἀριστεύουσιν ἀοιδαί) in a context of high praise:

This passage is known as the first allusion to Homer’s person in Antiquity, so the birth of Homer as an author might lie there.¹³ Of course this paper will not deal with the problem of Homer’s person and historic reality. We are concerned only with the legend of the blind poet, this passage is the first witness. A proof of its traditional interpretation in Antiquity as a clear allusion to Homer is found in Thucydides 3, who explains the purification of Delos by the Athenians (beginning of § 104 τοῦ δ’ αὐτοῦ χειμῶνοc καὶ Δῆλον ἐκάθηραν), saying how the island became a meeting place for all the Ionians (μεγάλη ξύνοδοc) with agones, games and choral competitions. He quotes successively two passages of the Hymn to Apollo :

Ιn the introduction to the second passage, Thucydides mentions that Homer praised himself (ἐτέλευτα τοῦ ἐπαίνου . . . ἑαυτοῦ ἐπεμνήσθη): so he thought the passage from Hymn to Apollo as Homer’s self-praise, thus as a kind of sphregis.¹⁴

More generally, this passage shows that for learned people of the classical period, the Hymns were Homer’s œuvre, and also that the legend of the blind poet anyhow predates the Vitae Homeri.¹⁵ This legend of the blind poet shows the positive color of blindness, this actually comes from Homer himself, and from some blind characters who are shown as positive or ambiguous figures.

Though τυφλόc is exceptional in Homer, everybody actually knows there are several blind persons among the characters, although only men, no women: thus other expressions are used, and that is where we shall find ambiguity. Let us therefore have a look at some other idioms before coming to the Pal adion myth.

TO TAKE SOMEBODY’S SIGHT OR DEPRIVE THEM OF THEIR EYES

The famous introduction of the blind aoidos at Alkinoos’ court for a poetic performance in book 8 shows a notion of poetic gift as a possible compensation for his lack of sight:

We note the strong opposition between the two hemistichs marked by μέν/δέ, juxtaposing and vividly contrasting the two verbal forms ἄμερcε and δίδου, with the two nouns at the beginning and the end of the verse standing in a similar contrast. As this verse is once more the sole use of ἄμερcε in Homer, no help may be found from other contexts. The balance ἄμερcε μέν, δίδου δέ seems anyhow to imply a strong emphasis on the contrast ὀφθαλμῶν / ἡδεῖαν ἀοιδήν. The amplification of the second term by the adjective produces the same result.

The notion of a kind of exchange may be stressed by another passage: in the story of the aoidos Thamyris in Iliad 2, a disability, maybe specifically blindness, but not necessarily, seems also to balance with aoide:

This aoidos, coming from the same legendary Thrace as the famous Orpheus was also said to come from,¹⁶ once foolishly pretended to compete with the Muses (cτεῦτο γὰρ εὐχόμενοc νικηcέμεν) and was punished for this pretention with a disability, πηρὸν θέcαν. He had the gift for singing before, they deprived him of this gift (ἀφέλοντο). Notice the emphasis on ἀοιδὴν θεcπεcίην with the rythmic effect produced by the enjambment, and also the strong use of the factitive ἐκλέλαθον κιθαριcτύν, ‘made forget the art of the kitharis.’ Once more, the adjective πηρὸν is a hapax in Homer. Later on, it was used with the generic meaning of ‘disabled.’ But the parallel with Demodokos is tempting. Among the Phaeacians, men knew the limits of mankind, and blindness and aoide seem to equipoise, whereas Thamyris was punished for his hubris with both disability and the loss of his poetic gift. As a piece of evidence for interpreting this generic disability as actually being blindness, we may invoke Euripides’—or Ps. Eur.— Rhesus 924, where the Mousai of the Pangeion speak in the first person plural, saying they blinded Thamyris the Thracian.¹⁷ So blindness appears here as a punishment for his pretention to compete with the goddesses.

We leave aside here the episode of the Kyklopeia for several reasons,¹⁸ but let us mention the terms used by Polyphemus recalling Telemos’s prophecy: Od. 9.507–521, where we shall choose the most significant words, showing that he complains about the little man who took his sight:

For a provisional conclusion, the formal analysis shows that the adjective tu- phlos still exists in Homeric poetry, but is very rarely used, whereas the poet has a lot of other means for expressing the loss of sight, be it violent as in the case of Polyphemus or by an accident. At the time it was understood by humans as the will of the gods, be it a punishment or a mere caprice of them, and a sign of the limits of humanity, as R. Buxton well put it in his paper published in 1980.

THE PALLADION MYTH, OR SIGHT LOST AND RECOVERED

The Palladion myth, though not mentioned in Homer, is an important piece in the legend of the Trojan War.¹⁹ The most detailed and best known tale is found in the Bibliotheca attributed to Apollodorus²⁰: no mention of blindness may be found there. Apart from genealogy and geographical details, the main events told show a parallel with Cadmos and the foundation of Thebai in Boiotia, he also received a prophecy leading him to follow a cow and to found a city where the cow laid down. Though the tale occurs late in literature, it could be ancient since several vase paintings show it was known early, particularly the theft by Odysseus and Diomedes.²¹ But we encounter an interesting variant in [Plutarchus’] Minor Parallels: Ilos, one of the founders of Ilion-Troy, took the statue (ἤρπασε: probably violently) from the naos of Athena and became blind (ἐτυφλώθη: did it happen suddenly?). Plutarchus gives the reason for this: οὐ γάρ ἐξῆν ὑπ’ ἀνδρὸc βλέπεσθαι.²² This is the version he gives as Derkullos’ one. Then he gives another one, attributed to Aristeides of Miletos, who said the temenos was burning (καιόμενον); so Ilos may have tried to put the statue in a safe place, but he became blind all the same. This detail could explain why he recovered his sight afterwards (ὕστερον δ’ ἐξιλασάμενοc ἀνέβλεψεν, same wording in a different order²³). For the theme of sight loss (as a punishment for a transgression, the ‘overstepping of human limits,’ see Buxton), Ilos seems there parallel to Antylus or Metellus who took the Palladion from the temple of Vesta in Rome, whence the inclusion by Plutarchus in his Parallels.²⁴

The Palladion first fell from the sky (διιπετὲc in Apollodorus), at the time of Dardanos: it is by no way an ordinary statue, it had magic powers²⁵ (Virgil mentions this in the En. 2.171–179²⁶). The magic power of the statue apparently prevented it from being seen by humans, and blinded them in case of transgression.

The whole story seems to have been told in the Little Iliad, and some details, apart from Ilos’s blindness and recovery of sight, may be relevant for us²⁷: a prophesy, known as well by the Achaeans as the Trojans, said the town—the Sacred city²⁸—could not fall if this talisman stayed in its shrine. So Odysseus and Diomedes paired up for a nocturnal expedition to steal this talisman, an essential requirement for victory by the Argive army over Ilion, according to the prophesy of the soothsayer Helenus. Odysseus showed both his metis and some clumsiness²⁹: once they had both escaped with the statue, he had the idea of slaying his companion with a sword so that he might return alone with the statue. However Diomedes saw the shadow of the sword, or glimpsed its brightness, and thus evaded death, which marvelously illustrates the role of night, darkness, light in the dark, and shadow. The Trojan night is not only the night when Troy went up in flames, but also the night of book 10 with Rhesus’s murder, and the night of the theft of the Palladion, though neither is related in the Iliad or the Odyssey. May we suggest that Odysseus and Diomedes were aware that they had to avoid looking at the statue during their expedition and thus chose a very dark night?

Anyway, after the fall of Troy, several cities in the Ancient world claimed ownership of the sacred statue of Pallas and had to keep it hidden in a secret shrine, precisely because of the perils of humans casting eyes on it. In Greece, Argos³⁰ and Athens,³¹ in Italy Rome³² and other cities had such complicated legends that explained how the sacred statue came from Troy to them. The statue had been taken away, they said, either by Odysseus and Diomedes who stole it from Athena’s shrine, or by Aeneas or other less known heroes: some traditions suppose there were several or two Palladia, a true one and a false one, so that every city claiming it owned it thought the others had only the copy whereas they hosted the original.

From the beginnings with Dardanos and Ilos to the end with the Fall of Troy, this mysterious statue is linked to shadow, secrecy, magic powers such as blinding humans who see it. As an image of the goddess, it is a double or surrogate for her, and it seems to draw the doubling with itself everywhere it may be conveyed. Apollodorus seems even to have believed that the name Pallas came from a girl—the daughter of the god Triton—who used to play with Athena as a child. Both girls were competing against one another in war games and happened to quarell. When Pallas was about to strike, Zeus intervened to protect his daughter and Pallas, afraid of the aigis, was wounded and died. Athena made a statue ressembling Pallas, and covered it with the aigis which had occasioned her death. So Pallas was already a kind of double of Athena, and the statue became a substitute for both Athena and Pallas.

Through several aspects, this myth about a statue seems to confirm the idea of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships developed by Richard Buxton about ‘Blindness and limits.’³³ If we try to show the variants in the repetition of the fundamental schemes, beginning with the possible epic episodes:

• Odysseus and Diomedes took the Palladion in the dark of the night; they nearly killed each other, but the light of the moon or the brightness of the weapon gleaming in the darkness prevented the murder.

The Palladion is often said to have existed in at least two copies, and both themes of doubling and of overstepping the limits are found in the very mythical beginning; Pallas is both a double and a danger for Athena; she overstepped the limits and died. Athena loved her and made an image of the girl: the statue is an image to be looked at, but should not be seen by humans because it was the very symbol of Pallas’ transgression. Those who happened to see it in sunlight became blind.

The whole story of the Palladion, though nowhere clearly told in its entirety, looks like an apology for the methods of structuralism, showing once more how often myths seem to be repeated with several variants. This is maybe due to oral traditions kept by various authors who did not try to make them coherent, as is generally done by authors of global mythological tales.

Let me come back to the question of ambiguity we began with, and to the myth of blind poets as well: after examining the variants of other mythical tales, we could now ask ourselves why seers such as Tiresias and aoidoi as Demodokos, or Homer himself, are so often said to be blind. If blinding appears as the direct consequence—not necessarily a punishment—of having seen a god or an image forbidden to human eyes, we may suggest that the aoidos, the poet and the seer, did see a supra-human part of the world, strictly forbidden to ordinary humans. To this world, the Muses are supposed to give a specific access to poets, as long as they do not try to compete with them as Thamyris did.

NOTES

1. E. A. Bernidaki-Aldous, Blindness in a Culture of Light. Especially the Case of Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles (Frankfurt, 1990) and A. Gartziou-Tatti, “Blindness as Punishment”(paper presented at the Conference for Light and Darkness in Ancient Greek and Roman Mythology and Religion, Patras, 6–8 April 2007).

2. S. Constantinidou, ‘ΑΥΓΗ/ ΑΥΓΑΙ: Some observations on the Homeric perception of light and vision,’ ΔΩΔΩΝΗ ΚΒ΄ (1993): 98–99, with references to R. Garland, The Greek way of death (London, 1985), J. Griffin, Homer on Life and Death (Oxford, 1980), Schein (1984), and C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘To Die and Enter the House of Hades: Homer, Before and After,’ in Mirrors of Mortality. Studies in the Social History of Death, ed. J. Whaley. (London, 1981),15–39 especially. See Griffin, Homer on Life and Death, 90–94 on the process of the dying of the ‘god-like hero’ in the Iliad.

3. G. Devereux, ‘The Self-Blinding of Oidipous in Sophokles: Oidipous Tyran- nos,’ JHS 93 (1973): 36–49, discussed by R. G. A. Buxton, “Blindness and Limits: Sophokles and the Logic of Myth,” JHS 100 (1980): 22–37.

5. Il. 1.605 Αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατέδυ λαμπρὸν φάος ἠελίοιο

Among the three occurences of the second formulaic hemistich λαμπρὸν φάος ἠελίοιο, two concern the end of the day, one a man’s death, while (κατ) ἔδυ φάος ἠελίοιο forming the second hemistich occurs 5 times.

6. Il. 5.120 οὐδέ μέ φηcι
δηρὸν ἔτ᾿ ὄψεcθαι λαμπρὸν φάοc ἠελίοιο.
18.11 χερcὶν ὕπο Τρώων λείψειν φάοc ἠελίοιο
18.61= 442 ὄφρα δέ μοι ζώει καὶ ὁρᾷ φάοc ἠελίοιο
24.558 αὐτόν τε ζώειν καὶ ὁρᾶν φάοc ἠελίοιο.
Od. 4.540 = 10.498 ἤθελ᾿ ἔτι ζώειν καὶ ὁρᾶν φάοc ἠελίοιο.
4.833 ἤ που ἔτι ζώει καὶ ὁρᾷ φάοc ἠελίοιο,
11.93 τίπτ᾿ αὖτ᾿, ὦ δύcτηνε, λιπὼν φάοc ἠελίοιο
ἤλυθεc,
14.44 = 20.207 εἴ που ἔτι ζώει καὶ ὁρᾷ φάοc ἠελίοιο.

See the note by G. S. Kirk (ed.), The Iliad: a Commentary, II, books 5–8 (Cambridge, 1990), 68 to Il. 5.120: “ ‘Seeing the light of the sun’ to imply ‘living’ is formular (with φάοc ἠελίοιο), 3 x Il. , 5 x Od. It is an ancient I.-E. figurative expression, also in the Rgveda, cf. M.L. West, JHS 108 (1988) 154.”

7. For the meaning of such phrases in Homer, see F. Létoublon, ‘Ce qui n’a plus de nom dans aucune langue,’ RPh 66 (1992): 397–417: the use of οἴχομαι implies in Homer neither a euphemism nor a metaphor.

8. J. N. Bremmer, The Early Greek Concept of the Soul (Princeton, 1983).

9. Cf. also Od. 11.488 ff. and S. Constantinidou’s comment in “ΑΥΓΗ/ ΑΥΓΑΙ,” 98.

10. In the formula σκότος ὄσσε κάλυψε for instance (Il. 4.461, 526 ; 6.11), and its variants, cf. Constantinidou, “ΑΥΓΗ/ ΑΥΓΑΙ,” 98.

11. See Kirk, The Iliad ΙΙ, 173–75, who mentions Chantraine’s careful remarks on the etymological mysteries in the vocabulary of disability, and the possibility of linguistic taboo.

12. See M. M. Willcock, “Mythological Paradeigma in the Iliad,” CQ 14 (1964): 141–54 and ‘Ad Hoc Invention in the Iliad,” HSCP 18 (1977): 41–53, the discussion by G. Nagy, “Mythological exemplum in Homer,’ in Innovations of Antiquity, ed. R. Hexter and D. Selden (London, 1992), 311–31 and more recently M. Alden, Homer Beside Himself. Para-Narratives in the Iliad (Oxford, 2000): 128–31 on this passage particularly.

13. B. Graziosi, Inventing Homer. The Early Reception of Epic (Cambridge, 2002), 13–40, ‘The birth of Homer,’ 125–63, ‘Blindness, poverty and closeness to the gods’ particularly.

14. We are thinking of the sphregis apposed on his poems by Theognis, see the main critical references: J. Svenbro, La Parole et le Marbre. Aux origines de la poétique grecque (Lund, 1976); A. L. Ford, ‘The Politics of Authorship in Archaic Greece,’ in Theognis of Megara. Poetry and the Polis, ed. T. J. Figueira and G. Nagy (Baltimore, 1985) : 82–95; L. Edmunds, ‘The Seal of Theognis,’ in L. Edmunds and R. W. Wallace, Poet, Public, and Performance in Archaic Greece (Baltimore, 1997): 29–48.

15. On the traditions of the Vitae, see G. Nagy, ‘L’aède épique en auteur: les Vies d’Homère,’ in Identités d’auteur dans l’Antiquité et la tradition européenne, ed. Claude Calame & Roger Chartier (Grenoble, 2004) : 41–67, on the ‘ Resonance’ of the blind poet in Antiquity, B. Graziosi, & J. Haubold, Homer: The Resonance of Epic (London, 2005): 23–24.

16. G. S. Kirk, ed., The Iliad: a Commentary, I, books 1–4 (Cambridge, 1985), 216 specifies the geographical context in this passage of the Catalogue, implying Thamyris was an itinerant aoidos, and the relation to Hesiod’s Ehoiai. He also asks why this ‘diversion’ takes place here: ‘the closest parallel is the tale of Niobe at 24.602–9, with Meleagros as another improving example in 9.52ff..’ He thinks the expression of a ‘professional singer’s pride’ not excluded.

17. [Eur.] Rhes. 921–25 ὅτ᾽ ἤλθομεν γῆς χρυσόβωλον ἐς λέπας
Πάγγαιον ὀργάνοιcιν ἐξησκημέναι
Μοῦσαι μεγίστην εἰc ἔριν μελωιδείαc
κλεινῶι σοφιστῆι Θρηικὶ κἀτυφλώσαμεν
Θάμυριν, ὅc ἡμῶν πόλλ ̓ ἐδέννασεν τἐχνην.

18. The name Kuklops may also refer to the eye(s) with the word composed with -οψ, but does not explicitly imply that the giants had only one eye in the tale. The poet actually never says the Kuklops was earlier monophthalmos, but he constantly uses the singular ophthalmos throughout the passage, neither the archaic dual osse mostly used in Homer, nor a plural form.

19. The Chrestomathia by Proclus mentions the episode of the theft of the Palladion in the Little Iliad: Ὀδυσσεύς τε αἰκισάμενος ἑαυτόν κατάσκοπος εἰς ῎Ιλιον παραγίνεται καὶ ἀναγνωρισθεὶς ὑφ᾽ Ἑλένης περὶ τῆς ἁλώσεως τῆς πόλεως συντίθεται, κτείνας τέ τινας τῶν Τρώων ἐπὶ τὰς ναῦς ἀφικνεῖται. Καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα σὺν Διομήδει τὸ παλλάδιον ἐκκομίζει ἐκ τῆς Ἰλίου. See T. Gantz, Early Greek Myth. A Guide to Liter- ary and Artistic Sources (Baltimore, 1993); J. S. Burgess, The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer & the Epic Cycle (Baltimore, 2001) : 142; M. J. Anderson, The Fall of Troy in Early Greek Poetry and Art (Oxford, 1997): 18–20.

20. Cf. Ps. Apollodorus, Bibl. 142–146: ῏Ιλος εἰc Φρυγίαν ἀφικόμενοc καὶ καταλαβὼν ὑπὸ τοῦ βαcιλέωc αὐτόθι τεθειμένον ἀγῶνα νικᾷ πάλην· καὶ λαβὼν ἆθλον πεντήκοντα κόρουc καὶ κόραc τὰc ἴcαc, δόντοc αὐτῷ τοῦ βαcιλέωc κατὰ χρηcμὸν καὶ βοῦν ποικίλην, καὶ φράcαντοc ἐν ᾧπερ ἂν αὐτὴ κλιθῇ τόπῳ πόλιν κτίζειν, εἵπετο τῇ βοΐ. ἡ δὲ ἀφικομένη ἐπὶ τὸν λεγόμενον τῆc Φρυγίαc Ἄτηc λόφον κλίνεται· ἔνθα πόλιν κτίcαc Ἶλοc ταύτην μὲν Ἴλιον ἐκάλεcε, τῷ δὲ Διὶ cημεῖον εὐξάμενοc αὐτῷ τι φανῆναι, μεθ᾿ ἡμέραν τὸ διιπετὲc παλλάδιον πρὸ τῆc cκηνῆc κείμενον ἐθεάcατο. ἦν δὲ τῷ μεγέθει τρίπηχυ, τοῖc δὲ ποcὶ cυμβεβηκόc, καὶ τῇ μὲν δεξιᾷ δόρυ διηρμένον ἔχον τῇ δὲ ἑτέρᾳ ἠλακάτην καὶ ἄτρακτον. [ἱcτορία δὲ ἡ περὶ τοῦ παλλαδίου τοιάδε φέρεται· φαcὶ γεννηθεῖcαν τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν παρὰ Τρίτωνι τρέφεcθαι, ᾧ θυγάτηρ ἦν Παλλάc· ἀμφοτέραc δὲ ἀcκούcαc τὰ κατὰ πόλεμον εἰc φιλονεικίαν ποτὲ προελθεῖν. μελλούcηc δὲ πλήττειν τῆc Παλλάδοc τὸν Δία φοβηθέντα τὴν αἰγίδα προτεῖναι, τὴν δὲ εὐλαβηθεῖcαν ἀναβλέψαι, καὶ οὕτωc ὑπὸ τῆc Ἀθηνᾶc τρωθεῖcαν πεcεῖν. Ἀθηνᾶν δὲ περίλυπον ἐπ᾿ αὐτῇ γενομένην, ξόανον ἐκείνηc ὅμοιον καταcκευάcαι, καὶ περιθεῖναι τοῖc cτέρνοιc ἣν ἔδειcεν αἰγίδα, καὶ τιμᾶν ἱδρυcαμένην παρὰ τῷ Διί. ὕcτερον δὲ Ἠλέκτραc κατὰ τὴν φθορὰν τούτῳ προc-φυγούcηc, Δία ῥῖψαι μετ᾿ αὐτῆc καὶ τὸ παλλάδιον εἰc τὴν Ἰλιάδα χώραν, Ἶλον δὲ τούτῳ ναὸν καταcκευάcαντα τιμᾶν. καὶ περὶ μὲν τοῦ παλλαδίου ταῦτα λέγεται.]

and the Epitome 9a–10a.

21. P. Demargne, “Athéna,” LIMC II (Zurich-Munich, 1984), A 7c, 968 : two vases from the Archaic period, four from the classical, one from the Hellenistic time. Several paintings show two Palladia brought, one by Diomedes, the other by Odysseus.

22. As R. Buxton well shows, it seems to reflect the importance of the forbidden sight in Greek myths, many examples are known.

23. We propose to interpret the participle ἐξιλασάμενοc as a word-game about the proper name Ilos.

24. Buxton, “Blindness and Limits,” 30.

25. C. Faraone, Talismans and Trojan Horses. Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual (Oxford, 1992) : 94–96 about ‘the Trojan Horse, Pandora and the Talismanic Statue’ does not omit the Palladion, but he seems to underscore it, compared to the Wooden Horse.

26. Nec dubiis ea signa dedit Tritonia monstris.
Vix positum castris simulacrum, arsere coruscae
luminibus flammae arrectis, salsusque per artus
sudor iit, terque ipsa solo—mirabile dictu—
emicuit, parmamque ferens hastamque trementem.
‘Extemplo temptanda fuga canit aequora Calchas,
nec posse Argolicis exscindi Pergama telis,
omina ni repetant Argis, numenque reducant,
quod pelago et curuis secum auexere carinis.
Servius’ commentary to En. VI, 166 mentions that Odysseus and Diomedes went into the city through the sewer system.

27. Some of them are mentioned in K. Dowden, ‘Trojan Night’ (in this volume).

28. In his Homer and the Sacred City (Ithaca 1990): 36–38 S. Scully is rather skeptical about the role of the Palladion and he is right, as far as the Iliad and Odyssey are concerned. We think nevertheless that the Epic Cycle and its sequels must be taken into account on this point.

29. The ‘adaptability’ of the mythical figure of Odysseus has been shown by W. B. Stanford, The Ulysses Theme. A Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero (Oxford, 1968), passim . On Odysseus’ role in the theft of the Palladion, see sch. b to Il 6.311, and Gantz, Early Greek Myth: 642–46.

30. [Ap.], Ep. 5.13: see K. Dowden, The Uses of Greek Mythology (London, 1992): 143.

31. Paus. 1.28; Polyaen 1.5. In his Parallels, Plutarch says even that the episode of Ilos’ blinding for taking the Palladion away from Athena’s shrine was repeated in Rome with Antylus or Metellus who took it from the temple of Vesta: Buxton, ‘Blindness and Limits’: 30. The legend about the poet Stesichorus, who went blind when he composed a song against Helen, and recovered his sight after his Palinody, is another parallel (Buxton, ‘Blindness and Limits’: 32).

32. Verg. Aen. 2, cf. n. 26 ; D. H. 1.79.

33. See Buxton, ‘Blindness and Limits,’ 33–35, who claims an inspiration from Lévi-Strauss’ Savage Mind (1966 for the translation in English).

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Chapter Eleven

To See or Not to See

Blind People and Blindness in Ancient Greek Myths

Françoise Létoublon