Navigating Futures, Navigating Narratives

Esther Eidinow

University of Nottingham

• How did ancient Greek men and women deal with the uncertainty and risk of everyday life?

• What did they fear most, and how did they manage their anxieties?

• What were their implicit models of fate, luck and fortune?

“The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk: the notion that the future is more than the whim of the gods and that men and women are not passive before nature. Until human beings discovered a way across that boundary, the future was a mirror of the past or the murky domain of oracles and soothsayers who held a monopoly over knowledge of anticipated events.”

Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996), p. 1.

Circe & Odysseus' men, Athenian red-figure pelikeC5th B.C., Staatliche Kunstammlungen, Dresden

Seer, from the east pediment of the Temple of Zeus,Olympia, Greece, ca. 470–456 BCE.

Odysseus and Tiresias in the Underworld. South Italian Red-figure bowl. BibliothéqueNationale, Paris. Dolon painter.

Ajax taking Cassandra, tondo of a red-figure kylix by the KodrosPainter, c. 440-430 BC, Louvre

Oracle Sites Across Greece and Western Turkey

http://sortesastrampsychi.voila.net/

Sortes AstrampsychiPapyrus fragment, Oxyrychus, Egypt

Faience polyhedron inscribed with letters of the Greek alphabetRoman, 2nd-3rd century AD; Metropolitan Museum of Art [Accession # 37.11.3]

‘Pocket’ Oracles

Black-figured amphora c.520 BCE. Inv. 100Chateau-Musee, Boulogne-sur-Mer, France

Greeks vs. Persians

Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greek-Persian_duel.jpg

http://faculty.saintleo.edu/williamse/questforwisdom.htm

JOHN COLLIER’S ‘PRIESTESS OF APOLLO’

1891

• Oracle of Apollo

• ‘Pythia’

• Priestess of the Greek god Apollo

Athenian Consultation

Attic red-figure kylix; Kodros painter; ca. 440-430 BCE; Berlin Mus. 2538

Oh no! Can I have another

one?FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!

Athenian Consultation

Attic red-figure kylix; Kodros painter; ca. 440-430 BCE; Berlin Mus. 2538

HUH?!Trust in your

wooden walls!

1. Oracles are not predictions, they offer alternative stories

MYSON (attributed to) Attic Red-Figure Amphora, c. 500-490 BC; Louvre Museum

Croesus on the Pyre

‘If you make war on the Persians,

you will destroy a mighty empire!’

1. Oracles are not predictions, they offer alternative stories

2. Through a process of creating meaning, story-making creates motivation.

DODONA

Site of Dodona

Inquiries from Dodona

Whether it would be better for me if I go to Sybaris and if I do these

things?

She asks by sacrificing and praying to which of the gods would she do better and be released from this disease?

God, good fortune, Razia asks whether she will attain an agreement from Teitukos while he lives and a place of safety?

Lysanias asks Zeus Naios and Dionewhether or not the child with which Annyla is pregnant is from him.

Whether it will be useful for me, if I work as a bronze smith?

Klemedes asks Zeus and Dione, whether it will happen that

Olympias, daughter of Nikarchos, will be given to him?

Question Structures

• Did x do y or not? Did x do y or z?• Should I do x or y? Should I do x or not?• Will it be better and more good if…

– if I pray to such and such a god? – if I take this woman to be my wife? – if I travel to this destination/buy that piece of

land.

• To which god should I pray and make sacrifice to, in order that…

1. Oracles are not predictions, they offer alternative stories.

2. Through a process of creating meaning, story-making creates motivation.

3. These stories don’t just describe possible futures, they generate them

Navigating Between Narratives