Euripides and the Rites of Hera Akraia Dunn, Francis M Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1994; 35, 1; ProQuest pg. 103 Euripides and the Rites of Hera Akraia Francis M. Dunn T OWARD THE END OF Euripides' Medea, Jason tries to storm the house and exact vengeance for the deaths of Creon, Creon's daughter, and Jason's own two children; sudden­ ly, Medea appears on the roof above and taunts him, saying she will escape in the chariot of the sun, her father. When Jason asks to bury the children and mourn over them, she refuses with these words (1378-83): ou 011't', End o<; 1ta'ioa<;, a1t08avovtUl; OE tOu'tOUC; 'ttf.LroUt Kopiv8tot, KUMUVU<; f.Lt~O­ ~ap~apouc;. Pausanias' narrative (2.3.1 Of) concludes two paragraphs attributed to Eumelus; the scholiast's report follows a direct quotation from Eumelus. 106 EURIPIDES AND THE RITES OF HERA AKRAIA The women of Corinth, unwilling to be ruled by a foreigner and a witch, plotted against [Medea] and killed her children, seven boys and seven girls. When attacked, the chil­ dren fled to the temple of Hera Akraia and sat before it. The Corinthians still did not spare them but killed them all at the altar. A plague affected the city and many bodies were destroyed by sickness; when they consulted the oracles, the god pronounced that the pollution of Medea's children must be appeased. Therefore every year among the Corin­ thians until our own times, seven boys and seven girls of noblest parents must spend a year in the goddess' sanctuary and with sacrifices appease the anger of [Medea's children] and the resulting rage of the goddess? The scholiast goes on to report that Didymus preferred the version of Creophylus: Medea, having finished her time in Corinth, is said to have poisoned Creon, the city's ruler. Afraid of his friends and relatives, she fled to Athens, but because her sons were young and could not accompany her, she sat them by the altar of Hera Akraia, thinking their father would see to their safety. But Creon's kinsmen killed them and gave the explan­ ation that Medea killed not only Creon but also her own children.8 The version attributed to Parmeniscus attempts to rationalize myth with ritual, and that attributed to Creophylus concludes with a detail that derives from Euripides; but both reflect a 7 L.Med. 264: rrap~£vicrKO<; ypacp£t KO~f.VOt<; O£ au'tot<; XPTJcr~q:>011crUl 'tOY 8EOV lMoK£cr8at 'to 'trov MTJ­ oda<; 'tf.x:VCJ)V ayo<;. 08EV Koptv8iot<; ~txPt 'trov !CUlprov 'trov !Cae' ~~o.<; !Cae' £!Cacr'tov EVtaU'tOV E1t'to: !Coup01><; !Cat E1t'tO: !Coupa<; 'trov E1ttcrTJ~o'ta'tCJ)v avOprov Eva1t£vtau'ti1;£lv EV 'to 't11<; 8£0.<; 't£~f.V£l Kat ~£'t0: 8ucrtOOV \.McrKEcreat 'tTjv E!CEtVCJ)V ~11Vtv !Cat 'tTjv Ot' ElCEivou<; y£vo~tVTJV 't11<; 8Eo.<; OpylJv. " B L.Med. 264: 'tTjv yo:p MTjo£tav Af.yE'tUl ota'tpi~oucrav EV Kopiveq:> 'tOY ap­ xov'ta 't61£ 't11<; 1tOA.ECJ)<; Kpf.oV'ta U1tOlC'tEtVUl cpap~aKol<;. odoacrav O£ 'tOu<; cpiA.­ OU<; Kat 'tou<; cruYYEv£l<; au'tOu cpuyE'iv d<; 'A8Tjva<;. 'tou<; 8£ u\.ou<;. E1td VEcO't£POt QV'tE<; OUK 1i8uvaV'to U!COAoUe£tV, E1tt 'tOY ~CJ)~ov 't11<; 'AKpaia<; "Hpa<; KaeicrUl vo~icraoav 'tOY 1ta'tEpa au'toov cppov'tt£tV 'tTj<; crCJ)'tTJpia<; au'toov. 'tOu<; O£ Kpf.ov'to<; oi!Cdo1><; a1to!C'tdvav'ta<; ainou<; OtaOOuVUl f...6yov on ~ MTjo£la ou ~ovov 'tOY Kpf.ov'ta, aAM Kat 'tou<; £a1>'t11<; 1tatoa<; U1tf.!C't£tv£. Cf Creophylus of Samos fro 9 PEG; Creophylus of Ephesus, FGrHist 417 F 3. FRANCIS M. DUNN 107 widespread tradition that the Corinthians killed the children at the temple of Hera Akraia. In fact, all sources independent of Euripides fall into two classes: Eumelus apparently reported that Medea's desire to make her children immortal resulted in their death at the temple of Hera; others report that the Corin­ thians murdered them at the same temple (Apollod. Bibl. 1.9.28; Paus. 2.3.6; Philostr. Her. 53.4; Ael. VH 5.21; 'iMed. 1382b).9 Other accounts either follow Euripides directly, or attempt to rationalize his version with the more common story of murder by the people of Corinth. The untrue story that Medea mur­ dered the children is one such rationalization, found not only in Creophylus but more explicitly in Parmeniscus, who reported that the Corinthians paid Euripides five talents to make Medea the murderess. 1o Instead of rationalizing the different accounts of their death, Diodorus (4.54.7) confuses them: after reporting, as in Euripides, that Medea had revenge upon Jason by mur­ dering the children and burying them in the sanctuary of Hera, Diodorus goes on to say (4.55.1) that the Corinthians "were at a loss concerning burial of the children. Therefore they sent to Pytho to ask the god what should be done with the children's bodies, and the Pythia gave instructions to bury them in the sanctuary of Hera and pay them heroic honors.» If Medea had buried the children, why were the Corinthians at a loss? Dio­ dorus has conflated the usual account in which the Corinthians, after murdering the children, are told by the oracle to establish sacrifices in their honor, with that of Euripides, in which Medea kills and buries the children herself. 11 Representations in art, all later than Euripides, likewise follow the tragedian's acount of the children's murder by Medea, yet frequently incorporate details (altar, column with statue) that recall the story of their 9 Discussion in P. Roussel, "Medee et Ie meurtre de ses enfams," REA 22 (1920) 157-71; ]. Tolsto'j, "La scholie au vers 264 de la Midie d'Euripide," REG 43 (1930) 139-46; A. Brelich, "I figli di Mcdeia," StMatSR 30 (1959) 213-54. 10 r. M ed. 10: w<; apa 1tfVtE tUAaVta Aa~wv 1tapa Kopw8lWV Eupmlo11<; IlEtayuYOt tljv cr t11<; "Hpa<; t£IlEVEt 8u'Vat from from the earlier passage (4.54.7). Like­ wise, Eusebius (Contra Marc. 1.3) says (following Euripides) that Medea killed her children, and (following the traditional account) that an oracle told the Corinthians to establish sacrifices. 108 EURIPIDES AND THE RITES OF HERA AKRAIA murder at the temple of Hera Akraia. 12 As Gantz (supra n.3: 369f) concludes, "the Archaic period would seem to have of­ fered two distinct traditions, one in which Medeia inadvertently kills her children, the other in which the Korinthians do it delib­ erately. To these Euripides would then add as a third possibility the slaying of them by their mother for revenge. » We should add that of the two pre-Euripidean versions, the story of murder by the Corinthians was, or became, much more prevalent. 13 When we return to Euripides' aetiology, we find that instead of invoking familiar customs, the playwright recasts these in novel and unusual ways. Let us begin with the childrens' burial. At the end of the play, dramatic attention is squarely focused upon the bodies of the two boys: Jason enters intending to res­ cue the children (1303); when he learns that Medea has already killed them, he begs her to let him bury them (1377); and her final act of revenge, after killing her own sons, is to take the bodies with her and deny Jason any part in their burial. Docs this climactic contest over the rights of burial lend new significance to a familiar tomb? Does that familiar grave in turn give the dramatic fiction a ring of truth? What is most striking here is the lack of any such correspondence. The drama places most weight upon the physical act of burial-performed by Medea, not Jason, and performed out of Jason's reach at a shrine on the outskirts of Corinthian territory. The traditions that survive, on the other hand, tell us nothing about the burial: they tell us where the children died (at the temple of Hera Akraia), and how (accidentally at Medea's hands, or intention­ ally at the Corinthians'), but have no knowledge of, and no apparent interest in, the circumstances of their burial (the excep­ tion being Diodorus, who, as we have seen, conflates the earlier 12 Altar: Lucanian calyx krater ca 400 (LJ MC VI [1992] s.'1.I. "Medeia," no. 36), Apulian volute krater ca 330 (no. 29), Campanian neck-amphora ca 330 (no. 30), Augustan (?) glass paste gem (no. 15), carnelian gem 1 "c. B.C. (no. 16); column with statue: Campanian neck-amphora ca 330 (no. 31), Augustan (?) gem (no. 15); M. Schmidt, LI MC VI esp. 396; Page (supra n.2) lvii-Ixviii. 13 Neophron may have anticipated Euripides' innovation. Most scholars have accepted Page's argument that N eophron' s Medea belongs to the fourth century, but this view has recently been challenged by B. Manuwald, "Der Mord an den Kindem: Bemerkungen zu den Medea-Tragodien des Euripides und des Neophron," WS 17 (1983) 27-61, and A. N. Michelini, "Neophron and Euripides' Medeia 1056-80," TAPA 119 (1989) 115-35. My argument does not require Euripides' priority. FRANCIS M. DUNN 109 story of their murder by the Corinthians with Euripides' account of their burial). The text of the play, instead of anchoring itself in the bedrock of contemporary customs, anchors itself in quicksand, in a burial site that is poorly attested and may not have been known to Euripides' contemporaries. One might suppose, of course, that the problem is simply one of sources: perhaps Euripides' audience was suitably aware of a burial site for which we lack evidence. There are several rea­ sons why this is unlikely. Given that our sources state or imply that the children died at the temple of Hera Akraia, and that all fail to mention that they were buried there, then even if a tomb existed at Hera's temple, the existence of this tomb was not widely reported. This leaves us with much the same problem: why does the text establish such an overt connection to an obscure or insignificant tomb? But there are two reasons to believe that there was no such tomb at all. First, when Pausanias visited Corinth (2.3.6f), he was shown a spring called Glauke (named for Jason's bride), and near this spring is the tomb of Medea's children. 14 Their names were Mer­ merus and Pheres, and they are said to have been stoned to death by the Corinthians because of the gifts they report­ edly brought to Glauke. But because their death was violent and unjust, newborn Corinthians were destroyed by them until, at the oracle's command, yearly sacrifices were estab­ lished for them, and a terror was set up. The latter survives to this day, a rather terrifying statue of a woman. But after Corinth was laid to waste by the Romans and the old Cor­ inthians were destroyed, those sacrifices were no longer established for them by the settlers, nor do their children cut their hair or wear black clothing. Pausanias and his informants follow the usual version in which the Corinthians are responsible, although in this telling the sacri­ legious murder in Hera's sanctuary is reported simply as a "vio­ lent and unjust death,» and emphasis is placed instead upon a statue and grave within the city of Corinth. If other sources locate the scene of death outside the city in Perachora, and are 14 JlVlll.UX (an 'tOt~ M118da~ 1talaiv (2.3.6) is often correctly translated as "grave" or "tomb." E. Will, Korinthiaka (Paris 1955) 92, takes the word to mean "memorial," but there is no precedent for this meaning in Pausanias, for whom JlvllJla and 't6.