Ian Hollenbaugh, Washington University in St. Louis
Achilles’ recounting of the Niobe myth in Iliad 24 (599–620) contains a number of oft noted oddities, particularly in lines 614–17. These were athetized in antiquity, as they seem to interrupt the ring structure of the passage. Various ad hoc explanations have been put forth to explain this apparent intrusion (cf. Leaf, Richardson), but I argue that the key to understanding it lies in another oddity—this time a grammatical one—in line 602: καὶ γάρ τ᾽ ἠΰκομος Νιόβη ἐμνήσατο σίτου, typically rendered ‘For even fair-haired Niobe thought of food’. Scholars are at pains to explain the apparently aberrant use of the particle τε here, since the context seems to call for a preterital interpretation of the aorist, rather than a gnomic one (Denniston 531, Ruijgh 738, Chantraine 2.343).
Having conducted a study of the Homeric use of τε and the particle chain καὶ γάρ (τε), I show that line 602 would be not only unusual but utterly unique in all of epic in having a past-referring aorist in such a context. Moreover, given that gnomic aorists are virtually always augmented in epic (Platt), ἐμνήσατο is suited to gnomic interpretation, while the subsequent, augmentless preterites are past-referring. I therefore read line 602 as a statement that still applies in the present: ‘For even Niobe thinks of food’, referring to her eternal sorrowing as a weeping rock.
The suspected lines 614–17 may now be understood in terms of the ring structure of the passage, answering line 602 with a verb in the present tense: νῦν δέ…κήδεα πέσσει ‘Even now she “chews on” her sorrows’. Whereas line 613 is typically taken to answer 602, with repetition of the verb, now unaugmented and preterital (ἣ δ᾽ ἄρα σίτου μνήσατ(ο) ‘Then she thought of food’), I treat 613–17 as a unit, as shown below. These lines refer both to Niobe’s past and present, just as the gnomic aorist in 602.
A1 599–601 Your son is free to be taken home tomorrow.
B1 601 For now let’s think of food.
C1 602 For even Niobe does so.
D 603–12 Niobe’s story.
C2 613–17 Having tired of weeping, she thought of eating, as she continues to do even now, forever doomed to “chew on” her sorrows as a living rock.
B2 618–19 So let’s likewise think of food.
A2 619–20 Then mourn your son with more tears back in Troy.
I conclude with a discussion of important implications of this reinterpretation, arguing that Achilles’ allusion to Niobe serves as a warning to Priam to follow proper grieving procedure lest he suffer something like Niobe’s fate. Crucially, we are not actually told that Niobe ate, only that she ‘thought/thinks of food’ and so forever ‘chews on her sorrows’. Her inability to eat amounts to an inability to ever move forward in processing her grief. Priam, therefore, ought to act in accordance with Homeric grieving procedure, as he subsequently does, with the ritual consumption of food after his prolonged fast.