Reply to Irad Malkin

234 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS Reply by Noel Robertson to Irad Malkin's response in EMC 16.2 (1997) 367-369 to Robertson's review of Malkin's Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean (Cambridge 1994) in EMC 15·3 (1996) 440-443. In reviewing Irad Malkin's Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean at EMC 15.3 (1996) 440-443, I agreed with the author that Spartan attitudes. ethnic or political, might be usefully revealed in myth and cult. but objected in detail to some arbitrary reconstructions. both of Spartan colonizing history and of colonial myths and cults: I expressed the hope that Malkin would be more rigorous in future. I was accordingly surprised when Malkin published an intensely polemical "response to the review by Noel Robertson" at EMC 16.2 (1997) 367369 . saying that I "misrepresent" the book in an underhanded way. passing over its truly original aims and results. I find that Malkin has misrepresented the review. He has also misrepresented his book. but eulogistically. I shall not repeat what I said before; anyone who is interested can simply compare the review and the response. Even so. I must not omit to answer some novel and unfounded claims and imputations . Whereas I remarked that the myths by which Malkin seeks to demonstrate a peculiarly Spartan hostility to indigenous peoples-Heracles against Antaeus. Eryx, and Oetaean brigands; Menelaus in Libya and Haly-are not untypical of the full range of Creek exploration and foundation stories, Malkin now makes it "a question of degree." "The point is not whether or not hostility existed between colonists and natives (of course it did) but the degree of its articulation. The Spartan Mediterranean was unique in this respect." This is new. and unsupported and implausible. In the book Malkin never thought of comparing any similar myths. those of Athenians or Ionians or even of other colonists in the west. At most he argued that a given myth of Heracles or Menelaus first acquired an ethnic connotation at Spartan hands. The argument was never cogent. since our mythographic sources are mostly late and summary. And some good evidence was either ignored or obfuscated. Let me describe a single flagrant instance. which shows how far Malkin was from contemplating any "question of degree. " In his last chapter. "Myth and decolonization: Sparta's colony at Herakleia Trachinia," Malkin laboriously constructs "a parallelism between hostile and positive depictions of the local population and the specific phases of Trachis' colonization" (219). It is true that the local name "Cylicranes," with which Heracles comes to be associated. was probably taken up in literature at this period. after 426 B.C.. a detail that Malkin owes to an article of D. Asheri. But if we are to speak of BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 235 "the precoloniaL apoliticallocalization of Herakles in Trachis" (227). if we are to say that "the [earlierl constitutive elements of the later political myth of Herakles" include "no 'Oitaians,' no brigands. no hostile population" (229-230). we must close our eyes very tight to some of Heracles' most characteristic and notorious exploits. Malkin does not mention Cycnus. the subhuman creature who in the Hesiodic Shie1d oi Heracles. lines 353-355. is a denizen or neighbour of Trachis. The Shie1d very likely asserts Theban pretensions of the early sixth century. Now as soon as Heracleia Trachinia had been planted. Thebes had as much to do with it as Sparta. but Malkin nowhere mentions the Theban cult and myth of Heracles (which resemble the Oetaean: a fire festival regarded as the funeral of Heracles' children). So much for the "question of degree." More prominent still among the ancient foes of Heracles are the Dryopians of Oeta. an undoubted ethnic group weIl known to poetry and history alike (Bacchylides. Pherecydes. Herodotus). When Malkin glances. just for amoment. at the stories of a Dryopian diaspora. first to Asine in the Argolid and thence to Asine in Messenia. he appears to suggest that they are likewise solely due to Sparta. "Thus we get a glimpse of the criss-crossing of historicizing myths. aIl within the world of real Spartan colonization" (231). The suggestion. if I rightly understand it. is...