hesiod

Egyptian Maat and Hesiodic MetisAuthor(s): Christopher A. Faraone and Emily TeeterSource: Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 57, Fasc. 2 (2004), pp. 177-208Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4433545Accessed: 15/09/2010 11:58

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EGYPTIAN MAAT AND HESIODIC METIS

BY

CHRISTOPHER A. FARAONE AND EMILY TEETER

Abstract

Metis appears twice in the Hesiodic corpus as an anthropomorphic goddess, who is courted and then ingested by Zeus. In the Theogony this narrative ends with the permanent stabilization of his monarchic rule over gods and men. We argue that the myth of Metis and Zeus most probably derives?

directly or indirectly?from Egyptian royal ideology, as it is expressed most

emphatically in a series of New Kingdom and later (i.e. 1500 BCE-200

CE) texts and relief sculptures that depict the offering to various monar- chical male gods of the goddess Maat. Like Hesiodic M?tis/A, Maat

appears in Egyptian texts both as an abstract idea (maat) and as an anthro-

pomorphized goddess Maat and several odd details in the Hesiodic narratives can be explained by Egyptian influence, especially the idea that Zeus swallows Metis and that afterwards she gives him moral guidance. Metis and Egyptian Maat are both closely connected to the idea of legitimate monarchic rule, a relationship that is expressed by the insertion of Maat herself into the coronation names of Egyptian kings, much the same as Metis' name appears in two of the traditional epithets attached to Zeus.

Metis appears twice in the Hesiodic corpus (Theogony 886-900 and

fragment 343.4-15 M-W) as an anthropomorphic goddess, who is

courted and then ingested by Zeus in a bizarre narrative that ends

with the birth of Athena from the top of his head and (in the

Theogony) with the permanent stabilization of his monarchic rule over

gods and men.1) This close association of Metis and kingship was

1) Hesiod Theogony 886-900 and Fragment 343.4-15. Merkelbach and West (1967: 171-2) print fragment 343 among their "fragmenta dubia" (but not "spuria"), a designation that persists down into the third edition printed at the back of Solmsen (1990: 220). But see the more detailed discussion in West (1966) ad Th. 886-900, where he concludes that frag. 343 "must be printed among the Hesiodic frag- ments" and suggests that it may have originally appeared in the Melampodia. Since fragment 343, as we shall see, agrees in all its main points with the Th?ogonie version, we take it (as do many) to be the composition of the same poet or of a poet working closely in the same mainland Greek tradition, and throughout this essay we shall refer to this tradition indiscriminately as 'Hesiod'. For discussion on this point, see Nagy (1990: 36-47).

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2004 Mnemosyne, Vol. LVII, Fase. 2 Also available online - www.briU.nl

178 CHRISTOPHER A. FARAONE AND EMILY TEETER

apparently made in an early Orphic poem as well, but the frag-

mentary line tells us little more than that.2) Hesiod's Theogony is the

only extant account that fully preserves the Metis episode within a

longer narrative, so it is quite significant that the poet gives the episode such great importance. Indeed, according to a long-standing modern scholarly consensus the marriage of Zeus and Metis stands

at or near the very end of the poem, a fitting crescendo to an

extended hymn to Zeus, which occupies most of the second half of

it.3) Given Metis' prominence at the end of the poem and given the fact that the story of her nuptials is entirely unparalleled in

Greek myth, the possibly foreign origins of the Metis story in Hesiod

have generated surprisingly little interest. This is especially puzzling when we recall that a number of the most important stories or

motifs used by Hesiod have been traced back to Near Eastern

sources, most notably the 'Succession Myth' in the Theogony and the

'Myth of Ages' in the Works and Days.*) We shall argue, in fact, that the myth of Metis and Zeus most

probably derives?directly or indirectly?from Egyptian royal ide-

ology, as it is expressed in a number of ways, but most emphati-

2) Derveni Papyrus 15.13: *. . . Metis. . . kingly office' (??t?? ?a[ ]?? ?as????da t??[??]). See West (1983: 87-9) for discussion.

3) The poem that is transmitted in the manuscripts has 1022 lines; see West

(1967: 397-9) for a summary of the compelling structural, historical and stylistic reasons for believing that the poem ends with the Metis episode at line 900, and Hamilton (1989: 96-9) for a survey of several other hypotheses, all of which place the ending somewhere between line 900 and line 963, where the poet bids farewell to his th?ogonie and cosmogonie material and then invokes the Muses to turn to a new theme. See ibid., 18-9, for Zeus' prominence in the second half of the poem. But even if the poem did not end with the story of Metis, the story stresses the consolidation of Zeus' power and serves as a bridge to the catalogue of wives, which follows; see e.g. Segal (2000: 613): "Hesiod's myth of Metis belongs to the

closing movement of the Theogony and so to the definitive stabilization of the evolv-

ing Olympian order." Nagy (1990: 56) sees the Theogony differently as an extended

hymn to the Muses (lines 1-964) that serves as a prelude to the catalogue of heroes and heroines that begin at 965, but he acknowledges that it does become "a monumental hymn to Zeus and the other Olympian gods."

4) Earlier work is summarized and extended by Erbse (1964) and Walcot (1966). Mondi (1990: 152-7) and Koenen (1994: 14-8) discuss Egyptian parallels respec- tively for the 'Succession Myth' and the 'Myth of Ages', but neither discuss Metis in any detail. West (1997: 276-333), gives an exhaustive summary of the scholarly consensus about numerous Near Eastern influences on Hesiod, which he justifies by saying: ". . . because Hesiod is the one Greek poet in whose work the presence of substantial oriental elements is already generally admitted" (p. 276).

EGYPTIAN MAAT AND HESIODIC METIS 179

cally in a series of New Kingdom and later (i.e. 1500 BCE-200 CE) texts and relief sculptures that depict the offering to various male

gods of the tiny figure of the goddess Maat. Our argument will be

four-fold. We will first point out that like M??s/m?tis, Maat appears in Egyptian texts both as an abstract idea (maat) and as an anthro-

pomorphized goddess Maat. We will then suggest that several odd

details in the Hesiodic narratives can be explained most fully by

Egyptian influence, especially the idea that Zeus 'gulps down' Metis

(the verb is ?atap??e??) and that afterwards she gives him moral

guidance, a kind of knowledge that is not usually associated with

Metis or metis in Homer or other early Greek texts. We will next

examine the extremely close connection of Metis (in the Theogony) and Egyptian Maat to legitimate monarchic rule, a relationship that

is expressed in both cases by the eating of Metis and Maat and by the insertion of Maat herself into the coronation names of Egyptian

kings, much the same as Metis' name appears in a number of the

traditional epithets and formulae attached to Zeus. We will then

address the methodological problem of the transmission of this nar-

rative from Egyptian royal propaganda?usually in the form of public relief sculptures and inscriptions?to a mainland Greek poetic

tradition, in part by comparing the apparent influence of similar

kinds of Egyptian propaganda on Greek myths about Zeus' inter-

course (in human disguise) with Alcmene, about Hera suckling

Herakles, and about the archery contest that Penelope sets up for

the suitors towards the end of the Odyssey?) We will close by sug-

gesting that Hesiod, guided by Egyptian ideas about Maat and maat, seems to link Metis and metis with kingship based upon abstract

moral ideas like 'justice' and 'right'. As we shall see, like Hesiod's

emphasis on the good kind of e??? 'discord' in the Works and Days

(11-26), his understanding of Metis in the Theogony tends to stress

her role as a moral agent, a role that is latent in the prevailing Greek notions about metis in Homer and other early poets, where

it has more of the sense of 'skill' or 'cunning' and is more often

than not deployed in ways (for example in the tales of Odysseus) that suggest quite the opposite: an amoral cleverness.6)

5) Ibid. 431-2 and 458-9. 6) D?tienne and Vernant (1978). For the metis of Odysseus, Nagy (1979: 45-9).


1. Metis and the Kingship of Zeus in Hesiod

The two earliest and most important versions of the Metis story

appear in Hesiod. The best known account is in the Theogony (886-

900):

?e?? d? ?e?? ?as??e?? p??t? ? ?????? ??t? ??t??, p?e?sta ?e?? e?d??a? ?d? ???t?? a????p??, ???' dte d? ??' ??e??e ?e?? ??a???p?? ?????? t??es?a?, t?t' ?pe?ta d??f f???a? ??apat?sa? a???????s? ?????s?? ??? ?s??t?et? ??d??, Ga??? f?ad??s???s? ?a? ???a??? ?ste??e?t??? t?? ??? ?? f?as?t??, ??a ?? ?as????da t???? ????? e??? ???? a?t? ?e?? a?e??e?et???. ?? ??? t?? e??a?t? pe??f???? t???a ?e??s?a?? p??t?? ??? ?????? ??a???p?da ???t????e?a?, ?s?? ????sa? pat?? ????? ?a? ?p?f???a ????? ?, a?t?? ?'pe?t' ??a pa?da ?e?? ?as???a ?a? a?d??? ??e??e? t??es?a?, ?p?????? ?t?? ????ta? ???' ??a ??? ?e?? p??s?e? ??? ?s??t?et? ??d??, ?? ?? s??f??ssa?t? ?e? a?a??? te ?a??? te.

'And then Zeus, as king of the gods, made Metis his first wife, who of gods and men knew the most. But when indeed she was about to

give birth to the grey-eyed goddess Athena, at that time he, by utterly beguiling her with deceit and clever words, set her down into his

belly, doing so on the advice of Earth and starry Heaven. For those two advised him thus, in order that no-one other than Zeus would hold kingly power over the gods who live forever. For it was fated that from her would be born very thoughtful children: first she would bear a daughter, Tritogeneia, the grey-eyed, who has spirit and thoughtful counsel equal to her father; but next she would bear a son with haughty heart, to be king of gods and men. But as it turned out, Zeus before- hand put her down into his belly, so the goddess (i.e. Metis) might advise him with regard to what was good and what was evil.'

This passage is striking for its strong emphasis on the kingship of Zeus. A few lines prior to this passage, the other gods had bid

him 'to rule as king' (883: ?as??e?e??) and this episode itself begins

by first identifying Zeus as 'the king (?as??e??) of the gods', a tide

that serves almost as a formal recognition of his coronation.7) The

prominence here of monarchy is, of course, somewhat odd in a cui-

7) According to West (1967) ad loc, the emphasis is: 'And then Zeus, now that he was king, . . .'


ture that leaned far more closely to oligarchy and that elsewhere

celebrates the triple division of and rule over the cosmos by three

brothers of apparendy equal rank (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades).8) The

Greek word ?as??e?? is, in fact, most often used by both Homer

and Hesiod in the plural to refer to a group of powerful men ruling as equals, like oligarchs, not monarchs. In the Theogony it is used

five times in this way in general statements about 'lords' or 'nobles'

(lines 80, 82, 88, 96 and 434). Its use in the singular, however, as

well as the use of the verb 'to rule as a ?as??e??' (?as??e?e??) and

the phrase 'to hold the royal honor' (?as????da t???? . . . e?e??) all

cluster closely around two points in the poem, the description of

the monarchic rule of Zeus's father Kronos (?as????? t??? 462;

?as??e?? 476, 486) and the story of Metis quoted above (?as??e??

886, 897; verb ?as??e?e?? 883; ?as????? t??? 892).9) In the Theogony,

then, Metis is closely linked with the inauguration of Zeus' king-

ship. Her story also provides a neat etymology?a common feature

in this poem?for two of Zeus' traditional epithets, ??t?eta and

??t??e??, which are generally translated as 'wise in counsel'.10) This

story, in short, explains how it came about that Zeus got his metis.u)

8) Contrast, e.g., Pindar, Isthmian 8?with the discussion of Segal (2000: 616- 7)?for a more oligarchic arrangement with Zeus and his brother Poseidon arguing and eventually coming to a mutual agreement over who would marry Themis.

9) In the last 122 lines of the poem, the word ?as??e?? appears five more times in quick succession: 923, 957, 985, 992 and 995; the first refers to Zeus and the rest to human or semi-divine kings. It is probably significant that Zeus is never called a ?as??e?? in Homer. See Calhoun (1935: 1-17, esp. 14-7).

10) West (1967: 401) and D?tienne and Vernant (1978: 107). Mark Edwards points out to us per litteras that the second of the two epithets (??t??e??) appears five times in Hesiod to describe Zeus, but never in Homer.

11) Erbse (1964: 15). Although there are a number of chronological lapses in the Theogony, for example where Hesiod mentions the marriage of a goddess before he reports her birth (e.g. 241/350 and 288/351, with the comments of West [1967] ad 940), the poet (with one possible exception) never refers to Zeus as ??t?eta and ??t??e?? at a moment chronologically prior to his marriage with Metis. Of the six instances in the poem two occur after the marriage (904 and 914) and another in the proem refers to Zeus at the time he fathers the nine Muses (56). Within the th?ogonie narrative there are also two proleptic moments where Hesiod, in the midst of an historical narrative in the past tense, uses the present tense to describe Zeus' present (i.e. at the time the poem is being sung) powers as a weather god: (i) after the birth of Pegasus, the poet says that the horse 'brings' (present tense, i.e. nowadays) the thunder and lightning bolts to Zeus ??t??e?? (286); and (ii) in the description of the children of Kronos at their birth, Zeus is called ??t??e?? and described as 'the father of the gods and mortals, by whose thunder the wide


The second Hesiodic narrative about Metis and Zeus is a fragment preserved by Chrysippus:12)

a?t?? d ?' O?ea??? ?a? ?????? ???????? ?????? ??sf* "???? pa?e???at? ?a???pa???? ??apaf?? ??t?? ?a?pe? p????d??? ???sa? ?

s??????a? d' ? ?e ?e?s?? ??? ????t?et? ??d??, de?sa? ?? t???? ??ate??te??? ???? ?e?a????? t???e?? ??? ?????d?? ???????? a????? ?a??? ??pp?e? ??ap????. ? d' a?t??a ?a???d' ?????? ??sat?? t?? ??? ?t??te pat?? a?d??? te ?e?? te

pa? ????f??, ???t???? ?p' d????s?? p?ta????. ??t?? d' a?te ????? ?p? sp?a?????? ?e?a???a

?st?, ????a??? ??t??, t??ta??a d??a???, p?e?sta ?e?? e?d??a ?ata???t?? t' a????p??.

'But far away from beautiful-cheeked Hera, he (i.e. Zeus) lay with the daughter of Ocean and beautifully tressed Tethys, having deceived

Metis, even though she was very wise. And by grasping her in his

hands, he set her down in his belly, because he feared that she might give birth to something stronger than the thunderbolt. For this rea- son the high-throned son of Kronos, who dwells in the aether, sud-

denly gulped her down. And she immediately became pregnant with Pallas Athena. And Zeus, the father of men and gods, gave birth to her (i.e. Athena) through the top of his head along the banks of the river Triton, while Metis for her part sat unseen in the bowels of

Zeus, the mother of Athena, the author of just deeds, who of gods and men knew the most.'

This version of the story is told primarily to introduce the birth

of Athena, and as a result of this, perhaps, Zeus is defined by his

regular Homeric epithet as 'father of men and gods'. There is no

mention at all of his kingship or royal power. This second Hesiodic

version, moreover, is set into the larger framework of the failing

earth is (present tense) shaken' (456-7). The one possible exception to this pattern is the description of Adas 'who holds up (present tense) wide heaven, because Zeus ??t??e?? assigned (aorist tense) this lot (ta?t?? . . . ????a?) to him (520).' Here, alone, Hesiod seems to refer to Zeus performing an act with metis prior to ingesting the goddess, but since the passage is describing the present state of Atlas hold-

ing up the world, the lapse is understandable (cf. his similar description at 348 of the present and enduring allotment to river-gods, who with Apollo oversee the ini- tiation of young men, 'because they hold (present tense) this lot (ta?t?? . . . ????a?) from Zeus'.

12) Fragment 343.4-15 [MW] = Chrysippus frag. 908.


marriage of Zeus and Hera and as a result, the chronology changes: in the Theogony Metis is the first wife of Zeus, but here, Hera is

already Zeus' wife and Metis is merely his paramour. Both accounts

agree, however, that Zeus ingests Metis to forestall the birth of a

child stronger than himself. The Theogony predicts that there will be

two offspring, a daughter Athena and then a son; but the fragment

vaguely refers to 'some other thing greater than his thunderbolt.'

Zeus' deception of Metis is likewise differently timed. In the

Chrysippus fragment he gets his way by 'utterly beguiling' or 'seduc-

ing' (??apaf??) her into sleeping with him and then afterwards?

presumably when he discovers she is pregnant?he ingests her. At

Theogony 889, however, he 'deceives' (??apat?sa?) her only after he

has married and impregnated her. Deception is, of course, a fre-

quent part of seduction, but why does Hesiod in the Theogony have

Zeus deceive her as a prelude to swallowing her? According to the

scholia here and to the later mythographer Apollodorus (1.3.6), Zeus' trick was necessary because Metis, like her sister Thetis, was

a shape-shifter of the sort who could be controlled by one of two

means: either by holding onto her relendessly, as Menelaus does

with Proteus and Peleus does with Thetis, until she exhausts the

repertoire of her forms, or by catching her at a point when she

has assumed a shape that was particularly vulnerable to attack, as

in the case of Periclymenos, whom Herakles killed after he assumed

the shape of a bee.13) The two Hesiodic accounts seem, in fact, to

differ precisely along these lines: in the Theogony we hear that 'by

deceiving her with clever words, he set her down into his belly'

(Th. 889-90) but in the fragment we are told that 'by grasping her

with his hands, he set her down in his belly' (frag. 343.7). It has

been suggested, therefore, that in the Th?ogonie version, the audi-

ence of the poem may have imagined that 'with his clever words'

Zeus had talked Metis into changing herself into a small insect or

a draught of water and then gulped her down whole.14) Otherwise the two Hesiodic accounts of Zeus' actions are fairly

consistent. In both versions Zeus sets Metis down into his ??d??, a

13) The scholiast (as emended by e.g. Goettling, Paley and Heyne) interprets the Th?ogonie version as follows: 'Zeus, by misleading her and making her small (????a?; MSS p???a?), gulped her down'.

14) D?tienne and Vernant (1978: 110-4).


word that can refer to any cavity in the human body: the womb, the stomach or the bowels. Because the birth of Athena is the even-

tual result of this action, some scholars see a reference here to some

kind of male 'womb' like the one in Zeus' thigh from which Dionysus was reborn. This is, however, unlikely, for earlier in the Theogony, Hesiod uses very similar language to describe how Kronos 'gulps down' his children one by one, (459 and 467, the verb is ?atap??e??) and then how he 'seized with his hands' the disguised stone that

Rhea gave him and then 'set it down into his belly' (??d??: 487, a

line which is nearly equivalent in its wording to fragment 343.7). In

the end, of course, Kronos 'vomited' all of them back up (497:

?????se), a word primarily associated with emptying the contents of

the stomach. It seems more likely, then, that Hesiod imagines the

??d?? of both Kronos and Zeus to be the stomach, but it is also

certain that throughout the poem he continually juxtaposes 'wombs'

and 'bellies' for thematic purposes as similar bodily cavities that can

conceal, imprison and reveal again.15) In the Chrysippus fragment, Hesiod similarly describes Zeus as 'gulping down' (line 10: ?atap??e??)

Metis, who is later described as sitting in or near16) Zeus' sp?????a, a word that refers to the womb in Pindar and Greek tragedy, but

which in epic usually means the immediately roastable and edible

'innards' of a sacrificial animal: the heart, lung, liver, and kidneys.17) In post-Homeric Greek, moreover, sp?????a also comes to mean,

like the Greek words for 'heart', the seat of emotions, especially

anger, pity and desire.18) This would, of course, be a perfect place for Metis to reside, in her role as Zeus' moral counselor.

There is, moreover, quite a lot of emphasis in both texts on the

type of wisdom and mental activity that characterizes Metis and

her children. In each version, Hesiod uses an almost identical full-

line formula to describe the wisdom of Metis in quantitative terms:

15) For ??d?? as 'stomach' see West (1967) ad 497, who cites the scholia. The

"homonymy between ?ast?? and ??d??" and "the coincidence between the sexual and alimentary codes" is a major theme in M. Arthur [Katz] (1982).

16) The phrase is ?p? sp????????, literally 'at the base of or 'under' his sp?????a. 17) See LSJ and Cunliffe ad loc. To carry the gastrointestinal focus to its log-

ical conclusion, we might want to press the word to mean 'intestines', but this does not seem to be among its many meanings.

18) LSJ s.v.


she was the one 'who of gods and men knew the most' (lines 887

and 343.15). In the Chrysippus fragment he adds that she was 'very

prudent' (343.6: p????d???),19) while in the Theogony, he stresses her

ability to pass her wisdom onto her as yet unborn children, who

are collectively called pe??f????, a word that in epic nearly always refers to a positive virtue ('exceedingly wise'), but in later Greek

can point to a negative trait as well, e.g. 'arrogant' or 'haughty'. West (1966, ad loc.) suggests righdy that Hesiod was aware of this

ambivalence, because Metis gives birth to Athena, who has 'thoughtful counsel' (?p?f???a ??????), but we are told that she might have

born a son with 'haughty heart' (?p?????? ?t??) if Zeus had not

intervened. In light of Egyptian Maat, however, it is quite remarkable

that towards the end of both Hesiodic passages, at the point where

Metis' intelligence is re-described in terms of the ongoing benefit

she brings Zeus, we find a different emphasis entirely: the fragment calls her the 'author of justice',20) and the Theogony reports that 'Zeus

put her down into his ??d??, so that she might advise him (s??-

f??ssa?t?) with regard to good and evil (a?a??? te ?a??? te).'21)

Finally it is worth noting that both Hesiodic versions place the

eventual birth of Athena on the banks of the Libyan river Triton.

In the Chrysippus fragment, which seems centrally concerned with

the divine birth, we are told that 'Zeus gave birth to her through

19) The phrase ?a?pe? p????d??? ???sa? is, however, Ruhnken's emendation; all of the better MSS have ?a?pe? p??? d??e???sa?, 'although she was writhing', a description that goes better with the verb of grasping that begins the next line. The transition between lines 6 and 7 is quite abrupt, and perhaps because of the similarity of the line endings, some lines have dropped out at this point that sepa- rated the seduction of Metis ?a?pe? p????d??? ???sa? 'although she was very prudent' from the grasping of Metis ?a?pe? p??? d??e???sa?, 'although she was writhing', i.e. squirming to get away. See D?tienne and Vernant (1978: 123 n. 11).

20) 343.14: t??ta??a d??a???. The word t??ta??a is rare, but it is clearly the female form of t??t??, a word that means 'carpenter, shipwright, skilled crafts- man'. Evelyn-White (1914: 147) nicely catches the idea when he translates the phrase as 'worker of righteousness'. For a good parallel for this striking image, see Callimachus, Hecale frag. 267 (t??ta??a ????), in a hexametric line that seems to recall Hesiod in its parallel structure; see Pfeiffer (1949: 256-7).

21) West (1967) and Solmsen (1990) ad loc. righdy prefer the version of the Th?o- gonie text which Chrysippus quotes just before he quotes fragment 343. The Hesiod MSS have instead d? ?? f??ssa?t?, which would mean: 'in order that she might devise good and bad plans for him.' In addition to West's philological arguments, we might add that the parallel account in fragment 343 names Metis?also at the very end of the narrative?-as the 'author of just deeds' (see preceding note).


the top of his head by the banks of the river Triton' (line 12). But

even the version in the Theogony preserves this detail when it refers

to Athena only by her epithet 'Tritogeneia' (895), that is: 'born by the Triton river'.22) This detail may also hint at an Egyptian ori-

gin for the Metis story, since Athena from classical times had been

equated with the Egyptian goddess Neith, whose main center of

worship was the city of Sais in the western delta (i.e. near Libya).

Herodotus, for example, relates how the Egyptian king Amasis 'built

a new gateway to the temple of Athena at Sais' (2.177)?clearly a

reference to the well-known temple of Neith in that city. Indeed

the equation of the two goddesses was so popular that some Greeks

claimed that Athens had originally been a colony of Sais.23) But

even more interesting are Neith's associations with Libya: accord-

ing to Egyptian sources, the Libyans sported tattoos of her image and one inscription speaks of the goddess 'Neith from Libya'.24) There is, however, to date no extant birth story for this Saite goddess nor any evidence connecting her with Maat.

2. Egyptian Maat

In ancient Egypt, maat appears both as the abstract concept of

truth and correctness in the cosmic and social spheres and in anthro-

pomorphic form as a goddess (Maat) who personifies truth and

order.25) Textual references to Maat date as early as the Fifth Dynasty

(ca. 2500 BCE) and she remains an important member of the

Egyptian pantheon down into the Roman era. Maat is represented in art as a slender, idealized woman whose head is topped with an

ostrich feather, the phonetic sign for 'rnaaf. In some representations, the plume is fastened to her head by a narrow fillet, while statues

often show the feather emerging direcdy from the top of her head.

The goddess usually wears a tigh?y fitting dress without ornamen-

22) The epithet Tritogeneia occurs onJy thrice in the Hesiodic corpus, twice in the story of her birth (Theogony 895 and 924) and once in a batde scene in the Scutum. Elsewhere, however, it is a fairly common Homeric epithet for Athena, where the scholia also connect it with Lake Tritonis in Libya.

23) Bonnet (1952: 517). 24) Ibid. 25) Teeter (1997: 1-7) provides most of the information in this section and

detailed bibliography.


tation, and in certain periods, she may wear anklets or bracelets.

In scenes of the offering of Maat, the goddess is seated on a semi-

circular hieroglyph that represents a basket, the phonogram nb,

meaning 'lord' or 'possessor.' In the hands of the king then, the

offering identified him as 'the possessor of Maat.' Her connection

with the king is very old. In Pyramid Text Utterance 249 (24th

century BCE), the king proclaims ? have set Maat (i.e. Truth) in

it [the Lake of Fire] in place of wrong,' and in Utterance 758

'Maat (i.e. Truth) is what the king says.'26) Maat, in short, represents an elaborate and interconnected sense of truth and cosmic

order in all aspects of life and cult. Each individual was responsible for maintaining maat through correct action and truthful speech. This close association with moral behavior and social order is, of

course, similar to the ideas we found at the end of both of the

Hesiodic passages, where Metis?now forever in the sp?????a of

Zeus?was called the 'author of justice' and said to advise Zeus as

to right and wrong. Maat was also intimately connected with Egyptian royal ideol-

ogy. Hatshepsut (15th century BCE) was crowned in the Temple of

Maat.27) The semi-divine king in ancient Egypt was considered to

be responsible for the maintenance of maat through his just rule, and maat was an important aspect of political control and loyalty. Foremost of the responsibilities of an Egyptian subject was loyalty to the king who, as the intermediary between the gods and mankind,

protected maat. The Instructions of Kagemni (ca. 2400 BCE) exhort:

'Do maat for the king, for maat is what the king loves.'28) The king himself and his names were, moreover, very intimately associated

with Maat. From the Fourth Dynasty (reign of Snefru, ca. 2630 BCE)

onwards, the name of Maat was commonly incorporated into the

royal titular. In the New Kingdom, most of the kings compounded their prenomen, the name formulated at their accession to the throne, with the name of Maat, for example: Maat-ka-Re ('The Spirit of Re

is Maat', prenomen of Hatshepsut), Neb-Maat-Re ('Re is the Possessor

of Maat', prenomen of Amunhotep ??), and Wser-Maat-Re ('Powerful

26) Faulkner (1969: 61 and 318). 27) Murnane (1977: 33). 28) Sethe (1933: 195), lines 6-8.


are Maat and Re (?)'; prenomen of Ramesses II and III). And in

the Ramesside Period (11th-10th centuries BCE), kings further asso-

ciated themselves with Maat by depicting themselves on public mon-

uments presenting an elaborate hieroglyphic composition of their

coronation name which prominendy incorporated the figure of Maat

into that name (see figure A). This version of the coronation name

was so closely associated with her that the accompanying dedication

inscription refers to this name simply as 'Maat'.29) The timing of these

Egyptian presentation rituals and the insertion (quite literally) of Maat

into the king's new royal name, calls to mind the timing of Zeus'

swallowing of Metis and the entrance of Metis into Zeus' own titular

(??t?eta, lit. 'he who has Metis [i.e. in him]'), so to speak, precisely at the moment when he, too, ascends the throne. Indeed, it is inter-

esting to note that the most frequent divine recipient of the presentation of Maat is the god Amun, who?like Zeus at the time of

his coronation and marriage to Metis?is frequendy called the 'King of the Gods.'30) Finally, it is well worth noting that in both the

Egyptian and Hesiodic arenas, this focus on Maat and Metis seems

designed to address concerns about the legitimacy of the new king.31)

29) Teeter (1997: 34-5, 75 and 82-3). 30) Egyptian tide 'King of the Gods' (nsw ntrw) is most commonly associated

with Amun from the New Kingdom onward, although other gods such as Osiris, were also given the tide. See Belegstellen vol. 2/2, 328.13 for W?rterbuch der ?gyptischen Sprache (Berlin 1971). The tide was so common that in the Hellenistic period in

Egypt Amun was referred to as Amonrasoneter (Imn Ra nsw ntrw) 'Amun Re

King of the Gods.' Many gods other than Amun were the recipients of Maat, but he is much more frequendy shown in that role in Theban temples, since most of those establishments were dedicated to his cult. Zeus' tides here^'king of the gods' at Theogony 886 and 'king of the gods and the mortals' (923)?are extremely rare; in Homer he is never called ?as??e?? or a?a? of the gods, although he is addressed

simply as a?a? ('lord') as are many male gods; see Calhoun (1935) and West (1966: 399). Our argument here about the Egyptian origins of the Metis episode in Hesiod

(if correct) suggests that the tide 'king of the gods' may have entered the Greek

poetic tradition in connection with the idea that the Egyptian 'king of the gods' ingested Maat.

31) Teeter (1997: 17 and 82-3) discusses the apparent origin of the Egyptian presentation scenes as a means of confirming political legitimacy. As for Zeus, he is apparendy the first god to be acclaimed king by the other gods. Since his father Kronos was (according to Hesiod) the previous king he might have inherited the

role, but in the Theogony this certainly does not happen. Indeed, it is clear that he fails to take over the office immediately after he defeats his father Kronos, and there is an interregnum of sorts during which the Prometheus episode and the batdes with the Titans and Typhon take place?each situation offering Zeus the threat of defeat before he can properly become king.


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The idea that Metis and Maat enter the new king's royal titular

runs on parallel tracks in the mythic and ritual narratives, for both

were thought, in one way or another to be consumed or ingested

by the god or king.32) In the Greek story, the goddess Metis is

gulped down by Zeus, just as the Egyptian gods are said to 'gulp down Maat'.33) In another text, the goddess Nun exhorts Atum, the

creator god, to do the following:34)

Kiss your daughter Maat, put her at your nose that your heart may live, for she will not be far from you. Maat is your daughter. . . . Eat of your daughter Maat.

In this passage, the goddess Nun seems to play the role of Gaia

in the Theogony who advises Zeus to ingest Metis. Atum's 'con-

sumption' of Maat is, of course, somewhat overdetermined: he can

kiss, inhale or eat her, but the idea of eating or drinking Maat

seems to have been the most popular, for example: 'That which

you eat is Maat, your drinks are Maat, your bread is Maat, your beer is Maat. . . ,'35)

This idea of eating or drinking Maat is, moreover, implied over

and over again in the monumental royal reliefs of the presentation of Maat, where the goddess is offered up to a god as a tiny seated

woman, who in most cases is no bigger than the head of the one

who offers her up (see figure B).36) Since these scenes regularly

appear side by side with nearly identical scenes of various foods being offered by the king for the same god to eat or drink, there is little

doubt that the offering of Maat was thought to end with the god

ingesting her in one way or another.37) Elsewhere this equation of

32) Moret (1902: 140) and Davies (1953: pi. 12). 33) As related in the Berlin Service Book; see Moret (1902: 142). 34) Coffin Text II 35g, Spell 80, for which see Faulkner (1973: 84). 35) Berlin Service Book 22.3, for which see Moret (1902: 142). See also Coffin

Texts VII 238, Spell 1017: ? have eaten Maat', Faulkner (1978: 118); and Book of the Dead 126: 'the blessed [i.e. gods] who live on Maat and who sip Maat' in Book of the Dead 126 in Allen (1974: 102). Another claim is that the gods 'live on Maat', i.e. survive by eating her, see e.g. Epigraphic Survey (1980: 30-2) (for the god Atum) and Anthes (1952: 5) (for the god Aton at Amarna). In all of these

hieroglyphic texts, the ancient author signifies by the determinative sign that he is

referring to the goddess Maat rather than the abstract concept maat. 36) In Teeter (1997), of the fifteen scenes showing the offering of a seated Maat

(Plates 2-7, 11-7 and 22-4), with one exception (3) all depict Maat as a tiny goddess, about the size of the head of the offerand.

37) Teeter (1997: 78) with notes 228 and 229. See Assmann (1989: 121-2), who


Figure B: King Seti I presents an offering in the form of the goddess Maat.

(Temple of Seti at Abydos, ca. 1291-1279 BCE) Photo: courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.


Maat with food is less subtle. In one relief showing the presentation of wine jars, the scene is clearly captioned 'presenting Maat,' and in another, the figure of Maat has been superimposed over

wine jars,38) emphasizing her role as the drink of the gods. Other

texts describe her explicidy as food for the gods, for example: 'Maat, the food of the gods' and 'The gods live on Maat'.39) And much

the same as Metis is described in the Chrysippus fragment as 'sit-

ting in the sp?????a of Zeus', Maat was thought to reside inside

of a king or god, for example: 'You cause Maat to rest in you.'40) The goddess' continued presence in the king or god, moreover, ensures that he always acts in a just manner and speaks truthfully. This is also the implied effect that Metis will have on Zeus, who

as 'the author of justice' sits?presumably forever?in or near the

sp?????a of Zeus, and advises him with regard to what was (morally)

good and bad.

3. From Egyptian Ideology to Hesiodic Nanatwe

These parallels between Egyptian Maat and Hesiodic Metis are

extremely interesting, but must we explain them as a result of

Egyptian influence on a poetic tradition in far off mainland Greece?

If so, what precisely was the route or means of this influence?

Hesiod, of course, more than any other early Greek author seems

to have freely borrowed or reused mythic narratives from Anatolia

or the Levant (see note 4), but in all of these instances the argu-

recognizes but plays down, the idea that Maat is being offered as a nutritional supplement: "Mais les textes pr?cisent tr?s fr?quemment que le roi et la divinit? vivent de la Ma?t plut?t dans le sens ?thique que sacrificial, que c'est la Ma?t comme v?rit? dite et comme justice pratiqu?e dont se nourrit dieu ou roi."

38) Teeter (1997: 119 (P 4-5)), both from the temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu.

39) Teeter (1997: 82); see also the inscriptions collected on her page 122: R5 (? have brought Maat to you, in order that you may live on her') and R6 ('You feed on Maat').

40) Berlin Service Book 21.5; see Moret (1902: 140). This idea recurs in non- royal texts such as those that appear on the votive statues from the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, which boast that the nobleman who dedicated the statue 'has Maat in his heart'; for a translation of these texts and discussion, see Lichtheim (1992). A text from the tomb of Tutu at Amarna also claims, 'Maat has made her place in me'; see Sandman (1938: 74.1) for this text and Anthes (1952) for a compilation of such references from the Amarna period.


ment for influence is made much easier, because the eastern source

is a literary text as well. In the case of the proposed influence of

Egyptian Maat on Hesiod's narrative of Metis, however, the alleged source is not a literary narrative, but rather royal ideology or pro-

paganda expressed in a series of inscriptions and monumental reliefs,

especially those which commemorate the coronation of the king. How then does such propaganda find its way into these Hesiodic

narratives about Zeus? Clearly the focus on kingship is extremely

important in the account preserved in the Theogony, which occurs

precisely at the point where Zeus is elevated by the other gods to

the rank of 'king of gods and mortals.' There is, then, some obvi-

ous logic to Hesiod's decision to employ this foreign material pre-

cisely where he does in the Theogony, especially since in Greece?a

land of city-states partial to oligarchic forms of government?there were not many local models available for monarchic ideology. This

probably explains why Hesiod might have been tempted to use these

ideas, but it does not tell us how these ideas moved from one cul-

ture to the next.

There are two plausible initial responses. The first is to notice a

phonetic similarity of the words maat and metis and to suggest that

they both developed on different tracks from the same word and

idea; indeed it is curious that both these terms appear as abstract

concepts (maat and metis) as well as anthropomorphized goddesses

(Maat and Metis), and that both are closely linked with kingship,

especially at the time of coronation, when one usually finds some

degree of anxiety about legitimacy. The Greek word, moreover, has

no secure etymology, suggesting that it may be a loanword from

another language. Recent work on Egyptian phonetics, however, has shown that the Egyptian word maat was probably pronounced

something like ma'art,*1) a pronunciation that weakens the argument for phonetic similarity. A second hypothesis is that the concept first

arrived in Greece as an images?of tiny Maat offered to a god in

presentation scenes?where, because of its royal context, it provided the Greeks with a model for understanding how it was that Zeus

41) According to Allen (2000: 15-7) the vocalization of Maat (i.e.: m + aleph + ayin + t) would be: M + glottal stop + either (i) r ("as in modern French and German") or (ii) more like Arabic ayin + /.


somehow came to have Metis living inside of him. This hypothesis draws some support from archaic Greek iconography of the birth

of Athena, an episode to which Metis' story was traditionally con-

nected. The scene of Athena's birth is relatively popular in late

sixth-century black-figured vase paintings, which show a crowd of

gods standing around Zeus, who is seated and holding his royal

scepter and a thunderbolt as Athena leaps forth from the top of

his head. In one painting in this series, a black-figured ceramic

stand found in Thebes and dating to 570-65 BCE ('Athena' no.

345: see figure C), Zeus sits on a backless throne, holding icons of

his office in each hand, and a long-haired goddess stands behind

him with one or both hands raised up, in all three of these details

much like the two Egyptian reliefs (in figures A and B) in which

the pharaoh offers Maat to a sitting god. In the vase-painting, more-

over, we see under the throne of Zeus, the crouching figure of a

woman, who is roughly the same size as the tiny Athena, who has

just now successfully emerged from the top of her father's head.

Could this be Metis, who we are to imagine sitting in the sp?????a of Zeus? In geometric art, at least, the Greeks certainly did resort

to this odd sort of 'conceptual' rendering of internal scenes, for

example, by rendering the funeral shroud of a dead man floating a few millimeters above his body, so the viewer could see both the

body (below) and the shroud (above).42) Since the very small size

and squatting pose of the woman is similar to that of Maat in the

Egyptian scenes of offering (see, e.g. figures A and B) and since she

is connected by proximity to a rather royal Zeus seated with a

scepter on his throne, this might provide us with a hint that the

iconography of Maat, at least, was known among the vase painters

42) On the conceptual nature of Geometric painting, see Robertson (1959: 36-7). This is rare in black-figure vase-painting, but it does persist. On an amphora in Richmond with a frontal version of the birth of Athena, Zeus' throne has horse- head arms, but the painter does not depict the horse-heads frontally, but rather, he turns them to the sides and gives profiles instead, which makes conceptual sense, but not visual sense. There are also the so-called 'synoptic' scenes where all the elements of a story are included illogically without any concern for time?or where time is compressed, for example: on a cup in Boston, which depicts the Circe episode, Odysseus is arriving at the same time Eurylochos is running to get him and men are turning into swine before drinking from the cup; see Snodgrass (1987: 136-9).


{-I ?53 u


of Athens.43) But here, too, the hypothesis is made more tenuous

by the observation that on other black-figured vases in this series, the space under Zeus' throne is usually filled up with some small

figure or other (e.g. heraldic animals or a pair of standing youths),

suggesting that the small female figure may have been randomly

generated on account of the painter's honor vacui.44) But if linguistics and iconography fail to provide us with direct

evidence for the borrowing of Metis from Egypt, we can nonethe-

less point out at least three other examples of early Greek poetic traditions borrowing narratives or at least narrative details from very similar and similarly dated Egyptian royal sculptures. The description of the famous archery contest that Penelope sets near the end

of Odyssey, for example, has always puzzled scholars; she says she

will become the bride of 'whomever most easily strings the bow in

his hands and shoots straight through all twelve axes.' (21.75-6).

Despite more than a century of argument and tests, no-one has

been able to show that any of the literal interpretations of this shot

is feasible, and for nearly half a century now scholars have looked

to an Egyptian source, noting that both elements of the archery contest?the stringing of a massive bow and then shooting an arrow

'completely through' twelve iron ax-heads?appear in the royal pro-

paganda of a number of Eighteenth Dynasty kings (Tuthmosis III,

Amunophis II, Tuthmosis IV, Tutankhamun, Ay and Ramesses II), who in their public monuments claim to be such powerful archers

that they can draw a bow that others cannot and they can drive

arrows straight through plates of hammered copper.45) An inscription set up by Amunophis II near the Sphinx at Giza, for exam-

ple, boasts that 'He is a king mighty in his arm: there is none who

43) Perhaps thanks to the influence of someone like Amasis, a well known black-

figure vase-painter himself and the owner of a famous Egyptian name. See Boardman

(1974: 54): "Amasis is the Hellenized form of the Egyptian Ahmosis, which is a common Egyptian name. . . . There are other factors which might indicate a part- Egyptian origin and early years spent, say, in Naucratis: his introduction of the

Egyptian alabastron shape in clay to Athens and Exekias' [a rival vase painter] naming negroes on two of his vases as "Amasis" and "Amasos", suggesting that the familiar Amasis was swart."

44) Brommer (1961: 66-83); Schefold (1978); and UMC 'Athena' nos. 343-59.

45) Germain (1954: 14 n. 6); Burkert (1973: 69-78); Walcot (1984); McLeod

(1984: 208-9) and West (1997: 432).


could draw his bow' and tells how he once from horseback struck

four copper targets in a row, each of them the thickness of a palm

(approximately three-inches), adding: 'It was really a deed that had

not been done or heard of by report: shooting at a target of cop-

per an arrow which came out of it (i.e. out of the other side) and

dropped to the ground.'46) Similar deeds are actually depicted in

monumental reliefs erected by the same king, and they show up in

much smaller form on pieces of decorated gold foil from the buri-

als of kings Tutankhamun and Aye, and on a cylinder seal dating to the reign of Ramesses II.47) In all of these scenes, the targets (the hammered plates of copper) take the form of an ox-hide shaped

ingot?the standard Aegean form?that could easily be visually mis-

taken for a double axe.48) It is unlikely, of course, that Amunophis II or indeed any Egyptian king had ever accomplished such a thing, but these boastful accounts and pictures provide excellent propa-

ganda: they depict the king as an archer more powerful than any other king on earth. Since the bow as a weapon was generally of

low status amongst the Greeks, there is a growing consensus that

at some point this Egyptian way of demonstrating the prowess of

kingship with a display of powerful archery was borrowed and

adapted into the story of how Odysseus, too, had demonstrate his

own supremacy at the bow, in order to re-establish himself as king of Ithaca.

The earliest poetic accounts of the birth and infancy of Heracles

similarly seem to reflect Greek knowledge of royal Egyptian mon-

uments. In fragment 195 of the Hesiodic Catahgue of Women, we

learn that Zeus seduces Alcmene by impersonating her husband

Amphitryon, the king of Thebes, and later on she gives birth to

Heracles. Zeus and the other gods are, of course, continually deceiv-

ing unmarried women, but this story is unique in Greek myth because Alcmene is a married women and because the god imper- sonates her husband.49) A very similar story is depicted, however,

46) The translation is that of Wilson in Pritchard (1969: 244), which is quoted at length in most of the studies in the preceding note, e.g. McLeod (1984: 208) and Walcott (1984: 361).

47) Illustrated in Decker and Herb (1994: pi. 71 (E5-7) and pi. 72 (E9)). 48) See Burkert (1973: 74-6) and Walcott (1984: 368-9) for detailed arguments. 49) West (1997: 458).


in a series of reliefs, first at Deir el Bahari50) and then a century later at Luxor Temple,51) which show how the god Amun visits an

Egyptian queen at night in the guise of her husband and makes

love to her, sexual acts which eventually result in the birth of Queen

Hatshepsut (c. 1473-1458 BCE) and Amunophis III (c. 1390-1353

BCE), both of whom ruled Egypt from a city which the Greeks

also called Thebes.52) These reliefs, which narrate the birth of these

kings, also reveal that after the kings were born, they both were

suckled by the cow-eared, or cow-form goddess Hathor.53) Classical

scholars have suggested that these accounts influenced similar sto-

ries about Zeus' procreation of Heracles, who according to Greek

myth was suckled by Zeus' wife Hera.54) This detail perplexes clas-

sical scholars, of course, because in the earliest strata of Greek poetry Hera is famously hostile to Heracles. It becomes more easily com-

prehensible, however, when we recall that the 'cow-eyed' Hera of

the Greeks was sometimes equated with Hathor and when we follow

the lead of a number of prominent scholars who argue that both

parts of Heracles' biography?his divine inception and sucklings- were influenced by Egyptian royal iconography and inscriptions.55)

It would seem, therefore, that we have three cases of the apparent influence of Egyptian royal monuments and inscriptions on early Greek poetic narratives: (i) the archery contest in the Odyssey, (ii) the linked episodes of the disguised Zeus seducing Almene and the

subsequent suckling of Heracles at Hera's breast, first told in the

Hesiodic Catalogue of Women; and (iii) the Hesiodic story of Zeus'

50) Naville (1896: pis. 41-54). 51) Brunner (1986: pis. 4-11). 52) This name was used for the Egyptian city at least from the time of Homer

(Iliad 9.381-4); in the Graeco-Roman periods, the city was known in Egypt as

Diospolis Magna. 53) For the Deir el Bahari scenes, see Naville (1896: pi. 53) and idem (1901:

pis. 104, 105). 54) Burkert (1965: 166-77, esp. 168-70); Walcott (1984: 65-7); and West (1997: 458). 55) West (1997: 458). Burkert (1965), moreover, stresses the fact that even after it

has arrived in Greece, this story remains connected with kingship. Heracles, of course, is the ancestor of most of the heroic kings of the P?loponn?se, and this same

Egyptian story of the disguised supernatural progenitor is later recast by Herodotus when he tells of one of Heracles' descendants, King Demaratus of Sparta, who was deposed from the kingship as illegitimate, only to learn from his mother that a supernatural beings?in this case the hero Astrabakos?was his true father.


coronation and ingestion of Metis. In the first two instances, because

of the striking parallels and the lack of any other cogent explanation for such un-Greek narratives or motifs, scholars have under-

standably tended to ignore the question of how this influence came

to be.56) But there are, in fact, some commonalities between all

three cases that may provide us with some inklings about the process of transmission. First of all, the source of these narratives is stories

or motifs that begin to appear on royal monuments in the Eighteenth

Dynasty.57) The first clear reference to the plate-piercing archery of

the Egyptian kings appears in texts of Thutmose III and in texts

and representations of his son Amunophis II.58) This same Thutmosis,

moreover, is also the first pharaoh to depict in a prominent public place depictions of the offering of Maat, although his predeces- sor Hatshepsut may have erected a similar monument.59) And the

first depictions of the divine birth story once again turn up uniquely in the royal ideology of Hatshepsut and Amunophis III. In short, all these stories or motifs that apparendy find their way into an

early Greek poetic tradition appear first on Egyptian monuments

that date sometime between 1473, the coronation of Hatshepsut, and 1353 BCE, the end of the reign of Amunophis III. In all of

these monuments, moreover, we can detect hints of some anxiety about legitimacy?an anxiety that is addressed in one scene at the

level of geneaology (the new king is acceptable because she or he

is the direct offspring of Amun), in another at the level of physical

prowess (the new king is acceptable because he is the most powerful archer alive); and in a third by popular ideas about moral king-

ship (the new king is acceptable because she or he has ingested

56) E.g. Burkert (1965: 168) (regarding the story of the paternity of Heracles): "Durch welche Kan?le der griechische Heraklesmythos mit der ?gyptischen K?nigstheologie verbunden ist, wird sich im einzelnen kaum aufhellen lassen; dass ein Zusammenhang besteht, ist nicht zu bezweifeln. . . .".

57) Scenes of the prowess of the king in archery start in the Old Kingdom. For one from the pyramid temple of Sahure (Dynasty 5, ca. 2517 BCE), see Decker and Herb (1994: text volume 164 and Falttafel ?). The examples of shooting at metal targets all date to Dynasties 18-19. They are collected in Decker and Herb (1994: 146-50 and pis. 67-72).

58) For these texts, see Wilson in Pritchard (1969: 243-4). For the scenes, see Decker and Herb (1994: pis. 69-72).

59) See the chart in Teeter (1997: 36).


Maat).60) Thus it is probably no coincidence that when these sto-

ries appear in Greek narratives, legitimacy continues to be a keen

concern, especially in the return of Odysseus to claim his throne

and in the coronation of Zeus as the first 'king of the gods.' The

apparent invention and popularity of these Egyptian motifs in the

New Kingdom suggest, moreover, that they might have made their

way in pre-Homeric times to Greece, where they attached them-

selves to stories of the heroic kings of the generations of Heracles

and then Odysseus.61) The story about Zeus and Metis is different,

of course, but it is, in fact, even closer to the proposed Egyptian

model, coming as it does after the narratives of Zeus' heroic fighting, first against the Titans and then against Typhon.62)

In all of these alleged cases of influence we also find hints that

the Egyptian ideas or motifs were somehow transferred to the Greek

world in visual form. If Burkert and others are right, for example, that the inspiration for the Odyssean archery contest hinges on the

visual misidentification of the ox-hide shaped targets of copper as

ax-heads, then we must infer that iconography, albeit misunderstood,

60) Teeter (1997: 82-3) suggests that anxiety about legitimacy prompted the

appearance of the first set of presentation of Maat scenes, a scenario that may have also motivated Hatshepsut's apparent invention of the divine birth stories at the point in time when she seems to have promoted herself from the role of regent to that of king.

61) This would be the earliest possible point of influence, but such influence could have happened at a later point as well. References to archery contests continue into the Nineteenth Dynasty as indicated by the Beth Shan cylinder seal; target shooting was an element in the ritual actions of the Decade Festival which was celebrated in Thebes into the Late Period (7th century BCE); see Fazzini (1988: pi. 26). The ritual of the presentation of Maat continued to be performed, or at least commemorated, by the Roman emperors. For scenes of Augustus presenting Maat to Amun, see H?lbl (2000: figs. 50 and 56). See Fazzini (1988) for a single scene of divine conception that dates ca. 656 BCE (pp. 12-3, pi. 4) and for the continuation of suckling scenes as a theme of royal dogma well into the Roman

period (pp. 9-10, pis. 6 and 18). 62) Scholars have suggested that the Typhon episode was also gready influenced

by the Egyptian myths about the batdes of Osiris and Seth, who as early as

Aeschylus and Pindar seems to have been equated with Typhon-?see a summary in West (1967) ad Th. 820-80. Typhon, however, was assimilated to so many different non-Greek gods and the battie was placed in so many different parts of the ancient world that there is no way to argue for a special Egyptian source in Hesiod. A more profitable source might be the propagandistic batde narratives, which narrate how various Egyptian kings single-handedly put to flight enemy armies.


played a crucial role in the transmission.63) And since the earliest

evidence for Greek myths about Hera suckling Heracles is preserved for us on bronze mirrors and in vase paintings,64) it is tempting to

suggest that this detail, too, may have come into Greece first in

visual form. Finally, the identification?proposed cautiously above?

of a tiny Metis figure, squatting (Maat-like) beneath the throne of

Zeus in a black-figured vase painting (figure C), points to a third

possible example of the appropriation of a visual representation from

an Egyptian royal monument. In short, it does not seem incon-

ceivable that these images, probably accompanied by abbreviated

oral commentaries, were a source of inspiration for the Greeks.

Since most of these scenes were depicted in monumental size in

Egypt, it is most tempting to suggest that Greeks visited Egypt and

encountered these stories first visually in sculpted reliefs. Indeed it

is certainly true that the scenes of the presentation of Maat as an

edible offering were set up in places that insured the greatest public visibility.65) The scenes of Hatshepsut's divine birth and suckling,

moreover, were in a temple that was publicly visited in archaic

times,66) and the famous scene of Amunophis II shooting arrows

through copper targets was originally designed for public view at

Karnak, although it was removed about sixty years later from its

original architectural context and used as interior fill for another

pylon.67) There is, of course, another way to theorize this kind of

63) This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that it is much less likely that the hieroglyphic texts which describe the royal archery would have been well known, since both of the important parallels cited by modern scholars are short snippets of text imbedded in much longer inscriptions. For example, the Sphinx stela of Amunophis II consists of 27 lines of hieroglyphic text. The reference to archery is in lines 15 to 19. See Helck (1955: 1276).

64) Earliest are a fifth-century BCE Etruscan mirror ('Hercle' no. 402) and a mid-fourth-century Apulian Vase ('Herakles' no. 3344). See UMC 'Herakles' nos. 3344-7 and 'Herakles/Hercle' nos. 400-4. For a detailed albeit rambling discussion, see Cook (1900: 89-94 with figs. 32-4).

65) See Teeter (1997: 4-6) for the question of 'public' access to the temples where the presentation of Maat was depicted.

66) In Hellenistic times this same site was converted into an extremely popular and often visited sanctuary of Asclepius-Imhotep. See Wildung (1977: 94-5) and Frankfurter (1998: 64, 72 and 157).

67) This need not mean, of course, that we must date the influence of these images to this sixty-year period. Egyptian art was very conservative and once an item entered the repertoire of royal iconography it was usually repeated by later


influence: the high possibility that these same images crossed over

to Greece in the form of smaller, more portable artifacts. Indeed, the motif of Isis nursing the infant king (Horus), canonized in Egypt

by thousands of small bronze statues and faience amulets, moved

quite easily to Phoenicia and beyond.68) Likewise, as we have men-

tioned, the image of the pharaoh piercing ox-hide ingots shows up on a cylinder seal of Ramesside date found in Palestine, suggesting that this scene, too, may have similarly been 'on the move' in the

eastern Mediterranean basin.

4. Rereading Hesiod in the Light of Egyptian Maat

Our suggestion that Egyptian Maat was in some way or another

a source or inspiration for Hesiodic Metis allows us to see the treat-

ment of Metis in Hesiod's Theogony and Fragment 343 in a very different light. We are now able to appreciate and to stress the clear

references in both accounts to the persistendy moral side of Metis, which she brings to Zeus when she enters his body and his titular.

This is important because in recent years scholars have generally

ignored the Hesiodic references to Metis as the 'author of justice' and the one who 'instructs with regard to right and wrong', per-

haps because other Greek authors generally do not connect Metis

or metis with moral action. In fact the opposite is often the case: it

is a word that means 'cunning intelligence', often of an amoral sort, that ultimately aims at tricking an opponent, just as Odysseus tricks

the Cyclops. D?tienne and Vernant, authors of the most influential

modern study of metis, describe it as follows:69)

. . . the intelligent ability referred to as metis comes into play on widely varying levels but in all of them the emphasis is always laid upon

kings for centuries. The fact that a similar scene shows up on a cylinder seal dated to the reign of Ramesses II, suggests that these target-practice scenes appeared on more royal monuments. Note, too, that the scene of Amunophis shooting at targets was depicted on two nearly identical stelae. The other (Cairo JE 36360) was apparendy visible in the Karnak temple for thousands of years. See Chewier (1928: 126).

68) Indeed, it has recendy been argued that the seventh-century BCE cult of the Samian Hera celebrated the goddess' suckling of Heracles, a motif that probably started in Egypt with scenes of Isis and Horus, and spread in the second millennium into the Levant and Anatolia, adapting itself to local beliefs and practices as it went. Fridh-Haneson (1989: 205-13).

69) D?tienne and Vernant (1978: 11).


practical effectiveness, on the pursuit of success in a particular sphere of activity: it may involve multiple skills useful in life, the mastery of the artisan in his craft, magic tricks, the use of philtres and herbs, the

cunning stratagems of war, frauds, deceits, resourcefulness of every kind.

They devote their first chapter, however, to a discussion of the

chariot race in Book 23 of the Iliad, at which Nestor?in the face of

the clear advantages of his more experienced rivals and their faster

horses?encourages his son by saying that 'it is up to you to fill

your head with every sort of metis so that the prize does not elude

you ... for it is through metis rather than strength that the wood-

cutter shows his worth and it is through metis that the helmsman

guides the speeding vessel over the wine-dark sea despite the wind, and it is through metis that the charioteer triumphs over his rival.'

It is interesting that in this passage?one of the earliest to describe

metis in detail?none of the exempla mention trickery or deceit, but

rather they suggest that metis is a kind of intelligence or skillfulness

that humans deploy when wrestling with the brute and often powerful forces of nature, for example: the hardness of wood or the power of the winds. Nestor does, however, imply some degree of trickiness, when he returns to this theme later in his speech, albeit in a less

loftier mode and without any explicit mention of metis: 'The man

who knows tricks wins the day, even with inferior horses.'

D?tienne and Vernant use Nestor's words as a springboard for their

brilliant and oft-cited discussion of how this kind of 'cunning intel-

ligence' serves as the corner stone for a whole raft of Greek competitive values for a millennium spanning from Homer down to Oppian. But how, then, do they explain the moralistic side of the Hesiodic

Metis, the 'author of justice' and Zeus' advisor with regard to right and wrong? As it turns out, they devote to the question an entire

chapter, "The Union of Metis and the Sovereignty of the Sky", in

which they argue that Hesiod's concept of Metis is for all intents

and purposes the same as Homer's.70) They do so by first interpreting the crucial description of Metis' benefit to Zeus in the Theogony (line

900) as a reference to strategic, not moral advice: "She advises what

70) Ibid. e.g. "the cunning of Metis constitutes a threat to any established order" (p. 108) and that "devious intelligence" is her primary characteristic (p. 109).


should be done so that things may turn out one way rather than

the other."71) This is, of course, an easily defensible interpretation, since the adjectives a?a??? and ?a???, can notoriously refer to moral

objectives ('good' and 'evil') as well as strategic ones ('effective' and

'ineffective'). But as was argued above, one important impetus for

understanding a moral goal in line 900 comes from the parallel

description of Metis as the 'author of justice' at the end of the

Chrysippus fragment. D?tienne and Vernant indeed recognize righdy that the version of the story in the fragment agrees in all of its

main points with the version in the Theogony, but in their transla-

tion and discussion they leave out the end of the episode (lines 14-

5) and thereby entirely elide Metis' title as the 'author of justice'.72) This elision, of course, leads to a quite different assessment than

the one offered here. In the end, they interpret Zeus' marriage of

Metis as a look to the past and a recognition for "services done to

him by the goddess" earlier in the poem, when he used cunning to outsmart the wily Prometheus or to convince the Hundred Handers

(at a critical moment) to fight with him as allies against the Titans.

According to this reading, then, it is Zeus' second marriage (to

Themis) that looks forward to the future in which Zeus will act as

a just king and eschew the kind of tricky behavior that he himself

has practiced in the past. If this interpretation is correct, then Zeus

marries Metis and swallows her in a calculated way so that she can

be taken out of circulation and thereby be unavailable to anyone else. But if Metis is really, as D?tienne and Vernant contend, "a

threat to any established order", why does he not simply send her

down to Tartarus, as he did the Titans? Why does Zeus need to

ingest her so that she can advise him? The usual interpretation is

that Zeus still needs Metis' cunning and prophetic skills to antici-

pate or predict the plots of others against him.73) But once she is

71) Ibid. 107. They also suggest that Metis has some kind of prophetic power; see note 72.

72) Ibid. 107-9. Their translation breaks off after the first word of line 14. Arthur

[Katz] (1982: 77) seems to follow them in this omission, when she summarizes the end of the fragment without any reference to Metis as the 'author of justice': "Metis retains a separate identity, hidden in the entrails of Zeus and named 'mother of Athena'."

73) D?tienne and Vernant (1978: 107 and 127-28 n. 5) suggest that Metis,


swallowed by Zeus, are we not to presume that her 'cunning intel-

ligence' is no longer available to the rest of the gods? This approach also involves an obvious redundancy, because Zeus already has a

very reliable source of practical advice and prophecy: his grand- mother Gaia, who with the help of her husband has advised the

king (first Kronos and then Zeus) correcdy in the past, and who

will, according to the dictates of the gods who acclaim Zeus king, continue to advise him in the future.74)

There is, in fact, a better and simpler explanation for why Zeus

ingests Metis, rather than hurling her into Tartarus: by Hesiod's

reckoning, at least, she is the 'author of justice', a moral force in

the universe. As a result, once she is inside Zeus, he becomes ??t?eta

('wise in counsel'), not ????????t?? ('of crooked counsel') like his

father Kronos or p????????t?? ('of shifting counsel') like Odysseus. Thus in the Theogony the moral change in Zeus' rule does not, in

fact, begin with his second marriage to Themis, but rather with

Metis herself, for once Zeus ingests Metis, he never?in this poem, at least?deceives again: rather he marries a series of wives, begin-

ning with Themis, 'Right' or 'Customary Law', and produces (with one exception) daughters connected with social order and appro-

because she is an Oceanid, shares her kin's ability (e.g. the Old Man of the Sea) to prophesy. Arthur [Katz] (1982: 78), follows up on this idea, arguing that once inside of Zeus Metis becomes an internal 'prophetic voice', which can warn him of the good and bad results of every endeavor. This idea was also suggested by Onians (1931: 489 n. 1), who thought the placement in the belly indicated that Zeus had become a 'belly-talker' (e??ast???????): a person with a prophetic voice in their belly. But neither Hesiod nor any other Greek author mentions that Metis has such power. Since, as we have seen, Hesiod tells us quite a lot?given the shortness of the episode?about the skills of Metis and her offspring, it is surpris- ing that he does not mention prophecy, especially if it is important to understanding why Zeus marries and swallows her.

74) For the past advice of Gaia and Ouranos, see lines 463 (to Kronos) and 891 (to ingest Metis); West (1967: 463) points out that Ouranos nowhere else is said to play a prophetic role, whereas Gaia frequendy does so. Her future help is explicit in line 883-5, where the gods 'insist that far-seeing Olympian Zeus rule and be king according to the advice of Gaia.' The placement of the phrase 'according to the advice of Gaia' between the infinitives and their accusative subject, 'far- seeing Olympian Zeus', shows that they are to be taken with the infinitives, not with the main verb 'insist'. This is consistent with Gaia's actions throughout the poem, where she never advises a group, only individuals (Kronos and Zeus).


priate limits.75) In addition to such judicious procreation, Hesiod

has Zeus perform two other actions after Metis enters into him and

in both the poet identifies him with the epithet ??t?eta, 'wise in

counsel': first Zeus grants the 'greatest honor (t???)' to the Fates, his second set of daughters by Themis (line 904) and then he grants his brother Hades permission to marry another daughter, Persephone

(line 914). Thus after Metis enters him and his epithet, Zeus makes

measured and judicious decisions, with regard to his marriages, the

kind of children he produces (mainly virgin daughters of permanent

loyalty to himself) and his thoughtful disposition of them in the uni-

verse. Hesiod seems, for example, to imply that Zeus' approval of

Hades' marriage to Persephone is an expedient, thoughtful and wise

thing for a just king to do, and it certainly does not involve any

deception on Zeus' part, at least not towards Poseidon76); it is sim-

ply the right thing to do in this situation.

It would seem, therefore, that in the Theogony and in fragment 343 Hesiod is thinking of another kind of metis, a non-Odyssean

kind, which distinguishes Zeus' current reign from those that have

preceded it, for he avoids both the violence and hybris of Ouranus'

kingship and the deceit and 'crookedness' of Kronos.77) Indeed, after

Zeus ingests Metis the poet stresses the fact that Zeus 'who has

metis" (??t?eta) replaces Kronos 'who has crooked metis', and in doing so apparendy borrows freely from the traditional Egyptian concept of the just king, in whose body and titular the goddess Maat lives

forever. Hesiod's use of this Egyptian material is especially brilliant

because he is able to depict Zeus in the act of ingestion that is

superficially identical to the cruel act of his father Kronos, but quite different in its outcome: Kronos is eventually forced to disgorge the

children from his ??d??, whereas Metis is understood to sit perma-

nendy in the sp?????a of Zeus?the site of his violent emotions?

from which she seems to exercise some kind of moral authority over

his decisions, presumably by curbing these same emotions. Thus as

75) D?tienne and Vernant (1978: 108). 76) His deception of Persephone's mother Demeter, although crucial to the plot

of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, is completely elided in Hesiod's account here.

77) For the contrast between metis and d???? ('trickery'), see Arthur [Katz] (1982: 73 and 78).


a result of Zeus' very different kind of ingestion, he is able to estab-

lish a kind of just rule of which his father and grandfather were

incapable.78)

Department of Classical Languages and Literatures

University of Chicago

cfl [email protected]

Oriental Institute

University of Chicago

[email protected]

78) We would like to express our sincere thanks to Thomas Carpenter and Richard Neer for their advice on Attic Greek vase-painting and to Jenny Strauss Clay, Mark Edwards, Gerald Kadish, Jim Marks, Greg Thalmann, and Henk Versnel, who read different drafts of this study and offered much very helpful advice.

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