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Against Penelope: An Invective Theme from Hellenistic Greece
- Classical World
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 113, Number 1, Fall 2019
- pp. 53-63
- 10.1353/clw.2019.0077
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract
ABSTRACT:
In the course of criticizing his predecessor Timaeus, Polybius mentions a paradoxical invective exercise (ψόγος) against Penelope. No such exercise survives from antiquity. A review of rhetorical handbook instructions, encomia and invectives of Homeric characters, and ancient traditions about Penelope suggests that this assignment would have been challenging but not impossible for intermediate students of rhetoric. Since little is known about Penelope's life outside of the Odyssey, students would have searched for passages in the epic that could be taken out of context or otherwise distorted in order to disparage one of the most praiseworthy women in Greek literature.
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