Chapter XLIV: Appendix: II

~_maschalismo/s_~

~emaschali/sthê~ is the word used by Aesch., _Cho._ 439, of the murdered Agamemnon. Soph., _El._ 445, says ~huph' hê=s (Klutaimnê/stras) thanô\n a/timos hô/ste dusmenê\s emaschali/sthê~--also of Agamemnon. What particular abomination was meant by this brief statement must have been immediately understood by the Athenian public of the day. A more detailed account is given by Phot. and Suid. ~maschali/smata~ (cf. Hesych. s.v.; Apostol., _Pr._ xi, 4), and they give Aristophanes of Byzantium as their authority. (Not from Aristophanes--for they differ in many particulars--but from a closely related source come the two versions {583} of the Scholion to Soph., _El._ 446 and _EM._ 118, 22 f.) According to their authority ~maschalismo/s~ is something done by the murderer (~hoi phoneu/santes ex epiboulê=s~--Aristoph.) to the corpse of the murdered man. He cuts off the extremities of his victim, strings the severed parts on a chain and puts them on.--On whom? on himself? or the murdered man? Aristophanes' words are undecisive: the Schol. Soph., _El._ 445, speaks in the first version of "himself" (~heautoi=s~, p. 123, 17 Papag.) and in the second of "him", i.e. the murdered man: ~peri\ tê\n mascha/lên autou= ekre/mazon auta/ [ta\ a/kra]~, p. 123, 23; cf. 124, 5. This too is probably the meaning of Schol. Ap. Rh. iv, 477; _EM._ 118, 28-9, speaks distinctly of hanging the chain round the neck of the dead man. This is, in fact, the most probable version. The murderer hung the limbs, strung together on a rope, round the neck of his victim and then drew the rope under the armpits (~mascha/lai~): a proceeding which is far from being "impossible" (as has been said), as anyone may discover by trying it for himself. The murderer then crossed the ends of the rope over the breast of his victim and after drawing them under the armpits fastened them behind his back. From this process of drawing under the armpits the whole procedure is called ~maschalismo/s~, and the ~mo/ria~ of the dead man thus fastened to his body are his ~maschali/smata~ (Aristoph.).

Anyone who wishes to reject this description of ~maschalismo/s~ (as some have done recently) must first of all show from what source Aristophanes of Byzantium--whom no one who knows him would accuse of improvizing such details or of concealing his ignorance by invention--can have got his information if not from actual report and historical tradition. The possibility that he arrived at it by straining the meaning and giving a private interpretation of his own to the words ~maschali/zein~ and ~maschalismo/s~ is excluded by the nature of these words. They offer no hint whatever in the direction of the special meaning suggested by his account. We cannot indeed say (as Wilamowitz does on A., _Cho._ 439) that "grammar" forbids us to accept the explanation of what happened in ~maschali/zein~ given by Aristoph. To say: ~emaschali/sthê~, "he had to suffer ~maschali/zein, maschalismo/s~," is equally correct whatever sense we give to the process of ~maschalismo/s~. But the word itself does not testify, by its mere form, to the absolute or exclusive correctness of Aristophanes' interpretation: it denotes without distinction absolutely any proceeding in which the ~mascha/lai~ figure at all. Verbs in ~-izein~, derived from the names of parts of the body, can denote according to the circumstances the utmost variety of actions done to or with the part of the body concerned: cf. ~kephali/zein, aucheni/zein, trachêli/zein, laimi/zein, ômi/zein, rhachi/zein, cheiri/zein, daktuli/zein, gastri/zein, skeli/zein~ (and even ~pugi/zein~). What particular sort of activity applied to the ~mascha/lai~ is indicated by the verb ~maschali/zein~ cannot be decided from the mere form of the verb. This only makes it the more necessary to adhere to Aristophanes' interpretation, which must have been derived from some other source, i.e. from actual knowledge. It may be true that ~maschali/zein~, considered simply from {584} the point of view of its form, might conceivably mean to tear the arm from the shoulder at the armpits (as Benndorf suggests, _Monument von Adamklissi_, p. 132 A)--though such an ~ekmochleu/ein to\n brachi/ona ek tê=s mascha/lês~ should rather be ~apomaschali/zein~ or ~ekmaschali/zein~. But that out of its many possible meanings the verb should have just this particular one is not suggested by anything: least of all by the sculptured relief on which the gods appear to be tearing out the right arms of their defeated enemies. Such scenes according to Benndorf represent ~maschalismo/s~. But can the Greeks really have attributed to the gods this much execrated practice of cowardly murderers? We are not told by anyone that this scene represents ~maschalismo/s~--that is only a conclusion drawn from an apparent agreement between the representation and the view (itself as yet unproved) of what happened in ~maschali/zein~. Is the correctness of the meaning assigned to the word to be proved in its turn from its agreement with the representation? A most palpable argument in a circle!

There is no valid reason for rejecting the statement of Aristophanes; and there must be very good reason indeed for so doing before we may discredit such an authority. He gives his information with no uncertain voice and no suggestion of hesitation, and it must be regarded as the simple account of well-established facts. It would receive additional confirmation--if it needed any--from the very meaning and conception of the word _~mascha/lisma~_. ~maschali/smata~ must be the product of ~maschalismo/s~; they are, in fact, the severed ~mo/ria~ of the murdered man, with which too Aristophanes identifies them. ~Sophoklê=s en **Trôï/lô| plê/rê maschalisma/tôn ei/rêke to\n maschalismo/n~ (probably a mere oversight for ~to\n tra/chêlon~): Suid. s.v. ~emaschali/sthê~ (Soph. _fr._ 566 = 623 P.). If ~maschali/zein~ had consisted in the dislocation of the arm from its socket, it would be impossible to say what such ~maschali/smata~ might be. They are without doubt identical with what are otherwise called, in descriptions of mutilations of the corpse of a murdered man, ~apa/rgmata~ (Jason after the murder of Apsyrtos ~apa/rgmata ta/mne thano/ntos~, A.R. iv, 477; cf. Schol. and _EM._ 118, 22 ff.), ~akrôtêria/smata, to/mia (ta\ apotmê/mata kai\ akrôtêria/smata tou= nekrou=~, Hesych.). These expressions allow us to conclude that the whole procedure is intended to offer the murdered man as a sacrifice to some sort of ~apotro/paioi~. The ~maschali/smata~ are the ~aparchai/~ of this sacrificial victim. Indeed, Aristoph. of Byzantium, ap. Phot. [Suid.] ~maschali/smata~, definitely states that ~maschali/smata~ was the name given to ~ta\ toi=s mêroi=s epitithe/mena apo\ tô=n ômô=n~ (not ~ô/môn~ as the edd. give; as also Nauck, _Arist. Byz._, p. 221) ~kre/a en tai=s tô=n theô=n thusi/ais~. This refers--though it does not seem to have been remarked by those who have hitherto dealt with the passage--to the parts of the body which were cut off from the raw flesh of the ~hierei=on~ before the sacrifice, laid on the severed ~mêroi/~ of the victim, and burnt up completely with these: the _~ômothetei=n~_ in fact so often mentioned in Homer (~A~ 460 i.; ~B~ 423 f.; ~g~ 456 ff.; ~m~ 360 f.; ~x~ 427 f.). If these ~ômothetou/mena~ could also be called (in {585} a comparison) ~maschali/smata~, that again shows that at the ~maschalismo/s~ there was no tearing out of an arm from its socket, but that in reality the extremities of the murdered man (~--akrôtêria/santes mo/ria tou/tou~) were hewn off and a piece cut off ~ek panto\s me/rous tou= sô/matos~ as the grammarians following Aristophanes say. Only in this case is the proceeding like that which took place at the ~ômothetei=n~ when the sacrificers ~e/kopsan mikro\n apo\ panto\s **me/lous~ (Aristonic. in Schol. ~A~ 461; Apollon., _Lex. Hom._ 171, 8; _lex. Rhet._ ap. Eust. ~A~ 461, p. 134, 36: ~ômothe/têsan; to\ aph' heka/stou me/lous tou= hierei/ou apete/monto kai\ apê/rxanto ap' _ômou=~ [so the last word should be written here too, though Eustath. found--and was surprised--~ô/mou~] ~kai\ ene/balon eis ta\ mêri/a kata\ tê\n thusia/n~). So too it is said of Eumaios: ~ho d' ômothetei=to subô/tês, pa/ntôn arxa/menos mele/ôn~, ~x~ 427 f. (this is the passage in which ~hêrmê/neuse [ho poiêtê/s], ti/ esti to\ ômothetei=n~: Schol., B.L. ~A~ 461; it is this passage, and not ~A~ 461, which is meant by Hesych. too s.v. ~ômothetei=n~, when he says ~exêgei=tai d' auto\s Ho/mêros~; cf. also Dion. Hal. 7, 72, 15).

~maschalismo/s~ was then essentially an offering intended to avert evil or, what comes to the same thing, a kathartic offering (i.e. a symbol indicating such an offering). It was consummated by murderers ~epi\ tai=s katha/rsesin~ (Sch. S., _El._ 445); ~hupe\r tou= tê\n mê=nin ekkli/nein~ as Aristoph. Byz. says (p. 221 N.); ~to\ e/rgon aphosiou/menoi~ as we are told by Apostolius, _Prov._ xi, 4. All these mean the same thing. But besides these there may still have been another intention present in the minds of the superstitious. The mutilation of the murdered man took place according to Sch. S., _El._ 445 (in the second version; there is something similar even in the first, p. 123, 18 f.) ~hi/na, phasi/n, asthenê\s ge/noito pro\s to\ antiti/sasthai to\n phone/a~. The mutilation of the corpse was transferred to the ~psuchê/~ that was leaving the body--such is the ancient conception to which Homer too is not a stranger (cf. e.g. ~l~ 40 ff.). If the dead man is mutilated he will not, for example, be able to hold or throw the spear which in Athens was borne before the murdered man at his funeral (if he left no kinsman as avenger behind him) and was then set up beside his grave ([D.] 47, 69: Eur., _Tro._ 1147 f.: Poll. viii, 65; Ister ap., _EM._ 354, 33 ff.; _AB._ 237, 30 f.)--certainly for no other purpose than that of supplying the dead man himself with a weapon with which to take vengeance on his own account since no one else would ~boêthei=~ him. (Thus among the Tasmanians a spear was planted on the grave of the dead that he might have a weapon ready for fighting: Quatrefages, _Hommes fossiles et hommes sauvages_, p. 346.) Probably the Greek murderer when he ~emascha/lizen~, calculated in exactly the same fashion as the Australian negro who cuts off the thumb from the right hand of his fallen foe in order that his soul may no longer be able to hold a spear (Spencer, _Princ. of Sociol._ i, p. 212).

In Soph., _El._ 446, the murderer after the ~maschalismo/s~ also wipes the bloody instrument of death on the head of the murdered man. Murderers did this ~hô/sper apotropiazo/menoi to\ mu/sos to\ en tô=| pho/nô|~ {586} (Schol.). There are passages in the Odyssey which allude to the custom (~me/ga e/rgon, ho\ sê=| kephalê=| anama/xeis~, ~t~ 92) as well as in Herodotos and Demosthenes (see Schneidewin on _Electra_). Their meaning is quite correctly given in Eust. on _Od._ ~t~ 92: ~hôs eis kephalê\n dê=then ekei/nois (toi=s pephoneume/nois) trepome/nou tou= kakou=~. Evidently a mimic version of ~eis kephalê\n soi/~. Something similar is intended when the murderer sucks the blood of the murdered man three times and spits it out again three times. Ap. Rh. describes such a scene (iv, 477 f.); and something similar occurred in Aesch. (_fr._ 354; _EM._ refers to this in immediate connexion with ~maschalismo/s~). Here too the object is the ~ka/tharsis~ of the murderer, the expiation of the impious deed. (~hê\ the/mis authe/ntê|si doloktasi/as _hile/asthai_~, A.R.; ~apoptu/sai dei= kai\ _kathê/rasthai_ sto/ma~, A.) Spitting three times is a regular feature in magic charms and counter-charms: in this case the blood of the murdered man and with it the power of vengeance that rises up out of the blood, is averted, (despuimus comitiales morbos, hoc est, contagia regerimus, Plin., _NH._ 28, 35.)--What "savage" tribe ever had more primitive ideas or a more realistic symbolism than the Greek populace--and perhaps not populace only--of classical times in the sinister backwaters of their life into which we have here for a moment descended?