Divine Fury (55 page)

7
. Mason,
Value of Creativity
, 30; Weihua Niu and Robert J. Sternberg, “The Philosophical Roots of Western and Eastern Conceptions of Creativity,”
Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology
16, nos. 1–2 (2006): 18–38. On the emergence of creativity, see, in addition to Mason’s excellent study, Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz, “Creativity: History of the Concept,” in his
A History of Six Ideas: An Essay in Aesthetics
, trans. Christopher Kasparek (The Hague: Nijhof, 1980), 244–265.

8
. Plato,
Phaedrus
, 242b–c. The translation here and in all subsequent citations is that of Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff in the Hackett edition of the
Phaedrus
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995). Revealing references to the
daimonion
may be found in the
Apology
, 31d, 40a–b;
Euthypro
, 3b;
Alcibiades
, I, 103a, 105a;
Euthydemus
, 272e;
Republic
, 496c; and
Theatetus
, 151a, among the canonical Platonic texts, and Xenophon,
Memorabilia
, 1.1.2. The translation here and below is that of E. C. Marchant in the Loeb Classical edition of the
Memorabilia
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002 [1923]), 3. Socrates’s comments on his trial are from Plato,
Apology
, 31c–d. The Pythia’s line, widely repeated in the ancient world, is taken here from Diogenes Laertius’s life of Socrates, 2.37–39, in the Loeb Classical edition of
The Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
, trans. R. D. Hicks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), 169; see also Plato,
Apology
, 40a–b.

9
. Cicero,
De Divinatione
, 1.54.122; Paul Friedländer,
Plato
, trans. Hans Meyerhoff, 3 vols. (New York: Pantheon, 1958), 1:32. For recent scholarly views on the subject of Socrates’s
daimonion
, see Pierre Destrée and Nicholas D. Smith, eds.,
Divine Sign: Religion, Practice, and Value in Socratic Philosophy
, a special issue of
Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science
38, no. 2 (Kelowna, British Columbia: Academic Printing and Publishing, 2005).

10
. Walter Burkert,
Greek Religion
, trans. John Raffian (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 179–181. On the relationship between happiness (
eudaimonia
) and the “good
daimon
” (
eu daimon
), see my
Happiness: A History
(New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), 3–5.

11
. Hesiod,
Work and Days
, 1.252; Xenophon,
Memorabilia
, 1.1.3.

12
. Plato,
Republic
, 496c.

13
. On Socrates’s appearance, see Paul Zanker,
The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 32–39.

14
. Plutarch,
On the Sign of Socrates
, 580c–d, in the Loeb Classical edition of vol. 7 of the
Moralia
, trans. Phillip H. de Lacy and Benedict Einarson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000 [1959]). Immediately after discussing the
daimonion
, Socrates describes himself in
Phaedrus
242c as a “prophet,” though “not a very good one.” That tenuous link was used by later commentators as a textual basis for establishing Socrates’s powers of divination and prophecy by virtue of the
daimonion
. See John M. Rist, “Plotinus and the ‘Daimonion’ of Socrates,”
Phoenix
17, no. 1 (1963): 15–16; Cicero,
De Divinatione
, 1.54.123; Maximus of Tyre,
Orations
, 8.3, in
The Philosophical Orations
, trans. and intr. M. B. Trapp (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 71. Maximus uses the expression “middle term” in
Orations
, 9.2.

15
.
Symposium
, 202e–203a. Plato says the
daimones
are a “kind of gods” in the
Apology
, 27d.

16
. The different translation is that of Robert Fitzgerald. See his Homer,
The Odyssey
, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998), 1 (emphasis added).

17
. Homer,
Odyssey
, 8.51–53; Hesiod,
Theogony
, 30–34, as cited in Penelope Murray, “Poetic Genius and Its Classical Origins,” in
Genius: The History of an Idea
, ed. Penelope Murray (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 12. The discussion of ancient conceptions of poetic genius that follows draws heavily on Murray’s rich and concise article. See also her “Poetic Inspiration in Early Greece,”
Journal of Hellenic Studies
101 (1981): 87–100.

18
. See, for example, John Harold Leavitt, ed.,
Poetry and Prophecy: The Anthropology of Inspiration
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997). In the Delphic model, the
prophētēs
, or spokesman who relayed the message of the oracle, was not understood to be possessed like the Pythian priestess, but merely someone who interpreted her words for the questioner.

19
. Exodus 4:10–11. Unless otherwise stated, all scriptural references are taken from the New International Version of the Bible.

20
. Plato,
Ion
, 534d.

21
. Ibid., 534b. The critical discussion in the
Phaedrus
occurs in 244a–246a.

22
. Plato,
Ion
, 533e.

23
. Plato,
Phaedrus
, 244c–246e, 249c–249e, 238c.

24
. Plato,
Republic
, 414b–415d. According to the influential reading of Leo Strauss and his acolytes, Plato intended his works for a “natural aristocracy determined neither by birth nor wealth.” See, typically, Allan Bloom’s preface to
The Republic of Plato
, trans. and intro. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991), xviii. I draw the general distinction between the possessor and the possessed from Peter Kivy,
The Possessor and the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Idea of Musical Genius
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001).

25
. Plato,
Timaeus
, 90a–90c. See also Plato,
Laws
, 732c, 877a.

26
. Heraclitus, DK 22 B 119. Democritus similarly observed that “the soul is the dwelling of the
daimon
” (DK 68 B 171). See Fritz-Gregor Herrmann, “Greek Religion and Philosophy: The God of the Philosopher,” in
A Companion to Greek Religion
, ed. Daniel Ogden (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010), 385–398 (citations on 393); Apuleius,
On the God of Socrates
(
De Deo Socratis
), 150, in Apuleius,
Rhetorical Works
, trans. Stephen Harrison, John Hilton, and Vincent Hunink, ed. Stephen Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 206.

27
. Pindar,
Olympian
, 9.100.

28
. Murray, “Poetic Genius,” 15.

29
. Aristotle,
Poetics
, 17.2.

30
. The
Problems
is often still included in editions of Aristotle’s collected works, like the one I cite below. On the history of the text and attempts to ascertain its author, see Pieter de Leemans and Michèle de Goyens, eds.,
Aristotle’s
Problemata
in Different Times and Tongues
(Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2006).

31
. [Pseudo-Aristotle],
Problems
, 30.1, 30.26–28, 30.35, in
The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation
, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 2:1498–1501.

32
. Tibullus,
The Elegies
, 1.7.49–64; Ovid,
Tristia
, 3.13, addressing the “god of his birth,” in
Ovid with an English Translation, Tristia, Ex Ponto
, trans. Arthur Leslie Wheelter (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1924), 151; Horace,
Odes
, 4.11.6–11. I am using here the bilingual edition and translation of David Ferry,
The Odes of Horace
(New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1997), 297.

33
. Plautus,
Aulularia
, 724–725 (“Egomet me defraudavi animumque meum geniumque meum”); Plautus’s
Truculentus
, 182; Persius,
Satira
, 5.151; Erasmus, “Indulgere genio,”
Adagia
, 2.4.74. These and many other texts are discussed in Jane Chance Nitzsche,
The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1975).

34
. Ittai Gradel,
Emperor Worship and Roman Religion
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 37; Georg Wissowa,
Religion und Kultus der Römer
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1902), 182. On the vexed relationship between
genius, numen
, and
mana
, see Duncan Fishwick, “Genius and Numen,”
Harvard Theological Review
62, no. 3 (1969): 356–367. On the Etruscan connection, see Massimo Pallotino,
The Etruscans
, trans. J. Cremona (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), 158, 295. The artistic and iconographic depiction of Roman
genius
is treated thoroughly in Hille Kunckel,
Der Römische Genius
(Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle, 1974). On horns, horns of plenty, and
genius
, see R. B. Onians,
The Origins of European Thought About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 [1951]), 238–245.

35
. Plutarch recounts the tale of Alexander’s conception and the sighting of a serpent in Olympia’s bed in his life of Alexander in the
Lives
, 2.4. For Livy’s discussion, see
Ab urbe condita
, 26.19.7. Except where noted, all subsequent English translations from this text are taken from the Loeb Classical edition,
Livy in Fourteen Volumes
, trans. B. O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988 [1919]); Suetonius, “Divus Augustus,”
De vita Caesarum
, 2.94.4.

36
. Wissowa,
Religion und Kultus
, 176–178.

37
. W. Warde Fowler,
Roman Ideas of Deity in the Last Century Before the Christian Era
(London: Macmillan, 1914), 19–22; Christine Battersby,
Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 52–70.

38
. Horace,
Epistles
, 2.2.187–189, in
Epistles and Satires
, trans. John Davie (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 105; Nitzsche,
Genius Figure
, 22.