TFBT:Topics for Research, Part IIb

Maya also suggested I should look at the female suicides in Meleager’s family. Unique in that they occur at the death of the husbands. Just three generations as I recall like the curse on Laertes family only have one son, it too lasted three generations; 

“Polydora, daughter of Meleager and Cleopatra, who married Protesilaus, the first of the Achaeans to die at Troy, committed suicide on the death of her husband. The same is said of Cleopatra who killed herself when Meleager died. And the same again is told of Cleopatra’s mother Marpessa, who killed herself when her husband Idas was slain by Polydeuces, one of the DIOSCURI. So all these women slew themselves on the death of their husbands.” (www.maicar.com). 

But Maicar’s concise description and Maya’ assignment leave out one link in this chain of suicides, Marpessa’s father Evenus.  But before we look into the story of this suicidal Aetolian prince we need to discuss whether any of them actually died or not.

 Anyone who has studied Greek Mythology knows there is no such thing as death.  No one actually dies.  They might get tossed in Tartarus, or ushered into a dark, dank Hades or snatched up and carried off to the Isle of the Blest to live a life liken to the Golden Ages or kick in the blue doors of heaven and take their rightful spot on Olympus.  But no one dies.  They still exist and many cross back and forth between here and there.  Please keep this in mind as we study the “suicides” of the Evenides.

First, Evenus   

"Evenus, the son of Ares and Sterope, married Alcippe, the daughter of Oenomaus, and begat a daughter Marpessa, whom he endeavored to keep a virgin. Idas, the son of Aphareus, seized her from a band of dancers and fled. Her father gave chase; but, since he could not capture them, he hurled himself into the river Lycormas and became immortal. So Dositheos in the first book of his Aetolian History." (Pseudo-Plutarch, Greek and Roman Parallel Stories 40) 

So, Evenus died after losing a chariot race to his new so-in-law just as the Oenomaus died after losing a chariot race to his new Elian son-in-law Pelops.  This might be part of the greater motif of ALL the other suitors dying when the groom is selected. Evenus throwing himself into the water and becoming immortal might be a little harder to explain.   It was not uncommon for mortals to become the personification or god of the body of water they drown in.  Hence, Atsma describes Eurotas as a river-god of Lacedaemonia and “an early king of the region and possessed a mortal, rather than typical river-god, genealogy.”  We also hear via Atsma at www.theoi.com;

"As I , Helle,  fell into the Hellespont Sea from the back of the Golden Ram, Cymothoe, a Nereid] and Glaucus came swift to my succour; this abode too, this realm the father of the deep , Poseidon  himself awarded me [i.e. he transformed Helle into a sea-goddess], willing justly, and our gulf envies not Ino’s sea the Gulf of Corinth."  Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 2. 585 ff :  

Likewise Homer and Pindar both testify (Odyssey 5. 333 & Olympian Ode 2. 22) that Ino daughter of Cadmus and her son Melicertes were made immortal by the sea nymphs after leaping into the sea. (I just got to mention that Sabrina became goddess the same way. Per Milton, Comus 840)

Next in the line of suicidal Evenides is Marpessa.  

But Idas came to Messene, and Apollo, falling in with him, would have robbed him of the damsel. As they fought for the girl's hand, Zeus parted them and allowed the maiden herself to choose which of the two she would marry; and she, because she feared that Apollo might desert her in her old age, chose Idas for her husband.” (Apollodorus 1.7.9)

So clearly she feared the life of being old and alone, maybe that prompted her suicide after her husband Idas died.  (Of course the counter argument was she was probably in her twenties when this happen.  

Cleopatra clearly explained the horrors of a captured city to her husband (Iliad 9.590-4) maybe those horrors as a consequence of her husband’s death (at the hands of Apollo) is what prompted her suicide.

Polydora as mentioned above is the daughter of Cleopatra.  She married Protesilaus, the first of the Achaeans to die at Troy.  She committed suicide on the death of her husband.  Protesilaus was the first Greek to leap ashore at Troy thereby insuring his eternal fame and quick doom.  The catch is he didn’t stay dead.  Philostratus in his Hērōikos (2.6–3.6) makes it quite clear that he return for a conjunctly  visit with his wife.  (Here called Laodamia). He continued to return to hero shrine often with buddies, working with the groundskeeper and (later in the text 10.1-2) looking like he did when left home “He was about twenty years old at most when he sailed to Troy. He teems in his life force with the luxuriant fuzz on his cheeks,” (The groundskeeper seems to have quite a thing for him.) Presumably Protesilaus and his buddies were visiting from Achilles’ White Island on the Black Sea  or the Isle of the Blest.  From what Philostratus says our hero convinced his wife to join them in the other side.  From other tellings she was anxious to be with him again.  

In short: the first and fourth Evenides did not die, apparently the second and third did (Ring composition!) Now that we have reviewed why the Evenides did or did not kill themselves, we can move onto the larger question. Do the suicides of the widowed Marpessa, Cleopatra,  and Polydora (Laodamia) represent an Aetolian tradition of suttee?

Suttee according to Wikipedia is an Indo-European tradition, where the wife (oldest wife?) commits suicide upon the death of her husband often by leaping into the funeral pyre!  It is a well know custom in Vedic and Hindu culture.  As a Greek example Wikipedia shares the story of Capaneus and Evadne;

 “Evadne, daughter of Iphis of Argos or Phylax and wife of Capaneus, with whom she gave birth to Sthenelus. Her husband was killed by a lightning bolt at the siege of Thebes and she threw herself on his funeral pyre and died.”   

Philostratus the elder at 2.30 tells pretty much the same story but mentions other widows who committed suicide upon the husband’s death, but lists no names and tells no stories.  (I will check the list of suicides in Greek myth at www.maicar.com ¹⁾ Of course Capaneus and Evadne were Argives not Aetolian.  But, more critically Capaneus didn’t die. According to Stesichorus, Fragment 147, Apollo’s son Asclepius raised Capaneus from the dead once and forever. Following the Protesilaus and Polydora example (along with the Dioscuri & their wives and Achilles & eight different woman associated with him) we can assume that Evadne survived her fiery death and awoke in a better place

I had some doubts about suttee being an Ancient Greek custom, but that is four examples with Philostratus knowing of more. Now I am leaning towards this actually being an Indo European custom because I know the story of the Norse goddess Nana

“Then was the body of (the god) Balder borne out on shipboard; and when his wife, Nanna the daughter of Nep, saw that, straightway her heart burst with grief, and she died ; she  was borne to the pyre, and fire was kindled“  Prose Edda

But as usual in our stories today Balder and Nanna did not die. Victor Rydberg in Teutonic Mythology tells us that the Aesir sent Balder’s brother on their fastest horse to rescue them from the goddess of death.  She was named Hel. But when the messenger arrived he found Balder and Nanna living in the Grove of Mimir in a beautiful castle with tables heavily laden. And the poets tell us that when the universe is destroyed at Ragnarök, the couple would be the gracious rulers of world that will rise to replace it.

 

Part I; Suitors of Helen versus Suitors of Penelope.  

Part IIA: Meleager

Part IIB; Polydora, Marpessa, and Cleopatra,

Part III; Absence of the Heraclidae at Troy

Part IV; Otus &Ephialtes

Part V: Insights

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Footnote 1) Homer has something else to say about Cleopatra “Her of old in their halls had her father and honoured mother called Halcyone by name” (Iliad 9.556 ). I looked at the lists of suicides at www.maicar.com for deaths matching the suttee motif. Two of them were late, peculiar and barbarians.  The third was “Alcyone _; Out of grief for the death of her husband, she threw herself into the sea and was transformed into a halcyon or a kingfisher  (Apd.1.7.3-4; Hyg.Fab.65).