Even if the literary depiction of the descent into the underworld – the so-called katabasis – has a background in early Greek mythology and took its primary and highly influential form in the epics of Homer (book 11 of the Odyssey), the journey to Hades and the lengthy conversations that could take place there certainly go back to Lucian’s satirical texts, dating to the period known as the Second Sophistic (second century AD). Building on the classical tradition, which was strongly emulated in the period, Lucian picked up the katabasis motif and staged various meetings in Hades. We have, for example, Hermes and Charon arguing about the payment of the ferryboat that takes dead souls to Hades, or Alexander the Great and Hannibal, arguing about who of them is the strongest and the best. On the level of satire, these dialogues seems to criticize the vanity of human endeavor by displaying the mutability of fortune – supposedly discussed by contemporary sophists and philosophers. The poor man is, in a way, happier than the rich (because he has nothing to loose) and in the end we are all equals (naked in Hades). On a literary level, the author creates a fantasy space which mirrors his own world, but which at the same time allows for criticism of contemporary society.
It is well known that Lucian had a great influence on European literature, perhaps especially from the 1600s onwards, when the first translations began to appear. His texts offered welcome models for parody and satirical tools that could be used by early modern intellectuals, not the least in the debates for and against the novel, or for and against the use of ancient literature. Rather than looking in general at the descent to Hades as a fictional motif that allows you to satirise and criticise social and political power, I will in this lecture focus specifically on Hades as a place where you may encounter authors and intellectuals of the past or the present; that is to say, the underworld as a platform where intellectual, authorial and fictional issues may be displayed and discussed. These discussions, firmly placed within the frame of fiction, may then in turn function as comical, critical, or subversive approaches towards power structures. I will argue that this is a characteristic that you may see not only in the early modern and modern European versions of the katabasis motif, but also in the Greek models of late antiquity and in Byzantium.
Special focus will be placed on twelfth-century Byzantium and the anonymous dialogue Timarion. The author of the Timarion, I argue, uses the Second Sophistic tradition of Lucian in order to discuss contemporary questions of the Greek literary and rhetorical heritage. This is indicated by three main devices. First, the dialogue form, which carries with it the usages of both Plato and Lucian. It has been modified in the Timarion, I think, with strains of travel fiction, another form going back to Lucian and his True Story; hence the significant movement of the narrator in, and beyond, time and space. Second, the literary style, which imitates that of Lucian to the extent of sometimes being a sort of Lucianic cento. The style becomes a way of constructing a space in which the author can communicate with his literary past. Third, the construction of one of the main characters – Theodore of Smyrna. Not only is he the teacher of the protagonist – the person who supposedly taught the author the Greek tradition that he now masters – but in the Hades of Timarion Theodore also hangs out with orators such as Aristides, one of the most important orators of the Second Sophistic and frequently cited by Byzantine authors such as Michael Psellos. This becomes yet another link between past and present, maintaining and underlining their differences. The author of the Timarion thus composed a textual parody with satirical functions, using the past to ridicule the present. He created a fictional space that both displayed ancient learning and allowed discussions of contemporary culture.
