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At many points in Aeschylus’ tragedies one encounters the metaphorical uses of the noun anax ‘lord, king’, or of the verb derived from it, anassō ‘rule’. A rower is kōpēs anax, ‘a lord of the oar’, navy captains are naōn anaktes, ‘lords of ships’, and cavalry commanders are hippianaktes, ‘horse-lords’ (Persians 378, 383, 996). This is not something peculiar to the Persians. Eteocles is lamented in the Seven (998) as dystonōn kakōn anax, ‘lord of (= afflicted by) grievous ills’. In a lost play of Sophocles a doorkeeper was addressed as ‘lord of the portal’. Euripides, in addition to a couple of echoes of Aeschylus’ ‘lord of the oar’, has several further examples. The Bistonian Diomedes is ‘lord of the gold Thracian shield’, and warriors are ‘lords of bronze weapons’. The Spartans are ‘lords of lies’, and in a lost play someone was called ‘mistress (= authoress) of this design and deed’. This tragic idiom was parodied by the comedians and singled out for criticism by Aristotle on the ground that anassein was inappropriately grand for the control of an oar (Rhet. 1405a29).
This free usage of the words in Greek elevated poetry of the fifth century seems to be a reflex of Semitic idiom. Akkadian bēlu ‘lord, ruler, owner’ and the cognates (bˁl) in other Semitic languages are used in a wide range of phrases in which they do not denote lordship or exalted status, but merely ownership, autorship, responsibility, or the embodiment of some quality. One can find various analogies for the Greek expressions quoted - Akkadian bēl eleppi means ‘lord of the boat, ship’s captain’, bēl kakkī ‘lord of weapons, heavy-armed soldier’, bēl narkabti ‘lord of the chariot, chariot-fighter’; Hebrew baˁălê happārāšîm ‘lords of horsemen, cavalry’, baˁălê ḥiṣṣîm ‘lord of arrows, archers’. Beside ‘lord of lies’ and ‘mistress of this design’ we may put bēl lemutti (or ṣālti, dabābi) ‘lord of evil/strife/(evil) speech, enemy’, bēl hīṭi ‘lord of wrongdoing’, bēl ikki ‘lord of (bad) mood, ill-disposed person’, bēl ṣerri ‘lord of hostility, enemy’, Hebrew baˁal rāšāˁ ‘lord of evil, wicked person’, baˁal mĕzimmôt ‘lord of intrigues, schemer’. Even the comic poet’s parodic anax hypēnēs ‘lord of the beard’ has its counterpart in the Hebrew baˁal šēˁār ‘lord of hair, hairy man’ (2 Kings 1:8); no doubt he found the phrase in some tragedy.
Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Aeschylus, Persians 378
Aeschylus, Persians 383
Aeschylus, Persians 996
Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes 998
Aristotle, Rhetorica 3.1405a29
2 Kings 1:8
Bibliography
| West 1997, 545-546 | West, Martin L. The East Face of Helicon. West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997. |
Amar Annus
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