Antiphon De choreuta

[11] Ἐπειδὴ χορηγὸς κατεστάθην εἰς Θαργήλια καὶ ἔλαχον Παντακλέα διδάσκαλον καὶ Κεκροπίδα φυλὴν πρὸς τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ, [τουτέστι τῇ Ἐρεχθηίδι], ἐχορήγουν ὡς ἄριστα ἐδυνάμην καὶ δικαιότατα. Καὶ πρῶτον μὲν διδασκαλεῖον <ᾗ> ἦν ἐπιτηδειότατον τῆς ἐμῆς οἰκίας κατεσκεύασα, ἐν ᾧπερ καὶ Διονυσίοις ὅτε ἐχορήγουν ἐδίδασκον· ἔπειτα τὸν χορὸν συνέλεξα ὡς ἐδυνάμην ἄριστα, οὔτε ζημιώσας οὐδένα οὔτε ἐνέχυρα βίᾳ φέρων οὔτ’ἀπεχθανόμενος οὐδενί, ἀλλ’ὥσπερ ἂν ἥδιστα καὶ ἐπιτηδειότατα ἀμφοτέροις ἐγίγνετο, ἐγὼ μὲν ἐκέλευον καὶ ᾐτούμην, οἱ δ’ἑκόντες καὶ βουλόμενοι ἔπεμπον. [12] Ἐπεὶ δὲ ἧκον οἱ παῖδες, πρῶτον μέν μοι ἀσχολία ἦν παρεῖναι καὶ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι· ἐτύγχανε γάρ μοι πράγματα ὄντα πρὸς Ἀριστίωνα καὶ Φιλῖνον, ἃ ἐγὼ περὶ πολλοῦ ἐποιούμην, ἐπειδή περ εἰσήγγειλα, ὀρθῶς καὶ δικαίως ἀποδεῖξαι τῇ βουλῇ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις Ἀθηναίοις. Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν τούτοις προσεῖχον τὸν νοῦν, κατέστησα δὲ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι, εἴ τι δέοι τῷ χορῷ, Φανόστρατον, δημότην μὲν τουτωνὶ τῶν διωκόντων, κηδεστὴν δ’ἐμαυτοῦ, ᾧ ἐγὼ δέδωκα τὴν θυγατέρα, καὶ ἠξίουν αὐτὸν <ὡς> ἄριστα ἐπιμελεῖσθαι· [13] ἔτι δὲ πρὸς τούτῳ δύο ἄνδρας, τὸν μὲν Ἐρεχθηίδος Ἀμεινίαν, ὃν αὐτοὶ οἱ φυλέται ἐψηφίσαντο συλλέγειν καὶ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τῆς φυλῆς ἑκάστοτε, δοκοῦντα χρηστὸν εἶναι, τὸν δ’ἕτερον…, τῆς Κεκροπίδος, ὅσπερ ἑκάστοτε εἴωθεν ταύτην τὴν φυλὴν συλλέγειν· ἔτι δὲ τέταρτον Φίλιππον, ᾧ προσετέτακτο ὠνεῖσθαι καὶ ἀναλίσκειν εἴ τι φράζοι ὁ διδάσκαλος ἢ ἄλλος τις τούτων, ὅπως <ὡς> ἄριστα χορηγοῖντο οἱ παῖδες καὶ μηδενὸς ἐνδεεῖς εἶεν διὰ τὴν ἐμὴν ἀσχολίαν. [14] Καθειστήκει μὲν ἡ χορηγία οὕτω. Omissis [15] Πρῶτον μὲν οὖν ἀποδείξω ὑμῖν ὅτι οὔτε ἐκέλευσα πιεῖν τὸν παῖδα τὸ φάρμακον οὔτ’ἠνάγκασα οὔτ’ἔδωκα καὶ οὐδὲ παρῆ ὅτ’ἔπιεν. Καὶ οὐ τούτου ἕνεκα ταῦτα σφόδρα λέγω, ὡς ἐμαυτὸν ἔξω αἰτίας καταστῆσαι, ἕτερον δέ τινα εἰς αἰτίαν ἀγαγεῖν· οὐ δῆτα ἔγωγε, πλήν γε τῆς τύχης, ἥπερ οἶμαι καὶ ἄλλοις πολλοῖς ἀνθρώπων αἰτία ἐστὶν ἀποθανεῖν· ἣν οὔτ’ἂν ἐγὼ οὔτ’ ἄλλος οὐδεὶς οἷός τ’ἂν εἴη ἀποτρέψαι μὴ οὐ γενέσθαι ἥντινα δεῖ ἑκάστῳ…

[11] When I was appointed Choregus for the Thargelia, Pantacles falling to me as poet and the Cecropid as the tribe that went with mine [that is to say the Erechtheid], I discharged my office as efficiently and as scrupulously as I was able. I began by fitting out a training-room in the most suitable part of my house, the same that I had used when Choregus at the Dionysia. Next, I recruited the best chorus that I could, without indicting a single fine, without extorting a single pledge, and without making a single enemy. Just as though nothing could have been more satisfactory or better suited to both parties, I on my side would make my demand or request, while the parents on theirs would send their sons along without demur, nay, readily. [12] For a while after the arrival of the boys I had no time to look after them in person, as I happened to be engaged in suits against Aristion and Philinus, and was anxious to lose no time after the impeachment in sustaining my charges in a just and proper manner before the Council and the general public. Being thus occupied myself, I arranged that the needs of the chorus should be attended to by Phanostratus, a member of the same deme as my accusers here and a relative of my own （he is my son-in-law; and I told him to perform the task with all possible care. [13] Besides Phanostratus I appointed two others. The first, Ameinias, whom I thought a trustworthy man, belonged to the Erechtheid tribe and had been officially chosen by it to recruit and supervise its choruses at the various festivals; while the second, . . ., regularly recruited the choruses of the Cecropid tribe, to which he belonged, in the same way. There was yet a fourth, Philippus, whose duty it was to purchase or spend whatever the poet or any of the other three told him. Thus I ensured that the boys should receive every attention and lack nothing owing to my own preoccupation. [14] Such were my arrangements as Choregus. If I am lying as regards any of them in order to exonerate myself, my accuser is at liberty to refute me on any point he likes in his second speech. For this is how it is, gentlemen: many of the spectators here present are perfectly familiar with every one of these facts, the voice of the officer who administered the oath is in their ears, and they are giving my defence their close attention; I would like them to feel that I am respecting that oath, and that if I persuade you to acquit me, it was by telling the truth that I did so. [15] In the first place, then, I will prove to you that I did not tell the boy to drink the poison, compel him to drink it, give it to him to drink, or even witness him drinking it. And I am not insisting on these facts in order to incriminate someone else once I have cleared myself; no indeed—unless that someone else be Fortune; and this is not the first time, I imagine, that she has caused a man’s death. Fortune neither I nor any other could prevent from fulfilling her destined part in the life of each of us… (trans. K. J. Maidment)

The client of Antiphon is a wealthy Athenian, appointed as choregos for the Thargelia, who, in his speech, defends himself against the charge of involuntary manslaughter concerning a chorus member who died in his didaskaleion after taking a potion to improve his voice. In this passage, he refers to his role as choregos, the hiring of a didaskalos for the chorus, and the pairing of the tribes for the participation in the choral competition. It is known that, at the time of the trial (419 or 412 BC), the appointment of the choregos fell to the eponymous archon; the fact that the competition was entrusted to him and not to the archon basileus, the most important religious authority, suggests that the Thargelia were a later addition to a very ancient festival (see Wilson 2000, 33). This is clearly confirmed by the Ath. Pol. (3, 2-3), although the practice underwent a substantial change in the following century, as is further confirmed by Aristotle (see entry and commentary on Ath. Pol. 56, 3).

Regarding the assignment of the didaskalos and the pairing of his tribe to the Cecropidae, the defendant uses the verb ἔλαχον, from which it can be deduced that both operations were carried out by means of a lottery, though some clarifications are necessary. Concerning the lottery for the chorus master, it is highly probable that it did not consist in the drawing of his name but rather in the order in which the choregos would subsequently select him (see Pickard-Cambridge 1996, 104-105 and Wilson 2000, 68). The master assigned to our case was Pantakles, who was also a poet; in the 5th century BC, the same poets who composed the music and lyrics for the chorus typically also taught the chorus members, and for the Thargelia, this may have been true until 419 BC with Pantakles, specifically. However, over time, the role of the instructor gradually lost the prerogative of composer, as evidenced by the fact that, of the approximately twelve didaskaloi who participated in the Thargelia between the 5th and 2nd centuries BC, Pantakles is the only poetic didaskalos (see Wilson 2007, 61). For the tribe pairings, the method of drawing was abandoned in the 4th century BC, when the pairings became fixed in order to avoid organizational difficulties (see entry on Aristotle’s Ath. Pol. 56, 3).

The passage also mentions the construction of the didaskaleion, which the choregos set up in his own house: choregoi were wealthy citizens, so it is not surprising that their homes were large enough to accommodate the entire chorus. The mention of a number slightly exceeding fifty people in the choregos’s home during the training phase of the chorus suggests that the Thargelia took their model from the Dionysia, which also had choruses of fifty members. Additionally, from the relationship the man had with the parents of the chorus members and the explicit reference, shortly thereafter, to the παῖδες who arrived at his home and to the funeral of the deceased παῖς, it can be inferred that the chorus was made up of boys. The choregos’s choice not to specify the category to which the chorus belonged has led some to suggest that, for the first phase of the competition, there was only the category of boys, a hypothesis that is also supported by epigraphy (see Ieranò 1997, 241), where the mention of the type of chorus becomes standard only in the 4th century BC. However, Antiphon’s silence regarding the category of men might be due to various reasons, so it should not be taken as proof of their exclusion from the competition (see Della Bona 2024, 80-81).

L. GERNET, Antiphon. Discours, Paris 1923 (repr. 1965); K.J. MAIDMENT, On the Choreutes, Minor Attic orators, vol. I, Cambridge 1941-1954.

P. AMANDRY, ‘Trépieds d’Athenes: I. Dionysies’, BCH 100, 1977, 15-93; C. BOTTIN, ‘Étude sur la chorégie dithyrambique en Attique jusqu’à l’époque de Démétrius de Phalère (308 avant J.-C.)’, Rev. Belg. Philol. Hist. 9, (3-4), 1930, 749-782; E. CSAPO-W.J. SLATER, The Context of Ancient Drama, Ann-Arbor-Michigan 1995; G. IERANÒ, Il ditirambo di Dioniso, Pisa-Roma 1997; M.E. DELLA BONA, ‘L’allestimento dei cori negli agoni ateniesi tra V e IV secolo: l’esempio delle Targelie’, FAEM n.s. 6.2, 2024, 63-95; G. IERANÒ, ‘“One who is Fought over by all the Tribes”: The Dithyrambic Poet and the City of Athens’, in B. Kowalzig-P. Wilson (eds.) Dithyramb in Context, Oxford, 2013, 368-386; A.W. PICKARD-M.A. CAMBRIDGE, Le feste drammatiche di Atene, trad. it. di A. Blasina, Firenze 1996; D.M. PRITCHARD, ‘Kleisthenes, Participation, and the Dithyrambic Contests of Late Archaic and Classical Athens’, Phoenix 58, 3/4, 208-228; I.E. STEPHANES, Dionysiakoi technitai, Herakleio 1988; P. WILSON, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia, Cambridge 2000; P. WILSON, The Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies, New York 2007.

Choregos, boys’ chorus, men’s chorus, didaskaleion, didaskalos, drawing, tribe

[Maria Elena Della Bona]