In 1883 in Asia Minor, near to the ancient Tralleis, an inte- resting epigraphic stone came to light. Some curious — and for the first publisher of the inscription enigmatic — signs on it were soon recognized by O. Crusius as musical notations and the reading of them given by him is with a slight modification valid also today. Thus it became clear that the text in question, preceded by a distich and finished by three words in prose, is a singable short poem. The whole stone is the tombstone of a certain Seikilos set up by himself in his life, sometime in the 2nd century A. D.1
Since the number of the documents of ancient Greek music is not very great, it is understandable that the rather rich pertinent scholarly literature has mainly dealt with the musical problems of the inscription (melody, rhythm), the more so, as the little poem itself is a commonplace one, an expression of the carpe diem idea. However, it deserves perhaps a glance: Sometimes even on a com- monplace subject an interesting poem can be written.
The text is simple, no difficulty seems to arise. Still some points are worth while to have a closer look at them. Vs. 1: fa nou must have here the meaning 'shine' or something like this, but the con- trasting parallelism in the next line suggests the meaning 'to shine
1 First publication by W. M. Ramsay, Unedited Inscriptions from Asia Mi- nor: BCH 7, 1883, 277; O. Crusius, Ein Liederfragment auf einer antiken Statuen- basis: Philologus 50, 1891, 163—172; O. Crusius, Zu neuentdeckten Musikresten: Philologus 52, 1894, 160—173 (with a reproduction of the inscription in drawing where also the last line — later cut off — can be seen. — The standard edition today: E. Pöhlmann — M. L. West, Documents of Ancient Greek Music. Oxford 2001. N° 23, p. 88—91 with a full bibliography.
with joy', 'to rejoice'. However, I did not succeed in finding any example for this use. — Vs. 2: prÕj Ñl gon: 'for a short time', cf. Plut., Cons. Apoll. 116 a; Ael. VH 12, 63; Jos. AJ 4, 128; BJ 4, 642; Luc. Deor. 18, 1; no example in LSJ, Passow or other great dictionaries. — As for the last line understandings differ, Crusius understood tloj as fÒroj 'customs' and translated the line “die Zeit fordert ihren Zoll".2 Later interpreters tacitly rejected this, and
recently Th. Mathiesen translated the line as follows: “Time de- mands its [sc. life's] end".3 This is a possible understanding, never-
theless it is enough to open LSJ or any other great dictionary s. v.
tloj in order to see that both tloj and tÕ tloj can mean 'at last', 'am Ende'.4 Consequently I think the last two lines ought to
be translated as follows: Life is short [life lasts for a short time] and finally time demands it (the whole life, not only its end).
The metre of the little poem is iambic dimeter, but not without variety. In the first line long syllables — and with one exception by nature long ones — are dominant, only one is short, proportion 1:4. Hereafter the proportion changes: 2nd line: 4:3, 3rd one: 5:3 and in
the last line there are seven short syllables and only the last two are long, true, the last one is a trisemos. Time elapses always more rapidly, life draws to its end always quicker and finally it merges with a great repose.
The contents seem to be, as mentioned above, rather banal, though the number of those sepulchral inscriptions which express the same life-principle is, as compared with the enormous quantity of such epigrams, remarkably few.5 Of greater interest is the last line of the
poem.
The idea that life is demanded back can be found in several sources of various cultural background. Cicero arguing with those who lament for premature death says:
Off with those almost old-womanish follies that death before time is pitiful. Before what time? Before that of nature? But nature has given us life like the use of money, no day [of refund] having been fixed. Why to lament, if nature demands it when it wants it.6
Seneca reasons several times similarly. I quote only one passage where he explains that our goods belong only temporally to us,
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2 Philologus 50, 1891, 165 and he insisted on this understanding later too: Philologus 52, 1894, 161.
3 Th. J. Mathiesen, Apollo's Lyre. Lincoln 1999, 150.
4 More frequently onlytloj, buttÕ tlojPl. Lg. 740 e; 766 b; 1 Ep. Pet. 3, 8. 5 E. g. AP 7, 32; 33; 452; W. Peek, Griechische Versinschriften. Berlin 1955. 1219; 1956.
nothing of them is given as a present, only as a loan, the usufruct is ours and its term is regulated by him who adjudges the gift; our obli- gation is to have ready what was given until an undetermined day as soon as we are summoned to return it without quarrel. The worst deb- tor's peculiarity is to revile the creditor.7
Seneca expounds the same thought also in the Polybius consolation and in his essay on the tranquillity of mind.8
A further consolatory text where the same conception occures is the Pseudo-Plutarchean Consolation to Apollonius. I quote again only the most important words of the pertinent passage:
One must not feel vexed, if what was lent us for a short time is demanded back. Nor are the bankers displeased — as we often refer to it —, if what had been deposited with them for refunding is de- manded … We hold life as something we must necessarily return to the gods who deposited it, the time of returning not being determined.9
The source of this arguing is controversial (Krantor?),10 at any rate
the conception that life is demanded back is a topos of the conso- latory literature.
The conception is carried on in a more general sense by Philo. Nothing belongs to us, he says,
not even life. If we are aware of it that only the use is ours, we shall take care of everything as of God's properties which we have re- ceived in order to bring, if law wants it, to the Lord what belongs to him. So we shall lighten the grieves of losses.11
In another work of him Philo speaking of Abraham's sacrifice (Gen. 15) — and somewhat misinterpreting the text of the LXX — details what Abraham received as deposit, first of all soul, then sensation, speach, divine wisdom etc. and says that Abraham did not safe- guard these for himself, but for him who entrusted them to him.12
7 Dial. 6, 10, 1—2.
8 Dial. 11, 10, 4—5; 9, 11, 1—3. 9 Mor. 116 a — b; cf. 106 f.
10 M. Pohlenz, De Ciceronis Tusculanis Disputationibus. Gottingae 1909; J. van Wegeningen, De Ciceronis libro consolationis. Groningen 1916; R. Philippson, BPhW 37, 1917, 496—504; 1282; R. Kassel, Untersuchungen zur griechischen und römischen Konsolationsliteratur. München 1958. (Zetemata 18) with a commentary to Cons. Ap.: 49—98, to this passage: 92.
11 De cherub. 117; cf. 119. Cf. Eur. Phoen. 556: t¦ tîn qeîn contej
mmeloÚmeqa.
12 Rer. div. her. 129. Regarding the misinterpretation cf. M. Hadot's footnote in her edition in the Budé series (Paris 1966) ad loc.
In the hopeless situation of a small troop of warriors at the end of Iotapata's siege Josephus tries to argue his comrades out of a senseless resistence or suicide saying among others as follows:
Body is perishable, soul is immortal and a part of God in the body. If somebody destroys the deposit of a man or manages it ill, he is regarded as a villain and unreliable. Is it conceivable that if some- body throws out God's deposit from his body, his crime will remain hidden? […] Are you ignorant of it that those who make their exit in accordance with the law of nature and return the loan given by God when he who gave it wants it to be returned, will have eternal fame?13
In Hermas' Shepherd the conception is used in a more abstract way:
Who lie do not give God due to him, they become defrauders of God, because they do not return him the deposit gotten from him. For they have gotten a truthful spirit. If they return a lying one, they de- fraud the Lord's commandment and became defrauders.14
Let me finally mention a curious reversial of the traditional conception with Origenes. Explaining Ev. Luc. 23, 46 he writes as follows:
If he [Jesus] deposited his spirit with the Father, he gave his spi- rit as a deposit. It is a different matter to give graciously and to grant and again to deposit. He who makes a deposit, makes it in order to receive the deposit. Wherefore was it necessary to lodge the spirit, the deposit with the Father? For me, for my life, for my mind.15
It is not God, the Father who deposits life and not he who re- ceives (demands) it (the latter being the end of life), but the Son de- posits his spirit (life) with the Father, this depositing means the end of his life, and it is he who receives it, the latter being the begin- ning of (a new form of) life.
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13 BJ 3, 372; 374. 14 Herm. Past. m. 3, 2.
15 Dial. c. Heracl. 7: Entretien d'Origène avec Héraclide et les évêques ses collègues sur le Père, le Fils et l'âme. Ed. J. Scherer. Publication de la Société Fo- uad I de Papyrologie. Textes et Documents 9. Le Caire 1949. Since the original is not easy of access, I give here also the Greek text: =/E parqeto tÕ pneàma tù
patr, parakataq0khn ddwken tÕ pneàma. '/Allo stn car sasqai ka ¥llo tÕ parakataqsqai. =O parakataqmenoj parakatat qetai na ¢na- l£bh t¾n parakataq0khn. T oân dei t¾n parakataq0khn paraqsqai tÕ pneàma tù patr; Øp r m stin ka t¾n m¾n zwÁn ka tÕn mÕn noàn.
Another kind of use of the same conception is to be seen in an apocryphal book of the Old Testament and in a gospel in the New. In the Book of Wisdom the text speaks of the potter who moulds an idol from clay.
Perversely working he forms a vain god from the same clay, he who was born from earth a short time ago, soon makes his way unto the ground where it was taken from, when the debt of his soul has been demanded.
And a little later, speaking of the idols:
Human beings made them and a lent spirit formed them.16
The same outlook is behind the parable of the fool rich man in Luke's Gospel (only in this one):
Though fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; than whose shall these things be which thou hast provided?17
The idea of soul demanded back is the same, but the lent spirit and the debt of soul reveal the ephemeric nature of human exi- stence.
As from these sources appears the conception of soul/life de- manded back was rather well known especially in the eastern part of the Empire both among Greek, Roman and Hellenized Jewish and Christian authors. Tralleis was a city of mixed culture, there were sanctuaries of numerous Greek, Roman and oriental gods and goddesses, there was also a Jewish community, as we learn it from Josephus and, if Ignatios wrote a letter the Trallians in the second decad of the 2nd century A. D., obviously Christians too lived in the
town.18 Seikilos, then or whoever has written the poem, could have
been influenced from more than one quarters. At any rate this con- ception too is a commonplace.
Is there the Seikilos-poem a mere further item in the catalogue of the sources regarding the idea of life or soul demanded back or is it perhaps more? I think so. In one respect at least it seems unpa- ralleled. There is no explanation, no reasoning, references to bank- ers, to usufruct, etc. It establishes objectively, without any personal
16 Sap. 15, 8, 16.
17 Luc. 12, 16 (authorized version). Impersonal subject is used in rabbinic li- terature in order to avoid God's name: Strack — Billerbeck II 71978. 190.
18 W. Ruge RE VI A (1937) 2117—2118 s. v. Tralleis; Jos. AJ 14, 242; Ign. Ep. 3.
reference a fact: Time demands life. It does not say by what right. Since in the texts concerning life or soul demanded as quoted above this is explained in so far as God, gods or nature gave it, conse- quently they have right to demand it back, here it is striking that time demands life without any justification. Stoics of course identi- fied Chronos with Kronos on the strength that like Kronos he too devours his children: Everything what comes into being through time is destroyed in turn by time,19 but I wonder, if we ought to
think of this. Compelling it is not, so everybody could give an answer at will. However it may be, this is a case where life is possibly not demanded back, only demanded. This leads us to the last word of the poem: 'Apaiteì.
Let us have a closer look at it. Most of its meanings and nuan- ces can be reduced to two ones: to demand back what belongs to somebody20 and to demand what is due to somebody — as he
thinks, rightly or wrongly —, what is expected by him. The seman- tic field or more exactly the field of nuances of the second meaning is rather broad. Revolting soldiers demand more pay and other advantages which are not their legal due.21 Peisthetairos demands
the supreme power Zeus being in a tight corner, i. e. not on a too legal basis.22 The executor demands the taxes, formally legally —
whether also in reality, is to be asked.23One can demand an account
juridically or informally,24 one can demand an assumption (postu-
late)25 and something can be demanded on moral basis as a return
of gratitude for a help or a boon.26 A work of art too can be
expected from a sculptor or a speech from an orator27 and also a si-
tuation or the course of a conversation can demand something.28
Finally it can simply mean to ask for something, as if somebody asks his friend for an object.29
'Apaite is the last word in a metrically carefully constructed terse poem — obviously not by mere chance. No explanation is gi- ven. Who reads the epitaph can (has to?) meditate on it which nu-
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19 Schol. Hes. Th. 459 = SVF II 1087.
20 With Homer only ¢pait zw: Od. 2, 78; later many examples.
21 Pol. 1, 60, 1; 68, 8. (Here and further on no completeness is aimed at.) 22 Ar. Av. 554.
23 LXX 2Chr 36, 4a; Is 3, 12 and a plenty of data in F. Preisigke's Wörter- buch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden (Berlin 1925) 150—152.
24 D. 18, 245; Pol. 29, 14, 8; Pl. Rp. 599 b; D. Chr. 37, 30. 25 Arist. M. 1063 b 9. 26 Hdt. 8, 122; Pl. Phdr. 241 a; Isocr. 16, 35; 18, 67; Jos. AI 7, 64. 27 D. Chr. 12, 82; 29, 2. 28 Pl. Phil. 18 e; Pol. 1, 14, 3; 9, 22, 7. 29 Pl. Rp. 394 a.
ance(s) he should put into the text. How does time demans life? Sauvagely, outrageously, like revoluting soldiers? With cold merci- lesness, like a tax-collector or a distrainer? Calling to account how lifetime was used, whether according to expectations? With cool rationality, like the logics of a lecture demands something? Or mildly, like somebody who asks his fellow for something, for a fa- vour e. g., but also with some irony, being aware of it, that this de- mand, however mild it may be, brooks no delay, no opposition. The epitaph does not answer these questions, it poses only them by using a word of more than one nuances — and everybody has to answer for himself revealing by this what death for himself means and what life.
Zsigmond Ritoók
THE SEIKILOS POEM Summary
The poem seems to be a common place one (carpe diem + life as de- posit), but the understanding of the last word ¢paite (violently? with cold mercilessnes? mildly? etc.) gives food for thought.
UDC 1 Plotinus
Bernard Collette-Duåiã