Like Father, Like Son: Tekmachus and the Power of Refusal
On the one hand, inspice (examine, see) looks back to coram and suggests the presence of witnesses in an economic transaction. In this sense, the imperative would be directed at Maecenas and would issue the challenge “Try me, I'm as good as my word.”
[77] Berres (1992, 228) emphasizes that Horace invokes Maecenas as a witness to the poet's capacity to make good his claim, but also stresses that Horace responds to those who might suspect his economic motives.
On the other hand, inspice also looks forward to the exemplum from the Odyssey that follows. This anecdote, too, signifies outside of its original context: removed from the surrounding epic story of Telemachus's visit to Menelaus to acquire news of Odysseus, it is here applied to a discussion of patronage. Exchanging one context for another, the exemplum demands from the reader—Maecenas, the larger reading public of ancient Rome, or ourselves-that we determine whether, like aera, this epic anecdote “gives an honest value” and is backed up by its referent (the assertion that Horace will give it all back) or, like lupini, the story does not translate into the real value of meaning. In other words, the imperative inspice, followed by the exemplum from Homer, points not to witnesses to an actual act of return but to a demand that the reader interpret whether any intention to return is present.As I argued earlier, for those who believe the Homeric exemplum, like the fable of the fox in the cornbin, to imply that Horace would return all benefactions, the poet is being a mendax and passing off lupini as aera. But for those who perceive the lie and see the Horatian persona as up to something more complex, the anecdote in a sense does give back real value beneath its seeming falsehood.
[78] The truth or value of the Horatian lie here suggests the nature of poetry in general-communicating some form of truth or meaning through the deceptive surface of rhetoric.
Part of the complexity of the exemplum lies in the contrast between the original context of aristocratic gift exchange and the immediate one of patronage presented in the language of monetary accounts. Not only is inspice used of witnesses to an economic transaction, but reponere can also apply to the absolution of monetary debt (Preaux 1968, ad loc.). Yet the exemplum itself refers to gifts refused because of their extravagant inappropriateness to the situation of the receiver. Moreover, as one critic has recently suggested, such a refusal amounts not to a manifestation of decorum but rather to a breach in the etiquette of gift exchange (Lyne 1995, 154). For although the wise man should give appropriately to the merits of the recipient, the code of Homeric gift[79] For example, when Glaucon and Diomedes exchange armor in Il. 6.234–36, considerations of economic disparity between the gifts, though noted by Homer, are completely subordinated to the obligation to give and receive in keeping with the code of xenia that obtained between their fathers. For the psychology of the pressure to accept in gift-exchange societies, see the comments of Mauss (1990 [1950],41) on the potlatch of the Kwakiutl tribe. On the appropriateness of the gift, see [n. 70] above.
Hence, by displaying his own lack of decorum, Telemachus in fact matches the indecorousness in the extravagant giving on the part of Menelaus. In matching gaff for gaff, Telemachus may very well illustrate Horace's ability to requite Maecenas on the level of indecorous behavior. Such a reading may seem to take to an extreme the simple observation that Telemachus is rude, but it nonetheless accords with one meaning of reponere—to repay or pay back injuries or benefits (OLD, s.v., 5)—a sense very close to the straightforwardly economic meaning of repaying a debt. The poet thus behaves in a way ironically consonant with his earlier statement: “I will also show myself worthy on a par with the honor earned by the giver.”The above reading may exaggerate the ambiguities of the statement inspice si possum reponere donata when read against the backdrop of the Homeric exemplum and the larger context of the epistle, but it accurately points up the problematic deferral and deflection of the value of Horace's statement—what it actually means-onto the anecdote from Homer. Hence, the distinction between aera and lupini may reflect the binary opposition of true and false in a way that does not always neatly divide the ainoi one from the other. Rather, the value of these fables and anecdotes lies in the complexity of their implications when applied to Horace's experience.
A final reading of the Telemachus anecdote is suggested by the rex and pater by which Horace refers to Maecenas and which stand as the testimony, and linguistic embodiment, of gratitude-a form of aera or return. These conventional epithets for a patron find an almost asymmetric correspondence in the Homeric exemplum that follows: although Telemachus turns down Menelaus's gifts, making the son of Atreus into a Maecenas figure, the associations of “king” and “father” would better apply to Odysseus. Moreover, the manuscript reading of sapientis (wise) rather than patientis Ulixi (enduring Ulysses) recalls the phrase vir bonus et sapiens (the good and wise man) in line 22, where the good benefactor is defined and associated with Maecenas.
[80] This manuscript reading also likely alludes to Philodemus's treatise On the Good King According to Homer.
One explanation of this asymmetrical correspondence may lie in the particular nature of the “goods” that Telemachus receives from Odysseus: the son acquires the father's name, the[81] Hor. Odes 2.16.37–38, mihiparva rura et / spiritum Graiaetenuem Camenae, is traditionally understood as referring to the Sabine farm and the conflation of humble needs with Callimachean aesthetics.
Though only implicit, it reinforces an overall representation of Maecenas's good patronage in terms of aristocratic and familial inheritance. Even as the poet represents his patron's present offer in the negative terms of Menelaus's excessive wealth, Horace allegorically grounds his capacity for refusal in terms of the symbolic capital that Maecenas's past patronage has accorded him: in Homer, Telemachus's refusal prompts the smiling recognition from Menelaus that the son has behaved with the practical forethought of his father. Thus, we see that an inherited disposition, the landed “patrimony” of Ithaca, and finally a freedom to breach social etiquette-a liberty based on Odysseus's kleos rather than on Telemachus's own stature-all combine to represent the aristocratic standing, the symbolic capital with which Maecenas has endowed Horace and which then allows him, paradoxically, the power of refusal. The understanding of reponere donata to mean “store up gifts”—Kilpatrick's interpretation (1986, 12)—would, in my reading, refer to this accumulation of symbolic capital that Horace then uses to assert his independence.Discriminating readers perceive the aesthetic complexity of this Homeric exemplum: they separate the real value (aera) from the false (lupini), which the less astute reading public would understand as the apparent assertion of the poet's ability and willingness to return all Maecenas's benefactions. Such a public would automatically identify the Telemachus anecdote with the fable of the fox in the cornbin, as well as the Vulteius Mena story, failing to note how far the real value of the one exemplum differs (distat) from the false value of the others. Horace's counterfeit gesture, like Odysseus's disguises, ironically tests the worth of his readership: those who believe him foolishly count him discharged, while those who perceive the deceit have their capacity for aesthetic discrimination confirmed. It is no coincidence that the verb for perception in Greek—aisthanomai—is the etymological root of “aesthetic.” By perceiving the problematic nature of the exempla that might illustrate or validate the speaker's assertion, discriminating readers do in fact receive a certain compensation for their engagement with the epistle. As speaker and reader alike align themselves with the “true” value that the Homeric exemplum reveals, aesthetic perception and aristocratic ideology reinforce each other.
Moreover, the distinction between aera and lupini is inscribed in the first three ainoi even in terms of the material that they represent as ingested or exchanged: lupini were used as play money on the stage, but they were also the fodder of livestock and a staple of the poor man's diet.
[82] For lupini as food of the common man, see Préaux 1968, ad loc., with sources cited there.
Hence, as both a symbol of the worthless gift and the simple food of the common man, the lupini derive from the same semiotic register as the pears left for the pigs in the story of the Calabrian host or the corn that the fox consumes. In contrast, those who know the Homeric story remember that Telemachus receives a bowl of precious metal—aes—in place of the rejected horses and chariot (Od. 4.590–619). In Homer, this bowl is a keimelion, a precious object retrieved from Menelaus's innermost chamber. The aristocratic world of gift exchange is thus the model in which the poet chooses to inscribe his own experience, likening the institution of amicitia to the guest-host relations of Homeric xenia. As Leslie Kurke claims in her discussion of Pindar's epinician allusions to the epic relations of xenia, the “invocation of the Homeric model is not merely a literary allusion but an ideological gesture common to the poet and his aristocratic group” (1991, 139).[83] Kurke (1991, 145) discusses the symbol of the Homeric keimelion as a trope by which Pindar represents the power of poetry as an enduring utterance.
Similarly, the echo of aera in the keimelion of the background to the Telemachus anecdote both identifies good patronal relations with the aristocratic equals of Homeric xenia and gestures toward a shared elite culture.