From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought by Montiglio Silvia

Author:Montiglio, Silvia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press

THE TEACHER-FRIEND

Odysseus’ skills as leader shine forth in his role as teacher. Albeit implicitly, he is in the background of the “guide of right speech and action” in a fragment from Philodemus’ essay On Frank Criticism: “it is necessary to show him [i.e., the pupil] his errors forthrightly and speak of his failings publicly. For if he has considered this man to be the one guide of right speech and [action] whom he calls the only savior and to whom, citing the phrase, ‘with him accompanying [me]’ (Il. 10.246), he has given himself over to be treated, then how is he not going to show to him those things in which he needs treatment, and [accept admonishment]?”68

Philodemus is alluding to Diomedes’ choice of Odysseus as partner for the spying mission in Iliad 10, which in On the Good King he approvingly attributes to Odysseus’ wisdom. The reference to Odysseus’ role as guide in that episode foreshadows Apuleius’ reading of Odysseus’ and Diomedes’ association there “as counselor and helper, mind and hand, spirit and sword” (veluti consilium et auxilium, mens et manus, animus et gladius, De deo Socratis 18). In our passage, however, Odysseus’ wisdom is put to the service of character improvement. Philodemus slightly twists the meaning of Odysseus’ role in the Homeric episode to make it fit his moral goal. Though in Iliad 10 Odysseus teaches Diomedes “the right speech and action,” he does so in a different sense: by perfecting Diomedes’ maturation as a warrior, the scouting expedition in the Trojan camp endows him with authority as a counselor in the assembly. His words earn greater weight owing to his military exploit, which he accomplishes under Odysseus’ guidance. Philodemus recasts Diomedes’ maturation in purely moral, rather than political, terms.

For Odysseus to be a “savior,” a model teacher, he must apply a certain amount of frankness. To associate Odysseus with frankness might sound paradoxical. Yet, though no other allusion to Odysseus appears in the remains of the essay, his timeliness in speech would fit Philodemus’ recommendation that frankness should be employed according to need and circumstances, not indiscriminately. His ideal is not an Achilles-type, for whom outspokenness is a rigid principle, but a flexible, sensitive teacher-friend-doctor, who knows when and how frank speech is beneficial. Odysseus is fitting to embody this ideal. The very pervasiveness of medical imagery in On Frank Criticism69 harks back to Antisthenes’ discussion of Odysseus’ as the ability to talk each individual “patient” into salutary treatment.

That Philodemus might have admired Odysseus for his beneficial frankness is suggested not only by the passage from On Frank Criticism that exploits Odysseus’ role as guide for moral purposes, but also by parallels from two later authors, Plutarch and Maximus of Tyre, who like Philodemus are concerned with the appropriateness of frank speech in pedagogical contexts. Neither of them illustrates his conception of frankness based on Achilles. In Maximus’ Oration 14, devoted to distinguishing friend from flatterer, Achilles does not appear at all. Plutarch, in his essay How to

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