‘Jason…chosen leader because his superior declines the honour, subordinate to his comrades, except once, in every trial of strength, skill, or courage, a great warrior only with the help of magical charms, jealous of honour but incapable of asserting it, passive in the face of crisis, timid and confused before trouble, tearful at insult, easily despondent, gracefully treacherous in his dealings with the love-sick Medea but cowering before her later threats and curses, coldly efficient in the time-serving murder of an (...) unsuspecting child (sic), reluctant even in marriage.’ So Carspecken put the case against Jason's heroism. In the face of such an indictment, Lawall's plea in mitigation, ‘it must be admitted that [Jason] often reveals the qualities of a true gentleman’, seems somehow inadequate. Criticism since Carspecken has found various overlapping categories for Jason which both take account of the earlier negative judgements and preserve the centrality of his ‘personality’ and character in the poem: Jason is the quiet diplomat who works through consensus rather than force, his is a heroism of sex-appeal, he is an anti-hero, the embodiment of Sceptic ‘suspension of judgement’, or, alternatively, he is ‘one of us’, credible and lifelike. Carspecken himself tried a different tack: the poem is concerned not with individual heroism but with the heroism of the group (cf. 1.1, 4.1773–81). (shrink)

Re-examination of the well-known Atarbos base in the Akropolis Museum shows that the monument had two distinct phases which have generally been ignored in previous discussions: it originally consisted of a pillar supported by the extant right block decorated with the relief of purrhikhistai; subsequently, the pillar was removed, the base was doubled in size, and three bronze statues were erected. Close examination of the remains and the style of the reliefs indicates that the original period dates to 323/2 BC (...) with the second phase following within a year. In light of this chronology, the prosopography of the family is reviewed and new restorations are suggested for the base's inscriptions. In its first phase, the monument belonged to a newly identified series of memorials consisting of rectangular bases with pillars supporting either a relief or a Panathenaic amphora. Such structures commemorated victories in various tribal events of the Panathenaia and were set up both by individuals and by tribes. The earliest known example appears in a vase painting of c. 430-420 and the type continued to be used until at least 323/2. The identification of this series also provides further evidence for history of the purrhikhe, the cyc1ic chorus, the anthippasia, and the apobatic race at the Panathenaia, as well as the identities of specific victors in these contests. (shrink)