ABSTRACT
This paper will examine a persistent theme in the lives of the poets: 1 the righteous poet brought to trial by a corrupt society which has found him and his poetry intolerable. Paradoxically, as society condemns the poet, it condemns itself, and always is punished following the poet's punishment (as the poet usually has predicted)—though society's punishment can sometimes be allayed by a hero cult awarded to the poet. This theme expresses the essential ambiguity of the poet in ancient Greece: though corrupt society may view him as a katharma, "offscourings," or pharmakos, the satirist is in reality morally justified, often even the representative of the god. Thus this paper will attempt to show that the poets' lives, if unfactual (as has been abundantly documented by Lefkowitz and others 2 ), still can have mythical depth. Nagy, in his studies of Archilochus and Sappho, has shown how important mythical themes can lie behind seemingly trivial biographical anecdotes; 3 or perhaps, how biography can be put into the mold of myth. Fairweather writes of "the tendency to force history into pre-conceived patterns." 4 The theme of the poet's trial will show the tendency for poetic biography to assimilate to cultic hero myth; Plato's transcendent treatment of the poet brought to trial is thus a transposition of a traditional biographical/mythical/cultic theme.
