Fear of Doubles -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 10:36:52 02/13/08 Wed
Author: Kiernan
Subject: Fear of Doubles

While reading Herodotus' Histories for Ancient Greece, I came across a story about the origins of the Spartan kings. In the story, the founder of the city died, leaving behind twin sons. The Spartans decided to make the older one king - but they could not tell the children apart. This sends the community on a desparate quest for some distinction, in order to discover the older child. They send to Delphi; but the oracle only returns an answer saying that "they must let both the children be kinds, but give the elder one the greater honour." This situation would remind me of "King Lear" - both king and not king, equal and not equal. The community is dissatisfied - so they decide to watch the mother to see if she feeds the children in any particular order which would indicate the older child (who would be fed first). Here they found their distinction, however incredibly arbitrary that would seem to us, and they took the "older" child to establish as king. Brilliant. Communal Crisis solved without violence, right?

Not at all. Herodotus' next lines betray the true ending of the neatly-tied-up story: "When the children grew up, the story goes that they quarrelled as long as they lived, in spite of the fact that they were brothers; and their descendants continued the family feud."

Thus, the community devolved into cycles of violence.

This story illustrates the dynamics underlying a communal fear of violence. Perhaps most interesting is Herodotus's confused commentary on the violence between the brothers - their very relation brings about the very violence which that same relation should forbid.

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Replies:

Re: Fear of Doubles -- Jfish, 20:01:36 02/17/08 Sun