In this article, Faulkner discusses the female in Aratus’ Phaenomena. In the middle of discussing Greek constellations, Aratus refers to the Maiden, who he identifies with “the virginal Justice” (75). According to Faulkner, previous scholarship linked Aratus’ depiction of this constellation with the narrative of Dike in Hesiod’s Works and Days. Aratus gives this character the only direct speech in his poem. It is this speech that Faulkner focuses on.
Faulkner begins by looking to Hesiod’s Theogony and referencing the speech in which Zeus threatens Prometheus with the evil of Pandora. He suggests that Aratus “has transposed the foreboding prophecy of mankind’s future from the male voice of Zeus to the female voice of his daughter Dike” (77). This link is emphasized by similar language in Hesiod and Aratus. That being said, there are differences between the two accounts: Zeus actively creates and destroys the ages, while Dike is more passive, letting humanity destroy itself. This shift hinges on the use of the second-person plural (υμεις). In Hesiod, the pronoun is used to address “the kings responsible for upholding justice” while in Aratus Dike uses the same pronoun to address “humankind as a whole, including both men and women” (81). Faulkner further links this form of address to the Stoic thinking that upholds an explicitly public role of women. In this view, Dike’s speech reflects a philosophical tradition that emphasizes the importance of women.
An alternative manuscript reading would further link Dike’s speech to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. In that poem, Aphrodite prophecies, but as a seductive trickster. She is deceptive and beautiful, in contrast to the “honest and virginal Dike” (84) that Aratus portrays. This contrast parallels that between Dike and Pandora, who can be seen as the mortal counterpart of the deceitful Aphrodite. In conversation with both these antecedents, Aratus uses Dike’s speech in his Phaenomena to “recast the potentialities of female power in human society” (85). Instead of fundamental difference, men and women are now seen as equal. Indeed, the very power of Dike’s speech provides an archetype for mortal women in an ideal society. She has female agency. When women and men do not work together, what results is the degenerate Bronze Age that ends the episode of Aratus’ narration.
In this short article, Faulkner makes a number of interesting points. It is remarkable how much can be made of just a few lines in an obscure poem of the third century BCE. Yet his arguments are convincing: it seems true that Aratus’ constellation – Justice – is a “visible sign relevant to all humankind … men and women alike” (86).