Images at the Crossroads: Media and Meaning in Greek Art 9781474487382

Citation preview

IMAGES AT THE CROSSROADS

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Previously published Edinburgh Leventis Studies 1 Word and Image in Ancient Greece Edited by N. Keith Rutter and Brian A. Sparkes Edinburgh Leventis Studies 2 Envy, Spite and Jealousy: The Rivalrous Emotions in Ancient Greece Edited by David Konstan and N. Keith Rutter Edinburgh Leventis Studies 3 Ancient Greece: From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer Edited by Sigrid Deger-Jalkotzy and Irene S. Lemos Edinburgh Leventis Studies 4 Pursuing the Good: Ethics and Metaphysics in Plato’s Republic Edited by Douglas Cairns, Fritz-Gregor Herrmann and Terry Penner Edinburgh Leventis Studies 5 The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations Edited by Jan N. Bremmer and Andrew Erskine Edinburgh Leventis Studies 6 Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras Edited by John Marincola, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Calum Maciver Edinburgh Leventis Studies 7 Defining Greek Narrative Edited by Douglas Cairns and Ruth Scodel Edinburgh Leventis Studies 8 Greek Laughter and Tears: Antiquity and After Edited by Margaret Alexiou and Douglas Cairns Edinburgh Leventis Studies 9 Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science Edited by Mirko Canevaro, Andrew Erskine, Benjamin Gray and Josiah Ober Edinburgh Leventis Studies 10 Images at the Crossroads: Media and Meaning in Greek Art Edited by Judith M. Barringer and François Lissarrague Visit the series website at edinburghuniversitypress.com/ series-edinburgh-leventis-studies

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IMAGES AT THE CROSSROADS Media and Meaning in Greek Art

Edited by Judith M. Barringer and François Lissarrague

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Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com

© editorial matter and organization Judith M. Barringer and François Lissarrague, 2022 © the chapters their several authors, 2022 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry, Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 pt Times New Roman by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 8736 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 8738 2 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 8739 9 (epub)

The right of Judith M. Barringer and François Lissarrague to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

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François Lissarrague (5 August 1947–15 December 2021)

Photo: Andrew Stewart

As this volume was in press, François Lissarrague died suddenly and unexpectedly. Brilliant, witty, and gentle, François wore his learning lightly, yet his work transformed the field. This volume is dedicated to him.

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations

x xxxi xxxii

Introduction

1

PART I MAKING MEANING: HOW DO IMAGES WORK? 1 2 3 4

Ways of Making Sense: Eagle and Snake in Archaic and Classical Greek Art François Lissarrague Images and History in Eighth- and Seventh-Century BC Athens: A Discursive Analytical Approach Annette Haug Knowledge and the Production of Meaning: Greek Vase Imagery Reconsidered Martina Seifert Images and Storytelling Luca Giuliani

13 39 57 71

PART II INTERPRETATION AND PERCEPTION 5 6

The Alexander Mosaic: Stories of Victory Mauro Menichetti Parapictoriality Adrian Stähli

91 107

PART III REFLECTIONS OF THE CITY AND ITS CRAFTSMEN 7

Les Images de la Cité – The Vase Painter’s Gaze Dyfri Williams

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127

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viii VIII 8

CONTENTS

Again: Working Scenes on Athenian Vases – Images between Social Values and Aesthetic Reality Tonio Hölscher

179

PART IV CONSTRUCTIONS OF MYTH THROUGH IMAGES 9 10 11

Of Gods and Giants: Myth and Images in the Making Marion Meyer The Fabric of Myth in Ancient Glyptic Véronique Dasen Greek Coin Iconography in Context: Eight Specificities That Differentiate Them from Other Visual Media François de Callataÿ

203 223 243

PART V CLAY AND STONE: MATERIAL MATTERS 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Paragone? Xenophon, Sokrates, and Quintilian on Greek Painting and Sculpture Andrew Stewart Communicating with the Divine in Marble and Clay H. A. Shapiro The Message is in the Medium: White-Ground Lekythoi and Stone Grave Markers in Classical Athens Judith M. Barringer Greek Archaic Figurative Terracottas: From Identification to Function Arthur Muller Images in Dialogue: Picturing Identities in Boiotian Stone, Clay, and Metal Victoria Sabetai Images of Drinking and Laughing: Vessels and Votives in the Theban Kabirion Stefan Schmidt Beyond Ceramics and Stone: The Iconography of the Precious Ken Lapatin

257 280 310 332 346 376 400

PART VI HONORING THE DEAD 19 20

Archaic Grave Monuments: Body or Stele? Nikolaus Dietrich On Vases, Terracottas, and Bones: How to Read Funerary Assemblages from Sixth- and Fifth-Century Greece Dimitris Paleothodoros

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421 445

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CONTENTS

21

Winged Figures and Mortals at a Crossroad Mark D. Stansbury-O’Donnell

About the Contributors Bibliography Index of Objects Subject Index

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ix IX 459 476 479 546 551

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1.1 Figure 1.2

Figure 1.3

Figure 1.4 Fig. 1.5a–b

Figure 1.6a–b

Figure 1.7

Figure 1.8

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Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.796, Attic red-figure krater, c. 425–420 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 20.187, Attic red-figure pelike attributed to the Trophy Painter, c. 450–440 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston. London, British Museum 1865, 0712.86, gem, chalcedony, early fourth century BC. H 3.20 cm, W 2.50 cm, D 1.15 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 97.419, silver tetradrachm from Syracuse, c. 310–305 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 98.916, Attic black-figure Tyrrhenian amphora from Vulci attributed to the Timiades Painter, c. 560 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco 16757 (344), Attic black-figure amphora by Exekias, c. 540 BC. Photo: © Vatican Museums, all rights reserved. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 42.11.9, white stone gem, late seventh to late sixth century BC, L 2.5 cm. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2016 (43-30-4), octobol from Chalcis, silver. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

15

16

17 17

19

21

22

24

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1.9

Figure 1.10

Figure 1.11 Figure 1.12a–c

Figure 1.13

Figure 1.14

Figure 1.15

Figure 1.16 Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2

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Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 81159, Attic black-figure skyphos attributed to the Theseus Painter, c. 525–475 BC. Photo: Ministero per i Beni culturali e le Attivita Culturali – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. London, British Museum B617, Attic blackfigure oinochoe attributed to the Athena Painter, c. 525–475 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. New York, Christie’s, June 2017, lot 115, Attic black-figure lekythos attributed to the Diosphos Painter. Photo: © Christie’s 2017. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 517, Attic black-figure lekythos Near the Sappho and Diosphos Painters. Photos: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund (D. Gialouris). London, British Museum B194 from Vulci, Attic black-figure amphora attributed to Group E, c. 575–525 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. Berlin, Antikensammlung F2294 from Vulci, Attic red-figure kylix, name vase of the Foundry Painter, c. 500–450 BC. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius). Athens, National Archaeological Museum 4473, grave stele of Kleoboulos, fourth century BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund (K. Valtin von Eickstedt). Termessos, relief from the tomb of Alketas, late fourth century BC. Reproduced from Pekridou 1986, ill. 8. London, British Museum 1899, 0219.1, late Geometric Attic louterion, c. 735 BC. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 14432, late Geometric Attic amphora. After Tölle, R. 1964. Frühgriechische Reigentänze. Waldsassen, Taf. 6b.

xi XI

27

28 29

30

32

33

35 37 42

43

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xii XII Figure 2.3 Figure 2.4 Figure 2.5 Figure 2.6

Figure 2.7 Figure 2.8

Figure 3.1

Figure 3.2

Figure 3.3 Figure 3.4

Figure 3.5 Figures 4.1–2

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Tübingen, Antikensammlung 2657, late Geometric Attic oinochoe. Photo: © Institut für Klassische Archäologie Tübingen (T. Zachmann). 45 Hobart, John Elliott Classics Museum, University of Tasmania 31, late Geometric Attic oinochoe. Reproduced from Hood 1967, Taf. 32. 47 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 14476, late Geometric Corinthian kotyle. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Athen-Varia-1047 (H. Wagner). 51 Paris, Musée du Louvre A519, fragments of late Geometric Attic krater. Reproduced from Grunwald, C. 1983. “Frühe attische Kampfdarstellungen.” Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica 15: Figure 4. 53 Athens, Kerameikos 1351, late Geometric Attic fragments. Reproduced from Rombos 1988, Taf. 27a. 54 Berlin, Staatliche Museen 31573, A41, Protoattic stand. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (I. Geske). 55 Paris, Musée du Louvre L4 (MNB 905), Attic black-figure pinax attributed to the Sappho Painter, early fifth century BC. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/ Hervé Lewandowski. 63 Paris, Musée du Louvre CA 616, Attic blackfigure exaleiptron attributed to Painter C, c. 570–560 BC. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Stéphane Maréchalle. 64 Paris, Musée du Louvre G186, Attic red-figure stamnos, c. 490 BC. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Tony Querrec. 65 Berlin, Antikensammlung 2537, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 440–430 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius). 67 Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum 61.89, Attic black-figure amphora. Photo: T. Goldschmidt. 68 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale. 72–73

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OF FIGURES LISTLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 4.3

Figure 4.4 Figure 4.5

Figure 4.6

Figure 4.7

Figure 5.1

Figure 5.2 Figure 5.3

Figure 5.4 Figure 5.5 Figure 5.6

Figure 5.7

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Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), middle frieze, c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), the lion hunt, c. 640 BC. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), upper frieze, c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), the Judgment of Paris, c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale. Nicosia, Cyprus Museum, Mycenaean krater, c. 1400 BC. Adapted from https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arheologicheski-_ Mycenaean_crater.jpg. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 10020, Alexander mosaic from Pompeii. Photo: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Pompeii, House of the Faun, plan. After Dickmann, J.-A. 1999. Domus frequentata. Munich, 1 Fig. 3b. Pompeii, House of the Faun, plan of mosaics. Reproduced from Sauron, G. 2009. Dans l’intimité des maîtres du monde. Les décors privés des Romains. Paris (trans. Il volto segreto di Roma. L’arte privata tra la Repubblica e l’Impero, Milan). Drawing by R. Pinto of the Nilotic landscape mosaic at the entrance of the exedra in the House of the Faun, Pompeii. Nilotic landscape mosaic, House of the Faun, Pompeii. Drawing by R. Pinto. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 10020, Alexander mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii. Photo: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Alexander mosaic from Pompeii, drawing of detail by R. Pinto.

XIII xiii

74 75

75

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91 92

93 95 97

98 99

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xiv XIV Figure 5.8

Figure 5.9

Figure 5.10 Figure 5.11 Figure 5.12 Figure 5.13 Figures 6.1–2

Figure 6.3

Figure 6.4

Figure 6.5

Figure 6.6 Figure 6.7 Figure 6.8 Figure 7.1

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 10020, Alexander mosaic from Pompeii. Photo: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 10020, Alexander mosaic from Pompeii. Photo: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Munich, Antikensammlungen 15032, tropaion from South Italy. Photo: R. Graells i Fabregat. Orchomenos, Sulla’s trophy. Photo: J. Barringer. Vatican City, Musei Vaticani 2290, Primaporta Augustus, drawing of the cuirass by R. Pinto. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, frieze slab I 449 from the Heroon at Trysa. Photo: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano (Palazzo Altemps) 8608, Group of the Ludovisi Gauls, Roman copy after a Greek original of c. 230 BC. Photos: DAI-ROM-Rom 56.344, DAI-ROM-Rom 56.349. Pompeii, House of the Cryptoporticus (I 6, 2), subterranean cryptoporticus, segment of wall decoration, late Second Pompeian Style, c. 40/30 BC. Photo: Hans R. Goette. Pompeii, House of the Cryptoporticus (I 6, 2), subterranean oecus, segment of wall decoration, late Second Pompeian Style, c. 40/30 BC. After Spinazzola 1953, pl. 21. Athens, Akropolis, Parthenon, 448–432 BC, north pteron and north corner of the west frieze, 448–432 BC. After L. Fenger, Dorische Polychromie (Berlin 1886), pl. 3. Rome, column of Trajan, dedicated AD 113. Photo: Adrian Stähli, 2014. Rome, Forum Romanum, Arch of Septimius Severus, dedicated AD 203, panel relief on the west façade. Photo: Hans R. Goette. Rome, Forum Romanum, Arch of Septimius Severus, dedicated AD 203, pedestal reliefs of the east façade. Photo: Hans R. Goette. iCloud: Influences on the iconography of vase painters.

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101 103 104 104 105

115

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118 119 121 122 128

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OF FIGURES LISTLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 7.2

Figure 7.3

Figure 7.4

Figure 7.5

Figure 7.6

Figure 7.7

Figure 7.8–9

Figure 7.10 Figure 7.11

Figure 7.12

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St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum P1872.130, Attic red-figure hydria, c. 375–350 BC. Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (Alexander Larentyev). New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.171.49 (Fletcher Fund 1956), Attic bell krater, c. 410–400 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 08.258.25 (Rogers Fund 1908), Attic red-figure oinochoe, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Munich, Antikensammlungen 1727, Attic black-figure hydria attributed to the Eucharides Painter, c. 490–480 BC. Photo: Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek (R. Kühling). London British Museum B628, Attic whiteground, black-figure oinochoe attributed to the Athena Painter, c. 490–480 BC. Photo: British Museum. Berlin, Antikensammlung V.I. 3199, Attic red-figure column krater attributed to the Hephaistos Painter, c. 440–430 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 81908, Attic red-figure pyxis, c. 440 BC. Photo: Ministero per i Beni culturali e le Attivita Culturali – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (Giorgio Albano). London, British Museum B329, Attic black-figure hydria c. 520–500 BC. Photo: British Museum. Copenhagen, National Museum of Denmark 3760, Attic red-figure bell krater, c. 430–420 BC. Photo: © CC-by-SA, Nora Petersen, National Museum of Denmark. Bucharest, National Museum of Antiquities 03207, fragments of an Attic red-figure amphora, c. 430–420 BC. Photo: Bucharest, National Museum of Antiquities (Iulian Bîrzescu, Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology).

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140 142

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xvi XVI Figure 7.13 Figure 7.14

Figure 7.15 Figure 7.16 Figure 7.17

Figure 7.18

Figure 7.19

Figure 7.20

Figure 7.21

Figure 7.22

Figure 7.23

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum 2455, fragment of an Attic red-figure loutrophoros, c. 440 BC. Photo: Allard Pierson Museum. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AE.114.25, fragment of an Attic red-figure skyphos attributed to the Penelope Painter, c. 430 BC. Photo: © J. Paul Getty Museum. Athens, Agora c. 450 BC. Photo courtesy of Riccardo Di Cesare (from Di Cesare 2015, with modifications by Nathalie Bloch). Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 98.936, fragment of an Attic red-figure chous, c. 400 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Berlin, Antikensammlung 1962.33, Attic redfigure oinochoe attributed to the Altamura Painter, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 27.74, Attic red-figure cup attributed to the Briseis Painter, c. 480–470 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 27.74, Attic red-figure cup, c. 480–470 BC. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1911.617, Attic red-figure cup attributed to the Pan Painter, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Fisa col. 1999/99/102, Attic red-figure stamnos attributed to the Pan Painter, side A, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Ángel Martínez Levas). Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Fisa col. 1999/99/102, Attic red-figure stamnos, side B. Photo: Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Ángel Martínez Levas). Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1911.617, Attic red-figure cup attributed to the Pan Painter, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

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OF FIGURES LISTLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 7.24

Figure 7.25 Figure 8.1 Figure 8.2 Figure 8.3 Figures 8.4

Figure 8.5

Figure 8.6 Figure 8.7 Figure 8.8 Figure 8.9

Figure 8.10 Figure 8.11

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Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum 994, Attic red-figure small bowl, c. 430–410 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung der Rheinische FriedrichWilhelms-Universität. Basel, H.A. Cahn coll. 1678, fragments of an Attic red-figure cup, c. 470 BC. Photo: J.-D. Cahn (Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter). Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 01.8073, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 480 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Vicenza, Banca Intesa, Attic red-figure hydria, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: D-DAI-ROM-Rom 1962.1123. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 518, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 480 BC. Photo: Ashmolean Museum AN1896–1908 G. 267. Berlin Antikensammlung 2294, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 480 BC. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius). Munich, Antikensammlungen 2650, Attic redfigure kylix, c. 480–470 BC. Photo: © Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München (R. Kühling). Copenhagen, Nationalmuseet ChrVIII967, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 520–510 BC. Photo: Copenhagen, Nationalmuseet (L. Larsen). Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 01.1835, Attic black-figure amphora, c. 500 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 563, Attic black-figure pelike, c. 500 BC. Photo: Ashmolean Museum. Berlin, Antikensammlung F1915, Attic black-figure oinochoe, c. 500 BC. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 99.527, Attic black-figure oinochoe, early fifth century BC. After Laxander 2000, Taf. 23:2. Bochum, Ruhr-Universität, Antikenmuseum 1075, Attic black-figure kylix, c. 550 BC. Photo: © Kunstsammlungen der RuhrUniversität Bochum (M. Benecke).

XVII xvii

175 176 183 183 184

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xviii XVIII Figure 8.12

Figure 8.13 Figure 9.1

Figure 9.2 Figure 9.3

Figure 9.4

Figure 9.5 Figure 9.6 Figure 9.7

Figure 9.8 Figure 9.9 Figure 9.10 Figure 9.11

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Munich, Antikensammlungen 1717, Attic black-figure hydria, c. 510 BC. Photo: © Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München (R. Kühling). Paris, Musée du Louvre E629, Corinthian krater, c. 600–575 BC. Photo: © RMN–Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) (S. Maréchalle). Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 607, Attic black-figure dinos signed by Lydos. Reconstruction and drawing by M. Moore, reproduced by permission. Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 607e, fragments of an Attic black-figure dinos. Photo: © Akropolis Museum. Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2134d, Attic black-figure kantharos fragment. Reproduced from Graef and Langlotz 1925, no. 2134, pl. 94. Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2134a, fragments of an Attic black-figure kantharos. Reproduced from Graef and Langlotz 1925, no. 2134, pl. 94. Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2211d+a, fragments of an Attic black-figure amphora. Photo: © Akropolis Museum. Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2211c+b, fragments of an Attic black-figure amphora. Photo: © Akropolis Museum. Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 1632c, fragments of an Attic black-figure cup. Reproduced from Graef and Langlotz 1925, no. 1632, pl. 84. Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 648a+b, fragments of an Attic black-figure dinos. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Akropolis Vasen 467. Malibu, The J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.143, fragments of an Attic black-figure pyxis. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. Paris, Musée du Louvre E732, Attic black-figure neck amphora. Photo: © Musée du Louvre. Dist. RMN–Grand Palais (Les Frères Chuzeville). Paris, Musée du Louvre E732, Attic black-figure neck amphora. Photo: © Musée du Louvre. Dist. RMN–Grand Palais (Les Frères Chuzeville).

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OF FIGURES LISTLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 9.12

Figure 9.13 Figure 9.14

Figure 10.1a–b

Figure 10.2

Figure 10.3a–b

Figure 10.4 Figure 10.5 Figure 10.6 Figure 10.7

Figure 10.8

Figure 10.9a–b

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London, British Museum 1971,1101.1, Attic black-figure dinos (‘Erskine dinos’) by Sophilos (detail), c. 580–570 BC. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Malibu, The J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AE.211, fragments of an Attic black-figure dinos. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. Malibu, The J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AE.211, fragments of an Attic black-figure dinos. Reconstruction and drawing by M. Moore, reproduced by permission. Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, Collection Froehner, Cahier XIV, 36, lapis lazuli, second– third century AD, H 14.0 mm, W 31.0 mm, D 7.5 mm. Photo A. Mastrocinque. Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, inv. 58.2220 bis, red jasper, second–third century AD, H 50.0 mm, W 15.0 mm, D 2.0 mm. Photo: A. Mastrocinque. St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, Ж.1517 (GR–21714), nicolo, mid-Imperial period. Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum (Svetlana Suetova, Konstantin Sinyavski). Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, Classical Collection 52.231, hematite, second–third century AD, 33.0 x 20.0 mm. Photo: L. Mátyus. Munich, Staatliche Münzsammlung inv. A 1712, sardonyx, 12.7 x 11.3 mm. Photo: Staatliche Münzsammlung München. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 2001.28.3, carnelian, 14.0 mm. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. Whereabouts unknown, intaglio. Drawing by author after Zahn, R. 1924. KTO CHRO. Glasierter Tonbecher im Berliner Antiquarium, 5, Fig. 1. Berlin. Musée municipal de Péronne, collection A. Danicourt, red carnelian, H 30.0 mm, W 22.0 mm, D 15.0 mm. Photo: © Classical Art Research Centre, Oxford University. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 82.AN.162.80a, Gift of Stanley Ungar, red jasper, second–third century AD, 12.0 x 16.0 mm. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum.

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xx XX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 10.10

Whereabouts unknown, formerly Munich, Staatliche Münzsammlung, ex.-Coll. P. Arndt 2356, second–third century AD, 17.0 x 12.0 mm. Photo: Staatliche Münzsammlung München. Figure 10.11a–b London British Museum G364 (EA 56364), red jasper, third century AD, H 16.0 mm, W 14.0 mm, D 3.0 mm. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum. Figure 10.12 Private collection, red jasper, second–third century AD, H 17.0 mm, W 14.0 mm, D 2.0 mm. Photo: Magdalena Depowska. Figure 10.13 New York, American Numismatic Society 1944.100.79822, lead token, third century AD. Photo: American Numismatic Society. Figure 12.1 Basel, Kunstmuseum 1872.7a. Angelica Kauffmann, Zeuxis Paints the Beautiful Maidens of Kroton. Black chalk, pen and ink, and wash on paper, c. 1800. Gift of the painter Antonio Barzaghi-Cattaneo from Lugano (1834–1922). Photo: Kunstmuseum Basel (Martin P. Bühler). Figure 12.2 Szczecin (Stettin), Poland, National Museum. Doryphoros of Polykleitos. Reconstruction by Georg Römer (1910–1912) from casts of the copies in Naples and Berlin (omitting his trademark spear). Bronze original, c. 440 BC. Photo: Rolf Schneider. Figure 12.3 Naples, Museo Nazionale M1483, Attic bell krater from Ruvo attributed to the Niobid Painter, c. 450 BC. Redrawing by Karl Reichhold after FR 1904, pl. 27. Figure 12.4 Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.259, Attic red-figure squat lekythos in the manner of the Meidias Painter, c. 400 BC. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. Figure 12.5 Athena Parthenos by Pheidias, 447–438 BC. Reconstruction by Andrew Stewart and Candace Smith. Figure 13.1 Typology of Attic votive reliefs, c. 420–400 BC. Figure 13.2 Piraeus, Archaeological Museum 1778, banqueting hero relief, c. 420 BC. Photo: author. Figure 13.3 Athens, 1st Ephoria ΡΑ279 (Roman Agora), banqueting heroes relief, c. 400 BC. Photo D-DAI-ATH-2000.174 (Hans R. Goette).

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Figure 13.4 Figure 13.5 Figure 13.6

Figure 13.7

Figure 13.8

Figure 13.9

Figure 13.10

Figure 13.11

Figure 13.12 Figure 13.13

Figure 13.14

Figure 13.15

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Munich, Antikensammlungen 2410, Attic redfigure stamnos, c. 430 BC. Photo: © Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München. Piraeus, Archaeological Museum inv. 208, banqueting hero relief, c. 400 BC. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Piraeus-0215 (Gösta Hellner). Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1501, banqueting hero relief. c. 410 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 15245, banqueting hero relief, c. 370 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 11559, Attic red-figure calyx-krater, c. 400 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10466, Boiotian black-figure ‘Kabiric’ skyphos, c. 420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1986.11.12, Attic red-figure psykter krater, c. 480–470 BC. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Bothmer Purchase Fund, 1986). New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1986.11.12, Attic red-figure psykter krater, c. 480–470 BC. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Bothmer Purchase Fund, 1986). Athens, Telemachos Monument, c. 400 BC. Reconstruction after Beschi (2002). Verona, Museo Maffeiano inv. 28615, fragmentary relief from Telemachos Monument, Athens, c. 400 BC. Photo after Renberg, G. 2017. Where Dreams May Come, Leiden. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 12491, Attic red-figure calyx-krater, c. 400 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund. Paris, Musée du Louvre S1659, Attic red-figure chous, c. 410 BC. Photo: Art Resource New York.

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xxii XXII Figure 13.16 Figure 13.17 Figure 14.1 Figure 14.2 Figure 14.3

Figure 14.4

Figure 14.5 Figure 14.6

Figure 14.7 Figure 14.8

Figure 14.9 Figure 14.10

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Athens, Agora P 10673, Attic red-figure bell krater, c. 400 BC. Photo: American School of Classical Studies, Agora Excavations. 307 Athens, Agora P 10673, Attic red-figure bell krater, c. 400 BC. Photo: American School of Classical Studies, Agora Excavations. 307 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 11.185, ‘Brother and Sister stele,’ c. 530 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 312 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 15.167, stele of Antigenes, end of sixth century BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 312 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1935, c. 440 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. 313 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1958, c. 460–450 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. 314 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 35.11.5, c. 460–450 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 316 Athens, National Archaeological Museum CC1676, c. 450–400 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. 316 Paris, Musée du Louvre CA453, c. 490 BC. Photo: © RMN–Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) (H. Lewandowski). 318 Athens, Kerameikos Museum HW87, third quarter of the sixth century BC. Photo: Εφορεία Αρχαιοτήτων Πόλης Αθηνών-Μουσείο Κεραμεικού, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund. 319 Athens, Kerameikos Museum 3728, c. 430–420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund. 320 Athens, Kerameikos Museum 11239, c. 430–420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. 320

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Athens, National Archaeological Museum 796, c. 460 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. Figure 14.12 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1769, c. 430 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. Figure 14.13 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1989.281.72, c. 440–435 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Figure 14.14 Geneva Musée d’art et d’histoire HR0299, c. 450 BC, Prêt de l’Association Hellas et Roma. Photo: © Musées d’art et d’histoire, Ville de Genève (A. Longchamp). Figure 14.15 Berlin, Antikensammlung V.I.3291, c. 440 BC. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius). Figure 14.16 Dunedin, Otago Museum E.48.421, c. 430 BC. © Otago Museum, Dunedin. Figure 14.17 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.753, c. 550–500 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Figure 14.18 Samos, Vathy Archaeological Museum H69. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Samos 6959, 6960. Figure 14.19a–b Athens, Kerameikos Museum inv. I 537, c. 350–300 BC. Photo: D-DAI-ATHKerameikos 929, 1317. Figure 14.20 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 2894, c. 410–400 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. Figure 14.21 Athens, Kerameikos Museum P695/I221 c. 430–420 BC. Photo: Hans R. Goette. Figure 14.22 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1822+4552, c. 420–410 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. Figure 14.23 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1818, c. 440 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

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Figure 15.2

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Figure 16.6 Figure 16.7 Figure 16.8 Figure 16.9

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Athens, National Archaeological Museum 19355, c. 435–430 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. Conventional attitudes in the archaic visual arts: A, monument carved by Geneleos in Samos, as reconstructed by Walter-Karydi 1985, Fig. 4; B, the four basic iconographic types of coroplasty, after Muller 2009, Fig. 2 (Computer graphics by G. Naessens, Halma UMR 8164). Berlin, Antikensammlung 1504, funerary stele of Polyxena, last decades of the fifth century BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius). Berlin, Antikensammlung 1504, funerary stele of Polyxena. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius). Thebes Museum 28715, terracotta figurine from Haliartos, Boiotia. Photo: © EFA Boiotia. Thebes Museum 34705, terracotta figurine from Thebes, Boiotia (Tsallas plot). Photo: © EFA Boiotia. Athens, Moutoussi collection, Boiotian redfigure pyxis. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund (I. Miari). Athens, National Archaeological Museum inv. no. 1406, Boiotian red-figure skyphos, end of 5th–beginning of 4th c. BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund (I. Miari). Thebes, Museum, Group from Akraiphian grave T.440. Photo: © EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). Thebes Museum 48954, terracotta figurine from Akraiphian grave T.440. Photo: © EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). Thebes Museum 30847, terracotta head from Akraiphian grave T.440. Photo: © EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). Thebes Museum 35850, terracotta figurine from Haliartos. Photo: © EFA Boiotia.

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Figure 16.10 Figure 16.11 Figure 16.12 Figure 16.13 Figure 16.14 Figure 16.15

Figure 16.16 Figure 16.17

Figure 16.18

Figure 16.19 Figure 16.20 Figure 16.21

Figure 17.1

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Thebes Museum inv. no. E 173, Attic red-figure hydria from Halai, c. 400–390 BC. Photo: © EFA Boiotia. Thebes Museum 32597, bronze mirror from Akraiphian grave T.440. Photo: © EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). Thebes Museum 32598, Attic red-figure plastic lekythos from Akraiphian grave T.440. Photo: © EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). Thebes Museum 57, funerary stele of Mnason, limestone. Photo: © EFA Boiotia. Thebes Museum 56, funerary stele of Saugenes, limestone. Photo: © EFA Boiotia. Gulbenkian Cat. no. 491, silver stater from Opountian Lokris, c. 340 BC. Available at (last accessed 12 June 2020). Thebes Museum 55, funerary stele of Rynchon, limestone. Photo: © EFA Boiotia. Athens National Archaeological Museum inv. no. 12486, Boiotian red-figure kantharos, side A, detail, 430–420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. Athens National Archaeological Museum inv. no. 12486, Boiotian red-figure kantharos, side B, 430–420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. Thebes Museum 30319, 47524, part of group from Akraiphian grave T.74, terracotta effigies of piloi. Photo: © EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). Thebes Museum, Group from Akraiphian grave T.74. Photo: © EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). Athens National Archaeological Museum inv. no. 1373, red-figure kantharos, sides A and B, c. 420 BC. Photo: Courtesy of C. Avronidaki. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund (I. Miari). Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10333, grotesque terracotta figurine from the Theban Kabirion. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-1972-0101 (G. Hellner).

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10426, Kabirion kantharos. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 5. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10334, grotesque terracotta figurine from the Theban Kabirion. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-19720099 (G. Hellner). Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10414.97, terracotta figurine of a youth holding a cock and oinochoe from the Theban Kabirion. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-1972-0011 (G. Hellner). Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10289, terracotta figurine of a youth holding a lyre and phiale from the Theban Kabirion. Photo: D-DAIATH-1972-0037 (G. Hellner). Thebes, Archaeological Museum 6809 (R.86.274), Boiotian black-figure kantharos, c. 580–570 BC. Photo: V. von Eickstedt. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 425, Kabirion kantharos. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 33, 4. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1968.1835, Middle Corinthian cup, c. 600–575 BC. Photo: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Thebes, Archaeological Museum K1244+1509, Kabirion kantharos. Photo: Thebes, Archaeological Museum. Ex Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I. 3286, Kabirion kantharos, banquet scene. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 28, 3. Kassel, Staatliche Antikensammlung ALG 18, Kabirion kantharos. Photo: Staatliche Museen Kassel (G. Bößert). Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Lewis Collection, Loan Ant. 103.22, Attic red-figure amphora. After Froehner 1878, pl. 6. Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I.3159, Kabirion kantharos, pygmies fight cranes. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 29: 3. Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I.3159, Kabirion kantharos, pygmies fight cranes. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 29: 4.

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Figure 18.1 Figure 18.2 Figure 18.3 Figure 18.4 Figure 18.5 Figure 18.6 Figure 18.7 Figure 18.8 Figure 18.9 Figure 18.10

Figure 18.11 Figure 18.12

Figure 18.13

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Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.804, detail of an Apulian amphora attributed to the Varrese Painter. c. 340 BC. Photo: author. Paris, Musée du Louvre MNE 1334, child with sideboard, terracotta, third–first century BC. Photo: author. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3624, grave stele of Hegeso, marble, c. 400 BC. Photo: Hans R. Goette. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam CG.3, intaglio of Mike signed by Dexamenes, chalcedony, c. 430 BC. Photo: Fitzwilliam Museum. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3964, grave stele of Pausimache, marble, c. 390–380 BC. Photo: Hans R. Goette. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AN.76.3, Gorgoneion, intaglio, cornelian, c. 500 BC. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AN.76.33, lioness, intaglio, agate, third quarter of the fifth century BC. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. Plovdiv, Regional Archaeological Museum 3204, phiale from Panagyurishte, gold, c. 325–275 BC. Photo: HIP/Art Resource, New York. St. Petersburg, Hermitage KO5, pendant from Kul Oba, gold and enamel, c. 400–350 BC. Photo: E. Lessing/Art Resource, New York. Berlin, Antikensammlung V.I.3199, Attic red-figure column krater from Gela, c. 425 BC. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 92.AM.8.1, hairnet, gold, garnet, and glass paste, 225–175 BC. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 17.190.73, ‘Morgan Ivory,’ second half of the seventh century BC. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France 58.1815, Achilles, intaglio signed by Pamphilos, amethyst, c. 75–50 BC. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures 18.14a–b Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 78.AN.248, crouching Aphrodite, rock crystal, first century BC. Photos: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. Figure 18.15 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 72.AF.37, bowl imitating agate, glass, 25 BC–AD 50. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. Figure 18.16 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 59.11.8, fragmentary female figure imitating lapis lazuli, glass and gold, first half of the first century AD. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Figure 18.17 London, British Museum 1871, 0722.3, black kalyx krater with painted gold wreath and necklace, terracotta and gold, c. 340–320 BC. Photo: Trustees of the British Museum. Figure 18.18 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 23.160.33, aryballos with imitation shells, terracotta, late sixth century BC. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Figure 18.19 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 57.AA.6, shell, marble with polychromy, 400–325 BC. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. Figure 18.20 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1994.5.1, 1994.5.2, shells, silver, late fourth– third century BC. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Figure 19.1a Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3851, Anavysos kouros, marble, c. 530 BC. Photo: J. Fouquet. Figure 19.1b Athens, National Archaeological Museum 4754, Kroisos inscription, marble, c. 530 BC. Photo: C. Reinhardt. Figure 19.2 Athens, Kerameikos, reconstruction drawings of Geometric graves, eleventh–eighth centuries BC. After Kübler, K. 1942. “Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen: die Frühzeit.” In Das neue Bild der Antike 1, ed. H. Berve, 39, Fig. 6. Leipzig. Figure 19.3 Auvergne, Abbaye Saint Robert de La ChaiseDieu, gisant of Pope Clement VI sculpted by Pierre Roye and his pupils Jean David and Jean de Seignolles (1353). Photo: D. Villafruela. Figure 19.4 Berlin, Antikensammlung Sk 1531, fragment of the ‘Brother and Sister stele,’ marble, c. 540 BC. Photo: author.

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Figure 19.5a–b Figure 19.6 Figure 19.7

Figure 19.8

Figure 20.1 Figure 20.2

Figure 20.3 Figure 20.4 Figure 20.5

Figure 21.1

Figure 21.2

Figure 21.3

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New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 32.11.1, ‘New York kouros,’ marble, c. 600 BC. Photo © Metropolitan Museum of Art. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 29, grave stele of Aristion, marble, c. 510 BC. Photograph: Jebulon. Paris, Musée du Louvre MA3432, grave stele with man wearing a himation and holding a flower, marble, c. 520–510 BC. Photo: © Paris, Musée du Louvre. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 38, ‘diskophoros stele,’ marble, c. 560 BC. Photo: © American School of Classical Studies at Athens (A. Frantz). Acharnai, Archaeological Collection, larnax from Acharnai. Photo: author (by permission from the Ephorate of Antiquities of Eastern Attica). Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1003, Attic black-figure horse-head amphora from the Kerameikos. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Athens, Kerameikos Museum 1063, Attic red-figure askos from the Kerameikos. Photo: DAI Athens. Athens, Kerameikos Museum 1060, Attic red-figure lebes gamikos from the Kerameikos. Photo: DAI Athens. Larisa, Diachroniko Museum, contents of tomb 12 (Larisa M89/44, 89/46, 89/45, 89/43) and lekythos from tomb 18, Larisa M89/48) in tumulus X at Krannon. Photo: Larisa, Diachroniko Mouseio. Melfi, Museo Nazionale 110076, Etruscan candelabrum from Ruvo del Monte, Tomb 64. Photo: Museo Nazionale di Melfi (Polo Museale Regionale della Basilicata). Melfi, Museo Nazionale 112867, Lucanian kalyx krater by the Pisticci Painter from Ruvo del Monte, Tomb 65. Photo: Museo Nazionale di Melfi (Polo Museale Regionale della Basilicata). Florence, Museo Nazionale Archeologico 4228, Attic skyphos by the Lewis Painter. Photo:

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze (Polo Museale della Toscana). London, British Museum E500, Lucanian bell krater by the Pisticci Painter, c. 440–420 BC. Photo: London, British Museum. Distribution of pottery by the Pisticci Painter. Courtesy of F. Silvestrelli. Sydney, Nicholson Museum 2011.4, Lucanian bell krater by the Pisticci Painter. Photo: Sydney, Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The A. G. Leventis Foundation generously sponsors the biennial Visiting Professor of Hellenic Studies in the Classics Department at the University of Edinburgh, which involves teaching a seminar and organizing a conference of the invitee’s choice, also funded by the A. G. Leventis Foundation. In the Autumn of 2017, the Classics Department was honored to have Professor François Lissarrague as its Leventis Visiting Professor. Students and colleagues enjoyed, and benefited greatly from, Professor Lissarrague’s seminar on vase painting, which focused especially on the historiography of this discipline, and from the conference, “Images at the Crossroads,” which brought together an extraordinarily illustrious group of international scholars. The conference days were long, intense, and filled with discussion and good fellowship. This volume offers up the majority of the papers, in revised form, delivered at this event. The editors of this volume wish to extend our warmest thanks to the A. G. Leventis Foundation, which not only made these events possible, but also provided funding for this publication with its rich and numerous illustrations. Thanks are also due to the Classics Department at the University of Edinburgh – colleagues, graduate students, and staff – for their support, assistance, and enthusiastic participation in both the seminar and conference. Elaine Philip deserves a special mention for arranging every detail of the conference, answering dozens of queries, and taking care of all administrative matters flawlessly and cheerfully. Carol MacDonald and her staff at the Edinburgh University Press have been a pleasure to work with, and we especially wish to thank James Dale, Sarah Foyle, Karen Francis, and Stephanie Winder for their conscientious and careful work. We are, of course, grateful to the conference speakers who made the trip to Edinburgh from near and far and invested so much time, effort, enthusiasm, and goodwill to make the conference the success that it was. Finally, we offer our heartfelt thanks to the esteemed contributors to this volume, who have exhibited enormous patience with the lengthy editing process, and the many, many queries from its editors. François Lissarrague Judith M. Barringer Paris, 19 July 2021 Berlin, 19 July 2021

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ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations for ancient authors and texts are those used by the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 5th edition, ed. S. Goldberg (2016), https://oxfordrecom.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/classics Abbreviations for journals and standard reference works are those used by the American Journal of Archaeology, https://www.ajaonline.org/ submissions/abbreviations Additional abbreviations are as follows: CBd = http://www2.szepmuveszeti.hu/talismans (Campbell Bonner Magical Gems Database) DNO = S. Kansteiner, L. Lehmann, and K. Hallof (eds.) (2014), Der neue Overbeck: die antiken Schriftquellen zu den bildenden Künsten der Griechen, Berlin. LCS = A. Trendall (1967), The Red-Figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily, Oxford. LIMC Boreas = LIMC III, s.v. Boreas, 133–42 nos. 1–85 [S. Kaempf-Dimitriadou]. LIMC Eos = LIMC III, s.v. Eos, 747–89 nos. 1–342 [C. Weiss]. LIMC Eos, add. = LIMC supp. (2009), s.v. Eos, 199–204, add. nos. 1–24 [C. Weiss]. LIMC Eos/Thesan = LIMC III, s.v. Eos/Thesan, 789–97 nos. 1–45 [R. Bloch and N. Minot]. LIMC Eos/Thesan, add. = LIMC supp. (2009), s.v. Eos/Thesan, 205–6, add. nos. 1–7 [G. Paolucci].

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INTRODUCTION

In the wake of the ‘visual turn,’ which began in the 1990s, the study of ancient Greek images has developed and intensified in the last decades. The visual turn concentrated on images of all kinds – not just what was viewed as ‘art,’ but images of every sort, including those we hold in our heads. In addition, the visual turn considered viewer perception of images, as well as images of images, the transformation of images, and their reuse, reference, and inference in every respect. In the study of Classical Archaeology, Greek vase painting has been one of the most fruitful fields for such investigations, generating numerous publications and debates. In recent years, the accent has been on contexts – archaeological, religious, social, historical – rather than on style and iconography, which had been dominant modes of study in past decades. In addition, attention shifted from the maker and the object itself to the viewer and user. This has been intellectually beneficial and produced new insights. New discoveries – and not only of vase paintings – are constantly reshaping our perceptions, and online accessibility of materials – for example, the Beazley Archive pottery database (http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/pottery/) – has accelerated and abetted the study of vase painting. But one shortcoming of these enterprises is their focus on a single medium – often, although not exclusively, vase painting (relief sculpture has received its due) – while other media of the ancient Greek world – not just freestanding sculpture, architecture, and wall painting, but also jewelry, gemstones, inscriptions, graffiti, plainware pottery, seals, tools, weapons, armor, to name just a few – have received less attention. One might object that studies of Roman copies of Greek sculptures have a long history in the field, but such studies usually concentrate on trying to establish the appearance of the original and determining what changes copyists made, rather than the phenomenon of replication in a more general way; and even if one does take up this subject, the ability to understand the idea of replication in ancient society (not only Roman, for Greek sculptures were also copied by contemporary sculptors in Greece) is limited because of a lack of evidence.

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2

INTRODUCTION

There are reasons for the focus on vase imagery: lack of original context for freestanding sculpture, for example, but also traditional values associated with ‘high’ art (sculpture, architecture, painting), and a distinction between art and utilitarian object. From the viewpoint of other areas of art history, such staid views are hopelessly outdated, to which one can only respond by pointing to the lack of evidence from the ancient Greek world. This includes information about context (a problem due not only to the lack of contemporary evidence but also to looting, reuse, defacement, and the art market, both now and in the ancient past, as well as the relatively recent development of ‘scientific’ excavation techniques), everyday viewer responses to the visual environment, or the ‘industry’ of object design and manufacture (for example, we have not a single mention of vase painters or the production of vases in any ancient written source). Unlike the products of many later periods of art history, ancient Greek art, for most of its history, was not created as ‘art’ but had a purely religious function, and we lack a coherent understanding of ancient Greek religion: there is no ancient book of Greek religion or practices, no written dogma or theological statement. One can also cite the scarcity of extant Greek sculptures (especially freestanding sculpture) and the poor state of survival of much that remains. Ceramics are, by far, the most abundant material surviving from the ancient world, and within this subset, vase painting – particularly figural imagery – offers valuable paths to understanding ancient Greek culture. Even less discussed is the interaction and comparison between various media, such as a comparison of images between freestanding and relief sculpture, or images of these images, such as that of the Aphrodite of Knidos, ‘quoted’ in various other media, such as gems, coins, cameos, ceramics, wall painting, and vase painting. Because scholars are usually trained and/or specialize in one medium, there is far less crossover of media in scholarly studies of ancient Greek art than one might imagine. Exceptions exist, of course, particularly in iconographical studies that trace a motif in various media, but such iconographical explorations, once quite common in the field, now take a back seat to more recent studies on context, including iconological investigations, and the viewer. This volume, Images at the Crossroads, began with the tenth biennial A. G. Leventis Conference held at the University of Edinburgh on 9–12 November 2017. Our initial invitation to specialists of different media asked them to consider questions that cross the boundaries of conventional fields. While we had media in mind, our participants far surpassed our initial ambitions by considering many different themes of images at crossroads: images that stand at the cusp of narrative and non-narrative; images that reflect social values by means of aesthetics; the relationship between images and the urban, largely religious, environment; the interaction

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between myth and images in a variety of media used for various purposes and how meaning of the same myth depends on context; the translation of imagery from one medium to another; how region, specifically Boiotia, affects imagery; the intersection between the dead and the living and how the former are commemorated and remembered by the latter; the relationship between the physical material, its imagery, its display and use, and its valuation by ancient viewers; and how the meaning of images is created from the narrowest possible focus to the widest viewpoint of visual and cultural context. At the center of the investigation represented by this collection of chapters is the experience of the visual image by ancient viewers: their identity (both intended and unintended viewers) and their perceptions and interpretations. The first part of this collection concerns how images work and how they create meaning. This section begins with a chapter by François Lissarrague, the A. G. Leventis Professor at the University of Edinburgh in 2017, who explores how meaning is created and how the transmission of an individual motif across media – vase painting, gems, coins, stamps on amphora handles, sculpture, and sometimes paired with written text – produces changes in meaning that depend both on medium and on narrative context. The same motif may signify one thing in a private context and something quite different in a more public, civic one. Vase painters paint images of images, which redouble meanings, and play on similar shapes, motifs, and patterns that occur within a given scene or across a given artist’s oeuvre. Potters occasionally incorporate other media, such as coins, into their ceramics in such a way as to echo shape – the circularity of a coin placed in a cup tondo – or technique. Focusing specifically on the eagle and snake motif as an example, Lissarrague demonstrates its malleability as a motif in various media from different locations, with corresponding changes in meaning; key to this is that the comprehensibility of the motif relies on viewers sharing the same culture. Picking up on the theme of context, Annette Haug takes a different view. She moves back in time and restricts herself to Geometric and seventhcentury vase paintings to discuss how historical context shapes meaning for ancient viewers. She applies a discursive approach toward written or spoken texts as enunciated by Foucault to visual images. She focuses specifically on a unique depiction that features on an extraordinary Attic louterion, now housed in the British Museum, which has been the subject of many past scholarly studies. Analyzing aspects of the painting, for example gesture, ship, against the background of contemporary images, Haug argues that the painting does not signify an abduction, as often claimed, nor is it mythological. In addition, she considers the problem of viewer interpretation: yes, viewers must share the same culture in order to understand the subject, but how to account for individual variability?

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Haug’s response is that the images are polysemic, not highly specific, and are given historical plausibility and comprehensibility by composition and motifs. Martina Seifert continues the focus on malleability of meaning in her study of Athenian vase painting of the sixth and fifth centuries BC. She maintains that one must read the paintings in their historical context by means of function – gender, class, habitus, and status – rather than Lebensbilder or Mythenbilder in order to determine whether the anthropomorphic figures are mortals, heroes, or gods. In order to achieve this, the viewer must already have a pool of knowledge to be able to recognize the social order referred to by the paintings. Gender and social status are strongly demarcated on the Chigi olpe, which is the focus of the last chapter of this section. Using this vase as an example, Luca Giuliani discusses the relationship between specific images and descriptive non-specific images, particularly with regard to the issue of narrative, noting that the paintings on the Chigi olpe consist of both types: hunt and warfare are descriptive, the Judgment of Paris is specific, and, Giuliani points out, the specific story must be provided by the viewer in order to understand the image. He then takes up the long-standing problem in vase-painting interpretation of why narrative begins, and proposes that narrative images provided visual puzzles to be deciphered, embellished, and expanded by symposion participants, thus providing a means of competition for prestige in these elite circles. The first part of the collection touches on the necessity of a cultural koine in order to interpret images, and the second portion continues the themes of interpretation and perception with a focus on medium as a key factor. Mauro Menichetti’s case study of the Alexander mosaic considers the transformation from the original painting to a mosaic in a private dining room in the luxurious House of the Faun at Pompeii, and how the change of context changed the audience and the meaning of the original image for its new viewers. Rather than a battle scene, the mosaic evokes the idea of tryphe brought about by Alexander’s conquest of the oikoumene. The following chapter, by Adrian Stähli, borrows from Gérard Genette’s concept of a paratext. Stähli proposes to define all the elements that create an interaction between a given image in a particular medium (including the medium itself) and its viewer as parapictoriality and expands on how this constitutes ‘meaning’ for images. A series of case studies illustrate his points: physical context and the position of the viewer with respect to the image, whether moving or static, and if the former, from and to which direction or angle, and under which circumstances. The third part of this collection considers the border between image and reality, the relationship of images to reality, specifically the relationship of the physical city and the actual craftsmen to the pictures they create. In an

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homage to the famous publication La Cité des images,1 which examines how Athenian culture is embedded in the pictures produced by its craftsmen, Dyfri Williams turns the tables and considers how Athenian images in vase painting reflect the actual city and its topography, particularly its cult sites. In contrast to the descriptive or polysemic scenes discussed in Part I of this volume, the images presented here are specific, referring to precise places or activities in ancient Athens. Tonio Hölscher focuses his attention on representations of craftsmen at work in Greek vase painting, usually symposion ware, and considers the conceptual relationships between reality and image, between real and ideal. Zeroing in on the intersection of function and production, he asks how elite viewers perceived these paintings, and how the craftsmen themselves who created such pictures regarded them. Hölscher argues that the images were made for, and appreciated by, the elite class, and that vase painters producing such vessels ennobled their activities with such depictions. According to this view, the elite did not regard manual labor as inherently ignoble, but disdained only certain aspects of it. Part IV of the text addresses myth in imagery: its construction, depiction, and variety of forms, all of which depend on medium. Marion Meyer considers the use (function and display), the importance (purpose and destination), and the significance (content and message) of images, taking representations of the gigantomachy on the Athenian Akropolis in the sixth and fifth centuries BC as examples. She argues that the gigantomachy myth, which was invented at the time of the reorganization of the Panathenaia festival in 566 BC, was recounted in a hymn commissioned for the festivities and was the subject of a wall painting, which was visible to the public. According to Meyer, this painting was the basis for the gigantomachy woven into the peplos presented to Athena at the Panathenaic festival and, in turn, for the vases dedicated on the Akropolis. Her argument depends, in part, on how the medium determines the composition of this battle scene. Véronique Dasen investigates the transformation of Greek myths, often through metaphor, by gem engravers in the Roman period. Dasen concentrates on magical gems, whose physical properties are part of their potency, and whose color, subjects, and text work together to enhance and redouble meaning. On these objects, Greek mythological figures – for example, Herakles – are endowed with new competences and new messages through the use of metaphor: a hero fighting an enemy is equivalent to the patient or hero fighting a disease. Metaphor is also at work on normal gems of the Roman period, where the Greek myth of Tithonos and his transformation into a cicada appears as an eschatological metaphor for

1 Bérard et al. 1984.

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aging, death, and rebirth in reference to the wearer. Other Roman-period magical gems combine elements from both the Greek and Egyptian worlds to offer protective power to the wearer. François de Callataÿ’s study is devoted to the materiality of coinage, especially in comparison to other media. He points out that Greek coins are apparently close to gems, but their manner of production is nearly the reverse: not private individual objects but public and quantitatively enormous. Coin production was state-controlled and inherently conservative in its visual themes, so any variation had to be able to sustain trust. Its chief function was as payment to the military, which, to some degree, affected the imagery on the limited surfaces of coins. In addition, the wide circulation of coins, their combination of writing and images, and their astonishing survival rates make them unique documents of the past. The fifth part of this volume consists of chapters that concern comparison and crossover between media. Ancient authors argued about the ranking of various artistic specialties, as Andrew Stewart discusses in his chapter. In particular, he examines the reasons for two authors, Xenophon and Quintilian, five centuries apart, coming to precisely the opposite conclusions. Driven by personal and philosophical reasons rather than by aesthetics, Xenophon eagerly sought to promote Sokrates’ ideas and agenda, while Quintilian, strongly influenced by his own preconceptions about the representational arts, advocated for Attic classicism and the contemporary exemplary of it, Cicero. Alan Shapiro investigates the crossover of imagery between stone Classical Attic votive reliefs and Attic red-figure vases, with a series of case studies of motifs on votive reliefs and counterparts in vase painting. Shapiro demonstrates that there are strong similarities and clear borrowings, but also distinctions in what motifs appear in which genre. For example, the banqueting hero, which is ubiquitous on votive reliefs, clearly adopts motifs from symposion scenes on Attic vases, and while worshipers approaching a hero or god are a common motif on votive reliefs, this scene is very rare on Attic vases. Judith Barringer’s chapter complements Shapiro’s by considering another category of stone reliefs – grave reliefs – and their relationship to Attic white-ground lekythoi in the fifth century BC. Barringer argues that the perceived gap in stelai production c. 470–430 BC is, in fact, non-existent and that the stone stelai were replaced by wooden stelai, as evidenced by the images on white-ground lekythoi; the resumption of the stone stelai c. 430 BC is explicable by historical, economic, and social events. Both Arthur Muller and Victoria Sabetai discuss terracotta figurines in relationship to other media. Moving away from stone and its relationship to other materials, Arthur Muller examines terracotta figurines and sets

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forth a key question, which also arises in the following two chapters: whom do these figurines found in sanctuaries and graves represent? The terracottas are usually understood to be divinities, but by examining both their context and comparison of the motifs with vase-painting scenes and sculpture, Muller demonstrates that the figurines are not representations of the divine, but are, in fact, the votaries, as indicated by posture and attribute. According to Muller, the act of dedication places the votary’s new status under the protection of the deity, and the deposition of such figures in graves of the young secured the fulfillment of life denied to them. Victoria Sabetai’s wide-ranging study considers the crossover between artistic genres outside of Athens in her study of Boiotian red-figure vase painting, terracotta figurines, and the extraordinary incised black limestone stelai known only from Boiotia. From these, she reconstructs Boiotian social roles and practices derived from depictions of warriors; women as brides in Boiotian (and occasionally Attic) vase painting, stone, and terracotta sculpture; and grave goods comprised of the same three media. Her chapter touches on some of the issues raised by Muller in his essay on terracotta figurines and examines them from different angles and using other examples. Like Muller, Sabetai sees an identification of terracotta figurines deposited in graves with the deceased. Continuing the theme of cross-media study with a focus on Boiotia, Stefan Schmidt examines the cryptic, and presumably comic, vases from the Theban Kabirion, which he thinks were strongly influenced by Attic vase painting. Schmidt challenges the conventional view that the vase paintings are illustrative of rituals and activities, such as dramatic performances, in the Kabirion, and that they are humorous in a pejorative sense. Comparing the vase depictions to terracotta figurines, both of ‘grotesques’ and conventional male anthropomorphic figures, Schmidt argues that the physical distortions depicted on the Kabirion vases are comic expressions of the deleterious effects of alcohol on the worshipers of Dionysos. Kenneth Lapatin’s contribution rounds out Part V by concentrating on objects of precious materials – for example, gems, jewelry, gold and silver vessels – and how their iconography and function compare to objects in other media. Lapatin reveals how the material itself and the contexts in which luxury objects were displayed spoke to ancient patrons and viewers. Part VI concentrates on various forms of funerary commemoration. Nikolaus Dietrich’s chapter underlines the differences between two-dimensional funerary stelai and three-dimensional statues in funerary contexts. He relates these to viewers’ differing perceptions of the presence of the dead: the stele, on which the deceased was often characterized by various attributes, is intended to convey the absence of a specific deceased, whereas the kouros, which is unadorned by attributes, can acquire specificity only

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in an inscription – and this is often limited to general elite values – and therefore is more generic. Dimitris Paleothodoros addresses the challenging questions of how ancient viewers understood vase-painting depictions by examining entire funerary assemblages. He argues that these are not random collections of grave goods, but carefully constructed sets of objects bearing images relevant to the ideology and beliefs of the families of the dead. In particular, he focuses on graves of women and how the items in the tomb reveal contemporary attitudes toward feminine roles, marriage, the family, and death. Starting from the detailed analysis of two adjacent tombs in a Lucanian cemetery, Mark D. Stansbury-O’Donnell notes the coincidence of two similar mythological narratives in different media and on different types of objects made by artists of non-Lucanian cultures that were imported to the same locale and used as grave goods. Like Paleothodoros, StansburyO’Donnell discusses how ancient viewers would have regarded these images, but then takes it a step further to ask how Lucanians would have regarded these Greek mythological narratives, i.e., whether the stories would retain their original Greek meanings in this new physical context or whether the non-Greek viewers would see something different based on local beliefs or ideas. In addition, he questions whether these non-Athenian artists were using Attic style and iconography or if they changed the meanings of their models to meet local tastes. This comparison provides an opportunity to consider how meaning can shift when moving from one culture to another. This collection is, itself, a fortuitous demonstration of the crossing of borders in the interconnectedness and overlap of themes, questions, even objects among the chapters. Both Sabetai and Muller study terracotta figurines used as grave goods, and Sabetai and Paleothodoros consider grave assemblages as ensembles related to the deceased. Schmidt and Sabetai both concentrate on objects of Boiotian origin. A number of authors, not surprisingly, deal with funerary commemoration and/ or grave gifts: Dietrich, Barringer, Sabetai, Paleothodoros, and Muller. Dasen and Stansbury-O’Donnell both discuss the mythological figure of Tithonos, but at either end of his ‘life-scale’: Stansbury-O’Donnell looks at depictions of his abduction by the goddess Eos, while Dasen examines the aged Tithonos and his transformation into a cicada. Reuse of Greek images, myths, and/or thought in Roman contexts is a theme touched on by Menichetti, Dasen, Stansbury-O’Donnell, and Stewart. Repeatedly, the authors of these contributions return to the issue of viewer perception: of the fabric/material from which the objects are created, their workmanship, the images themselves and sometimes in combination with the material, the context in which images were produced and used, the

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function of the works, and the craftsmen. The viewer here can be the patron, the craftsman, the beholder (as distinct from the patron), elite or banausos, a grieving family or a symposiast, a vase painter, potter, or coroplast, a Greek, a Roman, the wearer of the object, a passer-by, philosopher, rhetorician, soldier, worshiper, or merchant. Indeed, images were everywhere and meant to be seen and perceived by viewers of many kinds.

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PART I MAKING MEANING: HOW DO IMAGES WORK?

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1 WAYS OF MAKING SENSE: EAGLE AND SNAKE IN ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL GREEK ART François Lissarrague

One century ago, the German Professor of Archaeology at Halle, Carl Robert, published a remarkable book entitled Archaeologische Hermeneutik.1 It was a summary of his life experience of looking at ancient pictures, Greek and Roman, and trying to understand and explain them. The title of the book sounds philosophical, but Carl Robert had no pretension to philosophy; he even insisted in his foreword that his book was based on empirical experience and that he left to more philosophical brains the task of producing a philosophical theory. Indeed, explaining the difference between “rules” (Regeln) and “laws” (Gesetze), he states: “Die Gesetze der Hermeneutik in ein System zu bringen muss ich philosophischeren Köpfen überlassen.”2 The book is indeed a practical handbook about how to decipher ancient images, and each new image is studied as a problem to solve. The methodology of Carl Robert is straightforward and rather efficient within its own limits. He starts with basic statements about looking, drawing, describing (“Sehen” – “Zeichen” – “Beschreiben”), then develops various ways of interpreting images by using different levels of analysis, as attested by the Table of Contents: naming the figures, and deriving meaning from the picture itself, from the myth, from textual evidence, from other images, from the display, or the context, and finally the meaning of stories that are known only through pictures. He also discusses mistakes, restorations, and forgeries, as well as misinterpreted images, uninterpreted or meaningless images, and why these problems occur. It is a fascinating program and makes for rich reading. To sum up, Carl Robert’s book and approach start from the situation of the modern interpreter. What tools do we have, and what are the different ways of creating meaning when we are confronted with a new, unpublished image? This approach is essentially ‘etic,’ as an anthropologist would put it: it takes into account the values and knowledge of the modern interpreter, as 1 Robert 1919. 2 Robert 1919, Vorwort.

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opposed to an ‘emic’ attitude, which tries to understand the viewpoint of the ancient viewer, of the people who produced and used these pictures.3 The distance between the modern and the ancient viewer as implied by such an approach makes no appearance in Carl Robert’s book. He does not build a critical history of ancient images, but simply explains how he reaches an interpretive result. In this chapter, I would like to reflect on some aspects of this problem, namely how to make sense of pictures, not by improving on Carl Robert’s propositions, but by taking a completely different angle, and looking at the way images are produced and used in the ancient world. The current status of research in iconography is often very narrow, and highly specialized. Some scholars, like myself, focus on vase painting, others on sculpture or coins, and this can be legitimated by the fact that one needs such a specialization if one wants to remain up to date. But this situation is problematic, as it separates the unity of ancient culture into various subfields. In fact, iconography itself is a narrow approach, as it only tries to describe and understand the content of an image, with no interest for the status of the image itself and no consideration for its materiality or the space in which it is displayed and interacts with viewers. We need a critical history of these images – that is to say, of these objects (vases, statues, coins, reliefs, and so on) that are image-bearers. An anthropology of images or a social history of images opens a much wider context in which our understanding of meaning becomes richer and more complex. This has already been done by many scholars and needs to be further expanded. My chapter is divided into two sections: I would like first to examine some images that cross various media to demonstrate the interaction between fields that tend to be separated by our own scholarly practice. I will then focus on one motif used by different media and try to understand the logic of its diffusion and circulation, according to each medium. CROSSING MEDIA Let us begin with an Attic red-figure kalyx krater in Boston (Fig. 1.1).4 The god Hermes stands, holding his kerykeion, and looks toward a young man who restrains a reluctant goat by the horns. Small objects are displayed above these two figures: two painted pinakes and a small statuette in bronze or terracotta (it is hard to determine) stand on a suspended shelf. This statuette is a herm, typically ithyphallic, echoing the main Hermes in the picture. In the same way, the tiny running figures on the pinakes, drawn

3 On this distinction, among many discussions, see Olivier de Sardan 1998. 4 BAPD 41010.

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Figure 1.1 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.796, Attic red-figure krater, c. 425–420 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

in silhouette, seem to reflect the main running figure. These three objects are offerings in a sanctuary that is otherwise undetermined. We cannot identify any specific sanctuary from these artifacts, but what we can say with certainty is that a young man brings a goat for sacrifice to Hermes, and that the offerings repeat – in a smaller scale – the main figures: Hermes and the running youth. The painter has a clear sense of what these objects can do in the picture: as votive offerings, they maintain the permanent memory of what once took place during a sacrifice. Moreover, the actual presence of Hermes as a visible god during the ritual is a manifestation of the power of images, which can make visible what the ritual only produces at a symbolic level; this is an example of what offerings materialize by introducing an artifact that represents the god to whom a sacrifice was made. On this krater, then, the conjunction of different kinds of objects – the pinakes and statuette – produces an effect of permanence and commemoration in a manner typical of the way Attic ritual images work.5 Such a conjunction of media in the same image is not frequent, but another aspect of this interaction between media – intermediality, so to speak – can be observed by comparing the same subject treated in various 5 See Lissarrague 2021; Collard 2016.

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media. Such is the case with the motif of a Nike erecting a trophy. We find this motif on a pelike by the so-called Trophy Painter (Fig. 1.2),6 as well as on a gem of the early fourth century BC (Fig. 1.3),7 and on coins (Fig. 1.4).8 In all three cases, the choice of the painter or the engraver is to depict Nike finishing the installation of a trophy. On the vase, Nike attaches the helmet to the trunk holding the armor; on the gem, her hand touches the top of the cuirass as if she were stabilizing it; and on the coin of Agathokles, she holds a hammer in her right hand and a nail in the left to fix the helmet. In all three cases, it is clear that Nike does not just stand by the trophy, but is actively erecting it. The meaning is clear: there

Figure 1.2 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 20.187, Attic red-figure pelike attributed to the Trophy Painter, c. 450–440 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

6 BAPD 212473; ARV2 857, 2. 7 Boardman 1970, 206, pl. 590; Walters 1926, 72, pl. X. 8 For example, on tetradrachms from Syracuse: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 04.561, 62.640, and 97.419.

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Figure 1.3 London, British Museum 1865, 0712.86, gem, chalcedony, early fourth century BC. H 3.20 cm, W 2.50 cm, D 1.15 cm. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

Figure 1.4 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 97.419, silver tetradrachm from Syracuse, c. 310–305 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

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is no victory without Nike’s contribution. What differs, however, from one medium to another is the context of the reception of such an image, as well as the more general meaning the object takes on in that context. The pelike by the Trophy Painter is unique,9 which is not surprising, since victory in a battlefield is not a fitting subject at the symposion, where a pelike would be used, but rather a civic matter. This is why cities may have chosen such a subject. It is frequently on coins, and celebrates the glory of a local leader, such as Agathokles, tyrant of Syracuse. In the case of the coin, we are close to propaganda, and the use of the picture is not just to mark a victory, but also to insist on the divine favor that protects the ruler who mints the coins. The third medium, a gemstone on a ring, is more personal, and fitting for a man who has been involved in war. We have no indication of the owner of this gem, now in Boston, but one can easily imagine that it belonged, at least for a moment, to a warrior thanking the gods. So we see the same motif passing from a gem, made for individual use, to the vase in the symposion with its larger audience, to coins, which address citizens across the whole city and beyond. Vase painters seem to be keenly aware of other media, and sometimes play with the possibilities afforded by these interactions. One obvious example is the series of black-glaze stamped cups that include a cast coin in the tondo, which derive from Syracuse – the so-called ‘Arethusa cups.’10 The way that coins have been incorporated into the stamped decoration of the vase shows that the technical process of reproduction through moulding and casting, which is the standard process for coins, is well adapted to the production of cups imitating metallic objects. Here it is more the materiality of the objects, coin and vessel, rather than the iconography of the coins that prevails, but one must notice that the coin most often selected is the Arethusa head surrounded by dolphins from Syracuse, which creates a perfect design for the tondo of a cup. The circular motif of the coin is wonderfully adapted to the circularity of the cup. Other media, in particular textiles, appear in vase painting.11 The way dresses are sometimes carefully detailed has often been noticed.12 I only want to stress two different examples. The first is painted on a Tyrrhenian amphora (Fig. 1.5),13 which shows Herakles fighting Amazons. He attacks Andromache and takes her by her right fist (a violent variant of the wedding gesture cheir epi karpo). Her chiton is ornamented with a long vertical

9 For the whole series in vase painting, see Lissarrague 2014. 10 Horsnaes (2000) provides a useful catalog of such cups. See more recently Gorzelany 2012. 11 Vickers 1999; Barber 1995. 12 Manakidou 1997. 13 BAPD 310045; ABV 98, 46. For the fight, see Muth 2008, 335–7.

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Figure 1.5a–b Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 98.916, Attic black-figure Tyrrhenian amphora from Vulci attributed to the Timiades Painter, c. 560 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

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band divided into horizontal sections (seven in all), each decorated with white, animal representations (one can make out sirens, sphinxes, and lions). This vertical band strongly resembles actual ‘Schildbänder’ found at Olympia,14 and is visually parallel to the inside of Andromache’s shield. Clearly the painter plays with the homology he creates between dress and shield, between the embroided textile decoration of the dress and the embossed bronze decoration of the shield. It is not by chance that such nice details appear on weapons, to which much care is devoted both by bronze armor makers and by vase painters. My second example is on the amphora in the Vatican by Exekias.15 The well-known scene of Achilles and Ajax playing a game is meticulously and dazzlingly treated by Exekias (Fig. 1.6a–b). The refined details on the shields, as well as on the bronze armor, include a panther’s face on Achilles’ right shoulder. Even more surprising is a detail on his chlamys: the general pattern on this cloak is of bands with big stars and abstract geometric elements, but at the level of Achilles’ buttock, one finds a small deer grazing,16 recalling, for example, the deer on a cup potted by Exekias, now in the Louvre,17 or on another cup potted by him, now on the Swiss market.18 This detail transforms the ornamental pattern into a field where the deer finds its food, and introduces a quiet animal, a contrast to the panther mentioned above. From painting to textile, from chlamys to meadows, Exekias has a great sense of ornament and materials, and renders both bronze equipment and luxury textile with great maestria. As we can see from these examples, vase painters were clearly aware of other media, and could integrate these products into their own work. The problem, then, is to understand better, if possible, how images circulate from one medium to another and how visual memory operates in that process. We cannot place ourselves in the minds of these artisans, nor can we think as ancient viewers thought. Production and reception can only be estimated from the objects themselves; it is the only firm evidence we have, and we must start from there. One motif that circulates widely among various products is the motif of the eagle fighting with a snake, and I will take this classical example as a guide to explore the way meaning is elaborated in accordance with different media.19 14 Published in an exemplary way by E. Kunze 1950. 15 Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco Vaticano 16757 (344): BAPD 310395; ABV 145, 13. 16 See Mackay 2010, 328, color plate 1c. 17 Paris, Musée du Louvre F54: BAPD 310406; ABV 146, 2, Exekias. 18 Basel market: BAPD 350459; Para 61, 2bis. 19 Rodríguez Pérez 2010; Grabow 1998; Pekridou 1986; Wittkower 1939.

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Figure 1.6a–b Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco 16757 (344), Attic blackfigure amphora by Exekias, c. 540 BC. Photo: © Vatican Museums, all rights reserved.

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EAGLE AND SNAKE: CHANGING MEDIA Gems as individual markers The earliest occurrence we know of this motif is on gems. On a grayish steatite stone of the second half of the seventh century BC, one sees an eagle flying with extended wings, holding a snake in its beak (Fig. 1.7). Several other gems display the same motif;20 such a seal is attested by the letter of King Areios of Sparta to Onias III, which begins with the following formula: “Demoteles the courier is bringing this letter to you. The writing is square. The seal is an eagle holding a serpent fast” (Ta gegrammena esti tetragona; he sphragis estin aetos drakontos epeilemmenos).21 Eagles are a rather common motif in Archaic iconography, but the combination of eagle and snake is more specific and can be connected with a passage in Homer. When the Trojans attack the Greek camp in Iliad 12 (195–205), they are about to cross over the trench and set fire to the boats, but then stop, in doubt: For a bird has come upon them as they were eager to cross over, an eagle of lofty flight, skirting the host on the left, and in its talons it bore a blood-red, monstrous snake, still alive and struggling, nor was

Figure 1.7 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 42.11.9, white stone gem, late seventh to late sixth century BC, L 2.5 cm. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 20 Listed in Pekridou 1986 n. 278. See also Lebrecht Wiegandt 2009. 21 Joseph. AJ 12.227.

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it yet forgetful of combat; for it writhed backward, and smote him that held it on the breast beside the neck, till the eagle, stung with pain, cast him to the ground, and let it fall in the midst of the throng, and himself with a loud cry sped away down the blasts of the wind.22 The Trojans regard this as a portent (teras) sent by Zeus and halt there. The choice of any motif on a gem is personal, and the logic governing this choice escapes us. However, what is obvious is the value of this motif as a sign, semeion, sent by Zeus as in the Iliad; on a gem, this same motif marks the identity of the person who stamped a letter with this image. The motif’s connection with Zeus, through the eagle, is clear. Of course, any sign is fine for a gem on a ring; what matters is the difference made by the picture, its distinction from any other picture (whatever its subject), and the coincidence between the image stamped on the clay or the wax and the image engraved on the stone, which guarantees the authenticity of the message. As a semeion in both senses (personal sign and omen sent by Zeus), the eagle and snake motif is loaded with possible meanings, which explains its ubiquity. It appears not only in its simple form, as we have seen, but also with a lion, as on a Classical gem in Boston, thus combining the strength of the lion with the sign sent by Zeus.23 Coins and civic identity Our motif also occurs with interesting variations on coins from different cities.24 The earliest coins showing an eagle catching a snake are c. 480 BC from Chalcis in Euboia.25 As Olivier Picard demonstrates, they employ a typical motif, which allows for variants, but through the repetition of the motif from one issue to another, guarantees recognizability and, likewise, the authenticity and value of the money (and this is true of coins, whatever image they bear).26 At that time – the early fifth century – the image on a Greek coin was the sign of the city (as opposed to earlier Lydian coins, where the image refers to the authority producing the coin or controlling the metal).27

22 Hom. Il. 12.195-205, trans. A. Murray (Loeb). 23 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 21.1196. Beazley 1920, 29 no. 34, pl. 2:34, where he compares this gem with Cypriot coins. 24 A general collection of coins showing an eagle can be found in the article by Bernhard 1936. As indicated by its subtitle, the publication is purely iconographical and ‘zoological.’ 25 See O. Picard 1979. 26 Rebuffat 1996, 165–88 for “Types monétaires”; Lacroix 1975. 27 O. Picard 2014, 28–9.

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Figure 1.8 Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque nationale de France. 2016 (43-30-4), octobol from Chalcis, silver. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

On the Chalcidian coins, the eagle flies to the right28 with wings outspread, one above his body, one under it. He holds in his beak and talons a snake, which winds around the eagle’s tail (Fig. 1.8). The tension of the fight is clear, and the sign sent by Zeus rather explicit: Zeus had special significance for Euboians, as it was in Chalcis that Ganymede was raped by Zeus (and this motif appears on a late coin of the Imperial period).29 Once the sign was adopted and became the mark of the city, it was fragmented according to the divisions of the currency. Bronze and silver coins, drachms, show the eagle of Zeus fighting with a snake, hemidrachms have an eagle and a hare, obols have just an eagle, and hemiobols the protome of an eagle.30 The image is fragmented and diminishes, as metallic coins do, according to their value.31 This phenomenon is interesting, as it reveals the plasticity of the image; what matters is not so much the implicit narrative of the eagle and snake struggling, as the semantic value of the sign itself, which is recognized by the users of the coins. Other cities connected with Chalcis, such as Olynthos in Chalcidice, adopt the same image of eagle and snake.32 In this case, however, the choice was guided by a secondary 28 Actually, the position of the eagle can be decided by using the reverse of the coin, in which case it should be placed vertically, as Picard does on his (1979, pl. 1) with an explanation (p. 14). 29 O. Picard 1979, 13, n. 10 for the story in Ath. 13.601f. 30 O. Picard 1979, 13. 31 Other examples exist in other cities, such as Athens, where the subdivisions of the obol are noted by variations of the type: one obol has an owl turned to the right; the triobol has a frontal owl between two branches of olive; a diobol, two owls. Kraay 1976, pl. 11, Figs. 193–7. See also Rebuffat 1996, 128. 32 London, British Museum 1859.1011.6, silver drachm from Olynthos.

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constraint: a desire to mark the link between the two cities, more than the link with Zeus. Other places, such as Elis and Olympia, use the motif in relation to Zeus; they are graphically dependent on Chalcis for the layout given to the subject, mainly in the Archaic period, but otherwise have no formal connection with that city.33 In Elis, we find a close ‘imitation’ of the Chalcidian scheme,34 but also variations, such as a hare substituted for the snake;35 note, moreover, that the same motif appears on official weights of Elis, confirming that the image has the role of a public guarantee.36 In Agrigento, the main motif is a couple of eagles attacking a hare on the ground,37 but we also find the fight against the snake as a secondary type,38 and this is sometimes combined with another motif: a racing chariot below the struggling animals.39 These variations within one mint, as well as from one city to another, point to a sort of thematic network, typical of numismatic iconography, where some motifs circulate from one place to another. The motif of the eagle, as François de Callataÿ has shown, is one of the most frequently used, as well as the image of Zeus.40 Interestingly, we can also find the eagle and snake motif on a much later amphora stamp from Knidos,41 where the eagle stands on a rock and the snake is beneath it. The inscription around the stamp reads: Epi Drakon(tos) Euboulida Knidion, which provides the name of an eponym magistrate, the name of a producer, and an ethnic name. As shown by Yvon Garlan, the amphora stamps, often misprinted in the clay, are difficult to read and probably not addressed to learned viewers. They most probably “were made not to be read and understood, but just to be seen and recognized by specialists, whoever they were, a city controller or the head of the workshop.”42 So in the case of amphorae stamps, the semeion has a different status and function: it creates a difference from other amphorae and signals a specificity. One is tempted to suggest that the name of Drakon may have inspired the choice of the pictorial motif, although the motif of an isolated snake would have made a clearer analogy; in any case, the popularity of the visual syntagm ‘eagle and snake’ is clearly confirmed by its use in that class of markers. 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

O. Picard 1979, 13; Kraay 1976, 104, pl. 18, Figs. 323–4; Seltman 1921, 1, pl. 8:1-2. Kraay 1976, pl. 18, Figs. 323–5. Kraay 1976, Fig. 327; Seltman 1921, pl. IV: BE, BF, BG. Killen 2017, 164–5. On the meaning of this motif, see Lacroix (1975, 158–9), who uses Aisch. Ag. 110ff. Rizzo 1946, pl. III, 7. Kraay 1976, pl. 46, Fig. 797. de Callataÿ 2016b, 117. Amphora stamp of 167–146 BC from Knidos: London, British Museum 1854, 0309.23. Garlan 1993, 189. See also Killen 2017, 28–31.

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Vase painting and the warrior’s destiny The same syntagm is often represented in vase painting, with many variations, and a wide range of possible narrative contexts.43 The motif can appear by itself, isolated, usually on a tondo, as on a Lakonian cup at the Getty44 or on an Attic cup in Heidelberg;45 it also appears on a Corinthian alabastron,46 and an amphora in the Louvre has two flying eagles framing a large vertical snake.47 In these cases, it appears without any context, and its meaning is left open to the viewer’s fantasy. The circular framing of the motif is close to what we have seen on gems and coins; that is, the visual pattern is the same. What is different is the medium and the use of the object bearing such an image. Drinking cups are handled by men at the symposion, in which case the motif refers to their fighting experience. The context is not about personal identity, as with gems, or civic identity, as is the case with its use on coins, but concerns the social role played by men in war and their imagined destiny, which was shaped by Homeric memory. The isolated motif is inserted in a more narrative picture on a skyphos in Naples by the Theseus Painter (Fig. 1.9).48 On one side, an eagle holding a snake in its claws stands on a rock,49 while another, larger snake is painted in front of the rock. The scene is framed by two seated warriors, gesturing in conversation over the central group. The same composition – an eagle on a rock between two seated warriors – occurs on the other side, but this time the eagle holds a hare, as on the coins from Agrigento, and a deer is inserted in front of the rock. The permutability of the victims, snake and hare, under the domination of the eagle marks the power of the predator and is a metaphor of the warrior himself. What is most remarkable in this group of images that employ the eagle and snake motif is the association with war and warriors. We find the motif in the field of the image next to a couple of horsemen on an amphora in Berlin,50 or, in a more complex scene, behind a horseman holding spears, leading a second horse as he leaves home, framed on the right by three

43 The motif has already been thoroughly studied by Rodríguez Pérez (2010). Her essay focuses on, but is not limited to, vase painting. Its main goal is to test the prophetic value of the sign as a good or bad omen; it is rightly inconclusive (pp. 16–17), leaving the task of interpreting the omen to the viewer. 44 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 87.AE.31, Hunt Painter. 45 Heidelberg, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität S66: BAPD 331612; ABV 560, 516, Manner of the Haimon Painter. 46 From Epidauros: Amandry 1950, 304, Fig. 15. 47 Paris, Musée du Louvre Cp10632: BAPD 300842. 48 BAPD 16211; ABL 250, 33, Theseus Painter. 49 Hatzivassiliou (2009, 116) discusses the nature of this mound, which appears on six other vases. She notes that the Naples skyphos is exceptional in showing not only a bird but also a snake on it. 50 Berlin, Antikensammlung V.I.4823: BAPD 300757; ABV 81, 4, Painter of Acropolis 606.

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Figure 1.9 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 81159, Attic black-figure skyphos attributed to the Theseus Painter, c. 525–475 BC. Photo: Ministero per i Beni culturali e le Attivita Culturali - Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

male figures including Hermes, and on the left by Poseidon with a trident and a fish, a walking hoplite, and another man.51 Other departure scenes employing the eagle and snake motif include a chariot, as on a hydria in Rome52 or on an amphora in New York.53 In this last case, that the little bearded nude figure is holding a branch and a crown as he walks in front of the chariot might suggest that he is a victor in a chariot race, and in the former case, the chariot might signal competition rather than war because no weapon appears in the picture. War is an obvious interpretation when the motif occurs in battle scenes: on an amphora in Athens,54 two warring hoplites are framed by two onlookers. Below the warriors’ shields and in the space between their legs, an eagle with a snake in his beak flies to the right. On an oinochoe by the Athena Painter (Fig. 1.10),55 a warrior falls down to the right, while an eagle flies above him to the left. On both vases, the warrior on the right has a tripod as a shield device, which might suggest a connection with victory, as well as with Apollo and divination. The orientation of the flight, 51 Paris, Musée du Louvre F19: BAPD 301316; ABV 241, 28, The Affecter. 52 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia M433: Mingazzini 1930, pl. 47. 53 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1999.30: BAPD 302216; ABV 253, 1, Lysippides Painter. 54 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 15111: BAPD 301523; ABV 306, 43, Swing Painter. 55 BAPD 330770; ABV 525, 3, Athena Painter.

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Figure 1.10 London, British Museum B617, Attic black-figure oinochoe attributed to the Athena Painter, c. 525–475 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

which is usually meaningful in oionomancy, does not seem to be pertinent here, as we find both orientations (right to left and left to right); as Diana Rodríguez Pérez, following Cicero, rightly suggests, the meaning of an omen is not in the external situation but in the eye of the interpreter.56 The eagle and snake are certainly a portent, a sign, but one that must be interpreted, and their meaning is always contextual, not purely lexical. The image of eagle and snake in vase painting inserts an element that catches the eye of the viewer and underscores the uncertainties of war and battle; there is always a risk, and the gods decide. The eagle and snake clearly refer to the will of Zeus. This is particularly clear in the case of the fight between Herakles and Kyknos, son of Ares. Zeus is often shown intervening to stop the fury of Herakles against Kyknos and Ares himself. Zeus is sometimes shown between the fighters, preventing them from 56 Rodríguez Pérez 2010, 17.

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Figure 1.11 New York, Christie’s, June 2017, lot 115, Attic black-figure lekythos attributed to the Diosphos Painter. Photo: © Christie’s 2017.

going too far.57 On a lekythos recently sold in New York (Fig. 1.11), we see Athena on the left behind Herakles, who wears a Boiotian shield as he attacks Kyknos, already fallen down and partly hidden by his father’s shield. An eagle holding a snake flies between the shields of Herakles and Ares, and a snake also appears on the shield of Ares. The two emblematic animals echo the fight of the two sons of Zeus, and draw the eye of the viewer into the core of the battle. Eagle and snake function here as the presence of Zeus, and substitute for the more frequently shown thunderbolt, as we can see on another lekythos from the same workshop (Fig. 1.12a–c).58 On this second lekythos, Kyknos falls back,59 while Ares attacks Herakles. The thunderbolt is placed almost vertically between Ares and Herakles, creating a kind of virtual wall to stop the fight. On a much later Apulian volute krater in Ruvo,60 Zeus’ presence is again marked with an eagle and snake. The moment chosen by the painter is just before the fight, when the two antagonists are getting ready. Herakles, in full hoplite armor, stands on the left, his lion skin on the ground; Athena stands next to him, and an

57 See LIMC VII, s.v. Kyknos I, 974–7 nos. 44–77 (A. Cambitoglou and S. Paspalas); Zardini 2009, 84–8. 58 ABL 116 (Near the Sappho and Diosphos Painters); LIMC VII, s.v. Kyknos I, 978 no. 121 (drawing) (A. Cambitoglou and S. Paspalas). 59 The shield device of Kyknos is not easy to discern; I have not seen the original. From the drawing, it looks like two crossing birds, which would be a very appropriate device, interfering with the main scene and echoing it. 60 Ruvo, Museo Jatta 1088, RVAp I, 2, 23, Near the Painter of the Birth of Dionysos.

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Figure 1.12a–c Athens, National Archaeological Museum 517, Attic blackfigure lekythos, Near the Sappho and Diosphos Painters. Photos: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund (D. Gialouris).

Erinys sits above.61 Apollo, looking at Kyknos, is in the middle, and next to him is Ares wearing a black cuirass and driving his chariot. Under the sign of the shield The same motif, eagle and snake, is also used as a shield device for many different heroes and warriors.62 It appears on an actual Cretan bronze shield, fragmentary, of the seventh century BC.63 In vase painting, the device is only visible when the shield is oriented toward the viewer – that is to say, on warriors moving to the left, because the shield was held on the left arm; consequently, the eagle always flies leftward. So the orientation of the motif cannot be an interpretive key, which confirms the impression we 61 On this detail, see Aellen 1994, 79, no. 12, pls. 18–19. 62 I borrow the title of this section from Froma Zeitlin’s seminal book (1982) on Aisch. Sept. For the way some fourth-century coins of Elis display the motif “mounted as the device of a circular shield,” see Kraay 1976, 105, pl. 18:330. 63 Heraklion, Archaeological Museum, no number: E. Kunze 1931, 23 no. 41, 175, pl. 39.

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had from the battle scenes that include an eagle and snake in the field. As a shield device, the motif is isolated in a circular frame and autonomous, as it was on gems and coins. However, the shield is inserted in larger scenes, and the device can interact with the larger picture in which the shield is embedded; it can take its meaning from the surrounding elements. Here again, the meaning of the motif is contextual. On an amphora in Brussels,64 it appears in an arming scene: a warrior on the right stands watching the main scene of a hoplite adjusting a cnemid; he bears a shield decorated with our motif, displayed on a red background, which enhances the tension of the image. Its composition can be compared to the tondo of cups we have seen, as well as to some coins, such as the one from Chalcis, where the wings of the eagle are placed above and under his body. This analogy between shield devices and coins was the starting point of Lippold’s article on “Vasen und Münzen,”65 in which he insisted on the typically Chalcidian nature of the eagle motif. One of the images he discussed is on an amphora in the British Museum: Herakles fights the triple Geryon, whose shield device is an eagle holding a snake on a white background (Fig. 1.13).66 This white surface produces a luminous effect, adding to the ominous dimension of the flying bird. On a hydria attributed to the Leagros Group,67 Herakles again fights the triple Geryon, who has three shields; the painter has played with the snake/eagle motif, splitting it over two shields on the forefront. One shield bears a white eagle on a black background, which overlaps the second shield, on which is spread a large black snake on a white background. The combination of the two shields manipulates the syntagm and creates a surprising variant, using the contrast of colors to animate the fight. On Attic red-figure vases, the eagle and snake are much smaller, forming a limited image painted in black silhouette on the red ground of the shield. Such is the case for the shield of an isolated warrior on the tondo of a cup by Oltos;68 curiously, this warrior, equipped as a hoplite with helmet, cuirass, cnemids, and a round shield, also has a quiver and uses a bow, combining two usually distinct categories: hoplite and archer. The same Oltos repeats this shield device for one of the Trojans fighting over the body of Patroklos;69 here, one could link the ‘omen’ with the death of Patroklos, as it is placed next to his head as he lies on the ground. On another cup in London, two fighting warriors have devices that interact with each other. The winner has an eagle and snake, while the loser turns 64 65 66 67 68 69

Brussels, Musée Royaux A714: BAPD 301074; ABV 169, 6, Phrynos Painter. Lippold 1952. BAPD 310316; ABV 136, 56, Group E. London, British Museum B310: BAPD 302007; ABV 361, 12, Leagros Group. London, British Museum E19: BAPD 200531; ARV2 63, 95, Oltos. Berlin, Antikensammlung F2264: BAPD 200457; ARV2 60, 64, Oltos.

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Figure 1.13 London, British Museum B194 from Vulci, Attic black-figure amphora attributed to Group E, c. 575–525 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.

back to protect himself against a horseman attacking him from behind; the loser displays a large snake on his shield.70 An interesting example is found on an amphora by the Berlin Painter.71 On one side of this ‘Nolan,’ a hoplite advances, thrusting his spear, and displays an eagle and snake on his shield. When you rotate the vase, you discover his opponent – Zeus himself – so the hoplite is revealed as a giant. Zeus uses thunder as a weapon, and on his extended left hand is an eagle opening his wings, about to fly. Thus, from one side of the pot to the other, two eagles are confronted, echoing the confrontation of the god and

70 London, British Museum E7: BAPD 201341; ARV2 149, 16, Manner of the Epeleios Painter. 71 Paris, Musée du Louvre G204: BAPD 201898; ARV2 202, 90, Berlin Painter.

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the giant. Zeus’ eagle is not just an ‘attribute,’ but marks his power over the sky, his mode of acting.72 The eagle on the shield is like a mirror image of the power of Zeus, and the giant bears the sign of his own destruction as a shield device. Not every shield device is clearly so meaningful, and the contexts are not always so explicit. In the case of a cup by Onesimos,73 we see a group of five hoplitodromoi getting ready for the race under the watchful eye of a judge. They hold shields displaying various devices: a chariot box, the protome of a horse, and a tripod, as well as our eagle and snake. This last device is completed by an inscription: kalos, which stresses athletic beauty, and has little to do with the ‘omen’ involved in the motif. One should not force the evidence and must admit that some of these devices are more repetitive and less elaborate than others. I would like to close this series of shield devices with a rather significant one. It appears on the name vase of the Foundry Painter in Berlin (Fig. 1.14);74 the painting on the outside of the cup depicts a metalworker’s workshop (Fig. 8.4),75 while the inside shows a divine workshop. The seated god Hephaistos holds a hammer and gives a helmet to Thetis;

Figure 1.14 Berlin, Antikensammlung F2294 from Vulci, Attic red-figure kylix, name vase of the Foundry Painter, c. 500–450 BC. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius). 72 For a recent discussion of the notion of ‘attribute,’ see Dietrich 2018. 73 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des Médailles 523: BAPD 203242; ARV2 316, 4, Proto-Panaitian Group. 74 BAPD 204340; ARV2 400, 1, Foundry Painter. 75 See Chapter 8 (pp. XX).

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she stands in front of him holding a spear and a large Boiotian shield, the shield of Achilles. This object has nothing to do with what Homer describes in Iliad 18. It is an archaizing shield decorated with four large stars, which imitate some orientalizing ornament; the central device is an eagle struggling with a snake. The Homeric motif takes a proleptic role and serves as an omen: Achilles will win and die, and the sign of Zeus here is the mark of this destiny, which has been fully accepted by the hero. An echo of this motif appears on the helmet of a warrior on a small pelike in Berlin;76 the isolated warrior wears a short chiton and high Thracian boots and holds a round shield. He has neither a cuirass nor cnemids, and looks more like a non-Athenian warrior.77 The crest of his helmet rises above a large eagle whose wings cover the entire skull of the warrior; the bird holds a snake in his beak. The face of the warrior is doubled by the wings of the eagle, which echo his energy and operate as a duplication of the warrior’s facial expression. The eagle and snake motif is once again connected with war and terror, not just as an emblem on a shield, but as part of the warrior’s equipment and anatomy. The eagle on the helmet dominates the visual impression produced by the fighter on the battlefield and recruits some of the power of Zeus to impress the enemy. As a visual metaphor materialized in the stucture of the armor, the eagle is a living sign of the power of Zeus, standing by the warrior and characterizing his bellicose identity.78 Reliefs and public personal identity The eagle and snake motif is not limited to small-sized representations or circular compositions. In this last section, I would like to discuss two fourth-century reliefs that open new directions as to the use and the display of the same iconography. The first is a funerary relief carved with an eagle rising vertically, wings outspread and holding a huge looping snake in its claws (Fig. 1.15).79 At the top of the relief above the eagle, one can read the name of the deceased: Kleiobolos Ach[arneus]/ Mantis, “Kleoboulos, from the deme of Acharnes, seer.” This Kleoboulos, son of Glaukos, is the uncle of the Attic orator Aischines, as was recognized by Papadimitriou, the first publisher of the stele.80 C. Karusos has rightly suggested a further connection with a 76 Berlin, Antikensammlung F2356; BAPD 215019; ARV2 1134, 9, Manner of the Washing Painter. Cf. CVA: Deutschland 95, Berlin 15 (A. Schöne-Denkinger), 35–6, pl. 30. 77 Platz-Horster 1997, 60. 78 Note also the eagle and snake on a fragment of a bronze cheek piece of a helmet belonging to a statue in Delphi: Rolley 2002, 42–4; Perdrizet 1908, 43, no. 88, Fig. 132. 79 Flower 2008; Clairmont 1970, 145, no. 68; Karusos 1960; Daux 1958. 80 Karusos 1960, 113–14; Papadimitriou 1957.

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Figure 1.15 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 4473, grave stele of Kleoboulos, fourth century BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund (K. Valtin von Eickstedt).

painting by Philochares, brother of Aischines;81 the painting, mentioned by Pliny the Elder, depicts a father and son, above whom flies an eagle holding a snake (supervolante aquila draconem complexa82), perhaps suggesting their status as seers.83 One remarkable feature of this stele is the way image and inscriptions are displayed. The final word, ‘mantis,’ is isolated and placed just above the head of the eagle, in the triangular space delimited by its open wings; its prominent placement clearly is intended to highlight the status 81 Supra n. 80. 82 Plin. HN 35.27-8. On the Roman side of this story, see T. Hölscher 1989. 83 C. Picard 1962–3, 3.

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of Kleoboulos.84 Word and image here work together, as the eagle and snake combination is a semeion, a sign that the seer can interpret in terms of his own destiny. In the lower part of the stele, under the relief, a fourline epigram addresses the dead: Kleoboulos, son of Glaukos, the earth covers you in death, being good both as a seer and as a fighter with the spear, you whom once the demos of great-hearted Erechtheus [crowned] having been the best throughout Greece [to win glory].85 This epigram, in hexameters, stresses the double identity of Kleoboulos as seer and fighter; thus, the image above the poem works in both senses: as a Homeric sign and as a metaphor of the value of the warrior. The meaning of the eagle can be understood on both levels, in relation to war and divination. The power of the eagle catching a snake as a sign of triumph in a military context is displayed on a later relief at Termessos in Pisidia, which stood on a grave thought to be that of the Macedonian Alketas,86 brother of Perdiccas. This Macedonian general died fleeing from Antigonos in 319 BC, and the young men from Termessos organized a magnificent funeral for him.87 The actual monument is carved on a broken rock face. A large cavalryman, attacking from the left, is sculpted high up on the left side of the funerary enclosure; next to him in a lower zone at ground level stands a trophy. The main zone of the tomb has a baldachin, as well as a throne and some large vases, carved on the rock. Above the baldachin flies an eagle holding a snake whose head is close to the beak of the eagle he attacks. The rock is badly damaged today, but the drawing published by Pekridou gives a good idea of the tension between the eagle and the snake (Fig. 1.16). The position of the eagle and snake motif above the baldachin and in relation to the dead body might lend an eschatological dimension to the ensemble, as argued by Charles Picard,88 but perhaps more convincing in this funerary context is the idea that the eagle, associated with the cavalryman and the trophy, marks the domination of the fighting warrior. Here again, the motif has a strong military value and places the warrior associated with it under the sign of Zeus. 84 Flower 2008, 96. 85 The text is incomplete and open to various supplements. I use the text and translation given by Flower 2008, 96. See Clairmont 1970; Karusos 1960. 86 Pekridou (1986) gives a complete study and detailed pictures of this complex rock-cut grave. 87 Diod. Sic. 18.47.3. 88 C. Picard 1964; C. Picard 1962–3.

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Figure 1.16 Termessos, relief from the tomb of Alketas, late fourth century BC. Reproduced from Pekridou 1986, ill. 8.

CONCLUSION Following the eagle and snake motif and its numerous variations in scheme and placement, we have examined many different media. The same motif circulates from one medium to another, and its polysemy grows with time and variations. The meaning is never mechanically rote once and forever, but depends on the medium and its context. Thus, there cannot be a lexical reading of these motifs and emblems, but only case studies, taking into account the specificities of the medium and its local history. If we want to generalize, we need to stress the fact that this polysemy is not totally open or randomly elaborated. The basic meaning of the visual element involved in a motif is connected to the value given by the ancients to these elements, but their combination, their association with a specific medium, might modify or qualify such a value. In the case of the eagle and snake motif, the general value of the eagle is its relation to Zeus, its possible metaphoric value as a sign of victory and power. The snake is connected with the ground, the earth, and even the underground, which allows for many variations. The Homeric reference to an omen weighs heavily on the meaning of the motif, whether it is the sign of a future victory or defeat, or a reference to manteia and divination. These possible interpretations are sometimes predetermined by the medium: the case of the Kleoboulos gravestone is clear, particularly with the written mention of his status as ‘mantis,’ and the coins of Olympia are undoubtedly related to the power of Zeus. Other types of objects are less determinative, as in vase painting, where the presence of the motif needs to be interpreted by the viewer, activating the value of the sign as an element

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to be noticed and considered as an omen.89 It is only once such a detail in the field has been awarded a meaningful property that the interpretive process starts. In that situation, the role of the viewer is primordial, and the cognitive process is based on a capacity of recognition and memorization, which gives a springboard for interpreting. In a way, this is close to the “lector in fabula” described by Umberto Eco.90 One could speak of a ‘spectator in picture,’ not as the (painted) onlookers analyzed by Mark D. Stansbury O’Donnell,91 but as an actual figure implied in the construction of the meaning. Motifs circulate across different media and periods, and their repetition guarantees the stability of a meaning, as well as the possibility of memorization and recognition. Elements of a given syntagm are combined in various ways according to the logic of each medium, which has different generative rules and produces different expectations. But the background of any picture, the culture that produces these different kinds of pictures, is homogeneous, not segmented,92 and this is why images make sense and can stand at the crossroads.

89 90 91 92

I fully agree with Rodríguez Pérez 2010, 17. Eco 1979. Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006b. Hölscher 2014, 23.

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2 IMAGES AND HISTORY IN EIGHTHAND SEVENTH-CENTURY BC ATHENS: A DISCURSIVE ANALYTICAL APPROACH Annette Haug

In the following contribution, I argue that reconstructing historical contexts is key to the understanding of images.1 Their production and consumption are constituted by their use, spatial setting, and temporal grounding. Every age has its own practical and conceptual knowledge to which images refer. This somewhat traditional analytical approach has gone out of fashion. Although a prominent topic in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in German-language research, the focus of many new studies has shifted. The actual interest in images is now much more focused on modes of storytelling and aspects of (inter-)mediality, the relationship between text and image (as was already of interest to Carl Robert), aesthetic and semantic jeux d’images, and ornamental matters, to name just a few research questions. All these approaches are extremely productive occupations with the phenomenon of the image. However, the new focus on the intrinsic value of images – the visual qualities of the image – has sometimes led to the claim of putting aside questions of social and historical context.2 Nevertheless, images only become understandable as social agents and means of communication in relation to their historical context. However, research has followed many different paths to contextualize images. In the nineteenth century, images were understood to be an expression of the spirit of the times (Zeitgeist).3 Even in Erwin Panofsky’s iconology, this idea still has force when he claims that “the general and essential tendencies of the human mind” are implicit in the works.4 Such concepts recurred in many studies right through the 1960s and 1970s. It is only recent research that has turned against the idea of a detached, 1 2 3 4

For a long version of this contribution, see Haug 2017. See M. Squire 2009. Baßler 2001, 10. Panofsky 1955, 39.

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homogeneous, and supposedly objective Zeitgeist.5 Instead, images are seen as agents in competing communication and interaction processes.6 But how do image contents relate to an external world that provides the frame for the interpretation of those very images? This is, for example, a central question for understanding the images that appear on vases in ancient Greece. However, vases are a very specific medium. They serve primarily as containers and, because they are mobile objects, are not bound to a specific place. Greek vases of the sixth and fifth centuries BC were used in domestic contexts, especially at drinking parties such as the symposion. Nevertheless, lavishly painted vessels also appeared in various public or semi-public settings, for example in sanctuaries or necropoleis. Due to their functional flexibility, then, Greek vases cannot be associated with one specific action or communication context. In each setting (symposion, grave, sanctuary), the images on vases could stimulate diverse discourses among their viewership. Different research traditions have pursued different ways to approach the social meaning that vase paintings had for the contemporary viewers. German research has focused on the relationship between vase images and the political and military events of the time, which in turn were seen as a significant influence on the mentality. For example, there are intensive discussions about the importance of the beginning of democracy, or the Persian wars, for vase images.7 Such questions require precise dating of the objects, of course.8 French research is much more interested in historical attitudes to concepts and values, which ‘trickle through’ not only in images but also in texts. Images are seen as an expression of past “ideologies.”9 This longue durée approach concentrates much more on long-term ideas and perceptions and less on small historical changes. 5 On the research history and the contextualization of Panofsky’s research from a historical perspective, see Roeck 2004 (esp. pp. 47–8). See Reudenbach 1994 for an art-historical classification. 6 On an agency-based approach in the archaeological analysis of images, e.g., T. Hölscher 2015, Osborne and Tanner 2007. 7 Knittlmayer 1997 (esp. pp. 109–19) for the Trojan cycle; for a detailed history of research concerning the question of political actualization of mythological scenes, see Knittlmayer 1997 (pp. 16–21); for Theseus: von den Hoff 2001 (esp. p. 85), C. Kunze 2010; further examples in: Oakley 2009, 614; Muth 2008; criticized by C. Kunze 2010/11. 8 However, stylistic analysis can at best determine a date range of twenty to thirty years, which is not useful for a precise historical contextualization. Ulf Kenzler actually derives the dating of vessels from their assumed historical relevance. Thus, the emerging images of men playing board games or salvaging dead soldiers, conventionally dated around 540 BC, would only make sense after the reforms of Kleisthenes 508/7 BC, as they represent collective and hoplite ideals, according to Kenzler (2007). In this approach, the historicization of images is taken somewhat to the extreme. 9 Lissarrague 1990b, 1; for contributions to this field of research – among others – see Schnapp 1997; Frontisi-Ducroux 2003.

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Anglophone research is interested in both aspects of the historiography of images, but is characterized, at least in some cases, by a quite optimistic view of the ‘reality’ of the visualization.10 Most of these approaches analyze not single images, but thematically related groups of images.11 These are then considered in relation to society’s ways of acting and thinking. They are thereby very close to a discursive analytical approach, which is the focus of this contribution. Michel Foucault understands discourse as “a group of sequences of signs, in so far as they are statements (énoncés), that is in so far as they can be assigned particular modalities of existence.”12 An approach that considers images as elements of discourse interprets them to be powerful patterns of interpretation and products of reality. The reconstruction of the potential statements cannot refer to a simple formal or semantic analysis but must refer to potential contexts and frames.13 The application of this approach to visual discourses has methodological consequences. In the words of Achim Landwehr, it is: “this character of diachronic series and synchronous frequency of interconnected statements which forms the empirical basis for the discursive analysis.”14 Therefore, unique images present a special difficulty for any interpretation, as one important context – the pictorial tradition – is lacking. This is especially problematic when other contextual information is also missing. This is why such a challenging case – the Attic late Geometric louterion in London (Fig. 2.1) – has been selected as our starting point. This louterion represents a special case in various respects. As one of the very few Attic late Geometric objects, it was not found in Attika, but probably in Thebes. The iconography of the main side is unparalleled in the Geometric period. A large, manned rowing ship is depicted, as can be seen in some other early images. An oversized man is shown boarding the ship. In doing so, he turns his head back towards a woman, whose wrist he holds. The ship scene gains a more specific meaning through these two disproportionately large images of the protagonists. At the same time, the

10 See the studies of Boardman 1972; Shapiro 1983; Williams 1983b; or Osborne 1996; a critical discussion of Boardman’s positions in Cook 1987; a fundamentally critical examination of political interpretations in Neer (2002), who instead seeks to contextualize visual discourse in the sphere of the symposion, in which a large number of vase paintings was received; for a historicization of sight itself, see, e.g., Stewart 1997. 11 See Chapter 1 (pp. 13–38). 12 Foucault 2004, 82. 13 Foucault 2004, 70: “One can see in any case that the description of this enunciative level can be performed neither by a formal analysis, nor by a semantic investigation, nor by verification, but by the analysis of the relations between the statement and the spaces of differentiation, in which the statement itself reveals the differences.” 14 Landwehr 2008, 102.

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Figure 2.1 London, British Museum 1899, 0219.1, late Geometric Attic louterion, c. 735 BC. Photo: © Trustees of the British Museum.

symmetry, which is otherwise usual for ship scenes, is disrupted. How can such a singular scene be interpreted? The singularity has been explained by relating the image to a mythological narrative. Anthony Snodgrass, for example, proposed an interpretation of the two figures as Ariadne with Theseus, or Paris with Helen.15 However, Hans von Steuben has argued in detail that the image offers no indication of a specific mythological interpretation.16 He also showed that even if we assume an anonymous, non-mythological activity is taking place, the meaning of the scene is not obvious. In the following, I repeat some of his arguments. If we adopt the usual approach of discussing parallels for the individual elements of the image, two different options for interpretation still remain: the abduction of the bride and the farewell. The especially significant gesture for understanding the image – the man gripping the wrist of a woman – does not occur elsewhere in similar thematic contexts in the Geometric period. It appears only on Classical images representing the abduction of the bride.17 However, since the meaning of gestures 15 For example, Snodgrass 1998, 33: Ariadne with Theseus or Paris with Helen. The difficulties that arise for a mythical interpretation indicate that none of the interpretations is compelling. 16 Von Steuben 1968, 63. 17 Langdon 2008, 19–20; as reference to the Classical pictorial tradition: Cohen 1996; Langdon 2008, 26; also, Neumann (1965, 59–60), whose analysis focuses mainly on the sixth and fifth centuries, interprets the image (retrospectively) as a violent abduction.

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may vary over the course of time, these later images cannot be used as an argument for the understanding of an earlier image.18 The only methodically reliable possibility is to interpret the gesture in the horizon of the Geometric period.19 It has long been known that the grip on the wrist (χεῖρ’ ἐπὶ καρπῷ) is used in different contexts by Homer.20 This applies, for example, to Odysseus, who took leave of Penelope by grasping her wrist (Od. 18.258). Subsequently, the gesture also occurs in farewell scenes in the literary imagination. From a methodological point of view, however, we have to seek primarily image contexts where the gesture occurs. In fact, the gesture is made in Geometric dancing images, but not, as Susan Langdon writes, solely by male dancers, to express their dominance over their female partners.21 In the case of an Athenian amphora (Fig. 2.2), female dancers hold wrists or hold hands;22 both gestures seem to be used interchangeably to express physical closeness in a literal sense. Thus, neither pictorial nor literary sources from this period allow the hand on the wrist to be understood as a symbol for abduction. Langdon introduces a further

Figure 2.2 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 14432, late Geometric Attic amphora. After Tölle, R. 1964. Frühgriechische Reigentänze. Waldsassen, Taf. 6b. 18 Langdon (2008, 35) literally adopts the anachronistic anticipation as “method”: “In classical Greek societies the funeral and the wedding were the two most important social rituals [. . .]. It would be remarkable not to find the same pattern in the Early Iron Age.” In a second step, consequences for the early Greek understanding of images are deduced from this hypothesis. 19 In contrast to Lissarrague’s approach in Chapter 1 of this volume, which uses the modern understanding of the eagle motif to understand its reception in antiquity. 20 Already observed by Kirk 1949, 150; Fittschen 1969, 55; and Jenkins 1983, 140 as “control or possession.” 21 Langdon 2008, 27. 22 Though less clear here, see also the female dancers on a hydria in Berlin, Antikensammlung 32029.

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argument for interpreting the louterion as an abduction: the erotic quality of the image.23 However, compared with other scenes, such as the dancing scene in Tübingen (Fig. 2.3), it becomes evident that the sexual characteristics of the figures are not depicted here. Other elements of the louterion image are difficult to interpret. The woman stands still, which would tend to indicate a farewell. But females are generally depicted with a minimum of movement throughout this period,24 and, therefore, lack of movement is not a sufficient argument for interpreting the scene as a farewell. The woman’s gesture is also ambiguous. The raised hands indicate an intense emotional response, which could occur in the context of an abduction as well as a farewell. The spread fingers of the hand being held can also apply to both situations,25 and, correspondingly, the wreath – as an expression of ‘charis’ (grace, kindness, and life) – can also be understood in different ways. Up to this point, both interpretations – abduction and farewell – are plausible using iconographic arguments.26 Elements of the composition, for example the prominently displayed ship, tend to support the interpretation of a farewell scene, but this is not a compelling argument either. At this point, von Steuben ends his discussion of the image. However, here the contextualization of the image enables us to get a foothold. This can be approached in varying ways. In her book on art and identity in Dark Age Greece, Susan Langdon employs a historical contextualization of the image. In relation to ethnographic parallels, archaeological sources, and the literary conception of Homer, she assumes that life in early Greece, in particular the life of women, was structured through rites de passage. She postulates that childhood, virginity, growing up, the abduction of women within the context of the wedding ritual, and the wedding are central to early societies. On this basis, she concludes 23 Langdon 2008, 29. 24 See Fittschen 1969, 56. 25 See also Fittschen 1969, 56; Langdon (2008, 28), however, interprets the spread fingers as an indicator of “physical or emotional stress” by referring to the spread hands of mourners. For the majority of Geometric mourning representations, this does not hold true. Women fold their hands over their heads without their hands being depicted. An exception may be women who “mourn” with only one hand on the head and who act with the other in the direction of the laid-out dead (for example, Athens, Benaki Museum 7675). In this case, it seems to be appropriate to speak of interaction with respect to communication rather than an explicit mourning gesture. Finally, the leader of a dance can raise her hand in a similar way; see the fragment from Aigina (Kraiker 1951, no. 68). Alternatively, the first or last dancer may also hold a branch or wreath; cf., e.g., Athens, National Archaeological Museum 784. This may be the reason that Langdon also adds “positive excitement” to her range of meanings. Therefore, in such an open spectrum of meanings, one will be able to understand the gesture as an expression for various meanings defined only by the context. 26 See, e.g., Kirk 1949, 150.

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Figure 2.3 Tübingen, Antikensammlung 2657, late Geometric Attic oinochoe. Photo: © Institut für Klassische Archäologie Tübingen (T. Zachmann).

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that such rites de passage are also reflected in the images.27 Langdon therefore uses the problematic London louterion as the core argument for the assumption that the early image culture centered around the coming of age of the woman. This interpretation is based on a historical discursive analysis, which combines the various types of sources: images, grave goods, texts, and ethnographical data. However, this approach neglects the images themselves. The fact that women play only a subordinate role in the images of Geometric Athens – appearing only in mourning and later in dancing scenes – is completely disregarded, as is the fact that early images have no interest in the visual conception of age.28 For the characterization of the human body, Geometric images do not differentiate between the various age levels, apart from a few exceptions, for men or women.29 At this point, one can note that aspects relevant in reality, such as the rites de passage or the process of growing up in general, do not necessarily have to be the subject of the images, as claimed by Langdon.30 In comparison with the Homeric epics, it is also apparent that various media are used to express different contents and that media have their specific communication possibilities. As a consequence, the ‘information’ that images and texts provide cannot be tautologically related to each other – at least not when it comes to an understanding of the images themselves. A

27 The initial point of her approach is expressed in some a priori statements; see Langdon 2008, 11–12: “The occasions for displaying imagery were the rituals surrounding birth, maturation, marriage, and death. Societies are constructed not from the top down but from the bottom up, beginning with childhood and the domestic sphere where the maturation process begins and community replicates itself. For social order, and particularly any alteration of the status quo, to survive from one generation to the next, it must be entrenched at the household level and affirmed by the community. This is where the real utility and meaning of Geometric art lie.” A classification of the imagery object, based on contexts or media, is missing; the household as basis of society is postulated as the basis of art. 28 Langdon (2008, 148–51) addresses the dancing women as representations of (virginal) girls. Her main argument is that they are depicted – but only in the later eighth century – with long hair. This is deduced from the fact that Homer characterizes the married woman as veiled, so that showing hair would be an indication of the unmarried woman. Here, as elsewhere, Langdon combines information from different media. If one argues with regard to media, then the female dancers are not characterized in terms of age, and hair is not an absolute gender-specific criterion – see Haug 2012, 512–15; in contrast, see Langdon 2008, 151. As for the belt, Langdon (2008, 151) states that it is similarly worn by girls and adult women, but this argument is also based on written sources. She interprets the concrete form, represented in the images, on the basis of intercultural comparisons as a special indicator of the fertility of the marriageable woman. 29 A relevant exception is the differentiation of age in the context of the prothesis, which, however, remains limited to the images of the Late Geometric I phase; see Haug 2012. 30 This general thesis of the work is so far challenged in particular by Whitley 2010, 251: “I was not convinced of the overall argument that Geometric art is initially concerned with ‘maturation.’” He does not elaborate on problems of image interpretation.

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discursive analytical approach to images must therefore take the inherent laws of the medium into consideration. Against the background of the methodological difficulties that have been identified, a second option for contextualization of the louterion image can be tested, based on the early image culture and not on the historical context. In fact, there is a complete absence of wedding and abduction scenes in the visual spectrum of the time, while ships represent a relevant subject field. Usually these are rowing boats, shown at full speed and sometimes engaged in combat. On an oinochoe in Hobart (Fig. 2.4), however, the departure of a ship is depicted. Here, various male and female figures on land express their grief or excitation at the departure of a boat by means of gestures. It is therefore the discursive context of the early image culture which suggests a farewell scene to the viewer. The case of the London louterion shows that images should be interpreted not as isolated individual objects,31 but in relation to known iconographies and discourses.32 The relevance of a discourse is identifiable from its frequency in the iconographic spectrum. This approach is particularly suitable for vase-painting research, which can draw on a relatively large stock of preserved objects and motifs. The relative density of material allows for quantity-based relevance assessments.33 Significance can thus be determined from regularities, but also from deviations and breaks with the (prevailing) norm. This leads to a shift in the interpretive framework away from the individual work and toward the fundamental content of the (visual) communication.34

Figure 2.4 Hobart, John Elliot Classics Museum, University of Tasmania 31, late Geometric Attic oinochoe. Reproduced from Hood 1967, Taf. 32. 31 So ultimately demanded of Giuliani 2003, 15. 32 Lines of discourses; for terminology, see Jäger 2011, 108. 33 On the relevance of quantitative access to images, see Betscher 2013 (esp. pp. 288–9); for a critique of the quantification, see Jäger 2011, 113. 34 See Lissarrague (1990b, 1–2) who understands vases as carriers of meaning: “à travers un type de discours autre que le discours de la langue.”

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Here, the wider-reaching theoretical implications of this approach should be considered. The discursive analytical approach assumes that communication functions on the basis of a collective shared imaginaire,35 that images are part of a cultural system.36 One could, however, object that “discourse [. . .] is conceptualised as a supra-individual reality [. . .], which no longer permits the concept of an autonomous subject.”37 The result of such a critique could be the demand for a history of individual image communication. Langdon’s interpretation of the London louterion would be an example of such an approach that places significant individual objects at the center. Robin Osborne explicitly demands a focus on individual-unique image ideas, and a move toward individual forms of image reception.38 However, such an approach to vase images is problematic from a methodological perspective, due to a fragmentary source situation: without individual statements on specific images – which is never the case for vases – each individualization of image reception remains a modern construct. Consequently, all approaches that aim at the reconstruction of individual levels of understanding of ancient vase images have to rely on a reconstruction of general forms of understanding – and it is precisely these that are called into question by the respective authors. My objection to the individualization of image reception also lies on a theoretical level: it is based on the underlying understanding of communication. Osborne criticizes a semiotic approach to images39 and questions the existence of collective shared ‘knowledge,’ on which communication in the semiotic and discursive sense is based, and thus also the existence

35 In the French research, imaginaire stands for mental conceptions and concrete images that organize action and communication. Le Goff (1990, 7–8, 13) distinguishes the imaginaire from the terms of representation, symbol, and ideology: “Das Imaginäre nährt den Menschen und veranlaßt ihn zum Handeln. Es ist ein kollektives, soziales, historisches Phänomen.” For vase images, see: Schmitt Pantel and Thélamon 1983, esp. pp. 16–17; in the French tradition, see T. Hölscher 2000, esp. p. 157. An exemplary concretization of the connection between imaginary, real, and linguistic images is Baxandall 2013, 68–92. 36 See also the position of the New Historicism – or Cultural Poetics – formulated by Montrose 2001, esp. p. 63: “The diachronic text of an autonomous literary history is replaced by the synchronous text of a cultural system.” Concerning narrative images of the Dark Ages, Stansbury-O’Donnell (2006a, 248) states: “To be effective as a discourse, a narrative must [. . .] suppose both an artist and a viewer, both share a common visual language with a range of expression and whose culture provides a need or place or occasion for the exchange of the story.” 37 For this pointed description of the criticism, see Landwehr 2008, 93. Jäger (2011, 96) characterizes the discourse as a supra-individual result of historical processes. 38 Osborne 2012, 179. 39 For an archaeological application to vase paintings, see, e.g., Stansbury-O’Donnell 2011, 72–92; Sourvinou-Inwood 1991, 29–98.

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of a collective imaginaire.40 Indeed, Osborne’s objection reveals a weak point of semiotic approaches which has so far not been sharply delineated by archaeological research. It consists in the fact that understanding differs from individual to individual, and that the differences increase with social, temporal, or spatial distance.41 As a consequence, the idea of homogeneous knowledge underlying the reception of images has to be relinquished. However, without shared knowledge, at least within social groups that share the same temporal and spatial communication context, communication is simply impossible.42 Nevertheless, Osborne’s critical position can be brought into a discursive analytical approach, at least to the extent that breaks and discontinuities of iconographies, as well as constellations of hybrid iconographies, can and must be investigated. Such breaks and discontinuities reveal the systematically polysemic quality of images. This polyvalence highlights the central problem of historical-social image interpretation: each image can be integrated into very different discourses and activated in different discursive contexts. The statements (énoncés) of discourses are, however, recorded in language.43 For images, this poses a translation problem, namely the question of how the communicative value of non-linguistic objects, such as images, can be transferred into language.44 This is not a specific problem of discursive analysis. Rather, it underlies every ekphrastic image analysis, including Panofsky’s iconology. In fact, images cannot tell any (hi)story – it is the viewer who attaches this knowledge to the images, and then tells or repeats the (hi)story.45 In the course of their historical contextualization, images are subject to verbalization. That, however, presents specific methodological difficulties. The verbal description of the image always points to the structural relationship to be

40 See Stansbury-O’Donnell (2011, 92–3), who questions the existence of a viewer who has such great knowledge of images that he is able to decipher all of the signs. However, I completely agree with his claim that the context of images is relevant for generating meaning. 41 Hölscher (2000, 157–8) also attributes a “relativ kohärente kollektive Mentalität” to ancient societies but claims a sharpening of our awareness for contradictions and conflicting perceptions, which he understands as a motive for cultural change. 42 See Hölscher 2000, 163, who for this reason argues for polysemy, but militates against interpretive arbitrariness. See also Schmidt 2003. 43 Foucault 2004, 84–6. 44 For example, Sarasin 2003, 36: “Es geht nicht um die abstruse Frage, ob es noch etwas anderes als Texte gebe, sondern darum, wie die nichtsprachlichen Dinge ihre Bedeutung erlangen. Kein Diskurs, kein Klassifikationsgitter, und scheint es uns noch so vertraut, ist je ‘von den Sachen selbst’ abgeleitet, sondern schafft umgekehrt erst die Ordnung der Dinge.” 45 Dally et al. 2014, 20–1; Bätschmann 1977 discusses in detail this circumstance in archaeological, as well as art-historical, research.

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disclosed.46 In other words, the verbal description of images is always shaped with a view toward those historical, social, or cultural concepts to which they are to be related. As a result, historical interest in images is faced with the problem that the interpretation is in danger of reading externally gained historical information into the images. This can be illustrated using the example of the image culture of the early poleis.47 We can reconstruct the process of polis formation even without images and texts. For example, there was significant growth in the size of different settlements such as Athens and Corinth. In addition, the hinterland increasingly oriented itself toward the center of the settlement, a process that is particularly well known for Athens and Attika.48 It could therefore be expected that the images of the eighth and seventh centuries would reflect this process of polis formation.49 Images theoretically could refer to this process by representing different types of architecture that appear in this period for the first time. However, with few exceptions, there are no depictions of architecture on Greek ceramics from the eighth and seventh centuries. For the images, the architectural–urban aspect of polis formation is quite obviously not an issue. Thus, a positivistic expectation that polis formation would be directly mirrored in vase painting is obviously misguided. The process of polis formation could also be represented through specifically urban forms of agency, though. In fact, a relatively large number of images center on the human body on Attic ceramics from the eighth century. Groups of humans in various situations, such as war, death, or festivals (Figs. 2.2 and 2.3), became the subject of vase-painting images. There is some indication that these are based on new forms of communication, as they developed in the emerging polis and address central social practices.50 However, images can, but need not, refer to relevant social practices. Other early poleis, such as Corinth, are directly comparable with Athens in terms of their degree of urbanization, yet did not form a diversified image culture in the eighth century (Fig. 2.5). Comparable living conditions can therefore lead to different decorative forms. Against this background, we might assume that the vase paintings produced by various 46 However, Panofsky himself was aware of the entanglement of formal analysis and interpretation of forms. See Bätschmann 1990; Baxandall 1990, esp. p. 34–7; Kultermann 1981, 384. 47 On the following in detail, see Haug 2018. 48 Haug 2012, 562–3. 49 For example, T. Hölscher 2015, 70: “Ce moment [le milieu du VIIIe siècle] marqua la naissance d’un art de l’image dans lequel les catégories supérieures des cités dominantes projetaient des valeurs culturelles centrales pour elles.” 50 Haug 2012, 3; Langdon 2008. Kistler (2014, 189–90) wants to relate the process of polis formation to the installation of agorai and central sanctuaries and dates these manifestations to the mid-seventh century.

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Figure 2.5 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 14476, late Geometric Corinthian kotyle. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Athen-Varia-1047 (H. Wagner).

poleis in early Greece only started to reflect their world at different points in time, but as time passed over the next decades, images everywhere began to refer to the polis way of life. However, that was also not the case. In the late eighth century, the Athenian world of images developed an interest in visualizing the area outside of the polis. Human–animal hybrid creatures entered the image repertoire, and the visualization of plants and plant ornaments became ever more important. Ultimately, in the late seventh century, human figures were seldom seen on the vessels, which employed animal friezes instead. In seventh-century Corinth, images of people remained a peripheral phenomenon as animal friezes dominated images from the beginning of the seventh century, when the first figurative scenes appear on ceramics. While we may assume that urbanization progressed in both Athens and Corinth between the eighth and sixth centuries, that clearly does not mean that the cities addressed polis topics in their world of images. Instead, the world outside of the polis, the world of wild animals, of hybrid creatures and myths, dominates imagery. Does this mean that the images are not related to the experienced ‘real’ world? Hardly. The increased interest in the world outside the polis, embodied in images of animals, falls into a period in which the Corinthians in particular – through founding numerous colonies – explored areas far away from home. Lorenz Winkler-Horaček sees such experiences of strangeness as the reason for the interest in animal friezes.51 Such a metaphorical interpretation illustrates the complex reference levels in which the images can be related to their contemporary world. However, any metaphorical interpretation, insofar as it cannot 51 Winkler-Horaček 2011; Winkler-Horaček 2015.

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be tested against non-image sources, cannot be disproved. In fact, these animal friezes were also an extremely popular subject in late seventhcentury Athens, although Athens did not have interregional trade contacts comparable to those of Corinth, and had not founded colonies. But this does not have to call into question the interpretation of animal friezes as a metaphor for the experience of strangeness. The Athenian animal friezes could have drawn on Corinthian works for visual inspiration, and could thus be valued as an ‘interpictorial’ phenomenon.52 The previous parallels of living conditions and visualizations53 demonstrate that ancient images need not take up the discourses expected from a historical perspective. Not all aspects relevant to ancient societies become subjects of visual discourse. With regard to Langdon’s approach, this means that the coming of age of women is a highly relevant aspect for early societies – but it need not be reflected in images. In addition, the images change independently of external reality (in this case: the creation of the polis). Likewise, similar topics (in this case: animal friezes) appear in contexts which differ in reality (for example, Corinth and Athens with respect to their external contacts). In the case of Athens, images refer to other images, as is often the case for images in general.54 These considerations show that determining the relevance of what is represented to reality, as opposed to its relevance to other factors – for example, other images – is problematic.55 Such a form of interdependence is possible, but not always the case. Therefore, at this point, a feasible alternative to historiography can be highlighted: the analysis of image compositions and image motifs (visual details).56 The latter become “windows that open up to reveal a view of contemporary discourses.”57 Not without reason, such visual details were 52 In the literature, such ‘appeals procedures’ have been referred to as intertextuality, but the question of the intention of such references is intensively discussed. On the history of research, see Rajewsky 2002, 48–52. Systematic studies on forms of mutual reference in visual media have been commonly discussed in the field of Classical Archaeology as a question of ‘influence,’ but have hardly been related to the newer parameters (in the sense of ‘interpictoriality’). 53 For this issue in detail, see Haug 2018. 54 See, for example, Bérard and Durand 1984, 31: “L’imagier construit son image par rapport à l’imagerie et non en obéissant fidèlement aux lois de la reproduction quasi photographique de la vie quotidienne.” 55 This is, however, common practice in historically oriented image research; see, for example, Osborne 1996, 174: “The representations of infantry on Athenian pottery, the Argive panoply, and the armor dedicated to sanctuaries all point to an increasing importance of warfare . . . Even these grave goods and votive objects are to be understood as symbolic acts that do not directly represent ‘reality.’” 56 Lissarrague (1990, 10–11) speaks of series and networks. Cf. Betscher 2014, 71, and Betscher 2013, 288, on recurring motifs (series) and modes of representation. 57 As an example, Baßler (2001, 21) mentions discourses that, in our culture, can be stimulated by a visual detail, such as a banana.

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Figure 2.6 Paris, Musée du Louvre A519, fragments of late Geometric Attic krater. Reproduced from Grunwald, C. 1983. “Frühe attische Kampfdarstellungen.” Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica 15: Figure 4.

referred to in earlier research as “Realia,” even though this chapter clearly rejects positivist treatment. We can anchor the discourse more concretely by using the example of weaponry as an illustration.58 The warriors depicted in images from the mid-eighth century carry spectacular curved ‘Dipylon’ shields (Fig. 2.6). Their historical accuracy has often been called into question due to the lack of archaeological finds of such shields. If they existed, they were certainly made of perishable materials. Circa 740/30 BC, this form of shield was replaced – at least in vase painting – by round shields (Fig. 2.7). Their form is less spectacular, but was better suited for decorative imagery on the shield’s surface than the limited surface afforded by the Dipylon shields. The change of shield form thus seems to have been caused by new aesthetic preferences, and not by a ‘real’ change of armament. Shield bosses found in Protogeometric tombs point to the use of round shields from at least that time on. However, images of the eighth and early seventh centuries show round shields exclusively from the outside. Warriors striding to the left carry shields on their left side, and those striding to the right carry them on their right. This representational principle changed c. 670 BC, simultaneously with the appearance of the first phalanx lines advancing toward each other. All warriors now carried the shield on their left side, so that those moving to 58 See Haug 2012, 241–6, with further bibliography.

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Figure 2.7 Athens, Kerameikos 1351, late Geometric Attic fragments. Reproduced from Rombos 1988, Taf. 27a.

the right revealed a view of the inner side of the shield (Fig. 2.8). Here, the characteristic features of a hoplite shield – the porpax (strap handle) and antilabe (hand grip) – are now visible. A military detail thus becomes a ‘realistic’ reference to the then prevailing realities of war – and, from our point of view, to the historical reality.59 This exemplifies our observation that the political, social, and historical actuality of the images is extremely variable: which aspects of the images are selected for contemporary updating can vary. To conclude, we could consider it irrelevant to search for such modes of visual updating of historical references or fictitious elements in images, but then the expressive mode of the images would remain undetected, as would the interests that contemporary viewers may have had.60 59 On the changing modes of representation of shields, see Kaeser 1981. On the question of the realism of this representation, see, e.g., Osborne (1996, 175) who, however, uncritically presupposes the realistic character of the display. 60 Knittlmayer (1997, 109) also discusses the reference of mythological representations and concludes: “Der Mythos diente folglich weder ausschließlich dazu, eine

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Figure 2.8 Berlin, Staatliche Museen 31573, A41, Protoattic stand. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (I. Geske).

METHOD AND RESULTS The previous considerations allow two fundamental statements to be made about the relationship of historical ‘reality’ and image: 1. Vase images do not make intentional statements about history (as a reflexive product), but are “conveyors of a sense of social and cultural meanings.”61 This enables the image contents to reference political, social, or cultural (also mental) processes. In so doing, the form of this reference – whether literally specific, metaphorical, or contrafactual, or whether assertive, aversive, or subversive – can differ. Regardless of this, images (and with them their

andersartige, altehrwürdige und eventuell überhöhte Welt neben der eigenen, realen Lebenswelt zu errichten, noch war eine völlige Identifizierung mit den mythischen Helden und der mythischen Welt beabsichtigt. Neben diesen beiden Möglichkeiten sind auch Darstellungsweisen, wie z. B. die Nacktheit der Krieger, zu beobachten, die weder der mythischen noch der realen Sphäre zugewiesen werden können und die daher als allein ikonographische Phänomene gewertet werden müssen.” These considerations can be extended to the effect that images do not have to be coherent in their form of reception as a whole, but instead different elements within an image can produce different references. 61 See Dally et al. 2014, 11. Kelly (1991, 209) states for texts what is also true for images: that we do not look through them, but at them.

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contents) are, however, constituents and agents of history.62 This is also true even if the social impact of the image can no longer be determined. 2. Historical reality can partially be grasped in the visual formulation of the image forms (composition) and image motifs (Realia). Images remain open to worldly specification, without a priori being able to be tied down to such a reference.63 Individual image elements can therefore act as islands of realism (Realismusinseln), and in this way lend the images plausibility and/or actuality.

62 See Dally et al. 2014, esp. p. 8. 63 However, a historical or even political reference cannot be ruled out a priori. See Schmitt Pantel and Thélamon 1983, 15.

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3 KNOWLEDGE AND THE PRODUCTION OF MEANING: GREEK VASE IMAGERY RECONSIDERED* Martina Seifert

Looking at ancient Attic Greek vase imagery, scholarly debate has long addressed the problem of distinguishing between mythological and nonmythological scenes (Lebenswelt, Mythos). The subject is not purely of academic interest because of its many implications for the interpretation of images, for example mythological narratives, paradigmatic relationships among images on vases, or the role of generic visual formulae to create meaning. This chapter contributes to this discussion by revising some strategies in the production of meaning proposed by previous scholarship. The special focus is structural analysis, taking into consideration the semantic and episodic knowledge necessary to both create and understand Athenian Greek vases. The evidence discussed dates c. 600–420 BC. INTRODUCTION In cultural sciences, scholarly debate on image studies primarily focuses on interdisciplinary research.1 The mediation of analytical skills and methods needed to interpret images disseminated by various visual media in the age of mass communication is one of the major challenges in the field of visual skepticism. In this context, image analysis is one important instrument used to explore general questions about attitudes and values in socio-political, cultural, or intellectual history. With regard to this ongoing debate in cultural sciences, the contribution of Classical Archaeology within the field of image studies should not be ignored. My chapter addresses the archaeological perspective of image studies, and we begin with a brief history of research.

*

Acknowledgments: I am very grateful to Judy Barringer and François Lissarrague for inviting me to give this lecture at the Leventis Conference in Edinburgh in 2017. 1 Cf. the scholarly debate in Germany, e.g., Geise et al. 2016; W. Mitchell 2012; Burda 2010; Sachs-Hombach 2009; Peter and Seidlmayer 2006; Belting 2001; M. Müller 2001, 14–24.

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TURNS AND CONCEPTS Concepts and methodological instruments for analyzing and interpreting images derive from past studies in archaeology and art history. Archaeological hermeneutics,2 as well as iconology,3 established the fundamental basis of image studies at the beginning of the twentieth century. Carl Robert’s archaeological hermeneutics interpreted images with the help of texts – that is, by interpreting images as frozen pictures of visual narratives and ‘reading’ them in correspondence with a linguistic system.4 The art-historical approach of iconology concentrates on the interpretation by using Erwin Panofsky’s well-known three-step method.5 In the course of time, scholarly debate produced methodological changes in iconology,6 and it is important to realize that neither Carl Robert’s archaeological-philological work nor Erwin Panofsky’s iconology intended to present a theory of images or visual cultures in the sense that we discuss them nowadays. In the 1960s and 1970s, with the so-called linguistic turn, epistemology and the linguistic method developed as a state of art in humanities.7 The philosophical discourse had a strong impact on the theoretical development of different disciplines, including linguistics, rhetoric, and semiotics.8 Archaeology took up semiotic discourse, communication theories,9 and the so-called Zeichentheorie10 in order to specify the active role of producers and viewers with regard to images. Considering them as constructs reflecting society’s values in a variety of social and political contexts, the persuasive power of the images was the focus of analysis.11 Another shift in art history in the 1990s led to methodological and theoretical interpretations of images, which were called the pictorial,12

2 Robert 1919. 3 Cf. Panofsky 1972, 5–9. See also Panofsky 1992 and Panofsky 1979, 207–29. 4 Being both archaeologist and classical philologist, Carl Robert’s studies focused on the close relationship between the two disciplines with special regard to the interpretation of Greek art and myth (Robert 1901; Robert 1881). 5 Three strata of meaning (natural subject matter, iconography, iconology). Cf. Panofsky 1932, 118. 6 Thürlemann 2009, 232 (p. 229 with reference to Imdahl 1988, 92). 7 Rortys 1967. 8 Cf. Eco 1984; Eco 1976. See also Peirce 1982, 212. 9 Schneider et al. 1979, 7–41. 10 Hoffmann 1980, 127–54. See also Kaemmerling 1979. 11 T. Hölscher 1987; Zanker 1987. In Hamburg, two important art-historical studies were published: Warnke 1992, 23–8; W. Kemp 1985. See also Freedberg 1989. 12 According to W. Mitchell (1992, 89–91), various models of textuality have become the lingua franca for critical reflections on the arts, the media, and other cultural forms of communication. See also W. Mitchell 2007, 27–47.

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iconic,13 or visual/visualistic turns.14 Scholars postulated a new scientific attitude toward the image in the age of multimedia and mass communication.15 In the discussions about this shift, current research in Classical Archaeology addresses methodologically based questions such as image and space, image and power, image and memory cultures.16 One approach to Greek vase painting combines hermeneutics with iconology and refers to the iconic turn in proclaiming the images’ agency.17 Following this approach, there is a difference between a descriptive mode of representation, the pictorial reproduction of the world as it is or as it should be, and a narrative mode, the pictorial set of key elements of known stories that the viewer identifies. The recognition of narrative lies with the viewer, not with the image.18 Research question and hypothesis The studies cited on the visual turn and visual narratives broaden the former approach to communication theory or semiotics, but do not replace it. Even with our distance from the past, the knowledge pool gained from a systematic archaeological image analysis could be immense. With respect to ancient Greek society, for example, the analytical focus on the image as a constitutive part of social structures and attitudes could help to contribute to a better understanding of ancient Greek social order in a detailed way. In order to demonstrate the scientific benefit of such close readings, the following analysis starts with Athenian vase representations of the sixth and fifth centuries BC. The chapter argues that Greek vase images of the sixth and fifth centuries BC represent historical constructs using a pictorial language or semantic pattern, which has to be understood and interpreted in its historical contexts.19 The use of realistic details on a vase painting does not render reality in its immediate sense, but rather reflects

13 Boehm 2007; Boehm 1994, 13. See also Bredekamp 2010; Bredekamp 2004; Belting 2004, 350–64; Belting 2001. 14 Cf. Nöth 2009, 235–54. 15 Critical reflections: Geise and Birkner 2016; Bachmann-Medick 2008; BachmannMedick 2007. 16 Cf. Fejfer 2008; Giuliani 2003; Muth 1998. A brief summary of recent research: Dally et al. 2012. 17 Images manifest something in a visible way, but not in a narrative sense, because the reception process cannot be controlled. Cf. Giuliani 2014, 211. 18 Guiliani 2014, 221. For discussion of narratives, see A. Steiner 2007, 56–8 and Chapter 6 on terms and definitions; Stansbury-O’Donnell 1999, 7. According to Froning (1988), this is the reason for the repertoire of standardized figure types used in Greek vase imagery. 19 I worked out the main idea in my Habilitation thesis (Seifert 2004), published in a revised version (Seifert 2011). On methodology, see Seifert 2011, 24–7.

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the phantasia of those who created the image. Displaying mythical and non-mythical representations, Greek vase paintings do not differentiate genera like Lebensbilder and Mythenbilder, but classify figures and scenes according to gender, class, habitus, and status. To understand the meaning of Greek vase imagery, it is necessary to acquire a certain pool of knowledge based on experience combining information about language, symbols, and signs significant to time and contexts. Greek vase representations reveal the semantic and episodic part of this knowledge by reflecting, among other things, the social order of ancient Greek society. Terms and definitions The term ‘semantic pattern’ derives from Clifford Geertz’s study of culture and the production of social order,20 in which he argued that the term ‘social systems’ examines the structural realities and patterns of social interaction, while culture considers the associated rules of meanings and symbols within which social interactions take place.21 In German archaeology, it was Ingeborg Scheibler who established the term Bedeutungsnetze – that is, understanding the depictions on the so-called Bildfeldamphoren as a complex of signs which reflect ideals, basic life situations, and religious topics.22 In other words, the images consist of different signs and symbols that can be described and analyzed at the level of iconography and pictorial language23 and lead, in the end, to an interpretation of the images in their historical contexts. According to Jan Assmann, the symbols used in different contexts express the collective memory of a community,24 which varies with time and place and is knowledge-based. Considering the fact that the term ‘knowledge’ comprises a large number of different phenomena, this study concentrates on forms and representations of knowledge established in psychology with reference to common classifications of memory research.25 The use of this concept

20 Geertz 1973, 5. See also Geertz 2003. Geertz (1973, 5) refers to the philosopher Gilbert Ryle’s book (Ryle 1949). 21 Geertz 1973, 144–5. 22 Scheibler (1987, 57–60 n. 8) also shows the close relationship between the images on the vessels and the latter’s ritual function. 23 Seifert 2011, 24–6. Regarding the term Bildsprache, see also Fehr 2000, 103–8. 24 Assmann’s (Assmann 2000; Assmann 1992; Assmann 1988, 9–12) concept of cultural memory is based on M. Halbwachs’ and A. Warburg’s theories of “collective memory” or “social memory.” Assmann links memory (appräsentierte Vergangenheit), culture, and collective. 25 The representation of knowledge is a central concept of cognitive science disciplines, such as psychology, linguistics, and cognitive neuroscience.

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of knowledge differs from, for example, the philosophical approach by defining knowledge as organized information. Knowledge is part of a system or network of structured information in which storage, integration, and organization of information in memory is organized.26 To transform knowledge into information, the community as well as the individual has to select, compare, and evaluate information in order to draw conclusions, to link information, or to negotiate and exchange ideas with other human beings. In psychology, the transformation of information into knowledge works by means of semantic networks. Semantic networks deal with nodes. Each node is a symbol, and in a semantic network it is to be interpreted as representing a specific feature, word, or concept. In this context, semantic knowledge with respect to the semantic memory refers to an accumulated general world knowledge comprised of facts, ideas, meanings, and concepts, which depend on culture. It links with episodic memory, which consists of specific experiences and events we are able to recreate at any given point.27 The term phantasia describes the process of producing signs, symbols, and meaning, and it refers to imagination, which allows remembering and thinking. The advantage of this definition of knowledge is its independence from the truth of the stored information. Lebensbilder and Mythenbilder As mentioned above, one debate in archaeology concerns the interpretation of images on Attic black-figure and red-figure vases either as Lebensbilder or as Mythenbilder. The discussion links to the question of when images of Greek myth first appeared in Attic black-figure vase paintings.28 Recent attention focuses on not treating these categories as distinct, referring either to the past or present.29 The fact that the setting of Attic vase scenes often gives few details to determine time or place of action led to the general interpretation that vase painters do not normally differentiate present, past, and future events, or use a distinctive modus to present mythical and non-mythical scenes. This viewpoint argues on the level of image interpretation. I agree with this assumption, but focus here on the formal level of image construction and the production of meaning by asking in which way, with what effect, and why vase painters present figures and settings in the way they do.

26 27 28 29

Solso 2005, 242. Tulving 2002; L. Squire 1992; Tulving 1972. Giuliani 2003, 46–56; Stansbury-O’Donnell 1999, 31–48; Fittschen 1969, 9–14, 18. Giuliani 2014, 204–5 n. 1.

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DISTINGUISHING GENDER, AGE, AND STATUS As I have argued elsewhere, Greek iconography characterizes persons on Attic black- and red-figure vase images according to their function in ancient Greek society and distinguishes sex, age, and status.30 The representations display male and female figures according to their gender roles, which are defined by age and status. By age, I mean social age rather than physical age, and this social age is classified by relevant social institutions, such as the oikos, phratry, and polis. Status depends on sex, age, and the individual’s role in society’s social institutions.31 Important distinguishing markers are height, body representation, attire, gesture and interaction, and placement, which vary according to the individual subject and setting of the scene.32 Well-known examples derive from ritual contexts on Attic black- and red-figure vase images that hierarchize persons, for example prothesis scenes,33 warriors’ departures,34 festival and wedding processions.35 Adult male and female figures are depicted larger than youths and children of both sexes. Figures of the same sex are similarly dressed and figures in the same gender roles perform the same gestures.36 Sex, gender role, and status determine the placement and interaction of male and female figures. Children usually belong to the females’ sphere and are smaller and shown only with a small repertoire of gestures (Fig. 3.1).37 Distinguishing humans, heroes, and gods To investigate whether Greek art differentiates between a descriptive and narrative mode in Attic black- and red-figure vase painting, we must look more closely at the categorization of the persons depicted. The vase scenes 30 Seifert 2011; Seifert 2008, 85–99. 31 Seifert 2011, 102–3. 32 Seifert 2011, 92. Beaumont (1995, 341) follows a different line of reasoning and argues that there are standardized figure types representing age characteristics. 33 Prothesis scene: phormiskos, Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico 1438: BAPD 5237, CVA: Italia 7, Bologna, Museo Civico 2 (L. Laurinsich), pl. 24:1–3; Laxander 2000, pl. 49:1–3. See also Seifert 2011, 38–62; Shapiro 1991, 629–56; Zschietzschmann 1928, 17–47. 34 Warrior’s departure: amphora, Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum 61.89: Paralipomena 135, 1bis; Add. 84; CVA: Deutschland 10, Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum 3, pl. 12:1, 13:1, 14:1–3; Spieß 1992, 239 B295, 302 Fig. 33, 303 Fig. 34. See also Seifert 2015, 220; Seifert 2014; Killet 1996, 64–90. 35 Wedding procession: amphora, Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria 1729.4; Paralipomena 58, 4bis; Laxander 2000, pl. 35:1–2. On festival and wedding processions, see also Laxander 2000, 7–75; Oakley and Sinos 1993. 36 A well-known prothesis scene is on the black-figure pinax in Paris, Musée du Louvre L4 (MNB 905): Seifert 2009, 95, ill. 4; Laxander 2000, pl. 51; Shapiro 1991, 630, 638–9, Fig. 1. 37 Seifert 2011, 102–4.

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Figure 3.1 Paris, Musée du Louvre L4 (MNB 905), Attic black-figure pinax attributed to the Sappho Painter, early fifth century BC. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Hervé Lewandowski.

generally render humans, heroes, and gods in an anthropomorphic form. Height, body, attire, gesture and interaction, and placement distinguish humans from deities and are specific to the scene and theme. To create a hierarchy of humans, heroes, and gods, the figures differ according to a reference system limited to their function: humans and heroes are shown in the realm of human social institutions, such as the oikos, phratry, or polis, while gods orientate toward their functions in the pantheon.38 For example, Athena as Athena Promachos wears a peplos similar to those worn by women in the oikos, but she also sports an aegis, gorgoneion, and helmet.39 Her weaponry in combination with her habitus in interactions demonstrates her status in the interplay of the Olympic gods and in relations between deities and men, and it is these key elements that determine her function. In Greek art, gods usually do not show any social or functional development. Consequently, even at her birth, Athena appears fully armed.40 In this case, gender role, status, and habitus consti38 Seifert 2011, 85–7. 39 The so-called Burgon Amphora with Athena Promachos: London, British Museum B134: ABV 89, 1; Boardman 1974, 168, Fig. 296:1; CVA: Great Britain 1, London, British Museum 1 (A. Smith), pl. 2. 40 Birth of Athena: exaleiptron, Paris, Musée du Louvre CA616: ABV 58, 122; Paralipomena 23; Ellinghaus 1997, Fig. 3; Simon 1981, 77–8, pl. 59. Cup, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 06.1097: ABV 199, 2; Paralipomena 197; Boardman 1974, 107, Fig. 175. For discussion of Athena’s childbirth scenes: Stark 2012, 104–22; Seifert 2011, 76–8.

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Figure 3.2 Paris, Musée du Louvre CA 616, Attic black-figure exaleiptron attributed to Painter C, c. 570–560 BC. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Stéphane Maréchalle.

tute fixed categories for Athena, while the attributes signify her specific role as Promachos as an adult or even as a child (Fig. 3.2).41 In contrast to the Olympian gods, heroes are integrated into human society in Greek vase paintings. Attic black-figure pottery depicts Achilles as an adult and as an adolescent. The corresponding reference system of iconography for both types of depictions – adult and adolescent – are social institutions, specifically the oikos, phratry, and polis. Equipped with his weapons, the adult Achilles appears in the role of a male adult warrior, who is part of the adult male adult phratry and willing to fight for his polis.42 Other contexts show Achilles as an adolescent, unarmed and in the habitus of a young kouros (Fig. 3.3).43 Here, he appears as a male adolescent, who leaves the oikos to be socialized in the phratry and who will be a future member of the polis.44 Similar to the figure of Athena with 41 Seifert 2011, 86. 42 The ambush of Troilus by Achilles: amphora, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 1970.8: ABV 140, 2; Addenda 38; CVA: USA 14, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 1 (H. Hoffmann), pl. 6:1-2. 43 Chiron returning the boy Achilles to his father, Peleus: white-ground lekythos, Athens, National Archaeological Museum 550: ABV 476; Shapiro 2004b, 91, Fig. 4; Rühfel 1984a, 71. In red-figure vase painting, Achilles is depicted as a small kouros when he is delivered to Chiron for his education: stamnos, Paris, Musée du Louvre G186: ARV2 207, 140; CVA: France 2, Paris, Musée du Louvre 2 (E. Pottier), pl. 20:1.4; Seifert 2009, 98, Fig. 7. 44 Seifert 2011, 82–3.

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Figure 3.3 Paris, Musée du Louvre G186, Attic red-figure stamnos, c. 490 BC. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Tony Querrec.

regard to the Olympic pantheon, the iconography for Achilles is defined by human society’s hierarchy. Distinguishing function and meaning Illustrated by the few examples above, the figures represented on the Attic vase imagery – for example, gods, humans, and heroes – differ in function and meaning. The depictions delineate the interrelations of different characters, but do not explicitly differentiate between mythical and non-mythical figures. Attic black-figure vase painting, specifically, depicted persons both in mythical and non-mythical contexts with the same key identifying characteristics. Images of the warrior’s farewell, for example, refer to episodes of a specific warrior’s departure as known from literature.45 Yet other depictions of a warrior’s farewell present a general event – contemporary, past, 45 Cf. Hektor’s farewell from Andromache (Hom. Il. 6.399ff.).

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or future –but not necessarily a specific warrior’s farewell as known from the literary tradition.46 The warriors in the departure scenes may belong to one oikos or to different oikoi. They are warriors (fathers, husbands, brothers, and so on), but they are also hetairoi, companions in battle. Implicitly, the topic is the oikos and the company of hetairoi; the iconography and setting reflect a hierarchy of age, gender, status, and habitus. Knowledge and language To understand the meaning of Attic vase imagery, the viewer needs information. The images’ reception presumes knowledge of current historical events and society. The interpretation of the vase scenes relies, at the least, on knowledge of Greek language – that is, on the information, terminology, and stories conveyed by language, as well as connoisseurship of historical facts, events, and culture. This is particularly evident in the pictorial development from the blackto red-figure vase images. In Attic red-figure vase painting, themes, motifs, and even iconographic key elements change, and these changes reflect social or political events and discourses.47 For example, while children are generally rare, and small children are shown as miniature adults on Attic black-figure and early red-figure vase imagery, there is a clear change in how age is depicted after 460/450 BC. The iconography of maturation now visualizes children according to socialization phases, most often referring to the oikos and the phratry. Small children possess immature physiques and soft, fleshy, disproportionate limbs. The new iconography applies to humans as well as heroes (and non-Olympian gods).48 In red-figure vase painting, the iconography of Erichthonios wearing amulets (Fig. 3.4)49 corresponds with the somatic representation of children on the so-called choes,50 for example. In order for the viewer to understand these representations, it is essential to know that Erichthonios was the fourth 46 Seifert 2014, 215–20. 47 Kenzler 2008, 107. 48 According to Beaumont (2004, 61–2), children were an uncommon subject on Archaic vase paintings, and no particular iconographic type existed for the non-adult proportions. In contrast, I would argue that the status of children in the Archaic period refers to their forthcoming function in society expressed by the miniaturized adult (Seifert 2011, 102–3, 131). 49 Birth of Erichthonios: hydria, Munich, Antikensammlungen 2413: ARV2 495, 1; CVA: Deutschland 9, München 3, Museum Antiker Kleinkunst 3 (R. Lullies), pls. 252–5; Shapiro 2004b, 89, Fig. 3. Cup, Berlin, Antikensammlung 2537: ARV2 1268, 2; CVA: Deutschland 22, Berlin, Antiquarium 3 (A. Greifenhagen), 14, pl. 113; Seifert 2009, 98, Fig. 8; Arafat 1990, 188, pl. 14. 50 Child wearing amulets: chous, Eleusis, Archaeological Museum 321: Seifert 2011, Fig. 14; van Hoorn 1951, Fig. 251. On the ‘choes’: Seifert 2011, 106–37; Seifert 2008, 85–100; Hamilton 1992; van Hoorn 1951.

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Figure 3.4 Berlin, Antikensammlung 2537, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 440–430 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius).

Attic king and founder of the dynasty (Apollod. 3.187), and about the Periklean citizenship law of the mid-fifth century BC.51 The role of the oikos and the phratry in Athens changed as a result of this new law. Being and socializing as an Athenian was more important. In this respect, the formal enrollment of the child’s name in the oikos, the receipt of amulets, and formal acceptance in the phratry signified these coming-of-age stages.52 Within the social order, children became more important; thus, in Greek vase painting they are portrayed in a new way: as babies or small children wearing amulets. It is striking that the hierarchy of humans, heroes, and gods continues. With regard to the Olympian gods, their functions in the interplay between gods, heroes, and men did not change. So up until the end of the fifth century BC Athena Promachos’ iconography also remains the same – that is, as a miniature adult – in both black- and red-figure pottery.53 The iconography of Attic vase painting reflects the crucial shifts in Attic society, visualizing the changes and the traditions of meaning. Looking at 51 Erichthonios was the fourth Attic king and succeeded Amphictyon (Apollod. 3.14.6). On the Periklean citizenship law, see Patterson 1981, 77–9, 153–4. 52 Seifert 2008, 96; Golden 2004, 21–2. 53 Seifert 2011, 77; Arafat 1990; Loeb 1979, 14–18. The child Athena Promachos: redfigure pelike, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 728: ARV2 286, 11 (Geras Painter); CVA: Österreich 2, Wien, Kunsthistorisches Museum 2 (F. Eichler), pl. 73:1-2; Seifert 2009, 97, Fig. 6; Simon 1981, 77, pl. 59.

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the examples cited above, we are dealing with a semantic change based on a change of institutions and a fundamental development in ancient Athenian society; this is the hidden structure of Greek visual art, the social order behind the scenes. Another example is helpful. The use of modern terms to label figures on Greek vase painting is often misleading. To designate the term ‘family’ to a group of figures consisting of man, woman, and child (Kernfamilie) in Greek vase painting54 is partially accurate. The ancient Greeks did not use the term family, but instead ‘oikos’ to describe this family-based social unit. The same problem of terminology arises in interpreting the ‘slaves’ or ‘servant figures’ in the warrior’s farewell scenes (Fig. 3.5).55 In fact, Greek vase painting of the sixth century BC shows children, adolescents, slaves, or servants as miniature adults of different sizes, distinguishing both status and age.56 The iconography here corresponds to Greek language: in social

Figure 3.5 Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum 61.89, Attic black-figure amphora. Photo: T. Goldschmidt. 54 See Stansbury-O’Donnell 2006b, 1–3; Wrede 1916, 221–337. 55 Cf. the black-figure amphora attributed to the painter of Munich 1410, Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum 61.89: Paralipomena 135, 1bis; Add. 84; CVA: Deutschland 60, Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum 3 (C. Weiss), pl. 12:1, 13:1, 14:1-3; Spieß 1992, 239 B 295, 302 Fig. 33, 303 Fig. 34. 56 Cf. the figure of a pais on the amphora, Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco 16757: ABV 145, 13; Rühfel 1984b, Fig. 35; or the pais in the departure scene on Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum 247: ABV 134, 17; Rühfel 1984b, Fig. 6.

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contexts, the child and the slave were both named pais in ancient Greek.57 Greek language and iconography reflect the reference system of the oikos. Belonging to the social institution of the oikos, children as well as slaves are of lower status compared to the adult members of an Athenian household. That means, in the hierarchy, paides (children and slaves) are linked by status and residence (social belonging), show a similar iconography in visual art, and are termed equally. CONCLUSION: PHANTASIA, EPISODIC AND SEMANTIC MEMORY The vase paintings embody and exemplify Athenian contemporary social order – that is, the social order of humans, heroes, and gods. The iconography reflects the social reference system, which is based on the oikos and the phratry for humans and heroes, and on the Olympian pantheon for gods. Let us turn once again to Achilles and the hetairos. The named twofigure scene sees Achilles and Ajax (their names written in the genitive, Achilleos, Aiantos), two well-known heroes of Homeric myth, playing a board game, probably the five-line game (Fig. 1.6a). To decipher the image, the key element is not a well-known story.58 The activity is one that was familiar from the experience of the (ancient) viewer and that could have taken place in myth, yet it is unknown from any surviving written account. The scene relies on the viewer’s knowledge about warriors’ equipment, the two heroes – that is, Achilles and Ajax – and the rules of the game. The subject of the scene points to the context of oikos and hetairoi:59 Achilles and Ajax are hetairoi, companions in battle and united as friends.60 The scene also evokes a detailed knowledge of the Homeric myth: Achilles will fall in the battle for Troy, and his death allows the Greeks to win against the Trojans. His hetairos Ajax will hide Achilles’ corpse, then carry it from the battlefield for burial. The five-line game shown is not a pure requisite, for the viewer knows it is not just any pastime, but requires foresight and tactics to win.61 The understanding of Greek visual art requires a process in which both viewers and producers are involved in their mutual perception of contemporary cultural knowledge. The vase images are constructs whose 57 Golden 1985, 96. 58 Cf. Achilles and Ajax playing a board game: amphora, Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco 16757: ABV 145, 13; Paralipomena 60; Simon 1981, pl. XXV. Kenzler (2004, 81–102) discusses the series of images depicting Achilles and Ajax gaming. 59 On hetairoi, see Stein-Hölkeskamp 1989, 29, 157–8. On hetairoi in iconography, see Seifert 2014, 215–20. 60 Kenzler 2007, 179–207; Lissarrague 1990. 61 Stansbury-O’Donnell (2006b, 112) and Williams (1980, 144 n. 55) discuss the historical background of the gaming scene.

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themes, motifs, and iconography originate from the phantasia of their producers and recipients; the phantasia is usually part of long-term cultural memory, which involves episodic and semantic memory. Semantic memory comprises knowledge of facts and general aspects of the world, while episodic memory includes personal experiences. Episodic memory enables the retrieval of past experience generated in a particular situation at a certain time, and is thus capable of mental time travel both in the past and in the future. It is the phantasia comprising and processing semantic and episodic memory that enables one to understand the meaning of the Achilles and Ajax vase scene. Both the semantic and the episodic memory are produced by human knowledge, which differs with time, place, and context. It is human phantasia that forms stories, and, at least, shapes figures. The categorization of figures in Attic Greek vase painting as humans, gods, or heroes and as mythical or non-mythical figures derives from human knowledge embedded in a specific socio-historical context. The vase paintings of the sixth and fifth centuries BC offer insights into this transmitted knowledge. From a modern perspective, the process of understanding Greek visual art from fact-based knowledge links with our perception of ancient and contemporary cultural knowledge. In the end, its limitations of interpretation depend on our phantasia. In sum, the clue of the hidden structure in Greek vase painting of the sixth and fifth centuries BC is what I would call ‘belonging’; the pictorial set of key elements used to visualize belonging reflects ancient Greek society and its socio-political order in a very sophisticated way. To classify the vase scenes as Lebensbilder or Mythenbilder may help us to understand different levels of ancient knowledge, but it does not reveal the structures from which the images were constructed.

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4 IMAGES AND STORYTELLING* Luca Giuliani

The chapter is focused on one of the leading examples of ancient Greek pottery from the seventh century BC: the so-called Chigi jug. The images on the jug are of two different sorts: the first one depicts habitual forms of human aristocratic behavior, the second refers to one specific story. Such a distinction, it seems to me, can be usefully applied to Greek iconography in general. Mobile objects decorated with images referring to stories (I shall call them narrative images) are far from being frequent. This is true for the world at large, but also specifically for ancient Greece, where they emerge only around 700 BC and remain relatively rare throughout the following centuries. The obvious question to ask is: what caused them to emerge, and what kept them from disappearing again? It seems important to understand that no image is able to tell the story it refers to, for it lacks the very words that would be necessary in order to do so; the task of telling the story inevitably falls to the beholder, who must of course already know the story he is supposed to tell. Narrative images therefore require additional effort, both from their producer and from their audience. Additional effort is only invested if it leads to some kind of additional benefit. Of what kind was this benefit? Narrative images are found on luxury artifacts that were produced for the elite – but we have to understand what kind of elite this was. I shall focus on two peculiar features of elites in Archaic Greece: one is a striking lack of criteria of belonging, the other is an equally striking predisposition to competitive forms of behavior (the Greek term for this being ‘agón’). The two features are related: exactly because membership in the elite was not given by genealogical criteria, it had to be determined by a permanent competition for social prestige. The ancient Greek elite had the tendency *

I would like to thank François Lissarrague for conversations on this subject over the past decades, and the participants in the Edinburgh workshop for a lively discussion and critical remarks. Tonio Hölscher allowed me to read a not yet published essay of his on the early mythological iconography of the seventh century BC – herzlichen Dank! For assistance concerning the Bronze and Early Iron Ages, I am grateful to Birgitta Eder and Joseph Maran (neither of whom, of course, is responsible for any mistake of mine).

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Figure 4.1 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale.

to turn almost any kind of social interaction into a competition. This is true not only for war and sports and homoerotic love, but also for something as apparently uncompetitive as drinking parties (symposia). It is against this background, I argue, that we can understand what constitutes the additional value of narrative iconography on pots and other objects. Narrative images are picture puzzles, in the face of which a beholder could fail or prove his worth; and it is precisely this quality that made narrative iconography an appropriate medium of agonal forms of behavior. Images on Ancient Greek vases are there not (merely) for a decorative purpose. They (also) have a concrete social function, turning the user of the vase into a viewer and providing him with food for conversation.

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Figure 4.2 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale.

Conversation was particularly important during drinking parties; consequently, this chapter is focused on the iconography of symposion vases. The Chigi wine jug, a prototypical example of such a vase, was manufactured in a Corinthian workshop in the third quarter of the seventh century BC and exported to Etruria (Figs. 4.1 and 4.2).1 Its size is modest – it is only twenty-six centimeters high – but its highly sophisticated iconography makes it one of the masterpieces of Archaic Greek pottery. In the following, I shall discuss the iconography of the three main friezes painted on light ground. 1 D’Acunto 2013; Hurwit 2002.

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Figure 4.3 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), middle frieze, c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale.

The lower frieze depicts boys hunting hares. The middle frieze is divided into different sections (Fig. 4.3). On the front of the jug is a chariot followed by four riders, each of whom leads a second horse. The procession approaches a two-bodied sphinx, to the right of which we see five hunters confronting a lion (Fig. 4.4). The procession and the hunt are to be seen as one coherent image:2 five aristocratic hunters have set off in a chariot and on horses to seek out the lion in its own territory; the attendants, to the left of the sphinx, remain at a prudent distance and underscore the courage of their masters. Finally, the upper frieze shows the clashing of two phalanxes (Fig. 4.5). The three friezes build a clear sequence from bottom to top. There is, first, an increase in height and in the number of figures depicted. This coincides with an increase in the figures’ age. The participants in the hare hunt are naked boys with short hair. In the middle frieze, the young men are somewhat older. In the upper frieze, the hoplites are bearded and therefore adults.3 Finally, from bottom to top the activities become more and more serious. The lower frieze shows a harmless hunt, free of danger: just a pedagogical exercise.4 In the middle frieze, the lion hunt is a serious, lifethreatening enterprise. In the upper frieze, war is presented as the ultimate life-and-death struggle. All these scenes depict a collective action, the protagonists of which are nameless; the outcome remains open, and there is no intent to build up suspense. Which of the phalanxes will triumph, which will yield? We do not know. The same is true for the lion hunt. The image merely emphasizes the danger of the lion and the courage of the hunters. Attempting a first interpretation, we can say that these images do not portray specific events but rather habitual forms of behavior. The 2 As was suggested first by Hurwit 2002 and confirmed by D’Acunto 2013. 3 The fact that the warriors in the upper frieze are bearded has, oddly enough, never been mentioned; it brings a welcome confirmation to Hurwit’s assumption that the age of the persons depicted increases from the bottom to the top. 4 Schnapp 1997, 135–8, 180–1.

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Figure 4.4 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), the lion hunt, c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale.

Figure 4.5 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), upper frieze, c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale.

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bottom frieze depicts an activity that is customary for boys who will grow up to become members of a warrior elite: we do not see a specific hare hunt at one point in time, but the hunting of hares in general, as it happens again and again. The battle scene in the upper frieze also shows an action that would have been regarded as habitual by contemporary beholders, who used to participate regularly in battles of this kind. A useful comparison for images of habitual behavior is provided by the description of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad.5 Hephaistos has decorated the shield with a complex imagery that offers nothing less than a depiction of the world as a whole. First come the earth, the sun, the moon, and “all the constellations with which the skies are crowned”6 (all of them: there is an obvious aim for completeness). Then are depicted two cities: one is at war, the other in peace (and with this, again, the possibilities of human life seem to be exhausted: there is either war or peace, tertium non datur). Finally, there are four scenes of rural life, each of which takes place in a different season (and the four, again, build a complete cycle: there is no season missing). In all these scenes the protagonists of the action remain nameless and there is no attempt to build up any kind of suspense. The poet does not narrate a story here (as he does in the rest of the poem); he rather describes what could occur anywhere and at any time. Particularly interesting in our context is a scene that is part of the cycle of agricultural activities; it is set in the winter and depicts two hungry lions attacking a herd of cattle: At the head of the herd a pair of fearsome lions had seized a bull that roared aloud as it was being dragged off. The young men and dogs were running up to the rescue. But it was in vain that the herdsmen were setting their swift dogs on them and urging them forward.7 The similarity between this scene and the lion hunt on the Chigi jug is obvious. Neither of the two aims to tell a specific story; rather, they each describe general phenomena: there are lions in the world, and brave aristocrats engage with them in combat; unarmed herdsmen alone are powerless. The images of hunt and war on the Chigi jug refer to patterns of habitual behavior that claim general validity and can also be understood as normative: this is how one catches hares, this is how one hunts lions, and this is how one conducts war. The jug portrays the life of the elite in a way that its audience (which itself belongs to the elite) knows and expects. In this sense, the images do not provoke further questions. It would make little sense, for example, to ask why the boys are hunting hares or why the men 5 Hom. Il. 18.478-608. 6 Hom. Il. 18.485. 7 Hom. Il. 18.570-84.

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Figure 4.6 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 22679 (‘Chigi olpe’), the judgment of Paris, c. 640 BC. Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’ Etruria Meridionale.

engage in battle. The only answer would be: because hunting hares and fighting wars are normal activities within their pattern of life. There is, however, one scene on the jug that quite clearly falls outside this framework. It is located in the middle frieze on the back, directly under the handle (Fig. 4.6). It is the only scene in which women appear. There are three of them, walking from right to left, preceded by a herald (only the point of his kerykeion has been preserved) and approaching a small bearded man with long hair. The presence of the herald suggests that the procession has an official character. Yet, in the case of an official event, we would expect not women but men to be following the herald. What we see instead is in blatant contradiction to Greek aristocratic routine and norms of behavior. This anomaly raises questions. Who are these women? Where is their journey leading, and what do they want from the small bearded man? It is no coincidence that the painter has appended name inscriptions to the figures in this (and only this) scene. The two ladies walking at the end of the procession are identified as Athanaia and Aphrod[ita]; the one in the front must be Hera, and the herald can only be Hermes. The small man toward whom they are walking is called Al[exand]ros. What brings the three goddesses to Alexandros alias Paris? The answer to this question lies in a story: the story of the Judgment of Paris.8 8 LIMC VII, s.v. Paridis Judicium, 176–7 (A. Kossatz-Deissmann).

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The dichotomy between the two sorts of images seems perfectly clear. On one side, we have images that depict facets of customary aristocratic behavior. Quite different is the case of the three ladies preceded by a herald. In an androcentric culture such as that of Archaic Greece, this procession does not correspond to any sort of routine; it must refer to a specific, unprecedented event. This dichotomy between what is habitual and what is exceptional is simple; nevertheless, it is not trivial. The border between the two does not necessarily lie where the modern beholder would expect it. The Corinthian painter considers the ladies’ procession as exceptional, but not the lion hunt with the presence of a sphinx. For us, it would be natural to consider the sphinx to be a creature of myth. Not so for a Corinthian vase painter. On Corinthian pottery, we frequently find animal friezes, and many of them include sphinxes;9 they belong to the same level of reality as lions, panthers, bulls, goats, or water birds. The frame of what is accepted as real and habitual can vary from one culture to the other: as interpreters, our first job is to reconstruct the historically specific frame of reference. The images depicting habitual behavior I call descriptive, because they describe what habitually happens in the world, what is easy to understand and constitutes no cognitive problem. If an image, on the contrary, depicts an exceptional event falling outside of the normal routine, this inevitably gives rise to questions: what is going on here, and who are the actors? The answer to such questions is provided by a story, and this is why I would like to call such an image narrative. Of course, the narrative image in itself is unable to tell a story; as an image, it does not have the words to do so. Instead, it simply requires a story to be told. The task of telling the story will have to be fulfilled by the beholder, who, in turn, will not be able to extract the story he is supposed to tell from the image he is looking at: he must already know it. The maker of a narrative image is not allowed to invent a story: he must refer to a traditional tale that will also be known by the expected beholder. Such a traditional tale we call a myth, and a myth is more than just a story. Storytelling is everywhere: there is no human culture in which stories are not told. But stories are ephemeral: most of them are told and forgotten, and vanish without leaving any trace. Only a few of them succeed in being told again and again, becoming part of a traditional corpus of stories passed down from generation to generation. In order to become traditional, a story has to possess certain qualities.10 These qualities can be of very different kinds. Some tales will be remembered simply because they are particularly entertaining; but more often than not a tale will become 9 Winkler-Horaček 2015, 287–90. 10 Kirk 1971, 30, 282.

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traditional because it relates to some facet of the world, of human life, or of collective institutions that is of particular relevance for the audience concerned. Myths are, in general, not only entertaining: they are also good to think with,11 provide orientation, and are used as arguments. In many cultures, the telling of mythical stories is entrusted to specialists. In Archaic Greece, these were singers (aoidoí), who performed on festive occasions. On the basis of the distinction between descriptive and narrative images, it is easy to see that descriptive images are ubiquitous; narrative images, on the contrary, are rare:12 they are not found in all cultures, and their emergence, whenever it occurs, is a remarkable phenomenon. In Greece such an emergence occurs around 700 BC.13 On Geometric vases of the eighth century, we find a rich and complex iconography of how war is waged, how festivals are celebrated, or how the dead are mourned and buried; we see variations on the theme of elite habitual behavior and routines, but we find no image that would require the knowledge of a specific story in order to be understood.14 The same holds true for the Greek Bronze Age. The vast majority of Mycenaean pottery is decorated exclusively with geometric, floral, or maritime patterns. After the middle of the second millennium BC, a new genre of decoration emerges that is often referred to as Pictorial Style. In particular, kraters for the mixing of wine and water are now often decorated with animals and human figures: we see birds and fishes, bulls and stags, men walking or in chariots, and the motifs are often repeated or combined with each other.15 But there are only very few cases in which we find a specific action that could be related to a narrative.16 A krater dated around 1400, found in a chamber grave at Enkomi on Cyprus, is decorated on each side with a large octopus; between the octopuses, under

11 Culler 2013. 12 For a completely different approach, see Stansbury-O’Donnell 1999. The book starts with the discussion of the depiction of a woman approaching an open chest with a bundle of clothes in her arm (Attic red-figure lekythos in New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery 1913.146; 19, Fig. 5). For me, this would be a descriptive scene of habitual behavior implying no suspense and giving rise to no further questions. StansburyO’Donnell considers it to be a narrative scene, because it “is open-ended with a plausible range of alternative events that could precede or follow it” (p. 35). This statement seems to hold true for any kind of human action. From this perspective, all the images on the Chigi jug and the whole of Geometric or Mycenaean iconography become narrative; then, however, the concept of narrative iconography loses any specific meaning. The purpose of a theory is to allow for useful distinctions. This theory succeeds in the opposite: in the darkness, all cats turn gray. 13 Fundamental is Fittschen 1969. See also Giuliani 2015a; Giuliani 2013, 26–52. 14 Rombos 1988; Ahlberg 1971b; Ahlberg 1971a. 15 Mountjoy 1993, 73; Furumark 1941, 431–61. 16 Karageorghis 1958, 383–7.

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Figure 4.7 Nicosia, Cyprus Museum, Mycenaean krater, c. 1400 BC. Adapted from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arheologicheski-_ Mycenaean_crater.jpg.

one handle, is a chariot with a lord and his driver (Fig. 4.7);17 below the chariot, a naked servant carries a folding stool for his master to sit on once he has descended from the chariot;18 to the right a second man, dressed like the lord and his charioteer, holds a pair of scales. Martin P. Nilsson has drawn a connection between the latter figure and two passages of the Iliad where Zeus uses his golden scales in order to weigh the fates, 17 Steel 2013, 214–15; Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982, 1–15, I: 95–6, cat. III:2; Gjerstad et al. 1934, 543, pl. 120. 18 For the servant carrying a stool, see also a krater from Pyla-Verghi in Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982, 196, cat. III:13.

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once collectively for the Achaeans and the Trojans and once individually for Hector and Achilles;19 Nilsson concluded that the figure on the Enkomi krater “can be but Zeus taking the scales of destiny in order to determine the fate of the combatants, a famous scene of the Iliad which [. . .] comes consequently down from Mycenaean times. Zeus was the supreme ruler.”20 The scene on the Enkomi krater would thus refer to a mythological combat in the presence of Zeus. The problem, of course, is that the figure with the scales appears to be subordinated to the lord in the chariot; even worse, there are no combatants to be seen: there is only one chariot, and its master has no arms. Nilsson’s interpretation, seductive as it is, cannot be right. In the Iliad, the device used by the poet consists in taking an object of everyday usage, turning it into something particularly precious (made out of gold), and putting it into the hand of a god. Here it becomes a divine instrument for weighing something that no mortal man could ever measure: the (scarcely material) fates of life and death. The painter of the Enkomi krater is far from such a level of sophistication: his image simply mirrors the everyday practice that the poet of the Iliad uses as an implicit point of departure. The scales on the krater are used to weigh material goods21; such goods constitute the wealth of the lord in the chariot and the wealth of the rich man to whose burial the krater belonged.22 Like the images on the Chigi jug, this describes the life of the elite. Somewhat different is the case of two other kraters. The first one shows on each side a bird facing to the right and a chariot driving in the same direction;23 the bird’s wings are spread, and the men in the chariot gesticulate with outstretched arms. The effect achieved suggests a dramatic pursuit. The second krater again shows two men in a chariot on both sides, but this time they are pursued by a giant fish with a round eye and a bird-like beak.24 The painters of both kraters have used figures from the iconographic stock at their disposal, introducing variations in order to combine them into a coherent action scene. But must the action depicted refer to a mythological plot?25 The two pursuits are similar, but the pursuing agent could hardly be more different. Consequently, we would also have to assume two quite 19 Hom. Il. 8.69-77, 22.209-13. 20 Nilsson 1933b, 267, Fig. 56; Nilsson 1933a. 21 Dikaios 1971, vol. 2, 918–25 (where the stool is taken to be an ingot). Compare the wall painting of a sitting merchant with scales in a grave of the fourteenth century in Thebes: Kopcke 1990, 123, Fig. 33. 22 Gjerstad et al. 1934, 541–5, tomb 17: the krater belongs to the latest burial in the tomb, together with a golden bowl and a diadem. 23 Nicosia, The Cyprus Museum. Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982, 16–17, 196, cat. III:6. 24 Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982, 40, 201, cat. V:18. 25 This is the assumption of Vermeule and Karageorghis 1982: “The imaginative narrative shows that the pictorial idiom, now well established, can be used to illustrate tales” (p. 17).

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different plots: one about a gigantic bird of prey, one about a monstrous fish, both of them pursuing two men in a chariot (which, in the case of the monster fish, is not a very likely combination). It seems more plausible to assume that the two scenes are the result of a playful combination of motifs: bird and fish, both of them usually harmless, are transformed into gigantic and scary monsters; the current icon for rank and power – the chariot – here becomes the vehicle for a desperate flight. The reversal of the roles achieves a comic effect that any beholder would readily appreciate without any supplementary information. There is no story for him to decode. The image is, so to speak, a cartoon, for the understanding of which no myth is needed. In the period after the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces, the iconographic spectrum of vase painting becomes more varied. We find the first examples of subjects that will later become frequent on Geometric vases, such as sea battles or the depiction of ritual mourning.26 A krater from Abai-Kalapodi seems to show the siege of a town, while another krater recently found at Tiryns depicts two warriors shaking hands.27 Both scenes are unprecedented,28 but again their understanding would have posed no problem to anybody familiar with the customs of a warrior society; no beholder would have asked for a story in order to make sense of what he saw. We still remain, as with the scenes on Achilles’ shield, within the horizon of descriptive iconography. So what leads to the emergence of narrative images around 700 BC? Tonio Hölscher has pointed out that this is the same moment at which the Greek polis begins to take shape.29 The coincidence might not be accidental. Hölscher shows how many early narrative images refer to plots that can be related to central features of the early polis. Just one example: Herakles, the strongest of all heroes, accomplishes his deeds not because of his own free will, but in service to King Eurystheus of Tiryns; Eurystheus, in turn, is characterized as a weakling whose lack of individual vigor stands in contrast to his royal rank. Hölscher interprets this as mirroring the early Greek poleis, in which central political authority was weak and thus powerful individuals could find a wide scope for their activities. This is perfectly convincing in as much as it shows why the myths of Herakles and Eurystheus were important under the given

26 Rystedt and Wells 2006, 22–9 Figs. 1–9 (sea battles: F. Dakoronia), 183–5 Figs. 1–5 (prothesis: S. Hiller). 27 Maran and Papadimitriou 2017, 40–1, Fig. 9; Niemeier 2013, 1–46. 28 For the iconography of warfare in the Bronze Age, see Vonhoff 2008, who uses the term ‘narrative’ for images of action (e.g., pp. 184, 219). It is easy to see that none of them is narrative in the sense of the term as used here: the actions depicted are all habitual and require no specific narrative for their understanding. 29 T. Hölscher forthcoming. For the emergence of the polis, cf. Raaflaub 1997.

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social conditions, and why they were depicted so often. But does it really explain why in the early seventh century Greek image-makers started referring to myths in the first place? One would have to assume that with the emergence of the polis, mythological tales acquired an importance that they had not had before, and that this new importance urged the inhabitants of towns not only to tell the tales in words, but also to depict them in images. This would mean that myths, up to that point, had been of lesser importance as a relevant medium of reflection. But then why would they have been told and retold in the first place? Stories, as we have seen, become traditional if, and probably only if, they are good to think with; if not, they are forgotten. Until the mid-twentieth century, the emergence of narrative images in Greece was usually explained by referring to the influence of the Homeric poems, to be dated between the late eighth and the early seventh centuries. This view was severely shaken by Anthony Snodgrass, who argued that the impact of the Iliad and the Odyssey on early imagery had been extremely modest: if we take the iconography of the seventh century as a whole, not more than 10 percent of the narrative images can be related to one or the other of the Homeric poems – a small minority.30 This insight should not come as a shock. The Iliad and the Odyssey are the oldest examples of Greek poetry that we have – but we have them only because they happened to be written down. Both poems were deeply rooted in the tradition of oral poetry, as it had been performed over centuries.31 At the same time, the plots of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, in themselves rather limited, are related to a wider horizon of heroic deeds, with which their audience was supposed to be more or less familiar: these myths were the subject of oral poetry long before the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed. So the image-makers of the seventh century must have had a large variety of mythical stories to which they could refer, and probably quite a few of these had their roots in the Bronze Age. We can safely assume that in the second millennium the inhabitants of Mycenae, Tiryns, and Pylos were already acquainted with a canon of traditional stories which provided them with entertainment, guidance, and orientation; such stories are not likely to have been less important to them than they would be to the later inhabitants of Greek poleis. But such stories were told and retold in songs; the medium of their transmission was speech – and nobody ever thought to transfer their plot from words into images. The two media are far from being equivalent: as Lessing famously argued in his Laocoön, there are subject matters that are much easier to handle in one medium than in another.32 The plot of a story is one case in point. 30 Snodgrass 1998; Snodgrass 1982, 107–19, esp. pp. 111–18. 31 Foley 1997. 32 Lessing 1766.

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The transfer of a mythical plot from words to an image is a huge step. What early Greek image-makers do perfectly well is to depict patterns of human behavior; with this, they offer a cognitive perspective on the social world that is easy to grasp, and to agree with, for any beholder. Exactly the same holds true for the images that decorate Achilles’ shield, as described in the Iliad. With the narrative image we move into a completely different universe. This is true for both the image-maker and the beholder. Let’s first consider the production of the image. The plot of a story consists in a temporal sequence of actions, each unfolding out of the other, and it is not least this temporal aspect that poses a challenge. The story of the Judgment of Paris can easily be summarized in a few words: all gods and goddesses were invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis with the exception of Eris, the goddess of strife. For this Eris takes revenge by bringing about a beauty contest among the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. In such a contest, no god would qualify as an unbiased juror: the contest can only be resolved by a mortal man, and Prince Paris from Troy is asked to serve as a judge. Paris gives the prize to Aphrodite, who in return has promised him the love of the most beautiful of all mortal women: Helena. The abduction of Helena from Sparta will cause the outbreak of the Trojan War, in which Achilles, the son of Peleus and Thetis, will ultimately win his fame and lose his life. What is the image-maker to do with this plot? How can he refer to it in a medium that lacks verbs, tenses, and prepositions? How can he concentrate a wide-ranging sequence of actions into one single image? He will have to choose and to concentrate, constructing an image that deviates from the routines of normal behavior, depicting something unusual that requires an explanation while, at the same time, offering its beholders a clue. Even more challenging is what the narrative image expects from the recipient. Descriptive images had confronted the beholder merely with what he or she already knew about the ways of the world. Now this viewer sees, for example, three ladies forming a procession led by a herald: something highly unusual and strange, something that poses questions. In order to find an answer, the educated beholder will have to rely on the canon of traditional tales, but will most likely be familiar with dozens, if not hundreds, of them. He or she will therefore have to search the image for a clue, trying to identify the story to which it refers. “Fitting the right story to an image, and identifying the characters represented, is a delightful but exacting task.”33 This accomplished, the beholder will 33 This is the conclusion reached by Woodford (2011, 422), who speaks about modern beholders, but, of course, what she says also applies, mutatis mutandis, to the ancient viewer.

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finally of course also need to tell the story, aiming at a vividness that can compete with the image itself, while offering explications that the image is unable to give. The narrative image thus requires a considerable amount of additional effort from the producer and from the recipient. Both of them will take on such increased effort only if they can expect it to lead to some kind of additional value. What kind of additional cultural and social value might have accrued to narrative images? If we look for a Greek concept under which all the scenes depicted on the Chigi jug could be subsumed, then none seems more suitable than that of agón.34 It is a term that covers a broad spectrum, extending from rivalry and competition to struggle and war. The boys hunting hares in the lower frieze engage in agonal behavior just as much as the lion hunters in the middle and the warriors in the upper frieze. But the narrative image on the back also refers to an agón. It therefore seems plausible that agón here functions as the common denominator for the imagery on the Chigi jug as a whole. Agón is notoriously the key concept in Jacob Burckhardt’s History of Greek Culture.35 It was Burckhardt who identified competitive behavior, together with the striving for freedom, as the fundamental driving forces of Greek culture; his portrayal of the aristocracy of Archaic Greece as engaged in permanent competitive behavior has been enormously influential. It would be hard to find another text in the field of Classics that has had as far-reaching an effect as Burckhardt’s chapter on “der agonale Mensch.” Yet Burckhardt used the term of Greek aristocracy without considering it to be problematic. He – as well as other ancient historians of his own and the next generation – envisioned the elites in ancient Greece along the lines of the European aristocracy of the ancien régime: as a coherent, enduring network of families (in Greek: génē) who were clearly set apart from the rest of society and whose higher status was generally accepted. Membership in this aristocracy, so ran general implicit assumption, would

34 It was Hurwit 2002 who brought up the notion of agón here, but not without putting forward doubts about its usefulness: “the idea of agôn is too broad to be of much use: it is hard to think of many Greek works of art that do not concern conflict or competition in some way” (pp. 16–17). This is perfectly true: if we were looking for a specific interpretation that was valid only for the images of the Chigi jug, then agón would not be a very interesting category. But it is exactly the pervasive presence of agonistic subjects in Greek iconography as a whole that is puzzling and that requires an explanation. 35 Burckhardt, Griechische Kulturgeschichte (1898–1902) in Burckhardt 1955–7, vols. 5–8, specifically vol. 8, 84: “The agon is the general element that, as soon as the necessary freedom is provided, brings all wishes and abilities to fermentation. In this respect the Greeks are unique.” The text goes back to lectures that Burckhardt gave in Basel in the 1870s.

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have been decided by descent. This idea held sway for a long time. It was refuted in the 1970s, when two French historians were able to show that in ancient Greece long-lasting kinship groups that asserted their elite status in relation to others simply did not exist.36 In Archaic Greece, the focal point of social organization was not the kinship group (génos), but the individual household (oikos). Kinship ties beyond the household were of limited importance. It is also rare to find continuity over several generations at burial sites.37 Particularly illuminating are the rules on which blood feud was based: the obligation to take revenge concerned only the father, the brothers, and the sons of the person murdered;38 of a wider ranging kinship group there is no trace. Nowhere in Archaic Greece do we find any evidence of clans tracing back their genealogy to a common ancestor, with their members supporting each other, mobilizing resources for a common purpose, and considering themselves to constitute an elite. But if such kin groups did not exist, then descent and birth could not represent the criterion which determined membership to the elite. What, then, did? The answer is simple. Membership in the Greek elite was based on public reputation, on prestige. But prestige could be acquired in an almost infinite variety of ways: the resulting elite suffered from a chronic indeterminacy of delimitation criteria.39 A sharp contrast is offered by the Roman aristocracy of the Republican period, the nobility. This nobility was limited to a small number of family groups, the gentes, who were able to preserve their collective identity over centuries. The status of one aristocratic gens in relation to others was measured in terms of the rank and number of high political officers that the family had produced in the course of its history. This led to an aristocracy that was clearly structured and equally clearly delimited from the rest of society. It was precisely this phenomenon that was missing in ancient Greece. To determine whether somebody belonged to the elite or not was always a problem due to the lack of genealogical criteria. And it is exactly this chronic lack of social determinacy that leads to a better understanding of the Greek tendency to embrace permanent competition. In ancient Greek society, competition first seems to have been in the realm of martial ability. However, with the emergence of the phalanx and the decline of the lone elite warrior, it shifted from war into other areas. Here again, the difference between Greek and Roman elites is telling. The Roman nobiles focused their rivalry exclusively on politics; the Greek elite, however, concentrated their competitions on areas that we would 36 37 38 39

Bourriot 1976; Roussel 1976. Humphreys 1980, 105–12; Bourriot 1976, 831–1042. Murray 1983, 196. Cf. Hom. Il. 9.632-6; Hom. Od. 24.433-6. Duplouy 2006.

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associate with leisure: sport, social carousal, and homoeroticism. Decisive here were a well-trained body, beauty, comeliness and – last but not least – a high degree of cultural competence. Many of these features and skills could be cultivated and improved through practice. This required one to spend a good deal of time in the gymnasium and at symposia. In our context, it is above all the symposion that is interesting, for it constituted the center of Greek elites’ social life.40 Symposia took form around 700 BC, and their fundamental elements remained more or less constant over centuries. This long-term success seems to have been based not least on the fact that, as an institution, the symposion was able to reconcile – unusually enough – competitive behavior with the desire for pleasure. Now what exactly is a symposion? It is, first of all, a wine-drinking competition conducted according to fixed rules by a small, exclusive group of men. Second: wine promotes conversation. Poetry was also central to symposiastic interactions. Almost all the lyric poetry of the Archaic period was intended for declamation at a symposion, and almost all of this poetry is about convivial drinking.41 Many of these poems were characterized by a high degree of complexity, which demanded a considerable degree of concentration by both declaimer and listener. Shorter poems (skólia) could be improvised, occasionally as antiphony, when a symposiast would introduce a theme in a few verses and challenge his companions to take it up and continue in the same rhythm. Particularly popular were riddles (gríphoi, ainígmata), which provided the opportunity for participants to prove their ingenuity and presence of mind. The Chigi jug is, of course, a sympotic vase. Many narrative images are found on drinking cups. In an encyclopedic treatise on symposia, written in Roman Imperial times, we find the verb kylikēgorêin: “to talk about the cup.”42 Such talk can hardly refer to discussion about the cup as a drinking vessel; it can only connect to what was depicted on it. The images on cups, as well as on other vases, must have played an important role in conversation. This, I argue, was precisely one of their functions. It is in the context of agonal competition that we should understand the additional value and the cultural function of narrative images. It is not by chance that such images emerge more or less at the same time that the Greek elites lose their exclusive military function and at the moment when the symposion takes shape as a social institution. In the seventh century BC, anybody who had even a rudimentary knowledge of the elites and their lifestyle would have been able to talk about images of hunting and war, as we find them on the Chigi jug. The small 40 Murray 1983, 195–9. See also Wȩcowski 2014; Hobden 2013; Catoni 2010, 78, 223; Murray 1990, 5–11. 41 Pellizer 1990. 42 Ath. 11, 461E, 480B. On this, see Heinemann 2016, 57 n. 164.

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narrative image on the back of the vessel required something more: its beholder had to be familiar with the story. At this point, he could succeed or fail. At the same time, the identification of the story constituted only the first step, which allowed the participants to pursue the agón further and further. One of them might have added details of the story that had previously not been mentioned; the next might have recited matching verses from memory; this, in turn, could lead to further variations on the theme. The narrative image opens up a wide range of possibilities for convivial competition. For an aristocratic culture that lived from the agón and for the agón, this must have been a game that was well worth playing.

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PART II INTERPRETATION AND PERCEPTION

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5 THE ALEXANDER MOSAIC: STORIES OF VICTORY Mauro Menichetti

The Hellenistic world created a new conception of royal power based on a “theology of Victory”: succeeding in war affirmed the deities’ favor, but the moment of victory, ephemeral and short-lived, had to be prolonged into something long-lasting – perpetual, even “eternal.”1 Military victory is our starting point and, in this regard, the famous battle of Alexander and Darius is an iconic representation of royal Hellenistic power (Fig. 5.1). The mosaic illustrating the battle of Alexander comes from the House of the Faun at Pompeii whose structure, as is well known, imitates Hellenistic palaces (Fig. 5.2), an impression that visitors experienced when

Figure 5.1 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 10020, Alexander mosaic from House of the Faun, Pompeii. Photo: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. 1 T. Hölscher 2006; Chaniotis 2005, 57–77; Virgilio 2003; Fears 1981.

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Figure 5.2 Pompeii, House of the Faun, plan. After Dickmann, J.-A. 1999. Domus frequentata. Munich, 1 Fig. 3b.

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entering the house and looking at the long perspective of rooms: atria, peristilia, triclinia, floors decorated with mosaics, and painted walls. The entire house, completed at the end of the second century BC, displays an Asiatica luxuria in its plan and decoration.2 The famous exedra, containing the mosaic of Alexander, was the final destination of a spectacular path available to high-ranking visitors, which started from the main entrance (Fig. 5.3). Here the mosaic, displaying theatrical masks together with fruits and tendrils, marks the passage to the space of Dionysos, where visitors became followers of the divinity.

Figure 5.3 House of the Faun, plan of mosaics. Reproduced from Sauron, G. 2009. Dans l’intimité des maîtres du monde. Paris (trans. Il volto segreto di Roma. Milan). 2 Lippolis 2017; Faber 2009; Bergmann 2008; Pesando and Guidobaldi 2006; Pesando 2002; Zevi 2000; Zevi 1998a; Pesando 1996; Zevi 1996.

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The little bronze statue – the eponymous Faun but, in reality, a satyr – welcomes the visitor to the Tuscan atrium and draws attention to the focal point of the tablinum beyond.3 The rooms around the atrium display floors decorated with mosaics:4 to the right of the entrance is an erotic scene including a satyr and a maenad on the floor of the cubiculum, while a cat steals costly food, including birds, ducks, fish, and seafood, in the ala; and on the other side of the entrance, two doves steal jewelry from a box in the ala. The floor of the left triclinium beyond the atrium is decorated with a mosaic illustrating the sea crowded with fish and crustaceans, including an octopus, a lobster, and a moray eel. In the right triclinium a young, winged Dionysos rides a tiger: the child holds a vase containing wine whose drops draw the attention of the animal. The setting of the Tuscan atrium and the scenes displayed by the mosaics represent an “art of the senses” in which the Dionysiac tryphé joins Aphrodite’s world;5 they form a spectacle organized by the dominus for clientes and amici.6 The sequence of the mosaic ‘carpets’ culminates in the battle of Alexander against Darius visible in the exedra between the first and second peristilium and flanked by two other triclinia. The exedra with the mosaic of Alexander is framed by two red-painted columns marking the threshold that also includes a mosaic illustrating a Nilotic landscape full of aquatic plants, hippopotamus, crocodiles, ibis, cobra, and ducks (Fig. 5.4). The mosaic of Alexander – about twenty square meters in opus vermiculatum – functions as a huge carpet flanked by a frame of dentils. The mosaic copies a painting that scholars date to the period of Alexander.7 The new context at Pompeii for the image of Alexander fighting Darius requires us to consider an alteration or modification of the original painting’s meaning. We will return to this topic below. Scholars believe that the original painting could refer to a single, specific event – the battle of Issos or Gaugamela – or could be a summary of Alexander’s victorious deeds.8 Literary sources mention three paintings of battles against Persians: the battle of Alexander against Darius painted by Philoxenos of Eretria and ordered by Kassander (many scholars think this is the original painting from which the Pompeian mosaic derives); the battle of Issos painted by Helen, daughter of Timon from Egypt – her picture was moved by Vespasian to Rome, where it was displayed in 3 The original location of the small statue was on the north side of the basin (Pesando 1996, 203–5). A fragment of an inscription related to a statue found in the House of the Faun suggests a link or pun between the Sadiriis, the supposed name of the House’s owners, and the Satyr’s statue (Pesando 1996, 218–20). 4 De Caro 2001; Zevi 1998b; Cohen 1997, 175–99. 5 Zanker 1998. 6 Pesando and Guidobaldi 2006, 48–9. 7 Cohen 1997, 51–82. 8 Cohen 1997, 112–38; Stewart 1993, 134 n. 40.

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Figure 5.4 House of the Faun, Pompeii, Nilotic landscape mosaic at the entrance of the exedra. Drawing by R. Pinto.

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the Templum Pacis; and an unspecified battle (Alexander is not clearly mentioned) painted by Aristeides of Thebes and sold to Mnason, tyrant of Elateia.9 The original painting on which the mosaic is alleged to be based is usually dated to the last quarter or third of the fourth century BC, and it is uncertain whether it precedes Alexander’s death. This chapter will not consider the identity of individual characters, but will explore the mosaic or, better, the original painting as an accurate construction, coherent and able to guide and orient the viewer by means of visual devices that the artist skillfully employed and wanted the observer to notice and understand. I begin by summarizing the most relevant motifs of the representation of the battle.10 Persian army: The space is established by the Persian army in the center and on the right portion of the mosaic with respect to the viewer. The army, in fact, occupies three-quarters of the entire space. In the central foreground are the Persian soldier pierced by Alexander’s spear and the noble Persian restraining the horse that is represented from behind. On the right, the Persian king turns back as his charioteer guides the cart to the right in flight; Persian soldiers are run over in this action. Alexander: On the left side, Alexander leads the attack of the Greek army, and his long spear pierces a Persian soldier. The artist leaves Alexander’s head bare and renders his face in profile, thus drawing the viewer’s attention to Alexander’s gaze directed at Darius; this makes it clear that the real objective of the assault is to surround the Persian king. Greek army: Despite the visual prominence of the Persian army, it is clear that the Greek army’s victorious attack leading to the devastation of the Persian army constitutes the main subject of the composition, as Ada Cohen observes.11 The image produces an effect of surprise, because although the Persian army appears to have superior numbers, the smaller Greek army, which appears to be in a difficult situation, is gaining victory. Thus, we see the very moment of the battle known as tropé, the key point when winners start to pursue the defeated. Composition: The same visual effect is created by the two kings, who stand out from the mass of the army. The Persian king is higher in the visual field, but this seemingly superior position contrasts with other visual devices that the viewer’s eye must grasp and evaluate: the charioteer hurriedly maneuvers the cart in order to turn back and escape the battle; 9 Cohen 1997, 83–5, 138–42; Stewart 1993, Appendix 2, 376 nos. P9, T83, P10, T84 and 378 nos. P14, T87; Fuhrmann 1931. Note that Moreno (2004, 265–324; 2000) refers to Apelles as the painter of Alexander’s battle at Gaugamela. 10 Moreno 2004, 265–324; Cohen 1997; Stewart 1993, 130–50; T. Hölscher 1987; Giuliani 1985; Andreae 1977; T. Hölscher 1973, 122–69. See also Badian 1999; Nylander 1983; Nylander 1982; T. Hölscher 1981–3; Schefold 1979; Rumpf 1962; Rizzo 1925–6. 11 Cohen 1997, 85–95.

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Figure 5.5 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 10020, Alexander mosaic from House of the Faun, Pompeii, detail. Photo: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

Alexander’s gaze is resolute and points to the direction of the assault, while Darius’ gaze and gestures communicate indecision, uncertainty, and anxiety; Alexander’s self-control and determination contrast with, and underscore, the chaos overcoming the fleeing Persians and Darius’ anxiety. Reflections and gaze: As Stewart notes, the sun glints off the armor of Alexander (Fig. 5.5), giving him a radiant appearance as he chases his enemy. In doing so, Alexander recalls the Homeric account of bright Achilles chasing Hektor.12 In addition, Alexander’s “piercing gaze” and the “swiveling eyes” of the Gorgoneion he wears point to the Persian king.13 Bare tree: The tree visible behind and above Alexander (in the background, Fig. 5.6) alludes to the location of the battle, but this feature also suggests a different, symbolic reference. As pointed out by Cohen, the barren tree with its branches is similar to the gestures of the arms of the Persian trio in the center – dying soldier, Darius, charioteer – and this resemblance is sometimes seen “as a vicious portent of Alexander’s death,” threatening him from above, but Cohen also quotes the opposite

12 Stewart 1993, 141–2: “Radiant like the sun, he blazes into action like Achilles, pursuing his fleeing Hektor from the field.” 13 Cohen (1997, 106–12) has also highlighted the Homeric atmosphere of the scene. See also Stewart 1993, 140–2.

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Figure 5.6 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 10020, Alexander mosaic from House of the Faun, Pompeii, detail. Photo: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

point of view by Schefold and Stewart referring to Darius’ death and the subsequent dismemberment of the Persian Empire.14 Cohen also believes that “the bare tree more plausibly suggests the literal desolation of landscape caused by war, and contains a broader, easily accessible symbolism, the desolation of human lives.”15 Stewart points out that the tree is not simply bare, but lopped off at the top in order to resemble the outline profile of Darius and his charioteer. The long sarissa crossing the tree gives advance notice of Darius’ fate while lower down in the field, Alexander’s spear strikes the Persian soldier dead, a sort of “visual rhyme.”16 In this perspective Homeric and Greek Archaic poetry that compares “the decline and fall of mortals to the withering and falling of the leaves” provides a long-lived metaphor, which was suitably applied to the destruction of the Persian Empire on the surface of the Pompeiian mosaic.17 Further analysis of other visual devices contributes to a better understanding of the entire image. As noted above, the image is built on an effect of surprise: the army that appears superior will be defeated, and for this reason the image provides the viewer with a series of useful 14 Cohen 1996, 116–17 n. 109, including the quotations by Stewart (1993, 139–40) and Schefold (1979, 19–20). 15 Cohen 1997, 117. 16 Stewart 1993, 139. 17 Stewart 1993, 139–40.

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Figure 5.7 Alexander mosaic from Pompeii, drawing of detail by R. Pinto

instructions, aiming at modifying the impression received at first sight. The Persian army takes the center and right wing, but the main visual devices communicate all of the difficulties and the destruction threatening the very same army. Linked to what is happening on the left wing, the Persian soldier in the center struck by Alexander’s spear and his disastrous fall and death are stressed by theatrical gestures (Fig. 5.7). Again, at the center of the image, but linked this time to what is happening on the right wing, a noble Persian soldier tries to restrain a horse near Darius’ chariot. Literary sources suggest that this may be the horse always available for the Persian king in case of emergency, ready for him to avoid the risks of the battle. Darius’ cart moves back in an attempt to escape the battle, and the ‘emergency horse’ emphasizes the dangerous situation overwhelming the Persian king and army. The representation of this ‘emergency horse’ is usually considered an artist’s bravura piece, because the horse is dramatically foreshortened from behind and thus renders more depth to the space. In addition to this, our view of the horse from the backside is the same point of view as the viewer observing the fleeing Persian army. Darius’ retreating cart and the horse seen from behind convey the same meaning: the flight of the Persian army. Another visual cue/strategy available for the viewer in order to grasp what is really happening has to do with the gazes, and gestures and expressions work together with the gazes: Alexander grasps the long spear with which he conquers the Persian army, while Darius’ hand is open, his bow is useless at his side, and his open mouth matches Alexander’s closed mouth, which conveys power, strength, and energy. Furthermore, the loss of the helmet stresses the strength and ardor of Alexander, who heroically launches an attack without any protection; his

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exposed head emphasizes the strong power of Alexander’s gaze, which literally strikes Darius. Alexander’s gaze is a genuine weapon, exactly like the aegis on the breast, and is similar to the Gorgon’s eye: we witness gorgopos subduing the will of the enemy and reminding the viewer of Athena’s protection. Stewart has also highlighted “Alexander’s piercing gaze and the swiveling eyes of the Gorgoneion on his cuirass, reinforced by the gazes of two Macedonians right behind him,”18 and spoken about the “fire gaze,” which ancient literary sources attribute to a statue of Alexander by Lysippos. Cohen has correctly referred to the Homeric duel between Achilles and Hektor so that Alexander “comes as close as he ever does in extant portraits to the lion imagery associated with him in the literary sources. His hair flows and sticks up like a lion’s mane, his eye is huge and focused.”19 The reference to Homer is particularly useful if we bear in mind that the Homeric warriors make use of the brilliance and glaze of the armor as a weapon, a sort of special effect.20 Careful observation reveals another threatening gaze, which comes into play: Darius’ chariot has run over a Persian soldier, and the exact moment of his death is fixed through his face mirrored on the surface of a shield (Fig. 5.8). As Cohen suggests,

Figure 5.8 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 10020, Alexander mosaic from House of the Faun, Pompeii, detail. Photo: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. 18 Stewart 1993, 140. 19 Cohen 1997, 119. 20 Menichetti 2010; Menichetti 2009.

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his last thoughts may have been, “I am staring at myself dying.”21 She is right, but the shield’s mirroring surface foretells the soldier’s death: we are dealing with a catoptromancy like that found in Euripides’ Medea, for example, in which Creusa discovers her death in front of her mirror; by means of gazing at her reflection, she understands her fate.22 Alexander’s fire and the gorgopos gaze, the gaze of the Gorgoneion and the mirroring shield, all convey the same message of the defeat of Darius’ army. It is likely that the artist also has reinforced the visual impact of the mirroring shield in the sense that the Persian noble restraining the ‘emergency horse’ has his face surrounded by a big circular wheel of the cart, which echoes the shield below that mirrors the dying soldier. The last and probably the most important visual cue to which I would like to draw our attention is the bare tree. As mentioned above, Stewart observes that the tree is not only without leaves but is also lopped off at the top, and in this way the trunk and the limbs resemble Darius’ form (Fig. 5.9). A long spear crosses the bare tree and, lower and parallel to it, Alexander’s spear is represented in its entire length, while striking the Persian soldier. Is the bare tree related to Darius’ defeat, and if so, how?

Figure 5.9 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 10020, Alexander mosaic from House of the Faun, Pompeii, detail. Photo: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

21 Cohen 1997, 108. 22 Grassigli and Menichetti 2008; Loscalzo and Menichetti 2006.

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In order to see the bare tree motif in the right perspective, we have to take into consideration some recent studies that confirm and further support an idea proposed by Woelcke,23 who distinguishes two types of trophies in the Greek world: the “primary perishable (anthropomorphic) trophies” and the “permanent secondary trophies.”24 The former are built on the battlefield, just after the victory. The word tropaion is related to tropé, the turning point of the battle, the place and the time in which the enemy has turned its back on the winners, literally when the defeated makes a U-turn.25 It was at just this point that the ephemeral trophy was erected, and the winners gathered the armor and weapons of the defeated, while the defeated collected the corpses of their fallen comrades. How were these battlefield trophies formed? The battlefield trophy took the form of a trunk of wood, a tree stump, or wooden post placed on a mound from which the victors suspended, sometimes from a crosspiece, a selection of the arms and armor of the defeated enemy.26 The perishable trophy is a tree or, better, a trunk with cut branches. But some branches were preserved in the higher section so that they resembled human arms, and the armor and weapons taken from the enemy were hung up on the bare tree. History and iconography of the trophy started from the fifth century BC (Figs. 1.2 and 5.10), and the original form of the perishable trophy – a wooden trunk often assuming an anthropomorphic shape – remained steady over time in monuments that reproduced the original idea of the trophy using different materials (Figs. 5.11 and 5.12). Cadario has pointed out two monuments where the trophy appears on the battlefield: the west frieze of the Temple of Athena Nike on the Athenian Akropolis, and the west frieze of the Heroon at Trysa (Fig. 5.13).27 The perishable trophy fits perfectly in completing the meaning of the battle of Alexander against Darius. It is an additional and relevant visual device available for the viewer.28 If we observe the overall image of the 23 Woelcke 1911. 24 Proietti 2015; Lissarrague 2014; Trundle 2013; Franzoni 2010; Bettalli 2009; Rabe 2008; Stroszeck 2004. 25 Thuc. 2.92.5, 7.54. 26 Diod. Sic. 13.24.5. See Trundle 2013, 124. For a recent reconstruction of an archaeological example, see Graells i Fabregat 2017. The lower section of Sulla’s trophy at Orchomenos maintains the appearance of a tree but made of stone (Fig. 5.11); see Kountouri and Petrochilos 2017. One trophy with the lower section formed from a tree trunk is visible on the back of the Augustus from Primaporta. See Cadario 2004, 274, Fig.12. 27 Cadario 2016, 16–17. 28 Stewart (1993, 139) assigns a particular meaning to the bare tree, based on its resemblance to the outlines of Darius and his charioteer. Stewart (1993, 140 n. 53) also points out that “Erika Simon has already argued that the tree is a proleptic indication

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Figure 5.10 Munich, Antikensammlungen 15032, tropaion from South Italy. Photo: R. Graells i Fabregat. of victory, but, as Hölscher (1973, 281 n. 872) remarks, her suggestion that it is ready-made for a trophy is contradicted by Pausanias 9.40.7, who tells us that the Macedonians never erected trophies after winning battles.” In my opinion, Pausanias’ account does not help us to explain the significance and logic of an image such as the Alexander mosaic, because his account refers to a different chronological level, and above all, he refers to permanent secondary trophies. In fact, Pausanias (9.40.7-9) says that the Romans set up two trophies at Chaironea for Sulla’s victory against Mithridates and adds that the Macedonians did not set up trophies because after having defeated Kisseus, the Macedonian king Karanos erected a trophy, which was destroyed by a lion from Olympos; henceforth, Karanos declared that Macedonian kings could not erect trophies. Regardless of the credibility of Pausanias’ account, Diodorus (16.4.7, 16.86.6) reports that Philip II of Macedon erected two trophies; see Moggi and Osanna 2010, 449–50. In any case, Pausanias’ account concerns permanent, secondary trophies as opposed to primary, perishable trophies set up on the battlefield immediately after the defeat of the enemy. Bianchi Bandinelli (1977, 474 n. 305) recalls a tradition known from Marco Polo: near Tonocan is a bare tree (“Albero Solo” or “Albero Secco”), and the inhabitants say that this is near the location where Alexander and Darius fought.

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Figure 5.11 Orchomenos, Sulla’s trophy. Photo: J. Barringer.

Figure 5.12 Vatican City, Musei Vaticani 2290, Primaporta Augustus, drawing of the cuirass by R. Pinto

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Figure 5.13 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, frieze slab I 449 with trophy at right from the interior west wall of the Heroon at Trysa. Photo: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

mosaic (Fig. 5.1), the bare tree figures ominously on the left while King Darius dominates the right, both emerging from the massive crowd and producing an effect of surprise. In this perspective, the bare tree alludes to the perishable trophy that will be built soon. The battlefield trophy appears just at this crucial moment of reversal of fate, tropé, as a sort of victorious omen that, unexpectedly, overturns the viewer’s initial impression of a supposed victory for the Persian army. In this framework it is also likely that the spear crossing the tree – announcing the final destination of the arms hung up on the tree – and the spear handled by Alexander lower in the image allude to “Spear-won Land,”29 a well-known trope of Hellenistic kingship. In conclusion, we return to the Pompeiian context of the mosaic (Fig. 5.3). This framework suggests that the owner of the House of the Faun was interested in having and displaying the copy of a famous masterwork in a setting recalling a Hellenistic palace.30 For the owner of the House of the Faun and for his guests, the precise significance of the battle and its visual devices were probably not so meaningful, and instead the monument offered a more general image of victorious Alexander as symbol and creator of the Hellenistic world. As opposed to the military 29 Stewart 1993, 158–90. 30 Cohen 1997, 187–99.

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conquest signified by the original painting in subtle and deliberate ways, the Pompeiian mosaic imitatio Alexandri seems chiefly to evoke a cultural legacy as part of a cultured lifestyle displayed in the luxurious setting of the House of the Faun. Military deeds accomplished by Alexander made possible the creation of a unified world that was far wider, with accessibility to a new style of living, the Asiatica luxuria, which was suited to kings and deities, as described by those who disapproved of it in the Roman Senate. In this way of thinking, which we could define as bourgeois or middle class, the Hellenistic world of the House of the Faun signifies the exotic at one’s fingertips, the Dionysiac pleasures made accessible. The Nilotic landscape visible at the entrance of the exedra evokes the atmosphere of the Ptolemaic tryphé, as exhibited by the famous skené built at Alexandria on the occasion of the great pompé that imitated the Indian triumph by Dionysos.31 The owner of the House of the Faun might know and appreciate the original painting, its story, details, and characters, but the general meaning of that iconic image, now duplicated on the surface of a mosaic similar to a carpet and surrounded by a set of other mosaics on a central axis of the house, suggests a new reading, for which the battle and the victory of Alexander against Darius primarily recall the conquest of the Oikoumene as “the dawning of a golden age.”32 Alexander’s new world was translated in the context of the House of the Faun as a world of tryphé. The grand narrative entered a private, although socially important, space and symbolized a lifestyle for which the imitatio Alexandri assumes the form of an imitatio of the tryphé. The Pompeiian image recounts “stories of victory”: the original painting chiefly recalls a military and political victory, while the mosaic found at Pompeii alludes to the social victory of a new ruling class, including the owner of the House of the Faun. Tryphé is the symbol of this new victory.

31 Caneva 2016, 81–127; Calandra 2009; Calandra 2008; Hazzard 2000, 59–79; Rice 1983. 32 Strootman 2014.

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6 PARAPICTORIALITY Adrian Stähli

For many years now, classical archaeologists have learned to no longer interpret visual representations from the ancient Greek and Roman world under a purely artistic or aesthetic perspective, as objects of art history, but rather to understand and analyze them as visual media embedded in specific cultural, historical, and social contexts, which framed and determined the perception of images in antiquity. The discomfort with art-historical approaches originated in a surge of interest in cultural and social history in the 1980s fueled by Michel Foucault’s analysis of historic discourses and the rise of semiotic concepts in cultural anthropology (in the wake of Clifford Geertz). Based on such approaches, there developed a renewed interest in cultural history, as well as the histoire des mentalités (particularly in France, Germany, and Italy), and finally, since the early 1990s, the emergence of German Bildwissenschaft in the course of what has been called the ‘pictorial’ or ‘iconic turn.’1 Among the various attempts to reintegrate images into a history of visual communication in Greco-Roman antiquity and to re-establish visual media as a key source for writing cultural history, one of the likely most successful endeavors has been the numerous contributions provided by a group of classical archaeologists and philologists based at various academic institutions in Paris, but centered around the towering figure of Jean-Pierre Vernant – the so-called ‘Paris school,’ as this group has been called by many colleagues in the field, but never by any of its

1 Excellent overviews or introductions into the approaches and objectives of recent studies in the wake of the ‘iconic,’ ‘visual,’ or ‘pictorial turn’ and ‘Bildwissenschaft’ are Sachs-Hombach 2005; Pinotti and Somaini 2016. For useful selections of key reference texts for the current debate, see Pinotti and Somaini 2009; Rimmele et al. 2014. Overviews, introductions, or readers surveying this debate for an Englishspeaking audience are still lacking, despite the fact that W. J. T. Mitchell counts among the ‘founding fathers’ of the ‘pictorial turn’: it seems that currently his writings are reprinted more frequently in Germany or Italy than in the United States or the United Kingdom. See W. Mitchell 2008; W. Mitchell 2017.

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protagonists.2 Despite the methodological diversity of its members, they seemed to be for outsiders a comparatively homogeneous group, since most of them were focusing in their research on a ‘relecture’ of Greek vase images and shared to a lesser or more obvious extent semiotic analysis as their methodology, but, of course, denied – as decent semioticians always do – that they have ever heard about semiotics at all. Their new project of interpreting images was launched by the now notoriously famous exhibition ‘La cité des images,’ which toured in the 1980s through many European universities and museums, and which indeed changed the way we look at images in the field of Classical Archaeology.3 One of the fundamental and lasting results of the ‘Paris School’ is the finding that, in Greek and Roman antiquity (and, implicitly, beyond antiquity), the perception of all images was not a purely aesthetical and hermeneutical task, but embedded in cultural practices and rituals that shape and frame the ‘reading’ and understanding of images, as has been demonstrated most thoroughly by François Lissarrague’s investigation of the mediation of images through the social routines and practices of the symposion.4 To this project of the ‘Paris School,’ I would like to add a small footnote, entitled “parapictoriality,” which is nothing but a terminological contribution, an attempt to address a specific problem I encountered in my own research and, above all, in my teaching – a problem that I sought to resolve by coining a term that would allow me to make a rather vague and broad amalgam of issues and aspects intertwined with each other comprehensible and perceivable for students: to describe and make immediately graspable the set of concomitant factors, circumstances, and practices that made it possible – in Greek and Roman antiquity – to identify and perceive an image as an image, to interpret and understand it

2 For a summary of contributions of the ‘Paris School,’ see Stähli 2002, 67–8. 3 Bérard et al. 1984. 4 Lissarrague 1987 (translated into English: Lissarrague 1990a). For a recent survey, see Lissarrague 2015b. For the pragmatist approach and a theory of “Bildakte,” see Assmann 1990, followed by Stähli 2002; Bräunlein 2004; and Stähli 2007. For a critical view (in defense of an ontology of the image) of this approach, see Alloa 2011. Apparently, Bredekamp 2010 fundamentally misunderstood the concept of the “Bildakt”: rather than identifying a practice enabling – and conditioning – the perception of an image as an image with this notion, Bredekamp ascribes to images a mysterious, enigmatic agency exerting powerful effects (or acts) – the “Bildakte” – with a strong emotional impact on their beholders. This reiteration of the pre-modern idea, thought to be long since dead, of the alleged magical power inherent to images has been heavily criticized by the art-historical community. Although referenced by the author in his new introduction to the paperback edition (Bredekamp 2015), this discussion seems not to have any impact on his theory of the “Bildakt”; the changed title of the book is obviously no more than mere window dressing. For further contributions in the wake of Bredekamp’s theory of “Bildakte,” see Bredekamp and Krois 2011; Feist and Rath 2012.

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successfully as a visual representation, and to interact with it as an image.5 Based on my former attempts to identify the cultural practices, and particularly the performative practices – “Bildakte” or “pictorial acts” – that establish and frame the perception of an image as an image, I have tried to address this issue in my classes through using the term “parapictoriality” for roughly ten years now.6 Under a broader perspective, the concept of parapictoriality may serve as a contribution to the discussion of social and cultural practices of seeing and looking, eventually leading to a praxeology of visual perception. In the context of this conference, the concept of parapictoriality may be a useful tool to address the issue of media change: each medium is determined by its specific parapictoriality, which defines the ensemble of circumstances and conditions that requires changes in style, iconography, motives, visual narration, content, and semantics when an image moves from one medium to another. The notion of “parapictoriality” is coined from the term “paratextuality,” a descriptive concept of literary theory developed by Gérard Genette and closely associated with his name, although he himself actually never dubbed it so; Genette uses only the word “paratext” (or its plural).7 Nevertheless, “paratextuality” became common currency among his adherents as well as in literary and art theory in general. What does “paratextuality” mean, and how can this concept translate in a meaningful and useful way into an analytical tool for the interpretation of images in Classical antiquity (and beyond)? The paratexts (this is also the book’s title in its English translation) are a set of liminal devices – “seuils,” or thresholds, according to the book’s original French title – that mediate the relations between text and reader.8 5 I use the notion of the ‘image’ qua visual representation as does Charles S. Peirce, i.e., as a visual sign, and not in the much more colloquial but limited way this term is often used in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of aesthetic theory and art history, by restricting representation to what Peirce called the “icon,” i.e., representation through resemblance. For a condensed discussion of the problem or visual representation, see, e.g., the short survey by W. Mitchell 1990 and, more extensively, the collected essays in Mitchell 1994 and Mitchell 2008. 6 For my former studies on Bildakte, see Stähli 2002 and Stähli 2007, which were strongly inspired by Jan Assmann’s investigation of the “Rahmenbedingungen ikonischen Handelns” (the framing conditions enabling the interaction with images) and his establishment of the notion of “Bildakte” (performative actions constituting the perception of an image as an image): Assmann 1990. For informative overviews of praxeological theories and approaches in the study of visual media, see Sachs-Hombach 2001; Krämer 2004; Seja 2009; the most comprehensive philosophical inquiry of this approach is Schürmann 2008. 7 Genette 1997. In addition to this edition, I consulted the French first edition (Genette 1987) and the German translation; the first edition (Genette 1989) uses the term ‘paratext’ in the title. 8 For Genette’s definition of “paratextual elements” as “liminal devices” mediating “the book to the reader,” see Genette 1997, ix, xii, xviii, and passim.

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As the prefix ‘para’ says, the paratext is about something that is not the text (or not in the text) itself, but ‘outside’ or ‘beside’ the text, external to the text, but something which is at the same time crucial for understanding the text as a text (or as this text), and which enables its perception as a text. The paratext (to cite Genette): constitutes a zone between text and off-text, a zone not only of transition but also of transaction: a privileged place of a pragmatics and a strategy, of an influence on the public, an influence that [. . .] is at the service of a better reception for the text and a more pertinent reading of it. The paratext, then, is empirically made up of a heterogeneous group of practices and discourses of all kinds [. . .] which I federate under the term ‘paratext.’9 Two aspects are of crucial importance here (and are also crucial for my concept of parapictoriality): (1) The paratext is not controlled by a singular authoritarian auctorial figure or agent, the author, editor, publisher, cover designer, and so on; rather, the paratext results from a discourse regulating and mediating cultural, social, aesthetic, and other expectations, norms, and responses between text, its agents, and its audience, and the paratext is the manifestation of this discourse. Genette quotes Philippe Lejeune, a literary criticist, who describes this phenomenon as “a fringe of the printed text which in reality controls one’s whole reading of the text.”10 (2) The paratext is indispensable for the existence of the text: there is no text without a paratext (except if the text exists exclusively in its author’s imagination). The same is true for any images or, more generally, any visual representations: there are no images that could be identified as images without a parapictorial framework. What elements constitute the paratext of a text? As Genette admits, these elements are highly heterogeneous by nature.11 He begins with elements that pertain to “the external presentation of a book”: the title, author’s name, cover, typesetting. Many of the paratexts are textual (or verbal) themselves: the preface, allographical prefaces (that is, prefaces of editors in the case of posthumous text editions or introductions by famous authors – ‘the presenter’ – to promote the work of a new, unknown author), the contents page, the epigraphs (quotations placed at the beginning of the work or a chapter), dedications, editor’s notes and comments, excerpts from newspaper reviews or recommendations from well-known authors to promote the book, or the biography (including a photograph) of the author 9 Genette 1997, 2. 10 Supra n. 9. 11 Supra n. 9.

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on the cover or the back of the book. There are also paratexts that are part of the text that they frame, like intertitles, notes, and fictional prefaces (prefaces claiming fictionally that the text was not written by the author, although all readers know perfectly well that this is a literary convention); some paratexts are either iconic (illustrations, cover design) or of material nature (the format of the book, the binding, the paper), and finally there is paratextual information which is neither textual nor material, but “purely factual,” as Genette calls this.12 Factual paratexts consist in contextual knowledge or information available to the reader (such as prizes the author has received, his membership in academies, and so on), but also general knowledge about the genre of the text (what is a novel?), the biography of the author, or any contextual evidence in general (today, we would probably call this ‘wiki-knowledge’). This last type of paratextual element becomes even more important in the case of parapictoriality. By the “pragmatic status of a paratextual element,”13 Genette understands all characteristics related to the text’s “situation of communication” between sender (author, publisher) and addressee (the reader), including a class of paratexts that he calls epitexts, such as promotional advertising by the publisher or reviews in journals. Similar or related to the pragmatic function is the “illocutionary force” of the paratext, its ability to comment on the text, to offer an interpretation by the sender, to “make known an intention” of the text or guide the expectations of the reader with, for example, the title or the cover design.14 How does parapictoriality relate to – or derive from – paratextuality, and what is the difference between them? Paratexts are, in Genette’s understanding, by nature alien to the text itself: they are “para” (“Beiwerk”) insofar as they concern anything material or physical, while the text itself is regarded as somehow immaterial: although Genette himself does not include the paper of the pages or the writing in his analysis of paratexts, it becomes obvious from the very beginning of his analysis that the writing (the written form of the text) or letter fonts would deserve the same paratextual status as, for example, the preface or text illustrations – all of them considered by Genette as elements of the paratext, which is, according to his definition, “what enables a text to become a book.”15 Obviously, this looks different when it comes to images, when we try to translate the concept of paratextuality into ‘parapictoriality.’ All visual media are tied to the materiality of the medium; the materiality of an image is a necessary precondition for its existence. Accordingly, the materiality of the image

12 13 14 15

Genette 1997, 7. Genette 1997, 8. Genette 1997, 10. Genette 1997, 1.

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cannot be the paratext of an image, or, more precisely, it may only be part of its paratext (we will shortly see that parts of an image can indeed serve perfectly well as a paratext of the very same image). But more important than this major difference between text and image are the benefits of applying Genette’s concept to images.16 In its core, paratextuality describes the emergence of a text in the form of a book as the result of complex interactions between different social agents (the author, the editor, the publisher, the cover designer, the bookseller, and so on), framed by cultural patterns or discourses, which manifest themselves through the materiality of the textual medium. In brief, the paratext is the materialization of the cultural ‘text’ that goes into and shapes a literary work – and makes it identifiable as a literary work. This is exactly how I would apply Genette’s notion of the paratext to the concept of parapictoriality: parapictoriality delineates the material articulation of the cultural ‘text’ (or ‘code’) that shapes (or frames) an image and makes it identifiable as a visual representation, makes visual representation possible, and enables the perception of images. Parapictoriality establishes and articulates the field of visual representation and therefore enables images. Accordingly, parapictoriality encompasses more than just the so-called material and static ‘context’ of an image: parapictoriality includes cultural discourses, psychologically and socially shaped cognitive preconditions, beholder expectations and experiences, and so on. Parapictoriality is dynamic, as it changes constantly with time, social groups, and through social interaction and the cultural text that conditions the parapictorial practices and perceptions. In all these respects, the concept of parapictoriality comes close to Werner Wolf’s idea of “cognitive frames” (or “frames of reference”) as preconditions of the perception and interpretation of visual media; but, in contrast to Wolf’s “cognitive frames,” the concept of parapictoriality includes the materiality of the image and its material setting (or context), as well as human interaction with the image.17 In this respect, my proposal to apply the concept of paratextuality to visual media goes in a slightly different direction than recent proposals to

16 Genette never applied his concept of paratextuality to art or visual media. For his own major contribution to aesthetic and art theory, see Genette 2010. For a recent collection of articles seeking to apply the concept of paratextuality to Classical Studies, see Jansen 2014. 17 See W. Wolf 2006, who starts from the current state of art of ‘framing theories’ in media studies and bases his own concept of ‘framing,’ similar to mine, on Genette’s concept of paratexuality (and on Derrida’s ‘parergon’), rather than on Goffman’s sociology of ‘frames’; cf. Goffman 1974. For a thorough overview and analysis of ‘framing theory’ in media studies and its methodologies, see Scheufele 2003. For a discussion of the problems integrating ‘cognitive’ or ‘conceptual’ approaches into ‘framing theory,’ see Borah 2011. For an application of ‘framing theory’ to the intrapictorial, as well as extrapictorial, frames of images, see Platt and Squire 2017b, which is strongly based on W. Wolf 2006.

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use Genette’s terminology in art history, including the hitherto – so far as I know – only study in the field of Classical Archaeology that explicitly uses the term ‘paratext’ to address a specific aesthetical issue in ancient art: Hérica Valladares recently suggested that we interpret the so-called floating figures – “vignettes” of isolated figures hovering through the uniformly colored panels that frame the central mythological pictures in Fourth Style Pompeian wall decorations – as whimsical “glosses” belonging to a different layer of pictorial realm and serving as ironic comments, or, in Valladares’ words, as “pictorial paratexts” that question the illusionism of mythological panels, as well as of the surrounding architectural framework.18 Clearly, such an interpretation of paratextuality is barely related to Genette’s concept of the “paratext,” but rather evokes Derrida’s notion of the “parergon” which has become, in recent years, a well-established key term in art-historical studies re-evaluating and investigating the often neglected accessory or ancillary features of ornamental, marginal, or otherwise subordinate character in relation to the main subject of a painting.19 Such ‘parerga’ supplement or enhance the central theme of an image by adding additional layers of meaning or ironic commentaries. A typical and important ‘parergon’ has also been identified and amply investigated in the last twenty years: the intrapictorial frame – that is, framing devices that are part of the image itself, such as the painted frames in modern stilllife painting, but also the extrapictorial framework of images, such as the architectural or sculptural setting.20 But parapictoriality is not restricted to 18 Valladares 2014. In her article, Valladares does not introduce or use the term ‘parapictoriality.’ 19 For Derrida’s concept of the “parergon,” see Derrida 1978, 19–168; see respectively Derrida 1987, 15–147 for an English translation and Derrida 1992, 31–176 for a German one. Derrida’s understanding of the “parergon” is based on Kant’s brief discussion of the “parerga” in art in §14 of the Die Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790). See Kant in Frank and Zanetti 1996, 550–1. For the discussion of Derrida’s notion of the “parergon” and his dispute with Kant’s term, see Marriner 2002 for a brief overview. For more extensive discussion, see in particular: Dünkelsbühler 1991; Harvey 1998; Holstein 2004, 12–22; Rösch 2008, 157–199; Lories 2010; Steinmetz 2010; SéguyDuclot 2017; Wirth 2017.” Barbagallo 2010 is not very helpful. The recent surge of interest in art history for the term ‘parergon’ goes back to Keazor 1998. Important contributions to the study of ‘parerga’ in ancient and modern art and art theory in recent years include: Grave 2011; V. Beyer and Spies 2012; Jansen 2014; Benthien and Klein 2017; and Platt and Squire 2017b. In my view, the best and most systematic analysis of ‘parerga’ in modern art is Degler 2015. Bert (2013) on the ‘parergon’ in ancient Greek and Roman aesthetics and literary theory has become obsolete since the discussion of this topic in Degler 2015, 21–30. For the application of the term ‘parergon’ in literary criticism and theory, see Holstein 2004. 20 The fundamental texts for any discussion of the ‘frame’ and ‘framing’ in art theory and aesthetics are Marin 1988 and Stoichita 1999. Recent important contributions include Wolf and Bernhart 2006; V. Beyer 2008; Körner and Möseneder 2008; Körner and Möseneder 2010; Lenain and Steinmetz 2010; Grave 2011; V. Beyer and Spies 2012; Jansen 2014; Benthien and Klein 2017; Platt and Squire 2017a.

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a specific class of iconographic features enhancing or elevating the core narration of the mythological tableau by commenting on it. I would rather call this class of images ‘metareferential images’ or ‘parerga,’ while the concept of parapictoriality goes far beyond such a narrow definition of ‘paratextual’ images that restricts them to ‘glosses.’ Of course, any visual element of an image, including all elements belonging to the internal pictorial or illusionistic realm of an image, can potentially be a parapictorial element: like the ‘parerga,’ parapictorial elements are not restricted to the framing context, the exterior framework of an image, but can also be part of the image itself. But parapictorial elements are not a specific, clearly identifiable class of visual elements, as the ‘parerga’ are; they receive their parapictorial status through the parapictorial situation in the moment a beholder is looking at them, through the act of visual perception. My approach does not aim at identifying a specific class of distinctive elements of the visual decoration as ‘parapictorial,’ but instead identifies a set of strategies, practices, social rituals, experiences, and habits, including the material framework and contextual setting of an image, which determine, shape, and constitute a visual representation as a visual representation. Therefore, parapictoriality also has a temporal dimension: the parapictorial situation can change over time and according to changing cultural expectations of the spectators. In order to illustrate how parapictoriality comes into play when dealing with visual media in antiquity, I present a few case studies, most of them so familiar that I do not need to offer many details. THE KINEMATIC NARRATIVITY OF IMAGES: THE LUDOVISI GAULS The sculptural group of the Ludovisi Gauls (Figs. 6.1 and 6.2) unfolds its meaning in a temporal sequence, a ‘kinematic’ narrative of a succession of events enabled and experienced through the spatial movement of the beholder, which was guided by the architectural and spatial layout of the sanctuary of Athena in Pergamon.21 The spectator enters the sanctuary and, turning to the left to look at the long bathron displaying the Attalid victory monument, first sees a Gaul with his sword charging against an (invisible) adversary (Fig. 6.1). Advancing further and walking along the base and the statue of the Gaul, the viewer perceives an entirely different situation (Fig. 6.2): the Gaul’s right hand is directed against himself. He is about to commit suicide after having killed a woman (his wife?), in order to prevent their enslavement. The spatial organization of the setting of the sculpture 21 For the group of the Ludovisi Gauls and their display in the sanctuary of Athena in Pergamon, I follow Schalles 1985, 68–104.

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Figures 6.1–2 Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano (Palazzo Altemps) 8608, Group of the Ludovisi Gauls, Roman copy after a Greek original of c. 230 BC. Photos: DAI-ROM-Rom 56.344, DAI-ROM-Rom 56.349.

in the sanctuary and the performative experience of the visitor moving along the monument supplement each other and enable the experience of ‘performative sculpture’:22 the parapictoriality of the group produces the sequential perception of the arrangement of two contradictory ‘readings’ of the same statuary group, enabled by the movement, the performance of the beholder. THE “PERIPATETIC GAZE”: THE ‘ILIAD FRIEZE’ IN THE CASA DEL CRIPTOPORTICO In the Pompeian Casa del Criptoportico (House of the Cryptoporticus), the painted decorations of each room in the cryptoporticus complex vary according to a carefully differentiated hierarchy that follows the principle of the demonstration of social reputation through the disposition and succession of rooms in the house.23 The decoration of the ambulatory, 22 For the Ludovisi Gauls and the notion and concept of ‘performative sculpture’ in Hellenistic sculpture, see Stähli 2003, 261–4. 23 For the so-called House of the Cryptoporticus in Pompeii (I 6, 2) and the ‘Iliad frieze,’ see Spinazzola 1953, 435–593 (fundamental); Pugliese Carratelli 1990, 193–329.

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the cryptoporticus, includes a mythological frieze, the ‘Homeric frieze’ or ‘Iliad frieze,’ consisting of isolated panels separated from each other by herm pillars in the upper part of the walls (Fig. 6.3). The subject of the frieze is the battle for Troy and its final destruction; the narrative depicted follows exactly identifiable Greek epics, mostly Homer’s Iliad. The frieze has a clearly defined beginning in the west wing with the plague in the Achaean camp, from which the narrative develops successively along all the walls of the cryptoporticus, returning to the west wing for its end. The frieze requires a sequential ‘reading,’ step by step, episode after episode, of the events of the siege of Troy, thus recreating the epic of the wrath of Achilles in the course of the viewing. The beholder is guided by a sequential, successive perception of the entire frieze with only superficial, casual awareness of individual episodes. This ‘dispersed,’ ‘lackadaisical,’ or, more precisely, ‘peripatetic’ gaze corresponded to the peripatetic rhythm of the movements of the beholders during the social rituals they

Figure 6.3 Pompeii, House of the Cryptoporticus (I 6, 2), subterranean cryptoporticus, segment of wall decoration, late Second Pompeian Style, c. 40/30 BC. Photo: Hans R. Goette. For the social rituals performed in Roman houses and their impact on the perception of painted wall decorations, see Dickmann 1999. My term “peripatetic gaze” to describe the experiences of beholders looking at friezes, such as the ‘Iliad frieze’ or the Parthenon frieze, derives from a talk on the ‘Iliad frieze’ which I have delivered on various occasions since 2006 in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the United States. But, see already Stähli 2003, 258–60.

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cultivated in the ambulatory: the ceremonies of welcoming and escorting the guests or of strolling around while having confidential conversations with business friends or magistrates. The sequential arrangement of the paintings supported, even guided, the motional dynamic of the peripatetic gaze through the sequel of the images. Completely different is the wall decoration of the oecus (banquet room) adjacent to the cryptoporticus. An illusionistic sequence of pillars rhythmizes the walls, and between them runs a continuous screen wall decorated with garlands, thus transforming the room into a festive hall (Fig. 6.4). In the upper zone above the screen wall seems to be an opening between the pillars, apparently giving access to the open space behind the screen wall. However, the view is impeded by small panel paintings (pinakes) with open doors placed on the top edge of the screen wall; they show still lifes and small mythological scenes. These pinakes draw attention to the individual pictures and ‘arrest’ the beholder’s gaze; they comply with, and support, the static behavior cultivated in this room by reclining symposiasts during a banquet. Thus, the House of the Cryptoporticus operates with two different parapictorial situations responding to the two different types of social rituals and social performance that require – and enable – different forms of spatial and narrative arrangement of images: the peripatetic (or ‘dispersed’) gaze as a mode of ‘disinterested’ perception of images in the cryptoporticus, and the ‘locked’ or ‘fixed’ gaze in the oecus corresponding to the static performance of the symposion.

Figure 6.4 Pompeii, House of the Cryptoporticus (I 6, 2), subterranean oecus, segment of wall decoration, late Second Pompeian Style, c. 40/30 BC. Reconstruction: Spinazzola 1953, pl. 21.

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THE PERFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE OF IMAGES: THE PARTHENON FRIEZE Like the ‘Iliad frieze’ in the Casa del Criptoportico, the Parthenon frieze requires the peripatetic gaze but in a significantly different way (Fig. 6.5).24 Not only is the beholder’s perception of the frieze guided by the movement of the participants of the frieze’s procession toward the east side of the temple, but simultaneously the frieze leads the beholder in his own performance of walking along the temple’s façades in order to reach the temple’s east façade, where the actual rites and sacrifices take place; thus the viewer translates the frieze’s pictorial script simultaneously into his own ritualistic experience while marching in the procession. While moving forward, the beholder experiences the sequentiality of ritual events in a temporal continuum and in simultaneity with the temporal sequence of the events depicted on the frieze: the beholder sees each one of these individual events simultaneously with every step he or she takes.

Figure 6.5 Athens, Akropolis, Parthenon, 448–432 BC, north pteron and north corner of the west frieze, 448–432 BC. Reconstruction: Ludvig P. Fenger, Dorische Polychromie (Berlin 1886) pl. 3. 24 For the Parthenon frieze, Berger and Gisler-Huwiler 1996 remains fundamental. For the perception of the frieze, see, among many others, Stähli 2003, 258–260; Neils 2005.

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Not coincidentally, the peripatetic experience of the frieze is carefully differentiated from the Parthenon’s display of the founding myths of Athens’ privilege of the divine protection of Athena, its autochthony, and its political and military supremacy, which are presented in the pedimental sculptures and the metopes in a static, even heraldic form – in eternal presence, so to speak. In both cases of the Parthenon frieze and the ‘Iliad frieze’ of the House of the Cryptoporticus, the spatial, architectural, and narrative arrangement of images shapes, and at the same time responds to, the spatial experience and social rituals performed by the beholder. And in both cases, the beholder is guided by the arrangement of images and their setting: the images control the movement of spectator and enhance his experience of the images by enabling immersive experiences. THE IMAGE AS ITS OWN PARAPICTORIAL DEVICE: TRAJAN’S COLUMN As Salvatore Settis and Paul Veyne argued more than thirty years ago, the precision of rendering the Dacian campaign on the column of Trajan in Rome ensures that even if the spectators could not actually see what happens toward the top of the column, they could – by looking at the accuracy of the rendering of the scenes at the bottom of the column – trust that the ‘historical accuracy’ of the narrative would continue in the same manner to the top (Fig. 6.6). In this case, the parapictorial arrangement or

Figure 6.6 Rome, column of Trajan, dedicated 113 AD. Photo: Adrian Stähli, 2014.

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setting of the images on the column aims at creating a plausible, verifiable illusion that the column continues to deliver a truthful rendering of all the events during the successful military campaign of the Roman army in Dacia, even if not visible and verifiable.25 The column is therefore more of an impressive “imperial apparatus” (Veyne) than an exhaustive and detailed report of Trajan’s campaign; it should overwhelm the beholder, rather than deliver a concise account of all events. Parapictoriality is here an indispensable feature of the column itself, which promises exactitude in the visual recording of the historical ‘truth’; in this case, parapictoriality aims to establish the framework that encourages the viewer to trust the realism, accuracy, and archival precision of an image even if he is not actually able to see what he should trust. DIFFERENT FORMS OF INVOLVEMENT OF THE BEHOLDER ON THE SAME MONUMENT: THE ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS The arch of Septimius Severus (AD 203, but already vowed after the Parthian campaigns of 195 and 197/98) displays narrative images, comparable to the ones on the column of Trajan, on both of its sides in large historical relief panels. These images suggest accuracy and completeness of information provided by the bird’s eye view of battle campaigns, attacks, sieges, and conquests of cities (whether the contemporary beholder was familiar with the names of all these battles and besieged cities or not); the detailed rendering of the events on the panels claim to provide the beholder with a privileged knowledge of all stages of the campaign, as it would have been accessible only to the campaign leader or a historian recording the emperor’s achievements (Fig. 6.7).26 All events depicted that lead to the successful conquest of a city are represented in the same panel: the different phases of the siege, the attack with siege machines, and the eventual conquest of the city, including the defeat of the city’s defenders, are represented as a sequence of events which seem to happen at the very same moment. We can see – like an emperor or a general who foresees all this in advance and carefully plans it this way, or a historian recapitulating the events as a logical sequence leading inevitably to success – all stages of the campaign, from the initial siege to the successful capture of the city of Ctesiphon, happening simultaneously.

25 Settis 1985; Veyne 1990, 13–24; Veyne 2002. For the column in general, see Coarelli 1999; and particularly for the process of ‘reading’ the column, see Galinier 2007. 26 For the arch of Septimius Severus, see Brilliant 1967, and especially for the different genres of the relief decoration, see Faust 2012, 121–41. For the beholder’s immersive experiences, see Favro 2011.

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Figure 6.7 Rome, Forum Romanum, Arch of Septimius Severus, dedicated 203 A.D., panel relief on the west façade. Photo: Hans R. Goette.

In sharp contrast to the panels, we see Roman soldiers of the Parthian campaign leading captives in chains on both sides of the arch, on the pedestals that support columns (Fig. 6.8). The figures appear to march through the arch, and they are all positioned so that they are departing, not entering, the arch on both sides. As a viewer, one seems to encounter them when approaching the arch, and having passed through the arch, one marches in company with the captives on their way on the triumphal route, experiencing the miserable destiny of the conquered on their way into slavery. The pedestal reliefs are ‘peripatetic images’ that create immersive experiences of emotional engagement and participation through their penetration into the beholder’s realm, an experience that must have been even more intrinsic, since Septimius Severus never actually celebrated a triumph for his campaigns in the East: the arch, with its immersive visual experiences, is a ‘substitute.’ As an imperial victory monument, the arch of Septimius Severus works with at least two different ‘parapictorial settings’ and two different forms of spectator involvement, and offers different forms of engagement (emotional empathy versus sober assessment of the victorious campaign) and participation (performative involvement versus distant bird’s eye view of campaign panels), enabling the experience of differing versions of a triumph that actually never took place.

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Figure 6.8 Rome, Forum Romanum, Arch of Septimius Severus, dedicated 203 AD., pedestal reliefs of the east façade. Photo: Hans R. Goette.

In conclusion, ‘parapictoriality’ frames the perception of images; produces the effects of pictorial illusionism and immersive experiences; uses or integrates temporal and spatial movements of the viewer to unfold its effects; mediates the visual representations with the realm, the space, the temporality of the beholder; creates visual expectations – and the deception of the beholder; controls, differentiates, and shapes expectations relating to different genres of images; establishes perceptional spaces and social practices that frame and guide the perception of, and communication with, images; and corresponds to patterns of ritualized (or conventionalized) interaction that establish an image as an image and enable spectators to interact with it as an image. It is parapictoriality (or the parapictorial environment) that determines the media-specific perception of images; all visual media have their own

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specifically articulated parapictorial settings, which enable and elicit specific expectations and responses. It is this parapictorial setting or situation – and not the iconography, narrative structure, or style of an image – that shapes and prescribes how meaning is produced, according to the specific character of any medium. And since the cultural framework guiding the perception and experience of images is subject to historical change, the parapictorial framework for each image is not carved in stone but changes with time as well (and place, if an image changes its place); just as the paratextual frame of each text will change with each reprinting or translation of this text, the parapictoriality of each image is subject to historical and cultural change. In other words, when it comes to images at the crossroads of different media, we must look not so much – or not only – for changing iconographies, styles, and visual narratives across different media, i.e., for the characteristic reliance of images on their mediality, but primarily for the parapictorial practices that condition the media-specific perception of images.

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PART III REFLECTIONS OF THE CITY AND ITS CRAFTSMEN

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7 LES IMAGES DE LA CITÉ – THE VASE PAINTER’S GAZE* Dyfri Williams

For François, gentle friend and constant inspiration INTRODUCTION The initial focus of this chapter is the vase painter and the variety of inputs into his images, their creator, and their ‘first viewer.’ These may perhaps best be seen as a cloud of encircling influences – an iCloud, if you will (Fig. 7.1) – which we sketch here, grouping the influences into four cardinal sectors. The same could be done for other crafts – and such diagrams would not differ greatly, although that for the vase painter would no doubt be the most elaborate, since his iconography was the most diverse and his constraints the least. First, at the top, is the vase painter’s learned ‘language’ of images and forms, a matter of training, with the language being essentially that of vase painting, but also with an awareness of, * Earlier versions of this paper were given in Oxford in honor of Sir John Boardman’s ninetieth birthday, in Paris in memory of François Villard, in Atlanta at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and in Brussels as part of a seminar series on iconography. I am very grateful to the organizers of these events (Professor Bert Smith, Professor Agnès Rouveret, Dr. Jasper Gaunt, and Dr. Vivi Sarapanidi), and to their audiences. I am especially grateful to Professor Judy Barringer for her patience with the development of my paper into this chapter. Other friends have been of great help, particularly Jasper Gaunt, Dick Green, Natacha Massar, and Susan Woodford. I should also like to thank Stefan Brenne for kindly sending me proofs of his Kerameikos volume when library access was impossible in the summer of 2020. All the mistakes, however, are mine. For help with the images used here I am also grateful to Martin Bentz (Bonn), Marianne Bergeron (Oxford), Iulian Bîrzescu (Bucharest), Paloma Cabrera (Madrid), Jean-David Cahn (Basel), Dmitry Chistov (St. Petersburg), Zhanna Etsina (St. Petersburg), Jörg Gebauer (Munich), Christine Kondoleon (Boston), Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter (Kilchberg), Joan Mertens (New York), Anna Pizza (Naples), David Saunders (Malibu), Stine Schierup (Copenhagen), Natalia Toma (Berlin), René van Beek (Amsterdam), and Nina Zimmermann-Elseify (Berlin). Finally, I should like to thank Riccardo Di Cesare for generously sending me his plan of the early Agora (Di Cesare 2015, 364, Fig. 104) and granting me permission to use and abuse it, and Nathalie Bloch (CreA Patrimoine, Université libre de Bruxelles) for kindly making alterations for me.

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Figure 7.1 iCloud: Influences on the iconography of vase painters.

and occasional borrowings from, other crafts. The second area, that on the left, concerns the stories of gods and heroes, which the craftsman learned from his family, his early friends, and later his colleagues at work, a stock that could be augmented both aurally and visually by new works of contemporary poets, dramatists, and other technitai. These should also be associated with what we call historical events, although such events might well be manipulated for individual or group benefit, as well as to echo myth or ritual. This is perhaps best thought of as ‘para-history,’ although we are now offered such concepts as ‘post-truths,’ supported by ‘alternative facts’ and ‘evidence free’ claims, resulting in ‘alternative realities,’ as fiction trumps fact. A third area of impact is shown on the right – the consumer. The influences here could be the result of public commissions, such as that of the Panathenaic prize amphorae, or of more private ones, by individuals or by groups, whether of local or foreign origin. In this area also belongs the impact of current fashions, the result of group ideas and preferences. Vase painters’ images may well have been directed by such fashions, whether as the result of personal observation or external suggestion. Finally, at the bottom of the diagram, there is the vase painter’s environment. This may be divided into the natural environment and the constructed environment, and within these environments the vase painters envisaged, most importantly, people in action, whether in the city or in the chora.1 1 I use ‘constructed environment’ to broaden the picture from the ‘built environment,’ which is more often connected with architecture, in order to include less monumental constructs such as altars and votive sculptures.

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All of these influences passed through the vase painter’s cognitiveaffective-conative processing and were translated into the language of forms that were the norm for his craft milieu and his particular workshop. I wish here to glance only at the fourth and bottom zone of the ‘iCloud’: what might be termed ‘the vase painter’s gaze,’ or the representation of his cognitive environment. There are two main aspects: inanimate structures and human usage. Of the inanimate, constructed cityscape, we might consider religious and civic structures and spaces, civic and private monuments (including sculptures), commercial properties and private houses. As for the interactive human use of such spaces, we might note the following: processions, competitions, performances, rituals, and civic and private activities. It is only possible here, however, to look at some aspects of the constructed city and its human usage, as we view Les Images de la Cité rather than La Cité des Images and endeavor to compound a ‘visual turn’ with what is perhaps best described as a ‘topo-graphical turn.’2 To most people a turn implies moving in a different direction, but it is an action that may be accompanied by a pause for retrospection or a diversion, and may even result in a ‘re-turn.’ May Hermes, the Greek god of GPS, guide us safely! It is often noted that in general there is a distinct absence in Greek art of anything that we might recognize as either landscape or cityscape. Instead, Greek art developed an aesthetic that concentrated on human action.3 Scholars nowadays often assume that the constructed environment merely operates as some sort of narrative adjunct, with columns and altars indicating some generalized context for human action rather than specific locations and monuments.4 This chapter aims to examine representations of the cityscape, primarily to determine how specific they can be and what they reveal of the city’s topography, but also to briefly consider their development and the ways that they can help us to better understand the social practices and human interactions that are played out around them. In such an examination, we must bear in mind that vase painters were capable of depicting totally ‘imaginary’ constructions (usually mythological), real structures that they had never seen but that could be ‘imagined’ based in part on the reports of others (far-off real locations), and ‘real’ ones that were well known both to them and their customers (local). Even ‘imagined’ scenes were based on the ‘known,’ while ‘real’ images were not, of course, photographic, but rather a conscious and careful combination of local knowledge (imperfectly or incompletely drawn) and 2 Topographical and spatial turns in culture studies: Winkler et al. 2012; Weigel 2009. Recent examples of spatial turns in the field of Classical Archaeology include civic architecture (Paga 2017), religious landscape (Agelidis 2017; Scott 2017), literature (Neer and Kurke 2014). 3 Cf. Pl. Kriti. 1-7c-d; in general, see Hurwit 1991. 4 Cityscape: Lynch 2006. Landscape, most recently: Dietrich 2015; Dietrich 2010.

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relevant, comprehensible human action. As modern viewers, we have to be sympathetic to all of these elements and allow structure and context to weave together into a plausible ‘view,’ a process somewhat akin to that required of ancient viewers. Finally, one important element of the craftsman’s representational technique that should be recognized is that depictions of built structures are regularly less precise than those of sculpted monuments. The reason for this may be connected with the fact that the latter are themselves depictions of human action, undoubtedly the vase painter’s primary trained interest. THE AKROPOLIS This chapter inevitably concentrates on Athenian vase painting and on the city of Athens itself – representations of extra-urban structures are very rare (only two spring to mind), and on other fabrics the constructed environment is almost non-existent.5 We may best begin on the Akropolis and with the Parthenon, Athena’s greatest Athenian temple. The main scene on an early fourth-century hydria concentrates on the duel between Athena and Poseidon to achieve dominance over the city of Athens, a subject that decorated the west pediment of the Parthenon and faced all visitors as they entered the Akropolis.6 This is an exceptional image within the iconography of vase painting, and it is, therefore, reasonable to assume that it deliberately reflected in some ways the pediment, but given its date in the earliest decades of the fourth century BC, when Athenians were endeavoring to shake off the memories of the Thirty Tyrants and other oligarchs and so reaffirm their personal loyalty to democracy, it will have held a powerful message of the past, a Periklean and democratic past.7 In addition, however, there is also in the upper right corner of the scene a small box-like image of a temple that can only plausibly be thought of as the Parthenon itself, rather than some vague, non-specific temple (Fig. 7.2). We might note the gravity-defying akroteria on its corners, for just such figures were reconstructed by Manolis Korres on the basis of the remains of the cuttings in the supporting blocks.8 In other words, the 5 Extra-urban structures: telesterion at Eleusis, London, British Museum F68 (BAPD 218148; Paga 2015a, 109–12); sanctuary of Dionysos and the Great Mother at Phlya, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Ferrara 2897 (BAPD 213655; Loucas 1992); and Herakleion at Marathon, Paris, Musée du Louvre G341 (BAPD 206594; Denoyelle 1997b; Williams forthcoming a). Note the Corinthian krater fragment (mid-fifth century), Pemberton 1989, no. 290 (temple with pedimental sculptures). The imagined (unviewed) environment beyond Athens and its chora was of little interest and rarely rises above the level of including a palm tree to suggest a divine gathering on Delos. 6 St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum P1872.130: BAPD 6988. On the west pediment, see most recently Meyer 2017b. 7 Fourth-century portrayal of late fifth-century events: Lambert 2012; J. Shear 2011. 8 Williams 2013, 57, Fig. 54.

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Figure 7.2 St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum P1872.130, Attic red-figure hydria, c. 375-350 BC. Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (Alexander Larentyev).

vase painter has chosen not only to directly reflect the grand theme and action of the sculptured pediment but also to provide its specific structural context. The resultant vase image is neither an accurate representation of the sculptural group nor of the temple itself, but an amalgam that employs action, context, and the occasional significant detail to secure identification. To this image reflecting the west pediment, and another from Pella, we may add several scenes on vases that echo or copy passages from the relief sculptures of the Parthenon, especially the Ionic frieze.9 It is sometimes claimed that the architectural context of this frieze must have reduced its visual impact for a viewer on the ground, but this is to ignore the power of color and human interest.10 There must, indeed, have been much discussion among Athenians, especially among artists and craftsmen, of the scenes on the frieze, since it was such an exceptional and ‘ground-breaking’ visualization of the Panathenaic festival, and, it would seem, the result of a deliberate change of plan by the project’s management and artistic group.11 One might cite just one example, a horseman abstracted from the west frieze and 9 Pella, Archaeological Museum 80514: BAPD 17333; Williams forthcoming b; Tiverios 2005. For other reflections on the pediments, see Shefton 1992 and Shefton 1982; on the metopes, Schwab 2005. In general, see Neils 2001, 204–11; Sparkes 1999. 10 See now Levitan and Westcoat 2017; and, less positive, Marconi 2009a. 11 Wesenberg 2016; Barletta 2009; Korres 1994, 92–108.

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relocated on an Attic white-ground lekythos.12 It is interesting how suitable the image is to a funerary context, something that makes one consider just how deliberate the vase painter’s selection was, and how understanding of the isolated image’s timelessness and emotional power. Now I wish to turn to a vase that seems to show the Akropolis and the Temple of Athena Nike as a backdrop to a festive procession: a bell krater by the Kekrops Painter of c. 410–400 BC (Fig. 7.3).13 Here, we see three youths from the winning tribe at the Panathenaic torch race (shown on the reverse), now dressed in their finest cloaks, leading a spirited bull to sacrifice. Floating above the bull in the center of the scene is a female with flying drapery whom Alan Shapiro has persuasively identified as Nike

Figure 7.3 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.171.49 (Fletcher Fund 1956), Attic bell krater, c. 410–400 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 12 Paris, Musée du Louvre CA2568: BAPD 9024581. Cf. Parthenon, west frieze slab IX, Fig. 171 (Athens): Jenkins 1994, 108. 13 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.171.49: BAPD 217591; Shapiro 2009b, 267, Fig. 11.

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Apteros. This would fit well with the corner of a temple-like structure shown above, partially occluded by a large rock or hill, for it seems to have an Ionic-like capital below its pediment – the Temple of Athena Nike was one of the first Ionic temples in Athens.14 Shapiro sees the youth up on the right of the scene, similarly partially obscured, as Theseus, but with no clear attribute it might perhaps be better to view him simply as the tribal hero of the torch race victors below. If such an interpretation is correct, then the scene shows the victorious tribe in the torch race leading its prize up onto the Akropolis rock by night to be sacrificed on the altar of Athena Nike Apteros. Here, then, the built (and natural) environment is not just a backdrop, but rather an active agent that reflects the vase painter’s knowledge and carries the viewer’s imagination on in time and place. On the Akropolis itself, the vase painter’s gaze will also have taken in the mass of sculptural and other dedications. First we may note on an oinochoe of c. 470–460 BC a scene of prayer before a votive statue of Athena on a pillar, for it shows clear interaction between man and object (Fig. 7.4).15 Until recently, the monument depicted has regularly been

Figure 7.4 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 08.258.25 (Rogers Fund 1908), Attic red-figure oinochoe, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 14 Athena Nike temple: T. Shear 2016, 341–58. 15 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 08.258.25: BAPD 209571; Meyer 2017a, 184, Figs. 268–9; Collard 2016, 38, no. 21. On statues on vases, see De Cesare 1997; Oenbrink 1997; Schefold 1937.

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identified as the marble statue dedicated by Angelitos and carved by Euenor that was set up on the Akropolis c. 480 BC.16 Catherine Keesling, however, has argued that a large bronze by Kritios and Nesiotes, the base of which is preserved, in fact held a statue even more like that on the column shown on the oinochoe than Euenor’s; it would naturally have dated after the sack of the Akropolis by the Persians.17 Here we might consider a further representation of a statue of Athena that similarly shows it as the center of attention for individual Athenians. On a black-figure hydria by the Eucharides Painter dating to c. 490–480 BC we see a statue of the goddess Athena in striding, attacking pose set on a low base (Fig. 7.5).18 Two bearded men stand, one at either side, while a dog sits on the end of the base, gnawing at a bone. The setting is somewhat uncertain, but the absence of an altar would seem to suggest that it was a votive statue of the goddess, which would mean that it was perhaps rather

Figure 7.5 Munich, Antikensammlungen 1727, Attic black-figure hydria attributed to the Eucharides Painter, c. 490-480 BC. Photo: Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek (R. Kühling). 16 Kissas 2000, 219–21, no. B172; Raubitschek 1949, 497–8, no. 22. The sculpture regularly (but not certainly) connected with the Angelitos dedication is Athens, Akropolis Museum 140: Trianti 1998, 229, 240, Fig. 251; Brouskari 1974, 248–9, Fig. 249. 17 Stewart 2017, 41–2; Keesling 2003, 127; Keesling 2000. 18 Munich, Antikensammlungen 1727: BAPD 303002; Meyer 2017a, 169, Fig. 255 (although she accepts that the base makes the figure a statue, she does not accept that it was a real statue, but see her further comment [p. 184]); CVA: Deutschland 101, Munich 19 [B. Kreuzer]), pl. 59:1–3; Schefold 1937, 40 (sculptor’s workshop).

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to be seen on the Akropolis than in the Agora. The dog would then have had to have scavenged his bone (the lower leg of a sheep or goat) from the mageiros’ debris or possibly dining debris.19 Although ancestral custom dictated that dogs were not permitted on the Akropolis, they clearly did make it there and might well have been a particular nuisance after sacrifices and associated meals.20 The man on the right is turning round to look at the dog, while the one on the left seems to have moved his stick into a rather defensive position: it would not seem to be their dog. The scene thus provides a more complicated interaction between man and monument, suggesting both the religious and the profane. The presence of votive statues of Athena on the Akropolis is supported by Pausanias’ comment that there were on the Akropolis “old statues of Athena,” which had been blackened but not melted down in the Persian sack.21 Perhaps the Eucharides Painter represented such an Athena, one of a number in a striding, aggressive pose, the popularity of which was entangled with the iconography of the fight with the giants and the use of the type on Panathenaic prize amphorae.22 Two further vases show representations of statues of athletes: such honorific statues were set up only on the Akropolis in the Archaic and Classical periods.23 On a white-ground, black-figure oinochoe from the workshop of the Athena Painter of c. 480 BC or soon after, a man approaches a statue of a hoplitodromos (Fig. 7.6).24 The man seems to be shown in festive garb as he stoops slightly in front of the statue, perhaps reading the inscription on its base. We know of a statue of a hoplitodromos named Epicharinos by the sculptors Kritios and Nesiotes that was set up on the Akropolis – it is mentioned by Pausanias and its base has been preserved.25 One should also note a red-figure cup by the Kiss Painter with a man in front of a statue of a boy pentathlete set on a stepped base; his gaze takes in the statue rather than any inscription.26 We need also to mention a clear but more difficult image of a sculptural group, set on a low base, which may well have been on the Akropolis. It is 19 Bones in sanctuaries: Ekroth 2017. 20 Philoch. Atthis, FGrH 328 F67; Plut. Aitia Rhomaika 111, 2908c. Cf. Plut. Ant. 91 (4) 3–4. Disruptive dogs, Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco Vaticano 165418: BAPD 31764; Williams 2018, 84. 21 Paus. 1.27.6. Cf. Scholl 2010, 255–6; Keesling 2003128-9. 22 Discussion of the source of the images: Meyer 2017a, 169, 347–9; Bentz 1998, 41–3; Shapiro 1989, 27–36. See also Williams forthcoming a and b. 23 Cf. infra 163 n. 152. 24 London, British Museum B628: BAPD 330881; Phritzilas 2006, 160–1, no. 262. 25 Keesling 2003, 170–2; Raubitschek 1949, 515, no. 120. Note also the representation of a statue of a hoplitodromos on a base and in a similar pose on the electrum coins of Kyzikos, c. 440 BC: Greenwell 1887, 97–8, no. 91; e.g., London, British Museum RPK,p45A.1.Opu. See further Williams forthcoming b. 26 Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University 1784: BAPD 201626. See further Williams forthcoming b.

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Figure 7.6 London British Museum B628, Attic white-ground, black-figure oinochoe attributed to the Athena Painter, c. 490-480 BC. Photo: British Museum.

on a column krater by the Hephaistos Painter of c. 440–430 BC (Fig. 7.7).27 We see Achilles and Ajax playing dice, a subject frequently represented on Athenian vases from c. 540 down to 480 BC (e.g., Fig. 1.6a).28 There are, indeed, fragments of a marble group from the end of the sixth century that seem to have shown the same subject and to have included a central figure of Athena.29 The erection of this marble group on the Akropolis and the 27 Berlin, Antikensammlung V.I.3199: BAPD 214735; Mannack 2001, 87–8, 130, no. H9; Schefold 1937, 32. See further Williams forthcoming b. 28 Dasen 2015a; Mariscal 2011; LIMC I, s.v. Achilleus, 96–103 (A. Kossatz-Deissmann); Woodford 1982. 29 Athens, Akropolis Museum 160 and 168 (kneeling figures) with 142 (Athena): Trianti 1998, 72–4, Figs. 42–5, 47; Brouskari 1974, 102–3, no. 161. The central figure of Athena appears on vases from c. 530 BC or soon after: Paris, Musée du Louvre F290 (BAPD 301723). Two other sculptures of similar date and marble have been combined

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Figure 7.7 Berlin, Antikensammlung V.I. 3199, Attic red-figure column krater attributed to the Hephaistos Painter, c. 440–430 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

choice of its subject, two Aiakid heroes, together with the creation of an Aiakeion in the southwest corner of the Agora, are probably connected in some way with the amalgamation of Salamis into the Athenian state and the struggles with Aigina.30 The sculptures must have been destroyed in the Persian sack, after which, intriguingly, the subject also disappeared from vase iconography until the Hephaistos Painter’s vase. We may suppose that the group was recreated some time after the sack of Athens, but, to judge from this vase, only after the middle of the fifth century.31 It was perhaps in with these, somewhat implausibly and unnecessarily, into a single pediment by Trianti (1998, 32–3): Athens, Akropolis Museum 571 and 697, with a male standing in front of a horse, and a second horse (Trianti 1998, 74–5, Figs. 47–9). 30 For some of the complexities of the Athens-Salamis-Aigina triangle, see most recently Figueira 2012. 31 For the recreation of a monument, cf. not only the Tyrannicides (see infra pp. 151–55), but also that for the defeat of the Chalkidians and Boiotians (IG I2 394); Meiggs and Lewis 1988, no. 15; Hdt. 5.77; Paus. 1.28.2. For its movements on the Akropolis, see Keesling 2003, 14.

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the years following the forceful absorption of Aigina into the Delian League and the island’s reluctant membership that the dicing heroes were recreated. As for the figure of Athena on the krater, she is surely part of the sculptural group itself, rather than some sort of separate epiphany, especially since the earlier marble group seems to have included her, as, indeed, do a good number of the representations of the heroes on vases. The Nike on Athena’s hand recalls perhaps Pheidias’ Parthenos, but there may also be connections with Pheidias’ great Bronze Athena.32 To the left of this complex sculptural group, we see a youth in short chiton, chlamys, petasos, and with a single heavy spear; he is a viewer, an ephebos (ephebe), perhaps honoring the great heroic warriors of the past whom he will aspire to emulate as a member of the citizen body after his oath to the city.33 Again human action and monument interact, adding complexities of meaning and moment. THE ILISSOS VALLEY Let us leave the Akropolis and move southeast to the area of the Ilissos valley. Here, Thucydides tells us, lay many important shrines, including those of Zeus Olympios, Apollo Pythios, and Dionysos in the Marshes: this was the most important religious node after the Akropolis.34 In the case of the Temple of Apollo Pythios, which was said to have been founded by Peisistratos and had an altar dedicated by his grandson, there are a number of representations on fifth-century vases.35 The earliest representation of the temple, dating to c. 460 BC, is the work of the Niobid Painter, but the finest is on a volute krater found at Spina by the Kleophon Painter.36 Here a sacrificial procession approaches the Temple of Apollo, shown with the cult statue of the seated god inside, and flanked by tripods on columns – in other words, choregic monuments – and an omphalos, 32 For the influence of the Parthenos, especially her shield, on scenes on vases, see Shefton 1992 (also Zeus at Olympia); M. Robertson 1992, 258 (shield); Arafat 1986 (shield); Shefton 1982; Leipen 1971, esp. pp. 41–50 (shield); and von Salis 1940 (shield). See also Williams forthcoming b. 33 Ephebic oath: Kellogg 2013, 264–5. Cf. also infra pp. 148–9. 34 Thuc. 2.15.4; Parker 2005, 55–7; Travlos, Athens, 289–98. 35 Greco 2011, 430–6 (D. Marchiandi); Travlos, Athens, 100–3. Altar: Thuc. 6.54.7; Charami and Bardani 2011 (new fragment); Meiggs and Lewis 1988, no. 11. See also Arnush 1995. For the bases of choregic tripods found in the same area as the new fragment of the inscription, see Travlos, Athens, 100, Figs. 130, 135–7. On Apollo cults, see most recently Dubbini 2014. 36 Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Spina 44894 (T 57 C VP): BAPD 215141; Collard 2016, 35, no. 18. Cf. Simon 1983, 79, noting Agrigento, Museo Archeologico Regionale 4688 (BAPD 30321) and, the earliest, Istanbul, Archaeological Museum 2914 (BAPD 206979). Given the date of the start of this series, one might wonder if there was an otherwise unrecorded renovation of the temple driven by Kimon.

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a typical attribute of an Apollo shrine and not reserved for the temple at Delphi alone. The victory tripods indicate the dithyrambic choruses of boys and men at the Thargelia in honor of Apollo.37 The procession is welcomed by the priest of Apollo, who perhaps utters ritual words of welcome. It is led by a small girl in festive dress with a kanoun on top of her head. Behind her come three youths in himatia, two of whom have just put down a thymiaterion, while the third still holds a phiale. There follow two taller youths, closely wrapped in their himatia, who flank a bull, while at the rear a shorter youth, matching the one with the phiale, walks beside the flank of a second bull. This very Parthenonian procession surely represents a dithyrambic victory sacrifice – an epinikion – by the winning chorus, one bull each, for at the Thargelia, in contrast to the Dionysia, a chorus was made up of members of two tribes.38 Next we may turn to the sanctuary of Artemis Agrotera in the same general area of Athens, but now on the far bank of the Ilissos.39 A representation of an Artemis temple occurs on an unattributed pyxis of c. 440 BC (Figs. 7.8 and 7.9).40 On the right, we see the cult statue of the goddess standing on a low base: she holds a long torch and her bow, her quiver on her back. She is framed by a door behind her on the right and a plain pillar and altar in front on the left. Before the altar is a female pyrrhic dancer with helmet, shield, thin short-sleeved top, black shorts, soft shoes, and spear.41 In addition, beyond the door is a series of three pairs of women.42 To the right of this series, and with her back to the other women and facing the pyrrhic dancer, is another woman, seated and holding a small temple – seemingly a special box in the form of a temple, which we see in some other scenes of female pyrrhic dancing and acrobatics.43 The Temple of Artemis Agrotera was the goddess’ most important shrine, having gained particular significance in 490 BC when a vow was made at the time of the decision to go to battle against the Persians at Marathon – a vow to sacrifice a goat every year to Artemis 37 On the Thargelia, see most recently Greco 2011, 434–6 (D. Marchiandi). 38 On epinikia, see Wilson 2000, 102; two tribes represented in a single chorus at the Thargelia, Wilson 2000, 33. The scene includes two tall youths and four shorter youths or boys, the numbers of participants thus also reflecting the two tribes. 39 Paus. 1.19.6: the statue held a bow. 40 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 81908: BAPD 3831; Collard 2016, 37–8, no. 20. 41 Ceccarelli 2004; Ceccarelli 1998, 77–8, no. 51. 42 For similar attendant women, Copenhagen, National Museum 7359: BAPD 2674; Ceccarelli 1998, no. 48. 43 For such boxes, see ThesCRA IV, 379, no. 35 a-d (A. Kossatz-Deissmann): Madrid, Museo Arqueologico Nacional 11129 (BAPD 214707); Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum IV 732 (BAPD 215764); Munich, Antikensammlungen 2464 (BAPD 9638); Kiev, Khanenko Museum 119 AT K (BAPD 217588). There is no indication of acrobatics or dancing on the Munich chous; the box on the Naples pyxis has eight columns, like the Vienna krater, but all the others are far simpler.

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Figure 7.8–9 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 81908, Attic red-figure pyxis, c. 440 BC. Photo: Ministero per i Beni culturali e le Attivita Culturali – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (Giorgio Albano).

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and to Enyalios for every dead Persian.44 On the sixth of Boedromion, we hear of a grand parade of the victims through Athens under the supervision of the polemarch and accompanied by the ephebes in full armor.45 It would seem suitable for there to have also been a performance of a pyrrhic dance at this time in honor of Enyalios and Artemis, here performed by a young woman in Artemis’ sanctuary.46 The seated woman holding the temple box seems to be viewing the ritual performance; is she perhaps the priestess of Artemis? Problems surround the modern identification of the little temple beside the Ilissos, but most recently T. Leslie Shear, Jr. has argued persuasively that it should have been the Temple of Artemis, which would seem to have been built in the latter years of the third quarter of the fifth century.47 On Athenian vases there was a noticeable upsurge in the depiction of roofed fountain houses in the last quarter of the sixth century.48 This has been plausibly connected with Thucydides’ report of the embellishment under the Peisistratids of a spring or fountain house in the Ilissos valley, referred to formerly as Kallirhoe and after the Peisistratids as Enneakrounos. Two of the scenes on vases of Peisistratid date, however, name the fountain house as Kallirhoe, and a third one as Dionysia.49 The Dionysia krene has a satyr-head spout (most fountain houses have lion-head spouts or plain pipes), while the tympanon of another fountain house is decorated with a crawling satyr: such a Dionysian fountain house might well have been in the neighborhood of the sanctuary of Dionysos in the Marshes.50 Another vase has, exceptionally, a pair of spouts in the form of youths on horseback, which it is tempting to think of as depictions of the Dioskouroi and so locate the structure near their sanctuary, the Anakeion, to the east of the Akropolis (Fig. 7.10).51 The hydrological work undertaken by the Tyrants seems to have been focused not 44 Vow: Ath. Pol. 58.1; Parker 2005, 400. 45 Polemarch: Ath. Pol. 58.1; Wycherley 1957, no. 258. 46 Pyrrhic dances for Artemis: Ceccarelli 2004, 99–102. Euphronios’ cup (BAPD 7043; Ceccarelli 2004, 113) surely represents the origin of the pyrrhic dance as noted by Arist. frag. 534 on the dance executed by Achilles around the pyre of Patroklos: on one side is the removal of the body of Sarpedon, who had just been killed by Patroklos, leading inevitably to his death; on the other, Achilles is dancing the first pyrrhic in his honor before Briseis and perhaps Neoptolemos. 47 T. Shear 2016, 329–41. Cf. also Greco 2011, 490–4 (D. Marchiandi and S. Savelli). 48 From the large bibliography see, e.g., De Simone 2008; Ferrari 2003 (who argues that they are not real fountain houses but those of “autochthonous ancestors”); and TölleKastenbein 1994. 49 Kallirhoe: London, British Museum B331 (BAPD 302273); Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 732 (BAPD 306479). Dionysia: Rome, Torlonia 73 (BAPD 200171). 50 Leipzig, Antikenmuseum der Universität Leipzig T362 frags. (missing): Danner 2004, 246 no. 13, 278 Fig. 2; Hauser 1896, 180, no. 8, Fig. 8. Another fountain house is flanked by Dionysos and Hermes, perhaps suggesting a link with the Anthesteria; see London, British Museum B332: BAPD 301895; Williams 1983c, 102–3. 51 London, British Museum B329: BAPD 301814.

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Figure 7.10 London, British Museum B329, Attic black-figure hydria, c. 520–500 BC. Photo: British Museum.

only on a series of fountain houses but also on the creation of an aqueduct, work that was continued by the democracy during the fifth century.52 THE MELITE DISTRICT We now turn to the western side of the city, to the area of Melite. Here there was a famous shrine of Herakles Alexikakos, which was said to have been 52 Peisistratid aqueduct, Greco 2014a, 677–85 (D. Marchiandi). On the Agora’s southeast fountain house, see Greco 2014a, 1113–5, but now redated to shortly before 480 BC by Paga (2015b). This new date is somewhat problematic, for the red-figure cup fragment, no. 3, Fig. 9, could as well be c. 510–500 BC, while such precise dating of the early black-glaze is questionable. It is difficult to avoid identifying this fountain house with the one mentioned in Paus. 1.14.1, called Enneakrounos; one must suppose that by his time it was being given that name (cf. Dickenson 2015, 764 n. 170).

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very visible, although the precise location has not been discovered.53 A statue was commissioned for the shrine in 429 BC during the great plague: the sculptor was the Argive Hageladas.54 It surely is no coincidence that from just this same time we start to see a tetrastylon shrine of Herakles, both on red-figure vases and on votive reliefs, an image much studied by scholars.55 Indeed, it would seem highly likely that the tetrastylon was added at the same time as part of the public reaction to the same existential threat. Two vases seem to give us tantalizing glimpses of activities or rituals performed in connection with Herakles’ Melite shrine; they are interesting to examine at this point, since they demonstrate interaction between the monument and ritual. The first is on a bell krater of c. 430–420 BC: in front of a tetrastylon crouches a naked bearded man with wrinkled brow, clutching his knees (Fig. 7.11).56 To his left stands a man with cloak and stick pointing down at him; to his right stands a woman holding up a garment, and she looks at the standing man. In front of the crouching figure is a fire, and above him, partly obscured by a rock or a hill, is set a herm.57 One might be tempted to interpret the naked figure as a pharmakos, or scapegoat, and the ritual as connected with the belief that Herakles Alexikakos helped to end the plague, and perhaps would prevent further infections, just as it was Apollo Alexikakos who was similarly commemorated in the Thargelia festival.58 Yet, as Beazley saw, the scene does not appear to show the driving out of the naked man but rather the offer of help and succor with a warm fire and clothing to a “man in need, cold.”59 The name Melite was long ago identified as a Semitic borrowing, meaning ‘refuge.’60 Was there, therefore, some ritual that saw the priestess and, perhaps, the 53 Greco 2010, 257–60 (F. Longo); Lalonde 2006, 86–93; Travlos, Athens, 274–7. 54 Schol. Ar. Ran. 504. For sources on Hageladas, see Muller-Dufeu 2011, 348 (TC 149); Muller-Dufeu 2002, 172–5, 240–1. See also Corso 2004, 7–8 n. 5, 49; Moreno 2001; Woodford 1976. 55 See especially ThesCRA IV, 371–2 (no. 7 a-i) (A. Kossatz-Deissmann); Klöckner 2015–16; Verbanck-Piérard 2012; Carabatea 1997; and Froning 1996. Carabatea and Verbanck-Piérard are unwilling to take the representations all as the same building. Carabatea (1997, 139) wrongly places the Lesser Mysteries at Melite; see Parker 2005, 344–6, esp. n. 81. For Herakles reliefs, see ThesCRA IV, 372 no. 8 a-e (A. Kossatz-Deissmann); Tagalidou 1993, 22–7. Herakles votive reliefs from his Pankrates sanctuary at Kynosarges do not show such tetrastyla: LIMC IV, s.v. Herakles, 802–4 (J. Boardman). 56 Copenhagen, National Museum 3760: BAPD 215311; ThesCRA II, 34–5 no. 171, pl. 5 (O. Paoletti); Carabatea 1997. 57 The herm might be associated with the nearby gymnasium, or cf. the scene on the Boston relief (Museum of Fine Arts 96.696), where Hermes appears next to Herakles. On Hermes and Herakles, see Zanker 1965, 9–18. 58 For the scapegoat ritual texts and comment, see Parker 2005, 482–3. 59 ARV2 1156, 11. 60 Lewy 1895, 209–11.

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Figure 7.11 Copenhagen, National Museum of Denmark 3760, Attic red-figure bell krater, c. 430–420 BC. Photo: © CC-by-SA, Nora Petersen, National Museum of Denmark.

Eponymous Archon or Archon Basileus give succor to a poor, naked man rather than driving him off, thus securing freedom from any similar evil for the city – the opposite approach to that of the scapegoat?61 The standed krater on top of the tetrastylon, here inverted and only partially visible, may be found on a number of other representations of the structure on vases and reliefs, whether the right way up or upside down, and may have been connected with Herakles’ role in the initiation of young boys into their phratries at the Oinisteria, as indicated by a mid-fourth-century relief in Athens.62 Such kraters are to be found in other scenes depicting rites de passage, especially the Aoria, as suggested by 61 Note perhaps Apollod. apud Zen. Cent. 5.22: “sacrifice was offered to Herakles Alexikakos at Athens in a special and peculiar manner.” 62 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 2723. See Parker 2005, 437–8; van Straten 1979.

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the Eretria Painter’s fine chous with a purification scene involving young boys.63 They also occur in scenes of girls running or dancing, rituals connected with Artemis and perhaps Aphrodite.64 The second interesting scene at Herakles’ tetrastylon is on a fragment of an amphora from Athens, c. 430–420 BC, that shows a kithara player in festive dress and with a special headband with two spikes at the front mounting a performance podium next to it (Fig. 7.12).65 A votive

Figure 7.12 Bucharest, National Museum of Antiquities 03207, fragments of an Attic red-figure amphora, c. 430-420 BC. Photo: Bucharest, National Museum of Antiquities (Iulian Bîrzescu, Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology). 63 Athens, National Archaeological Museum BS 319: BAPD 216950. On the Aoria, see Parker 2005, 301–2. For representations of the similar ritual for girls, see Berlin, Antikensammlung F2394 (BAPD 214982) and Paris, Musée du Louvre CA2191 (BAPD 214983), both by the Washing Painter. The upturned standed kraters are taken by others either as buried pithoi (Tiverios 2014) or vessels sunk in the ground (ThesCRA VII, 113–17). 64 Artemis Brauronia: Kahil 1981 (with her earlier bibliography); note also the redfigure fragment with a toppling krater, Brauron, Archaeological Museum inv. 564 (A 56): BAPD 28998; Kahil 1963, 25–6, pl. 14:3. Similar vessels are found in other Artemis sanctuaries (Athenian Akropolis, Artemis Agrotera, Mounychia, Halai Araphenides), as well as that of Pan and the Nymphs at Eleusis. For Aphrodite (?): Athens, National Archaeological Museum 12894 (lebes gamikos foot fragment, c. 370–360: BAPD 9025012), showing three (of probably four) kraters between dancing women. 65 Bucharest, National Museum of Antiquities 03207: BAPD 14445; ThesCRA IV, 406, pl. 59: 126a (A. Kossatz-Deissmann); Carabatea 1997, 133, 140.

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pinax, presumably either of terracotta or painted wood, is hung next to one capital, showing a depiction of Herakles standing. The image seems blurred, having been done with a glaze wash that fired rather thinly at various points; there is also a break across the upper part and some unsightly adhesive which has spread beyond the crack. Nevertheless, we may make out the following elements: Herakles’ left hip is thrust out, his right leg relaxed and set out to his right; his right arm is bent and his hand holds his club out at an angle and seemingly not touching the ground; his left arm is bent at the elbow and forward. Furthermore, he would seem to have his lionskin over his right shoulder and left arm, and perhaps hanging below this. It is not clear whether Herakles was holding his bow in his left hand (or the apples of the Hesperides, for at Melite Herakles was also called Melon or Melios, but such attributes would hardly suit Alexikakos). In addition, there is a possibility that there was something in the upper right corner, perhaps a flying Nike, but there is only a scumble of thin glaze. The remarkable pose of this Herakles is repeated exactly on a contemporary pelike by the Kleophon Painter from Gela.66 Here we see Athena placing a wreath on the head of a beardless Herakles, draped in a lionskin and holding a bow. On either side of this pair stands a figure – on the left is a bearded man in a chlamys and pilos, with his tall spear, and on the right is a white-haired old man in a himation with a staff. It is difficult to construe this scene, for the bystanders rule out a welcome to Olympos and are not themselves readily identifiable, but the action of Athena is clearly honoring Herakles’ success and seemingly in a civic context.67 Whatever the precise meaning of this scene, however, we may best see the pose of Herakles on both vases as reflecting Hageladas’ new statue, which was not, of course, displayed in the tetrastylon, but elsewhere in the sanctuary at Melite. If we compare it with later, Hellenistic or Roman versions of Herakles statues, the image corresponds most closely to the so-called Lenbach type, which has, however, regularly been connected with the sculptor Lysippos.68 Indeed, comparisons with the great bronze in the Conservatori or a reduced-scale version from Byblos in the British Museum are very telling, as are even the silver staters and diobols of

66 Palermo, Museo Archeologico Regionale ‘Antonino Salinas’ 616: BAPD 215178; Matheson 1995, 219 (415 no. KL 44). On the subject, see Volkommer 1988, 46, no. 300. 67 On the subject, see Matheson 1995, 219 (415 no. KL 44); Volkommer 1988, 46 no. 300 (Iolaos and Hermes?), 48. The figure on the left might be Iolaos, but the white-haired man cannot be Hermes (or Eurystheus). 68 Lenbach type: Kansteiner 2000, 25–45; Palagia 1990, 56–8 ; LIMC IV, s.v. Herakles, 747–9 nos. 325–76 (O. Palagia). On Hageladas’ Herakles, see further: Kansteiner 2000, 93–4; LIMC IV, s.v. Herakles, 789 no. 1282 (O. Palagia); Palagia 1984, 119–20; von Heintze 1968.

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Herakleia of the late fourth and early third centuries.69 It seems, therefore, that Hageladas’ sculpture of 429 BC was not only referenced by vase painters but was also particularly influential on later sculptors. THE OLD AGORA DISTRICT Now let us turn to the area around the eastern end of the Akropolis, where we now know the Aglaureion was situated, thanks to the discovery in 1980 of an inscription set up before the great cave in the rock, which identifies it as the cave of Aglauros.70 Our literary sources locate in this same area the Prytaneion and the Boukoleion, together with the important shrines of the Dioskouroi (the Anakeion) and, not far off, probably to the northwest, that of Theseus (the Theseion).71 In this general area, presumably, the Old Agora mentioned by Thucydides was also to be found.72 One of our sources also tells us that the setting out of the festive meal for the Dioskouroi happened in the Prytaneion, and so it is very likely that the Anakeion was nearby.73 This subject appears on both vases and private votive reliefs, much as did scenes of Herakles and his shrine, underlining the iconographic connections between these two media.74 In one elaborate representation on a hydria of c. 430–420 BC by the Kadmos Painter, however, there is also a summary indication of an architectural setting, which we may perhaps understand as a suggestion of the Prytaneion.75 It is interesting to glance also at the tondo of the huge cup from Spina painted by the Penthesilea Painter.76 We may follow Erika Simon’s suggestion that 69 Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori 1265: Kansteiner 2000, 37–40, no. Lb 14; Palagia 1990, esp. pp. 53–8; LIMC IV, s.v. Herakles no. 372 (O. Palagia). London, British Museum GR1805,0703.38 (Bronze 827): Kansteiner 2000, 41; Palagia 1990, 58, Fig. 8; LIMC IV, s.v. Herakles no. 374 (O. Palagia). Coins of Herakleia: Kansteiner 2000, 125–6, no. Lb 18; Palagia 1990, 57, Fig. 7; LIMC IV, s.v. Herakles, no. 344 (O. Palagia). 70 Dontas 1983. Recent comments: Dickenson 2015, 725, 737; Neer and Kurke 2014, 551; Greco 2010, 159 (M. Saporiti); Schmalz 2006, 40–2. Note, however, Binder 2018, 18, 203 (no. 188). 71 See Dickenson 2015, 737–9 (Prytaneion), 733–7 (Theseion and Anakeion); Neer and Kurke 2014, 551–2; Greco 2011, 535–7 (Prytaneion [R. Di Cesare]), 550–511 (Anakeion [R. Di Cesare]), 551–3 (Theseion [R. Di Cesare]); Schmalz 2006. 72 For the issues surrounding the Old Agora, see the very sensible discussion by Dickenson (2015); and see Neer and Kurke 2014, 550–61. See also now Di Cesare 2016; Di Cesare 2015, esp. pp. 87–92. 73 Meal: Ath. 4.137e. Anakeion: site now possibly discovered, see Schmalz 2006, 41–2. 74 Vases, e.g., London, British Museum B633 (BAPD 16207). Reliefs, e.g., Paris, Musée du Louvre Ma746 from Larisa (first century BC). On the connections, see most recently Shapiro 2014. 75 Plovdiv, Regional Archaeological Museum 1527: BAPD 215726. See also Athens, National Archaeological Museum BS722: BAPD 213622; CVA: Greece 14, Athens, National Archaeological Museum 7 (O. Tzachou-Alexandri), pls. 88:2, 89. 76 Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Spina 44885: BAPD 211599.

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the Dioskouroi in the tondo are on the way to their special meal, symposion fillets around their heads.77 Indeed, we may go further and also identify the altar before them as that of Hestia with its “inextinguishable and immovable flame,” for it was, of course, in the Prytaneion.78 But we should also notice the scenes in the zone around the tondo, for they represent the deeds of Theseus, whose shrine was close by. Both the Anakeion and the Theseion received particular attention from Kimon, who commissioned paintings for the former and had a new structure created for the reception of Theseus’ bones, as well as paintings of his exploits in the latter.79 The vase painter would seem to be commemorating these benefactions on his potter’s huge masterpiece: myth, ritual, and topography all closely entwining. Erika Simon has also suggested that a scene on a Polygnotan kalyx krater of c. 440–420 BC is set in front of the Boukoleion.80 A naked bearded man with a chlamys over one arm holds out a large kantharos seemingly toward a draped woman seated (perhaps on the end of a kline, feet on a footstool) inside an open door, her right hand at her chin in a gesture of thought and perhaps some anxiety. Two satyrs seem to chat on the doorstep, one with jug and torch: the one on the left has been escorting the man, the other is guarding the door. The man is neither a Dionysos, who is always heavily clothed and ivy wreathed, nor a normal reveler, as he has Dionysos’ kantharos and a satyr for an escort. The woman with her satyr thyrōros might be thought to be Ariadne, but she is never so domesticated. As a result, the idea that here, in connection with the Anthesteria festival, the Archon Basileus in Dionysiac guise approaches the door of the Boukoleion, inside which the Basilinna (his real-life wife) awaits, offers a much more plausible reading.81 Turning back to the Aglaureion, one event that we hear happened there was the swearing of the oath of loyalty to the city by the ephebes, an oath that would seem to date back to the end of the sixth century BC.82 There is perhaps a representation of this oath-taking on an oinochoe of c. 440 BC by the Thomson Painter.83 This is no ordinary warrior’s departure, but a meeting over an altar, with no libation or other sacrifice involved. The white-haired man – presumably a state official such as the Eponymous Archon, who maintained his office in the Prytaneion – and the youth seem to be about to grip hands over the altar in a gesture of welcome 77 78 79 80

Simon 1976, 131. Schmalz 2006, 33–4; Wycherley 1957, no. 563. On Kimon, see Di Cesare 2015, esp. pp. 96–105 (Theseion); and Di Cesare 2014. Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniense RC 4197: BAPD 213726; Simon 1983, 97; Marroni 2017, 137–8, no. 101. Location of the Boukoleion: Wycherley 1957, nos. 582, 588. 81 On the ceremony, see Parker 2005, 303–5. 82 Dem. 19.303, cf. Philoch. FGrH 328 F105. See Kellogg 2013, 264–5 n. 5. On the Aglaureion inscription, see Parker 2005, 434 n. 64. Cf. also perhaps the ‘Horkomosion,’ Plut. Thes. 27.5, near the Theseion (unless this was the “lithos”; cf. T. Shear 1994, 244). 83 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1965.134: BAPD 214405.

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and trust that was most probably also the ritual gesture sealing an oath. Furthermore, it seems that it was at this time that the ephebe received his armor – he is shown here as being presented this by Nike, who still holds his helmet. Incidentally, this oath was made after the ephebes performed sacrifices at the Prytaneion.84 THE KERAMEIKOS We now head north and west to the Kerameikos cemetery area. Here, among the single burials and family plots, there was the so-called demosion sema, the area (or areas) where, from the fifth century, Athens publicly buried her war dead, year by year, along the road leading from the Dipylon Gate to the Academy.85 We know little about how these civic monuments looked above ground, only that they had low stepped bases and lists of the dead arranged by the ten tribes on marble stelai. However, a fragment in Amsterdam, probably from a loutrophoros, has a representation of part of one such monument (Fig. 7.13).86 Parts of five stelai are preserved, bearing the names of locations in which the casualties fell, but not the tribes – an understandable simplification. They are set against a white

Figure 7.13 Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum 2455, fragment of an Attic red-figure loutrophoros, c. 440 BC. Photo: Allard Pierson Museum. 84 Schmalz 2006, 40. 85 On the demosion sema, see Arrington 2015; Di Cesare 2015, 217–29; Barringer 2014b; Greco 2014b, 1441–54 (D. Marchiandi). 86 Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum 2455: BAPD 42150; Arrington 2015, 79–80, Fig. 2:6.

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background, which might well be a mound. The texts on the Amsterdam fragment, which include parts of the headings of “in Byzantion” and “from Eleutherai,” suggest that the monument depicted may have been the demosion sema for c. 447/6 BC.87 Here I should like to turn to a puzzle, a fragment of a large skyphos by the Penelope Painter dating to around 430 BC (Fig. 7.14).88 We see a figure – only the front of his head is preserved – bending forward to look at the lower part of some monument. This monument is enclosed in a rail barrier, and at the end is a tropaion in the form of a helmeted head (complete with beardless face, hair, and eye), together with spear, shield, and short chiton set on a thin, tapering pillar. Tropaia were set up by the victors on the battlefield at the turning point in a battle, the place of victory, and consisted of a selection of the finest arms of the defeated attached to tree trunk or wooden pillar (e.g., Figs. 5.11–13). On a few vases, we see tropaia – isolated monuments on the battlefield, one might presume – being viewed by single men, young or old.89 It seems, however, that permanent, surrogate tropaia might be set up in agoras or in sanctuaries. Indeed, it would appear plausible that they were also sometimes set up in cemeteries as part of a state funerary polyandrion connected with a victory. Furthermore, the railed enclosure on

Figure 7.14 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AE.114.25, fragment of an Attic red-figure skyphos attributed to the Penelope Painter, c. 430 BC. Photo: © J. Paul Getty Museum. 87 Cf. IG I3 1162; Osborne and Rhodes 2017, no. 129. 88 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AE.114.25, previously unpublished and unattributed. On the Penelope Painter, see Tiverios 2011. 89 See Lissarrague 2014.

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the skyphos fragment clearly continued to the right, providing space for a group of stelai. The figure’s head is bowed, as if honoring the monument or reading something, perhaps an epigram on the base. It is to be hoped that one day more of this interesting vase will be found so that the scene can be fully understood. In the meantime, we may perhaps think of it as showing part of one of Athens’ state graves, such as that for the crucial victory at Potidaia of 432 BC, an action that precipitated the Second Peloponnesian War. Moving now through the tombs and the city walls toward the fifth-century Agora, we pass by the workshops of craftsmen. These and the craft activities themselves were, of course, favorite scenes for the painters. The most frequently depicted craftsmen are potters, metalworkers, and shoemakers, all producing the necessities of life, but it is only the built structures of the potters’ establishments that are shown, with separate areas for painting, potting, and drying, as well as firing (see Chapter 8, pp. 182–4).90 We also see the shops and stalls of the Agora, especially those selling perfume, wine, and even pots, as well as meat and fish stalls.91 THE NEW AGORA We enter the Agora from the northwest, and here our literary sources locate several features that belong to the late sixth or early fifth century, including statues, altars, and buildings (Fig. 7.15). Much of this area has, of course, been thoroughly excavated, but later structures, Hellenistic and Roman, have resulted in the loss of some monuments mentioned in our textual sources – one notes in particular, perhaps, the impact of the early Roman imposition of the Temple of Ares and the Odeion of Agrippa.92 There are further problems that result from imprecisions or confusions in our sources and by recent attempted revisions to the excavators’ publications. We may begin with the statues of the Tyrannicides, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, honored for their slaying of Hipparchos, the brother of the tyrant Hippias, in 514 BC.93 The checkered history of these sculptures is well known. A first group, by Antenor, was carried off in the Persian sack of Athens.94 It was replaced by a second group, the work of Kritios and 90 91 92 93

See Williams 2016, 54–6. Chatzidimitriou 2005. On wine and perfume sales, see now Williams 2018, 80–4. Temple of Ares: Travlos, Athens, 104–11. Odeion: Travlos, Athens, 365–77. From the large bibliography see, e.g., Azoulay 2017; Stewart 2017; Di Cesare 2015, 74–6; J. Shear 2012; Schweizer 2009; Schmidt 2009; Oenbrink 2004; Neer 2002, 168–81; and Ajootian 1998. On aspects of the Tyrannicides and the Harmodios skolion, see further Williams 2014a, 427–30. (Note that there is, in fact, a representation of the sympotic myrtle branch, the aisakos, on a remarkable fourth-century Athenian vase: St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum inv. B2338: BAPD 41005; Sini 1997.) 94 For a possible representation of Antenor’s group, see Williams 2005, 282–3. For the dating, see Azoulay 2017, 26–30.

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Figure 7.15 Athens, Agora, c. 450 BC. Plan courtesy of R. Di Cesare (from Di Cesare 2015, with modifications by N. Bloch). 1. Altar of Aphrodite (or Hermes?); 2. Stoa Poikile; 3. Stoa Basileus; 4. Altar of Zeus (?); 5. Altar of the Twelve Gods; 6. Dedication by Leagros and perirrhanterion; 7. ‘Eschara’ of Dionysos (?); 8. Perischoinisma; 9. Row of shops; 10. Tyrannicides, Antenor group; Kritios & Nesiotes group; 11. Temple of Hephaistos and Athena; 12. Temple of Meter(?), probably left in ruins; 13. Bouleuterion; 14. Tholos (‘Skias’); 15. Aiakeion; 16. Southeast Fountain House; 17. Panathenaic Way; 18. ‘Orchestra’

Nesiotes, which was set up in 477/6 BC. The precise location of these sculptures sadly remains uncertain, although it is commonly assumed to be related to where Hipparchos had actually been killed, despite the lack of clear evidence.95 One possible candidate for the sculptures’ base might be found on the western side of the Panathenaic Way, the existence of which seems to have forced a slight bend in the later course of the road 95 Our sources indicate only that Hipparchos was killed near the Leokorion, the location and form of which remain unclear. That it was next to an open area beside the Panathenaic Way is logical, and at the northern end of the Agora probable, especially given the findspot of the one inscription recording the shrine (near Ag. Philippos); see Wycherley 1957, 113. Recent studies: Greco 2014b, 1259–60 (R. Di Cesare); Santoro 2014; Batino 2001. See now Camp 2018 for a new inscription with a dedication to the hero Leos.

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(Fig. 7.15).96 This base (Base ‘E,’ c. 2.4 m2) is described by Thompson as being of “material, workmanship and levels [that] would suggest a date in the late sixth or first half of the fifth century” and that “subsequently, but scarcely later than the fourth century, [it] was extended westward.” The extension may have been necessitated by the return of the first group from Persia, either by Alexander the Great or one of his generals. This base seems to have been cut by a later drain, which was associated by Thompson with the Odeion and would indicate that by the end of the first century it was out of use. At this point the two pairs of sculptures may have been moved, as were other sculptures in this general area, and placed further south in the grand area created between the Temple of Ares and the front of the Odeion, where, indeed, a fragment of the inscription from its base was found.97 There is only one explicit image of the later statue group on its base and that is on a fragmentary chous said to be from the cenotaph of Dexileos in the Kerameikos (Fig. 7.16).98 Nevertheless, in the case of a small group of images on roughly contemporary vases (two more choes, one from Spina, and a series of Panathenaic prize amphorae), the ground line on which the figures stand may be assumed to play the role of a base.99 To these should be added the fragmentary cup from St. Stošija’s Chapel, Zadar Cathedral, in modern Croatia, which may be attributed to the vase painter Aison.100 Here the powerfully muscled pair are arranged back-to-back, seen from Harmodios’ side, as on a third-century BC Campanian black-glaze guttus 96 H. Thompson 1952a, 96, pl. 22a, ‘E’ with no identification (cf. H. Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 96 n. 47, 158), but a comparison with a three-stepped base, perhaps for a large herm, on the eastern side of the road, which displayed signs of having been transplanted there in the early Roman period (H. Thompson 1952a, 102). Could this have been the herm that once stood in front of the Tyrannicides base, as shown on the Boston chous? Elizabeth Baltes (2020), to whom I am very grateful for sharing the text of her article prior to publication, argues in detail for an alternative: a large, three or more stepped base at the northeast corner of the Odeion (Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 158 n. 206, “of early Hellenistic date”). Its size, however, leads her to envisage the two sculptures in an elongated, staggered grouping, rather than the tight, squarer, back-to-back arrangement indicated by those depictions that seem to be closest to the actual sculptures (cf. especially the Zadar cup and the ‘Elgin Throne’ – see infra p. 154). The drawing out of the two figures so that both are fully visible is something that is tempting for two-dimensional artists: the painter of the Boston chous (see Fig. 7.16) is guilty of this, whereas that of the Zadar cup, a far better painter, is not. 97 Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 158. For the inscription, Athens, Agora I 3872, see IG I3 no. 502; Geagan 2011, no. A 1. For the movement of statues, see now Baltes 2017. 98 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 98.936: BAPD 1337. 99 See Azoulay 2017, 77–83; Schmidt 2009. The group consists of two more choes – Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Spina 6406 (BAPD 9037563) and Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 44255 (BAPD 9037562) – and a series of Panathenaic prize amphorae (Bentz 1998, nos. 5.239, 5.244, 5.245). 100 Zadar, Archaeological Museum P17997: Čondić and Vuković 2017, 89 (the exterior seems to show a Theseus cycle, including the boar).

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Figure 7.16 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 98.936, fragment of an Attic red-figure chous, c. 400 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

fragment – the opposite side of the bronze group is shown on the fifthcentury electrum coins of Kyzikos and the Late Hellenistic so-called Elgin Throne.101 Aison’s cup thus tends to confirm the canonical wedge-shaped back-to-back arrangement.102 On the Dexileos chous there stands in front of the statues a pillar, the upper edge of which is steeply angled, suggesting perhaps that it has been badly damaged.103 Given the date of the vase, c. 400–390 BC, one cannot help wondering if this strange pillar might have been intended to be a depiction of one of the herms that were mutilated in 415 BC, its head sheared from the pillar and seen from its left side.104 The vase would thus 101 Kyzikos coins: Kraay 1976, 264, no. 956; Brunnsåker 1955, 99–100 no. 1, pl. 23:1. Campanian guttus frag., New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 45.92.3: Brunnsåker 1955, 107 no. 9, pl. 24:9. Elgin Throne: most recently, Palagia 2018. 102 Cf. Brunnsåker 1955, 151–64. Contra: Shefton 1960. 103 The contour of the sloping edge is fully preserved. Ajootian (1998, 8–9) identifies the pillar as the turning post for the racetrack in the center of the Agora (now disproved). Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Spina 6406 (BAPD 9037563) has what seems to be two plain pillars (tops unfortunately not preserved), which might also have been intended to suggest herms. 104 On the mutilation, see most recently Kousser 2015. Compare, perhaps, the way a later herm has been damaged, Athens, Agora I 3452: Geagan 2011, no. H395.

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provide a visual juxtaposition of the heroes of the democracy and the acts of the oligarchic, pro-Spartan faction, a prelude to the brief but often violent rule of the Thirty Tyrants. The group of vases as a whole, while perhaps using the image also to recall at some level the assassination of Phrynichos in the Agora by Thrasyboulos of Kalydon and Apollodoros of Megara, who were made Athenian citizens and received gold crowns in 410/9 BC,105 clearly celebrates the final restoration of democracy in 403. The device of the Tyrannicides on Athena’s shield on the series of Panathenaic amphorae was probably deliberately, and officially, chosen for the festival of 398 BC (that of 402 BC would hardly have permitted time for the necessary number of vases to be produced).106 The appearance of two choes on the ground near the Tyrannicides on the chous from Spina may be thought to suggest the offerings made to Harmodios and Aristogeiton during the Panathenaia on the occasion of the anniversary of their action, something that may well have been instituted following the restoration of democracy.107 Our literary sources locate the statues of the Tyrannicides in relation to a number of other features, including the so-called Orchestra, an open space toward the center of the Agora’s western triangle.108 They seem to suggest that this Orchestra was the location for musical competitions, such as those for rhapsodes and kitharodes, before the construction of an Odeion, and for ‘Dionysiac contests’ before the construction of the theater on the south slope of the Akropolis.109 The reference to musical competitions, however, appears somewhat garbled (although the information may be correct), and most recently Eric Csapo has argued strongly against the idea of this Orchestra holding any sort of theatrical performances or competitions, preferring to locate these from the beginning (for him, from c. 500 BC) in the theater on the south slope of the Akropolis next to the Temple of Dionysos.110 105 Thuc. 8.92.2. For these honors, see J. Shear 2012, 141–2. Cf. also the appearance of the Tyrannicides on the New Style Athenian coins: Brunnsåker 1955, 100–1, pl. 23:2. 106 Bentz 1998, 50, 157. The sequence of Athena’s shield devices seems to be: Nike (406), blazing gorgoneion (not star; 402); Tyrannicides (398); and wreath (394). Those with the wreath seem to be connected with the series without shield device but with a flying owl holding a wreath in the field; perhaps both these series were made for the same festival. 107 J. Shear 2012. Cf. Azoulay 2017, 83. 108 Literary sources: Wycherley 1957, nos. 276, 527. On the Orchestra and ikria, see Greco 2014a, 1068–70 (R. Di Cesare); Greco 2014a, 906–7 (E. Greco); Gogos 2008, 19–25; Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 126–9. 109 Musical competitions: Wycherley 1957, no. 520. Dionysiac: Wycherley 1957, nos. 524–5 and cf. no. 203. 110 On musical contests, see Kotsidu 1991, 130–70. On the theater and early performances, see Csapo 2015; Csapo 2013. The idea that the earliest performances were on the south slope of the Akropolis, not the Orchestra, was first raised by Webster (1963). Cf. discussion in Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 127–8.

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We hear of wooden grandstands for events in the Agora area, called ikria, and many holes for their vertical members have been excavated along the sides of the Panathenaic Way both inside the Agora area and out toward the Dipylon Gate, but none have been reported in the open space to the south of the Altar of the Twelve Gods and the neighboring ground altar.111 Ikria consisted of “planks fastened to upright posts, like steps” and were made by ikriopoioi, one of whose number it is tempting to see on the name piece of the Carpenter Painter, a cup of c. 500 BC.112 A black-figure pseudo-Panathenaic amphora of c. 530 BC shows an acrobatic side-show, probably at the time of the Panathenaia, and the audience are seated on what are probably intended to be ikria.113 Such wooden grandstands must have been regularly constructed for other processions and gatherings, as well as for courts and assemblies. The first, and only, indication on Athenian vases of an actual theater occurs on an oinochoe of c. 420–415 BC, where we see a side view of a wooden stage and two seated figures.114 The comic actor on stage plays the part of Perseus; of the seated figures, one is a bearded, closely wrapped man and the other a youth with a long stick – the chairs are perhaps to be thought of as prohedria seats.115 The youth turns to look in surprise at the man at his side who seems strangely like Dionysos himself, closely wrapped like his cult images, come to view the play performed in his honor. It might be that this vase records the theater on the south slope of the Akropolis following a planned but only partially achieved rebuilding of the theater (but not the stage) in stone, instigated under Perikles: the scheme was not finished until the mid-fourth century.116 Perikles is better known for his connection with the construction of the adjacent Odeion 111 Cf. Wycherley 1957, 528. The larger holes reported just to the west and south of the Altar of the Twelve Gods (Crosby 1949, pl. 12, 1) are more probably for trees to shade the altars than for ikria. Cf. H. Thompson 1952b, 50; Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 135. Pace Greco 2014a, 1068–9 (R. Di Cesare). 112 Wycherley 1957, 726 (Hesychius). London, British Museum E23 (BAPD 201642). On ikriopoioi, see most recently Csapo 2007, 103–8. 113 Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 243 (BAPD 1047). See Beazley 1939; Neils 1992, 176, no. 47. Cf. also the wooden bench shared by two judges at a horse race on Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico inv. 16529 (BAPD 12937). 114 Athens, National Archaeological Museum BS 580: BAPD 216566; Green 2012, 297–8. See also Froning (2014), who interprets the stage as representative of a modest deme theater. 115 Cf. ThesCRA VII, 103 (I. Krauskopf). 116 On the theater on the south slope, see most recently Papastamati-von Moock (2015 and 2014), who envisages all dramatic performances in this theater and that the Temple of Dionysos was of Peisistratid date. On the temple, see Magnesale (2016), who dates it to c. 500 BC. A relief fragment with a Dionysiac scene (Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3131: Csapo 2015, 82–3, Fig. 1; Despinis 1996/7, Fig. 4) probably comes not from the temple but from an altar, perhaps of the last quarter of the sixth century.

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in the 440s BC.117 This gave a permanent home to the musical contests, which had previously probably been played out either in the Orchestra of the Agora or in the theater on the south slope. This new, Periklean Odeion is surely to be recognized on a remarkable kalyx krater of c. 440–435 BC found at Larisa, as Michalis Tiverios has argued. The vase has two rows of figured scenes, and in the upper zone we see Panathenaic musical competitions (on one side an auletes and on the other a boy aulode with older accompanist) in a pillared hall with low podia for the performers.118 The other side of the Larisa krater shows the end of a hoplitodromos race and the announcement of the victor in a boys’ athletic competition; the loser walks off, stage right, disconsolate. But where were Panathenaic athletic and other events held? For some, clearly, the road up from the Dipylon was employed, especially for the tribal events like the torch race and the apobates chariot races, which remained there even in the second century BC.119 A fragmentary skyphos potted by Nikosthenes and found on Thasos suggests that the pyrrhic dance competitions were also held on the Panathenaic Way, not far from the northwest entrance to the Agora.120 On this vase, to the left of (and behind) a troupe of dancers, we see a complex herm (facing three or four ways) which may be identified as the “Hermes Tetrakephalos, noble work of Telesarchides,” for the meeting of four roads in the northwest corner of the Agora would have been a particularly suitable place for such a monument.121 Regular foot races could also have been held on the dromos between the Kerameikos and the Agora, and we might well imagine all finishes being in the Agora, where officials and spectators were gathered, certainly somewhere before the road began to rise. Exceptionally, we see the starting posts and ropes for a hoplitodromos race on a Panathenaic prize amphora of 344/3 BC: this was a diaulos race, so the start and finish were in the same place, presumably in the Agora.122

117 T. Shear 2016, 197–228; Gogos 2015, 20–36; Greco 2010, 161–3 (M. Tofi); Travlos, Athens, 387–91. 118 Larisa, Archaeological Museum 86/101: BAPD 44648; Tiverios 1989, 51, 117. 119 Late apobates: IG II2 2316, 16 and 2317, 48. Dromos: Fucucillo 2008, 136–53; Kyle 1987, 26–8. We should also note that wheeled traffic only began to be noticeable on the Panathenaic Way in the Agora from the fourth century onward, and that there were repeatedly renewed fine surfaces to the road in the fifth: Camp 1996, 231–3; T. Shear 1975, 262; T. Shear 1973, 122–5. 120 Thasos, Archaeological Museum 84.135.5 frags.: BAPD 44608; Ceccarelli 200499, Fig. 2. 121 Literary references: Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 169, 95 n. 70; Wycherley 1957, nos. 314–16. The Archaic altar on the north side of the junction is regularly attributed to Aphrodite (Camp 2010, 102–3), but it has been suggested that it might have been Hermes’. See Greco 2014a, 966–8 (R. Di Cesare). 122 Bentz 1998, no. 4.073, pl. 115 with 66–9 on the hoplitodromos race. Such posts were presumably wooden and set into stone blocks that could be quickly moved out of the way.

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Other athletic events, such as the discus and akontion, might have been held down the long north–south axis of the Agora, in the open area of the Orchestra, until the construction of the stadion by the Ilissos after the middle of the fourth century, but we cannot be sure.123 It should be stressed that the earlier interpretation of a series of marble post-holes as a starting line for a race track down the axis of the Agora has recently been shown to be wrong. They are actually part of a large square enclosure with removable posts (9 by 8 posts; 15 m by 12 m) that sat right across the Panathenaic Way. This has now been seen to be the so-called perischoinisma, a special cordoned-off area connected with the institution of ostracism where the votes were counted (see further below, pp. 171–4).124 Our literary sources record it as being near the Altar of the Twelve Gods and the bronze statue of Demosthenes by Polyeuktos, set up in 280/79 BC.125 The Greek and American archaeologists involved in excavating the post settings date their origin to the early fifth century and their abandonment to the last quarter. This tallies very well with the period of recorded use of ostracism as a political mechanism, from c. 488/7 to 416/5 BC. We know that in the northwest corner of the Agora, in addition to the Hermes Tetrakephalos, there was also an important series of other herms, including a special group of three set up for Kimon and his fellow generals following the success at Eion in Thrace over the Persians in 475 BC.126 An inscribed epigram ran across all three herms, indicating that they stood as a group, whether in a line or in an inward-looking group, as on a contemporary pelike by the Pan Painter.127 Finally, there was also a Stoa of the Herms somewhere in the northwest corner of the Agora, known from two inscriptions and literary references.128 According to Aischines, some 123 See Kyle 1987, 56–64 (but note the mistaken identification of starting gates). The late fifth-century book stalls mentioned by Pl. Ap. 26d-e might well have only been temporary structures. For the stadion by the Ilissos stadion and the hippodrome in Echelidai, see Kyle 1987, 94–7. 124 See Greco 2014a, 1063–5, 65–7 (R. Di Cesare); Camp 2013; Camp 2012; Camp 2011; Saraga 2013, 134–7. 125 Wycherley 1957, no. 698. Paus. 1.8.2, 4 (Wycherley 1957, nos. 117, 158) placed it near the Temple of Ares, but this was surely a later move, as with the Tyrannicides. Cf. Baltes 2017. 126 See Wycherley 1957, 103–4, no. 301. 127 Paris, Musée du Louvre Cp10793: BAPD 206335; de la Genière 1960. Note the multiple herms on two other vases by the Pan Painter: Berlin, Antikensammlung inv. 1962.62 (BAPD 275276) and Laon, Musée Archéologique Municipal 37.1023 (BAPD 206308). Note also the examples on earlier black-figure vases: Paestum, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 48490 (BAPD 14643; Collard 2016, 59–60, no. 44); and Paris, Musée du Louvre F325 (BAPD 330141; Collard 2016, 66, no. 59). 128 See Camp 2010, 82; Camp 2007, 120–6; Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 94–6. For the inscriptions, see Camp (1996, 252–9), who places the Stoa of the Herms “just outside the northwest corner of the Agora” (p. 257). Also identified as the Stoa Basileus (N. Robertson 1999) and as the Stoa Poikile (Di Cesare 2015, 59–70, 172–4; Greco 2014a, 949–59 [R. Di Cesare]). See now Camp 2018, 1–4; Zaccarini 2017.

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of the herms, including the Eion trio, were within the stoa, and the stoa was within the Agora.129 THE ALTAR OF THE TWELVE GODS AND THE OMPHALOS OF ATHENS In 1975 Leslie Shear cautiously suggested that the scene on an oinochoe by the Altamura Painter of c. 470–460 BC shows the important Altar of the Twelve Gods in the northwest corner of the Agora (Fig. 7.17).130 This

Figure 7.17 Berlin, Antikensammlung 1962.33, Attic red-figure oinochoe attributed to the Altamura Painter, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz. 129 Wycherley 1957, no. 301. Cf. N. Robertson 1999, 167. 130 Berlin, Antikensammlung inv. 1962.33: BAPD 275288; T. Shear 1975, 364–5 n. 73. Cf. also Long 1987, 160–1; and CVA: Deutschland 103, Berlin 18 (A. SchöneDenkinger), 19–22, pls. 5–6.

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altar was established by Peisistratos the Younger in 522/1, according to Thucydides, a date supported indirectly by Herodotos.131 It also not only clearly formed the city’s central milestone but also served as the node for Hipparchos’ network of countryside herms.132 In many ways, this altar must have been a counterpart to the altar of Hestia in the Prytaneion, the hearth of the city, and its establishment by the Peisistratids, together with its functions as a central point and a place of sanctuary, is suggestive of the beginning of an ‘official’ move from the Old Agora to a new one. The altar of Hestia could not be moved, so instead a new altar and a new focus for the city was established in the gradually growing space that became the Classical Agora. Thucydides commented that the altar was later enlarged, thus obscuring its dedicatory inscription. This indicates that the altar went through more than one phase. The sequencing and chronology adopted by the original American excavations have been re-examined and revised by Laura Gadberry, while the Greek Archaeological Service was able to uncover more of the structure in 2011.133 The altar and the enclosure parapet may have been damaged in the Persian sack and only partially repaired in the 460s, work being possibly encouraged here, as elsewhere, by Kimon.134 In the last third of the fifth century, the sill for the parapet was fully renovated, with some blocks being slightly moved and the original earth floor replaced by a stone slab covering.135 The record of the transfer of 2,000 drachmas from the Treasurers of the Other Gods to the Twelve Gods in 429/8 BC might be connected with this work, and it had presumably been completed by 415 BC, when a violent sacrilege was committed on the altar.136 At the same time, the statue base (with or without its bronze statue) dedicated 131 Camp 2010, 89–90; Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 129–36; Wycherley 1957, 119–22. Location: Wycherley 1957, 698. Leagros base, Agora I 1597 (Wycherley 1957, 378). Date: Thuc. 6.54.6–7 (Wycherley 1957, 368). Cf. Hdt. 6.108.4 (Wycherley 1957, no. 365), an event of 519 BC. 132 Central milestone: IG II2 2640 (fifth century) and Wycherley 1957, nos. 364, 374. Hipparchan herms: Pl. Hipparch. 228e–229b; IG I2 837. Cf. Wycherley 1957, no. 305. See Neer and Kurke 2014, 536–9; Shapiro 1989, 125–6. 133 Gadberry 1992. The original publications (H. Thompson 1952b; Crosby 1949) are still fundamental; for the recent Greek rescue work, Saraga 2013, 137–44. See also Greco 2014a, 1051–5 (R. Di Cesare); Neer and Kurke 2014, 539–50, 560; Travlos, Athens, 458–61. On the location of the Altar of Pity, see Dickenson 2015, 760–4. 134 Possible Persian damage: Gadberry 1992, 471. 135 For the evidence indicating the partial and slight movement of the sill blocks, see Gadberry 1992, 470–1 (rough rectangular cuttings for heavy pries to shift blocks; cf. Crosby 1949, 86). Neer and Kurke (2014, 539–63) do not wish to accept that this was a minor adjustment, but use it to support their theory that the altar originally stood in the Old Agora and was only moved to the Classical Agora c. 430–400 BC. There is, however, no physical evidence for such a substantial move, which would have entailed the breaking and recutting of all the clamps and probably a numbering of the blocks. 136 For the financing, see IG I2 310, l. 64. Sacrilege: Wycherley 1957, 367.

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to the Twelve Gods by Leagros was probably moved up hard against it (see infra, pp. 168–70). The last third of the fifth century was a time when other monuments in the Agora were also improved. The parapet was again completely overhauled in the third quarter of the fourth century, with a new sill, stone orthostats, and stone copings, perhaps at the instigation of Lykourgos.137 Some decades later still, a statue of Demosthenes was set up nearby, as our sources record – indeed, the possible foundations for its base may now have been located by the First Ephoreia in their excavations of 2010–11.138 It was later moved to near the Temple of Ares, after the manner of the statues of the Tyrannicides and other sculptures.139 The exact form of the early parapet wall is uncertain: between each pair of large vertical stone posts, which were countersunk and leaded in place, there was a shallow rectangular cutting to hold a smaller stone post that was similarly leaded, while presumably wooden cross beams bridged the gaps, with some sort of coping on top.140 The early, decorative terminals of the altar itself may well have been damaged in the Persian sack, for fragments were found under the later pavement.141 At the time of the Altamura Painter’s chous, the altar had probably just been tidied up, with broken parts repaired, new decorative terminals added, and the parapet perhaps re-constituted. The vase shows the short end of the altar with its new crowning palmette (later in style than the preserved earlier fragments) and an enclosure made up of vertical barriers with horizontal bars. Four young satyrs are depicted taking part in what seems to be some sort of a torch race, prancing up like ballet dancers under the gaze of a giant, statuesque Dionysos. A fifth, bearded satyr has mounted the barrier around the altar to sound a trumpet. Since we know of no torch races held in honor of Dionysos, we are presumably viewing a scene connected with a satyr play, despite the absence of dramatic costumes. It clearly echoes representations of the torch racers at both the Hephaisteia and the Panathenaia heading toward an altar beside which stands a priest, and the torch race at the Prometheia will not have been much different.142 Our scene might 137 This may have been the time when the round base or altar (Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1731) with the Twelve Gods in relief was added to the enclosure. See Crosby 1949, 95, but note Gadberry (1992, 483 n. 132), who opts for a Late Hellenistic date. 138 Wycherley 1957, no. 698; Sagara 2013, 137. 139 Wycherley 1957, nos. 117, 158. 140 Both Thompson (1952a, 52–6) and Crosby (1949, 86–91) offer a reconstruction of the first phase with metopal panels, but this was based solely on the later parapet, for which, however, the large posts were grooved and the sill bedded. 141 Crosby 1949, 97 n. 43 notes that L. Shoe dated the hawksbeak molding to 523–512 BC (!). Crosby (1949, 97–8) dates the disc terminal to a similar period. For all the fragments and a reconstruction, see Sagara 2013, 142, Fig. 16. 142 For a vase showing the end of the Hephaisteia torch race (Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Spina 3033: BAPD 215539), see Froning 1971, 78–81. See also Bentz (2007, 76), who notes those showing the Panathenaia race.

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even have formed part of a play linking Hephaistos and Prometheus, such as Aeschylus’ Prometheus of 473/2 BC.143 The Hephaisteia torch race started at the Academy from the altar of Prometheus and must have ended near the Temple of Hephaistos, so the Altar of the Twelve Gods most probably marked the finishing line, where there was plenty of space for spectators.144 Indeed, the mature satyr is sounding the end of the race with his trumpet as Dionysos stands there in place of the priest, or indeed the Archon Basileus, for he supervised all torch races and his office was, of course, in the nearby Stoa Basileus.145 It was at the Altar of the Twelve Gods, too, that Pindar would seem to have delivered his dithyramb in honor of the Athenians, probably in connection with the City Dionysia.146 It summoned the Olympians to the omphalos of Athens and the pandaidalos Agora. The omphalos may confidently be identified as the Altar of the Twelve Gods, the city’s milestone, and the use of the adjective ‘pandaidalos’ for the Agora suits the recent completion of the stoas in the northwest corner of the Agora, the Stoa Basileus around 500 BC and, particularly perhaps, the Stoa Poikile in the early second quarter.147 It is surely relevant that Pindar was later honored with a statue set up initially in front of the nearby Stoa Basileus.148 The mention of these two stoas recalls the remarkable cup by the Briseis Painter that shows two kyklioi choroi of four closely wrapped

143 For previous comments on possible plays, see CVA: Deutschland 103, Berlin 18 (A. Schöne-Denkinger), 21. For a brief recent discussion of dramatic scenes without theatrical costume and possible satyr plays connecting Hephaistos and Prometheus, see Williams 2014b, 255, 267–72. 144 See Parker 2005, 471–2. The Prometheia’s torch race presumably started at the same place, and that of the Panathenaia at the nearby altar of Eros set up by Charmos, a member of Peisistratos’ circle (see Shapiro 1989, 119–20). The end of the Panathenaic torch race on the Akropolis is only recorded by Hermippos, the fourth century AD Neoplatonist (on Phaedrus 231e), but this seems dubious, and we should better imagine the finish line also being at the Altar of the Twelve Gods, as is probably the case with the other Panathenaic races. A stamnoid vessel from the Agora (P10542: BAPD 317806) elides the finish of the race at an altar with the victory procession, including the prize bull. Beyond the altar is a herm, suggesting perhaps a setting in the northwest corner of the Agora at the Altar of the Twelve Gods and the nearby Herms. 145 For the trumpet, cf. the Larisa krater (supra n. 118), where a man blows a trumpet at the end of a hoplitodromos race (see Tiverios 1989). Cf. also Crowther 1994. For the role of the Archon Basileus: Ath. Pol. 57.1. 146 Pindar frag. 75. See Csapo 2015, 101–4; Neer and Kurke 2014, 530–3. 147 Stoa Basileus date: Di Cesare 2016, 168 (“the original dating to 560–550 BC has not yet been disproved”); Martin-McAuliffe and Papadopoulos 2012, 351–2 (470s BC); Camp 2010, 79 (c. 500 BC); T. Shear 1994, 239 (c. 500 BC and no later); Gadberry 1992, 469 n. 73 (c. 500 BC, not after the Persian Sack). Stoa Poikile date: Camp 2010, 97 (c. 475–460, “according to the pottery”). On both, cf. Neer and Kurke 2014, 555–6. 148 Wycherley 1957, no. 708. Later moved to near the Ares temple: Wycherley 1957, no. 117. On movements, see Baltes 2017, 35–6.

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boys singing in front of what might be a stoa (Fig. 7.18).149 That they are circular dithyrambic choruses is indicated by the placing of the two auletai, one bearded, the other beardless, in the center of the two scenes, with the singers facing inward.150 On one side, the architectural backdrop encompasses the whole scene, on the other, only one half. Given the cup’s date of c. 480–470 BC, the stoa, if such it is, could only really be the Stoa Basileus soon after its construction (whether before or after the Persian sack). Whether they are practicing or competing is perhaps impossible to say, unless the unique scene on the tondo is of help. Here, a youth stands before a wooden frame structure, holding what seem to be lengths of stiff leather or the like (Fig. 7.19).151 The context of dithyrambic choirs might suggest some sort of noticeboard on which were hung boards that bore the names of tribes or individuals. The function may have been connected with the order of performing tribal choruses, with the selection of the auletes, or even the announcement of victors. This last brings to mind three late fifth-century representations of narrow, rectangular boards hung above victors in various events (singing, torch race, and pyrrhic dance) that have recently been studied by Dick Green and Peter Wilson (see Chapter 14, p. 317).152 These boards have three or, in one case, five vertical additions, presumably leather thongs, for attachment or for tying several boards together.153 One could perhaps imagine such boards being attached in some fashion to the holes and apparent spikes of the frame on the interior of this cup. Perhaps the youth is about to attach one of these with the leather straps he holds (or has just removed it) – the board with the name of the tribe of the winning chorus from the competition that we might then suppose to be shown on the exterior.

149 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 27.74: BAPD 204417. Richter and Hall (1936, 71, no. 51) suggest that the setting is a palaistra. For the idea of a stoa, see Wilson 2000, 73–4 (training); Bérard and Durand 1984, 22; Trendall and Webster 1971, 26–7 (competition); and Bieber 1941 (rehearsal in the Stoa Basileus). For a fragmentary cup, probably also by the Briseis Painter, with a boy singing in a similar architectural context, cf. Adria, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 22106 (BAPD 204468). Two more Adria fragments, 22156 and 7752 (BAPD 204469 and 204470, respectively), may also belong, giving more of the chorus. Trendall and Webster (1971, 26–7) compared a cup (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 305: BAPD 204534) with an auletes preceding two boys to an altar and a herm, and suggested the performance was at the Stoa of the Herms. The plaque hung next to the herm shows a runner, perhaps pointing to a Panathenaic race nearby (on the Panathenaic Way). 150 Cf. Copenhagen, National Museum inv. 13817 (BAPD 215175), where an auletes stands in the middle of bearded male singers. Cf. schol. on Aischin. In Tim. 10. 151 Richter and Hall (1936, 71) call it a trainer’s stick, but it is not, as such sticks are drawn by this vase painter; cf. Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe 1900.518: BAPD 204410. 152 Green and Wilson 2013. 153 For the tying of boards together with leather thongs, cf. Missiou 2011, 105.

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Figures 7.18, 7.19 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 27.74, Attic red-figure cup attributed to the Briseis Painter, c. 480–470 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Linked in orientation, level, workmanship, date, and subsequent renovation and expansion to the Altar of the Twelve Gods is the especially low altar, sometimes called an eschara, immediately to the southwest.154 Indeed, they were surely conceived together and were perhaps connected in some ritual fashion. In the eschara’s first phase there was only an earth floor with a low hearth. In a second phase, dateable to the last third of the fifth century (when the Altar of the Twelve Gods was renovated), an enclosure wall and stone paving were added.155 The eschara itself had a low stone curb with a rising concave profile at both short ends in the manner of a normal altar. This particular altar in the Agora has been recognized by Gunnel Ekroth on one side of the exterior of a red-figure cup by the Pan Painter by reason of its exceptional, low form (Fig. 7.20).156 With this we may also associate the only other similar altar on a stamnos by the same painter: it is slightly higher, but still far too low for a normal altar and clearly exceptional in just the same way (Fig. 7.21).157 On both vases a small group of figures are gathered around the ground altar. The key

Figure 7.20 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1911.617, Attic red-figure cup attributed to the Pan Painter, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. 154 Ekroth 2002, 34; Gadberry 1992, 463, 467–70; Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 132; H. Thompson 1953, 43–6. 155 The eschara went out of use “by the Hellenistic period” (Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 132). Csapo (2015, 73) seems to misunderstand Gadberry (1992, 464 n. 41) and says the eschara “was covered by a wall as early as ca. 430–420 BC” (he may have been following Ekroth 2002, 4). Gadberry, in fact, notes only that construction of the curving wall (whatever it was) cannot predate 430–420. It is the imposition of the so-called exedra that indicates the end of use of the eschara. 156 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1911.617: BAPD 206398; Ekroth 2009, 109–10. 157 Madrid, Fisa coll. 1999/99/102: BAPD 206298.

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Figure 7.21 Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Fisa col. 1999/99/102, Attic red-figure stamnos attributed to the Pan Painter, c. 470-460 BC. Photo: Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Ángel Martínez Levas).

person is a man in a long ceremonial, ungirded, sleeveless robe that marks him out as a priest, who holds a kantharos. He is accompanied by acolytes with jugs and a ceremonial basket. On the other side of the stamnos, we find a youthful auletes in a similar costume, but with a musician’s sleeves, playing before two bearded men: one has a normal citizen’s stick but the other also has a trainer’s stick, suggesting that he is the didaskalos and thus suggesting the possibility that the other figure is the choregos rather than simply a member of an audience (Fig. 7.22). We would thus have on one side a sacrifice at the ground altar in the Agora to Dionysos, as indicated by the priest’s kantharos, the special vase of Dionysos, and on the other, the key figures from a dithyrambic entry in the Great Dionysia, the didaskalos, auletes, and choregos. The two sides are surely connected, and we need to read them together, as part of the same event and as adjacent in space.

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Figure 7.22 Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Fisa col. 1999/99/102, Attic red-figure stamnos attributed to the Pan Painter, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Ángel Martínez Levas).

Although the deity to whom the Agora ground altar was dedicated is unknown, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood argued powerfully that it was Dionysos, and these two vases by the Pan Painter, especially the stamnos, would support her theory.158 If this were indeed the case, it would help to explain the presence of the god beside the large altar on the oinochoe by the Altamura Painter: the Altar of the Twelve Gods and the ground altar of Dionysos stood side by side. It might also help us to understand why the two altars were so closely linked – their placement was part of a wider ritual narrative that involved all the gods and Dionysos, in particular, in the validation of the city’s increasingly important festivals. Indeed, the 158 Thompson and Wycherley (1972, 132) suggest a hero such as Aiakos; SourvinouInwood 2003, 92–3; Sourvinou-Inwood 1994, 281–4. Csapo (2015, 66–79) attempts to refute Sourvinou-Inwood’s reconstruction of the cult events and rituals of the Great Dionysia.

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possibility should be considered that the Altar of the Twelve Gods acted not only as the central milestone, but also, in effect, as the finishing point for all the races that were held on the dromos in connection with the Panathenaic festival. The remains of post-holes for ikria have been found on the eastern side of the Panathenaic Way and even on the western side, north of the two altars: they were probably erected to enable spectators to watch the finish of races as well as other performances and the great procession itself. The erection of these two altars may well have been the key element in the beginning of the Peisistratid development of the new Agora, which the Kleisthenic democracy was quick to appropriate and build upon – a move signaled most clearly by the setting up of the first pair of statues of the Tyrannicides. With these thoughts in mind, it is interesting to glance at Euxitheos’ exceptionally large cup, decorated by Oltos, with an assembly of seated gods on one side awaiting the arrival of Dionysos in his chariot on the other.159 This arrangement seems to both separate Dionysos from, and unite him with, the rest of the gods, the Twelve. Perhaps we should see this pairing in topographical terms, as a reflection of the proximity of the Altar of the Twelve Gods and the altar of Dionysos. Finally, it is interesting to note the exceptional precedence given to Hestia, sitting opposite Zeus, just where one might have expected Hera – is this the result of some idea of recompensing Hestia for the establishment of a new focus to the city?160 We may now consider more closely the dedication by Leagros son of Glaukon to the Twelve Gods in the light of these two interlinked altars, for its singularity and location make it important to both.161 The reason for its dedication is unrecorded. It was envisaged by Raubitschek, however, that it celebrated an athletic victory, but the evidence he adduces is not persuasive.162 Given also the uncertainty of the dating of the inscription, probably after 480 rather than before, we might do better to think of an 159 Tarquinia, Museo Archeologico Nazionale Tarquiniense RC 6848: BAPD 200502; Shapiro 1989, 136–7. Shapiro sees the assembly as waiting for Herakles, but although his forthcoming arrival is signaled by the presence of Hebe, Athena is still there, and the expected addition is surely that of Dionysos. 160 Oltos’ signature is, significantly, under her chair. Her presence is equally important on the cup potted by Sosias (Berlin, Antikensammlung F2278: BAPD 200108), in an assembly of the gods, which already includes Dionysos, as Herakles arrives. Cf. Shapiro 1989, 140–1. 161 IG I3 951: Agora I 1597. 162 Raubitschek 1939, 160–4, using a very implausible link with an inscription found on Salamis, which he supposes was at some point transported from Athens. Note the reported absence of athletic statues in the Agora until after the fourth century: Lykourg. Leoc. 51; Seaman (2002) tries to dismiss Lykourgos’ statement, but her arguments are not sound – tribal events were probably considered differently from individual ones, while the Prytaneion was not in the Agora.

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event later in Leagros’ life.163 We know that he was strategos in 465/4 at Drabeskos, shortly after which he presumably lost his life in the disaster at Ennea Odoi.164 A fragmentary Nolan amphora, however, that depicts a Nike before a tripod on the base of which is inscribed “Akamantis enika phule”, also names Glaukon son of Leagros as kalos.165 This suggests that while Glaukon was young enough to be referred to as kalos (that is, c. 475–470/65), his father may have won a victory as a choregos for the family’s tribe, Akamantis.166 It seems that the family continued to support dithyrambic productions, for another Leagros, presumably a second son of Leagros, is recorded as victor c. 440 BC.167 If we are right in thinking that the Pan Painter’s stamnos showed, on one side, the priest of Dionysos performing a ritual at the eschara and, on the other, a choregos with his charge, then we might go on and wonder if Leagros’ dedication might have honored a special production connected with both the eschara and the Altar of the Twelve Gods, perhaps even Pindar’s famous dithyramb for the Athenians mentioned above, which might itself have been commissioned at the time of the post-sack refurbishment of the Altar of the Twelve Gods, whether also funded by Leagros (he was from the local deme Kerameis) or by Kimon. As for the bronze figure on the Leagros base, it was a stationary figure with its right foot slightly advanced and out-turned; there is nothing to indicate gender or dress. It could, thus, be a Zeus, as the leader of the Twelve Gods, or even a Dionysos. Indeed, the opening of Pindar’s dithyramb would seem to offer a poetic visualization of the setting and its ritual, for after calling on the Olympian gods and pointing to the “omphalos” of the city and the “alldecorated, famous agora,” the poet continued with “I go from Zeus with the radiance of songs secondly to the ivy-knowing god . . .”168 It is almost as if the poet were recording some sort of a ritual progression from the altar of Zeus and the other Olympians to that of Dionysos. If Leagros’ base once 163 Cf. Gadberry 1992, 474 (480–470); Stewart 2008, 583. For the early “Attic stance” of the feet, cf. Keesling 2010, 200–1; Ridgway 2002, 200; Arnold 1969, 38. 164 Cf. J. Davies 1971, 90–1. Francis and Vickers (1981) argue that he survived, not perhaps giving proper weight to Pausanias’ (1.29.4–5) inclusion of Leagros in his mention of the public tomb for the Thracian casualties. For Leagros, see also Brenne 2001, 209–11. 165 London, British Museum E298 (BAPD 212623). 166 J. Davies (1971, 91) mistakenly interprets the victor as Glaukon; Francis and Vickers (1981, 109–11) argue for Leagros, but down-date the vase to the “mid- to late 450s.” 167 J. Davies 1971, 91–2; Francis and Vickers (1981, 101, 111) link this victory with the vase. 168 Using the interpretation and translation of Neer and Kurke 2014, 528–9; cf. also their discussion on pp. 530–5. Pindar also refers to a chamber of the Horai, which could be a cave dedicated to the Horai on the slopes of the nearby Hill of the Nymphs (cf. Lazaridou and Dakoura-Vogiatzoglou [2004, 30–1], using Ath. 2.7.38c, mentioning the Nymphs as well as the Horai). Neer and Kurke (2014, 568–73) prefer a site somewhere to the east of the Acropolis.

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carried a statue of either Zeus or Dionysos, it would perhaps be tempting to choose Dionysos, outside the Altar of the Twelve, a thyrsos in his right hand (there may have been a depression to locate it in the front left corner) a kantharos in his left, recalling that on the Berlin oinochoe (Fig. 7.17).169 A DIVERSION We may end our tour of Athens by turning aside to look at the very interesting scenes on the tondo and the other side of the Pan Painter’s cup just discussed (Fig. 7.20): the bringing and recording of a great number of irregularly shaped red objects (Fig. 7.23). These two puzzling scenes have been connected with two different events. The most recent interpretation sees them as showing the division of the meat from a public sacrifice – the red pieces being small chunks of red meat.170 This would link them to the other side of the cup, where a sacrifice is taking place at an altar. As Gunnel Ekroth argues, this would be a division not of choice pieces, but of ordinary, equal portions, with scribes keeping an account of what was distributed to whom. There is no sign here, however, of the mageiros and his bloody work, something that would have clinched the argument and could easily have been shown on the interior instead of a repeat of the exterior scene. Furthermore, it is very hard to imagine such a division being done by means of counting out individual kebab-sized chunks, especially since weighing would have been much more efficient; suitable

Figure 7.23 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1911.617, Attic red-figure cup attributed to the Pan Painter, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. 169 For the possible depression, cf. Gadberry 1992, pls. 105, 106b. 170 See most fully Ekroth 2009, 109–10 (noting earlier similar ideas by others). Cf. perhaps also ThesCRA I, 127 no. Gr. 569, pl. 32 (A. Hermary).

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official bronze weights are known from various sanctuaries, especially Olympia.171 Finally, what we know from epigraphic and archaeological sources suggests that such a division was regularly carried out in the Kerameikos, not in the Agora.172 As long ago as 1972, however, Tom Webster suggested that the scenes showed ostracism in action.173 To assess this, we may begin by describing the scenes more closely. On the outside, the red objects appear to be being divided into two small piles, with a larger number in a lekane in the center. The youth in the center holds a further group and seems to be telling the bearded man to the right about them. He is presumably making notes on them, but is distracted as another load is brought up from the right in a large shallow basin (perhaps wooden); the man at the far left seems to offer fresh tablets to the man to replace the set he holds, presumably because they are full. The scene on the interior adds no more new details, but there is a suggestion that here the process of sorting and counting has not yet really begun. Although we know little of the mechanics of the voting, and all our sources date from long after the cessation of ostracism in 416/415 BC, we may perhaps reconstruct the scene as follows.174 Citizens took their suitably (or not) inscribed ostraka to the Agora, where they queued before their tribal representatives, until they could drop their ostraka into containers. The full containers were taken to the tribal counting point within the secured perischoinisma, where officials from each tribe set about their task. There, they were sorted by names into piles, probably following a predetermined list of candidates, as suggested by Anna Missiou, carefully counted and properly recorded.175 The harassed senior official on the outside of the Oxford cup is keeping a tally of the numbers of votes against each of three listed candidates, while the youth reads the ostraka, calls out the names, and puts them in the relevant pile on the table set up for the tribe – the lekane is for the person with the most votes. The unusual duplication of the scene on the tondo was thus intended to suggest another of the ten counting points and thus the huge scale of the operation. The placement of the perischoinisma on the Panathenaic Way no doubt allowed for maximum access by the citizens. Its orientation meant that it faced northward across to a large and undeveloped island that was, after

171 For weights in sanctuaries, see Ekroth 2008, 271–2; Hitzl 1996, 96–7 (findspots). 172 Epigraphic: IG II2 334, 23–7 (c. 334 BC); Ekroth 2008, 277; Rhodes and Osborne 2003, no. 81, B 24–5; Wycherley 1957, 222. Archaeological: Gruben 1969, 36 on the possible division of meat from a Panathenaic hecatomb of the second century BC. 173 Webster 1972, 142. In support, see Missiou 2011; Brenne 2002b. More cautious: Neer 2002, 244 n. 9; Ober and Hedrick 1994, 100. 174 On ostracism, see Missiou 2011, 36–55; Siewert 2002; Brenne 2001. 175 For the predetermined list, cf. Missiou 2011, 49–52.

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about 470/460 BC, looked over by both the Stoa Basileus and the Stoa Poikile, and southward over the empty space known as the Orchestra. This was just the place to marshal large numbers of citizens and be supervised by the archons and the Boule. One question remains: why was this scene of ostraka counting linked to a sacrifice? As Ekroth rightly notes, the sacrifice is not of the type that could be connected with a meeting of the assembly or the like, for such a purification sacrifice would not have involved the burning of the tail, as seen on the altar here.176 The answer, therefore, can only be that the perischoinisma and the eschara were very close together – in other words, it is topographical proximity that links the two themes, as indeed would seem to be the case with the Pan Painter’s other representation of the eschara. One might reasonably assume that as ostracism was such a dramatic event in the life of fifth-century Athens, with some 6,000 or more citizens milling around, each clutching his ostrakon, it would have naturally caught the attention of the vase painters, even if they could not all participate. But this is the only preserved example of the scene. And yet one can hardly imagine that it was commissioned by one of the candidates! There is, however, I believe, a different and particular connection for our craftsmen that has been overlooked. It is often assumed that many Athenian citizens could not write, and that therefore many ostraka were written for them by scribes. The existence of ostraka clearly written by the same hand has been used to support this. It seems to me, however, that potters and painters were well placed to profit from this political mechanism, for it cannot be denied that by the fifth century many had the ability to write simple texts, especially names, while the potter’s workshops could provide a plentiful supply of fired vessels, whether kiln discards and other workshop debris or defective and unmarketable pieces, decorated and undecorated. Perhaps, indeed, such workshops were really one of the best and quickest sources for the 6,000–10,000 pottery fragments required.177 It is interesting to observe, therefore, the preserved groups of ostraka, such as the large number of feet of black-glaze cups from one Agora deposit: all were surely produced in one workshop, while at least four hands have been recognized for the graffiti.178 This really has the feel of a group of potters and painters churning out hundreds of ostraka, as speculation or on request, drawing on the material from their own workshop. The 176 Ekroth 2009, 107. 177 On the involvement of potters, see now Brenne 2018, 45–6, 65–6, but note that he talks of a depot of broken sherds kept for the next ostracism, which seems improbable (p. 143). 178 For the deposit, see M. Lang 1990, 158–61, esp. p. 161 and Fig. 30 (Kallixenos Aristonymou). See also Missiou 2011, 60–70.

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same impression is given by examples of several joining ostraka naming the same candidate and written by the same hand, or naming different candidates and again written by the same hand, while sometimes such large fragments were broken up and inscribed by different hands, but presumably by people sitting next to each other.179 The direct connection to the potters and painters gains even further credence when we consider those graffiti with sketches attached. Who other than a painter, used to the surface and production of such images, as well as writing, could have produced such competently engraved images as have been found: Kallias Kratiou as a Persian archer; the wreathed head of Kallixenos Aristonymou; or the cavalry man, fallen warrior, fox, owl, and snake incised on the ostraka for the Alkmeonid Megakles Hippokratou; or the bull or stag for Menon Gargettios?180 Finally, and remarkably, we find some names painted with a brush in black color after firing on a number of clay rings that served as potters’ kiln supports, firing test pieces with incised names, and even, crucially, two examples of ostraka with names actually painted with glaze before firing.181 The first of these pre-fired names is painted on a vase handle within a reserved panel: the same name, Kalixenos Aristonymou, incised on several other ostraka, was found in the same Agora deposit.182 The second name, Menon Menekleidou Gargettios, is painted in three careful lines (with a preliminary sketching of letters) on the exterior of a fragment of an unfinished bowl with black-glaze inside: he was a candidate for the ostrakophoria of 471 BC.183 It can hardly be denied, therefore, that potters and their painters played an important role 179 Same candidate and same hand: e.g., Athens, Kerameikos, Megakles Hip[pokratou]: Brenne 1994, 19, Fig. 20. Different candidates and same hand: cf. Brenne 2002a, T 1/92–3; Brenne 1994, 16, Figs. 14, 17. For large fragments broken and inscribed by different hands, cf. Brenne 1994, 19–20, Fig. 25: four joining ostraka, three hands – Megakles twice by the same hand; Themistokles Phrearios; and Hippokrates Anaxileo. For an extensive analysis of the Kerameikos material, see now Brenne 2018, 131, 141–2, and following catalog. 180 Brenne 2018, 126; Brenne 2002a, 141–8 (T1/156–64), Figs. 1–9; Brenne 1992. On the head of Kallixenos, see also Stamires and Vanderpool 1950, 377, no. 29. 181 Kiln rings: Athens, Agora P 5946: Brenne 1994, 18, Fig. 19 top left; M. Lang 1990, 65, no. 311, Fig. 11 (Kallias Didymiou). Athens, Agora P 29897: M. Lang 1990, no. 110, Fig. 6 (Eukrates Eudramonos). Athens, Kerameikos frags.: Brenne 2018, 65, noting some seventeen examples, naming Erastistratos Asteiou, Kallias Didymiou (two different hands: see p. 153 Group A 98), Kleippides Deiniou, Megakles Hippokratous, and Themistokles Neokleous; Brenne 1994, 18, Figs. 18–19 (remainder). Firing test pieces: Athens, Kerameikos frags.: Brenne 2018, 66, nos. 5714, 2569–70 (Megakles), 1509–10 (Kimon Miltiadou). 182 Kallixenos, Athens, Agora 17960: Brenne 2018, 46; Missiou 2011, 52; M. Lang 1990, 6, no. 468 (as a vote by a potter); Stamires and Vanderpool 1950, 379–81 (interpreted as a kalos name). Note that Philipps (1990, 135 n. 55) mixes painted before firing and after firing. 183 Menon, Athens, Kerameikos O 6593: Brenne 2018, 431–2 (Menon’s connections and date), 469, no. 6761, pl. 323; Brenne 1994, 18–19.

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in the supply of inscribed ostraka (as well as simple blanks, of course). Was the Pan Painter’s cup, then, perhaps something akin to an advert for the service provided by his pottery workshop – “Get your ostraka here!” CONCLUSIONS Through the vase painters’ eyes we have, perhaps quite unexpectedly, been able to visit many of the city’s major districts. We have seen particular temples, shrines, and altars, honorary and dedicatory statues, the theater and the odeion, stoas, offices of archons, fountain houses, workshops and shops, and, among the many tombs, a demosion sema. Following Aristotle’s tripartite division of space into hieros, demosios, and idios, we should not ignore the oikos.184 In the last third of the sixth century, we find occasional representations of a house, or at least its front door and porch. An early example is a remarkable black-figure lekythos by the Amasis Painter, on which an extended marriage procession, including bride and groom with pais amphithales in a donkey cart, is shown heading for the groom’s house, the porch and open double doors of which are clearly delineated.185 Another is on an amphora from Group E, which seems to suggest a street scene, a house on either side, from which emerge the men and womenfolk to bid farewell to their warriors.186 These houses, however, do not seem to be particular, but rather generic, to some extent continuing the tradition of the earlier depictions of a palace/temple (see infra p. 177). On a later vase, a small red-figure bowl of c. 430–410 BC, however, we have a view of the whole structure from the outside that might even have been intended to be specific, at least for the vase painter (Fig. 7.24).187 These depictions of the constructed environment have varied in precision (the sculptures being the most accurate) and have sometimes required the attendant human interaction to discover the precise topographical context, but they all fall within the intended, real world and not the imaginary or the imagined. They add considerable meaning to the scenes, lifting them from the general to the specific, giving them place and occasion. As a result, together they combine to provide some sort of a contemporary, visual topography of ancient Athens. What is immediately obvious from our tour is that the vase painters’ greatest interest was in ritual structures and spaces. Religion and 184 185 186 187

Arist. Pol. 1267b34. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.11.1: BAPD 350478. Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum L247: BAPD 301051. Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum 994: BAPD 11725; Williams 2016, 62, Fig. 10. Cf. also the more confident but schematic representation of house and street with a late night reveler rapping on a door: New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 37.11.19: BAPD 539.

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Figure 7.24 Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum 994, Attic red-figure small bowl, c. 430–410 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung der Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität.

ritual clearly played a huge part in the life of the city of Athens.188 By contrast, although we may distinguish references to the Prytaneion and the Boukoleion, we see no definite sign of the Bouleuterion, perhaps because it was turned away from the immediate public gaze, while the actions within it and around it were of limited iconographic interest.189 The only possible exceptions to this are the scenes of the dokimasia of the citizen cavalry, the hippeis.190 Several clear depictions of this examination are preserved and they are, interestingly, spread over some fifty years, from c. 510–500 down to c. 460 BC (Fig. 7.25).191 On these a katalogeus records information about the horses for the consideration and decision by the Boule.192 On the preserved vases, the topographic indicators – trees, a stone seat, and a column – are hardly precise, but the trees and stones may point to the Agora’s open space, while the column might perhaps 188 Cf. Thuc. 2.38: Perikles says “we celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round.” 189 On the Bouleuterion, see most recently Paga 2017. It faced due south, presumably to catch as much light as possible. 190 Fehr 2011, 22–31; Neer 2002, 146–8; Lissarrague 1990b, 224–9; Cahn 1986; Cahn 1973. 191 Basel, Cahn 133 frags. (BAPD 275053); Berlin, Antikensammlung F2296 (BAPD 204463); Basel, Cahn 645 frags. (Cahn 1973, 20, Fig. 16); Basel, Cahn 1678 (BAPD 20215). Cf. also a cup with writing tablets hung up (but no katalogeus): Paris, Musée du Louvre G108 (BAPD 211333). A column occurs on the Splanchnopt Painter’s cup (Basel, Cahn 1678) and the slightly earlier one by the Pistoxenos Painter (Paris, Musée du Louvre G108). Note also the black-figure lekythos (c. 490–480 BC) in a Berlin private collection with a satyr katalogeus performing a dokimasia of goats: BAPD 3929; Lissarrague 2013, 115, Fig. 90. 192 Ath. Pol. 49; Rhodes 1972, 171–2, 209–10. The Boule was certainly involved after 462/1 BC, but before that date the controlling body remains uncertain.

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Figure 7.25 Basel, H.A. Cahn coll. 1678, fragments of an Attic red-figure cup, c. 470 BC. Photo: J.-D. Cahn (Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter).

reflect the Bouleuterion on the western side (already built and functioning by 501/0 BC)193 or one of the stoas in the northwest corner, as it appears on two cups of the 460s. Such a central location would have suited both the Boule and the people of Athens, for whom the examination must have been quite a spectacle. The interest in the constructed environment first manifested itself on Athenian vases around 580 BC or soon after on the works of Sophilos, but these were imaginary structures (though surely based on ones known in Athens: an early temple stood in for a palace), their context mythological.194 Kleitias, in the second quarter of the century, expanded the imaginary cityscape to include a palace/temple, a city wall and gate, and a fountain house.195 These all surely reflected the increased

193 See Paga 2017. 194 Palace: London, British Museum 1971.1101.1 (BAPD 350099); Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 587 (BAPD 305074); Athens, Agora P 13848 (BAPD 305085). Grandstand: Athens, National Archaeological Museum 15499 (BAPD 305075). 195 Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco 4209: BAPD 300000. Cf. the slightly later representation of what was perhaps a palace rather than a temple on Athens, Agora P 26632 and 26651 frags. (BAPD 31530). For the parallel series of fountain houses, many on Siana cups, see Tölle-Kastenbein 1994, 90 (all mythological). In general, see Pedley 1987. Note also the problematic temple-like structure containing a draped figure, perhaps Apollo, on London, British Museum B49 (BAPD 301738): Marconi 2009b, 5–6; Shapiro 1989, 59–60 (identified as the Pythion by the Ilissos).

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architectural development of contemporary Athens, and in particular the Akropolis. Finally, in the last third of the century began the series of fountain house scenes, the first real structures, set not in some mythological cityscape, but in specialized civic amenities enriched with social narratives. Some are even given names, as we saw. Their primacy as real, built structures within a contemporary context is clearly something that increases their historical significance considerably, both socially and politically. Fountain house scenes, of course, continued well into the fifth century, indicating that such amenities were also a source of interest to the new democracy.196 Toward the end of the sixth century, we begin to see scenes set in the premises of craftsmen, especially potters and metalworkers, as well as shops, as the representation of real structures and spaces drew the vase painters’ gaze more and more. In the fifth century, especially after the Persian sack, the picture broadened still further, and we find, in addition, representations of real temples, shrines, altars, and a stoa, as well as statues, both freestanding (cult, votive, and memorial) and associated with temple decoration.197 There was, perhaps, a growing pride in the developing city: there certainly seems to have been a particular interest in new structures and new sculptures in the time of Kimon and then Perikles. After the catastrophic end of the Peloponnesian War and the temporary displacement of democracy, we again see a resurgence of interest in the city and its art, but now also a pride in the past. This would seem to lead in the fourth century to a further manipulation of the constructed environment, especially sculptures, and an intensification of meaning, as they are removed from their context, whether in a temple’s pediment or on a base in the Agora, and transformed into political symbols, such as the Tyrannicides on Athena’s shield on Panathenaic prize amphorae or the statue of Eirene holding the infant Ploutos in her arms, the work of Kephisodotos, on the pillars flanking Athena on other such civic vessels.198 Finally, we have seen how some vase painters could link the two (or three) sides of a vase together topographically, not just thematically.

196 The latest is c. 460 BC: Brauron, Archaeological Museum, white-ground cup frag.: BAPD 210255. Cf. Kimonian Klepsydra fountain house: Travlos, Athens, 323–4; Greco 2010, 150-1 (S. Savelli). 197 For a statue of Herakles on a cup by the Theseus Painter (c. 490–480 BC): Taranto, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 6515: BAPD 330715; Phritzilas 2006, no. 373; Williams forthcoming a. Cf. also, perhaps, the earlier neck amphora painted by Euphronios (c. 510 BC): Paris, Musée du Louvre G107: BAPD 2088; Williams 2019. 198 For sculptures on columns, see Palagia 2014; Bentz 1998, 53–7; Eschbach 1986. Kephisodotos’ Eirene, set up on the western side of the Agora: Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 168. Note the statue of a wingless Nike with aphlaston on a column in a Panathenaic prize-giving scene, on an early fourth-century bell krater, Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts 1944.Cb.2 (Oakley 2007).

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Indeed, from all of the vases that we have looked at, it is the topography of the northwest corner of the Agora that is brought out most vividly – the Tyrannicides with a mutilated herm before them, ‘torch racers’ running up to the altar of the Twelve Gods, sacrifices being offered at the adjacent ground altar by competitors at a dithyrambic contest, pyrrhic dancers performing on the Panathenaic Way nearby, boys’ choruses singing outside a stoa (or stoas), the counting of ostraka, and the dokimasia of the cavalry. For the vase painter, as for Pindar, this was “the omphalos of the city.” To understand ancient Athens, whether as archaeologists or historians, we constantly need to try to put ourselves in the place of its inhabitants, neutralizing contemporary prejudices as much as we can. In the case of understanding vase painters, we must try to adopt their gaze, as well as that of their fellows, in order to better understand the complexity of their images.

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8 AGAIN: WORKING SCENES ON ATHENIAN VASES – IMAGES BETWEEN SOCIAL VALUES AND AESTHETIC REALITY* Tonio Hölscher

STATE OF AFFAIRS AND FURTHER QUESTIONS Scenes of working people on Athenian vases of the sixth and fifth centuries BC have more than once been investigated as exceptional testimonies to the social history of Archaic and Classical Athens. Whereas by far the greater part of black-figure and red-figure vases depicting scenes of social life focus on the noble sphere of the upper classes, a small number of images lead us into the world of workmen and merchants. The main question they raise is, of course, the social and cultural evaluation and appreciation of human labor within the historical horizon of that period.1 As we seem to know, the upper classes defined and legitimized their social status in terms of a leisure elite, exempt from manual work and dedicated to the culture of politics, athletics, and symposia. Yet, it was precisely this social elite that bought and used these painted vases – so what was the reason for decorating such vessels with scenes of labor? What did these users think when they looked at the images of those working people during their banquets? Did such scenes serve to confirm the noble participants in banquets in their elevated social identity, defining themselves against, and distinguishing themselves from, the counter-world of the working ‘classes’? On the other hand, these vases were produced precisely by members of this working ‘class’, so how did the vase painters feel when they represented their own social group for the gaze of the elite symposiasts? Did the producers of the vases adopt the negative view of manual labor held by their aristocratic opposites? Or are such images a proud self-assertion of the working ‘classes’, claiming, whether successful * I am grateful to Judy Barringer and François Lissarrague for inviting me to Edinburgh for this inspiring conference, and, moreover, to Judy Barringer for controlling and correcting my English text. 1 For the fundamentally elitist orientation of sixth- and fifth-century BC Athenian vases, see now Filser 2017, also with a chapter on scenes of labor (pp. 105–26). For working scenes, see bibliography infra nn. 5–7. See Chatzidimitriou 2005 for the fullest catalog.

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or not, their acceptance and introduction to the life sphere of the elite? If so, would we have to elevate these vase painters to social spearhead fighters, promoting a specific ideology of the working ‘classes’, in opposition to the elites’ ideals of life? Or do the images testify to a real rise and new appreciation of the working classes in the social scale of pre-democratic and democratic Athens? Whatever answers are given to these and other questions, they give these vases an enormous weight as historical sources, which will have to be read against what else we know about the role of labor in Archaic and Classical Greece. This weight is even enhanced by the specific intermediate position of vases between the different social spheres, which makes them a unique class of testimonies. For if we consider the specific producers and users of artifacts representing workmen and merchants on the one hand, and the speakers and audiences of literary statements on manual craft and workmen on the other, then we are facing different, and very specific, situations and conditions of communication. This means that such testimonies can only be understood within the frame of discourses in those specific circumstances. The utterly negative statements by Xenophon and Aristotle on manual labor and working people as the opposite of free citizens are opinions of autonomous thinkers addressing an audience of elite readers.2 On the contrary, votive terracottas representing lower-class people, such as male clay workers or female cooks, may be proud dedications by such workmen themselves to the gods.3 Vases, however, are a much more complex issue: they were produced by low-class artisans for use in upper-class life contexts. Thus, we may expect that these images in some way correspond to shared views of broader social layers. This does not exclude the possibility that specific groups differed widely in their opinions on these themes, but, in any case, the communicative function of vases, at the crossroads between production and function, makes them particularly precious as historical testimonies.4 The approaches of iconological research to these images have changed considerably in the last decades. In 1975 the Polish scholar Juliusz Ziomecki presented the first comprehensive investigation on representations of artisans on Attic vases, taking them as first-hand testimonies to the social reality of the working class. Later, Athena Chatzidimitriou interpreted them as praise and advertisement of Athenian handcraft and agriculture, exalting their methods of production and trade. Other authors focused on the corporeal appearances and social roles of craftsmen. Nikolaus Himmelmann underlined the fact that in Archaic and Classical 2 Xen. Oik. 4.2–4; Arist. Pol. 1328b–1329a37. See already Hdt. 2.167. Meier 1986. 3 Himmelmann 1994, 9–10. 4 On the use of painted pottery, see now the excellent critical overview in Heinemann 2016, 11–66.

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working scenes, realism is not a general stylistic phenomenon but a specific semantic feature. He interpreted the ignoble postures of the banausoi as self-confident expressions of religious credibility, while others, such as Burkhard Fehr, saw them as pejorative signs of social discrimination and contempt in opposition to more highly qualified ‘master’ potters and painters whose images are free from social devaluation. In this same sense, Wolfgang Filser regarded the majority of realistic working activities as exemplary counter-images to the world of the rich.5 A more complex concept was sketched by Luca Giuliani in his review of Himmelmann, where he proposed to make synchronic differentiations between the artisans’ self-view and their assessment from outside, between the description and appreciation of their technical skill and the contempt of their physical appearance and behavior, and diachronic distinctions between evaluations in Archaic and Classical times.6 Recently Annette Haug presented a succinct but comprehensive interpretation of craftsmen scenes in Athenian vase painting, methodologically based on a combined analysis of body language and speaking attributes, such as clothes, workshop equipment, and other indicators of social status. Her basic starting point is a concept of different levels of construction of reality in images, reaching from detailed realism to symbolic motifs, figures, and actions according to the specific messages that are to be visualized. As a result, she first demonstrates that these images do not convey any general social evaluation of the ‘working class’ as a whole, but present us with a differentiated scale of specific workmen, from noble workshop owners to humble helpers. Only the lowest servants in the teams of potters and bronze workers are characterized in a negative way by crouching postures, which often expose their genitals. Other workmen are more or less objectively depicted, performing their specific activities; even nudity is not degrading but describes their physical capacity for work, while the workshop’s owner is distinguished by clothes and attributes of civic status. Secondly, she rightly argues that images do not make political distinctions between social classes, such as citizens, metics, and slaves, but present us with workshop hierarchies based on the type of labor done within the production process. This iconographic hierarchy seems to have a counterpart in social reality insofar as the leading members of such workshops are known to have expressed their social ambitions by precious votive offerings on the Akropolis. Incidentally, she questions the general negative evaluation of physical labor from early times down to Plato. Thirdly, she contextualizes the phenomenon of these vases within the historical frame of the late 5 Filser 2017, 105–26; Chatzidimitriou 2005; Fehr 2000, 114–15; Himmelmann 1994, 22–48; Ziomecki 1975. 6 Giuliani 1998, 629–33.

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tyranny and early democracy – not, however, as an immediate mirror of an increasing social appreciation and awareness of handcraft, but as a result of a general process of increasing social competition in which different social groups made their appearance on the stage of the visual arts.7 Agreeing with these positions in principle, the following pages are meant to widen the perspectives in two directions: first, by a general reflection on the overall subject matter of these images, which may lead to a reassessment of the role of labor within Athenian society; and secondly by a theoretical concept regarding the images’ visualization of these themes, which will lead to the general topic of media. THEMES: PRODUCTS OF ELITE CULTURE In former studies on scenes of working, one element seems not to have received particular attention: the specific products of manual craft and commerce. Taking them together, it is obvious that what is presented in vase images does not cover a wide spectrum of what is produced and needed for everyday life but is a small selection of highly valued goods for the elite’s life practice and lifestyle. Goods of prestige and luxury Starting with a well-known group of vases depicting potters’ workshops,8 it is obvious that these are symposion vessels decorated with scenes of producing symposion vessels. In several cases the images have a pointed self-referential character: a Little Master cup in Karlsruhe shows the making of a Little Master cup, a kylix in Boston presents us with a painter decorating a kylix (Fig. 8.1), a bell krater in Oxford depicts young men producing bell kraters.9 In a more general sense, a well-known hydria, now in Vicenza, displays a whole inventory of precious symposion vessels, with an emblematic set of a kantharos and an oinochoe in the center and another kantharos, a kalyx krater, and two volute kraters being produced by a whole team of differentiated workers, male and female (Fig. 8.2). Clearly, they are producing the kind of equipment that is needed for the 7 Haug 2011. Differentiated scale of evaluation already seen in Fehr 2000 and Giuliani 1998. 8 Chatzidimitriou 2005, 31–54; Scheibler 1983, 71–133; Beazley 1944. 9 Chatzidimitriou 2005, K35 (Karlsruhe), K45 (Boston), K51 (Oxford); cf. K40, K42, K53. The fact of self-reference was rightly stressed by Chatzidimitriou (2005, 185–91), but her explanation of it as a market strategy seems less convincing. The phenomenon as such is too rare within the whole production, and it is difficult to imagine that possible purchasers would have been persuaded to buy a kylix by a depiction of a kylix’s fabrication.

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Figure 8.1 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 01.8073, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 480 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Figure 8.2 Vicenza, Banca Intesa, Attic red-figure hydria, c. 470–460 BC. Photo: D-DAI-Rom 1962.1123.

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Figure 8.3 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 518, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 480 BC. Photo: Ashmolean Museum AN1896-1908 G. 267.

same sympotic occasion on which the hydria itself was destined to be used. Only rarely is the process of preliminary working with clay depicted: as a rule, the vessels have already achieved their final form and are all destined for noble symposia.10 In a wider sense, vases depicting bronze workshops describe the production of the most prestigious objects of elite culture.11 Workers forge helmets for elite hoplites (Fig. 8.3), as it was already represented by an exceptional Geometric bronze statuette. The helmets are of the Corinthian type, which was the preferred votive offering of noble warriors to the sanctuaries of Olympia and other places. In addition, the workers make elaborate greaves and swords, which were also frequently dedicated to the gods. Moreover, they produce tripods, which were the most appreciated items of aristocratic gift exchange and therefore also the most ambitious votive offerings in the great sanctuaries.12 Bronze sculptors are presented, creating highly ambitious statues to be dedicated by wealthy patrons to the gods. On the famous Foundry Painter cup in Berlin, a half-finished statue of an athlete is being worked 10 Chatzidimitriou 2005, K47. Use of hydriae for symposia: Heinemann 2016, 36. 11 Chatzidimitriou 2005, 55–84. 12 Chatzidimitriou 2005, Χ8, Χ9 (helmets), Χ10 (greaves), Χ11 (swords), Χ1 (tripods). Of course, Hephaistos forges the most noble armor, destined for Achilles, the greatest of all heroes: Chatzidimitriou 2005, Χ15–19. Cf. Fig. 1.14.

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Figure 8.4 Berlin Antikensammlung 2294, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 480 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius).

out, and an almost completed mighty warrior-hero statue receives the last reworking of its surface (Fig. 8.4). Athletics and war were the most celebrated fields of the elite’s self-representation: two noble observers, characterized by athletic attributes, represent the sort of clientele for whom such statues were destined. Other scenes show bronze sculptors making a horse’s statue, in two cases even in the presence of Athena, similar to the marble votive horses from the Athenian Akropolis (Fig. 8.5); here, too, upper-class visitors enhance the renown of the workshop owner, who presents himself proudly behind his sculpted horse like a living image. The high social ambition of this equine product, even in post-Persian times, is attested by Aristotle’s information on a horse statue set up on

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Figure 8.5 Munich, Antikensammlungen 2650, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 480–470 BC. Photo: © Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München (R. Kühling).

the Athenian Akropolis, according to its inscription, as a testimony to the donor’s rise from the class of the thetes to that of the hippeis.13 Particularly relevant in this context is a kylix in Copenhagen representing a young marble sculptor working out a bearded herm, with an added dipinto praising “Hipparchos kalos” (Fig. 8.6). Scholars have discussed whether this appellation refers to the Athenian tyrant of this name and his erection of herms throughout Attika. Despite prevailing skepticism, I think it is rather difficult to assume that at that date, c. 520–510 BC, viewers seeing a sculptor making a herm and reading an accompanying inscription referring to a person named Hipparchos would not think of the tyrant and his famous initiative. If so, this would strongly confirm the idea that handcraft was primarily depicted on vases as far as it contributed to the culture of the mighty and wealthy.14 Further confirmation is provided by scenes of shoemaking. On an amphora in Boston, a noble girl or young woman stands on a low table, while two professional shoemakers, having measured her feet, are cutting the leather for her new shoes (Fig. 8.7). With her rich clothes, she appears similar to the famous Akropolis korai, lifting her chiton in that gesture 13 Foundry cup: Chatzidimitriou 2005, Χ12. Horses: Γ2, Γ3 (both rather of bronze than of marble; see the smith’s hammer). Cf. Γ4, Athena forging a horse’s statue of clay, obviously a model for a bronze statue. The figure of Athena on the cup from the Athenian Αkropolis (Χ6) can hardly represent a statue, since no workman is busy with it; thus, it must represent the goddess herself. See Ath. Pol. 7.4. 14 Chatzidimitriou 2005, Γ1. Doubts regarding the reference to the tyrant: Haug 2011, 19 n. 64.

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Figure 8.6 Copenhagen, Nationalmuseet ChrVIII967, Attic red-figure kylix, c. 520–510 BC. Photo: Copenhagen, Nationalmuseet (L. Larsen).

Figure 8.7 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 01.1835, Attic black-figure amphora, c. 500 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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of elegance that, according to Sappho, was the distinctive sign of female noblesse. The korai statues have convincingly been interpreted as images of nubile maidens of noble descent, as they appeared at the real festivals in the great sanctuaries, mostly dedicated by upper-class dedicators.15 In this scene, the elder man to the right represents the maiden’s father, preparing her for her appearance at the festival; implicitly, he himself is a potential donor of a korē statue. A similar scene of preparing shoes, now for a young boy, is depicted on a pelike in Oxford. Here, the shoemaker and an adult observer, perhaps the boy’s lover, wear wreaths in anticipation of the festival (Fig. 8.8). In such contexts the young people are, of course, equipped not with everyday shoes but with luxury sandals, suitable for their appearance at festive occasions. Elegant sandals were an essential accoutrement of nobility and wealth: in this sense, some extravagant oil flasks of this period are shaped as luxury sandals. It is not by chance that the only two Classical Athenian grave stelai to represent craftsmen with

Figure 8.8 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 563, Attic black-figure pelike, c. 500 BC. Photo: Ashmolean Museum. 15 Franssen 2011; Meyer and Brüggemann 2007; Schneider 1975.

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a noble appearance but with the products of their craft were erected for a smith and a shoemaker.16 Another group of highly appreciated craftsmen were carpenters producing luxurious furniture. They are less common in depictions of contemporary social life, but are prominent in scenes of the myth of Danae and Perseus, where they build the appropriate ‘royal’ chest, which will carry mother and son safely over the sea.17 The same applies to merchants.18 When young fishermen carry their haul in baskets, we cannot recognize the fishes’ quality or type: the fishermen may even be youths of noble birth who used to spend their time as ephebes fishing at the seashore.19 But when lower-class fishermen are represented cutting and selling fish in the market (Fig. 8.9), it is clear that

Figure 8.9 Berlin, Antikensammlung F1915, Attic black-figure oinochoe, c. 500 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz. 16 17 18 19

Haug 2011, 19; Chatzidimitriou 2005, 216–17. Chatzidimitriou 2005, 100–3 ; LIMC III, s.v. Danae, 325–37 nos. 41–6 (J.-J. Maffre). Williams 2018; Chatzidimitriou 2005, 104–30. F. Hölscher 1992.

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Figure 8.10 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 99.527, Attic black-figure oinochoe, early fifth century BC. After Laxander 2000, Taf. 23:2.

they offer not ordinary barbounia but magnificent luxury fishes.20 Sellers of living fowl, as well as butchers cutting opulent pieces of meat, contribute to festive banquets (Fig. 8.10).21 Most of them wear large wreaths for the festival. Other merchants, with their products in amphorae, sell wine for drinking parties, the first-class oil that was the pride of Attika, and the perfumes appreciated by noble ladies and attractive hetairai. An Attic black-figure cup in Bochum depicts the various stages of producing wine, with the owner of the vineyard, clad in a civic himation, observing and directing his hard-working team (Fig. 8.11).22 To summarize: products ennoble their producers. Those working craftsmen represented on Athenian painted vases – who, in fact, represent a narrow selection from the spectrum of manual labor and working activities in Classical poleis – acquire their social appreciation and position from their contribution to the leisure culture of those who could afford this 20 Chatzidimitriou 2005, E24, E25, E26, E29, E31, E36. 21 Chatzidimitriou 2005, E27, E28, E30, E32, E33, E34, E35. 22 Bochum: Williams 2018.

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Figure 8.11 Bochum, Ruhr-Universität, Antikenmuseum 1075, Attic blackfigure kylix, c. 550 BC. Photo: © Kunstsammlungen der Ruhr-Universität Bochum (M. Benecke).

lifestyle. Their social recognition is attested by the presence of noble observers and wealthy customers, for example in the scene of the bronze sculptor’s workshop (Fig. 8.4). Yet, the degree of this contribution, and of the reputation derived from it, varies according to the specific level of activities: workshop owners, armorers, and especially vase painters receive more praise than their servants. The latter laborers mostly appear in ignoble attitudes of hard work, which, however, should not be understood in terms of social contempt: they are described in their factual conditions, very much diverging from the way of life of normal citizens but providing those much appreciated goods without which no upscale lifestyle would be possible. On the other hand, there exists a group of elevated craftsmen, owners of workshops and vineyards, leading and organizing their teams of workmen, for whom these images claim, and the users of these vases obviously acknowledge, a considerable degree of social reputation. These leading individuals are represented in the proper posture and attire of the upper and middle classes, equal to their noble visitors and customers.23 This conclusion is confirmed by a small number of more ambitious monuments representing working people. The well-known Archaic votive relief of a potter from the Athenian Akropolis represents the donor holding an elegant Little Master cup as a testimony to his art, while two late Classical grave stelai represent the deceased with products and attributes of a shoemaker and a smith. They appear seated in social dignity and 23 For the (difficult) distinction between descriptive and discriminating ‘realism’, see Giuliani 1998, 633.

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clothed in well-ordered civic himatia.24 How can these phenomena be understood in the frame of the social history of that period? Interactions of providers and beneficiaries If these observations concerning the elitist character of the handcraft production chosen for depiction on Athenian vases point to a relevant phenomenon, then we can understand the specific interrelation between this limited group of images representing workers and merchants on the one hand, and the themes of upper-class life that dominate Greek vase painting on the other: they are not as erratic and contradictory as they might appear at first sight. They do not so much represent a negative counter-world to the splendid kosmos of the rich and happy as constitute the material basis of the elite’s elevated life culture. They are not the despised antithesis of free citizens, defining the latter’s elite status, but belong, as a precondition, to this same society. Their first aim is not so much to fence off the elite’s identity against ‘others’ as to describe their world in its socially relevant facets, divergent as they are. Indeed, the scenes on painted vases are clear testimonies that good handcraft as such was not at all despised in Classical Athens: noble visitors to potters’ and smiths’ workshops, clad in elegant himatia (Fig. 8.5), do not aim to prove their elite identity in contrast to working underdogs, but make their appearance as curious spectators and interested customers, observing and appreciating the production of objects that will increase their own social prestige. Even a philosopher like Sokrates engages in highly professional discussions, not only on complex questions of ‘art’ with the famous painter Parrhasios and the bronze sculptor Kleitōn, but also on the making of cuirasses with the armorer Pistias.25 In general, the broad social stratum of working people never developed an alternative social habitus of its own. There was neither a definite labor culture nor a specific labor ideology, as in modern industrial societies, nor was labor an end in itself, done for its own sake with autonomous norms and ethics, as developed during the nineteenth century. Manual work was acknowledged by most people as a necessity for those who had to earn their living, and the principal goal in the endeavor for social rise was to participate increasingly in the lifestyle of the prosperous. Producing the goods for the leisure life of the upper class must have been a first step in this participation. Of course, this does not mean that there were no deep differences. But, as Annette Haug has underlined, the boundaries were not drawn along 24 Chatzidimitriou 2005, 178–81, Στ1-7; CAT 1993, no. 1630 (Xanthippos, shoemaker), 1202 (Sosinos, smith). 25 Xen. Mem. 3.10.9-15. See A. Stewart, Chapter 12 (pp. 257–79).

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the juridical lines of social classes. On vases representing manual labor, we cannot distinguish between citizens, metics, and slaves. Rather, as Christian Meier put it, distinctions were made between activities. The sphere of labor, service, and toil for earning one’s living was, in fact, antithetical to the world of self-determined participation in civic life, athletics, symposia, and political affairs. But these were not so much realms of fixed social groups, the members of which defined themselves through their unambiguous affiliation, as realms of partial social presence, dependent on how much labor individuals had to invest for their living and how much freedom they could afford for the realms of leisure.26 No doubt manual labor was the sphere of the less prosperous and the poor. And the practical exigencies of labor implied specific forms of appearance, clothing, and attitudes that differed from the charis of selfconscious citizens, trained in the palaistra and accustomed to presenting themselves with well-draped clothes in the public sphere. Behavioral patterns and physical postures of labor could well become habitual, and of course they were considered as negative effects of hard manual working. But this was a judgment not on physical work in general, nor on an entire social class, but on specific conditions and (after-)effects. The boundaries were fluent and pervious. Vase painters could present themselves with the attributes of the splendid life sphere for which they produced drinking vessels: the Boston cup depicts a handsome young vase painter decorating a drinking cup, surrounded by an aryballos, a strigil, and a knotted staff for visiting the Agora (Fig. 8.1). These attributes of the social elite appear fixed to the ‘wall’ of the vessel in the same way as the workshop equipment and working instruments of sculptors, bronze workers, shoemakers, and others are proudly displayed, held, or used on many vases as analogous testimonies to their professional competence (Figs. 8.3, 8.4, 8.7, and 8.8). Athena herself not only protects the producers of art and handcraft but herself forges a statue of a horse from a lump of clay; she, too, disposes of a set of working instruments, hung up on the ‘wall,’ without losing her social standing. And the images do not stop with elevating manual labor to a level of noble activity: they even transfer those workmen into the sphere of the happy. Within the workshop, the owner can appear free from manual toil, wearing a rich himation, holding a long scepter-like staff, and supervising his ‘employees’ (Fig. 8.12). On a wellknown stamnos, the vase painter Smikros portrays himself as a member of a splendid drinking party. Such images must in some way correspond to reality; symposiasts using such vessels cannot have considered them totally unreal: either over-ambitious or ridiculous. Indeed, Athenian and other Greek societies were not bisected, and the life spheres overlapped: 26 Haug 2011. For a comprehensive view, see Meier 1986.

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Figure 8.12 Munich, Antikensammlungen 1717, Attic black-figure hydria, c. 510 BC. Photo: © Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München (R. Kühling).

many must have done some labor, many went to the palaistra and participated in banquets, the spheres were not exclusive. As Aristotle says: the end of labor is leisure.27 Thus, the images of working people certainly do not testify to any overall contempt for manual labor but only show specific low regard for specific aspects of servile toil. In general, however, they are prompted by a solid appreciation of working people’s abilities and products and by a very strong priority put on products destined for the spheres of ‘higher’ cultural practices – warfare, symposium, athletics – for which workers provided the material basis.

27 Aryballos, strigil, staff: Chatzidimitriou 2005, K45, Γ1. Professional instruments: Χ2, Χ3, Χ5, Χ9, Χ11, Χ12, Χ17, Γ4, Γ6, Σ1, Σ2, Σ3. Athena: Γ4, Γ5. Workshop owner, not working: Κ10. In contrast to Haug (2011, 8–9), I think one can distinguish between ennobled workshop owners, represented in the center of their workmen, and noble spectators, who observe workshop activities from the side. Smikros: Scheibler 1983, 129–33; Simon 1976, Figs. 110–11.

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SOCIAL REALITY AND ARTISTIC REALISM All interpretations of images as testimonies of the historical past must start from the assumption that they relate in some way to historical reality, not necessarily as mirror reproductions of real persons and scenes, actions and events, but at least as representations of possible or ‘believed’ realities that were of some relevance to those societies. This premise, however, increasingly meets with the opposition of historians and theorists of art in two regards, one specific, the other general. Among art historians, it is communis opinio that in Greek art in general, and labor scenes in particular, depictions are only realistic in part, while many of them are highly idealizing or even fictitious imaginations; thus, the whole discussion on this topic is deeply imbued with the oppositional terms of ‘realism’ versus ‘idealism’, ‘realistic depiction’ versus ‘idealizing fiction.’ Among art theorists, images are increasingly seen as visual constructions following their own rules of conceptualizing the world, with only partial reference to the concrete, visible world of reality. Accordingly, they are held to be of little value for reconstructing history ‘as it was’. Surely few today would see an image as a one-to-one reproduction of objects, beings, and events of reality. Images are constructs, following their own rules of materiality and imagination, and are therefore different from what they represent. On the other hand, however, the Greeks themselves conceived of their images, without hesitation, as reproductions of real things. Even a philosopher such as Sokrates has no doubt of this in his theoretical discussion with the painter Parrhasios. What shall we make of this apparent contradiction?28 Conceptual realism and conceptual reality In what follows, I argue that Greek representational art is, in fact, fundamentally realistic, but that its relation to reality is what we may call ‘conceptual realism’. Obviously, this is a large topic that requires a longer, in-depth discourse. Here, some basic remarks must suffice: they point to general questions of media and what they can achieve. The first, and decisive step toward resolving this contradiction is, in my view, to recognize that an image is, in fact, a construct, but that the reality depicted by the image is also a construct. The entire real ‘Lebenswelt’, the world of social and cultural life, is a product of human beings, imbued with cultural meaning and produced by two complementary human activities: formation and perception. On the one hand, human beings shape their Lebenswelt, their living spaces and their forms of behavior, according to their specific social structures and cultural norms. The intentionally 28 For what follows, see T. Hölscher 2018, 209–11, 217–28; T. Hölscher 2016.

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shaped forms of the material world are cultural expressions of social meaning and, vice-versa, are material preconditions of social practices. On the other hand, human beings perceive their Lebenswelt, their material surroundings as well as their living fellow beings, according to their social values and psychological emotions. Perceived reality is always meaningful reality. A real potter’s workshop must in fact have been shaped – that is, organized, laid out, and equipped in a specific form – according to the functional requirements of working processes as well as the social structures of the team of workers. Excavated workshops in Athens and Attika do not allow detailed reconstruction, but confirm a general differentiated layout. An ergastērion in the outer Kerameikos, with two phases dated from the early fifth to the early fourth century BC, has at least two roofed working rooms and a courtyard with a single kiln in the first phase, then two kilns in the second and a little cistern, corresponding to the representation on a hydria in Munich (Fig. 8.12).29

Figure 8.13 Paris, Musée du Louvre E629, Corinthian krater attributed to Athana Painter, c. 600–575 BC. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) (S. Maréchalle). 29 Monaco 2000, cat. D III, 85–8, 213–16, tav. 42, and cf. cat. A XI, 175–7. No columns seem to be attested in ancient ergastēria, although one column, perhaps of wood, is represented on the hydria in Munich (Fig. 8.12).

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The workshops’ spaces and the working personnel must have been adequately equipped for their different practical tasks, but spaces must also have differed in prestige by their more or less ‘noble’ working conditions, while the personnel involved manifested their social hierarchy by different clothing and behavior. Haug has analyzed such visual messages in the images: from the hot and dirty spheres of the kiln to the shadowy indoor places of decorating and painting, from simple and low cubic seats to comfortable stools, from naked or poorly clothed bodies in laborious or shameless postures to elegant attitudes in skillfully draped himatia. Such distinctive signs – whether the same or at least analogous – must also have been true for the real organization and practice of workshop life.30 On the other hand, whoever looked at the workshop and observed its personnel would have perceived this meaning in those forms of organization, activities, and behavioral practice. Moreover, in perceiving these forms, observers may have compared them with other workshops and formed judgments – positive, negative, or ambivalent – about what they saw. Certainly, the intended meaning in the real workshop and the real behavioral forms of its team are not binding for the perceiving observer: he or she may evaluate them according to different scales of values. Nevertheless, viewers will assign some meaning or other to them. An instructive case regarding the interrelation between images and the real Lebenswelt is the equipment of living spaces with paraphernalia and attributes characterizing their inhabitants. Workshops are often equipped with technical instruments of their owners, bronze workers, shoemakers, and so forth (Figs. 8.3–8.5, 8.7, and 8.8); in addition, there may appear plastic heads and painted pinakes hanging under a pair of goat horns, perhaps an apotropaic motif (Fig. 8.4). All such objects appear hung up on the neutral background like on a wall. Yet, what at first glance seems to be a totally unrealistic symbolic device of characterizing beings and spaces has, in fact, a striking equivalent in real life. For the image on a krater from Corinth, depicting a lively symposion of noble banqueters and beautiful hetairai, exhibits rich paraphernalia of aristocratic status ‘hanging’ on the background: helmets and cuirasses, lyres, and elaborate phialai (Fig. 8.13). There can be little doubt – confirmation comes from Etruscan tombs such as the Tomba dei Rilievi at Caere – that this corresponds to a real habit of rich families who demonstrated their wealth and social rank by displaying objects of prestige on the walls of their reception halls.31

30 Haug 2011, passim. 31 Corinthian krater: Amyx 1988–91, 235 n. 1. For the Tomba dei Rilievi at Caere, see Blanck and Proietti 1986. Numerous oversized terracotta kylikes, which are too large for practical use as drinking vessels, seem to have been destined for prestigious display, probably hung up on the walls of symposion halls.

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Corresponding to architectural walls that were used as exposition panels, the background of painted scenes on vases could be used for demonstrative display of telling objects. In some depictions of potters’ workshops, instruments can indeed be imagined as hanging on the interior walls of roofed buildings (Fig. 8.12). But in most other cases, the neutral background of the vase is simply used like an exposition screen. In this sense, the real Lebenswelt, too, is a medium conveying cultural meaning and sense. We must give up the antithetical concept of a first-level, pre-given, contingent, and meaningless reality that then, on a second level, is transformed in art or literature into a meaningful product of human culture. Both the Lebenswelt and the visual arts are conceptual embodiments, media, of meaning. Of course, they are far from being identical means of expression, they differ widely in their specific material capacities, as well as in their range of possible imaginations. But art, as far as it refers to the world of real beings and things, is as conceptual as the Lebenswelt itself. Images and Lebenswelt are not identical but analogous. In this sense, we may speak of conceptual realism. ‘Ideal’ versus ‘real’: An obsolete antithesis? If this idea is accepted, then the traditional antithesis between ‘realistic’ and ‘idealizing’ art seems to collapse, at least in the realm of Greek art. To start with ‘realism’: without engaging in a theoretical discussion on definitions, this turns out to be a highly debatable term. In its normal conception, ‘realism’ means an artistic style opposed to ‘idealism’. Yet, Himmelmann, Giuliani, and Haug have convincingly observed that ‘realistic’ traits, understood as deviations from the normative, typified depiction of the world, are introduced into scenes of working as semantic signs, characterizing specific figures as belonging to a lower social status, along with other persons who are represented in the ‘ideal’ appearance of the upper class. Thus, this ‘realism’ is not a general way of perceiving reality for reality’s sake, not an overall approach to the world as such, as an objective pre-given fact, as it is in nineteenth-century art, but a conceptual marker of specific meaning. Realism in this sense is not ‘style’ as a formal system, in opposition to ‘idealism’: both are elements within the same representational system. On the other hand, the term ‘idealism’, as a counter-concept of elevating beings and actions in artistic representation over the triviality of their realistic appearance, turns out to be irritatingly abstract and void of precise meaning. In the visual arts, one cannot depict a subject in a general, ‘ideal’ way, for art only disposes of specific concrete forms of positive depiction: one can only depict it with concrete positive qualities, as particularly beautiful or young, noble or elegant, strong or big. Such ‘ideal’ qualities,

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however, whether they are elevating or not, can only be represented in their ‘real’ physical appearance, in principle not different from the ‘realistic’ appearance of other subjects. In order to understand the consequences that arise from this consideration, one may look at some of the aforementioned scenes of manual handcraft. First, let us consider the relation of the image to the depicted reality. Regarding the charming young vase painter on the kylix in Boston (Fig. 8.1), we can never be sure whether among pottery workers there were not, in reality, beautiful young lads. The painter of the kylix may have had such particularly good-looking youthful colleagues in mind. Regarding the observers in the foundry scene (Fig. 8.4), we know that upper-class people were ‘really’ expected to appear and behave in public life in a specific upper-class style. So, if painters depict these forms of appearance or behavior, in which sense can we say that these are ‘idealistic’ forms in opposition to others that are ‘realistic?’ In principle, there is no difference in reality between the well-draped himatia and the athletic attributes of the customers on the one hand, and the naked bodies and working tools of the bronze workers on the other. Both are parts of a conceptually shaped and perceived reality. But even if painters deviate from a specific pre-given ‘reality’, depicting people more beautiful, noble or elegant, younger, stronger, or bigger than they ‘really’ were (which is, in fact, possible, although mostly impossible to verify, since we do not know the individual appearance of specific subjects that they represent), they can only depict them as real beautiful or young, noble or elegant, strong or large beings. If modern viewers see the beautiful young vase painter, the noble visitors to the bronze workshop, and indeed most subjects and scenes in Classical Greek art as ‘idealizing’ representations, they do it from a modern perspective. The depiction of visual ‘reality’ always depends on how specific societies conceptualize reality. In this sense, according to Greek conceptions of reality, the depictions of the Lebenswelt – and no less those of the mythical past – on Athenian vases are realistic representations of their subjects. To conclude: if ‘realism’ is always conceptual and ‘idealism’ always real, then it seems obsolete to use these terms in the sense of an exclusive antithesis. Both converge in what we may call ‘conceptual realism’. If, however, realism is, in principle, conceptual, then we can ask for specific concepts of reality, prevailing in specific cultures. Scholars analyzing Greek images have diagnosed inconsistencies in the depiction of reality, as an indication of their constructed character. We have seen that this does not speak against their basic realism. In fact, we may doubt whether Greek sculptors did their work with naked bodies, their civic staffs at their sides; whether a vase painter seated on an elegant armchair (klismós) decorated

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vases or had his athletic equipment hanging on the wall of his workshop (Figs. 8.1 and 8.2). But this is not unrealistic; there is no reason to doubt that a successful pottery owner or vase painter – who was able to dedicate ambitious votive statues on the Akropolis32 – could afford to acquire a klismós and athletic utensils, visit the palaistra now and then, go with his staff to the Agora, and participate in a private banquet. The representation of such paraphernalia in the context of workshops just follows another concept of reality. Our modern concept of reality is perceptional and relational. Reality is what we perceive with one single glance of our eyes: objects and beings in their interrelation in space and time. Greek reality is more object-bound: the robust body of the bronze worker and the noble equipment and attributes of the vase painter are shown regardless of whether they are visible in a specific space and time situation to a specific viewer. Nevertheless, they are real bodies and real athletic utensils, which are conceptually essential for the theme represented. We depict warriors with their shields held by their left hands, with the consequence that when they move from left to right, their shield devices are not visible, while they show the devices even if the shields therefore have to be held by the warriors on their right side. We are used to depicting a car in a side view with two wheels because we see only two, whereas early Greeks showed four wheels because the car had four. Why is this less realistic? To come back to Greek working scenes: Yes, the images are constructions, but constructions of a reality that is itself a construct. How much these two constructions coincided, how much the images are reproductions of real facts or imaginations of real wishes is difficult to know. Many indications speak in favor of a reference to the real Lebenswelt, but even the imagination of a possible Lebenswelt is conceptualized in the forms of a real world.

32 Scheibler 1979.

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PART IV CONSTRUCTIONS OF MYTH THROUGH IMAGES

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9 OF GODS AND GIANTS: MYTH AND IMAGES IN THE MAKING Marion Meyer

The primary function of the peplos that the Athenians dedicated to their goddess was the tangible demonstration of the worshipers’ continuous, never-ending veneration and cult practice. Since 566 BC, when the festival was reorganized, the peplos woven for the Great Panathenaia was decorated with a narrative image: Olympian gods fighting giants. The myth of the gigantomachy as a common effort of the Olympian gods (starring Zeus and Athena, with Herakles as helper) was actually invented for the Great Panathenaia. Its introduction as an innovation and its first presentation to the public must have occurred in the form of a poem (a hymn). The promulgation and popularization of the narrative occurred largely through visual media – images on textiles, paintings, pottery, and votive reliefs, and in architectural sculpture. This chapter focuses on the purpose and destination of these images (on the Akropolis in the sixth and fifth centuries) and addresses the multifaceted question of their meaning – their form and content, use and function, message and relevance, importance and significance. Hesiod is the earliest preserved source for the giants who concern us here – the gigantes. In his Theogony, he lists them among the offspring of Gaia, the earth, and calls them megaloi, “shining in their armor, holding long spears in their hands.”1 With this pedigree and characterization, the giants are appropriate challengers for gods and for heroes who qualify as gods by subduing sinister and threatening creatures. Thus, the first evidence for fights with giants, such as the sculpted pediment from the Temple of Artemis on Corfu2

1 Hes. Theog. 50, 176–87; Megaloi: l. 185; trans. (l. 186) by G. Most. All dates are BC. 2 Meyer 2017a, 341 n. 2755; Barringer 2014a, 135–6, Figs. 3.6a-b, 3.7; Giuliani 2000, 283 n. 14.

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or the lines in Ibykos and Xenophanes,3 might not be the first tales or images of that subject.4 There is, however, no evidence of a female figure or a group of gods facing a giant or giants before the mid-sixth century BC. Then, suddenly, the first scenes of what we call the gigantomachy – the joint fight of Olympian gods against giants – appear on about twenty Athenian vases produced in different workshops,5 eleven of them (G1–G11) found on the Akropolis or its north slope (Figs. 9.1–9.8). Because of the chronological coincidence with the celebration of the first Great Panathenaia in 566 BC6 and later evidence for the gigantomachy as standard decoration of the peploi dedicated at the penteteric festivals,7 these vases are generally assumed to reflect an innovation of the Panathenaic reorganization: either the introduction of the peplos as a collective offering8 or the decision to 3 Ibyk.: “. . . μάχαι γίγαντες . . .”, Page 1974, 57 S 192 (a) l. 2; Xenophanes (apud Ath. 462c): Diels and Kranz 1934, 126–8, no. 21 ll. 21–2 (“Fights of titans or giants or centaurs – inventions of the forefathers” [πλάσματα τῶν προτέρων]). These are the earliest sources for fights against giants. The existence of an epic poem of Solonian times (as assumed most recently by Hildebrandt 2014, 73) cannot be substantiated. Meyer 2017a, 340 n. 2750; Giuliani 2000, 264–7. 4 There might have been a tradition of an encounter of Herakles and a giant (Alkyoneus). See Pind. Isthm. 6.31-5; Pind. Nem. 4.23-30. Williams 1983a, 157–61, 183, Fig. 1; Williams 1983b, 132–4; LIMC I, s.v. Alkyoneus, 558–9, 562–4 (R. Olmos and L. Balmaseda). The archer between two taller figures with shields, facing one of them, on the fragment of a Protocorinthian alabastron in Corinth, Archaeological Museum CP2649 may be Herakles (one of the earliest depictions of the hero wearing the lionskin, according to LIMC V, s.v. Herakles, 185 [J. Boardman]); the context, however, remains elusive. Arvanitaki 2006, 47–54, 144, 147 ΠK 7, Figs. 17–18 (Herakles in the gigantomachy or another fight, maybe at Troy). For the earliest representations of giants on pinakes (none of them earlier than c. 570/60), see Karoglou 2010, 65; Giuliani 2000, 283 n. 14; LIMC IV, s.v. Gigantes, 215, 251 nos. 97–101 (F. Vian and M. Moore). The pinax Eleusis, Archaeological Museum 398, might have shown a gigantomachy, as Ephialtes turns his back to Ares. See BAPD 1409 (with wrong inv. No. 349); Hildebrandt 2014, 74 n. 25; Karoglou 2010, 104 cat. 146, Figs. 114–15; Arvanitaki 2006, 53, Fig. 20; LIMC IV, s.v. Gigantes, 215 no. 99 (F. Vian and M. Moore). The subject of Berlin, Antikensammlung F768 (from Penteskouphia) is disputed (Herakles as archer behind Zeus with thunderbolt?). See Palmieri 2016, 80–1, 212 Hf2; Karoglou 2010, 65 n. 25; Arvanitaki 2006, 143–8 K33, Figs. 101–2; LIMC IV, s.v. Gigantes, 215 no. 98 (F. Vian and M. Moore). Contra: Kiderlen and Strocka 2005, 97, no. 36 (V. Kottsieper and V. Strocka: Herakles consults Nereus). 5 See Appendix G1–G20. Cf. pinax Eleusis, Archaeological Museum 398 (n. 4). For the subject, see, most recently, Hildebrandt 2014, 72–9; Muth 2008, 268–328. 6 Pherek. apud Marcellin., Vit. Thuc. 2–4 (FGrH 3 F2); Euseb. Chron. 102a-b (ed. Helm), 53rd Ol. 3rd year. Meyer 2017a, 331 n. 2664; Neils 2007, 41, 51; J. Shear 2001, 507–15. 7 Schol. Eur. Hek. 467, citing Strattis (end of fifth century), Kassel and Austin 1989, 656 frag. 73. Cf. Pl. Euthyphr. 6b-c (infra n. 27). Meyer 2017a, 213. 8 The beginning and the rhythm of the dedication are disputed. In favor of an introduction in 566 (and penteteric dedications), see Wesenberg 2015, 103–15; Wesenberg 2014, 71–3, 76; Parker 2005, 264–9; J. Shear 2001, 120, 173–86. As late as the mid-fifth century, see Neils 2012, 201–2, 209–11 (late rite, but annual dedication); N. Robertson 2004, 111–61.

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Figure 9.1 Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 607, Attic black-figure dinos signed by Lydos. Reconstruction and drawing by M. Moore, reproduced by permission.

Figure 9.2 Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 607e, fragments of an Attic black-figure dinos signed by Lydos. Photo: © Akropolis Museum.

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Figure 9.3 Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2134d, Attic black-figure kantharos fragment. Reproduced from Graef and Langlotz 1925, no. 2134, pl. 94.

Figure 9.4 Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2134a, fragments of an Attic black-figure kantharos. Reproduced from Graef and Langlotz 1925, no. 2134, pl. 94.

decorate the penteteric peplos with this myth.9 In my recent book, I argue that the annual dedication of the peplos was a very ancient rite,10 and thus I think that the design of the penteteric peplos was the innovation. However, it was not only the design that was new but the myth itself.11 I agree with Luca Giuliani, who first suggested that the gigantomachy was 9 Meyer 2017a, 161–5; Tiverios 2007, 3–4; Giuliani 2000, 270–1; Shapiro 1989, 25–6, 38–9; J. Mansfield 1985 (however, his reconstruction of different teams of weavers should be abandoned; see Meyer 2017a, 216–17). 10 Meyer 2017a, 210–30, Fig. 300. In favor of an annual dedication, see, most recently, Neils 2012, 209–11; Sourvinou-Inwood 2011, 266–311. 11 In Aristotle’s time, Athena’s victory over the giant Aster(ios) served as aition for the Panathenaia (frag. 637, ed. Rose 1886 apud schol. Aristid. 1.362). For a hypothetical

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Figure 9.5 Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2211 d+a, fragments of an Attic black-figure amphora. Photo: © Akropolis Museum.

Figure 9.6 Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2211 c+b, fragments of an Attic black-figure amphora. Photo: © Akropolis Museum.

an Athenian invention for the first Great Panathenaia of 566.12 Giuliani’s most compelling argument is the consistency of the narrative. Visual and written evidence not only agree on the participation of Herakles as archer and Poseidon’s attack with a huge rock,13 but also on the denomination of several giants. The only elaborate literary source, Apollodorus’ reconstruction of the birth of Erechtheus as the original aition, which was abandoned when this myth was attributed to Erichthonios after the Kleisthenic reforms, see Meyer 2017a, 324–5, 418–19. 12 Giuliani 2000, 272–82. 13 Herakles: G1-G5, G12, G13, G17. Pind. Nem. 1.66-69; Apollod. 1.6.1-2. For Poseidon, see n. 18 and Apollod. 1.6.2.

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Figure 9.7 Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 1632c, fragments of an Attic black-figure cup. Reproduced from Graef and Langlotz 1925, no. 1632, pl. 84.

Figure 9.8 Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 648a+b, fragments of an Attic black-figure dinos. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Akropolis Vasen 467.

Bibliotheke, compiled centuries after the Panathenaic reform, gives the names of twelve giants, and six of them are the same names as those on Athenian vases of the sixth century BC, with four of these giants fighting the same opponents as in Apollodorus’ text (Figs. 9.9, 9.10, and 9.11).14 14 Apollod. 1.6.1-2. Enkelados and Athena: G12 (Fig. 9.9), G16 (Fig. 9.10), G20. Cf. Eur. HF 907–8, Ion 209–11. Porphyrion and Zeus: G12; cf. Pind. Pyth. 8.12-19; Ar. Aves 1249–52. Polybotes and Poseidon: G16 (Fig. 9.11) and later examples; with Zeus: G17

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Figure 9.9 Malibu, The J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.143, fragments of an Attic black-figure pyxis. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum.

There must have been a single authoritative version of the tale, not just a general idea of fights between gods and optional giants. The key figures of the myth are partly preserved on the fragments of four of the earliest vases (G1-G4), and their congruent depiction demonstrates that they must derive from a common prototype. Zeus, brandishing his thunderbolt, is about to mount a chariot. Herakles, drawing his bow, is already standing in the chariot, and Athena, wearing the aegis, figures as Promachos, rushing to confront the assailants. Another female figure approaches Zeus and touches his chin in the well-known gesture of supplication: Gaia, the mother of the giants, anticipating their defeat and begging for mercy (Figs. 9.1, 9.2, 9.4, 9.5, and 9.7). Three other contemporaneous (and several later) vases preserve parts of this scene (without Gaia, however; Figs. 9.8 and 9.9).15 Additional scenes of the myth also repeat the same compositional elements on various vases. Hermes, sometimes partly overlapped by Zeus, vigorously strides to the left and tackles two opponents (Figs. 9.1, 9.4, and 9.5).16 Next comes Dionysos, assisted by dogs, panthers, and a snake, which attack his enemy (Figs. 9.1, 9.3, 9.6, and 9.7).17 Poseidon faces Dionysos (thus fighting in the same direction as Zeus), lifts a huge (Fig. 9.14); LIMC VII, s.v. Polybotes, 427 (F. Vian). Alkyoneus and Herakles: LIMC I, s.v. Alkyoneus, 558–60, 563 no. 334 (R. Olmos and L. Balmaseda). Ephialtes: G2, G16 (Fig. 9.11), G17; cf. pinax Eleusis, Archaeological Museum 398 (supra n. 4). Mimas/ Mimos: G1; cf. Eur. Ion 212–15. See Meyer 2017a, 162, 342; Giuliani 2000, 271–2. 15 G5 (Fig. 9.8), G12 (Fig. 9.9), and G13. For later vases, see, e.g., Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniense 623: BAPD 310411; Vatican City, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco 422: BAPD 302040; London, British Museum 1839.11-9.3: BAPD 302261. Meyer 2017a, 160 nn. 1249–50, Fig. 237. 16 G3 (Fig. 9.5). On G1 (Fig. 9.1), a fighting goddess was added between Zeus and Hermes. On G4 (Fig. 9.7), he has a single opponent and fights to the right (infra n. 17). On G2 (Fig. 9.4) and G12, only parts of Hermes are preserved. 17 G1-G4, G6. On the cup G4 (Fig. 9.7), the figures of Hermes and Dionysos are reversed, so that all the Olympians fight in the same direction. See Muth 2008, 274–8.

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Figure 9.10 Paris, Musée du Louvre E732, Attic black-figure neck amphora. Photo: © Musée du Louvre. Dist. RMN–Grand Palais (Les Frères Chuzeville).

rock on his left shoulder, fixes a prone opponent with his foot, and stabs him with his trident (Figs. 9.3, 9.6, and 9.7).18 Another example is the scene that shows Artemis and Apollo fighting side by side, thus indicating that they are twins (Fig. 9.1).19 Hephaistos appears with his bellows on three vases (twice in the vicinity of Artemis).20 There can be no doubt that the vases share a common prototype for a complex image with many figures. The dinos painted by Lydos (G1) offers the most elaborate composition, ingeniously reconstructed by Mary Moore (Fig. 9.1). This painter, however, diverged from the common prototype in several instances, for example by adding a second chariot driven by Poseidon and inserting a goddess between Zeus and Hermes. On this vase, ten Olympian gods in

18 G2-G4, G10 (on the fragment Athens, Agora Museum AP 2119, Meyer 2017a, 159–60, Fig. 229; reconstructed by Moore 1979b, 23–7, pls. 3.1, 3.4); G12. Similar scene on G16 (which does not follow the model of the Gaia gigantomachy, Fig. 9.10). The dinos by Lydos (G1, Fig. 9.1) shows Poseidon in a chariot but does not omit the rock, already hurled (Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 607k; Meyer 2017a, 159, Figs. 209, 225; Moore 1979a, 90–2, ill. 1). 19 G1, G10 (fragment Athens, Agora Museum AP 1953); G15, possibly G2. 20 G2 and G15; G10 (fragment Athens, Agora Museum AP 1635). On G1, he fights. See Meyer 2017a, 160.

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Figure 9.11 Paris, Musée du Louvre E732, Attic black-figure neck amphora. Photo: © Musée du Louvre. Dist. RMN–Grand Palais (Les Frères Chuzeville).

addition to Zeus and Athena fight;21 six or seven of them are attested on fragments of two more vases (G2 and G3; Figs. 9.3 and 9.6).22 Because of their congruent compositions and figure types, these earliest vases turn out to be the traces of an image of a gigantomachy with Athena, Herakles, and Zeus as the central group, including Gaia pleading for her children, and at least seven more Olympians. For the sake of convenience, I call this composition the “Gaia gigantomachy.” The prototype must have existed and been accessible for some time, because it served as a model for a number of vase painters. It might even have inspired later images of the myth, as the arrangement of the twin gods23 or the depiction of Herakles as an archer between Zeus and Athena24 suggest. The sudden appearance and immediate popularity of the gigantomachy around 560 can be plausibly connected with the choice of that very theme 21 Hephaistos, Aphrodite, Dionysos, Hermes, Hera, anonymous goddess, Ares, Artemis, Apollo, Poseidon, see Moore 1979a, 79–99, ill. 1. 22 G2: goddess, Poseidon, Dionysos, Hermes; Artemis (and Apollo?), Hephaistos. G3: Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2211d: Hermes; Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2211c+b: goddess, Poseidon, Dionysos; Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2211e+g: two scenes with Olympians; Meyer 2017a, 159–60, Figs. 198–206. 23 Siphnian Treasury: Barringer 2014a, 145–8, Fig. 3.14. 24 As late as on the mid-fifth century kalyx krater: Basel, Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig Lu 51. See LIMC IV, s.v. Gigantes, 1988, 229 no. 312 with illustration (F. Vian and M. Moore); BAPD 275292.

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for the penteteric peploi from 566 on. I do not, however, agree with those who would identify the first penteteric peplos as the actual model for the vase painters, serving as the prototype (as has been deduced from the shared figure types and composition).25 Unfortunately, we know very little about the image woven into the penteteric peplos. The few sources suggest compositions with several protagonists.26 In Plato’s Euthyphron, Sokrates asks whether the gods should be believed to make polemos and machai against each other, as the poets describe, the painters depict in the sanctuaries, and the peplos for the Great Panathenaia, full of such representations, shows.27 Archaic examples of decorated textiles cannot tell us what the woven image looked like, but they might tell us what it did not look like. Figurative decoration of textiles is arranged in two ways: either as horizontal friezes or as separate framed units, like metopes, in vertical rows (Fig. 9.12).28 As the gigantomachy stresses the unity of the gods, I would prefer the first option and suggest that the peplos showed the myth in a frieze (which was probably accompanied by additional friezes with ornamental patterns). H.-G. Martin used Mary Moore’s drawing of the elaborate frieze-like composition on the dinos by Lydos (G1, Fig. 9.1) in combination with a ship model found in the Kerameikos for his – admittedly putative – reconstruction of a Panathenaic ship.29 Setting aside some motifs that are peculiar to the composition on this vase, I do not think that the design on the peplos looked this way, for the following reasons. In Archaic images the figural decoration of textiles always neatly juxtaposes whole figures and avoids overlapping (Fig. 9.12).30 As vase-painting compositions of this period do not shy away from using overlapping (and the composition of the gigantomachy is a case in point: Figs. 9.1–9.8), the lack of overlapping figures on textiles cannot be explained by potential common prototypes for painters and weavers. Rather, vase painters employ overlapping, weavers avoid it. That the latter’s preference for non-overlapping figures is 25 Hildebrandt 2014, 74–7 (later peploi serving as models as well); Muth 2008, 271, 274; Tiverios 2007, 3–4; Giuliani 2000, 270–1; LIMC IV, s.v. Gigantes, 210, 265 no. 32 (F. Vian and M. Moore). See Meyer 2017a, 161 n. 1255. 26 Schol. Eur. Hek. 467 (supra n. 7) and schol. Eur. Hek. 468 (ed. Schwartz 1887) speak of giants (in the plural). In 302/1, images of the diadochs Antigonos and Demetrios were included in the weaving (Diod. Sic. 20.46.2), added to the gods (Plut. Dem. 10.4; see, however, 12.2: to Zeus and Athena). J. Shear 2001, 184–6. 27 ὁ πέπλος μεστὸς τῶν τοιούτων ποικιλμάτων. Pl. Euthyphr. 6b-c. 28 Friezes: Moore 2016, 196–201, Figs. 8–9, 11; Spantidaki 2016, 58, Fig. 5.13 (Sophilos, see Fig. 9.12); Hirayama 2010, 228–9 no. A 13.1, pl. 21b, VIe (Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 597f, Klitias). Further examples: Moustaka 2009, 46–7, Fig. 6; Brinkmann 2003, nos. 100, 107 with illustration; Spantidaki 2016, 59, Fig. 5.14. Metopes: Moustaka 2002, 17–29 Figs. 2, 4–5, 12 (seventh century); Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 98.916 (BAPD 310045, early sixth century). 29 Martin 1999, 138–52, Fig. 17; Meyer 2017a, 162, 241, Fig. 312. For the Panathenaic ship, attested since the late fifth century, see Meyer 2017a, 213–16, 240–2; J. Shear 2001, 143–55. 30 See the examples listed supra n. 28.

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Figure 9.12 London, British Museum 1971,1101.1, Attic black-figure dinos (‘Erskine dinos’) by Sophilos (detail), c. 580–570 BC. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum.

a matter of technique rather than choice is confirmed by the consistency of this preference in post-Archaic times. The Attic red-figure skyphos in Chiusi ornamented with Penelope and her loom praises the metis and techne of Penelope with a woven textile that juxtaposes single figures.31 If she does not do better, who would? Two Panathenaic prize amphorae, produced around 400 BC, show Athena wearing a peplos with figurative decoration: on one is a gigantomachy, and in both cases the figures are well defined by their contour lines, without any overlapping.32 Not all of the earliest vases with gigantomachy scenes follow the model of the Gaia gigantomachy. A dinos in Malibu (G17) arranges the figures less densely, adjacent to each other, and clearly discernible in their outlines (Figs. 9.13 and 9.14).33 This might give some idea of how a woven 31 Chiusi, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 1831; BAPD 216789 (c. 440); Spantidaki 2016, 52–3, Fig. 5.5. 32 London, British Museum B606 (BAPD 303121) and Polygiros 8.29 (with gigantomachy; BAPD 303130). Meyer 2017a, 163 n. 1273, Fig. 311; Spantidaki 2016, 60, Fig. 5.15; Tiverios 2007, 4–10 Figs. 8–9, 13; Bentz 1998, 158–60 nos. 5.238, 5.256, pls. 94, 98. 33 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AE.211. Reconstruction: Meyer 2017a, 163–4 n. 1277, Figs. 234–6; Moore 1989, 33–40, Figs. 1–8 (with doubts about the previous reconstruction because of new fragments); LIMC IV, s.v. Gigantes, 220 no. 171 (F. Vian and M. Moore). Further mid-sixth century vases with diverging compositions: G16 (Fig. 9.10); excerpts (Athena and Enkelados): G18–G20.

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Figure 9.13 Malibu, The J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AE.211, fragments of an Attic black-figure dinos. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum.

Figure 9.14 Malibu, The J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AE.211, fragments of an Attic black-figure dinos. Reconstruction and drawing by M. Moore, reproduced by permission.

composition might have appeared. I am not suggesting that this vase actually reflects the design of the peplos, but merely want to point out that simpler compositions are attested for the mid-sixth century, as well as the more complex one of the Gaia gigantomachy. In addition to technical reasons, there is a practical one that speaks against the peplos as prototype, and that is the accessibility of the textile once it was dedicated. When was its design to be seen? Again, we do not know. However, when the penteteric peplos was displayed on the mast of a

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ship included in the procession, people are said to have come into town to see the peplos on such occasions.34 This implies that the garment was not intended for further viewing, which would correspond to what we know about the archaion agalma.35 I conclude that the Gaia gigantomachy composition, with its dense arrangement and two key figures, Athena and Gaia, in the background, cannot have been designed for an image woven into a textile. It must have been designed for a different medium, one that would present the action in a long frieze. A scene with at least nine Olympian gods would have been about ten times longer than high, so if we assume, for example, a height of thirty centimeters for the figures, the frieze would have had a length of about three meters. I suggest a painting rather than a relief. I further suggest that this artifact was displayed in public, easily accessible, and meant for viewing (probably somewhere on the Akropolis), commissioned, dedicated, and set up by the same agents (not necessarily the same persons, but the same boards and officials) who had planned the reorganization of the festival and the introduction of games and prizes, who had overseen the construction of the first peripteral temple for Athena,36 and who had decided to honor the city goddess with a new myth. These agents must also have commissioned a poet to compose a hymn to be sung at the festival and to introduce the tale of a fight between the Olympians and the giants. This tale must have been communicated to the weavers of the peplos, who then made a design for the image to be woven. In addition, the Gaia gigantomachy suggests that an artist was commissioned to produce an image that was to be dedicated and displayed in public and would serve as a permanent medium for communicating the new myth. The fact that several painters followed a given prototype so meticulously is a curious phenomenon. Even Lydos, diverging from the model in certain scenes, followed the design of the core group (G1, Figs. 9.1 and 9.2; see Figs. 9.4–9.7). Of those who considered the woven image as the prototype, only Michalis Tiverios addressed the practical question of transmission and suggested a mobile object (maybe a pinax) that might have served as model and circulated in the Kerameikos.37 34 For the Panathenaic ship, supra n. 29. Visitors: Plaut. Merc. 64–8; Aristid. 1.404 with scholia (Meyer 2017a, 215 nn. 1708–9). Meyer 2017a, 240 n. 1915; Parker 2005, 254. 35 There are no sources for display or storage of the peplos; see Meyer 2017a, 161. For the archaion agalma, see Meyer 2017a, 147–55; F. Hölscher 2017, 388–98. 36 Its architectural remains were recently re-examined by E. P. Sioumpara (YSMA, Athens). Because of its size, she concluded that this first peripteral temple cannot be placed on the Dörpfeld foundations. It was, in fact, the first additional temple for Athena, a predecessor to the Parthenon (Ur-Parthenon). See Meyer 2017a, 113–25; Sioumpara 2017, 53–60, Figs. 13–20; Sioumpara 2016, 196–205, Figs. 1–6. 37 Tiverios 2007, 3–4; Tiverios 1988, 137–9.

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I wonder why this would have been necessary or desirable. After all, images of the Olympian gods belonged to the repertoire of vase painters by 560, and who would have needed a model for giants fighting like hoplites? The insistence on repeating a specific visual creation must have been motivated by intention, not by necessity or convenience, and requires an explanation. The use of the vases might lead the way. Lydos’ dinos and four more vases that repeat the composition of the Gaia gigantomachy were dedicated on the Akropolis. Three preserve the votive inscription; the dinos was probably given by its painter.38 By offering an object that repeated an image recently prominently displayed on the Akropolis, the dedicators ‘duplicated’ the dedication set up in the sanctuary, and, by their personal affirmation, offered their appreciation of an authoritative image. Although the fundamental differences in uses of media in antiquity and modern times are well known, I would like to stress once more the communicative function of images in a society that did not receive, construct, and transmit its myths in written form, and I would like to do so by giving an example that I consider as a parallel. In Euripides’ Ion, Erechtheus’ daughter Kreousa is interrogated by Ion (her son by Apollo, yet unrecognized) about her ancestor Erichthonios: Ion: . . . your father’s forebearer sprang from the earth? Kreousa: Yes, Erichthonios. But my ancestry does me no good. Ion: And did Athena take him up from the earth? Kreousa: Yes, into her maidenly embrace; she was not his mother. Ion: And did she give him, as paintings often show (ὥσπερ ἐν γραφῇ νομίζεται) . . . Kreousa: Yes, to Kekrops’ daughters to keep without looking at him.39 Erichthonios was a figure split off from Erechtheus three generations before Euripides’ tragedy was performed. After the Kleisthenic reforms (when Erechtheus became one of the Eponymous Heroes), the Athenian charter myth of Erechtheus being born by the earth and raised by Athena was transferred to Erichthonios, who ‘became’ the father or grandfather of Erechtheus (in the extended lists of early kings of Athens). In this case, it is not the myth that is new, but the protagonist. According to my reconstruction, this innovation (the birth of Erichthonios) was likewise introduced by a public 38 G1-G4 (with Gaia); G5 (without); cf. G10 (scene with Poseidon). With votive inscription: G2-G4. There is a second frieze with an elaborate procession, including a trittoia on G1 (Fig. 9.1); Meyer 2017a, 159, 323 nn. 1237, 2605, Figs. 211–12. Another signed vase with a different composition was probably dedicated by its producer (G7); Meyer 2017a, 158–9. 39 Eur. Ion 267–72 (trans. D. Kovacs).

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image, which leaves its traces in vase painting.40 In the play the audience is reminded of images: ὥσπερ ἐν γραφῇ νομίζεται.41 Euripides, the poet, does not refer to a colleague who told the story, but to visual evidence! That said, a last issue can be addressed (although not sufficiently discussed here): what function, importance, and significance did images of the gigantomachy have? And why would one invent such a myth at that time in that place? Thanks to epic poetry, Athena must have been well known as an Olympian goddess, Zeus’ special daughter, and a potential fighter. Before the sixth century, however, the Athenians seem not to have been particularly interested in these aspects of their goddess. In early Athens, Athena seems to have been a strictly local divinity, serving the needs and expectations of household communities, with a focus on cultivating olives and raising children.42 In cult and myth, Athena was closely linked to local figures: Erechtheus, Aglauros, Pandrosos. Zeus’ cult site on the highest spot of the Akropolis might be very old, but father and daughter are not linked in their cults on the Akropolis or in the charter myth of Athens: Erechtheus’ (after the Kleisthenic reforms: Erichthonios’) birth from the earth and his trophé by Athena.43 Images of Athena are rare in Athens before the sixth century, and images of an armed Athena are even rarer.44 There is a single example, which shows her with a shield and probably a spear in her right arm in the so-called Palladion type, which was in use elsewhere in Greece from the early seventh century on.45 It is not until the second quarter of the sixth century that Athenian images show the goddess equipped with helmet, shield, and spear. The prize amphorae introduced and popularized a new figure type for the goddess: Athena as Promachos, an abbreviation of the goddess fighting a giant.46 The choice of the Promachos type for the prize 40 Meyer 2017a, 313–21, 349–51, 362–77, Figs. 360–71, 405. 41 Eur. Ion 271. For the double sense of nomizein as ‘to believe’ and ‘to offer cult to,’ see Marconi 2009a, 172. 42 For a tentative reconstruction of the Athenians’ interest in their goddess before c. 600, see Meyer 2017a, 313–28. 43 For Erechtheus, Aglauros, and Pandrosos, see Meyer 2017a, 244–88, 299–302. For Zeus, see Meyer 2017a, 302–3. He appears in only two of the fifth-century images of the birth scene: Meyer 2017a, 364–6, Figs. 368 (BAPD 206695), 370 (BAPD 10158, behind Aphrodite). 44 Meyer 2017a, 155, 172, 228–9, 345; Alexandridou 2011, s.v. Athena, 223; Marx 1988, 367–70, 375, 379–84, 393–6 with n. 803. Vases found on the Athenian Akropolis offer a considerably larger percentage of depictions of Athena than vases found elsewhere, but only after c. 570; see Pala 2012, 91–135. 45 Athens, Agora Museum T 194: Meyer 2017a, 155, 345, Fig. 189; D’Onofrio 2001, 299–318, Fig. 22. For the Palladion type, see Meyer 2017a, 345; Moustaka 2002, 17–29, Figs. 1–2, 4–11. 46 For the vases, see Valavanis 2014, 373–87; Tiverios 2007, 1–19; Bentz 1998. For images of divinities as abbreviations of narrative scenes (in Archaic times), see Himmelmann-Wildschütz 1959, 20–2, Figs. 6, 8. For the Promachos type, see Meyer 2017a, 167–9, 345–9; Pala 2012, 91–2.

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amphorae is, in my view, the most substantial evidence for the gigantomachy as subject of the penteteric peplos from 566 on. It is at this time that Athenians begin to represent their goddess in the company of Olympian divinities: in images of her own birth and in those of Herakles’ introduction to Olympos. The earliest Athenian images of both these myths are contemporaneous with those of the gigantomachy.47 Votive inscriptions on the Acropolis, attested since c. 600, use a variety of epithets for the goddess; most of them link her to her father and call her kore or pais of Zeus.48 From the early sixth century on, there was an emphasis on Athena as one of the Olympian gods. This was not new knowledge, but it was a new issue, and it has to be seen within a wider context. The institution of the Great Panathenaia with games, the construction of the first peripteros, and the new visual presentations of the city goddess were part of a consistent policy of broadening the perspective beyond the local one. Athena, hitherto linked to local figures, was now conspicuously presented as a member of the Olympian family, acting in the company of other Olympian gods. The Great Panathenaia were clearly modelled after the Panhellenic festivals in Delphi, Isthmia, and Nemea which had been established within the two decades preceding the Panathenaic reform. The Panathenaia, however, exceeded the Panhellenic festivals by imitating the Homeric custom of awarding prizes of material value, and not only for the winners.49 The new peripteral temple built on the Acropolis was not an overdue update of the old, modest megaron, but was an additional temple for the goddess as if to demonstrate the broadened perspective in material form. Back to the questions: why a new myth, why the gigantomachy for the Great Panathenaia? Why not sing a song and decorate the peplos with Athena’s birth or the introduction of Herakles (a myth that was probably shown in the pediment of the new temple)?50 I think that visuality was a key factor in the decision to present Athena in a new context. Images of Athena’s birth could have shown the goddess in the Palladion or Promachos type, emerging from her father’s head. She could even have been placed next to him in full size.51 This myth would 47 Athena’s birth: Meyer 2017a, 346–7; Pala 2012, 74, 92–7 n. 7 (nine vases of c. 570 to 530/20 found on the Athenian Akropolis; Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2112, however, shows Herakles’ introduction), Figs. 40–3; Darthou and Strawczynski 2006, 49–54, Figs. 1–5; Shapiro 1989, 39–40, pls. 14c-d, 19d. Herakles: Meyer 2017a, 343 Figs. 353, 355; Santi 2010, 334–5; Shapiro 1989, 54–5, 97, 113–14, 137–8, 161–2, pls. 47b-d, 61a, 62a. See also infra n. 50. 48 Meyer 2017a, 329–31; Day 2010, 159–80; Geagan 1996, 145–64. 49 Meyer 2017a, 332–3; Neils and Schultz 2012, 204–5; Neils 2007, 41–51. 50 Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 9: Meyer 2017a, 122–3, Figs. 175, 177; Santi 2010, 183–97, Figs. 130–50; Shapiro 1989, 21, 113–14, pl. 6c. 51 See examples, supra n. 47. Full size: Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum L309 (late sixth century, BAPD 320038).

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have highlighted the special relationship of father and daughter, and it would have explained Athena’s status as parthenos and kore of Zeus. The focus on Zeus and Athena, however, reduces all the other Olympian gods to mere witnesses, to an audience, and this would have entailed their interchangeability. The birth scenes would have set Athena apart from the other gods instead of including her in the family. In images of the introduction of Herakles, the focus would again have been on a few figures. The battle of the Olympian gods against the giants, however, gave all the gods and goddesses an active role, and it showed Athena in an action identical to that of her brothers and sisters, but ahead of them, as Promachos. The image to be reconstructed with the evidence of the earliest vases shows all the Olympian gods equally involved in action, but it highlights Zeus, as Luca Giuliani pointed out. Zeus mounts the only chariot, and his figure is given much space. Giuliani concluded that the gigantomachy, therefore, was about Zeus rather than about Athena. He interpreted the myth as a metaphor for futile attempts of overthrowing a good government, and he saw its introduction as a warning against de-stabilizing the order and establishing a tyranny.52 The prototype of the Gaia gigantomachy was, however, just one concretization of the new myth, and both this image and the myth, as such, have to be assessed in their functional context. I claim that a myth for a festival of Athena must primarily make a statement about the goddess, and it does. In a joint action of the Olympian gods, Zeus has to be the most prominent figure. He is the highest of the gods, he is the leader in this battle, and his position is stressed by Gaia, who approaches him, pleading. By her action and position, Athena is characterized as Promachos, as the daughter of Zeus, and as protectress of heroes. Athena does not need to be highlighted, because it is her sanctuary, her cult, her festival, her city. In 566 she needs instead to be presented as a member of the Olympians, because hitherto in Athens she had been seen and worshiped in connection with non-Olympian figures of only local relevance. This image of the gigantomachy stresses her inclusion, her being part of the Olympian gods. The Promachos type soon became the most common representation of the goddess; it was to be used for votive pinakes and votive reliefs, both with and without a giant to fight.53 The gigantomachy was chosen as subject for the pediment of the late Archaic temple (the archaios neos), with Athena fighting close to the center and Zeus probably next to her, but definitely not in a chariot, as 52 Giuliani 2000, 263–86. 53 For the Promachos type, supra n. 46. On pinakes, see Karoglou 2010, 18 n. 46 (from her list, cat. 37, 86, 115 should be deleted, and cat. 5, 62, 65, 93, 98, 132 added). On reliefs: Athens, Akropolis Museum 120, 121: Vikela 2005, 90—1, pls. 11.1–2. See also Meyer 2017a, 168, 172, 175, Figs. 256–60.

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some scholars suggest.54 This was the first pediment to be completely filled with a single narrative composition. The gigantomachy was also part of the rich sculptural decoration of the Parthenon. The main theme of its metopes was fighting (on all four sides). The combat on the highest level, the one fought by the Olympians, adorned the most prominent facade (in the east).55 Athena appears on Metope 4, accompanied by Nike.56 So Athena is the one who brings victory, an idea in line with the perception of the goddess current in the third quarter of the fifth century.57 On the east facade, the gigantomachy is joined by two more themes in presenting Athena as one of the Olympian gods: the goddess makes her epiphany as a newborn member of the family in the pediment, and she sits with Zeus as counterpart in an assembly of this family in the frieze.58 The sculptures on both temples are examples for still another medium of visual communication: large images, exhibited in the open air in public spaces, meant to be viewed forever. (And they would have been, had there not been deliberate efforts to destroy them.) For my summary, I will concentrate on the beginnings, the mid-sixth century. There is good reason to assume that the myth of the gigantomachy was constructed for the Great Panathenaia and introduced in three different media – orally, by a hymn sung at the festival, and visually, by two images: one woven into the peplos and one set up in public for permanent viewing. The hymn told the story of an attempt by Gaia’s offspring to upset the kosmos and subdue the generation of Zeus and his children. It gave the names of the protagonists on both sides, surely stressing the roles of Zeus, Athena, and Herakles, and ended with the ultimate defeat of the assailants. In 566 it had the function of telling the Athenians a tale they had never heard before; in the subsequent 54 Meyer 2017a, 71–3, Fig. 102; Barringer 2014a, 177–9, Fig. 3.44; Santi 2010, 42–3, 238–79, Figs. 196–246. 55 Meyer 2017a, 107; Neils et al. 2015, 18–24, Figs. 3.2, 3.5–3.6; Berger 1986, 55–76, pls. 37–72; Praschniker 1928, 142–223, Figs. 88–132, pls. 14–27. 56 Meyer 2017a, 107, Figs. 153–4; Schwab 2005, 169–70, Fig. 49; Schwab 1996, 88–90, Figs. 7–9; Berger 1986, 56, 60–1, pls. 44–5, 47.1; Praschniker 1928, 154–7, 195–200, Figs. 94–5, 121, pl. 17. 57 As Neils stressed. See Meyer 2017a, 437–43; Neils and Schultz 2012, 195–207. 58 Pediment: the group in the center is lost and its reconstruction disputed, but there is widespread agreement that Athena was represented as a full-sized figure. Zeus seated: Walter-Karydi 2020, 236–239, Fig. 8b; Meyer 2017a, 108–9, Figs. 146–52; Williams 2013, 54–8; Despinis 1984, 295–302, Figs. 1, 3, pl. 42.1–4; Despinis 1982, 67–85, Figs. 3–6, pls. 17–21, 23; Berger 1977, 124–6, 134–40, Fig. 6, pls. 30–4, fold-out II. Zeus standing: I. Beyer 2016, 33–46, Figs. 1–8; Palagia 2005, 231–42, Figs. 81–8. East frieze, assembly of gods: Meyer 2017a, 99–107, Figs. 130–3; Neils 2001, 61–6, 105–7, 161–6, 187–93, 198–200, Figs. 49, 76–7, 86, 122–4, 164; Berger and Gisler-Huwiler 1996, 153–6, 160–4, 170, pls. 132–7.

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festivals it functioned to recall the tale. Its performance was ephemeral. It was, however, periodic, to be repeated at the following festival. Its purpose was first of all to praise the goddess. This was the raison d’être of the Panathenaia per se, but not all of its elements served this purpose with equal emphasis. The hymn was important because it was meant to express the glory of the goddess explicitly. The significance of the hymn lay in the combination of praising the goddess and the other Olympians. The hymn had to celebrate Athena’s performance as part of a collective action and as an outstanding effort of this singular daughter of mighty Zeus, goddess of Athens. One of the images was ephemeral and periodic, as well: the woven one. Its use and importance coincided with that of the peplos, which was designed for the agalma and ultimately used as its garment. The function of the image woven into the peplos was to enhance its beauty. The importance of the peplos lies in the fact that it was the collective offering of the Athenians. As such, it had probably been displayed in some way before the times when a ship was introduced to display it in the procession. The woven image will have been visible (albeit briefly), but as the archaion agalma was not for public viewing, its house small and the peplos replaced each year, the woven image was not meant for long-term display. The agalma, made of olive wood, Athena’s gift, was permanent – it was always there, had always been there. The periodic peplos was the Athenians’ response, the proof of their active veneration of Athena. The main significance of the production of the peploi is as a rite that never ceased.59 So the periodic replacement was an essential part of the very importance of the peplos, and the same is true for the image woven into it. The repetition of the visualization of the myth would mirror the annual renewal of the dedication of a garment for the goddess. As for significance, the woven image added something substantial to the peplos, because it linked the new view of Athena as part of the Olympian family to the traditional agalma. There was only one Athena on the Akropolis, and the Athena for whom the additional temple was built was not different from the one whose presence was attested by the wooden agalma. We have traces of a second image of the gigantomachy because this image, probably a painting, was intended for permanent display. Its function was to be there and to be viewed. It was important because it praised the goddess continuously, not just when the hymn was sung or the peplos dedicated. And it was important because it served as a reliable reminder of the tale and as a reference (ὥσπερ ἐν γραφῇ νομίζεται). The vases attest its success. It explained the new perspective of the goddess, made sense of the new figure type that was used for the prize amphorae, and was adopted 59 Supra p. 206 and n. 10.

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widely until it was partially replaced by a new, powerful visualization of the goddess: the statue of Athena Parthenos. Appendix: The earliest vases with gigantomachy scenes (mid-sixth century):60 G1 (Figs. 9.1 and 9.2): Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 607 signed by Lydos; BAPD 310147; Meyer 2017a, 158–60, Figs. 209–25. G2 (Figs. 9.3 and 9.4): Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2134; BAPD 301942, 9922; Meyer 2017a, 158–60, Figs. 198–200. G3 (Figs. 9.5 and 9.6): Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 2211; BAPD 3363; Meyer 2017a, 158–60, Figs. 201–6. G4 (Fig. 9.7): Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 1632; BAPD 15673; Meyer 2017a, 158–60, Figs. 207–8. G5 (Fig. 9.8): Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 648; BAPD 310328; Meyer 2017a, 158–60, Figs. 226–8. G6: Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 608; BAPD 16587; Meyer 2017a, 158, 160. G7: Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 612; BAPD 300769; Meyer 2017a, 158. G8: Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 631; BAPD 310152; Meyer 2017a, 158. G9: Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 1638; BAPD 32417; Meyer 2017a, 158. G10: Athens, Agora Museum AP 1891+1953+2119+(8 fragments of a band cup), BAPD 9112; Meyer 2017a, 158–60, Fig. 229 (AP 2119) LIMC IV, s.v. Gigantes, 216 no. 107 [F. Vian and M. Moore]. G11: Athens, Agora Museum AP 2087+ (gigantomachy?); BAPD 310199, 310203; Meyer 2017a, 164 n. 1283. G12 (Fig. 9.9): Malibu, The Getty Villa 86.AE.143; BAPD 10148; Meyer 2017a, 159–60, Fig. 233. G13: Berlin, Antikensammlung F 3988 from Tanagra; BAPD 360; Meyer 2017a, 160 n. 1249. G14: London, British Museum B601.48 (from Naukratis); BAPD 15117. G15: Gravisca II 7766 from Gravisca; BAPD 9027195; Meyer 2017a, 158–60, Figs. 230–1. G16 (Figs. 9.10 and 9.11): Paris, Musée du Louvre E732; BAPD 14590; Meyer 2017a, 162–3, Fig. 232 (reversed). G17 (Figs. 9.13 and 9.14): Malibu, The Getty Villa 81.AE.211; BAPD 10047; Meyer 2017a, 163 Figs. 234–6. G18: Moscow, Pushkin Museum M640; BAPD 41475; Meyer 2017a, 164 n. 1284. G19: Rome, Musei Capitolini 136; BAPD 350218; Meyer 2017a, 164 n. 1284. G20: Copenhagen, Nationalmuseet 13966; BAPD 350369; Meyer 2017a, 162, 164 nn. 1263, 1285. See also: pinax Eleusis, Archaeological Museum 398 (supra n. 4). 60 Meyer 2017a, 157–8 n. 1230; Muth 2008, 271–82, 761.

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INTRODUCTION A number of unusual scenes are carved on gemstones worn as personal ornaments or used as seals in the late Republican and Imperial periods, such as an impudic Omphale fighting a donkey or Tithonus carrying a cicada. These pictures seem to allude to new stories involving well-known mythical figures. This chapter addresses the visual strategies used by gem engravers in order to transform traditional stories into new ones, revealing a continuing fabric of myth in the Roman period. The performative context of ancient glyptic offers several analogies with, and differences from, coinage. As on coins, engravers operated in a miniature space and had to compose condensed and elliptic images.1 As for coins, they used motifs drawn from a wider repertoire belonging to a shared visual culture and memory. Unlike coins, which were replicated by minting until the die was worn or broken, each gem was hand carved, and hence unique, in a material carefully selected for its color, transparency, and symbolic qualities. The choice of the mineral and of the subject was usually associated with individual concern, but the images could also circulate in wide circles in the form of wax or clay prints on various artifacts, especially letters and official documents. Gemstones thus belong both to the private sphere because of their relation to personal identity and protection, and to the public domain because of their dimension of self-presentation. This chapter is based on the category of ‘magical’ gems, where standard motifs are diverted in order to ensure magical efficacy, as well as on the larger range of ‘normal’ gems, where similar iconic strategies are at work. Two ways of constructing new visual idioms will be examined, first by using traditional figures, schemes, and stories metaphorically in order to 1 See Chapter 11 (pp. 243–53). On the circulation of motifs between coins and gems, see Bricault and Veymiers 2018, 491–513.

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address new, personal issues, and second by elaborating new schemes, often by combining Greco-Roman and Egyptian iconic traditions in order to produce seemingly new stories. THE FABRIC OF ‘MAGICAL’ GEMS In ancient glyptic, stones coined as ‘magical’ are characterized by the combination of distinctive features.2 The materiality of the media is essential; the stone itself was credited with potency due to its color, intensity, opacity, or transparency.3 Some images are thus reserved for specific minerals and colors because of their symbolic associations, such as the uterine cupping vessel, always carved on metallic gray hematite, similar to magnetite, evoking blood as well as the alleged attractive power of the organ.4 Words and letters are usually in the Greek alphabet, and written so as to be read directly on the stone, not printed as on gems used as seals. The inscription is not only on the front, but often also on the back, and even around the bevel. Names are usually divine, many belonging to the Jewish tradition, such as Iaô, Sabaôth, Michaêl, reflecting the transnational context of Roman Imperial magic. Often charaktêres or non-linguistic signs or symbols empower the stone; some are regularly associated with specific deities, such as the triple kappas and Herakles, or the crossed triple S and the lion-headed Chnoubis snake. Strange-sounding names and formulae (vox magica, or barbara onomata, logoi) summon a deity or demon, such as Ororiouth, or letter games create a visual or an auditory effect, such as vowels or palindromes that can be read backward or forward.5 Beside standard Egyptian and Greco-Roman deities (Isis, Serapis, Herakles, Aphrodite), new cross-cultural gods are found, such as the lion-headed snake Chnoubis or the cock-headed Anguipes.6 The combination of these various elements, material, words, and images have a performative dimension, well displayed on a lapis lazuli gem in Paris (Fig. 10.1a–b).7 The stone is carved with a magical formula against a sore throat. Each element, material, inscription, and picture refers to the grape: the lapis lazuli is blue like a grape, the image of a grape is engraved on one side, the word “grape,” staphulê, is carved in a wing or grape-like 2 The expression ‘magical gem’ is a modern convention, as there is no clear divide between magical and other private religious practices. For recent definitions, see, e.g., Dasen 2019a (with earlier bibliography); Mastrocinque 2014a, 14–16. 3 On the therapeutic value attributed to the stones’ colors, see Mastrocinque 2011, 62–8. 4 On the generative blood of Cronus and the association of hematite with the lodestone, see Dasen 2015b, 34–51. 5 On the visual effect of charaktêres, see Gordon 2014, 350–90. On ablanathanalba and the repetition of the seven vowels, see, e.g., Nagy 1990. 6 Dasen 2019a; Dasen and Nagy 2012, 291–314; Nagy 2002, 159–72. 7 Mastrocinque 2014a, 210, no. 591; Daniel and Maltomini 1979, 93–4.

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Figure 10.1a–b Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, Collection Froehner, Cahier XIV, 36, lapis lazuli, second–third century AD, H 14.0 mm, W 12.0 mm, D 2.0mm. Photo A. Mastrocinque.

shape, enacting visually the mastery of the disease.8 The grape alludes to a remedy provided by Marcellus Empiricus (fourth–fifth centuries AD) which is associated with a word play because staphulê, like the Latin uua, means both the grape and the uvula; Marcellus Empiricus advises placing a grape seed on the throat in order to reduce its inflammation while reciting: uua uuam emendat, “the grape cures the throat.”9 Attilio Mastrocinque has demonstrated that the remedy implies the diverted action of the Thracian king Lykourgos cutting the disease instead of grapes.10 OLD PICTURES, NEW STORIES Medical metaphors and therapeutic agency The commonest way to transform old stories and images for new purposes is to use them metaphorically. A number of ‘magical’ gems are thus carved with a god or hero chasing an enemy, such as Herakles strangling the 8 On similar wing-shaped formulae alluding to grapes and to the action of Lykourgos ‘cutting’ a sore throat (“staphulotomos”), see Mastrocinque 2008, 97–108. On these shapes as part of a deletio morbis, dissolution process, see Faraone 2012; Faraone 2001, 1–10. 9 Marcellus Empiricus, De medicamentis 14.25. Demons damaging the pharynx and tonsils are also expelled by a formula written on a leaf in the shape of a grape in the Testament of Solomon 19.58 (ed. C. McCown, Leipzig, 1922). 10 Mastrocinque 2008, 98.

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lion. The action, however, no longer concerns the enemy of the original myth, but is transferred to a personal level, according to the principle of the historiola, a well-known magical technique where the god or hero expels an opponent personifying the disease.11 On the gems, the new story dramatizes the healing action, revealing a possible lived experience of disease. On a red jasper (Fig. 10.2),12 Herakles throttles a lion with both hands. This standard motif represents the well-known first labor of the hero, reproduced on various media since the Archaic Greek period.13 On the gem, an inscription and charaktêres show that the meaning and function of the story have changed. Herakles no longer fights against a terrifying animal, but against bile, a physical disorder. The inscription encircling the group commands the disease to flee: “Withdraw bile, the divinity pursues you.” Below, three kappas and a star are carved. The kappas are usually interpreted as the first letter of the word kolike, bellyache, repeated three times, or as the abbreviated form of a magical formula, like Kok Kouk Koul found on a magical papyrus against fever.14 Similar flee formulae are found in Greek magical incantations since the fourth century BC, as well

Figure 10.2 Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, inv. 58.2220 bis, red jasper, second–third century AD, H 50.0 mm, W 31.0 mm, D 7.5 mm. Photo: A. Mastrocinque. 11 On historiolae, see Frankfurter 1995. 12 Mastrocinque 2014a, 152, Fig. 403. 13 On a possible fifth-century BC prototype showing two udjat eyes behind Herakles and the lion on a carnelian scarab, see Faraone 2011b, 50–61, esp. p. 53, pl. 10. 14 Cf. Bonner 1950, 62–6.

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as in many Latin and post-antique examples.15 They are associated with a widely shared notion that sickness is an active agent assaulting the body, and that healing is the outcome of a fight against disease. This generic process is transmitted by the image of Herakles as the champion of order, worshiped as Alexikakos, Phylax, or Sôter, expelling ‘bad influences.’ Literary sources compare the deeds of Herakles against monsters with the success of Hippokrates against diseases.16 On gemstones, a specific labor is depicted. The image of Herakles mastering the lion contains an additional efficacy operating at different levels. The scene refers to a theriomorphic representation of disease also found in the medical vocabulary. In Hippocratic treatises, an acute pathological condition is described as agrios, ‘wild,’ like a fierce animal, and illnesses are theriôdes, ‘bestial.’ A severe disease acts like an animal; it is ‘an eater,’ phagedaina, because it devours the flesh.17 These metaphoric references explain the choice of a bestial opponent on the gem. In addition, the image of a striving large lion fits with the notion of disease as disruptive, like a wild animal. On magical gems, however, Herakles performs a new deed. He struggles against colic or bellyache, a personal, intimate disease. This specific healing competence is not fortuitous, but closely associated with the gluttonous temper of the god, stuffing in everything without being sick. The stone thus encapsulates a dynamic process implying the incorporation of the hero’s power by the patient: like the hero, one will be free from bellyache. This active process is deep-rooted in ancient medicine. In the Epidemics, Hippokrates explains it: “The art consists in three things – the disease, the patient, and the physician. The physician is the servant of the art, and the patient must combat the disease along with the physician.”18 The action of Herakles thus corresponds to the expected posture of the patient who, like the hero, faces disease, and fights to recover his health and master his fate. The favor of this iconographic type suggests that these references were widely understood. Even medical doctors, such as Alexander of Tralles (sixth century AD), prescribed wearing a stone depicting Herakles throttling the lion to cure colic: “On a Median stone, engrave Herakles standing upright and throttling a lion; set it in gold ring and give it to the patient to wear.”19 The efficacy of the gem was increased by the type of stone – 15 On the flee formula, see Faraone 2018, 210–24. 16 Faraone 1992, 58–9. On Hippokrates revered as a champion similar to Herakles, see an apocryphal letter to Artaxerxes, Letter 2 (ed. É. Littré IX, 314–15, 1849); Plin. HN 7.123. 17 Hippok. On Ulcers 10 (ed. É. Littré VI, 410, 2–3, 1849). Cf. Jouanna 2012, 81–96. 18 Hippok. Epid. 1.2.5 (ed. É. Littré II, 637, 1849). 19 Alexander of Tralles, Twelve Books on Medicine 2.377 (trans. Bonner 1950, 63).

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always carved in deep red jasper, an intense color associated with blood and possibly internal disorders.20 A similar symbolic transfer takes place with other heroes. On a blue nicolo in St. Petersburg, Perseus, wearing a winged cap and sandals, holds in one hand a harpê or sickle and in the other hand the severed head of Medusa as he flies (Fig. 10.3a–b).21 At first sight, one can see that the engraver reproduced a standard scene found on various media.22 On the reverse, a flee inscription reveals that a more intimate action takes place: “Flee from here, Gout! Perseus is after you!” Perseus’ flight is part of a new story. He is no longer attacking Medusa, but fighting the gout afflicting an individual, although no extant story tells us about a contest between Perseus and Podagra.23 The efficacy of Perseus and Medusa against podagra is also rooted in shared medical imagery. Podagra is a disease that paralyzes the limbs, as does the sight of Medusa, who transforms her opponents into stone. Moreover, podagra is associated in medical astrology with the planet Saturn, governing limbs and mobility impairment. Vettius Valens describes its action: Of the limbs of the body, it rules the legs, the knees, the tendons, the lymph, the phlegm, the bladder, the kidneys, and the internal,

Figure 10.3a–b St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, Ж.1517 (GR–21714), nicolo, mid-Imperial period. Photo: © The State Hermitage Museum (Svetlana Suetova, Konstantin Sinyavski). 20 Twenty-six stones carved on red jasper are recorded by Michel 2004, 280–2. See, e.g., Herakles throttling the lion in the Campbell Bonner Magical Gems Database (CBd)-455. Red jasper also protects delivery. See, e.g., CBd-759; Dasen 2015b, 72–3, Fig. 2.13a, and Fig. 10.2 in this chapter. On the use of iaspis lithos for delivery, cf. Dioskorides, De materia medica 5.160. 21 Nagy 2015, 220–33, Fig. 2a–b. 22 On parallels, see Nagy 2015, 220–33. 23 On the various, useless, remedies against podagra, see the declamation of her personification in Lucian, Podagra, 138–74. Kavaras 2005, 302–19. Cf. the formula fuge, fuge, Podagra associated with a remedy in Marcellus Empiricus, De medicamentis 36.70.

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hidden organs. Saturn is indicative of injuries arising from cold and moisture, such as dropsy, neuralgia, gout, cough, dysentery, hernia, spasms.24 Kronos/Saturn uses a harpê, the weapon of Perseus as well as of the reaper depicted in the series of hematite stones carved with injunctions for soothing backache (Fig. 10.4).25 Like Herakles and the lion, the Perseus motif reflects an expected personal response to disease. Perseus makes visible the agonistic relation between disease and cure. The scene illustrates the concern of the Hippocratic author On Art: “For if disease and treatment start together, the disease will not win the race, but it will, if it starts with an advantage.”26 In the Roman period, gem engravers thus did not refrain from using well-known mythical figures for private, daily concerns. As Árpád Nagy

Figure 10.4 Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, Classical Collection 52.231, hematite, second–third century AD, 33.0 x 20.0 mm. Photo: L. Mátyus. 24 Vett. Val. Anthologies 1.1. 25 CBd-7. 26 Hippok. On Art 11; (ed. É. Littré, VI, 21, 1849).

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argues,27 Perseus was part of a living cultural tradition, as was Herakles. The main difference between Herakles and Perseus is that Herakles’ deed was reproduced on a large series of gems, whereas there is only one example of Perseus flying after defeating Medusa. This contrast does not imply that the efficacy of the Perseus image was a failure.28 The piece was probably made to order for a cultivated person who wished to own a unique, special, luxurious item that also displayed his or her Hellenized culture. Eschatological metaphors Condensing a story into a miniature iconic performance is also found on normal gems. Engravers can create new discourses with stock figures, as in the case of Tithonus in late Republican and early Imperial glyptic. The story of the miserable fate of this Trojan prince is well known. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, Aphrodite explains to Anchises, her mortal lover, how the young Tithonus was abducted by Eos, the goddess of dawn, because of his beauty. Eos asked Zeus to grant Tithonus immortality, but forgot to save him from aging.29 Tithonus was thus doomed with immortality, and slowly weakened and dessicated.30 In later variants of the story, Tithonus was ultimately transformed into a cicada.31 According to most scholars, this final metamorphosis into an insect was never shown in ancient art.32 This assertion can be challenged, because a series of stones depict an old man carrying a cicada who can be related to the fate of the prince. The composition seems to be an invention of late Republican gem engravers borrowing the iconography of pygmies. On a sardonyx in Munich (Fig. 10.5),33 a skinny, bearded man holding the legs of a giant cicada walks with a stick. His rigid, threadlike legs mirror the insect’s slender limbs. Most labels in glyptic catalogs call the old man either a “pygmy” holding a cicada instead of 27 Nagy 2015, 228–30. 28 The deed of Perseus, however, is present in other media. See Mastrocinque 2008, 100–1 on the gorgophonas formula on a magical papyrus. The severed head of Gorgo also refers to his deed on over thirty magical gems; see Michel 2004, 268–9 and, e.g., CBd-10. See also the drawing of Perseus holding the head of Medusa on a fourthcentury AD magical papyrus, PGM XXXVI 231–55. 29 Hymn. Hom. Ven. 218–38. See Pirenne-Delforge forthcoming; Dasen 2019c. 30 Hymn. Hom. Ven. 236. S. Boehringer 2013; Calame 2013; King 1989. 31 Suda s.v. “The old age of Tithonus. A proverb applied for people who live a long time and are extremely old. The myth is that Tithonus, led by a desire to escape, ekduo, his old age, changed shape into a cicada.” 32 LIMC VIII, s.v. Tithonus, 36 (A. Kossatz-Deissmann): “Tithonus spielt in der antiken Kunst keine eigene Rolle, sondern ist die Wiedergaben der Göttin Eos eingebunden und wird hier vor allem als geliebter der Eos gezeigt, der von ihr verfolgt, geraubt oder entführt wird.” 33 Brandt et al. 1972, no. 959.

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Figure 10.5 Munich, Staatliche Münzsammlung inv. A 1712, sardonyx, second to first centuries BC, 12.7 x 11.3 mm. Photo: Staatliche Münzsammlung München.

a crane, or Wespenleib, Zikadenman, or Insektenmann because of his insect-like appearance.34 However, several ancient authors associate elderly men with cicadas. The cicada is the coldest insect, content with “gentle dew,” or even no food at all;35 it is not worried by old age because it is almost divine.36 Similarly, medical treatises describe old people as “dry,” “cold,” and with little appetite.37 They lose weight because their body is unable to draw the nutrition within itself and therefore dries up.38 Like cicadas, the flow of old men’s voices remains incessant. In Homer, the elderly Trojans “had now ceased from battle but they were good speakers, like cicadas that in a forest sit upon a tree.”39 The group on the gem also conveys a verbal pun. In Greek, as in Latin, the words for old age, geras and senecta, also mean the slough of a snake or a cicada.40 Aristotle observed the insect’s lifecycle, starting from the larva; when it reaches maturity, the nymph comes out at night and quickly extracts itself from its casing to transform into an adult insect with an incessant musical flow. This molt is compared to the snake’s periodical skin shedding and to the delivery of the embryo: “It takes about a night 34 Weiss 2017 (a caricature of old age); LIMC VII, s.v. Pygmaioi, 594–601 nos. 37–8 (V. Dasen); Platz-Horster et al. 1975, no. 184 (Wespenleib). 35 Arist. Part. an. 4.682a; Hist. an. 5.556b15-16. See Pataki 2015; Beavis 1988, 91–103. For Pl. Phdr. 259b-c, the cicadas were humans transformed who forgot food and drink because of the Muses. 36 Anac. 34. See Lambin 2002, 269–98. 37 Byl 2001; Casevitz 1998; Pisi 1995, 458–62; Byl 1988. 38 Gal. Hygien. 5.4.321K; Cic. Sen. 13.44. 39 Hom. Il. 3.151 (trans. A. Murray, Loeb). 40 Plin. HN 18.174, 20.254, 30.69; Brillante 1987.

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and a day for the whole old-age to be shed, starting from the head and ending at the tail. As the animal is being stripped its inner layer becomes the outer, for it is stripped like embryos of their membranes. Those insects too that cast the old-age cast it in the same way.”41 In Latin literature, Lucretius makes the same comparison.42 Callimachus explicitly associates the molting cicada with a notion of rebirth. The poet compares his song to the music of the insect freeing itself from old age by molting. Similarly, the poet wishes to sing and to be able to “shed old age.”43 The transformation into a cicada is thus a promise of deliverance and access to a state of completeness symbolized by the flight and the melodious song of the insect.44 In the first century BC, the elite who commissioned engraved stones knew the story of Tithonus.45 Their familiarity may explain a detail engraved on a carnelian in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Fig. 10.6). The scene shows Aeneas in armor escaping Troy, carrying his father Anchises on his right shoulder, and holding his son Ascanius with a Phrygian hat and

Figure 10.6 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 2001.28.3, carnelian, first century AD, 14.0 mm. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. 41 Arist. Hist. an. 8.600b32-601a3 (trans. D. Balme, Loeb). 42 Lucr. De rerum natura 4.58. 43 Callim. Aet. 1.30-5. For the scholia on Lycoph. Alex. 18, there is a pun between tetta (old man) and tettix. 44 Arist. Hist. an. 8.601a6-10. 45 Cic. Sen. 1.3, 5.

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a pedum. This subject is first found on silver denarii issued by Caesar. On the reverse, Aeneas holds the palladium in his right hand, while carrying his father on his left shoulder (c. 47–46 BC);46 on the obverse, the head of Venus Genitrix alludes to the divine ancestry of the gens Iulia. On the Getty carnelian, an insect is carved on the ground line between Aeneas’ feet. Its depiction could be an erudite reference to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, recalling Aphrodite’s speech to Anchises. The insect also recalls the Trojan origin of a family whose elderly members were already compared to cicadas in Homer, as discussed above. The intaglios with Tithonus and the cicada also convey a philosophical and eschatological discourse contrasting with that transmitted by the image of the skeleton that appears in glyptic at the same period. The skeleton appears with another chrysalis insect, the butterfly, psyche, meaning both “butterfly” and “soul.”47 On an intaglio now lost (Fig. 10.7),48 the

Figure 10.7 Whereabouts unknown, intaglio, mid-first century BC. Drawing by author after Zahn, R. 1924. KTO CHRO. Glasierter Tonbecher im Berliner Antiquarium, 5, Fig. 1. Berlin. 46 RRC 458/1; Dardenay 2010, 77–8, Fig. 24. On the dissemination of the motive on intaglios, see, for example, the second-century AD carnelian in Berlin: Zwierlein-Diehl 1969, no. 530. On lamp medallions and lead cists, see Dardenay 2010, 192–5, Figs. 104–5; Dardenay 2005. 47 On the philosopher gazing at a butterfly on a skull, see J. Lang 2012, 93–5, 170 Typ A68, pl. 21, Fig. 167; Weiss 2007, 237, no. 369. 48 Dunbabin 1986, 204–5, Fig. 15.

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skeleton is surrounded by a butterfly, symbolizing the soul’s departure, and by a set of elements referring to Epicurean philosophy: a wine jug, a flower garland, and a round cake. The inscription Kto Chro, which can be translated as “acquire and enjoy,” invites the viewer to carpe diem’s transitory pleasures.49 The skeleton and the butterfly, like the cicada and the old man, thus both refer to the relationship between the body and the soul and how they tear apart. The skeleton and the butterfly draw from Epicurean speculation, Tithonus and the cicada from Stoicism. The cicada strikes a hopeful note regarding the immortality of the soul, with the added dimension of rebirth and completeness associated with the molting larva reaching a more advanced animal state. The immortality of Tithonus is also musical, like the cicada’s song – a gift of the Muses.50 In Rome, the metaphor of the cicada’s liberating molting was developed in various ways. Varro (116–27 BC) dedicated a Menippean satire to Tithonus in the same period as these gemstones. He compares the departure of the liberated soul with abandoning the “bodily sheath” or cortex.51 His Stoic definition of the soul may suggest a form of astral apotheosis. In Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, the molting metaphor corresponds to the deliverance of the corporal sheath, once again associated with the image of birth: Despise not death, but welcome it, for Nature wills it like all else. [. . .] Look for the hour when thy soul shall emerge from this its sheath, as now thou awaitest the moment when the child she carries shall come forth from thy wife’s womb.52 By combining the figure of an old man with that of a cicada, the engraver delivers a new message about death and the survival of the soul. The holder of the gem carried a promise of rebirth and accomplishment contained in a visual and verbal pun. NEW PICTURES AND NEW STORIES Bilingual pictures A series of magical gems combine elements drawn from Greek and Egyptian iconography in order to convey a new discourse about women’s 49 Cf. Greek Anthology 11.38: “On a relief representing a jar, a loaf, a crown, and a skull: . . ., and this is the holy bone, outwork of a dead brain, the highest citadel of the soul. ‘Drink,’ says the sculpture, ‘and eat, and surround thee with flowers, for like to this we suddenly become’.” (trans. W. Paton, Loeb). 50 Pirenne-Delforge forthcoming; S. Boehringer 2013; Calame 2013. For Sappho’s desire to continue to sing in her old age cicada-like, see also Janko 2017. On the cult of the Muses in the funerary context, see Boyancé 1936, 330. 51 Varro, Sat. Men. 4.547. 52 M. Aur. Med. 9.3 (trans. C. Haines, Loeb).

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agency. The images are based on the story of Omphale, Queen of Lydia. Greek and Roman authors tell us that Omphale subjugated Herakles, her enslaved lover, who performed many heroic deeds in her realm. Omphale freed him and bore him a son, Lamus.53 Roman-period authors add that the strength of their passion was so strong that Omphale and Herakles swapped clothes and weapons. In Roman glyptic, most depictions of Omphale range from the second century BC to the first century AD. Omphale, naked, stands in three-quarter profile, her head inclined down modestly. She wears Herakles’ lionskin, and gracefully holds his club on her far shoulder, while her near arm is wrapped in the skin (Fig. 10.8).54 Omphale’s masquerade is usually seen as a demonstration of her erotic lure, but other interpretations are possible. On magical gems, Omphale displays unexpected powers. On a red jasper in Hamburg, a naked woman is depicted frontally, squatting,

Figure 10.8 Musée municipal de Péronne, collection A. Danicourt, red carnelian, H 30.0 mm, W 22.0 mm, D 15.0 mm. Photo: © Classical Art Research Centre, Oxford University. 53 Diod. Sic. 4.31.1-8. 54 Dasen 2015b, 88, Fig. 3.1.

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holding a jug with which to wash.55 Her spread legs would identify her as a prostitute, but her distended belly alludes to pregnancy, and hence to a delivery posture.56 Below the ground line, an inscription reveals her name: “Omphale.” On the reverse, an ithyphallic donkey lies on its back. Other gems more explicitly associate the donkey with Omphale, always naked, holding a club that identifies her as Herakles’ lover. On a red jasper in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Fig. 10.9a–b),57 Omphale, with a pregnant belly, squats; she raises her right hand to wave the club, while her left hand is on her knees. An ithyphallic donkey is carved on the reverse. The club and the donkey allude to the hidden competences of the queen. The sphere of Herakles’ protection was not restricted to the stomach: the gluttony of the hero was also sexual. Herakles generated an impressive number of children with countless lovers. His intimacy with the female belly and procreation qualified him as the protector of women.58 On a red jasper

Figure 10.9a–b Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 82.AN.162.80a, Gift of Stanley Ungar, red jasper, second–third century AD, 12.0 x 16.0 mm. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum. 55 Hamburg, Skoluda Collection M090; CBd-1703; Dasen 2015b, 89–90, Fig. 3.2a; Michel 2001, 79–80, no. 83. For the complete series of gems of Omphale, see Dasen 2021. 56 On similar birthing postures and birthing chairs, cf. a red jasper in London, British Museum: CBd-759; Dasen 2015b, 72–3, Fig. 2.13a. 57 CBd-2338. See also the red carnelian in Kassel (second to third century AD); Dasen 2015b, 90–1, Fig. 3.3. 58 In the medical vocabulary, the belly, koilia, gaster, and the stomach, stoma, also comprise the uterus and related disorders. Similarly, the Latin stomachus means the pregnant belly, as well as the digesting belly.

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in Hamburg, Herakles throttles the lion, standing on an Ouroboros, which encircles a uterine cupping vessel and a key surrounded by three kappas.59 The gem might aim at controlling the uterus, and perhaps more specifically the pains during delivery, compared with a violent wild animal.60 When Omphale substitutes for Herakles as a fighter, she is endowed with his function as guardian of women’s health. Several significant other iconic changes occur. Her opponent is a donkey, never a lion, whereas Herakles throttles a lion, never a donkey. The donkey is strongly related to the role of the god Seth in the Egyptian imaginary. The animal embodies malevolent influences acting during the night, who sexually assault the sleeper, as do western incubi. In Late Period texts (seventh century BC), the sperm of the god Seth is compared with the poison of a scorpion, which provokes abortions. Stories recount that when Isis was pregnant with Horus, she used a knot to ward off the attacks of Seth. This knot or tjt-knot was used by contemporary Egyptian women in the form of an amulet made of red jasper to prevent or stop bleeding.61 Associated with Omphale, the donkey thus embodies the dark side of Seth, but the threat is under control. The gesture of the queen is meaningful because it contains a verbal pun. In Ancient Greek, skutale, or the club, metaphorically means “the phallus.”62 The club held by the woman thus simultaneously identifies the nature of the danger and its domination. The threat is expressed explicitly on the print of a lost gem in Munich (Fig. 10.10).63 A naked woman squats above a donkey lying on its back, its phallus erect. The donkey and the woman use the same weapon, but the animal is clearly mastered by the woman. A cupping vessel with key and ligaments is depicted next to the tail of the tamed donkey, as if to clarify the function of the gem. Omphale subdues the donkey, as she did with Herakles, who is enslaved, according to the myth. A red jasper (Fig. 10.11a–b)64 offers a bilingual version of the same theme, demonstrating the similar power of both figures. On the ‘Greek’ side, Herakles throttles the lion, while on the ‘Egyptian’ one, a squatting and pregnant Omphale threatens the Sethian donkey with a club.

59 Hamburg, Skoluda Collection M116; CBd-1631; Dasen 2015b, 95–6, Fig. 3.9; Michel 2001, 81–2, no. 86. 60 On the reverse, a longer formula, KOLOKEP KOLOFOCEIP, seems to insist on bellyache. On the wildness of the uterus, see Faraone 2011a. 61 Cf. a hematite gem on which Seth is equated with Typhon in London, British Museum: Bonner 1950, no. 140: “Contract (or: be quiet / statheti, stay in your place), womb, lest Typhon overcomes you”; Dasen 2015b, 75–6, Fig. 2.15. On gynecological recipes using substances taken from the donkey to calm pains or disorders of the uterus, see von Staden 1992. On further associations, see Dasen 2015b, 97–102. 62 This association is more than metaphorical. In modern times, a ‘pizzle’ designates a weapon made of the bull’s dried penis: Dasen 2015c, 185–9. 63 Dasen 2015c, 101, Fig. 3.10. 64 CBd-760; Dasen 2015b, 101–2, Fig. 3.11; Michel 2004, no. 54.9_2.

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Figure 10.10 Whereabouts unknown, formerly Munich, Staatliche Münzsammlung, ex.-Coll. P. Arndt 2356, second–third century AD, 17.0 x 12.0 mm. Photo: Staatliche Münzsammlung München.

Figure 10.11a–b London British Museum G364 (EA 56364), red jasper, third century AD, H 16.0 mm, W 14.0 mm, D 3.0 mm. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum.

The choice of Omphale is also based on a verbal pun. Her name means omphalos, the belly button or navel, and evokes the umbilical cord, as well as sexual lure. Fulgentius thus describes the nature of the influence of Omphale over the hero: For Hercules fell in love with Omphale [. . .] he is conquered by lust, for onfalon in Greek means the navel, for lust is ruled in the navel by women, as says the Holy Scripture: “Thy navel was not cut,” as if to say: “Your sin was not cut off.” For the womb is firmly tied to this,

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whereby the umbilical cord is situated at the same place for securing the newly born.65 Gem engravers thus deliver a new visual discourse on women’s agency by combining Greek and Egyptian elements. They reveal a feminine champion in the form of a ‘magical’ Omphale, substituting for her powerful lover, Herakles, with similar competencies as patron of women’s health. Omphale personifies a woman who masters her own body, knows how to expel or subdue malevolent entities, and watches over the health, sexuality, and fecundity of women. Her prophylactic value could explain the fashion for the ‘ordinary’ Omphale in glyptic, as well as the fashion for the club as a pendant or earrings in ancient jewelry.66 ATHENA THOERIS The mingling of Egyptian and Greco-Roman references can be more pronounced. A red jasper gem in a private collection (Fig. 10.12)67

Figure 10.12 Private collection, red jasper, second–third century AD, 17.0 mm × 14.0 mm × 2.0 mm. Photo: Magdalena Depowska. 65 Fulg. Mythologies 2.2 (trans. L. Whitebread, Ohio State University Press). In Hebrew, the word scharar, the belly button, is a euphemism for the female sex, as in the Song of Solomon 7:3. 66 See, e.g., the set from Augusta Raurica from a woman’s tomb: Dasen 2015b, 108, Fig. 3.17. On gold clubs as protection, see Ramanzini 2016. Cf. the Bona Dea fecundity rites (involving a phallus) presided over by a woman named Lyde, who recalls Omphale: Juv. Satires 2.139-42; Mastrocinque 2014b, 25–6, 33–4, 56–62. On the additional symbolism of the knot, see Dasen 2020. 67 CBd-1187; Dasen 2019c; Dasen 2015b, 301–2, Fig. 10.11; Wagner and Boardman 2003, no. 576, pl. 75.

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involves a well-known Greek deity in a seemingly new story. On the main side stands a helmeted Athena wielding with both hands a double axe or labrys in order to strike a gigantic snake rising before her. Her legs are slightly bent, suggesting the weight of the weapon, as well as the impact of the strike. Her swift movement is stressed by her floating dress and raised foot behind. Behind the goddess are two children, each holding a hand to the mouth, squat in a typical Egyptian posture and crowned with the solar disk, indicating their divine status. Above Athena, an inscription names Thoeris, the Hellenized form of Taweret, ‘The Great One,’ the Egyptian hippopotamus goddess. Neither the reverse nor the sides are carved. The scene, however, presents a number of characteristics that place it in the series of magical gems. It combines the power of the material, red jasper, and involves a fighting deity, Athena. Moreover, the name Thoeris is carved in a positive, not retrograde way, as is ordinary on magical gems. Finally, the mingling of Egyptian tradition (Thoeris, the double axe, the twin children, the snake) and Greek tradition (Athena) is typical of the transcultural milieu of magic. The scene can be read with Greek or Egyptian eyes. In Roman-period glyptic, Athena-Minerva is normally armed with a spear and a shield, and snakes are not her usual adversaries, except in scenes of the gigantomachy with snake-legged giants.68 The labrys is associated with her in the Hellenistic calligram (technopaignia) by Simias of Rhodes.69 Epeios dedicates his labrys to Athena as a weapon that qualifies her as a manly warrior, androthea.70 In Roman Egypt, the weapon characterizes male heroes and deities.71 Images of Athena with a double axe are especially common in the Oxyrhynchite nome.72 On coins, Athena, holding a Nike,73 stands, brandishing a labrys; on lead tokens, she strikes the snake (Fig. 10.13).74 These resemblances allow us to suggest that the gem most likely originated in Oxyrhynchus where the Greeks identified Athena with the hippopotamus goddess Thoeris.75 The main cult place of Thoeris was installed in the town by the end of the first century AD. This interpretatio Graeca is based on several common points between the deities. Both were guardians

68 On the Promachos and Palladion types, see LIMC II, s.v. Athena, 82–102 no. 399, pl. 749 (P. Demargne). 69 Anth. Pal. 15.22. 70 Philostr. Imag. no. 27. See the iconography collected by Viret-Bernal 2007, 29–47. 71 Wood panel, AD 215, Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum 1934.6: Rondot 2013, 199–202 (with illustrations), and for statistics, 330–2. 72 Geissen and Weber 2013, 163–72, pl. VIII, nos.74–5 (Hadrian); nos. 76–7 (Antoninus Pius). 73 The earliest issue dates to Domitian (AD 91–2). Aes, Antoninus (AD 144/5), RPC IV, 15213, available at (last accessed 22 August 2020). I am grateful to Richard Veymiers for this information. 74 Milne 1908, 287. I thank Dr. E. Stolyarik for her precious help. 75 Quaegebeur et al. 1985.

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Figure 10.13 New York, American Numismatic Society 1944.100.79822, lead token, third century AD. Photo: American Numismatic Society.

of fecundity and childbirth, as well as fighters with a manly dimension.76 Thoeris cared for pregnancy, delivery, and the prosperity of family life.77 Her Egyptian form combined the head of a hippopotamus with a pregnant human body, human breast, human or feline arms, the legs and feet of a lion, and the back of a crocodile. Like Athena, she was depicted armed, holding a large knife to protect Horus the child, and hence all children.78 Likewise, Athena was identified with Neith, another Egyptian goddess characterized as a warrior, and patron of craftsmen, especially weavers, like Athena.79 Neith and Athena also share a special relation to snakes, and were associated with divine bodily fluids. The begetting of the snake Erichthonios from the sperm of Hephaistos ejaculated onto Athena’s leg can be compared with that of Apophis, born from the spit of Neith.80 In the Hymn to Neith in Esna, the goddess watches over nestling twins, Shu and Tefnut, also revered in Oxyrhynchus. On the gem, the crowns of the squatting children identify them with the youthful Shu and Tefnut.81 76 Like a male deity, she uses as a stick, associated with male authority and power, the hieroglyphic life sign ankh, or the protection sign sa of enlarged size. See Vandier 1962. 77 See, e.g., P. Oxy III, 528 (second century AD): Vernus and Yoyotte 2005, 686–97. 78 The goddess is seldom featured on magical gems, but she has been very frequently used as an amulet since the first millennium BC. See Herrmann and Staubli 2010, 80–2 n. 38. 79 Hdt. 2.111. 80 Philostr. VA 7.24; Paus. 1.24.6 describes the snake at the feet of Pheidias’ statue. 81 On this hymn, see Sauneron 1962, 111, §6.

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The red color of the jasper may refer to the destruction of Apophis, the enemy of the sun-god, Re. In some variants, an anonymous goddess slayed the monster. In the Late Period, the red color of Gebel Ahmar, the mountain near Heliopolis, was said to be the remains of the mineralized blood of the gigantic snake.82 Two and even three deities thus mingle on the gem: Athena in her Greek guise, Thoeris in the inscription, and Neith as a combatant assimilated with Thoeris. The double-axe fighter and the twins are involved in a story according to the tradition of historiola, where the magos enacts healing or protection as a fight.83 The combined action of Athena–Thoeris–Neith constructs a new visual discourse about the protection of children, and possibly also of motherhood. CONCLUSION The innovation of Roman-period gem engravers is based on a number of iconic strategies. Major stories are diverted thanks to inscriptions performing metaphorical transfers, as is the case for Herakles and the bile, or Perseus and the podagra. Stock figures, such as Tithonus and the cicada, are combined using the iconography of pygmies and of old age in order to convey new messages. The mingling of different traditions, Egyptian and Greco-Roman, also allows the construction of a new transcultural visual language, as we see with Omphale fighting a donkey or Athena/Thoeris killing the snake. Are these new images narratives, or is another type of performance at work? As David Frankfurter demonstrated,84 they are not remnants of lost myths, but witness a lived religious tradition, able to renew itself continuingly. In each case, the logic guiding the engravers’ choices is a very skillful adaptation of old schemes and stories to new situations, with reference to a complex range of knowledge – medical, astrological, or magical – allowing the figure to be efficient against a specific category of disease, such as bellyache or podagra. This combination of material, color, pictures, and signs composes forms of glyphs, as coined by Carlo Severi in his studies on oral traditions to describe this kind of meaningful transformation of images into signs.85 These new images express individual concerns about health and eschatology. They also convey new social and religious aspirations that reflect the rise of care for the self or souci de soi in the late Republican and Imperial periods.

82 83 84 85

Etienne 2000, 27; Yoyotte 1980, 84–90. Frankfurter 2009, 229–47; Frankfurter 1995. Frankfurter 1995. Severi 2004.

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11 GREEK COIN ICONOGRAPHY IN CONTEXT: EIGHT SPECIFICITIES THAT DIFFERENTIATE THEM FROM OTHER VISUAL MEDIA* François de Callataÿ Small and the result of an industrial process, Greek coins were struck in billions and are kept now by millions in private and public hands. They were also made to circulate in the open air, passing from hand to hand in military camps and in the Agora. So in terms of quantity and diffusion, they easily outweigh vases, as well as any other kind of artifact. This chapter aims to offer a status quaestionis of old and recent research on Greek coin iconography, focusing on the primary and secondary beneficiaries (the viewers) of such a vast repertoire of types. These specificities or characteristics are grouped into eight entries, proceeding from the immaterial concept to the material production, first at the mint, then in circulation: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

A state-controlled production; An iconography made to generate trust; Soldiers often as the first beneficiaries; Coins are small and round; A unique combination of image and text, resulting in better chronologies; 6. A proliferation of images for the same type; 7. The only category of visual art that we may think to be complete; and 8. A unique diffusion: geographically, chronologically, and socially.

The language of images has already been thoroughly investigated for vases (with François Lissarrague playing a seminal role) or sculptures,1

* The author is most grateful to Keith Rutter for his helpful comments and for having revised the English of this manuscript. 1 To quote a few, now classic, monographs, see Stewart 1993; T. Hölscher 1987; Zanker 1987.

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but less so for coins until recently.2 The chief aim of the present chapter is to insist on the existence of a peculiar Bildsprache for coins, and provide an invitation to take advantage of its specificities. Coin images are indeed not sculptured or painted images. For a proper understanding of their meaning, we need to keep in mind the specific constraints of this medium. These specificities are here presented with special attention to the differences from images found on other kinds of artifacts such as gems, clay seals, or vases. This chapter also focuses on the consequences for the art historian and a systematic insistence on the framework of quantification with which we are dealing. A STATE-CONTROLLED PRODUCTION Coins were officially produced in ancient Greece by issuing authorities: city-states, federal states, leagues, or rulers. With some possible rare exceptions, it does not seem that free mintage was authorized.3 In other words, the choice of monetary types had to be approved by local authorities. We know, in fact, very little about the modalities of such choices, but the margin of creativity for the artist (who may have been different from the engraver) was clearly limited. The implications of this production source and process for the coins are twofold: on the one hand, coins are characterized by a remarkable and depressing lack of humor. There is no burlesque and little visual fantasy,4 as may occur on vases, and as Stefan Schmidt evokes for the Theban Kabirion (see Chapter 17, pp. 376–99).5 The only case of the grotesque – the exception that proves the rule – is in central Italy during the first half of the first century BC when – because Rome had stopped striking bronze coins – we observe an efflorescence of strange types which look “unofficial.”6 On the other hand, coins offer a remarkable mirror for constructed identities. They display how the issuing powers wished to be seen and perceived. They appear as deliberate testimonies of their time and, as such,

2 For Roman coinages, see, e.g., Manders 2012; Noreña 2011; Beckmann 2009; Howgego et al. 2005; Hekster 2003. For Greek coinages, see, e.g., Iossif 2014; Iossif 2011; Ritter 2002. See the proceedings of three recent conferences: Iossif et al. 2018; Krmnicek and Elkins 2014; Lykke 2013. 3 De Callataÿ 2005. 4 For a rare exception to the rule, see the silver tetradrachms issued by Himera c. 440–430/25 BC, where on the reverse we see in field left the nymph Himera holding a patera over an altar, while in field right we see a satyr bathing in a fountain with lionheaded spout. 5 See A. Mitchell 2009; Walsh 2009. 6 On this, see the many papers of Clive Stannard and Suzanne Frey-Kupper.

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they are much more reliable than posterior and partisan literary sources. If compared with other visual sources, coin types as an iconographic genre appear to be the most controlled one. As argued by Bert Smith, statues of Hellenistic rulers may have been offered by local civic authorities to please them, without any real control over their physiognomic resemblance.7 Such a thing is less likely with official mints operating under strict supervision, if only because of the necessity to control, at least, weights and alloys. AN ICONOGRAPHY MADE TO GENERATE TRUST Second, in terms of purpose, coins are best defined as financial tools to purchase commodities. This simple fact has important consequences for the iconographic repertoire. It would be misleading to prioritize propagandistic agenda before economic pragmatism. This basic reality has been nicely phrased by Erik Christiansen: I still conclude that, as a rule, the Roman emperors did not mint coins to produce a message. It is the other way round: when they – for some reason or another – had decided to strike a coinage, they (or whoever it was) made a deliberate choice of which types to use. Events created types, but we should not let types create events that are not otherwise documented.8 In ancient times, as today, trust is essential for conducting business. Conversely, users dislike being surprised by what they do not know. Translated into monetary terms, trust functions as a pronounced inhibitor of visual creativity. Hence coinages are often characterized by immobile types of which Athenian owls offer the best example. Even when the type was created at the end of the sixth century, it was already – and we may suppose intentionally – greatly disconnected from the current state of artistic production. What we called the ‘Alexanders’ (all the coins struck with the types created by Alexander the Great) provide another classical example. For two and a half centuries after the death of Alexander, these coins – since they had long been recognized as the mercenary payment par excellence – were still issued on the western shore of the Black Sea. Beyond these two emblematic cases, Greek coinages abound in immobile types.9 Recent numismatic studies go further: not only did victorious kings not seek to systematically remove the coin portraits of their defeated 7 R. Smith 1988. 8 E. Christiansen 2004, 23. 9 On this, see C. Boehringer 2011.

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enemies,10 but we also now recognize a series of cases where they decided to continue issuing coins with the types of their enemies, with the inescapable implication that trust was more important than the possibilities coins may have afforded their propagandistic agenda.11 An additional way to argue for trust as the key word for monetary matters, including iconographic concerns, is to look at the rare cases where we observe a diversity of types: the electrum coinages of Cyzicus, Mytilene, and Phokaia.12 It is remarkable that these coinages all benefited from the privilege of monopoly: as we know with certainty from epigraphic evidence, no other coinages were accepted on the territory where these coins circulated. In other words, it looks as though the issuing powers could diversify the images if, and only if, the danger of confusion did not exist for the users, because only a single coinage was accepted for transactions.13 Trust is not only responsible for some iconographic banality. It also plays a decisive role in the very nature of the chosen images. Since coins are pieces of metal whose monetary value is higher than the value of the metal (to absorb the production costs and to make a profit), they create a natural distrust from the users, who need to be reassured, and this is all the more so with coins of high fiduciary value, such as bronze coins. That best explains why the repertory of Greek coin types is so heavily dominated by gods and goddesses. They are the ultimate guarantors of the exchange. Anyone who may be tempted to cheat his/her trade partner is doing so under the eye of the most revered authority.14 The predominance of religious types is so conspicuous that it led in the nineteenth century to the development of the now discarded idea that Greek coins were struck by temples and sanctuaries, which were regarded as “the first capitalists.”15 Advocating a much more pragmatic context, one that is much less programmatic,16 recent studies in the field of Greek coin iconography have downplayed the role of coins as the best support for propaganda. 10 See de Callataÿ 2018. 11 As a paroxysmal example, the full monetary action of the Romans in Greece and in the East remained entirely disguised behind Hellenistic and royal coinages (see de Callataÿ 2016a; de Callataÿ 2011). 12 Other cases include the Athenian ‘Wappenmünzen’; the Roman Republican denarii after c. 150 BC; and, to a lesser extent, the double sigloi of Mallos under Persian rule. 13 For a totally different kind of explanation where coin iconographic ‘liveliness’ is linked to political instability, see Wallace-Hadrill 1986, 70. 14 See already Head 1887, LVI (“the sacred emblem of the god whose dreaded name was thus invoked to vouch for the good faith of the issuer”). 15 See Curtius 1870, 93: “The gods were the first capitalists in Greece, their temples were the earliest banks”; Curtius 1869; Burgon 1837. Curtius was not afraid to provide a general narrative for the spread of coinage: not only from temple to cities, but also from East to West, giving a pivotal role to Astarte/Aphrodite (and Sardis) in her march to Greece. 16 Top-down approaches, derived from structuralism (see Caltabiano 2011; Caltabiano 2007; Caltabiano 2000, as well as Pérez 1985; Pérez 1984), have not been received favourably.

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SOLDIERS OFTEN AS THE FIRST BENEFICIARIES Third, coinage was mostly produced by issuing authorities to match state expenditures, which, in turn, automatically means that until the nineteenth century AD it was mostly for military expenditures for nearly all societies. As argued for a long time for Roman Imperial coinages and Hellenistic royal coinages in precious metals, the payment of soldiers was by far the most important reason for striking coins.17 Briefly said, the last two decades have seen the extension of that scenario to bronze royal coinages,18 as well as to many civic coinages. Entire monetary landscapes appear now as motivated by supra-civic military considerations.19 Conversely, attempts to link Greek coinages with democracy, the creation of new cities, or the performance of cults, have little support.20 It is very important to realize that Greek coin iconography as a whole was first shaped not for citizens, traders, believers, or pilgrims, but for soldiers.21 What was the impact of this? Not much on the nature of the images themselves, dominated as they were by the key concept of trust that applied to everybody. Although there is no lack of helmets,22 shields, spears, bows, and arrows (but not a single representation of a siege machine), the repertory of coin images is largely dominated by gods and heroes (with Hellenistic kings as late substitutes) who, as argued, are placed there to guarantee the exchange.23 Nor was there an impact on the artistic level, as proved by the coins themselves, since the most praised types in terms of beauty were made “for the brutes.” But apart from other clear extra-iconographic implications, such as the choice of metal and denomination, there may have been other visible consequences of the fact that soldiers were the first beneficiaries. It could affect the image, as we are invited to conclude when we compare portraits on coins with those on clay seals. Indeed, when Helmut Kyrieleis and Dimitris Plantzos both independently argue that Ptolemaic kings are more 17 18 19 20

For other causes, see Howgego 1990. Psoma 2009. See de Callataÿ forthcoming; de Callataÿ 2017; de Callataÿ 2016a; de Callataÿ 2011. The best alternative scenario to military payments as a means to put coins into circulation was a closed monetary economy where foreigners were forced to change their coins against the local currency, the only one accepted. Such a situation is famously documented by the letter of Demetrios, the mintmaster at Alexandria, to Apollonios (P. Cair. Zen. I 59021). But it cannot be reconciled with the general pattern of monetary strikes in the Greek world, characterized most of the time by an extreme versatility and an ephemeral nature. 21 See, e.g., Sheedy 2007, 15: “the key-target was inevitably the army.” 22 For shields as a type closely linked with mercenaries, see Castrizio 2007. 23 However, it should be noted that Ares, the god of war, is particularly discrete among them, less than 1/10th of Apollo and 1/20th of Herakles (it should be remembered that both Apollo and Herakles also have military aspects).

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Egyptianized on clay seals found at Paphos and Edfu than on coins,24 it is tempting to comment: “because coins were struck for Greek or Hellenized mercenaries.” It could also affect the text. In Hellenistic times, armies were often composite, mixing troops from various provenances and languages. Consequently, the fact that legends are systematically in Greek, even on Parthian coinages, might above all reflect this diversity and the need to use a supra-national lingua franca, rather than to be taken at face value, as a sign of Greek cultural identity. COINS ARE SMALL AND ROUND Fourth, Greek coins are small and round. This introduces an important twofold constraint: there is simply no place for elaborate images, and types have to embrace some general circularity. This of course considerably reduces artistic creativity and generates a large amount of schematism, even if Greek engravers have always been largely acclaimed as the most successful of all time in dealing with such constraints.25 Greek coins are truly miniature masterpieces,26 something made even clearer now by modern technology in its capacity to produce great enlargements for small objects. As a response to the round format, Greek die engravers made frequent use of heads, hence promoting a form of serene classicism which so delighted Winckelmann and the following generations of art historians. Without much emotional content, this kind of monetary device greatly contributed to “the noble simplicity and quiet grandeur” extolled by Winckelmann. In a way, Greek coins are not a world of narrative images, since very few of them tell a story, even if we observe a certain level of higher complexity over time which can be briefly summarized as: first, the heads of gods during Archaic and Classical times; then their bodies during Hellenistic times; finally, gods in action on provincial Roman coinage.27 Yet coins are two-sided, and one should always consider how these two sides interact with each other. This is not exactly to say that, as in the Renaissance tradition, the reverse is the moral portrait of the obverse, but there is clearly some logic, which makes coins specific iconic documents. 24 Kyrieleis 2015; Plantzos 2011. But see Fulińska 2010 for the Egyptian style on coins. 25 See de Callataÿ 2016b. 26 As was repeatedly underlined during the years 1870–1940, with prominent contributions by Seltman 1949; Rizzo 1946; Rizzo 1938; Regling 1924; De Ciccio 1922; Gardner 1883; Poole 1876; Head 1874. 27 See O. Picard 1991; Vorreiter 1976.

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A UNIQUE COMBINATION OF IMAGE AND TEXT RESULTING IN BETTER CHRONOLOGIES Fifth, coins present a unique combination of image and text, rarely found on other categories of media. As this text – the monetary legend – usually gives the name of the issuing authority, it provides a decisive advantage over vases or sculptures in terms of contextualizing the document. Coins are generally better dated than any other category of artifacts. That is why they occupied such a prominent place in historical studies for centuries. The antiquarian quarrel famously described by Arnaldo Momigliano between the tenants of literary sources (the philologists) on the one side and the tenants of the material culture on the other for a long time (before the development of scientific archaeology) gave a prominent role to numismatists well before the turn of the eighteenth century.28 Since the mid-sixteenth century, numismatists were the natural spearheads of what would 150 years later be called ‘la querelle des antiquaries,’ very recently requalified as the ‘material turn.’ But there is more. We are accustomed to live in a world where, if there is an image with a text, we display the image in order to be able to read the text. Ancient Greek coins sometimes offer the opposite. If we consider all the coin issues with a thunderbolt – that is, a long thin object (like a club or a caduceus/kerykeion) – we can observe that these thunderbolts have been systematically placed horizontally in modern publications, which is normal because it makes it easy to read the inscriptions. Now, if you consider the die-axis of these issues – an important technical parameter about which I once wrote a full book29 – it turns out that nearly all these thunderbolts were originally conceived to be seen vertically (because these issues belong to coinages for which the twelve o’clock die-axis was a habit adopted much earlier. So, unlike the modern way of proceeding, it does seem that we observe here a primacy of the image over the text (which comes as it may).30 Very few documents allow the determination of that kind of primacy, and I leave to others the risky task of exploring further such a broad cultural statement. A PROLIFERATION OF IMAGES FOR THE SAME TYPE Sixth, a big advantage of coins is to provide not one image, but a group of many variants for the same image, with special emphasis on portraits and buildings. 28 Momigliano 1950. 29 De Callataÿ 1996. 30 De Callataÿ and Gerin 1992.

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This is a direct consequence of quantity. Even with an average productivity of many thousands of coins per die, most issues required the engraving of many dies, sometimes hundreds. We may estimate the total number of dies cut for ancient Greek coinages to be in the range of hundreds of thousands for the obverses and nearly one million for the reverses. There is a richness here that has often been neglected. If we think of sculptured portraits of Hellenistic rulers, coins not only provide better coverage, with monetary representation of three-quarters of them,31 but they also furnish much more abundant material: two orders of magnitude above what sculpture could provide.32 Indeed, while we have some 120 sculptured heads of Hellenistic kings and queens (a tiny portion of what once existed),33 we have some 10,000 obverse dies with a Hellenistic ruler, each of them signifying a deliberate attempt to represent the ruler under certain constraints. What should interest the art historian is not picking the one that most resembles her/his anepigraphic sculptured portrait, but observing the variety of these coin portraits in order to define the spectrum of what was considered acceptable or not. There is much more to learn if we do that than if we single out the most similar resemblance. In addition, dies were sometimes recut, clearly intentionally, as with an obverse die issued at Antioch depicting the Seleukid king Alexander II Zabinas, to whom long locks of hair have been added. In addition, dies were sometimes recut, in certain cases with noticeable modifications that appear intentional and meaningful. THE ONLY CATEGORY OF VISUAL ART THAT WE MAY THINK TO BE COMPLETE Seventh, coins are the only category of visual art that we may regard as complete. Greek coins were struck in huge quantities. To give a secure order of magnitude, we estimate the number of all Greek coins struck in the course of six centuries at more than 10 billion and the number now preserved in public and private hands at more than 10 million.34 31 C. 60 out of c. 80. Coin portraits have always attracted a lot of interest (with approximately forty bibliographic entries every year: see Dahmen 2009 (201 entries for the years 2002–7: 57 entries grouped under the title “Herrscherbild und Portrait” and 144 for “Bildsprache”). 32 As impressively demonstrated by Kyrieleis (2015), this is also true for clay seals, with c. 1,000 portraits of Ptolemaic rulers out of a grand total of c. 11,000 clay seals found in the House of Dionysos at Nea Paphos (Cyprus), excavated in 1970. 33 We know from epigraphic evidence that there were more than seventy sculptures of Hellenistic rulers at Delos alone. 34 On this, see de Callataÿ 2012, 235–6. These numbers should be multiplied by ten for the Roman Empire. Compare with the c. 300,000 photographs of Greek vases kept at the Beazley Archives in Oxford and the c. 40,000 photographs kept at the Trendall archives in La Trobe University in Melbourne.

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That means a general survival ratio in the range of 1 out of 1,000, as the result of an industrial process in which every obverse die was responsible for an average production of c. 20,000 coins for silver and c. 10,000 for bronze. Such an average survival ratio is not that impressive in itself. It is much lower than the 1% which has been postulated for Panathenaic amphorae or portraits of Augustus.35 But, as the initial production was so huge, coins provide the only case for which we possess more than 99 percent of all types ever produced. There is no shipwreck here, and the field of numismatics is definitely a good client for digital humanities. Because we have the full spectrum of all images produced, we may statistically contextualize in a less adventurous way, following various strategies. (1) We may take the full corpus, comparing relative frequencies of gods through time using general databases;36 (2) we may compare the full numismatic corpus with other corpora such as the Beazley Archive for gems and vases;37 (3) we may also increasingly rely on specific numismatic databases, which allow more thorough investigation of contexts. The two databases built by Panagiotis Iossif for Seleukid coins found in hoards (SHD) and in excavations (SED) are exemplary in this respect.38 A UNIQUE DIFFUSION: GEOGRAPHICALLY, CHRONOLOGICALLY, AND SOCIALLY Eighth and last, coins are small monuments made of non-perishable materials and expressly issued to circulate. They are not the only kind of artifact for which a large dispersion can be observed. Impressive dispersal maps could also be drawn for amphora stamps or some types of decorated vases. But, in several respects, coins offer better evidence for statistical treatment than any other category of Greek artifact. There is again a question of quantity: more than 5,000 Greek coin deposits from Spain to Afghanistan have been recorded so far, for a grand total of more than one million coins.39 This large body of evidence not 35 For Panathenaic amphorae, see Bentz 1998 (c. 1,800 Panathenaic amphoras distributed every four years; c. 1,500 now preserved out of grand total of c. 1.5 million = c. 1 percent). For Roman Imperial portraits of Augustus, see Pfanner 1989, 157–257, esp. pp. 178–9: c. 25,000/50,000 portraits of August produced between 30 BC and AD 14 (c. 500/1,000 portraits every year – one portrait every two years for each city). 36 As MANTIS for the American Numismatic Society or the SNG for England: see de Callataÿ 2018; de Callataÿ 2016c; de Callataÿ 2012, 236–7. 37 See de Callataÿ 2018; de Callataÿ 2016c; Iossif 2014. 38 For single finds in the Greek world, three large databases have been recently created: Suzanne Frey-Kupper for Sicily (Frey-Kupper 2013: c. 15,000 coins); Panagiotis Iossif for the Seleukids (to appear: 8,334 coins, out of which 8,273 bronzes [i.e., 99 percent] from eighty sites in his ‘Seleucid Excavation Database’ = SED; information kindly provided by the author); and Thomas Faucher for the Ptolemies (Faucher 2011: 2,688 coins, out of which 2,599 bronzes [i.e., 97 percent] from thirty-six sites). 39 Besides deposits, archaeological excavations have also produced rich material, sometimes well above 10,000 coins as in Athens, Corinth, or Thasos.

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only exceeds in size and dispersal what could be gathered for other kinds of media, but also has already been largely integrated into a database, which greatly facilitates most kinds of queries (http://coinhoards.org/). There is also a chronological element that makes coins unique in terms of diffusion: they often circulated for a long time, much longer than amphora handle stamps, for example. This longevity of circulation complicates their use for dating stratigraphy, but at the same time introduces a multiplier factor in terms of potential viewers. But the real difference with other media is qualitative in two ways. First, coins may have very long biographies.40 They may be first used as economic tools before acquiring other functions such as decorative41 or prophylactic (for example, on a piece of clothing or deposited in a grave).42 Long neglected by research, these anthropological aspects linked to the refinement of field archaeology and the scrupulous study of microcontexts is now booming.43 Coins may even be reused as economic tools a millennium later. They have also been reproduced in terracotta.44 So, in terms of agency, they form a fascinating category of objects that could experience many lives.45 Second, in terms of diffusion, coins appear as the most socially invasive medium among the visual arts, percolating through all layers of society and not excepting the rural world. Although it is difficult to grasp accurately the degree to which societies in ancient Greece were monetized (various forms of barter continued to be widely used), it turns out that the world described by ancient authors was a world where you had to pay in real coins for most basic commodities or services. In the Asinaria, one of the most famous plays of Plautus, the courtesan Cleaereta declares: Daylight, water, the sun, the moon, the night, these things I purchase not with money; the rest, whatever we wish to enjoy, we purchase on Grecian trust (“Graeca fide”). When we ask bread of the baker, wine from the wineshop, if they receive the money, they give their wares; the same principle do I go upon.46 For Plautus, to sell “the Greek way” means to be paid in cash immediately, and that includes daily transactions.47 Other passages in Theophrastus 40 On this trendy aspect of research since Kopytoff 1986, see, e.g., Haselgrove and Krmnicek 2012; Kemmers and Myrberg 2011; Krmnicek 2009. 41 See Serafin Petrillo 1993. 42 For Greek coins in funerary contexts, see already Stefanakis 2002. 43 For a fine example of what could be done, see already Duchemin 2012. For the role colors may have played among beneficiaries, see Myrberg 2010. 44 Mannino 1993. 45 The word ‘agency’ refers to Albert Gell (1998). On this, see Whitley 2012. 46 Plaut. Asin. 198–203. 47 See de Callataÿ 2015.

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and Herodas confirm that the Hellenistic world was a highly monetized society where one had to pay in cash to buy on the market, since “as the saying goes, it is not words, but bronze coins, which pay the bills.”48 It was a world where one needed coins to go to the baths,49 to attend the theater,50 to pay the schoolmaster,51 or to hire a slave for the day.52 Most plots of Plautus are simply inconceivable without the possibility to steal or loan real coins. Moreover, even beyond urban contexts, such a high level of monetization has also been partly confirmed by recent research for the countryside. As a result, because of their abundance and wide diffusion, coin types are potentially active agents in the process of building identity. In other words, and in current terminology, they have a high performative function.53 TOWARD A CONCLUSION: COINS ARE SPECIAL In a recent stimulating paper, Achim Lichtenberger asked the rhetorical question: “what if the ‘Augustus of Primaporta’ were a coin?”54 If the Augustus of Primaporta were a coin, he answers, we would have an inscription giving the context: where, when, and by whom it was fabricated. We would not make a mistake about the scene depicted on the cuirass, wondering whether it is linked or not with the return of the Roman military standards taken by the Parthians, and we would know what exactly Augustus holds in his left hand. To these remarks we may add that, if distinguishable, Augustus would certainly not have been presented barefoot, which is inappropriate in a military context, and that, as suggested by a comparison of bronzes of Nero issued in Rome and Lyon, such a gesture of adlocutio better fits the mint of Rome, where the emperor was physically present.55 So, in many respects, coins as visual sources are special. Better contextualized by nature than most other media and documented in huge numbers, they have greatly contributed to forming the chronological backbone of our historical knowledge. 48 49 50 51 52 53

Herod. 7.49–50 (the cobbler). Faucher and Redon 2014. Theophr. 6.4, 9.5, 30.6. Theophr. 30.14 (meanness); Herod. 3.9–10 (the schoolteacher). Theophr. 30.15 (meanness). Kemmers and Myrberg 2011, 96–100. For Greek coinages, see Papadopoulos 2002 (who argues along that line for Magna Graecia); Yarrow 2013. 54 Lichtenberger 2017. Under the subtitle ‘Coins are special,’ he lists the following reasons: (1) coins were produced in large quantities; (2) coins are an inseparable combination of text, image, and object; (3) issuing powers are known; (4) coins are very often dated; (5) coins are usually whole and intact; (6) coins are mobile objects. 55 Van Heesch 2018. This is a fascinating case: on one side, it cannot be denied that a certain level of intentionality has been exerted in selecting coin types for Lyon to compare with Rome, but this level seems to have been kept very basic: a short set of images to sell ‘Roman civilization’ abroad, avoiding features which can only be experienced in Rome (as scenes of annona or adlocutio).

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PART V CLAY AND STONE: MATERIAL MATTERS

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12 PARAGONE? XENOPHON, SOKRATES, AND QUINTILIAN ON GREEK PAINTING AND SCULPTURE* Andrew Stewart

For François, Judy, and Tonio And in memoriam J. K. Anderson Comparison, interaction, and rivalry among the arts, a Western cultural trope since the paragone debates of the Renaissance, rejuvenated by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing two and a half centuries ago,1 and the main theme of this volume, have strong roots in ancient literary discourse. The earliest extant example, in Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Sokrates (3.10–11), records four conversations between the philosopher and the painter Parrhasios, the sculptor Kleitōn, the armorer Pistias, and the courtesan Theodotē that inter alia seem to rank their respective specialties in exactly that descending order. Five centuries later, Quintilian (Inst. Or. 12.10.3–9), while referencing this passage, claims the opposite (armor and seduction excluded). The following pages explore this discrepancy in the light of the two critics’ differing dates, perspectives, and critical agendas. Now, in a classic essay from the early 1970s, the great art historian E. H. Gombrich floated the proposal (borrowed from the literary critic E. D. Hirsch) that “the intended meaning of a work can only be established * Owing to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to attend Images at the Crossroads. I thank Judy Barringer and François Lissarrague for forgiving my absence and inviting me nevertheless to contribute to the present volume; thanks also to Whitney Davis, Martin Dorka Moreno, Seth Estrin, John Ferrari, Tonio Hölscher, Isabelle Pafford, Jim Porter, Rolf Schneider, and seminar participants in Tübingen and Heidelberg for their generous comments on my text and helpful suggestions for improvement. With one or two exceptions, its references were last updated in February 2018; the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020, and the subsequent lockdown of the Berkeley campus pre-empted the last-minute revisions that I had planned for that summer. For any errors of omission or commission that remain, I plead mea culpa. For the Renaissance paragone debate, see Plett 2004, 297–364; Goffen 2002; M. Kemp 2001; Ames-Lewis 2000; Mendelsohn 1982; and most conveniently 2020). (last accessed 4 August 2021). 1 Lessing 1766.

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once we have decided what category or genre . . . the work in question was intended to belong to.”2 Yet these two comparative discussions of Greek painting and sculpture, the most important in ancient literature, and enormously influential even though they conflict in key respects, are seldom dicussed from this perspective.3 Most art historians and archaeologists seem unused to considering them in this way; most philosophers and philologists seem uninterested in the visual arts; and each party seldom cites the others.4 XENOPHON Xenophon (c. 430–after 355 BC)5 may have completed his Memorabilia after 371 BC, since one passage (3.5) has been thought to assume the military situation after the Spartan defeat at the Battle of Leuktra in that year. (Moreover, as will appear, 3.10.1 may show knowledge of Plato’s Republic, published around 380 BC.) By then, he had left Athens for Asia in 401 BC; saved the Ten Thousand from death or enslavement in Persia in 399 BC; fought for the Spartans upon his return; been exiled from Athens for treason in 394 BC; and eventually retired to an estate near Olympia. As a result, his perspective on the Athenian art scene was somewhat dated by the time of writing – though as a vivid, first-hand glimpse of what its late fifth-century Athenian public cared about, it is no less precious for that. In a book-length study published in 1998, Vivienne Gray revived the ancient Greek tradition that the Memorabilia (Άπομνημονεύματα or Reminiscences: D. L. 2.48) blends an extended defense of Sokrates, his life, and his teachings with significant doses of the ancient genre of wisdom literature, first attested in the third millennium BC. For “in the rhetorical defense of the wise man, these [reminiscences] constituted the essential proof of the excellence of his instruction.”6 Since the Delphic

2 Woodfield 1996 (repr.), 462; Gombrich 1972, 5. 3 Porter 2010; D. Steiner 2001; Goldhill 1998; Neumeister 1990; Preisshofen 1974; and Austin 1944 are honorable exceptions. 4 Select bibliography: Dorion 2011, 362–94; E. Mansfield 2007, 8–9, 156; D. Steiner 2001, 32–5; Gray 1998, 142–6; Goldhill 1998; Brancacci 1997; Rouveret 1989, 14–15, 34–5, 129–35, 157, 442; Preisshofen 1974; Pollitt 1974, 30–1, 184–5, 169–70, 177–8, 218, 258–9; Strauss 1972, 83–9; Sörbom 1966, 80–98; Delatte 1933, 131–61. 5 In this section, all dates are BC and all references are to the Memorabilia unless otherwise stated. Translations are taken from the Loeb Classical Library online edition by J. Henderson (https://www.loebclassics.com/), corrected and adapted as necessary. Xenophon completed his last work, the Poroi, in 355 BC; the date of his death is unknown. 6 Gray 1998, 107–113, at p. 108; reservations, Johnson 2017, 126. On Xenophon as fairly representative of ‘the average educated Greek’ of this period, see Preisshofen 1974, 27; Sörbom 1966, 77 (unjustly deeming him a bungler).

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Oracle supposedly had pronounced Sokrates the wisest man alive,7 such a collection would prove his utility – indeed, indispensability – to citizen and (ungrateful) city alike as a teacher. He was, in other words, a universal benefactor, or euergetēs, to the city and its people.8 Last but by no means least (one might argue), since Xenophon himself also strove mightily to prove his worth at this endeavor during his exile, the Memorabilia may now join his own didactic treatises on cavalry command (Hipparchikos), horsemanship (Peri Hippikēs), hunting (Kynēgetikos), household management (Oikonomikos), ways and means (Poroi), and education (Kyropaidia). Their non-too-subtle subtext, in other words, may be that Sokrates the useful sage of Athens begat Xenophon the useful sage of Athens, Sparta, and the Peloponnese as a whole. Accordingly, Xenophon begins Book 3 of the Memorabilia by saying “I shall now explain how [Sokrates] helped those who were eager to win distinction by making them qualify themselves for the honors they aimed for” (3.1.1). The philosopher first persuades some grotesquely unqualified office-seekers to get educated, and then instructs them further so that they can be of potential use to the city. Next, he tackles a hotchpotch of other civically relevant matters, such as house design, temple sites, courage, justice, power, luck, and so on, showing throughout that he alone understands what is good (kalon) both in particular and in general, and promoting an instrumental or functional definition of it. Above all, it must be useful (3.8–9), just like the sage himself, so that “whenever he talked with those who pursued their technē (henceforth, “skill,” “craft,” or “occupation”) as a business, he was as useful to them as he was to others” (3.10.1).9 This sentence introduces four more conversations with a painter, sculptor, armorer, and courtesan, respectively (3.10-11). Together, they form a group and ironically gloss Sokrates’ own comment in Plato’s Apology that after going to the poets to find wisdom, he went to the artisans (technitai) and was disappointed.10 Each conversation involves a tension, even a conflict, between the visual and the verbal, between sight and logos, word

7 Plat. Apol. 21a; cf. Xen. Apol. 14, perhaps nearer the truth: “Apollo answered that no man is freer than I, or more just, or more sensible (σωφρονέστερον)”; discussion, Dorion 2006, 100–1. 8 For a history of Greek euergetism from the mid-fifth century, see Gauthier 1985. In the Memorabilia, Xenophon vastly prefers ὠφελ- (use-) and its compounds to εὐεργ- (benef-) and its compounds. A TLG search for the latter turned up twenty-one instances, mostly involving “kindnesses” to friends, but in 1.2.7 he uses it to describe Sokrates’ “benefaction” of teaching virtue to others. 9 On this Sokratic utilitarian/functional calculus, see most recently Konstan 2014, 97, 117–18, ignoring the Memorabilia. 10 Plat. Apol. 22d-e; cf. Goldhill 1998, 113, 118; Gray 1998, 144–5. Contra: Dorion 2011, 365–6, objecting that Theodotē has no technē. In fact, she does, that of “friendhunting” (philous thērasein, 3.11.7), but has yet to understand it as one or define it.

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and image; and each seeks both to define the skill in question instrumentally and to discover how it can transcend the purely superficial. Essentially, Parrhasios’ beautiful paintings and Kleitōn’s beautiful sculptures are useful to the city and its citizens since they beautify the former and delight the eyes of the latter (but could be more useful if they delved deeper); Pistias’ beautiful armor is useful since it looks and feels good, fits, and therefore protects the city’s individual warriors perfectly; and the courtesan Theodotē’s indescribably beautiful body and soul are useful since they delight its elite and make it happy. Yet she could be even more effective if she understood the craft of “friend hunting” (philous thērasein, “the noblest game in the world”: 3.11.7) properly. The amount of space that Xenophon allocates to each encounter betrays his own philosophical, military, and other interests: two (Loeb) pages to the painter (prefaced with Platonic put-downs), one only to the sculptor (ending quite abruptly), two to the armorer, and five (!) to the courtesan (enlivened by much joking and heavy Sokratic irony).11 This quartet, especially its last member, Theodotē, forms a transition between the series of mostly incompetent office-seekers and a final one of citizens selected for interrogation owing to their lifestyles (diaitai: 3.1214) and personal habits. Reaching the courtesan, Xenophon deftly closes the circle by introducing her with the words “a bystander mentioned her name, declaring that words failed him to describe the lady’s beauty, and adding that artists visited her to paint her portrait.” Intrigued, Sokrates immediately takes the bait. “So off they went to Theodotē’s house, where they found her posing before a painter, and looked on” (3.11.1-2). Half a dozen more leitmotifs strengthen these links among the four interlocutors: 1. All four have programmatic names: Parrhasios (Outspoken/ Bigmouth), Kleitōn (Renowned), Pistias (Trusty), and Theodotē (God-Given, or Diva); 2. Whereas Sokrates accosts his earlier and later victims in the street, in these cases he visits their houses and workplaces (3.10.1, 6, 9; 11.1-2);12 3. All four victims are skilled workers (3.10.1, 11.7), and trade in beauty (to kalon/kallos: 3.10.2, 6, 9; 11.1, 2, 9, 10); 4. Their occupations are human-oriented and involve an everincreasing identification with the body (sōma: 3.10.1, 2, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15; 11.10); 11 Incisively noted by Redfield (2018, 126). 12 Gray 1998, 145; Preisshofen 1974, 27. He also introduces three of the four encounters with the epic and elegiac πότε, “once,” which effectively takes them out of time and emblematizes them.

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5. They are somewhat competent at these occupations in an unreflective, ad hoc way (that is, have “right opinion” about them);13 but by the same token . . . 6. They have yet to define their occupations’ methods and goals, so have failed to grasp exactly what their potentialities are and what makes them pleasing and useful.14 Sokrates helps them to do this. The first encounter, involving the Ephesian painter Parrhasios, assumes that he is quite young and impressionable,15 and must be read against 1.4.3. There, the dwarf Aristodemos singles out five men admired for their “wisdom,” but pointedly includes a different sculptor and painter: Polykleitos (floruit c. 450–420 BC) and Zeuxis (Parrhasios’ great contemporary).16 Ever the disingenuous “gadfly,” “wise fool,” and “midwife of ideas,” Sokrates immediately confronts Parrhasios with a definition – and a setup: “Is painting an evocation (eikasia) of things seen, Parrhasios?” (3.10.1).17 Strangely, modern commentators have not noticed that this definition is quasi-Platonic, echoing the famous description of the Divided Line in the Republic (6.509e–510a). Reaching its fourth and lowest division, Sokrates defines “images of things seen” as the objects of eikasia, “evocation” or “conjecture” (Rep. 6.511e). Possibly Plato’s own coinage, eikasia itself has been defined recently as “a low, perceptual, and unreasoning kind of cognition.”18 Thus, far from enthroning painting as a “universal 13 Gray 1998, 144. 14 Dorion 2011, 377; Gray 1998, 144–5 (stressing the importance of definition); Preisshofen 1974, 30; Sørbom 1966, 81. 15 This is the simplest solution to the struggles of, e.g., Dorion (2011, 367–8), Sörbom (1966, 91), and Delatte (1933, 138), to explain why Sokrates should be teaching them their jobs. 16 Cf. Plat. Apol. 22d. On these two men, see DNO 2, 455–514 nos. 1205–94, 858–907 nos. 1710–86. Polykleitos specialized in andriantopoiia, making statues of men/people (as opposed to gods, or agalmatopoiia: distinct sculptural specializations that unwary translators usually confuse with the whole), which is precisely Kleitōn’s own métier (3.10.6). 17 Ἆρα, ἔφη, ὦ Παρράσιε, γραφική ἐστιν εἰκασία τῶν ὁρωμένων; on Parrhasios, see DNO 2, 815–53, nos. 1205–94; and on the self-deprecating, ingratiating, and even aggressive nuances and legacies of Sokratic irony, see Hutcheon 1994, 60. 18 Storey 2020, 45 (n. 40: this passage), 50; on Plato’s aesthetics in general, see Porter 2010, 85–95. Xenophon, however, elides Plato’s argument by making the “things seen,” not their images, the objects of eikasia. He thus introduces “an ambiguity . . . in the verb eikazein, as between producing an image (what the artist does) and cognizing an image (what observers at the lowest rung of the Divided Line would be doing)” (John Ferrari, pers. comm., 15 January 2018). Piling Pelion on Ossa, he immediately glosses it with ἀπεικάζειν in 3.10.4; ἀπεικάζων twice in 3.10.7; ἀπεικαστέον and προσεικάζειν in 3.10.8; and ἀπεικασομένους in 3.11.1. Did he possess a draft or copy of the Republic (usually dated to Plato’s middle period, between his Sicilian trips in 387 and 367)? Sörbom 1966, 95, curiously overlooks all this: “it [is] difficult to believe that Xenophon is influenced by the works of Plato.” On the contrary, it seems that here, at least, the end of Republic 6 was his hypotext.

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art . . . worthy of philosophical speculation” (as one authority has claimed),19 Sokrates slyly relegates it from the outset to the bottom rung of the ontological ladder, to “the third remove from reality” (Rep. 10, 597e). By springing this hypotextual trap on the hapless painter, Sokrates also caps his own sarcastic riposte in 1.4.3-4 to Aristodemos’ selection of Polykleitos and Zeuxis for his list of “worthies,” along with Homer, Melanippides, and Sophokles: “So which do you think deserve greater admiration, the creators of likenesses thoughtless and motionless, or the creators of living beings endowed with thought and action?” It also tallies with his later casual put-down of domestic painting: “As for such paintings and decorations, they rob us of more delights than they give” (3.8.10). For in his view, representational art is psychologically dangerous. In particular, its verisimilitude, its ability to create the illusion of life, “sways the soul through the eyes” (3.10.6).20 Why does Sokrates’ exchange with Parrhasios betray nothing of this disdain? Perhaps because Xenophon was writing for two quite disparate groups of readers, as he himself notes in 4.1.1. The first group included “anyone gifted with ordinary perception,” who should know that “nothing was more useful than the companionship of Sokrates and time spent with him regardless of place and circumstance”; and the second, “his constant companions and followers” to whom “the very recollection of him in absentia brought no small benefit.” Consequently, the last thing Xenophon would have wanted was to alienate the former, a potentially large constituency, many of whom probably valued and enjoyed contemporary art: the Athenians among them certainly voted time and time again to spend lavishly on it. Meanwhile, among the latter, the Platonists, generally illdisposed toward representational art, already knew what to think of it anyway. What follows seems to confirm this divide.21 Proceeding to quash quite decisively any lingering intellectual and universal pretensions for picture making, Sokrates’ take on it is resolutely anthropocentric, immediately focusing on figuration and proceeding from the general to the particular (3.10.1-2): S. Anyhow, with your colors you painters evoke and represent bodies hunched and erect, shadowed and shining, hard and soft, shaggy and smooth, and young and old.

19 Rouveret 1989, 14–15, already contested – for different reasons – by Brancacci (1997, 142 n. 45). 20 ὃ δὲ μάλιστα ψυχαγωγεῖ διὰ τῆς ὄψεως τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, τὸ ζωτικὸν φαίνεσθαι . . . Plato, and no doubt Sokrates, would have agreed heartily. 21 On the complex question of Xenophon’s relations with Plato and his school, see Danzig et al. 2018.

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P. True. S. And further, when you portray beautiful ones, it is so difficult to find a perfect model that you combine the most beautiful details of several, and thus contrive to make the whole figure look beautiful. Again, the hapless Parrhasios walks straight into the trap, readily assenting to this eclectic, infelicitous, and (most importantly to Xenophon/ Sokrates/Platonists in general) philosophically risible method of attaining the ideal. Hinted at in Gorgias’ Helen (82 B 11 DK, section 18) and known to Aristotle (Pol. 3.6, 1281b10-16), it is attributed to Zeuxis in the famous anecdote of his Helen and the maidens of Kroton (Fig. 12.1),22 and later

Figure 12.1 Kunstmuseum Basel 1872.7a, Angelica Kauffmann, Zeuxis Paints the Beautiful Maidens of Kroton. Black chalk, pen and ink, and wash on paper, c. 1800. Gift of the painter Antonio Barzaghi-Cattaneo from Lugano (1834–1922). Photo: Kunstmuseum Basel, Martin P. Bühler. 22 Cic. Inv. 2.1.1-3; Plin. HN 35.64; Dion. Hal. Orat. Vett. 1; Val. Max. 3.7, ext. 3; Porter 2010, 285–6; Pollitt 1974, 50–2; Preisshofen 1974, 27, 31–2. On Zeuxis’ painting, see Sutton 2009a and 2009b, and on the story’s afterlife, E. Mansfield 2007; cf. Davis 2010, 13–16 (the latter references thanks to Whitney Davis). Never pictured in antiquity (to my knowledge), the tale was revived in the Renaissance by Alberti and Vasari as the exemplum of academic training (Baxandall 1971, 35–9); derided by Bernini but championed by Reynolds; frescoed first by Beccafumi in 1519–23 (Palazzo Bindi-Sergardi, Siena); drawn most subtly by Angelika Kauffmann around 1800 (Fig. 12.1; Basel, Kunstmuseum 1872.7.a); and spectacularly reworked by Picasso in his Demoiselles d’Avignon of 1907 (New York, MOMA).

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taken up and even parodied as a possible neoclassical sculptor’s tactic in the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium (4.6.9) and by Lucian (Imag. 4).23 As critics have occasionally noted, for better or for worse it must therefore have been current in late fifth-century Athens as an armchair (klinē-style?) rationalization of contemporary pictorial practice and its pursuit of the ideal.24 So Xenophon’s extensive primary audience of those “gifted with ordinary perception” (4.1.1) probably would have had little or no trouble with it. Yet given the covertly Platonic thrust of the conversation thus far, and the aforementioned telltale parallels (or perhaps precedents) in the Republic, it seems clear that Sokrates is continuing to set up the brash young painter by making yet another dig at his utter obliviousness to what really should constitute truth in painting, let alone to absolute truth and goodness per se. Instead of producing (one imagines) improved and idealized “images of things seen” (that is, a kind of phenomenal idealism), he has confessed merely to “conjecturing” titillating bricolages like the painters’ bizarre “goat-stags” that Plato uses to introduce the Ship of Fools (Rep. 5.488a); the pretty but distorted reflections that we see in mirrors or pools (Rep. 6.509e-510a); or the variegated “democratic” cloak embroidered with all types of flowers that dazzles women and children with its factitious beauty (Rep. 8.557c).25 Having put Parrhasios and his art firmly in their place (for Platonists, at least), Sokrates finally turns to showing him that he can help out. Burrowing deeper, he broaches a problem that would occupy artists and critics to the end of antiquity and beyond: representing the undeniable but frustratingly invisible. Might Parrhasios do better to refocus his skills on something far more desirable and socially useful than mere somatic externals, namely, interiority (ēthos: 3.10.3)? S. Well now, do you also reproduce the character (ēthos) of the soul, the character that is in the highest degree captivating, delightful, friendly, fascinating, lovable? Or is it impossible to imitate that? At first, Parrhasios balks, protesting (3.10.3): “Oh no, Sokrates: for how could one represent what lacks commensurability and color and 23 T. Hölscher 2004, 122–3; Preisshofen and Zanker 1970–1. 24 E.g., Preisshofen 1974, 27, 36–7, noting its incompatibility with Plato’s views on the ideal. 25 I thank John Ferrari for kindly alerting me to the first and last of these parallels; Porter (2010, 85–95) discusses some other examples of Plato’s purism and abhorrence of ‘mixed’ forms and effects.

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any of the qualities you mentioned just now, and is not even visible?”26 Sokrates nevertheless presses him, pointing to his admitted ability to catch momentary emotions such as sympathy, joy, sorrow, and even “nobility and dignity, self-abasement and servility, prudence and understanding, insolence and vulgarity that show in a person’s face and in the attitudes of the body whether still or in motion” (3.10.5). Predictably, Parrhasios soon submits, agreeing that such character portrayal was not only possible, but also eminently desirable in the case of “beautiful, good, and lovable characters as opposed to ugly, depraved, and hateful ones” (3.10.5), since the former give the most pleasure.27 In turn, his admission proves not only that “whenever [Sokrates] talked with those who pursued their skill as a business, he was as useful to them as to others” (3.10.1), but also that in this case his coaching would also benefit the city as a whole since, if properly portrayed, these morally uplifting subjects obviously would be more beneficial to it and its citizens than their opposites.28 Why did Xenophon choose the “outspoken” Parrhasios for this little lesson in ēthographia and not the great Zeuxis, already singled out and praised for his wisdom (sophia) by Aristodemos at the Memorabilia’s outset (1.4.3), but famously indifferent to ēthos?29 Paradoxically, it was a brilliant move. First, since ‘Bigmouth’ Parrhasios was the most vain and self-promoting of painters, it showed that Sokrates could slyly take him down a peg and teach even him a thing or two.30 Second, since the painter Polygnotos of Thasos already had mastered the representation of ēthos a generation before,31 the young Parrhasios’ knee-jerk denial that such a thing was even possible shows the informed reader that this particular would-be emperor really had no clothes. Like the comically unqualified office-seekers that preceded him, he was unschooled in the expressive possibilities of his own craft. 26 As Jim Porter points out (pers. comm., 2 February 2018), “one irony is that Parrhasios’ definition of the soul as immaterial and invisible is Platonic. Cf. Phdr. 28, 248d-e, with its own ladder of soul categories, also placing artists/artisans nearly at the bottom. The Phaedrus tells its own ironies by trying to make the impalpable/invisible soul visible in an analogy (a myth) that proves the absurdity of representing it as a body (25–7, 246a–247e; cf. Phd. 81c).” 27 As Rolf Schneider once remarked to me, might Sokrates be slyly referencing his own ugly, satyric, and therefore potentially depraved and hateful physiognomy here? See his answer to Zopyros the physiognomer on this score: Alex. Aphr. Fat. 6; cf. Stavru 2018; Stewart 1990, 176. 28 On representational choices and moral/civic improvement, see Goldhill 1998, 110–11. 29 Arist. Poet. 6, 1450a25-9. 30 “Nemo insolentius usus sit gloria artis,” Plin. HN 35.71; for his own vainglorious verses, see Ath. 12.543c-f. 31 Arist. Poet. 6, 1450a25-9; Pol. 8.5, 1340a35-8 (DNO 2, nos. 1499, 1501); cf. Dorion 2011, 367–8 with references.

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Yet ancient critics later agreed that the mature Parrhasios did in fact “first give liveliness to the face” (Plin. HN 35.67) and instilled much pathos and even a superfluity of ēthos into his work. Pliny (HN 35.69), for example, describes his Demos of Athens in particular as “fickle, choleric, unjust, and variable, but also placable, merciful, compassionate, and boastful.”32 So whereas Zeuxis’ pictures notoriously remained ēthos-free to the end, in Parrhasios’ case, Xenophon could plausibly imply that Sokrates’ relentless efforts to be universally useful actually succeeded. As to Sokrates’ next victim, Kleitōn (“Renowned”), many have wondered whether he is the great Polykleitos in disguise.33 For, as mentioned earlier, Aristodemos had already paraded the latter (1.4.3) as the “wisest” at creating sculptural likenesses of people, or andriantopoiia, and Sokrates’ description of Kleitōn’s work (3.10.7) is certainly both quasi-Polykleitan and androcentric like his. Yet Polykleitos, an Argive, is not known to have worked outside the Peloponnese, so possibly maintained no studio in Athens for Sokrates to visit; and as for the philosopher, he left Athens only to fight in the Archidamian War (431–421), which took him north to Boiotia and Thrace, not south to the Peloponnese. So almost certainly the two never met, and Xenophon’s more savvy readers would have known as much. More importantly, perhaps, Sokrates needed a sculptor to coach whose work would eventually display some emotion. Although the impassivity of Polykleitos’ heroes and athletes made them an obvious target, and his devotion to clear-cut tension and release patterns made his style easy to define (3.10.7), by all accounts his work nevertheless remained stubbornly neutral and unemotional to the end (Fig. 12.2).34 So knowledgeable readers also would have known that (just as with Zeuxis) Sokrates could never have convinced him otherwise. Yet the metopes of the Argive Heraion show that by c. 400 BC, Polykleitos’ followers indeed had begun to explore this new terrain – but (as far as we know, since all their bronzes have perished) only in battle scenes and in the Peloponnese.35 32 Cf. also his Feigned Madness of Odysseus (Plut. Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debeat 3 = Mor. 18A), Philoktetes on Lemnos (Anth. Plan. 16.111), and Prometheus Bound, for which the Elder Seneca alleged that he tortured to death a slave captured at Olynthos (Controv. 10.34): a fiction, since Olynthos fell in 347, at least a generation after Parrhasios’ own demise, but to a Roman audience presumably credible. The Demos is often misunderstood: another fiction, echoing Sokrates’ words at 3.10.5 (cf. Dorion 2011, 369); a caricature (Lawton 1995, 56); or a mature, bearded male surrounded by a gaggle of female personifications (cf. Burn 1987, 32–40)? 33 Contra: DNO 2, 442–4, no. 1194; Stewart 1995, 253–4; Preisshofen 1974, 34; Delatte 1933, 141–2; Dorion (2011, 371) is noncommittal. Predictably, early commentators of a positivist bent seized upon this conversation as evidence that Polykleitos visited Athens or even opened a workshop there. 34 The ancient critics (DNO 2, 455–514, nos. 1205–94) unanimously describe Polykleitos as supreme at making beautiful human bodies, heroes and athletes in particular, and say nothing of ēthos or pathos; the Roman copies concur. 35 Stewart 1995, 253–4, Fig. 14.12, glossing en route Delatte’s more positivistic objections to the Kleitōn = Polykleitos equation (1933, 141–2).

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Figure 12.2 Szczecin (Stettin), Poland, National Museum. Doryphoros of Polykleitos. Reconstruction by Georg Römer (1910–1912) from casts of the copies in Naples and Berlin (omitting his trademark spear). Bronze original, c. 440 BC. Photo: Rolf Schneider.

Xenophon’s plot needed a suggestible Polykleitan-style sculptor based in Athens, however, and – as Aldo Brancacci has emphasized – to invent one would have defied all the conventions of the genre, whose credibility depended upon its veracity.36 Probably, then, Kleitōn really existed, but – like all of the sculptors listed in the Erechtheion accounts of 409–406 BC, for example – failed to enter the historical record.37 A handy nonentity, he 36 Brancacci 1997, 131–2; yet skepticism on this front continues, as at least one response to this paper at the Tübingen seminar on 25 October 2018 showed. 37 Dorion (2011, 371) offers an update; Delatte 1933, 141. The name Kleitōn is rare at Athens in this period, but not unknown. See http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/attica/ (last accessed 5 May 2021), nos. 576295 (killed in action in 409) and 776300 (father of a certain Anaphlystos, named on the latter’s fourth-century gravestone); cf. 576290 (this Kleitōn, “name doubtful”). For the Erechtheion sculptors, see IG I3 475–6; DNO 2, 450–2, no. 1202.

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had to signal his affiliation through his opportune name, specialization in athletic victors (3.10.6), and answers to Sokrates’ questions. Moreover, with Kleitōn, art’s expressive horizons actually seem to narrow. Ethos is no more heard of. Instead, “in order to produce that illusion of life that especially sways the beholder’s soul through the eyes” (3.10.6), he must “accurately represent the different parts of the body as they are affected by the pose – the flesh wrinkled or tense, the limbs compressed or outstretched, the muscles taut or loose” (3.10.7). Predictably, Kleitōn readily assents to this quasi-Polykleitan definition of the sculpturally “true and convincing” (3.10.7), but, as usual, Sokrates is far from finished. Used to doing his homework (as we now realize), he prods him further, into unfamiliar territory (3.10.8): S. “Doesn’t the exact representation of the feelings (pathē) that affect bodies in action also produce a certain delight in the spectators?” K. “Oh yes, presumably.” S. “Then must not the threatening look in the eyes of fighters be accurately evoked, and the triumphant expression on the face of victors be represented?” K. “Most certainly.” S. “It follows, then, that the sculptor must match his works to the state of the soul.”38 Since Sokrates had already got Parrhasios to agree that representing “a beautiful, good, and lovable character” is pleasanter and more beneficial than representing an “ugly, depraved, and hateful one” (3.10.5), a discussion of how to represent a courageous character/ēthos would have been appropriate at this point. Instead, a quasi-moralistic hierarchy of the arts seems to be lurking here, based on the perceived expressive potential and thus social/civic value of particular media and genres – in this case, the prestigious and civically freighted genre of athletic victor statues, usually cast in bronze. So whereas figure painting in general should represent both ēthos and pathos, good and (regrettably) bad, this particular sculptural 38 For the last line’s τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς ἔργα τῷ εἴδει προσεικάζειν (MSS, Steiner, Brancacci, Rouveret, Goldhill, Henderson, et al.), reading with Dorion, Preisshofen, Delatte, Hartman (1887, 147), and others, Δεῖ ἄρα . . . τὸν ἀνδριαντοποιὸν τὰ ἔργα τῷ τῆς ψυχῆς εἴδει προσεικάζειν, after 3.10.7: τοῖς τῶν ζώντων εἴδεσιν ἀπεικάζων τὸ ἔργον. See esp. Dorion 2011, 369–74; Preisshofen 1974, 35. As mentioned earlier, pioneering success at representing ēthos was credited to the painter Polygnotos, not to any of the early or high Classical sculptors. Sokrates’ remarks on threatening looks and triumphant expressions should, however, open our own eyes to the disconcerting possibility that our forced reliance on bland Roman marble copies for assessing these high Classical victor statues may have blinded us to an expressiveness now lost with the disappearance of both their bronze originals and the copies’ own painted eyeballs and irises.

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genre supposedly trades in pathos alone: in menace, elation, and so on. It explores only momentary “states” (eidē) of the soul, not its essence. This theory too must have been current in late fifth-century Athens, presumably as a critique of the emotional neutrality of the Polykleitan style (which was quite familiar in the city by then), but also perhaps of the rarified Pheidian one, as well.39 The Olympia Master doubtless would have disagreed, but his work was isolated high up on a temple front and passé by then, and it was not until the mid-fourth century, when Xenophon was either dead or in his dotage, that Praxiteles, Skopas, and Lysippos regained the ground lost in the meantime, consigning the whole issue to history.40 Sokrates’ last two conversations in this group are longer but require somewhat less attention here. Whereas Kleitōn worked with the city’s athletes, the “trusty” Pistias41 works with its warriors, and prides himself on making breastplates that both look good and fit the individual well. These must have been muscle cuirasses, which (as vase paintings show; Fig. 12.3) had become popular by the mid-fifth century,42 and (as Sokrates notes with approval) must be “well-proportioned not absolutely but in relation to the wearer . . . which seems to apply to everything according to you” (3.10.12). In a culture that completely abjured tailored clothing, this was radical stuff indeed. In other words, Pistias’ products perfectly exemplify Sokrates’ maxim that “all things are good and beautiful in relation to those purposes for which they are well adapted, bad and ugly in relation to those for which they are poorly adapted” (3.8.6-7). As the armorer himself declares, his clients can trust him “because I make mine better shaped” (eurhythmoterous: 3.10.10). Aside from “to fit” (harmottein) and its compounds and antonym, the catchwords throughout this section are rhythmos, eurhythmos

39 Polykleitan-type chiastic poses appear in Athenian sculpture by c. 440, recalling both the Doryphoros (Parthenon frieze, W.xi.22) and – awkwardly, given its traditional date in the 420s – the Diadoumenos (N.ix.38); his signature contrapposto is ubiquitous on the Athena Nike temple’s east frieze, c. 425: Stewart 2019, 86, 89–90; Stewart et al. 2019, 633, 681, 683, 686, Fig. 16. 40 On these, see, e.g., DNO 3, 49–209 nos. 1851–2031 (Praxiteles), 417–70 nos. 2286– 335 (Skopas), 291–392 nos. 2132–258 (Lysippos), in particular the latter’s Alexanders (Anth. Plan. 16.120; Plut. De Alex. fort. 2.2 (Mor. 335b) = DNO 3, nos. 2191–2); Stewart 1990, 175–91, 277–81, 284–6, 289–94. So, was the whole paragone debate fought out again with the invention of the Hellenistic baroque? Sadly, the few surviving sources are silent. 41 Another rare name: see http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/attica/ (last accessed 5 May 2021), nos. 773555 (this Pistias), 773565, and 773570 (killed in action in 410 and 409, respectively); for a fourth, on an early fifth-century skyphos in Copenhagen (Ny Carlsberg, inv. 2759), see Beazley, ABV 628, 16, with bibliography (I thank François Lissarrague for this reference). 42 T. Schäfer, 1997, 30–1, 35; Snodgrass 1967, 92, Fig. 43, both citing this passage.

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Figure 12.3 Naples, Museo Nazionale M1483, Attic bell krater from Ruvo attributed to the Niobid Painter, c. 450 BC. Amazonomachy, with (left) an Athenian warrior wearing a muscle cuirass. Redrawing by Karl Reichhold after FR 1904, pl. 27.

(“shaped,” “well shaped”), and their compounds and antonyms.43 Yet despite Pistias’ intelligence and articulacy, Sokrates nevertheless succeeds in teaching him one more – somewhat obvious – thing (3.10.13): The good fit is less heavy to wear than the misfit, though both weigh the same. For the misfit, hanging entirely from the shoulders or pressing on some other part of the body, proves unwieldy and irritating; but the good fit, with its weight distributed over the collarbone and shoulder blades, the shoulders, chest, back and stomach, may almost be called an accessory rather than an encumbrance. So the perfect cuirass is not merely well proportioned and custommade, but individually adjusted so as to fit easily, comfortably, and without burdening or chafing the wearer – “like an accessory, not an encumbrance” (3.10.13). “You’ve said it yourself, Sokrates, and you’re bang on target” (3.10.15). Finally, after two-dimensional painted bodies, three-dimensional sculpted ones, and armor that fits like a second skin, Xenophon/Sokrates turns to a real, living body, that of the “god-given” hetaira Theodotē,

43 For an exhaustive, well-documented discussion of these contested terms (which, like several others in 3.10-11, became topoi of Hellenistic art criticism), see Pollitt 1974, 169–81, 218–28; on “good usage” or καλὴ χρῆσις, see Plat. Rep. 3.401b-c; Preisshofen 1974, 27–8; Delatte 1933, 139.

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the great Alkibiades’ future mistress.44 As mentioned earlier, Sokrates’ conversation with her is linked to its three predecessors not only by the half-dozen leitmotifs listed above (including yet another compound of eikazein: 3.11.1), but also by evoking his talk with Parrhasios: she is so beautiful that painters line up to paint her portrait (3.11.1-2). Indeed, she is more. Young, personally magnetic (3.11.10), gorgeously attired (kekosmēmenēn, like Pandora or a fine temple: 3.11.4), and beautiful beyond words (logou kreittōn: 3.11.1), she is nothing less than a work of art herself, with all eyes – those of Sokrates, his retinue, her lovers, the artists, almost the whole city – riveted upon her. And since this culture regarded sight as long-distance touch, everyone promptly aches to touch her. Predictably, Sokrates finds all this highly disconcerting (3.11.2-3). An extended piece of light relief with a hilariously self-deprecatory ending, and a transition to the lifestyle discussions (diaitai: 3.12-14) of the rest of the book,45 this conversation shows, first, that gender relations in the Classical polis involve a complex exchange of gazes under the general scrutiny of the public eye;46 second, that all beauty needs words to frame it; and third, that the diva’s divinely beautiful body and “soft” skills in “friend hunting” are useful since she instinctively deploys them well, both to please and delight the city’s male elite and to maintain herself and her household (her mother included) in suitably grandiose style (3.11.4). Sokrates then deftly and wittily defines Theodotē’s intuitive “right opinions” about the art of “friend hunting” so that she understands them. He demonstrates that her body alone is insufficient (Fig. 12.4a-c). She needs words, a canny sense of self-representation, an “agent” to snare her “friends,”47 and an ēthos to match her gorgeous body, which (in a truly virtuoso piece of Ringkomposition) Sokrates proceeds to deduce from her behavior: “You have a soul that teaches you what glance will please, and what words delight, . . . and as for loving, you know how to do that, I’m sure, both tenderly and thoughtfully; and that your friends please you, you 44 As Gray (1998, 145–7) aptly notes, Xenophon also cannily links “the tight and beautiful fit of the armorer’s breastplate with the ‘close embrace’ of the courtesan’s body (3.11.10).” On Theodotē, see esp. Dorion 2011, 378–89; Lev Kenaan 2008, 90–6; Goldhill 1998; Davidson 1997, 120–30, 203; see http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/ attica/ (last accessed 5 May 2021), no. 505035, but against Gray 1998, 145, she was no “prostitute” but an elite hetaira: Dorion 2011, 378–9, with bibliography. She and Timandra, the great hetaira Laïs’ mother, used to accompany Alkibiades on campaign, and in 404 she buried him after his assassination: Ath. 12.535c; 13.574e. I see no reason to question any of this. 45 Thus, already, Dorion 2011, 379; Gray 1998, 145–7. Chernyakhovskaya (2014, 177–95) advances a complex allegorical reading, using inter alia several publications by M. Narcy, which I cannot follow. 46 Goldhill 2010; Lev Kenaan 2008, 93–4. 47 I.e., less coyly, a pimp; in Fig. 12.4a, is he played by Hermes, the messenger and trickster?

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Figure 12.4a–c Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.259, Attic red-figure squat lekythos in the Manner of the Meidias Painter, c. 400 BC. Hermes, Eros, a hetaira, and her admirer. Photo: © The J. Paul Getty Museum.

convince them, I know, not only by words but also by deeds” (3.11.9-12). He then shows her how to comport herself properly in the public eye, sketching an etiquette manual for hetairai worthy even of Miss Manners. In the end, by alerting Theodotē to the true dialectics of her body and soul, Sokrates turns her from a passive object of male desire (3.11.5) into an active “friend hunter” of the rich and “beauty loving” (philokalous: 3.11.9).48 In short, he endows her with agency. Indeed, his coaching is so business-like and persuasive that she even tries to enlist him as her “fellow hunter in the pursuit of friends,” to which he replies: “By Zeus, indeed if you persuade me!” (3.11.15). This ironic reversal introduces a quasiAristophanic parody, not only of Sokrates’ own lifestyle and pursuits (“I have a lot of business to occupy me, private and public; and girlfriends who won’t leave me day or night; they’re studying potions with me, and spells”: 3.11.16), but even of these four house calls, as well: TH. “Do lend me your magic wheel, so I can spin it first to attract you.” S. “But by Zeus, I don’t want to be drawn to you: I want you to come to me.” TH. “Oh, I’ll come: just welcome me.” S. “Oh, you’ll be welcome – unless I’ve got a dearer girl with me!”

48 Recalling (surely not by chance) the famous φιλοκαλοῦμέν . . . μετ᾿ εὐτελείας καὶ φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας of Perikles’ Funeral Speech: Thuc. 2.40.1.

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Although these four conversations tell us quite a lot about late fifthcentury artistic theory, terminology, and practice, then, the first two are by no means primarily exercises in art criticism, still less art history. Though they do distinguish representational painting and sculpture from other occupations for their unique power to transcend the visual and express interiority (a first in Greek critical writing), they mention no dates and show no interest in development, either stylistic or iconographic. Nor are they prompted by a philosophical desire “to bring art under an ethical and rational rein,” as one scholar has argued.49 Instead, driven by Xenophon’s personal, philosophical, and apologetic agendas, they are structured as a series of demonstrations of Sokrates’ wisdom and utility – even indispensability – to an ungrateful city and its inhabitants of both sexes: to paint him as the supreme civic benefactor, or euergetēs. En route, Xenophon makes several quite unprecedented moves at once. First, he deftly mobilizes his knowledge of how late fifth-century art thought and spoke about itself in order to score some sly philosophical points against its practitioners. Second, he discreetly offers a gendered occupational hierarchy that ranks painting first, sculpture second, armor third, and seduction last, anticipating, however modestly, the paragone debates of the Renaissance. Third, by framing these conversations in terms of the visual and the verbal, sight and logos, he launches the word–image debate (an overarching paragone) that Lessing was to canonize over 2,000 years later. And fourth, by repeatedly recalling Plato’s observation that making and understanding images are matters of “conjecture” (eikasia), not to mention Aristotle’s insight that the first thing that one needs to know about a work of art is its subject (Poet. 4, 1448b15),50 they even presage some more recent contributions to its interpretive problems: not only those of Gombrich but also those of Erwin Panofsky and Richard Wollheim.51 QUINTILIAN Quintilian (c. 35–95 AD) published his Institutio Oratoria (The Orator’s Education) a few years before Domitian’s death in AD 96, since he flatters

49 Tanner 2006, 177. 50 “If one lacks prior familiarity with the subject, however, the artifact will not give pleasure qua mimetic representation but because of its craftsmanship, color, or some other such reason”: see Halliwell 2002, 177–206 (whence this translation). From the extensive recent literature on recognition, see especially Seth Estrin (forthcoming), whom I thank for an invaluable update on the subject; Davis 2011; Ricœur 2005; Podro 1999; and Cave 1988. 51 Gombrich 1972; Wollheim 1971; Panofsky 1955 (repr. 1982).

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the soon-to-be-toppled and reviled emperor in 10.1.91.52 In contrast to Xenophon’s venture into the art world, the thrust of his brief histories of painting and sculpture (12.10.3-9) has long been well understood.53 As R. G. Austin explained back in 1944 (English translations supplied): Quintilian writes, here as always, as the Professor of Rhetoric, tabulating in a compact and concise form the most useful material for his students, to illustrate the progress of oratory by that of the fine arts. This passage of Book 12 must be carefully read in light of the sections immediately following if the full elaboration of Quintilian’s comparative method is to be appreciated: in section 10 the early orators (Cato, Gracchus, and so on) are expressly termed primitives like Polygnotus or Callon; next, Crassus and Hortensius represent the “middle category,” corresponding (by implication, not name) to Zeuxis and Parrhasius, Myron and Polyclitus;54 Quintilian continues, “Then let the great crop of orators who were more or less contemporaries blossom before our eyes,” and proceeds to name fifteen orators of the late Republican and early Imperial periods, each with his appropriate label – this passage plainly corresponds closely to section 6, “painting flourished particularly in the time of Philip and down to the successors of Alexander,” where the great fourth-century painters are listed similarly, each duly labeled; lastly, Quintilian names Cicero, out of chronological order, as surpassing even Euphranor in his unique versatility; the latter is mentioned in section 6 (likewise out of chronological order)55 as “admired for his combination of excellence in other cultural pursuits with marvelous skills in painting and sculpture.” Although Quintilian’s sources for all this have generated much speculation, he definitely knew of Xenophon’s pages on Parrhasios, since he cites them, though totally ignores their contents in favor of other issues (12.10.4): The biggest contribution subsequently was made by Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who were rough contemporaries, both flourishing about the time of the Peloponnesian War (since a conversation between Socrates and Parrhasius may be found in Xenophon). The former is 52 In this section, all dates are AD and all references are to the Institutio Oratoria unless otherwise stated. Translations are taken from the Loeb Classical Library online edition translated by D. Russell (https://www.loebclassics.com/), corrected and adapted where necessary, but preserving Romanized Greek names in direct quotations from the Latin. For technical terms, see the glossary in T. Hölscher 2004, xxxiv-xxxv. 53 Select bibliography: M. Squire 2015; T. Hölscher 2004, 61–3, 93–5, 119–22; Neumeister 1990, 438–42; Rouveret 1989, 424–36; Pollitt 1974, 81–4; Austin 1948, 135–52; Austin 1944. 54 Not quite: see below, period S1 (p. 275). 55 Not really, since he was still active under Philip and Alexander: sources, DNO 3, 65–90, nos. 2756–98.

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said to have discovered the principle of light and shade, and the latter to have introduced new precision in the treatment of line. Zeuxis gave more fullness to the limbs, thinking that this contributed to dignity and grandeur; in this (so it is thought) he was following Homer, who favors strength even in female beauty. Parrhasius, on the other hand, was so definitive in every respect that they call him “the lawgiver,” because the rest follow the representations of gods and heroes that he laid down, as though they had no other choice. Like Xenophon, too, Quintilian tackles painting first, but (with the advantage of hindsight) down-dates its acme by half a century or more, to the “time of Philip and down to the successors of Alexander” (12.10.6). His pictorial roster is: P1. Pioneers: Polygnotos, Aglaophon; P2. Maturity: Zeuxis, Parrhasios; P3. Climax: Protogenes, Pamphilus, Melanthius, Antiphilus, Theon, Apelles; Euphranor, excelling in both painting and sculpture. Puzzlingly, though (at least at first sight), Quintilian then proceeds to break the mold with the sculptors. While retaining his three-phase evolutionary structure, he somewhat awkwardly shifts its acme back to its second phase: S1. Pioneers: Kallon, Hegesias, Kalamis, Myron, Polykleitos; S2. Climax: Pheidias and Alkamenes; S3. Successors: Lysippos, Praxiteles; Demetrios, censured for carrying realism too far.56 This catalog is broadly chiastic, with 2-2-6 names for painting and 5-2-2 for sculpture, plus the two extras, Euphranor (introduced, as Austin recognized, as a foil to Cicero: 12.10.12)57 and the injudicious Demetrios. In Phases P2 and S2, Quintilian paraphrases the judgments of some unnamed but authoritative earlier critics to justify his high opinion of Zeuxis, Parrhasios, Pheidias, and Alkamenes;58 and (as Austin remarked) in Phase P3, he assigns to each painter of the peak period a “virtue” such 56 On these artists, see DNO 2–3 q.v.; Neumeister (1990, 439) aptly notes that each list moves from an impersonal period style in Phase 1 to distinct personal ones in Phase 3. 57 “At M. Tullium non illum habemus Euphranorem circa pluris artium species praestantem, sed in omnibus quae in quoque laudantur eminentissimum.” 58 Not normally ranked this highly, and presumably mobilized simply to balance Parrhasios (Phase P2: 12.10.4) with a worthy Classical – and Attic – counterpart: see below. Following Pliny (HN 1.35 and 35.65-7), the ultimate sources for Quintilian’s comments on Zeuxis and Parrhasios were recognized by late nineteenth-century scholars as the early Hellenistic critics Xenokrates of Athens and Antigonos of Karystos: see, e.g., Pollitt 1974, 73–7 with references; Austin 1944, 18.

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as “care,” “method,” “imagination,” “facility,” ingenuity,” and “grace” (12.10.6). Shunning all such individual epithets for his equivalent array of early sculptors in Phase S1, however, he evokes instead the painters of P1 by reaffirming their pioneering character via a sculptural hardness scale. Ranking them from “stiff” through “less stiff” to “softer still,” it culminates with the “care and beauty” of Polykleitos (diligentia et decor: 12.10.7). Also cited by Cicero (Brut. 18.70), this scale was invented by at least the early Hellenistic period, since the Alexandrian poet Poseidippos of Pella (floruit c. 300–260 BC) alludes to it in his collection of sculptural epigrams, the Andriantopoiika.59 All this effectively shifts Polykleitos (Fig. 12.2) de facto from Phase S2, the sculptural climax (where one would naturally expect to find him: thus, 12.10.8), back to Phase S1. In effect, Quintilian makes him a transitional figure, both the best and most advanced of the pioneers and the weakest of the champions. Apparently, he felt uneasy at this unconventional move, since he promptly goes out of his way to justify it (12.10.8): Most critics award [Polyclitus] the palm, but, in order to find some fault in him, judge that he lacks “weight” (pondus), because, while he endowed the human form with a beauty that transcended reality, he seems not to have adequately expressed the authority of the gods. He is said also to have avoided portraying the mature adult, never venturing beyond smooth cheeks.60 This, in turn, brings us to the supreme virtuosos themselves, Pheidias and Alkamenes (12.10.9): What Polyclitus lacked, Phidias and Alcamenes are allowed to have possessed. Phidias is thought more skillful at representing gods than men. In ivory, he would be far and away without a rival, even if he had produced nothing but the Minerva at Athens and the Olympian Jove at Elis, whose beauty is said to have added something to the traditional religion, so perfectly did the majesty of the work match its divine original. This gambit has three main effects. First, it throws another sop to Polykleitos, just characterized as better at making men (Fig. 12.2) than 59 Poseidipp. 62 Austin-Bastianini; Stewart 2005, 185–6; cf. Pollitt 1974, 82–3 and svv. σκληρός, durus, with commentaries that predate this epigram’s discovery. 60 Cf. Plin. HN 34.55, describing his Diadoumenos as a “soft youth” (molliter iuvenis) and his Doryphoros as a “virile boy” (viriliter puer); to Romans, a serious limitation. Contrast Pheidias’ majestic Zeus at Olympia (12.10.9) and also the Roman valuation of manly virtues (gravitas, constantia, auctoritas, etc.) above almost all else – as any Roman portrait of this ilk will attest.

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gods. Second, by consecrating Pheidias’ matchless command of beauty as nothing less than divine, it both casts Zeuxis and Parrhasios in the shade, and implicitly reverses Xenophon’s/Sokrates’ judgment that painting bested sculpture in expressive potential. And third, it relegates Lysippos and Praxiteles to the role of sculptural runners-up (albeit worthy ones), who “are said to have achieved the best approximation to reality; for Demetrius is censured for carrying this too far, being more concerned with likeness than beauty” (12.10.9). Why do this, especially since there was good Hellenistic precedent for seeing Lysippos (if not Praxiteles) as the climax of the Greek sculptural tradition?61 Two reasons come to mind, one general and one specific. The first is the triumph in the Roman cultural imaginary of literary and artistic classicism and of its supreme sculptural exponent, Pheidias; the second is Quintilian’s own particular devotion to Classical Atticism in oratory. As to classicism in general, Tonio Hölscher has shown how and in what guise: The different stylistic forms, which had made their appearance in Greek art diachronically, were to some extent de-historicized in the new [Roman] system of themes and values of expression. Concepts like maiestas, gratia, veritas [that is, majesty, grace, and “truth,” or realism] acquire a meaning not just as a historical sequence, but only as a synchronic system, just as do the subjects for representation–gods, heroes, athletes, animals.62 The Romans’ view of the visual arts, in other words, was essentially generic and static. Moreover, since to their eyes painting was merely decorative,63 sculpture – charged with the weighty task of physically embodying the gods, emperors, magistrates, and state ceremonial – held center stage. And since the Olympians naturally took first place, so did Pheidias’ unique skill at translating their majesty and beauty into sculptural gold and ivory (12.10.9; Fig. 12.5). To turn to Atticism, Quintilian casually introduces it in his short preface to this excursus on the arts. Oratorical styles, he says (12.10.2): are all very different from one another, not only individually (as one statue differs from another, or one painting from another, or one pleading from another) but also generically, as Tuscan [that is, Etruscan] statues differ from Greek or the Asiatic speaker from the Attic. 61 Poseidipp. 62 Austin-Bastianini; critical discussion, Angiò 2016, 94–127; Stewart 2007; Stewart 2005. 62 T. Hölscher 2004, 96. 63 Indeed, even degenerate: see, e.g., Vitr. 7.5.3-4; Plin. HN 35.2-5, 28.

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Figure 12.5 The Athena Parthenos by Pheidias, 447–438 BC. Reconstruction by Andrew Stewart and Candace Smith.

Quintilian then turns to his critical history of Greek painting and sculpture (12.10.3-9); follows it with a similar one of Latin oratory; and finally focuses upon Cicero, the supreme all-rounder, “not just a Euphranor, distinguished in several branches of art, but a man supreme in everything for which anyone wins praise” (12.10.12). He then confronts his idol’s many detractors head-on (12.10.12-14): Even so, his own contemporaries had the hardihood to attack him as bombastic, Asiatic, redundant, repetitive, sometimes unsuccessful in his humor, and undisciplined, extravagant, and (heaven forbid!) almost effeminate in his composition . . . It was those who wanted to be thought imitators of the Attic writers who were particularly hard on him. A sketch of the Attic, Asiatic, and Rhodian oratorical schools and styles then follows (predictably treating these too as synchronic and thus, as in painting and sculpture, alternative choices available to the Romans),64 along with the conclusion that “no one need have any doubt that the Attic 64 T. Hölscher 2004, 121.

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manner is far and away the best” (12.10.20). And since among the Roman exponents of this style Cicero easily outshone all of them, “who is not content with something that cannot be bettered?” (12.10.39). CONCLUSION As we have seen, Xenophon’s Sokratic exchanges with the painter Parrhasios, the sculptor Kleitōn, the armorer Pistias, and the courtesan Theodotē (in that descending order) were driven by Xenophon’s personal, philosophical, and apologetic agendas, and framed by his overall genre and rhetorical choices as the best means by which to persuade his public of his hero Sokrates’ indispensability to citizen and polis alike. Artistic and aesthetic concerns, though by no means absent, were then deftly harnessed to these ends. Half a millennium later and writing for a very different world, Quintilian had to walk a tightrope. As a principled and highly respected professor of rhetoric (vir bonus dicendi peritus; 12.1.1)65 writing up his conclusions from his life’s work, he had to balance his own commitment to historical veracity and respect for his sources (Xenophon included) against, first, his promotion of Attic classicism and its latter-day Roman avatar, Cicero (his personal hero), and second, his inherited preconceptions about the representational arts and their respective genres, status, and functions in Greco-Roman society. As a result, in his comparative critical sketches of these arts, neither Lysippos, nor Praxiteles, nor even Polykleitos stands at sculpture’s apogee. Instead, the crown goes to the Athenian high Classical superstar, Pheidias, as “most skillful at making statues of the gods” (12.10.9), and his best homegrown pupil, Alkamenes, together with the implication that they outshone even the greatest of the painters.

65 Citing Cato the Elder.

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13 COMMUNICATING WITH THE DIVINE IN MARBLE AND CLAY* H. A. Shapiro

Several recent studies of Greek and Roman religion have focused attention on what has come to be known as “personal” or “individual” (or even “individuated”) religion, as opposed to the notion of “polis religion,” which had been popularized by the work of Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, among others.1 Discussions of ‘individual’ or ‘personal’ religion often make reference to Greek marble votive reliefs as prime examples in the realm of material culture. The individual who dedicated the relief typically shows himself or herself in the presence of the recipient, whether god or hero. This is one way of expressing “communication with the divine,” another phrase that has recently entered the literature on ancient religion.2 If Greek votive reliefs have become emblematic of ‘communication with the divine’ because they juxtapose the mortal worshiper with the divinity or hero in the same scene, this does not make it any easier to understand the nature of the relationship that is being portrayed. Recent studies by Verity Platt and Georgia Petridou have made a promising start in this direction, though for both authors the votive reliefs are a relatively small part of a broader inquiry.3 Rather than addressing this question directly, I have long been interested in how the visual language of the

* I am most grateful to Judy Barringer and François Lissarrague for the invitation to participate in my second Leventis Conference and for the warm Scottish hospitality. For assistance in obtaining photographs and permission to publish them here, I thank Dimitrios Pandermalis (Akropolis Museum, Athens); Giorgios Kavvadias and Maria Chidiroglou (National Archaeological Museum, Athens); Sylvie Dumont (Agora Excavations, American School of Classical Studies at Athens); Joachim Heiden (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Athens); Astrid Fendt (Antikensammlungen, Munich); and Margherita Bolla (Commune di Verona). 1 Sourvinou-Inwood 1990. 2 E.g., Rüpke 2013, esp. pp. 19–20 on “Communication with the Divine.” Cf. Kindt 2012, 12–35. The basic notion of “personal religion” is, of course, not new and can be traced back at least to the influential paper of Vernant 1965, 79–94, and, even earlier, Festugière 1954. On these last two, see now de Polignac 2015. 3 Petridou 2015; Platt 2011.

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votive reliefs, in particular those made in Athens in the late fifth and fourth centuries BC, was formed in the first place. In several earlier papers, I explored how the imagery of Attic marble votive reliefs and that of black- and red-figure vase painting may intersect at certain points and thus suggest modes of transmission of motifs between different media. In one paper, the starting point was an enigmatic black-figure vase interpreted in the light of later reliefs of the banqueting hero type.4 In another, a small group of votive reliefs of about 400 BC that had consistently been identified in the scholarship as depicting Ares and Aphrodite was reinterpreted in part with reference to the libation motif on black-figure and Classical red-figure vases.5 A third paper looked at some individual gestures that are shared between votive reliefs and vase paintings.6 Two basic objections could be made to this approach. One is that vases and votives were made for very different purposes, and the great majority of vases were not made as dedications in a sanctuary. But in fact, some were, as the large amount of pottery from the Akropolis, Brauron, Eleusis, and elsewhere attests. And a not uncommon motif on pottery found in sanctuaries is an encounter between the worshiper(s) and the deity, a motif that forms the basis of many later votive reliefs.7 Even then, it is often claimed that red-figure vases of the Classical period seldom show a worshiper in the presence of a god or hero, as many votive reliefs do, and that, when they do, the great disparity in size between mortal and divinity that characterizes most votive reliefs is not observed. The latter point is a valid one, though the disparity can vary considerably on the reliefs, and the occasional vase does show the divinity towering over the human figures.8 The nature of the interaction between worshiper and deity or hero – ranging from chilly distance to surprising intimacy – is something that needs to be looked at more closely in both media.9 The second potential objection is that there is often a considerable chronological gulf, as the vases I have adduced in the past as parallels for the votive reliefs are often Archaic or early Classical in date, while the votives begin to be made only in the late fifth century BC and mostly belong to the fourth. 4 Shapiro 2009a. 5 Shapiro 2012a. 6 Shapiro 2014. For other brief discussions comparing vases and votive reliefs, see Lawton 2016, 397–9; Edelmann 1999, 91–3. 7 Among many examples, an Attic black-figure loutrophoros from the Akropolis, Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 1220; Kaltsas and Shapiro 2008, 254–5 (G. Kavvadias). Two women and a man approach the altar of Athena (her name written on it), behind which stands the goddess. 8 E.g., the Attic black-figure pseudo-Panatheniac amphora, Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 243; BAPD 1047; Lissarrague 2001, Figs. 62–3. 9 In addition to the books supra n. 3, Collard 2016 has good discussion of these issues.

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To avoid this problem, I propose to focus in this chapter on a specific period of time: the last quarter of the fifth century and the early years of the fourth. This spans the first generation of Classical Attic votive reliefs and the final flowering of the Attic red-figure style before beginning its slow decline in the course of the fourth century. I am not trying to make the argument that vase painting was the primary influence on the creation of a new vocabulary for the votive reliefs. But it would seem perverse to deny such influence.10 After all, when, in the years around 420 BC, Athenian sculptors and their clients needed to find a new iconography for votive reliefs to gods and heroes after a gap of almost half a century during which, on our present evidence, no marble votives were made in Athens, one source that was ready to hand was vase painting.11 To be sure, there were other contemporary sculptural genres, such as document reliefs and architectural sculpture, which could have played a role, along with painting in fresco and on pinakes, all of these now lost to us. But vases had been filled with images of god, heroes, and worshipers for two centuries, including various religious rituals, from libation and sacrifice to more specialized activities like the theoxenia, in which the worshipers lay out a table of food and drink in hopes of a divine or heroic epiphany.12 The development of the Classical Attic votive relief is well known and can be briefly summarized as follows: in the first two decades, from roughly 420 to 400 BC, from which some forty to fifty examples survive,13 there is a great deal of experimentation, in which many different motifs are tried out, often in reliefs of high quality, and no two examples are alike. But in the course of the first half of the fourth century, two standardized motifs account for the great majority of the votives now being made in large numbers. One is the banqueting hero (often misleadingly referred to as Totenmahlrelief), accompanied by a female consort and usually approached by a family of worshipers;14 the other is the procession of 10 The usual judgment, when the issue is addressed at all, is exemplified by Pemberton 1981, 311: “Vases were not the major iconographic source for the resurgent votive reliefs of the later fifth century.” 11 For the beginnings of the Classical Attic votive relief, usually placed about 420 BC, see, inter alia, Lawton 2009, 67. The last votive reliefs in Attika before the hiatus include the ‘Mourning Athena’ of c. 470–460. Cf. Neumann (1979, 50), who notes that the tall narrow format of the Mourning Athena never occurs again once the votives start up around 420 BC. 12 Jameson 1994. Cf. Bravo 2004, 68–76 for an attempt to relate the theoxenia to banqueting hero reliefs. 13 The figure comes from Lawton (2009, 67, 82–8), who lists about forty for the period 420–405 BC. 14 The fundamental study is that of Thönges-Stringaris (1965), who, though using the term Totenmahl in her title, demonstrates that these votives were not funerary until some late examples from the end of the fourth century BC. Cf. the recent discussion of Lawton 2016, 385.

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worshipers making its way toward the towering figure of a standing god or hero, often bringing a sacrifice.15 A smaller, more specialized group is in the form of a simulated cave, mostly made as dedications to Pan and the Nymphs.16 If we focus on those first two decades of creativity and experimentation, it is natural to look for influence from other media. In this chapter, I suggest dividing those first twenty years of reliefs into a half-dozen broader categories, then considering one or more examples of each and looking for what contemporary vase painting might be able to tell us about where the sculptors of the votives drew their inspiration (Fig. 13.1).

Figure 13.1 Typology of Attic votive reliefs, c. 420–400 BC.

THE BANQUETING HERO An obvious starting point is the banqueting hero, for several reasons. It is the one motif that continues uninterrupted on votives, from the earliest c. 420 BC to the latest about a century later, albeit with many variations and some notable changes in the early years. Also, a glance at the image of a hero reclining on a kline, a low table with food alongside, immediately calls to mind a favorite theme of Attic vases, the symposion.17 The point is startlingly obvious when we consider that a votive from the Asklepieion in the Piraeus which is generally thought to be the earliest example of 15 See the detailed study of Edelmann 1999. 16 Exhaustively studied by Edwards 1985. 17 A single figure reclining on a kline may also be called a “monoposiast”: Baughan 2014, 174. The only extended discussion of symposion imagery on vases in relation to the banqueting hero reliefs (apart from my own, supra n. 5) is that of Lawton 2016, 392–9.

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Figure 13.2 Piraeus, Archaeological Museum 1778, banqueting hero relief, c. 420 BC. Photo: author.

the banqueting hero, at about 420 BC, shows the hero playing kottabos (Fig. 13.2).18 This may seem a rather trivial pursuit for a god or hero in his sanctuary, but it is clearly drawn from symposion iconography.19 Also notable is the fact that at this early date there is no worshiper on the relief. It is, however, broken on the left, and Dentzer surmises that there was room for one more figure, whom he takes to be a servant rather than a worshiper.20 18 Dentzer 1982. 19 Dentzer (1970), in his initial publication of the relief, took the object to be a wreath, not a drinking cup, with only the circle of the wreath engraved into the stone and the rest added in paint (72). In his later discussion of the relief (Dentzer 1982, 336 n. 327), he reported the suggestion of B. Holzmann that it could instead depict a kottabos player. Subsequently, Grandjouan (1989, 10 n. 29) confirmed the kottabos interpretation. This was then taken up by, e.g., Himmelmann 2009, 35. My own examination of the stone indicated traces of a finger through the handle of a cup in the damaged area. 20 Dentzer 1982, 336.

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Figure 13.3 Athens, 1st Ephoria ΡΑ279 (Roman Agora), banqueting heroes relief, c. 400 BC. Photo D-DAI-ATH-2000.174 (Hans R. Goette).

Another motif that is utterly at home in the world of the symposion but harder to explain in the context of a votive relief is that of two men sharing a kline (Fig. 13.3).21 The one man is bearded, the other a beardless youth – the classic erotic pairing of erastes and eromenos – and the older man seems to be tweaking the ear of his companion, who holds aloft a rhyton. One might object that the heyday of the red-figure symposion with homoerotic coloring, in the late Archaic period, was long past. But in fact the theme experienced a revival, especially on kraters and other large shapes of the third quarter of the fifth century (whereas earlier it was mainly found on drinking cups), and now the older man–younger man formula is even more often observed than in earlier periods (Fig. 13.4).22 The nude pais so common in symposion scenes also carries over into the votives (cf. Fig. 13.7), though the erotic frisson that he adds to the vases seems to have dissipated. The demure woman (certainly not a hetaira!) 21 Mitropoulou 1977, 73, no. 150, Fig. 209 (405–400 BC); Thönges-Stringaris 1965, 88, no. 138, pl. 16:1 (c. 380 BC). Lawton (2016, 397) observes that the erotic motif continues later in the fourth century. But she argues that because “the heroine sits primly at the foot of the couch,” the similarity to the depiction of the symposion on vases ends here. 22 Munich, Antikensammlungen 2410; ARV2 1069, 1; BAPD 214407; CVA: Deutschland 20, München 5 (R. Lullies), pl. 250–2. I have discussed this phenomenon in Shapiro 2012b, 27–38. For a later example of two heroes sharing a kline, one resting his hand affectionately on the shoulder of the other, see Lawton 2016, 397 n. 41, and the relief Leiden, National Museum of Antiquities I 1967/9; FA 21 (1966) pl. 9, Fig. 32.

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Figure 13.4 Munich, Antikensammlungen 2410, Attic red-figure stamnos, c. 430 BC. Photo: © Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München.

who sits at the end of the hero’s kline is the one element of the votives that does not seem to find a close analogue on the vases, although, as we shall see, there are good parallels of another kind. The relief from the Roman Agora (Fig. 13.3), together with the early one from the Piraeus with the kottabos player (Fig. 13.2) and one recently published example from Salamis that also appears to be late fifth century,23 are among the only banqueting hero reliefs that do not include even a single worshiper. A fourth relief that should be associated with this group, the earliest votive found in the Athenian Agora, has neither a worshiper nor the female consort: the only figure beside the hero is a nude oinochöos.24 23 Stroszeck 2017, 26, pl. 5:1. The relief was found built into the wall of the church of Agios Nikolaios ton Lemonion on Salamis and seems to have been overlooked until the recent publication of Stroszeck. She does not offer a date, but I thank Carol Lawton for discussing this with me. 24 Athens, Agora S 713; Lawton 2017, 98, no. 91, pl. 28 (c. 410 BC). As Lawton points out, this relief is unique among banqueting hero reliefs in that it appears to have been one side of a rectangular base. The enormous cornucopia in the hand of the hero is also very unusual. Comella (2002, 58) suggests that the hero could be one who was worshiped in the Agora, such as Aiakos.

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Figure 13.5 Piraeus, Archaeological Museum inv. 208, banqueting hero relief, c. 400 BC. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Piraeus-0215 (Gösta Hellner).

A very fine relief from Piraeus that may date to just after 400 BC would be the latest example of a banqueting hero relief that includes the oinochöos but no worshiper (Fig. 13.5).25 The hero is beardless, as may be true of the relief with the kottabos player (Fig. 13.2),26 and the heroine is uniquely positioned beside the head of the kline, seated on a diphros and exchanging looks with her consort. This is the most intimate relationship between hero and heroine depicted on a votive relief. We may be reminded that such romantic couples as Prokris and Kephalos were worshiped at Thorikos, as attested by the sacrificial calendar.27

25 Steinhauer 2001, 238–9, Figs. 327–8; Thönges-Stringaris 1965, pl. 8:1. According to Thönges-Stringaris (1965, 77–8), this is the only example before c. 300 BC on which the consort sits beside the head of the couch. 26 The figure’s face is badly damaged, but Dentzer (1970, 72) saw indications of a beard on the chin. 27 Daux 1984, 148, ll. 16–17. Cf. infra n. 53 on sacrificial calendars.

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Figure 13.6 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1501, banqueting hero relief. c. 410 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund.

I take the absence of a worshiper on this group of five reliefs to be another argument for the close derivation from symposion iconography on vases in the early evolution of the banqueting hero motif. The Salamis relief has another unusual detail: the serving boy is not the standard oinochöos of the later banquet reliefs, who is usually shown frontally; instead he turns his back to the hero and busies himself with a dinos or lebes, on a tall, broad stand. I am aware of only one other relief with this motif, now in Berlin but acquired in Attika and again certainly quite early, since the hero is shown fully in profile and is a beardless youth, as on the two Piraeus reliefs (Figs. 13.2 and 13.5).28 The dinos has a long pedigree in both relief sculpture and vase painting, including the famous banqueting hero relief from Thasos of the early Classical period and the even earlier one from the Archilocheion on Paros.29 In vase painting we find it already 28 Berlin, Antikensammlung K97; Blümel 1966, 81–2, Fig. 133. 29 For the Thasos relief, see Ridgway 1970, 46, Figs. 62–5; Thönges-Stringaris 1965, 3–4, pl. 5. The date is c. 470 BC. For the relief from the Archilocheion, see Clay 2004, 47–50, pls. 13–14.

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in Archaic symposion scenes, when the dinos itself enjoyed its greatest popularity in the potters’ quarter.30 The first mortal worshiper appears on a banqueting hero relief of about 410 BC, and he makes the distinctive gesture of adoration, with one hand peeking out tentatively from his tightly wrapped mantle (Fig. 13.6).31 We know this gesture from earlier depictions of mortals in the presence of a divinity on vases, such as a well-known neck amphora with Athena writing in a diplax and a mature man observing her from the reverse.32 In this early relief, as well as on the contemporary ‘Actors’ Relief,’ the hero really does look like many symposiasts on vases of the period, with the carefully trimmed beard of the Athenian citizen.33 But the phiale in the hand of the hero is not an attribute of mortal symposiasts, and nor is the rhyton that will become standard on later banqueting hero reliefs (see Figs. 13.7 and 13.8). Gods and heroes who recline on couches, especially Dionysos and Herakles, do sometimes hold a phiale and use it as a

Figure 13.7 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 15245, banqueting hero relief, c. 370 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund.

30 E.g., the calyx-krater by Euphronios, Munich 8935; ARV2 1619, 3bis; BAPD 275007; Goemann et al. 1991, 91. 31 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1501; Kaltsas 2002, 136, no. 261. 32 Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 369; ARV2 648, 31; BAPD 207543; Jung 1995, 135, Fig. 20. 33 Actors’ Relief: Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1500; Kaltsas 2002, 138, no. 264.

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Figure 13.8 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 11559, Attic red-figure calyx-krater, c. 400 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund.

drinking vessel.34 Here, the pais holding a jug over a krater on the left,35 along with the oblique angle at which the hero holds the phiale, suggests that it is indeed intended for libation. This might also help explain the absence of a table alongside the kline, a standard element of virtually all 34 On the motif of the phiale on this relief, see Gaifman 2018, 3. For the phiale as a symposion vessel, see Tsingarida 2009. 35 Victoria Sabetai, in publishing a calyx-krater by the Dinos Painter (c. 420–405 BC) with Dionysos and Ariadne sharing a kline, discusses mutual influence between this vase and several votive reliefs of the late fifth century, including our Figs. 13.2 and 13.6 and the Actors’ Relief (supra n. 33). In particular, she suggests that the krater, which will later become ubiquitous on votive reliefs (cf. Fig. 13.7) and first appears (though not yet articulated as a krater with volute handles) on Fig. 13.6, derives from vases like this one, where a metal volute krater, highlighted in yellow, sits beside the foot end of the couch: Sabetai 2011, esp. pp. 150–1.

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later reliefs.36 The dog gnawing on a bone under the kline is a favorite element of symposion scenes going back to black-figure of the late sixth century.37 The designer of this relief has created a unique amalgam of the sacred (libation, worshiper) and the secular (pais, dog), drawing on earlier imagery that is both secular (a symposiast with his hetaira) and sacred (reclining gods and heroes). The placement of the worshiper, behind the hero’s kline, suggests that the relationship that characterizes them on certain later votive reliefs has not yet been articulated.38 Though the worshiper is clearly on a smaller scale than the hero, the disparity is not nearly as great as it will be on the typical fourth-century relief.39 More importantly, seen in profile, the worshiper could be the twin brother of the hero, which may have been disconcerting to the ancient viewer, requiring a clearer differentiation. Hence the banqueting hero of the fourth century, who has become what Nikolaus Himmelmann aptly called a “hieratic” figure, is turned to face the viewer, with the lush beard and long, shaggy hair that make him resemble such gods as Zeus, Hades, and Asklepios (Fig. 13.7).40 The rhyton that he holds in his raised right hand has undergone a striking semantic shift. In especially elaborate symposion scenes of the late fifth century, a youth may drink ostentatiously from a metal, animal-head rhyton, as on a calyx-krater in Athens (Fig. 13.8).41 Since the vessel is Achaemenid Persian in origin, its appearance here represents the kind of Athenian appropriation 36 Even then, the table displays at most modest amounts of bread and cakes. Dentzer (1982, 335) describes the food as “gateaux et pâtisserie,” as well as fruit and occasionally an egg. Thus, “banqueting hero” is no less a misnomer than “Totenmahlrelief.” He might rather be called a “breakfasting hero.” This is therefore not a theoxenia, in which the worshipers lay out a meal to be shared by the hero and his worshipers, as was pointed out by Klöckner (2010, 121–4) and Seifert (2007, 266). For the practice of theoxenia, see Jameson 1994. 37 The Severe Style relief from Thasos (supra n. 29) also has a dog under the table, as well as a plump bird under the throne of the female consort. On the dog as a genre element, see Himmelmann 2009, 36. 38 That relationship is well described by Tanner (2006, 87): “the god turns to the votary and reciprocates with a libation” showing a “responsiveness to ritual performance.” Here, the hero has no awareness of the worshiper’s presence. Yet even on banqueting hero reliefs where the worshipers are positioned in front of the kline, the degree of communication is questionable. Once the hero turns his head to look out of the frame (cf. Fig. 13.7), he again shows no awareness of the worshiper. See infra n. 44. 39 In this respect, Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1501 (Fig. 13.6) is reminiscent of the Late Archaic votive relief from the Akropolis (infra n. 96), on which the adults in the family bringing a pig sacrifice to Athena are not significantly smaller than the goddess. It is only her helmet that makes her seem more imposing. 40 Himmelmann 2009, 38–40. For the full publication of Fig. 13.7 (Athens, National Archaeological Museum 15245), see Tsoule 2004. I thank David Petrain for this reference. 41 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 11559; ARV2 1437, 14; BAPD 218073; Kathariou 2002, pl. 82A.; discussed most recently by McPhee 2017, 57–8. Cf. a similar scene on a slightly later krater in Vienna, a detail of the youth holding a rhyton illustrated by Avramidou 2009, 6, Fig. 8. She also notes the similarity to banqueting hero reliefs.

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of Persian luxury items that Margaret Miller has thoroughly documented.42 However, in the hand of the hero on votive reliefs it is no longer functional, but rather another symbol of his heroic (and possibly chthonic) nature.43 Once the single worshiper has been introduced on the relief in Fig. 13.6, the number of votaries seems to grow incrementally.44 Thus, on the example in Berlin with the large dinos,45 two worshipers who look like father and son approach the kline, the elder making the typical gesture of adoration and the younger modestly wrapped up in his garment like a mummy. It is generally assumed that this is not a motif that would ever turn up on a vase. Yet there is a remarkable parallel, not in Attika, but on one of the very large skyphoi from the sanctuary of the Kabeiroi in Boiotia (Fig. 13.9).46 Father and son approach the banqueting hero with gestures very similar to those on the relief. The only significant difference is that the Boiotian hero does not have a female consort – or, rather, a big bull has taken her place. The scene is surely not a parody or a burlesque, as some Kabiric skyphoi have been described.47 Though painted in the idiosyncratic style of this workshop, it is a genuine depiction of cult worship that was practiced in the sanctuary. Why the Boiotian painter here takes up a motif that his contemporaries in Athens did not requires further investigation. The same question could be asked of another Boiotian vase, a red-figure bell krater of the late fifth century, which seems to anticipate by more than a generation a favorite element of Attic votive reliefs: the snake that accompanies the hero on the kline and sometimes sips from a bowl.48 42 Miller 1997, 141–7. 43 Cf. Himmelmann 2009, 41 on the close resemblance of the full-bearded “hieratic” hero holding up a rhyton to underworld gods. 44 Klöckner (2010, 123–4) observes that on the Totenmahlreliefs the hero with frontal face is generally oblivious of the worshipers (even when they are positioned in front of him), and in this respect they operate very differently from reliefs to healing heroes. Lawton (2016, 399–400) goes further to suggest that on some reliefs (e.g., Fig. 13.7) the procession of worshipers has been “grafted onto” the motif of the banqueting hero of the vases, creating a disjunction between the eating and drinking of the hero, on the one hand, and the bringing of sacrificial animals, on the other. There is no meaningful interaction between the two groups. The oinochoös, who technically belongs to the hero, often gets mixed up with the worshipers. In these instances, the figure of the oinochoös may be derived not from symposion scenes, but rather from scenes of procession, sacrifice, and libation. On these see Lehnstaedt 1970. 45 Supra n. 28. 46 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10466; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 96–7, pl. 6. 47 Cf. Walsh 2009, 14–16 and Chapter 17 (pp. 376–99). 48 Athens, National Archaeological Museum M1393; Petsalis-Diomidis 2016, 56–7; Himmelmann 2009, 43–4; Lullies 1940, 21, pl. 26. The other side depicts a woman approaching a seated goddess who is shown on a much larger scale, as is typical of votive reliefs but without parallel on Attic vases. Contemporary with this Boiotian krater is an Attic one depicting a large snake alongside the reclining hero: calyx-krater, Berlin, Antikensammlung 3165; Effenberger 1972. For the snake in hero reliefs, see Thönges-Stringaris 1965, 19; e.g., the relief Mariemont G.49; Lévêque 1967, 83–4, pl. 30. Perhaps not coincidentally, Himmelmann (2009, 40 n. 68) also considers this to be the earliest relief with the “fully hieratic” frontal hero.

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Figure 13.9 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10466, Boiotian black-figure ‘Kabiric’ skyphos, c. 420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

That the worshipers on the Berlin relief – or the Kabiric skyphos (Fig. 13.9), for that matter – truly are father and son is strongly suggested by the appearance of similar pairs of figures on votive reliefs to the recognizable heroes Theseus and Herakles. The only surviving Attic votive relief to Theseus is the well-known dedication of one Sosippos, son of Nauarchides, dated c. 400 BC.49 Clearly, he is presenting his son, who is shy and hangs back, to the Athenian hero par excellence, in the hopes that the boy will find favor from Theseus and grow up to be like him. Does this mean that the young hero on the Berlin relief could be Theseus as well? That would suit this rare example of a beardless banqueting hero. Another possibility would be Herakles, who also receives father-and-son worshipers, for example on a late fifth-century relief from Marousi in Attika.50 Herakles is, in fact, often young and beardless, as is the case here, where he is seen in front of his distinctive four-columned shrine on both votive reliefs and red-figure vases.51 49 Paris, Musée du Louvre Ma 743; Hamiaux 1992, 142; cf. Ekroth 2010. 50 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 2723; Svoronos 1903, pls. 101; 121. 51 This is, incidentally, a prime example of the intimate back-and-forth between contemporary votive reliefs and vase paintings, which I have not included here, as it has been recently and thoroughly documented by several scholars: Klöckner 2015–16; Verbanck-Piérard 2012; Froning 1990. On the youthful, beardless Herakles in the late fifth century, see Vollkommer 1988, 93.

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But in either case, that of Theseus or Herakles, it is far from obvious who the female companion on the relief in Berlin might be. Indeed, the so-called consort, or heroine, on most banqueting hero reliefs has never been adequately explained, let alone given a name. Though a handful of the banqueting hero reliefs do name the hero, the consort is almost never named.52 Jennifer Larson, however, has called attention to a striking parallel with the fourth-century sacrificial calendars from Marathon and Thorikos, in which many of the local heroes are paired with a nameless heroine, who also receives an offering, though a smaller one than the hero’s.53 In terms of the iconography of hero and heroine, it has been claimed that the symposion analogy fails at this point, since the only women present at the symposia whom we see in vase painting are hetairai – hardly suitable models for the dignified heroine of the reliefs. In her book on symposion imagery, Kathryn Topper makes the interesting observation that only in mythological settings do “respectable” women participate in the symposion.54 She points to a fragmentary bell krater of the mid-fifth century with the centaur Eurytion and Herakles sharing a kline in the house of Dexamenos.55 The king’s daughter sits on the foot end of the couch, plaiting a wreath, a motif we see on later votive reliefs.56 But I would argue that there are additional visual precedents in symposion imagery for the hero’s consort, since some hetairai look every bit as demure as the consort on the votives.57 On a cup in London, for example, an elegantly dressed woman (presumably a hetaira) sits at the foot end of the kline, just like the woman on many votives, and carefully holds a very full cup of wine.58 Another, more intriguing precedent is the figure of Athena when she attends to the banqueting Herakles while seated on a separate chair, as if playing the role of his consort. We have this motif as far back as blackfigure vases of the late sixth century.59 A fine example in red-figure is the 52 According to Lawton (2016, 388), of about 200 banqueting hero reliefs, six name the hero. Two heroines are named together with the hero: Basileia with Zeuxippos and Eudosia with Bouthon. 53 Larson 1995, 45–9; cf. Lawton (2016, 389–91), who also points out that the calendars often include an offering of a trapeza with modest foodstuffs, which could correspond to the table alongside the kline on the reliefs. 54 Topper 2012, 129. 55 Paris, Musée du Louvre G345; ARV2 1108, 16; BAPD 214655; Lissarrague 2013,104, Fig. 76; Topper 2012, 129, Fig. 53. For the interpretation of the scene, see von Mercklin 1937. 56 E.g., the relief in Mariemont, supra n. 48. 57 Cf. the observations in this regard of Effenberger 1972, 142. 58 London, British Museum E68; ARV2 371, 24; BAPD 203923; CVA: Great Britain 17, London, British Museum 9 (D. Williams), 55–6, pl. 58–9; Peschel 1987, 101–2. 59 Hydria, Athens, National Archaeological Museum 564; BAPD 301768; S. Wolf 1993, Fig. 6. Cf. Lawton 2016, 397; Himmelmann 2009, 34. The earliest example of the motif is on a fragmentary Attic black-figure hydria of c. 550 in the Cahn Collection, Basel: Boardman 1984, 243–4, Fig. 1.

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extraordinary psykter krater in the Metropolitan Museum dated c. 470 BC (Figs. 13.10 and 13.11).60 In fact, this scene includes two different motifs that anticipate the votive reliefs. On the front of the vase, Dionysos and Ariadne share one kline while Herakles occupies the other, with a winged Hebe pouring wine into his kantharos (Fig. 13.10). Athena, placed under the handle (Fig. 13.11), sits behind and facing the back of the reclining Herakles, very much like the woman on the contemporary banqueting hero relief from Thasos.61 At the other end of the scene, Ariadne sits on the foot end of Dionysos’ kline, her feet on a low stool, just like many heroines on the reliefs. If we want to understand who the unnamed heroine is meant to be and why her presence seems to be indispensable on the banqueting hero reliefs, Dionysos and Ariadne might be good role models to consider since they are a ubiquitous couple with wholly positive connotations for the life of the Athenian oikos.62 VOTIVES WITH NARRATIVE SCENES A second category of early votive reliefs, one that did not survive the end of the fifth century, comprises those that can broadly be described as “narrative”; that is, they show the divinity or hero in action. Perhaps the most famous of these is the two-sided relief from Phaleron showing, on the front, an otherwise unknown pair, the hero Echelos carrying off a woman labeled Iasile in a chariot.63 The abduction motif is, of course, a popular one for such myths as Theseus and Helen or the Dioskouroi and the daughters of Leukippos.64 The version of the latter story on the name vase of the Meidias Painter offers a good parallel for the poses of the youthful hero Echelos and his helpless victim.65 The figure of Hermes running ahead of the horses on the Phaleron relief can also be paralleled on vases of this period. Though sadly fragmentary, a remarkable skyphos 60 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1986.11.12; BAPD 15922; fully published by Padgett 2002. 61 Supra n. 29. 62 Cf. my comments in Shapiro 1989, 92–5. Cf. Carpenter 1995, 152–60, who discusses the New York psykter krater (160–1, Figs. 10–11) in the context of scenes of Dionysos reclining with a woman who may or may not be Ariadne (she is labeled on the New York vase). For scenes of Dionysos and Ariadne on a kline, see also Schmitt Pantel 2011, 130–6. 63 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1783; Kaltsas 2002, 133, no. 257; Wulfmeier 2005, 128–31, with exhaustive bibliography; Güntner 1994, 21–3, 127–8. The reverse shows Kephalos (in whose sanctuary at Phaleron the relief was found) with three nymphs and two additional divinities. 64 LIMC IV, s.v. Helene, 507–12 (L. Kahil); LIMC III, s.v. Dioskouroi, 583–5 (A. Hermary). 65 London, British Museum 224; ARV2 1313, 5; BAPD 220497; Burn 1987, pls. 1–9, with detail of Polydeukes abducting Elera, pl. 5b. The date is c. 420 BC.

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Figure 13.10 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1986.11.12, Attic red-figure psykter-krater, c. 480–470 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Bothmer Purchase Fund, 1986.

from the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis has the only Attic depiction of the rape of Persephone, with Hermes moving off to the right, in front of the horses and chariot as they plunge into the earth.66 Other narrative scenes include that of Triptolemos in his snaky chariot, being sent out by Demeter and Persephone, on a relief of about 400 BC from the City Eleusinion.67 This is a subject with a long history stretching back a century and a half, though almost absent from red-figure of the later 66 Eleusis, Archaeological Museum 624; ARV2 647, 21; BAPD 7971; Lindner 1984, 14–15, pls. 2–3. A second votive with a very similar abduction motif substitutes a worshiper, on the left, for the figure of Hermes: Berlin, Antikensammlung K79 (from Rhodes); Blümel 1966, 59–60, Fig. 100. 67 Athens, Agora S 1013; Lawton 2017, 54, pl. 12.

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Figure 13.11 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1986.11.12, Attic red-figure psykter-krater, c. 480–470 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Bothmer Purchase Fund, 1986.

fifth century.68 Perhaps also in this category is the much-discussed “Relief of the Gods” from Brauron, which may show Iphigenia joining Artemis and other gods on her return from the Black Sea.69 One more that belongs here is the unusually large relief (more than a meter wide) put together by Geoffrey Waywell from fragments in London and Athens.70 A young 68 Schwarz 1987, 143–4. On the absence of the motif in the late fifth century, see Hayashi 1992, 69–70. 69 Brauron, Archaeological Museum 1180. See Venit 2003, 44–55 for the interpretation. 70 London, British Museum 814 + Athens, British School of Archaeology S.24; Waywell 1967.

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charioteer in flamboyantly billowing drapery drives his victorious fourhorse chariot to the left as Nike flies toward him, no doubt to crown him with a wreath, and a goddess stands at the left end. Elizabeth Pemberton wanted to see the charioteer as Alkibiades, commemorating a victory at Olympia in 416 BC.71 Subsequent scholars have diverged in their dating of the relief (but usually place it later than Waywell’s of c. 435–425 BC) and have been skeptical of the connection to Alkibiades.72 Sources in sculpture for the galloping horses are numerous but, as Pemberton showed, the horizontally flying Nike is a novelty.73 TOPOGRAPHICAL RELIEFS Yet another category of late fifth-century votives is what I would like to call the topographical relief. These are the votives that recreate the physical setting of the sanctuary in which they were dedicated through a variety of visual cues – something that we do not often see in the fourth century, with the exception of the cave reliefs to Pan.74 Surely the most spectacular example of a topographical relief is the monument erected by Telemachos to commemorate the bringing of the cult of Asklepios to Attika from Epidauros in the year 420/419 BC (Fig. 13.12).75 The very form of the monument is utterly unique, a pillar inscribed and decorated on all four sides, supporting a superstructure in several degrees, with a large panel carved on both sides that approximates the form and dimensions of big votives like the relief of Echelos and Iasile.76 Only bits and pieces of the original carved reliefs of the monument, which stood in the Asklepieion on the south slope of the Akropolis, and of what seems to be a contemporary copy that stood somewhere else, survive. But thanks to the remarkable detective work of Luigi Beschi and others, we can say something about the variety of motifs that were combined in this complex monument.77 Of the many published discussions since Beschi’s breakthrough, the most illuminating in my view is that of Jürgen Riethmüller, especially in correlating the iconography of the reliefs

71 Pemberton 1981, 310–13. 72 E.g., Mangold 1993, 74 n. 62 suggests early fourth century. Cf. Comella (2002, 43) who prefers a date close to Waywell’s: 430–420. 73 Pemberton 1981, 311–12, who also adduces several parallels in red-figure for the motif of the relief. 74 Supra n. 16. 75 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 2477. Of many recent discussions, see those of Wickkiser 2008, 67–72 for the historical and political context; Wulfmeier 2005, 37–42, 141–4, with a full catalog of the fragments. 76 Supra n. 63. 77 Beschi 2002, esp. pp. 19–29 for discussion of some responses to his earlier publications; Beschi 1985; Beschi 1982; Beschi 1967–8b; Beschi 1967–8a.

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Figure 13.12 Telemachos Monument in Athens, c. 400 BC. Reconstruction after Beschi (2002).

with the inscribed text.78 I would just single out a few elements that Beschi and Riethmüller have identified which are relevant to our purpose. Beschi describes what he calls a “symbolic landscape,” a topography of the area where the new sanctuary was to be planted, defined by the famous pelican (for the Pelargikon, the ancient wall of the Akropolis), the propylon of the new sanctuary, the columns of a hero-shrine, and the column behind the figure of Telemachos himself as he approaches Hygieia and Asklepios.79 In 78 Riethmüller 2005, 242–50. 79 Beschi 1982, 31–2. The relief of Telemachos before Asklepios and Hygieia includes medical instruments and a bandage hanging on an imaginary wall behind the divinities. See Berger 1970, 83–4, who suggests that these too have a ‘topographical’ function, in that they refer to the iatreion where patients were treated in the sanctuary.

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a section of the copy that turned up in Verona after Beschi’s original reconstruction, we seem to have a reference to Asklepios’ journey up from Zea Harbor (as recounted in the inscribed text), a sanctuary marked by a pillar supporting a rectangular relief not unlike this monument (Fig. 13.13).80 Riethmüller goes a step further in relating the imagery of the reliefs to the topography of the Akropolis by interpreting the two pairs of divinities carved on the short sides of the pillar – Athena with Zeus Polieus, Artemis Brauronia with Aphrodite – as references to the sanctuaries of these four in the vicinity of the new sanctuary, as if the ancient residents of the Akropolis and its slopes were welcoming the newcomer, Asklepios, to the neighborhood.81 It is precisely this kind of “cultic topography” that I have proposed to see on one of the best-known vases of the late fifth century.82

Figure 13.13 Verona, Museo Maffeiano inv. 28615, fragmentary relief from Telemachos Monument, Athens, c. 400 BC. Photo after Renberg, G. 2017. Where Dreams May Come, Leiden.

80 Beschi 1982, 39–40. Cf. Riethmüller 2005, 245. 81 Riethmüller 2005, 247. 82 Infra n. 101.

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The motif of a votive pillar carved in low relief on a marble votive was known before the discovery of this fragment, but it is a rare one and was especially popular in the years around 400 BC.83 Perhaps the bestknown example is the relief dedicated by Archinos in the sanctuary of Amphiaraos at Oropos, but there are others.84 A relief in Athens, to which a fragment in the Metropolitan Museum could be joined, yields a complete figure of Athena admiring a votive set up in her own sanctuary.85 The goddess turns to the left, probably to acknowledge a worshiper who is no longer preserved. Her sanctuary is marked by both an altar and the votive on a tall pillar. The currently fashionable term for the ‘image depicted within the image’ or an ‘embedded image or metapicture’ is mise en abyme.86 But the sculptor of the Telemachos Monument went even a step further, by carving a small scene in relief on the votive displayed in his version of the sanctuary of Asklepios Mounichios at Zea Harbor in the Piraeus, recognizable by a ship in the foreground (Fig. 13.13).87 Though difficult to make out, the scene is clearly one of incubation, with Asklepios attending to a patient on a couch.88 A distant ancestor of this idea can be found on a well-known black-figure pelike of the later sixth century, with a scene of initiation set in a sanctuary.89 The shrine placed atop a tall, slender pillar has a set of doors that open to reveal a pair of horsemen in faded white, no doubt the Dioskouroi.90 83 Vikela (1997, 194) observes that there are more references to the sanctuary on votive reliefs to Asklepios than for any other god or hero. For other examples, see Childs 2018, 41–2; van Straten 1992, 255–8; Rumpf 1958, 254–6. 84 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3369; Kaltsas 2002, 209–10, no. 425; recent discussions in Childs 2018, 203; Platt and Squire 2017b, 78–81; Platt 2011, 46–7. 85 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1398 + New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1989.281.59; Vikela 2005, 107, pl. 14:2 (dated to the end of the fifth or beginning of the fourth century BC); Svoronos 1903, 349, no. 95, pl. 58. The join was made by Mangold 1993, 21–2, Fig. 3. Among the rare examples of the motif in the fourth century are the reliefs Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1384; Kaltsas 2002, 227, no. 476 and Athens National Archaeological Museum 15245 (Fig. 13.7). 86 E.g., Trimble 2018, 346 (whence the definition of mise en abyme quoted here) and, in the same volume, Elsner 2018. Writing about the Archinos relief (supra n. 84), Platt and Squire (2017b, 80) refer to the stele as “a knowing mise en abyme of votives dedicated in the sanctuary.” A brief review of a wide range of mise en abyme images in Greek and Roman art is offered by Gensheimer 2015. 87 The fragment in Verona is illustrated most recently by Renberg 2017, 188, Fig. 11. van Straten (1992, 258–9) lists four other examples of a pinax with relief decoration on a votive relief, all of them fragmentary. Three are Hellenistic; the one of fourth century date is Athens, National Archaeological Museum 2354; Svoronos 1903, pl. 141:4. Cf. Karusu (1979), who suggests that images could also have been painted on the stelai depicted on votive reliefs. 88 Renberg 2017, 187; Riethmüller 2005, 245. 89 Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 81083; ABV 338, 3; BAPD 301859; Metzger 1965, 28, pl. 9:3. 90 For a detailed illustration of the pinax, see CVA: Italia 20, Naples, Museo Nazionale 1 (A. Adriani), pl. 13:4.

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Carving a votive relief on a votive relief might seem to be roughly analogous to painting a vase on a vase, though the latter phenomenon is, of course, vastly more common.91 Putting a figured scene on a vase depicted on a vase – analogous to what we find in sculpture on the Telemachos Monument – is not at all common, but some examples have been collected and analyzed by Marjorie Venit.92 A rare instance that crosses genres – a decorated votive relief painted on a vase – can be found on a remarkable calyx-krater from Athens that is contemporary with the votives of around 400 BC (Fig. 13.14).93 A rather splendid white pig is being led to sacrifice. The sanctuary is marked by a boukranion draped with fillets, a pair of horns, and a big white pillar with a Doric capital supporting a square relief. The framed relief panel is crowned by a pediment with three

Figure 13.14 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 12491, Attic red-figure calyx-krater, c. 400 BC. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. 91 See Gericke 1970. 92 Venit 2006. 93 BAPD 46072; Gebauer 2002, 226–8, cat. A10, 722, Fig. 120; ThesCRA I, 116, no. 470, pl. 27.

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akroteria, a configuration that recalls the relief of Echelos and Iasile.94 Three worshipers in the background make gestures of adoration toward the pillar. The votive relief, rendered in added white to simulate marble, seems to be decorated with wreaths.95 Could this be a sacrifice to Athena on the Akropolis? The pig is, of course, the sacrificial victim on one of the earliest of all Attic votive reliefs, dated about 490 BC, with an impressive Athena receiving a family of five bringing her a pig.96 A later fourthcentury relief is a kind of descendant of this one, with a large group of men bringing a pig to the goddess, who stands beside her altar.97 If the setting on our krater is indeed the Akropolis, it would be reminiscent of a contemporary krater that I have argued shows a bull being led to sacrifice on the Akropolis, with wingless Nike (Nike Apteros) and her temple appearing in the background (see Fig. 7.3).98 In his reconstruction of the Telemachos Monument as a topographical rendering of the south slope of the Akropolis, Beschi adduced the well-known “Torlonia Relief,” a votive that was found in Rome but is universally recognized as a high-quality Attic work from the beginning of the series of votives, around 420 BC.99 The figures are hard to identify and much debated – perhaps Hippolytos as the young horseman in the foreground and Asklepios and Hygieia observing from above.100 Since the upper part of the relief is lost, we do not know how much more of it there was. But it is clear that again there is a kind of topography represented, with an architectural element in the background that may contain a cult statue and the seated divinities alluding to their shrines. For Beschi this would be a portion of the Akropolis south slope, where the shrine of Hippolytos, as we read in Pausanias (1.22.1-3), was located, in the vicinity of the Asklepieion. Figures seated on rocky outcrops and multi-level compositions are a commonplace of later red-figure, as seen on a Meidian 94 Supra n. 63. 95 For wreaths painted or carved in low relief on marble votives, cf., e.g., Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1332; Kaltsas 2002, 224–5, no. 472, a votive to Asklepios, Demeter, and Kore, with, below, five wreaths, each inscribed or painted with the name of a physician honored by the city. 96 Athens, Akropolis Museum 581; Palagia 1995. 97 Athens, Akropolis Museum 3007; Vikela 2005, 128–9, pl. 22:1 (c. 320 BC). Even earlier in date than Akropolis 581 is a red-figure loutrophoros from the Akropolis showing a group of men and women leading a pig to sacrifice to Athena: Athens, National Archaeological Museum Akr. 636; ARV2 237, 1604; BAPD 200142; Kaltsas and Shapiro 2008, 256–7 (G. Kavvadias). 98 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.171.49; ARV2 1347, 3; BAPD 217591; Shapiro 2009b, 267, Fig. 11. 99 Rome, Villa Torlonia 433; Rosenzweig 2004, 85–6, Fig. 67; Beschi 1967–8a, 516–17. A second votive of the late fifth century BC with a figure (Athena) seated on a rocky outcrop is Athens, Akropolis Museum 2664 + 2460; Walter 1923, 46, no. 75; Vikela 2005, pl. 17, 4. 100 Beschi 1967–8a, 516. For other interpretations see Güntner 1994, 47–8.

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squat lekythos with the birth of Erichthonios (a story once again set on the Akropolis).101 But I am especially reminded of the great calyx-krater in Schloss Fasanerie, illustrating another version of this story in an Akropolis setting marked by Athena’s sacred olive tree.102 I have elsewhere proposed that the whole ensemble of gods and heroes is a kind of cultic topography of the Akropolis, with each of the gods alluding to his or her sanctuary on and around the sacred rock.103 HEROS EQUITANS The Heros Equitans has been mentioned briefly, a mysterious figure whose identity remains uncertain.104 As has often been pointed out for the banqueting hero reliefs, the ancient Athenian had no such problem, since s/he knew the sanctuary in which the relief was dedicated. But the horseman seems to suggest a certain degree of specificity. He is unlikely to be one of the Dioskouroi, since we have numerous votives to them, and they always depict Kastor and Polydeuces as a pair.105 Certainly Classical Greek sculpture is so rich in young horsemen – the frieze of the Parthenon comes to mind – that we needn’t look to vase painting for a visual model. But one vase of the late fifth century is of particular interest in this context: a Meidian chous in the Louvre showing two women approaching a youth who is in traveling gear and armor beside his horse (Fig. 13.15).106 The woman in front holds phiale and oinochoe, the implements of libation, 101 Cleveland Museum of Art 82.142; BAPD 10161; Neils 1983. An even better source for this kind of landscape depiction would be wall painting of the period, as pointed out by Waywell apud Mitropoulou 1977, 40–1 n. 58. Cf. the discussion of landscape settings on vases of the late fifth century in Dietrich 2010, 506–13. 102 Eichenzell, Schloss Fasanerie (Adolphseck) 77; ARV2 1346, 1; BAPD 217589; CVA: Deutschland 11, Schloss Fasanerie 1 (F. Brommer), pls. 46–8; most recently, Brinkmann 2016, 86, cat. 91, with a different interpretation from the canonical one, as the reconciliation of Athena and Poseidon after the end of the “Eleusinian War.” For the full argument, see Simon 2016. 103 Shapiro 2009b, 264–5. 104 LIMC VI, s.v. Heros Equitans, 1019–81 (I. Popovic et al.); Voutiras 2010. Cf. Voutiras’ comments on the motif of horsemen on a red-figure funerary loutrophoros of the late fifth century as derived from the votive reliefs [or perhaps vice-versa?] (pp. 100–1). On the different ways in which votive reliefs allude to heroes’ associations with horses, ranging from the heros equitans motif to the horse heads that appear in the upper corner of a banqueting hero or other relief, see the comments of van Straten 1992, 259–60. 105 E.g., the relief Rome, Museo Nazionale 182595 (now in Palazzo Altemps); Giuliano 1985, 553–8. I thank E. Ghisellini (Rome) for this reference. The Dioskouroi are accompanied by a woman who must be their sister Helen. 106 Paris, Musée du Louvre S1659; BAPD 15906; Burn 1987, pl. 52a. This was recently illustrated and discussed by Matheson 2009, 384–5. She identifies the youth as a cavalryman and adds, “I do not see that it need be heroic.” On the contrary, I think the sanctuary setting, with altar and votive pinakes in the tree, clearly suggests that it is heroic.

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Figure 13.15 Paris, Musée du Louvre S1659, Attic red-figure chous, c. 410 BC. Photo: Art Resource New York.

while her companion is veiled and seems to make an unusual gesture of one hand raised to her chin. This gesture could be one of astonishment at a sudden appearance or epiphany, a sense of wonderment.107 One might have thought first of a mythological reading such as Elektra and an attendant greeting Orestes on his return to Argos. Since, however, in my view, any scene on a chous should be read with one eye on the festival for which it 107 E.g., Nausikaa as she reacts to the unexpected appearance of the nude Odysseus on the red-figure pyxis lid Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 04.18; ARV2 1177, 48; BAPD 215604; LIMC VI, s.v. Nausikaa, 713 no. 3, pl. 421 (O. Touchefeu-Meynier). Another, somewhat earlier example is the peculiar red-figure oinochoe by the Trophy Painter, with a woman beside a seated Athena: London, British Museum E316; ARV2 857, 6; BAPD 212477; Jung 1995, 133, Fig. 19, with discussion of other examples of a contemplative Athena. The woman could be a mortal worshiper who has suddenly experienced an epiphany of the goddess, a precursor of such encounters on votive reliefs. Yet another example in the style and the period of the Louvre chous is a second chous, New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery 13.139; BAPD 3724; Burke and Pollitt 1975, 70–2 (E. Sears); CVA: USA 38, Yale University Art Gallery 1 (S. Matheson) pls. 22–3. As Apollo appears on the right, the woman on the left makes the gesture of wonderment. A youth between them leans on a crooked stick and gestures toward Apollo. Many interpretations, all inconclusive, are summarized by Matheson (CVA 19–20).

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was made – the Anthesteria – even if there is no obvious connection in the image, I wonder if we might think of Orestes in a different context. His arrival in Athens, to be tried on the Areopagos, was the aition for a practice observed at the Anthesteria, the apportioning of individual choes to each participant (to avoid catching Orestes’ pollution).108 A different line of interpretation would see a genre scene on the chous in the Louvre (Fig. 13.15), a young Athenian leaving home with a farewell libation, an idea canvassed by Lucilla Burn.109 But, as she herself observes, the painter has so carefully characterized the sanctuary setting, with the altar and the tall tree with votive pinakes suspended from the branches,110 that a third scenario suggests itself: a youthful hero visits his own sanctuary, where two women have come to make offerings.111 One woman shows her astonishment at the sudden appearance of the hero. The mood is not unlike that of a slightly earlier votive relief now in Verona: a mostly nude young hero stands beside his horse and looks toward a male worshiper, who makes the gesture of reverence with his raised right hand as he looks up at the hero.112 The scene on the chous does have both the intent and the flavor of a votive relief, with mortal worshipers confronting a hero, though the difference in scale that is characteristic of votive reliefs is not observed.113 The imagery might then be said to interact with that of the new genre of marble votive reliefs, but in the context of a specific festival of Dionysos. Though it is generally the case that the vases do not show a worshiper approaching a hero or god, the fundamental motif of the votive reliefs, I would like to conclude by offering what I believe is one good candidate in the late fifth century (Figs. 13.16 and 13.17).114 On this red-figure bell krater found in the Agora, Herakles and Athena stand in the center, a nude youth (Iolaos?) on the right gestures toward Herakles, and on the left is a man in an elaborate garment with his right hand extended like a worshiper. In his initial publication of the vase, Peter Corbett assumed that this last figure must be mythological, for example Herakles’ father Amphitryon 108 For this story and its possible depiction on another chous, see Shapiro 2004a. 109 Burn 1987, 88. 110 For such pinakes depicted on vases, see Karoglou 2010, 10–14. Van Straten (1992, 264–5) observes that large votives are depicted on marble votives, while little painted pinakes are depicted on vases. One exception is the calyx-krater, Fig. 13.14, with a large votive depicted on a large vase. The idea is the same, but treated differently in different media. 111 Burn 1987, 88. 112 Verona, Museo Lapidario Maffeiano 216; Beschi 1967–8a, 530, Fig. 14 (c. 430–420 BC); Mitropoulou 1977, 34, no. 37, Fig. 59. 113 Cf., however, the early relief supra n. 96, with adult worshipers on the same scale as the divinities. 114 Athens, Agora P10673; ARV2 1404; BAPD 250182; Moore 1997, 201, no. 399, pl. 49; LIMC II, s.v. Athena, 1005 no. 526 (P. Demargne); LIMC V, s.v. Herakles, 150 no. 3176 (J. Boardman).

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Figure 13.16 Athens, Agora P 10673, Attic red-figure bell krater, c. 400 BC. Photo: American School of Classical Studies, Agora Excavations.

Figure 13.17 Athens, Agora P 10673, Attic red-figure bell krater, c. 400 BC, detail. Photo: American School of Classical Studies, Agora Excavations.

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or someone whom Herakles had aided, such as Admetos.115 Pemberton argued that the youth on the right is not Iolaos, but rather both framing figures are Eponymous Heroes: Oineus the youth on the right, Antiochos (a son of Herakles) the bearded man on the left.116 But, aside from the visual incongruity of a beardless Herakles (as he is always shown on vases of this period) greeted by his mature, bearded son, the iconography of the ten Eponymoi is too varied and unstable to put names on these two with any certainty.117 Rainer Vollkommer identifies the bearded figure as Zeus and suggests the possibility that the scene takes place on Herakles’ arrival on Mt. Olympos, although it would be odd to make Zeus such a marginal figure, just arriving on the scene.118 But there are clues that point in a different direction. Two large myrtle garlands hanging in the background suggest that we are in a sanctuary of Herakles, who is on the central axis of the composition: all eyes are on him. The pose could be meant to evoke a statue type.119 The bearded man has his back heel raised, to indicate rapid movement – he is just arriving in the sanctuary (Fig. 13.17). His himation is draped from one shoulder, and little strokes of glaze are used to indicate a hairy chest, not a feature that is otherwise attested in this period.120 The beard is sketchily rendered in dilute glaze, a few drops dripping onto his 115 Corbett 1949, 309. He concludes, “The artist’s interests clearly lay in his central pair, and he has given us no clue to guide us.” 116 Pemberton 1981, 318–19. She further suggests that the scene commemorates the restoration of the democracy after 403 BC. 117 Kron 1976, 246: “Es läßt sich keine ikonographie für den Phylenheros an und für sich herausarbeiten.” Cf. Harrison 1979. On Antiochos, see also LIMC I, s.v. Antiochos, 853–4 (E. Harrison), which observes that there is no iconographical pattern of beardless or bearded. Harrison mentions a decree relief of 330–320 BC with a young Herakles holding a club and crowned by a bearded Antiochos and comments, “the inversion is not so strange as it seems,” because of the unique circumstances of the relief, crowning a decree of the tribe Antiochis. Kron (1976, 193) suggests that Antiochos’ image here has been subsumed by that of Demos, who gradually overshadowed the individual Eponymous Heroes as a political symbol in the course of the fourth century. 118 Vollkommer 1988, 46–7. 119 Pemberton (1981, 319) likens the pose to the Herakles on the votive relief Athens, National Archaeological Museum 2723 (supra n. 50). The dedicator of this relief (the father who brings his son to the shrine of Herakles) is, in fact, in the very same pose as the figure I take to be the worshiper on the Agora krater. Cf. the famous calyx-krater, name vase of the Niobid Painter, with a statue of Herakles on a stepped base: Paris, Musée du Louvre G 341; ARV2 601, 22; BAPD 206954; Giuliani 2015b, 59, 83–7. 120 There are notable examples of hairy chests in Archaic red-figure, e.g., the mature singer standing beside a young aulos player on a fragmentary amphora by the Andokides Painter, Basel, Antikenmuseum BS 491; ARV2 3, 4; BAPD 200004; CVA: Schweiz 7, Basel, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig 3 (V. Slehoferova), pls. 1–2. The hairy chest is characteristic of certain Late Archaic painters, such as the Brygos Painter or the Foundry Painter, e.g., the dying Ajax on the Brygos Painter’s cup, Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.286; Paralipomena 367; BAPD 275946; Oakley 2013, 84, Fig. 21. But I am not aware of any red-figure painter of the Classical period who employs this feature.

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neck. The decoration of his garment, with little crosses, is much less elaborate than Athena’s. In short, he is not characterized as a god or hero, but as an Athenian worshiper who hastens into the sanctuary and acknowledges Herakles with his raised left hand. We have only scratched the surface of a basic typology of the votive reliefs and the handful of vases adduced here as parallels. Several of the finest votives of that first generation, c. 420–400 BC, are so unusual, they do not fit into any of our categories.121 But I feel confident that more digging into the rich corpus of material would confirm that the gap between the visual language of the two media is not nearly so wide as has usually been thought.

121 One such is the famous dedication of Xenokrateia, with the dedicator herself presenting her small son to the river god Kephisos and a large gathering of other divinities: Athens National Archaeological Museum 2756; Güntner 1994, 78–80, pl. 36:2; Beschi 2002, 29–36. Not only is the motif of a pair of worshipers in among a large gathering of gods unique on a votive relief, but also Xenokrateia herself is not appreciably smaller in size than the divinities.

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14 THE MESSAGE IS IN THE MEDIUM: WHITE-GROUND LEKYTHOI AND STONE GRAVE MARKERS IN CLASSICAL ATHENS Judith M. Barringer

Comparing imagery on stone items and ceramics is fairly standard practice in iconographical and iconological studies, but examining these materials with regard to the same function is rarely done.1 This chapter looks at media at the crossroads in fifth-century BC Athens, specifically at the meeting point of the living and the dead: funerary commemoration. Scholars point to Cicero’s mention of a sumptuary law to explain the disappearance of funerary stelai in Attika in the early fifth century BC (Leg. 2.25-6).2 The stelai then reappeared c. 430 BC, a phenomenon that is usually credited to the Peloponnesian War or the plague in 429 BC, and changing attitudes and practices toward honoring the dead.3 According to this line of thinking, the sudden dramatic rise in mortality on the battlefield and in the city may have driven families to begin erecting more elaborate monuments once again. In addition, the institution of the Patrios Nomos, the use of a common grave for the war dead, in Athens c. 470 had consequences for private commemoration. According to this reasoning, the public ceremony deprived mourning families of the ability to honor their family members, and they compensated for this lost opportunity by commemorating their loved one by other means, for example whiteground lekythoi.4 Other explanations for the suspension of production of stone stelai are economic: that is, the creation of the Themistoklean wall c. 478 BC demanded every bit of stone available, as well as the stonemasons to shape it and put it in place. And building projects in Athens, beginning in the 460s in the Agora, also demanded an available labor force, and the later projects atop the Akropolis monopolized stonemasons for decades.5

1 Schiering 1974 and Papaspyridi-Karusu 1956 are notable exceptions. 2 E.g., Arrington 2015, 51–2; Stewart 2008, 605; Engels 1998, 97–106; Shapiro 1991, 131, 646–7; Kurtz and Boardman 1971, 121; Clairmont 1970, 11. 3 Humphreys 1983, 104–5; Clairmont 1970, 43; Fuchs 1961, 241–2. 4 Arrington 2015, 36–8, 178–9, 217–37; Shapiro 1991, 649; Loraux 1986, 23–4. 5 E.g., Kurtz and Boardman 1971, 122; Fuchs 1961, 241.

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Correspondingly, scholars posit a link between the hiatus in the production of stelai and the proliferation of white-ground lekythoi. The white-ground lekythoi began to appear c. 500 BC, then grew common c. 470 when their use and iconography became exclusively funerary. Therefore, the thinking goes, the ceramic images served as ‘substitutes’ for the stone stelai. As the production of stelai resumed c. 430–420 BC, the white-ground lekythoi dwindled in number until the late fifth century when the ceramic vessels were replaced by grave markers in the form of stone stelai and stone lekythoi (soon to be followed by stone loutrophoroi).6 This chapter proposes that the stelai, in fact, never disappeared. We will leave aside stelai for the demosion sema, which are a different matter, and instead we will concentrate on private funeral markers, something of an oxymoron since the funeral markers were seen by – and intended to be seen by – more than just the immediate family. I wish to argue that stelai did persist, but what changed was the medium. The costly stone stelai were replaced by more modest painted wooden examples, a proposal that has already been made by several other scholars in brief mentions.7 Here, I try to offer some evidence to support that idea. Furthermore, I think that the stone stelai reappeared c. 430 BC partially as a response to the plague, but also because of larger socio-political reasons. The first part of this chapter discusses the visual material – the stelai and lekythoi – while the second portion addresses the reasons for the resumption of stone stelai in the latter part of the fifth century BC. Archaic stone stelai in Athens took a variety of forms, including palmette stelai inscribed with the name of the deceased as well as stelai with figural decoration (Figs. 14.1 and 14.2). Although horsemen and symposiasts, women, and the well-known ‘Brother and Sister’ appear on the carved stelai, the vast majority of images are of athletes and soldiers, images that clearly invoked the elite patrons who memorialized their dead with these slabs.8 I think we might imagine that most families would

6 E.g., Nakayama 1982, 142; Humphreys 1983, 105; Humphreys 1980, 112–13; Kurtz 1984, 323, 327 points out the resemblance of the white painted terracotta to stone as a motivation for their use during the period when excessive displays of wealth were restricted. 7 Stroszeck 2014, 148; Banou and Bournias 2014, 191; Hildebrandt 2006, 81; Oakley 2004, 198, 214; Kavvadias 2000b, 151–2; Humphreys 1983, 89; Garland 1982, 127 n. 10; Schiering 1974, 652; Ridgway 1970, 44; Papaspyridi-Karusu 1956, 125 n. 3. Breder (2013, 27) dismisses this idea. For the illustrious citizens, see Banou and Bournias 2014, 190. 8 E.g., Athens, Kerameikos Museum P1001, P1054, P1133, and Athens, National Archaeological Museum 38, 2687. We could also note the sculpted bases on which funerary kouroi stood (e.g., Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3476, 3477; Athens, Kerameikos Museum P1002). See Banou and Bournias 2014, 84–96, 100–1, 118, 174–7; Kaltsas 2001, 64 no. 88, 77 no. 122.

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Figure 14.1 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 11.185, ‘Brother and Sister stele,’ c. 530 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Figure 14.2 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 15.167, stele of Antigenes, end of sixth century BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

have marked burial plots with stone stelai such as these, while only a few employed the larger and more costly kouroi and korai, some of which stood on sculpted bases. As noted above, the stone stelai and funerary statuary in Athens ceased c. 470. Was this change of practice due to the sumptuary law mentioned by Cicero? Cicero’s text does not say that the law expressly forbade stone

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stelai, but that the law prohibited erecting a tomb that required more than three days’ labor for ten men; three days’ labor for ten men still sounds as if you could build a fairly ornate monument. Stucco work, herms, and private eulogies were forbidden, and the number of mourners was limited. Cicero is vague about when these new practices were instigated and says only that it was some time after Solon. Cicero goes on to describe the sumptuary law set forth by Demetrios of Phaleron in 317 BC, an act inspired by the increase in the extravagance of both funeral ceremonies and monuments. Scholars have proposed that the first law mentioned by Cicero was devised by Kleisthenes.9 That a law may have existed is plausible, but it is hard to believe that it was affected by Kleisthenes since the monuments continued for some forty years after he instituted his reforms in 508/7. Now to the white-ground lekythoi. The vessels initially were used to deliver oil to the grave, where they were then placed in or on the grave. This is illustrated on white-ground lekythoi themselves (Fig. 14.3).10 From around the mid-fifth century BC on, the white-ground lekythoi become too large to contain oil but otherwise functioned in the same way. The

Figure 14.3 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1935, Attic whiteground lekythos, c. 440 BC. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund. 9 E.g., Arrington 2015, 50–52. 10 E.g., Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1935, BAPD 216329; Paris, Musée du Louvre CA1264 and Swiss private collection illustrated in Oakley 2004, 122, Fig. 83, 207 Fig. 168; and London, British Museum D65; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 1970.428; Paris, Musée du Louvre CA537, CA3758; Berlin, Antikensammlungen V.I. 3262; Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum 929.22.7; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 23.160.38, 23.160.39, all illustrated in Kurtz 1975, pls. 18:3, 20:2, 23:3, 28:3, 29:4, 30:1, 30:2, 50:1.

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imagery painted on the white-ground lekythoi is of four main types: ‘mistress and maid’ scenes; scenes at the tomb, often tendance of the tomb; prothesis scenes; and ‘mythological’ imagery, including Charon, Hupnos, and Thanatos – such images are mythological to us, but Charon, Thanatos, and Hupnos were very real entities to the ancient Greeks. In most of the depictions at the tomb, a funerary monument – usually one stele (or more), sometimes a more elaborate structure or precinct – is normally shown and is often the focal point of the action (Fig. 14.4). Because the vase painters of white-ground lekythoi were painting at a time when stone stelai were no longer being produced, we might ask ourselves: what were they painting? Some scholars regard the vase paintings as fantasies (and some elements of these images are undeniably so, such as the mythological figures). Others view the stelai painted on the lekythoi as inspired by the demosion sema,11 or by stelai produced outside

Figure 14.4 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1958, c. 460–450 Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

BC.

11 Clairmont 1983, 74–85. Hildebrandt (2006, 212) has suggested that one category of stone stele, the Name stelai, imitates the state funerary mounds, advertises the civic importance of the family, and is part of a larger focus on the individual that accelerates in the fourth century.

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of Attika, for example in the islands.12 A few scholars have proposed that the depictions represent actual stone stelai that continued to be erected for notable private citizens.13 Such dignitaries were buried at public expense in prominent locations in the Kerameikos in Athens, such as the tombstone for Pythagoras, an envoy to Athens from Selymbria, who died and was commemorated by a grave monument of c. 450 BC.14 This is the only such grave I know in Athens from the period c. 470–430 BC. Vase painters may have been inspired by stelai outside of Attika, but one must then ask about the route of transmission. That stone stelai in the demosion sema influenced the painters of white-ground leykthoi is hard to prove because of the lack of evidence for the period in question, c. 470–430; the fragments of a vessel c. 450 depicting casualty lists suggests extreme simplicity (and clear writing, Fig. 7.13),15 which differs from the stelai painted on white-ground lekythoi that rarely – though occasionally – have writing indicated on them (Fig. 14.4).16 In fact, many of the stelai painted on white-ground lekythoi resemble actual Attic stelai that existed in the Archaic period, such as the palmette-topped stelai (Figs. 14.2, 14.5, and 14.6), usually standing atop a stepped base.17 This makes the idea that painters were creating fantastic images less credible (and we could point to many other elements of these vase paintings that reflect reality, such as the use of lekythoi on the tomb – they are lekythoi, not stamnoi or some other shape suited for a different use). If painters of white-ground lekythoi were indeed painting images of real stone stelai, it could only have been from a distant memory. While there is no indication that the purported sumptuary law insisted on pre-existing tombs being destroyed, the Archaic funerary stelai were no longer around to be seen c. 470 because they had been yanked out of the ground to build the Themistoklean wall in 478 12 Oakley 2004, 198, 214. Rosini 2009–10, 78–9 summarizes the various scholarly opinions. 13 Oakley 2004, 198; Rosini 2009–10, 84–6; Kurtz and Boardman (1971, 124) maintain that one can trace the history of Classical grave stelai by depictions of stelai on whiteground lekythoi. 14 Stroszeck 2014, 168–70; Breder 2013, 26. Kavvadias (2000b, 151–2) notes the similarity of the stelai on white-ground lekythoi to the Pythagoras stele. Rosini 2009–10, 86–90 discusses this example, as well as several others. She also points to three inscribed stone grave stelai, which she dates in the fifth century BC, based on the publication by Conze (pp. 88–9). But more recent study demonstrates that two of them, Epigraphical Museum 9461 (IG II2 12780; Conze 1893–1914, no. 1421) and 3947 (IG II2 11057; Conze 1893–1914, no. 1425), date to the end of the fifth century, while the other, Epigraphical Museum 10462 (IG II2 6467; Conze 1893–1914, no. 1426) belongs to the first century BC. In fact, all of the stone stelai that Rosini employs in her argument are dated several decades later than she claims and fall outside the time period of c. 470–430. I thank Maria Chidiroglou for her assistance with the three stelai in the Epigraphical Museum. 15 Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum 2455: BAPD 42150. 16 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1958: BAPD 209239. 17 BAPD 21675.

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Figure 14.5 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 35.11.5, Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 460-450 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Figure 14.6 Athens, National Archaeological Museum CC1676, c. 450–400 BC. Photo: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

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BC.

Instead, I would suggest that vase painters were indeed painting real stelai – stelai made not of stone, but of wood.18 Evidence for wood – leaving aside wooden stelai for the moment – is scarce in ancient Greece because of the poor conditions for preservation, but wooden stelai are well known from Egyptian and Near Eastern contexts.19 Wood finds of differing types of objects have been recovered at various Greek sites; these include boxes, bowls, plates, pinakes, sarcophagi, figurines.20 Wood survives in Attika; one can point to the extraordinary small objects from the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron, including pinakes, once painted, from the late sixth or early fifth century BC.21 And we know of choregic pinakes in Athens from the fifth century BC, such as that awarded to Themistokles in 476 for his tragic victory with Phrynikos, which may have been of wood.22 These recall the wooden Pitsa plaques, the painted wooden votive pinakes of the late sixth century whose painting survives,23 and there is written attestation of decorated votive pinakes elsewhere, for example in Delos.24 Remains of parts of ancient wooden furniture from the sixth century BC can be identified as such because of their correspondence to sculpted and painted images of furniture on contemporary objects. Legs of klinai painted on vases find their counterparts in wooden and ivory examples. Especially noteworthy are the details shared across media, such as a volute or a palmette topping a volute. One sees it on vase paintings of furniture (Fig. 14.7), in ivory furniture (Fig. 14.8),25 and on the stelai painted on white-ground lekythoi (Figs. 14.9 and 14.10). And the palmette-on-volute motif appears in reality on stone stelai from the Archaic period (Fig. 14.2): on stelai found outside of Attika,26 and those from Attika (Fig. 14.11).27 In other words, what I wish to argue is that the vase paintings of stelai on white-ground lekythoi reflect something real. 18 Cf. Stupperich 1977, 85–6. 19 Eastern monuments certainly adopted Athenian motifs, such as the painted scene at the tomb commonly seen on white-ground lekythoi on the gable of a marble sarcophagus of c. 400–380 BC found at Kition together with one Phoenician and one anthropoid sarcophagus. See Georgiou 2009, 125–37. I thank Norbert Franken for bringing this to my attention. 20 E.g., sarcophagi from Pantikapaion and Kertsch; see Brümmer 1985, 55–9. For other objects of wood, see Pologiorgi 2015; Tsakos and Viglaki-Sofianou 2012, 103–11; Kyrieleis 1983; Kyrieleis 1980. 21 Pologiorgi 2015, 178–83. 22 Wilson 2000, 242–3. Plut. Them. 5.4. 23 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 16464, 16465, 16466, 16467; Kaltsas 2001, 217–19; EAA VI, s.v. Pitsa, 200–6 (A. Orlandos). 24 Andrianou 2009, 142–5. 25 Athens, Kerameikos Museum HW87. See Banou and Bournias 2014,140–1; Stroszeck 2014, 157–8; Kyrieleis 1969, Taf. 19–21. 26 Tsakos and Viglaki-Sofianou 2012, 208, 223–31. 27 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 796 of c. 500 BC. Despinis and Kaltsas 2014, 435–7 no. I.1.382, εικ. 1248–50.

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Figure 14.7 Paris, Musée du Louvre CA453, c. 490 BC. Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) (H. Lewandowski).

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Figure 14.8 Athens, Kerameikos Museum HW87, third quarter of the sixth century BC. Photo: Εφορεία Αρχαιοτήτων Πόλης Αθηνών-Μουσείο Κεραμεικού, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Furthermore, a number of the stelai painted on the white-ground lekythoi possess lines indicative of thin, closely spaced moldings, easily executed in wood (Figs. 14.12-16). The crisp, sharp-edged incised ornament and the division of the vertical slab by incised lines to indicate borders or moldings, such as these on the ‘Calvert stele’ in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, of c. 550–500 BC (Fig. 14.17), not only recall painted and sculpted images of wooden furniture, but can be seen on actual wooden objects, such as a wooden pinax found in a level from the second half of the seventh century at the Heraion on Samos; a small gable crowns the pinax, and its surface is framed by a low raised molding (Fig. 14.18).28 The paintings of stelai on white-ground lekythoi usually depict the lekythoi as perched on a base. We no longer have the wooden grave stelai posited here, but are there remains of stone bases, which may have supported them? A fragmentary marble base, inscribed Α]ΣΚΛΕΠΙΟΣ ΥΓΙΕΙΑ, from the Kerameikos has a shallow cutting for what Despinis believed was a wooden votive pinax framed by antae that supported a crowning device (Fig. 14.19a–b).29 Despinis dates the monument to the second half of the 28 Samos, Vathy Archaeological Museum H69; Kopcke 1967, 141, no. 31, Beil. 79:1-2. For the date, see Kyrieleis 1980, 87–8. 29 Athens, Kerameikos Museum I 537; IG II2 4417; Despinis 1999.

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Figure 14.9 Athens, Kerameikos Museum 3728, Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 430–420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

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Figure 14.10 Athens, Kerameikos Museum 11239, Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 430–420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

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Figure 14.11 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 796, Attic funerary stele, c. 460 BC, top portion. Photo: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, ©Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund.

fourth century; while this is thought to be a votive dedication and its date falls outside the time period under consideration here, the base offers evidence that wooden stelai inserted into stone bases existed in Athens in the Classical period. This is one example; there may be others. When sculpted stone stelai resume c. 430, these same thin moldings are also present, yet their form and iconography exhibit marked changes from examples on white-ground lekythoi and Archaic stone stelai (Fig. 14.20).30 Soldiers and athletes still appear but they are less common and are now often accompanied by additional figures.31 The prominence of children and women is striking (Figs. 14.21 and 14.22).32 Like the whiteground lekythoi, the Classical grave stelai do not portray mythological

30 E.g., Athens, Kerameikos Museum P797/I 417, P1142/I 430; Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3709. See Banou and Bournias 2014, 216, 221, 235. 31 Athens, Kerameikos Museum P1130/I 220; Banou and Bournias 2014, 209–11. 32 E.g., Athens, National Archaeological Museum 712, 713, 765, 766, 776, 831, 914, 922, 1822+4552, 3472, 3624; Athens, Kerameikos Museum P695/I 221. See Kaltsas 2001, 146 no. 280, 147 no. 283, 148 no. 286, 152 no. 296, 152 no. 297, 154–5 no. 302, 155 no. 305, 156 no. 307, 156–7 no. 309, 158 no. 310, 160 no. 316; Banou and Bournias 2014, 201–7.

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Figure 14.12 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1769, Attic whiteground lekythos, c. 430 BC. Photo: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

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Figure 14.13 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1989.281.72, Attic whiteground lekythos, c. 440–435 BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Figure 14.14 Geneva Musée d’art et d’histoire HR0299, Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 450 BC, Prêt de l’Association Hellas et Roma. Photo: © Musées d’art et d’histoire, Ville de Genève (André Longchamp).

figures; rather, the compositions are often ‘farewell’ scenes, with one figure sometimes seated (presumably the dead) and (at least) one figure standing. The additional figures suggest family members, who signify additional mourners but also heirs. In other words, these stone stelai continue one tradition from their Archaic predecessors: they are selfrepresentations of the elite. Some of the most ubiquitous features of the stone stelai of c. 430 and later are their architectural frames – pedimented aediculae – and furniture – elegant klismoi and footstools, which are common on white-ground

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Figure 14.15 Berlin, Antikensammlung V.I.3291, Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 440 BC. Photo: © Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Johannes Laurentius).

lekythoi (Fig. 14.23).33 With Archaic stelai out of view, one wonders about the inspiration for these details on the stone stelai. Of course, actual architecture provides the model, but my proposal would be that wooden stelai and/or aediculae may have been the source for this feature of late fifth century and later Attic stone stelai. Such a wooden structure or stele would have been well within the means of ten skilled men working for three days. To sum up thus far, I would suggest that wooden stelai were used in the fifth century when stone stelai were no longer being made. In fact, I think that wooden stelai were always used. Stone stelai were expensive and certainly were not affordable to the vast majority of Athenians, and wood would have been an ideal substitute. Such wooden stelai may have been painted with the name of the deceased or with images, which is known to be the case for some Classical Attic stone stelai as demonstrated by Richard Posamentir,34 and both writing and images appear on the stelai painted on white-ground lekythoi (Fig. 14.4), but such examples are few. Now we turn to the second part of this chapter concerning the question of why the elite resurrected the practice of erecting stone stelai c. 430. Thucydides’ famous and harrowing account of the plague (2.48–54) describes the social disorder, the anomia, of Athens. Bodies lay unburied, avoided even by predatory animals; all previous burial rituals were broken, and bodies were buried as expediently as possible: bodies were 33 E.g., Athens, Kerameikos Museum P685, P695/I 221, P1130/I 220 and Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3624; Banou and Bournias 2014, 201–11, 234. 34 Posamentir 2006.

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Figure 14.16 Dunedin, Otago Museum E.48.421, Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 430 BC. Photo: © Dunedin, Otago Museum.

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Figure 14.17 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.753, ‘Calvert Stele,’ Attic grave stele, c. 550–500 BC. Photo: © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Figure 14.18 Samos, Vathy Archaeological Museum H69, pinax from Heraion, Samos, wood. Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Samos 6959, 6960.

thrown onto someone else’s funeral pyre, one corpse atop another, then set alight. Seeking sanctuary, the dead took shelter in temples, which filled with corpses as these unfortunate died. He continues on and records that those who previously had nothing suddenly inherited from the wealthy, and this sudden change in fortune encouraged a carpe diem mentality and lawlessness. Vivid testimony of this state of affairs is offered by two communal graves in the Kerameikos; one of these (D: 6.5 m), which had been repeatedly disturbed, held at least 150 dead, and the grave goods date

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Figure 14.19a–b Athens, Kerameikos Museum inv. I 537, marble base, c. 350-300 BC Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Kerameikos 929, 1317.

Figure 14.20 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 2894, Attic grave stele, c. 410–400 BC. Photo: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

to c. 430, suggesting a conjunction with the plague, which struck twice, once in 430/29 and again in 427/6 BC.35 The other grave (2.80 m x 1.50 m), undisturbed, held twenty-nine individuals and no grave offerings at all; the pottery in the fill gives a terminus post quem of c. 430.36 In this breakdown of social order, one can well imagine that the elite desired to set themselves 35 Greco 2014b, 1297, Fig. 789, 1383–4; Baziotopoulou-Valavani 2002; Paloma and Stampolidis 2000, 271–2. 36 Greco 2014b, 1384; Baziotopoulou-Valavani 2002; Paloma and Stampolidis 2000, 272–3.

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Figure 14.21 Athens, Kerameikos Museum P695/I221, grave stele of Ampharete c. 430–420 BC. Photo: Hans R. Goette.

apart from the chaos surrounding them. One clear way to assert their social rank would have been through the use of stone funerary stelai. This would scarcely be the only time in Classical Athens when the elites tried to assert social control, whatever was happening politically (and, of course, nearly every important politician in fifth-century Athens was from this elite class). I have argued elsewhere that the proliferation of hunting imagery on Attic pottery at the start of the fifth century was an aristocratic response to the changes wrought by the introduction of the Kleisthenic reforms,37 and the citizenship law of 451 was a sop to aristocrats as a way of protecting the privileges of citizenship, including the privilege of distinction. 37 Barringer 2001.

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Figure 14.22 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1822+4552, Attic grave stele, c. 420–410 BC. Photo: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

The resumption of stone stelai expressed an elite desire to advance and distinguish themselves (and their burials) from those of their fellow citizens. This reasoning would also explain the differences in iconography used on the white-ground lekythoi and the stone stelai; the lekythoi employ a broader range of themes, including mythological and more emotive imagery (Fig. 14.24), while the stone stelai offer fewer and more restrained compositions. There is overlap in subject matter in the two media – for example, depictions of the (presumably) deceased seated or standing near the grave – but there are also subjects peculiar to each medium. As stelai came back into vogue and the ceramic lekythoi yielded to petrified versions, these stone lekythoi adopted and imitated the more formal language and social aspirations of the stone stelai.

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Figure 14.23 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1818, Attic whiteground lekythos, c. 440 BC. Photo: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

I would argue that another critical factor, the Peloponnesian War, helps to explain the reappearance of the stone stelai. The war put added strain on the city in terms of its finances; the situation necessitated a levy or eisphora of 200 talents on Athens’ wealthy citizens in 428, according to Thucydides (3.19.1). The eisphora, which seems to have debuted on this occasion and was repeated several times thereafter, was an unusual development: a compulsory direct tax on the wealthy in contrast to the earlier liturgy system, which had the patina of being voluntary and afforded the wealthy an opportunity of public display as a form of compensation for their financial outlay to benefit the common good.38 The institution of the eisphora was highly unpopular and seems to have stirred fears of even greater demands for egalitarianism.39 The result was the oligarchic coup of 411 (Thuc. 8.48.3-98).40 Perhaps the reintroduction of stone stelai was meant to stake a claim on the part of the elite and its tolerance may have helped soften this absolutely essential, but burdensome, tax. 38 Christ 2006, 161–2. 39 Ober 1989, 93. 40 Christ 2006, 162–4. Christ rightly points to Thuc. 8.48.1.

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Figure 14.24 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 19355, Attic whiteground lekythos, c. 435-430 BC. Photo: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Finally, we might consider a pragmatic concern: the conclusion or break in works c. 430 on the Athenian Akropolis and elsewhere in the city (because of the war or financial constraints) surely affected the small army of stoneworkers who had been laboring on various projects. All who were not actively fighting would have been in search of work, and this economic pressure may also have been a reason why the production of stone stelai was permitted once again. To conclude, the break in production of stone stelai c. 470 BC was not a break in creating stelai, but in the medium used: wood had been – and continued to be – used for funerary markers, and white-ground lekythoi offer evidence for this. The allowance of stone stelai once again from c. 430 BC on was, according to the reasoning presented here, a means of negotiating social and economic tension at a critical moment in Athens’ history. The city needed the financial support of its wealthy, and the wealthy clearly understood their position.

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15 GREEK ARCHAIC FIGURATIVE TERRACOTTAS: FROM IDENTIFICATION TO FUNCTION* Arthur Muller

Despite their number, figurative terracottas are very rarely used in the discussion of iconography issues.1 Unlike the scenes depicted on vases, where the interaction of the characters and the figurative context often guide their identification and the interpretation of the scene, Greek figurative terracottas are generic, isolated figures, without any iconographic context; therefore their identification is most often difficult or, to say the least, problematic. From the Classical period, characterized by an immense variety of types, the majority of figurative terracotta are sufficiently characterized by an attitude (dancing, or carrying a hydria),2 an activity (cooking, playing, nursing . . .),3 a physical peculiarity (such as the presence of wings for Nike,4 ‘grotesques’), an exclusive attribute (such as the helmet, the aegis, or the gorgoneion for Athena),5 to remove any ambiguity: in most cases, even if different readings sometimes persist,6 we recognize them immediately as deities or otherwise as mortals.7 The latter * I would like to thank the organizers of this conference, Judy Barringer and François Lissarrague, warmly for inviting me to present the case of figural terracottas and for giving me the opportunity to summarize research that I conducted with Stéphanie Huysecom-Haxhi for some time at the University of Lille. The issues discussed in this contribution have been presented, in French and in fuller length, with different points of view: Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007 (on the identification of feminine types in coroplasty); Muller 2009 (on protomai); Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015 (on the significance of votive and funeral uses of terracottas). 1 The expression ‘figurative terracotta’ includes statuettes or figurines (representations in full length) and protomai (partial representations, limited to the front or upper part of the body, head or bust). 2 E.g., Winter 1903, 1: 69 nos. 5–6, 156–9 (hydriaphoroi); 2: 144–59 (dancing women). 3 E.g., Higgins 1967, pl. 32 A-G. 4 E.g., Winter 1903, 1: 160 no. 3, 2: 179–89. 5 E.g., Winter 1903, 1: 45 no. 5, 48 no. 2, 127 no. 1; 2: 176–8. 6 E.g., the hydriaphoroi are generally interpreted as mortal women, but Işik (1980, 183–6) believes that they are Nymphs. 7 Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007, 235–6. But in some cases, the identification of Classical or Hellenistic figurines needs well-argued demonstration. See, e.g., Muller 1996, 472–80 for the figurines of praying women, formerly identified as the goddesses Demeter and Kore, from the sanctuary of Demeter on Thasos in Hellenic Ministry of Culture 1988, 237, no. 177.

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constitute the majority by far of terracotta representations of the Classical and Hellenistic periods. By contrast, the coroplastic production of the Archaic period and a large part of the fifth century is widely dominated by only four common iconographic types of figurines, two female and two male, with no identifying characteristics (Fig. 15.1b): - the enthroned woman, or, more precisely, a female seated on a chair;8 - the standing girl or kore, sometimes holding a fruit, a flower, a crown, or a bird;9 a

b

Figure 15.1 Conventional attitudes in the archaic visual arts: a, monument carved by Geneleos in Samos, as reconstructed by Walter-Karydi 1985, Fig. 4; b, the four basic iconographic types of coroplasty, after Muller 2009, Fig. 2 (Computer graphics by G. Naessens, Halma UMR 8164). 8 E.g., Higgins 1967, pls. 13 A-B; 15 D; 23 D-F; 24 B-C; 29; 35 B; 40 B, E; Winter 1903, 1: 41–135. 9 E.g., Higgins 1967, pls. 12 D-F; 13 D-F; 14 C E; 22 A, E-F; 24 A, D-F; 30 D-F; 33 C-D; 35 D-F; Winter 1903, 1: 41–135.

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- the banqueter or symposiast holding a drinking vessel (rhyton, cup, or skyphos) or a musical instrument;10 - the standing young man or kouros, nude or dressed, sometimes holding a musical instrument such as a lyre or aulos.11 The two female types comprise the majority of the figurines of this period (certainly more than 80 percent), while the two male types are much rarer in all contexts: sanctuaries and graves. To these figurines, we can add numerous protomai or partial representations limited to the head or the bust; these are mostly female, very rarely male.12 Due to the overwhelming majority of the feminine representations, the following discussion will be devoted to them for the most part, and the male representations will be mentioned only marginally. CURRENT INTERPRETATIONS OF ARCHAIC FIGURATIVE TERRACOTTAS Despite the absence of distinctive characteristics or attributes, these iconographic types have been identified most often in past research as representations of divinities. This identification goes back to the nineteenth century, when most finds of such figurines derived from funerary contexts. These terracottas were then understood as the image of deities who were to accompany the deceased to the afterlife – that is, as chthonic deities. Terracottas found later in sanctuaries were identified as images of the deities to whom they were offered, for example Artemis, Demeter, the Nymphs, Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo, or Dionysos. As for the protomai, Eduard Gerhard interpreted them in the midnineteenth century as dynamic representations of the anodos of Kore, half of the body already out of the underworld, the other half still in the earth.13 From this reading, popularized in France by Léon Heuzey and Edmond Pottier,14 derives the now widespread identification of all female protomai as Kore-Persephone or, more generally, chthonic deities.15 But since numerous protomai were found in sanctuaries of Olympian goddesses – for example those of Athena on Rhodes, Athens, and Thasos; of Artemis on Thasos, Paros, and at Epidamnos; and of

10 11 12 13

E.g., Higgins 1967, pls. 39 A, C; Winter 1903, 1: 191–207. E.g., Higgins 1967, pls. 14 D; 22 D; Winter 1903, 1: 177–89. E.g., Higgins 1967, pls. 12 A-C; 26; 30 A; Winter 1903, 1: 236–58. Gerhard 1857, 212. On Gerhard’s role in the constitution of modern archaeological hermeneutics, see Lissarrague and Schnapp 1981, 278. 14 Pottier 1890, 62–4; Heuzey 1883, 229. 15 Zuntz 1971, 144–6. More recently, see M. Lilibaki-Akamati in Adam-Veleni et al. 2017, 36.

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Hera on Delos – some scholars now think that protomai can represent any feminine deity.16 This identification of female figurative terracottas with deities, which long prevailed in past research,17 is usually still accepted nowadays,18 but has never been demonstrated with convincing arguments. It immediately calls for some critical remarks. This reading of Archaic terracottas often rests on subjective arguments, as if scholars were anxious to compensate for the modesty of their objects of study with the grandeur of the subjects they believe them to represent, such as the solemnity or the nobility of a protome’s face;19 the expression of her gaze;20 the majesty of a seated pose that would only be appropriate for a goddess;21 the occasional richness of the finery, which reveals “obviously” divine status.22 But let us not forget that the ancient Greeks imagined their gods in the image of mortals, and that all adornments represented in ‘divine’ images were actually first worn by mortal women. We find the same Archaic terracottas in sanctuaries of different divinities (for example, in the sanctuaries of Artemis and Demeter on Thasos;23 in the sanctuaries of Hera, Aphrodite, and others in Argos;24 in the sanctuaries of Athena and of the Nymphs in Athens; in the Phocian sanctuaries of the Corycian Nymphs and of Artemis and Leto in Kirrha, and so on), and also in graves. One must therefore admit: - a polysemy of images, the same type representing different deities, Olympian as well as chthonic, and thus that it is only at the time of offering, when the dedicant places it in a sanctuary, that the statuette receives its precise identity; or - the dedicants’ indifference to the intrinsic meaning of the offerings they have purchased from a coroplast to offer to a divinity; and - that the same deity can also be represented in different ways, seated or standing, or in the form of a protome in the case of female figurines, and lying on a kline or standing in the case of male figurines. 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24

Tzanavari 2014, 341–4; Croissant 1983, 4–5. On the formation of this ‘goddess bias,’ see Uhlenbrock 2016. See, e.g., Adam-Veleni et al. 2017, passim. Zuntz 1971, 144. See, e.g., P. Orsi’s “la fredda solennita della morte” of a protome’s eyes. Uhlenbrock (2016, §9) commented “Orsi could never have imagined that what appeared to him as closed eyes was nothing more than a lack of detail that commonly is associated with a long serial production, or that perhaps the painted details that often were applied to terracottas simply did not survive.” E.g., Sguaitamatti 1984, 53; Zuntz 1971, 95. See the discussion by Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007, 240–1. Croissant 2009, 186. Muller 1996, 471. Croissant 2009, 186–7.

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We should remark in passing that these three points, particularly the last, forbid us to recognize the figurines as miniature reproductions of the sanctuary’s cult statue, since the cult statue would not appear in so many iconographic variations. The claimed polysemy is attributed to the creative laziness (or shrewd business acumen?) of the coroplasts,25 who, according to this thinking, would prefer to make undifferentiated images likely to be offered in any sanctuary or placed in any grave. However, this perception of standardization of manufacturing seems to be an anachronistic modern view rather than an ancient one. Indeed, the overwhelming numerical dominance of the few types mentioned above masks an astonishingly varied repertoire of coroplasts from the Archaic period, as is evident from the typological catalog of Franz Winter,26 which can now be enriched with many types unknown to Winter. The coroplasts clearly knew perfectly well how to differentiate representations, to make Cybele, Athena, or Artemis immediately recognizable by their attributes, in statuettes27 as well as in protomai.28 Moreover, the mass production of any terracotta type by means of molds is so easy that the apparent lack of iconographic differentiation of types must be explained otherwise than by a desire to standardize production.29 Until recently, scholars have assumed, implicitly or explicitly, that the four Archaic terracotta types discussed represent divinities, who are specified according to context – for example, female images found in an Artemision are thought to be Artemis; that the terracottas are polysemic – for example, the same terracotta type can represent different divinities; and that donors were indifferent to the intrinsic meaning – that is, any kind of figurine can be offered to every deity. The only argument for these three claims is the ubiquity of the terracottas.30 If, in fact, we accept this interpretation, we simultaneously relinquish the iconographic analysis and the search for the religious meaning of these modest terracottas,31 which, in any case, can hardly be regarded as agalmata, those precious offerings that delight the divinity.32 Yet Greek figurative terracottas have been discovered at many sanctuary sites and in cemeteries in the tens of thousands and

25 On this effective creative laziness, see Muller 1996, 473–6, 510–11. 26 Winter 1903, 1. 27 Winter 1903, 1: 43 no. 4, 50 no. 2, 52 no. 10 (Cybele), 44 no. 3, 45 nos. 1, 4–5, 48 no. 2, 54 no. 2, 127 no. 1 (Athena), 58 no. 2, 98–100 (Artemis). 28 Winter 1903, 1: 246 nos. 2, 3 (Athena). For other examples of goddesses ‘abbreviated’ as protomai, see Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015, 426 n. 34; Muller 2009, 88 n. 26. 29 Muller 2000, 96–102. 30 Parisi 2010, 461, talks about “the comfort of the traditional interpretive system.” 31 See Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015, 425–7 for references to some disillusioned assessments or reports on the failure to understand the act of placing a figurine representing the deity in a sanctuary. 32 Patera 2012, 28–9.

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therefore should serve as excellent pathways into understanding votive and funeral practices. Despite these quantities and their potential, and in accordance with the “cheap junk without religious significance” label that they have long received,33 their contribution to the archaeological approach of ancient Greek religion has been very restricted until now.34 But, like François Lissarrague and Alain Schnapp, I remain convinced that “analysée dans sa cohérence, il n’est pas d’image, si infime, si répétitive soit-elle, qui ne recèle du sens.”35 We must search for this ‘sense’ to throw light on votive practices and funeral customs. TOWARD AN ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATION Few proposals so far have recognized representations of mortals in the main Archaic terracotta types. In 1903, Hans Dragendorff identified female figurines from graves in Thera as mortals,36 and in 1931 Christopher Blinkenberg did the same for the female figurines and protomai collected on the Akropolis of Lindos, which he interpreted as representations of the dedicants.37 Insufficiently argued, these proposals were then rejected almost without discussion, mostly because of the lack of individual characteristics in these terracottas, a surprising objection from scholars who argue inversely that the same statuette represents different deities.38 Yet, in the last decades, and despite peremptory sentences,39 the identification of the figurines with votaries has gained ground in the publications of terracotta finds from several sanctuaries40 and has even occasionally been extended to the numerous terracotta figurines of banqueters found in the graves of Taranto.41 Recently, Sven Schipporeit applied this interpretation to the ubiquitous and standardized type of the Archaic enthroned woman, which he identifies as a mortal.42 We can now return to this hypothesis with arguments from several registers so as to establish the rules of representation specific to these Archaic terracottas and their function. 33 Besques 1963, 9. See also Croissant 2009, 181. 34 Schipporeit 2017, 29; Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015, 427. 35 Lissarrague and Schnapp 1981, 285: “if analyzed in its coherence, there is no image, however tiny, however repetitive, that does not conceal meaning.” 36 Dragendorff 1903, 121–3. 37 Blinkenberg 1931, 28–36, 509–10. 38 Croissant 2013, 191; Croissant 1983, 3. 39 See, e.g., Croissant 2013, 191: “théorie simpliste,” or his even more violent indictment (Croissant 2017) without any new argument. 40 E.g., Ismaelli 2011. For other bibliographical references, see Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015, 428 n. 44; Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007, 236–44. 41 For bibliographical references, see Bencze 2013, 188–9. 42 Schipporeit 2014, 322–7. I owe the reference to Marion Meyer. See, as well, Schipporeit 2017, 22–5 for the enthroned woman, 25–9 for the identification as mortals of other, more recent, types not discussed here.

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First, it is necessary to recall briefly the specificities of the find contexts of Archaic terracottas. Among the sanctuaries, those that yielded the largest quantities throughout the Greek world are those of Artemis, Demeter and Kore,43 the Nymphs, and, to a lesser extent, those of Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena.44 The predominant types are the enthroned woman, the standing girl, and the protomai. It is easy to see that the divinities who received the most terracottas were those in charge of the socialization of young people in general and of girls in particular, and those who presided over issues of sexual maturity, marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth; in short, the deities who care for the different moments of women’s lives, but also of boy’s lives, in the case of Artemis. In the funerary context, figured terracottas are a limited phenomenon. In the regions of Greece that use figurines as funerary gifts, only a small proportion of graves, 6 to 8 percent,45 actually have them, and these are mostly graves of the immature, the aôroi: children and adolescents of both sexes and young women46 whom death deprived of the normal fulfillment of life – citizenship and marriage for boys, marriage and childbirth for girls. Indeed, both votive and funerary contexts suggest in which domain we must seek coherent meaning for these terracottas. Let us now examine some of the attributes of the Archaic iconographic types under discussion.47 These are generic attributes, which characterize categories of individuals, not specific attributes, such as those that identify particular deities. It is difficult to say whether the dresses worn by these feminine terracotta figurines of the Archaic period already have the precise meanings that Ulrike Theisen recognizes in sculpture from the beginning of the Classical period on.48 The open peplos (or Lakonian peplos) and the belted peplos with an overfold (like that of Athena) characterize the parthenoi or nubile girls. The ample chiton with buttoned sleeves, the garment of seduction par excellence, is that of the nymphe, the bride or the young wife until the birth of her first child. These different garments are clearly recognizable on the figurines of standing girls from the Archaic period,49 yet we cannot be certain that the Archaic examples already have

43 E.g., Thesmophorion on Thasos: c. 10,000 (273.2 kg) sherds from c. 2,000 figurines; Artemision on Thasos: 20,000 to 25,000 (500.8 kg) sherds; Artemision at Epidamnos: c. 1,800 kg sherds, one of the most impressive finds in the Greek world. These numbers include terracottas from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. 44 Schipporeit (2014, 321) lists numerous examples with bibliography in nn. 3–5. 45 Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015, 434 n. 77. 46 Schwarzmaier 2015, 308; Huysecom-Haxhi 2008, 57–8. 47 For a more developed discussion of these attributes, see Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007, 238–43. 48 Theisen 2009, 128–30. 49 Peplos, e.g., Winter 1903, 1: 60–3; chiton with or without himation, see, e.g., Winter 1903, 1: 44–5, 105–9.

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these meanings. On the other hand, the closed peplos with kolpos, the dress of the gyne – mother, or accomplished woman – does not yet appear clearly in terracotta figurines, although, admittedly, this way of wearing the peplos is more difficult to recognize on a seated figure, where we would expect to see it. The headdresses worn by Archaic terracotta figurines are more explicit. Some standing girls wear a stephane or diadem, signifying the wedding crown, and others wear none at all. Enthroned women always wear a veil, which refers explicitly to marriage,50 sometimes together with a stephane or polos. Since the dissertation of Vladimir K. Müller in 1915,51 it is generally acknowledged that only goddesses wear the polos, the “Götterkrone,” but recent work shows that mortal women also wore it, especially as a wedding crown.52 The protomai exhibit the same variety of headdresses, with the exception of the polos in its tall form. In the Classical period, their iconography and gesture refer ever more explicitly to the moment of the anakalypsis, the unveiling, in the marriage ritual.53 It seems to me that we should afford these headdresses their full meaning when they appear on terracotta figures: their absence, their presence, and their possible combination are signs that indicate precise family statuses, those of the parthenos, the nymphe, and the gyne. The attributes held in the hands of these generic Archaic terracottas offer other indications. The dove held by many standing girls and some enthroned women is often recognized as the bird of Aphrodite,54 and therefore these figurines are systematically identified as this goddess; when such a figure appears in the sanctuary of another divinity, it is termed a “visiting goddess.”55 But these doves, like the ducks that also appear, are more simply and more generally the pet, the playmate of the young girl, and serve as a symbol of the domestic, feminine world and of childhood.56 The flower buds symbolize the youth about to bloom, and the fruits, in particular the pomegranate or poppy pod, signify fertility.57 These attributes retained their symbolic meanings well beyond the Archaic period, as evidenced in Classical funerary stelai; in the painted decoration of the fourth-century BC grave II in Ainea (Macedonia), which reproduces the 50 Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007, 243. Generally, on the veil of Greek women and its significance, see Deschodt 2011, §12–20; Llewellyn-Jones 2003. 51 V. Müller 1915. 52 See Chapter 16 (pp. 346–75); Schwarzmaier 2006, 188, with numerous examples. 53 Muller 2009, 93–4, Fig. 3. 54 E.g., Baumbach 2004, 13–18; Miller Ammerman 2002, 25. 55 See Alroth 1989, 65–105 for this category of ‘visiting gods.’ 56 Muller 2019, 253; Huysecom-Haxhi 2009, 575–6; Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007, 238–9; Barberis 2004, 164. 57 Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007, 239; Barberis 2004, 171–2. On the special signification of the poppy capsule for the young girls, see Pautasso 2015.

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interior of gynaikonitis, with a dove among other characteristic objects of the female sphere;58 and on the painted shroud from a third-century AD tomb in Antinoe (Egypt), which depicts a young girl holding a toy (?), a dove, and a pomegranate.59 Dressed kouroi often held musical instruments. Those carrying a lyre are almost always identified as Apollo,60 but like the aulos held by many other kouroi, the lyre simply symbolizes the aristocratic musical education received by a young man, which will enable him to fulfill his later role in the banquet. Drinking vases and musical instruments are ubiquitous in the representation of banqueters. The general attitude, standing, seated, or lying on a kline, is also significant in interpreting the figurines. Each of these positions finds parallels in contemporary sculptures of mortals, as well as divinities. The standing postures are particularly common for Archaic funerary sculpture – kouroi and korai marking the graves of mortals whose names are known, such as Phrasikleia, Kroisos, or Aristodikos – but also for votive korai, such as korai I and II of Cheramyes in Samos, those from the Athenian Akropolis, or the kouroi from the Poseidon sanctuary on Cape Sounion. The banqueter and enthroned woman types are rarer in sculpture, but exist nevertheless, and are used to represent mortals as well.61 Above all, the four iconographic types in question appear together in a monument, which is certainly exceptional, but particularly evocative: the group carved in the second quarter of the sixth century BC by Geneleos and erected in the Heraion of Samos (Fig. 15.1a). This ensemble juxtaposes the following types to represent the dedicant and his family:62 a banqueter signifies the father, the head of the oikos, whose name ends with . . .]ilarches; an enthroned woman represents his wife Phileia, a gyne mother of four legitimate children; three korai indicate nubile girls or parthenoi, of which only the names of Ornithe and Philippe are preserved; and a kouros with an aulos depicts the youngest, a citizen in the making. One can reconstruct exactly the same group with figurines from a coroplast’s shop in Rhodes (Fig. 15.1b): beyond the differences of media and dimension, these codified iconographic types obviously have the same meaning in large and small sculpture, and to each attitude corresponds a precise social identity and familial status.63

58 59 60 61

Vokotopoulou 1990, 35–49. Nenna 2012, 286–8, Fig. 25. E.g., Dewailly 2000, 343–5. See, e.g., Schipporeit 2014, 326 n. 25 for the references to marble enthroned women statues from Miletus and Didyma; and Tuchelt 1976 for marble banqueters from Didyma. 62 For the most recent reconstruction, see Walter-Karydi 1985. 63 Huysecom-Haxhi 2009, 583–7; Muller 2009, 92.

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The use of the seated, enthroned position for the wife, who is responsible for the smooth running of the oikos, together with the reclining banqueting pose signaling the head of the family, who ensures the link with the civic community through the symposion,64 is also reflected in the long iconographic tradition of the Greek funerary relief, with the so-called ‘funeral banquet’: such scenes do not strictly represent a banquet scene, because women did not take part in the symposion, but rather, as in the Geneleos group, juxtapose the conventional representations for the man, head of the family, and his wife, mother of legitimate children, in the same image in a paratactic way. This tradition of representation of the couple runs through the whole of Greek art from Classical to Roman times.65 Another echo can be found in the Macedonian tombs: a kline, which refers to the symposion, appears in male tombs, while a throne stands in the female tombs, such as the Rhomaios tomb and that of Eurydice at Vergina, and in the tomb of the Erotes in Eretria.66 In both cases the furniture refers to the conventional representations of the social and familial identities of man and woman. The conclusion to which these considerations and concordant iconographic indications lead is clear: far from representing divinities, the four types so commonplace in Archaic coroplasty – the enthroned woman, standing girl, banqueter, and standing young man – should be understood as conventional representations of mortals characterized according to their family status by both attitude and generic attributes. The same applies to the protomai, which are the abbreviation, as Christopher Blinkenberg puts it,67 or rather “plastic metonymy”68 – the part for the whole – of the standing and enthroned female figurines. For the female types of standing girl, enthroned woman, and protomai, the absence or the presence of a stephane, veil, or other headdress, such as the polos, makes it possible to determine if they represent a parthenos or nubile girl, a nymphe or young bride, or a gyne or accomplished wife and mother. In other words, the generic features that reveal a social and family status in these terracotta figurines are more important than the individuality of facial features, which, in any case, the technique of serial production with molds prohibits.69 The terracotta images thus function to a certain extent in the way that François Lissarrague and Alain Schnapp describe for the vase-painting images – “l’image est un ensemble de signes qui a sa propre logique”70 – logic that 64 On the social and symbolic importance of the banquet for the citizens, see, e.g., Schmitt Pantel 1992. 65 Dentzer 1982. For this tradition, which continues until late Roman times, e.g., on Thasos, see Grandjean and Salviat 2000, 243–4, 270–1, Figs. 219, 220. 66 Andrianou 2009, 27. 67 Blinkenberg 1931, 36. 68 Muller 2009, 85–8. 69 Schipporeit 2014, 339. 70 Lissarrague and Schnapp 1981, 285: “The image is a set of signs that has its own logic.”

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was, of course, immediately intelligible to ancient producers and users but needs to be deciphered today. And as is the case with vase painting, “ce qui est montré, ce sont plutôt des catégories: vieillard, femme, cavalier, hoplite, par exemple.”71 This generic character of Archaic figured terracottas is a more convincing explanation for their ubiquity than a postulated polysemy: the same types are placed in all sanctuaries and graves, not because they represent any divinity, but because they represent the same categories of mortals – votaries in the sanctuaries or dead in the graves – everywhere. FROM IDENTIFICATION TO FUNCTION IN SANCTUARIES AND GRAVES In conclusion, I would like to discuss the implications of identifying the most common types of Archaic terracottas as conventional and generic representations of mortals. What do the figures in their primary contexts of sanctuaries and graves contribute to our understanding of Greek religion? First, because the figurines and protomai do not represent the divinity to whom they were offered, these objects are of no help to identify, in the absence of literary or epigraphic evidence, the sanctuaries in which they are found. At most, they allow us to define a sphere of activity for the divinities to whom they are dedicated. In particular, they invite us to reconsider the identification of Demeter and Kore as the deities honored in numerous Sicilian sanctuaries – but also elsewhere in the Greek world – solely on the basis of the presence of numerous protomai identified as chthonian divinities and Cicero’s statement that Sicily was the chosen land of the Two Goddesses (Verr. 2.4.106).72 In fact, the identification of these Archaic terracottas as conventional and generic representations of a particular social identity and familial status provides a clear meaning to their consecration in sanctuaries. Rather than an agalma supposed to delight the divinity – and how could such a modest offering? – these figurines and protomai are substitutes, like avatars, that take the place of the votary in perpetual presence near the divinity and under its direct protection: perhaps they were consecrated in the sanctuaries at the time of civic festivals or family rituals (rites de passage) that marked the various changes of status and different stages of integration in the familial and civic body for boys (pais, ephebe, citizen) and at the times of sexual maturity, marriage, and childbirth (parthenos, nymphe, gyne) for

71 Lissarrague and Schnapp 1981, 281: “what is shown are rather categories: old man, woman, horseman, hoplite, for example,” and 283: “les types – l’enfant, l’éphèbe, la femme, le guerrier, le vieillard” (types: child, ephebe, woman, warrior, old man). 72 Pedrucci 2015, § 5–9; Parisi 2010, 461.

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girls and young women.73 Dedicating such an image may have been a way of placing the status that was accessed under the protection of the divinity guarantor of these passages. While the Nymphs, Kore, and Demeter were mainly in charge of young women and received almost exclusively female terracottas, Artemis was in charge of the socialization of young people of both sexes. However, there are few male figurines in her sanctuaries in spite of the fact that one would expect banqueters in large numbers, since passage through the ephebeia offered young men the “right to the banquet.”74 In fact, instead of figurines of banqueters, a drinking vase, often a miniature or monumental cup, was given in sanctuaries of Artemis as a symbol of the banquet and ‘abbreviation’ of the banqueter.75 In this way, male presence balances female in many sanctuaries of Artemis. Placing these same figurine types in the graves of the immature, the aôroi, is equivalent to affording them in death the fulfillment of life which was denied them, as a sort of projection of what should have been; for girls, this meant marriage and childbirth, the statuses of nymphe and gyne. Likewise, funeral korai of unmarried girls, such as the kore of Berlin or Phrasikleia in Attika, wear a wedding crown.76 The graves of the unmarried, both men and women, were marked by a loutrophoros, the vessel used to transport the water for the bridal bath.77 In Greek villages today, people of marriageable age who die unmarried are buried with wedding accoutrements: the wedding dress for females and wedding crowns for males.78 In antiquity, parents placed terracotta figurines in the graves of the young, unmarried dead, the aôroi; these figurines were those that the dead themselves would have placed in sanctuaries had they experienced the different stages of social integration, or represented, generically, the husband, wife, or child they did not have during their lifetimes.79 All traditional, preindustrial societies share the concern of numerous offspring: beyond the family or clan, it is about the survival of the city and the very species. No wonder, then, that the death of the single person, particularly in the case of the death of the girl or young woman, which must have been experienced as a calamity and not only to the individual family affected, gave rise to particular rituals to compensate for the deceased.80

73 On the rites de passage and votive offerings in sanctuaries, see Derks 2012, esp. pp. 51–4, and 64–71 for examples from the Roman period. 74 Jacquet Rimassa 2004; Schmitt Pantel 1992, 76–90. 75 Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015, 433–34; Tichit and Maffre 2011, 160; MullerDufeu et al. 2010, 399–400. 76 Karakasi 2001, pls. 234, 235. 77 See, e.g., Mösch-Klingele 2006, 32–4. 78 Danforth and Tsiaras 1982, 13, 80–2, pls. 2–3. 79 Schwarzmaier 2015. 80 Lohmann 1992, 104–5.

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In summary, the identification of the most common types of Archaic figurative terracottas as conventional and generic representations of mortals according to their social identity and family status enable us to find a coherent meaning and function for them in both sanctuary and grave contexts. The funerary stele of Polyxena (Fig. 15.2), who died before marriage, best expresses both this reading of the figurines and this

Figure 15.2 Berlin, Antikensammlung 1504, funerary stele of Polyxena, last decades of the fifth century BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius).

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coherence between votive and funeral practices:81 the young deceased is represented holding the belt of her peplos, which she has untied – a highly symbolic gesture with nuptial connotations82 – in one hand, and a figurine of a standing kore wearing a bridal crown – the figurine Polyxena would have placed in a sanctuary of Artemis, Demeter, or the Nymphs, had she married – in the other.

81 Schwarzmaier 2006. In this illuminating reinterpretation of the stele, once understood as that of a priestess holding the key of the temple and a reproduction of the cult statue (e.g., Dillon 2016, 686: “possibly Demeter”), Schwarzmaier illustrates other examples of funerary stelai of young girls holding other figurine types, especially that of the enthroned women (pp. 190–9). 82 See also Chapter 16, pp. 347–9, 355. For the nuptial connotations of girdle tying or untying, see Sabetai 1997, 321–8.

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16 IMAGES IN DIALOGUE: PICTURING IDENTITIES IN BOIOTIAN STONE, CLAY, AND METAL* Victoria Sabetai

INTRODUCTION Although crossover in the language of various visual genres has received some treatment in the case of Attic art, less attention has been paid to its regional manifestations. In this chapter I discuss characteristic cases of ‘dialogue’ between visual genres in Classical Boiotia. As a guiding thread, we shall employ scenes reflecting social identities and gender roles on media comprised of local and imported figured vases, sculptures, and coroplasty. This discussion also includes some metal objects manufactured and imported from elsewhere, either because they reflect Boiotian influence or because they were adopted and incorporated into Boiotia’s visual culture.1 Attika’s northern neighbor, Boiotia, has a distinct regional character of its own in the Archaic and Classical periods. Various workshops operating within the confederacy produced artifacts in a variety of media from early on and under the influence of Corinth, Attika, and East Greece.2 Findspots include sanctuaries, but are mostly the necropoleis of Tanagra, Thebes, Rhitsona, Thespiae, and Akraiphia, where individual tombs were replete with ceramics and terracottas and often marked with stelai, which, unfortunately, were dispersed around the area.3 A combined study of pictures in all media offers a panoramic view of the epichoric ways of visual expression. * I warmly thank J. Barringer and F. Lissarrague for inviting me to the stimulating Leventis conference at Edinburgh, a most memorable event, and especially the former for her useful comments. I am grateful to my colleagues for their assistance at all levels: E. Vlachogianni for permission to publish the contents of the grave T.440; A. Charami, K. Kalliga, E. Tsota, I. Moraitou for amenities in the Thebes Museum; and G. Kavvadias, Chr. Avronidaki, A. Lekka, and A. Schwarzmaier for photographs and permits. I also thank V. Dasen and S. Klinger for bibliographical references. 1 These are Lokrian coins and a Peloponnesian caryatid mirror: see pp. 353, 356–9, 364–5, 374. 2 For recent bibliography on Boiotian art, see Bonanno Aravantinos 2012 (sculpture); Paspalas 2012, 68–73 (vase painting); Schild-Xenidou 2008 (sculpture); Jeammet 2007 (terracottas); Jeammet 2003 (terracottas). 3 Sanctuaries: Zampiti 2012; Schachter 2003; Schachter 1981–94. The richest in finds are the Herakleion in Thebes, the Ptoion at Akraiphia, the Kabirion near Thebes, and the grotto of the Leibethrian Nymphs at Levadheia. Necropoleis: Andreiomenou 2015 (Akraiphia); Pisani 2013 (Thebes); Schilardi 1977 (Thespiai); Ure 1927 (Rhitsona).

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BRIDAL IMAGERY: POLYXENA AND HER SISTERS ON THE BRINK OF MARRIAGE One cannot start a study across visual genres without mentioning cases where one medium provides visual references for another, but also where modern interpretations affect the understanding of both. The most characteristic example of such crossover in Boiotia is the grave stele of Polyxena, of local limestone and dating to the last decades of the fifth century BC (Fig. 16.1).4 A maiden in an unbelted peplos with overfold

Figure 16.1 Berlin, Antikensammlung 1504, funerary stele of Polyxena, last decades of the fifth century BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz (J. Laurentius). 4 Schild-Xenidou 2008, 274–5, cat. 42, pl. 15 (420–410 BC); Schwarzmaier 2006, 179 (c. 400 BC). For more stelai fragments in the same iconographic type, see Bonanno Aravantinos 2014, 1160–1, Fig. 1; Schild-Xenidou 2008, 275–6, cat. 43, pl. 15.

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drawn up over the back of her head like a veil stands frontally,5 holding a statuette of a peplophoros. The statuette renders in stone a common type of Boiotian terracotta depicting a girl with loose, curly hair and high polos with a raised back terminating in three projections. The type’s copious presence and seriation in fifth-century BC Boiotia suggests wide use and adherence to a sanctioned tradition (Fig. 16.2). Yet, its identification has remained debatable for a long time due to the interpretation of its peculiar polos as a divine attribute (see Chapter 15). Based on this assumption, the statuette on the stele was regarded as an image of the goddess whom Polyxena served, while she was herself identified as a priestess holding a key, restored in her now empty right palm.6 Recently, however,

Figure 16.2 Thebes Museum 28715, terracotta figurine from Haliartos, Boiotia, fifth century BC. Photo: EFA Boiotia. 5 Llewellyn-Jones 2003, 59–60 names it colpos veil. 6 The architectural setting functioning as the stele’s frame was interpreted as a small temple by Rodenwaldt (1913, 324), and consequently Polyxena could be identified as priestess; yet, this is best seen as her funerary monument (naiskos).

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knowledge gained from nuptial imagery allowed Agnes Schwarzmaier to identify Polyxena as a nubile girl, who once held a belt (rather than a key), symbol of maidenhood.7 The jewelry worn in her hair and her transparent garment emphasize the grace of her body, while her veiled head signifies her modesty (aidos), a praised female virtue.8 Not only is Polyxena a marriageable girl, but her statuette’s peculiar headdress should also be regarded as part of ritual bridal attire, as we shall see. The reason why Polyxena herself does not also wear a polos like that worn by her statuette is because she never became a bride due to her early demise just on the brink of marriage. In other words, the polos-wearing statuette in Polyxena’s hand is there to prefigure the anticipated bridal phase which the commemorated maiden never reached. Effigies of this type should be interpreted as offerings to deities overseeing the dedicant’s safe crossing to marriage and, secondarily, to prematurely deceased individuals who missed the occasion. Sculptors of other nubile girls on grave reliefs may omit the polos-wearing statuette, in which case they depict the polos on the head of the commemorated females9 (see Chapter 15, pp. 339, 351). Attic stelai with maidens holding statuettes of various types, seated or standing, dressed or nude, and occasionally limbless, are thematic equivalents of the Polyxena relief. Current scholarship refers to them as “dolls,” noting that they were toys with an educative function aimed at the socialization of girls.10 In Attika they were also manufactured in marble and dedicated to goddesses protecting the passage of women to maturity.11 In Greek thought and culture, coming of age was deemed a critical phase of life, which for females meant becoming a wife and mother. The Boiotian figurines functioning as effigies of brides, as on Polyxena’s stele, are not nude or truncated as in Attika, but reveal local predilection for a female body that is clothed and a coiffure composed of a special hairdo and high polos. The latter marks the figures wearing it as ritually important12 and occurs diachronically in all media of Boiotian art.13 In the fifth century BC, the polos appears in a few distinct types, the crown-like one with 7 8 9 10

Kaltsas and Shapiro 2008, 312–13 (A. Schwarzmaier); Schwarzmaier 2006. For aidos, see Cairns 1993; Ferrari 1990. See infra (pp. 350–1, 352) the discussion regarding the stele of Amphotto. Schwarzmaier 2015 (various types in Attic graves); Griesbach 2014; Dasen 2010, 25–9; Dasen 2005, 67–71. One of the ancient Greek words for ‘doll’ is nymphe, which also means bride: Pilz 2009, 108. 11 Despinis 2010, 115–22. 12 Coroplasts also model figurines of youths with elaborate coiffure and polos in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC. They also should be interpreted as appearing in ritual gear related to maturation. 13 The polos was associated with mortal women in Boiotian art from early on: Keramopoullos 1917, 214. Rodenwaldt (1913, 321) associates it with the heroized dead rather than with nuptials. In favor of the latter: Schwarzmaier 2006, 187–91. For a synopsis of the discussion on the interpretation of generic females in terracotta, cf. Uhlenbrock 2016; Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2015; Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007.

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Figure 16.3 Thebes Museum 34705, terracotta figurine from Thebes, Boiotia (Tsallas plot), end of sixth-beginning of fifth century BC. Photo: EFA Boiotia.

projections at its back being common during its second half. Precursors also exist in the sixth century BC14 (Fig. 16.3), and late fifth- and fourthcentury BC examples are worn by elaborate bridal figures holding nuptial paraphernalia.15 Boiotian reliefs predating that of Polyxena may occasionally depict a plain, cylindrical polos, as is the case on the mid-fifth-century BC stele of Amphotto.16 The maiden wears a peplos and her hair loose, while holding a (once painted) flower and a ball, a toy closely associated with 14 Kountouri et al. 2016, 183, 189, Fig. 4a. She also wears bridal shoes (nymphides). See also Simon 1972, 218; Pilz (2009, esp. pp. 107–8), who extends the interpretation of the polos as bridal crown to sixth-century BC terracotta relief plaques with nude and dressed females. 15 The most common type holds a casket containing a band or sash, as in nuptial vase imagery: Higgins 1954, 226, no. 849, pl. 118. A figurine of a nubile female bearing a nuptial shoe (nymphis) is exhibited in the Thebes Museum 35596, from a child’s grave in the necropolis of Thebes. 16 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 739 (Amphotto stele): Schild Xenidou 2008, 248–9, cat. 15, pl. 6.

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the prenuptial realm and symbolizing the childhood about to end. Maidens holding balls are particularly popular in grave reliefs, not only in Boiotia, but also in Thessaly.17 Comparison of the polos-wearing females in clay and stone to those in vase paintings confirms this nuptial interpretation; although sculptors create formal and succinct images where figures are characterized by attire and objects held, vase painters are more eager, or more able, to provide further detail of the setting and narrative context in elaborate compositions. On a Boiotian multi-figured pyxis of 430–410 BC, ball playing is an exemplary bridal activity (Fig. 16.4).18 In a continuous frieze, the vase painting deploys iconographical motifs referring to nuptials, among which of prime importance is ball playing between a ‘chorus’ of peplos-wearing maidens and a mature woman.19 The image is not a mere depiction of a quotidian activity, but a formulaic representation referring metaphorically to the prenuptial phase via the imagery of innocent play in the open. The scene’s ritualized ephebic content is signaled by the girls’ appearance as a group of peers, their choreographed movement as if they participate in a ritual performance combining dance and music, and the setting of the action in a rocky landscape. What distinguishes the girls’ leader as a bride

Figure 16.4 Athens, Moutoussi collection, Boiotian red-figure pyxis, c. 430–410 BC. Photo: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund (I. Miari). 17 Bosnakis 2013, 159–60, pls. 6 (B21), 9 (B27), 20 (B12). 18 Avronidaki (2014, esp. pp. 88–92) analyzes the iconography of this unique pyxis, which also includes a harpist, a swan, and women at the laver. Ball playing is commonly used to signal nubility in myth, literature, and art from the time of Homer onward. Apples, a fruit with erotic connotations, occasionally substitute for the balls. 19 The mature woman may be the mother, as is the case on the stele of Epiktesis (340–330 BC): Schild-Xenidou 2008, 345–6, cat. 113, pl. 44.

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is her loose hair and polos, as on the stele of Amphotto. The polos’ decoration with a zig-zag line in the middle is reminiscent of the high polos-like crown worn by brides and matrons in other Boiotian vase paintings, as, for example, Ariadne’s reflection in a mirror while in the company of satyrs and Eros as she awaits Dionysos, as well as the caricatured Hera in a Kabiric scene of the Judgment of Paris (Fig. 16.5).20 The poloi with pointed projections at their back on contemporary terracotta figurines, such as that held by Polyxena, may also be seen as a type of headdress that fuses a polos and a bridal crown. Thus, the images on the vases just mentioned support the understanding of the polos-bearing figurines also as brides. Terracotta figurines of this type were manufactured for Boiotian sanctuaries and graves in order to highlight the dedicant as one who has the status of the nymphe, a transitional phase between the maiden and the matron.21 Although singly displayed in Polyxena’s hand, such figurines occur in multiple numbers and in various combinations with other objects in cult

Figure 16.5 Athens, National Archaeological Museum inv. no. 1406, Boiotian red-figure skyphos, end of 5th–beginning of 4th c. BC. Photo: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund (I. Miari). 20 Sabetai 2012a, 89–90, Fig. 11. These painted crowns, covered by veils, have ‘teeth’ on their upper surface, which may signify metal myrtle leaves. For additional examples, see Avronidaki 2014, 88. The Kabiric Hera just mentioned suggests that the polos crown confers bridal meaning to goddesses and mortals alike and should not be used merely to distinguish between the divine and the human sphere but also between bride/ non-bride status. On this skyphos, Hera appears in the formal guise of the matronal bride, whereas Aphrodite is depicted as an eroticized, semi-nude female. 21 For the term nymphe, see Andò 1996.

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places and tombs, so they should not be approached as isolated figures. Grave depositions, in particular, offer a view of the funeral’s mise en scène, which is essentially a fabricated three-dimensional ‘image’ in the space of the tomb.22 Staging the dead protagonist of the funeral with insignia that highlight his/ her social identity requires the use of objects functioning as attributes, such as vases, figurines, and metal items, which convey cultural ideals by means of material, form, and iconography. A developed ‘burial language,’23 which reflects concepts about the dead’s condition and social status in life, is attested in the rich grave assemblages of the prematurely deceased (aoroi), whereby women are cast as brides and men as warriors and symposiasts. One such tomb assemblage of around the mid-fourth century BC, the Akraiphian pit grave T.440, offers a rare and striking example of an array of bridal imagery in its setting (Fig. 16.6). The skeleton had decomposed, as often happens with sub-adult skeletons in Akraiphia because of soil conditions, but the tomb contained an assortment of artifacts associated with female life phases and aspects of female identity. These were a bronze caryatid mirror, a plastic lekythos in the form of Eros, a group of terracotta figurines and clay objects, another of mostly miniature plain vases, glass

Figure 16.6 Thebes, Museum, group from Akraiphian grave T.440. Photo: EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). 22 For funerals as meaningfully staged events, see, e.g., Kümmel et al. 2008. In general: Tarlow and Nilsson Stutz 2013. 23 Houby-Nielsen 1995.

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beads, a needle, and shells, among a few other fragmentary items.24 More importantly, the tomb’s ‘scenography’ was crafted with contemporaneous and also earlier artifacts, suggesting that the ‘dialogue’ of images was among not only different media, but also different time periods. The figurine of a bride is prominent in this assemblage (Fig. 16.7).25 She wears a polos crown covered on top by a veil,26 which she pulls to perform the anakalypsis gesture, and holds a knotted fillet in her right hand.27 The

Figure 16.7 Thebes Museum 48954, terracotta figurine from Akraiphian grave T.440. Photo: EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). 24 Vlachogianni 1998, 342–3. Grave T.440 is being published by E. Vlachogianni and the author. 25 H. 34.5 cm, max. width 12 cm, base 11 x 6 cm. Ventilation hole: 18 x 6 cm. For a replica, see Goldman and Jones 1942, 395, no. 13, pl. VIII (with tomb group). For similar examples (but the fillet is held in the left hand), see Hamdorf 2014, 193, D 120; Schmidt 1994, 54–5, no. 56, pl. 14; Higgins 1954, 229, no. 861, pl. 122; Keramopoullos 1917, 219–20, no. 19, Fig. 157 (with tomb group); Winter 1903, 1: 68 no. 4. 26 The emphasis on bridal status with the combined use of polos and veil is characteristic of fourth-century BC Boiotian figurines (see, e.g., Jeammet 2003, 113, nο. 72). For its occurrence in Boiotian vase painting as well (Ariadne; Hera), supra n. 20 (Sabetai 2012a, 89). 27 Hamdorf (2014; supra n. 25) refers to it as a “Perlenkette,” but these are rather large bead-like knots). Schmidt (1994), Higgins (1954), and Goldman and Jones (1942) all call it a “knotted fillet.” Supra n. 25.

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latter decorates sacred objects and animals when they are consecrated or brought for sacrifice.28 Brides may have brought the knotted fillet to sanctuaries as an offering in the context of prenuptial sacrifices (  proteleia). An identical figurine is known from Halai, while another renders the figure with the fillet in her left hand.29 In all these examples, the back of the peplos’ overfold serves as a veil, much as in the case of Polyxena, thus inviting the question of whether she also held a festive knotted fillet rather than a belt in her now empty hand (Fig. 16.1). As for her coroplastic ‘family,’ our grave’s bridal figurine is part of a group comprising two nursing women, possibly a reference to the deceased woman’s childhood;30 a crouching boy, alluding to her prospective motherhood;31 female heads, of which one is a masterpiece (Fig. 16.8);32 an ephedrismos group,33 which signifies childhood pastimes; and part of an enthroned doll, minus

Figure 16.8 Thebes Museum 30847, terracotta head from Akraiphian grave T.440. Photo: EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos). 28 Van Straten 1995, 162; Krug 1968, 37–41 (type 11), 125–6 (use). 29 Schmidt 1994; Goldman and Jones 1942. Supra n. 25. 30 Thebes Museum 30841, 30848. For a comparandum to the nurse with preserved head (inv. 30848), cf. Pfisterer-Haas 1989, 38; 123, cat. Nos. II 76-II 77, Fig. 44; Winter 1903, 1: 154, no. 2. For figurines of nurses in graves, see Graepler 1997, 228–31. 31 Thebes Museum 30843. Cf. Winter 1903, 2: 267 no. 10. 32 Under study by E. Vlachogianni. Cf. Jeammet 2015. 33 Thebes Museum 30849, 30845. Cf. Hamdorf 2014, 198, D 134, D 135.

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the throne.34 Such bride-dolls are known from miniature nuptial sets. In one example, said to have come from Attika, the nude enthroned doll was placed together with a lebes gamikos, nymphides (nuptial shoes, signaling transfer at a wedding), and an epinetron, an implement for carding wool and a symbol of female industry.35 Another coroplastic group from a Theban child’s grave, richer than its Attic counterpart, included a similarly enthroned, but draped, doll-bride accompanied by a seated woman, shoes, dancing females, and standing females, some unveiling themselves. A nude ‘acrobat,’ Leda or a bride with a swan,36 and knucklebones add erotic nuances to this group, which was also furnished with two small kraters decorated with erotic Dionysiac themes (Ariadne, a satyr), beads, and a wreath to adorn the corpse, as well as bronze needles, suggesting sewing of textiles.37 The deceased of our Akraiphian tomb was further equipped with a hydriske and a small kanastron, which hint at cultic hydrophoriai and fruit collecting. These clay objects are semantically associated with the rich series of images depicting nubile women at the fountain and at orchards, which, like ball playing, do not merely represent quotidian activities but function as visual metaphors referring to the innocence and eroticism of maidenhood just before marriage.38 The theme of the maiden at the orchard was also used in Boiotia. A terracotta peplophoros from Haliartos depicts a polos-bearing woman collecting fruits in her kalathos (Fig. 16.9), while on a red-figure hydria from the border town of Halai, an inscribed Helen collects berries and sprigs from a myrtle tree under the auspices of Theseus as groom-to-be and Aphrodite (Fig. 16.10).39 Women may collect the fruits in baskets of the type featured in our grave, or in a pouch created by their peplos’ overfold. The latter is depicted on the grave’s elaborate caryatid mirror, whose handle is fashioned as a peplophoros holding pomegranates in a pouch formed by her garment 34 Thebes Museum 30846. Cf. Bonanno Aravantinos 2015, 338–9, cat. Nos. 13–14, Figs. 13, 15; Hamdorf 2014, 185, D 93. The burial’s shells are of the species Pecten Iacobaeus, used as containers of cosmetics and found in tombs of adult and adolescent women. See Carè 2018, 151–2. 35 Higgins 1954, 172, no. A2, 186–7, nn. 702–6, pl. 91. 36 For the swan in nuptial imagery, see Avronidaki 2014, 90. For the figurine of a bridal woman seated on a swan from a Boiotian child grave, see Charami 2016. 37 Bonanno Aravantinos 2015. For the small kraters as symbols of the wedding banquet, see Sabetai 2011, 156–7. For other assemblages from Boiotian graves in various museum collections, see Hamdorf 1996, 53, 55, Fig. 55 (a limbless doll wearing stephane, a nurse, and a dancer). 38 Hydriske and kanastron: Thebes Museum 47514, 47516. Fountain scenes: PfistererHaas 2002. Orchard scenes: Pfisterer-Haas 2003 (vases and Lokrian pinakes). For the semantics of the orchard in literature, see Menichetti 2015; Calame 1992. 39 For the figurine (Thebes Museum 35850), see Aravantinos 2010, 296. Its unnatural frontal posture and the flat half-tree with plastically rendered fruits behind her arm may betray the coroplast’s dependence on a painting. For the hydria E 173, see BAPD 24225: CVA: Greece 6, Thebes, Archaeological Museum 1 (V. Sabetai), pls. 75–7.

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Figure 16.9 Thebes Museum 35850, terracotta figurine from Haliartos. Photo: © EFA Boiotia.

(Fig. 16.11), a motif with erotic symbolism.40 The maiden is flanked by two Erotes attached to the mirror’s disc, who fly off above her head as if emanating from her. The theme of fruit holding is unique in the series of caryatid mirrors, but finds rare parallels in a mid-fifth-century BC gilded bronze figurine and a fourth-century BC clay example,41 which suggests a connection between artists and exchange of artistic motifs of different 40 Thebes, Archaeological Museum 32597. Of North Peloponnesian origin and datable to 460–450 BC. H 38 cm; max. D 17 cm. Cf. Congdon 1981, 174–5 no. 64, 183–4 no. 74, 184–5 no. 74A, 191–2 no. 83, 193–4 no. 85, pls. 60, 67, 70–1, 77, 80. For other caryatid mirrors from Boiotia and central Greece, see Congdon 1981, 142–3 no. 22, 188–9 no. 79, 207–8 no. 111, pls. 20, 74, 92. See also Hemingway 2006. Opening one’s lap to receive seedy fruits (or, as in the Danae story, Zeus in the form of rain) functions as an erotic/ sexual euphemism; for this motif in ancient fairytales, see G. Anderson 2000, 178–80. 41 For the metal figurine contemporary with our caryatid mirror, see Comstock and Vermeule 1971, 54–5, no. 55. For the terracotta example, see Chidiroglou 2016, 214, 219, Fig. 10; Chidiroglou 2015, 94, nn. 23, 101, Fig. 6. This example further attests to the longevity of the motif and its associated cultural ideas across time.

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Figure 16.10 Thebes Museum inv. no. E 173, Attic red-figure hydria from Halai, c. 400–390 BC. Photo: EFA Boiotia.

Figure 16.11 Thebes Museum 32597, bronze mirror from Akraiphian grave T.440, mid-fifth century BC. Photo: EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos).

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media. On top of the disk unfolds a hare chase, a common love theme with a long history in Boiotian vase painting from the sixth century BC onward.42 These images should be imagined as framing the maiden’s reflection in the mirror, as suggested by François Lissarrague for a similar piece.43 Her reflected head would have been crowned by a chase, expressing amorous pursuit on the animal level, while the Erotes may have corresponded to those hanging from her ears in the form of earrings.44 The mirror with the reflected face on its disc would constitute a ‘composite’ image, blending the materiality of a metal artifact made to last with the transient reflection of a mortal bride, a theme that late-fifth-century BC vase painters enjoyed depicting in nuptial scenes.45 The figure of Eros looms large in the imagery of our tomb, for he appears on its magnificent plastic lekythos, an object that combines the art of the coroplast, the potter, and the vase painter, who joined forces to create a vessel for precious aromatics (Fig. 16.12).46 Like his counterparts on the mirror, Eros flies, here above waves with leaping dolphins, toward the vessel’s recipient.47 Found lying close to the deceased, the mid-fifth-century BC mirror in our c. mid-fourth-century BC grave must have belonged to the dead woman’s grandmother or ancestor and may have captured the ephemeral reflection of more than one bridal face on its once shiny disc. It was apparently an object with a biography, important to the family’s sense of identity and continuation because of its association with critical moments in the life of its female members. Heirlooms are rare in Boiotian tombs, which are usually replete with more modest, mass-produced pieces. They must have left the home only in the exceptional case of untimely death, an occasion allowing the deprivation of a treasured dowry item, normally passing from mother to daughter in order to highlight the tragedy of the family’s rupture. By means of assorted iconography, then, the objects surrounding the deceased here emphasize notions of nubility, erotic charm, adornment, and female roles spanning from childhood to motherhood. They reveal the cultural profile of the model bride, who, despite varying appearances in Attika and Boiotia, crosses boundaries of time virtually unchanged.48 The presence 42 43 44 45

Barringer 2001, 95–8; Kilinski 1990, 37–8, 41–2. Lissarrague 2011. Gold pendants in the form of Erotes were popular across the Greek world. For the semantics of reflexivity, see Menichetti 2008; Colivicchi 2006; FrontisiDucroux and Vernant 1997. 46 Thebes Museum 32598. For the semantics of aromatics in erotic landscapes, see Menichetti 2012; Bodiou and Mehl 2008. The majority of vase types in this grave associate erotic charm with unguents and cosmetics: amphoriskos, lekythoi, pyxides, lekanis, and shells. 47 For other, less elaborate, parallels, cf. LIMC III, s.v. Eros, 866 no. 134, 877 no. 305 (A. Hermary). 48 For female model roles as visualized in grave assemblages, see Graepler 1997, 167–8 (Taranto). For the Tanagran grave of a sub-adult with figurines in bridal types, see Jeammet 2003, 109–17, esp. pp. 113–15, nos. 72–3 (A. Harami).

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Figure 16.12 Thebes Museum 32598, Attic red-figure plastic lekythos from Akraiphian grave T.440. Photo: EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos).

of a wedding heirloom with a long use-life bestows a cross-generational dimension to this grave’s universe of images, which essentially constitutes a bride’s conceptual nuptial thalamos in a funerary setting.49 WARRIOR IMAGERY: HEROIC MEN WITH PILOS HELMET AND FIGURED SHIELD Notable crossover between various media occurs also in images of the model Boiotian male. The most characteristic case of affinity between scenes on clay and stone is in figures of warriors in local vase painting and on the 49 On keimêlia (heirlooms), see Reiterman 2014. On generational identities, see infra n. 93. For another Akraiphian tomb with an heirloom (figured diadem c. 575–550 BC in a tomb of the early fifth century BC; Theseus and Minotaur) see Vlachogianni 2003.

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incised black stelai particular to the region.50 The men on these incised black stelai have been associated with the battle of Delion (424 BC) on the basis of casualty lists found at their public massive grave at Thespiai that mention some of the names that also occur on the privately commissioned gravestones found elsewhere. The use of dark limestone for memorials spans the fifth century BC, continuing into the fourth, and most memorials bear only the dead’s name.51 Less than a dozen figured examples, including complete and fragmentary pieces, are preserved, but their incised drawing is nowadays difficult to discern, except at an angle (Fig. 16.13). Some details in the drawing, especially of the memorials’ pedimental scenes, are

Figure 16.13 Thebes Museum 57, funerary stele of Mnason, limestone. Photo: EFA Boiotia. 50 Schachter 2016, 209–15 (collected bibliography). The stelai are dated in the last quarter of the fifth to the beginning of the fourth century BC. 51 The stone was quarried in Kithairon (Thebes-Tanagra area). For plain black stelai, see Jeffery 1967.

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uncertain and have been subject to debate. No traces of color have been attested on the masterfully drawn warriors, and it is uncertain whether they actually bore any.52 In a few cases the field was roughly hewn, perhaps for effective contrast to the smooth figures.53 It is possible that the figures were set out from their background by polishing. If so, the shining warriors may have conveyed the same impression as that of engraved metalwork on vessels or mirrors.54 The rich detail of the incised figures in continuous or dotted lines and the overall linear treatment of the design more closely resemble engravings, vase painting in the Rich Style, and possibly wall painting, than relief sculpture. Yet, the freestanding stone bearing the design requires the skills of an engraver who is also sculptor. Furthermore, such stelai serve the same purpose as statuary – that is, memorialization in the space of the burial ground.55 The majority of the preserved examples depict a warrior charging out in a rocky but flowery landscape, a heroic scene that is occasionally projected onto his funerary naiskos, as suggested by the figure’s overlap with the stele’s antae, which form the lateral limits of the field.56 His name is inscribed in the nominative. Two examples bear figured scenes in their pediment, which resemble vase painting and relief sculpture, but also exhibit innovations particular to the medium of the black stelai 52 The warriors on the stelai bore color, according to Daumas (2001, 125), who specifies the encaustic technique; Keramopoullos 1920. Grossman (2001, 101–3) mentions that ultraviolet photography by R. Posamentir revealed color on them, although Posamentir informs me that he has not photographed them. 53 Schild-Xenidou (2008, 65) thinks that plaster or color may have been applied on the rough background in order to produce a dark-on-light effect. 54 Metalwork may have influenced the early engraved stelai from Prinias (Crete): Lembessi (1976, 38–43, esp. p. 41), who also discusses the Boiotian stelai. For metal vases, cf. Sideris 2015, esp. p. 42, Fig. 42, a silver phiale with a warrior, and 14–16, Figs. 1–5, a silver cup with contours consisting of consecutive dots, as on Mnason’s stele and with similar, though not identical flora as on the memorials of Saugenes, Rhynchon, and Pherenikos (for which see Schild-Xenidou 2008, pls. 20–2, 24; infra nn. 57 and 70). For engraved mirrors and their relationship to art on other materials, cf., e.g., Schwarzmaier 1977, 45–51, 151–62. For mirrors with an aesthetic effect comparable to that of metal vases and possibly also of the polished figures on the dark stelai cf., e.g., pls. 12:2, 66:2, 78:1, 80, 81:1, 83:2, 84, 86. A flat shining surface allows the reflection of the beholder, thus enlivening the image. For the notion that artworks possess an ontological quality, a ‘life,’ see T. Hölscher 2015, 25–51, esp. pp. 29–30 n. 8. Perhaps the male viewer of the dark polished stelai was invited to project himself and identify with the personality of the dead hero in a reflection aimed at the fusion of identities. 55 For Attic incised stelai spanning the sixth century BC and associated with wall and vase painting, see Yannopoulou 2010–11; Papapostolou 1966, 120–1. For shallow carving and influence from vase painting on other regional stelai, see Stampolidis and Oikonomou 2014, 129, no. 57 (E. Vlachogianni). 56 For the fighting warrior on Attic grave reliefs of the late fifth century BC and the Boiotian preference for agitated, charging figures, see Yannopoulou 2010–11, 235. For terracotta warrior plaques in the Peloponnese, see Salapata 1997.

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Figure 16.14 Thebes Museum 56, funerary stele of Saugenes, limestone. Photo: EFA Boiotia.

(Fig. 16.14).57 In the pediment of Saugenes’ memorial, two banqueters recline on a couch, before which is a table laden with food. Only the banqueter on our left is wreathed; this may be Saugenes himself. His gesture suggests kottabos playing,58 a dexterity game pertaining to sympotic culture and long-lived in painting yet alien to reliefs.59 At the left edge of 57 Stelai of Saugenes and Rynchon (Schild-Xenidou 2008, 289–91, cat. 56–7, pls. 21–2). The ornamental olive branch and palmettes on the pediments are also influenced by painting. 58 Despite doubts, the kottabist must be a man: Schild-Xenidou 2008, 290. His sharing the couch with another man may hint at male bonding at the symposion via initiatory pederasty, elite practices recurrent in Boiotia until the fourth century BC: Schachter 2007, 125–6. 59 Shapiro (2009a) and Dentzer (1982, 366–7) note the influence of earlier vase-painting iconography on the later stone banquet images. Kottabos has been suggested as the theme of the feast relief on Piraeus, Archaeological Museum 1778, but this is uncertain, as the figure may be making a wreath instead; see Chap. 13, p. 284; Dentzer 1982, 336–7, pl. 79, Fig. 475.

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the pediment the cup-bearer draws wine from a krater, as in the banqueting reliefs, of which our scene is the earliest example on a funerary monument. The gesture he performs with his other hand may suggest that he also held a cup.60 At the opposite side of the couch an amphora stands on the ground right next to the smith’s tools (anvil, hammer, pliers), which are presumably the insignia of the deceased’s profession. It has been suggested that Saugenes was a metalworker or owner of an armor-making workshop, and that the amphora represents a typical necessity in metallurgy, in which water was essential.61 Yet, it may have referred instead to a precious metal vase produced in his prestigious workshop and displayed full of wine at his elite gatherings. The iconic banquet featuring the dead as craftsman and symposiast commemorates him as distinguished citizen via motifs representing his status in life: partaker of the arts of Hephaistos and the pleasures of Dionysos, deities who are guarantors of social integration. The depiction of his symposion at the stele’s apex complements his bellicose figure before the (partially preserved) antae of his naiskos on the shaft. The entire composition highlights his thanatos kalos on the battlefield in defense of his polis and its elite citizen lifestyle ideals, such as the symposion and the distinguished profession in the domain of metallurgy. The figure of Saugenes as hero promachos shares affinities with, but also has telling differences from, his counterparts in the corpus of reliefs,62 vases, and coins, as we shall see. All incised warriors appear lightly clad, bearing arms, such as a shield with interior decoration, sword, and spear, which is held in an offensive posture, except in Saugenes’ case, where it lies broken on the ground, forcing him to charge with his last weapon, a drawn sword. Similar, albeit anonymous and thus prototypical, warriors decorate contemporaneous Boiotian red-figure vases.63 The same figure also makes a rare appearance in the coinage of neighboring Opuntian Lokris, where the man is inscribed as the region’s legendary hero Ajax in late examples of the series (Fig. 16.15). The origin of the charging warrior has been sought in Syracusan and Lycian numismatic models,64 which, however, lack the interior shield decoration seen on Saugenes’ stele and the Opuntian Lokrian coins, as well as in a now-lost statue of Aias at Lokris. Yet, the sudden appearance of the motif in Lokrian coins of the first third of the fourth century BC may speak for a more direct association with the Boiotian stelai and vase paintings. The coin engravers seem to have adopted characteristic details 60 For a cup-holding youth between kottabists, see, e.g., a cup in the London market (BAPD 203574). 61 Keramopoullos 1920, 13. 62 Relief stelai with a charging warrior: Schild-Xenidou 2008, 259–61, cat. 26, 28, pls. 9–10. 63 Sabetai 2012b, 129–31, Figs. 15, 17. 64 Seltman 1933, 159.

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Figure 16.15 Gulbenkian Cat. no. 491, silver stater from Opountian Lokris, c 340 BC. Photo: www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/lokris/lokris_opuntii/i.html, accessed 12.6.2020.

such as figured shield interiors, broken spear, and a pilos at the warrior’s feet, and plants and a star in the background.65 Crossover between visual genres such as those described above may aid interpretation, especially when one medium offers clues to decipher the other. Explicit details in the scenes of the black stelai shed light on less clear variants on the vases, as, for example, on a Boiotian krater in the Hermitage, where well-delineated pebbles are depicted on the earth in front of the single charging warrior in the handle area.66 The motif is alien in Attic images, which prove unhelpful in a case where the local vase painter seems to be in direct dialogue with the stelai’s engraver. The stelai’s inclusion of stones on the ground or up in the air makes it clear that they are missiles launched by the enemy. One such stone targets Saugenes’ head,67 while a spearhead pointing at him immediately below the stone hints at the attacking, but invisible, adversary. Leaving the foe out of the frame and showing only his spearhead allows the engraver to focus on the deceased and suggests that the enemy is unworthy of visibility, an inferior who may thus be condemned to oblivion. What is more, stone throwing 65 Although unaccounted for by numismatists, the association of the Boiotian dark stelai to the Lokrian coins (staters) was already noted by Rodenwaldt (1913, 324–5) and Vollgraff (1902, 562), both of whom posit dependence on a lost prototype, i.e., statue, relief, or painting. In addition, Keramopoullos 1920, 15–16 pointed to a few Boiotian coin types adhering to the imagery of the Lokrian numismatic series. The Lokrian coins depicting the charging warrior begin sometime in the first half of the fourth century BC, thus later than in all other media: Morineau Humphris and Delbridge 2014, 33–5; Jenkins and Castro Hipólito 1989, 37–8, nos. 489–98. Caltabiano-Caccamo (2007) notes that the hero on the coinage was originally anonymous and that the name Aias was introduced later. This may hint at influence from the Boiotian vases and stelai depicting a heroic mortal, with the mythologization a later fabrication. Note that Lokris assimilates many aspects of its material culture into the Boiotian artistic koine. 66 Sabetai 2012b, 130–1, Figs. 17–20 (with earlier thoughts about the meaning of the stones). 67 The same motif appears also on the fragmentary stele, Paris, Musée du Louvre MA 3566: Schild-Xenidou 2008, 294, cat. 62, pl. 25.

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should probably not be taken at face value, but rather as a visual hint at wild, non-hoplite struggles with monsters, such as the Minotaur, Amazons, or Centaurs.68 Saugenes’ last fight is thus pictured as one beyond the limits of human power, justifying his heroic defeat and even transforming it to a victory worthy of immortal fame. The underlying ideology from human to superhuman on the stelai has also been argued independently for the Lokrian coinage.69 Although the dead on the Boiotian incised black stelai appear singly, the figure drawn on their shield interior, Bellerophon on his winged horse Pegasos defeating the monstrous Chimaira, may have functioned as figurative companion, role model, and mirror image on the stelai of Rynchon, Saugenes, Pherenikos, and Athanias (Fig. 16.16).70 The hero, mythological counterpart of the elite Boiotian horseman riding a fast horse, is rare in fifth-century BC Attic art but was popular in Boiotia and even ridiculed in Kabiric ware.71 The choice of Bellerophon on stelai prioritizing the figure of the pedestrian warrior may hint at the latter’s additional equestrian skills; thus, the artist further likens him to a ‘flying’ horseman even able to kill monsters.72 If so, on the condensed space of the stele’s shaft are ‘encased’ two main facets of the heroic warrior – the hoplite and the cavalryman; in short, the polis’ military force. It is notable that vases and coins depicting figured shield interiors differ from their counterparts on the black stelai in that they adopt a variant repertory. On a Boiotian kantharos in Athens, a marine deity, either Skylla or a Nereid riding a hippocamp, features inside the warrior’s shield, her left hand as well as the sea creature’s forepart hidden by its rim and thus out of the frame (Fig. 16.17).73 The female does not carry armor 68 Sabetai 2014a, 33 n. 110. Keramopoullos 1920, 12. Cf. Brélaz and Ducrey 2007. 69 Caltabiano-Caccamo 2007, 116–17. 70 For Rynchon and Saugenes, see Schild-Xenidou 2008, supra n. 57. For Pherenikos, Schild-Xenidou 2008, 292–3, cat. 60, pl. 24; for Athanias, Grossman 2001, supra n. 52. 71 Note the occurrence of Bellerophon against Chimaira also in the intaglio of metal vases: Sideris 2015, 61, no. 3, Fig. 68, where he is surrounded by warriors, as on our stelai, and 61–2, no. 7, Figs. 70, 71. For a terracotta warrior whose shield is painted with Pegasos and Chimaira on the interior, see E. Kunze 1956, 118–21 (first quarter of the fifth century BC). For Bellerophon and the Chimaira, see LIMC VII, s.v. Pegasos, 214–30 (C. Lochin); LIMC III, s.v. Chimaira, 249–59 (A. Jacquemin); Iozzo 2012; Mugione 2007. For Kabiric parodies, see A. Mitchell 2009, 270; Walsh 2009, 186–7. Bellerophon and Chimaira are rare in Boiotian black-figure vase painting. The winged horse originally appeared as a common generic motif and gradually acquired mythological character: Kilinski 1990, 49. 72 Hoffmann (1993, 68) notes that Bellerophon in tragedy and in South Italian vase painting signifies death at a young age (i.e., in heroic self-sacrifice on the battlefield), as well as a celestial figure fighting the monster from the air, which may explain the star appearing in Rynchon’s shield interior. If the black stelai are associated with the fallen at the battle of Delion in 424 BC, we should recall that the Boiotian cavalry had a decisive role in the defeat of the Athenians. 73 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 12486. Avronidaki 2015, 239–41; Sabetai 2012b, 129–30, Figs. 15, 16. The rim of the shield is decorated with grapes, an allusion to Dionysiac bliss.

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Figure 16.16 Thebes Museum 55, funerary stele of Rynchon, limestone. Photo: EFA Boiotia.

Figure 16.17 Athens National Archaeological Museum inv. no. 12486, Boiotian red-figure kantharos, side A, detail, 430–420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

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as the Nereid Thetis, in particular, would. Yet, the shield’s edge cutting off or ‘concealing’ her hand may imply that she also holds the shield he holds, as if bringing it to him or supporting it to guide him toward victory. Perhaps a comparison between the famous arms of Achilles and the warrior’s hoplon was meant here by the convergence of the two figures holding the same shield. Thetis also appears among her sisters carrying the panoply that Hephaistos fabricated for her son on other contemporary Boiotian wares.74 The painter’s predilection for a marine deity instead of Bellerophon on the interior of the warrior’s shield may be sought in the influence of imported examples. On a slightly later Attic pelike from Tanagra, the marine thiasos decorating shield interiors is set in the elevated context of the gigantomachy, so perhaps a wish to further liken our charging warrior on the stele to a participant in this cosmic battle was also intended.75 Note that where the engraver prioritizes an equestrian hero as mirror image for the commemorated deceased, the kantharos’ painter opts for a divine female facing in the same direction with the, here, youthful warrior.76 The presence of a swan atop a column behind the painted warrior on the kantharos, a surprising element for this kind of scene, is also a motif from the vase painter’s repertory.77 Although the kantharos’ painter opted for the sea creature instead of Bellerophon for the shield interior, he did not forget the heroic horseman but gave him pride of place on the vessel’s other side (Fig. 16.18). Two decorative fields rather than a single surface, as on a stele, allows for more developed compositions. What is more, the engraver of the stele may have judged the equation between the dead warrior and Bellerophon more appropriate for a memorial, whose exclusive use at the graveyard 74 Barringer 1995, 40–1, 180 (425–400 BC). 75 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1333 (BAPD 217512), Near the Pronomos Painter. The marine beings depicted inside the shields actively take part in the battle. Notably, the creature on the shield interior of the giant at the center points forward as if to encourage or guide him, while the giant gazes at the creature as he protects himself with the shield. For shield devices as living beings, see T. Hölscher 2016, 280–281, 285. Note that the gigantomachy also featured in the interior of the shield of Athena Parthenos. For figured shield interiors with additional examples in other media, see Giacobello 2017, 73, 76–9; Avronidaki 2015, 241, esp. nn. 40, 42; Lissarrague 2015a, 27. For images depicting male role models on the interior of Archaic shields, see Marinatos 2002. 76 For the importance of female figures in scenes of arming the warrior, see Lissarrague 2015c. 77 For the bellicose aspects of the swan, see Avronidaki 2015. A similar, if not identical, bird reappears before a charging warrior on a Kabiric scene mocking Achilles against Hektor outside the walls of Troy: A. Mitchell 2009, 271. Columns associated with warriors appear on a mid-fifth-century BC Boiotian kantharos in Six’s technique (Cologne, Römisch-Germanisches Museum ΕΗ 2260, Sabetai and Avronidaki 2018, 335, 372, no. B27); and on the engraved stele of Pherenikos, where each is topped by either a sphinx or a siren (Schild-Xenidou 2008; supra n. 70).

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Figure 16.18 Athens National Archaeological Museum inv. no. 12486, Boiotian red-figure kantharos, side B, 430–420 BC. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

may have made the comparison between a heroic dead and a mythological hero more acceptable than in other locales such as sanctuaries, where it could be seen as arrogant self-praise. The vase painter, on the other hand, may have focused on the connotations of precious armor delivered by females, as glorified in the epics and as shown in painted ‘departure scenes’ where the ephebe prepares to become a hoplite.78 As for the Lokrian coins, their repertory of shield designs comprises coiled snakes, lions, and flying griffins. These may perhaps be generic variants of the snake-bodied sea people of the vases or the lion-shaped Chimaira and flying horse of the stelai, or just adaptations best suited to the system of 78 Although this kantharos must have been a grave offering, such vases had a votive function and could feature in celebrations of both life and death. On the Hermitage krater, the second Boiotian example featuring a decorated shield interior, a lion or a summarily rendered Chimaira (?) is depicted, presumably likening the warrior to the fierce animal.

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conventions used for coins in the fourth century BC. Thus, the choice and meaning of images may vary with the medium and its various functions in social settings. One point of convergence between scenes on coins and vases concerns the warrior’s helmet, in all cases Corinthian, a type no longer in use at the time and functioning as an attribute of heroic figures.79 Yet, the black, incised stelai consistently depict the warrior wearing a pilos helmet, which is wreathed to mark them as victorious.80 The conical helmet, also known as pilos Lakonikos or Arkadikos, occurs in fifth-century BC art from various Greek areas.81 Mythical figures, such as Theseus and the Dioskouroi, wear it in all media. Youths clad in exomis or chlamys are equipped with it in Attic vase painting, usually on white-ground lekythoi, of the last third of the fifth century BC, whence it spreads to funerary stelai. In his analysis of its function in Attic art, Thomas Schäfer argues that the combination of pilos helmet and light dress creates an image of the hoplite not as a heavily armed fighter but as a citizen-soldier in light gear able to also partake in civic affairs. This figure of the warrior is far from any realistic portrayal of the hoplite in his panoply on the battlefield and contributes to an idealized image in the era of the democracy, as also stated in contemporary texts.82 The pilos helmet may occur in various media depending on its use. An example in gold suggests that it could also function as a luxury item and status symbol.83 Its iconic value and symbolic potential are explicit when transcribed in clay in either life-sized or miniature form. Two such effigies of piloi were discovered in the exceptional Akraiphian pit grave T.74, the rich burial of a young man dating to c. 400 BC (Fig. 16.19). The wheel-made life-sized pilos once bore painted decoration in red on a white ground.84 It was placed directly on the corpse at the area of the abdomen. The miniature clay pilos is compact, with a rectangular 79 T. Schäfer 1997, 43–70. 80 For wreathed piloi to signify military excellence, see T. Schäfer 1997, 119, n. 73. 81 The pilos helmet, a version in metal of the conical felt cap, should not be confused with the brimmed petasos helmet known as pilos Boiotikos, which is worn by horsemen and also occurs in Thessalian and Macedonian art and as tomb goods from the fourth century BC onward. See T. Schäfer 1997, 105–26; Egg and Waurick 1990, 20–1; Waurick 1988, 151–8; Dintsis 1986, 57–76; Vokotopoulou 1980; J. K. Anderson 1970, 29–37; Fraser-Rönne 1957, 66–8. For a Thessalian wearing the pilos helmet on his stele, see Bosnakis 2013, 140–2, 235–6, no. N7, pl. 1. 82 T. Schäfer 1997, 121–6, and cf. 146–60. 83 For a bronze pilos with engraved myrtle wreath and a later golden example with floral and linear patterns from Krimea, see Vokotopoulou 1980, 236–7, pl. 70; 241. 84 Thebes Museum 30319. H 20.5 cm; D 23.5 cm. Terracotta pilos helmets occur in fourthcentury BC Apulia, where this type is also popular in metal: Montanaro 2018, 34–5, Fig. 12; Robinson 1995, 154; Besques 1984, 91–2. The deposition of terracotta helmets has a long prehistory in Italy, where they occur as symbols of the deceased’s social status in Etruscan burials of the ninth to eighth centuries BC: Iaia 2009–12, 76–9, 83, 90–1.

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Figure 16.19 Thebes Museum 30319, 47524, part of group from Akraiphian grave T.74, terracotta effigies of piloi. Photo: EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos).

hole on its underside, presumably for insertion into another object.85 The grave group containing these simulacra included a wealth of black-glaze kantharoi, a red-figure squat lekythos depicting a sphinx, a bronze wine implement, and a brooch, among a few other undecorated vases (aryballoi, powder pyxis) (Fig. 16.20). The deposition of kantharoi in large numbers and the presence of a red-figure vase, a rare commodity in Boiotia, signal the elevated status of the tomb’s occupant.86 His young age, the clay piloi, and the use of the piloi on the black stelai point to his being buried as a citizen-soldier.87 The kantharoi and wine implement may characterize him as a Boiotian symposiast of high status, which recalls the image of a feast in the pediment of Saugenes’ funerary stele. What was not deposited with the corpse in the grave, namely his weapons, may have been depicted on the stele marking the grave, which might have borne the warrior figure type favored by the dark stelai. This is hypothetical, because we do not know which graves were marked by the extant black stelai. Yet, it may be assumed that the mise en scène at the funeral and the imagery at the later 85 Thebes Museum 47524. H and D: 4 cm. Perhaps inserted in a rod of some sort. For a miniature helmeted head added to a kernos, see Vierneisel 1961, 32, pl. 28: 5–6. 86 For the function of red-figure vessels in the Boiotian cultural milieu, see Sabetai 2012a. 87 Osteological analysis by Dr. Anna Lagia. Grave T.74 is under publication by the present author.

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Figure 16.20 Thebes Museum, group from Akraiphian grave T.74. Photo: EFA Boiotia (A. Santrouzanos).

memorialization with a stele may have complemented each other in order to cast the deceased in the guise of the heroic warrior in the turbulent final quarter of the fifth century BC. The significance of the pilos helmet may be studied further in the imagery of contemporaneous Boiotian vase painting, which offers valuable insight into its symbolic value. Here the pilos wearer features in the setting of the family or at the grave, not in the rocky battlefield, as on the stelai. The earliest such scene is on an Atticizing krater of c. 430 BC, which depicts him as a youth with spear and shield in the company of a libating Nike, an abbreviated version of the Attic departure scheme.88 An identical pilos-bearing warrior reappears before his stele with a woman on a kantharos by the Argos Painter (c. 420 BC), much under the influence of Attic white-ground lekythoi depicting the visit at the tomb.89 This painter further renders him on another such vase in a charging posture reminiscent of the men on the incised stelai, albeit more mannered.90 It is of interest that he is juxtaposed with an ephebe in traveler’s gear on the kantharos’ other side, suggesting a visual comparison between two age classes and life situations. Further support in favor of an initiatory aspect91 related to coming of age in this type of imagery is provided by the Argos Painter’s kantharos, which depicts an idiosyncratic ‘departure’ scene repeated with 88 89 90 91

Sabetai 2014a, 31–3, Fig. 15. Avronidaki 2007, 50, no. 28, 139–40, pls. 40a, 41. Avronidaki 2007, 50, no. 27, 103–4, pl. 39. Daumas (2001) argued that the pilos-bearing warriors of the engraved stelai represent initiates in the mystery cult of Kabeiros, but her methodology and comparisons with Kabiric vase iconography seem unwarranted to me.

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minor but significant variations on both sides (Fig. 16.21).92 Instead of the usual Attic composition showing the newly armed ephebe among his seated father and family, the Boiotian image portrays a mature seated man, who wears a pilos helmet, receiving a naked youth on side A and addressing him on side B. The youth on the obverse holds only a spear, while on the reverse a shield is added, suggesting a more advanced stage of arming. The youth does not sport a helmet, perhaps because this will be given to him by the mature man who still wears it. Thus, the moment chosen may be immediately before the elderly man, representing the earlier generation of soldiers, hands over the pilos helmet to the youth, who receives armor at his entry to manhood; if so, the pilos would be the culminating final touch to the new hoplite’s gear and a piece of armor with genealogy.93 The kantharos’ seemingly generic imagery may visualize a ceremonious transgenerational transfer of the pilos from father to son in an interpretatio Boeotica of the Attic departure scheme. Another

Figure 16.21 Athens National Archaeological Museum inv. no. 1373, redfigure kantharos, sides A and B, c. 420 BC. Photo: Courtesy C. Avronidaki. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund (I. Miari). 92 Avronidaki 2007, 49–50, no. 26, 104–6, pls. 36b, 38. 93 For the transmission of arms, see Masseria 2017; Lissarrague 2010. For the gesture of touching the pilos which characterizes the youth as accomplished citizen at his best, see Roscino 2019, 196–200. For generational identities, see Langdon 2001, 590–1. For the emblematization of the pilos helmet on a dish depicting the male head wearing it, see Sabetai 2012b, 132, Fig. 22. For a common terracotta type of a pilos-wearing boy from the Kabirion, see Schmaltz 1974, 33–4, pls. 4, 60–60a.

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version of the armed youth among his family is known from a skyphos by the Atticizing Painter of the Judgment of Paris where, however, the ‘departing’ son, rather than the father, is seated at the center wearing the pilos helmet.94 It is precisely this type of helmet that is imitated in clay for the funeral of the Akraiphian youth, who probably perished prematurely before bearing arms or while fighting on the battlefield.95 The symbolic potential of the pilos helmet, as attested by its translation into other materials and sizes,96 as well as its contextualization in vase imagery, suggests that it is worn by the fighting warriors on the stelai as a sign of identity, family continuation, and adherence to the ideals of the citizensoldier, and also possibly as a memento of a successful rite of passage to adulthood.97 Notably, the pilos also features as a symbol on one of the Lokrian coins, where it prominently lies before the feet of the warrior who is otherwise fighting in his Corinthian helmet, as is common in the series.98 Last but not least, an important Apulian example depicting the recognition between Theseus and his father, in a scene where Aigeus looks at his son’s pilos helmet and sword while Theseus offers a libation, shows that the cultural meanings encoded in this type of headwear were wide and far-reaching.99 CONCLUSION When perceived as part of the same iconographic universe, images on different materials often prove complementary to one another, shedding light on a culture from different angles and at various levels. One can say that none is as rich in narrative strategies as vase painting, none as conspicuous in public space as statuary, none as seriated as terracotta figurines, and none as carefully selected by civic authorities as state-issued coinage. Clay images, 94 Sabetai 2012b, 124–5, Fig. 3. No shield is present in this scene. 95 Note that the effigy of a Boiotian helmet in stone could be used as sema of a grave in the Hellenistic period: Fraser and Rönne 1957, 66, pls. 18:3–5, 108. 96 Other types of helmets, usually Corinthian, were also miniaturized and translated into clay (Klinger 2021, 118-121, nos. 152–153, pl. 22, sanctuary of Demeter at Corinth) or metal (Erickson 2009, 386–7, Fig. 24, Crete; J. Christiansen 1992, 92, no. 71, Thessaly, 650 BC). For miniature arms as iconic signs in general, see Pilz 2011, 15–18; as dedications to sanctuaries in the context of rites of passage, see Baitinger 2011, 159–60; Brize 1989/90, 325–6 (miniature shields). 97 The warriors on the stelai are of various ages. Most are bearded, but Athanias is beardless, and Rynchon sports ephebic iouloi. Cf. Schild-Xenidou 2008, 261, cat. 28, pl. 10 (beardless warrior on a marble stele). 98 Other elements featured as symbols on the coins, and recalling the stelai are the broken lance (Saugenes) and the star (Rynchon) as already noted. The kantharos is another visual reference to Boiotia. See Morineau Humphris and Delbridge 2014, 39; Caltabiano-Caccamo 2007, 116–17, Fig. 2, nos. 5–7. 99 For this bell krater, somewhat later than our vase paintings but contemporary with some of the dark stelai, see Shefton 1956, 162 n. 25 (400 BC); Neugebauer 1938, 42–3, no. 181, pl. 80.

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both vases and terracotta figures, function in wider secular and sacred settings, often of celebratory character, whereas funerary monuments, such as stelai, operate more specifically within the field of memorialization. When images are examined in their archaeological setting, aspects of the same ‘story’ are revealed from various viewpoints and in a polyphonic way. Tombs provide a stage where specific ‘scenographies’ exalting the identity and status of the deceased are often at work. In the case of the grave containing a nuptial assemblage with objects in various materials, the repeated presence of Eros and the overall bridal imagery of the assorted objects casts the dead as bride and her tomb as a conceptual bridal chamber, a recurring concept also in the literary sources and Greek culture in general. In the case of the youth buried with effigies of piloi, as well as ritual wine vessels and associated implements, warrior and sympotic ideals are given concrete visual form, much as on the black stelai that marked Boiotian military excellence with such efficacy that a neighboring city-state adopted its figure types as its own emblems. A panoramic view of the epichoric ways of visual expression can only be gained by the combined study of images in all materials. In Boiotia, the dialogue among media is multifarious and diversified. It unfolds not only within the region’s artists and consumers but further – and simultaneously – with neighboring Athenians, Lokrians, and Peloponnesians. The Boiotian cultural crossroads absorbed, manipulated, and created its own art whose influence, especially in the late fifth and fourth centuries BC, penetrated the borders of mainland Greece and enjoyed diffusion abroad.

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17 IMAGES OF DRINKING AND LAUGHING: VESSELS AND VOTIVES IN THE THEBAN KABIRION Stefan Schmidt

The so-called Kabirion ware, a group of local Boiotian black-figure ceramics of the late fifth and fourth centuries BC, has been famous since the penultimate decade of the nineteenth century. Since then, the intensive research on these vessels and sherds was based not on an outstanding aesthetic value but on their unique iconography. With few exceptions, the vase paintings show obviously comic scenes with grotesque personnel: figures with protruding bottoms and bellies, thin legs, and faces accentuated by thick lips and a receding bridge of the nose. These exaggerated features make the figures seem like caricatures. Therefore, from the beginning of research, the question was whom or what these images should represent. Who wanted to laugh about whom? The known context of these vessels should make it easier to find answers. They were produced for use in the sanctuary of the Kabiroi near Thebes, where the great majority of the material was found.1 The vessels may have served either as equipment for festivities or as votives. Nevertheless, some of them found their way into Boiotian graves. These may have been souvenirs for participants in cultic events.2 The sanctuary has produced only meager architectural traces of the ritual and the character of worship there. From the period contemporary with the Kabirion ware, only two circular buildings, thought to be intended for ritual dining, are extant. A rectangular building, which may have housed symposia, was erected at the turn of the fifth to the fourth century BC.3 However, the main archaeological evidence for festivities connected with heavy consumption of wine in the Kabirion is the large number of drinking vessels, mostly kantharoi, that were recovered.4 1 Braun and Haevernick 1981, 1–74; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 95–128. 2 Braun and Haevernick 1981, 2 n. 10. See Gadaleta 2009 n. 4 for a list of findspots outside Boiotia. 3 Cooper and Morris 1990, 66–8; Schachter 2003, 116–17, 128; Schachter 1981–94, vol. 2: 77–8, 99–102; Heyder and Mallwitz 1978, 22, 46. 4 Schlott 2015, 55; Heimberg 1982, 1.

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The Kabirion ware belongs to these ceramics used for wine consumption. The name and origin of the very particular shape of these vessels is, however, debated; some scholars refer to them as skyphoi, while others label them as kantharoi. In favor of the latter are some rare predecessors of deep-bowled Boiotian kantharoi with small round handles from the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC,5 and, above all, the spurred vertical handles, typical for most fourth-century kantharoi in Boiotia and beyond.6 The Kabirion vessels should therefore be grouped with the kantharoi, although they are characterized by heavy-bellied bodies, lack of a stem, and very small handles, in contrast to contemporary versions of the kantharos shape. Most of the Kabirion kantharoi have only vegetal decoration with wine or ivy sprigs, and these are of modest dimensions. Barely twelve centimeters high, they have a capacity of between 0.2 and 0.4 liters. Kabirion kantharoi with figured decoration are much larger: with a height of fifteen centimeters on up, they possess capacities from 1.5 to 4.5 liters.7 Neither archaeological evidence nor written sources provide us with a clear idea of what happened during the cultic festivities or what kinds of gods the Kabiroi were. Pausanias does not report what went on in the sanctuary, referring only to the secret mysteries held there.8 Therefore, the close connection with the religious site seems to be both a blessing and a curse for interpreting the images on the Kabirion kantharoi. As most scholars regard the depictions on the vessels as primary sources for the rituals and events inside the sanctuary, they look upon the images as direct representations of scenes that occurred in the Kabirion.9 The resemblance of the distorted faces to masks of Greek drama and the occurrence of mythological themes led some to assume dramatic performances in the sanctuary.10 Like comedies and satyr plays in the Athenian sanctuaries of Dionysos, comic performances should have been part of annual festivities in the Kabirion. Such a reconstruction is not completely convincing. Contemporary images with theatrical allusions in Attic or South Italian vase painting, as well as terracotta figurines of the fourth century, clearly depict dramatic costumes.11 So, if the Boiotian painters had actually intended to present theater performances, one would expect a more precise rendering of the costume features. Moreover, mythological 5 Ure 1927, 35, Type D i. For dates of the graves, see Sparkes 1967, 129. 6 Sparkes and Talcott 1970, 122; Ure 1913, 22. Earlier examples of spurred handles seem more frequent in Boiotia than in Attika. See Ure 1927, 86 (grave 102; late sixth century BC), 94 (grave 123; 430–420), 97 (grave 127; late sixth century BC). For early examples from fifth-century Attika, see Sparkes and Talcott 1970, 122 n. 62. 7 Schlott 2015, 50–1. 8 Paus. 9.25.5. 9 Infra nn. 10, 12. 10 Bedigan 2006; Blakely 2006, 45–6; Daumas 1998, 36–9; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 24–9; Lapalus 1930. 11 Compton-Engle 2015, 17–38. Cf. Ruffell 2015.

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scenes that are suspected of being theatrical are only a minor part of the whole corpus of images on the Kabirion kantharoi. Since the figures with grotesque characteristics often appear in scenes of festivities and wine consumption in the broadest sense, it is not surprising that other scholars relied on these vase paintings to reconstruct the rituals in the Kabirion, even including the initiation into the mysteries.12 Nevertheless, such a presumption raises two crucial questions: first, as we learn from Pausanias that it was forbidden to talk about the ritual acts, why should the images show them, and why should the initiates who know them well want to see them on their vessels? Second, why are all the figures in these scenes consistently characterized by distorted, comic features? Scholars only address the latter question in detail, and their focus is philological. Ancient authors describe Kabiroi in various sanctuaries as being either like dwarfs (Herodotus describes those in Memphis as “πυγμαίου ἄνδρες”) or crabs (“καρκίνοι,” according to the Hesychian lexicon with regard to the Lemnian Kabiroi).13 Crabs would seem to be inexplicable, although Aristophanes twice teases the “Karkinoi,” the sons of the comic playwright Karkinos, about their dancing performance. He pokes fun at their ‘crablike’ smallness and wriggling limbs.14 Perhaps this same Aristophanic association of ‘crabs’ with dwarfish individuals possessing bulging stomachs and writhing limbs is what Hesychius had in mind for the Kabiroi in Lemnos. Using these texts, some scholars interpret the disproportionate bodies and distorted faces of the painted figures on the pottery from the Theban Kabiroi as expressions of the gods’ small stature and peculiar appearance.15 In the case of the Theban Kabiroi, the assumption that they could have been imagined as dwarfs is especially inappropriate and unconvincing. Definite visual evidence for the imagined appearance of the gods of the Theban sanctuary is depicted on Kabirion kantharoi (Fig. 17.1).16 A single Kabiros is represented in the guise of Dionysos reclining with a kantharos in hand.17 12 E.g., Batino 2009, 104–35; Bedigan 2008a, 243–96; Daumas 1998, 30–41, 63–6; Schachter 1981–94, vol. 2: 99–102. 13 Hdt. 3.37; Hsch. s.v. Κάβειροι. Cf. Batino 2009, 112; Blakely 2006, 37–8, 43–4; Dasen 1993, 195. 14 Ar. Pax 781–90; Ar. Vesp. 1518–30. 15 Jaccottet 2011; Blakely 2006, 42–5; Schachter 2003, 130–1; Dasen 1993, 170, 195; Hemberg 1950, 195–6, 202. 16 Inscribed: Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10426 (Schöne-Denkinger 2012, 143, Fig. 5; A. Mitchell 2009, 258–9, Fig. 130; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 62, no. 302, pl. 22:1–2; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 96 K1 pls. 5; 44:1). Similar subject without inscriptions: Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10466 (Braun and Haevernick 1981, 18, 62 no. 297; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 96 K2 pl. 6); Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10530 (Braun and Haevernick 1981, 63 no. 305; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 97 K3 pl. 8:1); Tübingen, Universität 29.5481 (CVA: Deutschland 36, Tübingen 1 [K. Wallenstein] 91–2, pl. 50:6; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 97 K4 pl. 50:7). For epigraphic evidence of the two gods, see Schachter 1981–94, vol. 2: 67, 88–9. 17 Compare the Attic pelike: New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 75.2.27: BAPD 215343; Schöne-Denkinger 2012, 143, Fig. 6.

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Figure 17.1 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10426, Kabirion kantharos. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 5.

Neither Kabiros nor his cultic companion Pais, who serves at the krater, shows any signs of dwarfishness or caricature. Only the worshipers approaching them are characterized with comic features.18 Recent approaches to the comic images on the Kabirion ware have denied any direct representation of theater or cult. The scholarly focus has turned from the question of what is represented to considerations of the communicative and humorous function of the vase paintings. Some years ago, Alexandre Mitchell applied a theory of the grotesque body developed by Mikhail Bakhtin, an early twentieth-century theorist of art and literature, to these images.19 Bakhtin sees bodily deformation, especially the exaggerated body orifices, as archetypal and universal for carnival performances. Accordingly, Mitchell views the Kabirion kantharoi as remains of a carnival-like festival held each year in the Kabirion. On this occasion, the caricatures “mock most classes of men, women, slaves, and . . . their heroes and gods.”20 Assuming that the images had something to do with carnival in the Bakhtinian sense – that is, an alternative popular culture that reverses hierarchies and social order during a limited time span – one wonders why everyone should have been mocked. One would expect instead to find more social stratification reflected in the caricatures.21 The class-oriented model of Bakhtin, which derives from medieval and early modern phenomena, is not well suited to helping us interpret the classic Kabirion imagery.22

18 19 20 21 22

For comparable votive reliefs, see Chapter 13 (pp. 280–309). A. Mitchell 2009, 248–50. A. Mitchell 2009, 279. A. Mitchell 2009, 250 addresses this discrepancy. Cf. Walsh 2009, 284–5. For a critical reflection of Bakhtin in Classics, see Bracht Branham 2002.

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More recently, Erin Thompson has focused on the parodies of gods and heroes depicted on the kantharoi, and has assumed a particular mockery ritual in the cult of the Kabiroi.23 Referring to the aischrologia known from other Greek cults and to laughing rituals in other cultures, Thompson sees the same function for the caricatures on the Boiotian vessels: like the ritualized ‘dirty talk’ and the humor focused on obscenities or ugliness, the vase paintings were intended to evoke laughter while worshiping the gods. Again, this interpretation seems problematic, since the images with gods or heroes, who should be the prime targets of such ritual mocking, are only a small part of the repertoire. Other aischrological rituals, like the Eleusinian gephyrismos, chiefly targeted prominent or influential citizens, as far as we know. The depictions on the Kabirion kantharoi make no such distinction. They show the whole community feasting, offering, and worshiping. Were they meant to mock all the sanctuary’s visitors? Although it is perfectly convincing to interpret the comic images by looking for their communicative function, it seems hazardous to parallel known verbal mockery practices with the vase paintings. We cannot take it for granted that the humor of the images was at all pejorative. It is far from evident that the distorted faces and the comical rendering of the bodies were intended to humiliate the figures depicted. So we should look for another way to understand how the humor of the kantharoi images works. Surprisingly, other images from the Theban Kabirion have seldom been discussed together with the vase paintings. Among the terracotta figurines found in the sanctuary are some specimens of the well-known grotesques (Figs. 17.2 and 17.3).24 Their features are similar to those of the figures on the vases: thin limbs, protruding bellies, and big heads with grimacing faces. Obviously not characterized as actors with masks and theater costume, the identity of these distorted figures is debated. Bernhard Schmaltz, who published the Kabirion figurines, suspects that the figures depicted with an animal skin worn on the back are comic versions of Herakles,25 and regards the figurines as inspired by theatrical performances and as predecessors of depictions of actors. Nikolaus Himmelmann, on the other hand, describes the figures as foolish characters familiar to the contemporary audience from popular stories and fairytales.26 Looking at the figurines together with votive practices in the Kabirion in general, such identifications seem unlikely. The majority of votive figurines, either of bronze, lead, or terracotta, consist of bulls, along with some

23 E. Thompson 2008. See Himmelmann 1994, 116–17; Burkert 1977, 421. 24 Schmaltz 1974, 114–18. Examples: 177, nos. 312, 313, pl. 24. 25 Schmaltz 1974, 122–4. Following him: Daumas 1998, 113 n. 43 pl. 5:1; LIMC IV, 813 no. 1470, s.v. Herakles (J. Boardman). 26 Himmelmann 1994, 101–2.

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goats and rams.27 Obviously, these figures were substitutes or symbols of animal sacrifices or tithe offerings. Among human figurines found in the sanctuary, the largest group were standing images of youths, often nude. Some scholars have grouped them together with reclining bearded men and interpreted the couple as the Kabiros and Pais,28 based on vase paintings that show the gods identified by inscriptions in exactly these positions (Fig. 17.1).29 But it is far from evident that the donors intended to offer a divine image with such a figurine. Statistics speak in favor of another interpretation. Bernhard Schmaltz’s catalog lists 170 standing young men or boys but only nineteen reclining bearded men. Even the number of twenty-seven female figures, both standing and seated, is higher. It is implausible that the main god Kabiros should occur in only such a small number of votive figures. Rather, the terracotta figurines refer to the donors and the practice of worshipers dedicating images signifying themselves. The best-known example of this is the votive group made by Geneleos in the Samian sanctuary of Hera. The family consists of a seated mother, reclining father, and a standing youth and maidens.30 The terracotta figurines from the Kabirion must be understood in the same way: as a presentation of the dedicator’s own social persona to the gods.31 The prevalence of statuettes of young males in the Kabirion material is striking. Another Boiotian sanctuary, only a dozen kilometers north of the Kabirion, exhibits a similar phenomenon. The sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios is famous for the great number of Archaic kouros statues found there. Obviously, this was a place for wealthy Boiotian families to present their young male members to the god and the public, whether for athletic success or military bravery or some other reason.32 From the many statuettes of youths and the many dedicated toys found in the Kabirion, we may deduce that the Kabirion may have been the location for certain rites de passage for Boiotian boys.33 This proposal fits not only the frequency but also the iconography of the terracotta statuettes (Figs. 17.4 and 17.5). Most of the youths carry cocks, which are usually gifts adolescents received during a symposion as a token of their provocative beauty, rather than offerings

27 Schmaltz 1980; Wolters 1890, 355–8. Cf. Schachter 2003, 126–7; Daumas 1998, 21–2; Lembessi 1992. 28 Jaccottet 2011, 6; Schmaltz (1974, 76, 97–8), who discusses Hemberg 1950, 192, 194–5. 29 Supra n. 16. 30 Bumke 2004, 82–90 pl. 17–18; Fehr 2000, 121–5; van Straten 1981, 81–2. 31 For similar votive praxis with terracotta statuettes, see Chapter 15 (pp. 332–45); Muller 2009, 91–2, Fig. 2; Huysecom-Haxhi and Muller 2007, 241–2. 32 Cf. Ducat 1971, 444–5. 33 Cruccas 2014; Wachter 2001, 326–7; Daumas 1998, 41–2.

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Figure 17.2 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10333, grotesque terracotta figurine from the Theban Kabirion. Photo: D-DAIATH-1972-0101 (G. Hellner).

Figure 17.3 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10334, grotesque terracotta figurine from the Theban Kabirion. Photo: D-DAIATH-1972-0099 (G. Hellner).

Figure 17.4 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10414.97, terracotta figurine of a youth holding a cock and oinochoe from the Theban Kabirion. Photo: D-DAIATH-1972-0011 (G. Hellner).

Figure 17.5 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10289, terracotta figurine of a youth holding a lyre and phiale from the Theban Kabirion. Photo: D-DAIATH-1972-0037 (G. Hellner).

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for the gods.34 Others carry a lyre, which likewise hints at the symposion and their ability to entertain in this setting.35 As already mentioned, they are nude, save for a small cloth on the shoulders – typical attire for symposiasts when they revel in the komos.36 Connecting these features to the importance of wine consumption in the Kabirion, one wonders if all these figures might commemorate the youths’ first participation in a symposion, maybe held in the sanctuary.37 Returning to the grotesque figurines, one can note their close resemblance to the statuettes of youths. Nude except for the animal skin, they are equipped with a lyre and often an oinochoe in the right hand. These features connect them with drinking and feasting, rather than with mythological tales. The animal skin may even recall the fawn skins that Kadmos and Teiresias wear during the Theban Dionysian festivities in Euripides’ Bacchae.38 Above all, the figurines lack beards! In the context of the terracotta dedications, they look like grotesque versions of the popular statuettes of youths.39 Since, as I have argued above, the practice in the Kabirion was to set up an image representing the donor, we must assume that even these grotesque figures were meant as personal votives that display something positive about the dedicant. Therefore, I would like to put forward the hypothesis that the body deformations ‘depict’ the first serious inebriation the young man proudly suffered during his initiation into the all-male company. To support this suggestion, we have to evaluate the pictorial tradition of displaying the effects of wine on the body. What first comes to mind is the Munich Exekias cup that plays with the metaphors of wine and sea, Dionysos as helmsman of the journey, and dolphins as reminiscent of the seamen transformed by the mighty god.40 Whereas this picture condenses the association of drunkenness with the rolling ship and the dancing dolphins in an allusion to a well-known story, another shows the dolphin playing the auloi like the leader of drunken revelers.41 A similar 34 Schmaltz 1974, 45–71, 155–65, nos. 89–178. For the cock as gift, see Grabow 2015, 54–8; Koch-Harnack 1983, 97–105. 35 Schmaltz 1974, 39–45, 153–5, nos. 66–88. Cf. Huysecom-Haxhi 2015, 80; Daumas 1998, 45–6. 36 Cf. Vierneisel and Kaeser 1990, 293–302. 37 Cf. Bremmer 2014, 45–6; Bedigan 2008b. For Boiotian initiation rites, see HuysecomHaxhi 2015, 79–85. 38 Eur. Bacch. 249 (νεβρίς). As an iconographic example, supra n. 17 for the pelike. 39 Another grotesque type likewise has parallels with terracotta figurines of boys: Himmelmann 1994, 96–100; Schmaltz 1974, 116, 177 no. 318–20. Cf. Schmaltz 1974, 78, 166 no. 199. 40 Munich, Antikensammlungen NI 8729: BAPD 310403; Osborne 2014, 34–7; IslerKerényi 2007, 171–87, Figs. 104–7; CVA: Deutschland 77, München 13 (B. Fellmann) 14–19, pls. 1–4:1; Vierneisel and Kaeser 1990, 319–21. 41 Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 64608: BAPD 505; Isler-Kerényi 2007, 182, Fig. 113; Brijder 2000, 601–4, pl. 186 b, h. On wine and dolphins, see Kowalzig 2013, 33–7; Csapo 2003, 78–90; Lissarrague 1987, 112–18; M. Davies 1978, 74–5, 77–8.

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metaphorical allusion to komos, wine, and body might be the mysterious shield device on the Euphronios krater.42 Again recalling Aristophanes’ staging of the crablike komos dancers in the Wasps,43 the aulos-playing crab seems to illustrate a popular analogy between dancing under the influence of alcohol and the wriggly movement of a crab. On the famous Boston Kirke cup, we find intoxication treated in the guise of a mythological tale.44 One side displays the effects of Kirke’s pharmakon on Odysseus’ companions, whose arms have been transformed in part into those of various animals – lion, boar, ram, and wolf or hound – and whose human heads have been replaced with those of the same creatures. The other side shows the drunkenness of Polyphemus, not his blinding, as Detlef Wannagat points out.45 The slightly comic rendering of the body highlights his current condition. His protruding belly is painted in red, and he has a rather large penis. These features must have reminded contemporary beholders of common depictions of the so-called ‘padded dancers.’ The cases of zoomorphic transformation of intoxicated bodies are rather rare. But the bodily condition of Polyphemus points to a category of images connected with intoxication that is widespread in nearly all Archaic Greek figured ceramic wares. The images on Corinthian, Lakonian, Boiotian, or Attic skyphoi, cups, kantharoi, or kraters show dancing men with curved bodies and heavy bellies and bottoms. When they are clothed, the dancers are often referred to as ‘padded.’ Therefore, some suggest that these dancers are forerunners of comic actors and their costumes,46 but this seems implausible. The scenes occur just as often with clothing as without. The choice seems to depend on the conventions of different areas of production or workshops, displaying the naked body or not.47 Therefore, ‘komast dancers,’ the now common label, fits better for the reveling figures. Often equipped with drinking vessels, the dancers make clear that their raucous behavior is caused by wine consumption. Their bodily exaggerations signify their being under the heavy influence of alcohol. On Attic cups from the middle of the sixth century onward, we find men romping around the symposion krater or reveling in the komos, but without the extremely rounded bodies. Nevertheless, they must be drunk. On some cups, Attic vase painters try to show the effects of wine consumption more clearly. They replace the human drinkers and revelers 42 See Lissarrague 2009, 17, Fig. 3. Compare an aulos-playing scorpion: London, British Museum 1873.0820.388: BAPD 3566. 43 Supra n. 14. 44 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 99.518: BAPD 302569; CVA: USA 19, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 2 (M. True), 31–2, pl. 88:1–5. 45 Wannagat 1999. 46 E.g., Seeberg 1995. For discussions of this view, see: Wannagat 2015, 37; T. J. Smith 2009, 69–70; Meyer 2004. 47 T. J. Smith 2010, 243–4.

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with satyrs. Inebriation is, in these cases, visualized in a metaphorical way. The behavior of symposiasts and komasts under the influence of alcohol is expressed by the uncivilized nature of Dionysos’ followers.48 Within all three categories of drinking images – komast dancers, revelers, and satyrs – we observe additional behavior, such as defecating, vomiting, or sexual aggression, which embellish these images of heavy intoxication (Figs. 17.6 and 17.8).49 Furthermore, there are sometimes depictions of distorted or deficient bodies. Some of the komast dancers on Corinthian, Lakonian, and Boiotian vessels have deformed feet, some have either erect phalloi or enlarged, dangling genitalia.50 On later Attic vases, a few drinkers are characterized by a bald head, thin beard, and sometimes an ‘unideal’ face.51 The identity of all these figures, professional entertainers, uninvited low-status parasites, or others, has attracted much scholarly disagreement, and the meaning of the unseemly behavior of drinkers on vase paintings is likewise debated. Nevertheless, such questions should not be addressed in detail at this point. In this context, it suffices to observe that a visual vocabulary of intoxication existed in Archaic and Classical Greek vase painting to which belong deformations of the body, as well as ugly behavior. With this repertoire of Greek images of inebriation in mind, we may return to the Kabirion imagery and further pursue our hypothesis that the grotesque and distorted bodies are meant to indicate intoxication. Looking for the origins of the Kabirion kantharoi images, some authors already considered them to be based on komast vases.52 In her recent study on Archaic images of lame-footed dancers, Tyler Jo Smith posited the grotesque figures of the Kabirion ware as late followers of komast imagery.53 Her casual association deserves further consideration. In fact, the grotesque komast dancers were peculiarly popular in Archaic Boiotian vase painting, especially on kantharoi.54 Moreover, the Boiotian vase painters were especially interested in depicting excessive behavior and bodily conditions connected with intoxication. An example may be the kantharos in Thebes with a vomiting man on the far left, a disabled dancer, and a second dancer with a large, pronounced penis (Fig. 17.6).55 The 48 Kistler 2006, 110–18; Hedreen 2006, 277–87; Shapiro 2004c, 9–10; Lissarrague 1987, 40–8. 49 Wannagat 2015, 96–146. For Attic vases, see Heinemann 2009, 45–53; Cohen and Shapiro 2002, 87–90; Sutton 2000, 191–7. 50 Wannagat 2015, 44–95; T. J. Smith 2009; Seeberg 1971, 74–5. 51 Heinemann 2009; A. Schäfer 1997, 56–9. 52 Scheffer 1992, 137; Kilinski 1990, 41–2. 53 T. J. Smith 2009, 91. 54 Wannagat 2015, 85–90, 127–32, Figs. 112–22; T. J. Smith 2010, 167–75; Scheffer 1992. 55 Thebes, Archaeological Museum 6809 (R.86.274): BAPD 1012266; CVA: Greece 6, Thebes, Archaeological Museum 1 (V. Sabetai), 16–17, pl. 2; Wannagat 2015, 86–8, Figs. 66–71.

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Figure 17.6 Thebes, Archaeological Museum 6809 (R.86.274), Boiotian black-figure kantharos, c. 580–570 BC. Photo: V. von Eickstedt.

Figure 17.7 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 425, Kabirion kantharos. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 33, 4.

long-lasting preference for such rather orgiastic images of reveling in Boiotia may be one impetus for the invention of the Kabirion imagery. We find on the Kabiron kantharoi of the fifth and fourth centuries a rather similar visual vocabulary as on Archaic Komos vases with, however, slight changes and developments caused by the chronological distance. Dancing

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figures continue the tradition of bent bodies with pronounced bellies and buttocks (Fig. 17.7).56 Exaggerated genitalia are frequently depicted, and are sometimes used for obscene sexual attacks, as on a kantharos in the Thebes Archaeological Museum (Fig. 17.9).57 Even indications of

Figure 17.8 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1968.1835, Middle Corinthian cup, c. 600-575 BC. Photo: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Figure 17.9 Thebes, Archaeological Museum K1244+1509, Kabirion kantharos. Photo: Thebes, Archaeological Museum. 56 E.g., Athens, National Archaeological Museum 425: Braun and Haevernick 1981, 62, no. 291; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 106, M3 pl. 33:4. 57 Braun and Haevernick 1981, 42, no. 74, pl. 5: 1–3; CVA: Greece 6, Thebes, Archaeological Museum 1 (V. Sabetai), 26, pl. 12:3, 4. Cf. the Corinthian cup, Fig. 17.8.

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defecation can be found, if only once with the mythological image of Kadmos.58 Nevertheless, additional iconographical features connect the images clearly to the Boiotian sanctuary. Sprigs and fillets with a characteristic triangular loop are significant elements of the equipment of the participants in the festivities there. The formal interrelation between Archaic Komos vases and the Kabirion ware offers insight into the character of the humor of these images. The widespread depictions of Archaic komast dancers were meant primarily to emphasize the joy of feasting and drinking.59 For the users of the painted vessels, who were in a similar mood, the painted figures with expansive gestures and excessive behavior, would have invited laughter, just as the behavior of their actual drinking companions did. The same goes for the decoration of the Kabirion kantharoi. An example may be the scene with two pairs of banqueters on a kantharos once in Berlin (Fig. 17.10).60 The distorted bodies and faces add humor to the depictions of the festively adorned men, and this is especially true of the frontal faces, which evoke laughter from the vessel’s user. The motif recalls the intended effect of Attic eye cups used for drinking:61 for the company of drinkers it was quite amusing to see how emptying the cup turned the face of its user into a grotesque swollen head. The effect of the depiction on the beholder of the Berlin kantharos must have been similar.62

Figure 17.10 Ex Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I. 3286, Kabirion kantharos, banquet scene. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 28, 3. 58 Infra n. 93. 59 Wannagat 2015, 291–2. 60 A. Mitchell 2009, 255–6, Fig. 127; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 64, no. 358, pl. 23:6; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 106–7, M4 pl. 28:3. 61 Hedreen 2017, 169–70; Martens 1992, 288–9; Frontisi-Ducroux 1995, 101; Kunisch 1990; Boardman 1974, 107. 62 Frontal faces in vase painting were visual signs for different conditions of body and mind, not least drunkenness: Frontisi-Ducroux 1995, 95–6; Korshak 1987, 11–14.

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In this Kabirion image, the younger of the two drinkers on each kline has a frontal face, while the two faces in profile view are bearded and thus characterized as mature men. Considering the possibility of drinking parties as a form of initiation for youths during the Kabirion festivities, this image may display the new and rather strange experience of Dionysos’ gift to the newcomers. The frontal face may suggest a higher degree of intoxication and boisterousness. The first major inebriation and the new feelings of the youths were particularly amusing for their drinking companions and maybe for the drinkers themselves, as well. At this point, we have some idea of what was represented by the grotesque figures on the Kabirion ware. Now we should proceed to the question of why figures are characterized in such a drastic manner. To conclude that the grotesque rendering was intended to cause laughter may not go far enough. Was laughter about the distorted or deformed bodies and the sometimes transgressive behavior of the figures on the vessels offensive to the objects of this humor? Should these figures represent inferior characters, who are unable to drink moderately, and therefore give cause for laughter? Or, perhaps more pointedly, was the ugliness of the drunken people on the Kabirion kantharoi indicative of negative values attached to excessive intoxication? Scholars have raised similar questions for the painted Archaic komast dancers as well, although seldom so explicitly.63 The vomiting, defecating, sexually overactive participants of the parties, as well as the lamefooted dancers, have been regarded either as socially inferior parasites or professional buffoons at drinking events, whose behavior was ridiculously inappropriate and indecent, or as respectable participants of symposia, who play the roles of uncivilized, underprivileged people.64 Ancient Greek literature describes the effects of intoxication on bodies and social behavior in a rather conflicting manner. From Archaic times onward, we find both praise of wine as an agent of good mood and conviviality and warnings about the consequences of excessive drinking. From the Theognidean corpus to Xenophon’s Symposion, authors discuss, even debate, the appropriate amount of wine consumption. Too much alcohol leads to uncontrolled, foolish behavior and reckless utterances, either from the individual or the whole drinking company.65 Drinking in excess may lead to vandalism against furniture and other things, as described in the 63 E.g., Wannagat 2015; T. J. Smith 2010, 9–10, 168. 64 A. Schäfer 1997, 31–3; Fehr 1990, 189–90; Vierneisel and Kaeser 1990, 286. For criticism on these positions see Wannagat 2015; Meyer 2004, 150–63. 65 E.g., Xenophanes frag. 1 DK, 17–18 (cf. Henderson 1997); Thgn. Elegiae 479–510; Kritias frag. 6 DK (contrasted with Spartan habits; cf. Demandt 1996, 70–1; Fisher 1989, 30–1); Ar. Vesp. 1253–61; Xen. Symp. 2.24–6; Pl. Symp. 176a-e; 223b; Pl. Leg. 645d–646a; 671a-b; 775b. Cf. Murray 2016, 196–9; Osborne 2014, 40–2; Papakonstantinou 2012, 14–23; Kistler 2006, 111; Henderson 1999, 3–4; Lissarrague 1987, 7–15; Bielohlawek 1940.

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so-called Symposion by the Sea,66 and to situations, sometimes labeled as “paroinia,”67 when jesting with drinking companions turns to hostile jeering or brawling. Were images depicting heavy inebriation on vases or other media part of similar debates and conversations? Were depictions of ‘inappropriate’ or ‘indecent’ conduct conceived of as transgressions of acceptable behavior? Were they meant to expose those who behaved in such a fashion to disparaging ridicule in order to expel them from the community of moderate drinkers?68 To answer these questions, we must recall the cultural and social functions of humor in ancient Greece. For Stephen Halliwell, the use of laughter in Greek culture ranges between two poles:69 On the one hand, laughter can be “playful” – harmless fun for those who laugh together. One of Halliwell’s examples is the symposion scene in Homer’s Iliad (1.595–600). Following a dispute between Zeus and Hera, Hephaistos hobbled around as a servant, pouring wine for everyone. Watching his clumsy movements broke the tension and made all the gods laugh. On the other hand, laughter can be “consequential” for Halliwell. Such laughter “is marked by its direction towards some definite result other than autonomous pleasure.”70 In this case, one might recall the Achaians laughing at the ugly Thersites, who was beaten by Odysseus for his crude speech against Agamemnon (Hom. Il. 2.211–77). The troops gloat over Thersites’ misfortune not least to express their disagreement with his verbal attack on the leader. Halliwell’s two extremes of laughter partly accord with the two categories of the comic established by Charles Baudelaire.71 Although Baudelaire’s focus is more on the means that produce laughter and less on the use and the contexts of laughter, his division of the “comique absolu” and the “comique significatif” is similar to Halliwell’s “playful” versus “consequential.” Baudelaire sees absolute comedy when laughter is not directed at the weakness (faiblesse) or disaster (malheur) of other people, but on grotesque and fabulous creations.72 Elsewhere he calls this humor “innocent,”73 and describes performances or depictions of this kind as 66 Ath. 2.37b-d; cf. Corner 2010; Slater 1976. 67 Xen. Symp. 6.2–6; Xen. Lak. 5.6. 68 For such debates mostly on Athenian vases, see, e.g., Heinemann 2009; Kistler 2006; Sutton 2000; McNiven 1995. 69 Halliwell 2008, 19–38; Halliwell 1991. 70 Halliwell 1991, 283. 71 Baudelaire 1976. Cf. Kintzler 2007; Minois 2000, 491–3; Hannoosh 1992, 39–40; Haugen 1988. 72 Baudelaire 1976, 535. 73 Baudelaire 1976, 536. Although Baudelaire refers to E. T. A. Hoffmann with this term, it seems to be his own concept. Hoffmann calls the similar phenomenon truly comic (“wahrhafte Komik”).

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free of any malicious intent (sans rancune).74 Baudelaire contrasts this with the laughter evoked by human customs (mœurs), in his words the significative or referential comic. This comic is, at least, partly based on a moral idea (l’idée morale): having an idea of what is good or bad is required for understanding a deed or behavior as a comic mistake.75 In its most consequential state, this form of comic is cruel (comique féroce) in Baudelaire’s view.76 Obviously, comedy and laughter have two faces: one is laughter with the object of amusement, free from moral assessment. The other is laughter at persons or behavior divergent from accepted norms. With this generally applicable classification of laughter in mind, we can now ask more pointedly: which of these two forms of laughter do the images of drunkenness provoke? Should they arouse ‘innocent’ laughter over intoxication? Or, should we take the striking ugliness and obscenity of the depictions as proof that these images were meant to deride the effects of socially unacceptable excessive drinking? Laughing about obscenity and ugliness in words or representations is somewhat common in ancient Greek culture. The three best-known genres which use obscenity and ugliness to arouse laughter are iambic poetry, comedy, and some aischrological cultic events, especially those occurring in cults of Dionysos or Demeter.77 In each of those genres we find evidence for both kinds of laughter. Elements of aggressive derision occur, for instance, in Hipponax’s conflict with the sculptor Bupalos, in which Hipponax exposes his opponent to ridicule with insulting sexual descriptions in iambic verses.78 Aristophanes’ Clouds, for example, ridicules the sophists in Athens by answering Sokrates’ explanations with scatological and scurrilous comments.79 For personalized mockery in festive contexts, we know of the γεφυρισμός during the Eleusinian mysteries or the mocking “from the wagons” during the Anthesteria, though we have little information about what role obscenity played on these occasions.80 Yet scholars have argued convincingly that in all these genres the use of obscenity or ugliness is not per se an indication of the intent to deride someone. Sometimes they were used only to make the audience laugh

74 75 76 77 78 79

Baudelaire 1976, 541. Baudelaire 1976, 535–6. Baudelaire 1976, 537. O’Higgins 2003, 15–36; Halliwell 2000; Henderson 1975, 13–17; Fluck 1931. Cf. Hedreen 2016, 107–10; Rosen 1988. Ar. Nub. 292–6, 372–411. Cf. Robson 2009, 120–40; Halliwell 2008, 243–63; Robson 2006; Henderson 1975 for obscenity in Old Comedy, in general. On humiliating wellknown Athenians in comedy, see Lateiner 2017. 80 Cf. E. Thompson 2008, 168–70, 324–5; Bremmer 1997, 13; Burkert 1977, 172, 360, 368, 429.

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about unusual speech or deviant but familiar behavior or appearance in an extremely exaggerated form.81 Whether or not a certain comic representation has the capacity to insult or denigrate someone depends first of all on its setting. It is crucial in which performative context a comic representation was perceived. In the formalized context of the symposion, a theater performance, or cultic events, certain kinds of obscenity were accepted and even expected as the cause for joint laughter. Even ancient theorists were well aware of the influence performative context and the audience’s attitudes had on the public’s perception of obscenity and ugliness. Plato distinguished between mocking as abuse and mocking as playful jest. Even for the latter form of mocking, he asked rhetorically whether a comic playwright should be allowed to mock in a playful way, to which he replied categorically: neither comic nor iambic poets should mock their fellow citizens with shameful speeches or performances.82 A short time later, Aristotle had a more practical approach: he regarded the capacity of jesting to offend as contingent on the personal disposition of each addressee.83 He did not object to persons attending iambus, comedy, or cultic performances of obscenity, when they are old enough (his benchmark was being experienced in handling the threat of heavy inebriation [sic!]).84 In such restricted contexts, joking by means of obscenity and ugliness could be innocent amusement for those familiar with the customs. A second frame that affected the laughter in response to obscenity and ugliness is an artistic one. The effect on the audience depended not least on the character of the laughable figures and scenes. The more fictive they were, the less they could be targets of derisive laughter. Deriding effectively needs a recognizable, familiar target. The more artificial and unrealistic the ridiculous features are, the more they resemble the Baudelairean “grotesque,” which provokes inoffensive and spontaneous laughter. Returning to the images from the Kabirion, it becomes easier to determine the kind of laughter that was intended by their ugly or obscene depictions, or at least their performative frame seems quite clear. We can be sure that the painted vases were almost exclusively used during drinking events as part of the (more or less) Dionysian cult of the Kabiroi. Evidence for the intended excessive wine consumption during these events is that the vessels can hold huge quantities of wine and require no sophisticated handling such as that required by Attic cups.85 Consequently, we should

81 82 83 84 85

Halliwell 2008, 243–54; Hedreen 2006, 304–6; Robson 2006, 79–87. Pl. Leg. 11.935c–936a. Arist. Eth. Nic. 1128a20–35. Cf. Halliwell 2008, 317–18 Arist. Pol. 7.1336b12–24. Cf. Halliwell 2008, 319, 323. On handling the Kabirion kantharoi, see Schlott 2015, 49–50, Figs. 2–4, 54–5.

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assume that the audience of the vessels’ images was old enough to be experienced in heavy drinking, as well as in handling obscene and indecent depictions. Such a restricted context of perception was exactly Aristotle’s precondition for comprehending “transgressive” images as entertainment. Moreover, it is inconceivable that the grotesque depictions were intended to humiliate their users, the drinkers themselves, for loss of control and ‘ugly’ appearance because they were intoxicated. Rather, the images mirrored the unsteady movement and gestures of those under the influence of alcohol in an innocent way. The humor of the depictions is similar to the friendly jesting of the drinking companions about the amusing behavior of their comrades. From this interim result we should look finally on the themes of the grotesque images occurring on Kabirion kantharoi. How do they fit the context of festive wine consumption and the comic effects of intoxication? Indeed, the majority of the grotesque Kabirion images show scenes and figures engaged in festivities in the sanctuary: cultic acts, reclining drinkers, musicians, and dancers. All of the figures are adorned with sprigs and fillets. They mirror the whole of the rapturous communal feasting and drinking. This imagery celebrates the joy of life and the effects of wine as a humorous experience for the participants. However, some of the vessels are decorated with images of mythological burlesque. Why are heroes and gods and their deeds depicted with grotesque figures? Instead of looking for comic performances as a source for these depictions or cultic aischrologia, we should interpret the meaning and function of the mythological images in the same manner as the rest of the festive imagery. The most frequent mythic scene is Kirke offering the magical drink to Odysseus.86 On vessels used in excessive drinking contexts, the depiction of a highly potent drink seems appropriate. We should remember the

86 With certainty identifiable on London, British Museum 1893.0303.1 (LIMC VI, s.v. Kirke, 53–4 no. 30 [F. Canciani]); Oxford, University of Mississippi 1977.3.127 (LIMC VI, s.v. Kirke, 54 no. 31 [F. Canciani]; CVA: USA 4, Baltimore, The Robinson Collection 1 [D. Robinson], 38–9 pl. 18:2); on a skyphos in Oxford, Ashmolean Museum G249, a cousin of the Kabirion series: BAPD 680002, LIMC VI 54 s.v. Kirke, no. 32 (F. Canciani); doubtful on a dinos-like vase in Chicago, Smart Museum of Art 1967.115.165 (Touchefeu-Meynier 1961, 268–9, pls. 15–17, LIMC VI, s.v. Kirke, 54 no. 33 [F. Canciani]). More probably the encounter between Odysseus and Penelope on Cambridge, Sackler Museum 1925.30.127 (LIMC VI, s.v. Kirke, 53 no. 29 [F. Canciani]; CVA: USA 1, Hoppin and Gallatin Collection [J. Hoppin], 5 pl. 5); more probably Theseus and the Krommionian Sow on Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum 1768 (LIMC VI, s.v. Kirke, 53 no. 28 [F. Canciani]); see infra n. 88. For Odysseus and Kirke on Kabirion ware, cf. Gadaleta 2009, 366–7 n. 69; A. Mitchell 2009, 272–4; Stansbury-O’Donnell 2009, 37–8; Walsh 2009, 196–9; Bedigan 2008b, 16; E. Thompson 2008, 257–76, 284; Moret 1991.

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significance of this scene on the Boston Kirke cup mentioned above. Hunting scenes are also common; not all such depictions are mythical, but at least one was placed in the mythological realm by the addition of the name Kephalos, the divine hunter.87 This theme is also apt for a feast especially dedicated to the initiation of young men into drinking. Images of hunts, even comic ones, must have appealed to young men, as one of the favored occupations of elite youths was hunting. For other mythological themes, mostly singular instances, such a reference to the context of use is not so obvious. In most cases, the mythological depictions refer neither to excessive drinking parties nor to any aitiological tales of the Kabiroi cult. What we find are familiar themes of Greek vase painting in general. The Judgment of Paris on a kantharos in Boston and the confrontation of Theseus and the sow on a kantharos in Bonn, for instance, are conversions of known vase paintings into a grotesque and comical style.88 A comic scene from the Ilioupersis on a vessel in Kassel

87 Kephalos: Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10429, A. Mitchell 2009, 274, Fig. 143; Walsh 2009, 185–6, Fig. 66; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 98 K9 pls. 10, 11. Unnamed hunter of a boar (maybe mythological): Heidelberg, Universität 190, CVA: Deutschland 10, Heidelberg Universität 1 (K. Schauenburg), 50–1 pl. 30:1–2, 7; Walsh 2009, 220–2, Fig. 32. Unnamed hunters: Athens, National Archaeological Museum 12547 (Braun and Haevernick 1981, 62, no. 298; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 98, K7 pls. 26:1-2, 50:8); Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10530 (Braun and Haevernick 1981, 63, no. 308; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 98 K10 pls. 16:2-3, 44:7-9); Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10530 (Braun and Haevernick 1981, 63, no. 325; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 115, S12 pl. 45:11); Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen ZV 1210 (Braun and Haevernick 1981, 66, no. 379, pl. 24:2; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 98, K11, pl. 31:5). Without human hunter: Göttingen, Universität 5406 (Braun and Haevernick 1981, 67, no. 381; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 116, S18, pl. 58:6-7); Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum B2586 (CVA: Deutschland 7, Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum 1 [G. Hafner], 46–7, pl. 37:1-5; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 104, K54, pl. 31:2); Thebes, Archaeological Museum ΘΠ 570 (Braun and Haevernick 1981, 67, no. 413; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 99, K14, pl. 51:1-2); Thebes, Archaeological Museum K 1017+2115 (Braun and Haevernick 1981, 38, no. 18, pl. 3:12). For additional fragments, see Braun and Haevernick 1981, 43 no. 77, 85–7. For hunting scenes on Kabirion ware, cf. E. Thompson 2008, 253–6; Daumas 1998, 35; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 25. Maybe a comic inversion of a hunting scene on New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 37.11.2 (E. Thompson 2008, 234–6; Alexander 1937), unconvincingly interpreted as Herakles and the Erymanthian Boar. 88 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 99.533: Walsh 2009, 138–9, Fig. 40; A. Mitchell 2009, 270, Fig. 140; E. Thompson 2008, 241–8. Compare Attic vase paintings of the late fifth century with idyllic setting, e.g., the hydria Berlin, Staatliche Museen F 2633: LIMC VII, s.v. Paridis Iudicum, 180 no. 47 (A. Kossatz-Deissmann); CVA: Deutschland 74, Berlin 9 (E. Böhr) 88–91, Beil. 16–18; Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum 1768 (supra n. 86). Compare Attic depictions mostly of the middle and late fifth century BC, where the sow is grouped with a woman, e.g., the cup Verona, Museo Civico 25653: BAPD 214331; CVA: Italia 34, Verona, Museo Civico 1 (G. Riccioni), 1 pl. 2.

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may show how this dependence works (Fig. 17.11a–b).89 Depictions of Ajax’s attack on Kassandra in fifth-century Attic vase painting are marked by at least one fleeing woman looking back. Her frightened reaction to the rape at Athena’s cult statue is intended to heighten the drama of the scene (Fig. 17.12).90 The Boiotian painter reproduces this scheme rather faithfully on his Kabirion kantharos, but the woman hurrying to the right runs into a second warrior. This pairing was interpreted by scholars as the recovery of Helen by Menelaos.91 It is nevertheless far from clear whether such an identification was intended by the painter. It looks more like a joke: frightened by Ajax’s assault on Kassandra, the women flees to the right only to immediately encounter another Greek attacker. Admittedly, the visual joke works better if the beholder is familiar with the serious scene on Attic vases. The enchained ‘revelers’ on the reverse of this vessel, however, are puzzling. There are only a few parallels of enchained persons, all with komasts or on Kabirion ware.92 Scholars have interpreted them as slaves participating in the festivities, but this instance looks more like a visual pun associating the victims of alcohol with the victims of the sack of Troy. Even the rather particular image usually identified as Kadmos in the marshes on a kantharos in Berlin93 has a serious counterpart on the famous Attic white-ground cup from the Sotades Tomb, now in the British Museum.94 However, close examination of these examples reveals that the Boiotian vase painters were mostly inspired by Attic vase painting. They did not choose the themes of mythological burlesque from comic performances at the sanctuary but parodied the images of heroes and their deeds which normally decorated Attic drinking vessels. Making the audience laugh and contributing to the lively atmosphere and witty conversations during the drinking event were the chief aims of these vase paintings. The

89 Kassel, Staatliche Antikensammlung ALG 18: Walsh 2009, 81, Fig. 14; Albersmeier 2009, 206. 90 E.g., the neck amphora Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Lewis Collection, Loan Ant. 103.22: BAPD 213744; LIMC I, s.v. Aias II, 343 no. 54 (O. Touchefeu); Froehner 1878, 39–40 no. 330, pl. 6; the bell krater Chiusi, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 1823: BAPD 7564; CVA: Italia 60, Chiusi, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 2 (A. Rastrelli), pls. 12:1, 13:1-2). 91 A. Mitchell 2009, 271; Walsh 2009, 81; E. Thompson 2008, 237–40. 92 Cf. Batino 2009, 127–28; A. Mitchell 2009, 263–5; Daumas 1998, 34–5; Seeberg 1967, 28–9, pl. 5. 93 Ex-Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I. 3284: LIMC V, s.v. Kadmos 1, 868 no. 20 (M. Tiverios); Wolters and Bruns 1940, 100, K22, pl. 27:1. Cf. A. Mitchell 2009, 275–6; E. Thompson 2008, 249–522. 94 London, British Museum 1892.0718.3: BAPD 209460, tentatively identified as Aristaios and Eurydice.

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Figure 17.11 Kassel, Staatliche Antikensammlung ALG 18, Kabirion kantharos. Photo: Staatliche Museen Kassel (G. Bößert)

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Figure 17.12 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Lewis Collection, Loan Ant. 103.22, Attic red-figure amphora. After Froehner 1878, pl. 6.

burlesque nature of these depictions primarily refers not to texts of any kind, but to images. With this in mind, we turn finally to a theme of Kabirion images often mentioned as most characteristic for this ware: the confrontation of pygmies and cranes.95 Since the – by proportion and definition – dwarfish fighters are characterized with the same distorted bodies and faces as most figures of the Kabirion imagery, some authors identify not only the crane fighters but all figures of the Kabirion images as pygmies playing different roles.96 But this is rather implausible for the other mythological scenes or depictions of the festivities. It is more probable that by choosing this theme, the Boiotian vase painters followed the customs of 95 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 12888 (Dasen 1993, 303, no. 96; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 62, no. 299; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 108, M8, pl. 54:2); Athens, National Archaeological Museum 10530 (Dasen 1993, 303, no. 94; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 63, no. 324; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 111–12, M29, pl. 12:2); Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I. 3159 (A. Mitchell 2009, 269–70, Fig. 139; Walsh 2009, 56–8, Fig. 9; Dasen 1993, 304, no. 97, Fig. 13.1; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 108, M7, pl. 29:3-4, 53:2); ex-Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I. 3179 (Miller and Kästner 2005, 169; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 64, no. 355; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 99, K16, pls. 29:1.2; 50:11); Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 99.534 (A. Mitchell 2009, 269 n. 101; Dasen 1993, 304, no. 98; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 65, no. 367; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 99, K15); London, British Museum 1889.0808.1 (Dasen 1993, 304, no. 99; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 67, no. 399; Wolters and Bruns 1940, 109, M17, pl. 54:3); Thebes, Archaeological Museum K 325+407 (Dasen 1993, 304, no. 102; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 47, no. 136 pl. 8:7); Thebes, Archaeological Museum K 2018 (Dasen 1993, 304, no. 100; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 40, no. 48, pl. 2:21); Thebes, Archaeological Museum K 3096 (Dasen 1993, 304, no. 101; Braun and Haevernick 1981, 40, no. 49, pl. 2:20). 96 Mackowiak 2005; Daumas 1998, 26.

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their Attic colleagues. The geranomachy frequently appears as comic vase decoration in Attika.97 In comparison to contemporary Attic images, the comic effect of the geranomachy on the Kabirion kantharoi is sometimes increased through obscene attacks on the pygmies’ genitals or a pygmy biting a crane’s neck, as on a Berlin kantharos (Fig. 17.13).98 On the same vessel we find a version of the fight which resembles a hunting scene (Fig. 17.14). The two pygmies are equipped with chlamys, petasos, and spears, like ephebic hunters on Attic vase paintings. Moreover, one of the comic crane fighters rides a slightly distorted horse. Based on ancient written sources, one would expect pygmies to ride on animals suited to their dwarfish appearance,99 such as the goats on the François krater’s foot. Obviously, the painter of the Kabirion image did not depict the usual tale of the geranomachy but transformed the common vase-painting

Figure 17.13 Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I. 3159, Kabirion kantharos, pygmies fight cranes. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 29: 3.

Figure 17.14 Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I. 3159, Kabirion kantharos, pygmies fight cranes. After Wolters and Bruns 1940, pl. 29: 4.

97 Sparkes 2000; Dasen 1993, 182–8, 294–304, pls. 58–70. 98 Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I.3159 (supra n. 95). 99 See Basilis, FGrH 718 = Ath. 9.390b: partridge; Hekataios, FGrH 1.238a-b: ram; Plin. ΗΝ 7.26: billy goat. Cf. Dasen 1993, 176.

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motif of an ephebic rider into a humorous image. Other geranomachies on Kabirion kantharoi look more like pursuit than combats.100 The visual adaptation of hunting scenes may hint at the importance of the hunt for the vase painter’s audience, as noted above. In the festive context of communal drinking, the grotesque images used in the Kabirion first and foremost were meant to entertain. The depictions of ugly and distorted participants were not intended to deride those who drank too much, nor did they warn that excessive drinking may result in making a fool of oneself. Likewise, the images of mythological burlesque did not mock gods or heroes and their deeds. Depictions of the festivities, common vase images of myths and, in the case of the terracottas, representations of social personae became humorous through distorted bodies and ugly faces. The grotesque rendering works mainly as an additive to existing image schemes. It was intended to integrate the images into the festive atmosphere of drinking and laughing, not to subject transgression of acceptable norms to ridicule. The images echo the positive emotions and experiences that wine and festivities in the Kabirion produced for the participants. Moreover, in both vase painting and terracotta figurines, the users saw themselves represented in a state suitable to amuse fellow drinkers and the whole feasting community. Intoxication and excessive drinking were things to be proud of and regarded as accepted, even desirable, behavior and as gifts of the mighty god. Thus, the vessels and figurines were appropriate not only as humorous objects, but also as votive dedications in the sanctuary.

100 E.g., ex-Berlin, Staatliche Museen V.I.3179 (supra n. 95), combined with an athletic scene. Boston Museum of Fine Arts 99.534 (supra n. 95).

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18 BEYOND CERAMICS AND STONE: THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE PRECIOUS* Kenneth Lapatin

In 1760, Johann Joachim Winckelmann wrote that the entire history of ancient art could be written exclusively through the study of engraved gemstones, so clearly did they represent the evolving styles and iconographies of different periods.1 More recently, as François Lissarrague, Judy Barringer, and others have noted, vase painting has become a primary vehicle for the study of image production and image reception in the Greek world.2 Yet large-scale sculpture in stone, coins, and other media also have much to offer the so-called ‘visual turn,’ and this chapter aims to address some of the last, which tend to be accorded less attention, not just because they are perceived to survive less well than more durable ceramics and marbles, but also because of diverse historiographic biases.3 Gold and silver work, too, whether stamped, chased, or engraved – a series of techniques which the ancients praised highly as toreutike – display a stylistic development similar to that in other media, as do skillfully carved ivories.4 Since the Renaissance, however, art historians have privileged the Vasarian triad of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting anachronistically over works in other media that were highly valued by ancient patrons, viewers, artists, and writers alike.5 Objects fashioned of gold, silver, ivory, and other precious substances are often depicted in more durable media, whether it be a group of satyrs assembling an ivory kline on an Attic red-figure kalpis; Thyrsites lying dead amid splendid metalwork on an Apulian amphora (Fig. 18.1); or a

* I am deeply grateful to François Lissarrague and Judy Barringer both for inviting me to participate in this volume and the symposium whence it stems, and for their assistance and patience with the preparation and submission of this chapter, which maintains the basic form of the presentation delivered in Edinburgh. 1 Winckelmann 1760, ix-x. 2 See Introduction to this volume (pp. 1–9). 3 Lapatin 2003. 4 See, e.g., Lapatin 2015; Lapatin 2001; Despini 1996. 5 See Lapatin 2003.

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Figure 18.1 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.804, detail of an Apulian amphora attributed to the Varrese Painter, c. 340 BC. Photo: author.

child standing before a sideboard laden with finely wrought vessels in a Hellenistic terracotta (Fig. 18.2).6 Indeed, fine jewelry occupies the focal point of some of the discipline’s most canonical works, such as the grave stele of Hegeso (Fig. 18.3), in which the daughter of Proxenos admires a once painted necklace, although we may have to work a bit harder to see it.7 Like Caesar’s Gaul, this chapter addressing “the iconography of the precious” is divided into three parts. First, it presents some examples of iconography in precious materials and explores how the objects that bore them and the images themselves functioned like and unlike similar objects and images in other media. Second, it will examine how the medium itself might be a bearer of meaning, including a look at ancient imitations. And finally, a very brief consideration of how such objects might have operated as a system – what I have come to call “the iconography of the precious.” Works in precious materials regularly share the iconographies of works in other material. A chalcedony intaglio of Mike, signed by Dexamenos (Fig. 18.4), about which Verity Platt has written eloquently,8 recalls several roughly contemporary marble grave markers depicting women looking at themselves in mirrors.9 A symbol of vanity in the Middle Ages, the mirror 6 Kalpis, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.788 (attributed to the Leningrad Painter): BAPD 206566. 7 Kaltsas 2002, 156–7, no. 309. 8 Platt 2006; Henig et al. 1994, 33; Boardman 1970, pl. 467. 9 E.g., Fig. 18.5: Kaltsas 2002, 160–1, no. 317; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 04.16: Comstock and Vermeule 1976, no. 65.

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Figure 18.2 Paris, Musée du Louvre MNE 1334, child with sideboard, terracotta, third–first century BC. Photo: author.

was a positive female attribute in ancient Greece, and the inscription on the gravestone of Pausimache (Fig. 18.5) refers explicitly, and hardly surprisingly, to her positive qualities: arête and sophrosyne: Death is decreed by fate for all who live; Pausimache, you left piteous mourning to your parents, both to your mother Phainippe and to your father Pausanias, and a monument of your arête for the passers-by to see, and of your sophrosyne. (CEG 158, trans. Tsagalis 2008: 156) Thus, I think, we ascribe similar qualities, along with beauty, to Mike, but we should also consider the differences in the images, such as the fact that on the gem it is a servant who holds the mirror, as well as a wreath; Mike is living – not dead – and apparently celebrating herself.

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Figure 18.3 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3624, grave stele of Hegeso, marble, c. 400 BC. Photo: Hans R. Goette.

A cornelian intaglio bearing a gorgoneion (Fig. 18.6),10 likewise, might well have been intended as an apotropaic image, to protect its owner, just as Gorgons were in the pediments of temples, or on symposion vases or shields.11 We are, by now, familiar with how the meaning of imagery can shift with context, and gems were also closely allied to personal identity, self-presentation, and protection. Devices had personal significance, which more often than not is lost to us. Consider for a moment that Gorgo was a personal name, most famously of the daughter of King Kleomenes of Sparta, the wife of Leonidas.12 Or might some of the many surviving gems depicting lions (see Chapter 1) have functioned not only protectively and as signs of the bravery and 10 Boardman 1975, no. 3; Boardman 1970, pl. 289. 11 For gorgoneia in diverse other media see, e.g., LIMC IV, s.v. Gorgo, Gorgones, 285–330, esp. pp. 289–305 (I. Krauskopf). 12 For personal names such as Gorgo, Gorgos, etc., see LGPN I: 110–11; II: 96–7; IIIA: 102; IIIB: 94; IV: 82; VA: 113–14; VB: 92–3; VI: 102. For other attested examples of specific devices as personal insignia, see, e.g., Lapatin 2015, 110–18.

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Figure 18.4 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam CG.3, intaglio of Mike signed by Dexamenes, chalcedony, c. 430 BC. Photo: Fitzwilliam Museum.

Figure 18.5 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3964, grave stele of Pausimache, marble, c. 390–380 BC. Photo: H. R. Goette.

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Figure 18.6 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AN.76.3, Gorgoneion, intaglio, cornelian, c. 500 BC. Photo: © J. Paul Getty Museum.

Figure 18.7 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AN.76.33, lioness, intaglio, agate, third quarter of the fifth century BC. Photo: © J. Paul Getty Museum.

strength of their owners – whether real or not – as on grave monuments and shield devices, but also have punned on names like Leon, Leonidas, Leochares, and so on? Or, as some later gems do explicitly, might they reference the owner’s astrological sign? And might not images of lionesses (Fig. 18.7),13 either alone or suckling a cub,14 have served as the insignia of a strong woman, like Leaina, the lover of Aristogeiton, who endured torture without betraying allies of the Tyrannicides? The Athenians are 13 Boardman 1975, no. 33. Cf. a plasma scarab intaglio inscribed ‘Aristoteixes’: Boardman 1970, pl. 388. 14 Lioness suckling: cornelian intaglio, Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 81.AN.76.28: Boardman 1975, no. 26.

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said to have honored her with a statue fashioned by Kalamis or, more likely, Amphikrates.15 The most famous lion in Greek art is, of course, the one from Nemea subdued by Herakles, which was depicted fairly consistently in multiple media for over a millennium from Argive shield band reliefs and black- and red-figure vases to late antique silver.16 On gems, however, as Richard Gordon, Christopher Faraone, and now Véronique Dasen have shown, the image – combined with a dark red stone, usually jasper, and the inscription KKK – was thought to protect against stomach pain, for Herakles was a notorious glutton.17 Other colored stones were also believed to possess similar medicinal and prophylactic qualities and were thus appropriately carved and inscribed: yellow jasper was thought to protect against scorpions, and several green stones were believed to improve vision and the health of the eyes.18 But what about images of Herakles and the lion on red stones without inscriptions? Did they carry such connotations without a supporting text? Christopher Faraone has adduced a fifth-century BC intaglio from Cyprus with two Egyptian Wadjet eyes that seems to function the same way.19 Neither he, nor I, would suggest that all depictions of Herakles’ first labor were intended to function in this manner, but what about the numerous other images of the engraved hero on red jaspers or on other red stones, such as a finely wrought cornelian in Boston?20 Red stone, telling image, and explicit text are a powerful combination, but what if only two are present, or just one? How far can we push an interpretation – or how far might an ancient owner or viewer have done? And might similar images of Herakles on other stones to which later authors ascribe diverse properties, such as rock crystal,21 a stone admired for its purity, not have carried particular meanings beyond those fashioned in other media? Véronique Dasen (see Chapter 10, pp. 235–6) adduces a gem depicting Omphale standing (Fig. 10.8) and explains how albeit red cornelian rather than jasper, it might aid in childbirth or alleviate the pain of menstruation. But how are we to interpret a very similar image on an amethyst? The ancients, believing in a false etymology, a-methe, believed that the stone could protect against drunkenness, and remember that the Lydian queen was in various contexts associated with 15 For Leaina, see Plin. HN 7.23, 34.72; Paus. 1.23.1-2; Polyaenus, Strat. 8.45; Ath. 13.596f. For additional Leo-stemmed names see LGPN I: 284–8; II: 280–4; IIIA: 270–1, 273–4; IIIB: 256–60; IV: 208–10; VA: 265–8; VB: 255–61; VI: 244–5. 16 For the Nemean Lion, see, e.g., LIMC V, s.v. B. Herakles and the Nemean Lion (Labour I), 16–34 (W. Felten). 17 See Chapter 10 (esp. pp. 225–8), with references. 18 See Faraone 2018; Beckman 2017. 19 Faraone 2012. 20 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 99.359. 21 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 101.7557.

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wine.22 And what might a similar Omphale have meant to the ancient owners of banded glass imitations of precious stone?23 Meanwhile, might such highly polished artworks as a cameo depicting Herakles and Kerberos carved by none other than Dioskourides, the gem engraver of the emperor Augustus, or the head of the hero that passed into the possession of Lorenzo de’ Medici also have served the medicinal needs of their owners?24 In a sense, as François Lissarrague has observed, “all gems are magical.”25 Ancient images of Black Africans have been studied from a variety of angles, and their meaning certainly is not constant.26 The Ethiopians depicted on a gold phiale found in Thrace (Fig. 18.8) must have a significance different from that of a Black boy being devoured by a crocodile on terracotta drinking vessels.27 Athenian temple inventories refer to phialai

Figure 18.8 Plovdiv, Regional Archaeological Museum 3204, phiale from Panagyurishte, gold, c. 325-275 BC. Photo: HIP/Art Resource, NY. 22 As on the stunning gilt silver omphalos phiale from Berthouville: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France 56.11: Gautier 2015. 23 Omphale, cornelian intaglio: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 13.236; amethyst: Lisbon, Gulbenkian 2726 (ex-Marlborough): Boardman et al. 2009, no. 338; banded glass: e.g., London, British Museum 1814.0704.1881 (ex-Townley); Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania 29-128-1846 (ex-Sommerville); Atlanta, Michael C. Carlos Museum 2008.031.016, cf. 2008.031.028. 24 Berlin, Antikensammlung FG11062; Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 25851 (attributed to Gnaios): Lapatin 2015, pls. 108–9. 25 Comment during the Edinburgh conference. 26 See, e.g., Tanner 2010; Isaac 2004; Snowden 1991; Snowden 1970. 27 Gold phiale: Lapatin 2015, pl. 24; plastic vases with Black youth and crocodile: Paris, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris ADut 360: Cohen 2006, 282–3, no. 86; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 55.11.3: Picón et al. 2007, 165, 440, no. 191; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 98.881: Ebbinghaus et al. 2018, 180–1, 358, no. 28.

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Aithiopides, and Pausanias informs us that just such a vessel was held in the right hand of Agorakritos’ statue of Nemesis at Rhamnous.28 Why? We might answer that Homer, and other ancient authors after him, call the Ethiopians ἀμύμονας: blameless, excellent, or noble.29 They were considered to be especially attentive to the gods, always sacrificing hecatombs. But sub-Saharan Africa was also known to be a source of gold, so the imagery seems especially appropriate. Likewise, griffins appear in a variety of contexts in ancient art (including with Nemesis), but are also closely linked in myth with gold, and thus their appearance in that medium must have been especially charged.30 It was, of course, in the context of gold that griffins appeared on the visor and cheek pieces of the helmet of Pheidias’ statue of Athena inside the Parthenon, the so-called Parthenos, simultaneously a store and a display of the wealth and power of imperial Athens, and, as inventories inscribed on stone make clear, the temple was chock full of gold and silver vessels, jewelry, gemstones, ivories, and precious textiles.31 A pair of pendants recovered from a tomb in the Crimea (Fig. 18.9)32 was decorated with the head of the Parthenos – the griffins often omitted from other ancient representations of the statue are clearly visible. What was the meaning of the Parthenos here? On the northern shores of the Black Sea, she might have been a reference to Athens as a source of wealth, but a similar pair of pendants depicting Nereids in the same position suggests that the goddesses’ significance might have lied more in her supernatural command of fantastic animals.33 I have argued elsewhere that the meaning of the Athena Parthenos varied greatly over time and space, as can be discerned from ancient representations of her – I prefer not to use the term copies. On the coins of Athens and other cities, she was an emblem of the state, likewise on Athenian document reliefs. Statues and statuettes of her in libraries and villas symbolized culture and learning. On personal insignia, such as finger rings, she was a protectress, while in narrative scenes like the Hephaistos Painter’s Attic red-figure krater now in Berlin (Fig. 18.10),34 she functioned as up-to-date imagery. Meanwhile on gold buttons, gilt terracotta imitations, and other forms of jewelry, she was an exemplary powerful yet decorous female.35 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Paus. 1.33.3-6. Hom. Il. 1.423-4, 23.205-7; Hom. Od. 1.22-4. See also Gardner 1977. Aramasps and griffins: e.g., Lapatin 2015; Williams and Ogden 1994. For Athena Parthenos, see, e.g., Lapatin 2001. On the inventories of the Parthenon, see Harris 1995. Lapatin 2015, pl. 19 with bibliography. See Lapatin 1996. ARV2 1114.9, Paralipomena 452: Lapatin 2001, pl. 156. Supra n. 33.

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Figure 18.9 St. Petersburg, Hermitage KO5, pendant from Kul Oba, gold and enamel, c. 400-350 BC. Photo: E. Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Gold rings, like the intaglios discussed earlier, could certainly be closely tied to their owners’ identity, contributing significantly to the construction of personae. So too other forms of jewelry. Consider a gold hairnet, splendidly adorned not only with cornelians and garnets, floral motifs and theatrical masks, but also with a central medallion of Aphrodite and Eros (Fig. 18.11).36 It is correct to observe that the wearer of this magnificent object thus becomes associated with the goddess, just as is the case for the wearer of a ring bearing her image. But consider carrying the face of the goddess on the back of your head – and then turning, replacing your visage with that of the goddess. It’s almost like flipping a coin, obverse and reverse. These small-scale objects are, perhaps, Kleinkunst, but certainly not Minor Arts.37 Textiles, too, were displayed on the bodies of their owners. Survivals are few, but mentions in copious ancient texts and depictions of them in other media leave no doubt as to their centrality in ancient life and thought, from 36 Lapatin and Wight 2010, 90–1; Pfrommer 2001. Cf. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1987.220: Picón et al. 2007, no. 228. 37 See Lapatin 2003.

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Figure 18.10 Berlin, Antikensammlung V.I. 3199, Attic red-figure column krater from Gela, c. 425 BC. Photo: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

their production in most homes to their roles in various myths, festivals, and rites of passage. Expertly woven, they bore significant and layered images. Like gold, ivory, precious stones, and other luxury materials, they were also dedicated in sanctuaries and deposited in tombs.38 There are, of course, very direct ways that precious media spoke to ancient viewers. The gold hair, drapery, and sandals of the chryselephantine statues at Delphi,39 for example, were literally chrysokommos, chrysoxitonos, and chrysosandalos, as the gods were described by ancient poets

38 See, e.g., Lapatin 2015, 186–90 with bibliography 39 See, e.g., Lapatin 2015, pl. 10; Lapatin 2001, 57–60, pls. VI–VII, 114–44.

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Figure 18.11 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 92.AM.8.1, hairnet, gold, garnet, and glass paste, 225–175 BC. Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum.

and other writers.40 Ivory female figures that attached to larger objects, such as the Geometric female figures from the Dipylon cemetery and the ‘Morgan Ivory’ now in New York (Fig. 18.12)41 would have evoked in the minds of some of their viewers, at least, the lines of Homer, who sung of skin more beautiful than new-sawn ivory, or myths equating the material 40 See, e.g., LSJ9 2009–12. 41 Dipylon: Athens, National Archaeological Museum 776–9, 2603: Kaltsas 2002, 34–5, nos. 1–4; Lapatin 2001, 44–5 (with bibliography); ‘Morgan Ivory’: Picón et al. 2007, no. 43.

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Figure 18.12 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 17.190.73, ‘Morgan Ivory,’ second half of the seventh century BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

with the flesh of the gods.42 While the Dipylon ivories appear to have functioned as handles, the ‘Morgan Ivory’ was likely attached to some kind of chest, perhaps not unlike that depicted on plaques from Lokri,43 where the story it told would have, like a vase at a symposion, conveyed some kind of normative message. Such objects were also placed in temple treasuries, and it is worth remembering that the single object described in the greatest detail in ancient literature, even more than Pheidias’ Olympian Zeus or Homer’s Shield of Achilles, is the Chest of Kypselos.44 We have come to accept that the sculptures of the Parthenon and other temples were brightly painted and gilded. We should also remember that the Erechtheion was bejeweled, with colored glass beads inset into the guilloches atop its columns.45 Brightly colored gems, shining, glowing, reflecting light – in a world before electricity – certainly had the power to amaze. Chalcedony, obsidian, jasper, cornelian, amethyst, garnet, emerald, and pearl each present different light effects, and when we consider ancient gemstones, it is certainly worthwhile to take into account the experience of handling and viewing them. Looking at such items takes effort. They have 42 43 44 45

For the literary sources, see Lapatin 2001. E.g., Lapatin 2015, Figs. 8a–b. Paus. 5.16–27. See Snodgrass 2006. Stern 1985; Ignatiadou 2020. See also T. Donaldson’s watercolor, London, British Museum 1857.1212.10.

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to be held at just the right angle, in the right light. An agent of Lorenzo de’ Medici, seeking to purchase gems for his master in Venice, wrote back to Florence apologizing for the delay on account of the weather. It had been overcast for weeks and he could not evaluate their quality.46 Often it is difficult to discern the devices carved into ancient gems, particularly pale or variegated colored stones (for example, banded agate; Fig. 18.7). The Hellenistic poet Poseidippos, in one of his recently recovered epigrams, writes of the almost magical element of seeing more and more as one looks more closely at engraved gemstones, and the poet contrasts both the appearance of the same stone when wet and dry, and of an intaglio and its impression – the perception of transformation: This is a cunning stone. When oiled, a luster, a miracle of mirage, follows its entire mass. Yet when dry, an engraved Persian lion shines brilliantly, stretching against the lovely sun. (Lithikà 13, adapted from translation of B. Acosta-Hughes and E. Kosmetatou) or No river rolled this stone onto its banks, but at one time the well-bearded head of a snake held it, streaked with white. The chariot engraved upon it, resembling a white mark on a fingernail, was carved by the eyes of Lynkeios. For after an imprint is taken the chariot is seen, but on the surface you do not see any projections. In which fact resides a great marvel of labor, how the craftsman while straining did not damage his eyes. (Lithikà 15, adapted from translation of M. Smith) Of course, it might be argued that the images on gems were intended to be read in impression, and while that certainly is true, there is good evidence – beyond Poseidippos – that the stones themselves were also to be admired. In addition to Mike’s chalcedony mentioned above, three other stunning intaglios were signed by the master engraver Dexamenos to be read on the stones themselves, rather than retrograde, as on most other intaglios, such as those signed by Epimenes and Gelon.47 And just as

46 Belozerskaya 2012, 147. 47 Dexamenos: St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum YU.O.24; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 23.580; Epimenes: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 27.677; Gelon: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 21.1213: see Boardman 1970, Figs. 466, 468, 355; Lapatin 2015, pls. 81, 84–5.

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Poseidippos praises several carvers by name, I would like to note as an aside that we know from signed gems and literary sources the actual names of more ancient gem engravers today than we do ancient vase painters, despite the significantly larger number of inscribed pots.48 The carver Pamphilos signed his name, in remarkably small letters, on a small amethyst intaglio depicting Achilles kitharoedeus (Fig. 18.13), which includes remarkable details of the hero’s weapons, armor, and a chariot adorning his shield. Today, as in antiquity, opportunities for close viewing of such valuable objects are not available to many. These stones were all expensive and exotic, associated with far-off lands, even if sometimes found nearer to hand. According to the elder Pliny (HN 37.6), the famous fourth-century BC Theban musician Ismenias, a man “in the habit of displaying great numbers of glittering stones, a piece of vanity, on his part” – rather like

Figure 18.13 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France 58.1815, Achilles, intaglio signed by Pamphilos, amethyst, c. 75–50 BC. Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France. 48 In the index of her magisterial book on ancient gems, Zwierlein-Diehl (2007, 549–50) lists fifty-seven names of gem carvers known from ancient signatures and eight from literary sources, to which several others can be added. Hurwit (2015, 79), meanwhile, notes that we have the real names of only forty-three Athenian vase painters.

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Liberace – learned that a smaragdus (green stone often associated with emerald) engraved with the figure of Amymone, the ‘blameless’ daughter of Danaos and consort of Poseidon, was being sold on Cyprus. Ismenias, who also seems to have written about gems, sent a trusted agent with instructions to acquire the gem. When the man returned and reported that the sellers, having learned the identity of the celebrity buyer, discounted the price by a third, Ismenias was furious and declared, “By Herakles! I’ve been wronged, for the stone has been robbed of much of its value.” Pliny, of course, relates this anecdote in Latin, but it is worthwhile to note that in ancient Greek the words for price and honor were the same: timē. Much can be said about particular stones. Banded agates, often trimmed with gold, are mentioned in temple inventories.49 More valuable still was rock crystal, about which Patrick Crawley has recently written illuminatingly.50 Thought to be formed by super cold ice, it was prized for its purity and transparency. Imagine the pleasure of holding a cup carved from a solid block of the transparent mineral, full of purplish wine. Note, too, that rock crystal and other precious stones also respond to the body’s temperature, and when a miniature sculpture of Aphrodite is held in the hand, as Crawley observes, it takes on the color of flesh (Figs. 18.14a–b). This is miraculous stuff. It is worth surveying briefly some imitations of luxury materials as testimony to their social and economic significance. Glass, clear and colored, stood in for precious stones, as it still does to this day, whether

Figures 18.14a–b Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 78.AN.248, crouching Aphrodite, rock crystal, first century BC. Photos: J. Paul Getty Museum. 49 See, e.g., Lapatin 2015, 125; Harris 1995. 50 Crowley 2016.

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Figure 18.15 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 72.AF.37, bowl imitating agate, glass, 25 BC–AD 50. Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum.

Figure 18.16 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 59.11.8, fragmentary female figure imitating lapis lazuli, glass and gold, first half of the first century AD. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

rock crystal, agate, alabaster, or lapis lazuli (Figs. 18.15 and 18.16).51 Gilt terracotta jewelry, rather than the real thing, was deposited in tombs, as were gilt terracotta appliqués for sumptuous furniture, and gilt jewelry came to adorn black-glaze vessels, where there is clearly some play around illusionism and virtuosity (Fig. 18.17).52 This is likewise true of some of 51 On glass imitation of precious stones see, e.g., Vickers 1997a; 1997b; 1996. Cf. Stern 1997. 52 For gilt terracotta jewelry for the tomb, see, e.g., Lapatin 2015, Fig. 5; gilt pottery: e.g., Fig. 18.17: Cohen 2006, no. 38; cf. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 15.169.

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Figure 18.17 London, British Museum 1871, 0722.3, black kalyx krater with painted gold wreath and necklace, terracotta and gold, c. 340–320 BC. Photo: Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 18.18 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 23.160.33, aryballos with imitation shells, terracotta, late sixth century BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

the many vessels fashioned to resemble cockleshells (Fig. 18.18),53 but rather more interesting, I think, is the imitation in reverse, when precious materials are used to imitate objects of lesser value, such as shells fashioned from marble or silver (Figs. 18.19 and 18.20).54 This, too, is a form of illusionism, but also of conspicuous consumption. The conversation between all of these materials and artifacts takes place in the sanctuary, where they are fitting offerings for the gods, and in the 53 E.g., Fig. 18.18: Cohen 2006, no. 78. Cf. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 06.1021.261, 41.162.198. 54 E.g., Fig. 18.19; cf. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1995.19: Picón 2007, no. 150; and Fig. 18.20.

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Figure 18.19 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 57.AA.6, shell, marble with polychromy, 400–325 BC. Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum.

Figure 18.20 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1994.5.1, 1994.5.2, shells, silver, late fourth–third century BC. Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

city, at the symposion, in the home, and in the tomb. They serve diverse functions: precious objects ostentatiously manifest distinctions, separating those who can afford them from those who cannot. As economic and social markers, they not only engendered competition, but also created prestigious bonds between those able to own and appreciate them, and provided opportunities to display knowledge and appreciation, as well as wealth and status. Such objects, of course, were also sources of contention, and have, for a variety of reasons and at various times and places, given rise to sumptuary laws.55 They also have been described as wasteful, symptoms of disequilibrium, and moral corruption, and thus denigrated, often along gendered lines. The third principal context for such objects was, of course, funerary, and it is from tombs that so many have come down to us. We would do well to remember them in our studies – and enjoy them while we can. 55 The scholarship on sumptuary legislation is vast. See, e.g., Lapatin 2015 for bibliography.

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PART VI HONORING THE DEAD

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19 ARCHAIC GRAVE MONUMENTS: BODY OR STELE? Nikolaus Dietrich

We know of two major types of late Archaic Attic marble grave monuments:1 the three-dimensional statue of a young male or female in the statuary types of the kouros or kore and the relief stele (Figs. 14.1 and 19.1).2 Both monuments show the image of the deceased as a standing figure. In one case, the deceased is presented as an autonomously standing figure sculpted in the round, while in the other case, the deceased constitutes the central relief decoration of a marble stele. Or, more simply put: in one case, the grave monument is a marble body, in the other case, it is a marble stele. The following chapter shall confront these two strategies of monumental commemoration of the deceased. What is at stake in the 1 Parts of this chapter originate from my work within the sub-project “Text and Image in Greek Sculpture: A Case-Study on Athens and Olympia from Archaic to Imperial Age” (Principal Investigator: author) of the Heidelberg Collaborative Research Centre 933 “Material Text Cultures: Materiality and Presence of Writing in Non-Typographic Societies.” 2 On Archaic Attic grave monuments in general, see most recently Walter-Karydi 2015, 49–123. The most comprehensive overview of Archaic Attic grave stelai is still Richter 1961 (for a general overview, see Schmaltz 1983, 149–89). Inversely, Attic funerary statues tend to be dealt with, together with Archaic votive sculpture, in general overviews (see Karakasi 2003; Richter 1968; Richter 1960). On funerary kouroi and korai specifically, see d’Onofrio 1982. A compelling recent comparative study of funerary reliefs and funerary statues (with results different from those in the present chapter) is found in Neer 2010a, 182–214 (although he is more concerned with Classical grave reliefs; on Archaic monuments specifically, see pp. 186–7). On the distinction between Archaic statues and stelai, see also d’Onofrio 1998 and 1985, who orients his interpretation toward the political sphere. For a non-political interpretation, which focuses on the funerary context, see Sourvinou-Inwood 1995. The present chapter develops further considerations on the dichotomy in Archaic sculpture in general between kouroi and korai devoid of any attributes and relief sculpture abounding with attributes discussed in Dietrich 2018, 216–19. Concerning the issue of two-dimensional reliefs and threedimensional statuary as alternative but interrelated ways of depicting/embodying the deceased in Attic funerary monuments, theses in many respects similar to the present chapter are offered in M. Squire 2018, although dealing with the Classical Kallithea monument. More generally speaking, this chapter owes much to discussions I have had with Michael Squire.

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Figure 19.1a Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3851, Anavysos kouros, marble, c. 530 BC. Photo: J. Fouquet.

Figure 19.1b Athens, National Archaeological Museum 4754, Kroisos inscription, marble, c. 530 BC. Photo: C. Reinhardt.

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choice of body or stele? In what respects do these two concepts for a grave monument differ, what do they have in common, and what do their differences and commonalities tell us more generally about the specific culture of monumental commemoration of the deceased in Archaic Greece? The chapter will focus on the polis of Athens. STATUARY MONUMENTS AND STELE MONUMENTS: COMMON ELEMENTS The spatial arrangement of burial and grave monument First and foremost, both types of marble grave monuments have their origin in common. From Geometric cemeteries, we know of roughly flattened slabs of mostly high rectangular form of no more than a meter in height. These are reconstructed as standing next to the well-known monumental grave vases (Fig. 19.2). In the course of the Archaic period, such simple stone stelai evolved into lavishly carved marble grave monuments. The Geometric grave vases typically (though not always!) have a hole on their bottom, which is indicative of their use for libations to the deceased.3 These grave vases were therefore set up directly over the actual burial. The Geometric grave vases thus function as a visible marker of the deceased buried beneath the ground and therefore remote from the world of the living. Interestingly, the grave vases’ function as grave markers was

Figure 19.2 Athens, Kerameikos, reconstruction drawing of Geometric graves, eleventh–eighth century BC. After Kübler, K. 1942. “Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen: die Frühzeit.” In Das neue Bild der Antike 1, edited by H. Berve, 39, Figure 6. Leipzig. 3 For examples, see Weber 1999, 30 n. 8. Boardman (1988, 176) is skeptical about the libation function of such holes.

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supplemented by the roughly worked stone slabs erected next to them, fulfilling in a second way the function of marking the grave.4 However, while the grave vases are bound to the actual position of the underground burial by virtue of their libation function, this does not apply to the rectangular stone slabs. Later in the course of the Archaic period, the initially small tumuli raised over the burial increased in size, and some reached considerable dimensions. Meanwhile, their accompanying stone slabs had evolved into lavish monuments of marble statues or stelai,5 and were now spatially detached from the burial spot and placed at the edge of the tumulus next to the road, thus achieving maximum visibility to the passer-by.6 At least 4 For a general description of this Attic Geometric grave type, see Walter-Karydi 2015, 21–7; Stroszeck 2014, 135–8; Kurtz and Boardman 1971, 57–8. For a more detailed description of Geometric grave types in the Kerameikos, providing a more diverse and complex overview, see Haug 2012, 432–8. The shape of such Geometric graves has largely been reconstructed on the basis of Kübler’s excavations at the Kerameikos, a necropolis with a particularly high percentage of elite burials; see Kübler 1954, 209–11 (grave 1 and 2 from the southern Eridanos necropolis, respectively, with the kraters Athens, Kerameikos 2133 and 935 found in situ together with grave-marking stone slabs). However, it is important to note that Geometric (and also later) Attic burials could easily do without any visible grave marker; see, e.g., Morris 1987, 151–2. The Archaic necropolis at Phaleron, which had generally served as a burial place for the lower social strata, provides ample evidence for such unmarked burials, as the ongoing excavations directed by Dr. S. Chryssoulaki show; see Chryssoulaki 2019; Chryssoulaki et al. forthcoming; Lobell 2018, 52. My knowledge of this impressive excavation is mainly based on the lecture given by Dr. Chryssoulaki at the Heidelberg Institute for Classical Archaeology on 22 May 2018. If I nevertheless refer to the Geometric ‘Idealtypus’ of an Attic grave as shown in Fig. 19.1a-b, it should be kept in mind that this was certainly more representative of someone of high rank rather than of the ‘normal’ deceased. 5 A lineage between the Geometric small stone slabs and the Archaic stelai was first proposed by Richter (1961, 9). 6 On the general development of the Kerameikos necropolis in the Archaic period, see Stroszeck 2014, 139–47; Knigge 1988, 24–34. For an overview of the Archaic tumuli from the Kerameikos, see Stroszeck 2014, 156–67. Unfortunately, there is no reliable archaeological evidence from the Kerameikos for this spatial arrangement of the marble grave monuments next to the road: none of the sculptured monuments themselves were found in situ, and most of them were reused in the Themistoklean wall. Moreover, the only reconstructed tumulus ensemble once proposed by Kübler, the so-called stele of Solon (Athens, Kerameikos Museum P 1132, c. 560 BC; Richter 1961, 20–1, no. 23, Fig. 86), once associated with tumulus G (Kübler 1973), has been shown to be incorrect. On tumulus G, see Stroszeck 2014, 159–61, with further bibliography, including a revision of Kübler’s reconstruction; the stele’s association with the Alkmeonidai in Knigge 2006 is not conclusive, either. However, both the intrinsic plausibility of a positioning of Archaic Attic grave monuments next to the road (consider, e.g., the many Archaic grave epigrams addressing the passer-by), and archaeological contexts from other Attic cemeteries (e.g., the grave statue of Aristodikos, Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3851 of c. 500–490 BC found next to the road to Keratea; see Brinkmann 2003, no. 169; Mastrokostas 1974, 219–20; Richter 1970, 118–19, no. 136), strongly suggest that we should retain this traditional reconstruction of the typical spatial setting of tumulus, grave monument, and road in late Archaic Attika.

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in the seventh century, grave vases used for libations retained their position directly over the burial.7 Both grave markers, vase and stele, which once stood side by side over Geometric burials, were thus separated. The grave vase with its ritual function kept, at least for a certain time, its direct spatial tie to the burial, while the lavish marble monuments were moved away from the dead and closer to the living. The detachment of the marble grave monuments from their spatial tie to the actual burial fitted well with the agenda of former generations of scholars, whose interest in Attic grave monuments, a major part of our material record of Archaic sculpture, was primarily an art-historical one. Indeed, their detachment from the burial ostensibly justified the relative disregard for the sepulchral dimension of these monuments of Archaic sculpture. When, in the last third of the twentieth century, the art-historical interest gave way to a more historical and sociological interest in Archaic Attic grave monuments, their spatial detachment from the burial and their turning toward the road seemed again to justify the relative disregard for their sepulchral dimension, in favor this time of an interest in elite representation in Archaic Athens. Both approaches to Archaic Attic grave monuments, the more art-historical one and the more socio-historical one, have in common the fact that they treat Archaic sculpture from cemetery contexts in virtually exactly the same way as they treat Archaic sculpture from sanctuary contexts.8 There might be good arguments for this – not least the astonishing typological similarities between grave sculpture and votive sculpture in the Archaic period. But this relative disregard for differences of context is nevertheless noteworthy, given archaeological research’s general confidence in the uses of the heuristic category of context. An anachronistic comparison with modern Christian cemeteries and their spatial arrangement of the gravestone, the burial, and the visitor at the grave proves instructive. The most common simple polished gravestones nowadays, bearing the name and the dates of birth and death of the deceased, are usually positioned behind the actual burial. To put this point differently, the place of the burial, often marked by a flowerbed, occupies the space between the gravestone and the visitor at the grave. The burial conspicuously occupies the center of this space, which has the character of holy ground, insofar as the rectangular flowerbed, tracing the general form of a burial, prevents visitors from trampling on it, or just from forgetting that this is the place where the deceased has been buried. 7 See Stroszeck 2014, 141. 8 Indeed, the difference in context between votive and funerary sculpture plays an insignificant role in Richter’s monographs (1968, 1961, 1960), which were fundamental for the art-historical approach to Archaic sculpture, as one can see, e.g., in Schneider’s book (1975) on Archaic korai, which was influential in the reorientation of research toward issues of social history and elite representation.

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The spatial arrangement of the burial site and the inscribed gravestone in modern Christian cemeteries may also be described neatly in semiotic terms. There is the signifier (the inscription), the signified (the deceased), and the referent (the burial). This semiotic triangle may easily be deciphered by the recipient, the visitor at the grave. In the case of the Archaic grave monument that directly addresses the passer-by by its removal from the burial to the roadside, the burial, a mound rising behind the grave monument, plays a much less important role in the communication between grave monument and passer-by. One element is thus missing in the semiotic triangle. There is a signifier (the inscription) and the image of the deceased, and there is the signified (the person of the deceased). But the referent, the actual burial, is placed behind the grave monument, if the burial exists at all: as attested for later periods, at least, the grave monument does not indicate whether it marks a burial or a cenotaph.9 In the case of Archaic grave monuments, we would thus be dealing, in semiotic terms, with communication without a referent, to a certain extent. This is not a problem so long as the object of communication is itself purely imaginary. But this is not the case, because the burial is obviously not an imaginary matter. Although the precise position of the burial behind the grave monument may well still be traceable through the positioning of the tumulus and the libation grave vase on top of it, the burial simply has no place in the relationship between grave monument and passer-by. In contrast to the modern example used here, the communicative relationship in front of an Archaic grave monument does not lend itself to any straightforward semiotic reading. Thus, the Archaic grave monument does not signify the burial, but supersedes the burial. It is the substitute for the deceased who disappeared from the world of the living and whose mortal remains also have been concretely expelled from the city’s dwelling zone. The sema or mnema, as the grave monument is called in grave epigrams, does not refer to something else – the burial – but remains fundamentally self-referential. We will return to this point. First, however, we can add some observations to the comparison of body monument and stele monument. The upright posture of the depicted figure: Standing in the viewer’s present Both the grave statues and the grave stelai employ an upright posture for the figure depicted and that of the monument as a whole. From the perspective of Classical Archaeology, this may be self-evident and not worth noting. Indeed, only very occasionally do we find sitting

9 The most famous example for a cenotaph is certainly the Classical grave of Dexileos.

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Figure 19.3 Auvergne, Abbaye Saint Robert de La Chaise-Dieu, gisant of Pope Clement VI sculpted by Pierre Roye and his pupils Jean David and Jean de Seignolles (1353). Photo: D. Villafruela.

figures or horse riders among the Archaic grave monuments,10 although in these cases of sitting or riding, the figures also hold themselves upright. However, a glance at lavish post-antique grave sculpture, as it reappeared in the High Middle Ages, shows that the choice of upright posture for the figure of the deceased is all but self-evident, at least from a transcultural perspective. The gisants of the Middle Ages are usually portrayed horizontally,11 yet their clothes typically drape as if they were standing. Thus, their horizontal posture does not necessarily indicate the concrete act or situation of lying down. Neither can the gisants be conceived as standing figures that came into a horizontal posture merely by the placement of the monument: in the case of Pope Clement VI’s grave monument in the Abbaye Saint-Robert de La Chaise-Dieu (Auvergne), for example, the gisant’s head rests on a pillow, which does not make sense for a standing figure (Fig. 19.3). For the bodies of the gisants, it apparently makes no fundamental difference whether they are standing or lying, as if they were not subject to the force of gravity. And this is precisely the case within the Christian belief in resurrection. The figures of the gisant obviously refer to the weightless bodies of the blessed in their heavenly and post-mortal existence. Among the Archaic Greek grave monuments, there are no such ambiguities between standing and lying: the figures of the deceased stand. These are images of living bodies bursting with vitality.12 This difference from the gisants of the Middle Ages is crucial for our understanding of the figures of the deceased on Archaic grave monuments.

10 For a short overview, see Walter-Karydi 2015, 82–4. 11 For an overview of medieval gisants together with their ground-breaking discussion in the context of a historical anthropology of death, see Ariès 1983. 12 On Archaic sculpture’s attempts to convey vitality in their seemingly ‘stiff’ bodies, see Dietrich 2011, 31–7 with further bibliography.

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While the gisant represents the deceased in his otherworldly present, the Archaic Greek figures of the deceased do not refer to his present state: the depicted person is dead, but is shown as if alive. Of course, lavish sculptured grave monuments of more recent epochs, such as those in grand nineteenth-century cemeteries like the Père Lachaise in Paris, often integrate a portrait of the deceased and show the deceased as living, as well. But such depictions of the deceased as living do not refer to his or her otherworldly present, but to his or her this-worldly past, which is presented to the visitor at the grave as a souvenir picture.13 Are we, therefore, also to conceive of the Archaic images at the grave in the sense of souvenir pictures, showing the deceased in his past state when he was still living? This option has to be ruled out for several reasons. First, the Archaic grave statues and reliefs are not souvenir pictures for the simple reason that they make no attempt at achieving recognizability of the deceased through individualization, and this is true for all Archaic sculpture.14 Secondly, as has often been emphasized in scholarship, the kouros type – in which both grave statues and reliefs show the deceased – directly addresses the viewer.15 With his frontal and open gaze and proverbial ‘Archaic smile,’ the kouros is wholly conceived in terms of his graceful and charismatic appearance before the viewer. Therefore, the kouros does not aim at some more or less distant past when the deceased was still alive, but at the viewer of the present. Another iconographic characteristic of Archaic grave images is that they renounce any inner-pictorial time distinct from the viewer’s present. The figure of the deceased may well hold various attributes, at least on grave reliefs, but the figure never does anything specific with these objects and is thus never involved in any inner-pictorial action;16 there is no hint 13 A choice of nineteenth-century sepulchral sculpture, with its new focus on the deceased as the object of the bereaved’s remembrance and grief, may again be found in Ariès 1983. 14 This is not to say that Archaic sculpture would not have been interested in the individual. As I have tried to show elsewhere (Dietrich 2011, 27–31), no clear dichotomy between typifying and individualizing depictions exists in Archaic (as opposed to Classical) sculpture. On the controversy as to whether Archaic kouroi and korai depict individual or ‘typical’/generic identities, see Dietrich 2018, 220–6 with further bibliography. 15 This characteristic trait of kouroi is best described and interpreted in Elsner 2006, 76–7, developing further a point made by Osborne (1988, 7). Stewart (1997, 66–7) adopts a different position, criticizing Osborne’s interpretation (pp. 244–5), but see Elsner (2006, 76–7, nn. 26, 27) in response. 16 On the way in which figures handle attributes in Greek art and the many implications this has, see Dietrich 2018, 49–137 (esp. pp. 91–2 on the Archaic Diskophoros stele as a typical example for the handling of attributes on Archaic grave stelai). Elsner (2006, 76–7) also makes this point about the complete renouncement of the Archaic kouros type to pictorial narrative.

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of a pictorial narrative that would involve the figure but not the viewer, and thereby help create a fundamental gap between viewer and viewed image. Such a pictorial narrative, which is significantly missing in Archaic grave sculpture, would have strengthened the figure’s presence in the image – within an inner-pictorial, spatial-temporal realm distinct from the time and space of the viewer – as opposed to the presence of the image in front of the viewer.17 As a final point, the reference to the present time of the viewer is omnipresent in Archaic grave epigrams in which the viewer/ reader passing by is typically prompted to pause from his or her present affairs for a moment and mourn.18 The inscribed base of a grave stele for Tettichos from the second quarter of the sixth century provides a good example:19 [εἴτε ἀστό]ς τις. ἀνὲρ εἴτε χσένος ἄλοθεν ἐλθόν : / Τέτιχον. οἰκτίρας ἄνδρ’ ἀγαθὸν παρίτο, : / ἐν πολέμοι φθίμενον, νεαρὰν hέβεν ὀλέσαν. τα : / ταῦτ’ ἀποδυράμενοι νε͂σθε ἐπὶ πρᾶγμ’ ἀγαθόν. (IG I31194 bis [= CEG 13]) Let everyone, whether townsman or stranger from abroad, before he passes, mourn Tet(t)ichos, valorous man who died in the battle and yielded up his tender youth; lamenting this, proceed to worthy tasks.20

17 On this distinction of two different types of image-related presence, which seems crucial to me, see Dietrich 2020, 253–9; Dietrich 2018, 56–62 with special regard to attributes. 18 The vast bibliography on Archaic grave epigrams includes Estrin 2016; WalterKarydi 2015, 101–11; Vestrheim 2010; Jeffery 1962; Tueller 2010, which focuses on the passer-by as the addressee; Martini 2008; Sourvinou-Inwood 1995; Ecker 1990; Day 1989; Clairmont 1970. For an up-to-date catalog of all Archaic statue and stele bases, including funeral and inscribed ones, see Kissas 2000. For the present context, Tueller (2010, 43–4) makes the important remark that the use of tenses in Archaic epigrams mostly takes the present time, the moment of reading, as a reference point. 19 Athens, Epigraphical Museum 10650 of the mid-sixth century BC: Richter 1961, 25, 158–9 [M. Guarducci], no. 36, Fig. 203. On the base, see Kissas 2000, 44–5, cat. no. 11 with further bibliography. On this epigram, IG I31194bis [= CEG 13], see Tueller 2010, 43–4 with further bibliography. 20 The translation is taken from the epigraphical appendix of Richter 1961, 153–72, written by M. Guarducci.

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In the exceptional case of the grave monument of Kroisos, we have both the image and the corresponding inscription:21 στε͂θι : καὶ οἴκτιρον : Κροίσο παρὰ σε͂μα θανόντος : / hόν ποτ’ ἐνὶ προμάχοις : ὄλεσε θο͂ρος : Ἄρες. (IG I31240 [= CEG 27]) Stand and take pity by the tomb of deceased Croesus, whom once killed in the front lines furious Ares.22 Comparing statue and inscription, we observe that the reference to death in battle found in the epigram, an event from the life of the deceased, is not found in the image.23 In his (presumed) timelessness, the kouros instead stays firmly bound to the presence and present time of the viewer who faces the statue. The figures of the deceased as a statue or as a relief thus have in common the fact that they show the deceased in neither a post-mortal, otherworldly present time, like the gisants of the Late Middle Ages, nor in the actual past when he still lived, as do souvenir pictures on nineteenth-century grave monuments or photographs of the deceased on our modern death notices. These Archaic images of the deceased at the grave – regardless of whether they are body or stele – are bound to the viewing and mourning, to the interaction of passer-by and image. It is in the respective present time of the viewer that the kleos of the deceased remains permanently present. STATUARY MONUMENTS AND STELE MONUMENTS: DIFFERENT DEGREES OF EMBODIMENT, DIFFERENT DEGREES OF ICONOGRAPHIC SPECIFICITY The stele as a stele: Material frames with or without the image of the deceased Until now, both types of sculptured images, the freestanding statue and the relief stele, have been discussed as rather interchangeable options for 21 The connection between statue and inscribed base is not beyond reasonable doubt, but is in any case plausible (arguments summarized in Neer 2010a, 24–7). Inscribed base (Athens, National Archaeological Museum 4754) and statue (Athens, National Archaeological Museum 3851; see Richter 1960, 118–19, no. 136) are exhibited together. On the base, see Kissas 2000, 54–5, no. 20. On the epigram, see CEG 27; Ecker 1990, 168–9; Day 1989, 19; Jeffery 1962, 143–4. Attempts to ‘read’ the statue and the epigram together include Lorenz 2010, 143–5; Martini 2008; Elsner 2006, 75–6; D. Steiner 2001, 12–13; Stewart 1997, 66–7. 22 Translation by Tueller 2010, 46. 23 This important point has been made by Osborne (1988, 7).

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depicting the deceased in Archaic Athens. However, a crucial aspect of grave stelai has not yet been addressed – that is, that in the first two-thirds of the sixth century, those stelai carried not only a flat depiction of the deceased on their shafts, but also, and importantly, a statue sculpted in the round on top of them. This statue depicted not the deceased, but usually a sphinx.24 This puts these grave stelai close to another common type of monument in the Archaic period, specifically the statuary monument set up on a column or a pillar, as we know them especially from Archaic sanctuaries.25 As in the case of votive columns or pillars, the crowning statue is placed on a capital atop a high pedestal. In a sanctuary context, such column or pillar bases carry either human or non-human figures, while non-human figures are usual for Attic sepulchral contexts. The wild and menacing animals or mythical creatures (mostly sphinxes, but also lions26 and perhaps a gorgon27) set upon the stelai may generally be interpreted as representing guardians of the grave.28 In comparison to such statues, the relief image of the deceased is equivalent to a mere decoration of the shaft’s front side. To this extent, these images of the deceased on Archaic grave stelai, strictly speaking, constitute only secondary decoration. This is confirmed by the fact that grave stelai occasionally even omit this element of decoration. This may have been the case with the shaft of a stele from the first half of the sixth century found in the Themistoklean wall, a findspot that suggests that the stele originates from a grave monument.29 In fact, 24 For the reconstruction of Archaic Attic stele grave monuments, see Richter 1961, 2–3. 25 For an up-to-date catalog of Archaic Attic pillar monuments and column monuments from votive contexts, see Kissas 2000, 108–246, which treats the bases, but also mentions the crowning statues where these exist. 26 See, e.g., the two grave lions among the spectacular new finds from the Sacred Gate. See Niemeier 2007, Figs. 4, 13; Niemeier 2002, 33–40, Figs. 42–7. 27 For a possible candidate for a gorgon crowning an Archaic Attic grave from the Kerameikos, see Ohly 1962. 28 This general understanding of the grave sphinx as guardian was advanced by Richter in a short notice (1961, 6). I here adopt the position that rejects all attempts to see more specific sepulchral connotations of the sphinx as a kind of death daimon. In the largescale study on early Greek monsters (Winkler-Horaček 2015), such an interpretation of the sphinx is rejected several times (e.g., pp. 138–9). However, the opposite claim still has supporters (e.g., Walter-Karydi 2015, 74–82 with a short bibliography on the controversy in n. 60). Neer 2010a, 44–6, presents further thoughts on the combination of the crowning sphinx with the relief image of the deceased (on the Brother-and-Sister stele, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art inv. 11.185a-c, f, g), which are interesting in their own right but not directly related to the present argument. 29 Athens, Kerameikos Museum inv. P 1133. See Richter 1961, 12–13, no. 7, Figs. 29, 30. In the first thorough publication of the stele shaft, Buschor (1927, 144, Fig. 3) reconstructs it with an incised image of the deceased on the side that had been flattened for its use as building material in the Themistoklean wall. His reconstruction starts from the principle that a grave stele ‘must’ have carried the image of the deceased, which is a plausible hypothesis in terms of statistics. However, it presupposes that the incised ornamentation of the stele’s front, still extant on its upper part and leaving no space for an incised figure (see Richter 1961, Fig. 30), would have been interrupted suddenly. In view of this rather objectionable assumption, a stele without a figure of the deceased seems to be a more likely reconstruction.

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there is no positive evidence for the existence of depictions of the deceased on Attic grave stelai before the second quarter of the sixth century, which, of course, does not necessarily mean that this possibility should be ruled out. In contrast, we do have early evidence for freestanding funeral sculpture, at least since the spectacular new finds from the Sacred Gate, including both a monumental grave kouros from around 600 BC and a sitting lion of perhaps an even earlier date.30 Generally speaking, there was a growing importance of the depiction of the deceased on the stele’s shaft in comparison to the crowning sphinx during the course of the sixth century BC. The appearance of a new type of grave stele with an anthemion crowning the stele instead of a sphinx c. 530 BC at least points in this direction.31 Only then may we say with full confidence that the image of the deceased constitutes the grave monuments’ central element. But even in this late period, a depiction of the deceased is occasionally lacking. An Attic grave stele c. 530–520 BC is such a case.32 The name of the deceased in the genitive is inscribed in the center, and two painted animals, a dog and snake, appear above and below the inscription, but there is no human figure. Even more important evidence for the possibility of a grave stele without a depiction of the deceased is provided by the (post-Archaic) white-ground grave lekythoi, on which we often find a central grave stele without any depiction of the deceased on it.33 The immediate reason for this may be that on such lekythoi the deceased typically appears as a full figure next to the grave monument, and therefore does not need to be portrayed again by another depiction on the stele. These lekythoi nevertheless show that the grave stele – even if it functions as the carrier of an image of the deceased in relief, in graphic outline, or in paint – continues as simply a stele that may, under some circumstances, omit an image of the deceased. Therefore, even if the later grave stelai essentially function as the material frame for an image of the deceased, we ought not to reduce the grave stele to this image and forget about its material frame altogether. In other words, the grave stele is a stele and not a body. 30 See Niemeier 2007; Niemeier 2002. 31 For this change in the typology of Attic grave stelai, see Richter 1961, 3–4. WalterKarydi’s (2015, 81–2) explanation for the disappearance of sphinxes on Attic grave monuments as part of a general trend to banish such ‘daimonic’ creatures from late Archaic visual culture does not convince me. 32 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 86. See Richter 1961, 40, 168–9 (M. Guarducci), no. 54, Figs. 137 (stele), 208 (inscription); Brückner 1886, 88–91, with reconstruction of the painted decoration on pl. I.1. 33 For recent overviews of Attic white-ground lekythoi, see Giudice 2015; Oakley 2004.

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Looking at Archaic Attic grave images with Vernant: Between mimetic embodiment and staged artificiality This observation may remind us that such spectacular monuments as the New York ‘Brother and Sister’ stele (Fig. 14.1)34 derive from those roughly flattened, tall, rectangular stone slabs set up upright as grave markers next to large grave vases for libations in Geometric Attic cemeteries. While the grave vases were richly decorated, including the well-known late Geometric depictions of the funeral ceremony itself,35 the upright stone slabs were aniconic grave markers. When speaking of the evolution from early, clunky stone markers to later iconic and mimetic images, we are brought inevitably to Jean-Pierre Vernant’s classic texts from the 1960s on the origin of the image among the Greeks published in Mythe et Pensée: “Figuration de l’invisible et catégorie psychologique du double: le kolossos” and “De la présentification de l’invisible à l’imitation de l’apparence.”36 In a ‘grand narrative’ that is little concerned with specific historic context and the archaeological record, Vernant presents the following general concept for the understanding of figuration, using funerary markers as his chief example. In his view, the general function of the image is to make the absent present. In the funerary context, the absent is the deceased, who disappeared from the world of the living by his or her death and burial. The function of the grave monument is, thus, to make this absent deceased present. But in order to fulfill this function, there was originally no need for figurative form; the roughly flattened slab erected over the tumulus already signaled the absence of the deceased, and at the same time secured him a presence in the world of the living by

34 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 11.185; Berlin, Antikensammlung 1531, c. 540 BC. See Neer 2010a, 27–8, 44–6 with regard to the epigram and the crowning sphinx; Brinkmann 2003, nos. 304–5; Jeffery 1962, 146–7, no. 63; Richter 1961, 27–9, 159–65 (M. Guarducci), no. 37, Figs. 99–109 (stele), 204 (inscription). 35 On the figural decoration of Attic grave vases, see most recently Walter-Karydi 2015, 30–43. On the iconography of mourning specifically, see most recently Haug 2012, 45–118. 36 “Figuration of the invisible and psychological category of the double: the colossus” and “From the ‘presentification’ of the invisible to the imitation of appearance.” See Vernant 1988a; Vernant 1988b. For an English translation of ‘mythe et pensée,’ see Vernant 1983. While Vernant’s theory of the image among the Greeks often tends to be cited rather than discussed in scholarship, I would like to highlight here the critical engagement with Vernant in Neer 2010a, 14–19; and Neer 2010b. D. Steiner (2001, 3–78) follows rather closely Vernant’s basic idea that what we call an image is, in fact, better referred to as a substitute, at least in the context of Archaic Greece. More broadly speaking, Vernant’s works on the image might have triggered, in the long run, the somehow paradoxical interest in aniconism within Greek art history, e.g., Gaifman 2012, who acknowledges Vernant’s fundamental importance for this domain of interest (pp. 8–9).

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establishing a double of the deceased, regardless of any visual similarity between the invisible absent and his visible double. The specific ambiguity of the figurative image is that, on the one hand, its mimetic form suggests the presence of the depicted, while on the other hand, its character as an artifact of sculpted stone and not as a living figure signals the absence of the depicted. For Vernant, this ambiguity of the image, in which the element of the aniconic is still inherent despite its quality as an iconic sign, was endangered by the triumph of illusionism in the Classical period. When the image among the Greeks became an “imitation de l’apparence,” it was no longer a “présentification de l’invisible” to the same degree as before. Vernant’s paradigm of his concept of the image is thus not the Classical, but the Archaic image. This ideal argument without any respect for the single image and its historic contingencies37 obviously cannot be used as a concrete interpretational guide. Nevertheless, the fundamental ambiguity of the image as described by Vernant, both in creating presence as a lifelike picture and in signaling absence as a lifeless, artificially made object, seems to me helpful for tackling the present issue of body and stele as two alternative options for a marble grave monument. For the grave stelai, for which the relief picture of the deceased constitutes only one, and not necessarily the central, element of decoration, the quality of an artifact is obvious in contrast to the freestanding statue, which seems much more likely to be taken for the depicted figure itself and to make the viewer forget the fact that it is worked stone. However, when applying such an ideal typical model to the material record, a good dose of skepticism is warranted. We might thus straightforwardly ask whether, from the perspective of the ancient viewer, the famous ‘Brother and Sister stele’ from about 540 BC was at all reminiscent of those much older, and certainly no more visible or even known, aniconic slabs of the Geometric period. At first sight, the answer is clearly no.38 The meticulously worked ‘Brother and Sister stele’ makes any comparison with those roughly shaped stone slabs appear absurd. Is this not rather about perfect workmanship, whose flawlessness makes the quality of a created artifact disappear? The answer to this question proves surprisingly complex. A closer look at the stele, specifically to the small fragment conserved in Berlin (Fig. 19.4), reveals that this most exquisite grave monument does not at all show the expected equal and uniform degree of perfect elab37 The historical development with its heavy Platonic overtones implied by Vernant has been rightly criticized as a rather arbitrary projection of a systematic model on a specific historical time. See Neer 2010b, 185–8. 38 Generally speaking, the awareness of, and interest in, the aniconic among the Greeks themselves seem to be a rather late, post-Archaic phenomenon. On Greek views of aniconism, see Gaifman 2012, 77–130.

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Figure 19.4 Berlin, Antikensammlung Sk 1531, fragment of the brother and sister stele, marble, c. 540 BC. Photo: author.

oration. Rather, we easily distinguish three different stages and degrees in the elaboration of the surface on the finished stele. The surface of the body has been flattened, polished, and painted; the surface of the stele on its front side carrying the relief has been flattened and painted, but not polished; and finally, the side of the stele has only been flattened, but neither polished nor painted. Obviously, the different grades of elaboration between the body surface, the front, and the side of the stele reflect the greater or lesser importance of these parts, and are therefore due to pragmatic reasons. But this explanation is not enough. Indeed, the unpainted sides of the stele were perfectly visible. Given the most accurate flattening, leaving perfectly parallel marks of the flat chisel used for that purpose, one may rule out the

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idea that these sides were left unpainted simply because no one would have realized it anyway. One should rather say that these sides were worked to be seen. But what the viewer is given to see on these unpainted sides is precisely the worked stone and material artifact, which the mimetically formed body on the front side of the stele made the viewer forget. In that the grave monument not only embodies the two deceased figures through their mimetic depiction, and therefore corresponds to a body, yet still remains an artificially produced marble stele, this double nature is thus not a mere accidental property of this specific type of monument. Rather, the mnema’s property of being a worked stone has been intentionally integrated into the grave monument’s design.39 One would still not wish to regard this as a reminiscence of the Geometric stone slabs, since all traces of these grave markers most certainly had disappeared by the mid-sixth century. But it is meaningful to parallel the intentional display of the naked flattened stone with Geometric stelai; both serve the commemorative function of grave monuments as visible signs of the deceased, who has disappeared from this visible world, in the world of the living. In other words, the ‘Brother and Sister’ stele may well be a ‘présentification de l’invisible.’ This is precisely the ambiguity described by Vernant. On the one hand, the ‘Brother and Sister’ stele is a mimetic image, which creates presence for the two deceased figures. On the other, it is a constructed artifact that marks their absence with a sema or mnema. This ambiguity, which especially relates to the stelai’s function as grave monuments, is obviously less pronounced in the other common type of Archaic grave monuments, that is, the freestanding marble statues, insofar as the statue stands more decidedly on the side of the mimetic embodiment of the deceased, and much less on the side of the per se aniconic marking of his absence. However, as I have argued elsewhere, different strategies of highlighting the nature of the stele as an artifact may be detected for freestanding Archaic sculpture as well, whether by intentional display of transitional stages in the carving process (as is the case for Kroisos’ hair) or by inviting the viewer to recall the original rectangular marble block out of which the statue had been carved by means of the general block-like appearance of the finished statue.40 This is best exemplified by the early New York kouros (Fig. 19.5a–b),41 which bears direct comparison with the grave kouros from 39 For an in-depth analysis of elements of ‘staged artificiality’ that accompany the mimetic intentions so omnipresent in Archaic sculpture, see Dietrich 2017, esp. pp. 281–97. For Archaic sculpture as nonetheless ‘realistic’ art, an idea that I maintain, see Dietrich 2011. 40 See Dietrich 2017, 277–8, 282–5 (for the intentional visibility of the square marble block on the finished statue), 292–7 (for the intermediate stages in the carving of hair). 41 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 32.11.1. See Vorster 2002, 121–2, with further bibliography on 304; Stewart 1990, 34, 108–9, 111–12, pls. 42:3, 43:3, 49–55; Richter 1960, 41–2, no. 1 (with earlier bibliography). An extensive (but mainly English) bibliography is found on the museum website.

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Figure 19.5a–b New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 32.11.1, ‘New York kouros,’ marble, c. 600 BC. Photo © Metropolitan Museum of Art.

the Sacred Gate in Athens. The freestanding statue thus also remains a stele to a certain extent. Without developing this point further, I would like to state only that, in principle, the ambiguity between mimetic embodiment and the created artifact described in the case of the Archaic grave stele holds true for the grave statue as well. Again, the difference between both conceptions of a grave monument proves to be gradual and not absolute. Another apparent difference accompanies the different grades of embodiment between the stele and the statue. While the fully embodied grave kouroi show only the naked standing body, the images of the deceased on relief stelai achieve maximal iconographic specificity within the limits of what was possible in Archaic sculpture42 by the addition of attributes, by indicating a beard or not, by clothing or nudity, and sometimes even by indicating different physiognomic characteristics. The

42 This observation is, of course, not new. Recent publications in which this point is treated include: Neer 2010a, 186–7 with an interpretation oriented toward the political/ social sphere within an ‘ideology of the medium’; Walter-Karydi 2015, 63 with an overview of the range of iconographic variations on Archaic Attic grave stelai on the following pages.

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Figure 19.6 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 29, grave stele of Aristion, marble, c. 510 BC. Photograph: Jebulon.

famous Aristion wears hoplite armor (Fig. 19.6);43 the deceased on a stele in the Louvre wears a himation (Fig. 19.7);44 and other stelai show athletic attributes, such as the well-known fragmentary stele of a man holding a discus (Fig. 19.8).45 Some deceased are bearded and thus depicted as adults, while others have no beard and are thus depicted as young men, as 43 See Maderna-Lauter 2002, 265 with further bibliography on 324; Richter 1961, 47, 170 (M. Guarducci), no. 67, Figs. 156–8 (stele), 211, 212 (inscriptions). 44 Paris, Musée du Louvre MA 3432, c. 520–510 BC. See Hamiaux 1992, 95, no. 86 (with further bibliography); Richter 1961, 41, no. 57, Figs. 138–40. 45 Athens, National Museum 38, c. 560 BC. See Dietrich 2017, 292–3; Karanastassis 2002, 211 with further bibliography on 316; Richter 1961, 21, no. 25, Figs. 77, 78.

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Figure 19.7 Paris, Musée du Louvre MA3432, grave stele with man wearing a himation and holding a flower, marble, c. 520–510 BC. Photo: © Paris, Musée du Louvre.

are the grave kouroi. We might plausibly infer that these attributes – the discus held behind the head on the stele fragment, the hoplite equipment of Aristion, and the painted flower that the mantled figure gracefully holds between his thumb and forefinger – all highlight specific different qualities in which the deceased excelled. All these different qualities highlighted by iconographic means share the fact that they express typical values of the Athenian elite: athletic culture, military virtues, and charismatic grace. For grave monuments belonging to women, the iconographic uniformity of freestanding grave statues is less pronounced because they, too,

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Figure 19.8 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 38, ‘diskophoros stele,’ marble, c. 560 BC. Photo: © American School of Classical Studies at Athens (A. Frantz).

carry attributes, in contrast to the male kouroi. Because almost no female Archaic grave reliefs are preserved, one cannot compare freestanding statue and relief. Therefore, I will return to the male images. What makes the marked difference at the level of iconographic specification between male freestanding sculpture and male relief sculpture at the grave so noteworthy is firstly the great similarities in their general pose. The figures always have the same typical upright stance with legs slightly parted. Only the position of the arms varies according to the respective attribute. Secondly, the consistency of this difference is striking. No extant single male Attic grave kouros carries an attribute, and no extant single Attic grave stele displays a figure without attributes. To dress a grave kouros seems to be ‘too much,’ whereas to show the deceased on a relief stele as a mere naked man seems to be ‘not enough.’ How should we understand this? The diachronic model of explanation, to which German Classical Archaeology often turns for understanding differences in the archaeological record, cannot be of any help here. Indeed, there is no indication of the traditional narrative of a history of progressive individuality from the Archaic to the Classical period, which would lead to ever more (in the modern sense) portrait-like concepts of

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image, and eventually to the early Classical individual portrait. On the contrary, the individualizing relief depictions and the consistently similar grave kouroi exist side by side. It is not diachronic change that begs for explanation, but synchronic disparity! The explanation that I would like to propose at the end of this chapter is that two different image strategies existed side by side, operating with a lesser or greater level of iconographic specification, respectively:46 the grave kouroi relied altogether on an unspecific (in the positive sense), universal image of a worthy man, while the stelai presented what was, iconographically speaking, a much denser image of the deceased. This difference between lesser and greater iconographic density goes along with an inverse relation of the lesser or greater level of embodiment of the image. The traditional idea, according to which the freestanding grave kouros would raise the deceased to a somehow heroic status while the grave reliefs would provide the more realistic counterpart, does not convince me for several reasons. Given the sometimes very lavish stele monuments, it would be too sweeping a statement to regard the freestanding kouroi per se as the more ambitious and elitist type of grave monument, although the average costs of a freestanding statue, which required a larger initial marble block, obviously exceeded those of a flat stele. The difference between the freestanding statue and the relief image is not so much a difference of content – for example, elite status versus lower status of the deceased or heroizing versus ‘realistic’ depiction of the deceased – but a difference of medial strategy, as I would like to put it. After all, the fully embodied statue of the kouros conveys all those values in its universal formulation of manly worthiness that the relief images on the stelai spell out singly with their more explicit iconographic formulation. The kouros presents both the athletic and military virtues of aristocratic body culture and the erotic appeal of a graceful body radiating charis without much ranking or discriminating between those characteristics. This does not, however, preclude one aspect in which the deceased may have excelled from being especially highlighted, but this is not done by iconographic means! Indeed, the grave epigram on Kroisos puts the accent on the deceased’s military arete, although the corresponding statue does not essentially differ from other grave kouroi.47 On the other hand, the epigram for the deceased

46 Developing further a point made in Dietrich 2018, 216–19. 47 The peculiar treatment of the back of the statue’s head, which has been interpreted as a cap worn by Greek warriors under their helmet in Ridgway 1993, 68, is more plausibly explained as an intermediate stage of the carving process of the hair that was intentionally presented on the finished statue (supra p. 436).

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Xenophantos, inscribed on a base which must have carried a kouros, emphasizes the sophrosyne of the deceased in addition to his arete:48 σε͂μα πατὲρ Κλέ〚․〛βολος ἀποφθιμένοι Χσενοφάντοι / θε͂κε τόδ’ ἀντ’ ἀρετε͂ς ἐδὲ σαοφροσύνες. (IG I3 1211 [= CEG 41]) The father Kle[.]bolos set up this sema to the deceased Xenophantos, because of his arete and his sophrosyne.49 Therefore, even similar grave kouroi do not impede a specific, individualizing interpretation by the viewer of the images and reader of the inscriptions – inscriptions that may well differ from one case to another, within a limited range of generally accepted values. In conclusion, I would summarize my claims in the following terms. The presentative function of the fully embodied image of the grave kouros avoids iconographic specification. Only with respect to the representative function of the partly embodied relief images is iconographic specification a profitable feature. Why? The key for understanding this is that Archaic images at the grave are not designed to depict the deceased who has entered the invisible world of the dead, so much as to stand in for him as a visible substitute of his absence. Substitutes do not have to resemble those that they represent, but need only be worthy substitutes of them. Accordingly, there is no single case in which, strictly speaking, the figure is concretely and directly identified with the commemorated deceased in the grave epigrams.50 Rather, the name of the deceased in the inscription always refers to the sema or mnema as a whole, to the grave monument, and not to the figure.51 The name of the commemorated deceased may simply be inscribed in the genitive on the grave monument, as in the case of the Aristion stele,52 again stating not an identification of the depicted

48 Athens, Epigraphical Museum 10642, third quarter of sixth century BC. On the base, see Kissas 2000, 51–4, no. 19 with further bibliography. On the epigram IG I3 1211 [= CEG 41], including further bibliography, see Jeffery 1962, 120–1, no. 9. 49 The translation is my own. 50 See Elsner 2006, 75 on the Kroisos epigram: “The inscription, so potent in generating emotion around this image (much more so than modern titles and captions), is fundamentally ambivalent about whether the kouros is or is not Kroisos.” On the inherent ambivalence of Archaic grave inscriptions in identifying the figure depicted, see Lorenz 2010, 143–5, who also discusses the example of Kroisos. 51 On this fundamental point, see Reinhardt’s chapter in Dietrich et al. 2020, 31–102, esp. pp. 33–65. 52 Supra pp. 437–9, Fig. 19.6. The inscription, IG I³ 1256, reads Ἀριστίονος (‘of Aristion’).

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figure with the deceased person, but a relation of ownership between the deceased person and his sema. That the more lavish semata of the elite since the beginning of the sixth century almost always opt for the figuration of a body in order to fulfill their function of giving a visible mark to the invisible and disembodied deceased is a phenomenon that is highly significant for Archaic Greece’s culture of commemorating, or, more generally, dealing with, death. Indeed, comparison with other historical epochs and cultures shows that this focus on embodiment is not at all universal. But the Attic Archaic grave monuments still show a body that shall stand in for the deceased and not the body of the deceased him or herself. The more concrete and specific references to the identity of the deceased, as produced by the addition of attributes, clothing, beards, and the like, had the potential to undermine this principle. By following this path, figuration at the grave may in the end nevertheless become the body of the deceased in the identifying sense, being no longer a body of the deceased in the possessive sense. However, from a cultural-anthropological point of view, the body of the deceased – or what is left of it after death – is, above all, something threatening that calls for special cultic precautions. It needs to be buried beneath the ground and withdrawn from the world of the living, its grave needs to be kept out of the settled area, its concrete place of burial is hardly marked in Archaic necropoleis (in stark contrast to modern cemeteries), and its cultic administration through libations and the like is less intended to preserve remembrance than to avert the harm that the dead might cause if not properly cared for. The fundamentally threatening nature of the dead in ancient Greece is well known, but interestingly, it is almost completely absent from the scholarly engagement with monumental commemoration of the deceased. I would like to suggest that the threatening nature of the body of the deceased, if poorly treated, might be key for explaining the phenomenon discussed here, namely the inverse relationship between the level of iconographic specification of the figure and the level of embodiment of the figure in Archaic Attic images at the grave. The closer the image at the grave comes to a complete mimetic re-envisioning of a body, the more problematic become concrete references to the individual identity of the deceased. Standing neither in the unreachable realm of the past of the deceased, nor in the unreachable realm of an otherworldly present, but in front, and in the presence, of the viewer, an Archaic grave image, which both resembles an actual body by being a freestanding statue and is similar to the deceased by its more far-reaching iconographic individualization, would more likely lead to an unwanted and threatening ghost-like presence of the deceased in the world of the living, than serve the purpose of monumental commemoration. Reformulated in Vernant’s terms, one may state that maximizing both the présentification de l’invisible and the imitation de l’apparence in the grave monument leads to a problematic result.

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However, reducing the level of embodiment of the deceased by limiting the mimetic recreation to the stele’s relief decoration allows possibilities for a more far-reaching iconographic individualization of the figure. Opting for the universal, but unspecified, image of the freestanding statue, or for the more explicitly individualized, but mimetically reduced, relief image is thus a matter of image strategy for achieving what the Archaic grave image is about: monumental commemoration of the deceased.

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20 ON VASES, TERRACOTTAS, AND BONES: HOW TO READ FUNERARY ASSEMBLAGES FROM SIXTH- AND FIFTH-CENTURY GREECE Dimitris Paleothodoros What is the meaning of an image depicted on an ancient work of art? What kind of response did the ancient artists expect from the ‘consumer’ of the image? Was there a uniform, quasi-monolithic way of interpreting images in a specific society? To what extent are scholars able to reconstruct the manner in which the ancient ‘gaze’ functioned? These fundamental questions have bothered scholars for the last sixty-five years, at least. Not long after the publication of the landmark study by Hellmut Sichtermann in 1963, where it was asserted that images on vases are not faithful reproductions of everyday life or ritual but rather the expression of a culturally specific mental system that was radically different from our own,1 scholars began to inquire about the messages communicated by vases, making ample use of a vast array of theories borrowed from social sciences.2 The aim of this chapter is to contribute to the topic by addressing a specific issue that is of fundamental importance, despite the fact that it is too often overlooked in recent iconographic studies: how users of the vases understood the images, and to what extent their own interpretations departed from the original intentions of the artists who made these vases. The ideal venue for a study of this type is the examination of funerary contexts. In fact, it is assumed here that a closed archaeological context is not a random collection of heterogeneous grave goods, but can be ‘read’ instead as an assemblage of objects bearing different and complementary yet specific messages about the status, gender, and age of the deceased. Consequently, I employ here what may be called an ‘emic’ approach to iconography based on the ‘reading’ of funerary contexts, an interpretation 1 Sichtermann 1963. 2 For a history of the scholarship of vase-painting iconography, see Paleothodoros 2016; Isler-Kerényi 2015; Isler-Kerényi 2009; Frontisi-Ducroux and Lissarrague 1990; von Bothmer 1987.

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of funerary iconography by analyzing specific tomb contexts one by one.3 In theory, other types of contexts (sacred deposits, finds from a single house) are equally revealing, although in fact the extreme fragmentary nature of the material in such contexts usually makes a detailed iconographic study impossible.4 In reality, I propose a shift in method rather than a new interpretive framework. This method is not a panacea for the study of iconography, since it only concerns the rather limited number of vases known from proper archaeological excavations and publications, where every single item, and its position inside the tomb, is carefully recorded and analyzed. Needless to say, this is hardly the case for most of the current archaeological excavations conducted in Greece, which are usually rescue excavations. Painted vases and terracotta figurines, but also other objects that are gender signifiers (mirrors, loomweights, cosmetic pots, strigils) were carefully selected by the relatives of the dead for deposition into the tomb.5 Αt least some of these objects might have been chosen specifically because they belonged to the deceased,6 but most were chosen because they fitted custom and belief. The choice of iconography is revealing of the mentalities of those who made the selection. This at least holds true for people living in Athens and in certain regions of Greece, for which it may be safely assumed that the availability of painted pottery allowed the relatives of the deceased to purchase whichever vase met their preferences and taste.7 We shall leave 3 The method has been employed by the present author and others in the recent past: Frielinghaus 2014; Sabetai 2014b; Dipla and Paleothodoros 2012; Paleothodoros 2012; Tsingarida 2012; Paleothodoros 2010; Kavvadias and Lagia 2009; Paleothodoros 2009a; Sabetai 2009; Schmidt 2005; Tsingarida 2003. Whitley’s study (1994) on Protoattic funerary contexts may safely be regarded as the first study of this kind as far as Greek vases in Greek contexts are concerned. Similar techniques of analysis have long been employed by scholars examining the reception of Greek vases in Etruria: see Bundrick 2015; Reusser 2003; Osborne 2001; Arafat and Morgan 1994. 4 See, however, Lynch 2011. 5 De la Genière 1990, 86. In general, the presence of ‘gender-signifiers’ in Athenian tombs is high: see Houby-Nielsen 1996, 239–40. 6 Such as in a tomb at Pagasae in Thessaly (t. 2), where a sympotic set (Volos, Archaeological Museum BE 44969, Attic coral-red cup by the Hegesiboulos Painter; Volos, Archaeological Museum BE 44978, Attic black-figure neck amphora) of c. 500 BC is associated with lekythoi, mostly by the workshop of the Haimon Painter, of the 470s: Paleothodoros and Τriandafyllopoulou 2020, 351–2. These objects are to be distinguished from heirlooms, discussed below. 7 It is presumed here that people living outside Attika, but in regions where the deposition of Attic vases in a tomb was part of the local funerary customs, had Athenian vases at their disposal, even during the period when navigation was barred due to weather conditions (i.e., from November to early March). In other words, shops keeping a stock must have existed in these areas in order to meet the demand during winter months. Otherwise, we should be prepared to accept the possibility that people in need of vases for ritual purposes would have had to buy them well in advance before a death occurred. I find this alternative, as well as the only other option, namely that the tombs of people dying during winter were less well furnished with vases, highly unlikely.

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aside the question of what might have been at play in more remote regions, where the taste of middlemen might have been at least as important as that of the clients.8 Every single burial context, at least whenever funerary offerings are included, is a unique and unparalleled case. Funerary customs and beliefs are mostly dictated by tradition and faith, but the degree of care and affection invested in each burial varies, as do the number of objects, the balance between objects of various types and materials – clay versus metal and bone, vases versus statuettes – the tomb’s degree of elaboration, and the particulars surrounding its position within the cemetery. In this study, I consider a few cases where the detailed examination of the archaeological context leads to the formulation of conclusions about the reception of iconography that deviate from what is usually regarded as orthodox in current research. By choosing ‘unorthodox,’ yet spectacular, funerary assemblages, for which we can establish that the vase painter’s intention when decorating a pot was not met by his audience, I aim to offer a convincing demonstration of the validity of the method. A larnax from Acharnai (Attika) (Fig. 20.1) served as the resting place of a young female,9 judging from the fact that it contained a plemochoe and an exaleiptron, as well as other miniature vessels (hydria, jug, amphora, two Corinthian kotyliskai, a skyphos, a plate), along with a terracotta figurine of a quadruped, an Attic black-figure lekythos of the Class of Athens 581, and an Attic black-figure cup by an artist close to or belonging to the Haimon Group.10 The miniature plate depicts a running woman dressed in chiton and himation; the lekythos portrays two satyrs flanking a woman, while the exterior of the cup depicts satyrs at a pithos; a running maenad is shown on the tondo. Such a concentration of Dionysiac subjects seems at first surprising and unfitting for the age of the deceased. However, it belongs to a group of funerary assemblages of non-adult female subjects, from babies to adolescents, where maenadic iconography is prominent. Thus, a pot burial, also from Acharnai, contained five Attic black-figure lekythoi (three from the Class of Athens 581 showing women dancing around an idol of Dionysos fixed to a post, Dionysos seated while a maenad dances, and Herakles and the lion, respectively; and two of the Little Lion Class showing Dionysos with satyrs and Peleus abducting Thetis), an Attic 8 For the role of middlemen, see Paleothodoros 2009b. 9 The sex of the deceased has not been determined. It is, in general, especially difficult to do so when dealing with skeletons of a very young age. 10 Larnax tomb at Dekeleias and Demosthenous streets: Platonos-Giota 2004, 285–6 (the list of the finds is not in accord with what objects are shown inside the larnax on Fig. 155b, a photo taken at the moment of the excavation, or with what is on display in the Archaeological Collection of Acharnai), 301 Fig. 23b (lekythos), 331 Fig. 76 (larnax). See also Striftou-Vathi 2009, 363 Fig. 254 (larnax), 421 Fig. 289 (plemochoe), 495–6 Figs. 345–7 (plate and cup).

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Figure 20.1 Acharnai, Archaeological Collection, larnax from Acharnai. Photo: author (by permission from the Ephorate of Antiquities of Eastern Attica).

black-figure oinochoe depicting a satyr in pursuit of a woman, an Attic black-glaze pyxis, and statuettes of a seated woman and a dove.11 Tomb 1427 from the cemetery of Akanthos in Chalkidiki contained a far more elaborate funerary assemblage.12 The type of finds combined with the very poor state of conservation of the skeleton suggest that the 11 Pot burial 10 from Mornou St. (Avliza, Acharnai): Platonos 2010, 424–5, Figs. 208–10 (the objects are on display in the Archaeological Collection of Acharnai). See also Platonos-Giota 2004, 309, Fig. 41 (Lenaia lekythos); Striftou-Vathi 2009, 277 Fig. 193 (oinochoe), 339 Fig. 236 (pyxis), and 489 Fig. 340 (Lenaia lekythos). 12 Kaltsas 1998, 64–72, pl. 19, 67–71. A child’s tomb and an infant pot burial were placed over tomb 1427 during the second and third quarters of the fifth century, respectively (Kaltsas 1998, 32 pl. 12a and 39 pl. 21c).

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deceased must have been a girl of young age, accompanied by unusually rich and varied funerary goods from various locations: there are three busts of a type well known in Archaic and Classical Macedonia,13 plus one considered to be of East Greek manufacture, several Boeotian statuettes showing people at work and at leisure, cosmetic pots of all types (glass and clay amphoriskoi and lekythoi), miniature drinking and pouring vessels, and an Attic black-figure lekythos showing women at the idol of Dionysos. Overall, the objects included in the tomb point to various activities in a woman’s life: terracotta figurines involving household activity, various objects (functional or not) related to female beauty, and, above all, the lekythos showing ritual involvement of women in the cult of Dionysos. It is my conviction that the subject of the lekythos does not refer to alterity and liminality, which might be at odds with all the other ‘telling’ objects; instead, it pertains to state cult and the achievement of superior status within the community for free married women through their participation in the Dionysiac thiasos.14 These conclusions might appear far-fetched, since we know nothing about the Dionysiac cults in Akanthos. It is also evident that the deceased was not herself involved in the cult, since she had not passed puberty. However, the ceremony of the veneration of the mask fixed on the post, probably taking place only in Athens but apparently easily recognizable elsewhere,15 serves here as a symbol not of the status of the deceased, but of what life would have been had she reached maturity. Dionysiac festivals were attended by all women, but status defined the degree of their involvement. Thus, Diodoros of Sicily asserts that married women were assisted by unmarried women,16 while a fictional letter written by a fisherman to his wife and preserved in the collection of Epistles of Alkiphron (second century BC, but referring to the fourth century) explicitly names the festivals of Oschophoria and Lenaia as the business of rich matrons of the Athenian city.17 Dionysiac iconography appearing on objects specifically designed for the tomb, such as the Attic black-figure lekythoi, has puzzled scholars in the past. Two recent studies have attempted an in-depth inquiry on the topic. Marie-Christine Villanueva Puig focused on burials from the 13 See Adam-Veleni et al. 2017, 327 no. 343, with further bibliography. 14 Much of my understanding of the importance of Dionysiac ritual for Athenian women derives from the excellent study of Goff 2004, esp. pp. 35–42, 213–20. 15 On the group, see Frontisi-Ducroux 1997; Frontisi-Ducroux 1991. To the list of Attic black-figure Lenaia lekythoi, add the examples from: Akanthos (supra n. 12); Acharnai (supra n. 10); another example from the same area showing women seated at the idol (Striftou-Vathi 2009, 490, Fig. 341); two lekythoi from the Kerameikos (Künze-Götte et al. 1999, pls. 4.1, 7.1); one from Nafpaktos (ArchDelt 28 [1973] Β2, pl. 347ζ); and two unpublished examples in Larisa and Volos Museums (BE 44907), respectively. 16 Diod. Sic. 4.3. 17 Alkiphron, Epistles 1.4. Curiously, this decisive passage is overlooked by most scholars discussing the Athenian Dionysiac festivals.

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Kerameikos and the prominent role of lekythoi with Dionysiac images found there, offering three possible explanations for the phenomenon: a desire to provide an image of bliss for the dead, exemplified by the Dionysiac realm; an expression of the analogy between Dionysiac alterity and the alterity that is death; and finally the close relation of Dionysos with the dead, which begins to be discernible precisely in the beginning of the fifth century BC.18 Winfred van de Put favored a statistical approach, compiling charts of all lekythoi with Dionysiac themes listed in the Beazley Archive. He concluded that the very frequent presence of Dionysiac subjects on lekythoi is a phenomenon of the Attic black-figure style, commencing from about 510 BC and waning at the same time when red-figure, and especially white-ground, versions of the shape become dominant c. 470 BC. He further argued that the popularity of Dionysos was due to his role in expressing co-operative values among the two sexes, resolving tensions between men and women of Athens during the late Archaic period; according to this thinking, there was no further need for this role subsequently, since the focus of iconography on Classical lekythoi is the co-operative actions of those left behind in honoring the dead, and thus Dionysiac scenes on funerary vases largely disappeared.19 I would prefer to assign a more positive role to the representations of Dionysiac women on lekythoi, especially those found in female and children’s tombs, which, in the Kerameikos cemetery, form the majority of burials: they largely operate on the retrospective side, bearing positive messages about the inclusion of women and women-to-be in the ritual life of the city, which, in turn, was admittedly one of the most important public roles of free women in Athenian society.20 Pot burials, usually referred to by the common yet inaccurate term ‘enchytrismos’ burials, form a special category of children’s tombs.21 A recent survey of the topic reveals that in more than 90% of the cases from sixth- and fifth-century Attika, the receptacle chosen to host the baby’s corpse 18 Villanueva-Puig 2009. 19 Van de Put 2009. 20 The same also applies to other areas such as Akanthos (previously discussed), as well as Taranto, based on the evidence of the sarcophagus burial 3 at Contrada Madre Grazia. Besides the human remains of a woman, the sarcophagus contained an Attic red-figure lekythos by the Berlin Painter depicting a maenad running (Taranto, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 4535, ARV2 211, 204; BAPD 202023), a white-ground alabastron by the Villa Giulia Painter bearing the image of a youth courting a lady (Taranto, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 8234, ARV2 625, 92; BAPD 207248), a bronze mirror and an Attic black-glaze skyphos: Settis and Parra 2005, 187, no. 1.177-83. 21 Although the term is ancient, more specifically Attic, the modern use of the word as referring to an infant burial inside a pot or amphora was first introduced by Orsi (1895, 111, n. 2), who conflated two alternative meanings proposed for the noun enchytristriai in a scholion on the pseudo-Platonic Minos (ad 315 D: collecting bones in secondary cremations in order to place them into urns, exposing a newborn baby inside a cooking pot).

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was a large transport amphora or a wide-mouthed cooking pot. Yet, there exist a small but significant percentage of cases where the family chose a painted vase, usually a one-piece shape B Attic black-figure amphora or a red-figure pelike.22 The black-figure examples present a remarkably homogeneous iconographic pattern: save for three late seventh- to early sixthcentury containers with monsters and animals, the twelve other vases depict horse protomai or armed riders. The earliest burial from the Südhügel in the Kerameikos, tomb SW70, is a well-known example of a horse-head amphora used as a container.23 The choice of the shape was dictated by practical reasons: it has a wide belly and can be placed either standing or lying on its side inside a small pit. The lower part of the amphora’s body was smashed in to introduce the corpse, thus creating a star-like crack. As is usually the case for such vessels, the vase deteriorated further, but the star-shaped damage became visible when restored by modern restorers; such damage can reveal whether a vase without context was used for a pot burial (Fig. 20.2).24 The same shape is also used in cremation burials of young adults, such as the well-known case of Aristion’s tomb in Velanideza.25 On the other hand, the older belief that these vases functioned as tomb markers relies on misleading evidence or unfounded assumption and is disproven by recent finds.26 At first glance, then, iconography proves to be subordinate to shape: parents used the shape best fitted to contain the tiny corpse of an infant. However, the study of the grave offerings placed inside these pots led to an interesting discovery: in at least four cases, the burial postdates the manufacture of the vase by about fifty to one hundred years.27 22 Paleothodoros forthcoming. 23 Knigge 1976, 84, no. 1, pl. 43. 24 As on Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1003: ABV 16, 3; BAPD 300174; Kaltsas 2006, 113, with a recent photo, showing the modern restorer’s recent attempt to overpaint the broken areas of the belly; Picozzi 1971, pl. 7. 25 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 903: Beazley ABV 16, 5; BAPD 300176; Picozzi 1971, pl. 15, no. 18. See Tiverios 2012, 138–42, Figs. 2, 3. 26 See Boardman 1974, 18. 27 Athens, 13, Panepistimiou St.: ArchDelt 27 (1972) B1, 71–5, pl. 55.1; BAPD 856. Athens, 10, Diamantopoulou St., T155: ArchDelt 56–9 (2001–4) B1, 213. Kerameikos 158, from t. HTR 47, amphora of the Hypobibazon Class: ABV 339, no. 2; BAPD 301866; KunzeGötte et al. 1999, 31, no. 76, pls. 20.1-30. Marathon, T. E3: ArchDelt 40 (1985) B, 73, pls. 22a-b. In four other cases, the date of the manufacture of the pot is in accordance with the dates of the vases placed inside: Kerameikos SW70, supra n. 22; Athens, no number, from the Academy of Athens: Paralipomena 10; BAPD 350021; Picozzi 1971, 12, pl. 3, no. 3. Kallithea, t. 25 in 239, Andromachis St.: ArchDelt 64 (2009) B1, 259–60, Fig. 70. Amphora from Aixone depicting riders and attributed to Lydos: Antonopoulou 2011. This leaves us with three cases with no objects at all placed into the amphora: 1) Athens, ex-3rd Ephorate 1919, which portrays a hoplite riding a horse: Alexandri 2006–2009, 121 figs. 1–4, 126–127 figs. 4–5; ArchDelt 17 (1961–1962) B, 22–23, pl. 26γ; 2) an unpublished find from Phaleron (pers. comm. Dr. A. Alexandropoulou); and 3) an amphora from Acharnai signed by Nikias as potter, which depicts riders: ArchDelt 62 (2007), B1, 188, 192, fig. 124. A last example is mentioned in a very brief report, without any reference to other finds (a horse-head amphora from Keratea: ArchDelt 62 [2007], B1, 210).

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Figure 20.2 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1003, Attic blackfigure horse-head amphora from the Kerameikos. Photo: Athens, National Archaeological Museum.

The idea expressed by John Boardman and Ingeborg Scheibler that Attic horse-head amphorae were prize vases for athletic contests helps explain their choice as prestigious offerings to the dead.28 But what was it that made parents decide to relinquish these valued heirlooms,29 already repaired several times, by using them for an infant burial at a given moment? We can only guess: the dead baby must have had a special role to play within the family, either as a firstborn, or for some other reason unknown to us. As far as the images of armed horsemen are concerned, the communis opinio is that they appear on Attic vases for the first time at about the time of Solon’s census reform.30 But so do Dionysiac images, 28 Scheibler 1987, 98; Boardman 1974, 18. 29 On heirlooms in tombs, see Reiterman 2014. 30 See Tzachou-Alexandri 2003–9 with earlier bibliography.

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komasts, fights, and so on, since early iconography is rather limited. Were the people who buried their dead offspring in rider amphorae members of the hippeis class? We cannot know for certain, and there is nothing to speak in favor or against this idea. Furthermore, there is no way to identify the sex of the babies buried inside these vases.31 Overall, however, it is clear that the choice of horse-head and rider amphorae for this specific type of burial should be regarded as an ideological statement, while the deliberate decision to display vases of value for the family is directly related to how the bereaved parents of the baby felt about the loss of their newborn or infant offspring. Even more surprisingly, the study of erotic images reveals the existence of family-oriented interpretations of iconography strongly deviating from what is considered to be standard by modern scholars.32 As I have argued elsewhere, the well-established assertion that women did not use vases decorated with explicitly erotic iconography33 but were rather satisfied by looking at idealized versions of male–female encounters (‘courtship scenes’) or illustrations of the bride just before or during the nuptial ceremony, is not entirely accurate. A small Attic red-figure askos from the Kerameikos shows two forms of lovemaking:34 rear entry and frontal intercourse. Scholars interpret this particular vase either as hidden praise to homosexual anal copulation as being superior to the heterosexual missionary position,35 or as activities taking place in a brothel (Fig. 20.3).36 However, the funerary context indicates something entirely different: the tomb also contained a lebes gamikos depicting a bride receiving gifts from her friends and Nike (Fig. 20.4), a terracotta statuette of a crouching male boy, and a clay lamp. Even though the bones of the deceased have not been analyzed, we can safely assume she was female based on the presence of the lebes gamikos, which, so far as we now know, is only found in women’s tombs.37 The lebes gamikos was destined for the bride alone, who kept it at home until her death.38 Taken alone, the images on the askos belong to iconographic series mostly seen on cups exported to Etruria and normally understood as images of

31 In most cases of pot burial, no skeletal remains survive. But even when bones are preserved, it is impossible for forensic archaeologists to define the sex of a deceased infant. 32 See Dipla and Paleothodoros 2012; Paleothodoros 2012. 33 See Paleothodoros 2012, 19–20 for references. 34 Athens, Kerameikos 1063 from t. HTR 499: BAPD 6022; Künze-Götte et al. 1999, pl. 89.1-4. 35 Hoffmann 1977, 4. 36 Stampolidis and Tassoulas 2009, 220, no. 85 with further references. 37 Whenever the sex of the deceased buried with a nuptial bowl could be determined, it has always been female. See Sgourou 1997, 222–4. 38 Sgourou 1997, 218–20.

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Figure 20.3 Athens, Kerameikos Museum 1063, Attic red-figure askos from the Kerameikos. Photo: DAI Athens.

Figure 20.4 Athens, Kerameikos Museum 1060, Attic red-figure lebes gamikos from the Kerameikos. Photo: DAI Athens.

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prostitution.39 Taken together with the other significant iconographic items found in the tomb, the askos forms part of a narrative celebrating marital sex (cf. the lebes gamikos) whose ultimate goal is the successful delivery of male offspring (the statuette). This is not a very complex ideological framework, and certainly not one contesting male ideology regarding the role of women within the household;40 despite recent claims, female subjective readings of iconography were not subversive.41 But these readings are radically different from what ancient male authors assert about female sexuality and desire being dirty, insatiable, dangerous, and a threat to the social order. The deceased must have been a young bride or a mother who died in childbirth, rather than an unmarried person. At least, this is what we can surmise from the presence of the lebes gamikos. Another explicitly erotic image is found, quite unexpectedly, in a child’s burial dating to the late Archaic period and excavated in the Kerameikos during the Metro excavations of the early 1990s.42 T. 1010 contained several Attic black-figure lekythoi, miniature and other black-glaze vessels, knucklebones, shells, and terracotta toys. The subjects decorating the vases are heroic or pertain to the banquet, while the toys consist of a chariot, a shepherd with his dogs and sheep, other animals, and birds. One lekythos (Athens, Kerameikos A15418) in particular is of great interest, not least for its very broad shape and rich iconography: it shows various scenes of heterosexual copulation on klinai. The scene has been described as a translocation of the oikos into the brothel43 and interpreted as either apotropaic44 or totally irrelevant to the deceased.45 I believe it is better to understand it as an anticipation of the sexual pleasures that would have awaited the deceased, probably a boy, had he reached adulthood within the social setting of late Archaic Athens. In the case of children’s tombs, iconography is often neither retrospective (focusing on the time when the deceased was alive), nor prospective (in reference to the soul’s destiny), but illustrative of what adult life would have been like for this particular underage person had he lived longer.46 39 In fact, the choice of shape is unique. Most askoi bear animal decoration (or hunting), while others depict satyrs and banquets. See, in general, Hoffmann 1977. The only other askos with erotic imagery is London, British Museum E735, showing Pan copulating with a goat, thus referring to a rather different set of connotations, which include religious and humorous elements (BAPD 6086; Hoffmann 1977, pl. 7.2). 40 Paleothodoros 2012, 29–30. 41 Rabinowitz 2002; Hackworth Petersen 1997. 42 Kavvadias 2000a. 43 Glazebroοk 2011, 36. 44 Lynch 2009, 164, n. 31. 45 De la Genière 2009, 343; Sutton 2009c, 84; Kavvadias 2000a, 298. 46 Paleothodoros 2012, 34. Note also Saripanidi 2016 on a tomb from Sindos, where a very young child received a krater depicting warriors.

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Those alternative, deviant, or subjective readings of iconography are points of view expressed by real, living individuals, the relatives who cared for the deceased after his or her death and organized the funeral. In ancient Greece, this was the responsibility of the closest family group called anchisteia, especially the female kin.47 Subjective or deviant readings form an important part of this type of research, for they help us to understand how people perceived iconography in a moment of crisis, such as the death and burial of a relative, in ways that need to be carefully assessed. On the other hand, cases like the heirlooms used in infant burials, but also in cremations of adults (as in the case of Aristion, whose funerary stele dates fifty years after the amphora containing his cremated remains) serve as a reminder that any generalization of iconography dissociated from the study of archaeological context can be misleading. It is true that departures from the norm in reading iconography are detected in only a small number of burials with painted vases and other objects bearing images; most often, there is a rather harmonious match between the iconography displayed in the tomb and the information about the deceased person that has come down to us through archaeology and epigraphy: young Asopodoros was buried with an Attic red-figure aryballos bearing a scene with clear pederastic overtones (three Erotes chasing a boy) which was once offered to him as a gift, two dozen Attic black-figure lekythoi, other vases, and a strigil.48 A young Chian who died in Athens and was buried in the Royal Stables cemetery was portrayed as a warrior receiving his helmet from his mother on an Attic red-figure pelike,49 a child buried in the Kerameikos received an Attic red-figure oinochoe of shape 8 showing a youth holding a strigil,50 and so on. A question that has not been fully addressed is whether this type of interpretation is applicable to all kinds of burials and for every period. It is obvious that when a tomb contains dozens or even hundreds of vases (as the case happens to be with some Archaic examples from Boiotia), or whenever it is not possible to attribute objects from a tomb to specific burials (as with most Etruscan chamber tombs that have been disturbed), there are practical obstacles. I also doubt whether this type of deliberate matching of vases bearing strong iconographic messages occurs during the period in which the white-ground lekythos, with its overtly specific

47 On the paramount role of women in funerary rituals before, during, and after the burial, see notably Houby-Nielsen 1996. 48 See Dipla and Paleothodoros 2012, 223–4 for discussion and references. 49 Athens, National Archaeological Museum 15299: ABV 1040, no. 14; Paralipomena 443; BAPD 213512; Amandry 1947–8, 389, Fig. 4. On the tomb, see Blanchard 2007, 168–9. 50 Athens, Kerameikos t. 619: the other contents were a black-glaze lekythos and a small one-handled cup. Kunze-Götte et al. 1999, 151, pl. 97, Fig. 2.

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funerary iconography, becomes dominant. Of course, there are simply cases where interpretation is nothing more than guesswork: the contents of a tomb from tumulus X in Krannon (Thessaly) consist of three Attic red-figures and one white-ground lekythos (Fig. 20.5).51 Assemblages of Attic red-figure lekythoi are rather rare in Thessaly.52 All the lekythoi bear just one figure (Dionysos, Artemis, Nike, a woman fleeing), so it is relatively easy to detect a combination of symbols at a first level: marriage as a victory in life under the auspices of the gods responsible for the wellbeing and maturation of women (Dionysos and Artemis). But if the order in which the lekythoi are viewed is changed, with the last lekythos occupying the first place, the woman is then seen to be fleeing away from the deities. Or is she just playful, untying the fillet on her head and performing a gesture of invitation? Since we lack information about the age and sex of the deceased, it is simply impossible to choose one among various readings. It is obvious that the method of interpreting images in funerary assemblages will enable scholars to have a fresh look at the relationship between potters/painters and their clients, to map the different approaches to

Figure 20.5 Larisa, Diachroniko Museum, contents of tomb 12 (Larisa M89/44, 89/46, 89/45, 89/43) and lekythos from t. 18, Larisa M89/48) in tumulus X at Krannon. Photo: Larisa, Diachroniko Mouseio. 51 Zaouri 1989, pl. 144 (Larisa M89/44-47). The contents of the tomb will be fully published by A. Tsiaka. 52 At most, we find two or three, but in tombs already containing several Attic black-figure and pattern or black-bodied lekythoi. See, e.g., tomb 4 from the cemetery of Pagasae (Paleothodoros and Triandafyllopoulou 2020, 354), which contains three lekythoi by the Bowdoin Painter (Volos, Archaeological Museum BE 44960, 44953+44955, 44961), five black-figure lekythoi (BE 44962, 44963, 44964, 44966 and 44967), and two black-glaze skyphoi (BE 44973, 44955).

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ancient imagery region by region (Athens and Attika in contrast to the rest of Greece, home market versus overseas markets, and so on). The detailed study of tomb contexts and their iconography allows for a fascinating exploration of ancient mentalities and assists our understanding of how those ‘silent’ Athenian women responsible for conducting the burial felt about life, death, sex, marriage, and family. In that sense, this is a genuine anthropological approach enriched by what archaeology has to offer in terms of accurate excavation and recording and what science may contribute in terms of forensic research and provenance studies.

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21 WINGED FIGURES AND MORTALS AT A CROSSROAD Mark D. Stansbury-O’Donnell

Two adjacent, monumental, elite tombs from the cemetery of Sant’Antonio in Ruvo del Monte, to the west of Melfi, mark an intersection of Etruscan, Lucanian, and Attic artistic cultures. Tomb 64, a female burial published by Angelo Bottini in 1990, had an elaborate array of grave goods that included bronze basins and implements, drinking cups, high-handled kantharoi and nestorides of local manufacture and, of particular interest, an Etruscan so-called candelabrum. Its finial consists of a winged female figure carrying a boy in her arms (Fig. 21.1).1 Tomb 65, a male burial that had been partially robbed in antiquity, preserved some pottery similar to that in Tomb 64, but included a large Lucanian red-figure kalyx krater attributed to the Pisticci Painter that depicts a winged female figure pursuing a young hunter while an older man with scepter observes (Fig. 21.2). Both tombs date to the last two or three decades of the fifth century BC, and, as Bottini argues, particularly for the candelabrum, it can hardly be a coincidence that two similar narratives in different media were imported to the same locale and used similarly as grave goods in adjacent burials in a single tomb monument.2 The candelabrum figure was included in the LIMC addendum as a representation of Eos/Thesan carrying Tithonos, and the kalyx krater under the update on Eos as the goddess pursuing Kephalos.3 Lurking behind both iconographic identifications is the vast number of Attic red-figure representations of Eos with a young male from the period beginning around 480 to the end of the fifth century. Over 210 representations can be identified on fifth-century Attic red-figure vases, making it one of the most common mythological narratives in Attic vase painting. The goddess is identified as Eos by inscription on nine Attic vases, and chases either the Trojan prince Tithonos, identified by a lyre, or the Attic hunter Kephalos, identified by 1 Bottini 1990. 2 Bottini 1990, 9. On the dating of the tombs in the cemetery, see also Scalici 2009. 3 LIMC Eos, add. 11; LIMC Eos/Thesan, add. 5.

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Figure 21.1 Melfi, Museo Nazionale 110076, Etruscan candelabrum from Ruvo del Monte, Tomb 64. Photo: Museo Nazionale di Melfi (Polo Museale Regionale della Basilicata).

spears or a club and usually wearing a cloak and petasos.4 Kephalos is identified by inscription six times; Tithonos is identified twice by inscription, but in one case carries a club and should be identified as Kephalos; his brother Priam is identified once. The pottery was widely distributed throughout the Mediterranean, and indeed most of the vases, more than three-quarters of those with provenance, are found in Etruria, southern Italy, or Sicily. The intersecting paths that brought together in Ruvo del Monte an Etruscan candelabrum, probably made in Vulci, and a Metapontine krater provide an opportunity to consider several questions about meaning and transmission.5 First, would the occupants of the tombs have interpreted either or both images of a winged goddess and youth in terms of Greek 4 Inscriptions: both Eos and Kepahlos = 5 (BAPD 10158/LIMC Eos 124; BAPD 16200/ LIMC Eos 48; BAPD 213408/LIMC Eos 92; BAPD 213704/LIMC Eos 100; BAPD 213548/LIMC Eos 97); Eos only, with Kephalos/hunter = 1 (BAPD 213458/LIMC Eos 95); both Eos and Tithonos = 2 (BAPD 213628/LIMC Eos 182; BAPD 213556/LIMC Eos 98, but the figure is a hunter and LIMC lists it under Kephalos); Eos, with youth labeled Priamos (BAPD 213711/LIMC Eos 258); Eos and Kephalos are both labeled in a drawing from Hamilton collection in Millin 1806, 35. 5 On the origin of the candelabrum in Vulci, see Bottini 1990, 8–9.

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Figure 21.2 Melfi, Museo Nazionale 112867, Lucanian kalyx krater by the Pisticci Painter from Ruvo del Monte, Tomb 65. Photo: Museo Nazionale di Melfi (Polo Museale Regionale della Basilicata).

mythological narratives, or would they have had another meaning based on local beliefs or ideas? Second, should we regard the Etruscan winged female figure as specifically Thesan, goddess of the dawn and analogue to the Greek Eos, or as a type that had a broader frame of reference for the Etruscans? Finally, is the Pisticci Painter simply replicating Attic style and iconography on vases produced in Metaponto, or is the painter adapting that visual language to meet local interests and in doing so shifting the meaning of the pursuit? Whereas most Attic representations of Eos and a youth have a defined mythological identification based on repetition of signs and inscriptions, the use of similar signs by artists in Italy may look similar but have different interpretations both for their maker and their owner.

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To begin with the Etruscan artifact, Thesan is shown on Etruscan mirrors and pottery driving a chariot, but in these cases, where she is acting in her capacity as goddess of the dawn, she is shown only once with wings.6 Of the scenes in which she is depicted outside of a narrative context, only one has an inscription identifying her, and in that case she is wingless.7 One must conclude that as an astral divinity, wings are not an essential sign of Thesan’s identity. Parallels with Greek narratives of Eos are clearer in the Etruscan scenes in which Thesan is with her son Memnon (Memnun), which appear mostly on mirrors and gems.8 On five fifth-century BC mirrors she carries the body of her son after the duel with Achilles; in all cases she has wings, and on one mirror, both of their names are inscribed.9 On the mirrors, Memnon is also shown, either in armor or as a full-grown youth as tall as his mother. There are parallels with this iconography in Attic representations of Eos with Memnon. Several late black-figure and red-figure Attic vases depict a winged Eos picking up her dead son. The earliest of these, dating to around 500 and the following decade, show a winged female figure picking up the dead Memnon, who is typically nude and youthful and is still partly on the ground.10 There are also seven examples of Eos carrying the body of Memnon, dating from the last decade of the sixth century to the first quarter of the fifth century.11 In all, Eos is winged and moves swiftly in a running pose.

6 LIMC Eos/Thesan. In scenes of Thesan driving a chariot (LIMC Eos/Thesan 1–5 or shown as a head flanked by horse heads as if driving a quadriga (LIMC Eos/Thesan 13–18), she only has wings once (LIMC Eos/Thesan 4). LIMC lists several works with Eos/Thesan apart from a chariot (LIMC Eos/Thesan 6–12); of these, one with an inscription has no wings (LIMC Eos/Thesan 6) and the others are listed as doubtful, four having wings (LIMC Eos/Thesan 8–10a/b) and three not (LIMC Eos/Thesan 7, 11–12a/b). 7 LIMC Eos/Thesan 6. 8 LIMC Eos/Thesan 33–45; LIMC Thesan, add. 6. See generally De Puma 1994; and Pfister-Roesgen 1975. On all but one she is winged; the exception (LIMC Eos/Thesan 34) shows her standing nude with both Memnon and Tithonos, all identified by inscriptions, with her arm around the latter. For an overview of the iconography, see Bottini 1990, 6–8. On the general relationship of Etruscan imagery to Attic vase painting, see Osborne 2001, 284–7. 9 Mirrors: LIMC Eos/Thesan 36–9; LIMC Eos/Thesan, add. 6; names inscribed on Eos/ Thesan 39. On the three scarabs (LIMC Eos/Thesan 40–2), Memnon is a nude youth, but in one there is a shield (LIMC Eos/Thesan 40). To these should be added the carnelian scarab dating to 500–450 BC in New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 42.11.8), in which Thesan is assisted by a nude male winged figure. Available at (last accessed 17 August 2020). 10 Eos lifting the body of Memnon: LIMC Eos 317–324; LIMC Eos, add. 22–3. Only in the cup by Douris (Eos 324) does she actually lift the body of Memnon fully. In two cases (Eos 320 and 321), Hypnos and Thanatos pick up the body as Eos looks on. 11 Eos carrying the body of Memnon: LIMC Eos 328–33; LIMC Eos, add. 22–3.

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There are also some Attic examples of a winged Eos at the fight with Achilles, a scene that is found only once in Etruscan art.12 The earliest of these vases date from the second quarter of the sixth century and show Eos intervening or pleading as a spectator during the fight, but in these early Attic examples she is wingless. She is also wingless in the well-known amphora in the Vatican where she looks at the body of her dead son on the ground.13 It is only in the fifth century that a winged Eos appears in the combat scenes as a spectator, mostly in red-figure vases of the second quarter of the century. Unlike the Attic representations, the only Etruscan artifact also depicting the combat shows a winged Thesan hovering behind Memnon and lifting his body after he has been struck by Achilles, in what might be regarded as a conflation of the combat and lifting of the dead body, actions that are usually separated in Attic narrative.14 One could argue that Attic representations of the narrative of Eos and the death of her son Memnon are established before the earliest Etruscan examples and show multiple moments of the story. She is initially wingless, but after 500 BC is shown more consistently with wings, and the focus shifts to scenes with the dead body of her son rather than the combat. Some of these vases end up in Etruria and may have helped to stimulate Etruscan representations, but it is curious that Etruscan artists had a narrower focus on the winged Thesan rapidly carrying the body of her son, who is more consistently a beardless youth than in Attic art. Whereas one might argue for some influence of Attic art in the Memnon representations, they are not copies, but a selective translation of the story into Etruscan media, focusing upon Thesan carrying the corpse of her son. This formula of the goddess bearing a body is analogous to the kourotrophos formula used on the Ruvo del Monte candelabrum, on which the winged goddess carries a younger and smaller boy who is alive. In looking at these kourotrophos representations, scholars have made iconographic comparisons to Attic representations of Eos’ love interests in youths, which are typically shown as pursuit scenes.15 Among the Eos pursuit scenes in

12 Eos at the combat of Achilles and Memnon: LIMC Eos 304–15; LIMC Eos, add. 20–1. Thesan at the combat of Achilles and Memnon: LIMC Eos/Thesan 35. 13 Wingless: LIMC Eos 304–9 (black-figure) and 310, 312–13 (red-figure). The earliest representation of a winged Eos at the combat shows both her and Thetis as winged and dates from 490–480 BC (Eos 311, London, British Museum E67). Other red-figure representations of a winged Eos at the combat are LIMC Eos 314–15, and LIMC Eos, add. 21, making Eos wingless in slightly more than half of the red-figure representations. 14 LIMC Eos/Thesan 35: New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 22.139.84. In her publication of the piece, Richter (1926, 83) notes that “the artist, if he was not himself a Greek working for Etruscan patrons, had caught to an unusual degree the spirit of his Greek models.” However, the composition is quite unusual in combining both the combat and the lifting actions. 15 See generally Bottini 1990, 6–8; for mirrors, van der Meer 1995, 293–8; Parkin 2016, 145.

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Attic art, Tithonos is typically shorter and younger than Kephalos, leading to the identification of the youth on the candelabrum as Tithonos. The kourotrophos formula of the candelabrum does have parallels in Attic vase painting, where we find ten examples of Eos carrying a youth, presumably having earlier pursued and captured him.16 Of particular interest, three of these are skyphoi by the Lewis Painter, on which a wingless Eos carries a nude Tithonos, including one in Florence (Fig. 21.3).17 The lyre in the hands of the youth on the Florence skyphos would confirm that he is Tithonos. Only the Lewis Painter, however, seems to have made the kourotrophos formula a significant part of any workshop’s repertory in comparison to the more typical Eos pursuit, which the Lewis Painter’s workshop also depicted four times.18 Unlike most Attic representations of

Figure 21.3 Florence, Museo Nazionale Archeologico 4228, Attic skyphos by the Lewis Painter. Photo: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze (Polo Museale della Toscana). 16 LIMC Eos 267–275; LIMC Eos, add. 13. 17 See LIMC Eos 272; BAPD 213269. Also by the Lewis Painter: Matera, Museo Ridola 11957; LIMC Eos 273; BAPD 6762; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 57 (see LIMC Eos 271; BAPD 213249). 18 Eos pursuits by the Lewis Painter include Capua, Museo Campano 226 (LIMC Eos 167, BAPD 213250); London, British Museum E143 (LIMC Eos 168, BAPD 213275); Padula, Museo Archeologico della Lucania TXII6 (BAPD 213273, pursuer is possibly Nike); Padula, Museo Archeologico della Lucania TXXXV5 (BAPD 213272). There are two pursuits where the gender of the pursuer is uncertain and could possibly be Eos: Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 126057 (LIMC Eos 131 [listed as doubtful]; BAPD 213258); Schwerin, Staatliches Museum 731 (LIMC Eos 228 [uncertain]; BAPD 213257).

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Eos, including those by the Lewis Painter showing Eos in pursuit, she is shown wingless on all three skyphoi with the kourotrophos formula. These ten Attic kourotrophoros vases, however, are dwarfed in number by the 196 representations of Eos pursuing a youthful male figure.19 The pattern of pursuit versus kourotrophos representation, however, is exactly the reverse in Etruscan iconography. Although the overall number of Etruscan representations of a winged goddess pursuing or carrying a youth is smaller than in Attic vase painting, most (seven out of ten) follow a kourotrophos rather than a pursuit formula.20 In each of the three Etruscan pursuit scenes that exist, we also find a significant divergence from Attic iconography. The first is on a Caeretan hydria in the Louvre, usually dated c. 530.21 This example is of interest in that it is a few decades earlier than the oldest Eos pursuits in Attic vase painting and also shows her as winged at a time when Attic artists still showed her as wingless.22 On an engraved mirror in Berlin dated to the second quarter of the fifth century, we see a winged goddess running leftward, pursuing a nude youth who looks back.23 Unlike contemporary Attic examples of a Tithonos or Kephalos pursuit, he carries a baton and pail, objects that link him to athletics rather than music or the hunt in Attic painting. The final Etruscan pursuit is found on a nearly contemporary mirror in the Shefton Collection in Newcastle, where a winged goddess descends on a young man wearing a himation, whose name, TITHUN (Tithonos), is inscribed.24 This mirror is the only Etruscan pursuit that is unequivocally identifiable as Thesan and Tithun, but even in this case there is a significant departure from typical Attic representations of either groundlevel pursuit or kourotrophos in the dramatic swooping attack.25 It would appear that neither the Etruscan choice of the pursuit formula nor the 19 Number is derived from pursuit database that includes LIMC, entries in the Beazley Archive, and other sources. 20 LIMC Eos/Thesan 20–32; LIMC Eos/Thesan, add. 4–5, to which we should add a mirror in Newcastle (Great North Museum, Shefton Collection 311; Parkin 2016, 143–6, Fig. 12.1-2). Of these, the pursuit formula is found on three objects (LIMC Eos/Thesan 21, 23, Shefton mirror). The kourotrophos is found on seven (LIMC Eos/ Thesan 20, 24, 25, 29, 30, 32, add. 5). The remaining scenes show the goddess in a chariot with a youth (LIMC Eos/Thesan 22) and with Tithonos as her grown husband (LIMC Eos/Thesan 26, 27, 28, 31), all from the fourth or third century BC. Here we might also place LIMC Eos/Thesan, add. 4, a fourth-century gold plaque in which she carries an adult bearded male, so likely her husband. 21 Paris, Musée du Louvre E702. See LIMC Eos/Thesan 21, as well as Hemelrijk 1984, 12, no. 3; CVA: France 14, Paris, Musée du Louvre 9 (E. Pottier and N. Plaoutine), pls. 8:3-4, 10:3-4. 22 See Bottini 1990, 7–8. 23 Berlin, Antikensammlung 3323 (frag. 27). See LIMC Eos/Thesan 23; Osborne 2001, 287, Fig. 2. 24 Parkin 2016, 145. 25 Parkin (2016, 145) referencing Shefton’s opinion.

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attributes of the participants demonstrate a strong correlation with Attic vase painting, much less so than the scenes depicting Memnon. This difference in iconography is confirmed if we take a chronological perspective of the winged goddess–youth scenes in Etruscan art. The Caeretan hydria mentioned above shows Eos/Thesan with two pairs of wings in a pursuit, earlier by two decades than a winged Eos appears in Attic painting. So, too, the kourotrophos formula appears much earlier in Etruscan art than in Attic vase painting. An Etruscan black-figure amphora by the La Tolfa Group shows a goddess with winged boots carrying a boy in her arms.26 There is also a terracotta antefix from Caere showing a goddess with wings and winged boots carrying a boy.27 The date for this antefix ranges from the mid-sixth century to the second quarter of the fifth century BC, but the most recent publication places it around 520, about the same time as the two vase paintings. Taken together, these contemporary works in various media show a distinct Etruscan interest in the winged goddess/kourotrophos action, but no direct connection to contemporary Attic representations of Eos. Overall, it is not clear that Attic representations of Eos in vase painting, which were present in Etruria in the later sixth and early fifth centuries, served as a model for Etruscan representations of Thesan. First, a winged goddess, either as kourotrophos or pursuer, appears earlier in Etruscan art. Second, there is proportionally greater interest in the kourotrophos formula in Etruria than there is for Eos in Attic art. Third, attributes that would identify Tithonos or Kephalos are almost entirely missing in Etruscan art or are replaced by other objects like the strigil and baton. Rather than a focused narrative representation of a sexual pursuit or abduction by Eos, the winged Etruscan female deity may be more connected to protecting a human after death. Indeed, the Etruscan winged goddess links paradigmatically with other representations of winged females, like Vanths, who are associated with death and can carry bodies.28 Given the late development of a winged Eos in Attic art, perhaps we might consider, for the sake of argument, whether the interest in winged female deities in Italy may have stimulated the transformation of Eos in Attic vase painting and be one reason for the surge in the popularity of that theme in the first half of the fifth century. 26 Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori 150 (once Geneva, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire MF140); LIMC Eos/Thesan 20. See Kästner 1990, Fig. 15; Dohrn 1937, no. 34. 27 Berlin, Antikensammlung TC 6681.1; LIMC Eos/Thesan 21. On most recent dating, see Kästner 2010, 32–3, ill. 3–4. See also Kästner 1990 with earlier bibliography. Goldberg (1987, 606) assesses the work as archaizing and dates it to 460–450 BC, when abduction scenes in Attic art became popular and stimulated the theme in Etruscan art. Although Goldberg is right to question the specificity of the winged goddess as the Greek Eos, Etruscan interest in the theme clearly predates Attic red-figure works imported into Etruria. 28 Goldberg (1987, 612) links the kourotrophos formula to Uni (analogous to Hera) and sees it as related to female fertility deities rather than to Eos/Thesan specifically.

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Returning to the candelabrum at Ruvo del Monte, it seems unlikely that the presence of the object and the choice of the subject is by chance.29 As Angelo Bottini suggests, Etruscan metalwork associated with feasting and drinking followed a natural trading path across Lucania from Capua.30 The candelabrum is one of several examples of Etruscan bronzework found in elite female burials in Lucania, including Tomb 955 at nearby Lavello.31 So, too, the collection of a geographically eclectic range of figural, black-glaze, and painted pottery in elite tombs is found at Ruvo del Monte, Lavello, and other Lucanian tombs. The coincidence of an Eos krater in the companion male tomb at Ruvo del Monte and the richness of the elite burial further argue for an intentionality in distinguishing the status of the deceased. Should we, then, consider the Ruvo del Monte winged figure as a specifically mythological Eos/Thesan from the point of view of the deceased, or as referencing a religious concept or ideology regarding the afterlife? Bottini has argued that the elite rulers or leaders of communities in upper Lucania were in contact with Etruscan and Greek cultures not only for prestige objects, but also regarding spiritual movements that envisioned an afterlife free of the cares of earthbound life.32 He points specifically to Pythagoreanism, a movement particularly strong in the Greek cities of the Ionian coast such as Metaponto, but also mentions Dionysiac rituals as related to the afterlife. As he notes, the winged female figure is a “metaphor for the hope of achieving, through divine goodwill, new life after death.”33 He points to appearances of winged female deities in tombs in Rutigliano and Pisciolo di Melfi, as well as in Ruvo del Monte, as having a similar symbolism. With this in mind, we should turn our attention to the Eos figure on the krater in Tomb 65 and approach the question of local interests and meaning from another direction, originating in Metaponto rather than Vulci. The krater has been attributed to the Pisticci Painter and dated to the early phase of his work, around 440–430 BC. The scene is clearly identifiable by iconographic criteria as Eos pursuing Kephalos, with the spears, chlamys, and petasos found frequently in Attic representations. The bearded male with a scepter is also found on some Attic representations of the scene, as can be seen in examples in museums in Cefalù and Caltanisetta.34 That a Lucanian krater would follow an Attic iconographic tradition is not surprising, as Arthur Dale Trendall first suggested that the Pisticci Painter may 29 30 31 32 33 34

Bottini 1992, 106–11. Bottini 1990, 8. Bottini 2015, 9, no. 12; Silvestrelli 2008, 286–7; Bottini 1993. Bottini 1992, 112–13. Bottini 1992, 111. Cefalù, Museo Madralisca 5: BAPD 206133; LIMC Eos 202; Caltanisetta, Museo Civico 734: BAPD 9029500.

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have been trained in Athens, and linked him specifically to the workshop of the Christie Painter in the Polygnotan Group.35 More recently, Martine Denoyelle ties the painter to the Niobid Painter workshop.36 With over 220 vases attributed to him by Trendall, Denoyelle, and others, the Pisticci Painter can be seen as a successful transplant of Attic red-figure painting to Lucania. As Francesca Silvestrelli has argued, there was already a robust kerameikos in Metaponto during the second quarter of the fifth century producing black-glaze ware, and this served as a strong foundation for the expansion of shapes and the addition of the red-figure technique in the third quarter of the fifth century.37 As can be seen in her mapping of findspots, the Pisticci Painter built on the established Metapontine trade networks to distribute figural work throughout Lucania and Apulia.38 Given that the Ruvo del Monte krater follows closely an Attic stylistic and visual language, reading the scene as Eos pursuing Kephalos is legitimate. The question that I would like to consider in the context of the tomb in Ruvo del Monte is whether the interests of the consumer, as exemplified by the Etruscan candelabrum in the adjacent tomb, would have offered an alternative layer of meaning that might have affected the choice of subject by the Pisticci Painter. Whereas the candelabrum took a long and likely indirect path from its attributed site of manufacture in Vulci down into Lucania, the trade routes of the Metapontine kerameikos were more regular and direct into the uplands of Lucania. Given the large quantities produced by the Pisticci Painter’s workshop, we could look statistically at the selection of subjects to see if winged female pursuits were favored in some way by the painter, and if these and other scenes might point to an adaptation of the Attic iconographic tradition to a Lucanian and Apulian context. With regard to pursuit scenes, one could view the Pisticci Painter as an extremist, in that 66 of the 233 attributed vases, almost 30%, feature pursuit scenes – about twice as many as the most prolific Attic painter of pursuits.39 However, if we look more closely at the repertory, we can see that the Pisticci Painter does not just select pursuits in disproportionately high numbers, but also makes changes to the Attic iconographic tradition in which the artist trained. For example, there are thirteen vases showing Eos in pursuit of a youth, such as a bell krater in London (Fig. 21.4).40 35 36 37 38

LCS 9, 13. Denoyelle 1997a, 397–9. Silvestrelli 2016, 177–80. Silvestrelli 2016, 177. See also Silvestrelli 2008, 285–7, Figs. 5–6 for the distribution of the second generation of Lucanian pottery. 39 Data on Lucanian pottery are from a personal Filemaker database compiling the attributions of Trendall in LCS and its supplements, as well as attributions by other archaeologists as collected in collaboration with Francesca Silvestrelli, whose gracious collegiality and collaboration I appreciate. Data on Attic workshops are compiled from my pursuit database, as well as the attributions in the BAPD. 40 London, British Museum E500: LCS 17.16, LIMC Eos 219.

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Figure 21.4 London, British Museum E500, Lucanian bell krater by the Pisticci Painter, c. 440-420 BC. Photo: London, British Museum.

What is distinctive about the Pisticci Painter’s version is that the youth is without an attribute, and so it is uncertain whether he is Kephalos or Tithonos. Indeed, only two of the thirteen Eos pursuit vases include an attribute for the youth, one being the Ruvo del Monte krater and the other a krater in Rome where the youth carries a lyre.41 To put this lack of attribute into perspective, we can look at the Eos scenes from the two major workshops associated with the Pisticci Painter, those of the Niobid Painter and the Polygnotan Group. There are six vases by the Niobid Painter or workshop that show an Eos pursuit, out of 223 vases currently listed in the Beazley Archive database.42 In four, the youth carries a club and wears a petasos and chlamys. In the other two, he is younger, wears a short 41 Rome, Collezione Bertini Gentili 87: not in LCS. Photo in Trendall Archive, La Trobe University. 42 Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 846: BAPD 213628. Niobid Painter workshop vases with Kephalos (club): BAPD 206982, 206983, 206997, 207016; with Tithonos (lyre): BAPD 3004, 206984.

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himation, and carries a lyre. All six, therefore, can be clearly identified as either Kephalos or Tithonos. Turning to the Polygnotan workshop, there are nineteen examples of Eos pursuing a young male out of 622 attributed works. In one he carries a writing tablet tied in a cord, and in one there is no attribute, but the remaining seventeen feature a spear, club, or lyre, allowing recognition of the victim and scene.43 If one were to assume that the Pisticci Painter’s repertory should follow with some variation the iconographic repertory of the parent workshop, this extreme reversal from Attic visual language in the use of attributes would not support that contention statistically, even allowing for the iconographic drift from one workshop to another. As a percentage of output, the Pisticci Painter depicted Eos on 5.8 percent of extant vases, compared to 2.5 percent for the Niobid Painter workshop and 3.3 percent for the Polygnotan Group. Using a chi-square test with the Niobid Painter oeuvre as the expected population value, the Pisticci Painter’s selection of Eos is a statistically significant departure from the Attic workshops (Table 21.1). As one can see, the Polygnotan Group painted more pursuits proportionally than the Niobid Painter workshop, but with a P value of 0.38, not beyond the realm of variation that one might expect in a randomized sample or the drift of subject matter with time. For the Pisticci Painter, however, the P value easily falls below the levels of 0.05 or 0.01 that signify a statistically significant variation. If we look at the distribution of the Pisticci Painter’s wares, we can see that they were consumed mostly at sites away from the Greek population centers at Metaponto, Taranto, and Herakleia/Policoro (Fig. 21.5a–b). Vases ended up not only in the upper regions of Lucania, but also in Messapia and Peucetia in Puglia: primarily Italic areas and consumers. Almost all of those with provenance come from tombs, and, as Stine Schierup proposes in her study of Lucanian pottery and the development Table 21.1

Comparison of Eos Pursuits by Workshop Eos Pursuits/ Total Vases

% of Total

Chi-square test w Niobid P

Niobid P

6/233

2.5%

Polygnotan Group

19/622

3.3%

P=0.3765

Pisticci P

13/223

5.8%

P=0.0014

43 Polygnotan Group with Kephalos (spear or club): BAPD 2406, 29555, 30683, 213408, 213414, 213452, 213532, 213556, 213596, 213704, 213724; Tithonos (lyre): BAPD 45024, 213442, 213597, 213628, 213711, 213786; Tithonos with writing tablet: BAPD 213685; with no attribute: BAPD 9026438.

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Figure 21.5a–b Distribution of pottery by the Pisticci Painter. Courtesy of F. Silvestrelli.

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of the pseudopanathenaic amphora, much of red-figure production seems to be targeted at a funerary context.44 In this light, might we ask whether the Pisticci Painter’s interest in Eos pursuing a generic youth might be linked less to interest in the mythological story and more to regional ideas about funerary customs and beliefs in the afterlife? To consider the idea of a broader transformation of a familiar Attic mythological visual language into scenes that would resonate with a local, mostly Italic population, we can look at some other important subjects among the Pisticci Painter’s work. Even more numerous than Eos pursuits are those by a winged male figure of full height, who is usually labeled as Eros (Fig. 21.6). There are twenty-four Eros pursuits by the Pisticci Painter, nearly twice the number of Eos scenes (Table 21.2). Two feature Eros chasing a youth, and the remaining twenty-two have him pursuing a

Figure 21.6 Sydney, Nicholson Museum 2011.4, Lucanian bell krater by the Pisticci Painter. Photo: Sydney, Nicholson Museum, The University of Sydney. 44 Schierup 2014, 198, and more generally 194–200. See also Schierup 2012 on the context of the Lucanian pseudopanathenaic amphora.

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Table 21.2

473

Comparison of Eros/Winged Youth Pursuits by Workshop Eros Pursuits/ Total

%

Chi-square test w Niobid P

Niobid P

2/233

0.9%

Polygnotan Group

2/622

0.3%

P=0.1266

Pisticci P

24/223

16.6%

P