Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T13:44:33.936Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Athena Parthenos from Cilicia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2015

Hector Williams
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the winter of 1974 farmers working in their fields near the village of Selimiye about fifteen kilometres south-east of Ceyhan uncovered a small round limestone altar bearing an image in relief of the goddess Athena (Pl. XVII a). The form and attributes of the figure—left hand on shield, left leg slightly bent, Nike on right hand, aegis on breast—clearly indicate that the relief owes much to Pheidias' great chryselephantine statue in Athens. It may thus be added to a considerable number of representations dating back to Hellenistic times that show the interest in Pheidias' masterpiece in southeastern Asia Minor. In itself it is important as an addition to the handful of reliefs depicting one of the most famous monuments of antiquity.

The altar joins a number of other similar monuments, mostly funerary in nature, of varying dimensions in the Adana regional museum. Its height is 0·64 m., its diameter at the base 0·38 m. It consists of a flat round base supporting a series of mouldings (torus, cyma reversa, fillet—Fig. 1a), a central drum divided unequally into a lower and a slightly projecting upper section, a further series of mouldings (fillet, ovolo—Fig. 1b) above which rises a biconical rim with flattened edge, a short continuation of the drum and finally a capping moulding (much mutilated in our specimen). The top is slightly convex with a shallow, rough depression in the middle 0·011 m. deep and 0·11 m. in diameter. Except for the relief and surrounding area the whole stone is dressed down with a claw chisel. There is some entasis apparent in the central portion of the drum.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 27 , December 1977 , pp. 105 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 I should like to thank Dr. Aytuĝ Taṣyürek, Director of the Adana Regional Museum, for permission to publish this piece and for several photographs of it. I am also greatly obliged to Professor C. W. J. Eliot for reading an earlier draft of this article and offering much useful advice.

The altar comes from the hamlet of Dokuz tekne (“Nine Sarcophagi”) which is some four kilometres from Selimiye itself. Surface discoveries of coins and pottery have been reported by the villagers but the site does not seem to be among those mentioned in Seton-Williams, M. V., “Cilician Survey,” Anatolian Studies IV (1954), pp. 121–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 For a bronze statuette recently published from Nizip see Fleischer, R., “Bronzestatuette der Athena Parthenos aus Nizip,” JOAI, IL (1968–1970), pp. 68–72Google Scholar. For a larger-than-life torso of a statue of the Parthenos from ancient Seleukia-on-the-Euphrates that has also been recently discovered see Wagner, J., Seleukeia am Euphrat/Zeugma (Wiesbaden, 1976)Google Scholar, pl. 20. For a list of coin representations from Hellenistic Cappadocia and Syria see Dinsmoor, W. B., “The Repair of the Athena Parthenos,” AJA, XXXVIII (1934), p. 105Google Scholar; also see Leipen, N., Athena Parthenos (Toronto 1971), p. 10Google Scholar and Lacroix, L., Les reproductions de statues sur les monnaies grecques (Liege 1949), pp. 266–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Coins of the Roman period from this area with an Athena Parthenos type on them include one from nearby Mopsuestia (modern Misis): see BMC Cilicia. pl. 18.9 (Antoninus Pius).

3 For the fourth century B.C. see Svoronos, J., To en Athenais Ethnikon Mouseion (Athens 1910)Google Scholar, no. 2985, pl. 197 and Robinson, D. M., Olynthus IV: The Terracottas (Oxford 1931)Google Scholar, no. 358, pl. 37; also see Leipen, op. cit., fig. 37 for a votive relief in Berlin. It is more accurate to speak of these and of the following two as influenced by rather than copied from the Parthenos; for the Roman period see Herding, H., “Die Arbeiten zu Pergamon 1908–1909,” Ath. Mit. XXXV (1910), pp. 511–12Google Scholar, pl. XXVIII, 2 and Robinson, D. M., “Two Copies of Athena Parthenos,” AJA XV (1911), p. 496Google Scholar, fig. 4 and 5 (from Corinth).

4 On such round altars in general see Yavis, C., Greek Altars (St. Louis 1949), pp. 142 ff.Google Scholar and Hermann, W., Römische Götteraltäre (Kallmunz 1961), pp. 29 ff.Google Scholar For some published material from Adana see Mouterde, V., “Inscriptions … d'Adana,” Syria II (1921), pp. 282–3Google Scholar and v. Oppenheim, and Lucas, , “Griechische und lateinische Inschriften aus … Kleinasien,” ByzZeit XIV (1905), p. 64Google Scholar and abb. 3 (almost identical in form to ours).

5 Picard, C., Manuel d'archéologie grecque, La sculpture, Vol. II (Paris 1939), p. 380Google Scholar.

6 E.g. a coin of Holmi in Cilicia (4th c. B.C.) in Babelon, E., Traité des monnaies grecques et romaines II.2 (Paris 1910), p. 895Google Scholar, nos. 1449, 1450; also Numismatic Chronicle XVII (1937)Google Scholar, pl. XXXII, 27.

7 The exact position of the spear in the original is uncertain; Leipen restores it supported by one of the snakes in the aegis as suggested by the “Aspasios” gem. (p. 29). The coin representations show it in a variety of positions, sometimes in front of the arm resting in the crook of the elbow, sometimes behind the arm, sometimes even away from the arm and almost isolated in the field; see Babelon, E., Les Rois de Syrie (Paris 1888)Google Scholar, pl. 26.8, 26.19; pl. 21.13, 25.7; pl. 27.2. Occasionally the spear is omitted entirely.

8 For evidence for the wreath on the original see Leipen, op. cit., pp. 34–5.

9 For example see the recent article by Prag, A., “Athena Mancunensis,” JHS XCII (1972), pp. 96–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; recent thermoluminescence tests to determine the antiquity of this somewhat suspicious terracotta have been inconclusive.

10 Prag, op. cit., p. 101

11 See Leipen, op. cit., p. 3: no. 1, the Lenormant; no. 2, the Varvakeion, although Schuchhardt, , Antike Plastik II (1961), pp. 31–46Google Scholar considers it mid-third century in date. Similar controversy attaches to the Lenormant.

12 See Mouterde, note 4 above, for the cippus from Misis.

13 Mattingly, H., Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. IV (London 1940)Google Scholar, no. 1918, pl. 46.13. For the iconography of the victory on a globe see Hölscher, T., Victoria Romana (Mainz 1967), pp. 6–47Google Scholar.

14 Hermann, op. cit., p. 35

15 Harper, R., “Tituli Comanorum Cappadociae,” AS XVIII (1968), p. 111Google Scholar; idem, “Inscriptiones Commanis Cappadociae …”, AS XIX (1969), p. 27—altars to Apollo Archegetis and to Zeus Olybreus.

16 Herding, op. cit., p. 453 to Helios; p. 457 to Nyx.

17 See Mansel, A., Die Ruinen von Side (Berlin 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ab. 143; Keil, and Wilhelm, , Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiquae III (Manchester 1931), p. 30Google Scholar, no. 53 from near Silifke. For another example further afield see Jacopi, , Clara Rhodos V. 1 (1931–1939), pp. 94–5Google Scholar, fig. 62, whose affinities with the type from Asia Minor he points out, and Clara Rhodos V. 2, fig. 1–4 for a similar type with the relief contained in a rectangular panel.

18 The question of possible funerary intent arises in view of Ramsay's theory of the tomb as dedication to the local divinity who might then be represented; see Ramsay, W., Studies in the Art of the Eastern Roman Provinces (Aberdeen 1906), pp. 273 ff.Google Scholar; Cox, and Cameron, , MAMA V (Manchester 1937), pp. XXXIV–VGoogle Scholar. For other evidence relating to this question of assimilation see Altmann, R., Die Römische Grabaltäre der Kaiserzeit (Berlin 1905), pp. 281 ffGoogle Scholar.

19 Dinsmoor, W. B., “The Repair of the Athena Parthenos,” AJA XXXVIII (1934), pp. 93–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also see idem, “An Archaeological Earthquake at Olympia,” AJA XIV (1945), pp.425–7. For a more recent view on when this destruction and reconstruction took place see Travlos, J. “Ἡ πυρπόλησις τοῦ παρθένωνος…” Eϕ. Αρχ. 1973, pp. 218–36Google Scholar.

20 The continuous presence on Cappadocian coinage from Ariarathes IV on might be explained by the conservatism of a semi-Hellenized kingdom, a conservatism reflected in the use of Eusebes as an epithet by four kings after Ariarathes IV Eusebes. Its continued use by Seleucid kings from Alexander Balas on is not so easy to explain nor does it seem to have been noticed that the Syrian “Parthenos” wears the aegis necessary to the iconography of Pheidias' statue while the Cappadocian νικήφορος Θέα does not. Another problem, the first appearance of the Parthenos on Syrian coins only after the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes might be explained away by the singular devotion of that monarch to Zeus Olympios.

21 Amm. Marc. XXII, 13.1; for a recent examination of the motives of Antiochus see Bruge, J. G., “Antiochus Helios,” Historia XXIV (1975), pp. 164–88Google Scholar.

22 Cf. Coins of Antiochus VII Euergetes, BMC Syria, pl. XX, 6; such victories are particularly common in the Roman period (see T. Hölscher, op. cit., passim) but they do appear on coins as early as the late fourth century B.C. and a particularly fine one with wreath and crown is to be found on the seven tetradrachms of Olophernes from the foundation deposit of the temple of Athena at Priene.

23 As Prag, op. cit., suggests on p. 106; one should, however, note the doubts that some authorities have expressed regarding this despoilment: Gomme, A. W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, Vol. II (Oxford 1956), p. 25Google Scholar, n. 2. For a recent suggestion on the source of the gold in the original see Eddy, S., “The Gold in the Athena Parthenos,” AJA, 81 (1977), pp. 107–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Most recently published with complete references to earlier publications by Harper, R., “Tituli Comanorum Cappadociae,” AS XVIII (1968), pp. 101–2Google Scholar.

25 See Prag, op. cit., pp. 106–110 with bibliography on the question. Most recently, however, Robertson, Martin, History of Greek Art (Cambridge 1975), p. 312Google Scholar has come out in favour of no support. The evidence against is best summarized in Richter, G., “Was there a vertical support under the Nike of the Athena Parthenos?” Studi in honore … Calderini e Paribeni (Milan 1956), pp. 147–54Google Scholar.

26 See Leipen, op. cit., fig. 2, 44, 45.

27 Ibid., fig. 40, 41.

28 Stephens, G. P., “Concerning the Parthenos,” Hesperia XXX (1961), pp. 1–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 The pointed end of the stump on the coin of Aphrodisias and the absence of any tree under the victory on coin representations of the Parthenos at Priene before Alexander Severus seem to indicate this. For earlier representations at Priene see Regling, K., Die Münzen von Prien (Berlin 1927)Google Scholar, nos. 191–3 (Vespasian?); nos. 194–7 (Hadrian); no. 209 (Septimius Severus).

30 A relief in Berlin with an Ionic column under the Nike; see Leipen, op. cit., fig. 37.

31 E.g. Walters, H., Catalogue of the Engraved Gems … in the British Museum (London 1926)Google Scholar, nos. 1347–8 have a small round altar under the hand.

32 E.g. cf. Gawlikowski, M., “Reliefs de Palmyre,” Syria XLVIII (1971)Google Scholar, pl. XXIV.L; Seyrig, H., “Antiquités Syriennes,” Syria XLVII (1970), pp. 107–8Google Scholar, fig. 28.

33 I should like to thank Dr. Malcolm Colledge for information and photographs on this point.

34 Cf. Colledge, M., The Parthians (London 1967)Google Scholar, pl. 60; Downey, S., “A Cult Bank from Hatra,” Berytus XVI (1966), p. 107Google Scholar, fig. 1. A similar Athena-Allat is known from Palmyra also; see Seyrig, H., Syria XXI (1940)Google Scholar, fig. 35–6.

35 E.g. Toynbee, J. M. C., “Some Problems of Romano-Parthian Sculpture at Hatra,” JRS LXII (1972), pp. 106–10Google Scholar; especially see her pl. X for local use of an Athena.

36 At the same time it should be noted that if indeed the Nike stands on a globe our Athena may also be partaking of some of the attributes of Roma; see Vermeule, C., The Goddess Roma in the Art of the Roman Empire (Cambridge 1959), pl. V, 22Google Scholar; pl. VI, 3 and p. 106.