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Et in Arcadia ego? — The Finding of Telephos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Robert Hannah
Robert Hannah*
Affiliation:
University of Otago
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Extract

In her recent re-interpretation of the major frieze of the Altar of Zeus from Pergamon, Erika Simon made a relatively minor new identification whose ramifications beyond the immediate confines of the Altar are somewhat larger but appear to have gone unnoticed. The figure in question is a winged female, fighting on the Gods’ side, whom Simon suggested may be Hemera, a personification of Day. Within the context of the frieze alone, the identification seems reasonable, but it presents some difficulties in the interpretation of two other similarly endowed females elsewhere. These are the winged daimon in the Dionysiac frieze in the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii, and the girl who occupies the top right corner of the painting of the Finding of Telephos from the ‘Basilica’ in Herculaneum (Fig. 1). Fourteen years earlier Simon herself had grouped all three together as representations of something completely different: as images of the constellation Parthenos, better known nowadays under its Latin name of Virgo. It is the aim of this paper to examine the identification of the winged girl in the Herculaneum painting: can she still be regarded as Parthenos, now that the Pergamene parallel has been removed and so long as the identification of the Pompeian daimon remains a contentious issue? If so, then on what grounds can the identification be maintained? And how does this affect the interpretation of the other figures in the fresco, and of the painting as a whole?

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 20 , 1986 , pp. 86 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1986

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References

* Parts of this paper were delivered in the lecture series, ‘Arcadia in the Visual Arts’, at the University of Otago in June 1983, and in the New Zealand Universities’ Classics Conference in May 1984. Much of it was written on leave in Oxford in late 1983, and I am grateful to the Council of the University of Otago for granting me the time and funds to pursue this research. I am grateful also to Dr R. G. Collins, who invited me to participate in the ‘Arcadia’ lecture series. I owe much to Dr R.J. Ling, who has advised me on many points and kindly commented on an earlier draft. For help of various kinds I should also like to thank my wife Pat, Professors A.D. Trendall, D. A. Kidd, P. Moreno, A.F. Stewart and C.M. Robertson, Dr N. Horsfall, and Mary Voyatzis. Of course, the responsibility for the ideas that are expressed here and for the errors that remain is mine.

1 Simon, E., Pergamon und Hesiod (Mainz 1975), 13 Google Scholar and n.63.

2 The Herculaneum painting is now in Naples, Museo Nazionale 9008. It was discovered on 25 November 1739: Ruggiero, M., Storia degli Scavi di Ercolano (Naples 1885), 35 and 57.Google Scholar

3 Simon, E., ‘Zum Fries der Mysterienvilla bei Pompeji,’ JDAI 76 (1961), 136–39.Google Scholar

4 For two recent opposite views on the winged daimon in the Mysteries Frieze cf. Seaford, R.A.S., ‘The Mysteries of Dionysos at Pompeii,’ Pegasus (Exeter 1981), 52–68,Google Scholar and Turcan, R., ‘Pour en finir avec la femme fouettée,’ RA 1982, 291–302.Google Scholar

5 Cf. below pp. 99–100.

6 The headband need not be a sign of royalty, as was assumed by Simon (n.3 above), 138 and by Bauchhenss-Thüriedl, C., Der Mythos von Telephos in der antiken Bildkunst (Würzburg 1971), 36.Google Scholar Herakles wears an athlete’s diadem in terracotta figurines without any overtones of royalty: cf. D.B. Thompson, ‘Three Centuries of Hellenistic Terracottas’, Hesperia 34(1965), 54–57 esp. 55. On diadems in general, see Saglio, E., ‘Diadema,’ Daremberg-Saglio 2(l), 119–21Google Scholar and most recently Ritter, H.W., (AA 1984, 105–111)Google Scholar with specific reference to the problems of interpretation raised by the Vergina ‘diadem’.

7 Maass, E., ‘Pannychis,’ JDAI 21 (1906), 104.Google Scholar

8 Robertson, C.M., A History of Greek Art (Cambridge 1975), 577.Google Scholar

9 Cf. Elia, O., Pitture murali e mosaici nel museo Nazionale di Napoli (Rome 1932), 19.Google Scholar

10 Fury: cf. the winged figure in Trendall, A.D. and Cambitoglou, A., The Red-figured Vases of Apulia (Oxford 1978),Google Scholar 1.7/62, pl. 57.1. Another possibility might have been Lyssa: ibid. 1.16/5, pl. 147.1.

11 Scherf, V., Flügelwesen in römisch-kampanischen Wandbildern (Dissertation: Hamburg 1967), 136.Google Scholar

12 Robert, C. (ed.), Eratosthenis Catasterismorum Reliquiae (Berlin 1878), 247;Google Scholar id. ‘Eracle ed Auge: sopra pitture pompeiane’, Annali dell’ Istituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica 56 (1884), 85.

13 Robert, C. (ed.), Eratosthenis Catasterismorum Reliquiae (n.12 above), 84, 248 Google Scholar. Aratos, , Phainomena 96–97.Google Scholar

14 N.3 above.

15 Scherf, Flügelwesen (n.l1 above), 28; Aratos, , Phainomena 129–40.Google Scholar

16 Scherf, Flügelwesen (n.l1 above), 29.

17 Bauchhenss-Thüriedl, , Der Mythos von Telephos (n.6 above), 35, 102 Google Scholar n.196.

18 N.13 above, and cf. scholia on Aratos, Phainomena 96–97, ‘The corn is in her left hand, of the first magnitude, therefore she is also dazzling.’: Martin, J. (ed.), Scholia in Aratum Vetera (Stuttgart 1974), 122;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and on Phainomena 134, ‘Aratos knows Parthenos has two wings, as also others testify in the Katasterisma.’: ibid. 139. It must be admitted, however, thatiíPhainomena 138 is spurious, there is no evidence within the poem itself that Aratos did imagine Parthenos with wings (I am grateful to Professor D.A. Kidd for bringing this point to my attention).

19 Boll, and Gundel, , ‘Sternbilder, Sternglaube und Sternsymbolik bei Griechen und Römern,’ in Roscher, W.H. (ed.), Ausfuhrliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (Leipzig and Berlin 1924–37),Google Scholar 6.960.

20 Aratos, , Phainomena 129–40;Google Scholar cf. n.l8 above.

21 Cf. 21 Cf. Boll and Gundel(n.l9 above), 961; Lasserre, F. (ed.), Die Fragmente des Eudoxos von Knidos (Berlin 1966), 44 Google Scholar no. 25 (= Hipparchos 1.2.5).

22 Hesiod, Erga 256.

23 Martin, , Scholia in Aratum Vetera (n.l8 above), 123.Google Scholar

24 For the date of the morning (i.e. heliacal) rise of Parthenos, cf. the astronomical calendar in Geminos (ed. Aujac, G. [Paris 1975], p. 100):Google Scholar 27 August – 25 September;and Hofmann’s, G. calculations in Boll, F., ‘Fixsterne,’ RE Google Scholar 6.2427: a Virginis rose on 30 September in 430 B.C.; it is probably safer to work from the astronomical calendar dates rather than to assume that actual sightings would ordinarily have been made by non-astronomers. For ancient and modern (but pre-mechanised) harvesting-times in Greece, cf. Hesiod, Erga 383–84, 597–98 (ed. West, M.L. [Oxford 1978], 255–56,Google Scholar 309); and du Boulay, J., Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village (Oxford 1979), 275–77Google Scholar, Appendix III.

25 Nonnos, Dionysiaca 11.501–21.

26 Cf. Geminos (n.24 above), p. 100; Hofmann in RE 6.2427; Aristotle, Historia Animalium 6.569b.

27 Boll and Gundel (n.19 above), 960; Scherf, Flügelwesen (n.l 1 above), 33.

28 Euripides, Hipp. 17. However, Pease’s, A.S. assertion, in Cicero: De Natura Deorum (Cambridge, Mass. 1958),Google Scholar 2.818, that St. Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum 1.41, equated the constellation Virgo with Diana is not supported by the actual text of St. Jerome.

29 Beazley, J.D., Attic Red-figure Vase-painters2 (Oxford 1963), 1643 Google Scholar = 302.4), 307.11, 308.20 (these three are Late Archaic); 657.5 (Early Classical); 1198.8 (Classical). See also id., ‘The Master of the Dutuit Oinochoe’, JHS 33(1913), 106–110 esp. 106–107; and Boardman, J., Athenian Red Figure Vases: the Archaic Period (London 1975),Google Scholar 226 Fig. 212 (= Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters2 , 307.11).

30 Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters2 (n.29 above), 657.5. For the Melian reliefs, see: Schöne, R., Griechische Reliefs aus athenischen Sammlungen (Leipzig 1872), 64 Google Scholar nos. 128–29, pl. 32; Jacobsthal, P., Die melischen Reliefs (Berlin-Wilmersdorf 1931), 25–27 Google Scholar nos. 16–18; Beazley, J.D., ‘A Melian Relief,’ AJA 45 (1941), 342–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Jacobsthal, , Die melischen Reliefs (n.30 above), 26–27.Google Scholar

32 Frazer, J.G., Pausanias’s Description of Greece (London 1898),Google Scholar 4.446; K.A. Rhomaios, AE (1911), 150, 151–52 no. 4, Fig. 4; cf. E. Meyer, ‘Parthenion’, RE 18:4.1889.

33 Inscriptions Graecae 5.2, no. 61.

34 Cf. Pausanias 8.6.4–6.

35 Meyer, RE 18:4.1889. Scherf, Flügelwesen (n.ll above), 28 accepted Atalanta.

36 Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia 13.1.

37 Cf. Wernicke, , ‘’ ,’ RE 2. 1170–72.Google Scholar

38 Cf. Drachmann, A.B. (ed.), Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina (Leipzig 1903),Google Scholar 1.187–88: Pindar, 01. 6.148c, 149g; cf. Meyer, RE 18:4.1889.

39 The assignment of Artemis as the tutelary deity of Sagittarius (see Manilius, Astronómica 2.444) is to be kept quite distinct, since we are discussing here only iconographical traditions, which have nothing to do with the tutelary system (on which see below pp. 96–97).

40 Cf. also the Chest of Kypselos (whatever its actual date), on which Atalanta was depicted with a fawn: Pausanias 5.19.2 – another reflection of her patron Artemis? A late fifth century B.C. votive relief in Berlin (Staatliche Museen 941) may represent Artemis, accompanied by a hound and a deer: Freyer-Schauenburg, , ‘ ,’ AK 13 (1970), 95–100,Google Scholar esp. pl. 46.3.

41 Lykophron, , Alexandra 211–15.Google Scholar

42 Cf. Stewart, A.F., Skopas in Malibu (Malibu 1982), 80 Google Scholarn.l for a list of the literary sources for the battle at the Kaïkos.

43 Cf. the calendar and calculated dates provided in the sources in n.24 above.

44 This interpretation of Lykophron touches on the problem of the identity of the sculptured head from the west pediment of the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea (Tegea Museum 60: Stewart, A.F., Skopas of Paros [Park Ridge 1977],Google Scholar pls. 13, 14a–b): Is it Telephos or Herakles? Stewart, ibid. 53–54, 157 n.43, was of course aware of the passage from Lykophron, but offered no reason for the image of the lion in it.

45 Manilius, , Astronomica 2. 441–42.Google Scholar

46 Goold, G.P., Manilius: Astronomica (London 1977), 116 Google Scholar note a; cf. Housman, A.E., M. Manilii Astronomicon (Cambridge 1937), 2. 45.Google Scholar

47 Bouché-Leclerq, A., L’Astrologie grecque (Paris 1899), 184 Google Scholar n.l.

48 Aratos, , Phainomena 544–52.Google Scholar

49 Lasserre, Die Fragmente des Eudoxos (n.21 above), 52 nos. 65–66 (= Hipparchos 2.1.20, 1.2.18). Cf. W. Gundel, ‘Tutela’, RE 7A.1606–1607.

50 Herodotos 2.4.2.

51 Plato, phdr. 246e–247a;Lg. 771b, d, 828b–c.

52 Gundel, RE 7A.1606 proposes the Egyptian link via Eudoxos, as opposed to F. Cumont, ‘Zodiacus’, Daremberg-Saglio 5.1055, who supported a Babylonian link via Eudoxos. Bouché-Leclerq, L’Astrologie grecque (n.47 above), 184 n.l, despite Cumont's assertion to the contrary (op. cit. 1055 and n.5), did not think that Eudoxos was responsible for the Greek tutelary system; he thought its invention took place before Manilius but after Eudoxos, because of the degree of astrology which he saw in the notion.

53 Paris, Louvre: Cumont (n.52 above), 1056 Fig. 7595.

54 Pausanias 8.54.5–6. A useful map of the district may be found in Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece (n.32 above), 4 (facing page 420).

55 Herodotos 6.105; for Philippides instead of Pheidippides, see How, W.W. and Wells, J., A Commentary on Herodotus (Oxford 1912), 2. 107 Google Scholar (on Herodotos 6.105.1). On the Athenian and other Attic shrines to Pan, cf. Travlos, J., A Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (London 1971), 417–21.Google Scholar

56 Bérard, V., ‘Statue archaîque de Tégée,’ BCH 14 (1890), 382–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 Preserved height of the statue, from head to knees: 0.83m, Bérard (n.56 above), 382.

58 Cf. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece (n.32 above), 4.445–47; How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus (n.55 above), 2.107–108.

59 Handley, E.W. and Rea, J., The Telephus of Euripides [Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 5] (London 1957);Google Scholar Austin, C. (ed.), Nova fragmenta Euripidea in papyris reperta (Berlin 1968), 66–82;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Page, D.L., Greek Literary Papyri (London 1942),Google Scholar 1.130–32 no. 17; Calderini, A., ‘Dai papiri inediti della Raccolta Milanese,’ Aegyptus 15 (1935), 239–45Google Scholar esp. 241–42 on the confirmation by the Milan papyrus of Musgrave’s earlier conjectured restoration of Παν in line 3 of the fragment of the prologue recorded by Dionysios of Halikarnassos.

60 Pearson, A.C., The Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge 1917),Google Scholar 1.48, got the plot of the Telephos of Euripides hopelessly, and needlessly, wrong.

61 Pausanias 8.48.7.

62 Cf. British Museum Catalogue of Greek Coins (Péloponnèse) (London 1887), lix-lxii, 202 nos. 14–15, pl. 37.16–17; Bauchhenss-Thüriedl, Der Mythos von Telephos (n.6 above), 79 no. 14, pl. 5.1.

63 Pearson, The Fragments of Sophocles (n.60 above), 1.56 fragment 89.

64 von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., Analecta Euripidea (Berlin 1875), 186–93;Google Scholar Moses Chorenensis’ summary appears in Nauck, A. (ed.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta2 (Leipzig 1926), 436–37;Google Scholar Strabo 13.615; cf. Webster, T.B.L., The Tragedies of Euripides (London 1967), 238–39.Google Scholar

65 Pseudo-Alkidamas, Odysseus 13–16: Blass, F. (ed.), Antiphontis Orationes et Fragmenta (Leipzig 1908), 187–88;Google ScholarDiodoros 4.33.7–12; Apollodoros 2.7.4.

66 Bauchhenss-Thüriedl, Der Mythos von Telephos(n.6 above), 75–92.Google Scholar provides a catalogue of representations of Telephos, including a separate list of those in which Herakles is in the actofdiscoveringhim(81–83 nos. 24–33); ‘Die Lupa Romana als sepulkrales Motiv’ JDAI 81 (1966) 294 Google Scholar n.l 13, presents an abbreviated catalogue.

67 Cf. Kraay, C. Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (London 1976),101–102 Google Scholar for the Federal coinage (pi. 17.319) and some of the independent issues by Arkadian cities at the time of the League (pi. 17.311: Mantineia; 17.320: Stymphalos; 17.321: Pheneos); Jenkins, G.K. Ancient Greek Coins (London 1972), 107–108 Google Scholar pis. 244–45. For the fragmented nature of the League from the time of its inception, see Larsen, J.A.O. Greek Federal States (Oxford 1968), 180–95;Google Scholar and Thompson, W.E. ‘Arcadian Factionalism in the 360’s’ Historia 32 (1983),149–60.Google Scholar

68 Cf. Bellicard, Observations upon the Antiquities of the Town of Herculaneum (London 1753), 62;Google Scholar Cochin, and Bellicard, Observations sur les antiquités d’Herculaneum2 (Paris 1757), 31.Google Scholar

69 Winckelmann, quoted in Curtius, L. Die Wandmalerei Pompejis (Leipzig 1929), 2–4;Google Scholar Hamann, R. ‘Herakles findet Telephos,’ Abhandlungen der deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1952),Google Scholar Nr. 9, 9–13; Salomonson, J.W. ‘Telephus und die römischen Zwillingen,’ Oudheidkundige Mededelingen 38 (1957),35.Google Scholar

70 Goethe, Philostrats Gemâhlde (1818):Google Scholar Grumach, GE. Goethe und die Antike: eine Sammlung (Berlin 1949),CrossRefGoogle Scholar 2.665; Cf., Goethe, Myrons Kuh (Nachwort):ibid. 666–67.Google Scholar

71 Jahn, O. Archäologische Zeitung 10 (1852), 479–80.Google Scholar

72 Helbig, W. Wandgemälde der vom Vesuv verschütteten Städte Campaniens (Leipzig 1868),234.Google Scholar

73 Hermann, P. Denkmüler der Malerei des Altertums (Munich 1904–1931),Google Scholar ser. 1.104.

74 Beazley, J.D. and Ashmole, B. Greek Sculpture and Painting (Cambridge 1932),99.Google Scholar ser. 1.104.

75 Curtius, Die Wandmalerei Pompejis (n.69 above), 230.

76 Bieber, M. review of M.M. Gabriel, Masters of Companion Painting (New York 1952),Google Scholarin Classical Weekly 46:6 ( 195 3), 91. Gabriel’s view is expressed in her book on page 28.

77 Simon, E. JDAI 76 (1961), 138–52.Google Scholar

78 Panofsky, E. ‘Et in Arcadia Ego,’ in Meaning in the Visual Arts (New York 1957),295–320 Google Scholaresp. 297–302

79 Cf. Scherf, Flügelwesen (n.l 1 above), 132–33, 141 n.246 for a summary of the views expressed by various scholars on the question of the painting’s derivation. For two recent opposite views on the matter, cf. Robertson, A History of Greek Art (n.8 above), 577, and Moreno, P. ‘II Farnese ritrovato ed altri tipi di Eracle in riposo’ MEFRA 94 (1982), 415–16.Google Scholar

80 Simon, E. JDAI 76 (1961), 139–40.Google Scholar151–52.

81 Pomegranates and Demeter: cf. Bell, M. Morgantina Studies I: The Terracottas (Princeton 1981),98 Google Scholarand n.l96. Grapes and Demeter: Pausanias 8.42.11 (western Arkadia). The ‘Fruit-bringers’ at Tegea: Pausanias 8.53.7.

82 Gabriel, Masters of Campanian Painting (n.76 above), 12.

83 For oak-wreaths with acorns cf. Munich, Antikensammlungen 2335: Lullies, R. ’Zur Bedeutung des Kranzes von Armente’ JDAI 97 (1982), 91–117;Google Scholar Fraser, P.M. and Rônne, T. Boeotian and West Greek Tombstones (Lund 1957),184, 193–96,Google Scholarpis. 31–32.

84 Cf. Huxley, A. and Taylor, W. Flowers of Greece and the Aegean (London 1977),82,Google Scholar no. 64; Polunin, O. Flowers of Europe (Oxford 1969),113,Google Scholarno. 265.

85 In coin-images Demeter, and Persephone, are usually identified by their corn (i.e. grain) wreaths: cf. Kraay, C. and Hirmer, M. Flowers of Greece and the Aegean (London 1966),pis.147. 462–63.Google Scholar 48.465, 159.511, 160.515. One might note similarly unidentified ‘rosettes’ worn by some terracotta figurines: Thompson, D.B. ‘Mater Caelaturae, Impressions from Ancient Metalwork’ Hesperia 8 (1939) 304 Google Scholar Fig. 15 and 305-306, where Thompson can find no explanation for the wreath except perhaps as a cultic object, introduced to Athens in the late fifth century B.C. along with Eastern cults such as that of Kybele.

86 P. 101 andn.76 above.

87 Picard, C. Manuel d’archeologie grecque: la sculpture (Paris 1954),4. 1.Google Scholar185.

88 Simon, E., JDAI 76 (1961), 160;Google Scholar Bauclmenss-Thüriedl, , Der Myites von Telephos (n.6 above), 50–51.Google Scholar

89 Stewart, Skopas of Paros (n.44 above), 64 has already expressed doubts about the appropriateness of a personification of Arkadia in the Tegean pediment.

90 Cf. n.67 above, and Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (n.67 above), 101,106 for the date.

91 For a fourth century B.C. original cf. most recently Moreno (MEFRA 94 [1982], 415–19), who makes the link between the figure of Herakles in the painting and that of Meleager, attributed to Skopas, particularly clear. The figure of the seated woman whom I have identified here as Demeter may best be compared with some figures on fourth century B.C. Athenian tombstones, e.g. Athens, National Museum 3716: Karouzou, S., National Archaeological Museum: Collection of Sculpture. A Catalogue (Athens 1968), 118–19,Google Scholar pl. 40b (I am very grateful to Dr O. Palagia for drawing this relief to my attention). The idea of having the setting of a painting represented through divinities or personifications in the upper level, while the action takes place in the lower level, is encountered in fourth century art too: cf. Trendall, A.D., Paestan Pottery (London 1936), 22–25,Google Scholar pl. Va (bell-krater, Naples MN 3226, by Asteas). The ‘four colour’ effect of the Herculaneum fresco was noted by Gabriel, Masters of Companion Painting (n.76 above), 10–13, and by Lepik-Kopaczyńska, W., Die antike Malerei (Berlin 1963), 72;Google Scholar that green (as in the leaves in the painting) was probably not impossible in the ‘four colour’ technique has been demonstrated by Gabriel, loc. cit., and Bruno, V.J., Form and Colour in Greek Painting (New York and London 1977), 47–87 Google Scholar esp. 76–77 (on the use of blue as a toner in the original of the ‘Alexander Mosaic’: to this addRJ. Ling, review of Bruno in CR n.s. 28(1978), 377, who noted green in the ‘Alexander Mosaic’).