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Herakles, Peisistratos and Eleusis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

John Boardman
John Boardman
Affiliation:
Merton College, Oxford
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Extract

In RA 1972, 57–72 (‘Herakles, Peisistratos and Sons’) I tried to demonstrate that the exceptional popularity of Herakles in Athenian art of the Peisistratan period was due to some degree of deliberate identification between tyrant and hero, both appearing as special protégés of the goddess Athena, and that this association was mirrored by certain changes and innovations in the iconographic tradition of Herakles as represented on Athenian, and only Athenian, works of art of those years. The most explicit association was expressed in Peisistratos' return to Athens after his second exile, in a chariot accompanied by a mock Athena (Hdt. i, 60). This episode was mirrored by or inspired a change in the usual iconography of Herakles' Introduction to Olympus by Athena, on foot, to a version in which the hero is shown with the goddess in a chariot. Taken with other evidence of Athenian interest in the hero, their priority in accepting him as a god and promotion of his worship, which can plausibly be attributed to this same time, and a number of other scenes which seemed likely to reflect some political rather than purely narrative interest, the case appeared to the writer strong, though circumstantial, and in the total absence of any indications in surviving literary sources it was not possible to judge, except in the light of common sense, which parts of the case were strongest, which better discarded.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 95 , November 1975 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1975

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References

1 Generic Dionysiac, satyr and komast scenes have been ignored in all classes; also gigantomachies, in which at any rate Herakles is often shown. Sources for the Athenian vases are the Index to ABV for entries down to p. 291, which seems a fair cut-off point for a rich sample of vases earlier than about 510 B.C.; for the shield bands Kunze's catalogue in Archaische Schildbänder; for the Corinthian vases Payne's Necrocorinthia, chapter nine; for the Spartan vases Stibbe's catalogue in Lakonische Vasenmaler; for the ‘Chalcidian’ vases Rumpf's catalogue in Chalkidische Vasen.

2 See RA 1972, 70 f. The three-bodied monster from the Acropolis, however interpreted (see RA 1972, 71 f. and below, note 10), shares a pediment with a Herakles scene and might be connected with it. In the pediments of fountain houses shown on Athenian vases of these years, apart from snakes, we see a lion fight (Copenhagen CVA forthcoming) and a satyr (JdI xi (1896) 180, n. 8).

3 See RA 1972, 70, n. 2.

4 Soon after 510 the Euergides Painter puts Herakles and the Lion between Theseus with the Minotaur and Theseus with Prokrustes on one side of a cup (Paris G 71; ABV 89, no. 21). This is illustrated by Pottier, in Recueil E. Pottier (1937) 362Google Scholar, fig. 4, in the course of an article (357 ff.) ‘Pourquoi Thésée fut l'ami d'Hercule’ which makes a number of good points about Herakles' popularity in Athens in the sixth century. On a Middle Corinthian cup (Brussels A 1374; Payne, op. cit., pl. 34.6) Herakles fights Acheloos and Theseus the Minotaur in the same frieze. A Herakles kills the Minotaur on an Etruscan black figure amphora, Paris C 11069.

5 Kunze, op. cit., 112 f., Beil. 7.4; Schefold, K., Myth and Legend in Early Greek Art (1966) 68 f., fig. 24Google Scholar. Here it seems that both Theseus and Peirithoos are to be freed. The earliest evidence for the version which leaves Peirithoos behind in Hades is fifth-century and is the story favoured by Euripides. The friends' intention had been to seize Persephone for Peirithoos. We shall see that a sixth-century poet in Athens might well have had a motive for visiting Peirithoos with eternal retribution for his attempted sacrilege, despite the older tale, but there is no indication whatever in the art of Athens of any new poetic celebration of the episode. On the other hand, when Kritias' play has Herakles negotiate with Hades and Persephone for the release of both heroes we have an element we shall recognise in the Herakles and Kerberos story, yet to be discussed (also Diodoros iv 26.1 and Plut., , Thes. 35Google Scholar, where he frees both, and Theseus only, respectively, after negotiation with Persephone and Hades). For a useful survey and references to this adventure see now H. Herter in RE Suppl. xiii (1973) s.v. ‘Theseus’ 1203–5 and 1176 f. (the freeing in Hades).

6 For Athena's attendance on Theseus see Beckel, G., Götterbeistand in der Bildüberlieferung griechischer Heldensagen (1961) 68–71Google Scholar.

7 Mylonas, G. E., Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (1961)Google Scholar provides a convenient and well-documented guide to the literary and archaeological evidence for Eleusis, and the reader is referred to it for fuller record of some of the problems touched on in this article. More recently Richardson, N. J.'s edition of The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (1974)Google Scholar includes much of relevance (as on Eumolpos, 197 f.).

8 See the last note. The famine which resulted in Athens initiating offerings to Eleusis (Mylonas, op. cit., 7; RE s.v. ‘Proerosia’ 109) is not securely datable. Harpokration, s.v. ‘Abaris’, offers either Ol.3, which is too early to be relevant here, or Ol.53 (568–5 B.C.), which is about the time we should expect ready access to Eleusis for Athenians.

9 Travlos, J., Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (1971) 198Google Scholar; Athenian Agora xiv 152 (which is more cautious); The Athenian Agora: a Guide (1962) 93; Athenian Agora iii 74 ff., for testimonia. In BSA xlix (1954) 197 f. I took the small white-ground plaques found in the Agora for mid-seventh-century and associated them with the Eleusinion for their resemblance to plaques found at Eleusis, but Agora scholars are more probably correct in attributing them to a cult of the dead in the area of the graves on the Areopagus slopes.

10 Three daughters of Kekrops are named as mother of Keryx by different sources, but no single one admits to any doubt. Kekrops was a snake-bodied Athenian king in fifth-century Athenian art (see Brommer, F. in Charites, Festschrift Langlotz, 153–7)Google Scholar, a feature which is hardly likely to be a fifth-century invention. His grandsons might well have been snake-bodied and if originally there were thought to be three we would have another possible explanation for the famous triple monster from the Acropolis pediment. The wings would be an appropriate herald addition (even Hermes is shown winged on an Athenian vase of about 520/10 B.C.: Gymnasium lxx (1963) pl. 2; Para. 185, no. 20 ter; a Dionysos and an Athena with Herakles in the other two panels on the vase). The symbols the monster-heroes hold are not totally explicable: water for the purification; corn for Demeter; the bird.…? But I hesitate to press yet another interpretation for the group. In Hesiod fr. 228 (Merkelbach-West; and see Rhein. Mus. cviii (1965) 303) Keyx is better read than Keryx, and the epithet ίππηλάτα is more suitable for him.

11 In the family there was a Kallias who could have been the first to officiate as δᾳδοῦχος (see Davies, J. K., Athenian Propertied Families (1971) 254 f.)Google Scholar. He seems to have been born in about 590 B.C. and he bought Peisistratos' confiscated property after his exile (Hdt. vi 121.2)—not necessarily an unfriendly act by any means, despite Herodotus' view of him. Davies (p. 450) remarks of the Kallias son of Hypero-chides who was father of Myrrhine, Hippias' wife of about 550 B.C. (Thuc. vi 55.1), that ‘his name is far too common in Athens to allow any probability that he was connected with the Kerykes’. We await more evidence to justify any associations, but they are worth bearing in mind. A later Kallias, δᾳδοῦχος, recalled to the Spartans that ‘our’ ancestor Triptolemos had shown the rites of Demeter and Kore to ‘their’ leader Herakles and citizens the Dioskouroi (Xen., Hell. vi 3.6). The Kerykes are much discussed: Richardson, op. cit., 8; and Feaver, D. D. in Yale Classical Studies xv (1957) 126–8Google Scholar on the creation of the genos and the method by which Athens gained control of the Mysteries.

12 On its revetments see van Buren, A. W., Greek Fictile Revetments in the Archaic Period (1926) 35Google Scholar. Travlos compares the revetments of the earliest Acropolis temple (op. cit., 193), not usually dated as early as the start of the sixth century.

13 ABV 21 (Painter of Eleusis 767; ‘an artless painter’—Beazley; also Para. 13). Para. 54 (Painter of Eleusis 397; plaques). And CVA Athens i pl. 5.1,2.

14 Noack, F., Eleusis (1927) 69Google Scholar.

15 van Buren, loc. cit.

16 Praktika 1884, 74 (Noack, op. cit., 260) for one, still with primitive punctuation mark (three oblique dashes) and closed aspirate; and Clinton, K., AE 1971, 82 f.Google Scholar, no. 1 (Mylonas, op. cit., 81 f.).

17 Mylonas, op. cit., 92–6; Travlos, J. in Ergon 1973, 131Google Scholar, fig. 117.

18 Hugh Lloyd-Jones points out to me the comparable story of Herakles' gift of Elis to Phyleus, who had supported him before his father Augeas. Here too there is a ‘swearing’ story—it was the only occasion on which Herakles took an oath (Plut. Q. Rom. xxviii).

19 Richardson, op. cit., 194–6.

20 For these see Recueil C. Dugas (1960) 123 ff.; Kunze-Götte, E. in CVA Munich viii 57Google Scholar.

21 Reggio 4001; ABV 147, no. 6; Arch. Classica iv (1952) pls. 30.1, 31–2; Metzger, H., Recherches sur l'imagerie athénienne (1965) pls. 1.2Google Scholar, 2.

22 Brommer, lists scenes in Vasenlisten zur griechischen Heldensagen 3 (1973) 91 ff.Google Scholar (and see AK Beiheft vii 50 f.); on other subjects in Denkmälerlisten zur griechischen Heldensage i, Herakles (1971); with a general account in Herakles (1953) 43 ff. See also Kunze, op. cit., 110–2 and Schauenburg, K., JdI lxxvi (1961) 66 fGoogle Scholar. On the relative popularity of the myth in black figure Thiry, H. in Živa Antika xxii (1972) 62 fGoogle Scholar. It would be agreeable to find a group of Herakles and Kerberos on the Acropolis and such has been proposed on the strength of a Herakles torso and a base with the feet of a man and a dog (Schrader, H., Die archaischen Marmorbildwerke der Akropolis (1939) 290 f., nos. 414–5Google Scholar; Brommer, op. cit., 92). But this cannot be admitted. The relative size and placing of the feet make it clear that the base carried simply a man and a dog of natural size, a common enough motif in Late Archaic art, and not the massive Hound of Hades. The ‘Kerberos’ fragment of JdI viii (1893) 164, n. 9 (associated with the Acropolis base by Brommer, op. cit., 92, no. 2) is the phallosbeast published by Buschor in AM liii (1928) 96 ff., Beil. 29, 30.

23 Payne, , Necrocorinthia 127, fig. 45cGoogle Scholar; Brommer, Herakles pl. 24b.

24 Würzburg 308; ABV 269, no. 19, Antimenes Painter.

25 Boston 01.8025; ARV 163, no. 6.

26 Moscow Historical Museum 70; ABV 255, no. 8; Boardman, , Athenian Black Figure Vases (1974)Google Scholar fig. 163.

27 Paris F 204; ABV 254, no. 1 = ARV 4, no. 11; Boardman, op. cit., fig. 162.

28 Boston 28.46; ABV 261, no. 38.

29 Vatican 372; ABV 368, no. 107; Albizatti, pl. 50.

30 Purrmann Coll., Montagnola; Para. 141, no. 5, Medea Group ; JdI lxxvi (1961) 62, figs. 15, 16.

31 Amiens 3057.225.47a; ABV 384, no. 25.

32 There was also a story which made Hermes the father of the founder hero Eleusis (Paus. i 38.7), and he had escorted Persephone back to her mother (Hymn 377 ff.).

33 See Brommer, in AK Beiheft vii 50 fGoogle Scholar. and n. 4 for the bystanders in the adventure. He notes ten instances with Hades, twenty five with Persephone in black figure, and only once Hades without Persephone (but we may add the Amiens vase).

34 Leningrad; ABV 364, no. 59, Painter S; Para. 162. The iconographic problems of some of these scenes, where the pre-capture appeasement is combined with the removal of the beast, have been studied by Sourvinou-Inwood, C. in AK xvii (1974) 30–5Google Scholar. The kneeling Hermes is prominent because his role is an important one in this episode (see above). Other Leagran vases with versions of the scene worth noting are the lost amphora, Inghirami, pl. 40 (ABV 370, no. 131), where the kneeling Hermes has his finger to his lips before the dog, which is being removed by Herakles; and Villa Giulia 48329 (MA xlii 1024, fig. 263) where both Hermes and Herakles are crouching, the latter before the dog, the former beyond the dog and before Persephone, with his fingers to his lips. It looks as though cowering as well as the problem of approaching the dog might be another element in the choice of this pose. The kneeling Iolaos attending the lion fight is perhaps to be compared: CVA Tarquinia i pl. 14.2, and the two club-bearers on Würzburg 317 (ABV 334, no. 5, now Priam Painter; RA 1972, 67, fig. 4).

35 Herakles' association with Eleusis and initiation there is of course long remembered. It is discussed fully by Lloyd-Jones; and it is a Herakles rather than Dionysos who may recline beside the Eleusinian goddesses in the east pediment of the Parthenon: Harrison, E., AJA lxxi (1967) 43–5Google Scholar and Lloyd-Jones, , AJA lxxiv (1970) 181CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Eleusis does not, moreover, figure in the tradition about Theseus' synoikism of Attica, and there he has only to wrestle with Kerkyon and see to the burial of the Argive heroes killed at Thebes (Plut., , Thes. 29Google Scholar and in Aes., Eleusinioi). For more recent comment on the Herakles-Eleusis association see now Burkert, W., Homo Necans (1972) 294–7Google Scholar and Keuls, E., The Water Carriers in Hades (1974) 161–3Google Scholar.

36 On its doubtful occurrence on a Late Geometric fibula see Fittschen, K., Untersuchungen zum Beginn der Sagendarstellungen bei dem Griechen (1969) 62Google Scholar. On the Athenian scenes, Brommer, , Herakles 21Google Scholar. Earliest should be the Tyrrhenian amphora in Caere reported by Schauenburg, in Aachener Kunstblätter xliv 37Google Scholar, n. 2.

37 The Etruscans could take a different view. On a black figure amphora in Italy (private) Artemis draws her bow at Herakles over the deer.

38 Lists in Brommer, , Vasenlisten 3143 ffGoogle Scholar. He gives no reason (p. 152) for doubting the ‘Meerwesen’ on the Maidstone fragment (BICS v (1958) pl. 2.1), yet the relative scale of the monster and Hermes makes this certain, apart from the contemporary comparanda.

39 There was the Theban princess Megara whom Herakles married, then killed, with their children, but she is never associated with the town: Od. xi 269 f.; Pindar, , Isthm. iv 63 f.Google Scholar; Apollodoros ii 4.11–2.

40 See Boardman in Getty Museum Annual i. Fishy Nereus on the Berlin Painter stamnos, Munich 8738 (ARV 209, no. 161; CVA v pls. 259–62).

41 A red figure column crater in Paris showing him with a barbiton is in a komos setting, with Hermes, a satyr and a toper: CVA Petit Palais pl. 21.5. On the subject see Schauenburg, K., Gymnasium lxxvi (1969) 44Google Scholar and JdI lxxvi (1961) 58 f.

42 Munich 1575; ABV 256, no. 16.

43 Inv. 679; CVA i pl. 12.3; contrast the conventional scene, with bema and Athena, ibid., pl. 11.3.

44 Notice also the kitharodes of this date and little later shown in a Panathenaic setting, with cock columns, or on vases of Panathenaic shape which include a Panathenaic Athena: Toronto C 322 (Robinson, Harcum and Iliffe, no 308, pl. 43); London B 139 (ABV 139, no. 12, near Group E; CVA i pl. 5.3); London B 260( CVA iv pl. 64.1; with sphinxes on the columns); Würzburg 222 (ABV 405, no. 20, Kleophrades Painter; Langlotz, pl. 50); Baltimore WAG 48.2107 (AJA lxiii (1959) pl. 47.3,4); Paris Él. 84 (CVA v Hg pl. 4.3,5); Paris F 282 (ibid., pl. 2.4,5). On this type see Preuner, E., Hermes lvii (1922) 95Google Scholar; Davison, J. A., JHS lxxviii (1958) 36 ff.Google Scholar, lxxxi (1961) 141 f.

45 He was taught boxing and wrestling by Harpalykos (Theokritos xxiv 111 ff.) or Autolykos (Apollodoros ii 4.9).

46 Kunze, op. cit., 95 ff., for the best detailed account of early schemes. See also Fittschen, op. cit., 87 f.

47 Kunze, op. cit., 99 f. Crumpled sword—Villa Giulia, Castellani no. 472, Mingazzini, pl. 65.1. Surface wound—Kassel T 384 (ABV 137, no. 57, Group E; CVA i pl. 21.1) and Oxford 1965.141 (ABV 299, no. 1, manner of the Princeton Painter; CVA iii pl. 32.4).

48 London B 193; ARV 4, no. 8.

49 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 62–1–8; Brommer, , Vasenlisten 3141, no. 17Google Scholar; the club identifies Herakles.

50 Compare, for example, JdI lxxvi (1961) 49, fig. 1 (on ground) and 55, fig. 7 (over shoulder); discussed by Schauenburg, ibid., and in JdI lxxx (1965) 79, 97.

51 Kunze, op. cit., 120 f.

52 Munich 1378; ABV 299, no. 17 (Princeton Painter); Boardman, op. cit., fig. 139. The tripod bowl is painted white, perhaps to signify gold. Compare ibid., fig. 145.2, for a contemporary athlete victor with a tripod on a Panathenaic amphora.

53 Paris F 221; CVA iv pl. 41.3. For a Herakles athlete on a Classical gold finger ring see Boardman, , Intaglios and Rings (1975)Google Scholar no. 76.

54 Brommer, , Vasenlisten 337Google Scholar records one Italiote red figure version of the feast with Dionysos (Oxford 1947.226).

55 For photographs of vases and permission to use them I am indebted to Dr. R. Richard (Amiens), Dr C. C. Vermeule (Boston), Dr K. Gorbunova (Leningrad), Mr D. E. L. Haynes (London), the Historical Museum (Moscow), Prof. D. Ohly (Munich), Mr Pinkney Near (Richmond, Virginia), Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale (Rome), Archivio Fotografico (Vatican) ; and to Hugh Lloyd-Jones and the Journal's editorial committee for comments on the penultimate draft of this article.