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Pots and Pisistratan propaganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

R. M. Cook
R. M. Cook
Affiliation:
Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge
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Extract

It has become fashionable to discover political allusions in subjects painted on Attic pottery of the Archaic period. These allusions are of two kinds, not always clearly distinguished. One is deliberate party propaganda, especially for or against Pisistratus or his sons. The other, which reflects results of political action, need not have political intent: Theseus, for instance, was becoming more popular in Athens by the end of the sixth century, with official encouragement it seems, and his more frequent representation in art may be due simply to that popularity. Here I am concerned only with partisan propaganda, and particularly that concerning Pisistratus and his equation with Heracles. Though the propagandist theory has by now quite a literature, it is surprising that there has been little objection, at least in print.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 107 , November 1987 , pp. 167 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1987

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References

1 An added attraction may have been a clean-shaven alternative to the bearded Heracles.

2 The initiative came from Boardman, J. in RA (1972) 57–72Google Scholar. Though he put his case well and scrupulously, others—whether from misunderstanding or enthusiasm—have gone much further than he thinks justified (see ed. Brijder, H. A. G., Ancient Greek and related pottery [Amsterdam 1984] 239–47Google Scholar and especially 240, where he expressly limits political allusions to ‘imagery’). In this essay I deal mainly with Boardman's interpretations, since they are the best argued and, if they fail, then the less well argued interpretations by others fail also; but the criticisms I make are as much of interpretations of Boardman as of Boardman's own interpretations, and I think he agrees with much that I say.

3 The only detailed opposition I have come across is by Moon, W. G. in ed. Moon, , Ancient Greek art and iconography (Madison 1983) 97–118Google Scholar (esp. 101–6); and this concentrates on one particular subject. More theoretical attacks, which I do not find altogether convincing, have been made by Bazant, J. (Eirene xviii [1982] 21–33Google Scholar) and Osborne, R. (Hephaistos v/vi [1983/1984] 61–70Google Scholar); Bazant argues that current political interpretations are contrary to Greek conceptions of symbolism in art, and Osborne considers the representation of the scenes on Boardman's pots too complex (‘sufficiently excessive’) to be political propaganda. For these last two references I thank M. Vickers.

4 The earliest instance seems that of Lysander after the surrender of Athens in 404 BC: even so, this was elevation to divine or heroic status rather than equation with a particular deity or hero.

5 Plut. Per. 3 1.4–5.

6 Suidas s.v. Bakis.

7 Potter and patron in Classical Athens (London 1972) 52, 62Google Scholar.

8 Even the François vase, for all its elaboration, does not seem to have been designed to suit a particular customer (as A. Stewart asserts in ed. Moon [n. 3] 69–70); at least that is the simplest deduction from its being found in Etruria.

9 This argument has less force if Pisistratus took Heracles over from the Alcmaeonids, though one may still wonder how so universally popular a Greek hero could have been appropriated by one family and transferred to another.

10 Boardman, J., JHS xcv (1975) 1–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 RA (1972) 57–72, esp. 60–67. N.J. Spivey has kindly referred me to an extension of Boardman's theory in ed. Cristofani, M., Civiltà degli etruschi (Milan 1985) 123Google Scholar; here F. Zevi attributes to Tarquinius Superbus an Etruscan terracotta group of the Introduction from a temple at Sant' Omobono in Rome and sees in it ‘un tema squisitamente “tirannico”’.

12 i 60: cf Ar. Ath. Pol. 14.4.

13 In Ath. xii 609c–d.

14 Oxford 212; CVA ii, pl. 409.5, 410.3; pp. 99–100.

15 i 59.

16 RA (1972) 63 fig. 2.

17 See ed. Moon (n. 3) 101–6 for this and his other objections. Bazant (n. 3) 22–3 had already stressed chronological difficulties. Another objection comes from Osborne ([n.3] 66–7) that Pisistratus would not have wished to recall his return with Phye, since he was expelled again soon after. A different and interesting approach is that of W. R. Connor (above, pp. 42–47) who suggests that Pisistratus's use of Phye was ritual and not deceptive (or impious) though, because attitudes had changed in the meantime, Herodotus misunderstood it: yet the parallel to which Connor gives most space—from Xenophon of Ephesus—is much later than Herodotus.

18 Incidentally Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 14.4) and Clidemus (Ath. xiii 609d) say that Phye was a passenger and not the driver of the chariot, as Athena usually is on the pots; but it would be niggling to press this.

19 It is perhaps worth noting that in Aristotle's account of the tyranny at Athens Pisistratus's guards when he first seized power are κορυνηφὀροι, but the guards when Hipparchus was killed are δορυφόροι (Ath. Pol. 14.1, 18.4; cf. Thuc, vi 57). I do not know of any study of clubs (though it would be surprising if there was no Ph.D. thesis on them); but clubs cannot have been uncommon objects, so that the three men with clubs on an amphora of about 540 BC (ABV 306 no. 43; E. Böhr, Der Schaukelmaler [Mainz 1982] no. 48, pl. 50b) need not have a special significance.

20 Boardman, RA (1972) 59–60.

21 Pisistratus is said to have distinguished himself in war against Megara and to have captured its port of Nisaea (Hdt. i 59), but no naval action is mentioned. He is also commended over a Megarian raid on Eleusis or Kolias, where he used the enemy ships or ship for a return raid on Megara or Salamis, the action being on land (Aen. Tact, iv 8; Plut., Sol. 8.4–6).

22 Glynn, R., AJA lxxxv (1981) 130–2Google Scholar.

23 Ahlberg-Cornell, G., Herakles and the Sea Monster in Attic B.-F. vase painting (AIARS xxxiii) 18, 103Google Scholar.

24 Hdt. i 63.

25 Boardman, , AJA lxxii (1978) 18–24Google Scholar. His contention that Exekias was against Pisistratus is attacked by D. Williams (AK xxiii [1980] 144 n. 55); and if there was an Archaic sculptured representation of this subject on the Athenian Acropolis, as K. Schefold surmised (Jdl lii [1937] 30–33: see also W.-H. Schuchhardt in H. Schrader, Die archaischen Marmorbildwerke der Akropolis [Frankfurt a/M 1939] 284–7 and Thompson, D. L., Arch. Cl. xxviii [1976] 30–39Google Scholar), it could hardly have been anti-Pisistratid, unless put up after the expulsion of Hippias, and then the disgrace would no longer have been a fresh memory. The subject could, of course, have been suggested by negligence at Pallene, but without any message.

26 Williams, in ed. Lissarrague, F. and Thelamon, F., Image et céramique grecque (Rouen 1983) 135–6Google Scholar.

27 ARV 2 36, Gales painter no. 2; 185, Cleophrades painter no. 32; 238, Myson no. 1.