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Theseus Lifting the Rock and a Cup Near the Pithos Painter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood
Affiliation:
St Hilda's College, Oxford
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Extract

In the National Museum of Athens there is a cup—formerly part of the Empedocles collection—which Beazley has attributed to an artist near the Pithos Painter, an early red figure cup-painter of the coarser wing; its approximate date would be the last decade of the sixth century. In the interior (plate XIIa) it bears the representation of a youth removing a big circular rock from an altar-shaped supporting feature. The scene has been interpreted by Beazley as the punishment of Sisyphus. Zancani-Montuoro, although with some reservations, includes the cup in her catalogue of the representations of Sisyphus before the end of the archaic period. Her hesitation concerns the age of the stone-lifter: ‘La figura della kylix Empedocles e molto simile per atteggiamento’ (i.e. to the Louvre cup G 16 with Sisyphus painted by Epiktetos—to which, incidentally, she gives the wrong number G 20) ‘ma la mancanza di barba e le proporzioni efebiche (l'esilità degli arti in ispecie) possono far sospettare che il personaggio mitico sia stato franteso o il suo schema adattato ad una rappresentazione del genere.’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 91 , November 1971 , pp. 94 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1971

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References

I am very grateful to Mr John Boardman for advice in the preparation of this article and to Dr John K. Davies, Mr George Forrest and Professor Martin Robertson for having read the draft and made helpful suggestions.

1 ARV 2 141 no. 1.

2 op. cit.

3 Zancani-Montuoro, P., Atti e Memorie della Società Magna Grecia n.s. v (1964) 65Google Scholar f.

4 ARV 2 243 no. 5.

5 ARV 2 178 no. 2.

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9 Evidence collected by Gardiner, , JHS xxvii (1907) 1 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 IG xii 3 no. 449

11 Plut. Thes. 6; Paus. i 27.8; Hygin. Fab. xxxvii; Callim. fr. 236 Pfeiffer.

12 Discussion relative to the Theseis in Roscher v 681 (Steuding).

13 Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U. von, Die griechische Heldensage i (1925)Google Scholar in Kleine Schriften v 2.54–84; Herter, H., ‘Theseus der Jonier’ in Rhein. Mus. lxxxv (1936) 177–191 and 193–239Google Scholar; Herter, H., ‘Theseus der Athener’ in Rhein. Mus. lxxviii (1939) 244–286 and 289–326Google Scholar; Herter, H., ‘Griechische Geschichte im Spiegel der Theseussage’ in Die Antike xvii (1941) 209–28Google Scholar; Radermacher, L., Mythos und Sage bei den Griechen 2 (Vienna 1950) 241Google Scholar ff.; Nilsson, M., The Mycenaean origin of Greek mythology (Cambridge 1932) 164–168Google Scholar; Jacoby, , FGrH iiib Suppl. ii Notes, 344 n. 20Google Scholar; Jacoby, , Atthis (Oxford 1949) 394 n. 23Google Scholar; Schefold, , Mus. Helv. iii (1946) 65 ff.Google Scholar; Dugas, , REG lvi (1943) 1–24Google Scholar; Buschor in FR iii 117 f.; Wolgensinger, F., Theseus (Zürich 1935)Google Scholar; Bury, , History of Greece i 213Google Scholar; Steuding in Roscher v 678–759; Deubner, , Das attische Weinenlesefest, Abhandlungen der Preussischer Akademie der Wissenschaft 1943 Philosophischhistorische Klasse no. 12 (Berlin 1944)Google Scholar; Johansen, K. Friis, Thésée et la danse à Délos, Etude herméneutique (Copenhagen 1945) 55 f.Google Scholar; Dugas-Flacelière, , Thésée, Images et récits (Paris 1958)Google Scholar; Shefton, B., Hesperia xxxi (1962) 347Google Scholar and n. 74; Alfieri, and Arias, Spina, Guida al museo archeologico di Ferrara (Florence 1960) 106Google Scholar; Schefold, , Myth and legend in early Greek art (London 1966) 40Google Scholar; Ghali-Kahil, L., Les enlèvements et le retour d'Hélène dans les textes et les documents figurés (Paris 1955) 310Google Scholar; Boer, W. Den, Greece and Rome xvi (1969) 1–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ruschenbusch, E., Historia vii (1958) 408–18Google Scholar; Brelich, , Studi e materiali di Storia delle religioni xxvii (1956) 136–41Google Scholar; Will, E., Korinthiaka (Paris 1955) 191–204Google Scholar.

14 Johansen, Friis, Thésée 56Google Scholar.

15 Friis Johansen, op. cit. 55.

16 Ghali-Kahil, , Les enlèvements 310Google Scholar; Exekias shows Theseus as a bearded man in a himation (fr. in Lund ABV 145 no. 17; Beazley, , The development of Attic Black-figure [Berkeley and Los Angeles 1951]Google Scholar; cf. Robertson, M., JHS lxxiv [1954] 230)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Friis Johansen, op. cit. 55; Herter, , Die Antike xvii (1941) 219Google Scholar; cf. Bury i 213; Jacoby, , Atthis 394Google Scholar n. 23; Wilamowitz, , Heldensage i 58Google Scholar.

18 Friis Johansen, op. cit. 57.

19 According to Schefold, (Mus. Helv. iii [1946] 67)Google Scholar, the abduction of the Amazon queen starts at c. 520 and is popular until the beginning of the fifth century. These representations, he thinks, express the Ionian spirit of the fine Stimmungskunst of the last but one decade of the sixth century. And, he adds, it is no coincidence that they found their monumental expression on Ionian soil, in the pediments of Eretria.

20 Some scholars are in favour of more than one epic poem.

21 Schefold, op. cit. 65 ff.; Jacoby, FGrH iiib Suppl. Notes 344 n. 20; Jacoby, , Atthis 394 n. 23Google Scholar; Alfieri, and Arias, , Spina, Guida al museo archeologico di Ferrara (Florence 1960)Google Scholar; Dugas, REG lvi (1943) 18Google Scholar; Herter, , Rhein. Mus. lxxviii (1939) 247Google Scholar f.; Radermacher, , Mythos und Sage 2261Google Scholar. The only scholar who disagreed with this view, without providing any argument, was Wilamowitz, (Heldensage i 58)Google Scholar.

22 Schefold, op. cit. 65; Flacelière, in Dugas-Flacel ière, Thésée 22Google Scholar; Jacoby, , Atthis 394 n. 23Google Scholar; Dugas, , REG lvi (1943) 18Google Scholar. In Homer there are four items concerning him: in A 265 he is mentioned together with some Lapiths; in Γ 144 his mother Aethra is said to be Helen's servant (although some scholars do not agree that this Aethra was the same as Theseus' mother); in λ 321 he is the abductor of Ariadne and in λ 631 there is an allusion to Theseus' and Pirithous' katabasis.

23 Deubner, , Das attische Weinenlesefest 15Google Scholar; Johansen, Friis, Thésée 59Google Scholar; Herter, , Rhein. Mus. lxxviii (1939) 219, 248Google Scholar; Bury i 213.

24 Jacoby, , Atthis 394 n. 23Google Scholar; Buschor, op. cit. 117; Flacelière, in Dugas-Flacelière, Thésée 22Google Scholar; Schefold, , Myth and legend 40Google Scholar.

25 Schefold, , Mus. Helv. iii (1946) 65Google Scholar.

26 Thes. 20.

27 Thésée 55.

28 Rhein. Mus. lxxviii (1939) 264.

29 Schefold, , Mus. Helv. iii (1946) 65Google Scholar; Flacelière op. cit. 22; Jacoby, , Atthis 395Google Scholar.

30 cf., for example, Deubner, , Das attische Weinenlese fest 15.Google Scholar

31 Atthis n. 29.

32 It is worth noting that in the eyes of the later Athenians Pisistratus was not the continuator but the destructor of Theseus' achievements (Isoc. Panath. 148; cf. Pausan. 13.2). But we must take into consideration a further evolution of the figure before Isocrates' times.

33 FR iii 117.

34 Mus. Helv. iii (1946) 65.

35 op. cit. Bicknell, P. (Historia xix [1970] 129–31Google Scholar) makes a not very convincing suggestion that the Al-maeonids were only banished in 514/13. That they were not in exile during the whole tyranny of Pisistratus and the Pisistratids seems very likely, but I think that to suggest 514/13 as the date of their banishment is going too far. However, even if things indeed happened as Bicknell wants them to have happened, this does not affect Schefold's argument. The Theseis could have been written in Athens or the Alcmaeonids might have influenced an exiled community elsewhere.

36 Antike xvii (1941) 219.

37 Rhein. Mus. lxxxv (1936) 205.

38 Similar stories and compromises are not unknown in Greece; cf. Hdt. iv 8–10, where, in the words of Macan in his commentary on the passage (Macan, R. W., Herodotus. The fourth, fifth and sixth books. With introduction, notes, appendices, indices, maps [London 1895])Google Scholar, ‘a Heracleid lineage is provided for the Scythic kings, and an Hellenic claim to the soil thereby established’, cf. Parthenius i. And see Radermacher, , Mythos und Sage 2263Google Scholar and Maass, , ÖJh ix (1906) 163Google Scholar.

39 Dugas, in Dugas-Flacelière, , Thésée 64Google Scholar.

40 ii 32. 7.

41 For the discussion see Höfer in Roscher iv 1532–1535

42 Höfer 1533; Gruppe, , Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte (Munich 1897–1906) 1155Google Scholar.

43 Griechische Mythologie (Berlin 1894) i 140.

44 cf. Maass, , Rhein. Mus. lxxviii (1929) 10Google Scholar.

45 On monolithic altars see Yavis, C. G., Greek altars, origins and typology (Saint Louis, Missouri 1949) 127Google Scholar f., 131 f.

46 Due not to the artist of the Empedocles cup whose poor work indicates that he was incapable of such sophistication, but to the artist who painted the original of this cup (see supra p. 97).

47 For hollow ceremonial altars see Yavis, op. cit. 128.

48 Thes. 6.

49 Inaccurately because the expressions used imply that he put part of his body under the rock (arms or shoulder for example) and from this position he lifted it easily.

50 ARV 2 837–51; Beazley, , Attische Vasenmaler des rotfigurigen Stils (Tübingen 1925) 262–265Google Scholar; Richter, , Attic red-figured Vases, A Survey 2 (New Haven 1958) 112f.Google Scholar; Richter, G. M. A.–Hall, L. F., Red-figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven 1936) 135Google Scholar f.

51 AJA xliii (1939) 618.

52 AZ xxxv (1877) 172.

53 i 27.8.

54 AA 1899 201.

55 Numismatic Commentary 49.

56 cf. Wieseler, , Archäologische Excurse 72Google Scholar. The difference of material, bronze and stone, points rather towards a Hellenistic creation. Contrary to what Hafner seems to believe (Hafner, G., Geschichte der griechischen Kunst [Zürich 1961] 154Google Scholar), such a mix ture is not characteristic of Severe style sculpture.

57 An example of a lekythos reproducing a Severe Style sculptural group a few years after its erection is provided by a black-figure lekythos, Vienna 5247 by the Emporion Painter depicting the tyrant-slayers after the statues by Kritios and Nesiotes (Brunnsåker, S., The Tyrant slayers of Kritios and Nesiotes [Lund 1955] 102Google Scholar, 122). Obviously the tyrant-slayers were a much more popular subject.

58 On dedications on the Acropolis in the years immediately following the Persian Wars see Raubitschek, A. E., Dedications from the Athenian Acropolis, A Catalogue of the Inscriptions of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. (Cambridge Mass. 1949) 459Google Scholar ff., esp. 462 for public dedications.

59 The gem no. 11 is not included in this classification because whatever its original might have been, itdoes not represent Theseus. However, if Wernickeis right, and the Etruscan artist was indeed inspired by a Greek representation of Theseus lifting the rock, it might hint that representations of the subject in a completely different manner existed before the middle of the fifth century.

60 Paribeni, E. has suggested (in Bullettino della Comissione archeologica comunale di Roma lxxiv [1951–1952] 13–18Google Scholar) that the ‘Auriga dei Conservatori’ might be a copy of a Severe Style sculptural group representing Theseus removing the rock according to the pattern of our type 2. This hypothesis lacks any serious basis. No positive argument is brought in support of it, and the author himself expresses his uneasiness about some features which could hardly fit the scene suggested, like the thick support under the right thigh; the attempt to explain it through the difficulties which arise when copying a ‘bronze and marble’ group into marble is not very convincing. To the lack of arguments in favour of this hypothesis may be added serious objections against it. Even if considerd independently from the iconographical history of the subject of Theseus removing the rock, the Auriga cannot have much claim to the identity of Theseus. The angle of his right knee is too acute (c. 72° as compared to the Campana's almost 90° and if he were to be put in the posture of our type 2, as Paribeni suggests, his body would be much too close to the ground, in a completely unrealistic position which does not correspond at all to that of the other representations to which, according to this hypothesis, it should be similar. However, Paribeni's hypothesis, which already seems improbable, becomes almost impossible if considered in relation to the iconographical history of the subject of Theseus removing the rock, because it is, I think, highly unlikely that, if a sculptural group had been created in the Severe style period, the Sabouroff Painter, in the 460's, would have ignored it and followed a completely different pattern in representing the scene.

61 Richter, , Three critical periods in Greek Sculpture (Oxford 1951) 2.Google Scholar

62 Hesperia xxxi (1962) n. 74.

63 Rhein. Mus. lxxviii (1939) 292. The transport of the bones: Plut. Thes. 36. The date 476/75 for this has been disputed (with arguments that seem hardly convincing to me) by Smart, , JHS lxxxvii (1967) 136 who wants the event to have taken place in 469/68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 Obviously not the romantic one suggested by Boer, Den (Greece and Rome xvi [1969] 7Google Scholar) who, after discussing the internal struggles which led Theseus to his exile and death, claims: ‘In 476 it was sufficiently useful for Cimon to achieve a spectacular feat: the reconciliation of the parties that had survived the war, by bringing about the return of his remains to his fatherland’. If one is to refer the statement to the war between Theseus and his opponents—and given the context it could hardly be referred to anything else—it would attribute to Cimon an unjustified political romanticism.

65 For the honours given to Theseus' relics see Plut. Thes. 36.

66 The event cannot be dated closely. See brief discussions in Hignett, C., A History of the Athenian Constitution to the end of the fifth century B.C. (Oxford 1952) 396Google Scholar. For the political significance of the marriage see Swoboda in PW vi 1345; Meyer, E., Forschungen zur Alten Geschichte ii 48Google Scholar; Forrest, W. G., The emergence of Greek Democracy, the character of Greek politics, 800–400 B.C. (London 1966) 219Google Scholar.

67 On the date of Themistocles' ostracism see Forrest, W. G., CQ x (1960) 221–241CrossRefGoogle Scholar and White, M. E., JHS lxxxiv (1964) 140–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. also Lenardon, , Historia viii (1959) 23–48Google Scholar.

68 Plut. Thes. 35.

69 A further connexion of Cimon himself with Theseus cannot be excluded. The Phytalidai were, of all Athenian families, the one most closely connected with Theseus and his cult (cf. Deubner, L., Attische Feste [Berlin 1932] 244Google Scholar f.; PW. s.v. Phytalos). They belonged to the deme of Lakiadai, like Cimon. Can this be of any significance? Could it be a hint of a particular connexion of the deme of Lakiadai with the Theseus cult? Our scanty evidence does not allow us to make anything more than a speculation. (I owe this suggestion to Dr. John K. Davies.)

70 It is accepted that the famous wall-paintings of the Theseum mentioned by Pausanias (i 17.6) were connected with the recovery of Theseus' bones (cf. Robertson, C. M., Greek Painting [Geneva 1959] 121Google Scholar).

71 Hafner, (Geschichte der griechischen Kunst [Zürich 1961] 154Google Scholar) does not connect the erection of the group with the transport of the bones although he attributes a political significance to the former. He thinks that the ‘friendly’ scene the group depicts alludes to the friendship between Athens and Troezen. However, I do not think that the Athenians of the second quarter of the fifth century were very likely to have attached this symbolic meaning to the sculptural group, given that the function of the compromise for which this feat stood, was probably long forgotten.