The Villa Item and a Bride's Ordeal1

Jocelyn Toynbee

doi:10.2307/297316

The Villa Item and a Bride's Ordeal1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012

Jocelyn Toynbee

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The paintings in the triclinium of the Villa Item, a dwelling-house excavated in 1909 outside the Porta Ercolanese at Pompeii, have not only often been published and discussed by foreign scholars, but they have also formed the subject of an important paper in this Journal. The artistic qualities of the paintings have been ably set forth: it has been established beyond all doubt that the subject they depict is some form of Dionysiac initiation: and, of the detailed interpretations of the first seven of the individual scenes, those originally put forward by de Petra and accepted, modified or developed by Mrs. Tillyard appear, so far as they go, to be unquestionably on the right lines. A fresh study of the Villa Item frescoes would seem, however, to be justified by the fact that the majority of previous writers have confined their attention almost entirely to the first seven scenes—the three to the east of the entrance on the north wall (fig. 3), the three on the east wall and the one to the east of the window on the south wall, to which the last figure on the east wall, the winged figure with the whip, undoubtedly belongs.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , 1929 , pp. 67 - 87

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/297316 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Jocelyn Toynbee 1929. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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^{page 67 note 2} Cooke, P. B. Mudie (now Mrs.Tillyard, E. M. W.), ‘The Paintings of the Villa Item’, J.R.S. III (1913), pp. 157–174Google Scholar. To the list of articles and references there quoted (p. 157, n. 2) should now be added the following: Rizzo, Dionysos Mystes, contributi esegetici alle rappresentazioni dt misteri orfici, 1914 (Mem. Accad. Arch. Nap., 1918); Pottier, Rev. arch. 1915, ii, p. 321 ff.Google Scholar; Lechat, Rev. des études anciennes, 1917, pp. 172 ff.; de Ridder, Rev. des études grecques, 1917, p. 189 f.; Macchioro, , ‘Dionysos Mystes’, Atti Accad. Torino, liv (1918), pp. 126 ff., 222 ff.Google Scholar; Zagreus: studi sull' Orfismo, 1920; Die Villa d. Mysterien in Pompei, 1928; van Buren, E. D., J.R.S. IX (1919), pp. 221 ff.Google Scholar; Comparetti, Le nozze di Bacco ed Ariana, 1921; Carini, La villa dei misteri dionisiaci; Reinach, Rép. de Peintures grecques et romaines (1922), p. 115; Pfuhl, , Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (1924), ii, pp. 876–7Google Scholar, iii, pp. 319–323; Ippel, Pompeji, 1925, pp. 126 ff.; Engelmann, Pompeji, 1925, pp. 96 ff.; Warscher, Pompeji, 1925, pp. 228 ff.; Herbig, Arch. Anz., 1925, pp. 262 ff.; Rostovtzeff, Mystic Italy, 1927, pp. 42 ff.; Mau, Führer durch Pompeii, 1928, pp. 204 ff.

^{page 67 note 3} e.g. Mudie Cooke, op. cit., pp. 171–173.

^{page 67 note 4} N. d. S., 1910.

^{page 68 note 1} N. d. S., 1910, tav. xviii.

^{page 68 note 2} N. d. S., 1910, tav. xix.

^{page 69 note 1} N. d. S., 1910, tav. xx.

^{page 69 note 2} op. cit., p. 166 f.; cf. Pfuhl, , op. cit., ii. p. 877Google Scholar, ‘Die Darstellungen jenseits des Fensters und an der Eingangswand sind dagegen unabhängig und ziemlich anspruchlos (Frauen und Eroten).’

^{page 70 note 1} Neue Freie Presse, Vienna, 27th May, 1910Google Scholar.

^{page 70 note 2} N. d. S., 1910, p. 144.

^{page 70 note 3} Gaz. des Beaux Arts, v (1911), p. 30Google Scholar.

^{page 70 note 4} op. cit., p. 27.

^{page 70 note 5} op. cit., p. 171. The reason for supposing the west wall to be the exit-, rather than the entrance-, wall is set forth convincingly by Macchioro in Zagreus, pp. 15, 16. Rostovtzeff (op. cit., p. 55), ignoring, it seems, Macchioro's cogent arguments, persists in describing the large doorway in the west wall as the entrance.

^{page 70 note 6} op. cit., p. 144.

^{page 70 note 7} Rev. arch., 1915, ii, p. 345Google Scholar.

^{page 71 note 1} The theory put forward in this paper depends, of course, on the assumption that these two scenes do come last in the series. Here we must take into account the work of V. Macchioro, who stands out in contrast to other writers on the Villa Item, first, in rightly laying more stress upon the two scenes, relating them closely to, and publishing them along with, the rest, both in his Zagreus (1920) and in Die Villa d. Mysterien in Pompei (1928), and, secondly, in placing them at the beginning, instead of at the end, of the series (Zagreus, p. 16 f. and p. 69 f.; Die Villa, etc., p. 14). With regard to the second point, Macchioro, while rightly describing the lady at her toilet as a bride-initiate, proceeds to explain the first scene as the initiate decking herself for her mystic marriage with Dionysos, the second as a priestess looking on at the performance. The present writer finds herself unable to accept Macchioro's view for three main reasons. (1) It would surely be strange that the bride initiate should deck herself so carefully before a rite which was going to involve her in being stripped and flogged. Or is Dionysos' bride to be decked as a victim for sacrifice ? (2) If the series ends with our scene VII, from that scene must be extracted the culmination of the whole story. This Macchioro does by dividing the scene into two; the flagellation he describes as the initiate's ‘passion’; in the dancing girl, clashing cymbals, he sees the same initiate reborn or resurrected after her ‘passion’ as a Bacchante. This interpretation of the figure not only seems somewhat forced and strained in itself, but, in divorcing the figure from the flogging episode, it robs the ‘cymbalorum pulsus’ of its natural raison d'être— ‘ne vox quiritantis … exaudiri possit’ (Livy 39, 10, 7, of the Bacchanalia). Moreover, on Macchioro's own showing, this interpretation would involve a repetition; for, according to him, in the scene with the fawn we already have the initiate reborn in Zagreus by being changed into a fawn (Zagreus, p. 80 ff.; Die Villa, etc., p. 18). (3) Macchioro justifies himself in making the series begin with thetoilet-scene by pointing out that it is directly opposite the entrance, and would be the painting on which the eyes of a person entering the chamber would first light. With the view that the small door in the north wall (p. 68, fig 3) is the entrance, the large door in the west wall the exit, the present writer is in complete agreement. But one's natural instinct on entering a picture-gallery is not, surely, to make a bee-line for the picture on the wall opposite the door by which one enters, but to follow the pictures round the walls from left to right. And it is surely curious that the spectator should be supposed to pass the exit almost immediately after beginning his tour of inspection, to re-pass the entrance, and then to finish up his round at a point at which it would look as i f he were expected to leave by the window. Rostovtzeff (Mystic Italy, p. 46), accepting Macchioro's main thesis that the paintings represent initiation-rites connected with the sacred marriage of the soul, also follows him in placing the toilet-scene first in the series and in describing it as ‘the decking of the bride’.

^{page 71 note 2} op. cit., p. 170 f.

^{page 73 note 1} v. 1737.

^{page 73 note 2} Aitia 3, 1, 1–3.

^{page 74 note 1} Rostovtzeff (op. cit., p. 49) describes them as ‘a wedding-cake cut into slices.’

^{page 74 note 2} op. cit., p. 169.

^{page 74 note 3} Die Villa etc., p. 16.

^{page 74 note 4} The attitude of the figure appears to the present writer to indicate, unmistakably, that she is giving her breast to the animal to suck, and though the ears are pointed, the face, unlike that of the companion figure, is not unfeminine. We may thus compromise between the view of Hartwig, who would call them both female, and that of Mrs. Tillyard, who describes them both as male (J.R.S., III, p. 157, n. 4).

^{page 74 note 5} op. cit., p. 167 ff.

^{page 76 note 1} The text is printed by Ninck, Die Bedeutung das Wassers im Kult und Leben der Alten, p. 52.

^{page 76 note 2} M. Schmidt in his ed. minor (1867) of Hesychius reads for the meaningless ἀνθρυπτά, ἀθρήματα, the word used by Hesychius himself of ὀπτήρια, ‘wedding gifts.’ It is also possible that one of the mosaics signed by Dioskurieds of Samos, found at Pompeii and now in the Naples Museum, provides us with another instance of the connection between love and lekanomancy (Jahrb., xxvi, 1911, p. 4Google Scholar, fig. 2). Three women, one old and two young, are seated round a table. The old woman holds in her, right hand a long-stemmed cup and appears to be speaking. The two young women are listening, and appear from their expressions and gestures to be greatly agitated. We might not unreasonably hazard the guess that the youthful pair have come to consult the old lady about their love-affairs, and that the old lady has been gazing into the cup to divine the future and is now expounding their fate to her clients.

^{page 76 note 3} Halliday, Greek Divination, p. 153; Gutch, and Peacock, , Country Folklore, vol. v, Lincolnshire, p. 5Google Scholar.

^{page 76 note 4} op. cit., p. 55.

^{page 78 note 1} Dionysos Mystes, etc.

^{page 78 note 2} Rev. arch., 1915, ii, p. 321 ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 78 note 3} Rev. arch., 1910, ii, p. 431Google Scholar.

^{page 78 note 4} p. 115.

^{page 78 note 5} Mrs. Tillyard has dealt at length (op. cit. p. 162 ff.) with the later erroneous and ‘moralising’ versions on gems and terra-cotta reliefs, in which the stern winged figure has been divorced from her proper setting and transformed into an insipid, prudish damsel, shocked and disgusted, as the gesture of her left hand shows, at the unveiled phallos. But in the Villa Item ‘the position of the left hand is the result of the sudden upward turn of the body; the action is, in fact, almost exactly like that of a golfer, about to hit a ball in front or slightly to his left’ (ibid. p. 161).

^{page 78 note 6} vide supra, p. 7, n. 1.

^{page 78 note 7} op. cit., p. 165.

^{page 79 note 1} Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Lupercalia, col. 1824.

^{page 80 note 1} Archiv. für Religionswissenschaft, 1910, p. 481 ff.

^{page 80 note 2} Romulus, 29, 16. Cf. Camillus, 33, 6.

^{page 80 note 3} De L. L. vi, 18.

^{page 80 note 4} Myth. Forsch., p. 32.

^{page 80 note 5} Plut. Q.R. 20; Macr. i, 28; Lactant. i, 22, 11.

^{page 80 note 6} Ibid, p. 115.

^{page 80 note 7} Roman Festivals, p. 104.

^{page 81 note 1} Cults, v. p. 98.

^{page 81 note 2} op. cit., p. 103.

^{page 81 note 3} cf. Cults, v, 107. Farnell says à propos of the Viza Carnival still performed in Thrace, in which a marriage forms one of the chief scenes, ‘there is also some evidence that the principal actors used to be beaten with wands during some part of the ceremony’.

^{page 81 note 4} Pausanias, iii, 16, 10; Plutarch, Lyc. 18; Inst. of Laced. 40; Lucian, Anacharsis, 38.

^{page 81 note 5} ‘La flagellation rituelle’ in L'anthropologie, 1904, pp. 47–50, 52–53.

^{page 81 note 6} Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, 1906, p. 397 ff.

^{page 82 note 1} Wald- und Feldkulte.

^{page 82 note 2} op. cit. p. 251.

^{page 82 note 3} vide supra, p. 79 note 1.

^{page 82 note 4} Cf. (i) Hipponax 52 (Loeb ed., 1929. p. 36):—λιμῷ γένηται ξηρός έν δὲ τῷ θυμῷ | [ὁ] φάρμακος ἀχθεὶς ἑπτάκις ῥαπισθείη. Sch. A. explains θυμός as τὸ ἀρρὲν αἰδοῖον; (ii) Hipponax 48 (ibid., p. 34):—βάλλοντες ἐν λειμῶνι καὶ ῥαπίζοντες | κράδῃσι καὶ σκίλλῃσιν ὥσ‹τε›φάρμακον. A. D. Knox translates λειμῶνι as ‘meadow,’ but this seems meaningless in the context. More probably it has here the sense that it bears in Eur., Cycl. 171, i.e. pudenda muliebria (cf. κῆπος); (iii) Hipponax 92 (ibid., p. 62) = papyrus-fragment:—ηὔδα δὲ λυδίζουσα β(ασγ)[ικορλαζε] | πυγιστὶ τὸν πιγεῦνα παρ[,] |καί μοι τὸν ὄρχιν, τῇ σφαλ[ε|κ]ράδῃ συνηλοίησεν ὥσ‹τε› [φαρμάκῳ, |ἐ](ν τ)οῖς διοζίοισιν ἐμπε(δ)[ωθέντι.]

^{page 83 note 1} Cf. the Boston krater of the Pan-painter (Furtwängler-Reichhold, pl. 115) showing a rock surmounted by a herm of Pan (?) on the right, and on the left a shepherd, holding a whip in his right hand, who makes off towards the left and glances back over his shoulder towards a goat-headed Pan in hot pursuit of him. Has the shepherd been flogging the herm and roused the god to activity with a vengeance ? Cf. also Nonnus' story (Dion. 48, 689 ff.) of how the nymph Aura took her revenge on Aphrodite; she entered the goddess's temple, detached her κἐστος and ἁβρὸν ἀνικήτοιο δέμας μάστιζε θεαίνης.

^{page 83 note 2} L'anthropologie, 1904, p. 50.

^{page 83 note 3} Q. G. 12.

^{page 83 note 4} Herrmann-Bruckmann, pl. 42.

^{page 83 note 5} Pausanias' Description of Greece, vol. iii, p. 341.

^{page 83 note 6} ibid., p. 342.

^{page 84 note 1} W. F. Kirby's translation.

^{page 84 note 2} de Jubainville, M. d'Arbois, Cours de littérature celtique, v. 171, 178 fGoogle Scholar.

^{page 84 note 3} op. cit., p. 166.

^{page 85 note 1} e.g. Rhodian plate in B.M. with Gorgon as πότνια θηρῶν (J.H.S., 1885, pl. 59); handles of François Vase (Furtwängler-Reichhold, Taf. 1 and 2); archaic bronze plaque from Olympia (Studniczka, Die Siegesgöttin, Taf. i, fig. 3).

^{page 85 note 2} Rumpf, Chalkidische Vasen, p. 100, no. 219, Taf. clxxi–clxxiv.

^{page 85 note 3} Langlehn, Flügelgestalten, p. 117 f.

^{page 85 note 4} Élite des monuments ceramographiques, ii, pl. ix.

^{page 85 note 5} Heberdey, Jahreshefte, 1904, Beiblatt, fig. 12; Amelung, Röm.-Mitt., 1910, p. 191.

^{page 85 note 6} op. cit., p. 165.

^{page 85 note 7} Smith, C., J.H.S., vii. p. 285Google Scholar; Beazley, Lewes House Gems, pl. B, 9.

^{page 85 note 8} Amelung, Röm. Mitt., 1905, p. 121 ff. Taf. v.

^{page 85 note 9} Mon. dell' Inst., xii, tav. 23.

^{page 86 note 1} Room of Greek and Roman Life, Wall-case 53, no. 636.

^{page 86 note 2} Room of Greek and Roman Life, Wall-case 53, no, 634.

^{page 86 note 3} Room of Greek and Roman Life, Wall-case 53, no. 641 (fig. 250 in Guide).

^{page 86 note 4} Mon. dell' Inst., iv, tav. 9. A winged Nike-like goddess, holding a palm-branch in her left hand, appears in one of the paintings of the underground triclinium in the ‘Homeric House’ at Pompeii (Rostovtzeff. op. cit., pl. xiv). Another painting of the same series appears to represent a ‘sacred wedding’ (Ibid., pl. viii). It is possible, then, that we have here also an instance of Nike assisting at marriage-rites.

^{page 86 note 5} Mon. dell' Inst., 1842, tav. 13; Macchioro, Zagreus, pp. 130–131, fig. 21.

^{page 86 note 6} Annali dell' Inn., 1884, p. 75 f.; Hermann-Bruckmann, pl. 47.

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