ART AND THOUGHT I N

The Hellenistic Age THE GREEK WORLD VIEW

350-50 BC

JOHN ONIANS with 189 illustrations

T H A M E S A N D HUDSON

ALLEGORY, IMAGES A N D SIGNS

centuries it is only in figure decorations that a development of naturalism is to be found. Sculpture derived from oriental vegetable forms became, if anything, more abstract, as can be observed by comparing the clear leaf mouldings of sixth-century Ionic with the dry egg and dart pattern this had become by the fifth century. It is only in the late fifth and fourth centuries that brilliantly accurate acanthus leaves and stems start to appear on acroteria, cornices and most prominently on the new Corinthian capital. The extension of naturalism as a result of the use of personification and allegory can be seen some- what vaguely at first in the Caryatids of Delphi and Athens and more precisely in the Atlas figures supporting the roof of the early fifth- century temple of Olympian Zeus at Acragas. These presumably relate the temple to the mythical home of Zeus in the heavens, tradi- tionally supported by Atlas. Figures of Persians were also introduced to support roofs and, whether this feature appeared first in fifth- century Sparta or in the tent of Alexander, the pose of the figures was intended to express the role of the Persians as slaves rather than as masters of the Greeks. In the Hellenistic period columns were even replaced with vegetable forms for symbolic reasons, as in the symposium tent of

104 Ptolemy I1 which had corner columns in the form of palm-trees and the rest in the form of thyrsoi, or Dionysiac wands, twined with ivy and crowned with pine cones. Here passive architectural forms become actively appropriate to the building's function as the site of feasts in honour of Dionysus. The columns of this tent were of wood, and so temporary, but as in other periods the transition from temporary to permanent materials was not difficult. The branches, flowers and shields, which were all used to provide an appropriate decoration for the tent, appear carved in stone on the altars, friezes and parapets of second-century Pergamum. Other ornaments such as animal hides, tripods and the palm

105 columns all appear in Roman wall-paintings. The tent of Ptolemy I1 thus represents an essential stage in the development of expressively approp- riate architectural environments. Architecture and interior decoration had been greatly enriched by the introduction of symbolic and associative elements.

A form of imagery closely related to that of the Ptolemaic festival is found in a relief from Italy in

106 Homer crowned by Time and the World (detail of PI. 107).

the British Museum signed by Archelaos of Priene. It is dateable to the late second century. In 107 the lowest of the three main bands of the relief a sacrifice takes place before a statue of a seated man. He is Homer. On either side of his throne are crouching figures identified by inscriptions as Iliad and Odyssey. The poet is being crowned by two figures labelled Time and the World. This 106 tells us that Homer's achievement is recognized at many periods and in many places. But the fact that these last figures have the facial traits of Ptolemy IV and his wife Arsinoe also refers to the fact that it was that monarch who by founding the Homereion had first established an official cult of the poet. The range of Homer's influence in the history of literature is also revealed by the figures who perform the sacrifice : Myth, History, Poiesis (probably non-dramatic Poetry), Tragedy and Comedy. A group of four other figures who attend more passively probably refer to the qualities of the Homeric poems. Physis (Nature) acknowledges their conformity to nature, Arete (Virtue) their moral tone, Mneme (Memory) their

ALLEGORY, I M A G E S A N D S I G N S

memorability, Pistis (Trust) their credibility and Sophia (Cleverness) their technical excellence. The artist has thus been able, by the careful deployment of numerous figures, to list Homer's major works and to describe his position in literary history and criticism. Whether this scheme is wholly or partly the invention of Archelaos is unclear. It could derive from some festival tableau or permanent work of art as- sociated with the Homereion. Certainly other works actually in the shrine used visual images in a similar way. In one of these the statue of the poet himself was surrounded by other statues of the different cities that claimed him as their own. A painting by one Galaton attempted to stress Homer's authority by showing him as a river god with water flowing from his mouth only to be collected in jugs by other poets. Yet Archelaos' relief is much more sophisticated in its imagery than these other works. It not only uses gesture and attribute, as we have seen, but also makes clever play with grouping. Myth and History, for example, are separated from the other literary forms by being most actively involved in the sacrifice because they are more essential elements in Homer's work. It is not only the visual language that is developed but the underlying thought. The relief tells us that criticism had established a poetic euvre , that the question of the influence of epic on other literary forms was being considered and that a number of critical standards had been established for the evaluation of a work of art. Dualistic concepts such as space and time, and myth and history, which remain to this day essential to the classification of ex- perience, can already be seen here providing a firm structure to Hellenistic thought.

The process by which the integration of thought and image revealed in the Archelaos relief was arrived at can best be studied in the Greek treatment of the Muses. In Homer the Muses are goddesses who are responsible for music on Olympus and who also inspire earthly bards. In Hesiod they are nine and have in- dividual names such as Kalliope (beautiful face) and Terpsichore (joy of the dance). When we see them in pre-Hellenistic art they are sometimes three and sometimes nine, sometimes dancing, sometimes playing instruments. Then in the Hellenistic world, as scholars set about classify- ing the Greek cultural heritage and plumbing the mysteries of mythology, the names of the Muses

were interpreted as carrying associations with different literary and musical forms. Terpsichore became understandably the Muse of dancing, Thalia (festivity) was justifiably associated with comedy, but Melpomene (songstress) was much more arbitrarily linked with tragedy. This process may well have occurred in the early third century. The presence of statues of Tragedy, Comedy, Dithyramb and Nykterinos in a shrine by the theatre at Thasos erected about this time 165 shows that there was certainly a tendency towards the monumental personification of such genres. The earliest near concrete evidence of an association of the Muses with different genres is provided by Pliny who tells us that the Muses were shown identified by their separate at- tributes on a ring owned by Pyrrhus (319-272). But the earliest certain document of a developed characterization of the Muses is on the Archelaos relief described above. There in the two bands 107 above the scene already discussed the nine Muses are seen sitting, standing, dancing and playing around Apollo. Each has her appropriate at- tribute, large lyre, small lyre, flute, scroll or globe. It is clear that the personality of each Muse was now firmly established, and the existence of Roman statues related to these types suggests that they had already been portrayed in monumental form. Allusions in the writings of Callimachus and Apollonius Rhodius show that their per- sonalities were at least partially recognized in the literary world of third-century Alexandria. It was certainly in Alexandria that the work of classifi- cation was most ardently pursued, the method of etymology most enthusiastically applied and the use of allegorical personifications most fully developed.

Word and Image

One of the most striking features of the Archelaos relief is the use of inscribed names to identify many of the figures depicted on the relief. Although such inscriptions were not unusual on Greek vases there is little evidence that they were used in monumental painting or sculpture. It is possible that they were sometimes painted on reliefs that are now bare, but as the dedicatory inscriptions often associated with such reliefs were usually carved this does not seem very likely. Another notable feature of the Archelaos relief is the fact that it is not every figure that is

107 Relief showing the apotheosis of Homer, signed by Archelaos of Priene, c. 150 BC.

identified, but only those whose identity is not clear from their forms and attributes, that is the personifications in the lowest band of the relief and not the traditional deities represented in the higher bands. The names are thus used to clarify the process of communication, making it more analogous in character to a verbal message. It is hardly surprising that the growing use of the representational arts as a means of com- munication equivalent to the spoken or written word also encouraged the use of image and word alongside each other. Plato had prepared the way for this development when he claimed that both word and image should convey the essential qualities of the underlying idea.

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