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© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/107992609X12524941449886 Religion and the Arts 13 (2009) 419–447 brill.nl/rart RELIGION and the ARTS Visualizing Creation in Ancient Greece Emma Stafford* University of Leeds Abstract ere is very little direct representation of acts of creation in Greek art. is paper examines the visual potential of the extended creation narrative first related by Hesiod, focusing on the handful of episodes which are to be found in the visual arts—the births of Aphrodite and Athene, Zeus’s slaying of Typhon and the Gigantomachy—while attempting to account for their selection. It also considers the remarkable lack of an authoritative account of the creation of mankind in the archaic and classical periods, and the relatively late development of Prometheus’s role as man’s creator, which contrasts with the much earlier establishment of traditions concerning local “first men” and the creation of the first woman, Pandora. Keywords Greek myth, creation, Hesiod, birth of Aphrodite, birth of Athene, Typhon, Gigantomachy, Prometheus, Erichthonios, Pandora T he heroic myths of ancient Greek culture have captured the western imagination—stories of Herakles’s labors, the exploits of eseus, Perseus, and Jason, and the saga of the Trojan War, from Paris’s abduction of Helen through to the wanderings of Odysseus. e gods play a vital part in these heroic tales, but they have myths of their own too, particularly concerning their love lives, perhaps most famously Zeus’s dalliances in various animal disguises with mortal women. e Greeks are also known for representing these myths in the visual arts. In the very public medium of architectural sculpture the subject matter is almost invariably myth, and * ) I owe thanks to all those who have helped in the acquisition of illustrations and repro- duction permissions for this paper, and to Malcolm Heath for commenting on a draft. I also thank the many students who have participated in my undergraduate and postgradu- ate courses on Greek myth and art at Leeds—this is very much a piece of “teaching-led research.”

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Page 1: 45230528 Emma Stafford

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/107992609X12524941449886

Religion and the Arts 13 (2009) 419–447 brill.nl/rart

RELIGIONand the ARTS

Visualizing Creation in Ancient Greece

Emma Staff ord*University of Leeds

AbstractTh ere is very little direct representation of acts of creation in Greek art. Th is paper examines the visual potential of the extended creation narrative fi rst related by Hesiod, focusing on the handful of episodes which are to be found in the visual arts—the births of Aphrodite and Athene, Zeus’s slaying of Typhon and the Gigantomachy—while attempting to account for their selection. It also considers the remarkable lack of an authoritative account of the creation of mankind in the archaic and classical periods, and the relatively late development of Prometheus’s role as man’s creator, which contrasts with the much earlier establishment of traditions concerning local “fi rst men” and the creation of the fi rst woman, Pandora.

KeywordsGreek myth, creation, Hesiod, birth of Aphrodite, birth of Athene, Typhon, Gigantomachy, Prometheus, Erichthonios, Pandora

The heroic myths of ancient Greek culture have captured the western imagination—stories of Herakles’s labors, the exploits of Th eseus,

Perseus, and Jason, and the saga of the Trojan War, from Paris’s abduction of Helen through to the wanderings of Odysseus. Th e gods play a vital part in these heroic tales, but they have myths of their own too, particularly concerning their love lives, perhaps most famously Zeus’s dalliances in various animal disguises with mortal women. Th e Greeks are also known for representing these myths in the visual arts. In the very public medium of architectural sculpture the subject matter is almost invariably myth, and

*) I owe thanks to all those who have helped in the acquisition of illustrations and repro-duction permissions for this paper, and to Malcolm Heath for commenting on a draft. I also thank the many students who have participated in my undergraduate and postgradu-ate courses on Greek myth and art at Leeds—this is very much a piece of “teaching-led research.”

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most of our surviving examples come from a religious context, such as the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Parthenon at Athens. Myth supplies the subject matter for a good proportion of extant vase painting too, most copiously in Attic black and red-fi gure, but also in vase painting from Corinth, Sparta, and numerous Greek colonies in Southern Italy. Alto-gether then it would not be unreasonable to expect to fi nd visualisations of the creation myth in Greek art, but in fact such direct representations of acts of creation are rare. What we fi nd instead are individual episodes from a lengthy story that combines the creation of the cosmos with an account of the births of the gods and a struggle for divine supremacy fi nally resolved with the establishment of Zeus’s rule. Th e aim of this paper is to provide an overview of those elements of the Greek creation myth which are treated in Greek art, and to off er some tentative conclusions on the signifi cance of these images. It will be my assumption throughout that visual representa-tions act as something of an index of a myth’s acceptance into the popular tradition.1

I Creation of the Cosmos: Births of the Gods

Our earliest extended literary account of creation is Hesiod’s Th eogony.2 Composed c. 730–700 BCE—around the same time as Homer’s Iliad—this stands at the beginning of a whole genre of theogonic poetry which fl ourished in seventh and sixth-century BCE Greece;3 writing in the latter part of the fi fth century, Herodotus (2.53) cites Hesiod as an authority on theogonies, and his poem is the only one to survive in complete form. Th e genre of prose mythography developed during the late sixth century BCE, presenting more or less complete versions of particular mythical cycles or even attempting to systematise the whole of mythology. Most of these

1) At the other end of the spectrum, the interface between the traditional myths and philo-sophical speculation about the beginnings of things is discussed by Guthrie.2) “When your gods include the Heaven and the Earth, a theogony entails a cosmogony” (West, Th eogony 192). Th e standard edition of the Greek text, with introduction and com-mentary, is West, Th eogony. A very accessible English translation, with helpful notes on the mythological subject matter, is available in the Oxford World’s Classics series: M. L. West (tr. 1988) Hesiod: Th eogony and Works and Days. Lamberton provides an introduction to the issues raised by both of Hesiod’s poems, while Clay’s 2003 study presents a detailed case for understanding the two poems as parts of a unifi ed vision of the cosmos. 3) For instance, the post-Homeric Epic Cycle included a Th eogony and a Titanomachy. See Davies and West (“Eumelos,” and Greek Epic Fragments).

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works survive only in the form of fragmentary quotations in later authors, the fi rst relatively complete example being Apollodorus’s Library of Greek Mythology, written in the fi rst or second century CE.4 Some of the earlier works off er alternative versions of the fi rst stages of creation, though often employing the same characters,5 but the fact that Apollodorus substan-tially follows Hesiod suggests that the latter’s vision of the origins of the cosmos and the establishment of divine order came to hold authority.

Hesiod’s account of the very beginnings of things is brief (Th eogony ll. 116–22): the four primordial elements—Chaos, Earth, Tartaros, and Eros—simply come into being; there is no explanation of the process of this becoming, or description of the pre-existing state of the universe (ll. 192–211). Th is brevity is explicable in terms of the poem’s focus on the Succession Myth, which occupies much of the poem, whereby Zeus’s just rule is established over gods and men. Th e Succession Myth might be best summarized as follows (Table 1): Earth bears Heaven, who becomes her consort and begets Ocean, the Titans, and Kronos, who castrates his father and overthrows Heaven’s rule; Kronos in turn is overthrown by his son Zeus, who fi nally establishes order on Olympos after fi ghting off various threats to his supremacy.

Much scholarship has been devoted to demonstrating the parallels between this story and various Near Eastern mythologies,6 but an aspect of particu-lar interest for this paper is the way in which Hesiod treats natural ele-ments and abstractions.7 Th e Earth plays a fundamental role in the story, bearing Mountains and Sea by herself, as well as Heaven, by whom she ultimately becomes mother or grandmother of nearly all the gods. Both she and the many parts of the natural world which feature amongst her

4) Th ere is a convenient Oxford World’s Classics English translation of Apollodorus, with helpful introduction and notes by R. Hard (tr. 1997) Apollodorus: Th e Library of Greek Mythology. Th e fragments of earlier works are collected in Fowler’s 2000 edition.5) For example, Time is a primordial element for Pherecydes, alongside Zeus and Earth, while Acusilaus puts all the gods in direct descent from Chaos via Eros. On alternative cosmologies, see briefl y Gantz 1–2 and 739–44; Orphic cosmologies are treated at greater length in West’s translation of the Orphic Poems.

6) West, Th eogony 18–31 provides a summary; both Burkert, Th e Orientalizing Revolution and West, Th e East Face of Helicon explore the broader issue of oriental infl uences on Greek culture.7) Both Burkert, Th e Orientalizing Revolution and Duchemin demonstrate the extent to which this treatment, too, is subject to oriental infl uences. See Gantz 3–27 for discussion of the literary and artistic representation of “primordial elements” and various natural phenomena.

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off spring can be described by the poet simultaneously in anthropomorphic terms and as the phenomena they represent—the Mountains are “pleasant abodes of the goddess Nymphs” (ll. 129–30), Earth bore Heaven “so that he might cover her on all sides” (l. 127), but all are created by being born. Of the other primordial elements the most important is Eros—not imag-ined here as Aphrodite’s mischievous son, but as the principle of sexual generation, which is necessary for this whole process of creation.8 Further natural phenomena are descended from Chaos—Night comes together “mingling in love” (l. 125) with her brother Erebos to produce Bright Air and Day (Table 1); additional elements of the natural world—such as riv-ers, winds, and celestial phenomena—are also fi tted into the poem’s genea-logical structure (Table 2).

8) See Kovaleva 135–43 for a discussion of Hesiod’s Eros in connection with the Panthen-aia festival.

Table 1. Hesiod’s cosmology I (simplifi ed)

Chaos EARTH Tartaros Eros

Erebos = Night HEAVEN, Mountains, Nymphs, Sea = Earth Air, Day From Heaven’s castration

Aphrodite, Giants, Furies, MeliaiOcean, Titans, Th emis, Memory, Rhea = KRONOS

Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, ZEUS

Table 2. Hesiod’s cosmology II

Tethys = Ocean Th eia = Hyperion

Rivers (inc. Inachos), sea nymphs Sun, Moon, Dawn = Astraios

Winds

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No distinction is drawn between these phenomena and the gods, both the older generation of Titans and the younger generation of Olympians. Of these, Zeus himself is especially prolifi c, fully deserving of his title “father of the gods” (Table 3)—by diff erent consorts he is father of Athene, Perse-phone, Apollo and Artemis, Ares and Hermes—but even this far down the family tree we fi nd some natural elements in the Seasons, as well as more abstract phenomena such as Justice and the Fates.

As a standard modern handbook of Classical mythology puts it: “How does one represent the Creation of the world out of emptiness and time-lessness? Greek artists did not attempt to do so.”9 And yet Greek art does have the wherewithal to represent such characters, drawing on the same conventions of anthropomorphism exploited by the poet. Natural phe-nomena, places, divisions of time, states of the body, emotions, abstract qualities, and political concepts all appear in personifi ed form in vase painting and other media.10 Some of the earliest examples are among the scenes on the Chest of Kypselos of c. 600 BCE, an extraordinarily ornate cedar-wood chest decorated with carving and inlaid ivory and gold,

9) Morford and Lenardon 66. Cf. Gantz: “As for artistic representations of these early events and divinities, there are few clear examples; Greek artists understandably preferred as subjects heroes and those gods actually worshipped” (3).10) For an overview of personifi cation in Greek thought, see Staff ord, Worshipping Virtues (1–44) or more briefl y Staff ord, “Personifi cation.” On personifi cation in early Greek art, see Shapiro, Personifi cations (theoretical discussion followed by an A–Z directory of exam-ples) and Borg, Der Logos des Mythos (theoretical discussion followed by a chronological survey down to c. 400 BCE). On individual personifi ed fi gures, see the entries in LIMC, Staff ord, “Brother, Son, Friend and Healer,” and Burton, “Th e Gender of Death”; for a consideration of particualar groups of personifi cations in fi fth-century Athenian art, see A. C. Smith, “Eurymedon” and Borg, “Eunomia.”

Cunning Order Eurynome Demeter Memory Leto Hera Maia

Athena Th e Graces Persephone Apollo, Artemis Hermes

Th e Muses Hebe, Ares, EileithyiaSeasons, Fates, Justice, Peace, Lawfulness

Table 3. Hesiod’s cosmology III: the children of Zeus

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preserved for us in a detailed description by the second-century CE travel-ler Pausanias (5.17.5–19.10). Hesiodic fi gures on the chest include Night holding the children Sleep and Death asleep in her arms, Justice as a beau-tiful woman throttling the ugly Injustice, and Strife, “most ugly in appear-ance,” standing between the duelling Hektor and Ajax. On an extant vase of c. 580 BCE signed by Sophilos, a procession of gods on their way to the wedding of Peleus and Th etis includes completely anthropomorphic female fi gures labelled “Hebe” (Youth) and “Th emis” (Order), and a fi gure con-sisting of a man’s torso and a fi sh’s tail labelled “Ocean.”11 Equivocation between the anthropomorphic fi gure and the element it represents is less feasible in visual media than in literature, but not entirely absent. In color plate 6, for example, we see the Sun depicted as a youth, characterized by his chariot and by the more literal representation of the sun beside his head, while Earth is the female fi gure half rising from the ground.12 Not once, however, in surviving Greek art is there any representation of the early part of the creation story. Just one literary reference is worth a men-tion: in Euripides’s tragedy Ion (c. 413 BCE), a messenger describes at some length a tent which Ion has set up in Delphi, made out of tapestries borrowed from the treasury of the temple of Apollo. Th e tapestry he has used for the roof is woven with a scene of the night sky, including stars and the moon, the Sun, Night and Dawn driving their respective chariots, and “Heaven assembling the stars in the circle of the sky” (l.1147). Th e elabo-rate detail makes this typical of a kind of ecphrasis found in Greek literature from Homer onwards, so that the description is unlikely to refl ect any real work of art, but it does at least suggest that anthropomorphic conventions would have been invoked had a creation scene been attempted.13

11) Attic black-fi gure dinos by Sophilos, London 1971. 11–1.1; Carpenter, Art and Myth in Ancient Greece fi g. 86.12) Bérard fi g. 1. See Parisinou for discussion of the various means by which celestial phe-nomena are represented in Greek art.13) Th e archetypal instance of this kind of ecphrasis is the description of the “Shield of Achilles” in the Iliad 18.478–608. For discussion of the Ion passage, see Zacharia 200: 29–39. Statues of the couples Heaven and Earth, Day and Night, and Dawn and Noon are said to have been carried in a procession organised by Antiochos Epiphanes at Daphne in 167 BCE (Polybius 30.25.15), implying some cosmological interest though not really pre-senting a narrative. See Tinh, “Ouranos” LIMC for a number of related representations in Roman art, notably the “cosmogonic mosaic” from Mérida, dating from the second half of the second century CE, which also features Chaos, as an old man.

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Th ere are a small number of episodes from Hesiod’s story which do fi nd more regular expression in the visual arts.14 Th e fi rst is the birth of Aphro-dite. An obvious reason for this birth to be singled out for visual treatment is its extraordinary nature: as Hesiod tells it (Th eogony ll. 188–206), Heav-en’s castrated genitals fall into the sea, where they generate a foam (aphros) in which Aphrodite forms. Her character as goddess of love and human fertility is immediately indicated by the way grass springs up beneath her feet as she steps ashore on Cyprus, and she is greeted by Eros and Himeros (Desire) personifi ed. Ancient artists generally seem to have focused on this moment of rising out of the sea, just as Botticelli so famously does in his Birth of Venus. In the fourth century BCE, for example, the painter Apelles is reputed to have caused some scandal by using the courtesan Phryne as his model for an Aphrodite Rising from the Sea (Athenaios, Th e Sophists at Dinner 13.590). Th e birth appears most notably on the base of the statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, made by Pheidias around 430 BCE; the gold and ivory statue itself is no longer extant, but Pausanias describes it in some detail and it appears on some coins from Elis, the state which had control of Olympia from the early fi fth century.15 According to Pausanias (5.11.8), the base featured Aphro-dite rising from the sea, her birth attended by gods including Eros, Persua-sion and a Grace, all characters strongly associated with Aphrodite as goddess of love. Th e scene seems to be prefi gured by that on an Attic vase of around 30 years earlier (fi g. 1), which includes several of the same char-acters.16 It is not immediately obvious why Aphrodite’s birth was deemed relevant for representation at Olympia but Palagia may be right in point-ing to the goddess’s apparent importance in the pantheon of Elis, the city which controlled Olympia from the fi fth century on, where Pausanias (6.25.1) records that her temple housed another chryselephantine statue by Pheidias (Palagia, “Meaning and Narrative” 62). It is also possible to read the base as an oblique reference to the Succession Myth, which would be apt in a sanctuary that celebrated the pre-eminence of Zeus.17

14) Carpenter 69–102 fi gs. 89–143 gives a brief overview of scenes refl ecting “the ascend-ancy of the Olympians.”15) On the place of the Zeus in Pheidias’s career, see Harrison, “Pheidias” 59–62.16) Shapiro, Personifi cations 199 no. 125 fi g. 160.17) Pausanias records several foundation myths for the Olympic Games, including a tradi-tion that Zeus and Kronos wrestled at Olympia for the right to rule (5.7.10).

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Th e second episode is the equally bizarre story of Athene’s birth, which Hesiod places at the very start of Zeus’s career as a father (Th eogony ll. 886–900)—having married Metis (Cunning), he becomes alarmed when Earth and Heaven tell him that Cunning is destined to bear a son who would become “king of gods and men” (l. 897). To prevent this happen-ing, Zeus swallows Metis, but she is already pregnant with Athene—in due course she comes to term, and the child has to be born via Zeus’s head. As the story is told in the sixth-century Homeric Hymn to Athene, Athene leaps forth already fully armed, inspiring awe amongst the assem-bled gods and even causing earth and heaven to shake.18 Simple versions of the scene involve just Zeus, brandishing a thunderbolt, the armed Athene, and the craftsman-god Hephaistos, whose axe has been used to facilitate the birth; there is sometimes a female fi gure in attendance (fi g. 2), who may be the birth-goddess Eileithyia.19 Th e most prominent repre-sentation of Athene’s birth, however, was on the east pediment of the Par-thenon on the Athenian Akropolis. Th ere is some debate over how the central scene should be reconstructed, but the subject is not in doubt, since Pausanias again confi rms it (1.24.5): “As you go into the temple which they call the Parthenon, everything on the pediment has to do with the birth of Athene.”20 Th e signifi cance of such a scene for Athene’s main temple in her homonymous city is self-evident, but it is worth noting

18) For discussion of the scene, see Gantz 83–87 and Schefold, Gods and Heroes 7–16 fi gs. 1–7. 19) London B424; Schefold, Gods and Heroes fi g. 3.20) For the issues involved in reconstructing the Parthenon pediment, see Palagia, “First among Equals” and Mostratos.

Figure 1. Birth of Aphrodite. Drawing from an Attic white-ground pyxis, c. 460 BCE (Ancona 3130). Inscriptions: PEITHO (Persuasion), CHARIS (Grace), APHR . . ., ZEUS. Drawing: H. Fuhrmann, Archäologischer Anzeiger 1941, p. 451 Abb. 52.

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that it was specifi cally the goddess’s birthday which was supposed to have been celebrated at Athens’s foremost festival, the Panathenaia.21

Yet, the creation scene most frequently chosen for public representation is the Gigantomachy: the battle of Zeus and the other gods to defend Olympos from assault by the Giants. Why this particular revolt should so have captured the artists’ imagination is not entirely clear. While Hesiod

21) Loraux 111–43 discusses Athene’s birth as part of the complex nexus of myths defi ning Athenian identity; see further below.

Figure 2. Birth of Athene. Drawing from a bronze shield-band from Olympia, c. 550 BCE. Drawing: E. Kunze, Archaische Schildbänder. Olympische Forschungen 2 (Berlin 1950), Taf. 31, X d.

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(Th eogony ll. 176–87) tells of the Giants’ birth—from the drops of Heaven’s blood, which fell on Earth when Heaven was castrated—he does not men-tion the Gigantomachy at all. What he does narrate in some colorful detail are similar revolts by the Titans (ll. 617–721) and by the monster Typhon (ll. 820–68), both of which conclude with the off enders being hurled into the depths of Tartaros.22 Th e Titanomachy hardly ever appears in visual form, but we do have a number of small-scale images of Zeus tackling the monster Typhon (also known as Typhaon or Typhoeus).23 Th ese images respond in various ways to Hesiod’s particularly vivid description of the monster—“From his shoulders came a hundred heads of snakes, terrible serpents, with dark tongues fl ickering, and from the eyes of his awful heads fi re sparkled under his brows” (ll. 824–7). Zeus’s weapons, the “thunder, lightning, and smoking thunderbolt” (l. 854), are frequently featured in visual realisations of the scene, such as fi gure 3, and Typhon’s monstrosity is almost invariably signalled by his snaky legs and wings. As Dowden comments, the violence is an essential element of the Typhon and other rebellion stories, which serve to establish Zeus’s “awesome and indisput-able power” (39).

For a full account of the Gigantomachy, we have to turn to Apollodorus (1.6.1–2), who places this battle immediately after the defeat of the Titans. He describes the Giants as “unsurpassable in physical size, unconquerable in strength, who appeared fearful to the eyes, with thick hair hanging down from their head and cheeks, and they had dragon-scale feet.” Th is vision of the Giants does not seem to be a particularly ancient one, however, since our earliest representations of the scene depict the Giants more tamely. Th e battle had a particular vogue in the late sixth century BCE when it was used as the theme for several temple pediments, including that of a fore-runner of the Parthenon on the Athenian Akropolis.24 Here special atten-tion would have been drawn to Athene’s role in the battle—her victories were reputedly woven into the robe presented to the goddess at the Pana-thenaia festival every year, and Gigantomachy scenes were later used for

22) On the Hesiod passages, see West, Th eogony 336–56 and 379–97.23) Gantz 27–56 discusses the Titans and Titanomachia in literature and art. Schefold, Gods and Heroes 50–55 discusses some scenes which could be identifi ed as related to the Titanomachy and representations of Typhon, before considering Gigantomachies in archaic sculpture and vase painting (55–67). See also Schefold, Myth and Legend 63–64 and Car-penter fi gs. 112–15.24) Boardman, Archaic Period fi g. 199; Schefold, Gods and Heroes fi gs. 71–72.

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the east metopes of the Parthenon and also appeared on the shield of Pheidias’s statue of Athene Parthenos.25 Th e reason for the Gigantomachy’s popularity on public buildings is generally held to be its message of the triumph of order over chaos, Greeks over barbarians—and indeed this message is reinforced on the Siphnian Treasury frieze by the inclusion of Th emis (Order) amongst the gods—although some scholars have argued

25) For the robe, see Plato, Euthyphro 6b; scholia to Euripides’s Hecuba 467. For Pheidias’s statue see further below.

Figure 3. Zeus and Typhaon. Chalcidean black-fi gure hydria, c. 540 BCE, Munich 596. Photo: Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München.

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for interpretations more specifi c to individual buildings.26 One possible practical reason for the scene’s popularity was its adaptability to the awk-ward triangular shape of the pediment, since the dead and dying can be made to fi ll the corners, and Gigantomachies seem to have been the sub-ject of pediments for the 520 BCE incarnation of Apollo’s temple at Del-phi and of the Megarian Treasury at Olympia (c. 510 BCE).27 Such a battle also provides suitable matter for the long, thin rectangular shape of the continuous Ionic frieze, as on the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, of c. 525 BCE, where the most noticeable feature is that the Giants are represented as entirely anthropomorphic, regular hoplite soldiers.

Th e scene resurfaces in monumental form in the Hellenistic period on the frieze of the Altar of Zeus at Pergamon, probably dated to the reign of the Attalid king Eumenes II (197–59 BCE), where at last we see the snaky legs of Apollodorus’s description, with the additional monstrous feature of wings, reminiscent of Typhon’s appearance (color plate 7). Earth is again characterised by her position just rising up out of the ground, very much in opposition to the fi gure of Victory fl ying above her. Th e “order vs. chaos” message is again relevant here, since the monument is usually understood to be celebrating the victories of the Attalid dynasty over invading Gallic tribes, but there may be a further level of political signifi cance in the choice of the theme, as there is a case for seeing it as a deliberate attempt to equate the relatively young kingdom of Pergamon with the revered city of Athens.28

II Creation of Mankind

Th e second part of the traditional creation story is the creation of man-kind, although here there is no single authoritative account. Hesiod is once again our earliest source, but he off ers oblique and apparently contradic-

26) For images see Boardman, Th e Archaic Period fi gs 208–212.4; Schefold, Gods and Heroes fi gs. 67–69. A more specifi c political signifi cance for this frieze has most recently been discussed by Neer.27) For images of Apollo’s temple at Dephi, see Boardman, Th e Archaic Period fi gs. 203.1–204; Schefold, Gods and Heroes fi g. 70. For images of the Megarian Treasury, see Boardman, Th e Archaic Period fi g. 215.28) See Pollitt 97–110 and R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture 157–64 fi gs. 193–6. Wood-ford 122–6 briefl y considers the question of the Giants’ changing appearance. For full details of 400+ appearances of Giants in Greek art, see Vian and Moore, “Gigantes” LIMC.

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tory information.29 Man’s existence is implied, though not explained, by a number of passages in the Th eogony: Night’s off spring (ll. 211–32), for example, are almost all affl ictions for mortals and presuppose an anthropo-morphic society (Battles, Disputes, Lawlessness), while an extended account of the goddess Hecate (ll. 411–52) makes reference to men off ering her prayers and sacrifi ces. It has been argued too that there is reference to the birth of the human race in the appearance of “the Nymphs they call Meliai” (l. 187), born of the blood from Heaven’s castration alongside the Giants and the Furies (cf. Table 1). Meliai literally means “ash trees,” making these nymphs equivalent to Dryads—the nymphs of oak trees (dryes)—but an ancient commentator on the relevant line adds the further remark that “from these came the fi rst race of human beings” (sch. Hesiod, Th eogony 187). Th is attribution would place the human race into the poem’s scheme of the cosmos as formed through procreation rather than by a creator fi gure, but since its theme is the births of the gods, the absence of a more explicit account of man’s beginnings is not surprising.

In contrast to his Th eogony, Hesiod’s other poem, the Works and Days, is more concerned with the human plane, and here we fi nd the myth of the “fi ve races of man” (West, Works and Days ll. 110–201). According to this account, successive races of mankind are indeed created (rather than given birth to) by the gods, and each race is equated with a metal of descending order of value. Th e fi rst and second races, of gold and silver, are made by “the immortals who have their homes on Olympos” during the reign of Kronos (ll. 108–9), while the third race, of bronze, and the fourth, of heroes, are attributed to Zeus.30 Th e process of creation is never elaborated upon, and the fi nal race of iron, to which we belong, is simply “established” by Zeus rather than having been “made” like those that came before.31

29) Clay 81–99 devotes a whole chapter to Hesiod on “the origins and nature of mankind.” Sourvinou-Inwood argues that the diff erent stories involved would not have seemed as incompatible to ancient Greek audience as they have to many modern scholars. See also Gantz 152–4 and West, Th e Orphic Poems 172–204.30) Th e bronze race is described as “from ash-trees” (l. 145), which may be another allusion to the myth hinted at in the Th eogony l. 187.31) Th ere is some diffi culty with the text which introduces the fi fth race since the critical line is one of several which are not included in all manuscripts. Clay explains the change of verb as signalling a gradual transition, rather than a break, between the race of heroes and the race of iron (93).

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Th e existence of man is also vital for the story of the Titan Prometheus (Forethought), who outwitted Zeus twice and was twice punished.32 In the Th eogony (ll. 507–616), Prometheus’s fi rst off ence is to trick Zeus into accepting the bones and fat as his portion of a slaughtered ox, while the good meat goes to the mortal men present, thus setting a precedent for Greek sacrifi cial practice; the second is to steal fi re “in a hollow fennel stalk” for man’s benefi t (l. 567). Prometheus’s punishment is to be tied to a shaft where an eagle daily pecks out his immortal liver, which regenerates every night, until the bird is eventually killed by Herakles. Further punish-ment is infl icted on mankind as a whole by the creation of the fi rst woman, who is given to Prometheus’s hapless brother Epimetheus (Afterthought) to be “an evil for mortal men” (l. 600). Th e story stresses the antipathy between Zeus and mankind, since Zeus has deliberately hidden fi re in the fi rst place, and then seems so vindictive in his reaction to the theft. It has been plausibly argued that Hesiod again has in mind the story of man’s descent from the gods alongside the giants, because Zeus specifi cally denies fi re to “the Melian mortal men” (ll. 563–4).33 In the Works and Days (ll. 54–105), the story of the sacrifi ce and Prometheus’s personal punish-ment are largely dispensed with, the focus much more clearly being on the theft of fi re and the consequent creation of woman, here named as Pan-dora, which is narrated in some detail. Under Zeus’s instructions, Hephais-tos mixes earth and water, “putting in a human voice and strength” and making “the beautiful form of a maiden, like the immortal goddesses in face” (ll. 61–63); Athene gives her the ability to weave, Aphrodite makes her desirable, and fi nally Hermes contributes “a bitch’s mind and a thievish nature” (l. 67). Th e brother’s role in the story is emphasised:

Epimetheus did not consider how Prometheus had told him never to accept a gift from Olympian Zeus, but to send it right back, lest some-thing somehow evil for mortals might happen. But he accepted it, and only when he already had the evil thing did he realise. For before the tribes of men on earth used to live remote from ills, hard toil and the grievous sicknesses which bring the Fates upon men . . . (ll. 85–89)

32) On Hesiod’s accounts, see Clay 100–28; Dougherty 27–45; West, Th eogony 305–36 and Th e Orphic Poems 155–72; Kerényi 33–62. Gantz 154–66 discusses both Hesiod and the later sources.33) For an instance of this argument, see Clay 108–9.

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Not only is Pandora herself an affl iction, but she opens the jar which releases ills of all kinds to roam the earth. Th e story concludes: “so there is no way to escape the will of Zeus.”34

Prometheus’s story was further elaborated in the fi fth century, in both tragedy and the burlesque genre of satyr-play.35 Prometheus Bound is the only part to survive of a trilogy on the subject, transmitted with the plays of Aeschylus, though the attribution is now widely doubted; we have the remaining plays’ titles, Prometheus Freed and Prometheus the Firebearer, and some fragments from which to gain an idea of their plots.36 Th e action of the extant play centers on Prometheus’s punishment—with the protago-nist chained to a rock on stage—and the audience’s sympathies are clearly engaged in his support against a high-handed Zeus. A further diff erence in emphasis must have been apparent in the second play’s theme of Pro-metheus’s liberation—since Hesiod’s account delivers him from the torture of the eagle, but leaves him in chains—apparently in return for revealing the name of the goddess Th etis who is fated to bear a son greater than his father. Th e fi nal play is more obscure, but may have included an explana-tory story for the torch races, which were performed in Prometheus’s hon-our at Athens, and possibly something of the Pandora story. Also attributed to Aeschylus, though performed on a diff erent occasion, is a satyr-play entitled Prometheus Firekindler that presumably parodied the theft of fi re in some way, while Sophocles’s Pandora or Hammerers must have dealt with the later stage of the story, the “Hammerers” perhaps being involved in the woman’s creation.37 A further element of the story is suggested by the title of a comedy, the Pyrrha and Prometheus, attributed to the Sicilian play-wright Epicharmos.38 Th ough only a few fragments of the play survive, it is likely to have treated the myth, preserved in brief by Apollodorus (1.7.1–2), that Epimetheus and Pandora’s daughter Pyrrha and Prometheus’s son Deukalion were the only humans to survive a great Flood sent by Zeus; afterward they re-started the generation of mankind by throwing stones

34) Works and Days l. 105. Th ere is extensive literature on the legacy of Hesiod’s Pandora myth and its social signifi cance: see, for example, Loraux 72–110 and Zeitlin.35) On fi fth-century literature, see Dougherty 65–87, and Kerényi 69–128.36) See “Aeschylus,” Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Vol. 3 frs 187–208.37) See “Aeschylus,” Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Vol. 3 204a–207a. See also “Sophocles,” Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Vol. 4 frs 482–6.38) See “Epicharmus,” Poetae Comici Graeci frs 113–20.

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over their heads.39 Th is story ties Prometheus into the early history of the human race as a direct ancestor.

Even more striking is the fact that Apollodorus prefaces his version of Prometheus’s crime and punishment with the words: “having moulded men from water and earth . . .” (1.7.1). Th is allusion to the idea of Pro-metheus being man’s creator is tantalisingly brief, but it also appears, for example, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1.76–88), written c. 2–8 CE, where it off ers an alternative to man’s being made by an anonymous creator from “divine seed”: “or else the new-made earth . . . which the son of Iapetus [i.e. Prometheus], mixing it with rainwater, fashioned into the image of the all-governing gods . . .” (ll. 80–83). Pausanias is certainly familiar with the idea when he identifi es a statue which he saw beside the road to Delphi as Prometheus on the grounds of its proximity to two unusual clay-colored stones: “and there is a smell very close to human fl esh; they say that these were left over from the clay out of which the whole human race was moulded by Prometheus” (10.4.4). How early Prometheus acquired the role of creator is a matter for some debate. Some scholars have argued for its presence underlying Hesiod’s account, on the grounds that it would provide motivation for Prometheus’s partiality for mankind.40 Th e creative mechanism does indeed replicate the fi rst stage of Pandora’s creation in Hesiod’s account—Hephaistos mixes earth and water (Works and Days ll. 60–61)—but as we have seen, the version of the story recorded in the Th eogony implies man’s descent from the Meliai, while the Works and Days version is juxtaposed with Hesiod’s confl icting attribution of man’s cre-ation to Zeus in the myth of the fi ve races.

Th ere are perhaps hints of the creative role in fi fth-century drama, which presents Prometheus as a source of intelligence, culture, and technology, but the earliest explicit literary link between Prometheus and man’s cre-ation comes in Plato’s Protagoras, probably written c. 390 BCE. Here the story is put into Protagoras’s mouth: the philosopher describes how the gods made all mortal creatures from earth and fi re, and then gave them to Prometheus and Epimetheus for the distribution of powers (such as speed, size, protective skins and hooves): Epimetheus imprudently gave away all the powers available before he got to mankind, so Prometheus had to steal fi re along with technical skill from Hephaistos and Athene, for which he

39) Bremmer argues that Apollodorus’s account is derived from the archaic Titanomachy, which was in turn infl uenced by Near Eastern versions of the Flood myth.40) See Heitsch 419–35.

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was duly punished (Allen, Protagoras 320c–21e). Some have attributed the story to the historical fi gure of Protagoras himself, a sophist who was active in Athens in the mid to-late 430s BCE, the dialogue’s dramatic date. It is equally possible, however, that the story is Plato’s own invention, expanding on the Hesiodic opposition between the clever and the stupid brother, and rationalising the theft of fi re.41 Even here, however, Pro-metheus is only mankind’s champion, while the actual creation is attrib-uted rather vaguely to “the gods.” Plato uses the image of the Craftsman-god in a number of his dialogues, developing it most fully in the Timaeus, where a divine creator makes the universe out of a desire for order and subsequently delegates to the gods he has made the task of creating living creatures to populate air, water, and dry land.42 He never assigns a name to the Craftsman, nor does he explicitly include Prometheus in the creative process. Nonetheless, the Protagoras story does suggest the steps by which Prometheus’s general association with man’s early history, and his role as benefactor, might have developed into the role of man’s creator. Th is is soon made explicit in later fourth and third-century works: for example, the philosopher Herakleides of Pontos makes tangential reference to “the time when Prometheus made men”; there are one or two references in New Comedy to Prometheus making mankind and the animals, or being hated by the gods for making women; and Callimachus can even allude to man-kind as “Promethean mud.”43

Representations of Prometheus in Greek art tend to refl ect the story of his punishment, while a number of Attic vases from the second half of the fi fth century depict him giving fi re to satyrs, very probably infl uenced by satyr-plays like those we have mentioned.44 However, quite a number of images from Italy depict Prometheus in the very act of making man. Th e subject appears on a handful of Roman sarcophagi of the second century CE or later and in one or two wall-paintings, but closer in time to our Greek material are a range of Etruscan/Italic and Roman gems of the third

41) See Allen 97–103, Dougherty 78–84, and Gantz 166. 42) On Plato’s divine craftsman, see Pender, “Images of Persons Unseen” 100–4 (with full list of references at 236–8); Pender “Chaos corrected” specifi cally discusses the relationship between Plato’s and Hesiod’s visions of creation.43) Herakleides, fr. 66a–b Wehrli; Philemo, Poetae Comici Graeci fr. 93; Menander, Poetae Comici Graeci fr. 508; Callimachus, fr. 192 Pfeiff er (cf. fr. 493).44) For punishment, see Gisler, “Prometheus” LIMC nos 24–79; Schefold, Myth and Leg-end 31, pls 11a and 57a, and Gods and Heroes 52–54, fi gs. 56–57; Carpenter fi gs. 116–17. For the transmission of fi re, see Gisler, “Prometheus” LIMC nos 4–19; Carpenter fi g. 118.

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to fi rst centuries BCE.45 In most, as in color plate 8, the man’s incomplete state is indicated by missing limbs; the torso is bearded, so clearly male, and supported on a stand to facilitate Prometheus’s work. A few examples show the half-made man as a skeleton, which Gisler interprets as a kind of memento mori: “son face à face avec la squelette pourrait évoquer la réfl ex-ion du penseur sur la mort et le mystère de la vie.”46 Th ese images demon-strate that the absence of man’s creation from Greek art is not due to technical limitations. Certainly, the whole idea of the creator-fi gure may not have gained currency early enough to feature in fi gured vase painting, which dies out at Athens soon after 400 BCE and in the Greek colonies of Southern Italy around 300 BCE, but the simple composition of the gems could easily be imagined rendered in three dimensions as a sculptural group, and groups with such a narrative fl avor were indeed popular in sculpture of the Hellenistic period.47 Other explanations then should be sought.

One possible reason for Greek art’s lack of interest in the creation of man as a species is the existence of strong local traditions which trace the origins of a particular city to a “fi rst man” genealogically connected with the local landscape. Th e Argives, for example, traced their ancestry back to Phoroneus, son of the local river Inachos, himself a son of Ocean and Tethys (cf. Table 2); they credited Phoroneus with being the fi rst to gather humans into a community, and sometimes even with giving fi re to man-kind.48 Other cities have their ancestors spring from the earth, as is the case of the Sown Men (Spartoi) of Th ebes, whose founder Kadmos gathered the teeth of the dragon which had guarded Ares’s spring and sewed them in the ground; immediately, fully armed men sprang up and fought each other to the death until only fi ve remained. Th ese men became the ancestors of the

45) See Gisler, “Promethus” LIMC nos 80–112. Tassinari catalogues 63 gems. Th e creator-fi gure is not explicitly identifi ed (e.g. by inscription) as Prometheus in any of these scenes, but identifi cation is made reasonably likely by the currency of the story in contemporary literature.46) Tran. “[H]is encounter with the skeleton could evoke a thinking man’s refl ection on death and the mystery of life.” “Prometheus,” LIMC 552. See Tassinari for detailed discus-sion of the gems and transmission of the myth of Prometheus the creator, which she tenta-tively links with the spread of Orphic and Pythagorean ideas in Magna Graecia from the late fourth century onwards.47) On the “theatrical mentality” of Hellenistic sculpture, see Pollitt 4–7.48) Apollodorus 2.1.1, Pausanias 2.15.5 and 2.19.5; see Gantz 198–9.

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Th eban nobility.49 Such stories of course have a legitimizing function, establishing the people’s right to their land by positing a literal genealogical link between the two, but the political message is reinforced in the case of the best attested autochthony story, that of the Athenians. According to the story related by Apollodorus, not only are the early kings of Athens, Kekrops, and Kranaos “autochthonous” (3.14.1, 5), but the third king, Erichthonios, is ingeniously associated with the city’s patron deity, Athene, without damaging the virginity which is an essential part of her character. Athene rejects the advances of the craftsman-god Hephaistos, who tries to pursue her but, being lame, cannot quite catch up and ejaculates on Athene’s leg: “She, having been defi led, wiped the semen off with a piece of wool and threw it on the ground. As she was fl eeing, and since the seed had fallen into the earth, Erichthonios came to birth” (3.14.5–6).50 Th e double maternity is a vital element of the story, and vase-painters often chose to depict precisely the moment of the baby Erichthonios’s transfer from Earth to his step-mother Athene.51 Such an image may also have been present in the more public context of Hephaistos’s temple in the Athenian Agora. Th is was begun in 449–8 BCE but not fi nished until a cult statue, by Pheidias’s pupil Alkamenes, was dedicated in 416–15 BCE.52 Unusu-ally, rather than a single fi gure, this seems to have been a statue group, including Athene as well as Hephaistos, refl ecting the fact that both deities were worshipped at the temple in their capacity as patrons of crafts, espe-cially at the annual Chalkeia festival. Th e appearance of the statue is the subject of considerable debate, but Pausanias (1.14.5) makes brief allusion to the Erichthonios story in connection with it, and scholars have argued

49) Our earliest source for the story is Euripides’s Phoenician Women 818–21 and 931–42, which dates to 411–09 BCE; cf. Apollodorus 3.4.1. For a discussion of the sources, see Gantz 467–71.50) On the slightly confusing picture presented by earlier sources, and the inconsistent application of the names Erichthonios and Erechtheus, see briefl y Gantz 233–5. Th e sig-nifi cance of the autochthony myth to Athenians of the classical period is discussed at length by Loraux: see especially 37–71 on the Erichthonios story, and 184–236 on its elaboration in Euripides’ Ion. On the Ion’s treatment of the autochthony theme, see also Zachariah 44–102.51) See Kron, “Erechtheus” LIMC nos 1–28; Reeder 250–66 nos 67–72; Loraux pls 1–5; Carpenter fi g. 111; Bérard fi gs. 4–6. Shapiro, “Autochthony and the visual arts” discusses both the Erichthonios scenes and representations of Kekrops, whose Earth-born nature seems to be indicated by his hybrid form, with a man’s upper body but a snakey tail in place of legs.52) See Boardman, Classical Period 146–8 and Harrison, “Alkamenes’ Sculptures.”

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either that the baby might have been part of the main group, held in Athene’s arms, or that the statue-base might have featured a scene similar to the vase paintings, with Earth handing the baby over to Athene (fi g. 4).53

Local autochthony myths always focus on the male—as Loraux com-ments, “there is no fi rst Athenian woman”54—but, as we have seen, Hesiod provides a much stronger narrative for the creation of a universal fi rst woman. Th e Works and Days account particularly elaborates on Pandora’s physical preparation by Athene and by Aphrodite’s assistants: “And the goddess bright-eyed Athene girdled her and adorned her, and the divine Graces and lady Persuasion put golden necklaces around her neck, and the rich-haired Seasons garlanded her with spring fl owers; and Pallas Athene bedecked her form with every adornment” (ll. 72–76). Th e dangerous character of Pandora’s outer attractiveness is clear from the opening of the account, when Zeus proposes to give mankind “an evil thing, in which all will delight in their hearts even as they warmly embrace their own

53) See Delivorrias on this reconstruction, reproduced here with his kind permission. Pala-gia, “Meaning and narrative techniques” 68–74 provides a useful overview and criticism of the various reconstructions proposed, concluding that the birth of Erichthonios was not the subject of the base. See also Robertson 95–96.54) Loraux 10. She later comments: “the consistency of this discourse about women deserves to be emphasized, especially considering the proliferation of various competing discourses in the world of the Greek city about the origins of the fi rst man” (75).

Figure 4. Birth of Erichthonios. One possible reconstruction of the base of the cult statue in the temple of Hephaistos, Athenian Agora. Drawing: Amilia Kossona, from Delivorrias 1997: fi g. 6.

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misfortune” (Works and Days ll. 57–58), but at the same time the beautifi -cation process very much presents Pandora as the bride she is about to be to Epimetheus.55 Th is role is apparent in the one certain image we have of Pandora being handed over to her future husband (fi g. 5);56 both Pandora’s and Epimetheus’s identities are confi rmed by inscriptions, though the latter’s workman’s tunic and mallet would more usually be associated with Hephaistos.57 Zeus stands to the far left next to a readily-identifi able Hermes, refl ecting the conclusion of the adornment scene, where Zeus instructs Hermes to deliver Pandora to Epimetheus (Works and Days ll. 83–85); in his left hand Hermes carries a fl ower, perhaps as a fi nal touch to Pandora’s adornment. Th e small Eros above Pandora’s head indicates her sexual attractiveness, but the inclusion of such a fi gure is also a conven-tional way of identifying the bride in wedding scenes on vases of this period; likewise Pandora’s crown might be standard bridal wear, although it is also reminiscent of the elaborate golden crown made by Hephaistos in the Th eogony version of the story (ll. 578–84).58 Th e most striking aspect of the image, however, is Pandora’s position rising out of the ground, which might be meant to symbolise her creation from earth and water, and cer-tainly calls to mind representations of Earth, as seen above in color plates 6 and 7, and fi gure 4.59

55) Th e adornment of the bride becomes a standard scene in Athenian vase painting: see Oakley and Sinos 16–21. On the ambivalent character of Persuasion here and in later wed-ding imagery, see Staff ord, Worshipping Virtues 111–45.56) Robertson fi g. 4.8; Reeder no. 81; Shapiro, Personifi cations fi g. 45; Carpenter, Art and Myth fi g. 119.57) See Neils for a comparison of this with the scene on a Campanian amphora of c. 450–25 BCE, attributed to the Owl Pillar Group (London F 147; Robertson fi gs. 4.9–10), in which a female rising from the earth is greeted by a male wearing a workman’s hat and holding a mallet. Th e fi gures are not labelled here, so that their identifi cations remain con-troversial, but Neils’s interpretation of the image on the reverse of the vase as Zeus contem-plating Hope, trapped inside Pandora’s jar, is attractive.58) Oakley and Sinos 45.59) Bérard 161–4, fi g. 71. He concludes that the representation of Pandora here is due to the infl uence of images of other females rising from the earth, rather than refl ecting a genu-ine variation in Pandora’s own story; he therefore dismisses the idea that the Hammerers of Sophocles’s satyr-play were employed somehow in liberating Pandora from the ground.

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It is more usually the adornment, however, which is the focus of represen-tations of Pandora in the visual arts.60 In one late sixth-century image she appears like a doll in Zeus’s hands, while Hermes stands by and a goddess,

60) Th e “Pandora” entry in the LIMC catalogues just six images, which are more fully dis-cussed by Reeder 277–86, Shapiro, Myth into Art 63–70, Hurwit, and Robertson.

Figure 5. Epimetheus receives Pandora; Zeus, Hermes and Eros attend. Attic red-fi gure krater, c. 450 BCE, Oxford G 275. Photo: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

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who may be Aphrodite or one of her assistants, holds out wreaths or neck-laces for her adornment.61 Th e more standard schema, though, has Pan-dora standing frontally, on only a slightly smaller scale than the surround ing deities. Th e earliest version of this type is an Attic white-ground cup of

61) Attic black-fi gure amphora by the Diosphos Painter, c. 520 BCE (Berlin F 1837); Rob-ertson fi g. 4.1. Shapiro does not recognise this as a Pandora scene, and explains the absence of archaic representations as refl ecting the story’s lack of “action” (Myth into Art 66).

Figure 6. Creation of Pandora. Attic red-fi gure krater by the Niobid Painter, c. 460 BCE, London E 467. Above: Athene, Pandora, Ares. Below: musician and actors dressed for a satyr play. Photo: © British Museum.

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c. 470–60 BCE, where the central female is in fact named “Anesidora” (“she who releases gifts”), but she is suitably fl anked by Hephaistos, who holds a stick for marking the clay, and Athene, who pins the woman’s peplos (one of two standard Greek types of female dress) as the fi rst stage of her adornment.62 More or less contemporary with this is the red-fi gure krater (fi g. 6), which again shows Pandora frontally and wearing a peplos while Athene prepares to crown her with a wreath; behind Athene, Posei-don turns to converse with a seated Zeus, while Ares is looking back at Hermes who seems to be running away from the scene.63 In the frieze below are an aulos-player and a chorus of actors dressed as satyrs, suggest-ing that the image was inspired by a satyr-play such as Sophocles’s Pandora, mentioned above. In keeping with the satyrs, Ares’s proximity to Pandora might be a humorous touch, given the god’s traditional role as Aphrodite’s virile lover (Odyssey 8.266–366), or more seriously might indicate that war is one of the evils she will bring upon mankind.

Th e most signifi cant appearance of this scene, however, is on the base of Pheidias’s celebrated statue of Athene Parthenos, made in 438 BCE to stand in the Parthenon. Th e original 11.5 m tall chryselephantine statue does not survive, but we have brief mentions of the plinth’s subject in Pau-sanias (1.24.5–7) and Pliny (Natural History 36.18–19), and two smaller-scale copies of the statue make some attempt to replicate the base.64 Th e so-called “Lenormant Athene” is a very small version, with just six fi gures on the base, rather than the twenty recorded by Pliny, but it includes the chariots of the Sun and Moon at either end, indicating a cosmic setting for the scene.65 Color plate 9 is a rather larger version, a third of the size of the original and with ten fi gures on the base, made in the Hellenistic period to adorn the library at Pergamon.66 Pandora is just about distinguishable in the center, in a frontal pose, on a slightly reduced scale and wearing a peplos, just like the images on the vases; the fi gure immediately to the left, one of three Graces or Seasons, holds what may be a belt, an essential accessory

62) Attributed to the Tarquinia Painter (London D4); Robertson fi g. 4.2; Hurwit fi g. 5; Reeder no. 79; Shapiro, Personifi cations 41.63) Robertson fi g. 4.4; Hurwit fi g. 6; Reeder no. 80; Shapiro, Personifi cations fi gs. 42–44.64) Recent discussions of the base include Palagia, “Meaning and Narrative Techniques” 60–62, Harrison, “Alkamenes’ Sculptures” 48–52, and Hurwit 1995.65) Athens National Museum 128; Hurwit fi g. 3; Boardman, Classical Period fi g. 98. 66) Robertson fi gs. 4.5–7; Hurwit fi g. 2; Boardman, Classical Period fi g. 101; Harrison, “Alkamenes’ Sculptures” Part I, fi g. 10.

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for the draping of a peplos, recalling Hesiod’s description of Athene “gird-ing” Pandora. Various theories have been advanced as to why the story of Pandora’s creation was chosen for such a prominent position. Th e story might be related to the troubling female gender of Athens’s patron deity, juxtaposing the archetypal woman/mother to the anti-femininity of Athene (a virgin, born of her father), at the same time off ering justifi cation for the political exclusion of women and warning of the “existence of evil and the possibility of catastrophe” even in Athens.67 More positively, the emphasis might be on Pandora’s role as mother of all Greeks, who acts as a conduit for the gifts of Athene and Hephaistos, signifying that “Athens is shower-ing Greece with the gifts of civilisation” (Palagia, “Meaning and Narrative Techniques” 61). Most recently it has been suggested that the emphasis on Pandora’s adornment, and in particular the girding of her peplos, might provide an aition for the central ritual of the Panathenaia festival, in which a new peplos was presented to Athene, and which is (arguably) depicted at the center of the Parthenon’s east frieze.68

III Conclusion

In conclusion then the story of the world’s creation could have been pre-sented in Greek art—the strong anthropomorphism of Greek thought facilitated representation of both gods and natural phenomena in human form, while Hesiod provided an authoritative narrative from which epi-sodes might be excerpted. Th e images we have, however, are confi ned to one or two unusual divine births and battles establishing divine order. It may be simply that the very beginnings of things were not of particular interest to the majority of Greeks—and even Hesiod passes over the early stages as quickly as possible—but any answer to the question should take into account the contexts in which our existing images appear. Vase paint-ing favors strong, even dramatic, narrative, which is easily provided in the births of Aphrodite and Athene and various divine battles. Relief sculpture likewise requires a good story-line, but its use for the decoration of high-profi le public buildings and cult statues introduces a further, political level to the choice of subject—a Gigantomachy can convey a general message about the superiority of Greek order over barbarian chaos, while Athene’s

67) Hurwit 186. According to Hurwit, “Pandora is, in eff ect, the Anti-Athena” (185).68) See Robertson.

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birth projects a more specifi c message about Athenian supremacy. Similar considerations must underlie the ways in which the creation of mankind is visualized. Th e complete absence of images of the creation of man from Greek art is, on the one hand, explicable in terms of the absence of any strong early narrative tradition, but may also refl ect the primacy of local stories of autochthony. Th e stronger interest in the origins of woman, on the other hand, attested by Hesiod’s narrative and refl ected in a handful of images, says much about Greek attitudes towards women: their existence requires explanation in a way which man’s does not, while a rehearsing of their creation perhaps restores a sense of control for the male viewer.

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Boardman, John. Greek Sculpture: Th e Archaic Period. London: Th ames and Hudson, 1978.———. Greek Sculpture: Th e Classical Period. London: Th ames and Hudson, 1985. Borg, Barbara E. Der Logos des Mythos: Allegorien und Personifi kationen in der frühen griechi-

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