ferrari, gloria - héraclès, pisistratus and the panathenaea

8/3/2019 Ferrari, Gloria - Héraclès, Pisistratus and the Panathenaea

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/ferrari-gloria-heracles-pisistratus-and-the-panathenaea 1/9

Gloria Ferrari

Héraclès, Pisistratus and the PanathenaeaIn: Mètis. Anthropologie des mondes grecs anciens. Volume 9-10, 1994. pp. 219-226.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Ferrari Gloria. Héraclès, Pisistratus and the Panathenaea. In: Mètis. Anthropologie des mondes grecs anciens. Volume 9-10,

1994. pp. 219-226.

doi : 10.3406/metis.1994.1024

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/metis_1105-2201_1994_num_9_1_1024

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/author/auteur_metis_76

http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/metis.1994.1024



http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/metis.1994.1024

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/author/auteur_metis_76



HERACLES,PISISTRATUS AND THE PANATHENAEA

Before the possibility of political symbolism was cast in high relief by John

Boardman in 1972, the idea that the images on Athenian vases expresspolitical views dominant in their time seemed perfectly reasonable.Boardman s interprétation of the sixth century pictures of Héraclès in achariot with Athena as Pisistratid propaganda has now made it difficult to beso vague, to say that an image was "in the wind"1. His article addressed thequestions of just how an image became, as we say, "popular", how it was

controlled, and what rôle, if any, the artisans who painted it had in shapingpublic opinion. Hère I would like to focus precisely on the circumstances inwhich the pictures of Héraclès with a chariot and gods were painted andviewed, and against which the pageantry of Pisistratus' return was meant tobe understood. That context is the main festival of the city and, I argue, itsfoundation legend is the hub around which the imagery revolves.

The main points of the argument must be set out once more. First, thescène of Pisistratus' return from his first exile, described by Herodotus, 1, 56,5-6:

There was in the deme of Paeania a woman called Phye, nearly six feet talland good looking. They dressed this woman in full panoply and placed her in

a chariot in a pose that would make the best display, and drove into the city.Heralds ran ahead and, when they came into town proclaimed, as they hadbeen told to do: "Welcome Pisistratus, Athenians, the man Athena honoredbeyond ai l men and now leads back to her own acropolis".

1. J. Boardman, "Herakles, Ρ2;8ϊ8^ί08 and Sons", Revue Archéologique, 1972, pp .57-72. R.M. Cook, "Pots and Pisistratan Propaganda", Journ. Hell. Stud., 107, 1987, pp .167-169, proposes again the notion that an image may simply be "popular".



220 GLORIA FERRARI

Herodotus tells the story bu t issues a disclaimer, calling this plan foolish

and strange, particularly because it meant to deceive Athenians, the cleverestof ail Greeks2. One wonders what spécial pose the obliging Phye was madeto assume. Otherwise, the mental image that Herodotus' story conjures upis uncanningly similar to what is offered by about 170 Athenian vases of thesixth and fifth century, a scène whose essential ingrédients are the same as inthe Pisistratus' épisode: a chariot and Héraclès and Athena3. Thèse pictureshâve long been labeled the "apotheosis" of Héraclès and taken to mark adeparture from an earlier version of the subject that shows the hero being ledto Zeus by Athena on foot. The chariot version of Héraclès' apotheosis,Boardman argued, was inspired by the staging of Pisistratus' return4. In

Héraclès' Olympus the ancient viewer would hâve read the Acropolis ofAthens, and in Héraclès Pisistratus himself. Accordingly, the re-entry of

Pisistratus in Athens is the frame of référence in which the image is embeddedand within which it must be understood. The premise that the scènes show anapotheosis and the conclusion that they refer to Pisistratus directly - the first

concerning the subject itself of the image, the other the discourse to whichit belongs - are the points I wish to re-examine.

The idea that the pictures, originate with the tyrant has difficulties, theprincipal of which is chronological: the earliest instances of the chariot scènesare dated in the 560s, before the earliest date that can be assigned to the Phyeépisode. What is worse, thèse scènes corne in large numbers in the years after

510, when the tyranny cornes to an end, and continue into the 480s5. Yet,there is something terribly right about Boardman 's idea, and that is that thedescription of Pisistratus' return, however you visualize it, in some measureresembles the chariot scènes painted on the vases, and the chances that this

is simply a coïncidence seem to me very small. To acknowledge that thereis a resemblance between the two, however, is not to say that the chariotscènes represent Pisistratus' return. With others, I believe that there is more

2. But the story stands a good chance of being true, or, at least, of having been

considered true in later years, since it is repeated in the Aristotelian Ath. Pol., 14,4 and byClidemus (FrGrHist 323, F 15).3. The bulk are listed in F. Brommer, Vasenlisten zur griechischen Heldensagerf,

Marburg, 1973, pp. 159-171.4. J. Boardman, "Herakles, Peisistratos and Eleusis», Journ. Hell. Stud., 95, 1975, p.

1: "This épisode was mirrored by, or inspired a change in the usual iconography ofHerakles' introduction to Olympus by Athena on foot, to a version in which the goddessis shown with the hero in a chariot'.

5. W.G. Moon, Ancient Greek Art and Iconography, Madison, Wisconsin, 1983, pp.101-102.



HERACLES, PISISTRATUS AND THE PANATHENAEA 22 1

to the image of Héraclès than a référence to Pisistratus, and that the opposite

is true, that Pisistratus' return staged a représentation of Héraclès6. Thespectacle of the return was meant to persuade, to get its message across insuch a way that it would be strikingly clear to the man in the street. For thatto happen, there must hâve existed the image of the hero in a chariot with

the goddess firmly in place in the popular culture, and this image will hâvebeen embedded in its own context - one that had, in the first place, nothingto do with Pisistratus. With this in mind, let us turn to the question of whatthe chariot scènes actually represent.

The label "apotheosii" implies that the story is about Héraclès - histranslation to Olympus - and that the event takes place after the hero s

death7. Being in the company of the gods at a time when, after ail, the godswalked the earth is hardly sufficient indication of apotheosis, however. Adifférent identification is suggested by the very iconography of the chariotscènes, which is a variant of the species "festive processions" and, asBoardman noted, follows the same scheme that serves to show, for example,elaborate, mythical weddings. Slater has pointed to its correspondence to thevictor's triumphal parade to the king's palace, where the banquet will be held,in the imagery of Pindar's odes. He has suggested, moreover, that the scènesof Héraclès apotheosis on vases should be viewed in connection with thedeed by which he gained immortality, that is, his rôle in the Gigantomachy8.A closer look at the vases will bring that connection into better focus.

6. R. Osborne, "The Myth of Propaganda", Hephaistos, 5-6, 1983-84, pp . 65-70. W.R.Connor, "Tribes, Festivals and Processions; civic cérémonial and political manipulationin archaic Greece", Journ. Hell. Stud., 107, 1987, pp . 40-50 sets the Phye épisode againstthe background of the custom of pageants in which citizens impersonated the divinitieshonored.

7. P. Mingazzini, "Le rappresentazioni vascolari del mito dell'apoteosi di Herakles",MAL6, Ser. 1, 1925, pp . 413-490. K. Schauenburg, "Herakles unter Gottern", Gymnasium,70, 1963, pp. 113-133. A. Verbanck-Pierard, "Images et croyances en Grèce ancienne:représentations de l'apothéose d'Héraclès au Vie siècle", Images et société en Grèce

ancienne. Cahiers d'Archéologie Romande, 36, 1987, pp . 187-199. Brommer, op.cit., p.159, points out, however, that the scènes may well be about something else: the departureto do battle with the Amazons, or with the Giants. On the vases, the Héraclès death andrescue from the pyre is represented in the years after 45 0 B.C. in imagery that has nothingto do with the sixth century chariot scènes. See J. Boardman, "Herakles in Extremis",Studien zur Mythologie und Vasenmaleri, E. Boehr and W. Martini, eds., Mainz/Rhein,1986, pp. 127-132.

8. W.J. Slater, "Nemean One: The victor's return in poetry and politics", Greek Poetryand Philosophy, D.E. Gerber, éd., Chico, California, 1984, pp . 241-264, particularly pp .241-244,249-251,256-64.



222 Gloria Ferrari

In the corpus itself of chariot scènes, variations on the central thème show

that whatever it is that Héraclès is doing, he is not the only one doing it. TheAntimenes Painter offers a full range of variations on the thème. Often,although both Héraclès and Athena are présent, it is not at ail clear that theyare traveling together. On some vases Héraclès seems to be taking off

without Athena, occasionally (and unaccountably) accompanied by Iolaus;9orAthena is in the chariot and on her way without Héraclès10. SometimesAthena mounts the chariot bu t Héraclès is absent;11 sometimes her place is

taken by another divinity, such as Demeter, for whom divinization would bepleonastic12. If we look for the occasion of a triumphal procession in whichboth the gods and Héraclès take on the rôle of the Victor, we shall find it

precisely in the saga of the Gigantomachy: after the battle, we are told, thehero joined the gods in célébration and, like them, performed the kallinikoskomos, the victory procession accompanied by song13. That is the occasionwhere the hero would be greeted by the cry tenella kallinike, hurrah for thewinner! as in Archilochus' Hymn to Herakles. On a hydria in Florence theimage of Héraclès in Athena' chariot and the battle against the giants - anarmed goddess towering over a fallen Giant - are compressed into a singleframe for a good reason: they belong to the same narrative14.

This emphasis on Héraclès reflects his crucial rôle in the myth, sincewithout him the Olympians would hâve lost the battle: "The gods had anoracle that none of the giants could perish at the hand of gods, bu t that with

the help of a mortal they would be made an end of"15. For that reason, thehero is also at center stage in the pictures of the battle itself, where he shootsthe Giants dead as they fall standing alongside Zeus and Athena16. WithoutHéraclès, there would be no happy ending to the Gigantomachy. Thanks tohim, there follows the collective célébration that the vases show. It may be

9. See the amphora Vatican 419, ABV 267.15; Burow, Der Antimenesmaler,Mainz/Rhein, 1989, no. 16.

10. Th e hydria Frankfurt, Muséum fu r Vor-und Friihgeschichte b 345, ABV 267.18;

Burow, op. cit., no 93 . Also Naples, Museo Nazionale Stg. 186, ABV 270.51; Burow,op.cit., no . 117.11. The amphora British Muséum Β 203, ABV 274.131; Burow, op.cit., no. 85. Hydria

Wurzburg, Martin von Wagner-Muséum L 320, ABV 267.18; Burow, op.cit., no. 123.12. Demeter: WUrzburg, Martin von Wagner-Muséum L 308, ABV 267.19; Burow,

op.cit., no . 92.13. Euripides, Héraclès furens, 179; Athenaeus, I, 22, c.14. Florence, Museo Archéologico 3803, ABV.15. Apollodorus, I, 6, 1; translation by J.G. Frazer 1921.16. F. Vian, LIMC1V (1988) 2456-57, 265, s.v. "Gigantes".



HERACLES, PlSISTRATUS AND THE PANATHENAEA 22 3

that his part in the war against the Giants earned him immortality and a place

among the gods, bu t the chariot scènes are not about déification. Rather thanas "apotheosis" (which is a modem label), the event depicted should berecognized as an épisode of the Gigantomachy. The myth also tells of aspécial connection of the hero to the goddess, since "by means of Athena Zeussummoned Héraclès to his help"17. In this light, images of Héraclès led to Zeusby Athena, bu t on foot and with no hint of célébration18, may show an earlierépisode of the same story: the recruitment of the hero before the battle.

If the chariot scènes belong to the Gigantomachy as much as the flood ofpictures of the battle itself, which also begin to appear on Attic vases alsoin the 560s, we should ask why the subject is so favored at this time. For once

it is not difficult to connect historical event and Visual culture. In 566 thePanathenaic festival was revamped and enlarged, with the addition of a grandquadriennial célébration19. As one would expect, the reform spurred theproduction of imagery related to the célébration, most of ail images thatillustrate its foundation legend. That legend is the célébration of the victoryover the Giants, specifically, of Athena over Asterios, as we learn from afragment of Aristotle which gives a checklist of foundation legends forimportant festival20. Unless one keeps in mind that the Panathenaeacommemorated the victory against the Giants, it is difficult to explain whythe Gigantomachy was the subject of the tapestry offered to Athena n thefestival21. Unless one locates the persona of Héraclès the Giant-slayer not in

myth and poetry, bu t specifically in this most important Athenian cuit andgrand occasion for civic display, it becomes difficult to explain why heappeared with Athena at the battle of Marathon and was so represented inthe Stoa Poikile - at Athena's side and with the héros Marathon andTheseus22. It becomes hard to explain, as Woodford noted when she reviewed

17. Apollodorus, I, 6, 1.18. Collectedby Brommer, op.cit., pp. 172-174.19. Eusebius, Chronica, Olympiad53, 3-4.20 . Aristotle, Fragmenta, V. Rosé, éd., Stuttgart, 1967, no. 637. This fact was pointed

out in G. F. Pinney, "Pallas and Panathenaea", Ancient Greek and Related Pottery,Copenhagen, 1988, pp . 467-477. As W. Burkert, Greek Religion, Cambridge, Mass., p.233, points out, the Gigantomachy is precisely the kind of aition one would expect forthe festival.

21 . The tapestry might hâve included a "chariot scène"; see Euripides, Hecuba, 466-74. For the Gigantomachy on the peplos, see B. Sismondo Ridgway, "Images of Athenaon the Akropolis", Goddess and Polis, J. Neils, éd., Princeton, N.J., 1992, pp . 123-24, 127.

22 . Pausanias, I, 15, 3. The connection with the Gigantomachy is briefly consideredand then rejected by Boardman, art. cit. (supra, n. 1), p. 59 .



224 Gloria Ferrari

the many cuits of Héraclès in Attica, why there should be so many, including

probably one on the Acropolis, fo r this Dorian hero, whose connection withAthens she took to be slight23.

There remains to be explained the curious painted inscription on thehydria by the Priam Painter, the phrase placed by the heads of Héraclès andAthenawhich reads HERAKLEOUS KORE24. The puzzle is insoluble, I think,so long as the two words are taken to be a phrase that is complète and endswith Kore - a label or an acclamation. In that case we hâve no choice but totake the genitive Ήερακλέους as modifying κόρε and translate "Héraclès'girl" or "Héraclès' daughter". I believe that this is not the case, and that theinscription gives the start of a longer line which contained, among the words

that followed, a noun meaning someone or something that could be plausiblysaid to belong to Héraclès.My reason for believing that the phrase Ήερακλέους κόρε is not

complète, and not a label, is that is scans. This is the first colon of a dactilichexameter with the word ending at the caesura, after the third long syllable:Ήερακλ'εοϋς κώρή25. One can go a little further, since the form of theinscription gives some dues as to the genre of the poem: the spelling κώρηexcludes certain kinds of choral lyric, where the Dorian form κώρα wouldappear. On the other hand, Ήερακλέους would not be found in an epic onthe Homeric model, where the genitive of this name is always given with hetaomicron26. This spelling of the hero's name might fit a number of genres,including choral lyric, but the combination points to a hymn, such as the

23 . S. Woodford, "Cuits of Héraclès in Attica", Studies présentée to G. M. A.Hanfmann, Mainz, 1971, pp. 21 1-225.

24 . Oxford212; AJ3V331.5. Boardman, art. cit., pp. 64-65; id., "Herakles, Peisistratosand the Unconvinced", Journ. Hell. Stud., 1989, p. 159, sought confirmation of thehypothesis that Héraclès is a transparent allegory for the real subject - Pisistratus - in ariddling understanding of the inscription. A literal reading is simply not believable. Athena

cannot be said to be Héraclès' daughter, and to take kore in the sensé of "lover" runscontrary everything we know about her. But if Héraclès hère is not himself, but Pisistratus- the argument goes - then an explanation is at hand. Because this would be not Athenabut the tall and comely Phye who drove Pisistratus to the Acropolis, and Phye was in asensé Pisistratus' daughter - daughter-in-law, having married Pisistratus' son Hipparchus(Clidemus, FrGrHist, 323, F 15). Voir, ci-dessous, fig. p. 226.

25 . Th e long ο vowel in kore is expressed by the omicron sign, as in many Atticmetrical inscriptions of this time; see, e.g., P. A. Hansen, Carmina epigraphica graeca,Berlin, 1983, nos. 24, 182, 195, 237, 282.

26. H. Ebeling, Lexicon Homericum, Leipzig, 1885, p. 546.



Illustration non autorisée à la diffusion

22 6 Gloria Ferrari

will hâve been made. In this fashion, I am prepared to believe that the vases

served the cause of Pisistratus' self-aggrandizement well, as Boardmanproposed. But the connection could also be ignored or severed, leaving ail that

Héraclès stood for intact, when the analogy revealed itself to be, in the event,a false one.

(University of Chicago) Gloria FERRARI

Figure 1

ferrari, gloria - héraclès, pisistratus and the panathenaea

Documents