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The Poet inspired?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

E. W. Handley
E. W. Handley
Affiliation:
University College London
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Extract

There is in the Ashmolean Museum (1968.777) a Hellenistic plaster relief with a festive scene of a most intriguing character (plate 1a). Its mood, I should like to think, is not alien to some of the lighter emotions which play round a celebratory volume; and perhaps this note, beginning from a re-interpretation of one detail of that scene, may end by adding a little to its claims on the manifold interests of the volume's distinguished recipient—not least if we find that it has some connection, of whatever kind, with the world of Greek drama.

The relief is a cast, made in a mould taken from a metal cup. The class of artefacts to which it belongs has been illuminated by a discussion from Miss Gisela Richter; in 1964, while still in private hands, and not long after its acquisition by purchase in Egypt, this particular specimen achieved the distinction of publication in an extensive and very fine study by Mrs Dorothy Thompson; what I have to add here, it will be seen, is in the nature of a tentative excursus to that work.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 93 , November 1973, pp. 104 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1973

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References

1 By courtesy of Miss Alison Frantz and Mrs D. B. Thompson.

2 Richter, Gisela M. A., ‘Ancient plaster casts of Greek metalware’, AJA lxii (1958) 369–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Thompson, Dorothy Burr, ΠΑΝΝΥΧΙΣ, JEA l (1964) 147–63Google Scholar, later cited by author's name alone. I am grateful to Mrs Thompson for her encouragement to pursue this topic and to write on it, as well as for helpful discussion and comment, both in Princeton in 1971, when I had the privilege of Visiting Membership of the Institute for Advanced Study, and later in letters. A first presentation of the interpretation here offered was read to a group of colleagues in Princeton; I am grateful again (while wishing to implicate no-one but myself in the result) for the benefit it received.

4 Thompson 151, quoting, inter alia, Athenaeus xi 460d.

5 ProfessorWebster, T. B. L. (whom I should like to thank for personal discussion and correspondence) tells me he inclines to agree: on the typology of slavemasks, see his remarks in Monuments illustrating New Comedy [=MNC], ed. 2 (1969) 5–14Google Scholar and in JdI lxxvi (1961) 100–10. The identification is suggested by the hints I see of hair round the head in a coil or speira, prominently marked eyes, and a large mouth; the mask appears to be slightly in-turned (or leftwards as we see it) on the shelf. The small size of the representation and the condition of the surface, whether viewed in the original or in carefully made photographs, give a clear warning to proceed with extreme caution. Moving left, the next two objects on the shelf again look to me more mask-like than cup-like, though I do not offer guesses at their types; of itself the object at the left-hand end is hardly determinable, and the incidence of the palm-tree is not (to me) wholly clear. It is possible, though again I am not clear, that traces of roundels on the level below this also represent masks.

6 Webster, , Monuments illustrating Old and Middle Comedy [= MOMC], ed. 2 (1969) no. AS2Google Scholar; Bieber, , History of the Greek and Roman Theater [= HT], ed. 2 (1961) fig. 215Google Scholar; Pickard-Cambridge, , Dramatic Festivals of Athens, ed. 2, revised by Gould and Lewis (1968) fig. 25 (and discussion, p. 49)Google Scholar; Trendall, and Webster, , Illustrations of Greek Drama (1971) IV.8a.Google Scholar

7 Jones, L. W. and Morey, C. R., The miniatures of the manuscripts of Terence (1931)Google Scholar: vol. i, 202 f. has discussion which is specially relevant here.

8 In particular Weitzmann, K., Illustrations in roll and codex (1947) 110Google Scholar.

9 †Charitonidis, S.—Kahil, L.—Ginouvès, R., Les mosaïques de la maison du Ménandre à Mytilène, AK Beiheft vi (1970) pl. 26, 1–2, with p. 103Google Scholar: the plaque is Webster MNC no. XT1, the miniatures no. IP2. Dedications: apart from the Aixone stele commemorating the performance of a comedy (n. 6 above) see Reisch, E., Griechische Weihgeschenke (1890) 145 f.Google Scholar and Webster, , Monuments illustrating Tragedy and Satyr play [= MTS], ed. 2 (1967) under nos. AS5, 6, 27Google Scholar, with more references. Decorative groups: e.g. in wall-painting at Pompeii, Robert, C., ‘Maskengruppen’, AZ xxxvi (1878) 13–24Google Scholar, including Euripides, Andromeda: Webster MTS no. NP5, Bieber HT fig. 571; in mosaic at Delos (saec. ii B.C.), Webster MNC no. DM 1, Trendall and Webster (n. 6 above) IV.8c; in mosaic at Sousse (190/200 A.D.), Webster MNC no. FM8; and commonly in Roman relief sculpture, Webster under IS, NS; Bieber HT figs 562 ff. et al.

10 Webster MOMC no. AS1; Bieber HT fig. 201; and recently illustrated by Dover, K. J., Aristophanic Comedy (1972) pl. 4.Google Scholar

11 In Classical drama and its influence: Essays presented to H. D. F. Kitto, ed. Anderson, M. J. (1965) 3–13.Google Scholar

12 Inv. 1396: †Charitonidis—Kahil—Ginouvès (quoted n. 9) pl. 16.1 and p. 29: ‘il s'agit sans doute de Ménandre’; and see in general the admirably documented discussion of portraits of Menander over pp. 27–31, including the very well known Vatican/ Princeton relief which belongs in the series we are discussing: Webster MNC nos AS6 and IS 10; Bieber HT figs 316–17. Add, on portraits of Menander, Ashmole, Bernard, AJA lxxvii (1973) 61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and cf. also n. 24 below.

13 Metropolitan Museum L.63.21.6: Trendall, A. D., Phlyax Vases [= PV], ed. 2 (1967) no. xxi, p. 95 and pl. XIVbGoogle Scholar (reproduced here by courtesy of Mr. Jan Mitchell and Professor Trendall.

14 P. 152, with references. It is good to mention here an important new accession to the literature of the symposium: Dentzer, J.-M., ‘Aux origines de l'iconographie du banquet couché’, RA 1971, 215–58Google Scholar.

15 Chicago, Natural History Museum 27679 (ex Hope 211): Trendall, PV no. iii, p. 90 and pl. XIVa.Google Scholar

16 AD1 (17370): Trendall PV no. 172; Bieber HT fig. 538 and p. xvi; Trendall and Webster (n. 6 above) IV.8b.

17 Other South Italian scenes with actors: Trendall, PV p. 89.Google Scholar

18 Kallixeinos in Athenaeus v 196f–97a, describing the symposion (196a–97c) then the procession; Webster, , Hellenistic Poetry and Art (1964) 122 f., 163.Google Scholar

19 2190: Webster, MNC nos AS3 and IS61 with references (pp. 51, 275, 325); Bieber, , Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age (1955; revised ed., 1961) fig. 656 with p. 154Google Scholar; two other versions, figs 655, 657; our plate by courtesy of the British Museum.

20 A mask-box or table is seen in the mosaic quoted below, n. 27; again, in a context of rehearsal, in a mosaic of the first century A.D. from Pompeii in Naples (MN 9986) probably after a fourth-century original: Webster MTS no. NM1, Bieber HT figs 36, 62.

21 I do not discuss the traces of writing on the plaster (Thompson 161 f.), nor many other points of interesting detail examined in the first publication which may have more contributions to make; and in particular I avoid involvement here in the difficult problems of dating the original cup and the several versions and the original of the ‘Ikarios relief’.

22 Palm-tree: Thompson 150f., and on the palm of the ‘Ikarios relief’, Picard, C., AJA xxxviii (1934) at p. 145 f.Google Scholar

23 Thompson 155–7, quoting very aptly the poet's party in Propertius iv 8 (39 Nile, tuus tibicen erat …); on the dance oklasma (157), cf. the well-documented discussion by Roos, E., Die tragische Orchestik im Zerrbild der altattischen Komödie (1951) 66 ff.Google Scholar

24 Poets represented on cups: Webster, , Hellenistic Poetry and Art 172 f.Google Scholar, with references. Note the evidence for groups and pairs of scenes, including parallel comic poet and tragic poet on the terracotta lagynos of about A.D. 300 in Cairo Museum (86635) discussed and illustrated with earlier and related monuments by Kahil, , Mon. Piot li (1960) 72–91Google Scholar: Webster MTS no. EV1, MNC no. EV17.

25 Pp. 153–5. It is perhaps worth noting (cf. p. 155, n. 3) that the Psychai and Erotes who appear on Dionysiac scenes in Roman sarcophagi are sometimes musicians: see Turcan, R., Les sarcophages romains à représentations dionysiaques (1966) 580Google Scholar, for examples and discussion of their symbolism. On music in later Greek Comedy and its Roman successors, cf. Webster, , Hellenistic Poetry and Art 267 ff.Google Scholar, adding BICS xvi (1969) 88–101 on the musical scene in Menander, Theophoroumene: Sandbach, , Menandri reliquiae selectae (1972) 144 ff.Google Scholar

26 The principal source is Schol. Ar. Eq. 400.

27 Webster no. MNC ZM4, Bieber HT fig. 321: mosaic of the third century A.D. from Antioch in Princeton University Art Museum, 40–435.

28 Vatican inv. 9985 (once Lateran 487), mentioned above n. 12: not there in the Princeton version. Robert, C., Die Masken der neueren attischen Komödie (1911) 79Google Scholar, A.1, rejects Glykera and Muse (‘eine Bezeichnung, mit der in der archäologischen Exegese überhaupt viel Miβbrauch getrieben wird’), and favours Komoidia or Paidia.

29 Webster MTS no. AS10, Bieber HT fig. 109. In the Frogs, of course (1305 ff.), Aristophanes brings on Euripides' Muse as a castanet-dancer.