Apotheosis of Homer

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The Apotheosis of Homer, London British Museum 2191

The relief Apotheosis of Homer , also called Relief des Archelaos von Priene or Archelaos-Relief for short , is a dedicatory relief from the Hellenistic period that is exhibited in the British Museum under inventory number 2191. The piece is unique in structure and iconography and is accordingly often dealt with in specialist literature. While researchers largely agree on the interpretation of the content of the piece, the origin, dating and function of the object are still disputed.

history

The relief was found in the first half of the 17th century in the municipality of Marino , possibly in the ruins of Bovillae . The exact date of discovery of the consecration relief is not known, but a terminus ante quem is provided by a drawing of the object made in 1658 by Giovanni Battista Galestruzzi . According to Doris Pinkwart, it first came to the Palazzo Colonna in Rome, only to be sold after 1798 to an agent of the London auction house Peter Coxe, Burrell and Foster. In June 1804 it was auctioned for £ 3,150 to a stranger who wanted to sell the relief to the British Museum for three times that amount. However, it did not come into the possession of the museum until August 1819 for an amount of £ 1,000, where it has been on display since the summer of 1820.

description

The Archelaos relief is the consecration relief of a poet, which shows two scenes in four overlapping registers . The top three registers show a mountain landscape with 12 people who can be interpreted based on their attributes as Zeus , Mnemosyne as well as Apollon and the nine muses . In the lower picture level a sacrificial scene with 15 inscribed figures is shown in a sanctuary.

Apollo and the Muses in the upper frieze zone

According to the myth, the muses are said to stay either on Mount Parnassus or Helikon . Since the Helicon was considered a mountain of the Muses in Hellenism, it can be assumed that it is depicted on the Archelaus relief. Zeus lies on top in a relaxed pose, his cloak slung around his hips and a scepter in his hand. An eagle sits at his feet. The father of the gods looks over his shoulder at a female figure standing to his right, in which one can recognize Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and mother of the nine muses. On the right edge of the picture a muse hurries down the steps to the picture register below, where four of her sisters are waiting for her. These are deepened in discussions. For example, the sister who is closest to her shows someone else with her aulos the tabula ansata with the artist's signature:

“Ἀρχέλαος Ἀπολλωνίου / ἐποίησε Πριηνεύς”

"Archelaus, [son] of Apollonios, made [it] of Priene."

The muse on the far left of the picture reads to the sister from a diptych , whereupon she pauses as she leaves. In the image plane below, two muses can also be found in animated conversation, whereby Urania can be seen in the muse with the globe . Next to them, another muse, Polyhymnia, leans relaxed against a rock and listens attentively to the game of their leader. Apollo , the god of light and the arts, is standing in a grotto, clad in a long robe and playing on a kithara . Kithara, omphalos , quiver and bow refer to the different areas of responsibility of the god. The last of the nine sisters can also be found in the grotto, presenting a scroll to the god Apollo. She can possibly be identified as the muse Calliope.

The poet on the right edge of the picture

On the right edge of the picture, outside the grotto, there is a statue of a poet with a tripod above his head. The tripod was considered an object of value in ancient Greece and could be donated to shrines or given as a prize in competitions. The poet of the Archelaus relief is in all likelihood the winner of a poetry competition that may have been held in Homer's honor . Because it is he who is so highly valued in the lower half of the picture. All great poets and thinkers nourish themselves from him.

Homer and Adorants in the lower register

In the lower register, a sacrificial scene is shown in the so-called veneration type, as can be seen in numerous consecration reliefs: The scene takes place in a sanctuary, which is characterized by a row of Doric columns and a tightly stretched curtain hanging in front of them. The column capitals carry the bedrock of the picture level above without any intermediate links. On the left edge of the picture sits a majestic male figure framed by four other figures. She looks at a round altar around which a sacrificial servant with humpback cattle and a priestess are grouped. From the right, more, almost exclusively female adorers approach the altar. The characters of the sacrificial scene are all named by name inscriptions on the lowest strip of the relief, so that the scene has an allegorical character. The seated figure is Homer, holding a scepter in his left hand and a scroll in his right. To the left and right of his throne, his main works Iliad and Odyssey crouch in the form of young women; Another scroll lies at the feet of the poet father, which is being gnawed by two mice and which is possibly an allusion to the Batrachomyomachia (the fight between frogs and mice), also ascribed to Homer . Homer is crowned by the couple Oikumene and Chronos , the personifications of the globe and time, who walk up behind him . A boy named Mythos (the story) turns to Homer and looks up at him. His hanging jug shows that he has just made a libation. Further figures in the scene, which are located around a round sacrificial altar and the bull, are the personifications of the four literary genres: first, Historia (the writing of history), who functions here as a priestess, who has her back turned to the others and concentrates on the sacrificial ritual; second, poiesis, the personification of non-dramatic poetry, portrayed as a young girl with two torches in hand, and finally, tragedy and comedy in the form of two men in costumes and masked. The two raise their right arm in prayer with the flat of their hand and look over their heads at Homer. On the right edge of the picture are physis (nature) in the form of a young girl as well as personifications of virtue (Arete), memory (mneme), trust (Pistis) and wisdom (Sophia). In this presentation Paul Zanker sees the clear message that the principles for education must be obtained from the ancient poets and especially from Homer. It is visualized that Homer's fame is very significant and that his works are immortal.

Typological and chronological classification

Typology

The representation of the Muses and Apollo on a mountain is not chosen arbitrarily, since the Muses in mythology were located on the mountains of Helikon. However, it is unusual in that entire mountains (with peaks) are rarely or never shown in ancient pictures. In classic vase painting, for example, we find muses in a landscape environment, also in several tiers (as in the Archelaos relief), but the natural space there is only indicated by uneven ground and isolated boulders. Another parallel can be drawn to the consecration reliefs for Pan and the nymphs, which usually depict the worshiped deities against the rocky background of a grotto. The group of Apollo and the Muses was a famous motif of the Hellenistic period, especially in southern Asia Minor. Numerous copies and replicas were made based on these models, partly in the Hellenistic period, but especially in the Roman Empire, which still give us a picture of the Hellenistic originals today. The group of Philiskos can probably be made as a model for the group of muses in the Archelaus relief . The muse base of Halicarnassus , as well as many representations of individual muses, also go back to this work. The recourse to a statuary model can be shown particularly impressively in the figure of Polyhymnia: The muse of hymns and choral lyric leans forward on a rock and supports her head on her right arm. The type has been handed down to us through numerous Hellenistic and Roman replicas. Numerous replicas and alterations of the type of Klio (muse of historiography), who holds a scroll in the raised right hand, have survived, such as a terracotta statue from Myrina, which dates back to the 2nd century BC. Is dated.

origin

In order to answer the question of the origin of the relief, different approaches have been chosen in research. Doris Pinkwart includes the artist's homeland, the origin of the marble as well as iconographic and pictorial typological details in her considerations in order to reconstruct the possible place of origin. An inscription on the tabula ansata below the figure of Zeus describes the artist as "Archelaos [son of] Apollonios from Priene". The relief is made of large crystalline white marble with a yellowish patina, which is traversed almost vertically by gray, occasionally bluish or brownish stripes. According to Pinkwart, the marble has similarities to the “sleeping head” exhibited in the British Museum, which came from the archaic Ephesian Artemision and whose marble comes from the quarries of the Mesogis Mountains. Finally, iconographic and typological indicators can be used, which are based primarily on two details. A distribution map created by Pinkwart of coin depictions with humpback cattle and the spread of round altars shows a clear accumulation in western Asia Minor. Against this background, Pinkwart believes that it is likely that the relief was created in Priene or in the vicinity of the western coast of Asia Minor and was also erected there.

Dating

The chronological classification of the Archelaos relief has been the subject of scientific controversy since the 19th century, with proposals ranging from early Hellenism to the Claudian period . At the beginning, a pre- or early-imperial dating was advocated, but from the early 20th century a classification in the Hellenistic period prevailed. Carl Watzinger argues based on naming the characters Chronos and Oikoumene with the ruling couple Ptolemaios IV. Philopator and Arsinoe III. for an emergence of the relief around 210 BC Chr. Doris Pinkwart relies, following Martin Schede, on the dating of the inscription by means of the letter forms as well as on the design of the realia placed in the picture; it is based on a date around 130 BC. Chr. Firmly. Salvatore Mancuso brings the form of the tabula ansata attached under Zeus as well as orthographic considerations into play and in this way arrives at a classification “in the 2nd or 1st century BC. It is noteworthy that research in dating the work relies primarily on historical, formal or palaeographic arguments and that stylistic arguments are seldom put forward. An essential reason for this is to be found in the fact that many of the figure types shown in the relief go back to older models, which makes it difficult to classify them in terms of style and form based on typological and formal criteria. The terminus post quem can also be mentioned here as the early 2nd century, as some types of muses can be assigned to high Hellenism with some certainty due to the proportions, the sweeping movements and the characteristic folds of the robes. The eclecticism that can be seen in the new combination of figure types of different style levels and the design of individual folds speak in favor of a classification in the beginning of late Hellenism, ie in the second half of the 2nd century BC. Chr.

Socio-historical context

Function and occasion of dedication

The reason for the consecration of the relief was thought about early on. Goethe already recognized that it was the dedicatory relief of a poet who won a poetry competition with his work in honor of Homer and had himself depicted as a statue on the relief:

"[...] but we claim that it is the image of a poet who has won a Dreyfuss through a work, probably in honor of Homer, and who is presented here as the devotee in memory of this so important event."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Different interpretations followed the general judgment of Goethe. Watzinger thinks he can identify the poet Apollonios Rhodios as the author, while Bruno Sauer suspects a Pergamene poet. Heinrich Bulle, on the other hand, believes it could have been a winner in a poetry contest for the dedication of the Alexandrian Homer shrine. All of these considerations are hypothetical and cannot be verified until further notice.

Hero cult for Homer and other poets

According to Paul Zanker, poets and thinkers still served as models for the upper classes in classical times, and it was not until Hellenism that education became a generally sought-after good. In this context, not only the numerous libraries, academies and schools, but also the sanctuaries and cults in honor of ancient poets and thinkers that emerged in various cities during this period should be interpreted. Reading and explaining is now no longer reserved for the higher strata alone, and in the 3rd and 2nd centuries a literary and educational activity that encompassed broader strata of the population developed in the Hellenistic cities: throughout the Hellenized world and through almost all strata of the population, the old Authors, above all Homer, read and received. Her works were understood as models that offered orientation and support in universal questions of human existence. Real hero cults with festivals and sacrificial rituals were organized for the respective spiritual hero. Homer, of course, was of the highest rank. Precisely because of its complex content, the Archelaos Relief is an important socio-historical document that not only represents a particularly richly designed testimony to the allegorical imagery of the time, but also provides important insights into private donation, the veneration of ancient poets and thinkers as well as the specific educational ideals of Hellenism allowed. The famous beginning of the Iliad - "Tell me, Muse, the deeds [...]" - is perhaps the most accurate description of this relief.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For the drawing see Athanasius Kircher : Id est, Nova & parallela Latii tum veteris tum novi descriptio / Qua quæcunque vel natura, vel veterum Romanorum ingenium admiranda effecit, geographico-historico-physico ratiocinio, juxta rerum gestarum, temporumque seriem exponitur & enucleatur . Amsterdam 1671, p. 81–87, illustration before p. 81 ( online ).
  2. ^ Sale Catalog Peter Coxe, Burrell and Foster, Second of June 1804 . London 1804, 75.
  3. ↑ Inscriptiones Graecae 14,1295
  4. ↑ a b c Paul Zanker : Mask of Socrates. The image of the intellectual in ancient art . Munich 1995, p. 156 .
  5. ↑ On the models in detail: Doris Pinkwart: The relief of Archelaos of Priene and the "Muses of Philiskos" . Kallmünz 1965, p. 19-42 .
  6. ↑ Doris Pinkwart: The relief of Archelaos of Priene and the "Muses of Philiskos" . Kallmünz 1965, p. 45 ff .
  7. ↑ For an overview of the dating approaches s. Salvatore Mancuso: On the dating of the Archelaos relief . Master's thesis at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt 2010, p. 11-20 .
  8. ↑ Carl Watzinger: The relief of Archelaos of Priene . In: Program for the Winckelmann Festival of the Archaeological Society in Berlin . tape 63 . Berlin 1903, p. 15-20 .
  9. ↑ Doris Pinkwart: The relief of Archelaos of Priene and the "Muses of Philiskos" . Kallmünz 1965, p. 64 .
  10. ^ Salvatore Mancuso: On the dating of the Archelaos relief . Master's thesis at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt 2010, p. 109 .
  11. ↑ Hans-Hoyer von Prittwitz and Gaffron: The Hellenistic sculpture from 160-120 BC. Chr. In: Peter C. Bol (Ed.): The history of ancient sculpture III. Hellenistic sculpture . Mainz 2007, p. 258 .
  12. ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Homer's apotheosis . In: Goethe's works . tape 44 . Stuttgart / Tübingen 1833, p. 199 .
  13. ↑ Carl Watzinger: The relief of Archelaos of Priene . In: Program for the Winckelmann Festival of the Archaeological Society in Berlin . tape 63 . Berlin 1903, p. 23 f .
  14. ↑ Bruno Sauer: The home apotheosis of Archelaos . In: Negotiations of the 47th meeting of German philologists and schoolmen in Halle ad Saale from October 7th to 10th, 1903 . 1904, p. 21 .
  15. ^ Heinrich Bulle: Investigations in Greek theaters . Treatises of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class, No. 33 . Munich 1928, p. 33 .
  16. ↑ Paul Zanker: The mask of Socrates. The image of the intellectual in ancient art . Munich 1995, p. 154 ff .

literature

  • Salvatore Mancuso: On the dating of the Archelaos relief . Master's thesis, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt 2010 ( online ).
  • Doris Pinkwart: The relief of Archelaos of Priene and the "Muses of Philiskos" . Lassleben, Kallmünz 1965.
  • Gisela MA Richter : The Portraits of the Greeks I . Phaidon Press, London 1965, pp. . # 54, Fig. 120, Cat. I .
  • Karl Schefold : The portraits of the ancient poets, speakers and thinkers 2 . Schwabe, Basel 1997, p. 336 f. Fig. 213 .
  • Arthur H. Smith: A Catalog of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities . Ed .: British Museum. tape 3 . Trustees of the British museum, London 1904, p. 244–254 Cat.-No. 2191 ( online ).