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Phallology, phlyakes, iconography and Aristophanes1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Oliver Taplin
Oliver Taplin
Affiliation:
Magdalen College, Oxford
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Extract

Two highly unusual vase paintings, which may be more or less direct representations of Aristophanes, have been first published recently. They have received little attention to date, and yet both bring with them intriguing problems, which are not, in my opinion, resolved in the original publications. This double accession is all the more remarkable since up till now there has been so little that might be claimed to illustrate pictorially the golden age of Old Comedy (say 435 to 390 B.C), however loosely or tightly the debatable term ‘illustration’ is used (see note 24). The best known has probably been the attic oenochoe with a squat, near-naked figure prancing on a low stage before an audience of two. He is usually taken to be burlesquing Perseus; but presumably his stage model, if indeed the genre is comedy at all, did not really perform naked and without mask. Closer to representation of actual performance may be the four unglazed oenochoai with polychrome decoration from towards the end of the fifth century, found in the Athenian Agora in 1954. For example the two porters, who are alleged to be carrying a large Dionysiac loaf, and who may be slaves or members of a chorus, have masks which are fairly grotesque, but their bodies are not particularly so (unless the one on the left is supposed to have a long but sketchy phallus pointing diagonally down?).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 33 , 1987 , pp. 92 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

NOTES

2. Painted c. 420, now in Athens. DFA 2 fig. 76 (discussed p. 211) = Trendall no. 1 = Illustrations IV, 1 (p. 117)Google Scholar

3. Published by Crosby, M., Hesperia 24 (1955) 76ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar = DFA 1 figs. 82-4 (discussed p. 212-13) = Trendall nos. 10-13 = Illustrations IV, 5-6 (p. 120)Google Scholar. There is a thorough discussion of all the relevant monuments (then known) in Stone, L. M., Costume in Aristophanic comedy (1981)Google Scholar.

4. Green figs. 11 and 14, catalogued on pp. 101-2. They are also well photographed and discussed in Sifakis, G., Parabasis and animal choruses (1971) plates VI-VII, with 74–5, 86–7, 102, 107Google Scholar.

5. In 1967 Trendall counted 185 such vases, and quite a few more have come to light since then. For general discusion of phlyax drama see Trendall 9-18, and Gigante, M., Rintone e il teatro in Magna Grecia (1971)Google Scholar.

6. There are two such scenes (one involving Zeus) painted by Asteas c. 350 = Trendall nos. 36 and 65. Consider also the old and young men ogling a near-naked dancing girl in Trendall no. 80.

7. While examining the vase with me at the Getty Museum in April 1987, Professor Trendall remarked on the provincial style of the painting, especially the reverse, and expressed some doubt whether it emanated from Athens itself. I am grateful to be able to report this.

8. I find Fraenkel's argument about these four persuasive. See Eranos 48 (1950) 75ff.Google Scholar = Kleine Beiträge I (1964) 453ff.Google Scholar = Aristophanes und die alte Komödie, ed. Newiger, H.-J. (1975) 256ff.Google Scholar; also Dover, K. J., Aristophanic comedy (1972) 145Google Scholar.

9. See the sound discussion by Wilson, A. M. in CQ n.s. 27 (1977) 278–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Eupolis' cities are clearly differentiated, and at greater length than Aristophanes' birds, in frr. 245-7 Kassel-Austin.

10. See e.g. Dearden, C.The stage of Aristophanes (1976) 119Google Scholar. Stone (n. 3) 100-2 is undecided.

11. It is possible (no more) that the chorus of Birds was divided half and half into male and female. Someone in antiquity believed this, as emerges from an interpolation into the Triclinian scholia on Knights 589 (589b on p. 148 Jones and Wilson). Fraenkel supposed this to be derived from a fuller version of the scholion on Birds 297 than the surviving one (Agamemnon III 634–5Google Scholar).

12. See further Thompson, D'Arcy, A glossary of Greek birds ed. 2 (1936) 49, 133–4, 139–40Google Scholar.

13. Arrowsmith, W., Arion n.s. 1 (1973) 119ff.Google Scholar shows how common ἔρως and related words are in the play, but that does not make it pervasively lustful.

14. See in general Thompson (n. 12) 33-44; Prof.Henderson, J. refers me to [Arist.], Phgn. 811a 38–b3Google Scholar, where they are characterised as λάγνοι.

15. It is even open to question whether the logoi were in the first version at all: see Hubbard, T. K., Cl.Ant. 5 (1986) 182ff.Google Scholar His claim (187 n. 19) that the scholion on 889 is mere speculation is rather desperate.

16. Cf. Dover, Greek homosexuality (1978) 125–6Google Scholar.

17. I am grateful to Prof. E. Pohlmann for pointing out that the photograph gives the impression that there is a marked contrast between the two phalli. It even looks as though the bird on the left is circumcised, a practice regarded by the Greeks as alien and ugly, see Hdt. 2.37. But inspection of the actual vase reveals that this contrast is the misleading result of a chip out of the pottery. It is possible (but not probable) that the more evident foreskin of the right-hand bird is significant. Connoisseurs of the male genitals in Greek art (most notably Dover (n. 16) pp. 124-39) do not note that the foreskin is often so long that it remains even on an erect phallus. The explanation of this is probably that suggested by Sweet, W., Anc.W. 11 (1985) 461–9Google Scholar, i.e.: κυνοδέσμη or ligatura praeputii (often inaccurately called infibulation). This means “leashing the hound” or “tying up the terrier”, and involved tying a cord around the foreskin, and usually also looping the penis back. Its prime purpose was evidently to protect the organ during violent athletics, and it may also have warded off sexual approaches as it would inhibit erection (cf. Aesch., Theoroi or Isthmiastai fr. 78a line 29 [Radt])Google Scholar. It seems likely that this practice, clearly associated with the athletic life, would have stretched the foreskin considerably, as with the right cock. (And is it possible that the left-hand cock has phalli on his heels instead of spurs?)

18. See DFA 2 156-8, 164.

19. It may, of course, make good sense in those terms also. Dr.Osborne, R. G. points out the configural similarity to the Pan Painter's three herms, illustrated in PCPS 31 (1985) p. 62Google Scholar.

20. It has also been reproduced in Simon, E.The ancient theatre (1982) plate 15Google Scholar, Werke der Antike im Martin-von-Wagner-Museum der Universität Würzburg (1983) no. 60 (in colour), and Omnibus 7 (March 1984) 20Google Scholar.

21. The material is usefully gathered in Bauchhenß-Thüriedl, C., Der Mythos von Telephus in der antike Bildkunst (1971)Google Scholar; also LIMC I Agamemnon (by O. Touchefeu) nos. 12-26 (one Attic, four South Italian and the rest Etruscan).

22. Tafel 2 and 3 in Bauchhenß-Thüriedl (previous note); also Illustrations III.3, 47–49 (pp. 103–4)Google Scholar; also LIMC I ill. 13-18.

23. I am glad to have this confirmed by Dr. R. R. R. Smith, who tells me that such headbands had, in themselves, no specific royal meaning until Alexander and after. I have not been able to consult a dissertation he refers me to by Krug, A., Binder in der griechischen Kunst (1968)Google Scholar.

24. Trendall no. 24, now in the Department of Classics at Harvard, and reproduced as Illustrations IV, 16 (p. 132)Google Scholar.

25. For a well argued reaction against the whole notion see Moret, J. M., Oedipe, la Sphinx et les Thébains (1984) 153ff.Google Scholar The current polarization between “old illustrationists” and “new artistic autonomists” seems to me, however, to be harmful, in that it tends to lead the antagonists away from appreciating the subtle and varied range of relationships which there can be between pictorial representation and verbal or literary versions. Visual artists could be totally autonomous on occasion: they could at other times follow literary texts or their performance closely. And this happens to be the case with the Würzburg Telephus.

26. See also Webster, T. B. L., CQ 42 (1948) 15ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gigante (n. 5) 37-40.

27. Trendall no. 58 (plate IIIb) = Illustrations IV, 31 (p. 140)Google Scholar; cf. Gigante (n. 5) 74-6.

28. ΠΗΡΟΝΙΔ[ΗΣ] is a part attribution in fr.* 100 (Kassel-Austin), and is almost unavoidably restored in fr. 99, lines 56 and 68. It seems very probable that this is a thinly disguised Myronides, even though he was by then only a ghost.

29. Pherecrates fr. 145. 14ff Kock. There might possibly be a pun on Phrynis' name in Pratinas' ‘hyporchema’ (Athen. 617c-f = PMG 708) line 10: . In suggesting this I am accepting that this fragment is part of the late fifth-century ‘new music’ controversy – see Zimmermann, B., MH 43 (1986) 145ff.Google Scholar

30. These are Trendall no. 21 = Illustrations IV, 29Google Scholar and Trendall 86 = Illustrations IV, 30Google Scholar. On fourthcentury Iliou Persis scenes see Moret, J. M., L'Ilioupersis dans la céramique italiote (1975), esp. 11ff.Google Scholar for Ajax and Cassandra (14 representations) and 45ff. for Priam and Neoptolemus (2 representations). See also LIMC I Aias II (by O. Touchefeu) nos. 16-108, where the South Italian items are nos. 55-8, 68-70, 76-8, and the parody is no. 107.

31. Trendall no. 146 (plate IXf) = Illustrations IV, 34Google Scholar. For the ‘serious’ paintings see LIMC III Electra I (by I. McPhee) nos. 1-46, where the South Italian items are nos. 2-23, 35-41, and the parody is no. 50; also cf. Illustrations III, 1, 3–6Google Scholar. I am baffled by the Apulian bell-krater (370's), Trendall no. 59 (plate IVa) = Illustrations IV, 33Google Scholar. The central of three figures has a female costume yet the mask of an old man, and he carries a hydria and the mask of a young woman. I do not see how he can be the ‘unmasked’ actor of Antigone since it would be impossible to wear a mask over a mask. I must admit, however, a connection with a vase often claimed to illustrate Sophocles' Antigone, a Lucanian nestoris in the British Museum (Illustrations III, 2, 4Google Scholar): in both the serious and the comic version the “Creon” ruler on the left has some kind of “Phrygian” headgear. The two are juxtaposed in the plates to LIMC I Antigone nos. 12 and 13.