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Greek and Roman epic scenes on the Portland vase*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

John Hind
John Hind
Affiliation:
School of History University of Leeds
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Extract

The subject, or subects, of the scenes on the Portland Vase is an old problem which has teased art historians for long enough. There have been fairly long periods when the interpretation seemed to be generally agreed, or when scholars' ingenuity waned, and the last suggestion reigned unchallenged for some time. There have also been short periods when the vase evoked avid scholarly activity, as for instance 1957–68.

For a recent debate one should consult the article by B. Ashmole, and the reply to it made by D. Haynes (JHS 1967 and 1968). In both editions of his British Museum booklet, The Portland Vase (1964 and 1975) Haynes gives an amusing appendix, listing ‘other interpretations’, which from 1642 to 1967 amounted to twenty-three more or less different theories. If one adds to these the articles by Brown and Clairmont published subsequently in AJA (1968, 1970, 1972) and a recent paper by Evelyn Harrison in a German Festschrift (1976), then the vase has knocked up more than its quarter century of rival interpretations. It is no wonder that many modern general works state simply that the scenes have not been satisfactorily interpreted, but that one of the sides may represent a sea goddess.

In summary it may be said that previous theories have taken one of two main paths. They have either linked the scene with a Greek legend, or have sought in the vase a reference to contemporary Roman history, albeit a history dressed up in a Hellenic and classicising style.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 99 , November 1979 , pp. 20 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1979

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References

1 E.g. the theory of Winckelmann that side A represented the meeting of Peleus and Thetis. Winckelmann, J. J., Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums ii (Vienna 1776) 861 ffGoogle Scholar. The complete identification of the scene was made by Millingen, some fifty years later, with the suggestion that the bearded god is Neptune: Millingen, J., Trans. Royal Soc. of Lit. i. 2 (1828) 1 ffGoogle Scholar.

2 Simon, E., Die Portlandvase (Mainz 1957)Google Scholar; Polacco, L., Athenaeum n.s. xxxviii (1958) 123–41Google Scholar; Möbius, H., Gnomon xxxvi (1964) 637Google Scholar; id., ‘Die Reliefs der Portlandvase und das antike Dreifigurenbild’, Abh. München lxi (1965), reviewed by Haynes, , Gnomon xxxviii (1966) 730–2Google Scholar; Biesantz, H., Werkzeitschrift Jenaer Glaswerk cxi (1965) 6–13Google Scholar; Bastet, F. L., Bulletin antieke Beschaving xli (1966)Google Scholar; id., Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jahrboek xviii (1967) 1–29. Möbius' view that the scenes presented tales from the Theseus cycle was favourably received by Becatti, , Arch. Class. xix (1967) 207–13Google Scholar.

3 Ashmole, B., ‘A new interpretation of the Portland Vase’ in JHS lxxxvii (1967) 1–17Google Scholar; Haynes, D., ‘The Portland Vase again’ in JHS lxxxviii (1968) 58–72Google Scholar.

4 Haynes, D., The Portland Vase 2 (1975) 27–32Google Scholar. For a similar list to 1957, see Simon, op. cit. 77.

5 Clairmont, C., AJA lxxii (1968) 280–1Google Scholar; Brown, E., AJA lxxiv (1970) 189Google Scholar; AJA lxxvi (1972) 379–91. Brown takes over some of Ashmole's suggestions, notably Achilles and Helen on side B, but then takes the goddess to be a personification of Skyros, and the scene on side A to represent Achilles being encouraged by Thetis in the palace of Lycomedes on Skyros. But the identifications of the bearded personage as Lycomedes and the stately goddess-figure as Skyros seem highly implausible.

6 Harrison, Evelyn B., ‘The Portland Vase: thinking it over’ in Essays in Memoriam Otto Brendel (Mainz 1976) 131–42Google Scholar.

7 Recently Harrison has stressed the separateness of the composition of the two sides within a larger unity; following Möbius she argues that Theseus appears on both sides, with Ariadne holding a torch on what is normally thought to be side B and with Amphitrite and Poseidon on side A (see n. 6). This theory, however, robs side A of its clear erotic content, leaving out of account the Eros with raised torch, and waters down the meaning of the dipped torch in the hand of the lady on side B to a mere symbol of ‘going to sleep’ (p. 132).

8 For stylistic observations on the date, see Simon op. cit. 41–51. At 72–3 she proposes that the Portland Vase and the onyx vase in St Maurice go closely together in the decade 30–20 B.C., with the latter dating soon after the death of Marcellus in 23 B.C. See also Polacco loc. cit. 23 ff., for the ‘historical’ interpretation of the scenes.

9 Haynes, D. in JHS 1968, 58 ff.Google Scholar, proved conclusively that the beast is not a serpent, but a kētos, sea-monster; hence a symbol of a sea-goddess, as I think, most reasonably Thetis, not her mother or grandmother. That the sea-monster is an attribute of Thetis as sea-goddess, not a symbol of her Protean changes while struggling with Peleus, was first noticed by Overbeck, J., Die Bildwerke zum Thebanischen und Troischen Heldenkreis (1857) 204, no. 49Google Scholar.

10 For the major role of Zeus in the legend see Catullus lxiv 24–30. Ashmole takes the bearded god to be Poseidon, (JHS 1967, 26Google Scholar) and quotes for the general pose the type of Poseidon in Helbig, , Führer ii 25Google Scholar, no. 1188. This is based on an original by Lysippus, see Johnson, , Lysippus 24Google Scholar; Bieber, M., Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age (1955) fig. 148Google Scholar. Ashmole admits that the god D, if Poseidon, would have to be a variant with no trident, and in a moody pose (op. cit. 6–7). Some of the early antiquarians (e.g. de Montfaucon in 1722 and Venuti in 1756) took the bearded figure to be Jupiter, or Zeus.

11 Ashmole, op. cit. 13–14; Simon, op. cit. 22 ff.; Haynes, op. cit. 15. Identification of the tree species was a major element in the interpretations offered by Simon and Polacco, who thought that the rather uneven tree near bearded figure D must be the ficus Ruminalis in Rome, that the larger tree over the reclining woman F was a more healthy fig, that the tree spreading above figure C was a laurel, and the bush near Aphrodite (G) was a myrtle.

12 Simon, op. cit. pl. 21 (Blue Vase); pl. 20 f (Sardonyx cameo in Naples). On the Blue Vase and on the cameo the fallen capital has no detectable significance, but it may have become a workshop signature after its first use on the Portland Vase. For the interrupted building of Carthage, which was held up during the dalliance of Aeneas and Dido, see Aen. iv 86—9.

13 Cod. Vat. 3225, no. xvi and 3867 fig. 106. For a youthful ‘Apolline’ Aeneas on Pompeian wall-paintings see Galinsky, G. K., Aeneas, Sicily and Rome (Princeton 1969)Google Scholar pls 23 (wounded Aeneas, with a 10 or 11 year old Ascanius); 24 (youthful Aeneas and Polyphemus); 26 (Aeneas and Dido in dalliance); 27 (Aeneas saving his aged father from Troy, with a young Ascanius wearing Phrygian cap).

14 Haynes treated this figure E as a typical onlooker, but had some difficulty in the matter of which god to identify him with. First he suggested Ares, later Hermes (as a paired match-maker with Aphrodite (G) on the right of the central figure). Simon treats the whole scene as contemporary Roman imperial mythology, and points to the similarity of the head of the Julian god Vediovis/ Veiovis, or Apollo, on coins of Octavian after Actium, to this profile head on the Portland Vase (op. cit. 24–5). Although the identification of Apollo/Vediovis is hardly to be accepted, the ‘Apolline’ features for the youthful godlike figure are probably no accident. Both would be represented as ideal ‘ancestors’ of Julius and Augustus; see also the Gemma Augustea in Vienna (Simon pl. 12) and the head of Augustus on a gem in the BM (Gem 3577). Ashmole took the seated figure with head turned back to be a type characteristic of Achilles, but it is inappropriately used here, since the head turns back towards E (in longing?), not a way in rejection (op. cit. 9–10). The pose might easily have been adapted to Aeneas who is regularly depicted as looking back, usually to Troy during the flight (Galinsky, ‘Pius Aeneas’, op. cit. n. 13, 3–61).

15 Such layer-like rocks certainly hint at a rustic scene, although not provably in all cases a spelunca. They occur slightly less stylised on a relief from an altar at Carthage depicting? Tellus: see CAH Plates iv 120. Dr G. Waywell in a letter to me dated 12th October, 1976 offered a list of references to layered rock scenery hinting at a rustic nemus, instancing Schreiber, , Die hellenistischen Reliefbilder (1889–1894)Google Scholar pls II, IX, XII and XXII; Sampson, Jean, PBSR xlii (1974) 27 ffGoogle Scholar.

16 For the scenes from the Aeneid on the mosaic at Low Ham, see Smith, D. J., ‘The mosaic pavements’, in The Roman Villa in Britain, ed. Rivet, A. L. F. (1969) pl. 3.5 opposite p. 112Google Scholar; Toynbee, J. M. C., Art in Roman Britain (1963) 203–5Google Scholar, no. 200; Dorigo, W., Late Roman Painting (1971) 204Google Scholar. It must be admitted that Aeneas is bearded on all the scenes at Low Ham, to differentiate him from his beardless son, the youth Ascanius. But the Portland Vase is much earlier, nearer to the Aeneid and more subtle in its interpretation; it could well, in true Augustan fasion, represent the hero in Apolline guise.

17 Aen. vi 450–75 esp. ‘illa solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat’.

18 The reclining pose of F has been likened to Ariadne awakened by Dionysus, or to Endymion approached by Luna on Pompeian wall-paintings, and, perhaps closest of all, to Rhea Silvia awakened by Mars in reliefs carved on a sarcophagus and an altar in Rome: Simon op. cit. pls 7–9. But the difference in our scene is that the sleeping heroine has a lowered torch. In view of the usual significance of a reversed torch in ancient art (death) it can hardly (pace Haynes) simply be used for illumination. The upright torch held by Eros on side A certainly refers to a marriage. Mòbius and Harrison are the two scholars who take the scenes to be from the Theseus cycle (nn. 2 and 5).

19 While it would add point to the theory if the bearded god D is Zeus and the goddess G is Juno, the main suggestion that E and F are Aeneas and Dido remains possible even if the gods are Poseidon and Venus. The latter, like Juno, was responsible for the love episode in the cave above Carthage. While the semi-nudity of the figure may suit better the character of Aphrodite, the staff borne so majestically by the goddess may hint rather at Juno. Further, Juno was the patroness of matrons and of childbirth even at Rome. At Carthage as Tanit and Juno Caelestis, she may well have been no stranger to nudity, let alone such respectable semi-nudity as is represented on the vase. For Juno in majesty with long staff at the judgement of Paris, see the Pompeian wall-painting illustrated by Schilling, Robert, La religion romaine de Venus depuis les origines jusqu'au temps ďAuguste (Paris 1954)Google Scholar pl. XXI.

20 Haynes, , Portland Vase 24Google Scholar; Simon, op. cit. 45–51.

21 Haynes, op. cit. pl. IXa, XVI; Simon, op. cit. pl. Ve.