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Herakles at the Ends of the Earth*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Gloria Ferrari Pinney  and
Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway
Gloria Ferrari Pinney
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College
Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College
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Extract

Representations of Helios in his chariot rising above the sea begin toward the end of the sixth century B.C., with a small series of black-figure vases, mostly lekythoi. Five of them have been interpreted as illustrations of the myth of Herakles and the Golden Bowl of the Sun. In Pherekydes' version of the story, Herakles, vexed by the burning rays, threatened Helios with his arrows, and obtained the god's golden vessel to sail the Ocean to the land of Geryon. Although the correspondence of the picture to the story is not literal, in fact largely limited to the cast of characters, such an interpretation is plausible for four vases.

On the lekythos in Athens by the Daybreak Painter, Herakles is crouching on a spur of ground which seems to emerge from the waves; he looks at the Sun in apparent awe. The scenes on the skyphos by the Theseus Painter in Taranto are akin to the Athenian piece: on one side Herakles rushes up the steep ground, on the other he sits on the rocky outline, his right hand gesturing toward the Sun. On a third vase, a lekythos in Cambridge, and on a fourth in Oxford, both Herakles and Athena are depicted on either side of Helios; on the Cambridge lekythos Herakles is actually striding toward the Sun, lifting the bow in his right hand. Only in this case can Herakles' attitude be taken as a threat; on all four vessels, however, the hero and the Sun look at each other, as if an exchange were to take place soon, and so are shown as the actors of the scene.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 101 , November 1981 , pp. 141 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1981

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References

1 The list was assembled by C. H. E. Haspels, ABL 120–4; see also Brommer, F., Vasenlisten zur griechischen Heldensage (Marburg 1973) 68,Google Scholar and Schauenburg, K., ‘Gestirnbilder in Athen und Unteritalien’, AutK v (1962) 51Google Scholar. An earlier picture of Helios rising appears perhaps on a Theran neck-amphora: Coldstream, J. N., ‘A Theran Sunrise’, BICS xii (1965) 36Google Scholar.

2 FGrH 3 F 18a; RE Suppl. iii (1918) 1061–2Google Scholar. There are three representations, all Attic, of Herakles afloat in the bowl. The earliest is on the olpe by the Daybreak Painter, Boston 03.783, ABL pl. 17, 3; ABV 378, no. 252 (Leagros Group), contemporary with the earliest depictions of the rising Helios (see n. 3). A general discussion in Jacopi, G., ‘Figurazioni inedite e poco note di ‘Ηρακλῇϛ διαπλέων’, Bd'Arte xxx (1936–1937) 39–44Google Scholar.

3 Athens 513, ABV 380, no. 290 (Leagros Group); ABL pl. 17,1.

4 Inv. no. 7029, ABV 518; ABL 120; CVA Taranto 2 (Italy xviii) pl. 10.

5 ABL 120, 123; Oxford 1934.372 and Cambridge G 100, the latter illustrated also by Jacopi (n. 2) fig. 8 on p. 42 (Stackelberg drawing).

6 Inv. no. 41.162.29, ABL 120–4, App. XI no. 6, pl. 32,1; CVA Gallatin and Hoppin Collections 2 (USA viii: 1942) 93–4, pl. 44,1.

7 On the spits see Kron, U., ‘Zum Hypogaeum von Pacstum’. Jdl lxxxvi (1971) 138–44Google Scholar.

8 A summary of previous interpretations is given by M. Z. Pease, CVA (n. 6); see also Vermeule, E. D., Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley, L.A./London 1979) 134–5Google Scholar.

9 Schauenburg (n. 1) 51.

10 Already Odyssey x 86: ἐγγὺς γὰρ νυκτός τε καὶ ἤματός εἰσι κέλενθοι. On the location of the Laestrygonian city at the ends of the earth see especially Vos, H., ‘Die Bahnen von Nacht und Tag’ Mnemos. xvi (1963) 22–6,Google Scholar and Frame, D., The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic (New Haven/London 1978) 59–63Google Scholar. On the lekythos the personifications are called Eos and Nyx, rather than Hemere and Nyx, but the assimilation of Hemere to Eos in the fifth century is well documented, W. Drexler in Roscher Lexikon s.v. ‘Hemera’.

11 West, M. L., Hesiod, Theogony (Oxford 1966) 36–7;Google Scholar on the question of interpolations in this section of the poem, see 357–8, and Stokes, M. C., ‘Hesiodic and Milesian Cosmogonies’, Phronesis vi (1962) 1–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pellikaan-Engel, M., Hesiod and Parmenides (Amsterdam 1974) 11–33,Google Scholar defends ἀμφὶς ἐοῦσαι as meaning on either side of the gate of Atlas, which she equates with the edge of the earth; cf. West 366.

12 On the question of Parmenides’ knowledge and use of Hesiod's description of the Underworld, see Burkert, W., ‘Das Prooimion des Parmenides und die Katabasis des Pythagoras’, Phronesis xiv (1969) 1–16Google Scholarpassim, and M. Pellikaan-Engel (n. 11) 9–10.

13 Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy ii (Cambridge 1965) 8;Google Scholarcf. Tarán, L., Parmenides (Princeton 1965) 8Google Scholar.

14 LSJ s.v. σφεῖς; cf. the construction of Parmenides 9:

αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ πάντα φάος καὶ νὺξ ὀνόμασται καὶ τὰ κατὰ σφετέρας δυνάμεις ἐπὶ τοῖσί τε καὶ τοῖς πᾶν πλέον ἐστὶν ὁμοῦ φάεος καὶ νυκτὸς ἀφάντου

where τά may refer to ϕάοϛ and νúξ: Tarán (n. 13) 161–2.

15 K. Deichgräber, ‘Parmenides’ Auffahrt zur Göttin des Rechts’, Akad. Wiss. Lit. Mainz. Abh. d. geistes- u. sozial-wiss. Kl. (1958) 659–60; Burkert (n. 12) 10–12. Tarán (n. 13) 15 reviews earlier interpretations.

16 Deichgräber (n. 15) 667; M. C. Stokes (n. 11) 17.

17 To the examples collected by M. Z. Pease, CVA (n. 6) add: skyphos in Taranto (see n. 4); hydria Cab. Méd. 255, ABV 361, no. 18 (Leagros Group), CVA Bibl. Nat. 2 (France x) pl. 60,4; olpe Cab. Méd. 260, ABV 378, no. 253 (Leagros Group) CVA pl. 63,4; cf. also the red-figure stamnos by the Siren Painter, ARV 2 289, no. 1, CVA Brit. Mus. 3 (Great Britain iv) pl. 20,1.

18 ABL 123; Richter, G. M. A., Handbook of the Greek Collection. MMA (Cambridge 1953) 74:Google Scholar ‘streaky clouds’.

19 Il. v 776; viii 50, e.g., and Th. 726–7, 736, 745.

20 Od. xxiv 11–14. Stesichoros describes the return of Helios to the depths of Night, Page, D. L., Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford 1962)Google Scholar no. 185; W. Burkert (n. 12) 9; A. Rapp in Roscher (n. 10) s.v. ‘Helios’, 2011–12.

21 ARV 2 137, no. 1, CVA Altenburg 2 (Germany xviii) pl. 67, 2; the figure is damaged, but there is no room for another head. See Brommer, F., ‘Mythologische Darstellungen auf Vasenfragmenten der Sammlung Cahn’, AntK Beih. vii (1970) 50,Google Scholar for two-headed Cerberi, and Vasenlisten (n. 1) 91–7 for a list of vases with representations of this labor.

22 Ashmole, B. and Yalouris, N., Olympia (London 1967)Google Scholar figs 201 and on p. 184; Sauer, B., Das sogenannte Theseion und sein plastischer Schmuck (Berlin/Leipzig 1899)Google Scholar pl. VI.

23 F. Brommer (n. 21) 50.

24 Cab. Méd. 220, ABL 120, 238; Paralipomena 248; CVA Bibl. Nat. 2 (France x) pl. 76, 5–6. More of the vases with representations of Helios rising listed by Haspels may be excerpts of representations of the Underworld, and perhaps of the labor of Herakles. Six lekythoi, five by the Haimon Painter, show streamers emanating from the disc of the Sun (overlaid with white on the red-ground ones): there too the streamers may indicate the mists of the Underworld; ABL 120–1, nos 10–15, 123–4. App. XIII A, nos 53–57. No. 54 is illustrated in CVA Karlsruhe 1 (Germany vii) pl. 13,9; no. 57 in Schauenburg (n. 1) pl. 17, 1. On the connection of the Haimon Painter to the Diosphos Workshop see Kurtz, D. C., Athenian White Lekythoi (Oxford 1975) 150–2;Google Scholar on that of the Sappho Painter to the Diosphos Painter, ABL 94–7.

25 RE Suppl. iii (1918) 1077–8Google Scholar.

26 Berlin 3232, ARV 2 117, no. 2; CVA Berlin 2 (Germany xxi: 1962) 19, pls. 63, 1–2, 66, 1.

27 Buschor, E., ‘Satyrtänze und frühes Drama’, Sitz. Akad. Wiss. München, phil.-hist. Kl. v (1943) 96Google Scholar.

28 A list of vases with representations of Herakles sacrificing at an altar is given by F. Brommer (n. 1) 176–7. The representations seem to fall in two series: a late sixth-century one, which includes Brommer's nos 1–7 (A) and 1 (B); and a later and unconnected classical one, which shows the sacrifice at the sanctuary of Chryse. See Hooker, E. M., ‘The Sanctuary and Altar of Chryse …’, JHS lxx (1950) 35–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.