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Herakles, Peisistratos and the Unconvinced

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

John Boardman
John Boardman
Affiliation:
Lincoln College, Oxford
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Extract

Robert Cook has again placed us in his debt by two characteristic Notes in JHS cvii (1987) 167–71 which sharply dissect, scrutinise and reject some recent hotheaded theories. Of one directed against a theory that I (with others) have proposed over recent years, he writes (n. 2) ‘and I think he [Boardman] agrees with much that I say’. In this he is correct.

The problem is the possibility of the political manipulation of myth in the archaic and classical periods in Athens. Cook admits some political allusions which reflect ‘results of political action [but] need not have political intent’ in the popularity of Theseus from the end of the sixth century on ‘with official encouragement it seems’.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 109 , November 1989 , pp. 158 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1989

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References

1 BICS xxvii (1980) 1–8Google Scholar.

2 Boardman, J., JHS xcv (1975) 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar, csp. 6.

3 I hinted in Greek sculpture; the archaic period (1978) 153–4 that some might be from palatial buildings of the tyrant period, and Claude Bérard has adopted the suggestion less cautiously in Desmos xi/xii (Oct. 1986) 11Google Scholar.

4 Also in JHS cvii (1987)Google Scholar W. R. Connor takes up this point (pp. 40–50). He cannot see Peisistratos as presenting himself as other than a mortal, not as Herakles, though under the patronage of Athena. That he did not present himself as Herakles seems to me very likely. I doubt whether he wore a lionskin but am equally certain that Herodotus' failure to mention one does not mean that he did not, unless we believe only what survives in written sources, and hold that what was not written never happened. Connor's insistence on the formal aspects of the procession as described is important and not at variance with my views, though to turn an Athena parabates into an apobates is too much.

5 For Moon's remarks on this subject see Ancient Greek art and iconography (ed. Moon, W.; Madison 1983) 96–118Google Scholar. He is disturbed that an ‘artist [vase-painter] and clientèle were aware of and concerned about the inner workings of Athenian urban society’ (p. 97). But they were Athenian urban society and unlikely to be unaware. His other arguments exclude consideration of the more important issues tackled by Cook and he concentrates on one artist (the Priam Painter) whose originality he severely underestimates. I shall revert to this painter's record elsewhere.

6 He also deals properly and summarily with some other objections (his n. 3): Bazant underestimates how Greeks used myth (here ‘symbolism’ is quite the wrong word); his essay in his Studies of the use and decoration of Athenian vases (Prague 1981) 23–38Google Scholar is important, but he dwells on the period of popularity for Herakles (and others) in Athens rather than the exceptional character of the Athenian scenes, which I allude to above.

7 I tried to express these reservations in Ancient Greek and related pottery (ed. Brijder, H. A. G.; Amsterdam 1984) 240–1Google Scholar.