Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T09:15:47.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Magnitude of the Gods in Materialist Theology and Greek Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2021

Guy Hedreen
Guy Hedreen*
Affiliation:
Williams College*
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I address one characteristic of Classical Greek votive reliefs that has troubled scholars: the size of the gods. The reliefs depict mortal worshippers approaching gods and goddesses who are, almost invariably, larger in stature than the mortals. Scholars have generally explained the difference in scale to be art historical, rather than theological, in significance. Either the larger scale is a visual expression of the hierarchical superiority of the gods or the images of the gods represent over-life-size statues. In addition, it is widely accepted that votive reliefs are products of unsophisticated religious belief, ignorant of the conceptualization of an imperceptible, non-corporeal deity in Classical philosophy. In this paper, I accept the artistic proposition of votive reliefs at face value: in this genre, the gods are living, visible, material bodies, most often anthropomorphic in form and always larger in magnitude than mortals. I identify one significant parallel for this interpretation within Greek and Roman thought, namely, the conception of gods within the materialist theology developed by the late Classical writer Epicurus and, in part at least, by the fifth-century BC writer Demokritos. In the writings of the Epicureans and, it appears, the atomists, as in the votive reliefs, gods are human in form, very beautiful, self-sufficient, larger than humans in size and known by mortals through visual perception.

Keywords

Greek votive reliefsgodsvisual perception theoryancient Greek theologyGreek religion
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 141 , November 2021 , pp. 31 - 53
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

[email protected]. For helpful comments on drafts of this paper, I thank Alan Shapiro, Milette Gaifman, Michael Flower and several anonymous readers. I also thank Douglas Cairns and Lin Foxhall for editorial help. In this paper, LM = Laks and Most (2016).

For David Lang and Suzanne Bocranegra

References

Asmis, E. (2009) ‘Epicurean empiricism’, in Warren, J. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism (Cambridge) 84–104 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Babut, D. (2005) ‘Sur les dieux d’Épicure’, Elenchos 26, 79–110 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, C. (1947) Titi Lucreti Cari: De Rerum Natura (Oxford)Google Scholar
Baumer, L.E. (1997) Vorbilder und Vorlagen: Studien zu klassischen Frauenstatuen und ihrer Verwendung für Reliefs und Statuetten des 5. und 4. Jahrhunderts vor Christus (Bern)Google Scholar
Berger, E. (1970) Das Basler Arztrelief (Basel)Google Scholar
Blickman, D. (1989) ‘Lucretius, Epicurus, and prehistory’, HSPh 92, 157–91 Google Scholar
Burkert, W. (1977) ‘Air-imprints or eidola: Democritus’ aetiology of vision’, ICS 2, 97–109 Google Scholar
Burkert, W. (1997) ‘From epiphany to cult statue: early Greek theos’, in Lloyd, A.B. (ed.), What is a God? Studies in the Nature of Greek Divinity (London)Google Scholar
Campbell, G. (2014) ‘Lucretius, Empedocles and Cleanthes’, in Garani, M. and Konstan, D. (eds), The Philos-ophizing Muse: The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry (Cambridge) 26–60 Google Scholar
Clay, D. (1980) ‘An Epicurean interpretation of dreams’, AJPh 101, 342–65 Google ScholarPubMed
Comella, A. (2002) I rilievi votivi greci di periodo arcaico e classico: diffusione, ideologia, committenza (Bari)Google Scholar
Dinsmoor, W.B. (1921) ‘Attic building accounts IV: the statue of Athena Promachos’, AJA 25, 118–29 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckerman, C. (2019) ‘Lucretius on the divine: DRN 3.17–30, 5.1161–93, and 6.68–79’, Mnemosyne 72, 284–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelmann, M. (1992) Menschen auf griechischen Weihreliefs (Munich)Google Scholar
Edwards, C.M. (1985) Greek Votive Reliefs to Pan and the Nymphs (Ph.D. Diss. New York)Google Scholar
Elsner, J. (2007) Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferwenda, R. (1972) ‘Democritus and Plato’, Mnemosyne 25, 337–78 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foxhall, L. and Barfoed, S. (2015) Miniaturization, World Archaeology 47 (special issue)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaifman, M. (2012) Aniconism in Greek antiquity (Oxford)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaifman, M. (2016) ‘Theologies of statues in Classical Greek art’, in Eidinow, E., Kindt, J. and Osborne, R. (eds), Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge) 249–80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, R.L. (1979) ‘The real and the imaginary: production and religion in the Graeco-Roman world’, Art History 2, 5–34 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guralnick, E. (1974) ‘The Chrysapha relief and its connections with Egyptian art’, JEA 60, 175–88 Google Scholar
Hausmann, U. (1960) Griechische Weihreliefs (Berlin)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hedreen, G. (2001) Capturing Troy: The Narrative Functions of Landscape in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art (Ann Arbor).Google Scholar
Hedreen, G. (2011) ‘The Trojan War, Theoxenia, and Aigina in Pindar’s sixth Paian and the Aphaia sculptures’, in Fearn, D. (ed.), Songs for Aigina: Contextual Studies of Pindar and Bacchylides (Oxford) 323–69 Google Scholar
Himmelmann, N. (1998a) ‘The divine assembly on the Sosias cup’, in H.A. Shapiro (tr.) and W. Childs (ed.), Reading Greek Art: Essays by Nikolaus Himmelmann (Princeton) 139–55 Google Scholar
Himmelmann, N. (1998b) ‘Some characteristics of the representation of gods in Classical art’, in H.A. Shapiro (tr.) and W. Childs (ed.), Reading Greek Art: Essays by Nikolaus Himmelmann (Princeton) 103–38 Google Scholar
Hölscher, F. (2012) ‘Gods and statues: an approach to archaistic images in the fifth century BCE’, in Mylonopoulos, J. (ed.), Divine Images and Human Imaginations in Ancient Greece and Rome (Leiden) 105–20 Google Scholar
Hölscher, F. (2017) Die Macht der Gottheit im Bild: archäologische Studien zur griechischen Götterstatue (Heidelberg)Google Scholar
Kaltsas, N. (tr. D. Hardy) (2002) Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens (Los Angeles)Google Scholar
Kirk, G.S. (1990) The Iliad: A Commentary 2: Books 5–8 (Cambridge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klöckner, A. (2010) ‘Getting in contact: concepts of human-divine encounter in Classical Greek art’, in Bremmer, J.N. and Erskine, A. (eds), The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations (Edinburgh) 106–25 Google Scholar
Klöckner, A. (2015) ‘Herakles und der Viersäulenbau’, Marburger Winckelmann-Programm 2015, 49–62 Google Scholar
Konstan, D. (2011) ‘Epicurus on the gods’, in Fish, J. and Sanders, K. (eds), Epicurus and the Epicurean Tradition (Cambridge) 53–71 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laks, A. and Most, G.W. (eds and trs) (2016) Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge MA)Google Scholar
Lattimore, R. (tr.) (1967) The Odyssey of Homer (New York)Google Scholar
Lawton, C. (2007) ‘Children in Classical Attic votive reliefs’, in Cohen, A. and Rutter, J. (eds), Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy (Princeton) 41–60 Google Scholar
Long, A.A. and Sedley, D.N. (1987) The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Mackey, J. (forthcoming) ‘Saving the appearances: the phenomenology of epiphany in atomist theology and religious history’, Invigilata Lucernis Google Scholar
Mansfield, J. (1993) ‘Aspects of Epicurean theology’, Mnemosyne 46, 172–210 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikalson, J.D. (2010) Greek Popular Religion in Greek Philosophy (Oxford)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neer, R.T. (2017) ‘Was the Knidia a statue? Art history and the terms of comparison’, in Elsner, J. (ed.), Comparativism in Art History (London) 145–64 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumann, G. (1965) Gesten und Gebärden in der griechischen Kunst (Berlin)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumann, G. (1979) Probleme des griechischen Weihreliefs (Tübingen)Google Scholar
Nightingale, A. (2016) ‘Sight and the philosophy of vision in Classical Greece: Democritus, Plato and Aristotle’, in Squire, M. (ed.), Sight and the Ancient Senses (Abingdon) 54–67 Google Scholar
O’Keefe, T. (2014) Ancient Philosphies: Epicureanism (Abingdon)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Obbink, D. (1989) ‘The atheism of Epicurus’, GRBS 30, 187–223 Google Scholar
Obbink, D. (2001) ‘“All gods are true” in Epicurus’, in Frede, D. and Laks, A. (eds), Traditions of Theology (Leiden) 183–221 Google Scholar
Osborne, R. (2011) The History Written on the Classical Body (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Palagia, O. (1995) ‘Akropolis Museum 581: a family at the Apaturia?’, Hesperia 64, 493–501 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payne, H. and Young, G.M. (1936) Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis: A Photographic Catalogue (London)Google Scholar
Petridou, G. (2015) Divine Epiphany in Greek Literature and Culture (Oxford)Google Scholar
Platt, V. (2011) Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Platt, V. (2016) ‘Sight and the gods: on the desire to see naked nymphs’, in Squire, M. (ed.), Sight and the Ancient Senses (Abingdon) 161–79 Google Scholar
Porter, J.I. (2010) The Origins of Aesthetic Thought in Ancient Greece: Matter, Sensation, and Experience (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Purinton, J. (2001) ‘Epicurus on the nature of the gods’, OSAPh 21, 181–231 Google Scholar
Rauscher, H. (1971) Anisokephalie: Ursache und Bedeutung der Grössenvariienrung von Figuren in der griechischen Bildkomposition (Vienna)Google Scholar
Richardson, N.J. (ed.) (1974) The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford)Google Scholar
Roberts, J.L. (2016) ‘Introduction: seeing scale’, in Roberts, J.L. (ed.), Scale (Chicago) 10–24 Google Scholar
Robertson, M. (1975) A History of Greek Art (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Rose, H.J. (1956) ‘Divine disguisings’, HThR 56, 63–72 Google Scholar
Rudolph, K. (2016) ‘Sight and the Presocratics: approaches to visual perception in early Greek philosophy’, in Squire, M. (ed.), Sight and the Ancient Senses (Abingdon) 36–53 Google Scholar
Salapata, G. (2014) Heroic Offerings: The Terracotta Plaques from the Spartan Sanctuary of Agamemnon and Kassandra (Ann Arbor)Google Scholar
Sedley, D. (1992) ‘Empedocles’ theory of vision and Theophrastus’ De Sensibus’, in Fortenbaugh, W.W. and Gutas, D. (eds), Theophrastus: His Psychological, Doxographical and Scientific Writings (New Brunswick) 20–31 Google Scholar
Sedley, D. (1998) Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom (Cambridge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedley, D. (2011) ‘Epicurus’ theological innatism’, in Fish, J. and Sanders, K. (eds), Epicurus and the Epicurean Tradition (Cambridge) 29–52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedley, D. Shapiro, H.A. (2003) ‘Fathers and sons, men and boys’, in Neils, J. and Oakley, J.H. (eds), Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past (New Haven) 85–111 Google Scholar
Sedley, D. (2014) ‘Votive relief and vase-painting: an archaeological Kreuzung der Gattungen in Classical Athens’, Marburger Winckelmanns Programm 2014, 57–66 Google Scholar
Simon, E. (1977) ‘Criteri per l’esegesi dei pinakes locresi’, Prospettiva 10, 15–21 Google Scholar
Sedley, D. (1980) Die Götter der Griechen (Munich)Google Scholar
Sedley, D. (2016) Opfernde Götter (rev. edition) (Dettelbach)Google Scholar
Smith, M.F. (tr.) (2001) Lucretius: On the Nature of Things (Indianapolis)Google Scholar
Squire, M. (ed.) (2016) Sight and the Ancient Senses (London)Google Scholar
Steiner, D. (2001) Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature and Thought (Princeton)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, A. (2016) ‘The Borghese Ares revisited: new evidence from the Agora and a reconstruction of the Augustan cult group in the Temple of Ares’, Hesperia 85, 577–625 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanner, J. (2006) The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece: Religion, Society and Artistic Rationali-sation (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Taylor, C.C.W. (1999) The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus (Toronto)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turkeltaub, D. (2007) ‘Perceving Iliadic gods’, HSPh 103, 51–81 Google Scholar
Van Straten, F.T. (1976) ‘Daikrates’ dream: a votive relief from Kos, and some other kat’onar dedications’, BABesch 51, 1–38 Google Scholar
Verdenius, W.J. (1949) ‘ΚΑΛΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΜεΓεΘΟΣ’, Mnemosyne 2, 294–98 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vikela, E. (2004) ‘The iconography of donors on votive reliefs’, in Lambrinodakis, V. and Balty, J.C. (eds), Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum 1 (Los Angeles) 284–87 Google Scholar
Vikela, E. (2005) ‘Griechische Reliefweihungen an Athena: Ikonographie der Göttin und Bildkomposition der Reliefs’, MDAI(A) 120, 85–161 Google Scholar
Wace, A.J.B. (1937) ‘A Spartan hero relief’, AEph 76, 217–20 Google Scholar