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The Struggle for the Tripod and the First Sacred War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

H. W. Parke  and
John Boardman
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Extract

The purpose of this article is to try to show that the legend of the rape of the Delphic tripod by Herakles became associated as symbolic with the First Sacred War and that this association is a chief factor in the great popularity of that subject in late archaic art.

We should begin with the First Sacred War itself, an event whose historical importance is inadequately matched by the quality of our literary sources. The earliest account of it occurs in Aeschines' speech against Ktesiphon (iii. 107 ff.), where he introduced the subject because it provided the theological justification for the line which he had taken when attending the meeting of the Delphic Amphictyony in the autumn of 340. So it is not a simple narrative, but a tendentious statement, carefully designed to bring out the points which suited the orator's case. At the same time it has real value as historical evidence, because it is based to some extent on an ancient stele, a memorial of the war, to whose text Aeschines had referred in his original speech at Delphi. A copy of the inscription was read to the jury, and the extant speech contains quotations and paraphrases of portions of it.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 2 , November 1957 , pp. 276 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1957

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References

1 The idea for this article occurred to me some years ago and in 1954 I suggested to the late T. J. Dunbabin that he and I might collaborate in producing it. He readily accepted and was engaged on collecting and arranging materials when he was cut off by an untimely death in the spring of 1955. In the autumn of that year Mr. John Boardman kindly undertook the task, and the second part of this article is his work, while in the first and third parts, which are mine, I am under obligations to him for his comments and suggestions.—H. W. Parke.

2 Our Aeschines MSS. offer the alternative Ἀκραγαλλίδαι. Harpocration indexes the word under Κραυαλλίδαι, and cites for Κραυαλλίδαι Didymos who preferred this reading on the evidence of Xenagoras (F. Gr. Hist. 240, F 22).

3 On the Dryopes and Herakles, cf. R.E. s.v. ‘Dryopes’ (Escher) and s.v. ‘Herakles’, Suppl. iii. 944 Google Scholar (Gruppe).

4 Oeuvres complètes d'Hippocrate (Littré, E.), Paris, 1861, tome neuvième, pp. 404 ff.Google Scholar Pomtow, H., Klio xv (1918), pp. 317 ff.Google Scholar Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, , Pindaros (1922), p. 72, n. 2Google Scholar. See also Bousquet, , BCH. lxxv (1956), pp. 579 ff.Google Scholar, for the latest discussion of the relations of the Asklepiads and Delphi, with the new epigraphic evidence.

5 For the legend of Koroibos see Parke, and Wormell, , Delphic Oracle, i, pp. 346 ff.Google Scholar

6 Apollodoros, ii. 4. 2. Plutarch (Mor. 557d) knew a tradition that Herakles had set up the tripod in a temple at Pheneus in Arcadia. But Pausanias (viii. 15. 5) gives a local legend in which Herakles is converted into a dutiful servant of Apollo. The latest discussion of the Rape of the Tripod is in Les thèmes de la propagande delphique (Paris, 1954) by Defradas, Jean, pp. 123 ff.Google Scholar He gives a complete set of extracts from ancient authorities on the subject, pp. 157 ff. He interprets the general meaning of the legend in the same way as in the present article, but links it with a different point in Delphic history, as a protest of the Delphic priesthood against the intensive influence of the Pylian Amphictyony.

7 For Aristodemos, cf. Paus. iii. 1. 6. For Herakles as a prophet, see also Parke, and Wormell, , Delphic Oracle, i, p. 342 Google Scholar; and add Pindar, , Isth. 6. 51 Google Scholar, Plut., Mor. 387d Google Scholar. and Liban, . Or. xiii. 47 Google Scholar.

8 Pindaros, p. 80.

9 Hygin. F. 32. and Serv. ad Verg., Aen. viii. 300 Google Scholar; Paus. x. 13. 8 and Apollod. ii. 6. 2.

10 Hygin. F. 32; Apollod. ii. 6. 2; Servius ad Aen. viii. 300.

11 Kunze, Neue Meisterwerke griechischer Kunst aus Olympia, figs. 4, 5; Archäische Schildbänder (Olympische Forschungen ii) Beil. 8. 1.

12 Luce compiled a list of representations in AJA xxxiv (1930), 313–33, and Kunze, op. cit., 113–17 deals fully with the earlier scenes. Defradas', treatment of the subject in Les Thèmes de la Propagande Delphique, 124 f.Google Scholar, is the weaker for ignoring the above-mentioned works. He discusses the literary references in full (126 ff.). Prof.Brommer, F. now publishes in Vasenlisten zur griechischen Heldensage, 22–6Google Scholar, a list of vase representations of the Struggle for the Tripod which he communicated to the late Mr. T. J. Dunbabin, who first undertook the study of the Struggle in this context, The use of this catalogue Professor Brommer generously accorded me also, and I am deeply indebted to him for it.

13 Kunze (n. 11), 115 f.

14 Beazley, , A.B.V. 152 Google Scholar, no. 27. Cf. also the Vatican amphora 356 (Albizatti, pl. 46), the kantharos in Tübingen (Watzinger, pl. 2, C19), and the unusual scene on a Chalcidian skyphos, Naples Stg. 120 (Rumpf, pll. 171–4).

15 (N. 11), 116 f., Beil. 9. 2.

16 Kunze, 113–15 ‘Verfolgungstypus’. A cut-out clay plaque, Corinth xii, pl. 17, 213, is archaic but cannot be closely dated.

17 Heraion alle Foce del Sele ii. 178 ff.Google Scholar

18 JHS xlix. 259 f.Google Scholar, no. 23, pl. 17, 23.

19 London B 316, JHS xlvii. 89 Google Scholar, fig. 22 ( Beazley, A.B.V., 268 Google Scholar, Antimenes Painter, no. 24). Luce, op. cit., classifies the appearances of Hermes, Zeus and other figures. A small winged figure appears behind Apollo on Louvre F 292 (C.V.A. vi. pl. 409, 2, 4;? Nike).

20 Sometimes she is seated, as Mon.Ined. i, pl. 9, 4, Luce, 313 f., figs. 1, 2, and once with Iolaos in a chariot ready for the ‘getaway’ ( Beazley, , A.R.V. 99 Google Scholar: Nikosthenes Painter, no. 11). Her shield device, a tripod, on e.g. Munich 1765 (Micali, Storia, pl. 88, 7–8) and Gerhard A. V. pl. 54, is suggestive.

21 Her name inaccurately inscribed on one vase, Beazley, , A.B.V. 269 Google Scholar, no. 41, unpublished.

22 E.g. Vienna 198 (Haspels, A.B.L. pl. 24, 1; an altar), London B 58 and Bibl. Nat. 284 (ibid., 206, 210, Gela Painter, nos. 19, 105; altar and columns), Serajevo 102 (Bulanda 34 f.; an altar), Berlin F 1853 and Brussels A 1903 (C.V.A. iii, pl. 120, 3, Haspels, A.B.L. 214 Google Scholar, Gela Painter no. 182; palms), and Gerhard A. V., pl. 54 (a tree).

23 For sources of Dipoinos and Skyllis see Overbeck SQ, nos. 321–7. Luce, 333, n. 1, agrees with Stuart-Jones, (Ancient Writers on Greek Sculpture, 10)Google Scholar that the Sicyon statues were separate, because no tripod is mentioned, but see Lippold, , Griechische Plastik, 23 Google Scholar, and R.E. s.v. ‘Sikyon’ 2545.

24 Kunze, 115f.

25 Lippold, 24.

26 Au Musée de Delphes, 46, n. 5, 78, B.C.H. lxvi/ii 24; Karo, , Greek Personality, 130–8Google Scholar. The identification of these buildings is still debated. The stoa in Sikyon has not been found.

27 (Paus. x. 13. 7).

Pomtow wished to restore a Struggle for the Tripod in the E. pediment of the treasury of the Athenians (RE Suppl. iv, 1286).

28 It may also explain the vase scenes which may show other stages of the story, as for example the return of the tripod (Luce, 330 f.), but it is far from certain that such are to be associated with the Struggle at all. We must also remember that the story itself in some form antedates the sixth century.

29 In Brommer (see n. 12), 42–5, the following are canonical Struggles for the Hind—A. (b.f.), nos. 3, 4, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 21 and B (r.f.), no. 3.

30 On either side of Vatican 454 (Albizatti figs. 154, 155), and the pair of neck amphorae in Würzburg and Toronto ( Beazley, , A.B.V., 287 Google Scholar, nos. 5, 6).

31 Brommer, , Herakles, 86 f.Google Scholar, lists nine such instances in black figure, but from his Vasenlisten, 22–5, we may pick out also nos. 3, 34, 42, 44, 53, 70, 73, 83; Bothmer, von (AJA lviii (1954), 63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar) adds vases on the London market, in, Boston, and at Northwick Park; and there is Mon. Ined. i, pl. 9, 4.

32 See Brommer, , Herakles 23 Google Scholar, where contamination of the Hind and the Tripod stories is denied; Kenner, ÖJh xxviii, 47–9Google Scholar; Kunze, 126.

33 E.g. Brommer, ibid., pll. 15a, 17.

34 E.g. ibid., pl. 15b.

35 On Bologna 303 (NSc 1919, 25, fig. 9; with altar, tripod, columns and palm tree), and Louvre G 263 (Brommer, op. cit., pl. 17).

36 Ibid., pl. 16: the exergue scene looks like a humorous commentary on the main scene; two cocks fighting over a hen with another hen watching, answering Heracles and Apollo fighting over a hind with a woman (? Athena) beyond.

37 Kunze, 114, 126.

38 Forrest, W. G., B.C.H. lxxx (1956), 36–9Google Scholar.

39 Cf. Anaxandridas Delphos (F. Gr. Hist. 404 F1) for an oracle to the men of Pellene, which might be another example of the Delphic oracle supporting those who resisted Kleisthenes. But the date again is uncertain.