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Herakles and Eurystheus at Knossos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Sylvia Benton
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Extract

By kind permission of Sir Arthur Evans and of the British School at Athens, I am allowed to publish a marble relief found in 1903 at the Villa Ariadne, near Knossos (pl. III). Height ·69 m., width ·72 m., depth of relief ·05 m. It was discovered face downwards on a Roman drain, west of the tennis court. The drain carried a road, also of Roman date. The marble is so badly weathered that I cannot determine its origin. Both top corners missing and a break right across. The surface of Herakles is destroyed below the crack, except at the sides. Above the crack, the surface is worn. The boar's hind feet were not on the relief, its fore feet, ear, and snout are broken. Its head hangs sideways. Part of the lion skin in front of Herakles, and an object between it and the boar, probably the club, are also broken.

Herakles carries the boar on his left shoulder, on the folded lion skin. The mask and the mane hang in front, while folds appear before and behind Herakles and between his legs. His right hand grasps the boar's shoulder. His left hand does not appear, but it holds the club, the end of which shows below the boar's crest: so the hand is fairly low down, balancing the boar before dumping it on Eurystheus.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , 1937 , pp. 38 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1937

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References

1 See below.

2 Olympia, III. p. 168Google Scholar.

3 Sauer, Theseion, Pl. VI, No. IV, East Side; our fig. 1 (photograph by Mr. Saraf).

4 Svoronos, , Das Athener National Museum, No. 43, p. 88, Pl. XXII our fig. 3Google Scholar (photograph by Mr. Wagner).

5 Professor Koch most generously allowed me to study his photographs, and I have modified some of my observations in consequence. His reconstruction still differs from mine in certain respects.

6 These are good, but they omit some evidence.

7 I have noted on a sketch (fig. 2) a line on the marble, which seems to be a trace of the inside of the left leg.

8 In his restoration, Sauer has translated the boar's crest, which clearly carries on the line of the crest seen above Herakles' body, as Herakles' left arm-pit. Sauer was then forced to insert the worked crest in the depression for the quiver, which is in fact plain.

9 Here Prof. Koch has corrected me.

10 I have not been able to illustrate this. It shows very well on Prof. Koch's excellent photograph.

11 For the form cf. a relief of the Dioskouroi at Sparta (No. 575 in Cat. of Sparta Museum: BCH 1899, p. 599Google Scholar). Belongs to the full archaic period.

12 I see that in his preliminary report (AA 1928, p. 721Google Scholar) Prof. Koch dates the building 450–440 B.C.

13 AJA 1924, p. 314Google Scholar.

14 Inscr. Cret. I. pp. 53–54Google Scholar Apollo Delphidios.

(a) Inscr. Cret., viii. 8*, 12 (Teos).Google Scholar

(b) Inscr. Cret. , viii. 10*, 8 (Magnesia a.M).Google Scholar

(c) Inscr. Cret., viii. 12*, 45 (Delos, Syll. 3 721).Google Scholar

(d) Inscr. Cret., xvi. 3*, 17 (Delos).Google Scholar

(e), Inscr. Cret. xvi. 4*, A 12 (Delos): treaty between Olous and Lato to refer disputes to Knossos, to be set up in the temple of Apollo Delphidios (l. 12).Google Scholar The Delos inscription was set up in the archonship of Sarapion (l. 43) i.e. 166–143 B.C. (Dumont, , Chronologie des Archontes Athéniens, p. 130.Google Scholar)

(f) Chronologie des Archontes Athéniens, xvi. 5, 49.Google Scholar Treaty between Olous and Lato found ‘in agro Cydoniate’ to be set up in the temple of Apollo Delphinios (l. 97). Thought to belong to the third century B.C. (p. 406).

(g) Mm Ant I, p. 49Google Scholar, l. 20, from Gortyna. Prof. Tod has revised this note.

15 The hymn cannot be used as evidence that it was called Delphinian before the establishment of Apollo at Delphi. (Allen, and Halliday, , The Homeric Hymns, p. 261Google Scholar.)

16 Megaw, , JHS 1936, p. 24Google Scholar.

17 Found in Achladia: ÖJh vi. p. 1, pl. 1Google Scholar; JdI 1913, p. 319Google Scholar.

18 Buschor, and Hamann, , Olympia, pp. 35 ff.Google Scholar

19 Reinach, , RA 1901, II. p. 158Google Scholar; Bulle, Der schöne Mensch im Altertum, pl. 264. For the general style and the figure of the boy cf. the relief from Thasos in Constantinople JdI 1913, pl. 26.

20 ‘The girl with the doves’ in New York from Paros has the same simple stance, but all the details are more carefully worked out. The ornament above it has acanthus leaves, so it must be dated about 440: Antike Denkmäler, I. pl. 54.

21 This is Kjellberg's date for the Nisyros relief and some others (Attischen Reliefs, pp. 10, 11).

22 See above.

23 Pl. 30.

24 BB 41; JdI 1902, pl. 1.

25 I should exclude from this school muscular figures like the Delphi stele, Fouilles de Delphes, iv. pl. lv, classed by Langlotz as Parian (Bildhauerschulen, pl. 81).

26 Marconi, P. (NdS 1930, pp. 73, 101, fig. 40, pl. ivGoogle Scholar: Agrigento, pp. 192 ff.) rightly notes the similarity of these reliefs to those of temple C at Selinunte, but he revives an old error in dating both ‘a little after the beginning of the sixth century B.C.’ (Agrigento, p. 194). The folds of the tunics forbid this date.

27 The attitudes but not the clumsiness of drawing can be paralleled in a b.f. amphora in London, B 213, CVA III. H.e, pl. 50, 2 b.

28 Terracottas found with these moulds (NdS 1930, pp. 79, 80, figs. 8–10Google Scholar) have been dated too early by the excavator (‘arcaicissimi’: 580–550 B.C., Agrigento, p. 176). Though home-made, they are a Corinthian type, the moulds for the heads originated in Corinth, and they are a product of Corinthian mass production to be dated c. 530 B.C. (Jenkins, , BSA xxxii. pp. 22 ff.Google Scholar, class g, p. 33, pl. 6). Similar home-made terracottas have been found in Ithaca.

29 Mon Ant xxv. pl. xvi. It has also a tunic pattern similar to that of Perseus.

30 The style of the gorgons is Atticising perhaps with a Laconian flavour. Early Corinthian gorgons are angular but later they grow rounded and mild (Payne, NC pp. 82 ff)Google Scholar. Attic gorgons begin angular and fierce (CVA Louvre, III. H d, pl. 16) and continue so (Payne and Young, Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis, pl. 121). The head of Herakles too resembles those of the Korai (op. cit. pl. 69, 1). It almost looks as if the moulder began to give him an Attic helmet but it turned into a stephane by mistake.