Classics

Many inquiries have been made around the great frequency of lion images in Greek culture, particularly recurrent from the Mycenaean to the archaic period. But each of them
examined the matter from a single point of view, either zoo-archaeological, historiographical, artistic or literary. Instead the aim of this paper is that of comparing and putting in dialogue the multiple results derived from the analysis of both bony,
iconographic and textual sources regarding lions within the early Greek civilization, in order to approach with an overall perspective the quaestio leonina, as it has here been named. And it can be properly considered a quaestio, since the debate about the sort of
relationship held by ancient Greek people with lions has been lasting for decades. The reason for such divergent positions concerning the degree of knowledge about lions among the Greeks depends on the the fact that each scholar who faced this issue focused himself/herself on his/her own discipline, without taking into account documents of other nature. Thus philologists and historians of art mainly denied that Greek people could have
had any αὐτοψία of lions, which could have significantly influenced its artistic representation, and attributed the success of the lion-motif in Greek art almost totally to the Near-Eastern influence. On the other side palaeontologists affirmed it on the basis of bone findings and news given by some ancient historians and scientific writers. The results of this interdisciplinary survey have led to an acknowledgement of true-to-liveness of Greek representations of this feline and an explanation of their few apparent inconsistencies in comparison with modern ethological notions regarding lions. The direct consequence of such an assertion is a reappraisal of the influence of Eastern lion-patterns
over Greek art.

The sanctuary of Apollon at Pagasai in Thessaly is mentioned for the first time in the late archaic poem Scutum Herculis as the setting of two mythical fights of Herakles, first against Kyknos and then against Ares, of whom Kyknos was son.
Through the combination of mythical, literary and archaeological sources, this paper aims at two main goals: on the one hand, to explain the genesis of the different versions of the myth and, on the other hand, to outline a comprehensive picture of the archaic sanctuary.
This interdisciplinary approach shows once more how one research topic can be enlightened by another field of studies and vice versa, if they are put in a reciprocal and
fruitful dialogue.

The paper analyses Zeus’ trip from mount Olympus to Thebes, as it is described at vv. 30-34 of the Shield of Herakles. In particular, it deals with the issue of the identification of mount Tiphaonios, Zeus’ halfway stop. A peak of the Helicon chain might be a suitable candidate for such identification.

How would it be if we applied the so called platonic doctrine about art to an artistic mimesis of
second degree, as ekphrasis is? For art itself is an imitation of nature, how can the existence of a
reproduction of such imitation be accepted? This is the challenge faced by the present paper.
Unfortunately we have no hints at this question in Plato's works, but it would be easy to infer his
double condemnation of the literary device of description, following his definition of artist as
mimetikos, whose activity is already far three degrees from truth, because it consists only in
copying appearances (Rep. X 597a-603c).
On the opposite side stands the ancient rhetorical criticism on ekphrasis, which emphasizes the
necessity of insisting on vividness (enargeia) during the description, as if the portrayed characters
took life and almost leapt out of the picture or the relief. By this view the artist (but also the
describer) seems compared to a demiurge, not to a mere imitator.
The innovative translation of the platonic mimesis as “enactment, recreation, reproduction” instead
of “imitation”, given by Eva Keuls, would surely help us in finding a link between these two so
contrasting views. Yet there are not enough elements that allow a similar conclusion.
Thus remains an irreconcilable hiatus, which divides the philosopher from ancient “art critics”, also
attested by the well known episode of Apelle and the shoemaker (Pl. NH XXXV 84 and Val. Max.
VIII 12). According to it, a painter must be versed in all technai to be able to practise his own techne
and this conception is thoroughly against that of the “platonic” artist, who has not any knowledge of
what he represents.

Il volume costituisce la rielaborazione di una porzione della tesi di dottorato dell'autrice. Esso ambisce a fornire una rilettura antiquario-iconografica dell'ekphrasis dello Scutum Herculis, che, nell'ambito degli studi classici, è sempre rimasta all'ombra della ben più nota ekphrasis iliadica dello scudo di Achilleus. Sulla scia dei recenti analoghi studi dedicati ad altre testimonianze dell'arcaismo greco, l'attenzione è focalizzata sia sui singoli dettagli materiali e figurativi, sia su un'interpretazione globale dell'impianto decorativo dello scudo.

Das Kunstphänomen der Nonsensinschriften in der altgriechischen Vasenmalerei zählt über ein tausend Exemplare und erstreckt sich vom 7. bis zum 5. Jhdt. v.Chr. Sie erscheinen entweder im Bildraum oder unabhängig davon. Die ausführliche Analyse dieses Materials hat mich feststellen lassen, dass es sich um kein homogenes Phänomen handelt. Das heißt, dass nicht alle NSI in gleicher Weise interpretiert bzw. in ihrer Funktion verstanden werden können.

The long debated hypothesis of a historical connection between the composition of the poem and the context of the first sacred war is discussed in the paper in sceptical terms. A special focus is devoted to line 25, where Locrians and Phocians are mentioned as allies in the mythical war lead by Amphitryon against the Taphians and the Teleboans. If the poem had been composed to celebrate the first sacred war, the author would have avoided the association of these two armies, which were bitter enemies during that conflict.

"This presentation is devoted to the visual force of writing. This feature is shared by all literate cultures of all ages and therefore it applies to the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations as well. This issue is introduced by examples of the aesthetic use of writing in the Chinese and the Arabic cultures. The fascination for the shapes of letters is attested in the modern Western world as well, like Goethe's copying of Arabic words and the paintings of Cy Twombly illustrate.
Already on the very first documents of the ancient Greek alphabet, writing and pictorial decoration are deeply intertwined: both on the Nestor's cup and on the Dipylon vase, the inscription is adjusted to the geometric patterns, in order to generate an harmonious decorative whole.
From the 8th to the 5th century BC, the practice of enriching a pictorial decoration with writing became popular. The famous François vase is full of captions all over the depicted bands: most of them are the proper names of the painted figures, but some are just common names of objects, which are fully redundant to the understanding of the depicted subject. They do not add any further information or detail, which is not already conveyed by the pictorial representation. So it is to assume that their function is mainly visual.
An extreme development of this artistic use of writing in the Greek culture are the many hundreds of vases carrying inscriptions, which have no meaning in the Greek language, the so called nonsense inscriptions. It is a very curious phenomenon with a quite limited chronological span, allowing therefore to investigate it as a true artistic trend."

Das griechische Adjektiv μελάνδετος taucht bereits im archaischen Epos auf: einmal in der Iliad (O 713: πολλὰ δὲ φάσγανα καλὰ μελάνδετα κωπήεντα) und ein weiteres Mal im Scutum Herculis (V. 221: ὤμοισιν δέ μιν ἀμφὶ μελάνδετον ἆοϱ ἔκειτο). In beiden Zusammenhängen bezieht es sich auf ein Schwert, wobei die wortwörtliche Übersetzung etwa dem "schwarz gehüllten Schwert" entspricht.

At line 25 of the pseudo-Hesiodic poem Shield of Heracles, the people of Locris are listed among the participants in a mythical war against the Taphians and the Teleboans. Beyond the historical problem of the mention of the Locrians in this context - that I have explored in another study  - an important question arises with regard to the epithet they are given in line 25. They are characterised in the Iliad as skilful archers and sling fighters who usually maintain a rearwards position on the battlefield. Here, however, we read that the Locrians are “close fighters” (ἀγχέμαχοι < ἀγχί + μάχομαι).  Ancient commentators as well express their surprise before such an attribute, but both ancient and modern scholars have not done much more than simply acknowledge the aporia - except for Oldfather, who interpreted this expression as evidence of changing war practices among the Locrians. According to him, the Shield bears witness to a later historical situation, when the Locrians abandoned their bows and adopted the hoplite technique. My paper shows how this argument is actually unable to explain the presence of the epithet in the poem and suggests a new interpretation based on a passage in Eusthatiusʼ commentary on the Iliad. Instead of pointing to the distance of the fighters from their enemy, the prefix ἀγχί is much more likely to refer to their closeness, so that we could interpret the Hesiodic epithet ἀγχέμαχοι as meaning “the Locrians who fight serried”, scil. with their bows.