Thespiai: in the reign of Eros

E. Lopes

THESPIAI: IN THE REIGN OF EROS

Hesiod defines Eros the finest god among the immortals in Theogony1. "Eros, fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them".

Hesiod is the first poet who gives consistency to an aesthetic reality: Love and Beauty constitute complementary categories of the entity named Eros; the Ethics of Plato will rely on this close link.

The above mentioned passage of Hesiod represents the identity card of the Greek god: effects of his action are the softness and the sweetness of the physical feeling. No mortal neither immortal dares to contrast him and even wise men are subjected to his will.

In Homer (Iliad, 14, 216) Eros makes even a wisest effort to disperse and coherently in Theogony the same conceptual scheme recurs!

Pausanias asserts that the ancient cult of Eros in Thespiai and its origins trace back from an argos lithos. "Of the gods the Thespians have from the beginning honoured Love most, and they have a very ancient image of him, an unwrought stone"2 and quotes Hesiod& Theogony: "Hesiod, or he who wrote the Theogony fathered on Hesiod, writes, I know, that Chaos was born first, and after Chaos, Earth, Tartarus and Love". Thus, Hesiod hands down an ancient tradition and borrows it from the popular background: the cosmo-gonic principle entirely encompassed in Eros.

Afterwards Pausanias refers that in Thespiai the god was particularly worshipped: "Later on Lysippos made a bronze Love for the Thespians, and previously Praxiteles one of Pentelic marble"3.

We learn then that the sanctuary of the god was embellished by two statues: Praxiteles carved a marble Eros (fig.1) and Lysippos forged a bronze Eros (fig. 2).

As numerous epigrams of the Greek Anthology stress, Praxiteles&god brought the sorcery of love only by means of his gaze, and the Eros by Lysippos was recognized in the type that uses the bow, principal weapon of his ministry.

Hesiod recalled to those three primordial forces, naming them Chaos, Gaia and Tartarus4. A Minoan intaglio on a gold bead seal shows a woman resting on a rock: together with her there are a female companion and a young male with bow (fig. 3)5.

This scene recalls the birth of Aphrodite in the Ludovisi Throne6, but in this ring the greatest importance is given to the attendant: he is male and not female (fig. 4)!

It clearly expresses a matriarchal conception. The palm trees indicate the earth. In the Ludovisi Throne we see pebbles on the ground: the same representational pattern occurs in the landscape of the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (fig. 5) which in the meanwhile recalls the similar previous iconography which is known through the Attic vase painting (fig. 6)7.

Delivorrias 1984, cit., p. 2-151; p. 115, no. 1175, pl. 118.

In the Minoan intaglio from a purely iconographic point of view the silhouette of the attendant recalls the Eros shouting an arrow by Phidias. Thus, this feature shows the continuity from Mycenaean to Classical times. As I am going to discuss further, between the art of Alkamenes and that of Praxiteles there&s a fundamental link: both these masters accept the plastic, well-shaped Eros mellephebos created by Phidias8!

The union between the Sky and the Earth is properly symbolized as the beginning of the world in Hesiod9: the sex of Ouranos was cut off and it fell down in the sea. The shape of the rocky Petra tou Romiou - off the island of Cyprus - evokes the mythic phallus fallen down from the sky (fig. 7), where Aphrodite was borne 0.

In order to understand the nature of Eros in classical Thespiai it is necessary to outline with a small digressing the prehistory of this cult.

In its seminal treatise on Zeus, Arthur Cook explained the connections between the Kabirians worshipped on Northern Aegean islands, especially on Samothrace, and the Minoan-Mycenaean cultic tradition. The names of the Megaloi Theoi were invoked in the

lingua sacra in the indigenous rite. Although they have been differently interpreted in the light of the new linguistic results, we see that one of the old proposals by Cook has not been abandoned. According to Cook, Axiokersa is the female goddess and means the one who is cut by the axe, obviously the Earth11. Axiokersos is the husband and the father, who cuts the rock, the god of heaven. Axieros, the son, is as the rebirth of his father. Axi-eros, the spirit of the axe, can be represented in the shape of a butterfly, therefore there is a clear reference to the double axe.

An old theory wanted that the Thraco-Pelasgian people lived on Samothrace and imported their religious structure from their Thracian homeland12. This theory is now obsolete and it is better to consider Eros as just a force of nature that influences the physical and intellectual progress13.

Modern scholars of the religious tradition of Samothrace confirmed the ancient tradition of Mnaseas of Patera who identified in Axieros the esoteric epiclesis of Demeter (FGrH III, 154), in Axikersa Persephone and in Axiokersos Hades. Moreover according of Dionysodorus (FGrH 68 F1), Cadmilos is the criptic name of Hermes14.

Karl Lehamnn15, who followed Phyllis Lehmann in the investigations of Samothrace, rehabilitated the theory of Johann Bachofen16. The scholar shows that the interpretation of Axi-eros as the spirit of the axe is unfounded: on the contrary the prefix axi has to be linked to the classical Greek word axios which means worthy, not far away from the area of "great", adjective that normally defines the Great Gods, the Megaloi Theoi, that is the Kabirians that were honoured on Samothrace. An inscription dated to the II c. A.D. in this island recalls this ancient triad, whose equivalent in Roman world is

Jupiter, Juno, Minerva: from a political point of view the acceptance in Roman imperial times of this equivalence reflects the political efforts to find an origin of the Penates on Samothrace17.

Lehmann compared the familiar expression in the invocation axie taure (noble bull) to Dionysos, in the spring song of the women from Elis, with the concept of axios Eros 8. The latter expression may have an esoteric value in Orphic ceremonies (Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecaes, 36). The island of Lesbos was close to the cultural koine described here and it is not a case that Sappho was such a sincere interpreter of this polysemous Eros!

A special link joined Thracian royalty to Samothrace: this hypothesis now becomes undisputable as many inscriptions prove this "special bridge" ad abundantiam (Dimitrova 2008, p. 115-119). The history of the island has to be read preferably in connection with northern Greece and the cultures on the Rhodopi chains: the evidence of Thracian tombs again confirms this continuous exchange. The reason of this mutual link resides in the "Paideia of Mycenaean koine" according to the definition of Alexander Fol19. In fact, in the study of the Thracian world, the main channel for cultural exchanges

is the relationship with Aegean cultures from Bronze age onwards. The Orphic mystic interprets the creation of Eros as the result of the "emission" of the soul from the mouth in the appearance of a winged entity20. Traces of this conception are recognized in Hesiod&s Theo-gony through the hiatus that the poet envisages between the earth and the sky after the separation from Chaos. The chasm is symbolized by an opened mouth or "yawning", %aog formerly *%aFog linked to %ativog, &soft&, &empty&, %aaKro, &I open widely&. On the contrary oupavo^ is referred to the "palate" from the divine soul, wishing to create, flied away under the personification of Eros21. The image of the creative force is gentle and delicate: cosmic breath gives birth to love, is blow of eternity rising among mankind. The pneuma is the essence of life that the sculptors of severe style will try to capture in muscular tonicity of the thorax. The Indian and Phoenician cosmogonies have many items in common with Orphic cosmogony. According to Catapatha Brahmana the cosmic egg was born from the waters desiring to reproduce themselves22. Thus, The Laws of Manu recount that it was caused by the existing part of the self divine23.

In Orphic religion the night put down the egg "full of wind", from which the winged Eros comes out: "at the beginning there were Chaos and the Night and the large Tartarus; there were neither the Earth neither the Sky. In the huge lap of Earth the dark winged Night gave birth to an egg full of wind24. In an year from that the adorable Eros came out: on his back his golden wings brightened and he was similar to the blizzards of the winds". It is clear that Aristophanes& verses echo Orphic sources: "in the beginning from ancient Chaos the grievous Ananke and Chronos come out, when from the huge lap (Chaos) gave birth to the Air and to the famous Eros, double-nature. His gazing from the height is typically referred to the archers.

Another fragment confirms the birth of the lovable Eros from the Air (Kern 1922, no. 74). An Orphic testimony finds out the mutual influence of the Orphic tradition with the Theogony of Hesiod: "While Hesiod says that Eros is born from Chaos in Orpheus& philosophy it seems that he is born from Chronos. Then Chronos gave birth to Eros and to all winds" (Kern 1922, no. 37). The common genesis of Eros, the winds and the Air blends with his double nature of winged being, and he got the characteristics of flying in the wind, as he is a medium between the divine and the human worlds (medium=Sa(^rov in the Platonic conception deriving from Orphic theory). This means that the physical aspect is highlighted by the wings.

"Hesiod says that Eros is borne from Chaos, whilst in the philosophy of Orpheus, Eros is borne from Chronos; then Chronos gave birth to Eros and to the other winds".

As already stressed by Adolf Furtwangler25, Aristophanes is wrong when he asserts that Eros is endowed by wings only at a late stage (Scholia ad Aristoph. Aves, 573). The most ancient link of Eros with the wind comes from Sappho: she compares the power of Eros with the furious wind knocking down even the strong oaks26.

Whilst in classical literature Eros has not a universally recognized father, but he is just the son of Aphrodite27, Euripides established a close relationship between Eros and Zeus perhaps from the Orphic literature.

The idea of an indefinite father is a relict of an ancient conception. The rooting of a patriarchal society determined the isolation of whoever shared the same blood and increased the sense of possession by adult men towards children and women: the descent "should not contaminate" through extra-conjugal unions. On the contrary in the matri-linear concept of society the male figure plays a dynastic role: the man is simply the woman&s partner and his social task consists just in sexual union.

The mother together with the horde of women takes care of the breed of children.

In Hyppolitus&s Euripides the hapax legomenon statement that Eros is the son of Zeus is thus justified as an attempt of rationalizing a pre-Olympic goddess - Aphrodite - under a profile which by now became patriarchal28. Thus, Eros, as Aphrodite&s patient servant and as a symbol of an ancient god of the vegetal cycle, would not play the role of paredros and becomes a god of great importance in the religious imagination of classical age29.

A legend tells that the head of Orpheus cut off by the angry women in Thrace was nailed to the lyre and thrown away in the sea perhaps in the Thracian Erebus (Phanocles Elegiacus, fr. 1,11; Vergil, Georg. 4, 524). The head kept singing and the lyre kept playing (Ovid, Metamorphosis, 11, 52). It happened that the lyre arrived on the Lesbian coast, mother of lyric; the relationship between this concept of Eros and the female conception which is argued from the poetry of Sappho was considered above concerning the Kabeiroi of Samothrace and Eros30.

If we examine the dialects in Greece, the Aeolian dialect was spoken on Lesbos, on the opposite coast in Asia, in Boiotia and in Thessaly. Not only the common linguistic origin linked the Aeolian koine, but also the pre-Greek tradition drew out underground this magma. In Thebes mysteries were celebrated which were very similar to those on Samothrace as we know from Dionisodoros from Boiotia: the secret names of Axieros, Axikersa, Axikersos are Greek, while Casmilos was regarded the short name of Cadmos. In Thebes the divine couple was invoked in the language of the initiates Axikersos and Axiokersa who were thought to be Hades and Persephone. So, the remote presence of the myth in the Theban religion is proved by the recent reading of Mycenaean tablets found in the Cadmeian rock in Thebes31.

But let us come back to the site of Thespiai where Eros had a special worship and to whom many statues were set up. The scholium in Luciani, Adversus indoctos, 3, 20, neglected by scholars, enlighten about the artistic importance of the sanctuary in the religious life of Boiotia32: "The Mount Helicon is in Boiotia, where at its feet the city of Thespiai has been constituted, in which there is the Eros which Alkamenes carved, a marvellous work to see".

The Thorn Remover in the Capitoline Museums depicts a young boy seated on a rock, picking a thorn from the sole of his left foot; the head has the features, which are typical of the severe style: the head was arbitrarily attached to a Hellenistic body, as the curls do not follow the overall movement of the body. The hairstyle is very similar to that of a Lapith woman on the western pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia (472-459 B.C.)33, ascribed by Pausanias to Alkamenes from Lemnos (Pausanias, 5, 10, 8). Recently Paolo Moreno proposed to recognize exactly the Eros by Alcamenes in the original head of the Thorn Remover in the Capitoline Museums: the fine plait on his head qualifies the god as a young leaving the childhood. As in the cult of Apollo, so in the cult of Eros in a solemn ceremony the presentation of the tress by the boys represented a rite of passage34.

In The Verrine orations (4, 2, 4-7) Cicero points out that Verres praetor stole even a statue of Eros from the sanctuary of Heius in Messana. This was a copy of the Praxitelean Eros settled in Thespiai. Cicero refers to the power of the god: the pious Lucius Mummius respected the ancient sanctuary in Thespiai, on the contrary the abject Verres stole the statue of this god in the sacrarium of Heius!35

According to the orator, there was no reason to visit Thespiai at all. This might constitute an argumentum ex silentio: this must be

Thèbes, fouilles de la Cadmée I, Les tablettes en linéaire B de la odós Pelopílou, Pisa, Rome 2001, p. 191-194.

the reason why Cicero does not mention the Eros by Lysippos. Thus it is possible that the work was not in Thespiai in 70 BC, when Cicero defended Verres.

Concerning the statue of Eros carved by Praxiteles, many ancient sources documented the presence of this masterpiece in Thespiai36. Our aim is to highlight the authors who define the gaze of the Praxitelean Eros as responsible for falling in love37. On the contrary, the Lysippan Eros uses his bow as his main weapon.

The same Praxiteles asserted that his Eros spread his power through his gaze in his epigram carved on the base of the statue and handed down by Athenaeus 13. 591 a = Anthologia Graeca 16. 204 (attributed to Simonides). Certainly this epigram cannot be ascribed to Simonides for chronological reasons; in any case it confirms Visconti&s proposal: this Roman scholar suggested to identify the Eros by Praxiteles in the type of the god which was not endowed with the bow. On the contrary, Lysippos made his concept of Eros in keeping with the war skills of the Macedonian court, so created his Eros testing his bow.

Adolf Furtwangler perfectly understood that the bow was an allusion to the invincible strength of the look in the moment of falling in love38.

Whilst the Erotikos logos by Plutarch concluded that the heterosexual union is the fairest one, in the Amores ascribed to Lucian from Samosata, a different opinion is forwarded: according to this theory the homoerotic feeling is the best one. In this dialogue one of the characters was brought by his friends to the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Cnidus. This passage may be doubtlessly interpreted: "Charicles and I did so very eagerly, but Callicratidas was reluctant because he was going to see something female, and would have preferred, I imagine, to have had Eros of Thespiai instead of Aphrodite of Cnidus"39. The writer referred blatantly to the Eros made by Praxiteles, sculptor renowned by the creation of Aphrodite in Cnidus. This passage suggests that the Eros of Thespiai had homosexual connotations.

We would rather identify the Eros by Praxiteles carved for the Thespian sanctuary with the Centocelle type of Eros, as this statue type shows intense and penetrating eyes.

A deeper study on this topic was led by Antonio Corso, who rightly recognizes the Centocelle type as the only and possible identification of the Thespian Eros by Praxiteles (Corso 2004, p. 270-273, esp. nt. 446).

In this sense the sarcophagus of Kephisia of the late II c. A.D. becomes particularly significant (fig. 8-9)40. The Eros portrayed on this sarcophagus is thought to copy the Eros made by Lysippus for Myndus in Caria. The latter is known thanks to the testimony of Kedrenos, I, 564. The statue was brought to Constantinople and set up in the Lausos Collection. Archaeological literature confirmed its attribution to Lysippos41.

Bausteine zur Geschichte de Griechischen Römischen Plastik, Düsseldorf 1885, p. 4-7.

The boyish god holds his bow between his legs while unstringing it and turns his head to the other side, either because his other calls him for new action or, according to another interpretation, because he is gazing his victim42.

Neoattic culture takes inspiration from the summa in classical art: so, it repeats iconographical patterns derived from the oeuvre of classical masters, mixing features of severe style, early classical and late classical times.

Probably the different Eros of Myndos in Caria depends on a different modus exprimendi which was established in Asia Minor.

In any case the Eros of Myndos "quotes" Alkamenes in the severe head, the steady gaze and the curls of the Thorn Remover with his plait; while in the treatment of the neck and of the body he reminds the softness of the fat in Cnidian Aphrodite&s neck.

Finally the gesture is a "remake" of his first Eros in Thespiai and his more practical hairstyle has to do with the dedication of the plait in the coming of age for the Erotideia: Lysippos, a magician with an absolute control of artistic expression, summarized three different moments in the life of the sanctuary. Thus, in Caria he can freely create a "pastiche" recalling the Boeotian tradition without exposing himself to the allegation of plagiarism.

We cannot elude such kind of cultural influences in defining the poetic of Lysippos, who was both a demiurge and ready to receive diverging stimuli. His Eros set up at Thespiai responds well to the following historical circumstances.

Ancient military ideology gave prominence to love relationship between soldiers. Plutarch explains Pammenes&s strategy referring to Nestor of Homer. On the contrary, in the lines the match between lovers and loved, the cohesion and compactness in the army would be strengthened by love relationship which is indissoluble and invincible, as "the lovers, because of the shame of the loved, resist together in order to defend themselves each either" (Plutarch, Pelopidas& life, 18, 2-3).

I proposed the date 338 for the creation of the statue of Eros made by Lysippus and set up in Thespiai because the Macedonians supported Thespiai instead of Thebes in this phase of the Chaeronean war3. Perhaps Lysippos followed Philip and also the young

Alexander in their military ventures. The artist is ready to fulfil his desires and to turn into art the manifesto of his official political propaganda even if he does not renounce to his autonomy in expressing the historic becoming. The slaughter of Chaironeia (338 BC) mortified the sacred love relation that the god protected in the hoplitism. In the name of love the Theban military youth accepted only to win or to die44. So, it was in order to repair this injury of the initiates to Eros that in the sanctuary of Thespiai, Philip II was so touched by the free sacrifice of the soldiers that he decided to make tangible his words of esteem in regard to the defeated and ordered to Lysippos, court artist, the statue of Eros holding the bow in Thespiai.

So Lysippos was a sincere interpreter of the cosmopolitan ideal that Alexander tried to materialize. By edict of Alexander, Lysippos was the official bronze sculptor of the Macedonian court. Therefore it is not excluded that a special consideration of the Samothracian mysteries had a powerful influence in his fleshing out of the god Eros. In virtue of this special link of the cult of Eros in Thespiai with the Orphism it is interesting to note that Lysippos had a student named Phanes, who made an epithyusa, that is a sacrificer45.

According to the Orphic theory, Phanes was the first born of the gods and one of the Orphic spirits (Kern 1922, p. 146, no. 64). Phanes is normally assimilated to the Sun46. It is not irrelevant to note that on Samothrace Philipp II and Olympias met and fell in love!

Lysippos was a sensitive artist and open to every hint: he carved the bronze Eros in Thespiai. Later he was asked to make a new Eros in Myndos: he managed to stick to the ancient local tradition of archer spread in all the Mediterranean world and especially in Asia Minor, but his inspiration drew from the "Pelopennesian nature": real, vivid, therefore successful.

gréco-romaine (11-13/12/2003), Collection du Centre Jean Bérard, S. Estien-ne ed., p. 315-327; Ead., L&Eros di Lisippo nel Museo di Myrina, I Colloquio, L&isola di Lemno nella storia dell&Egeo (5-05-2007), Palazzo Camponeschi, Université degli Studi de L&Aquila, in Archaeologiae (forthcoming); interview by M. Adamopoulou, Nea Ereuna gia ton Erota ton Thespion, Agalma gia ti sphagi300 eraston, in Tà Nea, 21 Aug. 2008 p. 8, 48.

J. Ma, Chaironeia 338, in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 128, 2008, p. 72-91.

Л. В. Луховицкий К вопросу о «радикальном богословии»

Константина v

(филологические заметки)

В ряду мифологизированных деятелей византийского иконоборчества (Михаил Лаханодракон, Иоанн Грамматик и др.), несомненно, наиболее заметной и в то же время одиозной фигурой является император Константин V Копроним (741-775). Неслучайно в лучшем на сегодняшний день исследовании о нем (характерен уже сам подзаголовок: «Materialien zu seinem Leben und Nachleben») раздел, в котором анализируется его посмертная судьба начиная с источников рубежа VIII-IX вв. и заканчивая новоевропейской художественной литературой, составляет по объему около трети книги (Rochow: 123-171). Во многом это объясняется славой Константина как «радикального богослова» [термин С. Геро (Gero: 143-151)]. Согласно распространенному в Византии мнению, Константин не только отвергал иконы, но также не признавал культ святых, почитание мощей, называл Богородицу «человекородицей», а Христа - «лишь человеком».

Рассматриваемое обвинение известно как в историографической (Феофан Исповедник), так и в богословско-полемичес-кой (патриарх Никифор) традиции.

Рассмотрим более раннюю историографическую традицию. Под 741-742 г. во фрагменте, восходящем к ныне утраченному политическому памфлету против императоров Исаврийской династии (Afinogenov 2002), Феофан, рассказывая о противостоянии Константина с другим претендентом на византийский престол Артавасдом, упоминает следующий эпизод: патриарх Анастасий поклялся на честном кресте, что Константин признался ему, что «не верит в сына Божия, рожденного Мариею, именуемого Христа, а почитает Его простым человеком (gl ^ ^lAov avGpwnov) и Мария родила Его, как меня родила мать моя» (Theophanes: 415, l. 24-30; Феофан: 303).

В современной научной литературе этот эпизод трактуется как пропагандистский выпад против императора и связывается с кампанией диффамации Константина, развернутой сторонками

Артавасда (Patriarchen: 25). Как показал Д. Е. Афиногенов, в действительности, в источнике, которым пользовался Феофан, этот эпизод относился к патриаршеству Константина II и, следовательно, должен быть передатирован (Афиногенов 2004). Тем не менее, вопрос об исторической основе обвинения Константина исследователем не ставился.

В пользу гипотезы о том, что обвинение, сформулированной Феофаном, является чистейшей выдумкой, свидетельствуют несколько обстоятельств. Во-первых, само определение ^lAö^ avQpwno^ применительно к Христу в византийской традиции уже на лексическом уровне однозначно отсылало к полемике против еретиков, поскольку тезис о том, что Христос является «лишь человеком», приписывался Несторию или Павлу Само-сатскому1. Это выражение используется и у самого Феофана в рассказе о ереси Нестория: «Несторий же, желая всюду утвердить свое учение, провозглашал, что Господь был простой человек (^lAóv avGpwnov Aéywv tov Kúpiov)» (Theophanes: 88, l. 21-22; Феофан: 69). Очевидно, что читатель Феофана должен был отождествить отсылку и соотнести иконоборческое учение, апологетом которого был Константин, с одной из ересей, осужденных как Вселенскими соборами, так и иконоборческим Иерийским собором 754 г. (Mansi: 233E-236A, 256AB).

Заметим, что в самом употреблении применительно к божественным материям прилагательного в каком-либо ином сочетании с сущ. avQpwno^ византийцы a priori не видели ничего предосудительного. Это слово могло использоваться в трактатах против еретиков с однозначно позитивными коннотациями. Так, например, у Петра Сицилийца одно из обвинений против павликиан звучало следующим образом: «...всехваль-ную приснодеву Богородицу они с ненавистью исключают даже из числа праведников (év ^lA^ räv áyaQwv ávQpwnwv. . . ánapiQ^oxi) и <утверждают>, что Господь не родился от нее, но спустил <свое> тело с небес» (Petri Siculi Historia: 1256A).

Во-вторых, само по себе обвинение одного из идеологов иконоборческого движения в том, что тот чрезмерно акцен1 В наши задачи не входит рассмотрение действительных христоло-гических воззрений этих богословов, в дальнейшем мы будем говорить исключительно о полемической традиции и типичных обвинениях, возникавших в ходе этой полемики.