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| parthenon
frieze new interpretation |
Date
Sun, 9 Jan 1994
From
WEBB DENNIS
Subject
Parthenon Frieze New Interpretation
The
Wall St. Journal of January 6 (A10) carries an account of a new
interpretation of the Parthenon frieze by New York University
professor Joan Breton Connelly. "In her new theory, Joan Breton
Connelly mounts the most serious challenge to the traditional
conception of the frieze in over 200 years. She raises questions
about Athens's established reputation as a misogynistic society by
arguing that the frieze depicts a myth in which women are venerated
as social leaders and martyrs. Ms. Connelly argues that the frieze,
and in some ways, the Parthenon as a whole, celebrates three
legendary princesses who agree to die in order to save Athens and a
queen who willingly gives up her family so the city might survive."
The procession depicted on the frieze "converges on a group of
five figures that once occupied a prominent position above the main
door of the temple a man dressed as a priest and a young child,
handling a large piece of fabric folded like a sheet; a stately
adult woman beside them; and two younger women carrying objects of
some sort over their heads. Gods are in attendance but turn their
backs on the central scene." Stuart and Revett (1878)
interpreted the frieze as depicting the Panathenaic procession; the
fabric was a peplos being presented to the goddess. Ms. Connelly
connects the central figures in the frieze with the story of
Erechtheus, king of Athens. Facing an invasion of Thracians, he
consulted the oracle at Delphi, which responded that he must
sacrifice one of his daughters. The three daughters had a pact that
the death of one would mean the death of them all; so they
sacrificed themselves to save the city. Ms. Connelly "found
clues for her interpretation in a third-century B.C. papyrus used to
wrap a mummy now in the Louvre. First published in 1967, the papyrus
preserves about 150 previously unknown lines of the "Erechtheus,"
a lost tragedy of Euripides, dated to about 423 B.C., around the
time that the Parthenon frieze was created. While the story was
familiar from other sources even before the discovery of the
fragment, the new lines by Euripides contained numerous references
to Greek cult that Ms. Connelly says allowed her to connect the myth
with the frieze." "According to the Connelly theory, the
five figures above the door of the Parthenon represent the royal
couple preparing to sacrifice their daughters before the battle. The
folded cloth is the death shroud of the youngest daughter, the first
to be sacrificed. The adult female, Praxithea, attends her other
daughters, who wait their turn, carrying their own shrouds as
bundles on their heads." Werner Fuchs comments that in Greek
mythology "gods sometimes turn away from the death throes of
mortals to avoid polluting their divine natura."
Date
Sun, 9 Jan 1994
From
"Daniel P. Tompkins"
Subject
Re Parthenon Frieze New Interpretation
I'm
interested in Joan Breton Connelly's position on the Partheon
Friese, and thanks to Dennis Webb for reporting it. Given the timing
could it have been an AIA talk? There is already a healthy number of
young women dying for the sake of Greece or Athens etc. --in
Euripides' Suppliants and IA--as well as the brave Polyxena in
Hecuba. It's hard to see how their deaths or the deaths Connelly
discusses have much to do with society-wide gender asymmetry.
Indeed, the image of the noble woman marching off to death at male
hands could be read in a number of ways.
Date
Sun, 9 Jan 1994
From
David Meadows
Subject
Re Parthenon Frieze New Interpretation
I
too find JBC's interpretation of the Parthenon frieze to be
interesting, especially with Erichtheus' connection to Athens. Does
anyone have a reference for the papyrus upon which she bases her
interpretation? I remain skeptical, primarily because the parthenon
frieze does not consist solely of the `culminating group' ... I
would like to see in the source whether there is anything to account
for the *rest* of the figures (i.e. unarmed horsemen, sacrificial
beasts etc.). I don't think all the gods are, in fact, looking away
either ... It is nice, however, to see that new and potentially
plausible ideas are out there (but when did Athens go from being
patriarchical to misogynistic?).
Date
Sun, 9 Jan 1994
From
KOPFF E CHRISTIAN
Subject
Re Parthenon Frieze New Interpretation
In response to David Meadows' request for the _Erechtheus_ papyrus
Pap. Sorb. 2328 was published by Colin Austin, "De nouveaux
fragments de l'Erechthee d'Euripide," Rech. de Pap. IV (Paris
1967) and then published again with all known fragments of
_Erechtheus_ in Colinus Austin, ed., _Nova Fragmenta Euripidea in
papyris reperta_ (Walter de Gruyter Berlin, 1968) pp. 22-40 in the
series Kleine Texte 187.
Date
Mon, 10 Jan 1994
From
John Younger
Subject
Connolly & Parthenon
"Pinkie"
Connolly gave an AIA talk in 1992 in New Orleans on the Parthenon
Frieze, the central women in the East frieze, and the lacunose play
of Euripides -- an abstract will have been published in the April
1993 issue of the AJA. Since then, she has delivered her talk to
various groups both here and in England I've been told. As others
have commented, her theory seems to depend on a very lacunose play,
it ignores the other figures in the frieze, and would pit a
fictional sacrifice of Athens's women against the very real deaths
of its men. As Marilyn Goldberg just reminded us at this last AIA
meeting, we tend to view ancient women as low status because our own
society places less value on domestic activity; in antiquity,
domestic activity was the core of the home, definitely high status.
In this regard, Athens would not have been misogynistic. As long as
colleagues are looking gender-wise at the frieze, perhaps someone
could explain to me why the hydriaphoroi (North frieze, block VI)
are men -- they should be the daughters of metics (cf. J. Boardman &
D. Finn, The Parthenon and its Sculptures, p. 222).
Date
Mon, 10 Jan 1994
From
Eugene Lane
Subject
Re Connolly & Parthenon
Erika
Simon, Festivals of Attica, Madison, 1983, pp. 63-64, attempts an
explanation of the male hydriaphoroi in the Parthenon frieze they
are the winners of the in the annual torch races, which took place
on the night before the Panthen aic procession. There are thus four
of them available for the Great Panathenaia . The winner of the
previous night, still tired, set his hydria on the ground. Anyone
find this convincong?
Date
Mon, 10 Jan 1994
From
Doug Burgess
Subject Re Parthenon Frieze New Interpretation
David
you asked when Athens went from patriarchical to misogynistic... One
statement in that regard Eva C. Keuls. *The Reign of the Phallus
Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens* Harper and Row, 1985. There is
also Eva Cantarella. *Pandora's Daughters* Johns Hopkins, 1987.
..which is a less "radical" interpretation of the role and
status of women in Athens than that of Keuls. Also, as I recall,
volume VI of *Arethusa* was about the status of women. You probably
know all of this already, though. If you do, please, disregard. I
also seem to remember an article by D.C. Richter, "The Position
of Women in Classical Athens," (or something like that)
*Classical Review* XX, 1970, 273-278. Well, anyway...like I said, I
am sure that you probably know all of this... I think the Keuls book
is the strongest statement (that I am aware of) of the "revisionist
feminist" (I guess that is what to call it) position about
women in Athens.
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classics.log9401b.
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