8 The goddess playing with gold
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Benjamin Acosta-Hughes
Abstract
Upon the several impressive poetic passages associated with the early Ptolemaic cult of the queen Arsinoe Philadelphus as the goddess Aphrodite, among them Theocritus Idyll 15.100-101, Idyll 17.45-50 and 121-134, Callimachus Ep. 5 Pf.=HE 1109-1120, Callimachus Aetia fr. 110-110f Harder, Callimachus fr. 228 Pf. (The Deification of Arsinoe) and several of the new anathematika epigrams of Posidippus (36-41 A.-B.), has been recently cast a tantalising new light - for one of the monumental figures brought back to our vision by Frank Goddio and his team of marine archaeologists from the site of ancient East Canopus in the Bay of Abu-Qir has been identified by Goddio and his researchers as an image of Arsinoe-Aphrodite from her temple at Zephyrium. The image, of black granodiorite and 1.5 m. in height, displays a synthesis of Greek and Egyptian characteristics, and is, unsurprisingly, remarkable for its emphasis on female erotic features, particularly the breasts and the womb. This chapter seeks to provide an intervisual reading of the surviving poetic passages on Arsinoe-Aphrodite in tandem with this image in particular (as well as several other images, including the now vanished Hirsch Arsinoe) and will posit the argument that the audiences of these poems would have been expected to make the association of poetic texts with the image of the queen-goddess, and to have understood the poems in light of these images - a two-way dialogue of image and text that vividly embodies the deified queen, her powers, and her attributes.
Abstract
Upon the several impressive poetic passages associated with the early Ptolemaic cult of the queen Arsinoe Philadelphus as the goddess Aphrodite, among them Theocritus Idyll 15.100-101, Idyll 17.45-50 and 121-134, Callimachus Ep. 5 Pf.=HE 1109-1120, Callimachus Aetia fr. 110-110f Harder, Callimachus fr. 228 Pf. (The Deification of Arsinoe) and several of the new anathematika epigrams of Posidippus (36-41 A.-B.), has been recently cast a tantalising new light - for one of the monumental figures brought back to our vision by Frank Goddio and his team of marine archaeologists from the site of ancient East Canopus in the Bay of Abu-Qir has been identified by Goddio and his researchers as an image of Arsinoe-Aphrodite from her temple at Zephyrium. The image, of black granodiorite and 1.5 m. in height, displays a synthesis of Greek and Egyptian characteristics, and is, unsurprisingly, remarkable for its emphasis on female erotic features, particularly the breasts and the womb. This chapter seeks to provide an intervisual reading of the surviving poetic passages on Arsinoe-Aphrodite in tandem with this image in particular (as well as several other images, including the now vanished Hirsch Arsinoe) and will posit the argument that the audiences of these poems would have been expected to make the association of poetic texts with the image of the queen-goddess, and to have understood the poems in light of these images - a two-way dialogue of image and text that vividly embodies the deified queen, her powers, and her attributes.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: In limine
- 1 À rebours: intervisuality from the Middle Ages to classical antiquity 15
- 2 From image to theatrical play in Aeschylus’ Oresteia 33
-
Part II: Archaic and classical age
- 3 Homer and the art of cinematic warfare 81
- 4 Intervisuality in the Greek symposium 103
- 5 The protohistory of portraits in words and images (sixth–fifth century BCE): tyrants, poets, and artists 121
- 6 Looking at Athens through the lyric lens 149
- 7 The politics of intervisuality 171
-
Part III: Hellenistic and imperial age
- 8 The goddess playing with gold 197
- 9 Intervisuality in declamation and sung poetry in imperial Greek cities 213
- 10 Intervisual allusions in Lucian, Dialogues of the Sea Gods 15 235
- 11 Was Philostratus the Elder an admirer of Ovidian enargeia? 255
- 12 ἐκ τῶν πινάκων. Aristaenetus’ intervisual allusions to Philostratus’ art gallery 283
-
Part IV: Pointing to Rome
- 13 Ordering the res gestae: observations on the relationship between texts and images in Roman ‘historical’ representations 305
-
Appendix
- List of contributors 335
- Index nominum et rerum notabilium 339
- Index locorum 345
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: In limine
- 1 À rebours: intervisuality from the Middle Ages to classical antiquity 15
- 2 From image to theatrical play in Aeschylus’ Oresteia 33
-
Part II: Archaic and classical age
- 3 Homer and the art of cinematic warfare 81
- 4 Intervisuality in the Greek symposium 103
- 5 The protohistory of portraits in words and images (sixth–fifth century BCE): tyrants, poets, and artists 121
- 6 Looking at Athens through the lyric lens 149
- 7 The politics of intervisuality 171
-
Part III: Hellenistic and imperial age
- 8 The goddess playing with gold 197
- 9 Intervisuality in declamation and sung poetry in imperial Greek cities 213
- 10 Intervisual allusions in Lucian, Dialogues of the Sea Gods 15 235
- 11 Was Philostratus the Elder an admirer of Ovidian enargeia? 255
- 12 ἐκ τῶν πινάκων. Aristaenetus’ intervisual allusions to Philostratus’ art gallery 283
-
Part IV: Pointing to Rome
- 13 Ordering the res gestae: observations on the relationship between texts and images in Roman ‘historical’ representations 305
-
Appendix
- List of contributors 335
- Index nominum et rerum notabilium 339
- Index locorum 345
