Response

Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway

It is a pleasure to have to respond to two papers that so well complement each other.^[1] Although Professor Smith has spoken in general terms of kings and philosophers, without focusing on a specific area, and Professor Zanker has chosen to limit his inquiry to the vocabulary of gravestones in ancient Smyrna, both have produced a coherent and stimulating picture—one that emphasizes the value of scholarship and philosophical thinking in the eyes of the common citizen, as contrasted with the heroic and idealized persona intentionally projected by statues of rulers. It is easy to agree with much of what both speakers had to say, and there is little to object to, despite their attempt at generalization. There are, however, some nuances that could be introduced, and some questions that could be asked; and, in my capacity as respondent, I take it that I should function as the advocatus (advocata?) diaboli to present a different, or at least a critical, point of view. I shall empha-

[1] I have left the text of my response as I delivered it on the occasion of the symposium, on the basis of written versions of Professors Zanker's and Smith's papers that had been made available to me in advance. Professor Smith had already altered some of his points by the time of his presentation, as I could note verbally and impromptu. Professor Zanker has now kindly sent me the latest form of his text, in which some of my comments have even been taken into account. I believe the reader would be best served by my retaining the original form of my reply, which more closely reflects the discussion at the time of the symposium. My response was accompanied by slides; most of the monuments I cite can however be traced through the work on East Greek gravestones by E. Pfuhl and H. Möbius, Die ostgriechisehen Grabreliefs , 2 vols. (Mainz, 1977-79), whose sequential numbers I give in parentheses; see also my Hellenistic Sculpture I: The Styles of ca. 331-200 BC (Madison, 1990).

size those statements that seemed to me particularly significant in each paper, and I shall mention my own reservations or suggestions, as the case may be.

I

I begin with Professor Zanker's paper, because his material is all original, available at first hand, without problems of identification or of "translation" at the hands of a Roman copyist. It is the funerary sculpture of a city that seems best represented for the period between about 170 and 100 BC , during which Smyrna may have played a limited role in political events, happy to remain under Roman protection and influence. One cannot fail to ask why so little seems to survive from the third century, and this is perhaps the moment to acknowledge a similar dearth of sculptural information from other parts of the Hellenistic world at that time. I have recently attempted a survey of sculpture from circa 331 to 200 BC and have found relatively few monuments that can be attributed to that chronological span with any confidence. I can also confirm what Professor Zanker has pointed out: despite contacts and trade throughout the Hellenistic world, one cannot speak of an international style, although some iconographic elements, and some specific types, have a wide distribution. In his own words, each Asia Minor city of the second century seems to be a relatively closed cultural entity, strongly relying on local traditions and standards. Yet two cautionary points should here be considered.

The first concerns the dating of the Smyrnean stelai. As far as I know, an approximate chronology is reached primarily on the basis of style. Epigraphy and prosopography may have played a role, but if so, it must have been minimal. Since men and women on these gravestones are depicted according to fourth-century formulas, our evaluation focuses on technical and stylistic renderings, or on the appearance of the "accessories" with which these reliefs are so abundantly provided. Yet nothing assures us that some monuments may not be earlier, others later than the traditionally assigned chronology for those very reasons of traditionalism and conservatism pointed out above. If no international style existed—as I also believe—we may be wrong in dating monuments everywhere on the basis of the few fixed points we have at other sites . To my knowledge, Smyrna itself has provided no such firmly dated monument.

The second consideration concerns distribution. Professor Zanker has correctly pointed out that the general appearance of a Smyrnean stele—with its pediment, rosettes, wreaths often inscribed ho demos , and figures primarily in frontal pose—is so distinctive that geographic attributions can be made even when provenience is uncertain. In fact, several

of the gravestones he mentioned as examples are in European collections and have an unknown origin. To these should however be added others—conveniently gathered in the corpus compiled by Pfuhl and Möbius—that are in fact very similar, yet are definitely known to come from elsewhere: from Rhodes (163), Samos (164), Odessos (165), Kyme (171), Ephesos (417), Sardis (418), Chios (544), and Arabli, near Sardis (546). Professor Zanker has certainly mentioned this fact, but he has stressed a relative geographic proximity. To me, it would seem that typology may be more diffused, and therefore less city-specific, than suggested, with whatever historical implications this distribution may carry. A few stelai, moreover, may have had the same mass-production origin that can be surmised for some of the fourth-century Attic gravestones: the dexiosis so frequently used for married couples is occasionally identified by inscriptions as depicting father and daughter (704), and a traditional frontal pair turns out, on the same evidence, to be brother and sister (543). This "anonymity" of the types stresses their formulaic character, and may therefore reinforce Professor Zanker's claim on the desirability of a projected image; but it also weakens the aspects of patronage and personal preference that should be behind certain ideological choices.

Along these lines, I may comment briefly also on the difference—pointed out by Professor Zanker—between the epitaph and the representation. The sorrow and the bereavement occasionally expressed by the inscriptions are seldom apparent in the expressions of the individuals portrayed (be they the living left behind, or the dead), and sad poses, if at all rendered, seem to be solely the prerogative of the accompanying servant figures. This situation may again be attributed to sculptural mass production, only the epitaph having been specifically commissioned for a given situation or individual. On the other hand, I cannot help noticing that this may well be the case with sculpture and poetry in general. Hellenistic verses on the Aphrodite Knidia, or even Myron's cow, verge on hyperbole in describing the beauty and realism of these monuments, yet the very periods in which Praxiteles and Myron worked would speak against the likelihood that such superlatives might apply. By the same token, I am personally leery of equating Hellenistic epigrams and "Hellenistic" large-scale monuments, such as erotes or satyrs, for which no firm dating is available and no original may be extant. Would we have "guessed" the appearance of the stelai, if only the epitaphs had survived? And if the answer to this question is negative, how safe is it to assume that greater correspondence existed, either in subject matter or in characterization, between literature and monuments?

If I may push this line of reasoning a bit further, let us consider the effects that "mass production" (for want of a better term) may have had

not only on the imagery of the stelai but also on their style. Professor Zanker has pointed out how different the Smyrnean gravestones are from allegedly contemporary Pergamene "pathetic" works—to be sure, there are very few stelai from Pergamon—with the significant exception of the few warrior stelai, for which heroic overtones are adopted from the imagery of the ruler. In these reliefs, aesthetic expression is firmly related to content, and a more baroque style predominates, while the pantherskin saddles on the horses and the snakes around the background trees emphasize the superhuman quality of the representation. Style, therefore, appears to be related to subject matter; or could it even be determined by social status—a different class—as contrasted with the more pedestrian and conservative style of the bourgeoisie? Perhaps the few "horseman's" monuments were specifically commissioned, and thus could emerge from the mainstream of everyday production. If so, we would have another proof that style and iconography are not primarily conditioned by time and geography.

To my mind, what is most striking in these "soldier's" stelai is their similarity to votive reliefs. Not just the heroic nudity, but also the horse, the tree, and the snake combine to create the same atmosphere of the "Funerary Banquet" reliefs so conspicuously absent from the Smyrnean repertoire, as pointed out by Professor Zanker. One fragmentary stele from Smyrna (14150), also dated to the second century BC , adds a high pedestal supporting the statuette of a peplophoros in slightly archaistic style; from her hand hangs a tragic mask, which has been taken as an allusion to the cult of the Muses and the musical competitions in their honor held on Hellenistic graves. I shall return to this musical component. For the moment, let me suggest that some elements of what I call the "bourgeois" stelai—for lack of a better term—also imply heroization.

Perhaps the most obvious is the scale of importance. The servant figures ubiquitous in the gravestones are so improbably smaller than the deceased as to be comparable to the human worshipers in votive reliefs to Asklepios or other divinities. That they seem unaware, in a few cases, of the presence of their masters adds to the effect of ghostly apparition of the latter. The frontal poses stressed by Professor Zanker for the principal characters—what makes them so similar to honorary statues set up in funerary naiskoi—may therefore also be taken as a heroizing element, meant not to isolate them from each other, but rather to establish contact between the dead and the spectators , the visitors to the grave, very much in the line of Hellenistic votive reliefs, as noted by Hausmann in his book on the subject. As such, I would distinguish them from the free-standing monuments set up in Hellenistic agoras, sanctuaries, or even private houses—although the case of the Delian Kleopatra and Dioskourides is

certainly rare. In such monuments, the tone is civic and contemporary; in the gravestones, as I see it, the tone is otherwordly and superhuman. Note, for instance, that even some bourgeois characters in all their clothed decency are accompanied by bearded snakes (256, 160, 414, 1096, where tree and snake are in an inset below the main panel). And I am not entirely sure that herms signify solely the world of the palaistra and the gymnasion; some of the men portrayed next to them, besides being fully clothed, look mature and bearded (646?, 141 ff., 161, 256), and the allusions may be religious rather than athletic. Herakles, after all, was also a symbol of triumph over death.

Even the women on the stelai carry overtones of divinization. The very large torches and the poppies they hold allude not only to their priestly functions, but also to the goddess herself. Most of the figures veil their heads with the mantle (872, 405ff.; 530), but on the Winchester relief (855) the woman wears an unusual kerchief. I am reminded of the headcover of some Egyptian heads, and even of the standing Hermaphrodite in Florence, which has been connected with Egyptian rites in another context. The male figure on the Winchester stele is indeed in a philosopher's pose, counting on his fingers like Chrysippos' statue, as pointed out by Professor Zanker. And I would agree with his comment that a hand to the head means thought rather than mourning, although not in all instances.

We should perhaps reconsider the types so clearly described by Professor Zanker. For the standing male figures he has suggested affinity to the Aischines and the Demosthenes statues—not as a direct dependence, yet nonetheless as a conscious allusion, to endow each citizen with the qualities associated with great orators and politicians, especially learning, action, and philosophy. This reading, confirmed by the many "attributes" in the background, is certainly correct, and Professor Zanker's comments have been highly illuminating. I would add, however, a few refinements.

The one concession probably determined by the Asia Minor environment is the addition of a tunic under the mantle, in a tradition of male modesty that goes back to the Archaic period. But even the types may bear further definition. I find the Demosthenes type quite rare. In fact, the distinctive arrangement of the mantle, leaving the upper torso bare, and the specific interlacing of the fingers recur only on one second-century relief, from Kyzikos, that is not even the main scene but a side panel on a stele (111; for the main panels, 1398, 1945; cf. 664, from Aydin, for the clasped hands of a heavily mantled figure). This rarity may mean that the Demosthenes statue by Polyeuktos never became a "type" in the standard sense of the word—and was therefore not used as a stock or formulaic body, perhaps because the association with the

specific individual, rather than with his civic status, was too strong. Or perhaps the Demosthenes—a private, family portrait after all, even if set up in the Athenian agora—carried with it connotations of defeat and helplessness.

The position with arms crossed, one hand holding the wrist of the other, is more often rendered (e.g., 529, 530, 532), but to me seems quite different, and is in fact used even for one of the servant figures in many stelai (569, 564-565, 557, 250, 256, 161). Given also the variation in the costume, the similarity with the Demosthenes is all but lost.

The Aischines type is much more common (191-251), but even commoner is another rendering, almost in mirror image as far as the ponderation is concerned; the weight of the body is supported by the proper right leg, and the forward left leg bends in the same direction as the head, in a pose more closely comparable to the so-called Sophokles type (e.g., 156ff., 170). Yet we cannot be entirely sure that the formula began with the Lykourgan statue of the playwright, nor can we assume that the Athenian monument was the direct influence behind the Asia Minor renderings. The one obvious difference, which usually obtains also with the Aischines type, is that the left arm is held not behind but in front of the figure, and is accompanied by a swirl of the mantle tip that suggests motion. If such readings were not inevitably subjective, I would interpret the variant as a much more active pose and therefore intended for a different allusion. Occasionally, two men on one stele assume opposite and balancing stances, so that one is like the Sophokles, the other like the Aischines type (341); but the intent here seems to provide complementary images, for aesthetic rather than for conceptual purposes. Margarete Bieber has treated this mantled type, first in a lengthy article and then in her book on Roman copies.^[2] She has traced its history into Roman times, through more than six centuries, as the phenomenon of the Romani palliati —Romans in a Greek himation, which is called in Latin the pallium —and has come to the conclusion that the formula was used to convey not a specific occupation, but a bookish person, an educated man of any profession, very much in keeping with Professor Zanker's viewpoint.

According to Professor Zanker, this was the one recourse, the one point of superiority the Greeks could oppose to the pervading Roman authority in their area. Yet I wonder whether Italic influence was not already sufficiently widespread to leave its mark even on these stelai. To focus first on a minor but significant detail among the realia of the stelai:

[2] M. Bieber, "Romani palliati , Roman Men in Greek Himation," Proc Phil Soc 103 (1959): 374-417; Ancient Copies: Contributions to the History of Greek and Roman Art (New York, 1977), chap. 11, pp. 129-147.

the type of footwear many deceased wear, with a pronounced lingula , seems adapted from Italic fashions. As for the ideological meaning, certainly the Romans themselves favored oratory, culture, and active civic life. By the mid-second century BC , there were enough Romans in Asia Minor that the contrast between cultures must have been considerably diminished, especially in the melting pots of the Asiatic cities.

I have already mentioned a possible second source of influence on the stelai by speaking of Egyptian headdresses, and Professor Zanker himself has pointed out a Ptolemaic derivation for the cornucopiae visible among the background attributes of some Smyrnean gravestones (156, 158, 170; 405). They too, for me, are signs of heroization rather than of priestly functions, prosperity, and euergesia . On one monument (872), the hieroglyph of the crossing horns may complement the dexiosis of the main composition, and—as for the Ptolemies—stand for the marital union attested by the funerary inscription.

One final comment on female iconography. A Smyrnean stele in Madrid (382) renders the woman in the costume of the so-called Venice Muse, one of the types included in the "Apotheosis of Homer" relief by Archelaos of Priene. It is remarkable that this should be the only example of an allusion that should have come naturally to the carvers, given the frequent comparisons of women to the Muses elsewhere. In fact, some stelai include sirens with women (e.g., the recut gravestone in Verona, 414; cf. 1096), not—as I believe—to suggest the husband's lament, but to symbolize the lyrical skills of the deceased. If "Archelaos' Muses" were in fact copied after prototypes by Philiskos of Rhodes set up in Asia Minor, as suggested by Pinkwart, their omission from the Smyrnean repertoire is worth noting. I have elsewhere suggested another possible interpretation for the "Apotheosis of Homer" and its dating.^[3]

In summary, I would agree with Professor Zanker that specific connotations prevailed in the imagery of the Hellenistic gravestones from Smyrna—connotations of civic and intellectual activity for the men, luxury and religiosity for the women, prospective careers of equal value for children and the prematurely dead. But I would place more emphasis on the affinity of the reliefs to votive monuments, as made explicit by the wreaths and the dedication by the demos. This interpretation may explain the relative scarcity of Funerary Banquets and of "victorious rider" reliefs, of which the Smyrnean naiskoi would form the local counterpart. Along these lines, I would see most features as signifiers of heroization, for both men and women, and would acknowledge influence

[3] Hellenistic Sculpture I , 257-266; see also my "Musings on the Muses," Festschrift für Nikolaus Himmelmann , Bonn Jhb BH 47 (Mainz, 1989), 265-272.

not only from the Egyptian, but also from the Roman sphere. Conservative formulas for the main types, albeit accompanied by creative accessories and novel compositions, bespeak "mass production" and highlight the difficulties of dating Hellenistic sculpture.

II

Heroization is also the main theme of Professor Smith's paper—the early Hellenistic idealization of the ruler in an image of perennial youth, as contrasted with the intentional aging of a philosopher's portrait, in psychological and ethical contraposition. Here again I find few grounds for disagreement and much that is enlightening; there are therefore only a few points to which to call attention.

First of all, our conception of philosophers' portraits is based primarily on statues that are known to have been erected in Athens . They survive only in Roman copies and thus add to our uncertainty about proper identification and original setting, but it must be admitted, on historical grounds, that Athens was the city most directly concerned with the philosophical schools. If this is so, it is perhaps dangerous to extend the generalization to all the Hellenistic cities, although the Smyrnean stelai certainly provide a measure of confirmation.

Moreover, that monarchy was a new concept for the polis applies again primarily to Athens and central Greece. Sparta had a long tradition of kingship, albeit sui generis; Macedonia, naturally, was the very fons et origo of the new form of government, again because of a line of rulers going back at least a century. The Asia Minor cities, whether willing or unwilling, had long been under Persian "protection"; satrapies and local dynasties in Lycia, Karia, and other non-Greek areas of Anatolia and the Syro-Phoenician coast were established forms of monarchical rule; and in Egypt the pharaoh continued to be not only a human sovereign but an acknowledged divinity. Even the Sicilian cities, which did not have true kings, had certainly been exposed to splendid tyrants who for all intents and purposes acted as royal authorities. The many new foundations in the Hellenistic East knew no other form of government. It would almost seem as if only, or primarily, the democratic Athenians needed much convincing through new ideological imagery and iconography.

On the other hand, that a certain divinity was always thought to attach to the Macedonian rulers is shown by the alleged descent of the royal line from Herakles (Hdt. 8.138). The ultimate hint of a divine connection was certainly given by the chryselephantine statues of his family which Philip II commissioned for his tholos at Olympia—in an evocation of ancestral ties that seems to have been popular in the second half of

the fourth century, as shown for instance by the Daochos monument at Delphi. Dionysos' victories in the East need not have been fabricated from whole cloth just to provide Alexander with an apposite model, if we believe that the tradition of the Amazonian foundation of Ephesos may have been current as early as the time of Pindar. A youthful, horned Dionysos type known through several replicas has been attributed to Praxiteles—perhaps erroneously, but in any case it seems to have nothing to do with Alexander. A horned Zeus Ammon existed as a type from the fifth century BC , and Alexander's association with it goes back to his consultation of the oracle and therefore to his connections with Egypt. It is easy to imagine that the trappings of divinity, such as horns attached to fillets or animal skins worn over the head, were suggested by a pharaonic artistic tradition that did not hesitate to mingle human with animal traits. This is an old, not a new approach, and what is novel is solely its application to rulers of Greek origin. Even the aigis of the Alexander statue as ktistes of Alexandria had to be explained in terms of a Macedonian chlamys and the shape of the new city, to those who were not of Egyptian origin. Female heads with bull's horns on the forehead have also been identified as Ptolemaic queens, but in association with the mythological character of Io.^[4]

I would be wary of identifying confidently as specific Hellenistic rulers some of the portraits coming to us from Roman villas at Herculaneum and Pompeii. Or, to be more precise, I am not sure that those portraits, even if correctly identified, go back to original statues contemporary with the individuals depicted. A recent publication has stressed that several of the heads from the Villa of the Papyri have no satisfactory numismatic or other likeness;^[5] and I wonder whether they were just imaginary reconstructions of historical personages without reference to an official portrait. That we are still uncertain about our interpretations is shown by the fact that serious authorities read the bull's horns as an allusion to Poseidon, rather than to Dionysos; while the famous statuette from Herculaneum of the so-called Demetrios Poliorketes has goat's, not bull's horns at all. An ingenious explanation connecting with Pan not only the Antigonids but also the Ptolemies has been proposed, but cannot be verified on the coinage, which is our primary basis for identifications. It is entirely possible, moreover, that a numismatic tradition was not converted into sculptural reality until much later, since even some colossal stone portraits from Delos that may have carried separately attached horns could belong to the first rather than the third century BC .

[4] B. Freyer-Schauenburg, "Io in Alexandria," Röm Mitt 90 (1983): 35-49.

[5] A. Houghton, "A Colossal Head in Antakya and the Portraits of Seleucus I," AK 29 (1986): 52-61.

Other acknowledged traits of divinity, such as the anastole and the thick wreath of hair, recur—it should be pointed out—in other types. It is a moot point whether the anastole originated with Zeus or with Alexander, since the mutual allusion is certain; but it should be noted that the rendering is found also, for instance, on the river Orontes at the feet of the Tyche of Antioch, or on some Giants of the Pergamon Altar. The wreath of hair is seen at its most luxurious on the so-called Anapauomenos attributed to Praxiteles, and it becomes distinctive of many other allegedly Hellenistic satyrs and Mischwesen .

By the same token, I am not sure that the so-called Attalos I in Berlin, with recur hair, truly depicts that Pergamene king. (As a side issue: if the Attalids went to the trouble of fabricating a descent from Herakles, why is the Herculean imagery absent from their presumed portraits?)^[6] The specific identification of the Berlin head is based on tenuous grounds: the fact that no coins of that monarch exist, and that other Attalid profiles are known and look different; the provenience from Pergamon; the style in keeping with the king's chronology; perhaps even the heroic size. Yet, if I understood correctly, Professor Smith has also suggested that the typical ruler image is life-sized, at least during the early Hellenistic period. Certainly many later images of alleged Hellenistic rulers are larger than life, and this heroic dimension must have functioned as a virtual attribute.

Heroic nakedness has also been mentioned as a preferred rendering, without recourse to the "crude strategy of a cuirassed statue." I wonder whether our conception would change, were we able to see the many lost monuments of rulers from Athens, Pergamon, Delos, and other cities. The equestrian statue of Demetrios Poliorketes from the Athenian Agora carried a sword, probably a helmet, and may have been in full armor. The Attalid dedications on the Pergamene akropolis and at Delos would also have worn some form of battle dress, given their commemorative nature and to judge from the depiction of the Alexander Sarcophagus from Sidon. If the marble equestrian figures from Lanuvium now in the British Museum are indeed copies of the Granikos monument by Lysippos, as advocated by Coarelli and others, cuirasses seem to have been standard for Alexander and his companions in battle. All such bronze statues, because of their difficult reproduction in the more fragile marble, are those that would most likely be irretrievable for us, and probably unrecognizable even if surviving in the shape of a herm bust or a single head. Could the perceived difference between royal and city portraits be our problem, rather than an ancient fact? One monument

[6] O. Palagia, "Imitation of Herakles in Ruler Portraiture: A Survey, from Alexander to Maximinus Daza," Boreas 9 (1986): 137-151.

exists in which the gap between ruler and philosopher, youthful and heroic man of action versus old man of thought and letters, may have been bridged.

The Sarapieion at Memphis, with its hemicycle of portrait statues, has traditionally been seen as a gathering of philosophers and poets including one statesman in their midst—Demetrios of Phaleron, because of his position as librarian of the Alexandria Museum under Ptolemy I, after his departure from Athens. This identification was based on the bearded herm on which the figure leans, taken to be a herm of Sarapis because of its spiral curls and tall headdress. A different interpretation, advanced in 1976 by M. Pietrzykowski, would see in the herm an Indian Dionysos, and would recognize Alexander in the leading figure, whose (attributed) head wears a diadem. Another statue from the hemicycle would be Ptolemy I, because of eagles carved on the base. The men of letters are identified as Pindar, Plato, Protagoras, and Homer—and, less positively, Thales, Hesiod, and Diogenes. A third-century date may be questionable for the group, but a Hellenistic chronology is undoubted.

What, then, of Professor Smith's argument? In its basic proposition, it must be considered correct, even if exceptions may be cited. Taken together, both these papers have expanded our understanding of Hellenistic self-images at various levels and have opened our eyes to new readings of familiar monuments. We are indeed grateful to our speakers.