DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9187#0124
HEROIZIXG RELIEFS
95
heroes, the sons of Zeus, Castor and Pollux, were essentially
riders ; and on monuments they seldom appear without their
steeds. Still more close is the connexion between heroes
of Northern Greece and their horses.
A great deal of learning has been expended by a variety
of archaeologists to prove that the horse, when he appears
in the sepulchral banquets and the present class of reliefs,
is of chthonic signification; that he belongs mythologically
to the gods of the world below, and to mortals assimilated to
them1. It may be doubted whether they have proved their
case. Hades is in Homer kAvtottoAo?, in allusion to the dread
chariot in which he bore away Persephone-; but he does not
appear as a rider. The wild rider or hunting ghost is familiar in
northern lands, but not in ancient Greece. It seems preferable
to take the simpler explanation, that a chief accustomed all his
life to riding would scarcely be supposed to lack a horse in the
fields of Hades. We have ancient evidence that the presence
of a sculptured horse beside a sculptured man showed his
knightly rank in the Athenian Constitution of Aristotle1, where
we are told that a statue of one Diphilas on the Athenian
Acropolis, which was set up to mark his rise to the knightly
rank, had a horse standing beside it.
Several extant monuments show how the god-like heroes
of Northern Hellas came as horsemen to receive the tribute of
the living. And this kind of monument spread from the north
into other parts of the Greek world.
One of the earliest and most typical of these reliefs is in the
British Museum4 (Fig. 35). It comes from Rhodes, and may
be dated about 400 B.c. In it we have a combination in three
figures of the three elements which in this class of monuments
1 Cf. Furtwangler, Salouroff Coll. Intrcxl. p. 39.
! Buchholz, Hvmaisihc Rialicn, iii. 1, 334.
3 Chap. vii. p. 20, ed. Kenyon.
' Brit. Mus. Cat. of Marbles, No. 753.
95
heroes, the sons of Zeus, Castor and Pollux, were essentially
riders ; and on monuments they seldom appear without their
steeds. Still more close is the connexion between heroes
of Northern Greece and their horses.
A great deal of learning has been expended by a variety
of archaeologists to prove that the horse, when he appears
in the sepulchral banquets and the present class of reliefs,
is of chthonic signification; that he belongs mythologically
to the gods of the world below, and to mortals assimilated to
them1. It may be doubted whether they have proved their
case. Hades is in Homer kAvtottoAo?, in allusion to the dread
chariot in which he bore away Persephone-; but he does not
appear as a rider. The wild rider or hunting ghost is familiar in
northern lands, but not in ancient Greece. It seems preferable
to take the simpler explanation, that a chief accustomed all his
life to riding would scarcely be supposed to lack a horse in the
fields of Hades. We have ancient evidence that the presence
of a sculptured horse beside a sculptured man showed his
knightly rank in the Athenian Constitution of Aristotle1, where
we are told that a statue of one Diphilas on the Athenian
Acropolis, which was set up to mark his rise to the knightly
rank, had a horse standing beside it.
Several extant monuments show how the god-like heroes
of Northern Hellas came as horsemen to receive the tribute of
the living. And this kind of monument spread from the north
into other parts of the Greek world.
One of the earliest and most typical of these reliefs is in the
British Museum4 (Fig. 35). It comes from Rhodes, and may
be dated about 400 B.c. In it we have a combination in three
figures of the three elements which in this class of monuments
1 Cf. Furtwangler, Salouroff Coll. Intrcxl. p. 39.
! Buchholz, Hvmaisihc Rialicn, iii. 1, 334.
3 Chap. vii. p. 20, ed. Kenyon.
' Brit. Mus. Cat. of Marbles, No. 753.