DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9187#0127
98
HEROIZING RELIEFS
Another relief, in the Museum of Berlin l, is similar in most
respects; but the lady of tall stature here stands behind the
horseman, and instead of paying him homage, seems to receive
it in common with him from a train of approaching votaries.
A large serpent erect in the background is the friend and
companion of the hero.
There can be no question as to the association of these
reliefs with worship, since the preparations for sacrifice are
actually represented on them. But in many directions they
offer us a series of interesting problems.
Firstly, is the hero who is thus honoured merely an ordinary
dead person raised at death to heroic rank, or is he one of the
local heroes who were everywhere in Greece held in honour,
mythic founders of cities or ancestors of tribes, or healing and
oracular demigods like Amphiaraus and Trophonius ? No doubt,
in many instances, the heroic horseman of the reliefs is of this
latter class. Yet that a man recently deceased is sometimes
the recipient of honour is proved by the inscriptions in some
cases, and may be almost with certainty inferred from the
presence of the tumulus on the relief last described. On
the monuments the hero is represented in the bloom of early
manhood ; but of course it does not follow that he died young:
immortal bloom belongs to the hero after death, however worn
and wrinkled age may have left him.
Secondly, who and what is the lady who on the reliefs
pours wine ? Her stature, which is equal to that of the hero
himself, and far greater than that of the worshippers, shows
at once that she is no living mortal or descendant, but a person
of equal rank with the horseman. As a matter of artistic
tradition we can trace her genesis quite clearly, as has been
well shown by Furtwangler 2. On the Spartan stelae we found
1 Roscher, Lexi'kon. i. p. 2555.
2 La Collection Sabouroff. Introd. p. 28.
HEROIZING RELIEFS
Another relief, in the Museum of Berlin l, is similar in most
respects; but the lady of tall stature here stands behind the
horseman, and instead of paying him homage, seems to receive
it in common with him from a train of approaching votaries.
A large serpent erect in the background is the friend and
companion of the hero.
There can be no question as to the association of these
reliefs with worship, since the preparations for sacrifice are
actually represented on them. But in many directions they
offer us a series of interesting problems.
Firstly, is the hero who is thus honoured merely an ordinary
dead person raised at death to heroic rank, or is he one of the
local heroes who were everywhere in Greece held in honour,
mythic founders of cities or ancestors of tribes, or healing and
oracular demigods like Amphiaraus and Trophonius ? No doubt,
in many instances, the heroic horseman of the reliefs is of this
latter class. Yet that a man recently deceased is sometimes
the recipient of honour is proved by the inscriptions in some
cases, and may be almost with certainty inferred from the
presence of the tumulus on the relief last described. On
the monuments the hero is represented in the bloom of early
manhood ; but of course it does not follow that he died young:
immortal bloom belongs to the hero after death, however worn
and wrinkled age may have left him.
Secondly, who and what is the lady who on the reliefs
pours wine ? Her stature, which is equal to that of the hero
himself, and far greater than that of the worshippers, shows
at once that she is no living mortal or descendant, but a person
of equal rank with the horseman. As a matter of artistic
tradition we can trace her genesis quite clearly, as has been
well shown by Furtwangler 2. On the Spartan stelae we found
1 Roscher, Lexi'kon. i. p. 2555.
2 La Collection Sabouroff. Introd. p. 28.