DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9841#0026
XXI.] AMPELOS, ACRATOS AND OTHER DEMONS.
9
the attitudes of the two figures remind us of those in
which we have seen the youthful God and Ampelos.
Elsewhere also the thyrsus-bearing and bearded God
is accompanied by Ampelos46. In different museums
other groups are found in which figures have been
taken for Ampelos, sometimes, perhaps, without suffi-
cient authority1'.
He is sometimes called the genius of Dionysos, and
seems to be entitled to rank as one of those ministering
powers who attended on and performed the behests
of superior deities. Acratos was another genius of the
same God: he is mentioned by Pausanias48, is called
Acratopotes in Athenaeus45, and is represented, on an-
cient monuments, as a winged boy, with a smiling, and,
not unfrequently, a drunken countenance50.
We know the names of very few of the thirty thou-
sand demons, spirits of departed heroes, who, according
to Hesiod51, exist on the earth, and superintend the
40 D'Hancakville, Antiquite's Etrusques Grecques et Romaines,
Tom. ii. PI. v. pp. 110-111. Statuae Musei Florentine, Tom. v.
Tab. xlviii.
47 For instance, in the "Bacchus cum Ampelo" of the Museum Flo-
Rentinum, Tom. in. Tab. xlvii. p. 52. the supposed Ampelos bears no
mark of his descent Sai-upou airo <£u-rAijs. The same thing may be said of
the figure taken for Ampelos in the Museo Capitolino, Tom. iv. p. 249.
Winckelmann, however, takes the fonner figure for a Satyr : Werke,
Vol. in. p. x. See Obss. p. 4. Again, in a group of the Museo Bor-
bonico, Tom. viii. Tav. li. " Bacco da l'uva alia vite," I should hardly
take the little boy seen receiving a bunch of grapes, for Ampelos, who
!s, however, in all probability meant to be represented by the figure of a
youth drawn in a car, on a bas-relief of the Vatican, Museo Pio-Cle-
MEntino, Tom. iv. Tav. xxv. Visconti's supposition, that it is Acratos,
is clearly indefensible, if the view which I have taken of these two genii is
correct In another group, Museo Pio-Clementino, Tom. iv. Tav. xx.
Visconti describes Bacchus as "retto dal giovinetto Acrato o Ampelo;"
where the sculptor must have designed to represent Ampelos alone.
4ft Pausanias, i. p. 2. Aaifitcv toiv dfitpl Alovvuov A/cpai-os.
49 Athenaeus, ii. p. 39.
50 Gorii Gemmae Musei Florentini, p. 95. Museo Pio-Clementino,
Museo Borbonico, Tom. v. Tav. viii. Tom. vn. Tav. lxii.
51 Hesiod, Works and Days, i. 250.
Tpis yap fiupioi eiaiv iiri yQovi 7rov\v(ioT€tprj
9
the attitudes of the two figures remind us of those in
which we have seen the youthful God and Ampelos.
Elsewhere also the thyrsus-bearing and bearded God
is accompanied by Ampelos46. In different museums
other groups are found in which figures have been
taken for Ampelos, sometimes, perhaps, without suffi-
cient authority1'.
He is sometimes called the genius of Dionysos, and
seems to be entitled to rank as one of those ministering
powers who attended on and performed the behests
of superior deities. Acratos was another genius of the
same God: he is mentioned by Pausanias48, is called
Acratopotes in Athenaeus45, and is represented, on an-
cient monuments, as a winged boy, with a smiling, and,
not unfrequently, a drunken countenance50.
We know the names of very few of the thirty thou-
sand demons, spirits of departed heroes, who, according
to Hesiod51, exist on the earth, and superintend the
40 D'Hancakville, Antiquite's Etrusques Grecques et Romaines,
Tom. ii. PI. v. pp. 110-111. Statuae Musei Florentine, Tom. v.
Tab. xlviii.
47 For instance, in the "Bacchus cum Ampelo" of the Museum Flo-
Rentinum, Tom. in. Tab. xlvii. p. 52. the supposed Ampelos bears no
mark of his descent Sai-upou airo <£u-rAijs. The same thing may be said of
the figure taken for Ampelos in the Museo Capitolino, Tom. iv. p. 249.
Winckelmann, however, takes the fonner figure for a Satyr : Werke,
Vol. in. p. x. See Obss. p. 4. Again, in a group of the Museo Bor-
bonico, Tom. viii. Tav. li. " Bacco da l'uva alia vite," I should hardly
take the little boy seen receiving a bunch of grapes, for Ampelos, who
!s, however, in all probability meant to be represented by the figure of a
youth drawn in a car, on a bas-relief of the Vatican, Museo Pio-Cle-
MEntino, Tom. iv. Tav. xxv. Visconti's supposition, that it is Acratos,
is clearly indefensible, if the view which I have taken of these two genii is
correct In another group, Museo Pio-Clementino, Tom. iv. Tav. xx.
Visconti describes Bacchus as "retto dal giovinetto Acrato o Ampelo;"
where the sculptor must have designed to represent Ampelos alone.
4ft Pausanias, i. p. 2. Aaifitcv toiv dfitpl Alovvuov A/cpai-os.
49 Athenaeus, ii. p. 39.
50 Gorii Gemmae Musei Florentini, p. 95. Museo Pio-Clementino,
Museo Borbonico, Tom. v. Tav. viii. Tom. vn. Tav. lxii.
51 Hesiod, Works and Days, i. 250.
Tpis yap fiupioi eiaiv iiri yQovi 7rov\v(ioT€tprj