DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0277
THE COLUMN OF THE DANCING WOMEN 261
From this little copy we certainly get an idea of the Hecate
Epipyrgidia of Alcamenes on the Acropolis of Athens, and
this shows how much tradition there is in the Delphian group.
There is a still closer Attic parallel in a vase-painting
on a Panathenaic Amphora from Eleusis, dated to the year
when Charicleides was archon, 363-2 b.c., and so exactly
of Praxiteles’ period. Here we see a dancing female figure
on an acanthus column. The actual idea of placing figures
on columns or on high bases, like the Nike of Paeonius, of
which a replica stood at Delphi, or on a bronze palm-tree,
as a statue of Athena was set up at Delphi in memory of
the Athenian victory at the Eurymedon, 466 B.c.,1 was natural
in view of the great accumulation of works of art in the
Greek sanctuaries, already mentioned (p. 56); and thus
Praxiteles employed it in his statue of Phryne, which,
according to the texts, stood “ very high,” and so probably
on a column.
All these considerations have caused Homolle to examine
the question whether the Delphian column might not be
a replica of a work of Praxiteles famous through literary
references, the Caryatids, which were later in the collec-
tion of Asinius Pollio at Rome.2 Of them it is said, “ Here
there are found Maenads and the female figures, which are
called Thyiads and Caryatids.” We have already men-
tioned (p. 18) the Thyiads, the Delphian or, according to-
other authors, Attic chorus of women, who danced in
honour of Dionysus on winter nights on the high plateau of
Parnassus.3 Like them, the Caryatids were originally
dancing women, who appeared at feasts of Artemis in the
Laconian town of Caryae.4 From a quotation of a Greek
comedian, Lynceus of Samos, it appears that the name
Caryatid in its later sense was known in the fourth century
B.c. In this fragment a parasite complains that he has had
to dine in such a rickety house that throughout the meal he
had to hold up his hand like the Caryatids. That is the
gesture we find in the Delphian dancers, only with the
right hand, instead of the left; but the idea of the collapsing
roof, which has to be supported, shows that by Caryatids
1 Pausanias, x. 15, 4. s Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxxvi. 23.
3 Perdrizet in Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. Thyiades. 4 Pausanias, iv. 16, 9.
From this little copy we certainly get an idea of the Hecate
Epipyrgidia of Alcamenes on the Acropolis of Athens, and
this shows how much tradition there is in the Delphian group.
There is a still closer Attic parallel in a vase-painting
on a Panathenaic Amphora from Eleusis, dated to the year
when Charicleides was archon, 363-2 b.c., and so exactly
of Praxiteles’ period. Here we see a dancing female figure
on an acanthus column. The actual idea of placing figures
on columns or on high bases, like the Nike of Paeonius, of
which a replica stood at Delphi, or on a bronze palm-tree,
as a statue of Athena was set up at Delphi in memory of
the Athenian victory at the Eurymedon, 466 B.c.,1 was natural
in view of the great accumulation of works of art in the
Greek sanctuaries, already mentioned (p. 56); and thus
Praxiteles employed it in his statue of Phryne, which,
according to the texts, stood “ very high,” and so probably
on a column.
All these considerations have caused Homolle to examine
the question whether the Delphian column might not be
a replica of a work of Praxiteles famous through literary
references, the Caryatids, which were later in the collec-
tion of Asinius Pollio at Rome.2 Of them it is said, “ Here
there are found Maenads and the female figures, which are
called Thyiads and Caryatids.” We have already men-
tioned (p. 18) the Thyiads, the Delphian or, according to-
other authors, Attic chorus of women, who danced in
honour of Dionysus on winter nights on the high plateau of
Parnassus.3 Like them, the Caryatids were originally
dancing women, who appeared at feasts of Artemis in the
Laconian town of Caryae.4 From a quotation of a Greek
comedian, Lynceus of Samos, it appears that the name
Caryatid in its later sense was known in the fourth century
B.c. In this fragment a parasite complains that he has had
to dine in such a rickety house that throughout the meal he
had to hold up his hand like the Caryatids. That is the
gesture we find in the Delphian dancers, only with the
right hand, instead of the left; but the idea of the collapsing
roof, which has to be supported, shows that by Caryatids
1 Pausanias, x. 15, 4. s Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxxvi. 23.
3 Perdrizet in Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. Thyiades. 4 Pausanias, iv. 16, 9.