Year: 1987
Type: article
Abstract: HEPHAESTUS THE MAGICIAN is, of course, a standard description of divine beings in epic,4 and I will argue that this passage is our earliest testimony to a very old mythographic tradition, according to which Hephaestus forged a series of theriomorphic statues from precious metals and animated 5 them in some manner for the protection of palaces, temples, or (as a recently edited papyrus reveals) an entire island.The Greeks had many tales about the bones of heroes, rocks, or other common objects that came to be revered as fetishes or talismans on which the safety of a city or royal house depended, 6 but stories in which a statue is built follow Nitzsch and refer to Homer's tendency to use "hyperbolical expressions about works of imitative or mechanical art" that are intended as a tribute to the skill of the artist.This seems to be based on the nl"'tion that certain statues were regarded as animated simply because they were quite realistic: i.e., lifelike='living'.C. Clerc, Les theories relatives au culte des images chez les auteurs grecs du II me siixle (Paris 1915) 22, corrects this view (of Nagelsbach and others) by pointing out that in Pausanias' descriptions of statues it is the simplest rough-hewn idols that are most often believed to be alive or magical, usually on account of their great antiquity and the mystery surrounding their origin.E. Griset, "I cani del palazzo di Alcinoo nelle modemi traduzioni," RivStCI 13 (1965) 180-82, notes the obvious parallels to the golden maidservants (II.18.417-20) and the automatic tripods (I/.18.373-77).4 For the antiquity of the formula see R. Janko, "f 8ANAT01: KAI ArHP01:," Mnemosyne SER.IV 34 (1981) 382-84.Nearly the same line appears at Hymn.Hom.Cer.260 and Hes.Theog.955.For the standard pairing of the two adjectives in the descriptions of divine creatures see II. 2.447, 8.539, 12.323, 17.444; Od. 5.136, 5.218 (Odysseus contrasts Penelope and Calypso: ~ /LtV yap {jPOTf)S Eun, 0'1., 0' a6avaTos Kat ay~pws), 7.257, 23.336; Hymn.Hom.Cer.242; Hymn.Ven.214 (oos (01 Q.6avaTos Kat ay~pws iua 6EO'iUIV); Hes.Theog.277 (~ /LtV (TW 6V7JT~, at 0' a6avaTOI Kat ay~p'!l)' 305, 949; fr.25.28M.-W.(vvv 0' ijO( 6d,s Eun ... a6avaTos Kat ay~pos).For discussion see West ad Theog.277.On the incorporation of these epithets into philosophic discourse see G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers 2 (Cambridge 1983) 117.51 will use this word in its root sense of putting anima into something (Evn6£val I/tvx~v), without implying that the object is caused to move, a common secondary meaning in English.The Greeks had a number of ways of referring to these special statues.They were sometimes conceived of as the end product of some ritual process, i.e., 'consecrated' or 'divinized' (UUAEU/L£VOS, the root via Arabic and Turkish of the English word 'talisman'), while at other times they were described in terms of an analogy to human life, i.e., as something with breath «(/L1TVOOS) or soul within it (E'p.I/tvxos; cf Aristotle's analogy of a human slave to a KTi//La E'p.I/tVXOV [Po/.1.4], where he cites Hephaestus' servant girls and moving tripods as mythical exempla).It is this last term that is used most frequently in descriptions of Hephaestus' talismans.6 Bones of heroes such as Pelops (Paus.5.13.5;Dionysius Sam ius FGrHist 15F3, 1: ad II.4.92), Orestes (Hdt.1.67), Laomedon (Serv.ad Aen.2.241), and Alexander the Great (Ael.VH 12.64) had great talismanic power.Oedipus (Soph.OC 1524-33) claims that his grave will be a better protection than any number of shields or mercenaries.See F. Pfister, Der Reliquienkult in Altertum (Giessen 1909), for a thorough survey and discussion.Other objects include a stone of fiery color at Cyzicus (Lydus, De ost.7 p.281 [Bekker]), a tripod given by Apollo to the people of Hylle in Illyria (Ap.Rhod.4.527-36 with 1:), and the teletai of the Great Goddess inscribed on tin and buried in a bronze hydria (Paus.4.20.4 and 26.7f).For general discussion see J. G. Frazer, Pausanias's Description of Greece IV (London 1898) ad 8.4 7.5 on the brazen lock of the Gorgon.
Author: Christopher A. Faraone
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1573702040