Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T15:41:59.569Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pausanias and the temple of Hera at Olympia1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2012

K. W. Arafat
Affiliation:
King's College London

Abstract

This article considers the contents of the temple of Hera at Olympia in the light of Pausanias' account and of excavation reports. Of all the temples Pausanias describes, the Heraion is the most crowded, and it is argued that by his day it was acting as a storeroom, primarily for objects from nearby buildings. The implications are assessed for the history of the attribution of the Heraion, and for the use of temples in Pausanias' day.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 ‘Hera, the sphinx’, Hesp. 13 (1944), 353–60.

3 ‘Olympische Beiträge II. Zur Geschichte des Heraion’, JdI 9 (1894), 101–14.

4 Paus.'s accuracy, many times attested by excavation (as e.g. Habicht, C., Pausanias' Guide to Ancient Greece (California, 1985), 32, 149–51Google Scholar, observes), ironically slips when he dates the Heraion to 1096; this historical miscalculation cannot, however, invalidate the accuracy of the autopsy he records. On the Heraion and its date, Mallwitz, A., ‘Das Heraion von Olympia und seine Vorgänger’, JdI 81 (1966), 310–76.Google Scholar

5 Frazer i. xv; Habicht (n. 4), 9; Papachatzis 196–7.

6 Treu, G., Olympia Ergebnisse, iii: Die Bildwerke von Olympia in Stein und Thon (Berlin, 1897), 251–5, 258–60Google Scholar; Frazer iii. 589 mentions six marble pedestals for Roman statues in the pronaos.

7 Arafat 392–3, on technique as a criterion of antiquity for Paus., and the word ἁπλά. Papachatzis (283) says the helmet suggests Zeus Areios; against, Kardara, G., ‘Olympia: Peirithoos, Apollo or Zeus Areios’, A. Delt. 25 A (1970), 1219.Google Scholar

8 At vii. 4. 4 Paus, calls Smilis ‘a contemporary of Daidalos’. Frazer discusses his date (iv. 122–3). For present purposes, what matters is that Paus. sees him as early archaic, by association with the first Greek artist.

9 LIMC v. 1. 502–10 (V. Machaira), 510–38 (L. Abad Casal).

10 Arafat 404–5.

11 On the treasuries at Olympia, including the Epidamnian, Herrmann, K., ‘Die Schatzhäuser in Olympia’, in Coulson, W. and Kyrieleis, H. (eds), Proceedings of an International Symposium on the Olympic Games (Athens, 1992), 2532.Google Scholar On the material of the Herakles and Hesperides group, Hill (n. 2), 354. Paus.'s interest in technique is frequently manifest (Arafat 392–3). Pollitt, J. J. says of the Epidamnian treasury Hesperides that ‘presumably they were reliefs’ (The Art of Greece (rev. edn, Cambridge, 1990), 23 n. 6)Google Scholar, but there is nothing in the language used, nor in the context, to indicate that technique, and much to contradict it.

12 Arafat 398–407.

13 Pace H. Hitzig and H. Blümner, who say that the material of the Horai, Demeter, Kore, Artemis, and Apollo (listed at 5. 17. 2–3) remains unknown (‘vielleicht’ wooden: Des Pausanias Beschreibung von Griechenland (Leipzig, 1901), ii, pt. 1, p. 391), although these are included in Paus.'s list of chryselephantines.

14 e.g. Amandry, P., ‘Rapport préliminaire sur les statues chryséléphantines de Delphes’, BCH 63 (1939), 86119.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBoardman, J., Greek Sculpture: The Archaic Period (London, 1978), fig. 127.Google Scholar

15 n. 2, 354–6.

16 Several of the scholars cited in n. 17 below maintain that the head is that of Hera, and others doubt the attribution, but have not faced or countered this reading of Paus. This may result from not reading Paus. beyond the sentence containing the reference to the Hera statue (to take the earliest example, this is certainly the case in Treu (n. 6), 1–4).

17 Hill (n. 2), in support, and seeing it as part of a pedimental group. Sinn, U., ‘Ἑϰτυπον: der sog. Hera-Kopf aus Olympia’, AM 99 (1984), 7787.Google Scholar The identification of the head with that of the presumed cult statue of Hera is longstanding and still general: Treu (n. 6), 1–4; Frazer (i. 593–4, with illustration); Ashmole, B., Architect and Sculptor in Classical Greece (New York, 1972), 6, fig. 5Google Scholar; Papachatzis raises no doubts (282–3, fig. 285). R. E. Wycherley says the head ‘belonged very probably to the image of Hera seen by Pausanias in the temple. The high crown is appropriate to Hera; and the primitive style agrees with Pausanias' remarks the eyes are large and triangular, the mouth is a simple curve, and the whole face is flattish’ (Loeb edn, vol. v. 132–3 and pl. 57 a); this seems to me to over-interpret ἁπλά. Boardman calls it Hera (n. 14, caption to fig. 73), and says ‘it appears to be from the seated Hera which, with a standing Zeus, was the cult group in the Temple of Hera … the rather stark features suit its size and function’ (25). Robertson, C. M. says it ‘probably belonged to the cult statue’ (A History of Greek Art (Cambridge, 1975), 35, cf. 47)Google Scholar, but adds that ‘none of these [aforementioned] facts is conclusive for the identification … but all are entirely compatible with it and taken together make it highly probable’ (48). Ridgway, B. S. is sceptical of its identification as the head of Hera on sculptural grounds, as well as archaeological (The Archaic Style in Greek Sculpture (Princeton, 1977), 123–4Google Scholar; also n. 21 below); and by Stewart, A., who says ‘the likelihood that it comes from Hera's cult statue in the Heraion is small: the base is too narrow to hold a seated statue of this size. In addition, it apparently had no right ear, it is markedly asymmetrical, and was found with what may be wing fragments; perhaps it does come from a sphinx’ (Greek Sculpture: An Exploration (Yale, 1990), 113).Google Scholar

18 Ridgway (n. 17), 123–4, 144, citing references including Mallwitz, A., Olympia und seine Bauten (Munich, 1972), 146–7.Google Scholar

19 v. 21. 3 gives a date of 388: Frazer iii. 624.

20 The technical arguments against a 4th-cent. date mustered by Adam, S. have been widely accepted (The Technique of Greek Sculpture in the Archaic and Classical Periods (London, 1966), 124–8Google Scholar; counter-arguments have been put by Wycherley, R. E., ‘Pausanias and Praxiteles’, Hesp. suppl. 20 (1982), 182–91.Google ScholarRidgway, B. S. places it not earlier than the 3rd cent., saying that it ‘perhaps may be better placed within the second century or later’ (Hellenistic Sculpture, i: The Styles of c.331–200 BC (Bristol, 1990), 14)Google Scholar; in the same work, she is more definite, saying that it ‘has been convincingly placed within the second century BC’ (80). Stewart calls it hellenistic (n. 17 above, 177, 198, 279, 296, and see next note). Morrow, K. D. dates it not before hellenistic, and probably 2nd cent. (Greek Footwear and the Dating of Sculpture (Wisconsin, 1985), 83–4).Google Scholar It is not mentioned in Smith, R. R. R., Hellenistic Sculpture (London, 1991). Pollitt (n. 15), 258–9Google Scholar, gives a detailed bibliography on the controversy.

The base has been dated to the 2nd or 1st cent. BC (Frazer iii. 595; Dinsmoor, , AJA 35 (1931), 296CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adam 125), which would support that date for the statue also, unless one believes, with Frazer and Papachatzis (283–6) that the statue is of 4th-cent. date, and was originally set up elsewhere and transferred to the Heraion. Frazer cites Dörpfeld's idea that the Hermes ‘originally stood either against the western wall or nearer the middle of the cella, and that when the cella was remodelled by the taking down of the cross-walls the pedestal was moved to its present position between the columns’ (iii. 589–90; the inner columns are here referred to). He then notes that ‘other parts of the temple beside the cella were enriched with statues and votive offerings of different sorts’, and goes on to detail the evidence, including the Roman statues mentioned above. If the Hermes were indeed transferred to the Heraion, the picture I believe Paus.'s account paints of objects being ‘imported’ into it gains credence.

21 First suggested by Blümel, C., Der Hermes eines Praxiteles (Baden-Baden, 1948)Google Scholar; most recently Stewart has said, ‘Pausanias saw, and we have, a statue by an imitator, perhaps one of his sons or grandsons' (n. 17, 177; for the genealogy of Praxiteles’ family, Stewart 277).

22 n. 17, 386.

23 At v. 17. 4, the words xΑριδαίου γυνὴ ϰαὶ Ὀλυμπιὰς ἡ', added by Buttmann, and retained by Rocha-Pereira (Teubner edn), Papachatzis (286–7), and Jones (Loeb edn), so that the names are not certain, but the reference to two female statues is.

24 Kunze, E. and Schleif, H., Ol. Forsch. i (Berlin, 1944), 152Google Scholar; Seiler, F., Die griechische Tholos (Mainz, 1986), 89103Google Scholar; Miller, S., ‘The Philippeion and Macedonian hellenistic architecture’, AM 88 (1973), 189218.Google Scholar

25 e.g. Frazer iii. 600, 606, following Stuart-Jones, H., ‘The chest of Kypselos’, JHS 14 (1894), 3080CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carter, J. B., ‘The chests of Periander’, AJA 93 (1989), 355–78, esp. 361–3, 374–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hurwit, J. M., The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100–480 BC (Cornell, 1985), 227–30.Google Scholar

26 Reconstructions: Stuart-Jones (n. 25), pl. 1, opp. p. 80, reproduced by Frazer (iii. 606), and by Papachatzis (298–9 fig. 301); Papachatzis (296–7, fig. 300) also reproduces that of von Massow-Biese, W., ‘Die Kypseloslade’, AM 41 (1916), 117, fig. 25.Google Scholar

27 On the problematic date of Kolotes, Polliti (n. 11), 220.

28 The translation of Frazer given above carefully conveys the uncertainty, as do those of Papachatzis (300) and W. H. S. Jones (Loeb edn, ii. 497). Polliti translates the passage unambiguously as appertaining to the table (n. 11), 220. Hitzl, K. also sees the figures as reliefs on the table (Ol. Forsch. xix: Die kaiserzeitliche Statuenausstattung des Metroon (Berlin, 1991), 14 n. 149).Google Scholar

29 Treu (n. 6), 243–8, 255–8, diagram p. 225; Hitzl (n. 28); Stone, S. C., ‘The imperial sculptural group in the Metroön at Olympia’, AM 100 (1985), 377–91.Google Scholar That the cult statue had been transferred from the Metroön to the Heraion was first suggested by Mallwitz (n. 18), 160. Against, most recently, Hitzl, 14 n. 149; Stone, citing Mallwitz and saying, ‘I cannot find it in Pausanias' account’ (386), to my mind an over-positive rejection since, whichever interpretation one supports, the passage seems to me to be undeniably open to both.

30 Hitzl (n. 28), 14.

31 n. 29, 387; followed by Hitzl (n. 28), 14 n. 149.

32 iii. 591.

33 Olympia: The Sculptures of the Temple of Zeus (London, 1967), 5.

34 The Architecture of Ancient Greece (3rd edn, London and Sydney, 1950), 53.

35 n. 33. 151.

36 iii. 589.

37 279.

38 n. 25, 182. Not everyone thinks it originally a joint temple: Robertson sees it as a Hera temple alone (n. 17), 271.

39 It may be that the identification of the temple as a joint one of Zeus and Hera owes much to what has been, effectively, an article of faith that Zeus is the senior god and that, therefore, his cult must go back as early as the shrine. This wishful thinking is best shown by the identification of terracotta statuettes of the Protogeometric and Geometric period as figures of Zeus, which may be correct but is not based on attributes or other genuine methods of assessment of their identity: Morgan, C. A., Athletes and Oracles (Cambridge, 1990), 6592Google Scholar; Heilmeyer, W. D., Ol. Forsch, vii: Frühe olymplsche Tonfiguren (Berlin, 1972).Google Scholar

40 Hill (n. 2), 354, 355; Wernicke (n. 3), 110, 112, 114, calls it a ‘Kunstmuseum’. The presence in temples of objects classed by Paus, as ‘antiquities’ can readily be paralleled: e.g. the Erechtheion contained (among other, unspecified, objects) a folding stool made by Daidalos, the breastplate of Masistios, and the sword of Mardonios (i. 27. 1; Arafat 404). However, the Erechtheion, like other temples similarly described but unlike the Heraion, is clearly a working temple; also, as noted, in no case are there anywhere near as many antiquities as in the Heraion.

41 Treu (n. 6), 232–5, 243–8, 255–8; Hitzl (n. 28); Stone (n. 29); Price, S., Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 1984), 160–1Google Scholar; Frazer iii. 622; Papachatzis 303.

42 Stone (n. 29), 386–7.

43 This is also shown by an inscribed architrave block. Stone (n. 29) and Hitzl (n. 28) reach different conclusions about the date and nature of the Imperial cult in the Metroön, but both place it, and the statues, well before Paus.'s day, which is the significant point for present purposes.

44 Eckstein, F. says that the kline and discus ‘waren wohl in der Zella verwahrt, wahrend der Tisch bei der Zeremonie, für die er eigens geschaffen war, wohl am Eingang, im Pronaos seine Aufstellung fand, die übrige Zeit ebenfalls im Tempelinnern verwahrt war’ (Pausanias Reisen in Griechenland (19861987), ii. 247).Google Scholar

45 H. Kyrieleis, ‘Neue Ausgrabungen in Olympia’, in Coulson and Kyrieleis (n. 11), 22–4; AR 1990–1, 31; 1989–90, 30. Kyrieleis, H., ‘Neue Ausgrabungen in Olympia’, Antike Welt, 21 (1990), 181–8Google Scholar; Mallwitz, A., ‘Cult and competition locations at Olympia’, in Raschke, W. J. (ed.), The Archaeology of the Olympics (Wisconsin, 1988), 7989.Google Scholar

46 Most recently, Schiering, W., Ol. Forsch, xviii: Die Werkstatt des Pheidias in Olympia, 2: Werkstattfunde (Berlin, 1991).Google Scholar

47 AR 1992–3, 28–9; Mallwitz, in Raschke (n. 45), 82, caption to fig. 6: 2; Heermann, V., ‘Banketträume im Leonidaion’, AM 99 (1984), 243–50Google Scholar; Frazer iii. 568–9.

48 The project to investigate Roman imperial Olympia, under the direction of Ulrich Sinn, continues to produce revisions of our view of the period at Olympia: e.g. AR 1993–4. 26; 1992–3, 28–9; 1991–2, 25–6; 1990–1, 31; Sinn, U., ‘“Ο Νέρωνας ϰαι οι Έρουλοι”: δύο μοιραία γεγονότα στην ιστορία της Ολυμπίας’, in Rizakis, A. D. (ed.), Αρχαία Αχαϊα ϰαι Ηλεία/ Achaia und Elis in der Antike (Athens, 1991), 365–71.Google Scholar

49 It has recently been suggested that it was in fact the turning-post of the early stadium: Brulotte, E. L., AJA 98 (1994), 5364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 There are parallels in the Roman period for moving religious monuments into central places (as museums?), most famously the ‘itinerant temples’ (most recently, Alcock, S. E., Graecia capta (Cambridge, 1993), 191–6)Google Scholar, but this is a different order of activity.

51 Hitzl (n. 28), 119–22.

52 At Delphi, he says he saw no treasure in any of the treasuries (x. 11. 1); the picture is less consistent at Olympia.

53 Treu (n. 6), 252–3.

54 Wernicke (n. 3), 110.

55 Stone (n. 29), 387. Here might be added temples which seem no longer to fulfil the role of a temple; most obviously, those with no roof, on which Paus, remarks on several occasions, e.g. the temple of the Mother of the Gods at the source of the Alpheios (vii. 44. 3). Alcock (n. 50), 200, 207–8, 257 n. 43 (‘to Pausanias an empty temple appears to form as significant a landmark as any functioning sanctuary’); ead., ‘Abandoned temples, abandoned towns: Pausanias and the sacred landscape of Roman Greece’ (AJA 96 (1992), 349). There are also temples which have been re-consecrated, such as the Metroön at Olympia (p. 466 above), or the roofless temple in the Agora of Elis, which had been re-consecrated to the Roman emperors (vi. 25. 1). However, re-dedication to the Roman emperors is a very different matter from re-dedication to another deity.

56 On the Heraia, Scanlon, T. F., ‘The footrace of the Heraia at Olympia’, Ancient World, 9 (1984), 7790Google Scholar; further refs. in Raschke (n. 45), 215 n. 69.

57 Also LSAG 2 102–4, no. 21.

58 Sinn, in Rizakis (n. 48), 370.

59 Frazer iii. 492, citing Dörpfeld, refers to a possible triumphal arch erected by Nero; in fact, as Sinn points out to me, there is no archaeological evidence whatever to justify identification as an arch, never mind its postulated demolition after the death of Nero (pace, most recently, Alcock (n. 50), 190).

60 Stone (n. 29), 378, not citing Wernicke's theory, despite arguing for the removal by Nero of the cult statue from the Metroön.