Apollo of Piombino, not just a Roman copy of an older Greek original but, attempt at Roman forgery of ancient Greek art

When I posted the image of a lampholder depicted as Apollo in the archaic style which is part of the new exhibit, Tota Italia, a couple of days ago, another Facebook member asked me for an image of the complete statue.  The exhibit did not provide a full length image of it so I checked the website for the National Archaeological Museum in Naples and could not find it there either. I also checked Wikimedia Commons and didn't have any luck there. I found a small side view of the full statue just in a general image search then found a full length image of the Apollo of Piombino which is another archaic-style sculpture of Apollo that is said to be very similar to the one in the exhibit that was found in Pompeii in the House of C. Julius Polybius.  Found in 1832 at Piombino (Roman Populonia), in Etruria, Apollo of Piombino depicts either the god Apollo as a kouros or youth or it may be a worshipper bringing an offering.   The bronze is inlaid with copper for the boy's lips, eyebrows, and nipples. The eyes, which are missing, unlike the statue found in Pompeii, were of another material, perhaps bone or ivory.

The Apollo of Piombino  was originally dated to the 5th century BCE by various scholars and was purchased for the Musée du Louvre in 1834.  The two sculptors responsible for the piece could not resist secreting inside the sculpture a lead tag inscribed with their names, though, which was found when the sculpture was conserved in 1842. In 1967, classicist B. S. Ridgeway, stated it to be not simply an archaizing sculpture of the 1st century BCE, of the kind designed to appeal to a Roman with refined tastes, but a consciously fabricated Roman forgery, with a false inlaid inscription of silver in archaic lettering on the left leg. He pointed out the inscription dedicated this Apollo to Athena, an anomaly as well.  When the similar sculpture of Apollo was found in 1977 in the villa of C. Julius Polybius in Pompeii, this corroborated Rideway's theory.  

Apollo of Piombino now in the collections of The Louvre, Paris.

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Hephaestus (Vulcan)

Hephaestus was  the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire, and volcanoes and associated with those crafts that required heat. His Roman counterpart was Vulcan.  He was the patron deity of jewelers, armorers and blacksmiths.

As a smithing god, Hephaestus crafted much of the magnificent equipment of the gods, and almost any finely wrought metalwork imbued with powers that appears in Greek myth is said to have been forged by Hephaestus. He designed Hermes' winged helmet and sandals, the Aegis breastplate, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Agamemnon's staff of office, Achilles' armor, Diomedes' cuirass, Heracles' bronze clappers, Helios' chariot, the shoulder of Pelops, and Eros's bow and arrows. In later accounts, Hephaestus worked with the help of the Cyclopes in his workshop with anvil and twenty bellows that worked at his bidding. 

In Greek myths and Homeric poems, Hephaestus had a special power to produce motion and built automatons including the golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos constructed in such a way that they could bite the invaders. This animistic belief that statues could come alive can be traced back to the Minoan period.

In one branch of Greek mythology, Hera ejected Hephaestus from the heavens because he was "shrivelled of foot". He fell into the ocean and was raised by Thetis, the mother of Achilles. In another account, Hephaestus, attempting to rescue his mother from Zeus' advances, was flung down from the heavens by Zeus. He fell for an entire day and landed on the island of Lemnos, where he was cared for and taught to be a master craftsman by the Sintians  -  an ancient tribe native to that island. Although later writers attribute Hephaestus' lameness to this second fall, Homer portrays him as lame from birth.

In an archaic story, Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for rejecting him by making her a magical golden throne, which, when she sat on it, did not allow her to stand up. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let her go, but he refused, saying "I have no mother." At last, Dionysus fetched him, intoxicated him with wine, and took the subdued smith back to Olympus on the back of a mule accompanied by revelers – a scene that sometimes appears on painted pottery of Attica and Corinth.  This pottery featuring the return of Hephaestus was highly favored among the Etruscans and is thought to have introduced this myth to Etruria.

Hephaestus was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centres of Greece, particularly Athens. The Hephaesteum (miscalled the "Theseum") is near the agora in Athens.The cult of Hephaestus, however, was based on the island of Lemnos. 

Roman fresco depicting Thetis at Hephaestos' forge waiting to receive Achilles' new weapons from triclinium e in Pompeii domus (IX 1, 7)
courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen

Bronze figurine of Hephaestus, Bronze 1st- or 2nd-century C.E. copy or adaptation of a Greek original, at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri courtesy of the museum.  Note: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City has now reopened.

Hephaestus hands the new Achilles' armor to Thetis (Iliad, XVIII, 617). Attic red-figure Kylix, 490–480 BCE at the Altes Museum in Berlin courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Bibi Saint-Pol

Hephaestus by Guillaume Coustou the Younger (1716-1777) at The Louvre, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen.

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Memento Mori in the Boscoreale Treasure

One of the subjects touched on in the Great Courses lecture series, "The Black Death," was the rise of what was termed Memento Mori in art during and after the great mortality with paintings filled with skeletons.  But the somber reminder to remember we are mortal has been practiced throughout classical antiquity.  The Greek pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus born around 460 BCE, is said to have practiced the frequenting of tombs to remind himself of mankind's mortality.  The later Stoics, including Seneca, discussed the topic of death frequently.  The Stoic Epictetus admonished his students that when kissing their child, brother, or friend, they should remind themselves that they are mortal, curbing their pleasure, as do "those who stand behind men in their triumphs and remind them that they are mortal."

Ironically, such artwork was found in a villa in Boscoreale after it was destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE.  This skyphos or silver drinking cup is part of the celebrated Bosocoreale treasure, a large collection of exquisite silver and gold Roman objects discovered in the ruins of the ancient Villa della Pisanella at Boscoreale, near Pompeii.  This villa rustica covered 1000 square metres with a clearly defined residential sector and farm buildings. The villa was discovered in 1876, but it was only until April 13, 1895 that the remains of a vaulted box containing the treasure was discovered in the wine-pressing room of the villa. A number of the items discovered in the box were inscribed with the name Maxima, thought to be the daughter of L. Caecilius lucundus, a banker from Pompeii, who inherited the wealth of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Campania.  The majority of the treasure is now in the collections of The Louvre.

Images: Memento Mori represented in the Boscoreale Treasure: Under garlands of roses: four scenes accompanied by epicurean maxims. The skeletons represent the remains of renowned authors: Euripedes, Sophocles, Menander, Moschino, and philosophers: Zénon, Epicurus, Monime of Athens, Demetrius of Phalere accompanied by explicit sentences, end of 1st century BCE- 1st century CE, gilt silver, in the collection of The Louvre. Image courtesy of The Louvre and photographer Hervé Lewandowski.

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Philoctetes and Compassion for Hercules on the Pyre

According to the most common legend of Hercules' death, no one but Hercules' friend Philoctetes,  son of King Poeas of the city of Meliboea in Thessaly, would light his funeral pyre. For his compassion, Philoctetes  received Hercules' bow and arrows.

Later, Philoctetes as one of the many eligible Greeks who competed for the hand of Helen, the Spartan princess, was required to participate in the Trojan War to reclaim Helen for Menelaus when she was stolen away by Paris.  On his way to the Trojan War, Philoctetes was bitten by a snake that Hera sent to molest him as punishment for his service to Hercules. The wound festered and began to smell so his Greek companions stranded Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos. 

When the Greeks reached Troy, Helenus, the prophetic son of King Priam, revealed under torture that one of the conditions for the Greeks to win the war was that they needed the bow and arrows of Hercules as some of the arrows were those dipped in the poison blood of the hydra. So Odysseus led a group back to Lemnos to retrieve Hercules' weapons and discovered Philoctetes was still alive. Odysseus tricked the weaponry away from Philoctetes, but Diomedes refused to take the weapons without the man. A deified Hercules came down from Olympus and told Philoctetes to go with them and he would be healed by the son of Asclepius and win great honor as a hero of the Achaean army. In some versions of the legend, Philoctetes is the archer, using Hercules bow and poisoned arrows, that ultimately killed Paris.

Image: Hercules on the Pyre by Guillaume Coustou the Elder, 1704, The Louvre, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen (2006)

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Trigon or Angle Harp popular in Rome as well as Egypt

The harp, the Egyptians' favorite musical instrument, was used as early as the Old Kingdom. The harp depicted on many mastabas is an arched instrument with a long curved handle and few strings. The angle harp, also called a trigon, invented in the East during the second millennium BC, first appeared in Egypt during the New Kingdom. The two types of harps resulted in a wide variety of shapes and decoration.

The instrument grew in popularity throughout the Greek-Roman period. It was used both for private purposes, where it accompanied songs and dances, as illustrated in tomb decors, and for religious purposes, to accompany prayers to the gods.

 The musician held the harp upright, the wood frame against his chest, and plucked the strings with his fingers. These strings, a modern addition, were probably originally made of gut.

The lack of musical notation system in Egypt and the fact that we do not know the diameter or tension of the original strings means that we cannot have an accurate idea of the type of music produced by the instrument. By working with a replica, however, we were able to deduce that it had an extensive range and a low, muffled sound.

The number of notches on the suspension rod is larger than the number of dowels on the tailpiece, proof that this harp was carefully tuned. - The Louvre

Trigon or Angle Harp, Egypt, 1069-332 BCE, The Louvre. Image courtesy of The Louvre.

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Etruscan art resembling Pre-Columbian art of the ancient Americas?

The shape of this triple-necked oinochoe with globular belly is paralleled in a great number of other examples discovered in southern Etruria and the Faliscan region around Civita Castellana (Falerii Veteres). This oinochoe was probably made in this area in the early Orientalizing period, circa 710-670 BC. It was shaped by hand and is made of a heavy, unrefined clay that is quite a coarse brown in color. Standing on two feet wearing ankle boots, the belly is decorated with geometric motifs and figures scratched into the surface of the clay; this type of decoration is denoted 'incavo' in Italian.

Meander patterns and elongated rectangles occupy the upper portion of this vessel. The lower part of the belly is decorated with four monsters or four horses with schematic human figures riding them or above them. The rest of the decoration consists of five catlike creatures with speckled fur and two large birds with spread wings. The geometric motifs fall within the decorative tradition of the preceding period. - The Louvre

This unusual shape and the decorative motifs sort of reminded me of pre-Columbian art of the ancient Americas.

Triple-necked oinochoe with globular belly Etruscan 8th - 7th century BCE at The Louvre

Image courtesy of The Louvre.

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Satyrs: The Mischief-Makers of Antiquity

In Greek mythology, a satyr, also known as a silenos is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, by the sixth century BCE, they were more often represented with human legs. Satyrs were characterized by their ribaldry and were known as lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures.
Satyrs and silenoi in Greek mythology are thought to be derived from earlier human-equine hybrids in other Indo-European mythologies including Kimpurusas described in the Indian epic Rāmāyaṇa and the Celtic dusii, hairy demons believed to occasionally take human form and seduce mortal women. The Illyrians believed in satyr-like creatures called Deuadai. The Slavic lešiy is described as being covered in hair and having a goat's horns, ears, feet, and long clawlike fingernails. Like Greek satyrs, these creatures were portrayed as tricksters, mischief-makers, and dancers who played pranks, stole horses, tied knots in people's hair and stole children who were replaced with changelings.
One of the earliest Greek sources for satyrs is Hesiod's "Catalogue of Women." In it, Hesiod says satyrs are born alongside the nymphs and Kouretes, offspring of the god Apollo (or sometimes Zeus) and a muse (Thalia, Thytia, or Calliope) and are described as "good-for-nothing, pranksters with insatiable sexual appetities. Though superficially ridiculous, satyrs were also thought to possess useful knowledge, if they could be coaxed into revealing it. The satyr Silenus was the tutor of the young god Dionysus.
Over the course of Greek history, satyrs gradually became portrayed as more human and less bestial. They also began to acquire goat-like instead of equine characteristics in some depictions as a result of conflation with the god Pan who was portrayed with the legs and horns of a goat. The Romans identified satyrs with their native nature spirits, fauns, and eventually the distinction between the two was lost entirely.

Image: Pan, protector of flocks and shepherds, removing a thorn from the foot of a satyr, Roman, 2nd century CE sculpture after a 50 BCE original at The Louvre courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Ladislav Luppa (cropped and digitally enhanced).

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