Tales of Telephus

In Greek mythology, Telephus (also Telephos - meaning "far-shining") was the son of Auge, a priestess of Athena who was raped by Heracles.  When her father, King Aleus of Tegea learned of her violation, he attempted to dispose of mother and child. But they ended up in Asia Minor at the court of Teuthras, king of Mysia, where Telephus was adopted as the childless king's heir.

How mother and son ended up in Asia Minor is explained in a variety of versions. In the oldest extant account from a fragment of Hesiod's "Catalogue of Women, 6th century BCE, Auge goes to Mysia, is raised as a daughter by Teuthras, raped by Heracles when he arrives seeking the horses of Laomedon, and Telephus is born there. In some accounts Telephus arrives in Mysia as an infant with his mother, where Teuthras marries Auge, and adopts Telephus. In still another tale, while Auge (in various ways) is delivered to the Mysian court where she again becomes wife to the king, Telephus is instead left behind in Arcadia, having been abandoned on Mount Parthenion, either by Aleus, or by Auge when she gave birth while being taken to the sea by Nauplius to be drowned. However Telephus is suckled by a deer found and raised by King Corythus, or his herdsmen. Seeking knowledge of his mother, Telephus consulted the Delphic oracle which directed him to Mysia, where he was reunited with Auge and adopted by Teuthras.

It is this last version that found favor with Romans in Herculaneum where a fresco depicting Heracles finding Telephus suckled by a deer, with Arkadia, Pan and a winged Virgo looking on was recovered from the Augusteum and is now at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Various plays were centered on the birth of Telephus including a tragedy by Sophocles entitled "Aleadae" (Sons of Aleus) and a play by Euripedes named "Auge," both of which only fragments survive. In Sophocles' play as recounted by 4th century BCE orator Alcidamas, Auge's father Aleus had been warned by the Delphic oracle that if Auge had a son, then this grandson would kill Aleus' sons, so Aleus made Auge a priestess of Athena, telling her she must remain a virgin, on pain of death. But Heracles passing through Tegea, being entertained by Aleus in the temple of Athena, became enamored of Auge and while drunk had sex with her. Aleus discovered that Auge was pregnant and gave her to Nauplius to be drowned. But, on the way to the sea, Auge gave birth to Telephus on Mount Parthenion, and according to Alcidamas, Nauplius, ignoring his orders, sold mother and child to the childless Mysian king Teuthras, who married Auge and adopted Telephus, and "later gave him to Priam to be educated at Troy".  Alcidamas' version of the story must have diverged from Sophocles in at least this last respect, though. For, rather than the infant Telephus being sold to Teuthras, as in Alcidamas, an Aleadae fragment seems to infer that in the Sophoclean play, the new-born Telephus was instead abandoned (on Mount Parthenion?), where he is suckled by a deer. 

It is Sophocles that includes the connection to Troy where, eventually, Telephus, was reportedly wounded by the Greek hero Achilles during the Greeks' first offensive against Troy. 

"The Delphic oracle told Telephos that he could be healed only by the offending weapon. In an attempt to secure Achilles' help, he sought out Orestes, the young son of Agamemnon, and threatened to kill him. Achilles finally heeded Telephos' entreaties and furnished scrapings of his spear that healed the festering wound. - Metropolitan Museum of Art

Representations of various events of the Telephus myth have been depicted on red-figure pottery from as early as 510 BCE and east-Ionian engraved gems from about 480 BCE. As at Herculaneum, scenes showing Telephus suckled by a deer or holding Orestes hostage were particularly popular. Roman depictions of Telephus suckled by a deer were popular through the 3rd century CE.

Other scenes include either his wounding or his healing by Achilles. In the House of the Relief of Telephus, also from Herculaneum, we see a seated Telephus being healed by Achilles who scrapes rust from his spear on the festered wound.

The most complete single account of the life of Telephus is depicted in the first-century BCE Telephus frieze, a decorative relief from the Pergamon Altar produced between 180 and 156 BCE now reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.  

Fresco from the Augusteum in Herculaneum depicting Heracles finding Telephus suckled by a deer, now in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Marble statue of Hercules holding baby Telephus in his arms. Ancient Roman copy from a Greek original of 4th century BCE. Found in the 16th century in Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Jean-Pol Grandmont.

Heracles with the infant Telephus and deer, Roman, mid second century CE at The Louvre, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Roman relief from the House of the Relief of Telephus depicting Achilles (right) scraping rust from his spear on the wound of the seated Telephus, c. first century BCE, now in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Miguel Hermoso Cuesta

Terracotta lekythos (oil flask), with raised relief depicting Clytemnestra pleading with Telephos for the life of her child Orestes, Greek, late 4th century BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Telephus threatens the infant Orestes, at Agamemnon's altar. Telephus frieze (panel 42), second century BCE from the Pergamon Altar now in Berlin at the Antikensammlung , courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marcus Cyron.

 

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Living well in the Roman Empire

 As thou intendest to live when thou art gone out,...so it is in thy power to live here.  Marcus Aurelius.  Meditations.  Book 5.

Images: Some of my images from Hadrian's Villa taken way back on my first visit to Italy in 2005. All images licensed with Creative Commons Attribution courtesy of Mary Harrsch (Required).

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Cremation or Inhumation?

During the Ptolemaic period a distinctive type of subterranean tomb for multiple burials proliferated in the cemeteries around the city of Alexandria. Underground chambers cut into the living rock radiated from a central courtyard open to the sky. Most chambers contained a number of loculi, long narrow niches cut into the walls, which served as burial slots. Some loculi were sealed with painted limestone slabs in the form of small shrines. - Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman columbaria were often built partly or completely underground as well. Most columbaria were managed by funeral societies and used by the lower and middle-classes. Niches could be quite simple or elaborately decorated with inscriptions, paintings, and mosaics depending on each family's economic means.  

The Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas is a 1st-century CE Roman columbarium, situated near the Porta Latina on the Via Appia, Rome, Italy. It was discovered and excavated in 1831 by Pietro Campana. Though its name derives from Pomponius Hylas, who lived in the Flavian period (69-96 CE), the building itself has been dated to between 14 and 54 CE due to inscriptions on two of its niches (one dedicated to a freedman of Tiberius and the other to a freedman of Claudia Octavia, daughter of Claudius and Messalina). It was later bought by Pomponius Hylas for himself and his wife.

 Inhumation was practiced regularly in archaeic Rome although cremation was gaining acceptance and a practice known as os resectum ("cut-off bone") was developed to satisfy both economy and spiritual traditions. According to Plutarch, King Numa Pompilius (r. 715-673 BCE) had forbidden cremation so perhaps in at least partial obedience to this prohibition, and perhaps on the understanding that "a part implies the whole", a complete finger was sometimes cut from the corpse before cremation and buried separately, unburnt, to complete the household's purification, return the deceased to mother Earth and make the grave inviolable. 

But, cremation became the most common burial practice in the Mid- to Late Republic and the Empire into the 1st and 2nd centuries. Interestingly, this appears to correspond to the military expansion of Rome and the increasing lack of ability to return intact war dead from distant battlefields.

Patrician members of the gens Cornelia seem to have resisted this change, though, and continued inhumating their dead until the first century BCE. In 79 BCE, the dictator Sulla was the first patrician Cornelius to be cremated, perhaps because he feared his body would be defaced by his former enemies.

Eventually, however, cremation remained a feature of imperial deification funerals, and very few others.  Building columbariums was finally halted during Hadrian’s rule from 117 to 138 CE as inhumation once more preferred.

Painted limestone funerary slab with a man controlling a rearing horse, 2nd half of 3rd century B.C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Here, a lively depiction of a Thessalian man named Pelopides trying to bridle a horse, while a boy stands behind him, commemorates a man from Thessaly in Northern Greece, who must have been one of the many foreigners who congregated in the wealthy, cosmopolitan Ptolemaic capital.

Painted limestone funerary slab depicting a soldier and two girls from Alexandria, 2nd half of 3rd century BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Painted limestone funerary slab with a soldier taking a kantharos from his attendant girls from Alexandria, 2nd half of 3rd century BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Painted limestone funerary slab with a soldier standing at ease, 2nd half of 3rd century B.C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A soldier wearing a long blue cloak stands alone, with a spear in his right hand and a tall ovoid shield at his left. Celtic groups from Europe migrated eastward in 279 B.C. and established independent kingdoms in Thrace and central Asia Minor. Known as Galatians, they were used extensively as mercenary soldiers. Inscriptions identifying at least three Galatian soldiers who must have served under the Ptolemies occur on loculus slabs in a rather simple tomb found in 1884.

Interior of the Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas (Rome, Italy) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Tyler Bell. 

 

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The widespread myth of winged horses

 According to Greek myth, the immortal winged horse Pegasus and his brother Chrysaor were born from the blood issuing from Medusa's neck as Perseus was beheading her.  In another version, when Perseus beheaded Medusa, the winged horses were born of the Earth, fed by the Gorgon's blood. A variation of this story holds that they were formed from the mingling of Medusa's blood, pain and sea foam, implying that Poseidon was involved in their creation. The last version bears resemblance to Hesiod's account of the birth of Aphrodite from the foam created when Uranus's severed genitals were cast into the sea by Cronus.

Pegasus was captured and raised by the hero Bellerophon who engaged in fighting off monsters. The hero competed with the gods and this angered Zeus, who struck down the horse, turning Pegasus into the beast of burden who carried lightning bolts at Zeus's palace. 

Everywhere the winged horse struck his hoof to the earth, an inspiring water spring burst forth. One of these springs was upon the Muses' Mount Helicon, the Hippocrene ("horse spring"), opened, Antoninus Liberalis suggested, at the behest of Poseidon to prevent the mountain swelling with rapture at the song of the Muses.  Another was at Troezen. Hesiod relates how Pegasus was peacefully drinking from a spring when the hero Bellerophon captured him.

Pegasus allowed Bellerophon to ride him in order to defeat the monstrous Chimera. The hero then went on to achieve other heroic acts and attempted to fly to Mount Olympus to join the gods. This angered Zeus, who caused Bellerophon to fall from the winged horse's back then struck down the horse, turning Pegasus into a beast of burden who carried lightning bolts at Zeus's palace. 

In ancient art, the oldest winged horses appeara on Assyrian seals in the 13th century BCE.  Winged horses appear not only in Greek and Roman art but in the art of the Etruscans, Koreans, Indians, Chinese, and the Tatars.  From the middle of the 7th century BCE, Pegasus is represented in flight in Greek art until the Archaic Period when he is often depicted fighting alone without wings against the Chimera. 

Pegasus is most often represented alone, or accompanied by Bellerophon fighting the Chimera, in which case the most classic representation shows the hero in the saddle, brandishing a spear facing the monster. A tradition from the archaic era presents the hero dismounted before fighting. Pegasus is also represented alongside the Muses.  Pausanias attests that Pegasus was an ornamental figure in ancient architecture such as in Corinth, where heroic worship was paid to Bellerophon and a statue of this hero and of the horse Pegasus decorated the temple of Poseidon.  The Romans associated Pegasus with the Emperor Augustus and it became the emblem of several Roman legions including Legio II Adiutrix and Legio II Augusta.

A Fine Greek Late Classical Bronze Forepart of a Winged Pegasus, 5th century BCE at the Miho Museum in Kyoto, Japan.  This Pegasus image is thought to have originally been an ornament on some object, and for all of its small scale, it is a truly impressive example of detailed sculpture. The point of attachment of the wings, their middle section and their curving tips form a composition that can frequently be seen on such imaginary winged magical beings as the sphinxes, sirens and gorgons seen on Archaic vase painting. The style of the wings on this small Pegasus thus forms a remaining archaic element, while the wings themselves are created in a detailed sense of real wings. The face has a piercing gaze, and the wrinkles around the mouth and point of attachment of the jaw, the nostrils with their raised blood veins are all elements of this detailed expression, with the curved wings giving a sense of tension to the sculpture that adds to its life-like expressive power. These elements all accord with the severe style of the early period in Greek classical art. Similar examples from the same period can be found in the Vatican Museum's Pegasus shaped roof ornament from 5th century BC Etruria. Like the exhibited work, the Vatican Pegasus has the severe early classical Greek style combined with elements of the Archaic style.  This small sculpture gives a realistic depiction of the sacred horse's majesty as he appeared in the world of myth, and can be said to reveal the highest levels of refined artistry of this period. - Miho Museum

 

Winged horse, used to decorate a tool whose shape and use are unknown. Bronze figurine, made in a workshop in northwestern Greece (perhaps Ambrakia), third quarter of the 6th century BCE. From Dodona in Epirus, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Bellerophon fighting the Chimera. Side A of an attic black-figured “overlap” Siana cup, ca. 575–550 BCE. Found in Camiros (Rhodes) now in The Louvre, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Bibi saint-Pol

Plate with chimera and Bellerophon on Pegasus by the Painter of Baltimora (Apulia), 350-300 BCE at the Palazzo Massimo in Rome, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Sailko 

Mosaic emblema with Pegasus, the immortal winged horse which sprang forth from the neck of Medusa when she was beheaded by the hero Perseus, 2nd century CE, Archaeological Museum of Córdoba, Spain , courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Carole Raddato

Fragment of capital with winged horses, from inside the cell of the temple of Mars Ultor in the forum of Augustus, c. 2 BCE, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Sailko

Gold pediment-shaped brooch with Pegasus, Greek, 340-320 BCE, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Terracotta plaque depicting Perseus riding a wingless horse slaying Medusa with wings  Greek 490-470 BCE from Melos that I photographed at "The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece" exhibit at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon.  The presentation was originally assembled by the British Museum.

Bronze plate with the foreparts of winged horses emerging from the rim of the plate, Greek, 2nd half of the 6th century BCE that I photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Greek Chariot Ornament Depicting Pegasus the winged horse of Perseus, Greek, 5th century BCE Bronze that I photographed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. "This ornament of the foreparts of the winged-horse Pegasos decorated a pole that would have connected a chariot to a horse. Careful modeling and incised decoration create a detailed representation of this mythical creature that signified speed. A coiled snake rears up behind Pegasos' head." - Walters Art Museum

Mosaic of Pegasus in Split Archaeological Museum, Split, Croatia, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Bernard Gagnon.

Pebble mosaic depicting Bellerophon killing Chimaera, in Rhodes archaeological museum, 300-270 BCE, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributors TobyJ and Speravir.

Kylix with scene of Gigantomachia including Pegasus, Attic, 490 BCE from Vulci by the painter of Brygos at the Antikensaammlung, Berlin, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Sailko 

Bellerophon slaying the Chimera mounted on Pegasus. Central medallion restored with a Roman mosaic of over 100 m2 discovered in 1830 in Autun, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Félix Potuit

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A Christianized Roman mosaic of the 3rd - 4th century CE

The central panel of this extraordinary mosaic depicts a scene from Classical mythology, the moment when Dionysos, the Greek god of wine, first sees his future wife, the Cretan princess Ariadne. It seems to have been a popular subject for floor mosaics in Syria during the third and fourth centuries C.E. One of the most compelling aspects of this mosaic is its apparent transformation from a purely pagan image to one with Christian overtones. At some point in the mosaic's later history, a bloody wound that recalls the right ribcage injury sustained by Christ at the hands of the Roman soldiers who crucified him was added to Dionysos's left side. Apparently at the same time the red wound was added to Dionysos's side, a flat, vessel-like object was placed in his right hand. The identification of the object is uncertain, but it may represent either a shallow bowl for wine, previously the province of Dionysos but which in Christian iconography represented the blood of Christ, or a dish on which was served the bread that symbolized his body, both of which were consumed by Christ's followers in communion with their god. - Miho Museum, Kyoto, Japan

Image: Roman Mosaic Depicting Dionysos' Discovery of Ariadne on Naxos, 3rd-4th century  C.E., courtesy of the Miho Museum in Kyoto, Japan.

 

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