Archaeological Institute of America's Two Terracotta Figurines from Tarsus

Archaeological Institute of America
Two Terracotta Figurines from Tarsus

Author(s): Hetty Goldman
Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1943), pp. 22-34
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/499559
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TWO TERRACOTTA FIGURINES FROM TARSUS
THE terracottas discussed in this paper were found in the course of excavations
carried out at Gtzlti Kule, Tarsus, and reported upon from time to time in the pages
of this JOURNAL.' The figurine (fig. 1), to which I have given the title of Mime, was
reproduced in the first of these reports,2but with a minimum of comment and an in-
terpretation which, while not fundamentally erroneous as it assigned it to the group
of mimes, certainly did not suggest its real significance. This could only be arrived
at by more intensive study and the comparison of a number of relevant but widely
scattered monuments.
Description: Complete except for a small piece between the legs. Elderly man with emaciated body
on which the ribs are indicated, in semi-kneeling position to left; right leg advanced; both arms out-
stretched with hands joined at the tips; wears a pointed cap and loin-cloth beneath which the phallus,
now preserved only in small part, protrudes. Clay buff with orange tinge. Traces of color: black cap,
red on nude parts of torso and background, loin cloth deep pink, base greenish-blue. The legs may have
been colored differently from the upper body, as there were traces of a lighter pink. Height, 0.151 m.
Height of base, 0.021 m.
To this general description one must add certain significant details. The head,
with its characteristic combination of realism and exaggeration, belongs to the large
group of so-called caricatures or grotesques which have been found in great quan-
tity in Asia Minor and Egypt, in southern Russia, and as far west as Italy. They are
fairly abundant in Greece itself and occur, indeed, sporadically wherever the terra-
cotta figurines of late Hellenistic and early Roman imperial times penetrated. The
lean body speaks of privation and physical misery. The face with its lined and
sunken cheeks, its thick-lipped open mouth and heavy nose and its pervasive air of
stupidity, corruption, and sordid cunning, might at first glance be taken for nothing
more than a realistic representation of some low fellow at home among the rabble
which frequented the Tarsus water front. The pointed cap and loin-cloth, garb of
the common laborer, and the attitude which suggests that of a rower, would well
accord with this interpretation. But there are two features which demand a different
classification. They are the large phallus and the startling asymmetry of the eyes,
of which one is circular and the other a long, half-closed slit. One immediately re-
calls a mask from Tarentum (fig. 4) which Margarete Bieber assigns to farce and a
relief of an old woman (fig. 3), described as an old nurse of New Comedy, blind in
one eye.3 Our figurine, too, might be described as blind in one eye, for even now
blindness or semi-blindness due to trachoma is very prevalent in the Near East,
I AJA. xxxix, 1935, pp. 526-549; xli, 1937, pp. 262-286; xlii, 1938, pp. 30-54; xliv, 1940, pp. 60-86.
2 AJA. xxxix, 1935,
p. 531 and fig. 7. "A Mime dancer impersonating a slave."
3 Bieber, The History of the Greekand Roman Theater, 417,
p. fig. 549, Mask of Farce, Tarentum;
p. 196, fig. 277, a terracotta relief in Florence, Museo Archeologico, called Mask of Old Nurse. Also,
Bieber, Die Denkmdlerzum Theaterwesenim Altertum,p. 169 f., no. 172, pl. 107, 4, where it is described
as a fragment of a terracotta revetment. "Oberhalb einer dicken Epheuguirlande in Hochrelief die
Maske einer alten Frau mit hoher dreieckiger Stirn, schlichtem, gescheitelten Haar, gedrehter Seiten-
locke, schmalem, tiber dem Scheitel zur Schleife gebundenem Band um den Kopf. Das linke Auge ist
ausgelaufen." As a matter of fact, we are told by Pollux (iv, 141) how the blindness of Thamyris was
depicted: by making the eyes of different colors, T6v iv EXcov yauK6V 690haq6bVT6V bAplAava.
292
THE ARCHAEOLOGICALINSTITUTE
OF AMERICA
FIG. -TERRACOTTA FROM TARSUS
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FIG. 3. -TERRACOTTA RELIEF IN
FIG. 1 -TERRACOTTA FROM TARSUS FLORENCE
FG. 4. -TERRA.COTTA MASK FROM

-.BRONZE IG. 5. STATUETE FIG 6. TERRACOTTA IN
TARENTUM IN FLORENCE BERLIN
24 HETTY GOLDMAN
but I doubt whether this is true in either case. The resemblance to the mask suggests
that the asymmetry of the eyes is designed as a conventional comic effect. The
pointed cap was identified with the clown or buffoon as early as the days of Old
Comedy.5Another figure (fig. 5),6 this time a bronze statuette, duplicates the meager
costume of pointed cap and loin-cloth and has the characteristic large nose of the
buffoon. Thus our terracotta, by its facial peculiarities and by its costume, is identi-
fied with those public performers who were phallic but wore no mask, although
many features, such as a false or putty nose, enlarged ears, an artificial hump and
tusk-like teeth were used to change or distort the features. I judge that paint must
have been used to produce on the face of the mime the effect of the distorted eyes
of the masks. Many of the actually deformed, it is known, entered the profession of
mime and exploited their physical handicaps in the market-place and on the stage,
as well as in private entertainments of the wealthy. The popularity of the deformed
was based primarily on three things: on the appeal they have made at all times,
including our own, to the primitive sense of humor. Anyone who has lived in eastern
Mediterranean countries knows how the village idiot and the hopeless cripple are the
objects both of cruel mockery and careless but kindly indulgence. Secondly, popu-
lar superstition believed, and in some countries still believes, in the talismanic
qualities of the deformed.7And lastly, one must remember that in the ancient world,
with its sombre background of slavery, man was a commodity. The slave who is
fed must be used; if he can serve no other purpose, then he must serve for enter-
tainment.
Gisela Richter, in her publication of a )Statuette of a Grotesque Figure,s maintained
that the so-called grotesques were neither the products of an Egyptian or more
specifically Alexandrian workshop illustrating the realistic tendencies of that art,
nor yet charms against the Evil Eye,9 but rather that they were one and all mimes.
Unfortunately, these "grotesques" have in the majority of cases survived only as
heads, and therefore our figurine is of particular value in that it preserves a very
characteristic action, and one which falls in with the theory of Miss Richter; for
it is possible to define more closely the type of performance given by these mimes
wearing the loin-cloth, which characterizes a low grade of society, and the pointed
cap-immemorial hall-mark of the clowning entertainer. The mime of our figurine
can in no case be the mime who occupied the stage in late Hellenistic times, and
dominated it in the days of Rome, but the popular, frequently itinerant, entertainer
with a vaudeville repertoire of dancing, singing, juggling, magic tricks and im-
personations.
4 In general, the make-up of the Mime has much in common with the masks of Roman farce (Bieber,
TheHistory of the Greekand Roman Theater,figs. 546-551) in which asymmetry of the two sides of the face,
of the mouth, fig. 550, and of eyebrows, fig. 551, is marked, features ultimately derived from Greek New
Comedy (ibid., p. 182). 5 Ibid., fig. 94, fig. 113 and many others. 6
Ibid., fig. 555.
SThis theme has been interestingly treated by Doro Levi, "The Evil Eye and the Lucky Hunch-
back," Antioch iii, pp. 2~20ff.
8 Richter, The MetropolitanMuseum of Art: Greek,Etruscan and Roman
Bronzes, pp. 81-84, no. 1V27;
AJA. xvii, 1913, pp. 149-156. Bieber, The History of the Greekand Roman Theater, p. 419, fig. 554;
Dieterich, Pulcinella, p. 169.
9Alan J. B. Wace, "Grotesques and the Evil Eye," BSA. x, 1903-1904, pp. 103 ff. suggested that
these figurines were charms against the Evil Eye. He doubts their specifically Alexandrian origin.
TWO TERRACOTTAFIGURINES FROM TARSUS 925
On a bronze vase, found in France in a Roman villa of the Rhone Valley and
now in the museum of Saint-Germain-en-Laye,1othe scene is that of a feast (fig. 7).
Amphora and fillets hang upon the wall. There is music and dancing and one of the
performers stands next to a low three-legged table holding a cup and ladle and a third
undefined object, possibly a fillet, as if he were performing some balancing trick.
The flute-player is a hunchback and the build of the others suggests that they,
too, are dwarf-like or deformed. Dancing and rhythmic motion, juggling and acting
had been the accompaniment of feasts among the Greeks from early times," but
they received an extraordinary development among the Romans when imperial
conquests had made life truly cosmopolitan and the slaves from the four corners of the
earth had both enriched and debased life by the customs they brought with them. To
this natural infiltration of foreign customs through the slave-market must be added
the ever increasing interest in the Near East among all classes of Roman society as
shown by the introduction, in spite of official opposition, of alien oriental cults.
A glance at the feast of Trimalchio gives us the picture of continuous stylized
motion combined with a low form of clowning and mimetic art. "'Now,' said Tri-
malchio, 'let us have dinner.' . . . As he spoke, four dancers ran up in time to the
music and took off the top part of the dish. . . . The man came up at once, and
making flourishes in time to the music pulled the dish to pieces. . . . But at last the
acrobats came in. . . . The worthless slave . . . imitated trumpeters for more than
half an hour. . . . Finally, he came right into the middle of the room, and shook
a pipe of reeds in imitation of flute-players, or gave us the mule-driver's life, with a
cloak and whip. . 12
..."
Both our terracotta and the figure on the extreme left of the bronze vase are
performing what Emmanuel calls the dance of the joined hands 11in which "the
action is not confined to the feet but both head and hands function rhythmically."
It is used most often by character dancers, which would account for its popularity
with mimes. "The dance," says Emmanuel, "is of barbaric origin, most likely
Asiatic, and, in a happy moment, was adopted by the Greeks." A glance at the
illustrations in his book, figures 460-480, will show the varieties of pose and action
permitted by the dance. In the dancers of his fig. 479 14 we have something very
close to the figurine of Tarsus, though taken at a moment of more violent motion.
Anatolian and orgiastic in origin, the dance has its moments of frenzied action
and others of mystical withdrawal. It accompanies Dionysos on his wanderings
and the god himself falls under its spell.15A second terracotta from Tarsus (fig. Z)
10
Reinach, Musde de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Bronzes figures de la Gaule romaine, p. 309, no. 394,
with bibliography. The reference to Schreiber, AM. is wrongly given; it should read x, 1885, p. 392.
Dieterich, Pulcinella, pp. 159 ff.
11The classic example is the feast described by Xenophon (Symposium i, ii), where a variety of en-
tertainment including dancing and acrobatics is provided by itinerant players.
12Petronius, Satyrikon, 36, 53, 69. The translations are those of M. Heseltine in the Loeb
Classical
Library. 13Emmanuel, The Antique GreekDance, pp. 183 ff.
14Reinach, Antiquit&sdu Bosphore cimmdrien,pl. LXXa.
15Emmanuel, op. cit., figs. 477, 478. Mon Ined. i, 1833, pl. 50. FR. ii, p. 100; pl. 78, 3. F. Weege, Der
Tanz, pp. 97 ff., identifies this dance with the 6KAOAapa mentioned by Aristophanes (Fr. 344b, Oxford
text, Hall and Geldart ed.). Emmanuel is surely mistaken, however, when he calls the Dionysos of
the vase a Persian king.
p
II,
FIG. 7.-BRONZE VASE IN SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE
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FIG. 8.--WALL PAINTING FROM COLUMBARIUM OF THE VILLA DORIA PAMFILI
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FIG. 9. --CORSlNA MOSAIC FIG. 11.-GEM
illustrates the quieter mood and is a close parallel to Emmanuel, figure 460,16 but
taken in profile instead of full face. It is a relief, flat behind, showing the dancer to
left with arms slightly raised and extended before the face with overlapping hands.
He is bearded and the hair is worn long, with a thickened roll framing the face.
It is somewhat difficult to determine the costume which is rather carelessly repre-
sented. As a rule the dancers wear the oriental sleeved garment, but the bare under-
arm suggests a sleeveless chiton in this case. The terracotta has suffered from the
action of water which has worn down and blurred the surface, but the extreme
delicacy of the profile can still be discerned. This dancer has the intense concentra-
tion, the look of inner withdrawal, characteristic of the religious performer. While
the dance retained its steps and attitudes, it must obviously have lost its high seri-
ousness when adapted to the secular and often obscene purposes of the mime. The
contrast is, I think, admirably brought out in these two figurines from Tarsus. The
small relief formed almost certainly one of a decorative group of similar figures
attached to a wooden background such as have been found in southern Russia."7
It is less certain, but still probable, that the larger figurine was one of a pair for,
as we see on the bronze vase and shall see in further examples, these entertainers
perform in twos or multiples of two. We know of one set of possible companion
pieces from Tarsus, male and female winged figures. One was excavated many years
ago by Langlois l8 and is now in the Louvre, and the other came from our excavations
and was found in the same deposit as our mime. It seems probable, therefore, that the
figure of the mime had originally a companion in similar attitude facing to the right.
Dieterich, in his charming book, Pulcinella, inspired as he tells us by afterthoughts
of a Roman carnival, draws attention to the murals in the Columbarium of the Villa
Pamfili on the Janiculum.19Here there are scenes of tragedy, possibly from those
actually performed at the funeral rites of the interred, with interludes of low enter-
tainment consisting, in part, of dancing. A large number of the murals were first
published with a commentary by Otto Jahn,20 but there are so many errors in the
drawing in the single case where it can be checked against a modern photograph 21
that the drawings cannot be used for the study of details. The general character of
the dancing scene22is, however, evident, and the description by Jahn may be trusted
(fig. 8). A youth and an older man with a grotesque countenance, wearing only loin-
cloths, are dancing in the center. The older man holds a long stave and has loosened
his single garment. He appears to be disturbed by the yapping of a small dog, while
the youth is absorbed in his performance. They are flanked by men who are encour-
aging the dancing by rhythmic clapping and may at any moment join the performers.
The one wears a loin-cloth identical in arrangement with our terracotta; the other,
16Winter, Typen der figiirlichen Terrakotteni, p. 171, fig. 3, from Pompeii, several
examples cited.
For a similar female dancer, cf. Pottier, Myrina, no. 9280,p. 418, pl. XXXIV-1.
17Minns, Scythians and Greeks,pp. 370 ff. for terracotta reliefs as coffin ornaments.
Among the more
notable examples are a group of Niobids, figs. 9269-9270. Minns also refers to similar figures from Gnathia
in Apulia.
18 Louvre, no. 374; Winter, op. cit. ii, p. 379, 10; GBA. xiv, 1876, p. 401; BCH. xxi, 1897, p. 5928.
is
Pulcinella, pp. 167 ff.
"Die
o20 Wandgemiilde des Columbariums in der Villa Pamfili," ABayer.A. 8, 1857, pp. 231 ff. The
illustrations are not complete. Those of an obscene nature were suppressed.
21Ibid., pl. IV, 10, and Bieber, The History of the Greekand Roman Theater,
p. 318, fig. 49.
22 Jahn, op. cit., pl. IV, 192.A
single figure, Dieterich, op. cit., p. 148.
28 HETTY GOLDMAN
if the drawing may be trusted, a pair of trunks, and both have the pointed hat.
I do not believe there is any essential difference in function between the four figures.
In this type of entertainment all had to take their turn and the dancers may have
discarded the characteristic hat for practical purposes so as not to lose it in the
violence of the action. This is, however, not necessarily so, for in the Corsina mosaic
two of the dancers are bareheaded and two wear hats (fig. 9). These ugly bearded
rogues with their attenuated bodies are indeed very close in appearance to the Tar-
sus mime, except for the fact that they seem occasionally to wear trunks instead of
the loin-cloth.23The costume for this dance is not always the same, for on another
painting in the Columbarium 24 it is being performed by youths in short chitons to
the accompaniment of the music of the flute and KpouWvigov. Here the atmosphere
is clearly one of orgiastic excitement and may well represent the type of unbridled
and lascivious religious dance associated with Anatolian cults which formed the
basis and inspiration for the performances of low-class secular entertainers. We
know, indeed, from literature that the worshippers and performers in the proces-
sions of Cybele were execrated by moralists for their debasing influence, and were
often the same people who provided the secular entertainments. Especially was
this true of Rome, where profligate ladies of wealth, developing a trend of the
Hellenistic world, liked to collect eunuchs and all kinds of physical monstrosities
for purposes of diversion.
Another excerpt from the Columbarium paintings (fig. 10) shows paired dancers
of our now familiar type,25 accompanied by a third figure, possibly female, who is
either joining in the dance or urging them on. I incline to the latter view, as she
would then correspond to the figure behind and to the left of the right-hand dancer
(Jahn, pl. II, 5). The foremost dancer holds two sticks in the right hand and the
same may be true of his companion; it is not possible to tell, as the right side of his
body is covered. These paired sticks appear frequently in both hands of dancing
figures 26 and seem to be carried in two ways: at one end, as here, or at the center and
more or less obviously crossed, as in the dancing scene on a boat (fig. 11),27 where
two nude dancers wearing the pointed cap are mounted on a platform. The crossed
staves are also held by the nude clown on a lamp,28 by the dancers of the Corsina
mosaic (fig. 9),29 and by figures on a terracotta Campanian relief.3Ao Jahn 3 held that
23 Wilson, The Clothing of the Ancient
Romans, subligaculum, pp. 72-73. In the drawings the dancers
are not phallic, but this may be due to the draughtsmen. Unfortunately, this is not a moment to obtain
photographs from Italy.
24 Jahn, op. cit., pl. II, 5. This is the costume of similar dancers on Arretine
pottery. Cf. Chase
Catalogueof Arretine Pottery, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, nos. 68, pl. XVI, 69, pl. XVII. On the
latter a draped woman claps for the dance.
26 Dieterich, op. cit., p. 181. This illustration is taken from a photograph and is clearly an excerpt
from a larger scene. It does not occur among the drawings accompanying the article of Jahn, and I
have found no other mention or reproduction of it.
26 Jahn collected most of the
early examples to which I refer. To these must be added similar objects
in the hands of dwarfs on Antioch mosaics discussed by Doro Levi (see footnote 7).
27Ficoroni, Gemmae,pl. III, 8. 28 Bartoli, Le antiche Lucerne 29 Ibid. i, pl. 35.
i, pl. 34.
30 Rohden-Winnefeld, Architektonischer6mische Tonreliefs der Kaiserzeit, pl. CXII.
31 Op. cit.,
p. 266: "Die StIbchen m6gen zum Theil gedient haben um bei den Stellungen der Tanzer
zu figuriren, hauptsichlich aber wurden sie benutzt um durch ihr Zusammenschlagen und Klappern
den Tact bestimmt zu markiren." Their use to accompany orgiastic dancing is especially well illus-
TWO TERRACOYTAFIGURINES FROM TARSUS 29
they were used chiefly to mark the rhythm, like castanets, bul also for emphasizing
the poses in the dance. This would correspond to the twofold use of staves by Morris
dancers and seems to me the correct explanation. There is a type of instrument
which, while serving the same purpose, is different in construction. It consists of a
stick with loose clappers at both ends and is best illustrated by Antioch iii, pl.
56, no. 120A, where it can be seen in the hands of a hunchback dwarf. Doro Levi,
who discusses these sticks only as they occur on the Antioch mosaics 32 believes
that they were used as a talisman against the Evil Eye. I see no objection in princi-
ple to their having served this secondary purpose, but in that case, it would be diffi-
cult to explain why the dwarf of Antioch iii, pl. 56, no. 1921,turns his back upon
the eye and holds the sticks in front of him and so away from the object they are to
daunt, while the phallus turns back towards the eye so as to exercise its talismanic
power.
Many of the dwarfs and hunchbacks use the sticks in the dance and that must
at all times have been their chief use. I do not understand why they should be found
in the hands of a fisherman on another Antioch mosaic 33 unless he, too, is a mime
and accompanied with dancing his dramatic imitation of the fisherman's life.14
The search for scenes which may help in the interpretation of our terracotta takes
us next to a building in Rome, one of the most important and most puzzling dis-
coveries of the last quarter of a century: the Underground Basilica of Porta Mag-
giore.31 The stucco frescoes of this building were interpreted by Cumont as referring
to the Neo-Pythagorean cults. Cumont points out that this was not a philosophic
school like that of the Epicureans, but a church with a cult which was secret. At the
end of the Republican period Pythagoreanism, the seat of which was at Alexandria,
was introduced at Rome by one Nigidius Figulus, a senator. The cult met opposition
and under Augustus a Pythagorean, Anaxilaos of Larissa, was expelled from Italy
on a charge of magic. Cumont believes that the Basilica was erected on the private
ground of one of the family of the Statilii for the reunion of members of a sect of
which he was one of the chief adepts. According to Tacitus, the young Statilius
Taurus committed suicide in 53 A.D. rather than face the senate on a charge of hav-
ing practised magic. Mrs. Strong believes that the Basilica can be safely dated to
the first half of the first century A.D. and points out that it was the emperor Claudius
who recognized the cult of Attis represented among the stuccoes, formerly forbidden
trated on a relief found in Italy (NS. 16, 1919, p. 106). Here one performerholds cross sticks in one hand,
another the single stick in each hand.
32 Antioch iii, pl. 56,
1920-121,p. 2U7. Interesting parallels to the dancing dwarf, Graindor, Terre
cuites de l'Egypte grico-romaine, p. 139, no. 58, pl. XXI.
33Antioch ii, pl. 53 (72, Panel B), referred to in the article of D. Levi (see note 7).
3 Scenes of the water-front and
shipwreck were popular subjects for mimes; Petronius, Satyrikon,
114-115.
, A great deal has been written about the Basilica. I
give some of the more important publications:
Cumont, RA. (5th series), viii, 1918, part 92,pp. 52 ff.; Bagnani, JRS. ix, 1919, pp. 78 ff.; Bendinelli,
BullComm. 1, 1922, pp. 85 ff.; MonAnt. xxxi, 19N6, pp. 603 ff.; Strong, JHS. xliv, 1924, pp. 65 ff.;
Strong, Art in Ancient Rome, pp. 167 ff.; Wadsworth, MAAR. iv, 1924, pp. 9 ff.; Kerenyi, ARW. xxiv,
1926, pp. 61 ff.; Carcopino, La Basilique Pythagorienne,pp. 61 ff.; Huibaux,Le Musde Belge xxvii, 1923,
pp. 1-81. Also, Strong, JHS. xliv, 1924, p. 66, f. n. 2. (The reference here to the article of von Duhn
is wrong; it should read: AA. xxxvi, 1991, pp. 102-107.)
30 HETTY GOLDMAN
but secretly practiced, and established the office of Archigallus. Miss Wadsworth,
however, who examined the frescoes from the technical point of view, would not
date them before the end of the first century and possibly even later.36This dating
was vigorously opposed by Bendinelli in favor of one not later than the time of
Tiberius. She champions a purely secular interpretation of the frescoes and rejects
both the Neo-Pythagorean and the funerary interpretation proposed by Bendi-
nelli. "In considering the reliefs collectively, they seem to have more decorative
and illustrative value than allegorical. Similar motives are found on all sorts
of objects which have no funerary or religious meaning." 37 It has seemed necessary
to give the two opposing views. The majority, however, incline to the earlier date
and religious interpretation in which the hopes of the initiate, symbolically repre-
sented, are contrasted with the purely mortal features of terrestrial life. Among
the latter appears the fresco which is of immediate interest here (fig. 12). In the
center a woman makes passes of a mysterious nature at a three-legged table on
which repose several objects, among them a cup on which rests a stick with ter-
minal knob. On the bronze vase of the Saint-Germain-en-Laye Museum the same
type of table occupies the center of the scene at which a single performer appears
to be juggling.38 It is obvious that we have before us some act of abracadabra
which cannot be more closely interpreted and that a miracle of prestidigitation is
in progress. That it is connected specifically with the wine cup becomes clear from
the fact that the stick rests upon it; for this is no other than the sorcerer's wand
such as is held, for example, by Circe (fig. 13) on a Boeotian vase said to come from
Alexandria." On a Kabeiric vase in Oxford she plunges the wand into the drink
she proffers Odysseus.39aThe marvellous character of the performance is reflected
in the amazement and concentrated attention of the two flanking figures. These
lean fellows wear the loin-cloth and the pointed hat and bear the same relation
to the central action as the similarly garbed men of the Columbarium did to the
dancing figures, that of minor participants; the man to the right, like the right-hand
dancer, carries a stave and the left-hand figure corresponds to the left-hand dancer
of the Columbarium, in that he is youthful and more comely.
The objects reclining against the post between the first and second figures from
the left are, I have no doubt, although they have not previously been recognized
as such, the rods or clappers discussed in connection with the frescoes of the Col-
umbarium.
If this scene, the exact meaning of which eludes our powers of interpretation,
may in a general way be held to represent, in contradistinction to the immortal
hopes of the initiate, the lower pleasure of this mortal life,40 the transition can the
3Lanciani placed the basilica in Hadrianic times (quoted by von Duhn, 1.c., p. 106).
37Wadsworth, op. cit., pp. 86-87.
S38Dieterich believes the scene represented Dionysiac revellers (op. cit., pp. 159-160).
39AM. Iv, 1930, pl. XIV.
39a Gardner, Catalogueof Vases, Ashmolean
Museum, pl. XXVI.
40 This statement, I am
aware, represents something of oversimplification of the views expressed.
Mrs. Strong, for example, believes that even the conjuring scene may be brought into the framework
of initiation. "It may be supposed to stand for the payElat, magical incantations which according to
Plutarch, De Superst. xii, formed part of the rites of initiation (JHS. xliv, 1994, p. 85). Cumont, how-
ever, whom I follow, says (op. cit., p. 55): "Quelques tableaux, comme des jongleurs faisant leurs
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32 HETTY GOLDMAN
more easily be made to a group of monuments which have long been recognized as
caricaturing the type of popular entertainer under discussion. The most important,
a glazed cup with figures in relief (fig. 14), found in Macedonia and now in the Ber-
lin Museum, was published by Zahn in a masterly monograph 41 in which are dis-
cussed other examples of the same character. Since then the Agora excavations have
added an extremely important red-glazed jug (fig. 15).42 Here the maker of these
relief vases plays the same r6le as the modern cartoonist. He creates a type, based
upon the world of mimetic entertainment, but translates it into the world of phan-
tasy. Thus he gives to his satire a force far more powerful than realism. It is not a
skeleton, the memento mori of the feast, for that symbol of transience hangs in the
center of the scene. It is the "Man of Death," the man vowed to extinction, who
performs the dance which symbolizes all the carnal and unsubstantial pleasures of
mortality. That the dancers caricatured on the Berlin vase are specifically the type
of our terracotta is shown not only by their phallic character and pointed cap, and
the small fluttering garment, which may well be the loin-cloth loosened and laid
about the shoulders, but by the eyes. Although Zahn did not comment upon this
feature, it is quite evident that at least one of them has one circular eye and one
elongated and closer to the normal, producing the desired comic effect of asymmetry.
The wreath, the Phrygian flute, the wine jar again suggest not only the feast, but the
Dionysiac background and in view of this I should like to propose that the hind-
quarter of a kid to the left of the skeleton symbolizes the animal torn to pieces by
the frenzied followers of Dionysus rather than merely the roast meat of the feast; 43
this is not incompatible with the idea of Zahn, who was certainly right when he felt
the spirit of the scene to be that of "carpe diem." "Enjoy your possessions," is the
exhortation of the inscription. "For you know that death awaits you," adds the
dangling skeleton. The artist of the Berlin vase has brought out the orgiastic abandon
of the dance with rare skill and this is indeed the masterpiece of the group which
includes among the more important examples a lead-glazed jug from Olbia, 44 now
on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum, with a Dionysiac mask at the base of
the handle and three dancing figures of similar type, and the jug of red ware found
in the Athenian Agora (fig. 15).44 The latter also shows three performers of whom
two have the characteristic beak nose of the buffoon, and the third (fig. 15) seems
to be juggling a ball by allowing it to pass over his body in the manner of a terra-
cotta figurine now in Berlin (fig. 6).45 Among minor pieces there is the fragment of
tours, un pedagogue avec ses bl1ves, ou des athl&tes se livrant A leurs exercises, semblent purement
profanes, bien qu'une intention morale les ait probablement fait reproduire ici, la vie 'tant comparbe
souvent A un theAtre, A une cole, A une palestre."
41 Robert Zahn, KTL XPL, 81st Winckelmannsprogramm,Berlin.
42
Shear, Hesperia vii, 1938, p. 347, fig. 31, where he notes the resemblance to the Berlin cup. Our
fig. 15 is reproduced with the kind permission of Dr. Shear.
4 Zahn, op. cit., p. 6: "Die zum Braten fertige Keule eines Lammes oder Bockchens.
4 Minns, Scythians and Greeks,p. 355: "On the body of the jug are three skeletons (sic) wearing
conical hats; the middle one has also a necklace; they seem to be dancing some obscene dance; between
them are ravens: the whole is covered with a brownish green glaze." Minns mentions several similar
fragmentary pieces from southern Russia, BMMA. xi, 1916, p. 66. The vase belongs to the Morgan
collection.
45
Bieber, The History of the Greekand Roman Theatre,p. 424, fig. 562; Winter, Typen ii, p. 160. Among
red-glazed ware found at Troy 46 which looks like an excerpt from the Berlin vase,
for we have the skeleton, this time wearing the pointed cap and swaying drunkenly,
surrounded by the Phrygian pipes, amphora, pitcher and other insignia of the feast.
Practically the same paraphernalia appealr on a pitcher from Miletopolis in Mysia,47
but without either skeleton or dancers. Quite possibly Lucian had in mind mimes of
the type represented by our terracotta and caricatured on these vases when he
speaks of the ideal proportions of the dancer as "neither very tall and inordinately
lanky, nor short and dwarfish in build, but exactly the right measure, without being
either fat, which would be fatal to any illusion, or excessively thin, for that would
suggest skeletons and corpses." 47Ia In general, these vases of early Roman manu-
facture appear to be the successors both in time and in character of the lagynos,48
popular in Hellenistic times, on which, too, are painted the insignia of the feast,
though no human figures appear upon them."
Nothing has been said as yet about the date of our figurine. It was found in a
fill of broken terracottas and pottery which proved to be of surprising consistency.
Except for a few sherds of earlier date, the material was for the most part Augustan
with some pieces as late as the middle of the first century A.D. The full evidence
will appear in the final publication of the site and rests upon coins, lamps and terra
sigillata with foot and other stamps. The monuments I have related to the figurine
fall, in general, within this period, though here the range given may be somewhat
wider. The shape of the bronze vase of Saint-Germain-en-Laye hardly allows of a
date later than the one indicated for the terracotta. The frescoes of the Villa Panfili
belong to the early Augustan age according to Huelsen,50 who studied the inscrip-
tions, a date with which Dr. Bieber agrees.51 She was able to study the original of the
tragic scene in the Museo delle Terme, whither the Columbarium had been trans-
ferred in 1932. The stuccoes of the Porta Maggiore Basilica are generally placed
in the first half of the first century A.D., although, as has been mentioned in the
previous discussion, one authority would bring down the date at least as late as 100
A.D.52 Zahn places the Berlin vase with the skeleton-like dancers in the time of Augus-
tus; at all events, he says, it cannot be later than the reign of Tiberius.53 It is
terracotta heads no longer joined to their bodies compare for the huge beaked nose, Froehner, Terres
cuites d'Asie de la Collection GrWauii, pl. 43.
46 D6rpfeld, Troja und Ilion, p. 445, fig. 256.
7 Zahn, op. cit., p. 12, fig. 3.
47aLucian, De Salt. 75. The translation is that of Harmon, Loeb Classical
Library.
48 Leroux,
Lagynos, pp. 101 ff. The first datable lagynos belongs to the second half of the third cen-
tury and they continue in use for about two centuries. This argument is advanced in some detail with
supporting evidence. Homer Thompson, "Two Centuries of Hellenistic Pottery," Hesperia iii, 1934,
pp. 450-451: "Our groups . . . suggest that in Athens the lagynoi were coming into use in the early
second century and were popular in the second half of that century."
49The skeleton at the feast, frequently with mobile limbs, is known to us both from literature and
archaeological remains: Petronius, Sat. 34, silver skeleton; MonPiot v, 1889, pp. 64 ff., pls. VII-
VIII, Boscoreale cups; gems, Lippold, Gemmenund Kameen, pl. lxvi, 9-14; bronze skeleton, AA. iv,
1889, p. 106; silver, Reinach, Rep. Stat. ii2, p. 691, 2; DS. s.v. Larvae.
50Huelsen, RM. viii, 1893, pp. 145 ff.
61Bieber, The History of the Greekand Roman Theater,p. 319, note 8.
52 Miss Wadsworth (op.
cit., p. 87), who, it will be remembered, subscribed to what Mrs. Strong
calls "the deadening doctrine of the 'purely decorative'." (JHS. xliv, 1924, p. 110).
-1Zahn, op. cit., p. 14.
34 HETTY GOLDMAN
worth noting that the cup standing on the table of the conjuring scene of the Basilica
is of the same shape as the Berlin vase and the jug to right of the table bears a
general resemblance to the Agora one. The vase from Olbia is also assigned by
Zahn to the Augustan period 53a and the Agora vase "came from a well on the Kolonos
with contents dating from the first century B.C. to first century A.D." The fantastic
dancers, hybrids of the living and the skeletal form, represent a passing fashion.
So far as I know, they do not reappear after the first century A.D. and are indeed
more or less contemporary with the great vogue of the true skeleton in Roman art.54
It seems most likely, then, that, as Furtwiangler says, the popular form of Epi-
cureanism so prevalent in Rome of the first century inspired these representations
in which death figures as the destroyer of all mundane pleasure and preaches the
same sermon as the poet Horace. But artists, too, by the imagination and skill
with which they fix an abstract idea in visual form, can do much to foster its vogue.
The "skeletal-man" of the vases was undoubtedly the creation of a single gifted
artist and the lead-glazed cups and pitcher on which the figures were not moulded
but made by a freehand technique,"6 must be considered the product of a single atel-
ier, the location of which is unknown. Zahn believes in an Asia Minor origin, al-
though he sees more Alexandrian-Egyptain elements in the Berlin vase than seem
probable to me. There is little evidence that Alexandria could claim more at this
time than a share, proportionate to her wealth and importance, in the artistic inheri-
tance of the Hellenistic world of the east Mediterranean. That she had a determining
and directive influence still awaits proof. Tarsus now may put forth a valid claim
to have been one center of the lead-glazed pottery industry. Pottery, sometimes
fairly complete, sometimes in fragments, was found in every stage of production:
the moulded vase; the moulded vase after it had been painted but not yet glazed,
and the completed object. In addition, a fragment of a mould was found and plates
with stilts on which the pot had rested during the final glazing process, covered
with drippings of glaze. The industry, however, was certainly carried on at a num-
ber of centers and so it is not possible to ascribe the special group of "skeletal"
vases to a Tarsus atelier.
HETTY GOLDMAN
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY
Zahn, Sammlung Bachstitz, p. 32.

53a
5 The Boscoreale cup is usually dated to the reign either of Augustus or Tiberius. Furtwaingler,
Die Antiken Gemmeniii, p. 297, says in speaking of the first century A.D.: "Mit dem Gedanken an den
Tod hat man sich in dieser Epoche viel beschaftigt. Totenschaidel und Skelette sind gerade auf den
Gemmen dieser Zeit eine charakteristische Erscheinung."
6 This is described with much interesting detail by Zahn, 81"t Winckelmannsprogramm,Berlin, p.
6 f.

Archaeological Institute of America's Two Terracotta Figurines from Tarsus

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Archaeological Institute of America's Two Terracotta Figurines from Tarsus

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Archaeological Institute of America

Two Terracotta Figurines from Tarsus

FG. 4. -TERRA.COTTA MASK FROM

FIG. 7.-BRONZE VASE IN SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE

FIG. 8.--WALL PAINTING FROM COLUMBARIUM OF THE VILLA DORIA PAMFILI

FIG. PAINTING FROM COL-

FIG. 9. --CORSlNA MOSAIC FIG. 11.-GEM

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Zahn, Sammlung Bachstitz, p. 32.

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