Gory Details The Iconography of Human Sa PDF

ollection
religions
ollection
religions
Comparatisme Histoire Anthropologie
The topic of human sacrifice, which tends to provoke

both fascination and disgust, leaves few people indifferent and remains a highly contested academic issue.
The present volume is not concerned with the historical
reality of human sacrifice, a question that continues
to divide historians and anthropologists. Rather, it is
interested in how different ancient cultures represented
human sacrifice differently, both theirs and that of
others, either as an event or a symbol. How does a society confront what might have been or what it thought
was its own cruel and bloody past? What are the culturally specific values through which human sacrifice was
understood in each group, and how did they differ in the
case of other related practices, such as anthropophagy?
How have these perceptions changed over time, and
how have they adapted to the transformations of
ideology? The core of the volume is concerned with
the abundantly detailed material of ancient Greece.
The Greek evidence and its interpretation are challenged by various articles on the ancient practice and its
representation in other ancient cultures, China, Aztec
Mesoamerica, and imperial Rome, which offer fundamentally different viewpoints, and provide a myriad of
occasions for reflecting on contrast and the need to constantly question the fundamental terms of our analysis.
Pierre BONNECHERE, spcialiste de la religion et
des mentalits grecques, enseigne lhistoire grecque
au Dpartement dHistoire de lUniversit de Montral. Ses thmes de prdilection sont le sacrifice et la
divination, ainsi que lhistoire des jardins.
Renaud GAGN, a specialist of early Greek poetry
and religion, teaches Greek literature in the Faculty
of Classics at the University of Cambridge. He is a
co-editor of Choral Mediations in Greek Tragedy
(2013) and the author of Ancestral Fault in Ancient
Greece (2013).
Pierre Bonnechere Renaud Gagn
Le thme du sacrifice humain ne peut laisser indiffrent

et continue de susciter bien des interrogations, entre
fascination et dgot. Historiens et anthropologues
se divisent sur lhistoricit suppose du phnomne.
Pour sortir de limpasse, cet ouvrage se penche sur la
manire dont les cultures se reprsentent le sacrifice
humain, le leur ou celui des autres, ft-il rel ou symbolique. Comment une socit fait-elle face ce qui est
ou ce quelle croit tre son pass cruel et sanglant?
Quelles sont les valeurs dont le sacrifice humain, et
dautres concepts proches, comme lanthropophagie,
se trouvent chargs en vertu des normes indignes ?
Comment ces perceptions ont-elles persist dans la
longue dure et comment se sont-elles adaptes aux
idologies changeantes ? Le cur du volume est consacr au dossier hellnique, remarquablement document par les Grecs eux-mmes. ce dossier rpondent en
contrepoint plusieurs articles sur la Chine ancienne, les
Aztques, et la Rome antique, qui projettent un regard
diffrent et sont autant de raisons de remettre cent fois
sur le mtier cet objet fascinant.
Sacrifices humains s Human sacrifice
Ltude critique et scientifique des religions, conquise de haute lutte, se situe la croise
des mthodes historique et anthropologique, et favorise le comparatisme.
Place sous la direction dAnnick Delfosse et de Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, la collection Religions
aborde les faits et phnomnes religieux dans leur diversit, en dehors de toute vision essentialiste,
ce quvoquent la fois le pluriel du nom et les trois termes qui le prcisent.
religions
Sacrifices
humains
Human
sacrifice
Pierre Bonnechere Renaud Gagn
presses universitaires de lige

ISBN : 978-2-87562-021-7
9 782875 620217
Vol.2-4.indd 1
26/04/13 09:23
Collection Religions
Comparatisme Histoire Anthropologie
Sacrifices humains
Perspectives croises et reprsentations
Human sacrifice
Cross-cultural perspectives and representations

dit par / edited by
Pierre BONNECHERE Renaud GAGN
Presses Universitaires de Lige

2013
Table des matires / Table of contents

Pierre BONNECHERE, Renaud GAGN
Introduction. Le sacrifice humain : un phnomne au fil dAriane
vanescent ...................................................................................................................7
Pierre BONNECHERE
Victime humaine et absolue perfection dans la mentalit grecque ................. 21
Joannis MYLONOPOULOS
Gory Details? The Iconography of Human Sacrifice in Greek Art .................. 61
Jan N. BREMMER
Human Sacrifice in Euripides Iphigenia in Tauris:
Greek and Barbarian .................................................................................................... 87
Renaud GAGN
Athamas and Zeus Laphystios: Herodotus 7.197 ............................................. 101
Albert HENRICHS
Rpandre le sang sur lautel : ritualisation de la violence
dans le sacrifice grec ............................................................................................. 119
Robert C.T. PARKER
Substitution in Greek Sacrifice ........................................................................... 145
Robin D.S. YATES
Human Sacrifice and the Rituals of War in Early China ................................. 153
Griet VANKEERBERGHEN
Yellow Bird and the Discourse of Retainer Sacrifice in China .................... 175
Louise I. PARADIS
La reprsentation des sacrifices humains par les Aztques
et les Espagnols : une image vaut mille mots ................................................ 205
Bill GLADHILL
The Poetics of Human Sacrifice in Vergils Aeneid ......................................... 217
TABLE DES MATIRES / TABLE OF CONTENTS
Liste des illustrations / List of figures ...................................................................... 247

Bibliographie slective / Select bibliography .......................................................... 249
Generalia .......................................................................................................... 249
Chine / Ancient China ................................................................................... 252
Amrique centrale / Mesoamerica ................................................................ 256
Mondes grec et romain / Greece and Rome ................................................ 257
propos des auteurs / About the authors .............................................................. 265
Planches / Plates ......................................................................................................... 267
Gory Details?
The Iconography of Human Sacrifice in Greek Art*
(Plates II-IX)
Joannis MYLONOPOULOS
Columbia University, New York
In 1625, a twenty-five-year-old Pietro da Cortona established his fame with a
monumental painting that transformed the epic story of the Sacrifice of Polyxena
(Rome, Pinacoteca Capitolina, 2.17 4.19 m).1 Its composition and iconographic
details make Polyxena, who stoically awaits her sacrificial death, the center of
attention. Polyxenas murderer stands behind her, his arm already raised and
about to deliver the fatal blow. The maidens uncovered right breast emphasizes
her innocence, a visual strategy that Athenian red-figure vase painters had often
used when depicting the rape of Kassandra at the altar of Athena. More or less a
century later, Giambattista Pittoni painted four different versions of the same
subject, one now destroyed (Vicenza, Palazzo Caldogno Tecchio). The paintings
in Baltimore (Walters Art Gallery), Los Angeles (J. Paul Getty Museum), and
Paris (The Louvre) show the young Trojan princess peacefullyalmost
ceremoniouslyeither approaching or already standing near the altar.2 Both da
Cortona and Pittoni were inspired by literary versions of the story (probably
Euripides and/or Seneca) but certainly not by ancient Greek pictorial versions of
this particular narrative.3
*
1.
2.
3.
I would like to thank Pierre Bonnechere and Renaud Gagn for inviting me to contribute to this
volume. The paper profited enormously from the critical remarks of Pierre Bonnechere and
Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge. I am very grateful to Irina Oryshkevich for improving my English. I
am deeply indebted to my research assistant, SeungJung Kim, who prepared the drawings of the
Protoattic krater in Boston (Pl. IVb) and the white-ground lekythos in Palermo (Pl. IIb).
G. BRIGANTI, Pietro da Cortona o della pittura barocca, Firenze, 1962, p. 155-159; J.M. MERZ,
Pietro da Cortona: Der Aufstieg zum fhrenden Maler im barocken Rom, Tbingen, 1991,
p. 93-94.
D. POSNER, Pietro da Cortona, Pittoni, and the plight of Polyxena, The Art Bulletin 73.3
(1991), p. 407-414.
J. MYLONOPOULOS, Sacrifice in the arts, in A. GRAFTON et al. (eds.), The Classical Tradition,
Cambridge, 2010, p. 856. The same cannot be said about Roman visual versions of Polyxenas
62
JOANNIS MYLONOPOULOS
European artists created over ten paintingsthese works included

representing the sacrifice of Polyxena in a relatively short span of about one
hundred years. In itself this is not exceptional, since seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury interest in ancient stories and myths is well documented. Rather puzzling,
however, is the fact that nearly one thousand years of Greek art did not apparently
produce more than a small number of representations of the sacrifice of the Trojan
princess. As far as we can tell, interest in the gory details of human sacrifice
remained relatively limited among Greek artists throughout the centuries. Greek
myths involving human sacrifice inspired far more Etruscan and Roman artists
than Greek sculptors or vase painters.4 This discrepancy results not from a
superficial but a much deeper difference between Greek culture and its neighbors.
Ancient Greek literature is full of stories of willing or unwilling human sacrifices,5
which, however, seem to have failed to find their way into the Greek pictorial
world. Myths related to human sacrifices were likewise frequently used to explain a
posteriori rituals or entire festivals,6 but the impact of such important explanatory
myths on the visual world of the Greeks too remained limited. Furthermore, Greek
imagery did not generally avoid the depiction of violence, even of the most brutal
4.
5.
6.
sacrifice. Roman seals and impressions most probably influenced late-eighteenth-century

renderings of the mythical episode, as shown by the tondo in stucco in the entrance hall of the
Galleria Borghese, executed by Vincenzo Pacetti between 1776 and 1778, see M.L. MORRICONE
MATINI, Medaglione in stucco della Galleria Borghese con il sacrificio di Polissena, in
L. BACCHIELLI, M. BONANNO ARAVANTINOS (eds.), Scritti in antichit in memoria di Sandro
Stucchi II, Roma, 1996, p. 225-237. It is the da Cortona painting rather than the versions painted
by Pittoni that reveals possible connections with the iconography of Polyxenas sacrifice on
Roman seals (exposed female breast, position of the sacrificer behind the victim). If this holds
true, Roman seals might have directly influenced artists already in the early 17th century.
D. STEUERNAGEL, Menschenopfer und Mord am Altar. Griechische Mythen in etruskischen
Grbern, Wiesbaden, 1998; P. BONNECHERE, Mythes grecs de sacrifice humain en trurie.
Problmes iconographiques et socio-historiques, Kernos 13 (2000), p. 253-264. In general,
both Etruscans and Romans apparently preferred the Iphigeneia over the Polyxena narrative.
Only in Roman glyptic, does there exist a strong interest in Polyxenas sacrifice.
See in general H.P. FOLEY, Ritual Irony. Poetry and sacrifice in Euripides, Ithaca, 1985;
E.A.M.E. OCONNOR-VISSER, Aspects of human sacrifice in the tragedies of Euripides, Amsterdam,
1987; C. SOURVINOU-INWOOD, Tragedy and Athenian religion, Lanham, MD, 2003, esp. the
chapter on Euripides, p. 291-422.
D.D. HUGHES, Human sacrifice in ancient Greece, London, 1991, p. 73-107; P. BONNECHERE, Le
Sacrifice humain en Grce ancienne, Athnes-Lige, 1994 (Kernos, Suppl. 3). Especially in the first
chapter, Bonnechere demonstrates the significance of myths about human sacrifice in the
foundation of initiation rituals. P. BONNECHERE, Orthia et la flagellation des phbes spartiates.
Un souvenir chimrique de sacrifice humain, Kernos 6 (1993), p. 11-22 convincingly deconstructs the hypothesis that the flagellation of the youths at the sanctuary of Orthia in Sparta
originated in a human sacrifice. However, I remain skeptical about Bonnecheres rejection of the
association between the flagellation and initiation rituals.
THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART
63
kind.7 All the same, representations of human sacrifice, especially those depicting
the bloody details of the actual act were rare.
This paper will not deal with the ways in which ancient Greek authors, such
as Euripides dealt with human sacrifices8 or with alleged historical incidents, such
as the sacrifice of the three Persians by Themistocles right before the battle at
Salamis, described by Plutarch.9 Legendarybut possibly still to be proven
human sacrifices, such as those offered to Zeus Lykaios in Arcadia will also not be
considered.10 Archaeological evidence linked to the much debated existence of
human sacrifices, such as that from the Minoan sanctuary at Anemospilia11 or
from the Geometric/Archaic cemetery at Eleutherna12 will not be discussed
either.13 Instead, the paper will concentrate on the few actual representations
mainly on vasesof mythical human sacrifices, in an attempt to shed light on the
visual vocabulary of the scenes and the apparent unwillingness of Greek artists to
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
In general, M. RECKE, Gewalt und Leid. Das Bild des Krieges bei den Athenern im 6. und 5. Jh.
v. Chr., Istanbul, 2002; S. MUTH, Gewalt im Bild. Das Phnomen der medialen Gewalt im
Athen des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr., Berlin, 2008.
See supra n. 5.
Plut., Them. 13.2-5. A. HENRICHS, Human sacrifice in Greek religion: three case studies, in
J. RUDHARDT, O. REVERDIN (eds.), Le Sacrifice dans lAntiquit, Genve, 1981 (Entretiens
Hardt, 27), p. 208-224; HUGHES, o.c. (n. 6), p. 111-115. One of the earlier studies on human
sacrifices in Greek and Roman antiquity, F. SCHWENN, Griechische Menschenopfer, Naumburg,
1915, considers the literary evidence as a reference to rituals performed in reality and places a
strong emphasis on the so-called pharmakos rituals. In this respect, he was followed by
Hughes who likewise dedicates an entire chapter to Greek pharmakoi, while BONNECHERE, o.c.
(1994, n. 6) remains quite skeptical.
BONNECHERE, o.c. (1994, n. 6), p. 85-96; J.N. BREMMER, Myth and ritual in Greek human
sacrifice: Lykaon, Polyxena and the case of the Rhodian criminal, in J.N. BREMMER (ed.), The
strange world of human sacrifice, Leuven, 2007, p. 65-78. In my view, Bremmer is overstressing the notion of lycanthropism in the rituals and mythological narratives surrounding
the cult of Zeus Lykaios. The Arcadian wolves probably belong to a similar context associated with initiation, much like the Ephesian bees and the Brauronian she-bears.
Y. SAKELLARAKIS, Drama of death in a Minoan temple, National Geographic 159 (1981),
p. 205-222; Y. SAKELLARAKIS, E. SAKELLARAKIS, Archanes. Minoan Crete in a new light, vol. I,
Athens, 1997, p. 294-311.
N. STAMPOLIDIS, . , Rethymno, 1996.
For a brief overview of the archaeological evidence, see HUGHES, o.c. (n. 6), p. 13-48. See also
the critical remarks in P. BONNECHERE Les indices archologiques du sacrifice humain grec
en question: complments une publication rcente, Kernos 6 (1993), p. 23-55 who discusses
and dismisses the archaeological evidence from several sites in Greece (including Anemospilia, p. 24-27) and Cyprus. Note that the material from Eleutherna was published after Hughes
monograph and Bonnecheres article. In my view, the case of Anemospilia deserves a closer
look, before it can be dismissed as human sacrifice. On the contrary, the decapitated body
found in Eleutherna reminds me of Troilos and his decapitation by Achilles at the altar of
Apollon rather than of the sacrifice of the Trojan youths at the pyre of Patroklos.
64
confront their clientele with the gory details of human sacrifice. Finally, scenes
that could be understood as a perverted form of a sacrificial act, such as the
murder of Troilos, the killing of Medeas children, or the dismemberment of
Pentheus will be addressed briefly and placed in the context of human sacrifice.
It is interesting that when it comes to slaying an animal in a ritual context
the terminology used in modern research remains relatively constant; the word
sacrifice, often accompanied by qualitative adjectives is commonly used,
though the semantics of animal sacrifice remain rather complex.14 On the contrary, the ritual slaughter of a human being has caused all sorts of terminological
problems among modern historians. For example, the killing of the twelve Trojan
captives at the pyre of Patroklos has been referred to as funerary ritual killing,
ritual revenge, or human sacrifice,15 while the sacrifice of Polyxena has been
called a nuptial sacrifice.16 Another issue often addressed in scholarship is the
notion of self-sacrifice17occasionally in connection with that of heroismas an
integral part of Greek mentality.18 Indeed, and especially in Athenian tragedy,
human sacrifice is usually portrayed as the heroic decision of an individual
often a young womanto meet death willingly for the sake of the state.
Nonetheless, the stages of the ritual described, the language used, and ultimately
the mythological background of the stories retold reveal a structural connection
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
F.T. VAN STRATEN, Ancient Greek animal sacrifice: food, supply, or what? Some thoughts on
simple explanations of a complex ritual, in S. GEORGOUDI et al. (eds.), La Cuisine et lAutel.
Les sacrifices en questions dans les socits de la Mditerrane ancienne, Turnhout, 2005,
p. 15-29.
In a sepulchral context HUGHES (o.c. [n. 6], p. 49-70) seems to favor the term funerary ritual
killing over human sacrifice.
C. FONTINOY, Le sacrifice nuptial de Polyxne, AC 19 (1950), p. 383-396. J.-P. VERNANT, Mythe
et socit en Grce ancienne, Paris, 1974, p. 149 emphasizes the structural similarities between
marriage and sacrifice (here followed by H.P. FOLEY, Marriage and sacrifice in Euripides
Iphigeneia in Aulis, Arethusa 15 [1982], p. 168-173 and P. BONNECHERE in this volume). Yet,
blood sacrifices remain in their nature destructive rituals. On the other hand, R. Rehm
emphasizes the conflation of marriage and sacrifice for the sake of theatricality and performativity on the stage of ancient Greek theatre (Marriage to death. The conflation of wedding and
funeral rituals in Greek tragedy, Princeton, 1994). See also the critical remarks about marriagesacrifice in the context of the Iphigeneia-myth in HENRICHS, l.c. (n. 9), p. 237 and in this volume.
For example, H.S. VERSNEL, Self-sacrifice, compensation and the anonymous gods, in
RUDHARDT REVERDIN (eds.), o.c. (n. 9), p. 135-185; J. WILKINS, The state and the individual:
Euripides plays of voluntary self-sacrifice, in A. POWELL (ed.), Euripides, women, and
sexuality, London, 1990, p. 177-194.
S. GEORGOUDI, A propos du sacrifice humain en Grce ancienne: remarques critiques, ARG
1 (1999), p. 74-79. Georgoudi strongly opposes the idea of human sacrifice as part of what
ancient Greeks understood as barbaric and favors the notion of heroism. Recently, the
character of human sacrifice in Greek imagination as an anti-norm has been re-emphasized,
see P. BONNECHERE, Le sacrifice humain grec entre norme et anormalit, in P. BRUL (ed.),
La Norme en matire religieuse en Grce ancienne, Lige, 2009 (Kernos, suppl. 21), p. 189-212.
65
to animal sacrifices.19 Furthermore, it should be stressed that even in the context

of animal sacrifices the sacrificial victim has to proceed to the altar willingly and
grant permission for its own slaughter.20 In a way, this could be regarded as the
creatures self-sacrifice for the state! In this paper, the ritual killing of a human
beingwhether in a funerary or military context, whether with the subjects
willingness or notwill be addressed as human sacrifice.
One of the earliest incidents of human sacrifice in Greek literature appears in
the Iliad, in the famous passages on the sacrifice at Patroklos pyre of the twelve
young Trojans whom Achilles captured at the river Xanthos (Il. 18.334-337; 21.2628; 23.22-23, 114-176). Strange as it may seem, this episode never really captured
the imagination of Greek artists, even though the funeral games honoring Achilles
friend already appear on a fragmentary early sixth-century dinos by Sophilos
(Athens, National Museum 15499). The vase painter chose to depict a more joyful
even heroic part of the narrative: the chariot race that bears associations with the
glorious past of Homeric heroes.21 The absence of the sacrifice of the Trojan youths
in early Greek imagery is not easily explained by the apparent brutality of the
narrative, since the savage mutilation of Hektors body, for example, became a
popular motif in Athenian vase painting by the 520s though its popularity did not
outlive the black-figure technique.22 It was not until ca 330 BCE that a Greek artist,
the so-called Dareios painter, turned his attention to the sacrifice of the Trojans
(Pl. IIa).23 The funerary pyre of Patroklos occupies the center of the scene on a
monumental Apulian volute krater. To the right of the pyre, Achilles is about to cut
the throat of a Trojan captive who kneels on the ground with his arms bound
behind him as he leans back and looks up towards his nemesis. The upward19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
WILKINS, l.c. (n. 17), p. 182-183; P. BONNECHERE, Le sacrifice grec entre texte et image, Kernos
11 (1998), p. 384-388. In addition, P. BONNECHERE, La sacrificielle des victimes humaines
en Grce ancienne, REA 99 (1997), p. 63-89 sheds light on the comparability of processions
associated with human sacrifices with those in the context of animal sacrifice of the thysia-type.
F.T. VAN STRATEN, Hier Kal. Images of animal sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece,
Leiden, 1995, p. 100-102; S. HOTZ, Delphi eine strrische Ziege und Priester unter Druck,
in C. AMBOS et al. (eds.), Die Welt der Rituale. Von der Antike bis heute, Darmstadt, 2005,
p. 102-105. I do not share the skepticism regarding the willingness of the sacrificial victim to
be slaughtered at the altar expressed by S. GEORGOUDI, Loccultation de la violence dans le
sacrifice grec : donnes anciennes, discours modernes, in GEORGOUDI et al., o.c. (n. 14),
p. 131-134 and even more strongly by F.S. NAIDEN, The fallacy of the willing victim, JHS 127
(2007), p. 61-73.
J. MYLONOPOULOS, Greek sanctuaries as places of communication through rituals: an
archaeological perspective, in E. STAVRIANOPOULOU (ed.), Ritual and communication in the
Graeco-Roman world, Lige, 2006 (Kernos, suppl. 16), p. 93-94.
RECKE, o.c. (n. 7), p. 72-74.
K. SCHEFOLD, F. JUNG, Die Sagen von den Argonauten, von Theben und Troja in der klassischen und
hellenistischen Kunst, Mnchen, 1989, p. 230-231 overemphasize the distinction between Greek
artists from Mainland Greece and those from the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and Sicily.
66
turned eyebrows and wrinkles on Achilles forehead reveal his emotional state.
Achilles is shown in a highly dynamic forward motion; he steps on the right leg of
the Trojan, while grabbing the captives hair with his left hand in order to pull his
head back. The fatal blow, however, has not yet been delivered. Behind Achilles, sit
three additional Trojan captives awaiting their sacrifice.24 The iconography of the
Achilles-Trojan pair points in two interconnected visual and semantic directions,
namely to the contexts of the sphagion-sacrifice and the theme of duels.
In the context of the imagery of the sphagion-type sacrifice associated with
pre-battle rituals, a soldier is usually shown forcing the sacrificial animal (a ram) to
the ground with his knee, while yanking back its head in order to cut its throat.25
Although Achilles is forcing down the Trojan prisoner with his foot rather than his
knee, the composition is reminiscent of the iconography of the sphagion-sacrifice.
In addition, the interaction between the dominant Achilles and the submissive
Trojan recalls the iconography of duels between Greeks and Amazons,26 Herakles
and his various opponents,27 and in one interesting example the encounter of
Kassandra with Ajax by the statue of Athena.28 In all these cases, which contain an
obvious military or at least aggressive background, the dominant party uses his foot
to push the weaker one to the ground while grabbing the hair or crown of the
victims head. Apparently, the Dareios painter used specific visual strategies in
order to set the sacrifice of the Trojan youths in a clear military context of male
dominance. In addition, the use of ones foot to push to the ground an adversary
frequently appears in images that represent the slaying of a criminal,29 a barbarian,
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
Obviously, the painter is not at all interested in slavishly reproducing the Homeric details of
the scene, such as the exact number of Trojans to be slaughtered at the pyre.
J. GEBAUER, Pompe und Thysia. Attische Tieropferdarstellungen auf schwarz- und rotfigurigen
Vasen, Mnster, 2002, p. 280-285. See A. HENRICHS in this volume.
The W 10 metope of the Parthenon shows the Greek/Athenian warrior stepping on the
Amazon, but his posture is rather Harmodios-like. The warrior on W 14 grabs the hair of the
kneeling Amazon, but it is unclear whether he is also stepping on her. On an Athenian dinos
in London (BM 1899.0721.5, from Agrigento, ca 440/30 BCE) an Amazon is shown stepping
on a Greek warrior kneeling on the ground, while she grabs his hair and violently pushes her
sword into his jugular notch.
See, for example, the duel between Herakles and Kyknos on a kylix by the Kleophrades painter
in London (BM 1864.10-7.1685, from Rhodes, ca 500-480 BCE).
A fascinating scene on a red-figure neck amphora in Cambridge (Corpus Christi, XXXX213744,
ca 460-440 BCE) shows Ajax literally stepping on Kassandra and grabbing her head.
In literary sources, criminals are occasionally used as sacrificial victims, as demonstrated by the
case of the criminal sacrificed opposite the image of Artemis Aristoboule during the Kronia
festival on Rhodes in the description of Porphyry (De abstinentia 2.54) who in the same passage
refers to a human sacrifice to Aglauros in the form of a holokauston. BREMMER, l.c. (n. 10), p. 5659 who briefly discusses the sacrifice of the criminal on Rhodes is in my view wrong in
translating hedos as temple, and thus placing the human sacrifice in front of a temple instead of
an image of Artemis. The association with the image rather than the temple of Artemis creates
interesting connections to the flagellation of the Spartan youths next to the portable statue of
67
or a monster by a hero or a Greek soldier. Centaurs, Amazons, and Persians are

often pushed to the ground before being killed in this way. Interestingly, S. Muth
has demonstrated that this motif is rather rarely utilized in duels between two
Greek hoplites,30 something that probably emphasizes the negative connotations of
the iconographic formula.
The volute krater of the Dareios painter remains the only occurrence of the
sacrifice of the Trojan captives in Greek art, but the tale seems to have been more
popular among the Etruscans.31 A magnificent representation of the narrative was
found on a wall painting in the tablinum of the so-called Franois tomb, roughly
contemporary with the volute krater of the Dareios painter (ca 350 BCE).32 There
are significant discrepancies between the Etruscan wall painting and the Greek
vase: the Trojan victim is sitting and not kneeling on the ground; Achilles is bent
over his victim while his sword is already cutting his throat; and the ghost of
Patroklos is witnessing the sacrifice. Although the dynamic and dominant posture
of Achilles does not occur in the Etruscan image, the explicitness of the actual
killing of the Trojan prisoner is represented in the wall painting while being left to
the viewers imagination in the case of the Greek volute krater. Following an earlier
interpretation by F. Hauser, S. Lowenstam suggested that the presence of Patroklos
ghost in the Etruscan scene offers moral justification for the sacrifice of the Trojans,
while his absence on the volute krater underscores Achilles savagery.33 Although
Patroklos ghost enriches the Etruscan wall paintings semantic texture, it certainly
adds no further justification for human sacrifice.34 There is no hint in the epic
tradition that Patroklos or his ghost ever asked for the sacrifice of the Trojan
youths. The reason for the death of the Trojan captives at Patroklos pyre is well
known with or without the presence of his ghost. Besides, the centrality and
emphasis of the funeral pyre on the Greek volute krater makes the additional
presence of the ghost redundant.35
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
Artemis Orthia. For the use of the term, see T.S. SCHEER, Die Gottheit und ihr Bild. Untersuchungen zur Funktion griechischer Kultbilder in Religion und Politik, Mnchen, 2000, p. 21-23;
S. BETTINETTI, La statua di culto nella pratica rituale greca, Bari, 2001, p. 52-54.
MUTH, o.c. (n. 7), p. 248-250.
STEUERNAGEL, o.c. (n. 4), p. 19-28.
See also the so-called Cista Rvil in London (BM 1884.6-14.35, ca 300 BCE) on which Achilles
is forcing his victim to the ground with his knee, a further visual reminiscence of the Greek
sphagion-type animal sacrifice.
S. LOWENSTAM, The Trojan War tradition in Greek and Etruscan art, Baltimore, 2008, p. 158-159.
Interestingly, a series of Roman seals shows a winged soul (probably of Achilles) sitting on top
of a grave monument, in front of which Polyxena is about to be killed by Neoptolemos,
MORRICONE-MATINI, l.c. (n. 3), p. 232.
Not a flying eidolon is meant here, but a human figure comparable to Patroklos figure in the
so-called Franois tomb.
68
Iphigeneia and her sacrifice before the Greeks sailed for Troy has fascinated
scholars for quite some time.36 Both Euripides handling of the topic in his
tragedies37 and the ways in which the mythological narratives surrounding
Iphigeneia and her real or alleged sacrifice may shed light on several rituals of
passage for young maidens particularly in Attica38 have especially attracted the
attention of numerous classicists. As early as the first half of the seventh century,
literary sources such as the Kypria refer to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and her
subsequent substitution with a hind. Soon afterwards, a further version of the myth
appears in the Hesiodic work, in which Iphigeneia is transformed into Hekate and
replaced at the altar by an eidolon.39 Of course, we cannot be sure about the exact
number of different versions of the samein its coremythological narrative in
the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. It seems almost certain, however, that it was
the Euripidean works that started the Greek and later Roman obsession with
Iphigeneia and her fate. Nonetheless, despite at least two major tragic works that
have Iphigeneia as their protagonistIphigeneia in Tauris and Iphigeneia in
Aulisher presence in late-fifth and fourth-century art is scant. In most cases,
artists seem more interested in the famous scenes in Iphigeneia in Tauris in which
Iphigeneia, the priestess of Artemis in Tauris, recognizes her own brother Orestes
in the sacrificial victim for the barbaric goddess and later escapes with him.40
All the same, the narrative of Iphigeneias sacrifice rarely drew the attention of
vase painters. An early-fifth-century white-ground lekythos by Douris found in the
sanctuary of Demeter Malophoros in Selinus represents one of the oldest securely
identifiable representations of the topic (Pl. IIb).41 It is perhaps important that the
scene of the imminent death (and salvation) of Iphigeneia decorates a funerary
vase, which, at least in its original function, was intended as a funerary offering in a
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
L. SCHAN, Le sacrifice dIphignie, REG 44 (1931), p. 368-426 offers a helpful overview of

early scholarship on the sacrifice of Iphigeneia in various literary sources. See J.N. BREMMER
and A. HENRICHS in this volume.
For example, T.J. HOOKER, The sacrifice of Iphigeneia in the Agamemnon, Agon 2 (1968),
p. 59-65; J.C.G. STRACHAN, Iphigenia and human sacrifice in Euripides Iphigenia Taurica,
CPh 71 (1976), p. 131-140, and FOLEY, l.c. (n. 16), explicitly focus on the motif of the sacrifice
and its use in Euripides work.
BONNECHERE, o.c. (1994, n. 6), p. 26-48. Recently, G. EKROTH, Inventing Iphigeneia? On
Euripides and the cultic construction of Brauron, Kernos 16 (2003), p. 59-118 made a strong
case for the influence of the Euripedean Iphigeneia in Tauris on the foundation of the cult of
Iphigeneia in Brauron.
HENRICHS, l.c. (n. 9), p. 199-201; BONNECHERE, o.c. (1994, n. 6), p. 39-42.
A. CAMBITOGLOU, Iphigeneia in Tauris. The question of the influence of the Euripidean play in
the representations of the subject in Attic and Italiote vase-painting, AK 18 (1975), p. 56-66;
L. KAHIL, Le sacrifice dIphignie, MEFRA 103 (1991), p. 186-188 fig. 1-6; O. TAPLIN, Pots and
plays. Interactions between tragedy and Greek vase-painting of the fourth century B.C., Los
Angeles, 2007, p. 149-156.
C. MARCONI, Iphigeneia a Selinunte, Prospettiva 75/76 (1994), p. 50-54.
69
grave though it ended up as a votive offering in a Selinuntine sanctuary. In the

center of the fragmentary scene, a warrior identified by an inscription as Teukros
guides Iphigeneia, likewise identified by an inscription and dressed in luxurious
nuptial garments, to an altar. The gesture of Iphigeneia follows the well-known
anakalypsis motif and underscores the heroines nuptial dress. A palm tree functions as a signifier for the Artemisian context of the entire narrative. Behind
Iphigeneia, an additional Greek warrior complements the composition. Should this
figure be identified with Achilles, the hero whom Iphigeneia allegedly came to
marry in Aulis? Although there are no distinct iconographic elements to support
the identification of the third figure as Achilles, his presence in a scene full of
nuptial imagery makes perfectly good sense. Teukros face has satyr-like features,
but it is unclear whether or not Douris did this to emphasize the deceitful nature of
the scene. F. Jouan recognizes here a rendering of the voluntary sacrifice of
Iphigeneia, which predates the relevant passage in the Euripidean Iphigeneia in
Aulis.42 The visual evidence shows that both artists, such as Douris and writers,
such as Euripides drew their inspiration entirely or partly from pre-existing oral or
lost written versions of the myth.
The composition of Iphigeneia and Teukros recalls the popular scene of
Menelaos guiding Helena out of Troy,43 and thus emphasizes the notion of a
wedding ceremony turned into a human sacrifice that informs the mythological
narratives of Iphigeneias death/transformation/substitution. C. Marconi is correct
in asking why it is Teukros and not Achilles, the alleged groom, who guides the
maiden to the altar.44 If the figure behind Iphigeneia is indeed Achilles, then Douris
could be making a visual comment on the heros utter ignorance of his role in
bringing the maiden to Aulis. The innocent hero is not the one to lead Iphigeneia
to her death; instead, the one hero who will nearly kill Hektor (Il. 15.458-465)
before Achilles finishes the task is replacing him.
Far less voluntary appears Iphigeneias presence on a red-figure Athenian
oinochoe from ca 430-420 BCE in Kiel (Pl. IIIa).45 Four figures fill the scene
around a low stone altar. To the right of the altar a male figure, a warrior, grabs
the waist of a much smaller, young female figure. The maiden opens her arms in
a gesture of despair and powerlessness. At the altar, a second warrior is waiting
42.
43.
44.
45.
F. JOUAN, Autour du sacrifice dIphignie, in Texte et image. Actes du colloque international

de Chantilly, 13-15 octobre 1982, Paris, 1984, p. 61-65.
RECKE, o.c. (n. 7), p. 31-41; S. RITTER, Eros und Gewalt. Menelaos und Helena in der
attischen Vasenmalerei des 5. Jhs. v. Chr., in G. FISCHER, S. MORAW (eds.), Die andere Seite
der Klassik. Gewalt im 5. und 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr., Stuttgart, 2005, p. 265-285. Ritter
concentrates on the variation of the imagery portraying Eros involvement in the pacification
of Menelaos.
MARCONI, l.c. (n. 41), p. 52.
KAHIL, l.c. (n. 40), p. 191.
70
with the sacrificial knife in his left hand. As the signifier of the scenes meaning
and happy outcome, Artemis stands at the far left corner of the scene with a
miniature hind resting on her outstretched left arm. Despite the inherent violence
of the scene, Artemis presence anticipates the final substitution of the girl with
the animal. Nonetheless, this is not the rather ceremonious accompaniment of
Iphigeneia to the altar, as on the lekythos by Douris, but the violent coercion of
an unwilling maiden at the altar. One may hypothesize that the male figure in the
center of the composition is Agamemnon, while Teukrosif we follow Douris
interpretation of the storyis bringing Iphigeneia to the altar. To my best
knowledge there are no exact parallels to this violent gesture towards a female
victimized figure by a male dominant one. Usually young maiden and women are
chased, forced to the ground, or transported on a shoulder, but not forcefully
pushed with arms and body.
The significant moment of the substitution of Iphigeneia with a hind
visually only indicated on the oinochoe in Kiel, and present in the literary
tradition already since the Kypriais represented only once on an Apulian volute
krater of the mid-fourth century (Pl. IIIb). According to J.R. Green and
E. Handley this image may have been inspired by the Euripidean Iphigeneia in
Aulis,46 though O. Taplin is more skeptical and prefers to speak cautiously of a
version of the tragedy that was not the version that has come down to us.47 An
altar in the center of the scene immediately signifies the site and the sacrificial
context. Iphigeneia approaches the altar at her own volition; by it, an older man is
already raising his right hand with the sacrificial knife, while holding a scepter in
his left. In an ingenious way, the vase painter visualizes the very moment of
Iphigeneias substitution through a hind, which is shown behind and partly
covered by her. The painter was eager to depict the brief moment when both
Iphigeneia and the animal are present; in the next second the hind will lie
sacrificed on the altar, while Artemis will rescue Iphigeneia, and they will both
leave the scene. Behind and placed higher than Iphigeneia, Artemis watches over
the scene. On the other side of the altar, a seated Apollon with a laurel branch
complements the figure of Artemis. Below, an unidentified figure stands near the
altar holding a sacrificial tray. Behind him a female figure looks towards the
central scene; her postureone hand on her hip, the other raised in an uneasy
gestureexpresses anger, so that we may identify her as Klytaimnestra,
Iphigeneias mother, already contemplating revenge. Due to the scepter, Taplin
identifies the male figure about to perform the sacrificial ritual as Agamemnon.48
46.
47.
48.
J.R. GREEN, E. HANDLEY, Images of the Greek theatre, London, 1995, p. 47.
TAPLIN, o.c. (n. 40), p. 159-160.
TAPLIN, o.c. (n. 40), p. 160.
71
A scepter, however, is neither an exclusively kingly nor priestly attribute, so the

figure could be Kalchas after all.
The story evolving around Phrixos and Helle, the children of Athamas and
Nephele, represents a further attempted human sacrifice that could be prevented
thanks to divine intervention.49 At least once, the sacrifice per se and not the
dramatic rescue of the children attracted the attention of vase painters.50 The socalled Dareios painter who showed interest in the rendering of the sacrifice of the
Trojan youths at Patroklos pyre is also the one to decorate a large volute krater
(Berlin, Staatliche Museen 1984.41) with the representation of the intense moments
at the altar shortly before Phrixos and Helle escape death on the back of the ram
with the golden fleece (Pl. IVa). The lower frieze of the vases face A focuses on the
action at the altar and consists of eight human figures.51 The central group shows
Phrixos holding the ram, while Athamas is standing opposite his son with a
machaira in his right hand placed far too close to his sons neck. In his right hand,
he holds a scepter crowned by a bird, which identifies him both as a king and a
priestly officer. Interestingly, both Phrixos and the ram bear bands on their heads
that are usually worn by sacrificial victims. To the far left, the personification of
ritual silence during sacrifice () is an additional clear indication of the
frame.52 Directly under the human figures, a number of cult paraphernalia,
including an omphalos cup, a bucranium, and a tripod, emphasize the ritual
context.53
There are strong connections to the divine assembly in the upper zone.54
Here, Zeus holding a scepter almost identical to the one that Athamas holds
represents the divinity which had allegedly demanded the human sacrifice. Next
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
A reliable collection of the relevant literary sources can be found in P. BRUNEAU, Phrixos et
Helle, LIMC VII.1 (1994), p. 399.
There is, however, a Nolan amphora (Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale Stg. 270) by the
painter of Munich 2335 (440/30 BCE) that shows Ino chasing Phrixos with a double axe.
Phrixos is already sitting on the ram with the golden fleece, see A. NERCESSIAN, Ino, LIMC
V.1 (1990), p. 659 no. 13*. Despite the iconographic proximity to scenes of Klytaimnestra
going after Orestes with an axe (see, for example, a red-figure stamnos in Boston [Museum of
Fine Arts, 91.226B]), the scene could be the only known Attic example of Ino herself
attempting to kill her stepson with a sacrificial double axe.
T. MORARD, Horizontalit et verticalit. Le bandeau humain et le bandeau divin chez le Peintre
de Darius, Mainz, 2009, p. 78 shows that the figures are subdivided in micro-narratives, which
by no means imply une succession temporelle.
L. GIULIANI, Tragik, Trauer und Trost. Bildervasen fr eine apulische Totenfeier, Hannover,
1995, p. 27-30 and 89-94.
Based on the existence of these objects, GIULIANI (ibid., p. 27) suggests that the action takes
place in a sanctuary. On the contrary, TAPLIN, o.c. (n. 40), p. 217 hypothesizes that the sacrifice
is performed in the wild countryside. He thinks that Pan and Artemis in the upper zone are
used in a way as visual indicators of the spatial frame.
GIULIANI, o.c. (n. 52), p. 27 and 88-89.
72
to him and centrally placed sits Athena who, however, has no obvious association
with the narrative. Next to her, the painter situated Apollon, the god whose
falsified oracular response led to the attempted human sacrifice. To the far left,
Nephele and Hermes stand looking at each other. The mother of the children in
danger and the god who would eventually help them escape by giving the ram
with the golden fleece to Nephele are visual signifiers of the happy ending of the
storyat least until Helles drowning. To the far right, stand Pan and Artemis
whose exact role is unclear.55
Despite the similarities between the Iphigeneia and the Phrixos-and-Helle
stories both in terms of their narratives and the modes of their respective
visualizations, there is a significant discrepancy: at the end of the Phrixos-andHelle sacrificial episode, there is actually no sacrifice at all. At the altar, there is no
replacement through an animal like in the case of Iphigeneia. The quasi-magical
ram represents the means of rescue and will be only later and in a different spatial
context sacrificed to Zeus as a sign of gratitude.56 Compared to the Iphigeneia
narrative, the demand for the sacrifice of Phrixos and Helle does not originate in
the will of a divine being, and, thus, not even a replacement for the human victim
is required. The end of the story with its negation of any sacrificial action,
however, is not really anticipated in the image that the Dareios painter created.
With the inclusion of Euphemia, the numerous cult paraphernalia, and the divine
assembly, the artist constructed a true image of sacrificial reality.
Neither Iphigeneia nor Phrixos or Helle end up being sacrificial victims, this
is the fate of another young person, Polyxena. Compared to Iphigeneia, Polyxena
is clearly a far less important figure in Athenian literature. However, she appears
much more frequently on Athenian vases as either a supporting figure in scenes
such as the murder of Priamos57 or as part of the narrative of Troilos ambush
and subsequent chase by Achilles.58 The latter episode is regarded as the
beginning of Polyxenas violent death, since this is when Achilles encounters her
for the first time. A small Corinthian aryballos by Timonidas (Athens, NM 277,
ca 600-580 BCE) bears one of the earliest and certainly most detailed representa-
55.
56.
57.
58.
TAPLIN, o.c. (n. 40), p. 215 suggests that the absence of Dionysos from the divine assembly
indicates a connection of the image with the first version of Euripides lost work Phrixos.
Either the painter was directly inspired by a performance of the play or both painter and
writer were inspired by the same version of the myth.
One, of course, might ask why Phrixos did not sacrifice the ram to Hermes, the god who
helped him escape. It is as if the replacement of Phrixos through the ram did take place after
all and the animal had to be sacrificed to Zeus, because, even if for the wrong reasons, a
sacrifice had been promised to him.
RECKE, o.c. (n. 7), p. 41-50.
A. CAMBITOGLOU, Troilos pursued by Achilles, in J.H. BETTS (ed.), Studies in honour of
T.B.L. Webster, vol. 2, Bristol, 1988, p. 1-21.
73
tions of the ambush.59 The composition contains all the features that eventually
became typical for the Athenian visual versions of the episode: Achilles hides
behind the fountain; Polyxena is situated before her brother, while Troilos
appears with two horses. With respect to the slightly later Athenian representations, an important difference is that Troilos is not represented as a young
beardless boy, but as a bearded man. The earliest Athenian representations of the
ambush appear on the so-called Tyrrhenian amphorae.60 The chase episode is
also very popular with black- and red-figure vase painters. In black-figure vase
painting, Achilles is shown chasing Troilos who tries to flee with his two horses as
Polyxena runs away before him. In several instances, the scene is enhanced by the
inclusion of additional fleeing figures.
In comparison with the ambush or chase episodes, Polyxenas sacrifice
represents a far less prominent subject.61 It correlates with the admittedly secondary position of her legend in literary sources. The Trojan princess is completely
absent in the Iliad and the Odyssey, while in the Kypria, Odysseus and Diomedes
fatally wound her, and later, Neoptolemos takes care of her burial. The sacrifice of
Polyxena was certainly part of the narrative of the epic poem Ilioupersis by the
Milesian Arktinos, while Archaic lyricists were also aware of the myths related to
the maidens violent death at the grave of Achilles.62 In Greek imagery, only a few
examples can be securely identified as representations of the Trojan princess
sacrifice.63 A further scene previously associated with the sacrifice of Iphigeneia
may also be added to the group. Recently, G. Schwarz suggested that the female
figure in metope 13 of the famous relief pithos from Mykonos displaying scenes
from the Fall of Troy should be identified as Polyxena. The hands of the figure that
are bound together on her chest allow her to be identified as a woman, most
probably Polyxena, about to be executed / sacrificed.64
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
K. SCHEFOLD, Gtter- und Heldensagen der Griechen in der frh- und hocharchaischen Kunst,
Mnchen, 1993, p. 306.
SCHEFOLD, o.c. (n. 59), p. 306-308. Here, I will not enter the discussion on the center of
production of the so-called Tyrrhenian amphorae.
J.-L. DURAND, F. LISSARRAGUE, Mourir lautel. Remarques sur limagerie du sacrifice humain
dans la cramique attique, ARG 1 (1999), p. 91-102 (focusing on Attic vase painting). BREMMER,
l.c. (n. 10), p. 61 is rather exaggerating when he claims that we can reproduce Polyxenas sacrifice
as described by Euripides with a series of images.
O. TOUCHEFEU-MEYNIER, Polyxne, LIMC VII.1 (1994), p. 431. FONTINOY, l.c. (n. 16) offers
an excellent collection of the literary sources associated with the sacrifice of Polyxena.
M. ROBERTSON, Troilos and Polyxene. Notes on a changing legend, in J.-P. DESCOEUDRES
(ed.), Eumousia. Ceramic and iconographic studies in honour of Alexander Cambitoglou,
Sydney, 1990, p. 64-65 identified the chasing of a young woman by two warriors on an
Etruscan black-figure amphora in Paris (Louvre E703) with the death of Polyxena as
presented in the Kypria.
G. SCHWARZ, Der Tod und das Mdchen. Frhe Polyxena-Bilder, MDAI(A) 116 (2001),
p. 41-43 pl. 10.2-3.
74
Fragments of a large mid-seventh-century Protoattic krater attributed to the

painter of the New York Nessos amphora contain the remains of a scene in which
several men carry a young woman on her back (Pl. IVb).65 Parts of only five figures
are preserved. At the far right, three men are represented walking. Only the outline
of the lower left leg of the first male figure is preserved. The third man is nearly
intact, and his iconography reveals that we are dealing with unarmed, young,
beardless men in short chitons. The men are carrying a female figure whose lower
part is covered by an embroidered skirt while her feet (pointing upwards) are
preserved. On the back of the vase stands a male figure surrounded by palmettes.
This bearded man is shown moving dynamically away from the scene described
above, although his head is turned towards the group of youthful men who carry
the female figure. In the first publication of the fragments, E. Vermeule and
S. Chapman suggested that the scene depicts the sacrifice of Iphigeneia rather than
Polyxena, because the young men are not portrayed as warriors, as on the amphora
by the Timiades painter (Pl. V). In addition, the Timiades painter shows Polyxena
facing down, while the placement of the feet demonstrate that the artist of the
Protoattic krater had the female figure facing the sky.66 However, in this respect, the
scene on the krater seems visually to anticipate the way in which the victim is held
on the so-called Polyxena-sarcophagus (Pl. VI). Both the amphora by the Timiades
painter (Pl. V) and the so-called Polyxena sarcophagus (Pl. VI) offer excellent
parallels to the iconography of violence in Polyxenas sacrifice. Furthermore, the
existing visual evidence strongly suggests that Iphigeneias alleged death was never
imagined in this form. The forceful pushing of Iphigeneia towards the altar on the
oinochoe in Kiel (Pl. IIIa) cannot be compared to the brutality of the scene on the
amphora by the Timiades painter. Following G. Schwartzs convincing arguments,
the scene on the fragments of the Protoattic krater should be recognized as the
earliest known depiction of Polyxenas sacrifice in an iconographic scheme that was
to be followed in at least two further cases.67
Besides the fragments of the Protoattic krater, so far only one additional vase,
a so-called Tyrrhenian amphora by the Timiades painter produced in Athens but
found in Etruria, shows the sacrifice of Polyxena in its entirety and full brutality
(Pl. V).68 Three Greek warriors identified by inscriptions as Amphilochos,
Antiphates, and Ajax the Lesser hold the defenseless victim above the miniaturized
tumulus of Achilles, atop which rests an altar with its fire already burning. A fourth
warrior, Neoptolemos, forces Polyxenas head back and pushes his sword into her
65.
66.
67.
68.
E. VERMEULE, S. CHAPMAN, A Protoattic human sacrifice? AJA 75 (1971), p. 285-293.

VERMEULE CHAPMAN, l.c. (n. 65), p. 291-292.
SCHWARZ, l.c. (n. 64), p. 39-41.
H.B. WALTERS, On some black-figured vases recently acquired by the British Museum, JHS
18 (1898), p. 284-287.
75
neck.69 His posture is energetic and dynamic since he is depicted as if he were

running. The streams of blood that fall on the tumuluswhile avoiding the fire on
the altaremphasize the brutality of the scene. The central group is framed by two
figures on the left, Diomedes and Nestor, who look towards the sacrifice, and one
figure on the right, Phoenix, who looks away. The structure of the scene expresses
acceptance and rejection of the human sacrifice within one composition.70 The
iconography and the explicit depiction of the slaying recall depictions of a highly
specific sacrificial ritual: the killing of an animal (usually a ram) before battle, the
only instance in which the actual slaughter of the sacrificial animal is depicted in art
so far.71
Interestingly enough, a compositionally similar scene is depicted on an
Athenian black-figure amphora in Viterbo (Museo Archeologico Nazionale della
Rocca Albornoz, ca 550 BCE). Here, seven naked bearded men lift a bull on their
shoulders, while a man in a short chiton stands beneath the raised animal and cuts
its throat.72 The seven men are looking in different directions, indicating that no
actual movement takes place; it is the motif of the raising of the sacrificial victim
that is important, not the ritual movement. The same applies to the scene on the
amphora by the Timiades painter, in which the three warriors do not carry the
victim to the altar, but rather raise it over it, so that the blood can run down into
Achilles tumulus. The Timiades painter was apparently one of those early-sixthcentury artists with a keen interest in the twisted artistic quality of the atrocities of
war and a special penchant for the brutal deaths of Priamos young children, since
on another Tyrrhenian amphora in Munich (Staatliche Antikensammlungen
1426), he painted a horrific version of Troilos death. In it, the mutilated body of
the boy lies on the ground partly covered by the altar of Apollon Thymbraios, while
the head of Achilles spear is lodged in Troilos severed head.73 In my view, it is as if
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
Although I disagree with the main thesis of K. Toppers article (Maidens, fillies, and the
death of Medusa on a seventh-century pithos, JHS 130 [2010], p. 114) that the murder of the
equine Medusa on the relief pithos in Paris (Louvre CA 795) should be seen in the context of
the sacrificial maiden, I find her comparison of the murder of Medusa and the sacrifice of
Polyxena on the amphora by the Timiades painter intriguing. One should note, however, that
Perseus is actually cutting Medusas throat, while Neoptolemos is brutally forcing his sword
into Polyxenas neck.
According to J.B. CONNELLY, Parthenon and parthenoi: a mythological interpretation of the
Parthenon frieze, AJA 100 (1996), p. 67, the gods on the eastern part of the Parthenon frieze
are turning their backs to the central group precisely because there, Erechtheus and his wife
are shown preparing the sacrifice of their youngest daughter.
See, for example, the late-fifth-century relief in the Archaeological Museum of Chalkis, VAN
STRATEN, o.c. (n. 20), p. 102 fig. 109.
VAN STRATEN, o.c. (n. 20), p. 219 (V141) fig. 115; BONNECHERE, l.c. (1998, n. 19), p. 387.
B. KNITTLMAYER, Die attische Aristokratie und ihre Helden. Untersuchungen zu Darstellungen
des trojanischen Sagenkreises im 6. und frhen 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr., Heidelberg, 1997, p. 9293; LOWENSTAM, o.c. (n. 33), p. 35-37.
76
the Greek hero were using Troilos head as an apotropaic device, a perverted form
of Athenas gorgoneion, against the four Trojan warriors who attack him from the
left.
In 1994, a spectacular find in a tumulus at Gmsay, near the ancient battlefield by the river Granicus, contributed a monumental piece of evidence regarding
the visualization of Polyxenas brutal fate to the relatively small group of objects
decorated with her myth. The find consisted of a late Archaic sarcophagus
(anakkale, Archaeological Museum, ca 520-500 BCE), whose one long side was
lavishly decorated with a multi-figural version of Polyxenas sacrifice (Pl. VI).74 The
sarcophagus represents the earliest known example from Asia Minor made of stone
and decorated with reliefs. The use of the Polyxena-sacrifice myth on a large object
with a primarily funerary function is not unique, however, since a fragmentary socalled Clazomenian sarcophagus in Leiden (Rijksmuseum I.1896-12.1) also bears a
scene that has been convincingly identified as the sacrifice of Polyxena.75
The twelve figures on the long side that represents the scene of Polyxenas
death are arranged in two groups; one group is shown performing the sacrifice,
while the other group is mourning the death of the young maiden (Pl. VIa). The
grieving group consists of seven figures, three male and four female. The men with
their long garments are easily identifiable as Orientals, and thus as Trojans; their
gestures also represent oriental ways of mourning.76 The group sacrificing Polyxena
is composed of five figures including Polyxena herself (Pl. VIb). Three of them are
carrying Polyxena horizontally and keeping a tight hold on her body in order to
prevent her from moving during the actual slaughter. The fourth male figure is
grabbing her hair and pushing her head down as he forces his dagger into her neck.
Solely based on the evidence of the Timiades amphora, one could identify the male
figures holding Polyxena as Ajax the Lesser, Antiphates, and Amphilochos,
although there is no reference in the preserved literary sources that these three
heroes were indeed the sacrificial assistants of Neoptolemos. The figure performing the sacrifice is, of course, Neoptolemos. The killing takes place before the
tumulus of Achilles, Neoptolemos father. The sacrificial scene continues along the
short side of the sarcophagus, where the tumulus actually ends. Here, three women
also mourn the death of Polyxena. In this group, the first figure crouching on the
ground is of special interest: the wrinkles around her eye characterize her as an
older woman, perhaps Hekabe, Polyxenas mother.77 The other two sides of the
sarcophagus are decorated with scenes associated with the female world; friends or
74.
75.
76.
77.
N. SEVIN, A new sarcophagus of Polyxena from the salvage excavations at Gmsay,

Studia Troica 6 (1996), p. 251-264.
F. VON DUHN, Zur Deutung des klazomenischen Sarkophags in Leiden, JDAI 28 (1913),
p. 272-273; R.M. COOK, Clazomenian sarcophagi, Mainz, 1981, p. 36 no. G 8 pl. 48.3.
STEUERNAGEL, o.c. (n. 4), p. 169.
SEVIN, l.c. (n. 74), p. 260.
77
female family members adorn a bride-to-be. A second group of figures can be

associated with important rituals in the life of a maiden; two musicians play the
aulos and the kithara and accompany four female dancers dressed as warriors, a
female dancer playing the castanets, and three members of a choir. The other short
side of the sarcophagus shows two women in discussion on a bed, framed by one
female figure on the left and two on the right.78
The part of the composition dealing explicitly with the sacrifice (Pl. VIb)
reminds us of the scene on the Timiades amphora (Pl. V). There are some minor
discrepancies, however, for the Greek warriors lack helmets, and Polyxena is held
with her face up. This is thus comparable to the way she must have been depicted
on the Protoattic krater (Pl. IVb). Her position adds enormously to the intimacy of
the scene, since she and her murderer can look in each others eyes. In my view,
this is a very conscious decision on the part of the artist, who through this metanarrative demands the viewer to recall a famous incident in the vita of Neoptolemos father: the slaying of the Amazon Penthesileia by Achilles while the two gaze
into each others eyes and fall in love.79 Visual ambivalence with respect to the
iconography of Neoptolemos and his distinction from his father Achilles has been
something vase painters occasionally would experiment with.80 For example, a redfigure amphora by the Alkimachos painter (Madrid, Museo Arquelogico Nacional
L 178) presents a Greek warrior dragging a male child by its hair. Due to the lack of
accompanying inscriptions, the scene can be equally convincingly associated either
with Neoptolemos and Astyanax or with Achilles and Troilos.
In many respects the interpretation of the sarcophagus relief program
depends on whether it was intended for a male or female burial. The skeletal
remains of a 40-year-old male are indeed associated with the sarcophagus.81
Nonetheless, the iconography of the relief decoration is emphatically female,82 and
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
I follow here C. REINSBERG (Der Polyxena-Sarkophag in anakkale, in R. BOL, D. KREIKENBOM

(eds.), Sepulkral- und Votivdenkmler stlicher Mittelmeergebiete (7. Jh. v. Chr. 1. Jh. n. Chr.),
Paderborn, 2004, p. 206-214), whose interpretation of the scene of the female dancers as a ritual
honoring Artemis Ephesia, a highly popular divinity among the Lydians (in antiquity, the region
in which the sarcophagus was found, was part of Lydia), I consider especially intriguing.
Already captured by Exekias in his famous amphora in London (BM B 210), which predates
the sarcophagus from Gmsay.
R. VON DEN HOFF, Achill, das Vieh? Zur Problematisierung transgressiver Gewalt in klassischen Vasenbildern, in FISCHER MORAW (eds.), o.c. (n. 43), p. 225-246, esp. p. 234-245.
N. SEVIN et al., A new painted Graeco-Persian sarcophagus from an, Studia Troica 11
(2001), p. 383.
In a lecture entitled The Polyxena Sarcophagus from Ilion, delivered at the conference The
Sarcophagus East and West (NYU, October 2, 2009), R. Neer argued in favor of the male
connotations of the sarcophagus iconography by claiming an intended identification between
Achilles (the visually absent owner of the tumulus and recipient of the sacrifice) and the
deceased buried in the sarcophagus placed in the tumulus. A very brief summary hereof was
published in R.T. NEER, Greek Art and Archaeology. A New History, c. 2500-c. 150 BCE, New
78
should therefore be associated in its original conception and production with the
burial of a female member of the local nobility. The bridal scenes identify her as a
bride-to-be (probably a young woman who died unmarried), a person whose tragic
death at a young age was to be commemorated by the decision to represent the
sacrifice of another (mythical) virgin, Polyxena, on her sarcophagus. In this
context, it is interesting to note that parts of the sarcophagus remained
unfinished,83 a fact that indicates that the completion of a work of this unusual
quality had to be expedited. Although it cannot be proven, one could hypothesize
that the sarcophagus was originally destined for a dying female, but at the end was
used for an important male member of the same family who died unexpectedly.
A black-figure hydria attributed to a painter of the so-called Leagros group
represents one of the last examples (Berlin, Staatliche Museen F 1902,
ca 500 BCE)84 that mark the end of the violent versions of Polyxenas sacrifice.
Although no inscriptions accompany the figures of the scene on the main decorative zone, the iconography can be explained only in the context of Polyxenas
sacrifice. The composition is structured into two subgroups. To the right, two fully
armed Greek warriors stand opposite a group of four horses, while an additional
warrior seems to emerge from the vertical frame of the scene (Pl. VIIa). One could
associate the three warriors with those identified by name on the amphora by the
Timiades painter. To the left, a fourth warrior, Neoptolemos, is leading the weeping
figure of Polyxena to the high tumulus of Achilles (Pl. VIIb). With his right hand,
Neoptolemos grabs her right hand. In his left hand, he holds a spear, and not the
sword with which he will sacrifice her. While Neoptolemos looks back towards
83.
84.
York, 2012, p. 211. Although it is methodologically questionable to argue with funerary

objects from a different time and geographical context, I would like, nevertheless, to bring the
iconography of Attic funerary reliefs of the Classical and Late Classical periods into the
discussion. Ignoring the obvious female character of the entire relief program of the
sarcophagus would be equivalent to suggesting that a relief depicting a seated woman and her
slave is not celebrating the woman but rather her absent and thus dead husbandindeed a
sophisticated, but quite modern concept of how images could have worked in antiquity. I
would like to raise the question of why the tumulus of Achillesnot centrally placed, though
it would have been possibleshould be interpreted as the most important signifier on the
entire relief program of the sarcophagus. In this kind of an interpretation, the tumulus as a
sign of an otherwise absent Achilles and thus of the deceased male it allegedly symbolizes
would overshadow the apparent importance of female iconographic elements; one should
keep in mind that not a single man is represented on the small sides and the long side B. For
these reasons, I would like to consider the evidence of the bones found in the sarcophagus
secondary, when compared to the significance of the overall iconography of the relief
decoration of the sarcophagus.
K. GEPPERT, berlegungen zum Polyxena-Sarkophag im Museum von anakkale, in
N. KREUTZ, B. SCHWEIZER (eds.), TEKMERIA. Archologische Zeugnisse in ihrer kulturhistorischen und politischen Dimension. Beitrge fr Werner Gauer, Mnster, 2006, p. 90-91.
TOUCHEFEU-MEYNIER, l.c. (n. 62), p. 433 no. 22.
79
Polyxena, the young woman looks to the ground. A snake depicted on the white
tumulus functions as a clear signifier of the chthonic connotations of the scene.
Above the tumulus, the armed eidolon of Achilles flies towards Neoptolemos.
Although the figure of Polyxena overlaps one of the Greek warriors, there are no
clear signs of communication between the two groups, which seem oddly dissociated. The motif of the victim who is led almost ceremoniously and not forced to her
death reminds us of the white-ground lekythos by Douris (Pl. IIb), the countless
scenes of Menelaos leading Helena or anonymous warriors leading nameless
women by the hand.85 The same motif appears slightly later on a kylix attributed to
Makron (Paris, Louvre G 153, ca 490/80 BCE) (Pl. VIIIa),86 on which Neoptolemos
and Polyxena are identified with inscriptions. Here, the scene is much more
emotional, for Polyxena is not simply looking down, but back in despair at a
bearded male figure. In addition, Neoptolemos already holds the sacrificial instrument, the sword, and assumes a more intense and dynamic movement towards the
grave of his father.87
After around 480 BCE, evidence of the representations of Polyxenas sacrifice
becomes problematic.88 Pausanias claims to have seen a monumental painting in
the Pinakothek on the Athenian Acropolis (1.22.6) and in Pergamon (10.25.10).
These were probably of the sort that belonged to the rather peaceful versions of the
scene with Polyxena standing near Achilles tumulus rather than about to be
brutally killed.89 A Campanian hydria by the Caivano painter (Naples, Museo
Archeologico Nazionale) shows Polyxena with her hands tight behind her back and
sitting on the ground in front of an Ionic column marking Achilles grave.
Neoptolemos with his hand on his sword is standing behind her.90 Only Polyxenas
facial expression and her upwards-turned head are clear indications of the brutal
action about to take place. A Paestan amphora by the painter of Naples 1778 bears
a similarly structured scene, aside from the fact that Neoptolemos and Polyxena are
85.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
RECKE, o.c. (n. 7), p. 31-41.

TOUCHEFEU-MEYNIER, l.c. (n. 62), p. 433 no. 24.
DURAND LISSARRAGUE, l.c. (n. 61), p. 98 made the excellent observation that Polyxenas fatal
fate announced on the exterior of the cup is complemented by the scene on the tondo that
shows Hektors body under Achilles kline.
See, however, a late black-figure Campanian amphora in London (BM B 70), which apparently preserves the tradition of brutal renderings of Polyxenas sacrifice. In an admittedly very
crude style, the painter shows Neoptolemos with the sacrificial knife in his hand waiting at the
altar. A single hoplite lifts Polyxena who turns her head to her right and looks towards
Neoptolemos, J.-M. MORET, LIlioupersis dans la cramique italiote. Les mythes et leur expression figure au IVe sicle, vol. 1, Genve, 1975, p. 197 and 214 pl. 25.1.
Strangely enough, O. Touchefeu-Meunier (l.c. [n. 62], p. 433) associates the painting in Athens
with Polygnotos even though Pausanias refers to the famous Thasian painter only with regard
to the paintings showing Achilles on Skyros and Odysseus approaching Nausikaa.
MORET, o.c. (n. 88), p. 64 pl. 28.1.
80
instead shown facing each other (Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale H

1779).91 The Anthologia Palatina and Libanios refer to lost sculptural (Hellenistic?)
groups that depicted Neoptolemos sacrificing Polyxena, while in the mid-first
century BCE the theme re-appears miniaturized on relief bowls.92
In the Roman Imperial period, Polyxenas sacrifice experiences a true renaissance, especially in the context of glyptic. Miniature scenes on seal rings reveal a
slightly different, in a way more intimate encounter between Polyxena and
Neoptolemos that probably reflects literary traditions different from the Homeric
ones.93 Polyxena is often represented with exposed breasts seated on a shield that
lies on the ground. Behind her stands the heroically nude Neoptolemos with the
sacrificial knife in his (usually left) hand, which Polyxena grabs in a last attempt to
beg for mercy. In the background, Achilles elaborate grave monument offers a
clear spatial context.94 Interestingly, these scenes are reminiscent of the Campanian
hydria by the Caivano painter discussed above.
The myths and their respective renderings in art discussed here so far represent human sacrifices either demanded by a divinity (Iphigeneia),95 the ghost of a
Greek hero (Polyxena), or promised to a dead friend as a supreme funerary honor
(Trojan captives). A number of mythological narratives, however, do not immediately fall into the realm of human sacrifice, but their translations into images
occasionally create interesting visual parallels to human sacrifices. In most cases,
the wrongful killing is highly emphasized by the addition of religious connotations
that turn the entire scene into a somewhat perverted form of human sacrifice.
Admittedly, the savage murder of the boy Troilos represents one of these anticlimactic moments in the arte of Achilles. A number of black-figure vases reveal
great interest in the gory details of the murder, since the decapitated body of
Troilos is often shown lying on the ground, while Achilles finds all sorts of twisted
ways of using the boys head. The spatial frame of the murder is known, but the
inclusion of the altar of Apollon Thymbraios is usually a strong indication of
Achilles sacrilegious act. In my view, however, a red-figure kylix by Onesimos
(Perugia, Museo Archeologico 89) goes much further semantically, and visually
transforms the murder into a perverted human sacrifice. On the exterior of the
kylix, Achilles is shown dragging Troilos to an altar, which can be identified as
belonging to Apollon by the Delphic tripod and the Delian palm tree. Represented
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
MORET, o.c. (n. 88), p. 64-65 pl. 28.2.

TOUCHEFEU-MEYNIER, l.c. (n. 62), p. 434 nos. 27-31. No. 27, a relief bowl from Kephallonia,
reintroduces the brutality of the sacrifice by showing Neoptolemos piercing Polyxenas
abdomen with his sword. Of course, this iconographic element transforms the sacrifice into a
straightforward murder.
G. SCHWARZ, Achill und Polyxena in der rmischen Kaiserzeit, RhM 99 (1992), p. 296-298.
MORRICONE-MATINI, l.c. (n. 3), p. 226-230 fig. 2-11.
Here, one should also add the attempted sacrifice of Phrixos, even if Zeus never demanded it.
81
on the other side of the same vase, is an apparently generic scene: two Greek
soldiers arm themselves as young boys, who iconographically closely resemble
Troilos, assist them. The tondo presents Achilles committing the murder at the
altar; he grabs the boys hair, forces back Troilos head, and is about to deliver the
fatal blow with his sword. The sequence of his actions is indeed comparable to what
Neoptolemos does in the context of Polyxenas sacrifice. R. von den Hoff is
skeptical about the sacrificial connotations of the scene.96 In my view, it is not of
importance whether Achilles meant to perform a sacrifice or not, but rather that
the artist chose to associate the murder with human sacrifices visually. The fact that
Troilos stands unwillingly at the altar is also not so important, since the imagery of
Polyxenas or Iphigeneias sacrifice occasionaly show an equally unwilling victim.
The representation of the murder of Medeas children on a Lucanian calyx
krater in Cleveland (Museum of Art 1991.1) and an Apulian volute krater in
Munich (Staatliche Antikensammlungen 3296) can be seen in a similar context.97
On the Lucanian vase, both children lie already dead as if displayed on the altar.98
The image on the Apulian krater is more explicit (Pl. VIIIb); one of the boys is
standing on an altar with outstretched arms in a gesture of supplication, which
reminds us of Iphigeneias posture on the oinochoe in Kiel (Pl. IIIa). Like Achilles
or Neoptolemos, Medea grabs the hair of the child, pulls its head back, and is
about to use her sword against her sacrificial victim. The strategic position of
personified frenzy, Oistros, before the child on the altar creates the illusion that a
human sacrifice is about to be performed in his honor. And what but a perverted
sacrifice is the atrocious dismemberment of Pentheus on the kylix by Douris in
Fort Worth (Kimbell Art Museum), when parts of his body are presented to the
seated Dionysos as if they were sacrificial meat? (Pl. IXa)
There is a particular set of images whose twisted sacrificial connotations do
not need to be debated: the murder of the Egyptian king Bousiris by Herakles.99
Following an oracle, Bousiris sacrificed foreigners until Herakles reversed the
96.
97.
98.
99.
VON DEN HOFF, l.c. (n. 80), p. 231 with fn. 26.
TAPLIN, o.c. (n. 40), p. 123, 255-257.
TAPLIN, o.c. (n. 40), also sees a clear connection between the image and the semantic
implication of sacrifice and ritual. However, I dont think the artist is pointing towards the
establishment of the boys cult.
DURAND LISSARRAGUE, l.c. (n. 61), p. 85-91. V. MEHL (La norme sacrificielle en images: une
relecture de lpisode dHrakls chez le pharaon Busiris, in BRUL [ed.], o.c. [n. 18], p. 171-187)
discusses the relevant imagery with respect to its ritual and ritualistic connotations. For a more
symbolic approach to the same material, see DURAND LISSARRAGUE, ibid. I would disagree with
Durand and Lissarrague who claim (p. 166) that the cult participants and officers (musicians,
priests, assistants etc.) are not occupying their usual place, and thus emphasize the abnormality
of the scene. The scenes are actually composed in the manner of a typical animal sacrifice of the
thysia-type. The atypical sacrificial victim, a human being, is disturbing in itself and disrupts the
sacrificial process by turning a sacrifice at the altar into a murder at the altar.
82
sacrificial process and killed the Egyptian Pharaoh, his son, and all their followers
at the altar. Although Bousiris murder takes place within the context of an
intended human sacrifice, it is not per se a sacrifice. A red-figure kalpis in Munich
(Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2428, ca 480 BCE) by the Troilos painter
demonstrates an interesting visual conflation of animal and human sacrifice in
the ritual paraphernalia used. On it, an enraged Herakles is about to kill a
kanephoros on the altar, as an obeloi-bearing helper on the left of the altar flees
the scene, and a hydriaphoros on its right runs away. Even if the hydria and the
kanoun can be explained in some way, how are we to understand the presence of
the obeloi? Did the human sacrifices on the coasts of Egypt include cannibalism?
This is what the painter appears to indicate by incorporating spits for roasting the
entrails of the sacrificial victim in the scene.100
On the contrary, another Greek visitor to Egypt, Menelaos, is presented by
Herodotos (2.119.2-3) actually sacrificing two young Egyptian children in order
to obtain better sailing conditions. The sacrifice is strikingly reminiscent of the
sacrifice of Iphigeneia, but Menealos is explicitly characterized because of his
action, an .101 Compared to the Herakles-Bousiris story, Menelaos
visit to Egypt appears as an anti-version of the same story of the deconstruction
of the rules of hospitality. In Menelaos case, it is the visiting foreigner who
breaks the rules and actually sacrifices two native children. There is, however, no
punishment. In comparison, Herakles punishes the Egyptians with brutal death
at the altar for attempting to sacrifice him. Bousiris and his people do not get
away by simply being called . Even within the context of human
sacrifice, there seem to have existed different rules for Greeks and Barbarians.
In 1981, A. Henrichs opened his important contribution to human sacrifice in
Greek religion with the following words: the Greeks clearly preferred the fiction of
human sacrifice to its reality.102 Twenty years later, G. Schwarz countered his
statement by claiming that human sacrifices were a historical reality in Greece.103
Whether or not human sacrifices actually occurred in ancient Greece is not the
focus of this article, but the contradictions in the current scholarship104 reflect in a
way the ambivalence with which the ancient Greeks themselves dealt with human
100.
101.
102.
103.
104.
STRATEN, o.c. (n. 20), p. 46-49; V. BRINKMANN, Herakles ttet den gyptischen Knig
Busiris, in R. WNSCHE (ed.), Herakles Herkules, Mnchen, 2003, p. 175-176.
In comparison to the Iphigeneia narratives, the sacrifice of the Egyptian children did take
place; there was no miraculous replacement at the altar.
HENRICHS, l.c. (n. 9), p. 195.
SCHWARZ, l.c. (n. 64), p. 36: obwohl sie [the human sacrifices] noch in historischer Zeit
ausgebt wurden.
See, for example, the antithetical approaches to the significance of human sacrifice in the
context of ancient Greek values as expressed by GEORGOUDI, l.c. (n. 18) and BONNECHERE, o.c.
(1994, n. 6); l.c. (n. 18).
VAN
83
sacrifice in mythological narratives, religious traditions, and the visual arts.

Generally speaking, however, ancient Greek culture appears to have had less
trouble speaking about than depicting human sacrifice. Of course, this attitude is
reminiscent of the unwillingness to depict the actual killing of an animal in the
context of sacrifices of the thysia-type.105
Despite the countless narratives associated with a sacrifice usually of young
persons,106 Greek artists and the buyers of their products showed but limited
interest in visualizing the slaying of a human being in a religious or sepulchral
context. To claim that this tendency simply conforms to the common features of
Greek artistic expression means to ignore the degree to which Greek art is all
about violence: violence against the female, violence against the foreign, violence
against the young, violence against the weak. In all these visual contexts, artists
are not in the least reluctant to depict swords penetrating bodies, decapitated
heads thrown to adversaries,107 or streams of blood literally pouring down to the
ground.108 Greek artists did not avoid the gory details of violence in times of war,
yet they apparently did choose not to depict the ceremonious killing of people in
contexts that might have sanctified such action.
Nonetheless, there seems to have been some sort of evolution in the way that
the theme was treated in art. Early evidence, especially outside Attica, as in the case
of the amphora by the Timiades painter (Pl. V) or the sarcophagus from Gmsay
(Pl. VI), seems nearly to celebrate the goriness of the depicted topic and the
unwilling death of the victim; on the amphora, the maidens blood appears as a red
105. BONNECHERE, l.c. (1997, n. 19) and (1998, n. 19), p. 384-388.
106. GEORGOUDI, l.c. (n. 18), p. 73-74 is absolutely right in emphasizing that victims are not always
and by necessity young.
107. In this respect, I would disagree with L. BONFANTE, Human Sacrifice on an Etruscan
Funerary Urn, AJA 88 (1984), p. 535 with n. 27 who considered severed heads, present but
unusual in Greek art. I am preparing an article on this topic.
108. Particularly brutal is the scene on an Attic black-figure hydria (London, BM B 326) showing
Achilles throwing Troilos head at a group of Trojan soldiers. On a red-figure krater, the head
of Melanippos lies on the ground in front of Tydeus (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
12.229.14). See in general, B.E. BORG, Gefhrliche Bilder? Gewalt und Leidenschaft in der
archaischen und klassischen Kunst, in B. SEIDENSTICKER, M. VHLER (eds.), Gewalt und
sthetik. Zur Gewalt und ihrer Darstellung in der griechischen Klassik, Berlin, 2006, p. 248-257
who argues that savage images could be seen in the context of a morally supported (or not)
use of brutality (especially in times of war, I would add). Streams of blood are often seen in
agonistic contexts (M. BENZ, Spiel um Leben und Tod? Gewalt und Athletik in klassischer
Zeit, in FISCHER MORAW (eds.), o.c. (n. 43), p. 129-141), but are of course an integral part of
warlike scenes as well. The best-known example is the scene on the famous krater by
Euphronios (Rome, Villa Giulia L.2006.10) showing Hypnos and Thanatos transporting the
bleeding but still perfect body of Sarpedon. In my view, Sarpedons bleeding wounds are a
visual evocation of the blood rain that Zeus sent shortly before the violent death of his son (Il.
16.459-461). Less heroic are the scenes on an Attic red-figure cup by Onesimos (Boston,
Museum of Fine Arts 01.8021) depicting warriors with open bleeding wounds.
84
stream dripping on the tumulus of Achilles. Around the end of the sixth century,
however, Polyxena and Iphigeneia were visually transformed into the counterparts
of male heroes, since they came to be represented as submitting to destiny and
meeting death with mental tranquility while approaching the altar/tumulus as
willing brides-to-be (Pl. IIb and VII). From this period on, the visual representation
of the unwilling and brutally killed sacrificial victim (Pl. IIIa) became the exception
that would return only in the late Hellenistic period as miniature scenes on relief
bowls, and would be abandoned again during the Roman Imperial period, when
the stoic victim who barely resists death came to be celebrated.
The canonization of the heroic death of the former sacrificial victim does
notyet againcorrelate with the contemporary literary evidence, which still likes
to play with all the variations of the myths involving human sacrifices. Interesting
too is that in the visual arts, the end of the sixth century marks the beginning of a
distinction between the human sacrificial victim who is guided to the altar but
whose slaughter is not shown, and the sacrilegious killing of innocent victims at an
altar (Priamos, Troilos, Medeas children) in a semantically perverted version of
human sacrifice that is utterly anti-heroic and is indeed represented as such. The
representations of exactly these sacrifices focus on the hubristic actions of the
sacrificer and not on the sacrificial victims. From the late sixth century on,
brutal killing at the altar connotes savagery and clear distortion of the sacrificial
order, unless we are dealing with the righteous (at least from a Greek perspective)
punishment of Bousiris.
Aside from the possible interpretation of the central section of the east frieze
of the Parthenon as part of the preparations for the sacrifice of Erechtheus
daughters,109 the volute krater showing Phrixos at the altar (Pl. IVa), and a highly
problematic scene on a fragmentary red-figure kylix in Barcelona,110 narratives
involving human sacrifice that were visualized in art almost entirely belong to the
Trojan cycle. With the singular representation of the sacrifice of the Trojan
captives by Achilles at the pyre of Patroklos (Pl. IIa), it is significant that Greek
artists decided to bend the rules regarding the non-representability of human
sacrifice solely to render the very outset of the Trojan expedition on the coast of
Aulis and its very end on the coast of Ilion, which are marked respectively with
the sacrifices of the Greek Iphigeneia and the Trojan Polyxena. Just as the Iliad
begins with Achilles anger and ends with his appeasement, Greek artists decided
that the A and of the greatest of all Greek wars should be represented, despite
their gory details, which were usually left to the viewers imagination.
Even if the theme of human sacrifice remains central in understanding the
visualization of Iphigeneias and Polyxenas narratives, their status as unmarried
109. CONNELLY, l.c. (n. 70).
110. VAN STRATEN, o.c. (n. 20), p. 113 with n. 41.
85
virgins, both to be married but never in fact married to Achilles, could have been
of equal importance in the mental processes that led to the relative popularity of
these two myths out of a plethora of stories associated directly or indirectly with
human sacrifice. It seems as if the connection of powerful women, such as
Penthesileia, or virginal princesses, such as Iphigeneia and Polyxena, to Achilles,
and the fact that they tragically did not survive the real (Penthesileia, Polyxena)
or alleged (Iphigeneia) erotic interest of the strongest of all Homeric heroes could
have been an additional and no less significant reason for the transformation of
their stories into visual narratives.
Liste des illustrations / List of figures

(P. Bonnechere)
Pl. I
Attic red-figure hydria, face A. London, British Museum, E 169 (Photo

Museum).
(J. Mylonopoulos)
Pl. IIa
Apulian volute krater by the Dareios painter. Naples, Museo Archeologico

Nazionale H 3254 (reproduced with the permission of the Soprintendenza
Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei).
Pl. IIb
White-ground lekythos from Selinus by Douris. Palermo, Museo Archeologico

Regionale NI 1886 (drawing by SeunJung Kim).
Pl. IIIa
Attic red-figure oinochoe by the Shuvalov painter. Kiel, Antikensammlung

Kunsthalle B 538 (Photo Museum).
Pl. IIIb
Apulian volute krater by the Ilioupersis painter. London, British Museum F

159 (Photo Museum).
Pl. IVa
Apulian volute krater by the Dareios painter. Berlin, Staatliche Museen 1984.41
(Photo bpk, Antikensammlung, SMB, Johannes Laurentius).
Pl. IVb
Protoattic krater. Anonymous loan. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 6.67

(drawing by SeungJung Kim).
Pl. V
Tyrrhenian amphora by the Timiades painter. London, British Museum

1897.0727.2 (Photo Museum).
Pl. VIa-b
So-called Polyxena sarcophagus. anakkale, Archaeological Museum. Principal

long side (drawing and photo from Studia Troica 6, p. 256-257 fig. 9-10b, reproduced with the permission of the Troia Project, University of Tbingen).
Pl. VIIa-b
Attic black-figure hydria attributed to a painter of the Leagros group. Berlin,

Staatliche Museen F 1902 (Photo Museum).
Pl. VIIIa
Attic red-figure kylix by Makron, face A. Paris, Louvre, G 153 (Photo Runion
des muses nationaux, Paris).
Pl. VIIIb
Apulian volute krater. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen 3296 (Photo

Museum).
Pl. IXa-b
Attic red-figure kylix by Douris (face A and B). Fort Worth, Kimbell Art
Museum (Photo Museum / Art Resource, NY).
Planche II
Planche III
Planche IV
Planche V
Planche VI
Planche VII
Planche VIII
Planche IX

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ollection

Comparatisme Histoire Anthropologie

The topic of human sacrifice, which tends to provoke

Pierre Bonnechere Renaud Gagn

Le thme du sacrifice humain ne peut laisser indiffrent

Sacrifices humains s Human sacrifice

Pierre Bonnechere Renaud Gagn

presses universitaires de lige

Perspectives croises et reprsentations

Cross-cultural perspectives and representations

Pierre BONNECHERE Renaud GAGN

Presses Universitaires de Lige

Table des matires / Table of contents

TABLE DES MATIRES / TABLE OF CONTENTS

Liste des illustrations / List of figures ...................................................................... 247

European artists created over ten paintingsthese works included

sacrifice. Roman seals and impressions most probably influenced late-eighteenth-century

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

to animal sacrifices.19 Furthermore, it should be stressed that even in the context

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

or a monster by a hero or a Greek soldier. Centaurs, Amazons, and Persians are

L. SCHAN, Le sacrifice dIphignie, REG 44 (1931), p. 368-426 offers a helpful overview of

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

grave though it ended up as a votive offering in a Selinuntine sanctuary. In the

F. JOUAN, Autour du sacrifice dIphignie, in Texte et image. Actes du colloque international

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

A scepter, however, is neither an exclusively kingly nor priestly attribute, so the

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

Fragments of a large mid-seventh-century Protoattic krater attributed to the

E. VERMEULE, S. CHAPMAN, A Protoattic human sacrifice? AJA 75 (1971), p. 285-293.

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

neck.69 His posture is energetic and dynamic since he is depicted as if he were

N. SEVIN, A new sarcophagus of Polyxena from the salvage excavations at Gmsay,

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

female family members adorn a bride-to-be. A second group of figures can be

I follow here C. REINSBERG (Der Polyxena-Sarkophag in anakkale, in R. BOL, D. KREIKENBOM

York, 2012, p. 211. Although it is methodologically questionable to argue with funerary

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

RECKE, o.c. (n. 7), p. 31-41.

instead shown facing each other (Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale H

MORET, o.c. (n. 88), p. 64-65 pl. 28.2.

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

sacrifice in mythological narratives, religious traditions, and the visual arts.

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE IN ANCIENT GREEK ART

Liste des illustrations / List of figures

Attic red-figure hydria, face A. London, British Museum, E 169 (Photo

Apulian volute krater by the Dareios painter. Naples, Museo Archeologico

White-ground lekythos from Selinus by Douris. Palermo, Museo Archeologico

Attic red-figure oinochoe by the Shuvalov painter. Kiel, Antikensammlung

Apulian volute krater by the Ilioupersis painter. London, British Museum F

Protoattic krater. Anonymous loan. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 6.67

Tyrrhenian amphora by the Timiades painter. London, British Museum

So-called Polyxena sarcophagus. anakkale, Archaeological Museum. Principal

Attic black-figure hydria attributed to a painter of the Leagros group. Berlin,

Apulian volute krater. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen 3296 (Photo

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