Eros and Dionysos on Kerch Vases Author(s): Margarete Bieber Source: Hesperia Supplements, Vol.

8, Commemorative Studies in Honor of Theodore Leslie Shear (1949), pp. 31-441 Published by: American School of Classical Studies at Athens Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1353878 Accessed: 20/01/2009 08:51
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EROS AND DIONYSOS ON KERCH VASES

(PLATES 4-5)

Attic vases of the middle of the fourth century B.C.in the Metropolitan rIHREE I Museum of Art have an unusual combination of a woman dressed only in a himation in the center, with Eros on the one side, and Dionysos or his followers on the other side. All three vases have been published, but their interpretation has not yet been absolutely certain and convincing. Perhaps the finest and one of the best known of the so-called Kerch Vases is the Pompe Vase, an oinochoe (Plate 4, 1).' It gets its name from that written beside the graceful woman standing in the center, crowned with a wreath which seems to be of myrtle, and holding in both hands two twigs of the same plant joined at the tip by a round object, probably a jewel. Gisela Richter rightly explains that the presence of Dionysos indicates that the occasion is a Dionysiac festival. The golden basket next to the woman has been explained by Deubner as indicating a procession with the carrus navalis at the Anthesteria, while the Eros tying his sandal " soll die Anmut der Frauengestalt zum Ausdruck bringen." 2 The seated Dionysos is supposed to be the one who will ride in the ship-car, the carrus navalis, in the pompe given in his honor at the Anthesteria. Schefold explains the Pompe as a personification of a festival procession, which has come with gifts to the temple of Dionysos, while Brendel sees personified the procession which will accompany Dionysos from the Limnaion to the Bukoleion for his symbolic wedding ceremony.3 The skyphos (Plate 4, 3A-B) in the Metropolitan Museum4 has in the center of each side a seated woman. The one on A holds in her lap a sacrificial basket of the same form as the one representedon the oinochoe. The one on B is seated on a chest. On each side is an Eros behind the seated woman; the one on A is leaning against her, the one on B is bringing a chest and a sash or large fillet. On A, before the seated woman, is a satyr, and nearer to the woman a standing woman, while another is behind
Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum.of Art, pp. 215 f., no. 169, pls. 164 and 177; L.

1Met. Mus. No. 25.190. GiselaRichter,A.J.A., XXX, 1926,pp. 422 if., fig. 1, and Red-Figured

Schefold, Kertscher Vasen, in Beazley-Jacobsthal, Bilder griechischer Vasen, III, 1930, pp. 5 f., 14, pl. 10, and Untersuchungen zu den Kertscher Vasen, p. 37, no. 327 (cf. pp. 66, 104 f., 151, 154). G. Richter and M. Milne, Shapes and Names, fig. 121. 0. Brendel, A.J.A., XLIX, 1945, pp. 519 ff., fig. 1. 2 L. Deubner, Attische Feste, pp. 102 f. 3 K. Schefold, Kertscher Vasen, p. 14. 0. Brendel, loc. cit., p. 524. 4 Met. Mus. No. 06.1021.181. G. Richter in A.J.A., XI, 1907, pp. 417 ff., figs. 5 and 7, and Red-Figured Athenian Vases, p. 217, no. 170, pls. 165 and 178. L. Deubner, Jahrbuch, XL, 1925, pp. 217 iff. K. Schefold, Kertscher Vasen, p. 13, pl. 9, and Untersuchungen, p. 61, no. 593 (cf. pp. 104 f.). Richter-Milne, op. cit., fig. 177.

Deubner, Jahrbuch,XLII, 1927, p. 173, fig. 3, and Attische Feste, pp. 97 iff., 103, pl. 9, 4. K.

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M. BIEBER

her on the same side as Eros. On B a standing woman in a Dionysiac sleeved chiton and a seated satyr are in front of the seated woman. Gisela Richter again explains the subject rightly as the preparation for a Dionysiac festival, but she does not explain the Eros. Schefold 5 says that Attic virgins have come in procession to the sanctuary of Dionysos and are staying there surrounded by his followers. He adds that " this picture is not yet interpreted with certainty." The explanation " Kanephoria of the girls at the great city Dionysia" he gives, rightly, with a question mark.6 The hydria (Plate 4, 2) 7 has again a seated woman in the center. She has taken incense from a box in her left hand and is putting it on a stand over an altar. Eros is crowning her. Behind her a woman seems to be holding either a garland or a string with an tvye:,the magic wheel, a love charm.8 On the other side of the altar a Menad is beating the tympanon and a seated satyr is playing the flute. The oinochoe has been connected by all authors with the Anthesteria and particularly the Choes festival, when, indeed, such wine jugs were used on the second day of the feast celebrated on the 12th day of the month Anthesterion.9 The skyphos, on the other hand, belongs to the Lenaia festival in the month Gamelion, or Lenaion, as testified by the vases collected by Frickenhaus and rightly connected with this feast. On these vases there are many examples of the skyphos in the hands of the Lenai from whom the festival and even the whole month has been named.10The hydria can belong to both festivals, as the Attic people did not drink the wine pure but always mixed with water. But why are all three kinds decorated with the unusual combination of love-god and wine-god ? The answer is that all three vases-and indeed many of the Kerch vases-are wedding presents, and that the real nuptials or wedding night, the Synaulia, took place at the time of the new moon, which separates all Greek months from each other and thus also Gamelion or Lenaion from the following Anthesterion. The marriage ceremonies, however, were not confined to one day but extended over a period of time covering the last days of the Gamelion and the first days of Anthesterion, ending on the twelfth day with the Choes, the feast of children. The Greek wedding was not an individual festival, but a community feast which, like peasant and Chinese weddings, extended over a number of days. When the Greek
K. Schefold, Kertscher Vasen, p. 13. K. Schefold, Untersuchungen, p. 61. 7 Met. Mus. No. 26.60.75. K. Schefold, Untersuchungen, p. 24, no. 191, fig. 3, pl. 11, 1; cf. pp. 92, 96 f. 8 See Theocritus, Idyll 2. 9 August Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen, 1898, pp. 384 if. L. Deubner, Festschrift fur Paul Clemen, pp. 119 f., and Attische Feste, p. 101. 10August Frickenhaus, " Lenaenvasen," 72. Programm zum Winckelmannsfeste, Berlin, 1912. L. Deubner, Attische Feste, pp. 127 ff., agrees with Frickenhaus, while M. Nilsson, in Sitzungsber. Miinchen Akad., 1930, no. 4, pp. 3 ff., relates the vases to the Choes.
5

EROS AND DIONYSOS ON KERCHVASES

33

girl of good family was mature, she was promised by her father to a youth of a family of equal social standing and wealth. In the following Gamelion, the wedding month, all the families whose children were going to marry, offered solemn sacrifices, particularly to the highest gods, Zeus Teleios and Hera Teleia, the protectress of marriage, whose Theogamia or sacred wedding with Zeus was celebrated also in Gamelion." Other sacrifices were offered to the gods of the phratries, which the girl was going to leave; to Artemis, to whom she dedicated her toys and a strand of hair; and finally to the nymphs of the Kallirhoe, the water of which was carried in a special form of vase, the loutrophoros, in a procession to the house of the bride for her bridal bath on the last evening before the wedding, called Proaulia."2 This was on the evening before the last day of the month Gamelion. The wedding meal took place on the last day of Gamelionin the house of the father of the bride. There followed in the evening of the same day the wedding Pompe, when the bride was led on a chariot by the bridegroom and a friend, the parochos or paranymphos, in solemn procession to the house of the father of the bridegroom.'3 The procession (Pompe) led by a flute player, went through the dark night of the new moon accompanied by the light of torches in the hand of the mother of the bride and by friends, singing the Hymenaios, the marriage song. In the new home the bride was led around the altar and then by the bridesmaid, the nympheutria, to the marriage chamber, where in the night, when sun and moon met, the marriage was consummated. This was the night when winter ended, that is the night between Gamelion, the last winter month, and the Anthesterion, the first spring month. Thus a new life began with the growing moon."4
1 For the months, see Bishoff, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, X, s. v. Kalender, pp. 1568 ff., p. 1591, no. 54. Ch. Em. Ruelle, in Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionaire des Antiquites, s.v. calendarium (calendrier), pp. 822 iff. Martin P. Nilsson, "Die Entstehung und religi6se Bedeutung des griechischen Kalenders," in Lunds Universitets Arsskrift, N. F. XIV, 2 Avd. I, Vol. 19, no. 21, 1918, pp. 5 f., 25 ff. For the sacred wedding of Zeus and Hera ' T o3 rv ujvwv rS "Hpas; and Phot., epo'v ydapov in Gamelion, see Hesych., p. 334, s.v. rap.,XtWv Kat A. Mommsen,op. cit., pp. 382 f. L. 'AOrvcztot Atos KaXovvreg. yad/ov Lepov dyovvatv "Hpas, Eopr'rv Deubner, Attische Feste, pp. 117, 177 f. 12 P. Wolters, in Ath. Mitt., XVI, 1891, pp. 371 ff. Id., in Jahrbuch, XIV, 1899, pp. 128 ff. Hans Nachod, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Enc., XIII, pp. 2098-2101. Max Collignon, in DarembergSaglio, Dictionaire des Ant., III, 2, pp. 1648 f. P. Sticotti, in Festschrift fiir Benndorf, pp. 185 ff. E. Pernice, " Griech. Privatleben," in Gercke-Norden, Einleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft 3,
13A. Brueckner, "Athenische Hochzeitsgeschenke," in Ath. Mitt., XXXII, 1907, pp. 80 iff. Perdrizet, 'ApX. 'E+., 1905, pp. 209 ff., pls. 6-7. P. Sticotti, loc. cit., pp. 181 ff. E. Samter, " Hochzeitsgebrauche," in Neue Jahrbiicher fir das klassische Altertum, XIX, 1907, pp. 131 iff., pl. I, and Geburt, Hochzeit, Tod, pp. 196 f., pl. 11. Couve-Collignon, Vases peints du Musee d'Athenes, no. 1341, pl. XLV. W. Hahland,Vasen urnMeidias,pl. 4. K. Schefold, Untersuchungen, no. 284, pp. 30, 103, 133, pl. 50. Here a girl leads the wedding procession with a sacrificial basket on her head. 14 Scholion to Hesiod, Erga, 784: 'A97valot ras (vvo8oV e?AEyovTO Koa2 Trpos 7j,.pas Vrpos yacovv5
mKE <VOtKo TOrT C ETEXOWV, T' OeoyauLTa 'TE'0V,e TOT OWU r/'/tXov

1922,pp.51 f.

Ta

wr ~'Eta Xtov -08 oio(vor y4aov, VOLL elvac Ivvo8ov. Trpa 7pwTOV Tiqg oV0r,lv trCXk~v'q1 yal.ov., /s a?ovs rpOq17tos ptov oto/pevot

Aristotle,

34

M. BIEBER

In the period between this new beginning and the next full moon in the middle of Anthesterion, other ceremonies took place. In the morning after the wedding night the bridegroom went to the house of his father-in-law, while the bride received the visit and presents from her female relatives and friends in the ceremony known as Epaulia.15 In one of the following days the priestess of Athena brought the sacred aigis of Athena from the Acropolis to the houses of the new brides in order to bring them the blessing of the city goddess."6Probably on the fourth day of the Anthesterion month the young women brought sacrifices to Aphrodite.'7 Finally, at the Anthesteria festival, at the occasion of the Choes on the twelfth of the month, the sacred marriage of the wife of the Archon Basileus with Dionysos took place in the Boukoleion, the place of office of this highest priest.'8 There can be no doubt that this marriage ceremony was acted by the archon basileus himself who represented his god, as the priest often does. The bodily epiphany of the god was characteristic of the Dionysiac cult, and the priest, through divine possession, was temporarily identified with his god.19 The archon basileus was the leader of both the Lenaia and the Anthesteria festivals. The wife of the archon had to be a virgin when she married him, and she was not allowed to marry more than once.20 This means that when an Athenian was lifted to this high office, his wife too had to be acceptableto the voters. Thus their marriage in the guise of Dionysos and Ariadne was an exemplification of the consummation of a happy marriage. It was meant to be a blessing for the newly sown land and the marriages consummatedat the preceding new moon. At the same time there was not only general feasting and drinking from the Choes, but also a children's festival, and the children also received little oinochoes with pictures on them as presents. On one of these little toy jugs the ceremonial wedding procession of Dionysos and the wife of the archon is represented with children imiPolitics, VII, 16, p. 1335 a: optcravaresXetiwvos r3V ravvLavav 7rotdarOaL Tavrv. They determined the winter as limit for the nuptials. See A. Mommsen, op. cit., p. 382 f. 15L. Deubner, in Jahrbuch, XV, 1900, pp. 144 ff., pl. 11. A. Brueckner, op. cit., pp. 91 ff. Many examples on Kerch Vases. See K. Schefold, Kertscher Vasen, pls. 3, 1 and 19-20, and Untersuchungen, pls. 15, 2; 16; 17, 2; 33-34. 16Zonaras, Lexikon, s. v. atyts, p. 77. A. Brueckner, op. cit., pp. 114 f. 17 A. Brueckner, op. cit., pp. 112 ff. Another example is the vase in the Metropolitan Museum, G. Richter, Red-Figured Athenian Vases, p. 201 f., no. 160, pl. 159. 18 Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, III, 5, and LVII, 1. A. Mommsen, op. cit., pp. 391 ff. L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, V, p. 217 f. G. Elderkin, Kantharos, 1924, pp. 118.ff. L. Deubner, Attische Feste, pp. 101, 106 ff., 116 f., pl. 10, and in Jahrbuch, XLII, 1927, p. 174 f., figs. 4-5, and in Festschrift fiir Paul Clemen, 1926, pp. 118 iff., figs. 4-5. On the vase in Palermo, Furtwangler-Reichhold, pl. 59, with the wedding of Dionysos and Ariadne, Eros binds his sandals as on the vase in PI. 4, 1. Such shoes are rightly explained as nymphides or bridal shoes by G. Richter, op. cit., p. 202. "9See M. Nilsson, in Jahrbuch, XXXI, 1916, pp. 315 f., 323 ff. 20 L. Deubner, Attische Feste, p. 100 f. The name Basilinna, often given to the wife of the Archon Basileus, is modern. See Grace Macurdy, in Am. Jour. of Philol., 49, 1928, pp. 276 ff.

EROS AND DIONYSOS ON KERCH VASES

35

tating the ceremony (Plate 5, 1A-B).21 The archon basileus as Dionysos with thyrsos and kantharos is already seated on the wedding car, the parochos prepares to help the bride step up. Behind her three children carry an object which has been wrongly interpreted by Deubner as the stylis from a ship and with its help he has wrongly assigned the ship float, carrus navalis, to the Anthesteria.22 My interpretationof the object as a ploughshare has been accepted by M. Nilsson.23 The boys carry not a light stylis, but a heavy yoke, as do the oxen when ploughing, a symbol of the yoke of marriage which unites man and woman. The pole with the ploughshare at the end is erected vertically, so that the iron cannot hurt anybody, and the handle for the ploughman is indicated.24 It is decorated with fillets, which appear so often in the hands of friends or Eros on wedding vases (see Plate 4, 3B). The plough is a symbol of fertility. pocomeans to plough and to marry and generate.25 In the refined atmosphere of fourth-century Athens the plough takes the place of the phiallos,the crude symbol of productive power and seed of life used in the rural Dionysia. The consummationof the marriage as representedin the ceremonial wedding of the priest and his chaste wife, in the guise of Dionysos and Ariadne, has as a goal the creation of legitimate children. That is why the last part of the marriage ceremonies lays the emphasis on the children. The fertility of the marriage is compared to the fertility of the fields. The chief purpose of a Greek marriage was the procreation of legitimate children, particularly sons, for the good of the gods, the state, and the family itself. Immortality through the life of the children on earth, on the one hand, and on the other, individual immortality through reunion with the godhead is the wish of many. Both could be attained by initiation into the Bacchic
Met. Mus. no. 24.97.34. L. Deubner, in Jahrbuch, XLII, 1927, pp. 177 iff., figs. 7-9, and Attische Feste, pp. 104 iff., pl. 11, 2-4. Anita Klein, Child Life in Greek Art, p. 26, pl. XXVI. M. Nilsson, in Sitzungsberichte Akademie Miinchen, 1930, no. 4, pp. 8 ff. 22 L. Deubner, Attische Feste, p. 105 f., pl. 12. The fillets with the pearls at their ends are not the flag (pafKos) used for the stylis even though it is called 'rawvaby Pollux, I, 90. None of the stylides from Alexander coins collected by Deubner, pl. 12, 2, has such a fillet. It can, on the other
21

hand, very well decoratethe phallos as well as the symbolicplough in the pompe. See the blackfigured vase in Florence (Dieterich, Mutter Erde3, pp. 107 f.; Deubner, Attische Feste, p. 136, pl. 22), which is a transition from the phallos to the plough. 28M. Bieber, in Jahrbuch, XLIII, 1922, p. 306, note 1. M. Nilsson, loc. cit., p. 11. H. R. W. Smith, C.V.A., USA 10, San Francisco Coll., 1943, p. 47 f. accepts Deubner's " Schiffskarren " and even explains a dolphin on a miniature chous as an allusion to it.
24

d. Siichsischen Gesellschaft der Wiss., 1867, p. 76 f., pl. 1, 1. J. C. Hoppins, Black-Figured Vases, p. 184 f., no. 6; and the plough in Florence, Walters, British Museum Guide to the Exhibition illustrating Greek and Roman Life, 3, 1929, p. 167, fig. 184. 25 The Athenian marriage contract contained the phrase: for the plowing of legitimate children Clemens Alex., Strom., II, 23. The oracle given to the Troizenians: (eri rat&8v yvartoWv apo'T). "plough not the young field," is explained by Aristotle, Politics, VII, 16, p. 1335 a "that many died because they married too young." See translation by B. Jowett, p. 314. A. Dieterich, Mutter Erde8, 1925, pp. 46 f., 109.

See the form of the ploughon the cup by Nikosthenesin Berlin, 1806: 0. Jahn, in Berichte

36

M. BIEBER

mysteries. Jocelyn Toynbee and the author have independently and about the same time proved that the celebrated frescoes in the Villa Item at Pompeii are only to be understood as the representation of initiation of brides into the Dionysiac mysteries, and Maiuri in his model publication has accepted this explanation.26 The Kerch vases (Plate 4) can be explained satisfactorily in the same way; and they become the oldest testimonials for the combination of wedding and initiation in a pre-nuptial rite. The sacrificial baskets on Plate 4, 1 and 3A have been explained by Gisela Richter as a Dionysiac implement,while Deubner has shown that they belong to the wedding ceremony.27Both views have to be combined. The baskets contain objects which symbolize the mysteries of love, marriage, and fertility. When the girls came in procession (Pompe)28 to the sanctuary of Dionysos, they were told the facts of life and marriage with the help of symbols and teaching by older matrons. The love is representedby Eros, the initiation by Dionysos and his thiasos. It was probably only a small group of well-born girls that was initiated into the Dionysiac thiasos before their wedding. Gisela Richter has shown that only such girls are handling the sacrificial basket, represented on the oinochoe and skyphos (Plate 4, 1 and 3). The question of whether these vases with Eros and Dionysos alluding to the initiation into the Dionysiac mysteries belong to the Lenaion or the Anthesterion festival cannot be solved by their shapes, for the skyphos is characteristic of the first, the oinochoe of the second. But the oinochoe is used, in addition to the skyphos, on the Lenaia vases; and the hydria (Plates 4, 2 and 5, 2) couldalways be used at Dionysiac festivals. Walter Otto 29 has shown that water is as much the gift of Dionysos as wine. It is the moist element which preserves life and furthers creative power in plants, animals, and man. This enables us to offer a better interpretation of another Kerch Hydria in Athens (Plate 5,2)30 than has hitherto been possible. It shows Eros watering plants in the presence of Dionysos (left) and two women, one with a tympanon (right). We thus again have the same combination as on the three New York vases (Plate 4). Eros pours the fertilizing moisture on the flowers as a symbol of the brides who are initiated into the Dionysiac mysteries and at the same time into the secrets of married life, the purpose of which is the procreation of children. The
26 M. Bieber, "Mysteriensaal der Villa Item," in Jahrbuch, XLIII, 1928, pp. 298 iff., pls. 5-9. Eadem, in Review of Religion, II, 1937, pp. 3 ff. Jocelyn Toynbee, " The Villa Item and a Bride's Ordeal," in Journal of Roman Studies, XIX, 1929, pp. 67 iff. A. Maiuri, La Villa dei Misteri,

pp. 121 ff.

27 G. Richter, in A.J.A., XI, 1907, pp. 423 ff., and A.J.A., XXX, 1926, pp. 422 ff. L. Deubner, "Hochzeit und Opferkorb," in Jahrbuch, XL, 1925, pp. 210 ff.; XLII, 1927, pp. 176 f. G. Richter, Red-Figured Athenian Vases, p. 216, note 5. K. Schefold, Untersuchungen, pl. 50.

Otto, Dionysos, Mythos und Kultus, 1933, pp. 149 ff. 30Athens, Nat. Mus. no. 1424. K. Schefold, Untersuchungen zu den Kertscher Vasen, p. 17, no. 139, pl. 11, 2. Couve-Collignon, Vases peints du Musee d'AtJhenes,no. 1852, fig. 5 from Phot. German arch. Inst. Athens no. 939.

28 Demosthenes, 29 Walter F.

Meidias, 10: Kaltbrt A,lvatw v 7rop,7r.

EROS AND DIONYSOS

ON KERCH VASES

37

fertility of the earth is being paralleled with the human fertility, the importance of having and leaving children for immortality on earth.31 It seems to me a significant fact that the special Lenaia vases disappear after the end of the fifth century. I believe that the Kerch vases have taken their place after the connection of this women's feast with the wedding feast was attained. Probably the usage of enlightening well-born Attic girls in this religious way did not become the fashion before the fourth century. The soft and graceful spirit is a continuation and further refinement of what has already taken place in the fifth century. The originally wild orgiastic freny of Bacchic dances, which continued in northern Greece, as described in Euripides' Bacchai, appears already much softened, sobered, and disciplined on the Lenaia vases. On the Kerch vases they are still more tamed and refined. I believe that the initiation took place in Gamelion and exactly at the Lenaion festival named from the Lenai, the Menads, and in the Lenaion sanctuary, the old dancing place of the Lenai. Dionysiac mysteries are mentioned for the Lenaion in The old name of the month, Lenaion, was replacedby the name Gamelion, 334/3 B.C.32 because the wedding ceremonies took place during this month. The initiation belongs to the proteleia and proaulia, just as the first sacrifice is brought to Zeus Teleios and Hera Teleia. All preparatory ceremonies were performed in the latter part of Gamelion, the last winter days with the waning moon, while all allusion to blessings of the consummated marriage by Aphrodite, Athena, and last but not least, by the priest king and his wife in the guise of Dionysos and Ariadne, were performed in the first days of spring and during the growing moon, when, it was believed, all that had to grow and prosper belongs. The wedding presents, including the Kerch vases, brought at the occasion of the Epaulia on the morning after the new moon could allude to both. The prevalence of Eros in the center of the picture has not only the artistic purpose of giving a white, flashy and showy spot in the middle of the red figures and he not only " parallels and underlines the main action " (Brendel) but he gives to the Kerch vases a deeper meaning than has been accredited to them up to now. It must be rememberedthat Eros is the son of Aphrodite, and that sons are the purpose of marriage. In them the father lives on even after death. Thus not only artistic but also symbolic and psychological reasons have multiplied the figures of Eros on the Kerch vases. The soft, sentimental, and delicate spirit of the period is reflected as much on these vases as it is in the great art of Praxiteles and Skopas, who created,
31 See Olympiodorus, in Aristotelem,Vol. XII, Pars II (ed. G. Stiive), p. 57, Commentaria lines 6-8, on Aristotle, Meteorologica, 8e tpv EXiycro p. 343 b 4: yauoXitos 7rap' 'AGtlvatos 8ta T Kar'
;KElvovTOV TOVSya/Aovs 6TLTEXdcarat- EVXoyov (rEpEoV orE KaIL y apoevrTatl- TE7rt78O. yap Wovro TOTE KalpOV yap 6 xKatpo 7rpo Kap7rwv yeveLv. 32 I.G., II2, 1496, lines 74 f.: Ey] Al'owcn,v 'v [;Tri A}]va%w [7r]apa /warrfp!v- [eTr/]EAXTrV.

Fragment a, dated 334/3 B.C.

38

M. BIEBER

beside Eros, the personifications of Himeros, Longing, and Pothos, Passion of love.88 It is quite possible that some of the cupids on the Kerch vases represent these brothers of Eros. I also wonder whether some of them might not represent Hymenaios, the marriage god.84 Hymenaios is sometimes called the son of Dionysos, and Dionysos himself is called Hymenaios in an epigram; 35 and it is in this character as a wedding god that he is shown on the vases in Plate 4, 1 and 5, 2. Thus the women in this presence or in the midst of his followers (Plate 4, 1-3) are brides-to-be preparing for their wedding procession (pompe) which took place between their initiation into the mysteries of Dionysos and into the mysteries of Eros. They belong neither to the Lenaia nor to the Choes festival, but to the whole wedding proceedings which extend between the two.
MARGARETE BIEBER
COLUMBIAUNIVERSITY

88Eros, Himeros, and Pothos by Skopas in Megara: Pausanias, I, 43, 6. Himeros and Pothos on vase in Berlin, no. 2633. Himeros also on epinetron of the Eretria master, and on the hydria of the Meidias painter, E. Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung, III, p. 220 and 240, figs. 561 and 594. 84Cf. for Hymenaios B. Sauer, in Roscher, Lexikon der Mythologie, 1, 2, pp. 2800 ff. That he was represented in Greek art of the fourth century is testified by the description of the painting of Alexander the Great by Aetion (Lucian, Her., 5). Being the son of Dionysos at least in one version, he may well be meant in some of the vases which show a rather grown-up winged boy in the company of this god. Unfortunately no inscription of his name has up to now been found on a vase. B5 Dionysos is called Hymenaios-(vp,ev~jov)-in the hymn Anthologia Graeca Pal., IX, no. 524, line 21, which enumerates his characteristics in alphabetical order from a,/poKo0',vv to wpeawXotrov.

PLATE 4

Kerch Vases in the Metropolitan Museum, New York

(Courtesy of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum)

3A M.

3B BIEBER: EROS AND DIONYSOS ON KERCHVASES

PLATE 5

Toy Oinochoe in Metropolitan Museum

lB

2. Kerch Hydria in Athens