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The Portland vase revisited*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

S. J. Harrison
S. J. Harrison
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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Extract

D. E. L. Haynes' 1964 booklet The Portland Vase and Bernard Ashmole's article of 1967 ushered in a spate of renewed speculations concerning the scenes depicted on the Portland Vase (FIG 1). Despite the considerable literature since then, I venture to propose a new interpretation of part of the vase. First of all, it should be said that I accept the view of Ashmole (and others) against Haynes (and others) that the vase depicts two separate scenes and not one continuous one. I also accept (with many others) Ashmole's interpretation of the first scene as the love or marriage of Peleus and Thetis; the two lovers are figures A and C, Thetis being marked out as a sea-goddess by the sea snake in her lap, with Eros (B) and Zeus or Poseidon (D) looking on.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 112 , November 1992 , pp. 150 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1992

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References

1 Haynes, D. E. L., The Portland Vase (London 1964; new edition 1975)Google Scholar; Ashmole, B., JHS lxxxvii (1967) 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haynes, D. E. L., JHS lxxxviii (1968) 58–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clairmont, C. W., AJA lxxii (1968) 280–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, E. L., AJA lxxiv (1970) 189Google Scholar and AJA lxxvi (1972) 379–91; Harrison, E. B. in Essays in Memoriam Otto Brendel (Mainz 1976) 131–42Google Scholar; Hind, J. G. F., JHS xlcx (1979) 20–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smart, J. D., JHS civ (1984) 186CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hunger, K.-H., Des Geheimnis der Portlandvase (Munich 1988).Google ScholarSimon, E., Augustus: Kunst und Leben in Rom um die Zeitwende (Munich 1986) 163–5Google Scholar gives much the same version as her previous Die Portlandvase (Mainz 1953). Another recent interpretation linking the Vase with Latin poetry is Painter, Kenneth, ‘The Portland Vase’ in Roman glass: two centuries of art and invention, ed. Newby, Martine and Painter, Kenneth (London 1991) 33–45.Google Scholar This includes a valuable table listing all known interpretations of the iconography.

2 Cypria fr. 1 in Davies, M., Epicorum Graecorum fragmenta (Göttingen 1988).Google Scholar A recently-published narrative of the background to the Iliad from a 2nd/3rd century papyrus gives a different version of Zeus' motive, namely the wish to punish the impiety of the Heroic age (P. Oxy. 3829, col. ii, 9 ff.).

3 Pointed out by Haynes, , JHS lxxxviii (1968), 62–8Google Scholar and by Clairmont, loc. cit. (n. 1).

4 Cf. L. Ghali-Kalil, LIMC IV. 1, Helene 95 and 96 (both illustrated LIMC IV.2 p. 309).

5 Cf. JHS. IV. 1, Helene 96, 101, 143, 150, 155 (illustrated LIMC IV.2 p. 309 ff.).

6 The proper noun νήσῳ δ᾿ ὲν Κραναῄ (Iliad iii 445) is no more certain a reading than the conventional epithet νήσῳ ὲν κρανάῃ (‘rocky’); the adjective is preferred to the noun by Kirk, G. S., The Iliad, a commentary: i (Cambridge 1985) 329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Because her son would be greater than his father—cf. Pindar Isthm. 8.34–8, [Aeschylus] PV 768, Apollodorus Bibl. iii 13.4–5.

8 JHS lxxxvii (1967) 7.

9 Cumont, F., Recherches sur le symbolisme funéraire desromains (Paris 1942) 409 n. 3.Google Scholar

10 For another example of this dual symbolism compare the normal and reversed torches on the Low Ham mosaic as interpreted by J. G. F. Hind, art. cit. (n. 1) 24.

11 Cf. Ovid Met. vi 430, Her. vi 45–6, Silius ii 184, Apulieius Met. iv 33.4 and Shackleton Bailey, D. R., Propertiana (Cambridge 1956) 315–6.Google Scholar

12 As argued e.g. by Haynes, , JHS lxxxvii (1968) 67.Google Scholar

13 JHS lxxxvii (1967) 14–15.

14 L. Ghali-Kalil, LIMC IV. 1, Helene 190, 191 (illustrated LIMC IV.2 p. 318).

15 ibid. IV. 1, Helene 145 (illustrated LIMC IV. 1 526).

16 For Eris' intervention cf. Procius' summary of the Cypria, now in Davies, op. cit. (n.2), and the papyrus narrative mentioned in n. 2. The detail of the apple is probably a Hellenistic addition—cf. Davies, M., The Epic Cycle (Bristol 1989) 36.Google Scholar

17 Cf. Cypria, loc. cit. (n.2). Procius, however, makes it clear (loc. cit. n. 16) that the Cypria placed the first union of Paris and Helen at Sparta and their marriage at Troy. The scene on the Portland Vase follows the Iliadic version.

18 Somewhat differently, a contrast between the fortunate union of Thetis and Peleus and the disastrous one of Helen and Paris is made by Alcaeus, fr. 42 LP—cf. Page, D. L., Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford 1955) 278–80.Google Scholar

19 For the romantic view of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis cf. Alcaeus loc. cit. (n. 18) and the opening of Catullus 64; it was one of the standard rhetorical examples of blissful union—cf. Russell, D. A. and Wilson, N. G., Menander Rhetor (Oxford 1981) 153 and 367.Google Scholar The love of Paris and Helen was often romanticised, particularly by the love-elegists — cf. e.g. Propertius ii 15.13–14, Ovid, Ars ii 5–6.Google Scholar

20 For the theme of Troy's destruction turned to praise of Rome cf. above all the Aeneid and Propertius iv 1.87 Troia cades, et Troica Roma resurges.