Abstract:This paper examines the range of symbolic associations surrounding the relief sculpture (Democracy crowning the Athenian people) that accompanied the law proposed by Eukrates against the establishment of tyranny. It examines some of the investments made in it by various communities and individuals. The role of personifications in political allegory is examined. This analysis shows both the potency of personifying representations of the Athenian people and the interpretative complexities that they create.
“…The figures who supplement and sometimes replace Athena, a mature, bearded, himation-wearing male and a female figure with her himation drawn over the top of her head, are particularly interesting. A couple of reliefs which label them individually allow us to identify these figures as personifications of the two institutional actors of the Athenian decrees, Boule, or the Athenian council, and Demos, which referred to the popular assembly and also the Athenian people as a whole (Glowacki 2003; Blanshard 2004). Fig.…”
Section: Visualising the Godsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“… 35 Blanshard 2004; 2007; Elsner 2015. Elsner (2015, 56–7), in particular, highlights the common occurrence of dexiosis between the departed and the bereaved in funeral monuments and asks, provocatively, ‘can we say with absolute and irrefutable confidence that when gods (who are immortal) shake hands, there were no connotations of death or leave-taking potentially evoked for any of an image's spectators?’.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“… 68 So Meyer, M. 1989 12–21; Clinton 1996; Lambert 2012, 265–6. For secretarial ostentation, see Ferguson 1898, 29–30; Blanshard 2004, 3. This last explanation works particularly well in the case of the Samian relief.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“… 92 The earliest evidence is an inscription referring to ‘the shrine of the nymphs and Demos’, attributed to the mid-5th century bc ( IG I 3 1065): Smith 2011, 96–102; Lawton 2017, 47–50. On the iconography of demos, see LIMC III.1, 1986, 375–82 [O. Tzachou-Alexandri]; Glowacki 2003; Blanshard 2004.…”
This article argues that, by concentrating on a reading of the depictions of deities on the Athenian document reliefs as symbolic representations of states rather than as divinities, previous scholarly approaches to them have failed to explore the role they ascribe to the gods in collective decision-making and the exercise of public authority. This article resituates the interpretation of these monuments in the context of other monuments depicting the gods and recent approaches to them, and the other ways in which public inscriptions, both at Athens and elsewhere, make reference to divine actors, through their erection in sacred spaces and the use of thetheoiheading. It then examines the range of possible readings of the relationship between divine agency and political decision-making which these monuments privilege and argues that they reflect a conventional understanding that, in general, Athenian decision-making was underpinned by the gods.
“…The figures who supplement and sometimes replace Athena, a mature, bearded, himation-wearing male and a female figure with her himation drawn over the top of her head, are particularly interesting. A couple of reliefs which label them individually allow us to identify these figures as personifications of the two institutional actors of the Athenian decrees, Boule, or the Athenian council, and Demos, which referred to the popular assembly and also the Athenian people as a whole (Glowacki 2003; Blanshard 2004). Fig.…”
Section: Visualising the Godsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“… 35 Blanshard 2004; 2007; Elsner 2015. Elsner (2015, 56–7), in particular, highlights the common occurrence of dexiosis between the departed and the bereaved in funeral monuments and asks, provocatively, ‘can we say with absolute and irrefutable confidence that when gods (who are immortal) shake hands, there were no connotations of death or leave-taking potentially evoked for any of an image's spectators?’.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“… 68 So Meyer, M. 1989 12–21; Clinton 1996; Lambert 2012, 265–6. For secretarial ostentation, see Ferguson 1898, 29–30; Blanshard 2004, 3. This last explanation works particularly well in the case of the Samian relief.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“… 92 The earliest evidence is an inscription referring to ‘the shrine of the nymphs and Demos’, attributed to the mid-5th century bc ( IG I 3 1065): Smith 2011, 96–102; Lawton 2017, 47–50. On the iconography of demos, see LIMC III.1, 1986, 375–82 [O. Tzachou-Alexandri]; Glowacki 2003; Blanshard 2004.…”
This article argues that, by concentrating on a reading of the depictions of deities on the Athenian document reliefs as symbolic representations of states rather than as divinities, previous scholarly approaches to them have failed to explore the role they ascribe to the gods in collective decision-making and the exercise of public authority. This article resituates the interpretation of these monuments in the context of other monuments depicting the gods and recent approaches to them, and the other ways in which public inscriptions, both at Athens and elsewhere, make reference to divine actors, through their erection in sacred spaces and the use of thetheoiheading. It then examines the range of possible readings of the relationship between divine agency and political decision-making which these monuments privilege and argues that they reflect a conventional understanding that, in general, Athenian decision-making was underpinned by the gods.
“…On ally pays'; similar view in Lambert (2001) 65). the practical and political implications of providing a 48 For the details of the financial transaction, see the decree with a document relief, see Blanshard (2004).…”
Section: 'The Cities Which the Athenians Rule'mentioning
AbstractConventional portrayals of Athenian imperialism, heavily influenced by Thucydides, tend to assume that the Athenians thought of, and described, their imperialistic actions in frank, even brutal, terms. This article seeks to challenge that assumption by exploring two sets of fifth-century Athenian epigraphical material: documents which contain the phrase ‘the cities which the Athenians rule’, and inscriptions imposing regulations on allied states which are erected at the ally's expense. In both cases, it is argued that if these apparently overtly aggressive documents are considered in an epigraphic rather than a Thucydidean context, they reveal the existence of a more subtle, nuanced and diplomatic approach to imperial politics.
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