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THE VILLA ITEM
AND A BRIDE'S
ORDEAL.1
By JOCELYN
TOYNBEE.
The
paintings
in
the
triclinium of the Villa
Item, a dwelling-
house excavated
in
i909
outside the Porta Ercolanese
at Pompeii,
have not only often been published
and discussed
by foreign scholars,
but they have also formed the subject of an important paper in this
7ournal.2
The artistic qualities
of the paintings
have been ably
set
forth3:
it
has
been establishedbeyond all doubt
that the subject
they depict
is some formof
Dionysiac nitiation: and,
of the detailed
interpretations
of the
first seven of the
individual scenes, those
originally put
forward
by
de
Petra4
and accepted, modified
or
developed by
Mrs.
Tillyard appear,
so far
as
they go,
to be
unques-
tionably
on the
right
lines.
A fresh
study
of the
Villa
Item
frescoes
would seem, however,
to be
justified
by
the
fact that the
majority
of
previous
writers
have confined
their
attention
almost
entirely to
the first seven scenes-the three to the east of the entrance on the
*north
wall
(fig. 3),
the
three on the east
wall
and
the one to the east of
the window
on the south
wall,
to
which
the last
figure
on
the
east wall,
the
winged
figure
with the
whip, undoubtedly
belongs.
The
three
remainingpaintings-the
one
to the
west
of
the
window
on
the
south
wall
and the two
on the west
wall,
one
on either side
of the
exit-
have
received
comparatively
scant
notice,
and no
satisfactory
explanation
has
yet
been
given
of their
place
in
the
general
scheme.
The
object
of this
paper
is to
attempt
to show
that the last
three
paintings do,
in
reality, play
as
important
a
part
as the
rest
;
and
to
offerfor them aninterpretationwhich maybe of interestasthrowing
new
light
on the first seven scenes
and as
giving
a new coherence
to
the
series
as a
whole.
1 The following
interpretation
of
the
Villa
Item
frescoes
was first
suggested
by
the present writer
in
a
lecture given
in
Cambridge.
This paper
was
written
at
the
instigation
of
Dr. A.
B.
Cook,
to
whom
the
writer
is
deeply
indebted
for
much
valuable
help
received
in the
course
of
discussion
and
for many
references.
2P.
B. Mudie
Cooke (now
Mrs.
E. M.
W.
Tillyard),
'The Paintings
of
the
Villa
Item',
J.R.S.
II
(19I3), pp. 157-I74.
To the list of articles
and
references
there quoted
(p.
I
57,
n.
2)
should
now
be added
the
following:
Rizzo,
Dionysos
Mystes,
contributi
esegetici
alle
rappresentazioni
di
nzisteri
orfici,
I9I4(Menz.Accad.Arch.
Nap., I9I8);
Pottier,
Rev.
arch.
I9I5,
ii,
p. 32I
ff.; Lechat,
Rev.
des
etudes
anciennes,
I9I7,
pp.
I72 ff.;
de Ridder,
Rev.
des etudes
grecques,
I9I7,
p.
I89
f.
;
Macchioro,
'
Dionysos Mystes ',
Atti Accad.
Torino, liv (i9I8),
pp.
I26
ff.,
222
ff.; Zagreus: studi sull'
Orfisnio,
1920;
Die
V/illa
d.
Mysterien
in
Poinpei,
1928
E. D. van
Buren,
I.R.S.
ix
(I919), pp.
22I
ff.; Com-
paretti, Le
nozze di Bacco ed
Ariana, 1921 ; Carini,
La
villa
dei
misteri dionisiaci; Reinach, Rip.
de
Peintures
grecqueset romiiainesI 922), p.
I I
5;
Pf
uihl,
Malerei
uind
Zeichnung
der
(;riechen
(1924), ii,
pp.
876-7, iii,
pp.
3I9-323 ;
Ippel,
Pomiipeii, 1925,
pp. iz6 ff.; Engelmann, Pompeii,
1925,
pp. 96 ff.;
Warscher,
Pom?peji, I925, pp.
Z28
ff.
; Herbig,
Arch. Anz.,
I925,
pp.
262 ff.; Rostovtzeff, Mystic
Italy,
1927,
pp.
42 ff.;
Mau, FuihrerdurchPomtpeii,
1928, pp.
204
ff.
3
e.g. Mudie Cooke, op. cit., pp.
I71-173.
4 N. d. S.,
i9i0.
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68
THE VILLA
ITEM
AND
A
BRIDE
S
ORDEAL.
We
may begin
with
a
description
of the last three
paintings
they have been far less often published (being omitted, for instance,
in
Mrs.
Tillyard's
publication
in
7.R.S.
iii),
and
are
consequently
less
familiar,
than the other
seven.
The first
of them
(fig. 4,
no.
8),
1 that
to
the
west
of
the
window
on the south
wall,
shows
a
female
figure
seated
towards the
left
upon
a
cushioned
chair
with
elaborately
carved
legs
and no
back;
her
face is
turned towards
the
spectator
and
her
hands
are
raised
to bind
round her
head the
long
strands
of
her
hair;
she
wears
a
long, fine
chiton,
a himation
passing
over
her left
shoulder
4
5
6
7
_
t I
T
WINDOw
8
ENTRANCE
>
g
- - '
EXIT
SCALE
METRES
0
1
2 3
4 5
6 7
1-,,
1 1
L I ,
I , I , I
FIG.
3.
PLAN OF
THE
tricliniurnl
IN THE VILLA
ITEM,
POMPEII.
and
wound,
sash-like,
round her
waist,
and a
bracelet
on
either
arm.
Behind the
seated
lady
there
stands to
the left
a
handmaid, draped
in
a
long
chiton and
ample
cloak and
holding up
the
next lock of
her
mistress's
hair in readiness for it to be
fastened
in its
place.
On
the
left of the scene, facing the pair of women, an Eros stands on tip-toe,
holding
a mirror. The second
picture,2
painted
on the
adjoining
west
wall,
to the south of the
exit,
really
forms
part
of
the
same
scene:
it
shows an Eros
standing
to
the
left and
leaning against
a
I
N.
d.
S.,
I9IO,
tav.
xviii.
2
N.
d.
S.,
I9 I0,
tav.
xix.
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3/21
THE VILLA ITEM AND A
B3RIDE
S ORDEAL.
69
pillar, his right
leg crossed in
front
of his left and his
chin resting on
his right hand: he holds in his left hand a flowery sprig and above
his head a
flower-basket hangs
suspended
by its
tall handle: he
clearly balances
the
Eros with the mirror
on
the
other
side.
The
last
painting (no.
9)
I
represents
a woman
seated upon a couch,
one end of
which supports
her body in
an upright position:
she is dressed in
a
long, fine chiton
and has a
bracelet
on either arm,
while a coloured
veil
is
drawn
over her
head and draped
around
her:
her cheek rests
against her right
hand and she
wears a meditative
and
expectant air.
Let us
see
what
previous writers
on the
Villa Item have
to say
of
the two scenes represented
in these three paintings. Mrs.
Tillyard
ANGLE OF WALL.;
EXI-T
EXIT.
ENTRANCE
1/.
8
9
FIG.
4.
SKETCH OF
THE
FRESCOES
IN
'I'HE
VILLA
ITEM,
POMPEII.
considers
that
the
first
scene (in which
we
include
the
Eros
on
the
west
wall)
has no
particular
significance
and
she
is inclined to
regard
the
subject
'
as one of domestic
life,
inserted
to fill
the
vacant
space.'
2
But this
'
stop-gap
'
theory
does
not
readily
commend
itself to
our
acceptance
as
affording
a
probable
explanation
of the
toilet-
scene.
The notion
that
the
artist
was
sp
badly
off for relevant
subject-matter
that
he
had to
decorate
half
of one of
the four
walls
and both the available portions
of another
with
scenes
extraneous to
the
main
theme
of
the
paintings
is one which
ill accords
with
the
size
and dignity
of the
chamber
itself
or
with
the
solemnity
and
1N. d.
S.,
I9IO,
tav. xx.
2
op.
sit.,
r.
i66
f.
;
cf.
dPfUlhI,
op.
cit., ii.
p.
877,
' Die
Darstellungen
jenseits
des Fl:enstersund
an der
Eingangswand
sind
dagegen
unabhangig
uind
zienlich
anspruchlos
(Fratien und
Eroten).'
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70
THE
VILLA
ITEM
AND
A
BRIDE S
ORDEAL.
importancewhich, on Mrs. Tillyard's own showing, characterise he
other painted scenes. It would seem that the authoress herself
appreciatesthe unsatisfactorynature
of
her interpretation; for she
proceeds o quote first Hartwig,1
who
remarks hat, from the presence
of
the Erotes,
the
scene
may represent
the
attiring
of
a
bride, but
thinks that
the
woman
herself
may
be
an
initiate,
and then de
Petra2
and Nicole,
3
who explain
the scene as the
attiring of an initiate,
a view which is in itself preferable, nasmuch as it provides a single
explanation
for
all the scenes.'
A
similar view
is
propounded by
Carini, where,
under the
heading 'Epilogo,'
he makesbrief mention
of the
toilet-scene.
The initiate,
he
says,
has
passed through
the
ordealsof the rite; 'la pace e la tranquillitasono orain suo dominio
si
e riabbigliata,
si
rassetta le chiome
e
l'Amore
le
e servo.'
But
an explanationwhich
would
have
us see
nothing more in this paint-
ing
than the dishevelled
initiate
tidying
her
dress
and
'
doing'
her
hair after
the
rough-and-tumble
of the
initiation rite is tame
at the
best:
and we should
scarcely expect
to find the
Attic tragedian's
'
quiet ending'
in
a
Dionysiac initiation chamber in Augustan
Pompeii. Again,
how does this
explanation
account
for
the
fact
that
'
l'Amore
le
e
servo'
?
Turning
to our third
painting,
that to
the north
of
the door in
the
west wall(fig. 4, no. 9), we find that Mrs.Tillyarddismissest in asingle
sentence:
'The
remainingfigure,
that of
the
seated woman
on the
entrance-wall,
s
probably
that of an
initiate.'5
De
Petra describes
the seated
lady
as
being merely
a
spectator. As for Carini,
he
mientions
hat
painting
not at
all.
But
perhaps
the most
complete
and
openly avowed dismissal
of
both of
our scenes
s
that
of
Pottier
7:
On
peut
croire
que
la
grande composition primitive dont s'est inspire l'artiste
s'
arretait
a [sc. avec le panneau de
la
danse]. I1 a fallu remplir les autres parois avec
d'autres compositions qui forment comme des bouche-trous. En effet, ce qui suit ne
paraitpasse rapporterau meme sujet .
..
L'inspiration est puisee a une autre source;
les personnagesne sont pas
placees
dans le
meme
plan perspectif. Nous ne devons
donc
pas
r6unir
la
grande composition a cette partie qui rentre dans une serie plus
banale.'
Are we
really
to
be satisfiedwith this
?
Hartwig,
it would
seem,
was on the
right trackwhen
he
suggested
that the eighth scene in the series represents he attiring of a
bride;
but he
did
not,
to
the
mind of the
present writer, perceive
the; full
significanceof his own suggestion. The seated woman is indeed the
Neue
Freie
Presse,
Vienna,
27th
May,
I9IO.
2 N-
d-
S.,
9S0,
p. I44-
3
Gaz.
des Beaux
Arts,
v
(19II),
p.
30.
4
op.
cit.,
p.
27.
5
op.
cit.,
p.
I7I.
The
reason for
supposing
the
vest wall to be
the
exit-,
rather
than the
entrance-,
wall
is set
forth
convincingly
by
Macchioro in
Zagreus,
pp.
15,
I6.
Rostovtzeff
(op. cit.,
p.
55),
ignoring,
it
seems, Macchioro's
cogent
arguments,
persists
in
describing the
large
doorway
in
the
west
wall
as
the
entrance.
6 op.
Cit-,
p.
144.
7
Rev,
arch.,
I9I5,
ii,
p.
345-
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THE VILLA ITEM AND A BRIDE'S ORDEAL. 71
bride-hence, of course,the Erotes; but she is also, at the same
time,
the initiate. The toilet-scene is not a ' quiet ending,' but the entry
upon a new stage to which the previous scenes were leading up and
of which the ninth scene, on the north end of the west wall, is the
culmination. The Dionysiac initiation-rite here depicted is, in
fact, a pre-nuptial rite. In the eighth scene the bride-to-be has
passed through the ordeal preliminary o her bridal and prepares o
meet
her
bridegroom:
in the ninth
scene, fully
attired and seated
on the
lectus
genialis, she awaits the bridegroom's oming. Such is
the
theory:
there remains
the
all-important question,
Does
the
theory fit the facts ? In other words, Do the first seven scenes,
portraying the actual rite itself, admit of our explainingthe whole
initiation in
the
terms
of a
pre-nuptial ceremony
?
In
Scene
I
(fig. 5),
on the
left,
is
the
figure
of
the initiate
standing
draped and
veiled
towards
the
right. On the right
of
the
scene
a
woman s seated
facing
the
spectator,holding
a
roll in
her
left
hand
and
placing her right hand upon the shoulderof a small naked boy, who
standsat her side and
reads
rom
a
scroll.
Mrs. Tillyard rejects, quite
ri-ghtly, he reading-lesson heory
of this
scene and suggests
that
the
seated lady is
the
priestess,who will perform
the initiation
ceremony
for the initiate, and the child a quasi-priest,employed to read aloud
the sacred formulae. That children were so employed she proves
conclusively by
the
evidence
she
quotes, notably
Demosthenes'
1
The theory
put forward in this paper
depends,
of course,
on the assumption
that these two scenes
do come
last
in
the
series. Here
we must take into
account the work
of V. Macchioro, who
stands out
in contrast
to other writers
on the Villa
Item, first,
in rightly
laying more stress
upon the two scenes,
relating them closely
to, and publishing
them along
with,
the rest, both
in his Zagreus
(i920)
and in
Die Villa d. Mysterien
in Ponszpei (I928),
and,
secondly,
in placing
them at the beginning,
instead
of at the end, of the series (Zagreus, p.
I6
f. and
p. 69 f.; Die Villa,
etc.,
p.
I4).
With
regard
to
the
second point,
Macchioro,
while rightly describing
the
lady
at
her
toilet as
a
bride-initiate,
proceeds
to
explain
the
first
scene
as
the initiate decking
herself
for
her mystic marriage
with Dionysos,
the second
as
a
priestess looking
on
at
the
performance.
The
present
writer finds
herself unable
to
accept
Macchioro's
view for
three
main reasons.
(I)
It
would surely
be strange
that
the bride
initiate should
deck herself
so
carefully
before
a
rite
which was
going
to
involve
her in being stripped
and flogged. Or
is
Dionysos'
bride to be decked
as a victim for sacrifice
?
(z)
If the series
ends
with
our
scene
VII,
from
that
scene
must be extracted the
culmination of the whole
story. This Macchioro does by dividing the scene
into
two;
the
flagellation
he
describes
as the
initiate's
'
passion';
in the dancing girl, clashing
cymbals,
he sees the same
initiate reborn
or
resur-
rected after her
'passion'
as a
Bacchante.
This
interpretation
of
the
figure
not
only
seems
some-
what
forced
and strained in
itself, but,
in
divorcing
the
figure
from
the
flogging
episode,
it
robs
the
'cymbalorum pulsus'
of
its
natural
raison
d'etre-
'ne
vox quiritantis
.
.
. exaudiri
possit
'
(Livy 39,
I0
7, of the Bacchanalia). Moreover,
on
Macchioro's
own showing, this interpretation
would involve
a
repetition; for, according
to
him,
in the
scene
with the fawn
we
already
have
the initiate reborn
in
Zagreus by being changed"into
a fawn
(Zagreus,
p.
8o
ff.
;
Die
Villa, etc., p. I8). (3)
Macchioro
justifies himself
in
making
the
series
begin
with
the
toilet-scene
by pointing
out' that it is
directly
opposite the entrance, and would be the painting
on which
the
eyes
of
a
person entering
the
chamber
would first light. With
the view'that
the small
door
in the north wall (p. 68, fig 3)
is
the
entrance,
the
large
door
in the wvestwall
the
exit,
the
present
writer
is in complete agreement.
But one's
natural
instinct
on
entering
a
picture-gallery
is
not, surely,
to
make
a
bee-line for
the
picture
on
the
wall opposite
the
door by
which
one
enters,
but to
follow
the pictures
round the walls from left
to
right. And it is surely
curious
that the
spectator
should be
supposed
to
pass
the
exit almost
immediately after beginning
his
tour
of
inspection,
to
re-pass the entrance, and
then to finish
up
his round at a
point at which
it
would look
as
if
he
were
expected to leave by
the
windowv. Rostovtzefi (Mystic Italy, p. 46), accepting
Macchioro's
main thesis that the
paintings represent
initiation-rites
connected with
the sacred marriage
of the
soul,
also follows
him in
placing the
toilet-
scene first in
the
series and
in
describing it as
'
the
decking
of the bride'.
2
op.
Cit.,
p.
170
f-
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THE
VILLA ITEM
AND A BRIDE S ORDEAL.
73
remarksupon the
childhoodof Aeschines
(de
fals.
leg.
I99)
and the
two sepulchral inscriptionsfrom Italy relating to child-priests of
Dionysos
(I.G., xiv,
i449,
1642).
But she makes
no suggestionas to
why children
were
thus employed.
Probably the use of
little boys
and girls
in religious rites
in general is to be explained
by the fact
that a child is pure
and innocent, and
that to
ritual purity magical
properties
are attached,
properties potent
for the expulsion
of evil
and the
induction
of good. There
was, however, a special
class of
rites in
which children
were employed,
namelymarriage-ceremonies.
Mrs. Tillyard herself
bringsforward
he
facts that
at Greekweddings
the
mystic formula
eyuyov
%ocxOv,
6pov
O?CVOV,
suggesting
this
very release from evil and discoveryof good, was spoken by a child
and that
a
-tocxZ
&oc?Axxs
took part in the
marriage-ritual. But
she gives
no hint of the obvious
explanation
of these facts.
A child
pronounces
the
mystic words because
the procreationof
children is
the natural and
proper end of marriage;
a
7r(XZL
&pLockXsq
takes
part in
the ceremonies because
he has
both parents
'
alive and flourish-
ing,' i.e. in full
possession
of their reproductive
powers, and his
presence
is therefore
a
good
omen
that the
union
of bride and bride-
groom will be blessed
with
offspring. Thus in
the Marriage Hymn
at
the
end of Aristophanes'
Birds we hear of
o
o&tyLOoOkXs
Epcs1
;
and is not this, perhaps, the meaning that really underlies the familiar
association
of
Aphrodite
with
the child
Eros
and
the
idea
that
it
is
the latter
who administers
the shafts
of love ? A still more
striking
piece
of
evidence
is
supplied
by Callimachus,
2
who speaks
of
an
ordinance
(-?'L0ov) in accordance
with
which the bride
is to take
a
baby
boy to bed with
her the night
before
her
marriage,
a
tocZs
V.pOocX
-'
pour
encourager les autres'
Val
XcdX'
o0p(
MCpO6os
Uv&aoc-TO
WZOFUOV
4
SXS?'SUe
7pOlV6V.LOV
("7VOV
aC5CMi
XpaeVL T-v -CFXXWvrXa'L-
aiUv
0LOcc?LX.
Backed
by such evidence
we
are
surely justified
in
maintaining
that
the presence
of the child
in
this first scene
is in
favour
of,
and
certainly provides
no
obstacle
to,
the
view
that
the
Villa
Item
ceremony is
a
pre-nuptial
initiation.
Scene
II
(fig.
5)
need
not detain us
long.
It shows us the
initiate,
draped,
veiled and
crowned
with
myrtle,
seated with
her
back to the
spectator.
On either
side
of her
is
a
handmaid:
the one on the
right,
who is
also
crowned
with
myrtle,
is
pouring
out
water
or wine from
a
jug. On the left of the trio and obviously belonging to the same scene,
though
actually painted
in the
same
panel
as the
figures
of
Scene
I,
is
the
figure
of another
handmaid,
walking
towards
the
right
and
crowned with myrtle:
in
her
right
hand she
holds a
sprig
of
myrtle
IV.
1737.
2-Aitia
3,
I,
I-3.
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74
THE VILLA ITEM
AND A BRIDE
S ORDEAL.
and on her left supports
a flat dish
on which are certain ndeterminate
objects . Mrs. Tillyardsuggests2 hat the initiate is hereperforming
a ritualablution, in
which case the
attendant on the left
of the group
may be
bringingup unguents and
perfumes,
while the one
to the
right
of the initiate
pours
out water for the washing.
Macchioro3 would
see in the
scene a ritual meal or agape, in which case the maiden
on
the left
would be bringingeatables
on her dish and the
maiden on
the
right
would be
pouring out a libation.
Neither interpretation
creates any difficulty
in the
way of the theory of
a
pre-nuptial
initiation rite. We also note the
prominenceof myrtle
and recall
both the fact that it
was sacredto Venus
in ancient times and its
association,right down to moderntimes, with marriages.
In
Scene
III (fig. 5) we see the
initiate enteringupon
the initiation
proper.
The proximity
of the god's presence
is suggested by the
Dionysiac company
among whom she finds
herself. On the left
an
old Silenos,
crowned
with myrtle and facing
towards the right, lolls
againsta
cippus and
plays the lyre.
Opposite him are
seated upon a
rock a male and female
satyr,
the former playing the
syrinx, the
latter
sucklinga fawn
(or hind ?),
4
while a goat stands,
posing
to
the
spectator, in the foreground.
Between
this Dionysiacgroup
of Scene III
and a second Dionysiac
group belongingto Scene IV on the adjoiningeast wall, linkingthe
two scenes
together, so that it
is hard to say where one
scene ends
and the
other begins, the figure
of our friend
the initiate reappears.
She
shows extreme
alarm; her hands are
out-stretched
in
terror;
her
veil
flies out behind her, emphasing
the rapidity with
which she
moves
towards the left,
while glancing backwards
ver her shoulder
towards
he right. In
Scene IV (fig. 6) we may
discover hecauseof her
trouble. An old Silenos,
ivy-crowned,is
seated on a low platform
towards
he right, glancingback
over his shoulderas though
to
recall
the fleeinggirl. In
his right hand
he holds a bowl, into
which
a
young
satyr, standing behindthe Silenos,is gazing intently, bending down
to
obtain
a nearer view of whatever
it is he sees in the
vessel
and
grasping
the latter by the foot.
Behind
him again stands
another
young satyr, holding
up a Silenos-mask
n such
a
position
that
it
must
obviously be
reflected in the liquid
which
the
bowl
contains.
It
is to
Mrs. Tillyard5
that we owe
the
valuable
and
convincing
suggestion that the
scene is one of divination,
appropriate
to
Dionysos
as
god
of
oracles,
and
that
the form of
divination
in
use
here
is
that
known
as
?Xevoptole,
by which images
were
observed
1
Rostovtzeff (Op.Cit.,
p.
49)
describes them as
'
a
wedding-cake cut into
slices.'
2
op.
Cit.,
p. I69.
3 Die Villa etc., p. i6.
4
The attitude of the figure appears to the present
writer to indicate, unmistakably,
that she
is
giving
her breast
to the
animal
to
suck,
and
though
the
ears
are
pointed,
the
face,
unlike
that of
the
com-
panion figure,
is not unfeminine.
We
may
thus
compromise
between
the view of
Hartwig,
who
would
call
them both
female,
and
that
of
Mrs.
Tillyard, who
describes
them
both as male
(J.R.S.,
IIr,
p-
157,
n-
4).
,
op.
cit.,
p. I67 ff-
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6
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H
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.
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10/21
76 THE
VILLA ITEM AND A B3RIDES ORDEAL.
in a vessel
containing liquid,
the observer being in some sort of
hypnotic state such as that induced by the Bacchic rapture.
So
far so
good. But, granted
that divination is appropriate
to
-Dionysos
and that lekanomancy
is the particular brand of
divination
here depicted
and itself appropriate
to Dionysiac rapture,
we want
to
go
a step further and investigate
the exact place of
lekanomancy
in
a
Dionysiac
initiation-rite.
Why does this
scene of lekanomancy
figure
in the
Villa
Item series
? Why has
it
this
disquieting effect
upon the initiate ?
One of the
most striking literary
sources for
lekanomancy
quoted
by Mrs. Tillyard is a
magical papyrus at Paris,
giving directions for
the ritual,
in which Aphrodite is
asked to send
light.
1
Again, the clearest plastic representation of the practice
quoted
by the same
writer is on a peike
from Ruvo at
Naples, showing
the defeat
of Marsyas; the vase
is published by Dr.
A. B. Cook
(Zeus, I, pl. xii), who
says
of
the
figure
of
Aphrodite
seated on
the
left
of the
scene, that she
'
is unconcernedly
holding
a
phiale to
serve
as a
divining-glass or
Eros (op. cit., p.
128). Mrs.
Tillyard notes
the recurrence
of Aphrodite both
in the text and in
the painting;
but
she does not consider
whether this recurrence
has
any significance.
It
surely
suggests some special
connection between lekanomancy
and
marriage, and Hesychius'
comment on
the vessel
employed, the
?sxocmvk,
supports the conjecture-?XexvcSae
xsp4e'psocL
?07r'caeq
xoca
eV
ct4
aoMpu77ra&
pspov
-ros VSoyoc,Loc.2 Further, pre-nuptial
divination
by water
is
a
well-known
practice among
country-folk
right
down to our own
day. 'In Lincolnshire,
on S. Mark's
Eve, girls
walk
backwards
to the
Maiden's
Well
at North Kelsey,
and after
going
three
times
round it can see,
on looking
into the
water,
the
features
of their future husbands.'
3 Ninck4 supplies
us with Conti-
nental parallels for this.
In East
Prussia, he
tells
us,
on
S. John's Eve,
a
person
in love takes a glass
of water
and utters
the
words
'
The
beloved one comes to drink ': if the desire of the lover's heart is to
be
fulfilled,
the
image
of the beloved
one
is seen in
the
water.
In
Switzerland
and
Bavaria,
on
S.
Andrew's
Eve, girls gaze
into
springs
and
see
the image of their future
husbands;
but sometimes they
see
the
Devil instead,
which is a sign of death.
It is now clear
that
the
scene of
lekanomancy,
or
divination by
water,
suits
our
pre-nuptial
initiation
theory very
well and
takes
on
a
new
significance.
Our
'The text
is printed
by Ninck, Die Bedeutung
des Wassers
im
Kult und
Leben
der Alten,
p.
52.
2
M. Schmidt
in
his
ed. minor (I867)
of Hesy-
chius reads for
the meaningless
acvOpvsr-rd,
d6piUaTra,
the word used by Hesychius himself of
07rTsqpa,
'wedding gifts.'
It is also possible
that one
of the
mosaics signed by Dioskurieds
of Samos, found
at
Pompeii
and now in
the Naples Museum,
provides
us with another
instance of the
connection
between
love and lekanomancy
(fahrb., xxvi,
I9Ii,
p.
4,
fig.
z).
Three
women,
one
old
and two
young,
are
seated
round
a
table.
The
old
woman
bolds
in
her
right hand
a
long-stemmed
cup and
appears to be
speaking.
The two
young
women are listening,
and
appear
from their expressions and gestures
to be
greatly
agitated.
We might
not unreasonably
hazard the guess that the youthful pair have come
to
consult the old lady
about their
love-affairs, and
that the old
lady has been
gazing
into the cup
to
divine the
future and is now
expounding their
fate
to her clients.
3
Halliday,
GreekDivination,
p. I 53; Gutch
and
Peacock, Country
Folklore,
vol. v, Lincolnshire,
p.
5.
4
op. cit., p.
55.
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THE VILLA
ITEM
AND
A
BRIDE
S
ORDEAL.
77
friend has peeped
into the >xovcws,oping to descry
the features
of
her bridegroom-to-be,and has seen instead the reflection of the
Silenos-mask,with
its
gaping
mouth, flat nose,
goggle eyes and
wrinkledbrow-a
pretty
fair
paganequivalentof
the
ChristianDevil.
Hence her alarm. But why
have the satyrs shown her the mask
?
Is
it
merely
a
piece of teasing
or '
frightfulness
on their part ? Or
is
there some
hidden meaningin the notion of
a person's husband
appearingto her in a hideous
disguise? Did
not Psyche's lover
come to her under
the form of
a
scaly serpent
But, as in the myth
Psyche's over was
in
reality
no
scaly serpent,
but Eros, Love himself,
so
in
the
Villa Item we
see that the
type
of
the real over, the mystic bridegroom,was no staring,grinningSilenos,
but the young god Dionysos.
Scene V (fig. 6)
shows
us
love indeed,
Dionysos reclining upon
the
bosom
of Ariadne
his
beloved. That
Dionysos was
the god, not
of
wine only,
but
of all life
and fertility
in general has
now become such a commonplace
as to render
references superfluous.
As fertility-god
he is
obviously marriage-
god as well; his ep6oy&kuoo
s a type of all other marriages; there
is no
difficultywhatsoever
n
finding
a
place
for Dionysos 'in
a
pre-
nuptial
ceremony. The position
of
this
scene
in the series
may be
explained n either of two ways.
It is conceivable,
on the one
hand,
that at this point in the initiation rite the initiate was vouchsafed
a
vision of
the
divine
union
under the
form
of a
painted
or
sculptured
representationor, possibly,
of
a
tableau
vivant. On
the other
hand,
we
may regard
the
Dionysos
and Ariadne
group
as
breaking
nto
the
sequence
of the other
scenes,
being given
this
central
position,
on the
only wall which
is not broken'
by
a door or
window
(p. 68,
fig.
3),
because
Dionysos,
the
god
of the initiation
rite,
must dominate the
whole
of the chamberwith his
presence:
similarly,
he
figure
of
Christ
dominates
he
whole
of
a
Christian
basilica
with
His
presence
over the
High
Altar
in the Maiestas Christi
of
the
apse,
which
may
break the
sequenceof a seriesof scenes from the life of a saint painted on the
walls
on either
side
of
the
sanctuary.
Scene
VI
(fig. 6)
offers
no
difficulty to,
but rather
provides
the
fullest corroboration
f,
the
theory
of
a
pre-nuptial
rite. In the fore-
ground
a
woman, kneeling
to the
right,
unveils
a
liknon
and
discloses
its
contents,
a
large phallos.
The
upper part
of
this scene
has,
most
unfortunately,
perished;
but
enough
remains
to show that two
women
are
standing
behind
the
kneelinggirl
and the
liknon.
One
of
them holds a
dish
and
may
be
an
attendant;
in the other
we
may
recognisethe lower half of our initiate. That a phallos,the symbol
of
fertility par
excellence,
hould have
been shown
to
a
bride-to-be
in
a
rite
preceding
marriage
s
surely
a matter
too
obvious
to
require
further
comment.
In SceneVII
(fig. 6),
the scene on
the
east
side
of
the
window
in the
south wall, we
reach
what
is
really
the
crux
of
the
whole
matter.
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78 THE VILLA
ITEM AND A BRIDE S ORDEAL.
The
interpretation of this
scene has
proved to be a matter of no small
controversy. The present writer must at once profess her full faith
in the
view, first put
forward by de
Petra and afterwards expanded
by Mrs. Tillyard, that the
winged lady
with the whip, the last figure
on the east wall, forms an
essential part of Scene VII
on the south
wall, and
that
the
whole
depicts
a
scene of
ritual
flagellation. It
is
true
that, since the
publication of Mrs.
Tillyard's paper, the flagella-
tion
theory
has, on more than one
occasion, been hotly denied.
Rizzo,'
detaching the
winged lady from Scene VII
and attaching
her to the preceding
Scene VI, sees in
her Adrasteia, an infernal
demon, who has come to
interfere with the mystic
rite of unveiling
the phallos. Pottier,
2
likewise assigning the figure to Scene VI,
calls her a
divine messenger-Iris, Nike,
Erinys or Dike, showing, by
the gesture
of
her left
hand, disgust, and by the
brandishing of a
whip
in her
right hand, wrath at the
exposure
of
'
impure sacra,'
a
proceeding
which
she
has come to
abolish as unworthy of the
Augustan
age:
he also
thinks that the
half-naked
girl
on the left of
Scene
VII,
kneeling
to
the
right, with her
face buried
in the seated
woman's
lap,
is
recording
a modest
maiden's horror.' Reinach,
writing
in
I9IO,
is
openly contemptuous
3;
and in
1922,
in his
Repertoire
de
Peintures,
4
he
still
adhered to
the same
opinion.
Rostovtzeff (op. cit., p. 54) likewise maintains that the theory cannot be
accepted. But, positive
as
the
opponents
of
the
flagellation-theory are,
their
arguments
do
not
carry conviction.
Any
one
with common sense
and
an
open mind
must see
at a
glance
that
the winged
lady
of
the
east
wall
is on the
point
of
bringing
down her
whip upon
the
naked back
of
the unfortunate
girl-our
initiate
once
more-who
is
next
to her
on
the south
wall,
and that she
obviously
forms
part
of
the
same
scene
as
her
victim,
the
seated
woman in
the
centre
(who,
moreover,
has
her
eyes
fixed
with
alarm
upon
the
winged
figure)
and
the
two
girls
on the
right,
one of
whom
watches
anxiously
for the
descent
of
the
blow,
while
the other
clashes
cymbals
to
drown
the
poor
maiden's
cries.
5
The
'
flagellationists
'
have
the
support
of
Macchioro, though
he
wrongly,
as the
present
writer
believes,
turns
the
cymbal-clasher
into a
separate
scene
by
herself
and
interprets
her
action,
as
we
have
already noted,
6 on
quite different lines.
Assuming, then,
that
Scene VII
in
our
series
portrays
a
ritual
flagellation,
it
remains
to
investigate
its
purpose
in
this
Dionysiac
rite.
With
regard
to ritual
flagellations
in
general,
Mrs.
Tillyard7
I
Dionysos Mystes,
etc.
2
Rev. arch.,
I9I5, ii,
p.
3Z2
If.
3
Rev. arch., I9IO, ii,
p.
431.
4
p.
II5.
5
Mrs. Tillyard
has dealt
at
length
(op. cit.
p.
I6z ff.)
with
the
later erroneous
and
'
moralising
'
versions
on
gems
and terra-cotta
reliefs,
in
which
the
stern winged figure has been divorced
from her
proper setting
and transformed
into
an insipid,
prudish damsel,
shocked and disgusted, as the
gesture of her left hand shows, at the unveiled
phallos. But
in the Villa Item
'
the position of the
left hand is the result of
the
sudden
upward turn
of
the body;
the action is, in fact, almost exactly
like
that of a
golfer,
about
to hit a ball
in front or
slightly
to
his left
'
(ibid. p. I6I).
6
vide supra,
p. 7, n. I.
7
op.
cit.,
p.
I65.
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13/21
THE VILLA ITEM
AND A BRIDE'
S
ORDEAL.
79
has put us on the right track.
She points out that the purpose
of
the custom is not punishment or a test of endurance, but purifica-
tion and the expulsion
of evil, and inculcationof good,
influences.
But we need
to go further than that. What
particularevil influence
is to be expelled here ? What
special good influence is to
be incul-
cated
?
Does
the
theory
of a pre-nuptial ceremony throw
any
light upon these questions ?
In other words,have we any
evidence
that in ancient
Greece and Rome men and
women underwent
ritual
flagellations,
of
which
the
purpose was
to stimulate the procreative
powers and thus promote the
chief end of marriage? Such
evidence
is,
as
we
shall
see, neither scanty
nor far to seek. Since our
paintings
are of the Romanage and were discovered n an Italian city, we will
begin
our investigation among
the rites
of
ancient Rome.
Of
the
instances
of this
practice suppliedby
ancient Rome the
Lupercalia
is the
most obvious
and the most familiar. It
is
well
known
that during
the courseof that
mysterious
estival
the
Luperci,
priests of
the mysteriousgod Lupercus, ran
round the Palatine hill
flogging, with
straps made from
the skin
of a
goat, which
they had
previously
sacrificed, any women who
offered
themselves
to their
blows.
Our ancient authorities
inform us categorically
that the
object
of
the
flogging was to induce fertility
in the
women
flogged.
In
Plutarch, Romulus,
21,
we read
-ol
8'
?v
JXLXL
yuvocxeq
ot
yi)youL
To
7raOCLOOL
VOpLdOUGaML
7po%q
SUTOXLOCV
XtL xiLV
auVepystV.
Again,
n
Plutarch,
Caesar,
6i :-7ro?xi
8F
T&v
Fv
r'
yXLuvcx&v
F'r-
tUNOCVT76GCL
7tOCpFOtULV
&()MrEp
EV
&aOC6a?X0?U
T&()
XPey
TOCLa; 7r?(yM
7r;e7rxe;C1;VYOCeM
pOq
e;U'OXLOXV
XU0UCSOCLq7
OCYOV0Lq;
K?
1x;poq:
xu-Gvv
OCYOC00V
?C,LVOL.
Juvenal(Sat.
ii,
I40
ff.)
tells the
same tale
'steriles
moriuntur'
et
illis
turgida
non
prodest
condita
pyxide
Lyde,
nec
prodest
agili palmas praebere
luperco;
and Ovid
(Fasti
ii, 425
f.)
informs us that the goddessof childbirth,
Juno Lucina,
the
dedication-day
of
whose temple
fell
on the Kalends
next
to
the
Lupercalia,
and
who
seems
to
have
had some
special
connection with
Lupercus,
instituted
the
flogging
of
women with
the skin
of a
goat-amiculum
Junonis:-
'nupta, quid expectas
?
non tu
pollentibus
herbis
nec
prece
nec
magico
carmine mater
eris.
excipe
fecundae
patienter
verbera
dextrae:
iam socer
optatum
nomen habebit
avi.
ille caprum mactat iussae sua terga puellac
pellibus
exsectis
percutienda
dabant.'
Again,
the
fifth-century Pope
Gelasius
quotes
from
Livy's
second
decade,
a
propos
of the
Lupercalia,
as follows
(Epist.
Rom.
Pontif.
ed.
1
Pauly-Wissowa,
s.v. Lupercalia,
col.
I824.
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14/21
80
THE VILLA ITEM AND A BRIDE S ORDEAL.
Thiel, p. 6oi)
:- nec
propter morbos inhibendos
instituta
com-
memorat [sc. Livius] sed sterilitatem, ut ei videtur, mulierum, quae
tunc acciderat, exhibenda.' We may note in this connection that the
whips
with which the
women were
flogged
at
the
Lupercalia
were
known
as
februa, and that the verb februare
means
'to purify';
and
that Pope Gelasius, when he abolished
the
festival (Feb. 15th) in
496,
substituted
for it
the Feast
of the
Purification
of
the Blessed
Virgin Mary (Feb. 2nd).
It
is
clear
that in
the ritual
flogging
of
the
Lupercalia
the
evil to be purified away is all that hinders fertility,
the
good to be inculcated is all that promotes it. Deubner, in his
essay on
the
Lupercalia,
1
concludes that
'
die Wirkung der Luper-
calia wurde vorziiglich in der Fruchtbarkeit der Frauen erblickt'.
It looks
as if
Lupercus
were
a
fertility deity,
and as if
the
flogging
with
the skin of the
goat
were believed
to
impart
to the
flogged
woman
the
fertilising power
of the
god.
We have
two
other instances of
the
ritual
flogging
of
women
in
Roman
religious practice;
and
though,
in contrast to the
Luper-
calia, we
have
in neither
instance
any
definite statement in
the ancient
sources
that the flogging was intended
to
promote fertility, such may
very possibly
have been
the
case.
Plutarch tells us
that,
at
the
festival
of the
Nonae Caprotinae, maidens (OpoxrocxLvaF)eat one another.
2
Varro asserts that rods were cut from the wild fig-tree in the Campus
Martius under which the sacrifice
to
Juno Caprotina
took
place.3
Mannhardt, putting
two
and
two
together, suggests4
that it
was
with
the rods
cut
from that
fig-tree
that the maidens
beat
one
another;
and
it
might
be
supposed
that
the
power
of
Juno, as the
female
principle
of
life
and
goddess
of
childbirth, could be trans-
mitted
to
women
flogged
with
rods
from
her sacred
tree. We
have
already
noted
the association of Juno with Lupercus. The second
instance
is
supplied by
the
festival
of
the Bona
Dea
or
Fauna,
the
female
'
off-shoot,' so
to
speak,
of the
fertility god Faunus. At this
festival,
we
are
told, women were flogged with myrtle,
ancd he
fact
that
myrtle was
not
allowed
inside the
goddess's temple was explained
by
the ancients
by
the
story
that
Faunus beat
his
daughter Fauna
with
myrtle.5
Mannhardt's
suggestion
6
that the
flogging
with
myrtle
was
intended to
induce
fertility
in the
women
is
supported by
two
points already noticed,
first the fact
that
myrtle
was
sacred to
Venus,
and, secondly,
its use at
weddings down
to
modern
times.
Warde
Fowler
further
suggests
7
that,
if
myrtle
were
used
for ritual
whipping,
it
might
be excluded
from
the
temple because,
'
as
being invested
with some mysterious power, it was tabooed from ordinary use.'
We now
pass
from
ancient
Rome
to
ancient
Greece.
We
have
1
Archiv. lir
Religionswissenscha/t,i9io,
p.
481 Ef.
2
Romulus, 29,
i6.
Cf.
Camillus, 33,
6.
3
De
L. L.
vi,
I8.
4Myth. Forsch., p.
3z.
o Plut. Q.R.
zo; Macr.
i,
zS
; Lactant.
i,
22,
I I.
'
ibid, p. I I
5.
7
Roman
Festivals, p.
Io+.
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15/21
THE VILLA
ITEM
AND A
BRIDE'S
ORDEAL.
8I
in
Greek
literature
two direct
references and one indirect
reference
to the ritual flagellation of women. It is true that in none of these
instances
is the promotion
of fertility
mentioned
as the end in
view;
but there
is nothing
to suggest
that
this was
not the object.
It
is
interesting
to
notice,
in connection
with the
Villa Item
frescoes,
that
in each case
the flogging
is associated
with Dionysos.
First
there
is the
well-known
reference
in Pausanias
(viii,
23, i) to the
whipping
of
women
at
the
festival
of Dionysos
at
Alea in Arcadia:-ev
Atovuc7ou
-
eop-rj
xoct&
pkvteupc
ex
AZXT&V
C6v
LYO5UV-
UVoCZxe,
oUo
L-n
pTro&L
V
Sy-not
rop& r
'OpO4q.
The flogging
rite came to Alea
from
Delphi,
and at Delphi
we find it.
Our second
reference
is from
Nonnus
(Dionysiaca, 9,
26I-4)
ou&
O
lolwq
ou
-rcp&
vOlj
5sp6c
&vjp
x6peue
tocvu7rcXxtoLO
?
xtLacou
yuLoP36poLq
WxZaaLv
eipca[Ovto-
yu'vac xg.
Here,
as
in
the festivals
of the Bona
Dea
and
Nonae Caprotinae,
we have women flogged
with whips
made by
the plant
sacred
to
the
fertility
god,
and the
obvious inference
seems
to be that
the object
of
the flogging
was the
transmission,
via
the
ivy,
of the powers
of
Dionysos to the women. Thirdly, it is very likely that, as Farnell
suggests,1
a
ritual flogging
underlies
Homer's
description
(1liad
vi,
130 ff.)
of
Lukourgos'
pursuit
of the
Maenads
with an
ox-goad.
'
Lukourgos,
in fact, is
a
figure
in an
ancient
Thracian passion-play.
Armed
with an ox-goad
he drives
the ox-god
into
the
sea,
and
pursues
the
Maenads,
perhaps
to kill
them or
to scourge
them
with fructifying
or
purifying
branches
'*2
Farnell then
goes
on
to identify
Lukourgos
as a
priest
of Dionysos.3
Of
the
ritual flogging
of men
in
ancient
Greece
we have
two
notices.
First there
is Hesychius
(s.v.
M6Wporov)
&x
yXOlOZU
nyp
tL,
4)
9TUTOV
&XXouq
toZq
fi%tpLOL
-a ceremonial
flagellation
with,
it
would seem,
the
bark
of
some
tree
sacred
to the
goddess.
But
by
far
the
most
famous
and
familiar
instance
is the
flogging
of
the
Spartan
boys
at
the altar
of Artemis
Orthia.4
The
Orthia-rite
has been
discussed
by
Reinach5
and
at great
length
and
in
great
detail
by
Thomsen
in his
Orthia.
6
Thomsen,
after
quoting
Frazer's
rejection first
of the traditional
idea
that
the flogging
represented
an
original human
sacrifice
(Philostratus,
Fit.
Apol.,
vi.
20,
2)
and
secondly
of
the
notion
that
it was merely
a
test
of
endurance, puts
1
Cults,
v.
p.
98.
2
Op.
cit.,
p. 103.
3
cf. Cults,
v,
107.
Farnell says
d
propos of
the
Viza Carnival still performed in Thrace,
in which
a
marriage forms one of the chief scenes,
'
there
is
also
some
evidence that the principal actors
used
to
be beaten
with
wands
during
some
part
of
the
ceremony'.
4
Pausanias,
iii, I6, I0;
Plutarch,
Lyc.
i8;
Inst.
of
Laced.
40;
Lucian, Anacharsis,
8.
5'
Laflagellation
ituelle
in
L'antbropologie,
904,
pp.
7-50,
52-53.
6Archiv
fIur
Religionswissenschalt,
I
906,
p.
397
ff.
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16/21
82
TIIE
VILLA ITEM AND A BRIDE S ORDEAL.
forward his own suggestion that Orthia was an
old local tree-goddess
afterwards identified with Artemis. He draws attention to the remark
of Pausanias that the image of Orthia was called
'
Lygodesma
'
('willow-bound') because
it
was
found in a thicket
of
willows
and had
willow-boughs twined
around it. He also notes that lygoswas used at
the Thesmophoria and
in
the cult
of
Hera
at
Samos,
and therefore seems
to have been credited with sacred properties. Thomsen's theory
is
that it was with whips
of
lygos
that the
Spartan
boys were scourged
and that with the stripes from her tree the magical power of the
goddess passed into them.
He
further compares Mannhardt's identi-
fication
1
of the
&a1aryC0GL
with
a '
Schlag
mit
der
Lebenrute
'
and quotes his statement to the effect that ' Menschen, Tiere, Pflanzen
werden zu verschiedenen
Zeiten
des Jahres
mit einem
grvinen Zweige
geschlagen, um gesund
und
kraftig zu werden
'*2
For his
own part
Thomsen
would
derive OpOO'
rom a root
meaning
'
erh6hen,
grosser machen, verstarken, gedeihen
machen' and concludes that
'OpO'oc
'
bedeutet
dann
die
Emporgewachsene.'
Bearing these
suggestions
in mind,
together
with
the
fact that
the
Spartan boys
were
ZPoL,
lads
on
the
verge
of
manhood,
it
would surely
not be
wholly
unreasonable
to
conjecture-
that the
Orthia-rite
was
in essence
a
pre-nuptial fertility-rite, designed
to
render the
boys
who
under-
went it successful husbands.
It
is
worthy
of
notice
that,
in
all the
above instances
of
ritual
flagellations
in ancient
Greece
and
Rome, when
women are flogged
the
deity
is
male-Lupercus (with
whom
Juno is,
it
seems,3 associated),
Faunus
(through
his
daughter
and
'
offshoot.'
Fauna)
or
Dionysos,
but
when
men are
flogged,
female-Demeter or Orthia. This
is
just
what
we should
expect
to
find. Members of
the female
sex are
scourged
that
they may
be imbued
with the
complementary
reproductive
powers
of the
opposite sex, represented by
a
male fertility god, and
vice-versa.
Our
theory
receives
further
support
from the fact that
we have
references
to ritual
flagellations
in
which
the
blows
are
actually applied
to the
reproductive organs. Tzetzes, Chiliades, 5, 726 f.,
for
example,
describes such
a
scourging
as
administered at
Athens
in times of
plague,
famine
and
other
disaster,
to a
scapegoat,
the
ugliest
man
in
the
city:
Wapt, o
t ,
p
'Ce,
,7
,
c6
x&o
Xcpp;
z7VoCXLq
y&p pOtcv-6e
xr
ov
-L To
xO
qX,XXLq
UCXo
(XypLoWUq
TC
XCL
oX`?Xo0L
-rv
&ypL&X
Z.T.
4
I
Wald-
und Feldkdlie.
2
op. cit., p.
251.
3vide
spra,
p.
79
note 1.
'
f.
(i)
H-lipponax
5-
(Lohb ed.,
1929.
p. 36)
Xtfup
yeviaiTp
17Zp6C,
v
5i
rq
OvAeq
[o]
q5dp/taKOS
ax0es
earrdKLS
'artorctfeb.
Sch.
A.
explains
Oi'g.6e
-s
ro dppev
acdoZov;
(ii)
H-lipponax
48 (ibid.,
p.
34)
:-fdXXovers
iv
Xett4WVL
Ka
p'arrtovres
|
Kpd8bao ,;c, aKiXXpTaLv
Wco
$Odp/aKOV.
A. D.
Knox translates
XE/Jvp
as
'meadow,'
buit
this
seems mcaningless in the context. Morc probably
it has here
the
sense
that
it bears in
Eur.,
Cvcl.
171, i.e. pudenda mwuliebria
(cf.
KA'oS)
X
(iii.)
F-lipporiax
92
(ibid., p. 62)
=
papyrus-fragment
06a
U
Xv&i.ovoa
13(aOay)[uKopXaPc]
7riwywra
6IP
tr1ycEwva
7rap[j]
JKac
F'ot rbV
6pXtp,
r- orXE
KjpdA&
oivoXoi-oEV &$O< Te>
[,Oap,*d'eK-,
6j(v
r)oZs
atoLotiOV LtP ()[WOEVTI
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17/21
THE VILLA ITEM
AND A BRIDE S ORDEAL. 83
There
are other
instances
of
ceremonial scourging in antiquity
in which the victim is not a human being but the image of a god or
a puppet. There is the familiar
passage in Theocritus (7,
io6
ff.)
describing
the
flogging of Pan's
image with squills by boys in Arcadia.
1
Reinach2 quotes
a
similar
flogging
of
Apollo's image
at
Delos. In both
cases the flogging may have
been meant as a gentle reminder to the
deities in
question
of
their
respective r6les
as
bringers of fertility
and prosperity. Finally,
we
have Plutarch's accoun't3 of the
cere-
monial
whipping
of the
puppet by the Thyiades
in
the Charila-rite
at
Delphi. Here we may
note that
the
institution
of the
rite is con-
nected with the story of a maiden and of a famine at Delphi;
and we
may compare, for the part played by the Thyiades as the agents of
the scourging, a Pompeian fresco representing
the death
of
Pentheus,
in which
one of the
Maenads
is armed
with
a
whip.4
Ritual
flagellations
in fertility
rites are
not
confined to the world
of ancient Greece and Rome.
'
Among
the
Bechuanas,' writes Frazer,
4
'no lad
may
marry
[my
italics]
till he has
gone through
the
initiatory
ceremony called boguera. The ceremony
is
performed upon
a
number
of lads together. . . . They are
scourged frequently and mercilessly.
...
Probably
. .
. these
ordeals
were instituted,
not as tests
of
endurance,
but
as
religious purifications. Among primitive peoples
beating
is
certainly practised as a healing and purifying ceremony, without
any
idea of
punishing,
or
testing
the
endurance
of,
the
sufferer.'
This
rite recalls in a most
striking
manner
the
flogging
of the
Spartan
boys,
and
we
should
surely
be
justified
in
going
one
step
further than
Frazer
and in thinking
that the
whipping
of
the
boys
among
the
Bechuanas, just when they
were
reaching marriageable
age, was
intended
to
stimulate
fertility.
For
the ceremonial
whipping
of
women
in ancient Greece
and Rome
Frazer6
again supplies
a
modern
parallel
:
Among savage
tribes
girls
at
puberty
have
to
undergo
various
initiatory
ceremonies;
among
some
tribes
of
Brazil
and
British Guiana
the
girls
on these
occasions
are lashed
by
their
friends
so
severely
that
they
sometimes
die
under
the
rod:
it is considered
an offence
to the
parents
not
to strike
hard.'
In
the case of
many
of these
modern
ritual
scourgings
it
is recorded,
as
in the case
of
the
Orthia-rite,
that the
victim
is
expected
to utter
no
cry.
Possibly
it
is felt that cries of pain are
an evil omen
and spoil
the
magic.
This
would
explain
the
cymbal-clashing
in the
Villa
Item fresco.
If
the cries
of the
victim were
drowned
by
the noise
of the
cymbals,
I
Cf. the
Boston
krater
of
the Pan-painter
(Furtwangler-Reichhold, pl.
I I
5) showing a rock
surmounted
by a herm
of
Pan (?)
on
the right, and
on the left a
shepherd, holding a
whip in his right
hand,
who
makes off towards the left and
glances
back over
his
shoulder
towards a goat-headed
Pan
in hot pursuit
of him. Has the
shepherd
been
flogging
the
herm
and roused the
god to activity
with a vengeance ?
Cf. also Nonnus' story
(Dion.
48, 689 ff.)
of
how
the
nymph
Aura
took
her
revenge
on Aphrodite; she entered the goddess's temple,
detached
her
Kfe-ros
and
a3piv
dvL&s5roto
yase
[t6onLri~
Ocais'9p.q
2L'anthropologie, I904,
p.
50.
3
0.
G.
I2.
4
kerrmann-Bruckmann,
pl. 42.
5
Pausanias' Description of
Greece, vol. iii,
p.
341.
6
ibid.,
p.
342.
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18/21
84 THE
VILLA ITEM AND
A
BRIDE S
ORDEAL.
they would not
penetrate to the ears of the
powers that be and no
harm would be done.
It
is
just conceivable
that some such
pre-nuptial fertility-rite
involving
a ceremonial flogging
lies at the bottom, not
only of the
Russian
custom of
the bride giving a whip as
a wedding-present to
the bridegroom, but
also of the grim
accounts of
wife-beating in
Kalevala or The
Land of Heroes,
the national
epic
of
Finland.
In
the
course of the epic Ilmarinen,
the hero, weds the
daughter of a
nobleman, and in Runo
23 (1. 703 ff.) an old crone
regales the
bride with
her
own
alarmingexperiences as a bride at the hands
of her
husband:--
In his hand a stick of cherry
'Neath his arm a
club he
carried,
And he hurried to attack
me,
And
upon
the head
he struck me.
When the
evening
came
thereafter
And there came the time for
sleeping
At
his side a rod he
carried,
Took
from nail a
whip
of
leather,
Not
designed
to
flay another,
But, alas,
for
me,
unhappy.'
In
Runo
24 the
bridegroom
receives instructions as to
the
manage-
ment of his bride. He is told to ' correct ' her with reeds, sedges
and,
in
the last
resort, with
a
birchwood.
Possibly
the original
motive of
such
'
correction
'
was
not
chastisement,
but the
stimula-
tion of
the
bride's functions
as
a
wife.
Lastly,
in
Irish
folklore, we
hear of
how the
great
hero Cuchulainn
fell into a
magic
sleep:
two
women, Fano and
Liban,
dressed
in
green
and
purple
respectively,
visited
him and gave him
such
a
horse-whipping
that
he
nearly died.
2
It
would
seem, then,
as
if
there
were
sufficient
cumulative
evidence to
enable us
to
make
out a
good
case
for
believing that
these ritual
flagellations were
intended
to
promote
the
fertility
of
the
persons
subjected
to
them.
Thus
interpreted,
the
flagellation
scene
of
the
Villa Item would
harmonise
excellently
with
the
theory
that the
series as
a
whole
depicts
a
pre-nuptial
initiation
rite. The
bride-initiate is
flogged
to
prepare
her
for
marriage
and
mother-
hood.
There
now
remains
the
identification
of
the
winged
figure,
the
agent
of the
flagellation.
After
rightly rejecting
the
proposed
identifications of Aidos,
Dike,
Iris, and
Telete,
none
of
which
will
do, Mrs. Tillyard3
concludes
that 'it would
perhaps
be
better to
abandon the
attempt at a definite identification and regard her merely as one
of the
Maenads.' But need
we
despair
so
soon
? The
two out-
standing features of
the
Villa
Item
figure
are her
high boots
1
W.
F.
Kirby's translation.
2
M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, Cours de
littioature
celtique, .
I7I,
178
f.
3
op.
cit.,
p.
i66,
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19/21
THE VILLA ITEM AND A
BRIDE
S
ORDEAL. 85
and her enormous
wings. The boots immediately
suggest Artemis
and remind us of the fact that Orthia was identified with Artemis
and that the
'
Asiatic Artemis,'
the
OT6-tL
' p&
of Iliad xxi,
470,
was a fertility-goddess
and winged into the bargain.
A Chalcidian
skyphos, the
'
Skyphos Santangelo'
at Naples (Nat.
Mus. S.A.,
I2z),2
with
a
representation of the contest
for the Delphic tripod, shows
a
winged Artemis
'
backing' Apollo.
But, apart
from a few such
reminiscences of the
'-
Asiatic
Artemis
'
type, the winged Artemis
is
not found in post-archaic art.3
The winged figure drawn in a chariot
by
a
couple
of hinds on a black-figure vase published
by Lenormant
and de Witte
has, on the strength of the hinds,
been identified as
Artemis.
4
But she might be Selene, for on the Aurelian frieze from
Ephesus at Vienna
a winged female figure, with short
chiton, boots and
quiver, and identifiable
as Selene by the crescent
behind her head and
by
the
boy Hesperus who acts
as her charioteer, is dri