If the Shoe Fits, Wear it: Re-Configuring Eros in
Vase Iconography of 4th Century Magna Graecia.
Daniel B. Levine (University of Arkansas)
Celtic Conference in Classics 2024: Cardiff University, Wales.
Slot 10: 10:00-10:50 July 11.
Glamorgan Building 0.81.
Thank you. It’s great to be here today with so many distinguished scholars whose work I have admired and consulted with profit. I do hope that you will have some advice for me about the ideas in this paper.
[Slide 2 Italian Shoes] I became interested in this topic when visiting archaeological museums in Sicily. I noticed that 4th century vase painters there consistently represented the usually naked god Eros as wearing shoes, sandals, and slippers. And I wondered if this might stem from something more than a continuation of the florid red-figured style in Attic vase painting at the end of the fifth century, which seemed not to put footwear on the love god for Athenian customers. When I looked further, I found shoes on vase paintings from Magna Graecia of other figures too, whom Athenian artists of the fifth century had consistently represented as barefoot. It was not only Eros who got new shoes, but so also Europa, satyrs, maenads, and silenoi.
My thesis, which is tentative at this point, is that the Etruscan and early Roman tendency to put shoes on their figural art had some influence on the Greeks of southern Italy and Sicily. In general, the Italians valued shoes, as they still do today.
[Slide 3 Tomb of the Triclinium] Some archaic Attic black-figure vases with booted dancers seem to have been Athenian exports to Etruria, where shod dancers were common in funerary art. Mary Anderson Johnstone’s 1956 study of Etruscan dancers pointed out that in the tomb frescoes “Feet are (probably) always shod; a horseman wears boots even if he wears nothing else” (Johnstone 1956, p. 47). [Slide 4 Shod Dancers Viterbo] In her concluding remarks on the dress of Etruscan dancers — based on every type of monument that depicts them – Johnstone states “peculiarly Etruscan … is the fashion of always [emphasis hers] covering the feet, in the case of both men and women (Johnstone 1956, p. 125).
[Slide 5 Eye Cup] It comes as no surprise therefore, that late sixth-century BCE Attic exports to Etruria would include an eye cup with a booted komast, and whose interior depicts a shod dancing man along with Nikosthenes’ signature. [Slide 6 Douris Rhyton] Other Attic exports that seem to cater to audiences who want to see shod dancers include an early red-figure rhyton by Douris found near Naples depicting a booted komast, [Slide 7 Swing Painter] a black-figure amphora from Vulci by the Swing Painter featuring some booted komast dancers, [Slide 8 Leagros Group] and booted revelers on a black-figure amphora by the Leagros Group found at Vulci. [Slide 9 Euphiletos Painter] An Attic black-figure neck amphora by the Euphiletos Painter (520-500) now in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage depicts two dancing women, perhaps dressed as maenads for a cultic performance. One holds krotala and the other, vigorously lifting one foot, wears boots. Beazley does give the provenance of this piece, but three other Euphiletos neck amphorae are from Etruria, and nine of his Panathenaic amphorae are also from Italy, as well as a type A and type B amphora. Seven of his known thirteen hydriai are also from Etruria, most from Vulci (Beazley 1956: 321-326). I assume then that this painter was accustomed to paint for a market in Italy, which might help account for the boots on the dancing woman in this vase.
[Slide 10 Orpheus Painter] Presumably there was also a 5th century Sicilian market for booted dancers, as reflected in this Attic red-figure scene by the Orpheus Painter that shows a booted dancing komast on a column krater exported to Camarina. Here is a detail of the booted dancer [Slide 11 Detail of Orpheus Painter]
[Slide 12 Lararium Pompeii] It is also probably relevant that Romans always depicted their ancestral spirits, the lares, with boots. [Slide 13 Lararium House of Vetii] A century ago, Margaret C. Waites gave a classic description of their iconography:
Bronze statues, altar-reliefs, Pompeian lararia, shrines at the compita, and wall- paintings unite in representing the Lares as curly-haired youths with high-girt tunics and boots. [AJA 24 (1920) 251.]
[Slide 14 Dancing Lar statuette] The fact that Roman lares and Etruscan tomb dancers always appear in boots must have some explanation beyond fashion. A combination of cult and religious lore probably explains their footwear; perhaps implying a journey to or from the underworld. In any case, these iconographic choices probably would have impressed outsiders — like Greeks — whose rites did not involve booted priests, worshippers or divinities. Quite the contrary: numerous extant Greek cultic regulation inscriptions actually prohibit the wearing of shoes within sanctuaries.
At any rate, Greeks in Italy would certainly have noticed these Etruscan and Roman iconographic choices, even if they did not understand their origins. By the same token, booted dancers on Archaic Greek black-figure vase exports to Etruria could have had other significance in the eyes of the Etruscan customers that we do not yet understand.
[Slide 15 Gela Statistics] Throughout the fifth-century, the cities of Magna Graecia imported ceramic goods from the motherland, as did the Etruscans. Finds in Italy and Sicily reveal a universal fondness for Attic ceramics, which have been found in abundance at all major sites there. Etruscans, along with Italiote and Siciliot Greeks were steady consumers of these goods until the end of the 5th century BCE, when local Greek ceramics industries arose and almost completely replaced Attic imports. A well-documented example is a case study of Sicilian Gela (Rosalba Panvini and Filippo Giudice 2004, p. 73) which shows that even though in the 4th century, Attic red-figure vase production was twice what it had been in the last quarter of the fifth-century (during the Peloponnesian War), nevertheless Attic vase imports to Gela during that same period had stopped completely. In the 4th century BCE the Gelans were producing their own ceramics, as were Greeks throughout Sicily and Southern Italy. Here are some Attic vase representations of barefoot Eros exported to Gela in the late 5th century. [Slides 16, 17, 18.]
In Sicilian Gela of the 4th century, as everywhere in Sicily, Eros is shod. An example late in the century (320-310 BCE) is a red-figure bottle from Priorato depicting the god shod, with large black and white wings and holding a white fan and spray (attributed to the Group of Syracuse 51288. Trendall’s Plate 243.6; Gela 9163).
[Slide 19 squat lekythos] Here are other Attic vase representations of Eros found in Sicily from the last half of the 5th century BCE, portraying the god barefoot, as was the Attic convention. But when Sicilians began producing their own figured pottery in the 4th century, they abandoned the barefoot type. Two fifth-century examples of barefoot Attic exports to Sicily include: an Attic squat lekythos depicting Eros and a hare (Palermo; Beazley 3297), [Slide 20 Krater Syracuse] and a late 5th century krater with a barefoot Eros now in Syracuse (Beazley 14184).
[Slide 21 Europa] With the change of production came changes of styles. The new era employed a florid and highly decorative style. The newly-founded ceramic workshops of Magna Graecia enthusiastically embraced the new style, which included elaborate dress details, and – significant for this study — putting shoes on figures that traditionally had been shown as barefoot. [Slide 22 Europa detail] In 4th century Magna Graeca Europa wears shoes while riding the Zeus bull to Crete, [Slide 23 Satyr and Maenad ] and even satyrs, maenads, and silens, barefoot on earlier pots, appear on Sicilian and Italian pottery with sometimes stylish footwear. [Slide 24 Shod Silenoi] [Slide 25 Shod Satyr]
And Eros wears shoes.
[Slide 26 Shod Eros with decorations] One is hard-pressed to find a barefoot Eros in Sicily or southern Italy in the 4th century, where sandaled erotes predominate on vases of various shapes and at numerous sites. [Slide 27 Lebes Gamikos Aphrodite punishes Eros with a shoe] But I found one: This lebes gamikos shows Aphrodite beating a barefoot Eros with a sandal. Maybe we are supposed to think that the reason he is not wearing shoes is because his mother is using them to punish him. But the shoe size probably indicates an adult owner. This barefoot Eros is an outlier: the exception that proves the rule.
[Slide 28 Eros with Hippodameia and Pelops] Paging through Trendall’s volumes reveals the richness and variety of these shod images of Eros painted on almost every vessel shape: bell krater, volute krater, lekanis, kylix, plate, pyxis, skyphos, lebes gamikos, nestoris, oinochoe, hydria, pelike, cup, “bottle,” and lekythos – not only throughout Sicily, but also from numerous sites throughout Campania, Lucania, and Apulia. [Slides 29 w/Papasilenos, Dionysos, 30 lebes gamikos, 31 w/Bathing women]
He appears in both domestic and in mythological scenes. [Slide 32 w/woman and duck] In the 4th century, the image of Eros wearing shoes was endemic to Magna Graecia; he was visible throughout the house: in spaces of eating, drinking, storage, marriage, and grooming. His image was omnipresent.
[Slide 33 Pompe Painter] In the mid-4th century we find that in fact some Attic vase painters also had adopted a sandalled love god. A red-figure chous by the Pompe painter of around 370 BCE specifically calls attention to his footwear by depicting Eros tying his sandal in preparation for a procession, in the company of Pompe, the personification of Procession, who gazes at a seated Dionysos (Beazley 503; NY Met 25.190).
[Slide 34 Attic Hydria Shod Eros] In fact, old habits died hard in Attica. While consistently painting barefoot Erotes in the fifth century, some Attic artists of the fourth century represented the love god with shoes, as this Attic hydria of the mid 4th century by the Heracles Painter, [Slide 35 Stemless Cup] and some maintained the traditional barefoot iconography, like this Eros inside a stemless cup by the Group of Vienna 116. Here are some examples of the variety: [Slide 36 shod] a shod Eros on a mid-century Attic kalyx krater, [Slide 37 Juggler] a barefoot juggling Eros on a 4th century Attic chous, [Slide 38 shod], and a shod Eros in the company of Poseidon and Amymone. However, the majority of Attic Erotes for Athenian customers in the 4th century are barefoot [Slides 39, 40, 41, 42, 43.]
[Slide 44 Eros tying shoe] The iconographic shoeing of Eros is a logical extension of his association with women’s footwear. In Classical wedding imagery on vases we often see him tying the bride’s shoes before the ceremony, and in other ways associated with shoes and feet and Aphrodite (Oakley and Sinos 1993: 18, 33,67; Levine 2005: 59-60). This, combined with the 4th century florid vase painting style, and the Italian attraction to shod figural art noted above, can account in part for Eros wearing shoes.
Now this paragraph might be far-fetched, but perhaps Eros shown shod could relate to the idea that sexual intercourse is enhanced by covering the feet. The pseudo-Aristotelean Problems 4.5 (877a) asks the question, “Why is it that bare feet are not good for sexual intercourse?” The answer relates to the need for the body to be warm for a proper experience, concluding: “So that, as it is impossible, or at least difficult to have sexual intercourse unless the body is warm, bare feet must be disadvantageous for sexual intercourse.” How widely this theory was known in the 4th century BCE is hard to gauge, but the idea may help explain why the love god is now wearing shoes.
[Slide 45 Androgenous Eros] Images of the Magna Graecia Eros appear to metamorphose over the years. As the century progresses, in addition to the shoes that the painters provide to the formerly gymnos winged love god, vase paintings begin to decorate his images with earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and anklets. [Slide 46 Apulian Plate Androgenous Eros] This so-called “androgynous Eros” not only wears women’s jewelry, but also sometimes wears a woman’s hair net (kekryphalos) and sometimes is depicted with breasts, resembling what is medically known as gynaecomastia. [Slide 47, 48, 49, 50, 51] I have dozens more.
Such elaboration is a radical makeover for the previously buck naked slender male god of Classical Attic art. [Slide 52 Eros with Hairdo between Poseidon and Amymone] However, I should also point out that this evolution can also be noted in some mid-4th century Attic depictions of Eros, like this Athenian hydria by the Hippolytus Painter which depicts Eros both shod and with a less-than-masculine hairdo.
[Slide 53 Chagall Daphnis and Chloe] So exactly how does our ancient literary evidence describe Eros physically? The ancient source that gives the fullest physical description of the god Eros that matches his classical depiction is the second book of Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe (2-3 c CE, 2.4-7), where the shepherd Philetas describes to the young lovers his experience of the god’s epiphany. Here the god has a combination of what we might call “male” and “female” qualities. Philetas calls Eros, “… a lad (παῖς)…He was white as milk and ruddy as fire, and his body shone as if he had just been bathing. He was naked and alone…” (λευκὸς ὡς γάλα, ξανθὸς ὡς πῦρ, στιλπνὸς ὡς ἄρτι λελουμένος· γυμνὸς ἦν, μόνος ἦν). He also had a loud laugh and a sweet voice; the shepherd dearly wanted his kiss. When the god leaves, Philetas says, “I saw that he had wings on his shoulders, and a bow and arrows between the wings and his shoulders” (6.1: Εἶδον αὐτοῦ καὶ πτέρυγας ἐκ τῶν ὤμων καὶ τοξάρια μεταξὺ τῶν πτερύγων). The old man uses bird metaphors to describe the god’s nimble actions: he was hiding like a young partridge (2.4.3 ὥσπερ πέρδικος νεοττός); he sprang up like a young nightingale (2.6.1 καθάπερ ἀηδόνος νεοττὸς).
[Slide 54 Eros Shoots Medea] How might we relate the softening of Eros on the vases to other ancient literary descriptions of him? Perhaps we can consider the overall re-gendering of Eros in vase iconography in parallel with a general literary tendency to portray him as more immature and childlike, as in the 3rd century BCE Argonautica (3.90-290), where Apollonius shows Eros as a naughty, disrespectful, greedy, suspicious, and heartless boy, to whom child’s toys hold the most attraction, and who cheats in a dice game with Ganymede. Apollonius’ description is telling:
And they were playing for golden dice, as boys (κοῦροι) in one house are wont to do. And already greedy (μάργος) Eros was holding the palm of his left hand quite full of them under his breast (ὑπὸ μαζῷ), standing upright; and on the bloom of his cheeks a sweet blush was glowing. [tr. R. C. Seaton]
ἀμφ᾽ ἀστραγάλοισι δὲ τώγε
χρυσείοις, ἅ τε κοῦροι ὁμήθεες, ἑψιόωντο.
καί ῤ̔ ὁ μὲν ἤδη πάμπαν ἐνίπλεον ᾧ ὑπὸ μαζῷ
120 μάργος Ἔρως λαιῆς ὑποΐσχανε χειρὸς ἀγοστόν,
ὀρθὸς ἐφεστηώς: γλυκερὸν δέ οἱ ἀμφὶ παρειὰς
χροιῇ θάλλεν ἔρευθος.
Interesting for our study, we note that in this passage Apollonius calls attention to Eros’ male breast (μαζῷ), beneath which he held his golden astragaloi. The Greek word μαζός refers to the male chest in Homer and Xenophon (the female breast is μαστός). Here, the use of the preposition ὑπὸ with μαζός might remind listeners of the gynaecomastic depictions of Eros on south Italian vases. Of course, Eros’s mission in the Argonautica is to shoot Medea with his arrow, at which he is stunningly successful. His power inflames her heart with passionate and inexorable love for Jason. Also, Apollonius calls attention to Eros’ apparently bare feet when he describes the god going into Medea’s chamber to shoot her with his love-producing bow. He “escapes notice with his swift feet” (280 καρπαλίμοισι λαθὼν πόσσιν), so he is presumably shoeless while carrying out his task. This 4th century red figure krater in the Archaeological Museum on Lipari depicts the god without shoes – rare for depictions of Eros in the art of Magna Graecia at this time, perhaps reverting to the classical iconography to emphasize of the seriousness of his work here.
[Slide 55 Ovid Apollo and Eros] In the 1st century CE, the poet Ovid portrays Apollo mocking Eros (Cupido) as a lascivus puer, and as a soft and un-masculine god while making fun of his little bow, saying that the boy has no business with fortibus armis. But Cupid only seems soft; this boy whose strength Apollo derides is the winner in the end, because his love-dart brings Apollo to grief (Metamorphoses 1.452-465). Indeed, Cupid turns out to be all-powerful in the poem, overcoming even the mighty underworld gods Proserpina and Dis. His mother Venus sums it up: superas omnes (Metamorphoses 5.366). As in the Argonautica, Eros’ apparent immaturity belies his irresistible power.
[Slide 56 Chagall Philetas again] Longus’ old shepherd Philetas echoes this sentiment about Eros whom calls “this little boy” or “this little kid” (τοῦτο τὸ παιδίον 2.5.5)::
His power is greater than that of Zeus. He has power over the elements and over the stars: and has greater control over the other Gods that are his equals than you have over your sheep and goats. (tr. The Athenian Society)
Δύναται δὲ τοσοῦτον ὅσον οὐδὲ ὁ Ζεύς. Κρατεῖ μὲν στοιχείων, κρατεῖ δὲ ἄστρων, κρατεῖ δὲ τῶν ὁμοίων θεῶν· οὐδὲ ὑμεῖς τοσοῦτον τῶν αἰγῶν καὶ τῶν προβάτων.
For there is no remedy for Eros, that can be eaten or drunk, or uttered in song, save kissing and embracing, and lying naked side by side.” (tr. The Athenian Society)
Ἔρωτος γὰρ οὐδὲν φάρμακον, οὐ πινόμενον, οὐκ ἐσθιόμενον, οὐκ ἐν ᾠδαῖς λαλούμενον, ὅτι μὴ φίλημα καὶ περιβολὴ καὶ συγκατακλινῆναι γυμνοῖς σώμασι. [2.7.2; 2.7.7]
[Slide 57 Eros Triumphant] In attempting to explain the “feminized” Eros of Magna Graecia with his shoes and woman’s jewelry, we might imagine that the viewers of these vase depictions of Eros understood that the sometimes flabby and feminine appearance of the love god on their pots belied his universally acknowledged strength. The greater the paradox between Eros’ appearance and admitted power, I imagine, the more mysterious does his might become. The god’s bangles, soft shoes, and “man boobs” probably did not make him seem any weaker in the eyes of the vase owners in whose homes the pottery lay, and who most likely appreciated and prized the difference between Eros’ soft ceramic appearance and their perception of his hard mythic reality.
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