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Τραπεζώ and Κοσμώ in the Frieze of the Parthenon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

The discovery two years ago of the small terra-cotta here figured, found in a grave in the outer Kerameikos of Athens, seems to me of some interest, especially because of its bearing upon one of the figures from the central slab of the frieze of the Parthenon. This possible relation to the scene there depicted appears to me so manifest that it requires but a few words of comment. The figure is here given in its actual dimensions (Fig., p. 144) and is a terra-cotta which, judging from its style, probably belongs to the first half of the fifth century B.C. There are traces of archaic conventionality, and yet, in the head as well as in the folding of the drapery, there is a freedom which points towards the greater art of the fifth century. It is very likely that the subject represented is the same as in one of the figures carrying what was supposed to be a chair (though it has been doubted) in the slab containing the priestess of Athene with her two female attendants. This terra-cotta is thus of some value in fixing the action of one of these attendants. The object carried on her head may be a small table, but it certainly seems more probable that it is a chair with a cushion.

Miss Jane Harrison in a recent note in the Classical Review quotes from my essay on the Art of Pheidias a passage referring to the discussion as to the interpretation of the scene depicted on the central slab of the Eastern frieze, in which I adduce ‘a vase-painting of Exekias as evidence that the scenes depicted on this slab are not typical of any sacred religious function, but belong to the sphere of every-day life.’ Though in the passage referred to by her I must have laid myself open to misunderstanding, her interpretation of my meaning, as I shall be able to show, does certainly not convey the drift of the essay in question. But I do not regret this misunderstanding, inasmuch as it has enabled Miss Harrison to point out a connection that may exist between Harpocration's explanation of the word τραπεζοφόρος and the possible interpretation of one of these female attendants on the priestess in the Parthenon frieze. Miss Harrison thus proposes to call the two attendants Τραπεζώ and Κοσμώ. For, according to Istros (and his authority is confirmed by a third century inscription in which there is undoubted mention of ἱέρεια and τράπεζα) there were functionaries in the sacred ritual to whom these names were given.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1890

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References

page 143 note 1 Classical Review, III. p. 378, Oct. 1889.

page 143 note 2 Essays on the Art of Pheidias, Essay vii. p. 243.

page 143 note 3 C. I. A. ii, 374.

page 145 note 1 Annali d. Insc. 1845, p. 60. Pl. D. Fig. 3.